Astro-Archæology & Archæoastronomy
News Archive 2002

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"Star sheds light on African 'Stonehenge'"

December 06, 2002, CNN, USA: "Mysterious ruins in Zimbabwe, nearly brushed this week by the shadow of a total solar eclipse, once served as an astronomical observatory to track eclipses, solstices and an elusive exploding star, a South African scientist said.

The Great Enclosure in the archaeological site of Great Zimbabwe, a crumbling ring of stone walls and platforms about 250 meters in circumference, was thought to have been a palace complex for regional rulers some 800 years ago.

But Richard Wade of the Nkwe Ridge Observatory thinks that the enclosure was used in a similar capacity as the much older Stonehenge in Great Britain.

The arrangement of the walls, the complicated symbols on stone monoliths and the position of a tall tower suggest that medieval Zimbabweans used the complex to track the moon, sun, planets and stars for centuries." [Full Story]

"Eclipse brings claim of medieval African observatory"

December 04, 2002, The New Scientist, UK: "Viewers of the total solar eclipse in Southern Africa early on Wednesday have also had their eyes opened by second startling event - newly released evidence that a medieval African site was an astronomical observatory.

Starting just before 0600 GMT, the shadow of the Moon took 30 minutes to cross Africa from west to east, before heading over the Indian Ocean to make landfall in western Australia around 0900 GMT.

In Africa, between 0610 and 0620, the shadow crossed the southern tip of Zimbabwe, not far from the mysterious stone ruins of Great Zimbabwe, from which the country took its name.

Great Zimbabwe, built in about 1200 AD is a perplexing UN world heritage site. At its heart is the Great Enclosure - a wall comprised of over 5000 cubic metres of stone and marking a perimeter 240 metres in length. Archaeologists had assumed it was once a royal residence.

But on Wednesday, archaeologist-astronomer Richard Wade, of the Nkwe Ridge Observatory, South Africa, presented his new evidence. He claims Great Zimbabwe was similar in function to Stonehenge in England, though much younger." [Full Story]

"Faces from the Ice Age - Stars in the ground"

May 28, 2002, BBC Science News, UK: " What could be the oldest lifelike drawings of human faces have been uncovered in a cave in southern France. The images were first recognised over 50 years ago, but were then lost after doubts were cast on their authenticity.

Now, one German scientist, Dr Michael Rappenglueck, of Munich University, says it is time the pictures were reassessed. And there could be other surprises awaiting archaeologists, he believes, when they look not at the walls of prehistoric painted caves, but at the floor.

But now a fresh analysis has turned that theory on its head. The mysterious craters in Argentina may not have been caused by meteorites at all, but rather by the wind, sculpting the ground over a long time.

The faces on this page were discovered carved on the floor of a cave at La Marche in the Lussac-les-Chateaux area of France. The portraits were carved into limestone slabs that were then carefully placed on the floor.

One of the first things that archaeologists used to do when examining such caves was to level and strengthen the floor, not thinking that what was under their feet could be just as significant as what was on the cave walls.

In Lascaux, for example, the floor was obliterated to make way for visitors in the 1950s. There is no way of knowing if anything significant was destroyed.

'On the floors of one cave I noticed a series of pits arranged in the shape of the Pleiades (also known as the Seven Sisters) star cluster', he said.

Drawings of the Pleiades have been found by Dr Rappenglueck on the walls of many Neolithic caves in several parts of Europe, but until now no cosmic marks had been found on cave floors.

He speculates that the small holes could have been filled with animal fat and set alight mimicking the flickering stars in the sky.

'Perhaps this is the origin of the candlelit festivals of the Far East where lighted candles are held in the shape of the Pleiades. Perhaps it is a tradition that stretches back tens of thousands of years into our Stone Age past.'"
[Full Story]

"What Caused Argentina's Mystery Craters?"

May 09, 2002, National Geographic News, USA: "For more than a decade, planetary scientists have been puzzling over a mixed bag of meteorite evidence scarring Argentina's plains. They gradually pieced together clues to reconstruct what seemed to be a rough-hewn but generally accurate account of a prehistoric meteorite impact.

A mere 10,000 years ago, scientists deduced in the original theory, a sizable meteorite came hurtling through the atmosphere at a bizarrely low angle, smacked the ground with a glancing blow, and broke into numerous pieces that gouged separate, miles-long scars in the Argentine earth.

But now a fresh analysis has turned that theory on its head. The mysterious craters in Argentina may not have been caused by meteorites at all, but rather by the wind, sculpting the ground over a long time.

Discovered in some of these crater-like trenches, ironically, were the remains of real meteorites that crashed into Earth over widely separated time periods. They struck at different angles and produced spectacularly different results—including, in the case of one, a widespread shower of molten glass.

The evolving interpretation of Argentina's mysterious craters, University of Arizona planetary scientist Jay Melosh writes in the May 10 issue of the journal Science, 'is both less and much more than [its] discoverers originally believed.'

Citing evidence presented by Philip A. Bland in the same issue of the journal, Melosh describes a newly emerging picture, in which a much older meteorite collision blasted tons of sandy, local soil into the air—melting it instantly and peppering a vast swath of country with glowing, glassy debris.

Bland's discovery of so many glass fragments over such a wide area adds a startling twist to a young but already storied saga in planetary science. One implication, the researcher from England's Open University says, is the possibility that a 'well-preserved complex crater remains to be discovered beneath the Pampean Plain of Argentina.'" [Full Story]

"Space rock may solve death of mythic emperor"

April 09, 2002, IOL/Reuters, South Africa: "A 5 000-year-old meteorite unearthed in north-western China may explain the legendary death of the man celebrated as the nation's earliest ancestor, the Yellow Emperor, state media said on Tuesday.

The official China Daily said the meteorite, found near a mausoleum for the Yellow Emperor in the Shaanxi province county of Huangling, may lie behind the cataclysmic shattering of land that historical records say killed China's enigmatic first emperor.

The discovery also sheds light on a local legend that nine dragons broke up the ancient town of Huangling, the newspaper said in quoting Li Yanjun, a long-time Yellow Emperor researcher and one of those who found the meteorite.

Scepticism abounds over accounts of China's part-real, part-mythical forefather named Huangdi, to whom the word for 'emperor' and the imperial colour of yellow are traced.

Chinese legend credits him with inventing the cart and the boat, and his dialogues with the physician Qi Bo were the basis of China's first medical book, "The Yellow Emperor's Canon of Medicine", or Nei Jing.

Huangdi's wife, Lei Zu, taught China how to weave silk from silkworms and his minister Cang Jie devised the first Chinese writing characters, according to tradition.

Huangdi is said to have reigned from 2697 to 2597 BC, before a dragon came and took him back to Heaven at the age of 110. Geologists estimate the uncovered meteorite sample dates back 5 000 years, the newspaper said." [Full Story]

a selection of books
from our
Astro-Archaeology
Bookshoppe

"A Little History of Astro-Archaeology"
John F. Michell

EU English Edition

"Megaliths, Myths and Men:
An Introduction to
Astro-Archaeology"
Peter Lancaster Brown

EU English Edition

"Stonehenge: A New Interpretation of Prehistoric Man and the Cosmos"
John David North

EU English Edition

"Astronomy in Prehistoric
Britain and Ireland"
Clive Ruggles

EU English Edition

"Stairways to the Stars: Skywatching in Three Great
Ancient Cultures"
Anthony F. Aveni

EU English Edition

"Skywatchers, Shamans & Kings : Astronomy and the
Archaeology of Power"
E.C. Krupp

EU English Edition

"Prehistoric Astronomy
in the Southwest"
J. McKim Malville
&
Claudia Putnam

EU English Edition

"Ancient Astronomers
(Exploring the Ancient World)"
Anthony F. Aveni
&
Jeremy A. Sabloff

EU English Edition