Editing History of astronomy (section)

==Early history==
[[File:Equinozio da Pizzo Vento,tramonto fondachelli fantina, sicilia.JPG|thumb|Sunset at the [[equinox]] from the prehistoric site of Pizzo Vento at [[Fondachelli-Fantina|Fondachelli Fantina]], [[Sicily]]]]

Early [[culture]]s identified celestial objects with [[mythology|god]]s and spirits.<ref>{{Citation | first=Edwin C. | last=Krupp | date=2003 | title=Echoes of the Ancient Skies: The Astronomy of Lost Civilizations | pages=62–72 | series=Astronomy Series | publisher=Courier Dover Publications | isbn=0-486-42882-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7rMAJ87WTF0C&pg=PA70}}</ref> They related these objects (and their movements) to phenomena such as [[rain]], [[drought]], [[season]]s, and [[tide]]s. It is generally believed that the first astronomers were [[priest]]s who understood [[Astronomical object|celestial objects]] and events to be manifestations of the [[divinity|divine]], hence the connection to what is now called [[astrology]]. A 32,500-year-old carved ivory [[mammoth]] tusk could contain the oldest known star chart (resembling the [[constellation]] [[Orion (constellation)|Orion]]).<ref>{{cite news
  | first=David | last=Whitehouse
  | date=January 21, 2003
  | title='Oldest star chart' found | publisher=[[BBC]]
  | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2679675.stm | access-date=2009-09-29}}</ref> It has also been suggested that drawings on the wall of the [[Lascaux]] caves in France dating from 33,000 to 10,000 years ago could be a graphical representation of the [[Pleiades]], the [[Summer Triangle]], and the [[Northern Crown]].<ref>{{cite news
  | first=Jack | last=Lucentini
  | title=Dr. Michael A. Rappenglueck sees maps of the night sky, and images of shamanistic ritual teeming with cosmological meaning
  | publisher=space.
  | url=http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/cave_paintings_000810.html
  | access-date=2009-09-29}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/871930.stm|title=BBC News – SCI/TECH – Ice Age star map discovered|website=news.bbc.co.uk|access-date=13 April 2018}}</ref> Ancient structures with possibly [[Archaeoastronomy#Alignments|astronomical alignments]] (such as [[Stonehenge]]) probably fulfilled astronomical, [[religion|religious]], and [[social function]]s.

[[Calendar]]s of the world have often been set by observations of the Sun and Moon (marking the [[day]], [[month]], and [[year]]) and were important to [[agriculture|agricultural]] societies, in which the harvest depended on planting at the correct time of year. The nearly full moon was also the only lighting for night-time travel into city markets.<ref>{{Citation | last = Nilsson | first = Martin P. | author-link = Martin P. Nilsson | year = 1920 | title = Primitive Time-Reckoning. A Study in the Origins and Development of the Art of Counting Time among the Primitive and Early Culture Peoples | publisher = C. W. K. Gleerup | place = Lund | series = Skrifter utgivna av Humanistiska Vetenskapssamfundet i Lund | volume = 1 | oclc = 458893999}}</ref>

The [[Gregorian calendar|common modern calendar]] is based on the [[Roman calendar]]. Although originally a [[lunar calendar]], it broke the traditional link of the month to the phases of the Moon and divided the year into twelve almost-equal months, that mostly alternated between thirty and thirty-one days. [[Julius Caesar]] instigated [[calendar reform]] in 46&nbsp;[[BCE|BC]] and introduced what is now called the [[Julian calendar]], based upon the [[leap year|{{frac|365|1|4}} day year length]] originally proposed by the 4th&nbsp;century&nbsp;[[BCE|BC]] Greek astronomer [[Callippus]].

===Prehistoric Europe===
{{Main|Archaeoastronomy}}

Ancient astronomical artifacts have been found throughout [[Europe]]. The artifacts demonstrate that Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans had a sophisticated knowledge of [[mathematics]] and astronomy.

Among the discoveries are:
* Paleolithic archaeologist [[Alexander Marshack]] put forward a theory in 1972 that bone sticks from locations like Africa and Europe from possibly as long ago as 35,000 BC could be marked in ways that tracked the Moon's phases,<ref>{{cite book|last = Marshak|first =  Alexander|date =1972|publisher = Littlehampton Book Services Ltd|title = The Roots of Civilization: the cognitive beginnings of man's first art, symbol, and notation|isbn = 978-0297994497}}</ref>{{page needed|date=January 2019}} an interpretation that has met with criticism.<ref>{{cite journal|last = Davidson|first =  Iain|date =1993|publisher = American Anthropologistd|title = The Roots of Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Man's First Art, Symbol and Notation|journal=American Anthropologist|volume=95|number=4|pages=1027–1028|doi=10.1525/aa.1993.95.4.02a00350}}</ref>
* The [[Warren Field]] calendar in the Dee River valley of [[Scotland]]'s [[Aberdeenshire]] was first [[excavation (archaeology)|excavated]] in 2004 but was revealed in 2013 as a find of huge significance. It is to date the oldest known calendar, created around 8,000&nbsp;BC and predating all other calendars by some 5,000 years. The calendar takes the form of an early [[Mesolithic]] monument containing a series of 12 pits which appear to help the observer track lunar months by mimicking the phases of the Moon. It also aligns to sunrise at the winter solstice, thus coordinating the solar year with the lunar cycles. The monument had been maintained and periodically reshaped, perhaps up to hundreds of times, in response to shifting solar/lunar cycles, over the course of 6,000 years, until the calendar fell out of use around 4,000 years ago.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/our/news/items/beginning-of-time.aspx | work=University of Birmingham | title=The Beginning of Time? | date=2013 | access-date=2014-10-01 | archive-date=2013-09-21 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921162036/http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/our/news/items/beginning-of-time.aspx | url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-23286928 | work=BBC News | title='World's oldest calendar' discovered in Scottish field | date=2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130715-worlds-oldest-calendar-lunar-cycle-pits-mesolithic-scotland/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130718061637/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130715-worlds-oldest-calendar-lunar-cycle-pits-mesolithic-scotland | url-status=dead | archive-date=July 18, 2013 | work=Roff Smith, National Geographic | title=World's Oldest Calendar Discovered in U.K. | date=July 15, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{citation |last1=V. Gaffney |title=Time and a Place: A luni-solar 'time-reckoner' from 8th millennium BC Scotland |journal=Internet Archaeology |issue=34 |date=2013 |url=http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue34/gaffney_index.html |doi=10.11141/ia.34.1 |access-date=7 Oct 2014 |display-authors=etal|doi-access=free}}</ref>
* [[Goseck circle]] is located in [[Germany]] and belongs to the [[linear pottery culture]]. First discovered in 1991, its significance was only clear after results from archaeological digs became available in 2004. The site is one of hundreds of similar [[circular enclosure]]s built in a region encompassing [[Austria]], [[Germany]], and the [[Czech Republic]] during a 200-year period starting shortly after 5000&nbsp;BC.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.sonnenobservatorium-goseck.info/|title=Sonnenobservatorium Goseck}}</ref>
[[File:Nebra disc 1.jpg|thumb|The [[Nebra sky disk]], Germany, 1800–1600 BC]]

* The [[Nebra sky disk|Nebra sky disc]] is a [[Bronze Age]] bronze disc that was buried in Germany, not far from the Goseck circle, around 1600&nbsp;BC. It measures about {{Convert|30|cm|abbr=on}} diameter with a mass of {{Convert|2.2|kg|abbr=on}} and displays a blue-green patina (from oxidization) inlaid with gold symbols. Found by archeological thieves in 1999 and recovered in Switzerland in 2002, it was soon recognized as a spectacular discovery, among the most important of the 20th century.<ref>{{citation |title=The Nebra Sky Disc |publisher=Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt / Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte |url=http://www.lda-lsa.de/en/nebra_sky_disc/ |access-date=15 October 2014 |archive-date=12 April 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140412185921/http://www.lda-lsa.de/en/nebra_sky_disc |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{citation |title=Nebra Sky Disc |publisher=UNESCO Memory of the World Programme |url=https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/nebra-sky-disc |access-date=2025-04-22}}</ref> Investigations revealed that the object had been in use around 400 years before burial (2000 BC), but that its use had been forgotten by the time of burial. The inlaid gold depicted the full moon, a crescent moon about 4 or 5 days old, and the [[Pleiades]] star cluster in a specific arrangement, forming the earliest known depiction of celestial phenomena. Twelve lunar months pass in 354 days, requiring a calendar to insert a leap month every two or three years in order to keep synchronized with the solar year's seasons (making it [[Lunisolar calendar|lunisolar]]). The earliest known descriptions of this coordination were recorded by the Babylonians in the sixth or seventh centuries BC, over one thousand years later. Those descriptions verified ancient knowledge of the Nebra sky disc's celestial depiction as the precise arrangement needed to judge when to insert the [[Intercalation (timekeeping)|intercalary month]] into a lunisolar calendar, making it an astronomical clock for regulating such a calendar a thousand or more years before any other known method.<ref>{{citation |title=The Sky Disc of Nebra: Bronze Age Sky Disc Deciphered |publisher=Deutsche Welle |date=2002 |url=http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/arqueologia/nebra_disk.htm |access-date=15 October 2014}}</ref>
* The [[Kokino]] site, discovered in 2001, sits atop an extinct [[volcanic cone]] at an elevation of {{convert|1013|m|ft}}, occupying about 0.5 hectares overlooking the surrounding countryside in [[North Macedonia]]. A [[Bronze Age Balkans|Bronze Age]] [[Observatory|astronomical observatory]] was constructed there around 1900&nbsp;BC and continuously served the nearby community that lived there until about 700&nbsp;BC. The central space was used to observe the rising of the Sun and full moon. Three markings locate sunrise at the summer and winter solstices and at the two equinoxes. Four more give the minimum and maximum declinations of the full moon: in summer, and in winter. Two measure the lengths of lunar months. Together, they reconcile solar and lunar cycles in marking the 235 [[lunation]]s that occur during 19 solar years, regulating a lunar calendar. On a platform separate from the central space, at lower elevation, four stone seats (thrones) were made in north–south alignment, together with a trench marker cut in the eastern wall. This marker allows the rising Sun's light to fall on only the second throne, at midsummer (about July 31). It was used for ritual ceremony linking the ruler to the local sun god, and also marked the end of the growing season and time for harvest.<ref>{{citation |title=Archaeo-astronomical Site Kokino |work=UNESCO World Heritage |date=2009 |url=https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5413/ |access-date=27 October 2014}}</ref>
[[File:Berlin Gold hat calendar.jpg|alt=|thumb|Calendrical functions of the [[Berlin Gold Hat]] c.&nbsp;1000&nbsp;BC]]
* [[Golden hat]]s of Germany, [[France]] and [[Switzerland]] dating from 1400 to 800&nbsp;BC are associated with the Bronze Age [[Urnfield culture]]. The Golden hats are decorated with a spiral [[Motif (visual arts)|motif]] of the [[Sun]] and the [[Moon]]. They were probably a kind of [[calendar]] used to [[calibrate]] between the [[lunar calendar|lunar]] and [[solar calendar]]s.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h0BIkXNZJZsC&pg=PA262 | work=T. Douglas Price, Oxford University Press | title=Europe Before Rome: A Site-by-Site Tour of the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages | page=262 | date=2013| isbn=978-0-19-991470-8 | last1=Douglas Price | first1=T.}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GdlzA3yUlTUC&pg=PA14 | work=Geoff Stray, Bloomsbury Publishing USA | title=The Mayan and Other Ancient Calendars | page=14 | date=2007| isbn=9780802716347 | last1=Stray | first1=Geoff}}</ref> Modern [[scholarship]] has demonstrated that the ornamentation of the gold leaf cones of the [[Golden Hat of Schifferstadt|Schifferstadt type]], to which the [[Berlin Gold Hat]] example belongs, represent systematic sequences in terms of number and types of ornaments per band.  A detailed study of the Berlin example, which is the only fully preserved one, showed that the symbols probably represent a [[lunisolar]] calendar. The object would have permitted the determination of dates or periods in both [[lunar calendar|lunar]] and [[solar calendar]]s.<ref name="L2">Wilfried Menghin (Hrsg.): ''Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica.'' Unze, Potsdam 32.2000, S. 31–108. {{ISSN|0341-1184}}</ref>