Ancient Astronomy
• The regularity of the motions of stars and constellations across the heavens made them useful to ancient societies for such things as timekeeping and navigation, and led to the need for a practical means of tracking their movements
• Many ancient cultures built large structures to track the movement of objects in the heavens, which functioned as primitive calendars
• The best known of these ancient structures is Stonehenge, a stone circle built in England during the Stone Age, which is believed to have allowed its builders to keep track of dates through observation of celestial events
• The alignment of the stones corresponds to events such as the rising of the Sun at the summer solstice, and the rising and setting of the Sun and Moon at other times of the year
• Many other cultures built monuments with similar alignments and purposes, such as the Big Horn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming and the Caracol temple in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, though the association of these structures with astronomy is more controversial
• A more certain candidate for a North American calendar is the Sun Dagger in New Mexico, a rock formation structured such that a sliver of light passes through a carved stone spiral at noon on the summer solstice
• There are several sites similar to the Sun Dagger found throughout the American southwest
• The ancient Chinese also kept detailed records of astronomical events for astrological purposes; modern astronomers still refer to their records for information on ancient astronomical phenomena
• After the fall of Rome, Muslim astronomers kept the knowledge of the ancient Greek astronomers alive during the European Dark Ages, as well as adding their own findings
• Many mathematical techniques were developed by Muslim astronomers to deal with astronomical problems, and many of the terms used in modern astronomy -- including the names of many stars -- are Muslim in origin