Rosneathian
1471
Digression alert! If you're interested in the history of humankind's relationship to time and to timekeeping, you might enjoy exploring ancient megalithic culture(s)
Nov 22, 2021,01:15 AM
Our ancestors were connected to the heavens to a profound extent. In a number of respects their levels of knowledge and techniques of measurement were far more advanced than we credit. Several cultures appear to have known how to measure the precession, which is the passage of the sun through the zodiacal constellations. That took more than 26,000 years.
Better known today is the skill with which they measured and celebrated the equinoxes and solstices. We're now beginning to understand how much of these ancient structures also codified catastrophic events in human history, principally via asteroidal or comet impacts (a very good reason to keep an eye on the heavens for cues). Much of the cave art that represents animals are actually depicting ancient constellations and the memory of life-changing events. All I'll say here is "Beware the Taurids."
We've become better at measuring smaller and smaller intervals of time with the passage of... time. How to segment day and night, the hour, the minute, the second, and so on. These last hurdles have taken more than 6,000 years to accomplish and have shaped modern civilisation. But it all goes back to those structures built on hills and plains (and many probably lost to the sea). They were the clocks and watches of their times.