Looks like the telescope was invented some 5,500 years earlier than previously thought, as a new study out of the Royal Astronomical Society suggests that certain prehistoric tombs known as passage graves acted as the world’s first astronomical observing tools.
Consisting of long, narrow passages terminating in larger rock burial chambers, such structures are often seen as separating the living from the dead, the mundane from the divine, the uninitiated from the initiated. Tombs may have served several ritual functions; the narrow passages seem to have been used for funeral rites in various cultures, while the chambers themselves may have served as a place for rites of passage. For example, an initiate would spend the night inside the tomb, bathed in utter darkness aside from the starlight leaking in from the passage.
And such a rite may have granted initiates rare insights into the heavens, as the authors argue that passage graves may have enhanced what early humans observed in the night sky—in a way akin to pirate eye patches.
Nottingham Trent University
Finding light in the darkness
With no other light and a limited view of the night sky, observers likely perceived the brightness and color of the sky differently than those simply standing outside.
“Here the passage acts to preserve dark adaptation of the eye as twilight during sunrise,” co-author Daniel Brown told WIRED. “Therefore a viewer in the grave would note the star with a brighter sky. So the passage grave act as a viewing enhancement beyond a pure pointer.”
“It is quite a surprise that no one has thoroughly investigated how for example the colour of the night sky impacts on what can be seen with the naked eye,” added project leader Kieran Simcox, a student at Nottingham Trent University.
To point, the team examined the 6,000-year-old Seven-Stone Antas, passage graves in central Portugal.
“The orientations of the tombs may be in alignment with Aldebaran, the brightest star in the constellation of Taurus,” explained Dr. Fabio Silva, of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
Silva added that passage tombs may have made it easier to observe this star during twilight—meaning Aldebaran would be detected earlier than otherwise, during its first appearance, which could serve as a vital seasonal marker.
“We argue that the restricted viewing through the grave passage out of the passage grave allows the viewer to note the appearance of Aldebaran much earlier,” said Brown to WIRED.
“Our work explores how 6,000-year-old passage graves have helped a viewer to spot stars during twilight conditions,” he added. “You might say this is the oldest instrument to assist a stone age observer.”
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Image credit: Unsplash
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