The first stargazers?

[Dave Owen]

I'm preparing a talk on ancient astronomy, at a fairly basic level for an audience of kids. I thought the first obvious question would be "when did the very first people look at the sky and realise that stars have consistent patterns and movements?"

I haven't had much luck researching this question. I've found plenty of vague comments such as "early humans probably used the stars" but I'd prefer to have something a little more precise. Obviously it's impossible to answer exactly but even some informed speculation would help.

Here's my uninformed speculation so far:
(1) Homo Erectus had the use of fairly complex tools, so probably had enough intelligence & observational skills to recognise patterns in stars.
(2) Homo Erectus predates Homo Sapiens.
(3) Human = Homo Sapiens.
(4) Therefore, recognition of star patterns predates humans. In other words, the very first humans were already looking at the stars with some level of recognition.

Am I on the right track? What about species earlier than Homo Erectus?

[Joe Lalumia]

Right there in Australia-- the Aboriginals are some of the OLDEST "astronomers" on Earth.

Many ancient constellation paintings. Birds-fish and other objects-
Aboriginal Astronomy

[Tombstone17]

How do you think they figured out where they were going! Most creatures get around by the sun and stars, man, a little slower...

[Kdes]

It seems like a hard question to answer!
With that said, I wouldn't try to keep the question too complex either for the kids. I personally don't think there's any proof or data that really tells us when humans (or any other species) began stargazing.
Like stated above, even animals use the sun and stars in order to find out where they're going. With that said, one can only assume that humans and whatever we may have been before that were using the patterns of stars to navigate, that's my guess.

Hope it all goes well! I'm sure the kids will learn a thing or two. I remember when I was a kid and I went to astronomy nights. If my 8 year old self were to give you tip its just to give them an idea of how HUGE the universe is and why that's the reason that humans have been so interested with it since as long as we can remember.

[jenniferchristine]

Well it's at least 2000 years ago that three wise men from the East did a number on a star that stopped over Bethlehem. Though with a normal parallax from a star, I'm not sure how they determined it stopped over the stable.

The Greeks used the stars to get about in their triremes. Danes used lodestones and the stars to get to Newfoundland and back a few times about 5 thousand years ago.
I don't think we have much in the way of artifacts fro before that.
Stone age man set up the Stonehenge monument which was a stellarium of sorts.
Mayan Indians had a culture founded on the Sun God, Quetzalcoatl or whatever his name was.

Astrology is a quasi religion based on Stars etc.

How did I do?

[psonice]

I guess the big clue is that we're built to recognise patterns everywhere, and use them to our advantage. We've probably been looking at the stars and recognising the patterns since that got baked into our genes, and using the stars for guidance, time keeping and all sorts. Animals share this ability too, so it's pretty likely they do it too. How far would that go back? The dinosaurs?! Who knows.

Maybe a better question would be when did people start recording and observing in a more 'astronomical' way? There's stone henge, similar types of monument in south america, Aboriginal art as Joe said, and I saw something recently about cave paintings in Europe somewhere that seems to match up well with the constellations. The chinese and arabs were making observations early too.

[Dave Owen]

Thanks very much for your replies, you've given me some good stuff to think about and research further. Much appreciated.