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ArchaeoBlog An archaeology web log by James Q. Jacobs |
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2009.10.10 - Walk with the Ancients begins today. The Newark Earthworks Center has organized a seventy mile, seven day walk with several dozen participants traversing roughly the route of the "Great Hopewell Road." They depart Ohio's Scioto Valley earthworks concentration near Chillicothe from Hopewell Culture National Historical Park and hike to the Newark Octagon. After canoeing across the Scioto from Mound City, the walk passes through Hopeton Earthworks. The trajectory of the Great Hopewell Road from Newark points to the Chilicothe area earthworks. I discuss their spatial relationhip below. In 1861 James Salisbury reported following perfectly straight, parallel, ancient earthwork walls for about six miles from Newark. While modern developments and agricultural activity have all but obliterated the earthen embankments, their existence was documented by aerial observations in the last century. In the 1995 paper Tracking Ohio's Great Hopewell Road (Archaeology 48(6):52-56), archaeologist Dr. Bradley T. Lepper renewed attention to the Great Hopewell Road and reported traces of parallel lines along the projected route. The Walk with the Ancients is focused on this ancient linear earthwork, a hypothetical continuous straight trackway from Newark to the Scioto Valley.
Contemporary religious interpretations of the past have entered into recent popular dialogue about the Great Hopewell Road. Several archaeologists are equating the earthwork with "pilgrimage" and Newark with a presumed "Holy Land" of some sort, attracting distant travelers along the "holy pilgrim's path" because the "basic idea is pilgrimage." Old World religious conceptions should not be super-imposed on Native American cultures. Just like it was wrong to say the Ten Tribes of Israel built Newark, so also it is wrong to call Newark a Jerusalem or Mecca, especially when there is no material evidence to go with the belief. Any time someone claims to know what people were thinking in prehistory, I advise skepticism. While imagined religious belief may have some place in science, to force-fit the earthworks into European religious molds obfuscates the significance of the astronomy, geodesy, and likely the actual function of these world-class monuments. Opinions and beliefs are not science, of course. However, interpretation of material evidence is part of archaeology and discussions of interpretations are part of doing science and advance our knowledge. Even at Pueblo Alto, a Chacoan pueblo in New Mexico, where there is a midden with the vast quantity of broken pottery evidencing feasting and people gathering, the abundance of material evidence does not infer the gatherings were religious. Where is the evidence of gatherings at Newark? It does not exist except that the earthworks themselves required builders. The Flint Ridge quarry near Newark may have attracted many people. We know Flint Ridge tools dispersed over great distances, but trade and resource acquisition are not religion. Material remains, especially large constructs, do provide indications of the ideation and the purposes of builders. At Newark, the evidence of astronomy is uncontested and the geodesy is explicit and precise. That evidence infers science rather than religion as the underlying activity at Newark. Newark has been interpreted as an observatory and the evidence indicates this is a reasonable interpretation. My research has added additional new material supportive of this conclusion. Two sites at the terminii of the Great Hopewell Road, Newark Octagon and Hopeton Earthwork, present a noteworthy spatial relationship. The N-S (0.6685°) and E-W (0.5348°) differences from the center of the Octagon to the center of Hopeton Circle present a precise ratio, 1.0 to 0.80 (5:4), a ratio also expressed by the geometry of the Octagon. The longitude difference of 0.5348° is related to lunar calendars and lunar eclipse precession.
On the earth, of course, the actual triangle is of different proportions because the size of a degree of longitude is a function of latitude. At Newark, a degree of latitude is 1.30 times longer than a degree of longitude, a ratio also presented by the Octagon's geometry. The 52.43° tangent of 1.30 is an azimuth of two Octagon vertices. Middleton reported a 51.45° azimuth for the Observatory Circle, and 51.34° is the tangent of 5/4. One seventh of a circle is 51.42° and the atan of 4/pi equals 51.854 degrees. For Newark and the Chillicothe earthworks, the lunar major northerly rise azimuth is in this same range, as is the azimuth of the Octagon. My GPS readings produced a 51.52° azimuth from the center of Observatory Mound to the gateway at the opposite apex of the Octagon work. MORE:
Newark Archaeogeodesy # 92,773 days #
2009.08.04 - Following archaeology news sites led to a new Göbekli Tepe article with this embedded video, now also embedded in my article: The Ur and Harran Latitudes, and Göbekli Tepe. 2009.08.04 - Had I known what and how much specialized knowledge can be required in archaeology, I might have chosen a different path. To understand an ancient activity, you need to understand the particular field of study involved. To analyze ancient pottery, you need to know ceramics, to research ancient astronomers, you have to learn astronomy. Archaeology can be very educational. Now consider this problem, "What if an ancient culture knew more than we do?" How can we understand what they did if we don't yet know what they knew? This was the situation when the Maya libraries were burned. Religious fundamentalists bent on destroying the work of the devil destroyed the most significant astronomy texts in human history. Does the same situation prevails when ancient monuments are bulldozed? Do we even know what we are destroying? Today I woke up dreaming about cosmological mathematics and the solution to a vexing conundrum, "How does lunar eclipse precession arise?" The answer is finally clear—the ecliptic is precessing AND eclipse nodal period is precessing too. The implications may be surprising if ancient astrronomers understood that eclipse precession demonstrates earth's heliocentric orbit. Did I wake up dreaming new science and old archaeology? Obviously, I've reflected long enough on a simple geometric theorem of orbits; it is time to put the dream and the mathematics into words. In geometry, a theorem is a statement that has been proven true. I'll skip the obvious proof—the geometric circularity theorem of orbits is simple to understand. My first example is two earth motions, rotation and solar orbit; given one solar orbit there is one less day than rotations. The expression x - 1 = y applies when two such related circular motions, one sidereal and one synodic, are equated to the reference point. Likewise with the two motions earth orbit and lunar orbit; given one solar orbit there is one less lunar synodic period than lunar sidereal orbits. In both cases, given one solar orbit, obviously x - 1 = y. Once a theorem is proven in geometry it often has other applications. In astronomy, the theorem applies to other circular motions related to orbiting the sun and the earth, and all these interrelate. Solar orbit, earth rotation, and lunar orbit share the same direction. When the motion direction is opposed to orbit, the same theorem applies with the sign reversed. Equatorial/axial precession, lunar nodal period, and eclipse nodal period are retrograde motions, precessionary periods. Hence, years per precession cycle equals orbits plus one, or x + 1 = y. The lunar node precedes lunar orbit, so in one orbit of the receding node there is one more nodal period than lunar orbits. The eclipse nodal period (eclipse "year") precedes solar orbit, so there is one less nodal period than synodic period per orbital circulation of the eclipse node. In light of the sign reversal, the whole system algebraic is only correct for a heliocentric version; only thus does the math "fit." Today, I had to updated several web pages with a single, critical word. Sometimes, altering one word makes all the difference—changing false to true or cause to effect. In this case, the differentiation is between lunar orbit precessing and lunar eclipse precession. The former, inferring a regression of the lunar node, should not be confused with the latter, precession impacting eclipse timing. Hence the need for clarifying some writing, to distinguish appearances resulting from motions from the motions proper. For the mathematics to align with the motions, one simple theorem solves all, thew concept x - 1 = y. I've added several lines to the new eclipse page too, to clarify the cause of eclipse timing preceding orbit completions in the 19 orbit Metonic cycle. |
| 2009.07.13 - I just posted a new page, Eclipses, Cosmic Clockwork of the Ancients. One section presents astronomy basics in the easiest terms possible (hopefully). The focus is on naked-eye astronomy. My intent is to convey the importance of eclipses to ancient astronomy, and to our knowledge of ancient astronomy. 2009.07.19 - Eclipse Calc, an eclipse calculator describes the eclipse related features in Epoch v2009. |
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The Dresden Codex Lunar Series and Sidereal Astronomy 2009.06.13 - The Dresden Codex Lunar Series presents a span of 11,457 days ... The "image series" of 11,457 days consists of the nine date intervals between ten images. The full ten intervals span 11,959 days, rather than the 11,960 days more accurately equaling 405 full moons. The 11,959 day interval also has a sidereal correspondence equating solar and lunar orbits. Angular lunar orbit motion during 897 earth rotations equals solar orbit motion during 11,959 days.
Apparently, the focus of the lunar series is lunar nodal (the eclipses) and ratios far more accurate than either the Saros or Metonic eclipse periods represent or the eclipse intervals presented in the lunar series. ... Is sidereal astronomy the reason why the Maya astronomer utilized, instead of the Saros or Metonic eclipse cycles, a lunar series span of 11,457 days equaling 388.97 full moons? .... MORE: Permalink
2009.06.26 -If you enjoy puzzles there are four day and rotation numbers in various readings, plus clues elsewhere. Several are in this blog page. Can you solve the mystery question? 2009.06.30 - Epoch_v2009 is updated. The "calc" worksheet has a new orbit calc table to equate lunar and solar orbit motion. You enter the number of days and read the calculations. Planetary orbits and synodic cycles are also converted. New code terms for the planetry periods are added using the latest values available. A planetary code term lookup menu is on the same page. And, more clues to the ancient mystery puzzle are now in plain sight. Enjoy!
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