Ancient Astronomy Lab Discovered in Peru

Source: www.ibtimes.com...

Archeologists have stumbled upon a site where ancient people observed the stars thousands of years ago in Peru, a country famous for using drones to help uncover and map archeological treasures, as Reuters reported.

Excavators working on a complex at Licurnique, in the country’s northern region, have uncovered evidence of an “astronomical laboratory,” that dates back between 3,500 and 4,000 years, according to Peru This Week.

“Astronomical [observations] were engraved on a flat-surface rock, which were used to track stars,” its report said. It added that the petroglyphs were likely used in forecasting rain and weather patterns to help farmers. “It is worth exploring without a doubt.”

It was found in the Lambayeque region, which is known for its archeological finds. Last year, it attracted more than 700,000 visitors, one of the highest such totals among all regions of the country, as Vanessa Castaneda, head of the regional tourism office, said in January.

Source: mirekulous.tumblr.com...

Well I am still amazed at how we are still finding things like this today.
Buried artifacts /sites from ancient civilizations from so long ago...
Our planet sure likes to keep her secrets for a long time, eh?

Our ancestors were looking up to the sky and tracking the stars just like we do today.

I thought this was interesting enough to share.

It would seem that a lot of ancient rock carvings carry similar motif's . This vid looks at it from the point of electrical discharge and plasma that they may have been viewing at the time . a reply to: Rainbowresidue

a reply to: Rainbowresidue

Not that I wish to doubt these archeologist's conclusions, but isn't it possible that ancient people just drew things for the fun of it? You know, what we today call "abstract art"?

I mean, why do archeologists always assume that everything the "ancient" people drew were either astronomical observation or gods to worship?
Why do these archeologists always seem to assume that the ancient people never had fun drawing things on a rock, a bit like we do when we draw Snoopy or Smurfs on a comic page?

If you study ancient history a lot, youll find even more things they did that were exactly like us its funny but mankind hasnt changed at all in 4000 years or beyond. We're still obsessed with sex, drugs, violence, celebrity, making things as big as possible to feed our egos, and exploring the mysteries of the universe

a reply to: swanne

I'm not a scientist, just a teacher, so I'll guess.
(Take it with a grain of salt.)

Maybe scientists are able to tell the difference by having studied various stone tables/caves for many years.
Here they said, the drawings were used to track rain/weather changes, so I'm guessing they have come across similar ones before.

The same way how they are able to look at cave paintings and tell that it's showing a big hunting scene.

Also we didn't have paper back then, and homemade paint isn't easy to make, and it takes time.
I assume people back then only drew things that were important to them due to limited resources.

a reply to: Rainbowresidue

And naturally you could be right.

Interesting find either way. S&F!

Lab? who do explorers have to over exaggerate what they find? When they do this its almost always a disappointment when you look into what they have discovered.

What once was thought as a primitive scribble was realized to be a very precise observation of the tides, moon and stars when fed into a computer to match the time the scribble was dated to. Remember most of our modern civilization lives near the coast as it was in the past and the coast from a lot of human history is 250 meters under the ocean. What little we get is very interesting, great thread.

originally posted by: swanne
a reply to: Rainbowresidue

Not that I wish to doubt these archeologist's conclusions, but isn't it possible that ancient people just drew things for the fun of it? You know, what we today call "abstract art"?

I mean, why do archeologists always assume that everything the "ancient" people drew were either astronomical observation or gods to worship?
Why do these archeologists always seem to assume that the ancient people never had fun drawing things on a rock, a bit like we do when we draw Snoopy or Smurfs on a comic page?

Those kids have always been drawing pictures of what they see. They assume it was adults, anyone knows that as you age you start worrying about supplying food and shelter for your family and spend your time working all the time. Well, that is if there isn't any booze around.

You are right of them always finding impressive reasons for their discoveries. Christians made everything about gods, the wrong god and destroyed a lot of this art. Some of it is writing, religion, and science but not all of it. Another thing that Christian mindset did is to improperly call really respected old rulers gods so they could bash them. They would say that George Washington was a pagan god because of Mount Rushmore and destroy the carving if the Christians stumbled across his statue long ago and didn't know his religion.

Good thread Rainbow, even though I do not know if their interpretation of the pictures are correct.

What I want to know is just how these ancient primitive peoples got their knowledge of the heavens so accurately......
Without (presumably) the mathematics "we" invented.......
Begs the extrapolation of far more capability than we accredit them with....I become more convinced with every find such as this, that the ancients had a world wide civilisation of some kind back then.....

originally posted by: stirling
What I want to know is just how these ancient primitive peoples got their knowledge of the heavens so accurately......
Without (presumably) the mathematics "we" invented.......
Begs the extrapolation of far more capability than we accredit them with....I become more convinced with every find such as this, that the ancients had a world wide civilisation of some kind back then.....

They watched the stars and remembered, memory is usually well developed in cultures without writing.

All cultures were fascinated by the display of the night sky.

a reply to: PhoenixOD

Of course, it is a lab, just exactly the kind you(?) would build if you had few resources and the intelligence to work out the puzzles of the Universe, albeit even the local Universe of stars in our galaxy.

When they take time to chisel into rock their observations, that is clear evidence that they had something to record for those that came later. It was their form of a chalk board, a scientific paper published, a book or by today's standards, a Powerpoint presentation.

Think about how you would record data if you were an early scientist or a mere noticer of the environment. Cutting into stone is one way, but that is probably the end result. For daily and short-term efforts they would use sand tables in caves or in protected areas. Eventually, such and such would be pronounced the true science of what they were observing and recording and it would be commissioned to stone. --'Course, as with science today, those doesn't always mean that they were right with their figuring so we should not take such as gospel except for that particular period.

a reply to: Rainbowresidue

Great thread, that's a good find. You don't know how they've interpreted the symbols, by any chance? I'm asking because they have double discs shown that are identical to the ones found in Scotland.

originally posted by: beansidhe
a reply to: Rainbowresidue

Great thread, that's a good find. You don't know how they've interpreted the symbols, by any chance? I'm asking because they have double discs shown that are identical to the ones found in Scotland.

Thanks,
And no,sorry, I couldn't find anything else on the subject, when I was making the thread.

a reply to: Rainbowresidue

Naaaargh, lol!
No problem, it just caught my eye. Interesting that they used that symbol for something astronomical.

a reply to: Rainbowresidue

It's not that I want to come to the rescue, but I was giving a quick read to your interesting thread with my phone and I saw some sort of downplaying comments so I had to come back with a post.

Signs of Archaeoastronomy can be found in Peru everywhere, Incas and pre-incan cultures used astronomy everyday, it was fundamental for their agriculture and cosmogony. The moment when they started to use it is according to me, very difficult to define.

Here a few threads to help :

Ancient Broadcast Antenna Network : The Saywana System and other Andean Ethno Scientific Tools

The Mystery of The "Piedra Horadada" (PERU) - From Saints and Demons to Astronomical Observatory

The Pleiades and The Ancient Andean Weather Forecasting

"WARU WARU" - The ancient andean technology against climate change.

originally posted by: Trueman
a reply to: Rainbowresidue

It's not that I want to come to the rescue, but I was giving a quick read to your interesting thread with my phone and I saw some sort of downplaying comments so I had to come back with a post.

Signs of Archaeoastronomy can be found in Peru everywhere, Incas and pre-incan cultures used astronomy everyday, it was fundamental for their agriculture and cosmogony. The moment when they started to use it is according to me, very difficult to define.

Here a few threads to help :

Ancient Broadcast Antenna Network : The Saywana System and other Andean Ethno Scientific Tools

The Mystery of The "Piedra Horadada" (PERU) - From Saints and Demons to Astronomical Observatory

The Pleiades and The Ancient Andean Weather Forecasting

"WARU WARU" - The ancient andean technology against climate change.

Thank you so much Trueman!
I'll take all the help I can get.

originally posted by: Rainbowresidue
a reply to: swanne

Also we didn't have paper back then, and homemade paint isn't easy to make, and it takes time.
I assume people back then only drew things that were important to them due to limited resources.

That's right, normally people are drawing things that are out of the ordinary, exceptional or somehow worth to remember. From modern day historical perspective important are normal, common things of the past days, how people were normally living, what objects were available, technologies mastered by them, etc. Unfortunately hardly anyone is trying to make memorable everyday life, or some trivial object now widespread, or things that are that are commonly understood as widespread and normal everyday life. It was the same in the past.
It makes every similar find a puzzle.

originally posted by: Rainbowresidue
a reply to: swanne

Maybe scientists are able to tell the difference by having studied various stone tables/caves for many years.
Here they said, the drawings were used to track rain/weather changes, so I'm guessing they have come across similar ones before.

The same way how they are able to look at cave paintings and tell that it's showing a big hunting scene.

Also we didn't have paper back then, and homemade paint isn't easy to make, and it takes time.
I assume people back then only drew things that were important to them due to limited resources.

What I am about to say now is true story, you may belive it or not, it is up to you to decide. In my home town, there is this port, and in this port there is this jetty made of large rocks, and on one of those rocks there is this very nasty and deep carving of a penis. Everybody knows the story, and people who made this didn't even use dremel, they just went crazy on it, and you can see by looking at the final product. It looks pure cavemen, prehistoric hunting grounds type, except... it is a dick.

And I am pretty sure that few thousand years from now some one will find this stone, and write a book about a tribe that worshiped cocks, or they will try to recreate a weather predicting instrument in a shape of a fallus. This rock will become a part of this civilizations history.

Now on a serious note, as someone stated before. I always take it with a grain of salt, given that every possible discovery MUST have a meaning, because every explorer wants his work to have meaning, and they will try very hard, and sometimes even lie just to feel like they acomplished something.

While I am almost certain, that people evolved enough to communicate by drawing, could also draw pointless things just for the heck of doing it. And given the possiblities the universe gives us, anything I draw in my notebook right now, would probably be aligned with some stars on the sky.

Don't take me wrong, I do know about some really meaningful paintings from the past and I do belive in their meaning, but sometimes I am just not convinced.

a reply to: iknowyou

Tragically, it's not the first time, possibly not the last, when humanity leaves pieces of art considered not appropriate during some period of time and naturally archaeologist finds it, has to name it "correctly". Everything may happen the other way around, like it happened with one real 24800BC Dolní Věstonice artifact, which was named "Stylized “Venus” figurine carved in ivory". But hardly this can be related to the find in photo.

Symbols in photo are extremely old and widespread. Some of them are even similar to the symbols used in writing or runes.