Related papers: Decoding European Palaeolithic art: Extremely anci…

Astronomical observations were used as a marker for time and the Calendar from ancient times. A more subtle calibration of epochs is thrown up by an observation of the position of the solstices and equinoxes, because these points shift in…

Intersection with the debris of a large (50-100 km) short-period comet during the Upper Palaeolithic provides a satisfactory explanation for the catastrophe of celestial origin which has been postulated to have occurred around 12900 BP, and…

The tumuli of Newgrange and Knowth in Ireland are among the most monumental heritages of the Neolithic era. The megalithic constructions date back to around 3'200 BC, centuries before the completion of Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids.…

We present a mathematical model, based on the compilation and statistical processing of radiocarbon dates, of the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic, from about 7,000 to 4,000 BC in Europe. The arrival of the Neolithic is…

The possible discovery of astronomical effects due to precession - such as the shift in the declination of heliacal raising of bright stars or the precession of the equinoxes - is reviewed for various ancient cultures in the world. Although…

When superimposing the potentials of external fields on the Coulomb potential of the hydrogen atom a saddle point appears, which is called the Stark saddle point. For energies slightly above the saddle point energy one can find classical…

I discuss various aspects of archeoastronomy concentrating on physical artifacts (i.e., not including ethno-archeoastronomy) focusing on the period that ended about 2000 years ago. I present examples of artifacts interpreted as showing the…

Sundials and gnomons pointing out dates and times are a beautiful reminder of how we understand the movement of the Sun and use it to structure day and year. They also encapsulate the basic astronomical knowledge and concepts of the…

Second part of a didactic sequence of activities on some topics of Astronomy, related mainly with the real shape of the Earth, the gravitational interactions between our planet and other celestial bodies, and the resulting movement of the…

Extending the investigation of the presumed primordial comet as part of continuing work on a new model of the Kreutz sungrazer system, I confront a previously derived set of orbital elements with Aristotle's remarks in his Meteorologica to…

The Sapient Paradox is the apparently unexplainable time delay of several ten thousand years following the arrival of Homo sapiens in Asia and Europe and before the introduction of impressive innovations with the agricultural revolution.…

We present a phenomenological study demonstrating the feasibility of using olivine xenoliths from the Cha\^ine des Puys as a time-resolved paleo-detector array to probe the cosmic-ray flux over the last 40,000 years. This volcanic region…

The Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis considers that greenhouse gas concentrations should have declined during the Holocene in absence of humankind activity, leading to glacial inception around the present. It partly relies on the fact that…

Recent work has provided ample evidence that nonlinear methods of time series analysis potentially allow for detecting periods of anomalous dynamics in paleoclimate proxy records that are otherwise hidden to classical statis- tical…

An oscillation with a period of about 2100-2500 years, the Hallstatt cycle, is found in cosmogenic radioisotopes (C-14 and Be-10) and in paleoclimate records throughout the Holocene. Herein we demonstrate the astronomical origin of this…

Defining the processes involved in the technical/cultural shifts from the Late Middle to the Early Upper Palaeolithic in Europe (~50-39 thousand years BP) is one of the most important tasks facing prehistoric studies. In this debate Italy…

We consider parameter estimation for the spread of the Neolithic incipient farming across Europe using radiocarbon dates. We model the arrival time of farming at radiocarbon-dated, early Neolithic sites by a numerical solution to an…

The 27 Myr periodicity in the fossil extinction record has been confirmed in modern data bases dating back 500 Myr, which is twice the time interval of the original analysis from thirty years ago. The surprising regularity of this period…

A major focus of the archaeoastronomical research conducted around the world focuses on understanding how ancient cultures observed sunrise and sunset points along the horizon, particularly at the solstices and equinoxes. Scholars argue…

Short-period exoplanets may exhibit orbital precession driven by several different processes, including tidal interactions with their host stars and secular interactions with additional planets. This motion manifests as periodic shifts in…