Ancient Chinese Rock Writing in Southern California - Defining the Lunar Month (original) (raw)
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Two Ancient Rock Inscriptions Indicate An Archaic Chinese Presence In The American Southwest
Pre-Columbiana, 2017
This paper documents and offers translations for two sets of ancient, highly complex inscriptions readable as Chinese that were pecked into the rocks of Arizona and New Mexico an estimated 2,500 years ago. Here is what appears to be conclusive epigraphic evidence that Chinese explorers not only reached the Americas in pre-Columbian times but also interacted positively with Native populations, sharing both intellectual and cultural information.
Evaluating the Evidence for Lunar Calendars in Upper Palaeolithic Parietal Art
Cambridge archaeological journal, 2024
In this paper, we examine the lunar calendar interpretation to evaluate whether it is a viable explanation for the production of Upper Palaeolithic parietal art. We consider in detail the history of this approach, focusing on recently published variations on this interpretation. We then discuss the scientific method and whether these recent studies are designed to address the research questions necessary to test a lunar calendar hypothesis. More broadly, we explore challenges related to inferring meaning in art of the deep past, the use of secondary sources and selecting appropriate ethnographic analogies. Finally, we assess claims that the lunar calendar interpretation documents the world's oldest (proto)writing system. We conclude that the lunar calendar interpretation as currently construed suffers from multiple theoretical and methodological weaknesses preventing it from being a viable explanation for the production of Upper Palaeolithic art. We further find that claims following from this interpretation to have discovered the oldest known (proto)writing system are unsubstantiated.
Interpreting the apparent lunar symbolism on a Fremont Indian pendant
Archeoastronomy and Ancient Technologies, 2022
The current article examines the apparent lunar iconography engraved on a rhyolite pendant recovered from a 13 th century AD, Fremont Indian pithouse village known as "Five Finger Ridge". Symbols etched into the pendant resemble the waxing crescent, full, and waning crescent moon, thirteen circles equating with the thirteen lunations that are commenced during the solar year, and nineteen grooves etched along the outer edge of the disk-shaped pendant. The paper cites archaeological, ethnographic, rock art, and mitochondrial DNA data certifying that the Fremont people were of Ancestral Puebloan ethnicity and are therefore culturally and genetically related to the occupants of the modern pueblos located in the states of New Mexico and Arizona, USA. Ethnographic data from the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries demonstrates that all Puebloan villages were agriculturally dependent, utilized a solar-lunar calendar, and several conceptualized the year as having thirteen lunar months. The authors utilize the ethnographic data to interpret the two crescents and centrally drilled hole as the waxing crescent, full, and waning crescent moon, and the thirteen etched circles as full moons representing the thirteen-month lunar calendar reckoned at several historic pueblos. Finally, the paper proffers excavated exotic trade goods (olivella shells, turquoise) to demonstrate that the Fremont people of Five Finger Ridge were involved in longdistance trading relationships with Ancestral Puebloan communities that possessed unequivocal knowledge of the 18.61-year Major Lunar Standstill. From this the authors conclude that the pendant's nineteen grooves represent the nineteen solar years needed for the completion of a Major Lunar Standstill cycle, wisdom they learned from long-distance trade relationships with Ancestral Puebloan people that were cognizant of this lunar circuit.
American Indian Rock Art, Vol. 47, 2021
This article examines a Fremont Indian solar-lunar petroglyph at Fremont Indian State Park that depicts “Interlocking Suns” above a “Crescent Moon” and which frames the winter solstice sunset. The authors explore the Fremont people’s Ancestral Puebloan ethnic affiliation, then draw on late nineteenth and early twentieth century Puebloan ethnography to elucidate the function and meaning of this enigmatic motif as a probable “sun shrine” from which winter solstice solar observations were made.
Lunar Timekeeping in Upper Paleolithic Cave Art
Praehistoria New Series Vol. 3 (13), 2021
This study demonstrates the knowledge of ungulate and other significant animal lunar-timed biological behavior among European Upper Paleolithic artists. This biological behavior is recorded with repeated sequences of marks and geometric forms on the walls of European caves and portable objects made during the Upper Paleolithic that are often depicted in association with ungulates. Marshack and others investigated such marks and geometric forms with a leaning towards lunar-timed sequencing. This study investigated whether such marks and geometric forms on the walls of Upper Paleolithic caves have lunar biological-timed correlations with the ungulates and other animals accompanying them. These depicted animals were also cross referenced with hunter-gatherer lunar calendars from Eurasia and North America in the anthropological record to demonstrate practical and continued use.
Lunar Markings on Fajada Butte, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
Fajada Butte is known to contain a solar marking site, probably constructed by ancient Pueblo Indians, that records the equinoxes and solstices (Sofaer et al. 1979 a). Evidence is now presented that the site was also used to record the 18.6-year cycle of the lunar standstills. Fajada Butte (Figure 1) rises to a height of 135 m in Chaco Canyon, an arid valley of 13 km in northwest New Mexico, that was the center of a complex society of precolumbian culture. Near the top of the southern exposure of the butte, three stone slabs, each 2-3 m in height and about 1,000 kg in weight, lean against a cliff (Figures 2, 3). Behind the slabs two spiral petroglyphs are carved on the vertical cliff face. One spiral of 9 1/2 turns is elliptical in shape, measuring 34 by 41 cm (Figure 4). To the upper left of that spiral is a smaller spiral of 2 1/2 turns, measuring 9 by 13 cm (Figure 4).
The Cross Petroglyph: An Ancient Mesoamerican Astronomical and Calendrical Symbol
1980
Un diseno representando un circulo doble dividido en cruz se encentro tanto grabado sobre rocas como en pisos de edificios por toda Mesoamerica. De probable origen teotihuacano, la figura sugiere conocimientos astronomicos y calendaricos. Como continuacion de un trabajo anterior, reportamos aqui la existencia de varios ejemplos mas de este dibujo, incluyendo un caso unico que comprende un alineamiento astronomico doble (en el solsticio de verano y en los equinoccios) y ocurre cerca del Tropico de Cancer. Nuestra interpretacion sugiere que los astronomos teotihuacanos buscaron un lugar donde el sol en su posicion en el cenit llega a su extremo mas al norte, concepto astronomico notablemente sofisticado.
2016
Systematic archaeoastronomical research recently conducted in several regions of Mesoamerica has revealed the existence of architectural orientations corresponding to major and minor extremes of the Moon (also known as standstill positions) on the horizon. Particularly indicative are the results of quantitative analyses of alignment data from the Maya Lowlands, disclosing a prominent group of orientations that can be convincingly related to the major lunar extremes. The astronomically-motivated intentionality of these alignments is additionally supported by contextual evidence, particularly significant being the fact that most of them are concentrated along the northeast coast of the Yucatán peninsula, where the lunar cult is known to have been important. Since the lunar orientations are regularly associated with those corresponding to the solstitial positions of the Sun, it is very likely that particular attention was paid to the full Moon extremes. This contribution also presents some independent evidence that sheds light on the cultural significance of lunar orientations.