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December 2

Cave art could be a zodiac to map stars 40,000 years ago

This is the headline over a story in Wednesday’s Daily Telegraph which states:

And researchers at the universities of Edinburgh and Kent believe the positions of the paintings show their creators could even keep track of time and the changing seasons by observing stars move as the year progressed.

The phenomenon, known as precession of the equinoxes, is caused by the gradual shift of Earth’s rotational axis. Its discovery was previously credited to the ancient Greeks.

There are two separate motions here. The first is the changing aspect of the stars at a given time of night according to the season due to the sun’s easterly movement through them. The second is a change in direction of the stars caused by the poles tracing a circle through them over 28,000 years. Which is it? 2A02:C7F:8230:8F00:D554:B212:92C9:2A1C (talk) 18:30, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sloppy writing by journalists who don't know what they are writing about. If you want to read the original paper, here it is. This analysis of it seems better than the one you are working with as well. --Jayron 32 12:58, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(e/c)Your second motion is the precession of the equinoxes.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 16:21, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, all. 2A02:C7F:8230:8F00:78EF:EB22:26A3:2A03 (talk) 13:16, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]