Nabataeans. But between 5000 B.C. For thousands of years, ancient societies all around the world erected massive stone circles, aligning them with the Sun and stars to mark the seasons. For the nomadic people who lived in the area, these summer rains were likely sacred. Some even hold them up as supernatural, or divined by aliens. at Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba). Nabta Playa: The world's first astronomical site was built in Africa and is older than Stonehenge This 7,000-year-old stone circle tracked the summer solstice … During this time, the area was a savanna and supported numerous animals such as extinct buffalo and large giraffes, varieties of antelope and gazelle. The ancient society studied the constellations and understood the movements of the night sky. Malville agrees with Higginbottom. They drove across the flat, sandy landscape until they reached a large sand dune beside a dry lake bed, where views stretched out to the horizon. For Malville, and Wendorf as well, who died in 2015, there’s no need to invent such stories for Nabta Playa to be fascinating. “He opened up the era of predynastic Egypt and the ancient kingdom.”. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), stepped in with funding to help relocate famous structures, as well as scour the area for new sites before they were lost forever. [2] Early people may have been attracted to the region due to the source of water. If you didn’t know better, you could easily miss the Nabta Playa stone circle. [2], Also in the late 7th millennium BC, but a little later than the time referred to above, imported goats and sheep, apparently from Western Asia,[10] appear. An archaeological excavation found this cow-shaped megalithic rock sculpture buried at Nabta Playa in the Sahara Desert near the border of Egypt and Sudan. "This was the dawn of observational astronomy," he adds. “They used the stars to travel across the desert to locate small watering holes like Nabta Playa, which had water about four months of the year, probably, starting with the summer monsoon.”. It i… In the 1960s, Egypt was planning a major dam project along the Nile River that was going to flood important ancient archaeological sites. It was built more than 7,000 years ago, making Nabta Playa the oldest stone circle in the world — and possibly Earth’s oldest astronomical observatory. Still images are taken from The Pyramid Code and Google […] However, some consider an ancient Egyptian cow goddess named Hathor, a goddess of fertility, to be the smoking gun for this origin story. Using their original measurements and measurements by satellite and GPS measurements by Brophy and Rosen they confirmed possible alignments with Sirius, Arcturus, Alpha Centauri and the Belt of Orion. But many ancient societies kept time by tracking which constellations rose at sunset, like reading a giant, celestial clock. The present qualitative dental comparison tentatively supports this conclusion. Though still old, at that age, Stonehenge may have been one of the youngest such stone structures to be built in Europe. Nabta Playa is a remarkable site composed of hundreds of prehistoric tumuli, stelae, and megalithic structures located in the Nubian Desert, approximately … and 3000 B.C., thousands of years after the stone circle was built at Nabta Playa, the region dried out again. And according to Malville, the extra attention Nabta Playa has gotten over the years hasn’t been good for the site, either. We estimate that 6088 BCE Sirius had a declination of -36.51 degrees, for a rising azimuth exactly on the C-line average". They also served as ceremonial sites, both for celebration and sacrifice. That changing local climate forced the people of Nabta Playa to disperse. Nabta Playa. After seven years without being able to crack their mystery, Wendorf called in Malville, an expert on archaeoastronomy of the American Southwest. Inference in archaeoastronomy must always be guided and informed by archaeology, especially when substantial field work has been performed in the region.[14]. However, some conspiracy theorists have also run with the idea, adding a strange new layer. DVD-ROM, 2002. So tracking the Sun’s location could have tipped them off to the coming wet season. The 1960s, Egypt was planning a major dam Project along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts seems have... Was as far away as the Red Sea passed across the region dating to at least around! Expert on archaeoastronomy nabta playa dna the Nubian desert, ” Malville says he.! At the time, so the people navigated using bright stars and the historic cultures in north Africa people! Discussion of its 5,000 year history out, becoming what is now Earth ’ s hottest desert, area! 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