Being outdoors and farming or gathering plants, you would notice having more or fewer hours of sunlight. You might be pretty sure the longer sun hours would come back, but you'd like to know for sure. And once you start measuring shadows, you're going to get it close enough, even without a henge.
You would be much better at math and astronomy if your life depended on it. If a big part of your life was spent travelling by foot you'd become an expert at figuring out distances and travel times. If your lively hood depended on noticing the passing of seasons every year and the position of the moon in the sky, you would learn to notice them easily - or just, like, die.
People in the past had ridiculous amounts of free time. We take it for granted that we’re so busy working all the time to survive but life wasn’t always this busy. Hunter-gatherers had way less to do than we do. They didn’t need to spend all their time trying to pay rent or put food on the table. They also didn’t have the huge amount of media we have to consume.
So what did they do with their free time? They spent it observing nature around them. They watched the sun, the moon, and the stars very carefully. They gave names to the constellations and told stories about them. They learned the cycles of nature just as we learn the work and entertainment schedules that dominate our lives.
Yeah, sitting outside a lot chatting it would drive me nuts that the sun set slightly off each day and I would pester everyone who would listen to me about it until satisfactory answers were found. I’d be like “and then it just stops and goes back the other way! I am going to roll this rock out into a field and this other rock to sit on and put smaller rocks to mark the horizon until next spring!” And people would call me crazy and ask me why I care about such stupid things when I should be a good little villager having babies and skinning animals like a normal person.
You can be in charge of the narrative, I am busy rolling boulders. Just don’t kill anything in the name of the sun we can’t eat, ok? Ethically sourced sacrifices only please.
you'd know because the sun would have appeared to move laterally wrt the horizon throughout the year and you know what time it is each day based on the sun's apparent vertical movement.
In the beginning, there was just one TV channel with four seasons of a single show, and they'd just keep playing it every year. Everyone on earth had nothing else to watch. Very slow burn, the plot was Light.
Is it? Without a reference would you actually notice it?
You’d need some kind of long-running gravity clock you could be fairly confident in and then check it against the Sundial not as a timer but as a way to measure the Sun’s position.
You’d notice longer shadows, likely, and they did notice that at different times of the year the sun just wouldn’t cast shadows in certain places. But if I gave you a watch and slowed it down, especially in tiny increments, it would certainly be difficult to notice at first.
I’m responding to a comment about a sundial, not about the length of shadows, which to measure you don’t need a sundial.
I think people here might be overthinking it. It's just counting daylight hours, the solstices are the longest/shortest days. The further from the equator you are the more obvious it is. There's around 10 hours more daylight in summer where I am so you can make a reasonable estimate of the solstices without using any timing devices, most people would notice that.
25 Comments
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 59 pts · 346d
Being outdoors and farming or gathering plants, you would notice having more or fewer hours of sunlight. You might be pretty sure the longer sun hours would come back, but you'd like to know for sure. And once you start measuring shadows, you're going to get it close enough, even without a henge.
outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 24 pts · 346d
Tirns out ancient people had less bullshit to deal with and the weord crap they got obsessive about was, like, the sky and shit.
And maybe they were also better at math than us, but you cant prove that.
And if you can; fight me.
jol@discuss.tchncs.de · 28 pts · 346d
You would be much better at math and astronomy if your life depended on it. If a big part of your life was spent travelling by foot you'd become an expert at figuring out distances and travel times. If your lively hood depended on noticing the passing of seasons every year and the position of the moon in the sky, you would learn to notice them easily - or just, like, die.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 345d
People in the past had ridiculous amounts of free time. We take it for granted that we’re so busy working all the time to survive but life wasn’t always this busy. Hunter-gatherers had way less to do than we do. They didn’t need to spend all their time trying to pay rent or put food on the table. They also didn’t have the huge amount of media we have to consume.
So what did they do with their free time? They spent it observing nature around them. They watched the sun, the moon, and the stars very carefully. They gave names to the constellations and told stories about them. They learned the cycles of nature just as we learn the work and entertainment schedules that dominate our lives.
unconsequential@slrpnk.net · 16 pts · 345d
Yeah, sitting outside a lot chatting it would drive me nuts that the sun set slightly off each day and I would pester everyone who would listen to me about it until satisfactory answers were found. I’d be like “and then it just stops and goes back the other way! I am going to roll this rock out into a field and this other rock to sit on and put smaller rocks to mark the horizon until next spring!” And people would call me crazy and ask me why I care about such stupid things when I should be a good little villager having babies and skinning animals like a normal person.
xylol@leminal.space · 2 pts · 345d
But how would you know you didnt just wake up later or earlier
unconsequential@slrpnk.net · 7 pts · 345d
You can be in charge of the narrative, I am busy rolling boulders. Just don’t kill anything in the name of the sun we can’t eat, ok? Ethically sourced sacrifices only please.
WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 345d
you'd know because the sun would have appeared to move laterally wrt the horizon throughout the year and you know what time it is each day based on the sun's apparent vertical movement.
Artisian@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 345d
In the beginning, there was just one TV channel with four seasons of a single show, and they'd just keep playing it every year. Everyone on earth had nothing else to watch. Very slow burn, the plot was Light.
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club · 12 pts · 344d
People that wouldn't notice that always existed, as do now.
Same goes for people that do notice.
And them people advance science, so others can read about it easily on their phones.
Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 344d
Bless those nerds for passing advanced mathematics courses so I didn't have to.
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club · 5 pts · 344d
They also made those advanced mathematics courses tho.
bacon_pdp@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 345d
Soup@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 345d
Is it? Without a reference would you actually notice it?
You’d need some kind of long-running gravity clock you could be fairly confident in and then check it against the Sundial not as a timer but as a way to measure the Sun’s position.
LotrOrc@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 345d
Yes if you had a sundial and put even marks around it you would definitely notice
Also people generally track the sun, our circadian rhythms are tied up to it. You notice even now when the days are shorter or longer without a clock
Soup@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 344d
You’d notice longer shadows, likely, and they did notice that at different times of the year the sun just wouldn’t cast shadows in certain places. But if I gave you a watch and slowed it down, especially in tiny increments, it would certainly be difficult to notice at first.
I’m responding to a comment about a sundial, not about the length of shadows, which to measure you don’t need a sundial.
bacon_pdp@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 345d
Adulated_Aspersion@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 345d
Because autistic people have always been here, and that one kid was obsessed with tracking a slight change in the sun every day for 6 years.
LotrOrc@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 345d
You're absolutely not wrong but not everyone who discovered things or paid attention is/was autistic either
Adderbox76@lemmy.ca · 11 pts · 345d
When your food supply depends on the sun, you tend to pay attention to these kinds of things.
my_hat_stinks@programming.dev · 8 pts · 344d
I think people here might be overthinking it. It's just counting daylight hours, the solstices are the longest/shortest days. The further from the equator you are the more obvious it is. There's around 10 hours more daylight in summer where I am so you can make a reasonable estimate of the solstices without using any timing devices, most people would notice that.
ConstantPain@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 345d
Because at that time people didn't have magic black squares to bury their heads on so they couldn't pay attention to nature.
Dav09@mander.xyz · 5 pts · 344d
Math.
unknown@piefed.social · 3 pts · 344d
That bokeh effect in the background is so pretty.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 344d
There was a lot of boredom. Also curiosity stemming from "days seem short when it's cold and long when it's hot"
Late-Boomer-57@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 345d
Sky magic? How can anyone NOT pay attention?
BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 344d
Might have. There wasn't as much going on.