Known history is less than 1% of the time humans have inhabited earth, and thus most of our past survives only in the partial evidence of myth, genetics and badly decayed archaeological remains. In particular, mythology is not just a collection of arbitrary stories, but as the authors of Hamlet's Mill argue, it is a long-lost theoretical language used to store astronomical and scientific knowledge.

While we all know that myth can store relevant information in a memorable format, it can also embed very specific details of a preexisting system of knowledge also attested in archaeoastronomy, even in well-known sites like Stonehenge, the "neolithic calculator" which shows astronomical knowledge far more precise than that of any average person of today.

The reason the earliest philosophical and religious mythology seems absurd or opaque to us is partially because it is speaking in a jargon which has been lost, like alchemy or primeval sciences. In the right context, we can see a long tradition of knowledge preserved from at least the Stone Age.

Correction: I mentioned that an Indian Vedic Nakshatra was analogous to a lunar phase, but this isn't accurate (I was adlibbing). It is a region of the sky the moon transits through.

I also when talking about Stonehenge said that 56 divided by 3 is about ~2.9. Lol. Obviously mispoke. I meant 56 divided by 19.

0:00:00 Issuing and Extension on Human Prehistory