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Q: Why were the Maya so interested in astronomy?

 

A: The Maya used astronomy for two purposes. The first was to track the passage of the seasons of the agricultural year and the passing of the summer and winter solstices. Based on their observations of the Sun, the Maya constructed a calendar of 365 days.

The second way the Maya used astronomy was to track the ceremonial year, in which every day had intricate symbolic meaning. The Maya ceremonial year comprised 260 days. The Maya combined the agricultural year and the ceremonial year in a pair of interlocking calendars. Each day received two designations, one from the solar calendar and one from the ceremonial calendar.

The Maya image of the heavens was fundamental to their cosmology. They even used astronomy to dedicate buildings and to orient them toward planets and the cardinal directions.

 

Q: Who made the large stone megaliths on Easter Island and why?

 

A: The large stone statues on Easter Island are thought to be depictions of ancestral figures. Their style is Polynesian, and they were constructed for only a relatively short period of time, from about 800 to 1600. The task of carving and erecting many hundreds of these figures, some reaching 12 m (40 ft) in height, ultimately required more resources than the island could support. Large stone monuments called ahus are burial platforms, which were constructed to support rows of the figures.

 

Q: What is the earliest known use of money?

 

A: The first coinage appeared in Anatolia—the Asian part of modern-day Turkey—in about 600 bc. Money evolved from of the use of tokens as items of exchange by caravan merchants in southwestern Asia. It developed from a desire for standardized units of exchange of fixed value, and it soon spread widely through the Greek and Mediterranean worlds.

 

Q: Where did the Neandertals come from?

 

A: The classic squat and beetle-browed Neandertals of central and western Europe were the descendants of much earlier European settlers. These ancient settlers appear to have been Homo erectus, an archaic (premodern) human form that first evolved about 2 million years ago. Homo erectus migrated to Europe 600,000 or more years ago, and the Neandertals evolved from them over many millennia.

 

Q: How did Neandertals survive cold winters in ancient Europe?

 

A: Contrary to popular belief, Neandertals were not primitive brutes; they were exceptionally versatile hunters and gatherers. They had a relatively simple toolkit—composed of stone knives, scrapers, hand axes, cleavers, and other basic tools—but they appear to have made use of animal skins and fire to keep themselves warm.

With their stocky build and short limbs, Neandertals were well adapted to cold climates. In winter they took refuge in sheltered valleys and caves, but during the warmer months they ventured far and wide. Neandertals never settled in the bitterly cold areas of northern Europe and Eurasia close to the ice sheets of the late Ice Age. Such settlement didn’t occur until modern humans developed the needle and sewn, layered clothing for use in frigid environments.

 


Date: 2015-02-16; view: 796


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