Human posture and the nightly sky

cosmos in prehistoric myth

pp. 17-31

in: Abraham Akkerman, Phenomenology of the Winter-city, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

E.O. Wilson, the founder of sociobiology, has pointed out that religion and its rituals are the product of evolution. This chapter extends Wilson's proposition in arguing that celestial sky patterns, the North Star and the circumpolar stars in particular, have been indispensable in the creation of myth. The nightly pattern of sky firmament seemingly rotating round the North Star had been vital to the cerebral progression of anatomically modern humans and in the evolution of their communities and settlements.