5/7/2023 0 Comments Petroglyphs ancient space menEssential lines of research receive a historical introduction: comparative mythology, catastrophism and the study of the mythical world axis in relation to the earth’s rotation. This first volume sets the stage for the interdisciplinary hypothesis. The present work, in multiple volumes, seeks an origin for these traditions in a series of extraordinary natural events relating especially to the earth’s transition from the last glacial period to the Holocene. Ĭreation myths around the world reveal an intricate network of recurrent counterintuitive motifs, describing a time when the sky was low, the stars did not yet shine, multiple suns appeared, a ‘world axis’ in the form of a tree, ladder or giant man connected the earth with the sky, a devastating flood or fire ended the old order, and so forth. Preview containing table of contents and sample pages. We suggest that our work indicates that future research on petroglyphs may be useful in further exploring and understanding the relationship between prehistoric mankind and wildlife. Based on previous surveys of the petroglyphs of Teymareh, along with other evidence, we assume that most of the petroglyphs we discovered were inscribed approximately 4000 years ago, likely making them some of the oldest remaining evidence of falconry in the world. These tableaus suggest that falconry was but one aspect of a suite of human-animal associations developed and maintained by the prehistoric peoples of the Persian Plateau. Most (n = 10) occurred in the archaeological region of Teymareh, most (n = 7) showed a falconer mounted on horseback or elephant, and many (n = 6) included an accompanying trained canid or cheetah. We found, identified, and photographed 11 petroglyphs depicting falconry. To assess this hypothesis, we visited 13 major rock art sites in the Persian Plateau, and searched for petroglyphs depicting a person bearing a bird on the forearm. We hypothesized that falconry would have been memorable enough to prehistoric peoples to be the subject of rock art, and that evidence of prehistoric falconry could be found in the petroglyphs of the Persian Plateau. Falconry (the use of trained birds of prey-usually eagles, falcons, and hawks-to hunt wild animals) is one type of human-bird relationship, with its origins obscured in poorly understood prehistoric times. Ethnoornithology is a multidisciplinary field of study that focuses on human-bird relationships and humans’ knowledge of the Earth’s avifauna.
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