Precession issues in Polynesian archaeoastronomy

Abstract

Until about the 17th century, nowhere in the world could longitude be determined at sea other than by dead reckoning. Longitude fixing only became practicable, and initially only for European navigators, following advances in instrumentation (primarily the marine chronometer and sextant) and the availability of astronomical data in the late 17th and 18th centuries. In the absence of information on longitude, latitude and azimuth determination were crucial for early Polynesian navigators, in addition to a range of other navigation strategies including the use of swells, birds and techniques to expand landfalls (e.g., Evans 2011: 55-72). Neither latitude nor azimuth could be determined exactly, and extensive use of stars was required for both. For azimuths, complex star compasses have been important throughout Polynesia

An exploratory survey method for archaeoastronomy, applied to standing stones at the hauviri and taputapuātea maraes, Ra'iātea

“…Choice of century is important, given the action of precession (Goodwin, 2017). Carbon dating gives two differing date ranges for clam shells from Taputapuātea, namely 1243-1348 or 1518-1811 Fig.…”

The promises of studying cultural archeoastronomy across the Pacific Basin as a new scholarly science education research agenda

“…Considering this perspective, cultural archeoastronomy can readily serve as an intellectual vehicle to provide a proverbial time machine for scholars to ride back into the past and begin to glimpse how people lived their lives (Goodwin, 2017). As but a few of many possible illustrative examples, imagine that determining how accurate those who watched the sky could precisely predict sky events, such as eclipses, reveals insight into how mathematically advanced a society was (Ruggles, 2015;Slater, 2008).…”