Timing the Hunt (astronomy)
Man has hunted deer and elk for tens of thousands of years during which time he gained knowledge about the biology of these magnificent animals. He built celestial calendars to gauge their movements, recorded when and where they would be present in his rock art and wove the directions on how to best hunt them into his stories. He primarily timed his hunts around the sun and moon. Yet, biologists today look at the length of day and the weather to explain the behavior of these animals. The difficulties with this modern approach is that day length is too flat from one week to the next to time an event and the weather is too variable to help the animals to synchronize their behavior. Author Bernie Taylor offers another explanation in his book Biological Time. He demonstrates that the deer and elk are entrained to reliable solar and lunar cues, as is believed by indigenous peoples, and that because the cycle of the moon is not in step with the movement of the sun events, such as migration, rut, antler shedding, and dropping of the young, appear to be early or late from one year to the next. Taylor also provides evidence that prehistoric man in France recorded this knowledge 17,000 years ago on the walls of caves and that the Tribes in the Pacific Northwest follow these principles to harvest deer and elk at the present time. The program brings together biological, historical, archaeological and astronomical evidence from around the globe and takes us back in time to understand why astronomy is the root of all other sciences.
Bernie Taylor is the author of Biological Time.
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