The Birth of the Starry Sky. Mythology of the Cosmos

What does the similarity of perceptions of the Milky Way in the Caucasus and the Balkans testify to? How did it happen that many Europeans recalled the Old Testament story of Cain and Abel while looking at lunar spots? Why did some inhabitants of Asia and North America see in the Great Bear hunters chasing a moose or a bear and carrying a pot to cook meat, while others saw seven brothers? In these and many other questions, the author of this book attempts to understand. To do this, he analyzes the mythological representations of the peoples of Eurasia, Africa, and both Americas. We know of these from thousands of narratives collected by ethnographers and linguists or drawn from ancient texts. The similarities and differences in perceptions of the moon and stars allow us to reconstruct historical processes—ranging from relatively recent to those that occurred 10,000-15,000 years ago and more. In other words, this book is not a guide to the night sky, but a story about what happened in the distant past. Such research would have been impossible without modern computer technologies: they made available information that the author would hardly have been able to gather half a century ago. But even more importantly—are the successes of archaeology and genetics. In recent years, our knowledge of humanity's past has expanded immeasurably; it is thanks to this that we are beginning to understand the messages of our ancestors that are encrypted in myths.