This is unsurprising. The discovery of the precession of the equinox (well known by Greek times) and the prediction of eclipses (the apparent purpose of Stonehedge) would have required thousands of years of diligent observation, recording, and calculation.

How many times have you heard the phrase: "The so-and-so people were engaging in rather advanced agriculture/mathematics/science/philosophy/
architecture/whatever while Europeans were still savages in loincloths..."?

The irony that whatever primitive tribe they are promoting hasn't changed since that time always seems lost on the multiculti trotting out that cliche.

My favorite is from a Polish Jewish friend who enjoys stating in good humor: "My ancestors were kiting checks in Tel Aviv while yours were still painting their faces blue."

Genecis:

Tel Aviv was founded about 100 years ago. The original quip was Disraeli's. My ancestors were writing the Bible while yours were hoping around the forset covered only with blue paint.

Turn on any random football game and chances are you'll see someone painted blue.

Noticing the night sky, like riding a horse, is something any human can do.

Similar stone observatories are all over the High Plains of North America, built by societies that Orrin says are "crap."

Thankfully for Orrin's view of progress, Europeans understood less and less about the night sky the more Christian and civilized they became, until by 1600 they knew less than the savages of No. America.

They could steer their ships by it. How about the aboriginals? And what crops did they domesticate?

Actually, Orrin, they couldn't. Only a tiny few. Most European sea captains used nothing but chip log, compass and portolan until about the mid-19th century.

As for domesticating crops, the Europeans domesticated rye, sort of by accident (it was a weed in wheat that they couldn't control, so they ate it). And possibly cabbage. That's all.

The aborginals domesticated corn, the world's most important single crop, pecans, squash, peppers, sunflower, tomatoes, potatoes, manioc, probably taro, sweet potato.

Harry:

"..Europeans understood less and less about the night sky the more Christian and civilized they became, until by 1600 they knew less than the savages of No. America."

Until now I was unaware that the Indians had a heliocentric theory of the solar system (Copernicus), knew that Jupiter had moons and Venus had phases (Galileo), or knew that the planet's orbits were ellipses obeying certain laws relating period and distance from the sun and motion along the orbit (Kepler).

jd:

Humor him--it's just hatred of Christianity he's trying to vent.

Come on, dr. watson, read the post. I said until 1600.

Copernicus was afraid ot publish his heliocentric theory, the Jesuits denied the moons of Jupiter and Galileo was persecuted for speculating on the heavenly bodies.

The greatest intellect of the Christian age, Bellarmine, attacked all that new knowledge.

As I say, knowledge of the heavens in Europe declined steadily during the Christian era. Skeptics set it back on track, and 1600 was the turning point.

All that is true whatever I may think of Christianity.

Yeah, all the stuff about navigation and domestication applies up until around 800 and then the astronomy stuff until 1600. Get your hysterias right, jd.

1600 was also just after Davis invented the backstaff, at which point European celestial navigators finally caught up the Arabs, who had been using a credit card on a string -- a superior instrument to the backstaff -- for at least 800 years by then.

The European celestial navigators didn't come up with a superior instrument until the octant, early 1700s.

Which would explain why Arabic is spoken nowhere in the Western hemisphere?

You wanna know the real reason Europe briefly took over the world, Orrin?

It had nothing to do with morality, organization or private property rights. It had to do with technology and just one small piece of that: the European sailing ship developed into an unsophisticated (compared to everywhere else) slug that was unsafe and unweatherly but made a superb gun platform.

The secret to exploring is not navigation. Any idiot can run into an island, they're all over the place. The secret to successful exploring is to be able to shoot your way back out.

The Chinese, who got farther earlier, didn't have good gun platforms, so they had to substitute infantry for cannon. The expedition to East Africa required 8,000 infantry. Even the emperor of China couldn't afford that, so they quit.

The Bugis, the Arabs, the Polynesians, the Melanesians and the Chinese all had better sailing vessels than the Europeans.

Harry:

Close. The secret is to be ambitious.

Darnnit Harry. There you go again, clouding the issue with facts.