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Duane W. Hamacher

Publications and source records attributed to Duane W. Hamacher.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2022

Perceptual grouping explains constellations across cultures

Cultures around the world organise stars into constellations, or asterisms, and these groupings are often considered to be arbitrary and culture-specific. Yet there are striking similarities in asterisms across cultures, and groupings such as Orion, the Big Dipper, the Pleiades and the Southern Cross are widely recognized across many different cultures. Psychologists have informally suggested that these shared patterns are explained by Gestalt laws of grouping, but there have been no systematic attempts to catalog asterisms that recur across cultures or to explain the perceptual basis of these groupings. Here we compile data from 27 cultures around the world and show that a simple computational model of perceptual grouping accounts for many of the recurring cross-cultural asterisms. Our results suggest that basic perceptual principles account for more of the structure of asterisms across cultures than previously acknowledged and highlight ways in which specific cultures depart from this shared baseline.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2020

Solstice and Solar Position observations in Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander traditions

A major focus of the archaeoastronomical research conducted around the world focuses on understanding how ancient cultures observed sunrise and sunset points along the horizon, particularly at the solstices and equinoxes. Scholars argue that observations of these solar points are useful for developing calendars, informing ritual/ceremonial practices, and predicting seasonal change. This is the foundation of the Eurocentric four-season Julian (and later Gregorian) calendar. Famous examples include Stonehenge, Newgrange, Chichen Itza, and Chankillo. Studies at these and other sites tend to focus on solar point observations through alignments in stone arrangements, and the orientations of monuments. Despite the ongoing study of Indigenous Knowledge in Australia revealing a wealth of information about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander observations and interpretations of solar, lunar, and stellar properties and motions, very little has been published about the importance and use of solar point observations. The authors examine this topic through four case studies, based on methodological frameworks and approaches in ethnography, ethnohistory, archaeology, and statistics. Our findings show that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people observe the solstices and other significant sunrise/sunset points along the horizon for timekeeping and indicating seasonal change - but in ways that are rather different to the four-season model developed in Western Europe.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2020

Whitening the Sky: light pollution as a form of cultural genocide

Light pollution is actively destroying our ability to see the stars. Many Indigenous traditions and knowledge systems around the world are based on the stars, and the peoples' ability to observe and interpret stellar positions and properties is of critical importance for daily life and cultural continuity. The erasure of the night sky acts to erase Indigenous connection to the stars, acting as a form of ongoing cultural and ecological genocide. Efforts to reduce, minimise, or eliminate light pollution are being achieved with varying degrees of success, but urban expansion, poor lighting design, and the increased use of blue-light emitting LEDs as a cost-effective solution is worsening problems related to human health, wildlife, and astronomical heritage for the benefit of capitalistic economic growth. We provide a brief overview of the issue, illustrating some of the important connections that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia maintain with the stars, as well as the impact growing light pollution has on this ancient knowledge. We propose a transdisciplinary approach to solving these issues, using a foundation based on Indigenous philosophies and decolonising methodologies.

physics.pop-ph↗
arXiv2019

Indigenous use of stellar scintillation to predict weather and seasonal change

Indigenous peoples across the world observe the motions and positions of stars to develop seasonal calendars. Additionally, changing properties of stars, such as their brightness and colour, are also used for predicting weather. Combining archival studies with ethnographic fieldwork in Australia's Torres Strait, we explore the various ways Indigenous peoples utilise stellar scintillation (twinkling) as an indicator for predicting weather and seasonal change, discussing the scientific underpinnings of this knowledge. By observing subtle changes in the ways the stars twinkle, Meriam people gauge changing trade winds, approaching wet weather, and temperature changes. We then explore how the Northern Dene of Arctic North America utilise stellar scintillation to forecast weather.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2018

Death and Maier: meteors and mortuary rites in the eastern Torres Strait (Eud kerker: na korep maierira asmer opged Torres Straitge)

English: To the Meriam Mir people of Mer (Murray Island) in the eastern Torres Strait, bright meteors are an important element of death customs and beliefs. We draw from a combination of ethno-historic studies and interviews with Meriam elders to understand the role of bright meteors (Maier) in Torres Strait traditions relating to spiritual elements of death rites using a framework of symbolic anthropology. We find that bright meteors serve as symbolic representations of death and mortuary purification practices and show how the physical properties of meteors are incorporated in ritual, belief, spirituality, and custom. Meriam Mir: Meriamgize maier oditautlare nade eud onagri a mokakalam eud kerker. Kemerkemer daratkapda kikem kerkerira pardar, dorge a oka nako Torres Straitge eud tonar bud ueplare. Debe bibi maieride onatager eud ia onagri a nalu tonar able maierira seri/kakaper a dum able tonar umerem a simir akedrem.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2018

Twin Suns in Australian Aboriginal Traditions

The oral traditions of Aboriginal cultures across Australia contain references to the presence of multiple Suns in the sky at the same time. Explanations of this have been largely regarded as symbolic or mythological, rather than observations of natural phenomena. In this paper, we examine oral traditions describing multiple Suns and analyse interpretations that could explain them. Our analysis of the oral traditions concludes that descriptions of multiple Suns fall into two main categories: one describing the changes in the path of the Sun throughout the year, and the other describing observations of parhelia, an atmospheric phenomenon known as 'Sun dogs' that creates an optical illusion of multiple Suns in the sky at once. This analysis shows how Aboriginal people pay close attention to natural phenomena, assign them social meaning, and incorporate them into oral tradition.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2018

The Planets in Indigenous Australian Traditions

Studies in Australian Indigenous astronomical knowledge reveal few accounts of the visible planets in the sky. However, what information we do have tells us that Aboriginal people were close observers of planets and their motions, noting the relative brightness of the planets, their motions along the ecliptic, retrograde motion, the relationship between Venus and its proximity to the Sun, Venus' connection to the Sun through zodiacal light, and the synodic cycle of Venus, particularly as it transitions from the Evening Star to the Morning Star. The dearth of descriptions of planets in Aboriginal traditions may be due to the gross incompleteness of recorded astronomical traditions, and of ethnographic bias and misidentification in the anthropological record. Ethnographic fieldwork with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities is revealing new, previously unrecorded knowledge about the planets and their related phenomena.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2017

Observations of red-giant variable stars by Aboriginal Australians

Aboriginal Australians carefully observe the properties and positions of stars, including both overt and subtle changes in their brightness, for subsistence and social application. These observations are encoded in oral tradition. I examine two Aboriginal oral traditions from South Australia that describe the periodic changing brightness in three pulsating, red-giant variable stars: Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri), and Antares (Alpha Scorpii). The Australian Aboriginal accounts stand as the only known descriptions of pulsating variable stars in any Indigenous oral tradition in the world. Researchers examining these oral traditions over the last century, including anthropologists and astronomers, missed the description of these stars as being variable in nature as the ethnographic record contained several misidentifications of stars and celestial objects. Arguably, ethnographers working on Indigenous Knowledge Systems should have academic training in both the natural and social sciences.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2016

Reconstructing the Star Knowledge of Aboriginal Tasmanians

The canopy of stars is a central presence in the daily and spiritual lives of Aboriginal Tasmanians. With the arrival of European colonists, Tasmanian astronomical knowledge and traditions were interrupted and dispersed. Fragments can be found scattered in the ethnographic and historical record throughout the nineteenth century. We draw from ethnohistorical documents to analyse and reconstruct Aboriginal astronomical knowledge in Tasmania. This analysis demonstrates that stars, the Milky Way, constellations, dark nebula, the Sun, Moon, meteors, and aurorae held cultural, spiritual, and subsistence significance within the Aboriginal cultures of Tasmania. We move beyond a monolithic view of Aboriginal astronomical knowledge in Tasmania, commonly portrayed in previous research, to lay the groundwork for future ethnographic and archaeological fieldwork with Aboriginal elders and communities.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2016

"Dancing with the stars" - astronomy and music in the Torres Strait

Song and dance are a traditional means of strengthening culture and passing knowledge to successive generations in the Torres Strait of northeastern Australia. Dances incorporate a range of apparatuses to enhance the performance, such as dance machines (Zamiyakal) and headdresses (Dhari). The dances, songs, headdresses and dance machines work together to transfer important knowledge about subsistence survival, social structure, and cultural continuity. This paper explores how celestial phenomena inspire and inform music and dance.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2016

Aboriginal Astronomical Traditions from Ooldea, South Australia, Part 2: Animals in the Ooldean Sky

Australian Indigenous astronomical traditions hint at a relationship between animals in the skyworld and the behaviour patterns of their terrestrial counterparts. In our continued study of Aboriginal astronomical traditions from the Great Victoria Desert, South Australia, we investigate the relationship between animal behaviour and stellar positions. We develop a methodology to test the hypothesis that the behaviour of these animals is predicted by the positions of their celestial counterparts at particular times of the day. Of the twelve animals identified in the Ooldean sky, the nine stellar (i.e. non-planet or non-galactic) associations were analysed and each demonstrated a close connection between animal behaviour and stellar positions. We suggest that this may be a recurring theme in Aboriginal astronomical traditions, requiring further development of the methodology.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2015

Fire in the sky: The southern lights in Indigenous oral traditions

Parts of Australia have been privileged to see dazzling lights in the night sky as the Aurora Australis (known as the southern lights) puts on a show this year. Aurorae are significant in Australian Indigenous astronomical traditions. Aboriginal people associate aurorae with fire, death, blood, and omens, sharing many similarities with Native American communities.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2015

Identifying seasonal stars in Kaurna astronomical traditions

Early ethnographers and missionaries recorded Aboriginal languages and oral traditions across Australia. Their general lack of astronomical training resulted in misidentifications, transcription errors, and omissions in these records. Additionally, many of these early records are fragmented. In western Victoria and southeast South Australia, many astronomical traditions were recorded, but curiously, some of the brightest stars in the sky were omitted. Scholars claimed these stars did not feature in Aboriginal traditions. This under-representation continues to be repeated in the literature, but current research shows that some of these stars may in fact feature in Aboriginal traditions and could be seasonal calendar markers. This paper uses established techniques in cultural astronomy to identify seasonal stars in the traditions of the Kaurna Aboriginal people of the Adelaide Plains, South Australia.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2015

Recorded Accounts of Meteoritic Events in the Oral Traditions of Indigenous Australians

Descriptions of natural events, such as fireballs and meteorite impacts, are found within Indigenous Australian oral traditions. Studies of oral traditions demonstrate that they extend beyond the realm of myth and legend; they contain structured knowledge about the natural world (science) as well as historic accounts of natural events and geo-hazards. These traditions could lead to the discovery of meteorites and impact sites previously unknown to Western science. In addition to benefiting the scientific study of meteoritics, this study can help social scientists better understand the nature and longevity of oral traditions and further support the growing body of evidence that oral traditions contain historical accounts of natural events. In a previous study led by the author in 2009, no meteorite-related oral traditions were identified that led to the discovery of meteorites and/or impact craters. This paper challenges those initial findings.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2014

Stories from the Sky: Astronomy in Indigenous Knowledge

Indigenous Australian practices, developed and honed over thousands of years, weave science with storytelling. In this Indigenous science series, we'll look at different aspects of First Australians' traditional life and uncover the knowledge behind them - starting today with astronomy.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2014

A shark in the stars: astronomy and culture in the Torres Strait

Technology has, without doubt, expanded our understanding of space. The Voyager 1 space probe is on the brink of leaving our solar system. Massive telescopes have discovered blasts of fast radio bursts from 10 billion light years away. And after a decade on Mars, a Rover recently found evidence for an early ocean on the Red Planet. But with every new advance, it's also important to remember the science of astronomy has existed for thousands of years and forms a vital part of Indigenous Australian culture, even today. As an example, let's explore the astronomy of the Torres Strait Islanders, an Indigenous Australian people living between the tip of Cape York and Papua New Guinea.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2014

Comet and Meteorite Traditions of Aboriginal Australians

Of the hundreds of distinct Aboriginal cultures of Australia, many have oral traditions rich in descriptions and explanations of comets, meteors, meteorites, airbursts, impact events, and impact craters. These views generally attribute these phenomena to spirits, death, and bad omens. There are also many traditions that describe the formation of meteorite craters as well as impact events that are not known to Western science.

physics.hist-ph↗