Precession Issues in Polynesian Archaeoastronomy

IF 0.4 4区 历史学 Q3 ANTHROPOLOGY
D. Goodwin
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

Latitude and azimuth determination were crucial for Polynesian navigators, supplemented by techniques such as observations of swells, birds and expanded landfalls. Longitude could only be determined by dead reckoning. Both latitude and azimuth made extensive use of stars, which alter gradually over the centuries due to precession, the movement in the Earth's axis of spin. Knowledge about the effects of precession can assist scholars in weighting one voyaging date higher than another, or in providing possible reasons why certain voyages took place in a particular era if navigation methods depended on star configurations that were particularly favourable in that era. The influence of precession on stars used for different methods of latitude determination is not intuitive. In this article a graph of the change in declination per century as a function of right ascension is proposed as a way of understanding the influence of precession on different methods of latitude and azimuth determination, and of deducing when and where significant configurations occur.
波利尼西亚考古天文学中的岁差问题
纬度和方位角的测定对波利尼西亚航海家来说是至关重要的,辅以诸如观察海浪、鸟类和扩大的陆地等技术。经度只能通过航位推算来确定。纬度和方位角都广泛使用了恒星,由于岁差(地球自转轴的运动),它们在几个世纪里逐渐改变。关于进差的影响的知识可以帮助学者们确定一个航行日期比另一个日期更重要,或者提供可能的原因,为什么某些航行发生在特定的时代,如果导航方法依赖于那个时代特别有利的恒星结构。不同的纬度测定方法所使用的进动对恒星的影响并不直观。在这篇文章中,我们提出了一个赤经随世纪赤纬变化的曲线图,以此来理解岁差对确定纬度和方位角的不同方法的影响,并推断出重大配置发生的时间和地点。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
1.50
自引率
16.70%
发文量
5
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