It is technically feasible to prevent future impacts by altering the orbits of threatening objects. Unfortunately, there is little widespread support for such an Earth Defence Initiative (EDI) due, in part, to the general belief that humanity has not, in the past, been harmed by impact events.
Archaeologists can play a key role in justifying an EDI by digging in to set the record straight.
Though gaining a detailed understanding of the effects such episodic impacts had on humanity will take some time, incorporating recent astronomical evidence can provide immediate boons to our comprehension of past cultures.
The bird-comet connection is even more obvious in the Jamva-khanda Nirmana Parva of the MAHABHARATA which describes a fierce fowl with but one wing, one eye, and one leg, hovering in the night sky. As this bird "screams" and "vomits blood":
All the quarters of the earth, being overwhelmed by showers of dust, look inauspicious. Fierce clouds, portentous of danger, drop bloody showers during the night. Rahu of fierce deeds is also, O monarch, afflicting the constellation Kirtika. Rough winds, portending fierce danger, are constantly blowing.
The mention of Rahu, the demon of eclipse, which originally had four arms and a tail that was severed by Vishnu to become Ketu (comet) is interesting in that the demon is here darkening Kirttika (the Pleiades) in the month of Karttika (latter half of October, through mid November), for the tale goes on to relate that:
. . . in course of the same month both the Moon and the Sun have undergone eclipses on the thirteenth days from the day of the first lunation. The Sun and the Moon therefore, by undergoing eclipses on unusual days, will cause a great slaughter of the creatures of the earth. Meteors, effulgent like Indra's thunder-bolt, fall with loud hisses . . . People, for meeting together, coming out of their houses with lighted brands, have still to encounter a thick gloom all round . . . From the mountains of Kailasa and Mandara and Himavat thousands of explosions are heard and thousands of summits are tumbling down . . . Fierce winds charged with pointed pebbles are blowing, crushing mighty trees. In villages and towns trees, ordinary and sacred, are falling down, crushed by mighty winds and struck by lightning.
This is, without doubt, a mythological record of an intense meteor storm from the still active Taurid stream which presently peaks around the first of November and appears to radiate from near the Pleiades star cluster. The un-airworthy bird associated with this meteor bombardment could have been comet Encke which until recently was thought to be the sole source for the Taurid meteors. However, the discovery of other large contributors which are now dark but were once active comets rules out a positive identification.
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Another interesting aspect of this folk memory which might shed some light on why the rolling cross motif is linked to birds is the image of a one-legged fowl. This is also a characteristic of the Chinese divine pheasant which was closely associated with the fabulous, lame, raven-beak-nosed emperor, Yu, who could transform himself into this pheasant or a bear. One of Yu's enemies, the Owl, who invented thunder and lightening was also one-footed. [Lonsdale, S. 1982, Barnard, N. 1972, 1973] |
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In a less artificial environ animal tracks speak strongly to people
and convey much about the creature which left them. Thus a bear, bird or
any animal which made impressions on the ground could be symbolically represented
in total by drawing these marks. I suggest that the jetting comet, to some
cultures, looked like a bird's foot and, as a motif,
represented a divine fowl. This can explain why the not very bird-like
drawing on the Han silk is captioned as a pheasant star. Chinese lore upholds
such an interpretation as Ts'ang Chieh, the four eyed legendary inventor
of writing, derived his inspiration to create written symbols from noticing
the marks of birds' feet in the sand. His ancient style is known as niao
chiwen--"bird foot-prints writing." [MacCulloch, C.J.A. 1928]
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 Symbolic
bird tracks, unrecognized as such, appear on objects unearthed by Heinrich
Schliemann from Hissarlik in Asia Minor. Artifactual support for this
contention comes from petroglyphs found in the south-western United States
which Pueblo people identify as roadrunner (a type of cuckoo) tracks and
identical renderings
found by Schliemann. [Morphy, H. 1989] The close association of these two
distinctive crosses on artifacts from Schliemann's Troy could be considered
coincidental and not necessarily avion-inspired were they found out of
context, however, in Schliemann's words: |
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Owls, like cuckoos, have zygodactylous or semizygodactylous (outer toe reversible) feet. Obviously these "Trojans" had an elaborate belief system which focused on the activities of a non-terrestrial bird of the night. With this in mind, a re-examination of artifacts recovered from Hissarlik could be quite revealing. |
Another aspect of comets which is evident in ancient lore involves shape shifting. A comet is three dimensional and could appear as quite a different animal when viewed from a different angle. For instance, allowing that a foot-print signifies the creature, the fabled ability of Yu (mentioned above) to transform into a pheasant or bear can be easily understood as a radial view distinguished from an axial view of the same comet.
Comets can also change spontaneously; a gas emitting area could become dust covered and extinguish a jet, a piece of the comet could break away, creating another comet, perhaps initially more flamboyant than its parent. Our ancestors' stories speak of these weakening gods and fantastic births; however, until now, our ears heard only gibberish.
Another motif which is found around the world is the concentric circle. Astronomers, with the aid of a telescope, have reported, and drawn pictures of, comets which exhibit concentric rings, so it is likely that some of these ancient renderings, often pecked in stone, represent comets. There is, however, probably another phenomenon more often represented by these ancient bull's-eyes--a bolide storm.
Fred Whipple, the astronomer who theorized in 1950 the now proven structure of comets, calculates that the night time Taurids have been a feature for 5,000 years. It now takes Earth about three months (mid-September to mid-December) to traverse this band of debris. Earlier in its history, as the progenitor of comet Encke was creating it, this debris ring had to have been more dense. As Earth passed through the mess, it no doubt collected a considerable amount of dust. The night time Taurids are known for frequent bolide activity. Large, vaporizing meteoroids (bolides) in an atmosphere loaded with comet dust will produce unusual visual effects. Refraction, reflection, and possibly secondary emission come into play as a sizable object splashes into an aerosol laden atmosphere compressing molecules of gas against motes of dust in its bow-shock wave until--BOOM -- the object vaporizes, illuminating the multiple layers of compression separated gas and debris. From the ground this might look as if a god threw a pebble in the sky pond. Quite likely a large sector of the sky would be filled with such phenomena. Though the intensity would vary from year to year our ancestors, no doubt, expected a rather disconcerting light show on an annual basis.
Striking evidence for this contention comes from well-preserved Neolithic observatories in Ireland. Martin Brennan (1983), who spent over a decade investigating these structures, published a wonderful documentation of their features. Though he assumes them to be a product of solar worship, his research is thorough and includes mythological references to these megalithic works--most intriguing from the standpoint of this discussion is Tara. Brennan states that:
Tara lies 10 miles southwest of Newgrange and, like Newgrange, it is steeped in ancient myth and tradition. It has always been associated with Samhain, the Celtic observance of the year's turning in November, and this event is well documented. Mythologically, the mound also has associations with the Tuatha De Danann, or the "Lords of Light." They arrive from the air and cast a darkness over the sun for three days.
This neolithic observatory is aligned, according to Brennan, to cross-quarter days November 8 and February 4. The carved stone within this megalithic structure depicts concentric circles similar to the earth works evident in the aerial photograph of Tara shown.
Incorporating astronomical evidence of a recent giant short period comet into our attempt to understand past cultures is essential for an objective interpretation.
Bobk 91
Armstrong, Edward A. (Ed.) THE FOLKLORE OF BIRDS. Dover Publications, Inc. NY, 1970.
Baillie, M.G.L. & Munro, M.A.R. "Irish tree rings, Santorini and volcanic dust veils." NATURE vol. 332 24 March 1988 (pp. 344-346).
Barnard, Noel (Ed.) EARLY CHINESE ART AND ITS POSSIBLE INFLUENCE IN THE PACIFIC BASIN. vol. 1 Intercultural Arts Press, NY, 1972 (pp. 118-121, 150-151).
Barnard, Noel. THE CHU SILK MANUSCRIPT (Translation and Commentary, part 2) Australian National University, Canberra, 1973 (pp. 122-156).
Bate, H.N. THE SIBYLLINE ORACLES Books III-V MacMillan Company, NY 1918 (p. 107).
Bjorkman, J.K., "Meteor and Meteorites in the Ancient Near East" METEORITICS 1973 vol. 8, (pp. 91-132).
Brennan, Martin. THE STARS AND THE STONES. Thames and Hudson Inc., NY 1984 (pp. 14-15, 120-121).
Charlesworth, James H. OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA (vol 1) Doubleday, Garden City, NY 1983 (p. 400).
Clube, Victor and Napier, Bill. THE COSMIC WINTER Basil Blackwell, Inc. Cambridge MA 1990.
Dioszegi, V. POPULAR BELIEFS AND FOLKLORE TRADITION IN SIBERIA (English translation by Dunn, S.P.) Indiana University,Bloomington, 1968 (pp. 485-496).
Kobres, Bob. "Meteor Defense" WHOLE EARTH REVIEW No. 56 Fall 1987 (pp. 70-73).
Legge, James. THE CHINESE CLASSICS (vol. 3) Hong Kong Univ. Press, Hong King 1960 (p. 125).
Lonsdale, Steven. ANIMALS AND THE ORIGINS OF DANCE, Thames and Hudson Inc., NY, 1982 (pp. 169-181).
MacCulloch, C.J.A. Canon, John A. (Ed.) MYTHOLOGY OF ALL RACES. vol. 8 ("Chinese Mythology" Ferguson, John C.) Marshall Jones Co. Boston, MA 1928 (p. 31).
Morphy, Howard (Ed.). Animals into Art (ONE WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY; vol. 7) Unwin Gyman Ltd., London, 1989 (chapt. 11 Schaafsma, Polly).
O'Neil, W.M. TIME AND THE CALENDARS. Sydney Univ. Press, Sydney 1975.
Roy, Pratap Chandra. THE MAHABHARATA MUNSHIRAM MANOHARLAL, New Delhi, 1973 (vol. 1 section 13-58, vol. 5 section 2-3)
Schliemann, Henry. ILIOS Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, NY, 1881 (pp. 334-353).
Taran, Leonardo. ACADEMICA: PLATO, PHILIP OF OPUS, AND THE PSEUDO-PLATONIC EPINOMIS American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA, 1975 (p. 294).
Whipple, Fred L. THE MYSTERY OF COMETS Smithsonian Inst. Press, Washington, DC 1985, (pp. 163-167).
Important
in understanding ancient oriental lore is learning that this motif was
associated with the pheasant (divine bird in China) which is frequently
mentioned in the Chinese classics. The link between the spinning cross
and birds is evident on artifacts from many cultures. Perhaps the association
of the Sanskrit term "svastika" with this symbol can be linked
to the Astika Parva in the MAHABHARATA which relates the birth of a cosmic
bird 
In treating now
of the various kinds of potteryof this third city, I begin with the
owl-faced 
