Abstract
The celestial environment has always played a significant role in the shaping of human culture. Written records spanning thousands of years are replete with examples of the importance of the celestial constants (e.g. the Sun, moon, stars, planets) in the basic ideologies and the everyday lives of peoples around the world. Of equal or greater importance are transient celestial phenomena (e.g. eclipses, meteor storms, asteroids, comets). Because of the infrequency, unpredictability, and often fantastic manifestations that are presented by these transient events, they have been viewed as having much greater import than the much more predictable celestial constants.
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Hartwell, W.T. (2007). The Sky on the Ground: Celestial Objects and Events in Archaeology and Popular Culture. In: Bobrowsky, P.T., Rickman, H. (eds) Comet/Asteroid Impacts and Human Society. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-32711-0_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-32711-0_3
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