The Pleiades and The Ancient Andean Weather Forecasting

Andean people today had been wise enough to keep the knowledge from their ancestors. As we know, agriculture was very important for the Incas and Pre-Columbian civilizations and for that reason, the ability to predict the weather was fundamental.

Toward the end of every June, indigenous farmers in the high Andes of Bolivia and Peru look to the stars for a hint of what the weather holds six months down the road. If the 11-star constellation known as the Pleiades appears bright and clear in the pre-dawn sky, they anticipate early, abundant rains and a bountiful potato crop. If the stars appear dim, however, they expect a smaller harvest and delay planting in order to reduce the adverse impact of late and meager precipitation.

How did they learn that?....I don't know, but it seems to be more than just folklore.

In a paper published in the Jan. 6 issue of Nature, a team of scientists from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory examine this centuries-old practice to reveal the science behind the folklore. Not only does the technique work reasonably well, it turns out that the farmers have in effect been forecasting El Niño for at least 400 years, a capability modern science achieved less than 20 years ago.

"It's actually quite a brilliant scheme," Lamont-Doherty climate researcher and co-author Mark Cane said. "The method involves a great deal of nuance. I still wonder how they possibly worked it out. It's really quite a feat."

This is how it works (more or less) :



Please scroll next pic :



I didn't check if this information was already posted here, but I'm sure many foks here didn't know about it.

www.columbia.edu...
www.des.ucdavis.edu...
www.nature.com...
www.fertur-travel.com...

Great thread, thank you for posting!

It is a great imagination tickler and the links you provided are a great jumping off point.

S&F

I have always had an interest in the Pleiades star cluster. I have seen this map before. What is weird is that I think I saw it in another life. I have the strangest dreams sometimes. I will share one day what they are. Ever noticed that the Pleiades resembles a brain? I haven't figured out how to do things on this site yet. I am new. I saw your topic and decided to jump in. Thanks for sharing.

reply to post by mcx1942


If this is a 400 or so year old tradition, I would assume they had centuries to observe the stars and come to this conclusion.

I can imagine a group of people like us here at ATS back 500-600 years ago sitting around chewing peyote and looking at the stars...

"Those stars are so much dimmer than last year, and I think a few are missing!" (And hence the first UFO conspiracy was born...)

When they notice the crappy rain season and harvest the next year, I'm sure it wouldn't take many times for then to link it together.

They didn't have iPads, PC's, TVs, etc. I'm sure they paid more attention to their natural surroundings back then (and still do today, more than Americans anyways).

Anyone else just get the urge to go look at the sky?

reply to post by Trueman



SnF
LOVE LIGHT ETERNIA*******
NAMASTE

Absolutely amazing.

I am in sheer awe that the correlation was made between the weather and the apparent magnitude of Pleiades considering the times between el nino seasons can vary somewhat.

Does this mean that all the reports that the Native American link to Pleiades E.T.'s and star travellers was due to translation errors and the natives were in fact referring to something scientific and incredibly important to farmers in their area?

du dum dumb

S&F Excellent thread, thanks for posting.

reply to post by Trueman


Fascinating and enlightening material.. s & F

Nice find, and no, it hasn't been discussed here before!

I was a tad skeptical about the first lines, but when I got down to the "forecast the weather six months ahead of time", the brain went "AHA! El Nino!"...and I was pleased to see that my guess turned out right. It's not doable in other locations, but at such a high-altitude observation area, atmospheric density could dramatically change what you see.

I'm actually putting this to test... (i'm not a farmer)


Thanks

Who knows which other answers to our daily problems are written in the sky.

Originally posted by voyger2
I'm actually putting this to test...

(i'm not a farmer)

Thanks

edit on 4-1-2013 by voyger2 because: (no reason given)

It's only going to work if you can get to a high enough mountain and away from light and air pollution from cities and towns. And cars.

Check out DarkSky.org (www.darksky.org...) to see why it may not be possible to replicate this in many places today.

Very cool thread, thanks for posting! It amazes me just how in tune our ancients were, especially when you think of how you were taught about them back in school. You know, simple hunter/gathers many sacraficed themselves out of fear of the gods wrath, etc, etc. I have been giving this topic much thought as of late.

Recently (I believe on 12/21) H2 premiered a new show ?"America Unearthed"? perhaps I should google the title... Yes that is the correct title.

Anyway S1-EP1 was on the Mayan mystery of where 3mil Mayan disappeared to. Anyways, he researched a location in Georgia that has traces of Maya as well I believe in Miami (Mia-mi) and out west. After watching the episode something caught my attention. The cobblestone walls looked eerily similar to an old graveyard here in NE Pennsylvania. Just a 3 minute walk from the beach of the largest man-made lake in the state Lake Wallenpaupack sits a graveyard that I had visited once. What struck me initially was the set up, I couldn't help but feel that the gravestones themselves came long after the cobblestone wall was built. So I was already thinking that it was the site of an old Native American reservation. Whats interesting about these gravestones is that date back all the way to 1802 and even older but many of the older stones are worn and can't determine the age. If settlers didn't settle in this area until around 1775 that makes this site one of the first graveyards in the area for settlers!

So the documentary had me thinking....if there is clear evidence that the Maya travelled north to Georgia then what stopped them from going further. When I begam researching local Native American tribes one stood out. The Shwanee seem to be the only tribe in this region familiar with metallurgy so it begs the question: Where did they come about this knowledge whilst the other local tribes did not?

There was also research done at the Earthworks in Ohio by the Hopwell Indians that have a striking similarity to the Maya. In fact their site is aligned with the Sun and Moon measurements as it is with the solstices.

Hopefully in early March I'll take a trip to Lake Wallenpaupack and take so photos of the site to share here on ATS.

reply to post by masta12d


Well the Mayan tribes didn't 'disappear' they are still there, over time the cities were abandoned for a number of reasons the last one was taken by the Spanish in 1697.

Georgia - only if you stretch the data extremely and cherry pick a bit. the Maya did do trade but...

Have you hear of the western Cuba oddity?

And I noticed jupiter is steaming strait at the 7 sisters.....looks like it will go right smack over them....2-4 months from now....not sure

Originally posted by Byrd

Originally posted by voyger2
I'm actually putting this to test...

(i'm not a farmer)

Thanks

edit on 4-1-2013 by voyger2 because: (no reason given)

It's only going to work if you can get to a high enough mountain and away from light and air pollution from cities and towns. And cars.

Check out DarkSky.org (www.darksky.org...) to see why it may not be possible to replicate this in many places today.

thanks

Originally posted by GBP/JPY
And I noticed jupiter is steaming strait at the 7 sisters.....looks like it will go right smack over them....2-4 months from now....not sure

Look at the "neet" alignment for my location (North of Portugal) in 2013/5/16, local time, 20:30 (sunset).

Sun - Jup - Ven - Mer and just litle bit aside .. the moon



It will be a nice set