Our Oldest Beliefs

 Many people still believe in horoscopes and astrology .... 

Early Jewish Zodiac - Same The Babylonian Zodiac.

..... they may even believe that the stars under which they were born influence their lives on a daily basis.

These days probably the most of us (Muslims excepted, as astrology is haram (forbidden) in Islam), would consider horoscopes to be harmless fun, which if truth be told are rarely right except in hindsight, when by sheer chance one of the daily forecasts seems to have some relation the day you have have just had. But obviously not to everyone else in the 12th of the population who would share your star birth sign. I by the way am a Sagittarius.

But of course the interest in the stars seems to be one of the first proto-religious events in mankind's intellectual wonder at his place the the universe. So while Astrology was being developed, so was Astronomy. One aided in the birth of religion, the other was the first science and used for setting planting days, counting the days and setting a calendar.

So how old are these two interests in mankind .... well at least 16,000 years (and probably long before even that date). I can date this because human made star maps have been found at least that age, and probably were made by others before then. 

The Earliest Astronomy And Astrology Map

For instance, the famous painted caves at Lascaux in central France, show what is interpreted by many anthropologists and archaeologists as the Pleiades star cluster (aka the Seven Sisters), as well as showing three bright stars known today as the Summer Triangle in another more interpretive view of another image in the system.

Summer Triangle Or Fertility Symbol?

Painted on to one wall of the shaft leading down into the cave system is a bull, a strange bird-man and a mysterious bird on a stick. According to some theories these outlines form a map of the sky with the eyes of the bull, bird-man and bird representing the three prominent stars Vega, Deneb and Altair aka the summer triangle. However others have suggested the image has other meanings.

The 'star maps', are thought to date back 16,500 years, and are one of the earliest star  maps ever found. Interestingly as well as being an early astronomy map, it also may be the earliest astrology map with the possibility that this is also the first representation of the Taurus constellation being associated with the figure of the bull.

So, if the dots are being correctly interpreted, then the maps maybe showing mankind's earliest science and the birth of the first polytheistic religions based on the gods and the star constellations.