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Eurasian-American Ethnoastronomic Parallels in the Context of New Data from India
https://doi.org/10.17746/1563-0110.2026.54.3.113-122
Abstract
New folkloric data collected in Maharashtra, India, have changed our views of the ancient ethnoastronomy of South Asia. Previous reconstructions of beliefs about celestial objects were nearly exclusively based on the comparison of data on Northern and Central Eurasia with those on the New World. Motifs relating to Ursa Major , one of the most important constellations in folk astronomy, are described. An attempt is made to assess the relative age of these beliefs by collating data on Eurasia and America. Four routes whereby people had migrated to the New World are reconstructed, one of these being related to the spread of Algonquin ancestors. Rather than being Paleolithic relicts, parallels between Siberia and India were caused by later northern infl uences on South Asian ethnoastronomy.
Keywords
Supporting agencies: This study was carried out under R&D Project of the MAE RAS “Centers of Ethnic and Cultural Genesis and Contact Zones in Eurasia and America in the Final Pleistocene and Holocene (Based on Data from Physical Anthropology, Archaeology, and Ethnology).”
About the Author
Y. E. Berezkin
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Berezkin Y.E., Head of the Department
Universitetskaya nab. 3, St. Petersburg, 199034
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For citations:
Berezkin Y.E. Eurasian-American Ethnoastronomic Parallels in the Context of New Data from India. Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia. 2026;54(3):113-122. https://doi.org/10.17746/1563-0110.2026.54.3.113-122
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