If you were a caveman and saw an eclipse, what would you think was happening?

It's highly likely ancient people would be very well spoken, given they had to talk and convince each other of things all the time. Also most of their recreation would have involved talking to some degree or another.

So I would probably do a poetry sesh about how this fucking bonkers terrifying and um could the sun come back please?

idk. Some people in historical eras could predict them pretty well. A bunch of old monuments and big rocks are designed to line up with different astronomical dates. Maybe people thought it was super weird and scary, or maybe they were just like "Huh, I guess moon just passed over the sun. Wild. Hey grandpa you know any stories about this?"

I'm sure it was shocking and frightening if you didn't know it could happen.

I didn't see it i was in cave watching rock

The Rock is truly the greatest entertainer of all time

Ancient people weren't stupid though. Sure there would be those who thought the world was ending, but we have a lot of evidence that people attempted to understand these phenomena to the best of their abilities. For example, one of the leading theories on the purpose of Stonehenge was that it was an observatory designed to predict eclipses. As for me, I'd probably start worshiping the sun after the eclipse is finished so that it wouldn't go away again, then start building Stonehenge of course hahahaha.

leading theories on the purpose of Stonehenge was that it was an observatory designed to predict eclipses

Xena taught me that it's the remains of a temple for the cult of Dahak, the One God of Evil.

I guess we doin 🌌 now

If we're talking literal cavemen, like hunter gatherer societies that hadn't really discovered the technology of farming yet, then I'd believe the world was fucking ending for about an hour. Then be like "oh... it didn't... back to figuring out how to not die today."

probably more like 20 mins tbh. it's not that noticeable until very close to totality

but yeah for those 20, sheer panic lol.

Night time early. Grugg sleep now.

Hey, who turned off the lights?

AAUG EYE FIRE HURT

I would assume it was a message from an all powerful god selecting me to be the ruler of the universe. and that I should masturbate more frequently.

so, basically the same as how I interpret one today.

wonder-who-thats-for sure hope i don't get betrayed by the leader of my warrior band in a hellish sacrifice

I legit threw the book across the room.
- extremely valid reaction. there's an old man on tiktok that's been slowly reading it, spoiler free, he's an absolute casca-head, and he is almost to the eclipse. i am genuinely afraid for this stranger's mental health.

I feel like, because you can see the moon moving towards the sun for the hours leading up to the eclipse, and see it moving away from the sun in the hours afterward, you'd be able to put two and two together even if your sense of scale is way off.

Plus there's gonna be institutional knowledge whether you're agricultural or not - eventually you're going to see multiple eclipses, and eventually your tribe will have elders telling kids about them, and eventually someone will think to record when they happen and start being able to predict them.

Oh shit, oh fuck.

A sign from the universe to not touch grass and go back to talking shit on the cave wall forums.

sky butthole

Sky-tse

I'M SORRY I CALLED GLART A GRUMBLEGLORT THEN FARTED IN THEIR BED, I PROMISE I WON'T DO IT AGAIN! BRING THE SUN BACK!

I would have no clue and would start swinging my cave club at whoever was near and hope that violence appeases the gods

immediate religious violence gang

Big Chungus

I would invent an entire religion to explain what's happening

Woah, dude

I'd think the moon went in front of the sun. Then I'd wonder if the sun can go in front of the moon, too.

I'd probably have a pretty bullshit explanation for why this was happening, which was contingent on the beliefs of the society I belonged to. But if that explanation does not allow for the what of what's happening to be "the moon went in front of the sun" then the person who believes that is unrecognizable as being me.

Do you really think that if you witnessed a total solar eclipse without any prior knowledge such a thing could happen that you would realize it was the moon in the way? Personally I don't think I'd have figured that one out, especially if I also lived in a society that didn't know how far away the sun and moon were or even roughly what shape the solar system is. Like if we were in ancient Greece or China or whatever sure, but cavemen? Pre-agriculture? I feel like I'd sooner think the sun just stopped being "on fire" or whatever for a while than assume that the moon was in the way
- You can literally look up in the sky and see the moon and figure out what it's been up to
- Yeah, I'd probably figure both were physical objects, at least as large as mountains, pretty far away. There's no way I'd guess anywhere near the actual enormous sizes and distances. But the rest of the world is made of physical objects, so that would be what I'd expect of the sun and moon. Thinking that way is pretty core to who I am, and I would gravitate towards that even if it made me peculiar in my society, and if it's too far from the bounds of what a person in that society is able to believe then, like I said, that's just not identifiable as me anymore.

I'd think the sun was momentarily being covered by the moon? IDK people back then we're just as smart as us I doubt they would freak out

I went to the totality zone of the solar eclipse and people were giving their little kids the lunar eclipse explanation, saying the earth's shadow was going to cover the moon. People who deliberately came to the event where what was going on was explained countless times got it that wrong. People back then were just as smart as us; not very. The only reason there weren't freak-outs of historical importance is that the whole thing is over before you can organize a cult around it.

The only reason anyone would have any misconception about what an eclipse was was if they didn't go outside and look at the sky regularly. If you looked you'd see that sometimes the moon shows up during the day and that sometimes it manages to pass close to the path of the sun. An eclipse might come as a surprise to people but you'd have to be pretty ignorant to not understand what it was.

There is a misconception about ancient peoples that they were stupid. The human brain hasn't change much in the last half a million years. There were cavemen that were smarter than Einstein. The thing that has changed over the years is our technology to record, access and share information. People today don't have to figure out how to calculate the length of a triangle's hypotenuse because somebody wrote down and shared the formula. That doesn't mean that person who wrote it down figured out "a squared + b squared =c squared." The concept was actually in use 1000 years before Pythagoras. His recording was just the one that got shared the farthest.