In 1963, Gerald Hawkins, an astronomer at Boston University, used an IBM 7090 mainframe to determine that Stonehenge had 24 sun-moon sighting lines laid out in such a complicated pattern that there was no chance of them being random alignments. He argued that the monument could have been used as an analog computer to calculate lunar and solar eclipses among other things [Source: Gerald Hawkins, Stonehenge Decoded, 1965]. Most archaeologists disagreed and said the alignments were used to track the seasons for timing agricultural planting and harvesting.
In 1969, Giorgio de Santillana, Professor of the History of Science at MIT, and Hertha von Dechend, Professor of the History of Science at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, argued that prehistoric astronomers made significant astronomical observations like the precession of the equinoxes and, knowing that civilizations rise and fall, embodied their findings in myths and legends to preserve them. These myths were decoded by each succeeding generation of astronomers through long periods of time until astronomers like Hipparchus in ancient Greece fixed them in writing about 250 BC [Source: Hamlet’s Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth, 1969]. Most archaeologists disagreed and said the authors misunderstood myths and legends.
In 1972, Alexander Marshack, an independent scholar and science writer, hypothesized that Upper Palaeolithic Europeans were using notational and numerical systems to track astronomical phenomena like moon phases some 20,000 years ago [Source: The Roots of Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Man’s First Art, Symbol and Notation, 1972]. Most archaeologists disagreed and said the marks he saw on bones and in cave paintings were merely gaming pieces or random doodling.
In 1974, Derek De Solla Price, a professor of physics at Yale, announced that the Antikythera Mechanism was an analog computer used for astronomical calculations far in advance of what we thought the ancients could do [Source: Gears for the Greeks, 1974]. Most archaeologists disagreed and said it was a toy or at best a one-off fluke.
Recently there has been some confirmation of the earlier studies.
In 1998, the monumental site of Göbekli Tepe (and some 20 related sites) were discovered in SE Turkey. Excavations indicate that the large buildings and megaliths are 12,000 years old and some archaeologists argue they have sun and moon alignments like Stonehenge. These monuments are found in time between the Marshack’s Upper Palaeolithic symbol users and the Hawkins’ Stonehenge builders demonstrating that transmission of knowledge over time was possible as Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend argued [Source: Sweatman, M. B., Representations of calendars and time at Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe support an astronomical interpretation of their symbolism, Time and Mind, 2024: 1–57. doi:10.1080/1751696X.2024.2373876].
In 2016, a metadata study declared that Hawkins was right about Stonehenge all along: the ancient Neolithic megalithic monuments in Europe were in fact analog computers for, among other things, calculating eclipses [Source: Gail Higginbottom, Roger Clay, Origins of Standing Stone Astronomy In Britain: New Quantitative Techniques for the Study of Archaeoastronomy, Journal of Archaeological Science 9, 2016: 249-258].
In 2022, another major metadata analysis showed the Marshack was right about the lunar calendars and notational systems in the European Upper Palaeolithic and that these systems constituted more than a number system, notations, or calendars but were a form of syntactical and grammatical writing. And what is more, they go back as early as 42,000 years ago [Source: B. Bacon, A. Khatiri, J. Palmer, T. Freeth, P. Pettitt & R. Kentridge, An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2022, doi10.1017S0959774322000415].
In 2017, Alexander Jones summarized much of the recent research on the Antikythera Mechanism and concluded that it is an analog computer [Source: A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World, 2017].
I think that scientific observation and learning began long before recorded history and that artifacts and monuments like those mentioned above provide the evidence. Science, mathematics, and engineering have been around for most of the existence of Homo sapiens as we are learning and knowledge was transmitted over the millennia to become the foundations for our modern scientific, industrial, urban civilization. These are fast-developing fields in the history of science and among the most exciting developments I have witnessed during my career.