Journal article
Observations of red-giant variable stars by Aboriginal Australians
DW Hamacher
The Australian Journal of Anthropology | Wiley | Published : 2018
DOI: 10.1111/taja.12257
Abstract
Aboriginal Australians carefully observe the properties and positions of stars, including both overt and subtle changes in their brightness, for subsistence and social application. These observations are encoded in oral tradition. I examine two Aboriginal oral traditions from South Australia that describe the periodic changing brightness in three pulsating, red-giant variable stars: Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri), and Antares (Alpha Scorpii). The Australian Aboriginal accounts stand as the only known descriptions of pulsating variable stars in any Indigenous oral tradition in the world. Researchers examining these oral traditions over the last century, including anthropo..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
I thank Philip Clarke for putting me onto the subject, and Sam Altman, Preston Borgmeyer, Bronwyn Carlson, Brad Carter, Daniel Cotton, Robert Fuller, David Harrington, Jarita Holbrook, Marcus Hughes, Trevor Leaman, Ben McKinley, Javier Mejuto, Mel Miles, Stephen Muecke, Bruce Pascoe, Donald Reid, Jimmy Smith, Corrinne Sullivan, Rose Tasker, Ajinkya Sudhir Umbarkar, and the anonymous referees for critical feedback. This research made use of the Stellarium software package, ViszieR stellar database, TROVE library database, the South Australian Museum archives, the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System, the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AASVO) light curve generator, and the VSNET database. I acknowledge funding from the Australian Research Council (DE140101600) and pay respect to the Aboriginal communities discussed in this paper, recognising their intellectual property and traditions.