Journal:Archaeologia Baltica
Volume 10 (2008): Astronomy and Cosmology in Folk Traditions and Cultural Heritage, pp. 62–65
Abstract
Ancient cultures of the northern hemisphere created symbols, myths, and rituals that related deer to certain astronomical phenomena, to cosmological and cosmogonical ideas, and to hunting calendars. From their knowledge of the animal’s appearance, behaviour, and phenology they derived conceptions of power, fertility, creation and renewal, life and death, and psychosomatic transformation during a shamanistic seance.