Humans have been observing the sky for thousands of years. Our ancestors were undoubtedly fascinated by it, but observing the heavens also had practical uses: it helped people measure time, both over the course of the day and through the changing seasons, and became especially important with the spread of agriculture. What we now see as scientific frontiers, such as cosmology and astrophysics, are in fact only the latest chapter in an evolving history of observing and interpreting the sky. This is one of the points to emerge from a recent practice insight published in the Journal of Science Communication ( JCOM ). In the study, South African researcher Anton Binneman reflects on around ten years of meetings with elders and knowledge holders from Indigenous communities descended from the San. The work developed in the context of the construction of MeerKAT and the development of SKA-Mid, two telescopes in the South African Karoo, and as part of the environmental and social impact assessment required for these projects. The research highlights that Indigenous and traditional knowledge is not frozen in time, as is sometimes wrongly assumed, but continuously incorporates elements of the contemporary world, including scientific research.
“She threw ashes into the sky and commanded them to become the ‘Milky Way’. She wanted a little light to be made.”(From a |Xam story about the origin of the Milky Way)
“Stories are not frozen in time. Language evolves, the way people relate to the sky changes, and our knowledge of the universe changes too. Indigenous narratives also evolve together with the communities that tell them,” explains Anton Binneman, a specialist in engagement, communication and stakeholder management.
According to Binneman, the radio telescopes in the South African Karoo represent the latest chapter in a much longer history of observing and interpreting the sky. The traditional knowledge of San-descended communities in the area is far from static: it changes over time, incorporating new linguistic, religious and social elements and, today, scientific ones as well.
The construction of the new telescopes, especially SKA-Mid, which forms part of the international SKA Observatory, required an assessment of their environmental and social impact. As part of this process, Binneman investigated the ethnoastronomical knowledge of local communities. To understand what remained of this knowledge and how it had changed over time, workshops were organised in seven locations around the SKA site. They involved around 52 elders and knowledge holders recognised by their communities.
The Bleek and Lloyd archive as an entry point
During the meetings, participants were shown images of celestial objects together with stories drawn from the Bleek and Lloyd archive, which recorded many of these narratives in the late nineteenth century. “We asked the communities: tell us what you see and what stories you know about this object,” Binneman says.
In some cases, almost no memory of the stories remained. In others, the narratives were still recognisable, but had changed. The activities also included evening observations of the sky and, when elders were unable to attend the workshops, home visits and interviews.
“We could not simply use the archive as it was, partly because it is strongly shaped by the beliefs of the white researchers who created it at the time. Instead, it served as a starting point for dialogue with the communities,” Binneman explains.
The findings reveal a highly selective continuity. Knowledge connected to everyday life has remained more vivid than complex cosmological narratives. Venus, for example, is still remembered as boer se horlosie, “the farmer’s clock”, because its appearance marked the beginning and end of daily activities.
In other cases, only fragments have survived. The Milky Way is still called Hemelstraat, “the road in the sky”, but few people now connect it with the story of the girl who threw ashes into the heavens. “Older generations still remember these stories, whereas among younger people they are no longer part of living, practised knowledge,” Binneman observes.
This does not mean, however, that the stories have simply disappeared. “They continue to exist, but their form has adapted in response to colonialism, industrialisation and Westernisation,” Binneman explains.
The “first Astronomers”
This experience led to the development of the Dialogical Knowledge Renewal Model, an approach that does not attempt to recover a supposedly “authentic” tradition. Instead, it brings historical archives, community memory and contemporary science into dialogue, and then returns the results of that process to the local area.
In the Karoo, the project has already contributed to the training of local astronomy guides and to the development of astrotourism. But its impact is also symbolic. Recognising the region’s long history of observing the sky helps communities see the SKA not as the arrival of astronomy in a place where it had never existed, but as a new part of their own history.
“It restores dignity to people,” Binneman concludes. “The first astronomers were not those who built MeerKAT or the SKA.”
Journal of Science Communication
Observational study
People
San ethnoastronomy and cultural memory: reclaiming indigenous cosmologies in the Square Kilometre Array construction area
31-Aug-2026