神农与大火──史前华夏的天文故事(待续)

Shennong and the Big Fire──a story of astronomy in prehistoric China

神农是华夏文明史前期的一位半人半神始祖。神农氏以火德王，被后世尊号为炎帝，早于轩辕黄帝。神农时期在天文方面已奉祀大火。神农炎帝与大火，应为天文、人文始祖或文明萌始的标志。据今约在12000～25000年前。史前期的考古实践表明，学界对前人活动能量估计偏低，因而，对史前文化与文明突破性进展或发现，仍是有希望的。

Shennong was the first ancestor of semi - human and semi - god in the Perhistoric civiza-tion of China. Shennong was supported as the Emperor for his fire of benevolence of fire, respected asYandi(Emperor Yan) by his later generations (“炎” means scorching or blazing hot), earier than Xu-anyuan Emperor Huang). Since the time of Shennong, fire had already been worshipped for astronomy,That was about 12000 ~ 25 000 years ago. Therefore, Shennong and the big fire nought to the embryonicsymboc of astronomy and civilization. The archaeological studies of prehistoric Period show that the capa-bility evaluatiom of our ancestors by the academic circleds was on the low side. For this reason , it must behopeful to make a breakthrough progress or discovery in the Perhistoric culture or civilization.