First Science

The phrase "the first science" is most commonly understood to refer to astronomy as the oldest empirical science in human history.

Astronomy as the oldest empirical science

Astronomy is widely regarded as the oldest of the natural sciences. Systematic observations of the sky for calendars, seasons, navigation, and ritual purposes predate written records and other formalized disciplines across many ancient cultures.

As noted in a 2020 article from Astronomy magazine: "Initially a cosmic curiosity, the night sky was eventually decoded by ancient peoples, making astronomy one of (if not the) oldest science." The same source adds that "many historians consider astronomy to be the oldest science."

This view is consistent across centuries. In 1980, Nobel laureate in Chemistry Gerhard Herzberg wrote: "Astronomy is the oldest of the sciences. Its history goes back to some of the first civilizations."

A 1999 university tutorial opens with the statement: "Astronomy is the oldest of the sciences."

In 2023, astrophysicist and educator Chris Impey stated: "Astronomy is the oldest science, with connections to development of the most important concepts in physics."

The Wikipedia article on the History of Astronomy summarizes: "Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences... Astronomy was the first science to have a mathematical foundation."

Evidence of early astronomical awareness includes:

• Prehistoric cave art, such as possible star patterns (e.g., dots interpreted as the Pleiades) in the Lascaux caves (~17,000 years old).

The famous aurochs (bull) painting in the Lascaux caves with a cluster of dots above its back, interpreted by some researchers as the Pleiades star cluster.

• Megalithic structures like Stonehenge (c. 3000–2000 BCE), aligned with solar events such as the summer solstice sunrise.

Sunrise at Stonehenge during the summer solstice, illustrating its astronomical alignment.

• The Nebra sky disc (c. 1600 BCE, Central Europe), one of the oldest known depictions of celestial phenomena.

The Nebra sky disc, the oldest concrete depiction of astronomical phenomena known.

• Systematic records from ancient Mesopotamia, including cuneiform tablets tracking planetary movements.

The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, a Babylonian cuneiform record of Venus observations.

Astronomy provided the first mathematical foundations for prediction and was practiced globally long before other sciences emerged.