Last April Fool's Day, Old European Culture reported that some of his commenters have dubbed him the zodiac killer. Because he'd explained how we got the zodiac; when you understand how the magician does his trick, he's no longer magic.
Once villagers settled down to farm, even before they'd sussed out clay pottery, they needed to figure when to farm. Also what was good for hunting and when. In the Near East, they soon realised that the seasons tracked with which constellation the sun would be rising in, and setting in. They also observed the stars weren't winking in and out, nor changing their positions, over thousands of years (if they waited hundreds of thousands they'd know better).
That meant they needed to divide the sky into sections. To remember which sections, they traced patterns in the sky. And the patterns should be iconic for the time of year it was.
The number the West Eurasians chose, for dividing the sky, was twelve. Ten fingers, two feet. Also twelve divides by two twos and a three; rather than ten's less-handy (heh) two and five.
The mating-seasons of various wildlife were particularly handy: bulls, lions, rams. Maybe crabs and scorpions. The stars advised of when not to mess around with Mama Elk. In choosing the animals they chose for the Zodiac; these villagers presaged the Révolution with their "Brumaire", "Thermidor", "Prairial" months, by icon.
As for north and south of the ecliptic: first, at 40° N, you don't see much of the south, so those star-clusters were also-rans. I take it that bears were associated with the north so that big dipper became boreal Ursus. Why a bear and not a tiger, I won't ask - maybe it was a tiger in some cultures.
Now, the difference between a sidereal year and a seasonal year: that might come to bite them. Hence, I suspect, why the sidereal-friendly Julian calendar dug in as far as it did. I think by the time the farmers noticed, literacy and mathematics were coming through, allowing the City Temple to replace the village wiseman.
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