Dama Ali is a volcanic island at approximately 11. 5°N, 41. 1°E in the Afar Depression. This paper assembles three independent lines of evidence for identifying Dama Ali as a significant observation site for the early Afar astronomical tradition. First, morphological: the island's three principal volcanic peaks present a three-summit silhouette whose directional geometry corresponds to the Orion belt stars as seen from this latitude, with the belt's diagonal pointing toward Sirius's ESE heliacal rising. Second, astronomical: Dama Ali lies within the identity latitude band where the condition |δSirius| + φ = δₛtandstill holds to within approximately 1. 5° at the current epoch. Third, palaeoclimatological: AHP lake-level reconstructions indicate Dama Ali was surrounded by open water during the tradition's development period. These three convergent properties support the hypothesis that Dama Ali was a primary observation site for the tradition whose astronomical constants appear encoded in monuments worldwide.
Diogo Azevedo Oliveira Sennfelt (2026) studied this question.