Spatial Cognition of Contemporaneous Populations Across the 25,800-Year Precessional Cycle of Polaris: Topological Mapping Along a Specific Latitudinal Parallel and Its Corresponding Proto-Language

This interdisciplinary study investigates the spatial cognition of prehistoric and protohistoric populations along the 37.5°N corridor of the Japanese archipelago—beginning with Upper Paleolithic obsidian transport networks around Lake Inawashiro during the previous precessional epoch when α Ursae Minoris (Polaris) occupied the Celestial North Pole (ca. 25,800 BP) and extending to contemporaneous populations sharing the same stellar pole and primal vocalic lexicon. Moving beyond the anachronistic assumption of "magnetic north," we demonstrate that ancient monuments, skyscapes, and archaic toponyms constitute a unified scientific system integrating empirical astronomy, multi-scale geodetic triangulation, topological mapping, and a proto-linguistic directional code. Key Contributions: Unbroken Visual Lineage of Geocentric Skyscape Representation Along 37.5°N: Re-examining the late Jomon clay plaque (doban, 17.4 × 11 × 1.6 cm) from the Kanayama site (37°37′N) as an observational "Clay Mirror" (dokyo) recording circumpolar rotation (obverse spiral) and a true meridian line (reverse groove). The author’s 2010 identification of this Jomon artifact and the spiral mural of Kiyotosaku Cave Tomb No. 76 as astronomical charts of geocentric celestial rotation (tendosetsu) was dramatically corroborated in December 2025 by the discovery of the astronomical mural in the adjacent Kiyotosaku Cave Tomb No. 83, depicting Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper flanking the vertical Celestial Axis (Tenkyoko). Multi-Scale Geodetic Triangulation and the Archipelago Axis: High-precision WGS84 geodesic measurements reveal a nested fractal hierarchy anchored on the 37.5°N baseline and Mt. Iide (37°51′17″N): (a) a mesoscale 25-nautical-mile (mean 44.8 km) Cultural Landscape Triangle uniting Aizu-Otsukayama Kofun (Ii-mori), Mt. Honna-Mikagura, and Mt. Iide (Ii-de); (b) a macroscale 100-nautical-mile (mean 185.2 km) Associative Natural Landscape Triangle uniting Mt. Iide, Mt. Iizuna (Ii-zuna), and Mt. Tsukuba (Ii-na) with a side-length variance of ±0.11%; and (c) a megascale 600-nautical-mile (1,146 km) Archipelago Axis extending from Mt. Iide to Cape Sata (Sa-ta, 30°59′40″N), with Izanagi Jingu on Awaji Island (34°27′35″N) situated at the exact geometric and latitudinal midpoint (discrepancy less than 0.5%). Paleolithic Vocalic Directional Code (FOXP2 and Quantal Vowels): Integrating Svante Pääbo’s evolutionary genetics (FOXP2) and Philip Lieberman’s quantal vowel theory to decipher archaic directional roots: North = /i/, True North/Apex = reduplicated /ii/ ("North of Norths": Iimori, Iide, Iizuna, Iina), East (Sky) = /a/ (a-bi, "Sun in the sky"), West (Sea) = /e/ (e-bi, "Sun in the sea," with the prawn ebi as its avatar and Ebisu as its deification), South = secondary CV syllable /sa/ (Sasa-yamahara, Sa-ta), and the North–South Meridian = i-sa / i-za (Isasumi Shrine, Izanagi, and Izanami). Topological Spatial Cognition (Yui) and the 248 CE Total Solar Eclipse: Building upon the archaeology of knots (yui; Matsumoto, 2008) and analogous to Grigori Perelman’s spherical topology (S³), prehistoric observers conceptualized a spherical cosmos by "knotting" diurnal solar (a-bi) and nocturnal stellar (e-bi) hemispheres along the 37.5°N horizon. Astronomical simulation (StellaNavigator) and on-site telemetry at Kakimoto Inari Gosha Daimyojin Shrine (37°30.121′N, 139°54.914′E) confirm that at 05:50 AM (JST) on September 5, 248 CE, a total solar eclipse occurred along the 37.5°N baseline in the Aizu basin, visually unifying the daytime sun and the nocturnal celestial pole at the exact latitude of Aizu-Otsukayama Kofun.