Don't know if I'm at the right place here. But I was reading Barbauld's poem: "Summer Evening's Meditation", and I really liked the line "This dead of midnight is the noon of thought". I interpreted this line as: When people started looking at the stars, they began seeing patterns, looking for cause and effect, and this boosted their intelligence. Is this theory I just made up in any way true to reality?
You might want to ask this in /r/AskAnthropology as they have specialists in prehistory.