In my usual picky, pedantic style, I need to quibble with (or at least question) the use of "astronomer" in this account.

Granted that there appear to be tales in the abo culture relating to a perhaps catastrophic impact, the word "astronomer" implies a good deal more than "something big fell and made a huge boom and a depression in the ground". Nothing is said about that the big thing that fell came from the stars, or had anything to do with the stars, sun, or moon. Nothing is said that implies the existence of an organized body of knowledge (or an early attempt to build such a body of knowledge) relating to study of the natural system of the heavens.   

If the cultural recollection that something big fell, etc., without more, constitutes astronomy, then the knowledge that water will dissolve salt, without more, constitutes chemistry. And lots more reductio ad absurdum examples could be given.

Dave Oesterreich