I believe that 9,000 years ago there wasn’t as distinct a pole star due to axial procession. Celestial north would probably have been somewhere between Vega and Tau Hercluis with a fairly wide separation.
If you define fall as the size of the gap. You could also take it as acceleration towards the barycenter, which would be the same. These are indistinguishable for everyday objects so could argue that the word “fall” could be interpreted either way.