Disclaimer: I don’t know, and I have no particular k owledge in this field, I’m only reasoning here…

I think those four directions are natural to use regardless of culture, based on our senses and bodies. There are things you can see, and things you can’t, namely in front of you and behind you. And your references to the sides would naturally be your hands, where most people can distinguish right as dominant. These would serve as simple reference points in terms of directions, so the question is, if your bodies were different, for example asymetric, would our directions also be?

Imagine of we had four ears, two forward and two back, could that result in eight basic directions? What would it take for us to have three?