Related papers: Thinking about Archeoastronomy
Cultural astronomy is an interdisciplinary area of research that studies how perceptions and concepts related to the sky are part of the worldview of a culture. One of its branches, archaeoastronomy, focuses on the material remains of past…
The interdisciplinary topic of archaeo-astronomy links science subjects such as astronomy with archaeology and sociology to explore how ancient societies perceived the heavens above. This is achieved by analysing ancient sites such as…
By c. 3000 BC, in the late Neolithic, there had been a significant change in the way people materialized their cosmology across Scotland with the introduction of free-standing stones. These were erected almost until the end of the Bronze…
This is a historian's view of how modern astronomy data can be used to discuss the shifting historical worldview of Late Antiquity. In this article an attemp is made to construct an approximate model of how the cycles of astronomical…
It has already been empirically verified that for many Bronze Age monuments erected in Scotland between 1400-900 BC, there was a concerted effort on behalf of the builders to align their monuments to astronomical bodies on the horizon. It…
Traditional Aboriginal Australian cultures include a significant astronomical component, perpetuated through oral tradition and ceremony. This knowledge has practical navigational and calendrical functions, and sometimes extends to a deep…
Astronomical observations were used as a marker for time and the Calendar from ancient times. A more subtle calibration of epochs is thrown up by an observation of the position of the solstices and equinoxes, because these points shift in…
A brief review is given of some recent positive developments regarding the reception of archaeoastronomy by the archaeological institutions in Italy. Discussions and problems that are currently going on in this field are also mentioned,…
The history of astrometry, the branch of astronomy dealing with the positions of celestial objects, is a lengthy and complex chronicle, having its origins in the earliest records of astronomical observations more than two thousand years…
In the distant past, astronomy was often intertwined with religion into a unified cosmos. As science became a distinct cultural enterprise, astronomy has witnessed a variety of rich interactions with other fields. Mathematical statistics…
Perhaps more than other physical sciences, astronomy is frequently statistical in nature. The objects under study are inaccessible to direct manipulation in the laboratory, so the astronomer is restricted to observing a few external…
The traditional cultures of Aboriginal Australians include a significant astronomical component, which is usually reported in terms of songs or stories associated with stars and constellations. Here we argue that the astronomical components…
In the eighth century BC something peculiar seems to happen on Sicily. The archaeological record starts to show the arrival of Greek material culture. By the fifth century BC the island is effectively 'Hellenised' and ancient historians…
I present an overview of the science goals and achievements of ongoing spectroscopic surveys of individual stars in the nearby Universe. I include a brief discussion of the development of the field of Galactic Archaeology - using the fossil…
The problem of localization of megalithic memorials on the Earth surface is investigated. It is pointed on existence of Great Belt of megalithic observatories - of con- centration of astronomically significant objects near geographical…
This work addresses the development of the astronomical observatory all through history, from an architectural point of view, as a building in relation to the observing instruments and their functioning as a heterogeneous work center. We…
The traditional cultures of Aboriginal Australians include a significant astronomical component, perpetuated through oral tradition, ceremony, and art. This astronomical component includes a deep understanding of the motion of objects in…
Old, digitized astronomical images taken before the human spacefaring age offer a unique view of the sky devoid of known artificial satellites. In this paper, we have carried out the first optical searches ever for non-terrestrial artifacts…
Galactic archaeology is the study of the history of star formation and chemical evolution in the Milky Way, based on present-day stellar populations. Studies of young stars are a key anchor point for Galactic archaeology, since quantities…
The modern usage of the words astronomy and astrology is traced back to distinctions, largely ignored in recent scholarship. Three interpretations of celestial phenomena (in a geometric, a substantialist and a prognostic versions) coexisted…