Exploring archaeoastronomy : a history of its relationship with archaeology and esotericism / Liz Henty.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Henty, Liz, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Archaeoastronomy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 278 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

Paperback edition.

Other Title:

Exploring Archaeoastronomy

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : Oxbow Books, [2022]

Summary:

"Archaeoastronomy and archaeology are two distinct fields of study which examine the cultural aspect of societies, but from different perspectives. Archaeoastronomy seeks to discover how the impact of the skyscape is materialised in culture, by alignments to celestial events or sky-based symbolism; yet by contrast, archaeology's approach examines all aspects of culture, but rarely considers the sky. Despite this omission, archaeology is the dominant discipline while archaeoastronomy is relegated to the sidelines. The reasons for archaeoastronomy's marginalised status may be found by assessing its history. For such an exploration to be useful, archaeoastronomy cannot just be investigated in a vacuum but must be contextualised by exploring other contemporaneous developments, particularly in archaeology. On the periphery of both, there are various strands of esoteric thought and pseudoscientific theories which paint an alternative view of monumental remains and these also play a part in the background. The discipline of archaeology has had an unbroken lineage from the late 19th-century to the present. On the other hand, archaeoastronomy has not been consistently titled, having adopted various different names such as alignment studies, orientation theory, astro-archaeology, megalithic science, archaeotopography, archaeoastronomy and cultural astronomy: names which depict variants of its methods and theory, sometimes in tandem with those of archaeology and sometimes in opposition. Similarly, its academic status has always been unclear, so to bring it closer to archaeology there was a proposal in 2015 to integrate archaeoastronomy research with that of archaeology and call it skyscape archaeology. This volume examines how all these different variants came about and consider archaeoastronomy's often troubled relationship with archaeology and its appropriation by esotericism, to shed light on its position today"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Front Cover

Half-Title Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

List of figures

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction: contesting the past

Contested space

Historiography

Exploring archaeoastronomy

2. Antiquarianism: the longue durée

The intellectual background

Esotericism

Antiquarian societies

The legacy of antiquarianism

3. The emergence of archaeoastronomical thought

Antiquarian practice

Astronomical methodology

Astronomical theories

19th century contestations

The implications for archaeoastronomy

4. ‘The great subject of orientation’

Lockyer and his contemporaries

Orientation practice

Archaeology

Esoteric archaeology

The language gap

5. Lines in the landscape Generated by AI.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on print version record.

Part of the metadata in this record was created by AI, based on the text of the resource.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781789257885

1789257883

9781789257878

1789257875

OCLC:

1296677803