Overview
This is the first scholarly collection of articles focused on the cultural astronomy of Africans. It weaves together astronomy, anthropology, and Africa and it includes African myths and legends about the sky, alignments to celestial bodies found at archaeological sites and at places of worship, rock art with celestial imagery, and scientific thinking revealed in local astronomy traditions including ethnomathematics and the creation of calendars. Authors include astronomers Kim Malville, Johnson Urama, and Thebe Medupe; archaeologist Felix Chami, and geographer Michael Bonine, and many new authors. As an emerging subfield of cultural astronomy, African cultural astronomy researchers are focused on training students specifically for doing research in Africa. The first part of the volume contains lessons and exercises to help the beginning student of African cultural astronomy. Included are exercises in archaeoastronomy, cultural anthropology, and naked-eye astronomy penned by authors who use these regularly use these methods for their research. This collection of lessons and research papers provides a foundation for the cultural astronomy researcher interested in doing work in Africa.
Full Product Details
Author: Jarita Holbrook ,
R. Thebe Medupe ,
Johnson O. Urama
Publisher: Springer
Imprint: Springer
Edition: Softcover reprint of hardcover 1st ed. 2008
Dimensions:
Width: 15.50cm
, Height: 1.40cm
, Length: 23.50cm
Weight: 0.476kg
ISBN: 9789048176878
ISBN 10: 9048176875
Pages: 260
Publication Date: 25 November 2010
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of print, replaced by POD
We will order this item for you from a manufatured on demand supplier.
Reviews
From the reviews: The 17 readable, stimulating papers deal with multiple topics: simple principles of looking at the heavens and what a person can get out of it as an anthropologist and a general observer ... and finally how cultural astronomy is expressed today in African cultures. ... Clearly a book for universities, this volume will also find interested readers in eclectic libraries, and amateur astronomers will be especially attracted by the contents. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. (R. B. Clay, Choice, Vol. 46 (07), March, 2009)
From the reviews: The 17 readable, stimulating papers deal with multiple topics: simple principles of looking at the heavens and what a person can get out of it as an anthropologist and a general observer ! and finally how cultural astronomy is expressed today in African cultures. ! Clearly a book for universities, this volume will also find interested readers in eclectic libraries, and amateur astronomers will be especially attracted by the contents. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. (R. B. Clay, Choice, Vol. 46 (07), March, 2009)
