Overview
Eleven papers extend discussion of the role and importance of the landscape and the wider environment to past societies, and to the understanding and interpretation of their material remains, into consideration of the significance of the celestial environment: the skyscape. The role of the sky for past societies has been relegated to the fringes of archaeological discourse. Nevertheless archaeoastronomy has developed a new rigour in the last few decades and the evidence suggests that it can provide insights into the beliefs, practices and cosmologies of past societies. Skyscapes explores the current role of archaeoastronomical knowledge in archaeological discourse and how to integrate the two. It shows how it is not only possible but even desirable to look at the skyscape to shed further light on human societies. This is achieved by first exploring the historical relationship between archaeoastronomy and academia in general, and with archaeology in particular. The volume continues by presenting case-studies that either demonstrate how archaeoastronomical methodologies can add to our current understanding of past societies, their structures and beliefs, or how integrated approaches can raise new questions and even revolutionise current views of the past.
Full Product Details
Author: Fabio Silva ,
Nicholas Campion
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Dimensions:
Width: 17.00cm
, Height: 1.30cm
, Length: 24.20cm
Weight: 0.408kg
ISBN: 9781782978404
ISBN 10: 1782978402
Pages: 210
Publication Date: 12 March 2015
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
Skyscapes seems to foresee new ways for development in the field that ought to be useful to any potential readers, notably archaeologists --Juan Antonio Belmonte Journal for the History of Astronomy (11/01/2016)
Skyscapes seems to foresee new ways for development in the field that ought to be useful to any potential readers, notably archaeologists. -- Juan Antonio Belmonte Misc. US reviewer
Author Information
Fabio Silva is a Research Associate at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London and teaches a postgraduate module on archaeoastronomy for the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. His main interest is in how humans perceive their environment and use that knowledge to time and adjust their social and productive behaviours. His research is split between archaeoastronomy and landscape archaeology, at regional scales, and the study of culture-dependent dispersal dynamics and their modelling, at larger space and time scales. He is also co-editor of the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology. Nicholas Campion is the Director of the Sophia Centre and a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. His research interests include the nature of belief, the history and contemporary culture of astrology and astronomy, magic, pagan and New Age beliefs and practices, and millenarian and apocalyptic ideas.
