From the Ground to the Sky
Ten Years of Skyscape Archaeology
Edited by
Fabio Silva [+–]
Bournemouth University
Fabio Silva is currently Senior Lecturer in Archaeological Modelling at Bournemouth University, United Kingdom. His research interests focus on how humans perceive their environment (skyscape and landscape) and use that knowledge to time and adjust their social and productive behaviours. His archaeoastronomical research has mostly focused on Neolithic Portugal, though he has also done fieldwork in the United Kingdom and Malta. His books include Skyscapes: The Role and Importance of the Sky in Archaeology (co-edited with N Campion, Oxbow Books, 2015) and The Materiality of the Sky (co-edited with K Malville, T Lomsdalen and F Ventura, Sophia Centre Press, 2016). He co-founded and co-edits the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology (Equinox Publishing) and received the Fifth Carlos Jaschek Award from the European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC) in 2016.
Liz Henty [+–]
University of Wales Trinity Saint David
Liz Henty gained her PhD from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and her thesis examined the history of archaeoastronomy and its relationship with archaeology. Her earlier MA thesis was entitled ‘An Examination of Possible Solar, Lunar and Stellar Alignments at the Recumbent Stone Circles of North-East Scotland’. Her books include Visualising Skyscapes: Material forms of cultural engagement with the heavens, (co-edited with D Brown) Routledge, 2020 and The Marriage of Astronomy and Culture: Theory and Method in the Study of Cultural Astronomy, Liz Henty et al. (eds), Culture and Cosmos Special Issue, 2017. She has presented papers at SEAC and the Theoretical Archaeology Group conferences and was a contributor to Skyscapes: The Role and Importance of the Sky in Archaeology, Fabio Silva and Nicholas Campion (eds), Oxbow, 2015. She co-founded and co-edits the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology.
Skyscape Archaeology, only recognised as such in 2014, as a method of investigating the connections between the ground and the sky, brought archaeology and archaeoastronomy closer together, while imbuing the latter with the diverse and up-to-date set of methodologies and theoretical frameworks that characterise modern archaeology and anthropology. Although several important strides still need to be made in order to fully bridge the interdisciplinary gap, the approach of skyscape archaeologists has proven successful, with the skyscape being increasingly recognised by archaeologists at large as an important component of any research project that tries to understand the lifeworlds of past societies.
This book commemorates the tenth anniversary of Skyscape Archaeology by assembling a series of papers (collected from the volumes of the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology) that demonstrate the theoretical and methodological breadth, as well as the socio-cultural depth of interpretation, that define this new wave of archaeoastronomy. It will serve not only as a celebration of research accomplished over the last decade, but also as a testament to what skyscape research can look like.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Bournemouth University
Timothy Darvill is Professor of Archaeology in Bournemouth University. He researches and lectures on prehistoric Europe and the role of archaeology in contemporary society. He is well known as the world’s leading expert on Stonehenge and excavated at the site in 2008. After completing a PhD at Southampton University on the Neolithic of Wales and the west of England, he worked for the Western Archaeological Trust and the Council for British Archaeology before establishing a private practice offering consultancy services in the field of archaeological resource management. The author of over a dozen books, including Ancient Monuments in the Countryside (English Heritage. 1987), Prehistoric Britain from the air (Cambridge University Press. 1996), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (Oxford University Press. 2002), Stonehenge World Heritage Site: An archaeological research framework (English Heritage. 2005), and Prehistoric Britain (Routledge. 2010), he has served as Chairman of the Institute of Field Archaeologists and was a Member of the Council of the National Trust. He has excavated at archaeological sites in England, Wales, Russia, Greece, Germany, and the Isle of Man. Professor Darvill is a Vice-President of the Royal Archaeological Institute and chairman of Cotswold Archaeology. His book Stonehenge: the biography of a landscape (Tempus. 2006) presents a number of new theories explaining the origin and use of Stonehenge. He was appointed OBE in 2010 for services to archaeology.
Chapter 2
Bournemouth University
Fabio Silva is currently Senior Lecturer in Archaeological Modelling at Bournemouth University, United Kingdom. His research interests focus on how humans perceive their environment (skyscape and landscape) and use that knowledge to time and adjust their social and productive behaviours. His archaeoastronomical research has mostly focused on Neolithic Portugal, though he has also done fieldwork in the United Kingdom and Malta. His books include Skyscapes: The Role and Importance of the Sky in Archaeology (co-edited with N Campion, Oxbow Books, 2015) and The Materiality of the Sky (co-edited with K Malville, T Lomsdalen and F Ventura, Sophia Centre Press, 2016). He co-founded and co-edits the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology (Equinox Publishing) and received the Fifth Carlos Jaschek Award from the European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC) in 2016.
University of Wales Trinity Saint David
Liz Henty gained her PhD from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and her thesis examined the history of archaeoastronomy and its relationship with archaeology. Her earlier MA thesis was entitled ‘An Examination of Possible Solar, Lunar and Stellar Alignments at the Recumbent Stone Circles of North-East Scotland’. Her books include Visualising Skyscapes: Material forms of cultural engagement with the heavens, (co-edited with D Brown) Routledge, 2020 and The Marriage of Astronomy and Culture: Theory and Method in the Study of Cultural Astronomy, Liz Henty et al. (eds), Culture and Cosmos Special Issue, 2017. She has presented papers at SEAC and the Theoretical Archaeology Group conferences and was a contributor to Skyscapes: The Role and Importance of the Sky in Archaeology, Fabio Silva and Nicholas Campion (eds), Oxbow, 2015. She co-founded and co-edits the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology.
Theory and Method
Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli
Phd Student, Dipartimento di Lettere e Beni Culturali, Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli
Through auto-ethnography and reflexive phenomenology, the author highlights the role water can have as a means for reflecting the sky, something that “is often undervalued when interpreting archaeoastronomical sites”. Her own thoughts and experiences, as she concludes, “aim to inspire new perspectives on sky-and-water related case studies and give value to the practice of reflexive phenomenology as crucial method of research.”
Heritage Malta
Katya Stroud looks at how the Tarxien temples of Malta have been interpreted through time. She finds exactly what a modern theoretically inclined archaeologists would expect, that archaeological interpretations have been rooted in 20th century religious perspectives and scholarly traditions, changing as the zeitgeist changed. In opposition to these heavily biased interpretations, Stroud argues for a new perspective which will lead to more dynamic interpretations – an endeavour that, as discussed above, is at the heart of skyscape archaeology.
University of Seville
Department of Applied Physics I
Professor
Professor
José M. Abril describes new approaches to assessing alignment measurements which are drawn from multiple different underlying distributions. He illustrates these methods by analysing the alignments of medieval Spanish churches, where some may have been carefully orientated towards specific narrow ranges of horizon, while most others faced more broadly towards a general quadrant of the sky. His analysis shows how we can untangle more complex patterns of human intention from our increasingly larger and more detailed datasets.
Indiana University
This chapter delves deep into this widely used tool for virtual fieldwork and devises a strategy for independently assessing its accuracy. The author finds Google Earth Pro to be a reliable instrument with an accuracy that, depending on the spatial resolution of individual sites and the length of the line being measured, can exceed that of magnetic compasses.
Instituto de Ciencias Antropológicas
CONICET, Argentina
This chapter highlights the articulation of cosmovisions and cosmologies among indigenous groups as an important branch of anthropology that any skyscape archaeologist should be interested in, as they may teach us about non-modern, non-western ways of relating to and conceiving the world around a given society. Alejandro M. López and Agustina Altman step away from the anecdotal comparative approaches of the past and, instead, seek to identify and understand commonalities in the systems of logical thinking that underlie such cosmologies. They do this by focusing on lowland South American groups, especially from Argentina.
Case Studies
Dublin Institute of Technology
Frank Prendergast is an archaeologist, archaeoastronomer and geodetic surveyor who has written extensively about the prehistoric monuments in Ireland, with particular reference to the Irish passage tombs tradition. He is a Council member of the International Society for Archaeoastronomy and Astronomy in Culture (ISAAC) as well as being a member of SEAC being instrumental in organising their conference ‘Astronomy, Cosmology and Landscape’ and for which he was co-editor of the Proceedings. His forthcoming publications include ‘An architectural perspective on structured sacred space – recent evidence from Iron Age Ireland’ in F Silva and N Campion(eds.) Skyscapes in Archaeology (Oxbow, in press)and contributions in the forthcoming Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy edited by C L N Ruggles(Springer).
Frank Prendergast considers the character of the stone circle in light of its morphology, landscape setting, ritual function and the broader role of the sky in the past. His approach takes the skyscape into account but concluded that, contrary to popular belief, there is little evidence to support a significant celestial alignment embedded in the design of this unique monument. However, he adds that one could not conclude that the people who built and used this stone circle did not find meaning or attribute a role to the sky.
Griffith Observatory, LA
E C Krupp is an astronomer and has been Director of Griffith Observatory, in Los Angeles, since 1974. He led the recent $93-million Observatory renovation and expansion. He is the prizewinning author of five books, including Echoes of the Ancient Skies: The Astronomy of Lost Civilizations (Dover Publications, 2003) and Skywatchers, Shaman & Kings: Astronomy and the Archaeology of Power (Wiley, 1999) dozens of research papers, and hundreds of articles on cultural dimensions of astronomy. He has visited nearly 2000 ancient and prehistoric sites around the world.
The author re-examines 21 rock art depictions, typically of a crescent Moon alongside a star, that had been interpreted as representations of the Crab supernova of 1054 AD in the American Southwest and beyond. He concludes that all documented cases are ambiguous, “and the supernova interpretation of several of them is fatally flawed”. His paper highlights the importance of reflexivity as well as cultural, artefactual and iconographic context in interpretations; something that fits well with skyscape archaeology as we believe this should apply not only to the interpretation of rock art but also structural alignments.
Jeffrey Ryan Vadala,Susan Milbrath
University of Florida
Jeffrey Vadala is a doctoral candidate at the University of Florida.
The authors follow Delanda’s approach to ontology where he argued that all objects of study should be viewed as heterogeneous parts rather than a priori or predefined objects of study. The authors argue that the ancient Maya of Cerro “observed features in the coastal landscape that marked zenith events, and over time they constructed buildings to memorialize this observation point”. In the course of their argument the authors employ 3D modelling of the site and surrounding landscape to further explore the cosmological implications of spatial structure, making this one of very few archaeoastronomical studies to deploy immersive technology.
National Park Service
Communication Specialist,
Climate Change Response Program
Climate Change Response Program
Utah Valley University
Archaeological Consultant
A modern sculpture in Utah that reflects the connection between landscape and skyscape is described by Angela M. Richman, Von Del Chamberlain and Joe Pachak. Artist Joe Pachak studied the Ancestral Puebloan culture and traditions relating to the movements of the Sun, Moon and stars to create the sculpture called Sun Marker to demonstrate light and shadow effects on recreated rock art images at the equinoxes and solstices. Their chapter tells the story of this sculpture and how it has helped formulate vital research questions for cultural astronomers.
Jacky Nowakowski,Carolyn Kennett,James Gossip,Brian Sheen
Cornall Archaeological Unit, UK
Roseland Observatory, UK
This is a case study where the lead authors are respectively an archaeologist and an astronomer who teamed up to conduct new research into The Hurlers stone circle complex on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. They describe two research projects “Mapping the Sun” and “Reading the Hurlers” in their chapter. Archaeological excavations revealed a stone “pavement” between the central and northern circles so they used an innovative experiment to look for astronomical symbolism. By laying a yellow cloth, the colour of the local clay, along this pathway, they observed it under a full Moon and after sundown to look for the pavement’s astronomical importance. By combining the results of the excavations and astronomical surveys which took the landscape setting into account they found significant alignments between the key monuments and near and distant landmarks, as well as suggesting that the path of the Milky Way could have signified a move to spring, thereby heralding the spring’s conceptual renewal and rebirth after the long winter days.
Heidelberg University
Luca Amendola investigates whether the Schifferstadt golden hat was deposited in an astronomically privileged location in a German village close to the river Rhine. His article describes a detailed examination of the horizon as seen from a random sample of locations in the Schifferstadt valley. The resulting statistical analysis indicates that only sites close to the hat’s deposit location have more celestial alignments than would be expected by chance. This analysis highlights the importance of considering the landscapes in which archaeological objects were used and suggests additional examination of Bronze Age sites in a similar vein.
Debate
Colgate University
Anthony F. Aveni is the Russell B. Colgate Professor of Astronomy and Anthropology, serving appointments in both Departments of Physics and Astronomy and Sociology and Anthropology at Colgate University, where he has taught since 1963. Prof Aveni helped develop the field of archaeoastronomy and now is considered one of the founders of Mesoamerican archaeoastronomy, in particular for his research in the astronomical history of the Maya Indians of ancient Mexico. He is a lecturer, speaker, and editor/author of over two dozen books on ancient astronomy.
University of Illinois
Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias
Juan Antonio Belmonte is an astronomer at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (Tenerife, Spain) where he has lectured history of astronomy and archaeoastronomy and investigates in exoplanets, stellar physics and cultural astronomy. He has published or edited a dozen books and authored nearly 200 publications on those subjects. He has been the Director of the Science and Cosmos Museum of Tenerife from 1995 to 2000, President of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC) from 2005 to 2011 and of the Spanish Time Allocation Committee (CAT) of the Canarian observatories, included the new generation 10 m GTC, from 2003 to 2012. He has received in 2012 the “Carlos Jaschek” award of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture for his contributions to the discipline. He is now advisory editor of the Journal for the History of Astronomy and co-editor of Archaeoastronomy: the Journal for Astronomy in Culture. In the last years he has been performing extensive research on the astronomical traditions of ancient civilizations, concentrating in the ancient Mediterranean cultures, notably in Egypt. Born in Murcia (Spain) in 1962, he studied physics and got his master-thesis in 1986 at Barcelona University and obtained his PhD on Astrophysics at La Laguna University in 1989.
Bournemouth University
Timothy Darvill is Professor of Archaeology in Bournemouth University. He researches and lectures on prehistoric Europe and the role of archaeology in contemporary society. He is well known as the world’s leading expert on Stonehenge and excavated at the site in 2008. After completing a PhD at Southampton University on the Neolithic of Wales and the west of England, he worked for the Western Archaeological Trust and the Council for British Archaeology before establishing a private practice offering consultancy services in the field of archaeological resource management. The author of over a dozen books, including Ancient Monuments in the Countryside (English Heritage. 1987), Prehistoric Britain from the air (Cambridge University Press. 1996), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (Oxford University Press. 2002), Stonehenge World Heritage Site: An archaeological research framework (English Heritage. 2005), and Prehistoric Britain (Routledge. 2010), he has served as Chairman of the Institute of Field Archaeologists and was a Member of the Council of the National Trust. He has excavated at archaeological sites in England, Wales, Russia, Greece, Germany, and the Isle of Man. Professor Darvill is a Vice-President of the Royal Archaeological Institute and chairman of Cotswold Archaeology. His book Stonehenge: the biography of a landscape (Tempus. 2006) presents a number of new theories explaining the origin and use of Stonehenge. He was appointed OBE in 2010 for services to archaeology.
From the New World, Aveni suggested that progress (albeit slow) has been made in archaeoastronomy with the development of interpretative archaeoastronomy and cultural astronomy, concluding that it will succeed better when it is fully integrated into the culture-based disciplines. Pauketat said that while parts of the Kintigh/Aveni debate still resonate today, archaeological theory has opened up to the necessity of exploring the way in which people relate to the heavens, offering new possibilities for archaeoastronomers to work with archaeologists. Back in the Old World, Belmonte told his own publishing story to show that in his opinion there is still a degree of separation between archaeoastronomers and archaeologists, yet that this is diminishing in some areas such as Mayan and landscape archaeology as well as in Egyptology, one of his specific fields of interest. Darvill concluded the forum and reminded us that the nature of the material evidence very much dictates the type of research methodology that can be applied. Drawing parallels between landscape and skyscape archaeology he called for greater integration between the two. From their very different backgrounds, these four distinguished scholars not only acknowledged the importance of skyscape but offered suggestions as to how it could be better integrated into archaeological investigations.
ISBN-13 (Hardback)
9781800505179
Price (Hardback)
£75.00 / $100.00
ISBN-13 (Paperback)
9781800505186
Price (Paperback)
£26.95 / $34.00
ISBN (eBook)
9781800505193
Price (eBook)
Individual
£26.95 / $34.00
Institutional
£75.00 / $100.00
£26.95 / $34.00
Institutional
£75.00 / $100.00
Publication
15/09/2025
Pages
280
Size
254 x 178mm
Readership
scholars
Illustration
122 colour and black and white figures
