Session: #63

Regular session

There is no culture in the history of humanity that has not noticed the spectacular and/or regular phenomena in the sky. The particularities these ancient people observed left a strong mark on their society.
These observations later became part of the practical experiences necessary to everyday life as well as the beliefs guiding their society. Hence, their impact can be detected and therefore, should be studied in the material culture. The archaeology of the sky – or archaeoastronomy as a sub-discipline of archaeology – plays an important role in providing particular information on the relation of ancient cultures to the natural environment. When studying the past, the task is not only to discover, classify, and describe the findings but also to investigate what people thought and experienced of the world around them, and how they imagined its origins and functioning. To achieve this objective, archaeoastronomy, as a scientific discipline, can offer new narratives for understanding the past through inter- and cross-disciplinary approaches, complementing and at the same time relying on archaeology, history of science and arts, ethnology, and ethnography.
This session is intended to illustrate the benefits of applying archaeoastronomy in archaeological research and interpretations.
We expect case studies, theoretical discussions that present new insights, challenge existing paradigms in archaeology, and emphasize the importance of archaeoastronomy in uncovering the past by enriching the context with valuable information otherwise not accessible to an archaeologist or historian.

archaeoastronomy, archaeology, celestial and natural phenomena, alignment, symbol

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Emilia Pasztor (Hungary) ^1,2

Marc Frincu (Romania) ^3,4