Editing Archaeoastronomy (section)

== History ==
{{Blockquote|In his short history of 'Astro-archaeology' John Michell argued that the status of research into ancient astronomy had improved over the past two centuries, going 'from lunacy to heresy to interesting notion and finally to the gates of orthodoxy.' Nearly two decades later, we can still ask the question: Is archaeoastronomy still waiting at the gates of orthodoxy or has it gotten inside the gates?|Todd Bostwick quoting John Michell<ref>Bostwick 2006:13</ref>}}

Two hundred years before [[John Michell (writer)|John Michell]] wrote the above, there were no archaeoastronomers and there were no [[Archaeology#History of archaeology|professional archaeologists]], but there were astronomers and [[Antiquarianism|antiquarians]]. Some of their works are considered precursors of archaeoastronomy; antiquarians interpreted the astronomical orientation of the ruins that dotted the English countryside as [[William Stukeley]] did of [[Stonehenge]] in 1740,<ref>Michell, 2001:9–10</ref> while [[John Aubrey]] in 1678<ref>Johnson, 1912:225</ref> and [[Henry Chauncy]] in 1700 sought similar astronomical principles underlying the orientation of churches.<ref>Hoskin, 2001:7</ref> Late in the nineteenth century astronomers such as [[Richard Proctor]] and [[Charles Piazzi Smyth]] investigated the astronomical orientations of [[Egyptian pyramids|the pyramids]].<ref>Michell, 2001:17–18</ref>

The term ''archaeoastronomy'' was advanced by [[Elizabeth Baity|Elizabeth Chesley Baity]] (following the suggestion of Euan MacKie) in 1973,<ref>{{ Citation | last = Baity | first = Elizabeth Chesley | date = 1973 | title = Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy So Far | journal = Current Anthropology | volume = 14 | issue = 4 | pages = 389–390 | doi = 10.1086/201351 | jstor = 2740842 | s2cid = 146933891 }}</ref><ref>Sinclair 2006:17</ref> but as a topic of study it may be much older, depending on how archaeoastronomy is defined. Clive Ruggles<ref>Ruggles 2005:312–13</ref> says that [[Heinrich Nissen]], working in the mid-nineteenth century was arguably the first archaeoastronomer. Rolf Sinclair<ref>Sinclair 2006:8</ref> says that [[Norman Lockyer]], working in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, could be called the 'father of archaeoastronomy'. Euan MacKie<ref>Mackie 2006:243</ref> would place the origin even later, stating: "...the genesis and modern flowering of archaeoastronomy must surely lie in the work of [[Alexander Thom]] in Britain between the 1930s and the 1970s".

[[Image:Auglish.jpg|left|thumb|Early archaeoastronomers surveyed Megalithic constructs in the British Isles, at sites like [[Auglish]] in [[County Londonderry]], in an attempt to find statistical patterns.]]
In the 1960s the work of the engineer Alexander Thom and that of the astronomer [[Gerald Hawkins]], who proposed that [[Stonehenge]] was a [[Neolithic]] computer,<ref>Hawkins 1976</ref> inspired new interest in the astronomical features of ancient sites. The claims of Hawkins were largely dismissed,<ref>Atkinson 1966</ref> but this was not the case for Alexander Thom's work, whose survey results of [[megalith]]ic sites hypothesized widespread practice of accurate astronomy in the British Isles.<ref>Thom 1988:9–10</ref> Euan MacKie, recognizing that Thom's theories needed to be tested, excavated at the [[Kintraw]] standing stone site in Argyllshire in 1970 and 1971 to check whether the latter's prediction of an observation platform on the hill slope above the stone was correct. There was an artificial platform there and this apparent verification of Thom's long alignment hypothesis (Kintraw was diagnosed as an accurate [[winter solstice]] site) led him to check Thom's geometrical theories at the Cultoon [[stone circle]] in Islay, also with a positive result. MacKie therefore broadly accepted Thom's conclusions and published new prehistories of Britain.<ref name = "zkuawc">MacKie 1977</ref> In contrast a re-evaluation of Thom's fieldwork by Clive Ruggles argued that Thom's claims of high accuracy astronomy were not fully supported by the evidence.<ref>Gingerich 2000</ref> Nevertheless, Thom's legacy remains strong, [[Edwin C. Krupp]]<ref>Krupp 1979:18</ref> wrote in 1979, "Almost singlehandedly he has established the standards for archaeo-astronomical fieldwork and interpretation, and his amazing results have stirred controversy during the last three decades." His influence endures and practice of statistical testing of data remains one of the methods of archaeoastronomy.<ref>Hicks 1993</ref><ref>Iwaniszewski 1995</ref>
[[File:Panoramica Uxmal.jpg|alt=|left|thumb|It has been proposed that [[Maya civilization|Maya]] sites such as [[Uxmal]] were built in accordance with astronomical alignments.]]
The approach in the [[New World]], where anthropologists began to consider more fully the role of astronomy in [[Amerindian]] civilizations, was markedly different. They had access to sources that the [[prehistory]] of Europe lacks such as [[ethnography|ethnographies]]<ref name="Zeilik 1985">Zeilik 1985</ref><ref name="Zeilik 1986">Zeilik 1986</ref> and the historical records of the early [[Colonization of the Americas|colonizers]]. Following the pioneering example of [[Anthony Aveni]],<ref>Milbraith 1999:8</ref><ref>Broda 2000:233</ref> this allowed New World archaeoastronomers to make claims for motives which in the Old World would have been mere speculation. The concentration on historical data led to some claims of high accuracy that were comparatively weak when compared to the statistically led investigations in Europe.<ref>Hoskin 1996</ref>

This came to a head at a meeting sponsored by the [[International Astronomical Union]] (IAU) in [[Oxford]] in 1981.<ref>Ruggles 1993:ix</ref> The methodologies and research questions of the participants were considered so different that the conference proceedings were published as two volumes.<ref>Aveni 1982</ref><ref>Heggie 1982</ref> Nevertheless, the conference was considered a success in bringing researchers together and Oxford conferences have continued every four or five years at locations around the world. The subsequent conferences have resulted in a move to more interdisciplinary approaches with researchers aiming to combine the contextuality of archaeological research,<ref>Aveni, 1989a:xi–xiii</ref> which broadly describes the state of archaeoastronomy today, rather than merely establishing the existence of ancient astronomies, archaeoastronomers seek to explain why people would have an interest in the night sky.