Clive Ruggles - Selected papers and articles (2002-2007)

Cultural astronomy

Archaeoastronomy is the study of beliefs and practices relating to the sky in the past, especially in prehistory, and the uses to which people’s knowledge of the skies was put.

Journals, present and past

Cultural astronomy is the combination of archaeoastronomy and ethnoastronomy, which relates to contemporary cultures.

Professional bodies

The 3-volume Springer Handbook contains 217 chapters on themes, issues, methods and practice, and case studies by authors from around the world.

You might also be interested in some of the materials to be found on cultural-astronomy.com.

Selected papers and articles (2002–2007)

(With Ivan Ghezzi) Chankillo: a 2300-Year-Old Solar Observatory in Coastal Peru. Science, 315 (2007), 1239–1243 and supporting materials.

(With Mike Parker Pearson, Ros Cleal, Peter Marshall, Stuart Needham, Josh Pollard, Colin Richards, Alison Sheridan, Julian Thomas, Chris Tilley, Kate Welham, Andrew Chamberlain, Carolyn Chenery, Jane Evans, Chris Knüsel, Neil Linford, Louise Martin, Janet Montgomery, Andy Payne and Mike Richards) The Age of Stonehenge. Antiquity, 81 (2007), 617–639.

(With Gary Urton) Introduction. In Clive Ruggles and Gary Urton (eds), Skywatching in the Ancient World: New Perspectives in Cultural Astronomy, University Press of Colorado, 2010 [2007], 1–15.

Cosmology, calendar, and temple orientations in ancient Hawai‘i. In Clive Ruggles and Gary Urton (eds), Skywatching in the Ancient World: New Perspectives in Cultural Astronomy, University Press of Colorado, 2010 [2007], 287–329.

Interpreting solstitial alignments in Late Neolithic Wessex. Archaeoastronomy: The Journal of Astronomy in Culture, 20 (2007 [dated 2006]), 1–27.

Arqueoastronomía en Polinesia. In José Lull García (ed.), Trabajos de Arqueoastronomía, Agrupación Astronómica de La Safor, Gandía, Spain, 2006, 257–281. [In Spanish]

Archaeoastronomy. In Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn (eds), Archaeology: The Key Concepts, 11-16. Routledge, Abingdon, 2005.

Landscape archaeology and the archaeology of pilgrimage: a view from across the Atlantic. In John B. Carlson (ed.), Pilgrimage and the Ritual Landscape in Pre-Columbian America, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC. Remains in press.

(With David Turton). The haphazard astronomy of the Mursi. In Von Del Chamberlain, John Carlson and M. Jane Young (eds) with Clive Ruggles (assistant editor), Songs from the Sky: Indigenous Astronomical and Cosmological Traditions of the World, Ocarina Books, Bognor Regis and Center for Archaeoastronomy, College Park MD, 2005, 299–309.

Heiau orientations and alignments in Kaua‘i. Archaeoastronomy: The Journal of Astronomy in Culture, 16 (2002 [dated 2001]), 46–82.

L’uso dell’Archeoastronomia nell’esplorazione della cosmologia antica: problemi di teoria e metodo. In Francesco Bertola, Giuliano Romano and Eduardo Proverbio (eds), L’Uomo Antico e il Cosmo, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Atti dei Convegni Lincei), Rome, 2002, 19–33. [In Italian]

Astronomical heritage

The UNESCO–IAU Portal to the Heritage of Astronomy contains a wide range of examples of different types of astronomical heritage together with information relevant to its protection, conservation, evaluation, management and promotion.