Foundations of New World Cultural Astronomy: A Reader with Commentary
edited by Anthony Aveni
University Press of Colorado, 2008 Paper: 978-0-87081-900-1 Library of Congress Classification QB16.F69 2008 Dewey Decimal Classification 520
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Gazing into the black skies from the Anasazi observatory at Chimney Rock or the Castillo Pyramid in the Maya ruins of Chichén Itzá, a modern visitor might wonder what ancient stargazers looked for in the skies and what they saw. Once considered unresearchable, these questions now drive cultural astronomers who draw on written and unwritten records and a constellation of disciplines to reveal the wonders of ancient and contemporary astronomies.
Cultural astronomy, first called archaeoastronomy, has evolved at ferocious speed since its genesis in the 1960s, with seminal essays and powerful rebuttals published in far-flung, specialized journals. Until now, only the most closely involved scholars could follow the intellectual fireworks. In Foundations of New World Cultural Astronomy, Anthony Aveni, one of cultural astronomy's founders and top scholars, offers a selection of the essays that built the field, from foundational works to contemporary scholarship.
Including four decades of research throughout the Americas by linguists, archaeologists, historians, ethnologists, astronomers, and engineers, this reader highlights the evolution of the field through thematic organization and point-counterpoint articles. Aveni - an award-winning author and former National Professor of the Year - serves up incisive commentary, background for the uninitiated, and suggested reading, questions, and essay topics. Students, readers, and scholars will relish this collection and its tour of a new field in which discoveries about ancient ways of looking at the skies cast light on our contemporary views.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Anthony Aveni is the Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor of Astronomy, Anthropolgy, and Native Amerifan Studies at Colgate University. He has researched and written about Maya Astronomy for more than four decades. He was named a U.S. National Professor of the year and has been awarded the H.B. Nicholson Medal for Excellence in Research in Mesoamerican Studies by Harvard's Peabody Museum.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
Anthony Aveni
Introduction: The Unwritten Record
Anthony Aveni
Part I Archaeoastronomy: Establishing a Method and Applying a Paradigm
Anthony Aveni
1. Astronomical Alignment of the Big Horn Medicine Wheel
John A. Eddy
2. Geometry and Astronomy in Prehistoric Ohio
Ray Hively and Robert Horn
3. Archaeoastronomy at Machu Picchu
D. S. Dearborn and R. E. White
Part II Acquiring Cultural Context
Anthony Aveni
4. The Inca Calendar
R. T. Zuidema
5. Horizon Astronomy in Incaic Cuzco
Anthony Aveni
6. Here Comes the Sun: The Cuzco¿Machu Picchu Connection
David S.P. Dearborn and Katharina J. Schreiber
7. Chankillo: A 2300-Year-Old Solar Observatory in Coastal Peru
Ivan Ghezzi and Clive Ruggles
8. Keeping the Sacred and Planting Calendar: Archaeoastronomy in the Pueblo Southwest
Michael Zeilik
9. Native Astronomy in Mesoamerica
Michael D. Coe
10. The Role of Astronomical Orientation in the Delineation of World View: A Center and Periphery Model
Anthony Aveni
11. Astronomical Alignments at the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan, Mexico
Ivan ¿prajc
12. Astronomical Observations from the Temple of the Sun
Alonso Mendez, Edwin L. Barnhart, Christopher Powell, and Carol Karasik
13. Astronomy, Ritual, and the Interpretation of Maya ¿E-Group¿ Architectural Assemblages
James J. Aimers and Prudence M. Rice
14. A Reflection of the Ancient Mesoamerican Ethos
Miguel León-Portilla
Part III The Role of Ethnoastronomy
Anthony Aveni
15. Current Astronomical Practices among the Maya
Judith A. Remington
16. Quichean Time Philosophy
Barbara Tedlock
17. Astronomical Models of Social Behavior among Some Indians of Columbia
G. Reichel-Dolmatoff
18. The Hooghan and the Stars
Trudy Griffin-Pierce
19. Animals and Astronomy in the Quechua Universe
Gary Urton
20. Culture Confronts Nature in the Dialectical World of the Tropics
Billie Jean Isbell
21. Ethnoastronomy and the Problem of Interpretation: A Zuni Example
M. Jane Young
Part IV The Classic Maya: A Testing Ground for Precise Astronomy in the Written Record
Anthony Aveni
22. Ancient Maya Ethnoastronomy: An Overview of Hieroglyphic Sources
John S. Justeson
23. Astronomical Knowledge and Its Uses at Bonampak, Mexico
Floyd G. Lounsbury
24. A Palenque King and the Planet Jupiter
Floyd G. Lounsbury
25. Astronomical Implications of an Agricultural Almanac in the Dresden Codex
Victoria R. Bricker and Harvey M. Bricker
Part V Cultural Astronomy¿s Greatest Mysteries
Anthony Aveni
26. Between the Lines: Reading the Nazca Markings as Rituals Writ Large
Anthony Aveni and Helaine Silverman
27. Possible Rock Art Records of the Crab Nebula Supernova in the Western United States
John C. Brandt, Stephen P. Maran, Ray Williamson, Robert S. Harrington, Clarion Cochran, Muriel Kennedy, William J. Kennedy, and Von Del Chamberlain
28. A Thousand Years of the Pueblo Sun-Moon-Star Calendar
Florence Hawley Ellis
29. Astronomical Markings at Three Sites on Fajada Butte
Anna P. Sofaer and Rolf M. Sinclair
30. Romancing the Stone, or Moonshine on the Sun Dagger
John B. Carlson
31. Lunar Standstills at Chimney Rock
J. McKim Malville, Frank W. Eddy, and Carol Ambruster
Part VI The Present and Future of Cultural Astronomy 3
Anthony Aveni
32. The Study of Cultural Astronomy
Clive L.N. Ruggles and Nicholas J. Saunders
33. Cosmograms and Maya City Planning: Selected Articles
Michael E. Smith, Wendy Ashmore, Jeremy A. Sabloff, and Ivan ¿prajc
34. Archaeology and Astronomy: A View from the Southwest
W. James Judge
35. I Wasn¿t Going to Say Anything, but Since You Asked: Archaeoastronomy and Archaeology
Keith W. Kintigh
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
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Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Foundations of New World Cultural Astronomy: A Reader with Commentary
edited by Anthony Aveni
University Press of Colorado, 2008 Paper: 978-0-87081-900-1
Gazing into the black skies from the Anasazi observatory at Chimney Rock or the Castillo Pyramid in the Maya ruins of Chichén Itzá, a modern visitor might wonder what ancient stargazers looked for in the skies and what they saw. Once considered unresearchable, these questions now drive cultural astronomers who draw on written and unwritten records and a constellation of disciplines to reveal the wonders of ancient and contemporary astronomies.
Cultural astronomy, first called archaeoastronomy, has evolved at ferocious speed since its genesis in the 1960s, with seminal essays and powerful rebuttals published in far-flung, specialized journals. Until now, only the most closely involved scholars could follow the intellectual fireworks. In Foundations of New World Cultural Astronomy, Anthony Aveni, one of cultural astronomy's founders and top scholars, offers a selection of the essays that built the field, from foundational works to contemporary scholarship.
Including four decades of research throughout the Americas by linguists, archaeologists, historians, ethnologists, astronomers, and engineers, this reader highlights the evolution of the field through thematic organization and point-counterpoint articles. Aveni - an award-winning author and former National Professor of the Year - serves up incisive commentary, background for the uninitiated, and suggested reading, questions, and essay topics. Students, readers, and scholars will relish this collection and its tour of a new field in which discoveries about ancient ways of looking at the skies cast light on our contemporary views.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Anthony Aveni is the Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor of Astronomy, Anthropolgy, and Native Amerifan Studies at Colgate University. He has researched and written about Maya Astronomy for more than four decades. He was named a U.S. National Professor of the year and has been awarded the H.B. Nicholson Medal for Excellence in Research in Mesoamerican Studies by Harvard's Peabody Museum.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
Anthony Aveni
Introduction: The Unwritten Record
Anthony Aveni
Part I Archaeoastronomy: Establishing a Method and Applying a Paradigm
Anthony Aveni
1. Astronomical Alignment of the Big Horn Medicine Wheel
John A. Eddy
2. Geometry and Astronomy in Prehistoric Ohio
Ray Hively and Robert Horn
3. Archaeoastronomy at Machu Picchu
D. S. Dearborn and R. E. White
Part II Acquiring Cultural Context
Anthony Aveni
4. The Inca Calendar
R. T. Zuidema
5. Horizon Astronomy in Incaic Cuzco
Anthony Aveni
6. Here Comes the Sun: The Cuzco¿Machu Picchu Connection
David S.P. Dearborn and Katharina J. Schreiber
7. Chankillo: A 2300-Year-Old Solar Observatory in Coastal Peru
Ivan Ghezzi and Clive Ruggles
8. Keeping the Sacred and Planting Calendar: Archaeoastronomy in the Pueblo Southwest
Michael Zeilik
9. Native Astronomy in Mesoamerica
Michael D. Coe
10. The Role of Astronomical Orientation in the Delineation of World View: A Center and Periphery Model
Anthony Aveni
11. Astronomical Alignments at the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan, Mexico
Ivan ¿prajc
12. Astronomical Observations from the Temple of the Sun
Alonso Mendez, Edwin L. Barnhart, Christopher Powell, and Carol Karasik
13. Astronomy, Ritual, and the Interpretation of Maya ¿E-Group¿ Architectural Assemblages
James J. Aimers and Prudence M. Rice
14. A Reflection of the Ancient Mesoamerican Ethos
Miguel León-Portilla
Part III The Role of Ethnoastronomy
Anthony Aveni
15. Current Astronomical Practices among the Maya
Judith A. Remington
16. Quichean Time Philosophy
Barbara Tedlock
17. Astronomical Models of Social Behavior among Some Indians of Columbia
G. Reichel-Dolmatoff
18. The Hooghan and the Stars
Trudy Griffin-Pierce
19. Animals and Astronomy in the Quechua Universe
Gary Urton
20. Culture Confronts Nature in the Dialectical World of the Tropics
Billie Jean Isbell
21. Ethnoastronomy and the Problem of Interpretation: A Zuni Example
M. Jane Young
Part IV The Classic Maya: A Testing Ground for Precise Astronomy in the Written Record
Anthony Aveni
22. Ancient Maya Ethnoastronomy: An Overview of Hieroglyphic Sources
John S. Justeson
23. Astronomical Knowledge and Its Uses at Bonampak, Mexico
Floyd G. Lounsbury
24. A Palenque King and the Planet Jupiter
Floyd G. Lounsbury
25. Astronomical Implications of an Agricultural Almanac in the Dresden Codex
Victoria R. Bricker and Harvey M. Bricker
Part V Cultural Astronomy¿s Greatest Mysteries
Anthony Aveni
26. Between the Lines: Reading the Nazca Markings as Rituals Writ Large
Anthony Aveni and Helaine Silverman
27. Possible Rock Art Records of the Crab Nebula Supernova in the Western United States
John C. Brandt, Stephen P. Maran, Ray Williamson, Robert S. Harrington, Clarion Cochran, Muriel Kennedy, William J. Kennedy, and Von Del Chamberlain
28. A Thousand Years of the Pueblo Sun-Moon-Star Calendar
Florence Hawley Ellis
29. Astronomical Markings at Three Sites on Fajada Butte
Anna P. Sofaer and Rolf M. Sinclair
30. Romancing the Stone, or Moonshine on the Sun Dagger
John B. Carlson
31. Lunar Standstills at Chimney Rock
J. McKim Malville, Frank W. Eddy, and Carol Ambruster
Part VI The Present and Future of Cultural Astronomy 3
Anthony Aveni
32. The Study of Cultural Astronomy
Clive L.N. Ruggles and Nicholas J. Saunders
33. Cosmograms and Maya City Planning: Selected Articles
Michael E. Smith, Wendy Ashmore, Jeremy A. Sabloff, and Ivan ¿prajc
34. Archaeology and Astronomy: A View from the Southwest
W. James Judge
35. I Wasn¿t Going to Say Anything, but Since You Asked: Archaeoastronomy and Archaeology
Keith W. Kintigh
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE