Quezi

Mayan Observatory - courtesy ground.zero - CC-BY

Throughout history, we have looked to the skies for a wide variety of reasons. Archaeoastronomy is a fairly new field of study which allows us to find out more about our ancestors history of viewing and trying to explain the cosmos.

Archaeoastronomy is a combination of two words (archaeology and astronomy) and is the study of ancient people and their interpretations of things celestial.

This study includes ancient astronomical practices, religious beliefs, science and world views.

Based on the archaeological remains the ancient people left behind, archaeoastronomy is archaeology and astronomy combined to study of the history of Man.

Archaeoastronomy is an interdisciplinary field which involves the work of not only astronomers and archaeologists, but also ethnographers, geographers, cartographers, and scientists from other fields.  Together they interpret primary sources of information and ancient structures of astronomical relevance and draw conclusions from them.

Archaeoastronomy is  still is not an acknowledged science in many countries. That is probably because it is quite open to controversy and is still in a rather early stage of development.

For more information about archaeoastronomy