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→Moving to GA?: reply to A. Saul, whose comments were drawn from preceding and following titled sections as well
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:And while writing this up I see I've been corrected on the style guidelines. I was following from observation of recent FAs. Still, I think it improved many of the citations I made so it's not a ''complete'' waste of time. :) [[User:Alunsalt|Alunsalt]] ([[User talk:Alunsalt|talk]]) 15:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
:And while writing this up I see I've been corrected on the style guidelines. I was following from observation of recent FAs. Still, I think it improved many of the citations I made so it's not a ''complete'' waste of time. :) [[User:Alunsalt|Alunsalt]] ([[User talk:Alunsalt|talk]]) 15:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

:: Alun, You are correct. I do not wish to be adversarial, but I am passionate about accuracy and balance. To that end, I have just appended your segment on Fringe Archaeoastronomy. It is a distinct disservice to provide only archaeology's institutional dogmatic POV and ignore a comprehensive and, dare I say, more enlightened POV.

:: You assert above that my alternative write up on the English metrology debate as genesis for archaeoastronomy violated WP prohibitions on original research. This is '''false'''. From the moment I initially uploaded my replacement to your version on January 5, I included as my very first reference (itemized as #2 on the list) a lengthy article by Eric Michael Reisenauer, ''"The battle of the standards": great pyramid metrology and British identity, 1859-1890'', The Historian 2003, [[http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-135425064.html "HighBeam Encyclopedia]] whose relevant points to archaeoastronomy's emergence I summarized, including a tenuous thread as far back as Oxford Professor of Astronomy John Greaves and Leonardo's friend Gerolamo Cardano. This debate eventually led to Lockyear's 1894 work, which you are happy to acknowledge, though you somehow rationalize Proctor, Fish and Piazzi Smyth antecedent works have no relevancy. I am astonished at the omissions you made and again, the elevation of Nissen above this much more pronounced national dialogue in Merry Old England that preceded the German. BTW, you failed to respond to my emphatic objection to giving not an iota of credit to B. Thiel, Nissen's astronomy expert who appears to have done the heavy-lifting that supported Nissen's writings!

:: I stand by my guns on archaeoastronomy necessarily being seen as independent from the direct purview of archaeology. Archaeology is demonstrably heavy-handed when it comes to acceptance of bold, new theories. Plus, an archaeologist's indisputable perspective is downward into terra firma, not upward toward the firmament which what inspired the ancients to build and carve. Astronomers have much more in common with the people who left the memorials and devices behind, the body of contemporary literature by the archaeological community notwithstanding. It's intuitive and grammatically obviious: the root of archaeoastronomy is astronomy, as it rightfully should be.

:: The refusal of archaeologists to accept ideas outside-the-box is analogous to the Mac/Windows debate. I'm happy to see that you have come over from the Dark Side, as I have since the 486, Windows 3.1. Welcome! Now, try to "Think Different" about archaeology as Dennis Stanford and David H. Kelley do! What took you so long? :-) From pictures on his website, Clive Ruggles had an iBook laptop nearly a decade ago.

:: We can be civil, yet disagree. I'm still a bit perturbed by your choice to fully eliminate my excellent exposition and comprehensive introduction that, unlike your erudite replacement verbiage, actually grabbed the new reader and opened with an egalitarian overview. The self-serving slam on Barry Fell was the last straw, unwarranted and unbalanced. Barry cannot be lumped in with the fringees who advocate UFO's and Atlantis. To paint him as some kind of nut case cultist leader is adolescent at best. He was a Harvard Professor who advanced some very good theories which archaeologists find threatening. When I put together my version, I left in, in fact, enhanced, heinrich Nissen's role and the Google book in German I turned up. I even let your closing line in the History section intact which led nicely into Methodology. You however, erased some very good stuff of mine. [[User:Breadh2o|Breadh2o]] ([[User talk:Breadh2o|talk]]) 18:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


== Archaeoastronomy's relation to other disciplines ==
== Archaeoastronomy's relation to other disciplines ==

Revision as of 18:22, 21 March 2008

Former good articleArchaeoastronomy was one of the History good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
May 7, 2006Good article nomineeListed
August 30, 2007Good article reassessmentDelisted
Current status: Delisted good article


Spelling

Which spelling is more correct, or at least more often used: Archeoastronomy or Archaeoastronomy? This article can be filed under either spelling, and a redirect applied to the other. -- April

Google finds 12,300 for Archaeoastronomy, but only 1,420 for Archeoastronomy. So the article should probably go under Archaeoastronomy, unless someone has a good reason for preferring the other spelling. --Zundark, 2002 Jan 29

Science News made reference to the term as ethnoastronomy in 1987, but I haven't seen it used that way. Perhaps the page could mention it in passing. --Viriditas 04:22, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This article is kind of Anglocentric. Several Chinese astronomers have published in the last few years, usually in "Astronomy and Astrophysics - a European Journal"

I'll try to hunt up a few references. Also there is recent work on transits of Venus that should be mentioned. See:

[1]

among many references. The first recorded transit was in 1639

eclipses

Do these things belong on this page?

  1. use of eclipse records to date historical events
  2. use of historic eclipse trajectories to study past earth rotation

I'm not cluey enough about either to add them myself. --Zero 12:37, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Archaeoastronomy should keep to the ancient practices themselves, it seems to me, but an aside on modern uses of ancient astronomical records, now just hinted at here, would be useful, and an emphatic link to Chronology, where the employment of this dating technique in the hands of historians is worth all the detail you can give it! --Wetman 18:21, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Nabta Playa

Can someone verify the edits regarding Nabta Playa ? I refer you to User:Mark Dingemanse/Roylee. Wizzy…☎ 09:50, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Possible re-write

I've written a "What is archaeoastronomy?" page for my own site. I'm happy to put it in Wikipedia, but this would mean a major re-write of the existing article, the creation of an extra page and culling of many external links. You can see the text at http://archaeoastronomy.co.uk/archaeoastronomy/

I'd also pull the Some Old / New World sites where archaeoastronomy is being explored sections into a new page called Sites of Archaeoastronomical Significance and link to it via a See Also section. As for the external links most of them would go. I'm not convinced we need four separate links to James Q Jacobs's site. Many of the other links are very specific rather than being relevant to Archaeoastronomy in general. They might be good pages, but DMoz would be a better place to list them. The references would be replaced with the references used for the entry.

What is missing from the entry would be reference to things like the Orion's Belt theory. While I don't agree with them, people looking up von Daniken may refer to Wikipedia. A sub-section on pseudo-archaeology with links to the pseudo-archaeology entry and author pages like Bauval etc could be appended without problems.

I realise people will correct it as soon as I put it up, or that I could just put it up and leave it for someone to revert. I just thought with it being a big change and me being new here it would be a good idea to put up a notice first. I'm not trying to arrogantly run roughshod over the previous entry without consultation. If there's no major concerns then I'll add it in a couple of days. --Alunsalt 16:38, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know enough about the subject to comment on your content, but the philosophy of wikipedia is to be bold. The existing article is not much better than a stub. There is a biggish leader and then lists of links - a structured article will be an improvement. Of course the revision shouldn't include original research - but the proposed article appears to contain sufficient references that I assume this is not the case. If you are considering removing material, one way is to move it to this talk page, so that someone who strongly feels it is important doesn't need to revert your edit and can simply re-edit the old stuff into a suitable place in the new article. You could do the same with the existing external references. If you think the references are useful but very specific, one way to handle this is to use sub-headings under heading of external links - see Underwater archaeology for example. The some old/new world sites article might be best as a List of... article? You may get objectors to the idea of an article on pseudo-archaeology (either because people believe it and object to pseudo, or they believe it is pseudo and object to its inclusion at all). Personally I agree with you, but it needs to be carefully worded. Viv Hamilton 15:54, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The new version is up for people to pull apart. I don't know if it's over illustrated. Having previewed it uncountable times I've just realised the headings may not be up to style --Alunsalt 11:01, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Alun, the new version is much better organized than the old one. It's focus on academic archeaeoastronomy is a radical change, but on balance, one for the better. Thanks much, Steve McCluskey--141.153.125.219 00:48, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Previous State of Entry

Below is cut'n'pasted the previous version of the Archaeoastronomy entry so that anyone can put stuff back in if they feel it's should be in the new entry. My plan is to use the category page for Archaeoastronomy to help link in material so I'll be flitting round other relevant entries to make sure they have an archaeoastronomy category link later. The only major cuts will be in external links which will be heavily pruned. I'll be cutting links that aren't to archaeoastronomical sites and to sites concerned specifically with one culture. For instance some of the James Q Jacobs links might be better on the Maya calendar page. I've stepped down the headings to fit them below the one which starts this section.--Alunsalt 08:23, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Archaeoastronomy (also spelled Archeoastronomy) is the study of ancient or traditional astronomies in their cultural context, utilizing archaeological and anthropological evidence. Archaeoastronomy examines archaeological sites for evidence of astronomy in remote cultures, and anthropological and ethnohistorical evidence for evidence of astronomical practices in living cultures. The study of the astronomies of living traditional cultures is sometimes called Ethnoastronomy. Archaeoastronomy also focuses on modern astronomy, employing historical records of early astronomical observations to study past astronomical events, and employing astronomical data to clarify the historical record.

In the study of solar, lunar, and stellar alignments of monuments, numerous claims have been made that the megalithic monuments, such as Nabta Playa, Stonehenge and Newgrange, represent "ancient observatories," but the extent and nature of their use in that regard needs careful definition. Certainly, they are aligned with particular significance to the solstitial points.

The early development of this aspect of archaeoastronomy was influenced by Alexander Thom's studies of megalithic monuments of Britain, published in Megalithic sites in Britain (Oxford, 1967). Thom employed detailed surveys and statistical methods to investigate the calendric and astronomical functions of numerous Neolithic monuments. He claimed that these monuments incorporate alignments to points on the horizon where the sun and moon rise and set at seasonal extremes like midsummer, midwinter and the equinoxes. In addition to his work on Neolithic astronomy, he also proposed the megalithic yard as a standardized unit of measure. Although his work greatly influenced the development of archaeoastronomy, many of his conclusions (especially those implying highly precise observations) have been widely questioned.

Anthropological and ethnohistorical methods have been used to study astronomies in a wide range of cultures. Typical studies have examined the astronomical and calendric practices of the Hopi and Zuni of the Southwestern United States; the astronomy and cosmology of the Andean villagers of Misminay; the calendrical and divinatory practices of modern Maya priests, and the ambiguous lunar calendar of the Mursi of southwestern Ethiopia.

Archaeoastronomy has also considered the extensive records of ancient China for references to "guest stars". "Guest stars," or star-like objects which appeared in the night sky, were of great interest to the observers of ancient China and were often dutifully recorded. These events have been associated with many transitory phenomena, such as comets and, particularly, supernovae. Besides the insights such records provide into the significance of celestial phenomena in ancient cultures, they have also been found useful by modern astronomers.

Some Old World sites where archaeoastronomy is being explored

Some New World sites where archaeoastronomy is being explored

Some artifacts that throw light on archaeoastronomy

References

  • Clive Ruggles, Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland
  • Archaeoastronomy: The Journal of Astronomy in Culture [2]
Note: I don't recall this last entry being in the article I replaced. It's been added, unsigned, by E. Wayne. --Alunsalt 13:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ethnoastronomy

Well, the recent change by Melchoir has raised the issue to the fore. Is Ethnoastronomy a separate entity from archaeoastronomy, deserving its own article, or is it part of it? Since it is already covered (to some extent) in this article, perhaps we should make the connection clearer. For the moment, I'm going to remove the disturbing red link to the non-existent article on Ethnoastronomy. --SteveMcCluskey 13:49, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I have no idea, personally. But whatever the decision is, the intro must reflect it. Currently, we have an article on A that states "A is related to B, C, and D", while C and D are links to other articles and B is not. The omission frankly screams! Melchoir 14:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've revised the opening paragraph to reflect these comments. Take a look at the change to see if it deals with the problem adequately. --SteveMcCluskey 21:06, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Perfect! Melchoir 21:21, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article

Congratulations to Alunsalt and indeed all contributors to this beautifully-written article: it makes for a compelling, well-structured and very informative read, and is sumptuously illustrated. I've listed it as a Good Article since it meets all the criteria. However, despite its ample good points, it only just satisfies the broadness criterion in my opinion. In particular, the following points need addressing when further developing the article:

  • Most pressingly, how scientific is archaeoastronomy? To what extent are conclusions based upon individual opinions?
  • Which academic centres are the most prominent for archaeoastronomical research? This is vital for context.
  • There are no direct quotations either regarding the discipline itself or from eminent archaeoastronomers.
  • A section is needed which elaborates on how archaeoastronomy compares and contrasts with each of its closely-related disciplines, as suggested in the introduction. In particular, what sources tackle the ethnoastronomy/archaeoastronomy debate and among whom is there "no consensus"?
  • What are the major achievements within the discipline?
  • In ===Displays of Power===, the sentence "The use of astronomy at Stonehenge continues to be a matter of vigorous discussion" is opaque and needs context.

Some stylistic points of note:

  • There is Wikipedia consensus that footnote numbers should be placed after punctuation marks in the prose (except for brackets).
  • A redirect for ethnoastronomy is appropriate at the moment.
  • There should be a small introductory paragraph to the section ==Major topics of archaeoastronomical research==.
  • The image of Machu Picchu is beautiful, but it doesn't bear any obvious relevance to the prose it illustrates.

Anyway, I had a thoroughly good time reading this article, so cheers, and well done again. --Vinoir 16:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. The footnotes and redirect are in place. Perhaps a methodology section would tackle both the scientific/historical nature of archaeoastronomy and be a place to discuss ethnoastronomy? Clive's quote on archaeoastronomy spanning unbridled lunacy to something else (I'll have to look it up) would be a good intro to the methodology and arguments over how scientific one can be. --Alunsalt 17:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good stuff. A ==Methodology== section sounds ideal. If you ever need me for follow-up to the above comments, I'll be happy to oblige. Probably the article will also be large enough for peer review at that point, and I think that Featured Article status is a realistic prospect for the article. --Vinoir 20:59, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I forgot to make a note of what I added, and to spellcheck. I'll try and do the latter tomorrow morning. Added are Methodology and Recreating the Sky sections. I wanted to try and show there's more to method than just measuring alignments, and try and get away from the astronomical shopping list idea. As a result I'm not happy with either section as they stand, but they're up for anyone else to knock about. I'm off campus at the moment too, but when I'm back possibly next week, I'll try filling out the references.
Other sections I thought to add are Major archaeoastronomical sites which could briefly discuss Stonehenge, Chichen Itza and Giza with links through to the main articles and also an Archaeoastronomy and Archaeology section for the end to say that while you can't use purely astronomical data to turn the archaeological world upside down, some things do make more sense when astronomy is considered e.g. Maya Venus Star Wars, Iron Age roundhouses and Polynesian navigation.

Should this article discuss problematic cases?

I've been following recent changes to the article over at Hindu astronomy, where there has been an effective rebuttal of the attempts to use archaeoastronomical methods to push the date of Indian astronomy back by over two millennia. Lying behind these attempts is a nationalist agenda to grant Indian astronomy priority and make it the source of Greek and Babylonian astronomy.

I don't like to see archaeoastronomy tarred by this kind of foolishness, yet the late David Pingree, an expert on Indian astronomy — who also did solid research on Greek, Babylonian, and even medieval European astronomy — spent a page of an excellent article on early science condemning "the scholars who perpetrate wild theories of prehistoric science and call themselves archaeoastronomers." (Pingree, "Hellenophilia versus the History of Science," Isis, 83(1982):554-563, esp. p. 556; reprinted in Michael H. Shank, ed., The Scientific Enterprise in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr., 2000), pp.30-39.)

Perhaps the thing to do is add a section dealing with fallacies in Archaeoastronomy and discussing those standards that can help a reader critically evaluate such weak research. --SteveMcCluskey 21:35, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I thought a section on pseudo-archaeoastronomy might be useful, but I'm not sure I'm the person to write it. I'll look up that article because I haven't read it and it looks really useful. --Alunsalt 18:36, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Write More on the 'Astrological Significance' of These Sites?

It seems that most of these sites were built for these cultures to express their 'cosmic admiration' or 'cosmic awe' for their God(s), so possibly these sites have much more astrological significance than people (i.e. modern, highly skeptical scientists) give them credit for. Perhaps we should include more about the astrological significance of these amazing structures in the main article. For instance, we know that many archaeoastronomical sites are astronomically amazing and significant in that they uncannily line up with the cycles of the sun, moon, and planets, but WHY would these cultures go through the laborious process of building these sites if they didn't attach any astrological and/or spiritual significance to them? Thank you for your time and suggestions. --172.150.63.12 06:13, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's sorry you don't have a user name so I could contact you directly. Perhaps there could be a section on the use of early astronomies for prognostication. There are two problems. First, for most archaeoastronomical sites we don't have enough cultural context to say anything specific about the purposes to which they were put. The second, and related, problem is to find secondary accounts regarding this topic in reliable sources that could be cited in the article. I know the use of the Maya material for prognostication has been talked about by Tony Aveni and others but I'm pretty much at a loss for any good material on the other sites under discussion here. --SteveMcCluskey 17:12, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would be delighted to read more on the astrological significance of the sites, if it can be verified from a reliable source. As Steve says, there's not the cultural context there. For instance it would be weird if there wasn't some rich symbolism in the night sky of the builders of Stonehenge, but the complete lack of historical records means that we will never know what it was. Additionally ancient people are very good at being weird and proving everyone wrong.
There is also a danger that in specifying astrology rather than ritual you risk putting a modern preconception back onto the past. Astrology is not a universal belief system, in the case of Graeco-Roman astrology it relies on some fairly basic assumptions about the use fo mathematics which don't transfer to other cultures. I'll give it some thought. I did wonder if something could be added in the Displays of power section. Unfortunately the only suitable thing I can think of is some work on the Tellus relief at the Ara Pacis, but that's not verifiable as it hasn't been published yet. --Alunsalt 13:42, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good article status questioned

This article's status as a Good Article has been disputed. Please see the current discussion at WP:GA/R If you feel that you can improve the article so it meets good article standards please do. If you would like to contribute to the discussion of this article, please see good article reviews. Thank you. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 20:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Per consensus reached here, the article has been delisted. Giggy Talk 22:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus was reached and archived within a couple of hours as far as I can tell from the discussion here. I accept the decision, and probably would have voted for delisting, but it may have been better to let people who'd worked on the article know that the discussion was underway. It might be helpful if are people who noted the missing citations edit the article to point out where the problems are. I could certainly fill out some citations for some statements, but for the next few months I doubt I'll be bothered. I don't think anyone was being intentionally rude, but giving 24 hours notice might make people in other time zones feel their contributions are valued. --Alunsalt 23:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'm sorry you didn't get a notice. Generally you recieve one when it's listed, but this time Zeus1234 missed it. If you like, I'll un-delist it, and give you a few days to make changes etc. Giggy Talk 06:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Per your comments on the GA/R review, the article has been delisted. The discussion, now in archive, can be found here. Once you are able to work on the article and correct the issues, you may renominate it at WP:GAC. Please see the GA criteria to assist in bringing the article up to GA quality. Best regards, LARA♥LOVE 03:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Definition, Genesis and Intentionality of archaeoastronomy

According to Emeritus Professor of Archaeoastronomy at the University of Leicester Clive Ruggles,

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.

To me, at least, Ruggles' thumbnail definition seems more inclusive than what the lead paragraph of the WP article implies. Specifically, archaeologists tend to dismiss any otherwise legitimate instance of potential archaeoastronomical inquiry absent an archaeological or accepted, localized anthropological component, such as a priori excavations or established cultural context. Is the archaeo- prefix appended to root word, -astronomy, meant to confer an archaeological blessing antecedent to any such study? Or, rather, is the term implicit of a form of early, "archaic" practice, as distinguished from the practice of "modern" astronomy? This relates to my second issue, the characterization of the genesis of archaeoastronomy, as it appears in the lead sentence under the WP article's heading History of archaeoastronomy:

Archaeoastronomy is almost as old as archaeology itself.

: a statement which is not only vague, but misleading, as well. The term used to describe this specialized field of study originated in the late 20th century, while archaeology as a discipline defined by that term has been around much longer. Considering folks have been digging things out of the earth and salvaging shipwrecks in shallow waters for ages, a sloppy form of archaeology has been practiced for a long, long time. Among noted antiquarians participating in the unnamed field of what was to later become archaeoastronomy was Everett W. Fish, M.D., whose 1880 book The Egyptian Pyramids: An Analysis of A Great Mystery predated by fourteen years the WP article's citation of Norman Lockyer's work on Egyptian temples. Yet Fish is unacknowledged and deserves credit for what might well have inspired Lockyer for all we know. I note with interest Alun Salt's archaeoastronomy "arguably" confers the honor of "first archaeoastronomer" on Lockyer, when this is demonstrably incorrect based on a reading of the Fish .pdf accessible in the external link above. Further, Salt borrows generously phrases from his own home page to populate the WP article. If credibility counts, a wholesale review/revision is warranted, for example, emphasizing the fact that neither Fish, nor Lockyer, nor Alexander Thom, nor Gerald Hawkins were archaeologists, or supplicated themselves to archaeologists in order to perform their research and publish. Perhaps it takes a scientific edge possessed by medical doctors, astronomers, physicists and engineers to achieve pioneering studies in spite of archaeology.


Has anyone wrestled, as I have, with the irony of somehow trying to unnaturally weld archaeology to astronomy resulting in the odd-fellow derivative, archaeoastronomy? Just consider how practitioners of each field posture themselves in their studies and what they choose to observe, respectively. An archaeologist's posture is generally downward, deeper into the earth, and their focus is to note in detail and to preserve tactile things from any alteration; while an astronomer's posture is upward and outward into the skies above, and their focus is with changing and dynamic, usually cyclical, celestial phenomena, decidedly non-static and untouchable. In the end, archaeoastronomy is neither a hybrid merger of a discipline and a science, nor is it something to be considered in a clinical, academic vacuum absent an appreciation for myth, mysticism and astrology which played strong roles in ancient cultures. When complex petroglyphic sundials and shadowcasts tied to annual cusps such as the solstices and equinoxes, alongside translated messages in a Celtic alphabet known to exist in western Europe but which archaeologists admonish us has no business appearing in mid-America presumably cocooned from global diffusionism by ancient seafarers, this too must qualify as deserving serious archaeoastronomical research. Why permit the agenda of archaeologists or anthropologists to summarily veto legitimate inquiry into a collection of related anomalous sites simply because they are systemically disinterested in investigating such treasures (or unable to do so authoritatively) themselves?

A very important aspect of archaeoastronomy not addressed in any detail in the WP article is the issue of intentionality of solar or lunar alignments. Purely random instances of observed alignments should be ignored; but what criteria applies to establish genuine confidence that carefully documented phenomena with gnomen and target (and, in some of our cases, even translatable written clues) were intentionally conceived and recorded for posterity by human design? I can propose some guidelines by others, but first I choose to telegraph my perspectives for invited feedback. Later, upon reflection, I may proceed to bring some balance to the WP article on archaeoastronomy, now largely influenced by Alun's pen.Breadh2o (talk) 20:45, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not so much a case of borrowing phrases from my site. If you read above I put a draft of a re-write up on my site because it was a radical re-write and I didn't want to simply dismiss the previous entry without discussion. A flip through the history should show that that version went up more or less word for word. The article has been edited since then. For instance someone contacted me in distress that Lockyer wasn't the first archaeoastronomer and a while back I corrected it read put Heinrich Nissen (1864) in that place, which remains in the current article. He examined the alignments of Greek temples, and his book is avilable via Google Books. I can expand on that in the entry if you like. Alternatively the block could be deleted if it is too confusing.
If you can improve the article, with references from reliable sources, then please do. I still haven't got round to writing up the brief discussion of archaeoastronomical sites - which is an obvious hole. There's still no discussion of self-proclaimed archaeoastronomers and their more wild claims, like the Orion's Belt theory, which is a valid topic of interest. So I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvement. --Alunsalt (talk) 17:28, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Breadh2o
It helps readers to follow the course of the discussion if you place your additions after your earlier comments and after other editors' replies. That chronological sequence helps. As it is, you've buried your replies of 30 December in the middle of a text dated 28 December, where they may be overlooked and where their relation to Alunsalt's comments might be missed. Little things like this help clarify discussions of articles on the talk page.
You raised the important issue of intentionality. A useful place to start would be the discussions between Brad Schaefer and Anthony Aveni in the Proceedings of the Seventh Oxford Conference on Archaeoastronomy: Viewing the Sky Through Past and Present Cultures, pp. 27-83. I also commented on their discussion in an essay review in Journal for the History of Astronomy, 38(2007): 229-236.
I would be careful about dismissing the role of professional archaeologists in archaeoastronomy. Archaeoastronomical research is increasingly addressing those questions about cultures that concern archaeologists while archaeoastronomy is increasingly cited by professional archaeologists, who had previously neglected it. These citations seem to reflect the increasing quality and conceptual sophistication of archaeoastronomical work as it addresses the interaction of astronomies and cultures. This article should reflect those rigorous standards. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 01:47, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the heads-up on WP protocol for chronological postings. I've locked my introduction above and will make no further changes to it. I felt it appropriate to strike-text as an acknowledgment of Alun's valid point on the public preview before article replacement. Sorry, Alun. W/R/T archaeology becoming more open-minded about archaeoastronomical novelties without first satisfying requirements either 1-) supportive of Native American practice, or 2-) coincident with *verifiable*, portable artifacts matching the non-indigenous culture responsible for the sundial petroglyphs, I haven't seen any such attitude moderation here in mid-America. Maybe you have some anecdotal stories to encourage me. Meanwhile, for some insight on predictive, institutional behavior even when their own brethren upset the apple cart, please see BBC: Stone Age Columbus - transcript. As Smithsonian archaeologist Dennis Stanford puts it, "When you dig deeper than Clovis a lot of people do not report it because they're worried about the reaction of their colleagues." Breadh2o (talk) 04:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Starting 2008 with a project to gain consensus on a wholesale rewrite of sections one and two of the article. Please preview and provide feedback, public or private, to me. Thanks and Happy New Year to all. Breadh2o (talk) 06:53, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'll be putting up a revised version shortly. I left the previous edits up for so long as breadh2o was working on them and I thought adding in corrections as he worked would be disruptive. The biggest addition are the Sites of Archaeoastronomical Interest. I don't think these are finished versions but it's better than nothing and provides a seed to work from. The photos are all on the right because effectively it's a list and I think it looks neater. If someone else doesn't and thinks clear tags are a problem they can change it. Citations have been added bumping it up from 31 in the current version to 57.
More controversially I've pretty much reverted the additions by Breadh2o. The reasons for this are WP:V, WP:OR and WP:RS. An awful lot of text added by breadh2o seems to be opinion. Some of it is opinion I wholeheartedly agree with: The undisciplined mind can fall victim to delusion... yes indeed. Other parts are clearly Original Research. As an example as requested I put in a reference in English to the first archaeoastronomer being Heinrich Nissen. The reference is Clive Ruggles who Breadh2o seems happy with in other contexts, so I was mildly dismayed to see that deleted and replaced by his advocacy for Fish. It's an interesting discussion. What is it that makes something archaeoastronomy and something else antiquarianism? If I ever get round to writing an archaeoastronomy textbook I may explore that, but at the moment following WP:OR and WP:RS I think Clive Ruggles is the better source. Elsewhere, I'm not convinced that articles like an undergraduate essay on the internet is really a reliable source. Following WP:RS I've gone for academic journals rather than self-published websites.
There are also problems with phrasing. We have sentences like: His work ultimately was vindicated by investigative digs led by archaeologist Euan MacKie, who then proceeded to author new prehistories of Britain,[7] citing Thom's research. I think that's probably more emphatic than MacKie would say. The reason I say this is that the section which previously read: "broadly accepted Thom's conclusions" was written by Euan MacKie when he edited this entry and was a watering down of the unqualified use of the word accepted.
As far as links go, I've followed WP:NG. Some of the links I've deleted are good. Some are junk. What they all have in common is that they are are not about archaeoastronomy generically. They should be listed under the relevant pages.
I am also aware that my spellchecker and the titles of some books are causing concern. To quote from breadh20's notes

::::: The author's Anglican roots are further betrayed in the second sentence ending with "colonisers", instead of colonizers, as is the preferred spelling in the country having been colonized, some from Iberia and France, as well. I may be criticized (criticised) here as one, lone, over-sensitized (sensitised) Yank in an age of political correctness...

I can assure Breadh2o I am not currently, never have been and never plan to become a member of the Church of England. If he means I'm English, then I can reassure him that's not the case either. However my spellchecker is set to British English. Apple haven't set out to annoy Americans by means of provocative spelling. Wikipedia draws editors from all over the world. Not everyone will be equipped with American spellchecking software and I think we may collectively need to brace ourselves for that and deal with it as calmly as we can.
On the whole I think breadh2o's criticisms have helped make this a better cited article and have helped clarify some issues. If there is a serious problem with the edits we could see if people from the Archaeology and Paranormal WikiProjects can make some helpful suggestions. Alunsalt (talk) 17:55, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
...and now it's live. Alunsalt (talk) 17:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Alun: Nice job tidying up the article and restoring its focus. Perhaps now we can work to bring it back to Good Article status and beyond. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Alun: I question your neutrality, as you have impugned mine. Good article status was, afterall, revoked on your watch. So I endeavored to provide more balance, insight, and a practical, yet broad perspective and overview at the beginning. I vigorously dispute your assertion my revised introduction and history segments, well annotated, violated WP guidelines for verifiability, avoidance of original research or failure to cite reliable sources. Where's the beef? My brief segment on the controversial nature of this science, which you deleted, did touch on opinion, not my own, mind you, but opposing viewpoints, well-articulated by authors who themselves provided multiple citations. Our readership deserves to understand the cross-currents that, indeed, separate you and me. Ironically, deletion precisely makes my point by its present invisibility: archaeologists like to remain in absolute control of this field.
As for an implicit contention that your neutrality surpasses mine, I must disagree. While Clive Ruggles is an authority (also your professor at the University of Leicester), you do not provide any actual title or authoritative context for him other than to cite Steve McCluskey's acknowledged editorial. Is citing an editorial any less a violation of WP guidelines than citing a graduate student's research paper? You also singled out Hopi skywatching in your introduction, to the exclusion of other specific examples. Fully one-third of the citations in your introduction point to S.M. McCluskey, including the one on his Hopi research. Steve congratulates you immediately above my post for "restoring focus". I suppose it is implicit my introduction was comparatively unfocussed in citing only Stonehenge, Newgrange and Chichén Itzá. It is futile, I understand, to attempt to override your reverts herein, when tag-teamed by such collegial pals.
You are a graduate student studying archaeoastronomy with respect to Grecian Temples. As such, it is understandable why you would elevate Heinrich Nissen as the first archaeoastronomer, who happened to share your narrow interest. (You still don't give any credit to his astronomy expert B. Thiel, author of the alignment tables in Heinrich's book, but then, archaeologists sometimes have a blindspot w/r/t lowly astronomers). So it comes as little surprise that you would also choose to dismiss in whole my alternative historical genesis, logically constructed, foot-noted and reliably annotated. The huge metrology debate that swept England in the mid-1800s based on competing interpretations of proportions in the Great Pyramid seems irrelevant to you, and therefore by proxy, should be as well to the entire Wikipedia readership. But to me, even with Clive Ruggles' blessing of Heinrich, the emotion and intensity of the metrology debate looms much larger as a definitive catalyst that launched the eventual field (yes, that may have been mid-wifed as antiquarianism) than Nissen's book, that has yet to even be translated into English (hardly the earth-shaking tome you believe it to be).
Finally, at the very end, readers are treated to a Barry-Fell-bashorama citation 99, which is really nothing more than an isolated skreed by an archaeologist named W. Hunter Lesser, pretty typical. The substance of Lesser's article is far more obsessed with childish name-calling than actual discreditation. It is an opinion shared by most archaeologists who prefer to think of diffusionists as legitimate whipping posts. Yes, Barry Fell made mistakes, but authorities in your field, Alun, such as David H. Kelley have come to Dr. Fell's defense, too. On 29 June 2006, you wrote on this very page:

I thought a section on pseudo-archaeoastronomy might be useful, but I'm not sure I'm the person to write it.

Well, you managed to insert a requisite dig for the team! From my point of view, archaeologists are often too quick to condemn new ideas merely because they fail to fit the mold of their entrenched dogma. And this IS a systemic problem in the field of archaeology, whether you're prepared to acknowledge it or not. Peer review is protectionism in the name of perpetual preservation (of dogma).Breadh2o (talk) 05:15, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Moving back to GA status

The next steps I can think of are expanding the intro. I think one or two of Rolf Sinclair's articles on the nature of archaeoastronomy would be good for that along with the Ruggles quote on sanity and lunacy when I can find it.

Another section might be Archaeoastronomy: Sub-discipline or Inter-discipline? This could tackle Breadh2o's concerns about definition in more depth, add in discussion about its connection to Ethnoastronomy, the arguments over Intentionality and something about where the major centres are as Vinoir suggested. This could be a diplomatic problem as centre = one paid staff member for many archaeoastronomy hubs. If it closes with a mention that the dispersed and specialised nature of the centres is due to the history of archaeoastronomy's development then it would sit neatly at Section 1 and lead on to History of Archaeoastronomy at Section 2.

It may be helpful to pull in some people from the Paranormal and Archaeology WikiProjects for reviews after this for extra opinions.

I have to admit I'm not that bothered about GA status itself. I was rather non-plussed by the insta-stripping of GA status and the lack of constructive criticism by the editors voting. On the other hand it's a handy goal for improving the article which is something I can be interested in. Alunsalt (talk) 21:43, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alun –
I think you're on the right track here, although I'm a bit uncertain about how typical Sinclair's two main essays, in the Oxford 5 and Oxford 7 volumes are. Sinclair approaches the discipline as a scientist, and tends to see its practitioners as doing something like what astronomers do. In this regard, my essay about dissertations and theses pointed out that the authors of dissertations and theses in the field described what they were studying as archaeology, cultural anthropology, history, the relations of astronomy to religion, literature, or art, and astronomy – in that order. (S. C. McCluskey, "The Study of Astronomies in Cultures as Reflected in Dissertations and Theses," Archaeoastronomy: The Journal of Astronomy in Culture, 18(2004): 20-25)
In addition to Sinclair's essays, the article could also draw on the essays of Aveni, Iwaniszewski, and Gingerich in World Archaeoastronomy (Oxford 2), that of Ruggles and Saunders in Astronomies and Cultures (Oxford 3), those of Carlson, Murray, and Ruggles in Archaeoastronomy, vol. 15 (Oxford 6), and that of Iwaniszewski in Calendars, Symbols, and Orientations (SEAC 2001). Also, despite their flaws, the recent debate between Schaefer and Aveni (and maybe my reveiw in JHA) has something to offer. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 23:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I thought Schaefer and Aveni's essays would be very helpful in the new section 1. I'm wondering if Archaeoastronomy and its relationship with Archaeology would be a better heading. It would help tackle some of the question 'How scientific is archaeoastronomy?' which Vinoir posed. For the Intro I thought three paragraphs One saying briefly that Archaeoastronomy is the study of ancient astronomies. I think there was a short pithy sentence that I was going to lift from Sinclair for that. If not then there's plenty of other sources. The second that it's a distinct subdiscipline of archaeology (to cover the methodology section) and then third mentioning the contributions it can make to landscape archaeology and cognitive archaeology (covering themes/sites for research). I think that would cover the details in brief and then in depth discussion of what Archaeoastronomy is, with all the various names and approaches, sits in section 1? I think I can grab a copy of Oxford 2 next week from the library, but I'm not sure about Oxford 6. I'm up with ill relatives today, which means I only have time for easily interrupted work like this, so it may be done tonight. Alunsalt (talk) 23:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've added the new intro. Also to take on board Vinoir's request for quotes about archaeoastronomy I've added relevant quotes at the top of each section. Wikipedia was happy about line breaks, so the names are in the citations rather than next to the quotes. I think I'll need to come back to that.
I've added a stub of what I was going to suggest as the new section 1 which I was going to try and tackle the science vs. culture element in. I'll try and expand that when I have time. I thought there was a paper in the Oxford V book saying that only 28% of delegates were archaeologists, 27% were astronomers etc... to explain the diversity of approaches, but I seem to have lost it. Alunsalt (talk) 12:56, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Moving to GA?

I've changed the references to Harvard style as that's the favoured style for Featured Articles. If I'd realised it would have over 100 references I would have done it sooner. There's one [citation needed] tag regarding archaeologists and statistics. I was thinking of using Clive Orton's book for that but I'll want to check it before I add it in. Hopefully I haven't messed up other references. I've been using Ruggles 2005 as a last resort as I'm not in the UoL library at the moment. When I am I can replace some of those references with full articles. I think I also need to flip through the 97 and 99 SEACs and the Oxford II volume again. Adding in some Milone and Kelley could be a good idea, though in many places their own references are somewhat dated.

Looking at the GA criticisms:

GA Reassessment committee

  • More citations - done

Vinoir

  • How scientific is archaeoastronomy? To what extent are conclusions based upon individual opinions? - tackled to some extent with the Archaeoastronomy and other disciplines section.
  • Which academic centres are the most prominent for archaeoastronomical research? - omitted centres can be one member of staff and finding secondary sources suitable for WP:RS would be difficult to impossible. I know Colgate was a major centre, but proving it is another matter.
  • There are no direct quotations either regarding the discipline itself or from eminent archaeoastronomers. - added I didn't think this was too important, but I think the quotations do add something so I was wrong there.
  • A section is needed which elaborates on how archaeoastronomy compares and contrasts with each of its closely-related disciplines - tackled to some extent with the Archaeoastronomy and other disciplines section. I think there's room for an Ethnoastronomy article on Wikipedia, but I don't fancy writing it yet.
  • What are the major achievements within the discipline? - done but I appreciate there are possibly other examples to use. I'm really not keen on the Archaeoastronomy = Stone circles cliché, but I realise other people are.
  • In Displays of Power, the sentence "The use of astronomy at Stonehenge continues to be a matter of vigorous discussion" is opaque and needs context. - deleted See immediately above, it appears as a major site as it would be stupid not to list it.
  • Stylistic notes - tackled The Machu Picchu photograph is replaced with the very relevant Karnak. When I have free time I'll flip back through my South America notes and put more about Inca / pre-Inca material into the article. I don't think the gap is a problem for GA, but it is for FA.

Breadh2o

  • Spelling - I saw where it said colonised and zedded it.
  • Dismissal of the 'alternative historical genesis' - Yes. WP:OR
    • English language sources have been used for reference as requested. Unfortunately even today some major articles written by Europeans are written in their own languages.
  • Why is archaeoastronomy not legitimately the exclusive sub-discipline of Astronomy? - tackled in the references and the Archaeoastronomy and other disciplines section. It's a perfectly sensible question which is why I put this section in.
  • The refusal of archaeologists to accept theories put forward by breadh2o. - no action There's not a lot I can do about this, and this is really discussion about the article rather than problems in archaeoastronomy. In your own links you show us that people working in the field think your claims are unreliable. WP:RS is applicable here particularly the section on scholarship and self-published articles.
  • The use of Steve McCluskey's work - noted That's really down to the fact that I know Clive Ruggles' and Steve McCluskey's work best. There's also people like Anthony Aveni and it's really impossible to write a credible archaeoastronomy entry without heavily referring to the work of those three. Steve McCluskey's here and willing to edit. I'm not omniscient and can make mistakes, so I thought it best to put in stuff I know can be corrected. The same goes with Euan MacKie's material which he corrected.
  • Narrow focus - see below This may be a perspective issue. I'd argue this version of the article is more inclusive as it included opinions of astronomers as well as others. The Oxford conferences, where a lot of the references are pulled from, were around 1/3 astronomers 1/3 archaeologists/anthropologists and 1/3 other according to Gummerman & Warburton 2005.

Now this last problem is a bit to-may-to to-mah-to. We could make this adversarial but I'm assuming like me, breadh2o wants a better article than to grind an axe. Would now be a good time to call for other editors to look at this entry from the Archaeology and Paranormal wikiprojects? We can point them at the article as it was left and they can look at the recent edits and see if they can suggest ways to pull in material to see what works and propose other improvements. We can also notify the editors who read this article in the past. Does this sound like a way forward? Alunsalt (talk) 15:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And while writing this up I see I've been corrected on the style guidelines. I was following from observation of recent FAs. Still, I think it improved many of the citations I made so it's not a complete waste of time. :) Alunsalt (talk) 15:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Alun, You are correct. I do not wish to be adversarial, but I am passionate about accuracy and balance. To that end, I have just appended your segment on Fringe Archaeoastronomy. It is a distinct disservice to provide only archaeology's institutional dogmatic POV and ignore a comprehensive and, dare I say, more enlightened POV.
You assert above that my alternative write up on the English metrology debate as genesis for archaeoastronomy violated WP prohibitions on original research. This is false. From the moment I initially uploaded my replacement to your version on January 5, I included as my very first reference (itemized as #2 on the list) a lengthy article by Eric Michael Reisenauer, "The battle of the standards": great pyramid metrology and British identity, 1859-1890, The Historian 2003, ["HighBeam Encyclopedia] whose relevant points to archaeoastronomy's emergence I summarized, including a tenuous thread as far back as Oxford Professor of Astronomy John Greaves and Leonardo's friend Gerolamo Cardano. This debate eventually led to Lockyear's 1894 work, which you are happy to acknowledge, though you somehow rationalize Proctor, Fish and Piazzi Smyth antecedent works have no relevancy. I am astonished at the omissions you made and again, the elevation of Nissen above this much more pronounced national dialogue in Merry Old England that preceded the German. BTW, you failed to respond to my emphatic objection to giving not an iota of credit to B. Thiel, Nissen's astronomy expert who appears to have done the heavy-lifting that supported Nissen's writings!
I stand by my guns on archaeoastronomy necessarily being seen as independent from the direct purview of archaeology. Archaeology is demonstrably heavy-handed when it comes to acceptance of bold, new theories. Plus, an archaeologist's indisputable perspective is downward into terra firma, not upward toward the firmament which what inspired the ancients to build and carve. Astronomers have much more in common with the people who left the memorials and devices behind, the body of contemporary literature by the archaeological community notwithstanding. It's intuitive and grammatically obviious: the root of archaeoastronomy is astronomy, as it rightfully should be.
The refusal of archaeologists to accept ideas outside-the-box is analogous to the Mac/Windows debate. I'm happy to see that you have come over from the Dark Side, as I have since the 486, Windows 3.1. Welcome! Now, try to "Think Different" about archaeology as Dennis Stanford and David H. Kelley do! What took you so long? :-) From pictures on his website, Clive Ruggles had an iBook laptop nearly a decade ago.
We can be civil, yet disagree. I'm still a bit perturbed by your choice to fully eliminate my excellent exposition and comprehensive introduction that, unlike your erudite replacement verbiage, actually grabbed the new reader and opened with an egalitarian overview. The self-serving slam on Barry Fell was the last straw, unwarranted and unbalanced. Barry cannot be lumped in with the fringees who advocate UFO's and Atlantis. To paint him as some kind of nut case cultist leader is adolescent at best. He was a Harvard Professor who advanced some very good theories which archaeologists find threatening. When I put together my version, I left in, in fact, enhanced, heinrich Nissen's role and the Google book in German I turned up. I even let your closing line in the History section intact which led nicely into Methodology. You however, erased some very good stuff of mine. Breadh2o (talk) 18:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Archaeoastronomy's relation to other disciplines

I'm not particularly happy with the article's recurring claim that "Archaeoastronomy is a distinct sub-discipline of Archaeology." Some of it is, but not all practitioners of the field see it that way. In a recent review of the Oxford V and VII volumes in Journal for the History of Astronomy, I presented several different people's views that placed it variously in the intellectual traditions of archaeology, of cultural anthropology, or of art history and art criticism.

Both volumes under review open with reflections by various observers considering the present state and future directions of archaeoastronomy.... [T]here are essays by the physicist Rolf Sinclair (V, 3-13 and VII, 13-26), the archaeologists George Gummerman and Miranda Warburton (V, 15-24), Todd Bostwick (VII, 1-10), David Whiteley (VII, 85-102) and Victor Fisher (VII, 103-12), and the art historian Richard Poss (V, 81-98). A recurring theme in these essays is that archaeoastronomy is best understood as a specialized subdiscipline contributing an astronomical dimension to archaeological understandings of cultures and societies. Gummerman and Warburton viewed archaeoastronomy as part of an archaeology informed by cultural anthropology. Thus “to truly comprehend a culture we must have some sense of its cosmology – the group’s conception of themselves in relation to the heavens” (V, 15-16). Bostwick, “an archaeologist trained in the early 1980s to believe that archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing,... argue[d] that archaeoastronomy is anthropology – the study of human behavior in the past and present” (VII, 3). Whiteley made the boldest statement of this when he titled a section of his chapter on the interpretation of rock art “Archaeoastronomy is archaeology, or it is nothing” (VII, 90). Whiteley carried this argument further, maintaining that as a social science archaeoastronomy is “necessarily concerned with patterns of behavior, not random, isolated, or idiosyncratic acts” (VII, 89). Many anthropologists, most historians, and particularly this reviewer, would not be willing to accept this abandonment of a concern with the local and contingent, which returns in Poss’s recommendation that Anasazi rock art be read employing “the hermeneutic traditions of western art history and art criticism” (V, 97).

I'd like to add something like that to this article to avoid tying archaeoastronmy exclusively to archaeology. Any comments? --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 04:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't had chance to pick up that edition of JHA yet, the UoL library is making it extremely difficult to pick up journals till it fully re-opens in April, but I'm happy with the argument you're making. 'Specialized' certainly seems a better word than 'distinct' but I agree the the problem is further than that and the section needs a major re-write and probably a new title. I was trying for something which tried to show that Archaeoastronomy wasn't a discipline of its own but associated with social studies. Would Archaeo-astronomy or Cultural Astronomy? be a better title and direction to move in? Alunsalt (talk) 09:27, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I can't get to it right away, but for the moment I'll signal the change by changing the title of the section from "Archaeoastronomy and its relationship to Archaeology" to "Archaeoastronomy and its relations to other disciplines". That will even leave room open for -- heaven forfend ;) -- its relationship to Astronomy. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:53, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a first cut on the revised section. I also moved it since it fit logically after the history and before the methodology sections. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That looks good to me. It's like getting a free lecture :) Alunsalt (talk) 23:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why is archaeoastronomy not legitimately the exclusive sub-discipline of Astronomy? Archaeo is the adjective or modifier. Astronomy is the root. Think of Paleobiology. With all due respect to Whiteley's opinion, Scott Monahan says: Paleobiology is biology, or it is nothing. Afterall, no one discusses astroarchaeology seriously. If they did, then maybe Alun could legitimately assert it is a subdiscipline of archaeology. Until then, you'll hear me protest any attempt to hobble the science as an exclusive hand-servant to the whims and prerogatives of archaeologists. Remember, they look down deep into the ground for answers. Astronomers look up into the skies for answers...as did those ancient people who cared about what was above, not below, and memorialized their thoughts in stone. They were astronomers first and the first astronomers. Think about it. Breadh2o (talk) 06:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My answer is an empirical one. The study of archaeoastronomy dissertations I cited in the article shows that very few writers of dissertations characterize what they're doing as astronomy. A recent study of citations that I did for a talk, but since I didn't publish is Original Research which I can't cite in the article, shows a similar pattern where archaeoastronomy articles are predominantly cited in anthropology, archaeology, and history journals; citations in astronomy journals are rare. (Incidentally, the study also showed a rise in citations by archaeologists in the last decade, which matches Fisher's discovery of the increasing presence of archaeoastronomy in archaeology textbooks). --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One more point, you say that because these ancient people were astronomers, investigation of their activities should be astronomy. There are two answers. First, from what we know from ethnographic and historical studies, these people were not professional astronomers; they were unspecialized learned people, widely trained in religion and the study of their natural environment -- including the celestial environment. Secondly, even if we were to grant that they were astronomers, the study of their activities is as properly part of the study of archaeology and anthropology as the study of modern astronomers is properly part of history -- specifically the history of science. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:29, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Footnotes or Harvard Referencing

Thanks for adding the bibliography, but I note the comment about preparing to convert the article "to Harvard references as per FA guidelines". I'm a footnote fan, they leave the article cleaner when there are many citations, but I'm not dogmatic on the issue. I only note that both footnotes or Harvard references are acceptable in the Featured Article Criteria, so there's no need to make the major effort to convert all the references. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I see you're combining Harvard with footnotes. It works well. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, yes I'm trying not to lose any information along the way. It helped tidy up some of the references I'd put in. Alunsalt (talk) 15:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Barry Fell Epigraphic debate

As interesting as the discussion of the reactions to Barry Fell may be to the debate on New World epigraphy, they really are off-topic to a discussion of archaeoastronomy. The only rationale for including them is the brief comment on "Cult archaeology" in the discussion of West Virginia petroglyphs. I'll re-edit that section to remove the offensive language and delete the lengthy response.

The removed section might be meaningfully incorporated into the article Barry Fell, where those issues are discussed, or perhaps into other articles dealing directly with Epigraphy or New World prehistory. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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