Thoughts Triggered by “Skyscapes in the Academy: Is There a Future?”
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FORUM Thoughts Triggered by “Skyscapes in the Academy: Is There a Future?” Rita Gautschy Department of Ancient Civilizations, University of Basel, Switzerland [email protected] I teach two consecutive archaeoastronomy courses at the University of Basel for Bach- elor’s and Master’s students, both of which are optional. More than 50 years ago, an institute for Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Science was founded at our univer- sity; geoarchaeology, archaeobotany, archaeozoology, anthropology, archaeogenetics and archaeogeochemistry (isotopes) are the main research topics undertaken to gain insight into the everyday life, nutrition, economy and environment of a site’s inhabitants in the past. Archaeoastronomy fits well into this combined framework of humanities and natural science research. Furthermore, our curricula are flexible, hence the specific department in which the course is offered is not as important as it may be at other universities. My students are mainly archaeologists – prehistorians, classical archaeolo- gists, Roman archaeologists, Egyptologists – but there are also physicists, astronomers, mathematicians, biologists, pharmacists, biophysicists, historians and philosophers. The largest number of my students, though, will go on to be involved in excavations in the Alpine region and work in local museums or for local archaeological services. In Switzerland, open space is very precious and quite often find spots are built over and no longer accessible after excavations, and as such it is vital to teach our students – who will be responsible for excavations in the near future – what kind of data and information we need. My aim is that all the necessary data for archaeoastronomical investigations will be obtained and recorded during excavations on a regular basis. The focus of my courses is central Europe and “neighbouring” cultures to as far away as the Middle East; the rest of the world is not covered in courses. During the first semester I teach the necessary astronomy basics in three blocks and discuss objects, monuments and concepts from prehistoric times to the end of the Bronze Age. Subjects covered include Lascaux, megalithic monuments and the Nebra sky disk, as well as Egyptian and Mesopotamian astronomy and astrology – it is very important to become familiar with cultures for which written sources provide direct evidence of contemporary astronomical JSA 6.1 (2020) 98–100 ISSN (print) 2055-348X https://doi.org/10.1558/jsa.42312 ISSN (online) 2055-3498 Thoughts Triggered by “Skyscapes in the Academy: Is There a Future?” 99 knowledge and concepts, given that writing is lacking for central Europe. Controversial interpretations are presented and discussed with students, such as “calendars” on bones or gold hats – students learn to analyse papers, to extract the basic information and to check whether the interpretation seems feasible or not in relation to what they have learned already. At the end of the semester understandings of the basics of astronomy are tested in an exam, although to me it is more important that students should know the implications of effects such as precession – that the azimuths of fixed stars are affected by precession, but not those of the Sun and Moon – than that they should be able to explain the physics of the effect in detail. The second semester starts with fieldwork in pairs at Augusta Raurica, where we train on site what a record suitable for archaeoastronomical analysis should contain. In the following two lectures horizon panoramas are stitched, the resulting panorama images georeferenced and azimuth values and declinations for the Sun and Moon at the solstices, equinoxes and lunar standstills are calculated and plotted on top of the images. The main objective of this exercise is not to obtain perfect results, but rather to encounter and tackle all the major problems that can occur and to learn by trial-and-error. Hence, discussions about the problems and the best way to proceed are key elements of this group work. Other topics of the second semester include the Celtic barrow Magdalenenberg, the Coligny calendar, Greek natural philosophy, time- measuring devices and calendrical monuments such as the Meridian of Augustus, the history of astrology and the orientation of churches in the Alpine region to the patron saint’s day. During the semester each student has to develop an individual small project and present their results at the end, thus demonstrating that they have learnt the lessons of the fieldwork and the data analysis methods in the weeks that followed. Popular projects include an analysis of the orientation of a church and its embedding in the surrounding landscape, or obtaining a horizon panorama at an archaeological site. The different backgrounds of my students are particularly inspiring during the second semester – for example, physics students can learn a lot from archaeology students, but also teach them a lot in group work. As regards the curricula of archaeoastronomy courses, I think notwithstanding the particular discipline they are rooted in at different universities there are certain key themes that should be covered, such as the necessary astronomical basics and key monuments such as Stonehenge, but it is absolutely necessary to include and highlight regional topics to embed the course in the local course programme – and of course, one’s own preferences should not be neglected! In my view, in the three German-speaking countries, skyscapes, cultural astronomy or archaeoastronomy – whatever one prefers to call it – clearly belongs to archaeology in academia. But ultimately, the name of the teaching unit is not important as long as it relates to a humanities discipline. This seems important to me in order not to miss significant parts of our target group. I strongly opt for integration of our courses in more general programmes, for two reasons. First, there are no jobs – neither inside nor outside academia – for specialised archaeoastronomers, cultural astronomers or skyscape researchers. Thus, I don’t see a value in tailoring dedicated programmes for students. Second, I’m convinced that for all investigations of landscape objects that may have some association with the skyscape, it © 2020 EQUINOX PUBLISHING LTD 100 Rita Gautschy is essential to have both mastery of the basics of astronomy and an in-depth knowledge of archaeology. Our aim must be to provide our students with a much better education in both fields than our generation(s) usually obtained. If we fail to achieve this, we have no future in academia. However, if on the other hand we manage to raise our level of engage- ment and publish in archaeology journals, we then do have a future. In my view, trying to establish a separate discipline and programmes would be totally counterproductive, but rooted within archaeology it is possible for students of archaeology to write their theses on a skyscape topic and to choose archaeoastronomy as one of the topics for their final exams. There are archaeologists out there who are open minded and convinced that it is important to appreciate how skyscapes played an important role in the worldview of ancient societies, as expressed for example in particular beliefs, cults and rituals. It is up to us to collaborate with these archaeologists, to learn from them and with their help to tackle new questions and achieve higher acceptance within archaeological disci- plines. This is the only way forward I see for a sustainable future for archaeoastronomy. It is possible, but we have to move a bit and play an active part in identifying common research questions and seeking out collaborations with archaeologists! © 2020 EQUINOX PUBLISHING LTD.