
Stars and Stones
Voyages in Archaeoastronomy and Cultural Astronomy: Proceedings of the SEAC 2011 conference
Edited by F. Pimenta, N. Ribeiro, F. Silva, N. Campion, A Joaquinito and L. Tirapicos
Since Prehistory, the sky has always been integrated as part of the cosmovision of human societies. The sky played a fundamental role not only in the orientation of space, time organization, ritual practices or celestial divination, but also as an element of power. Migrations and voyages are intrinsic to humankind, they opened the routes for cultural diffusion and trade, but also for power dominance. Following these routes is also to follow cultural diversity and how human societies met or clashed. The sky and astronomical phenomena provided the tools for time reckoning, calendar organization and celestial navigation that supported those voyages. Astronomy today gives us the capacity to reproduce the sky, opening a window through which we can glimpse howthose societies perceived, integrated and manipulated the sky into their world-views and their myths and, ultimately, into their social organization. The papers presented in this volume were submitted after the 19th meeting of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture, Évora, Portugal, 19th-23rd September, 2011.
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About the Editors
Fabio Silva is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeological Modelling at Bournemouth University and co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology. His primary research interest is how societies have perceived and conceived their world(s) and used that to time and adjust social, productive and magico-religious behaviours. This steered him to focus his research along two distinct yet complementary strands: archaeological modelling and skyscape archaeology.

Dr Nicholas Campion is Principal Lecturer, Institute of Education and Humanities, and Associate Professor in Cosmology and Culture. He is the director of the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture, the only academic Centre in the world to deal with cultural relationships with the sky and the cosmos. He is responsible for taking forward the Centre’s research and teaching activities, through supervising PhD students, sponsoring research projects, organising conferences and other events, and publishing research via the peer-reviewed journal Culture and Cosmos. He also serves as Programme Director of the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology.