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Astronomy Cast Episode 216 from Monday, January 17, 2011.

Archaeo Astronomy

Welcome to Astronomy Cast, our weekly backspace journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know.

My name is Fraser Cain, I'm the publisher of the universe today, and with me is Dr. Pamela Gaye, a professor at Southern Illinois University, Everett's Field. Hi Pamela, how are you doing?

I'm doing well, Fraser, how are you doing?

I'm doing great. It is still really cold and snowy, so...

Okay, go outside again, but it's going to be changing soon.

Okay, so this week, we have a lot of times, we've got a role.

The sun, moon, stars, and planets are visible with the unedited eye, and so there have been astronomers before recorded history.

But some of the earliest records we do have tell us what the ancient astronomers thought about the heavens and how they use the changing night sky in their daily lives.

Let's look at archaeo astronomy.

Archaeo astronomy, it's like archaeology and astronomy.

Is it archaeologists who like astronomy or astronomers who like archaeology?

It's actually one of those bad interdisciplinary fields where everyone lays claims to it, and so you really have to be good at all of it to be good at the field.

Right.

So you have even anthropologists get thrown into the mix, but that then becomes a word no one can say.

Sort of an Indiana Jones with the telescope, right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Or a Neil deGrasse Tyson with a bull whip?

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