and Ireland Minoan Temples and Tombs Nebra Disc Nuraghi Prehistoric Tombs and Temples in
Europe Short Stone Rows Son Mas Stone Circles Swedish Rock Art Taulas Tri-Radial Cairns
First millennium B.C.E.
General
Ancient Egyptian Calendars Babylonian Astronomy and
Astrology Chinese Astronomy Delphic Oracle Fiskerton Hesiod (Eighth Century B.C.E.) Hopewell Mounds Horizon Calendars of Central Mexico Iron Age Roundhouses Mesoamerican Calendar Round Prehistoric Tombs and Temples in
Europe Taulas Temple Alignments in Ancient Greece Venus in Mesoamerica
Second and first centuries B.C.E.
Julian Calendar Roman Astronomy and Astrology
Sarmizegetusa Regia Star of Bethlehem
First millennium C.E.
General
Chinese Astronomy Easter Island Group E Structures Hawaiian Calendar Hopewell Mounds Javanese Calendar Land of the Rising Sun Maya Long Count Mesoamerican Calendar Round Mesoamerican Cross-Circle Designs Nasca Lines and Figures Navigation in Ancient Oceania Necker Island Polynesian and Micronesian
Astronomy Polynesian Temple Platforms and
Enclosures Saroeak Teotihuacan Street Grid Venus in Mesoamerica Zenith Stars in Polynesia Zenith Tubes
First to fourth centuries C.E.
Crucifixion of Christ Mithraism Pantheon Roman Astronomy and Astrology
Seventh to tenth centuries C.E.
Angkor Cacaxtla Caracol at Chichen Itza Governor’s Palace at Uxmal Kukulcan
Second millennium C.E.
General
Chinese Astronomy Church Orientations
Islamic Astronomy Island of the Sun Kumukahi Land of the Rising Sun Medicine Wheels N§ Pali Chant Navigation in Ancient Oceania Polynesian and Micronesian Astron
omy Polynesian Temple Platforms and
Enclosures Saroeak Star Compasses of the Pacific Zenith Stars in Polynesia
Eleventh to fourteenth centuries C.E.
Angkor Cahokia Caracol at Chichen Itza Casa Rinconada Chaco Canyon Chaco Meridian Chaco Supernova Pictograph Dresden Codex Fajada Butte Sun Dagger Ha‘amonga-a-Maui Kukulcan Maya Long Count Mesoamerican Calendar Round Venus in Mesoamerica
Fifteenth and sixteenth centuries C.E.
Aztec Sacred Geography Ceque System Cusco Sun Pillars Gregorian Calendar Mesoamerican Calendar Round Quipu Venus in Mesoamerica
Seventeenth century onward
Gregorian Calendar Kumulipo Navajo Star Ceilings Pawnee Star Chart
Modern indigenous
Aboriginal Astronomy Andean Mountain Shrines Barasana “Caterpillar Jaguar”
Constellation Borana Calendar Emu in the Sky Hopi Calendar and Worldview Inuit Cosmology Lakota Sacred Geography Mangareva Misminay Mursi Calendar Navajo Cosmology Navajo Hogan Pawnee Cosmology Pawnee Earth Lodge Yekuana Roundhouses
Unknown or Wide Chronological Span
The following items are undated within wide bounds or cover an extremely wide chronological range:
Namoratung’a Presa de la Mula Sky Bears
In this list, case study entries are classified according to the type of society concerned. Such categorizations inevitably oversimplify, in that they ignore and obscure many important variations between one human society and another. In the 1960s and 1970s, many archaeologists believed that one could classify human societies in straightforward terms—the main ones being band, tribe, chiefdom, and state—arguing a strong correlation between the size of the political unit, social and economic organization, and means of subsistence. Such naпve ideas have largely been superseded. One problem is that they carry the implication that we can measure every human society’s progress along a single inevitable path of social development. Added to this, in the case of past societies, the very categorization is a matter of interpretation from the available archaeological or historical evidence and (particularly in prehistory) can in itself be highly questionable. The extent to which (for example) communities in Neolithic Britain developed from segmentary societies (i.e., with no social group or village dominating over the others) into chiefdoms has been a matter of intense debate, and even to focus on this question is arguably to be distracted from more interesting and more complex issues of settlement organization and the development of social differentiation.
For these reasons, the set of categories used in this list is intended merely to give the broadest indication of the nature of the human society responsible for a particular set of practices relating to the sky. Thus the pastoral/agricultural category covers, on the one hand, communities that are primarily mobile pastoralists and herders, and on the other, societies whose principal means of subsistence is agriculture and who live in fixed homesteads, whether scattered through the landscape or clustered together into villages; the common feature is that they are not organized into chiefdoms or larger political units. It is a broad category but not easy to subdivide, since there is no clear demarcation between mobile pastoralism and sedentary agriculturalism. Likewise the “state” category spans a range from small, competing city-states (as, for example, in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica) to large empires.
Hunter-Gatherer Ballochroy
Aboriginal Astronomy Beltany
Abri Blanchard Bone Boyne Valley Tombs
Barasana “Caterpillar Jaguar” Con-Brainport Bay
stellation Brodgar, Ring of
Emu in the Sky Callanish
Inuit Cosmology Carahunge
Presa de la Mula Circles of Earth, Timber, and Stone
Clava Cairns Pastoral/Agricultural Crucuno Prehistoric Cumbrian Stone Circles
Antas Cursus Monuments
Avebury Drombeg
Axial Stone Circles Grand Menhir Brisй
Is Paras Kintraw Maes Howe Megalithic Monuments of Britain
and Ireland Nabta Playa Namoratung’a Newgrange Nuraghi Prehistoric Tombs and Temples in
Europe Recumbent Stone Circles Short Stone Rows Son Mas Stone Circles Stonehenge Swedish Rock Art Taulas Thornborough Tri-Radial Cairns Wedge Tombs
Native American
Andean Mountain Shrines Hopewell Mounds Hopi Calendar and Worldview Horizon Calendars of Central Mexico Lakota Sacred Geography Medicine Wheels Misminay Navajo Cosmology Navajo Hogan Navajo Star Ceilings Pawnee Cosmology Pawnee Earth Lodge Pawnee Star Chart Yekuana Roundhouses
Oceanic
Easter Island Mangareva Navigation in Ancient Oceania Necker Island Polynesian and Micronesian
Astronomy Polynesian Temple Platforms and
Enclosures Star Compasses of the Pacific Zenith Stars in Polynesia
Other
Borana Calendar Javanese Calendar Mursi Calendar Saroeak
Chiefdom
Prehistoric
Brodgar, Ring of* Bush Barrow Gold Lozenge Circles of Earth, Timber, and Stone* Fiskerton Iron Age Roundhouses Maes Howe* Megalithic Monuments of Britain
and Ireland* Nebra Disc Prehistoric Tombs and Temples in
Europe* Rujm el-Hiri Sarmizegetusa Regia Stone Circles* Stonehenge*
Native American
Cahokia Casa Rinconada Chaco Canyon Chaco Meridian Chaco Supernova Pictograph Fajada Butte Sun Dagger Hopewell Mounds Nasca Lines and Figures