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This is the first scholarly collection of articles focused on the cultural astronomy of Africans. It weaves together astronomy, anthropology, and Africa and it includes African myths and legends about the sky, alignments to celestial bodies found at archaeological sites and at places of worship, rock art with celestial imagery, and scientific thinking revealed in local astronomy traditions including ethnomathematics and the creation of calendars. Authors include astronomers Kim Malville, Johnson Urama, and Thebe Medupe; archaeologist Felix Chami, and geographer Michael Bonine, and many new authors. As an emerging subfield of cultural astronomy, African cultural astronomy researchers are focused on training students specifically for doing research in Africa. The first part of the volume contains lessons and exercises to help the beginning student of African cultural astronomy. Included are exercises in archaeoastronomy, cultural anthropology, and naked-eye astronomy penned by authors who use these regularly use these methods for their research. This collection of lessons and research papers provides a foundation for the cultural astronomy researcher interested in doing work in Africa.
List of contents
Chasing the Shadow of the Moon: The 2006 Ghana Eclipse Conference.- The Use of Ethnographic Methods in Cultural Astronomy Research.- A Brief Outline on the Geographical Background of Africa.- The Astronomical Gnomon.- Naked-eye Astronomy for Cultural Astronomers.- Leadership.- Integrating African Cultural Astronomy into~the~Classroom.- A Contemporary Approach to Teaching Eclipses.- Teaching Cultural Astronomy: On the Development and Evolution of the Syllabus at Bath Spa University and the University of Wales, Lampeter.- Evidence of Ancient African Beliefs in Celestial Bodies.- Astronomy of Nabta Playa.- Romans, Astronomy and the Qibla: Urban Form and Orientation of Islamic Cities of Tunisia.- The Timbuktu Astronomy Project.- The Cosmological Vision of the Yoruba-Idààcha of Benin Republic (West Africa): A Light on Yoruba History and Culture.- The Relationship Between Human Destiny and the Cosmic Forces - A Study of the IGBO Worldview.- Cultural Astronomy in the Lore and Literature of Africa.- Astronomy and Culture in Nigeria.- Participation and Research of Astronomers and Astrophysicists of Black African Descent (1900-2005).
Summary
This is the first scholarly collection of articles focused on the cultural astronomy of Africans. It weaves together astronomy, anthropology, and Africa and it includes African myths and legends about the sky, alignments to celestial bodies found at archaeological sites and at places of worship, rock art with celestial imagery, and scientific thinking revealed in local astronomy traditions including ethnomathematics and the creation of calendars. Authors include astronomers Kim Malville, Johnson Urama, and Thebe Medupe; archaeologist Felix Chami, and geographer Michael Bonine, and many new authors. As an emerging subfield of cultural astronomy, African cultural astronomy researchers are focused on training students specifically for doing research in Africa. The first part of the volume contains lessons and exercises to help the beginning student of African cultural astronomy. Included are exercises in archaeoastronomy, cultural anthropology, and naked-eye astronomy penned by authors who use these regularly use these methods for their research. This collection of lessons and research papers provides a foundation for the cultural astronomy researcher interested in doing work in Africa.
Additional text
From the reviews:
"The 17 readable, stimulating papers deal with multiple topics: simple principles of looking at the heavens and what a person can get out of it as an anthropologist and a general observer … and finally how cultural astronomy is expressed today in African cultures. … Clearly a book for universities, this volume will also find interested readers in eclectic libraries, and amateur astronomers will be especially attracted by the contents. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries." (R. B. Clay, Choice, Vol. 46 (07), March, 2009)
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From the reviews:
"The 17 readable, stimulating papers deal with multiple topics: simple principles of looking at the heavens and what a person can get out of it as an anthropologist and a general observer ... and finally how cultural astronomy is expressed today in African cultures. ... Clearly a book for universities, this volume will also find interested readers in eclectic libraries, and amateur astronomers will be especially attracted by the contents. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries." (R. B. Clay, Choice, Vol. 46 (07), March, 2009)
