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 Such naive ideas have largely been superseded.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
Aboriginal Astronomy
Abri Blanchard Bone
Barasana “Caterpillar Jaguar” Constellation
Emu in the Sky
Inuit Cosmology
Presa de la Mula
Pastoral/Agricultural
Prehistoric
Antas
Avebury
Axial Stone Circles
Ballochroy
Beltany
Boyne Valley Tombs
Brainport Bay
Brodgar, Ring of
Callanish
Carahunge
Circles of Earth, Timber, and Stone
Clava Cairns
Crucuno
Cumbrian Stone Circles
Cursus Monuments
Drombeg
Grand Menhir Brisé
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
Polynesian
Ha‘amonga-a-Maui
Hawaiian Calendar
Kumukahi
Kumulipo
N§ Pali Chant
Polynesian and Micronesian
Astronomy*
Polynesian Temple Platforms and
Enclosures*
*Indicates entries that span societies of which
only some are generally supposed to be chiefdoms,
or where the chiefdom categorization
is particularly debatable. They are also included
under pastoral/agricultural.
State
Near and Far Eastern Civilizations
Ancient Egyptian Calendars
Angkor
Babylonian Astronomy and
Astrology
Chinese Astronomy
Coffin Lids
Egyptian Temples and Tombs
Land of the Rising Sun
Pyramids of Giza
Classical Civilizations (Greece and
Rome)
Crucifixion of Christ
Delphic Oracle
Hesiod (Eighth Century B.C.E.)
Julian Calendar
Minoan Temples and Tombs
Mithraism
Pantheon
Roman Astronomy and Astrology
Star of Bethlehem
Temple Alignments in Ancient
Greece
Mesomerican City-States
Aztec Sacred Geography
Cacaxtla
Caracol at Chichen Itza
Dresden Codex
Governor’s Palace at Uxmal
Group E Structures
Kukulcan
Maya Long Count
Mesoamerican Calendar Round
Mesoamerican Cross-Circle Designs
Teotihuacan Street Grid
Venus in Mesoamerica
Zenith Tubes
Inca State
Ceque System
Cusco Sun Pillars
Island of the Sun
Quipu
Wide Cultural Extent
The following items cover a wide range
of human societies:
Church Orientations
Gregorian Calendar
Islamic Astronomy
Sky Bears
