The Journal of Skyscape Archaeology, together with the Sophia Centre at the University of Wales Trinity St David and Bournemouth University’s Department of Archaeology, have planned a series of online seminars which I’m glad to contribute to. The series runs from late 2023 to 24 and the full range of absorbing topics can be seen here: https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSA/announcement/view/334
The series, along with the skyscape journal and related publications, indicates how archaeoastronomy has evolved from its antiquarian roots in Stukeley’s Druid cubit, Duke’s temple planetariums, Smyth’s pyramid inch, Locker’s alignments, Thom’s megalithic yard, and mid-20th century Stonehenge theories. Like its estranged sibling archaeology, it today has become a wider inter-disciplinary field.
My seminar, set for April 2024, is detailed below:
Timing Death Carnivals at Taş Tepeler
It has not been common for Neolithic structures to emerge with art covering them, especially very old Neolithic structures. Yet, some of the earliest known Neolithic monuments demonstrate a rich and complex iconography which formed part of their experience as buildings participant in special social events. This iconography, together with artefacts and ritual paraphernalia records have yielded, becomes important when interpretations about the buildings are made which also applies to archaeoastronomical models. This seminar primarily examines the Taş Tepeler (‘stone hill’) sites of southeast Turkey, with special emphasis on Göbekli Tepe. Though debatable whether these part-subterranean monuments be conceived as pillars or as humanoid statues, the significance of solstices in prehistory for timing the ritual events their buildings witnessed, when boundaries between the living and the dead merged, is proposed. The importance of specific star groups and their belief-systems is also emphasized with the Gemini constellation forming a cosmic clock at the winter solstice period in question.
