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Star Performances and Cosmic Clutter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2008

Timothy R. Pauketat
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 109 Davenport Hall, 607 S. Matthews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801, USA; [email protected].
Thomas E. Emerson
Affiliation:
Illinois Transportation Archaeology Research Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 209 Nuclear Physics Lab, 23 Stadium Drive, Champaign, IL 61820, USA; [email protected].

Abstract

Are there long-term processes invisible over short spans? And if so, how might they relate to the loci of long-term social change, those performative or practical moments wherein agents enact, embody, or otherwise engage traditions, landscapes, or structures? Here, we are particularly concerned with the experience of starry skies as these were historically reckoned through cluttered object fields and cosmic events. These are key to understanding the emergent properties of ethnoastronomies and cultural landscapes that, in certain moments, may be described as leading to historical conjunctures.

Type
Special Section: Time and Change in Archaeological Interpretation
Copyright
2008 The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

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