Essay title and information

Photograph of Midmar recumbent stone circle, Aberdeenshire Copyright © Clive Ruggles, University of Leicester.

One half of the assessment for the course is an essay, for which the title is:

A good deal of work in archaeoastronomy concentrates on astronomical alignments in architecture. To what extent does the broader archaeological and historical evidence support this prepossession?

Although there are no alternatives, this is a very broad topic which you could elaborate upon in many different ways. The one requirement is that you draw on a suitably wide range of case studies, avoiding those that have been covered in some detail in lectures.

In addition to the two journals, there are several volumes of conference proceedings that provide a good range of source material, including some listed amongst the core texts. The main ones are:

Astronomy and cultural diversity : proceedings of the International Conference "Oxford VI & SEAC 99", edited by César Esteban and Juan Antonio Belmonte (Organismo Autónomo de Museos del Cabildo de Tenerife, 2000). This is the proceedings of the 6th "Oxford" international symposium on archaeoastronomy, jointly with the SEAC99 (European archaeoastronomy) meeting, held in La Laguna, Tenerife, in 1999.

Astronomies and cultures, edited by Clive Ruggles and Nicholas Saunders (University Press of Colorado, 1993) and Archaeoastronomy in the 1990s, edited by Clive Ruggles (Group D, 1993). These two volumes form the proceedings of the 3rd "Oxford" international symposium on archaeoastronomy held in St Andrews, Scotland, in 1990.

World Archaeoastronomy, edited by Anthony Aveni (Cambridge University Press 1999), the proceedings of the 2nd "Oxford" international symposium on archaeoastronomy, held in Mérida, Mexico, in 1986.

Astronomy, Cosmology and Landscape, edited by Clive Ruggles, Frank Prendergast and Tom Ray (Ocarina Books, 2001), the proceedings of the 1998 SEAC (European archaeoastronomy) conference held in Dublin, Ireland.

Actes de la Vème Conférence Annuelle de la SEAC, edited by Arnold Lebeuf, Marius S. Ziolkowski and Arkadiusz Soltysiak (University of Warsaw, 1997), the proceedings of the 1997 SEAC (European archaeoastronomy) conference held in Warsaw, Poland.

Actas del IV Congreso de la SEAC "Astronomia en la cultura", edited by Carlos Jaschek and Fernando Atrio (University of Salamanca, 1997), the proceedings of the 1996 SEAC (European archaeoastronomy) conference held in Salamanca, Spain.

Ancient times, modern methods : proceedings of the third Annual General Meeting of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC), Sibiu, 31 August-2 September 1995, edited by Florin Stanescu (Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu, 1999), the proceedings of the 1995 SEAC (European archaeoastronomy) conference held in Sibiu, Romania.

Proceedings of the second SEAC Conference, Bochum, 29-31 August 1994, edited by Wolfhard Schlosser (Ruhr-Universität, 1996), the proceedings of the 1994 SEAC (European archaeoastronomy) conference held in Bochum, Germany.

Astronomical traditions in past cultures: proceedings of the first Annual General Meeting of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC), Smolyan, Bulgaria, 31 August-2 September 1993, edited by Vesselina Koleva and Dimiter Kolev (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1996), the proceedings of the 1993 SEAC (European archaeoastronomy) conference held in Smolyan, Bulgaria.

The word limit is 3000 words and the deadline for submission of the essay is Tuesday May 7 (by 5.00 p.m.).

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Last updated: 06 March 2002 18:19
Prof C.L.N. Ruggles
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