Looks at the development of astro-archaeology initially seen as somewhat wacky, but now more accepted, and what it can tell us about ancient sites from Cuzco to Stonehenge, and ancient ideas about astronomy and relgion.

Fascinating study of early astronomical knowledge through the interpretation of such ancient monuments as Stonehenge, Carnac, other megalithic sites. Over 140 photos, maps, illustrations. "Fascinating."— Publishers Weekly.

Archaeoastronomy and archaeology are two distinct fields of study which examine the cultural aspect of societies, but from different perspectives. Archaeoastronomy seeks to discover how the impact of the skyscape is materialized in culture, by alignments to celestial events or sky-based symbolism; yet by contrast, archaeology's approach examines all aspects of culture, but rarely considers the sky. Despite this omission, archaeology is the dominant discipline while archaeoastronomy is relegated to the sidelines. The reasons for archaeoastronomy’s marginalized status may be found by assessing its history. For such an exploration to be useful, archaeoastronomy cannot just be investigated in a vacuum but must be contextualized by exploring other contemporaneous developments, particularly in archaeology. On the periphery of both, there are various strands of esoteric thought and pseudoscientific theories which paint an alternative view of monumental remains and these also play a part in the background. The discipline of archaeology has had an unbroken lineage from the late 19th century to the present. On the other hand, archaeoastronomy has not been consistently titled, having adopted various different names such as alignment studies, orientation theory, astro-archaeology, megalithic science, archaeotopography, archaeoastronomy and cultural astronomy: names which depict variants of its methods and theory, sometimes in tandem with those of archaeology and sometimes in opposition. Similarly, its academic status has always been unclear so to bring it closer to archaeology there was a proposal in 2015 to integrate archaeoastronomy research with that of archaeology and call it skyscape archaeology. This volume will examine how all these different variants came about and consider archaeoastronomy's often troubled relationship with archaeology and its appropriation by esotericism to shed light on its position today.

In all of the world’s myths and religions we find traditions of a Great Flood. There are stories too of a Golden Age: the antediluvian paradise that it destroyed. Might these be real memories of the ancient world? And how can we analyze the subject scientifically? The key to unlock these ancient myths lies in astronomy. Under Ancient Skies will examine the astronomical evidence for a prehistoric cataclysm and in the process will explore a number of related anomalies in prehistory, including: • Was there a single great flood in human prehistory, or have there been many? • Could the workings of ancient calendars and the records of ancient eclipses give us clues about the Flood and the antediluvian world? • Did the Celtic Druids use a calendar based on the orbit of Saturn; and is this the same antediluvian calendar that is described in Plato’s myth of Atlantis? • Do Hindu, Chinese and Mayan cosmology myths recall the years after the Flood when our world wobbled on its axis? • Did these same events trigger the building of astronomically aligned monuments such as Stonehenge and the pyramids? • Was the Atenist religion of the heretic Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten inspired by a series of eclipses during his lifetime? • Do the seven good years and the seven bad years of the Joseph story recall a time when a comet struck the Earth? • Did the British Druids use astronomy to calculate the size of the Earth; and could they have used this knowledge to navigate to America? • Why were the ancient Celts so afraid that the sky would one day fall on their heads? • Are comets and asteroids the only danger lurking in the cosmos – or could there be other dangers as yet unknown to science? In 1994 we watched as a comet struck the giant planet Jupiter. Geologists have recently discovered the crater in Yucatan, where an asteroid impact destroyed the world of the dinosaurs. Scientists and astronomers have stopped dismissing the theory that asteroids and comets could have struck the Earth during prehistory – but any suggestion that a comet impact just a few thousand years ago might have caused the Biblical Flood, remains the last taboo. It is time for this prejudice too, to be washed away. The reader is promised 'a real book: a fully referenced textbook with original content in every chapter and a bibliography of over 300 sources, If you have read Paul Dunbavin's other books then you will know what to expect. First published in 2005 and for a long time out of print, this new edition will make the author's unique research available again to anyone who is interested in mythology, astronomy and ancient mysteries. Now also available in Kindle hard and soft editions.

The Instant New York Times Bestseller! Was an advanced civilization lost to history in the global cataclysm that ended the last Ice Age? Graham Hancock, the internationally bestselling author, has made it his life's work to find out--and in America Before, he draws on the latest archaeological and DNA evidence to bring his quest to a stunning conclusion. We’ve been taught that North and South America were empty of humans until around 13,000 years ago – amongst the last great landmasses on earth to have been settled by our ancestors. But new discoveries have radically reshaped this long-established picture and we know now that the Americas were first peopled more than 130,000 years ago – many tens of thousands of years before human settlements became established elsewhere. Hancock's research takes us on a series of journeys and encounters with the scientists responsible for the recent extraordinary breakthroughs. In the process, from the Mississippi Valley to the Amazon rainforest, he reveals that ancient "New World" cultures share a legacy of advanced scientific knowledge and sophisticated spiritual beliefs with supposedly unconnected "Old World" cultures. Have archaeologists focused for too long only on the "Old World" in their search for the origins of civilization while failing to consider the revolutionary possibility that those origins might in fact be found in the "New World"? America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization is the culmination of everything that millions of readers have loved in Hancock's body of work over the past decades, namely a mind-dilating exploration of the mysteries of the past, amazing archaeological discoveries and profound implications for how we lead our lives today.

Representing the Nation gathers key writings from leading cultural thinkers to ask what role cultural institutions play in creating and shaping our sense of ourselves as a nation.