Excerpt:
Archaeoastronomy has emerged in the last three decades as a thriving `interdiscipline', but it is one that continues to be viewed with suspicion by many mainstream archaeologists. Together with what has become known as ethnoastronomy, it strives to comprehend the nature and meaning of astronomical practice in past (as well as modern non-Western) societies. This has tended to be of particular interest to astronomers and historians of science, but for the archaeologist or anthropologist forms merely one aspect of the study of human societies in general. It is an important one, though: the movements of the heavenly bodies are of almost universal concern, even amongst small bands of hunter-gatherers. Stellar lore and astronomical practice invariably form part of a broader frameworks of understanding--cosmologies--which define and dictate the nature, place and timing of various human actions.