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‘Bridging the gap’ through Australian cultural astronomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2011

Duane W. Hamacher  and
Ray P. Norris
Duane W. Hamacher
Affiliation:
Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University, NSW, 2109, Australia email: duane.hamacher@mq.edu.au
Ray P. Norris
Affiliation:
Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University, NSW, 2109, Australia email: duane.hamacher@mq.edu.au
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Abstract

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For more than 50,000 years, Indigenous Australians have incorporated celestial events into their oral traditions and used the motions of celestial bodies for navigation, time-keeping, food economics, and social structure. In this paper, we explore the ways in which Aboriginal people made careful observations of the sky, measurements of celestial bodies, and incorporated astronomical events into complex oral traditions by searching for written records of time-keeping using celestial bodies, the use of rising and setting stars as indicators of special events, recorded observations of variable stars, the solar cycle, and lunar phases (including ocean tides and eclipses) in oral tradition, as well as astronomical measurements of the equinox, solstice, and cardinal points.

Keywords

archaeoastronomyethnoastronomyAboriginal Australiansstone arrangementseclipsesvariable stars (Eta Carinae, Betelgeuse)
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 7 , Symposium S278: “Oxford IX” International Symposium on Archaeoastronomy , January 2011 , pp. 282 - 290
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2011

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