Abstract

Archaeoastronomers have made great strides in development of research methodologies, yet there is limited curriculum available to train new practitioners. If we seek results that address current archaeological research questions, then our work must necessarily be pertinent to such questions and grounded in rigorous archaeoastronomy fieldwork and analytical methods. Furthermore, the inferences we create should be supported by the points of intersection between archaeoastronomical data and archaeological theory (Iwaniszewski, 2015). To achieve these objectives, practitioners must be aware of current archaeological research questions, trained in archaeoastronomy methods, and aware of the intersections between archaeoastronomical data and archaeological theory. Historical and ethnohistorical information from a wide variety of cultures demonstrate that visual astronomy may be interconnected with cosmovision, politics, ritual, religion, and economics in variable and unique ways. Research must be iterative and interdisciplinary. To illustrate variations in interdisciplinary sources, we briefly present two case studies. These case studies underscore the variability of sources supporting archaeoastronomy research; therefore, a curriculum and supporting instructional materials to train practitioners must by definition be interdisciplinary (see, e.g., Magli, 2016). Such a curriculum is under development for the University of Oklahoma‘s College of Professional and Continuing Studies (OU PACS). One key charter of OU PACS is interdisciplinary study. The OU PACS Archaeoastronomy program will integrate astronomy, anthropology, archaeology, history of science, and history of religion. The program is initially planned to include five (5) graduate courses offered as a graduate certificate. The program prominently features North American archaeoastronomy and will include a field methods practicum.