Solarizing the Moon: Essays in honour of Lionel Sims

Fabio Silva is Senior Lecturer in Archaeological Modelling at Bournemouth University and co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology. His research focuses on how societies have perceived and conceived their environment and used that to time and adjust social, productive and magico-religious behaviours. His books include Skyscapes: The Role and Importance of the Sky in Archaeology (co-edited with N. Campion, Oxbow Books 2015). He was awarded the Fifth Carlos Jaschek Award from the European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC) in 2016. Liz Henty is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology. Apart from her research into the history of archaeoastronomy she also conducts archaeoastronomical surveys at the recumbent stone circles of Northeast Scotland. Her books include Visualising Skyscapes (co-edited with Daniel Brown, Routledge 2020) and Exploring Archaeoastronomy: A History of its Relationship with Archaeology and Esotericism (Oxbow Books 2022).

Introduction: Lionel’s Legacy – Fabio Silva and Liz Henty ;



Part I: Anthropology and Human Origins ;


Lunarchy: The Original Human Economics of Time – Camilla Power ;


Hunting by the Moon in Human Evolution – Ian Watts ;


Enchantment in Stone – Chris Knight ;



Part II: Prehistory and Megalithic Monuments ;


Prehistoric Interest in Stations of the Sun and the Moon - Fact or Fiction? – Emília Pásztor ;


The Sun and the Moon: Double Alignments in the Iberian Peninsula – A. César González-García ;


The Long Dark Night: Neolithic Ritual as Palimpsest – John Grigsby ;


Entangling the Cosmos: Astronomy of the Ancestral Pueblos - Sacred Skyscapes and Medicine Bundles – J. McKim Malville ;


Hats Off To Lionel: The Moon’s Vertical Descent into Robin Hood’s Ball and Other ‘Dualities’ – David Fisher ;


Fire-drills in the Neolithic Near East – Estelle Orrelle ;



Part III: Theory ;


Human Beings in Cosmic Lifeworlds: Anthropology, Ecospheres and Cultural Cosmologies – Michael A. Rappenglück ;


Exploring Theory in Skyscape Archaeology: Symbols, Materiality, Relationality and Rhizomes – Nicholas Campion ;


Skyscape Archaeology as Ontological Turn: Towards an Archaeoastronomy Rooted in Modern Archaeological Theory – Fabio Silva ;


Breaking the Mould: Space, Place and Phenomenology – Liz Henty