The Role of Astronomy in Australian Indigenous Knowledge

Bibliographic Data

ID23431190
AuthorsRay Norris (School of Science, CSIRO Space & Astronomy; Western Sydney University), R P Norris (0000-0002-4597-1906, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation), Robert S Fuller (0000-0002-5592-9138, Western Sydney University), Robert Fuller (Science, Western Sydney University), Duane W Hamacher (0000-0003-3072-8468, The University of Melbourne), Duane Hamacher (The University of Melbourne), Trevor M Leaman (UNSW Sydney), Trevor Leaman (UNSW Sydney), Ghillar Michael Anderson (Nation University)
Year2025
Publication date2025-01-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueThe Oxford Handbook of Global Indigenous Archaeologies (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197607695.013.17
OpenAlexW4406758556
ISBN9780197607695
LanguageEN
References cited16

Astronomy plays a significant role in the culture of many Australian Indigenous peoples. Traditional Indigenous Australians had an extensive knowledge of the sky and the motion of the bodies within it. That astronomical knowledge was not only important culturally, but also revealed an intellectual complexity that has gone largely unrecognized, including a quest to understand phenomena such as tides and eclipses (Hamacher and Norris, 2011). More practically, Indigenous Australians used that knowledge for navigation, as well as to regulate their calendars to maximize food resources. The tradition of songlines offers another example of how the natural world and oral tradition have interacted for Indigenous Australians over time. Songlines are oral representations of landscapes or routes that were created by the Culture Heroes, or creation ancestors, and are sometimes called “ancestral tracks,” or Dreaming tracks. Songlines crisscross the continent and connect sacred cultural sites to the journeys of important creation ancestors of the Dreaming. They can extend into the night sky, with waypoints on the ground being represented by particular stars.

Astronomy · Astrophysics · Biology · Geography · Indigenous · Physics · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Australian Indigenous Culture and History · Ecology · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies

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