Mastodawn

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 6

I'm attending IAU Symposium 399: Indigenous Astronomy in the Space Age this week. I really REALLY wanted to go in person (watching stars with elders by Uluru??!! ohhhh that was hard to say no to. But 30 hours of travel each way and a lot of carbon made it a little easier...)

It's already Monday morning in Australia, so it's starting! I will miss a lot of this live due to the large time zone difference and family visiting this week, but I'll try to share a few highlights! #IAUS399

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 6

Meeting website is here: https://www.archaeoastronomy.org/iaus399

I'm not really sure what to expect, but I have no doubt I will learn a lot from all of the talks. I'm giving a (recorded) talk later in the week about satellite pollution, and I sincerely hope to get some new perspectives, ideas, and alliances for fighting for dark sky access.

Indigenous Astronomy in the Space Age

An international symposium to be held at the University of Melbourne (Australia) from 7-11 July 2025, sponsored by the International Astronnmical Union (IAU) and the Interntional Society for Archaeoastronomy and Astronomy in Culture (ISAAC).

Isaac

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 6

Starting off with a welcome from archeologist and Wurundjeri Elder Aunty Annette Xiberras, reminding everyone that Indigenous people in Australia (particularly women) had different rules applied to them until scary recently. She says this week is about celebrating what has been achieved and where archeology is going. Told a traditional Dreamtime story about the origin of the seven sisters.

Message: when you walk the land, you have a responsibility for the land and for the people. #IAUS399

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 6

Whoa cool! There's a website with Indigenous Australian sky knowledge that is set up for grades 5-12, so Australian (or international) teachers and share this knowledge appropriately and respectfully. https://www.ngarrngga.org/

Welcome to Ngarrngga | Ngarrngga

Ngarrngga provides resources made by educators for educators in collaboration with Indigenous Knowledge Experts.

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 6

Elder Marcia Langton talks about how so much knowledge about the patterns in the night sky was known to Indigenous people in Australia for thousands of years, before European scientists "told them about it". (Examples: Betelgeuse changing brightness, the ecliptic, celestial navigation)

To live and eat well as an Indigenous person in Australia for thousands of years required deep knowledge of astronomy.
#IAUS399

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 7

Alejandro Martin-Lopez (U. of Buenos Aires) talked about the relationship between the Moqoit people and the Campo del Cielo meteorite - they have known it came from the sky forever. He talks about how they are now handing down the traditional knowledge to the next generation, and their interactions with tourists who come to see the meteorite pieces. This is, needless to say, complicated! (Also Zoom made my computer crash twice during that talk, hopefully more stable after a reboot)
#IAUS399

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 7

Wayne Orchiston (China): Multidisciplinary ethnoastronomy. How is human evolution related to our understanding of the skies?

Astronomy is part of culture, culture changes due to major env. changes, migrations, new religions, colonialism

Ex: Kumara (sweet potato) agriculture in NZ strongly tied to certain stars, took ~300 yrs for humans to learn that after arrival in NZ

Brief teaser about mtDNA and astronomical systems
#IAUS399

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 7

Very cool project presented by Susanne Hoffman about a great resource for stellarium and constellations and sky stories from many different cultures - meant for people who run planetarium shows, but useful for many people! https://xing.fmi.uni-jena.de/mediawiki/index.php/All_Skies_Encyclopaedia
Plans to keep adding cultures and improving info
#IAUS399

All Skies Encyclopaedia - All Skies Encyclopaedia

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 7

Georg Zotti, working on Stellarium which is 25 years old, and has now officially hit version 1.0! (Software developers, rejoice).Problem: some proper motions wrong, volunteer converted to Gaia catalog, now accurate for thousands of years (impt for archeoastronomy)

Note there are several versions of stellarium, web version doesn't have all this, only desktop version good for archeoastro. Lots of translation options (via community)+calendar options coming soon.

https://github.com/stellarium

Stellarium

A realistic, real-time 3D simulation of the night sky. - Stellarium

GitHub

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 7

(Side note for myself: I have only ever used the web or mobile app version of Stellarium! I didn't realize they were so different. Guess I'm going to be installing and playing with the desktop version soon, it's got all sorts of cool extras!)

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 7

Elizabeth Brooker: using Stellarium for Torres Strait Islander astronomy, heliacal rising/setting of certain stars is important for rain/animal migration tracking. A challenge is some stars associated with this knowledge are unknown, but timing can give a few guesses.

I am totally being overly sensitive, but this slide background in an astro conf where I am presenting satellite pollution is making me sad!

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 7

(I had to skip a talk to get the goats into the barn before a thunderstorm possibly hits)

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 7

The talk I missed was about VR software for exploring astronomy-related archeological sites, looks neat! https://arcastrovr.org/en/
#IAUS399

arcAstroVR : Home

NAOJ Publications Office : arcAstroVR

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 7

Irma Hariawang talking about Borobudur Buddhist temple built around 900 CE, has lots of celestial symbols throughout. Have to reconstruct the sky above, use machine learning and compare with calculations and stellarium (the configuration of crescent moon/planets they were looking for happens fairly often) #IAUS399

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 7

Maitane Urrutia-Aparicio looking at funerary structures in Arabia - there are THOUSANDS of these across the desert, third millenium BCE, along pathways to oases. Use machine learning to look at orientation, shape of thousands of these (object feature identification). Very tentatively links orientations to star positions, but needs some archeological/ethnographic evidence to support this.
#IAUS399

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 7

ok this is freaking cool, I did not know anything about these funerary structures, but you can see them very easily on satellite images! Look up Al Hait, Saudi Arabia

Prof. Sam Lawler

I'd really like to watch more of the talks, but they're on a lunch break for an hour and I will probably be very very tired by then. So...I might just have to watch the recordings tomorrow instead.

crypticcelery Jul 7

@sundogplanets oooh, recordings you say? *bookmarks this thread for recommendations*

Prof. Sam Lawler Jul 7

@crypticcelery I'm not sure if the recordings will be public or only for conference attendees...

Thanks for posting on this. It's so interesting!