Struggling for Interdisciplinarity: Reflections of an Astrophysicist Working in Cultural Astronomy

Abstract

I present a personal view `on the role of astrophysicists and astronomers doing research in cultural astronomy. First, I discuss the definition of archaeoastronomy or cultural astronomy and its controversial interdisciplinary nature. I comment about the actual curricular problem of astrophysicists working in this topic and the difficult communication between astrophysicistsas well as other natural scientistsand archaeologists or anthropologists. I highlight the importance of accuracy in determining the orientation when mapping archaeological sites. Finally, I insist on the necessity of considering the celestial sphere as a part of the context of the archaeological sites, and that archaeoastronomy should be considered as a part of landscape archaeology.