Archaeoastronomy (also spelled
archeoastronomy) is the study of how people in the past "have understood the
phenomena in the
sky, how they used these phenomena and what role the sky played in their
cultures."
Clive Ruggles argues it is misleading to consider archaeoastronomy to be the study of ancient
astronomy, as modern astronomy is a scientific discipline, while archaeoastronomy considers symbolically rich cultural interpretations of phenomena in the sky by other cultures. It is often twinned with
ethnoastronomy, the
anthropological study of skywatching in contemporary societies. Archaeoastronomy is also closely associated with
historical astronomy, the use of historical records of heavenly events to answer astronomical problems and the
history of astronomy, which uses written records to evaluate past astronomical practice.