Tropical Archeoastronomy

Too often, judged by the Westem cultural yardstick, astronomical systems developed by indigenous civilizations of the tropical latitudes are found to be both complex and fundamentally different from those originating in civilizations of the temperate latitudes. One explanation for this difference is the radically contrasting sky orientations that are viewed from different parts of the globe, a determinative environmental factor in the development of cosmological systems that should not be neglected by the anthropologist and cultural historian.