Society for Cultural Astronomy in the American Southwest Inc

Background Statement

The Society for Cultural Astronomy in the American Southwest (SCAAS) has its origins in the need for a regional organization to encourage and represent well-designed research on cultural landscapes and astronomy in the Greater American Southwest. By 2007, research in these fields was becoming very active and of intense public interest. However, the opportunity for professional and avocational cultural astronomers to share their research in archaeoastronomy in an organized forum was limited, especially in representing the Native American or Indigenous perspective. To fill this need, the Conference on Archaeoastronomy of the American Southwest (CAASW) was instituted in 2008 with the first conference held in 2009 in Camp Verde, AZ. A workshop on standardizing documentation and research practices followed in 2010 hosted by the Pueblo Grande Museum in Phoenix, AZ. An additional conference in 2011 held at the University of New Mexico Maxwell Museum Hibben Center solidified our research as a fundamental part of anthropological studies and featured participation of archaeologists in reviewing our practices. It was from the CAASW conference series that our nonprofit organization was formed. A new name of Society for Cultural Astronomy in the American Southwest, Inc. was established to more fully represent research and public interest in the fields of archaeoastronomy, ethnoastronomy, oral history, Native American cultures, cultural anthropology and archaeology.

Since its inception, the Society has placed a focus on providing assistance and benefits to the Native American and Indigenous descendant communities we study. We strive to be inclusive of these communities by inviting and financially sponsoring Indigenous participation in our conferences, workshops and membership. In a 2016 conference held at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, we dedicated a full day of listening to Native American perspectives on our research protocols and objectives publishing their papers on the subject in our conference volume. A significant event in this program was our April 2019 conference at the Native American Cultural Center at Northern Arizona University. With a generous donation from the GeoFamily Fund, we sponsored members of eight different tribes to share their perspectives on traditional knowledge, cultural astronomy and the development of science. With their permission, videos from these conference presentations formed the foundation of the public offerings on our YouTube Channel – SCAAS.Connects2U. Many of these videos are being used as an educational resource in tribal schools today.

Since 2020, the Society has placed an emphasis on developing our own research capabilities. Our cultural Landscapes Survey Program is working to expand the concept of the archaeological site to include the landscape that surrounds it and to join it with the day and night sky. The Society has a strong and enduring interest in developing and deploying guidance on the use of new technology, such as photogrammetry and LiDAR, to add standardized landscape orientation, architectural feature and horizon data to archeological site documentation form packages and reports. Our ambition is to create a documentation tool and database of simple observational features across the breadth of Greater American Southwest cultural sites. These tools will help to focus future research by emphasizing such attributes. Participation by Native American and Indigenous peoples is key in the study of these sites and the correct interpretation of traditional knowledge and sciences.