Gazing up at the night sky is a universal human experience, likely as old as our species itself. But how did our ancient ancestors feel about what they saw in the heavens, and how did it shape their lives? In Episode Two of our three-part Fascination miniseries on unusual archaeology, science journalist Kata Karáth introduces us to archaeoastronomy—the study of how people in the past experienced and explained the phenomena of the cosmos.

Listen to the first episode of this series: “Sustainable Fishing with Ancient Chambers and Ocean Tides”

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Science Quickly is produced by Jeff DelViscio, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Rachel Feltman. This episode was reported and hosted by Kata Karáth. Special thanks to Saara Alakorva and Camilla Brattland for their assistance with parts of this script. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-checked this series. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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