Clive Ruggles, Ph.D.

Dr. Clive Ruggles joined the University of Leicester in 1982, and its School of Archaeology and Ancient History in 1989. He was promoted to full professor in 1999, becoming the world’s first — and for many years only — Professor of Archaeoastronomy. He is now Professor Emeritus.

Clive started his career as an astrophysicist but his parallel interests in history and archaeology led to him re-training as an archaeologist and pursuing active research in archaeoastronomy. At the time (1970s) it was a highly controversial topic causing heated debates between archaeologists and astronomers, especially on the subject of Scottish megaliths claimed to be ancient observatories. On this tour we shall be visiting at least one of the sites that formed the subject of his frst paper, published in the journal Nature in 1975, while he was still a student.

In the late 1990s Clive’s principal interests turned from Scottish and Irish megaliths to Hawai‘i — where sky knowledge is of huge cultural importance not least because of the use of stars by Polynesian navigators crossing the Pacific — and to Peru. Here he worked for several years on the famous Nasca geoglyphs (“Nasca lines”) and, in 2005, co-discovered the monumental solar calendrical device at Chankillo, which became a World Heritage Site in 2021. Most recently, though, he has returned to Stonehenge and has been carrying out research there during 2024 and 2025 to investigate the site’s relationship with the moon. You can find blogs about some of his recent research projects on his website here.

Clive also has interests in astronomical heritage and preserving dark skies. On behalf of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), he jointly coordinated the “Astronomy and World Heritage” Initiative with UNESCO between 2008 and 2019 — which has resulted in the inscription of a number of astronomical and archaeoastronomical World Heritage Sites — and he continues to run the Portal to the Heritage of Astronomy website project for UNESCO. As a member of the Dark Skies Advisory Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), he recently co-authored an IUCN report on the importance of preserving natural darkness. Clive is also a member of the IAU’s working group on Star Names, which is assigning cultural names to stars that currently do not have proper names (as opposed to scientific designations).

Over the course of his career Clive has published many books (not all of them in archaeoastronomy!), of which the most recent is “Stonehenge—Sighting the Sun” published in May 2024. See below for some details and links.

Clive is a natural communicator and regularly speaks to local archaeological and astronomical societies around the UK as well as giving public talks around the world. He is excited to be accompanying Sirius Travel’s tour group around some of his favorite sites in the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

Books:

Stonehenge—Sighting the Sun (2024). This gives a general background to archaeoastronomy as well as to Stonehenge and its landscape. E-book available for UKP 32.00.
Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth (2005). An introduction to archaeoastronomy for the general reader. Its over 200 entries include a broad selection of case studies worldwide, some famous, some much less known. E-book available for $74.16.
Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland (1999). This is focused on British and Irish megaliths and contains more technical detail as well as text aimed at the general reader. Sadly it is now out of print but reasonable-price copies may be available from amazon or other outlets.

A couple for anyone interested in Hawaiian astronomy:

Nā Inoa Hōkū: Hawaiian and Pacific Star Names, 2nd edn (2015). A definitive source of reference about the use of astronomy in Polynesian voyaging or and the nature and development of ritual and calendrical practices in the Hawaiian Islands. A much expanded and enlarged third edition is currently in press, due to be published in 2026. Paperback available, $39.00.
Heiau, ‘Āina, Lani (2019). The title means “Temples, Land and Sky”. This is a more academic book — a detailed archaeological and archaeoastronomical study of 78 temple sites in the backcountry of Maui island. Hardback available, $75.00.

And for anyone interested in heritage or dark skies:

The World at Night (2024). The IUCN’s global report on why dark skies matter and how to reduce light pollution. Freely downloadable.
Heritage Sites of Astronomy and Archaeoastronomy (2021). This describes different types of astronomical heritage and attempts to identify sites and artefacts from around the world that might have the most outstanding cultural value for humankind. Freely downloadable.

For a full list of Clive’s books see here.