Wikipedia
Archaeo-optics, or archaeological optics, is the study of the experience and ritual use of light by ancient peoples. Archaeological optics is a branch of sensory archaeology, which explores human perceptions of the physical environment in the remote past, and is a sibling of archaeoastronomy, which deals with ancient observations of celestial bodies, and archaeological acoustics, which deals with applications of sound.
Research by several investigators around the world has uncovered how ancient peoples encountered and used the camera obscura principle for a variety of purposes. In a darkened chamber, light passing through a small opening can create haunting and ephemeral moving images, which could have triggered and reinforced ground breaking modes of thought, forms of representation, and belief in otherworldly realms.