Catal Huyuk not only was the “first religious designed city”, 

it was also a “city of equality” where women and men held equal status.

Çatalhöyük was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 to 5700 BCE, and flourished around 7000 BCE. Çatalhöyük is located overlooking the Konya Plain, southeast of the present-day city of Konya (ancient Iconium) in Turkey, approximately 140 km (87 mi) from the twin-coned volcano of Mount Hasan. The eastern settlement forms a mound that would have risen about 20 m (66 ft) above the plain at the time of the latest Neolithic occupation. There is also a smaller settlement mound to the west and a Byzantine settlement a few hundred meters to the east. The prehistoric mound settlements were abandoned before the Bronze Age. A channel of the Çarşamba river once flowed between the two mounds, and the settlement was built on alluvial clay, which may have been favorable for early agriculture. ref

Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city” involves a 34-acre site in central Turkey, at one time inhabited by as many as 8,000 to 10,000 people, began some 9,500 years ago, and continuing for nearly two millennia, people came together at Çatalhöyük to build hundreds of tightly clustered mud-brick houses, burying their dead beneath the floors and adorning the walls with paintings, livestock skulls and plaster reliefs. More than 8,000 years ago, Çatalhöyük was already a city of one-room homes, accessed from the roof. Places of worship often featured bucrania (displaying sacrificial bulls, and the ritual/decorative use of bull’s horns. People in Çatalhöyük were quite equal, but it might not have been the nicest society as residents had to submit to a lot of social control, and such a society only works with strong homogeneity. For many generations, it was very unacceptable for individual households to accumulate [wealth].” ref

“Once they started to do so, there is evidence that more problems started to arise. Some of the new evidence expresses something odd about one of the hundreds of skulls, dozens of them with similar wounds, all showing a consistent pattern of injury to the top back of the skull. It is believed that the pattern of the wounds suggests that most of them were inflicted by thrown projectiles, but all of them were healed, meaning they were not fatal.” They speculate that the attacks that caused the injuries were meant only to stun, perhaps to control wayward members of the group, or to abduct outsiders as wives or slaves. Moreover, the skulls with this characteristic were found primarily in later levels of the site, when more independence and differentiation between households started to emerge. Presumably, it is with these new inequalities that could have potentially created new tensions among the community’s members, non-fatal violence to diffuse full-fledged conflicts that could break the settlement apart, in a way, confirm the idea of an emerging controlled society.” ref

Yes, Çatalhöyük was a place of relative gender equality, where men and women held equal status.

“Overlooking the Konya Plain in Turkey lies the remarkable and unique ancient city of Çatalhöyük, the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date. At a time when most of the world’s people were nomadic hunter-gatherers, Çatalhöyük was a bustling town of as many as 10,000 people. According to a 2014 report in Hurriyet Daily News, archaeologists have now gained new insights into the ancient city as further excavation work has revealed that Çatalhöyük was a place of gender equality, where men and women held equal status. Çatalhöyük, which means ‘forked mound’ and refers to the site’s east and west mounds, features a unique and peculiar street-less settlement of houses clustered together in a honeycomb-like maze with most accessed by holes in the ceiling, which also served as the only source of ventilation into the house. The rooftops were effectively streets and may have formed plazas where many daily activities may have taken place. The homes had plaster interiors, and each main room served for cooking and daily activities.” ref

“paganist” Believe in spirit-filled life and/or afterlife can be attached to or be expressed in things or objects, and these objects can be used by special persons or in special rituals can connect to spirit-filled life and/or afterlife who are guided/supported by a goddess/god or goddesses/gods (you are a hidden paganist/Paganism: an approximately 12,000-year-old belief system) And Gobekli Tepe: “first human made temple” as well as Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city” are both evidence of some kind of early paganism.

Origins of Gender Inequality

“The Ascent of Woman confronts the unspoken suspicion that maybe the long-held second-class status of women reflects a biological reality rather than social prejudice. To do that, the series had to do more than simply show some of the great women outliers, it had to explore the origins of gender inequality. ‘Civilisation,’ the starting point is the agricultural revolution, when humanity exchanged the hunt for the plow and went from a nomadic lifestyle to settled communities.” ref

“To explore women’s equality is Catalhöyük in southwest Turkey, the site of the largest (and one of the oldest) neolithic settlements in the world. Today Catalhöyük is located in a rocky desert, hostage to an unforgiving climate. But nine thousand years ago, the dry scrubland surrounding the settlement was a grassy plain that teamed with life and was generously supplied with water. In about 7500 BCE, a band of hunter-gatherers settled by the banks of the river and built themselves permanent dwellings out of mud and plaster.” ref

“The town slowly grew until it had 8,000 residents living in some 2000 houses. They had primitive agriculture, domesticated sheep, dedicated tools, and a culture that produced both art and religious iconography. But in other ways, Catalhöyük was nothing like a modern town. It had no streets; people walked on the roofs. The houses had no doors; people entered via a ladder from the roof. It had no tombs or cemeteries, the dead were buried beneath the floors, often with their heads missing, possibly taken by the occupants when they moved to new dwellings.” ref

“Catalhöyük has a special, even profound, significance for anyone interested in women’s history. Women were respected for their life-giving powers, and the feminine mysteries were worshipped. Archaeologist James Mellaart found at Catalhöyük one of the most powerful representations of what he believed was made of female divinity (others think animals and, to a lesser extent, men may have shared importance as well). Known as the ‘Seated Woman of Catalhöyük’, or more popularly the ‘Mother Goddess’, it is a clay figurine of a corpulent woman sitting on a throne, flanked by two large leopards, who appears to be giving birth. As he continued his excavations, Mellaart unearthed a treasury of female imagery and figurines that share a distinct resemblance to other Stone Age art going back 19,000 years – such as the famous ‘Venus of Willendorf’.” ref

Mother goddess, Mother Earth, or Earth Mother

“A mother goddess is a goddess who represents a personified deification of motherhoodfertilitycreationdestruction, or the earth goddess who embodies the bounty of the earth or nature. When equated with the earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as the Mother Earth or Earth Mother, deity in various animistic or pantheistic religions. The earth goddess is usually the wife or feminine counterpart of the Sky Father or Father Heaven. In some polytheistic cultures, such as the Ancient Egyptian religion, which narrates the cosmic egg myth, the sky is instead seen as the Heavenly Mother or Sky Mother as in Nut and Hathor, and the earth god is regarded as the male, paternal, and terrestrial partner, as in Osiris or Geb who hatched out of the maternal cosmic egg.” ref

Sky Father, Heavenly Father, King of Heaven 

“In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept in polytheistic religions of a sky god who is addressed as a “father”, often the father of a pantheon and is often either a reigning or former King of the Gods. The concept of “sky father” may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an “earth mother“. “Sky Father” is a direct translation of the Vedic Dyaus Pita, etymologically descended from the same Proto-Indo-European deity name as the Greek Zeûs Pater and Roman Jupiter and Germanic Týr, Tir or Tiwaz, all of which are reflexes of the same Proto-Indo-European deity’s name, *Dyēus Ph₂tḗr. While there are numerous parallels adduced from outside of Indo-European mythology, there are exceptions (e.g. In Egyptian mythology, Nut is the sky mother and Geb is the earth father).” ref

Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük

“The Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük (also Çatal Höyük) is a baked-clay, nude female form, seated between feline-headed arm-rests. It is generally thought to depict a corpulent and fertile Mother goddess in the process of giving birth while seated on her throne, which has two hand rests in the form of feline (lioness, leopard, or panther) heads in a Mistress of Animals motif. The statuette, one of several iconographically similar ones found at the site, is associated to other corpulent prehistoric goddess figures, of which the most famous is the Venus of Willendorf. It is a neolithic sculpture shaped by an unknown artist, and was completed in approximately 6000 BCE. It was unearthed by archaeologist James Mellaart in 1961 at Çatalhöyük, Turkey. When it was found, its head and hand rest of the right side were missing. The current head and the hand rest are modern replacements. The sculpture is at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkey.” ref

“Mellaart claimed that the figure represented a fertility goddess worshipped by the people of Çatalhöyük. He also labeled the site a matriarchy (It was more equality or equalitarianism but had male and female elites, likely, to me). Annalee Newitz suggests two reasons for this interpretation. First, Mellaart may have been influenced by the theories of James George Frazer and Robert Graves, proponents of the idea of a “mother goddess.” Second, Newitz argues that Mellaart believed a patriarchal society would not have created “nonsexual figures of naked women.” Lynn Meskell, on the other hand, noted that female figurines are rare when the entirety of figures found at Çatalhöyük is taken into account. Based on her research, Newitz suggests that the sculpture instead represents an ancestor or perhaps a talisman.” ref

(I see the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük as a deified ancestor shaman to me, an elite member of the clan that became or was chosen to embody a sacred status of a tutelary deity or demigoddess or goddess, I do think mother goddess is the right name, but it may be an earth mother.)

Where true gender equality flourished

“When Professor Hodder took over the site, it wasn’t his intention to be controversial. Nevertheless, his findings have been revolutionary. His team dug through 18 levels, covering about 1,200 years of uninterrupted habitation. They found no evidence to support the claim that Catalhoyuk was a matriarchy or that female fertility was worshipped over and above that of phallic or animal spiritualism.” ref

“But, Hodder insists, the question should never have been posed as an either-or issue. He argues that his team’s discoveries are so much more significant than anything previously imagined. Catalhoyuk was a place were true gender equality flourished. An examination of male and female skeletons show that both sexes ate the same diet, performed the same work, and spent the same amount of time outdoors. In life, they inhabited the same physical space; in death they were given the same kind of burials. There is no evidence for either a patriarchal or matriarchal system. In Catalhöyük a woman’s biology was not her fate.” ref

“People have long accepted that political power is man-made rather than god-given. But it’s been different for female inequality. History, religion, science, everything, in fact, have seemed to condemn feminism for being against the natural order. Thanks to Catalhöyük, we can say with confidence that there is nothing natural about patriarchy or matriarchy. Society can take many forms and shapes. Sex is genetic, but gender is cultural.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art 

refrefref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

“In archaeology and anthropology, the term excarnation (also known as defleshing) refers to the practice of removing the flesh and organs of the dead before burial, leaving only the bones. Excarnation may be precipitated through natural means, involving leaving a body exposed for animals to scavenge, or it may be purposefully undertaken by butchering the corpse by hand. Practices making use of natural processes for excarnation are the Tibetan sky burial, Comanche platform burials, and traditional Zoroastrian funerals (see Tower of Silence).  Some Native American groups in the southeastern portion of North America practiced deliberate excarnation in protohistoric times. Archaeologists believe that in this practice, people typically left the body exposed on a woven litter or altar.” ref

Ancient Headless Corpses Were Defleshed By Griffon Vultures

Sky burial ( Animal Worship mixed with Ancestor Worship) is a funeral practice where a human corpse is placed on a mountaintop, elevated ground, tree, or constructed perch to decompose while be eaten by scavenging animals, especially birds. This Animal Worship (or Zoolatry) rituals may go back to the  Neanderthals who seem to Sacralize birds starting around 130,000 years ago in Croatia with eagle talon jewelry and oldest confirmed burial. Or possible (Aurignacian) “Bird Worship” at  Hohle Fels cave, Germany, early totemism and small bird figurine at around 33,000 years old, which had been cited as evidence of shamanism.

As well as possible ‘Bird Worship’ (in the Pavlovian culture/Gravettian culture) part of Early Shamanism at Dolní Věstonice (Czech Republic) from around 31,000-25,000 years ago, which held the “first shaman burial.” The shamanistic Mal’ta–Buret’ culture of Siberia, dating to 24,000-15,000 years ago, who connect to the indigenous peoples of the Americas show Bird Worship. The Magdalenian cultures in western Europe, dating from around 17,000-12,000 years ago have a famous artistic mural with a bird that I think could relate to reincarnation and at least bird symbolism. Likewise, there is evidence of possible ‘Bird Worship’ at  Göbekli Tepe (Turkey), dated to around 13,000/11,600-9,370 Years ago with “first human-made temple” and at Çatalhöyük (Turkey), dated to around 9,500-7,700 Years ago with “first religious designed city” both with seeming ancestor, animal, and possible goddess worship.

The Tibetan sky-burials appear to have evolved from ancient practices of defleshing corpses as discovered in archeological finds in the region. These practices most likely came out of practical considerations, but they could also be related to more ceremonial practices similar to the suspected sky burial evidence found at Göbekli Tepe (11,500 years ago) and Stonehenge (4,500 years ago). ref 

“In archaeology and anthropology, the term excarnation (also known as defleshing) refers to the practice of removing the flesh and organs of the dead before burial, leaving only the bones. Excarnation may be precipitated through natural means, involving leaving a body exposed for animals to scavenge, or it may be purposefully undertaken by butchering the corpse by hand. Practices making use of natural processes for excarnation are the Tibetan sky burial, Comanche platform burials, and traditional Zoroastrian funerals (see Tower of Silence).  Some Native American groups in the southeastern portion of North America practiced deliberate excarnation in protohistoric times. Archaeologists believe that in this practice, people typically left the body exposed on a woven litter or altar.” ref

I view these art scenes as hunting cult behavior of the early paganist males with a totemistic type of warrior-shaman, in demonstrations of bravery taunting and ritually playing with strong animals such as bears and bulls. Cult ritual, not just standard hunting. None of the average male hunters are depicted as wearing a leopard skin crown. It is thus a special or elite thing to wear a leopard skin crown and only a few have this. Moreover, I see this not as standard hunting for food but rather cult ritual hunting behaviors. At Catal Huyuk, some of the cultic hunting scenes depict possible goddesses, female shamanistic pagan figures, or female ancestor spirits. However, possibly it could be all of these characteristics, which was a female ancestor spirit of a female shaman that turned into a goddess or demigoddess protector. Is there one ancestor goddess or demigoddess in each of these three hunting scenes? Well, I think it likely could be so or at least something like that as all others seem to be men.  ref, ref, ref, ref

To me, my referencing of Catal Huyuk cultic hunting totemistic “warrior-shaman” type it meant to be similar in some ways to the Norse and Germanic peoples paganistic shamanism that involved a sacred trance-like battle-fury closely linked to a particular totem animal, which for Catal Huyuk males was seemingly the leopard (wearer of “leopard -shirts”) and whom I surmise believed they drew their power from the leopard and were devoted to leopard cults. Viking Age “warrior-shamans” had two main totem animal groups, such as the berserkers (wearer of “bear-shirts”) who thought they drew their power from the bear and were devoted to bear cults and ulfheonar (“wolf-hides”) who thought they drew their power from the bear and were devoted to bear cults. Moreover, the wolf type of warrior-shamans appears among the legends of the Indo-Europeans, Turks, Mongols, and even Native American cultures. ref, ref

Animal Deities? Are the Bull symbol on the side and the big cat a Possible Type of or similar to a Tutelary Deity? Then there is yet another grouping of three animals, one being an odd bulged head bull,  could they possibly be a Type of or similar to Tutelary Deities? 

Göbekli Tepe involves a male-dominated society?

“So far, every known depiction – as long as their sex is clearly recognizable – seems to be male, be it animals or humans. The only exception is a later added graffiti of a single woman on a stone slab in one of the later PPN B buildings. While this may somehow denote the site of Göbekli Tepe as a refuge of male hunters, it does, of course, not at all mean that women did not play a role in PPN society. There is a wide range of finds clearly connected to women in the contemporary settlements for instance – however, at Göbekli Tepe they (respectively their activity) remain invisible as of yet.” ref 

I see a similarity in the bear art that I think could be female as well as doing the same spread leg gesture. 

Women and Sacred (BEARS) Animals?

“In the “hunters’ religion” preserved among the northern Finno-Ugric peoples, bear ceremonies are central. The Khanty, Mansi, Nenets, Sami, Finns, and Karelians have all been acquainted with myths and rites connected with the bear. The myths recount that the bear is of heavenly origin and is the son of the god of the sky; it descends from heaven and, when it dies, returns there. There is also a story about a marriage between a bear and a woman from which a tribe of the Skolt Sami (in Finland) is said to be descended. The bear-killing ceremony is divided into two acts—the killing itself and the feast afterward. Killing a bear that was protected by a forest guardian spirit involved a complicated ritual, which ended with bringing the bear home. Women believed that they had to keep at a distance so that the bear would not make them pregnant.” ref  

 Ancestor veneration in China: “Chinese traditional primordial religion” has been defined as the traditional religious system organized around the worship of ancestor-gods. Chinese ancestor worship, or Chinese ancestor veneration, also called the Chinese patriarchal religion, is an aspect of the Chinese traditional religion that revolves around the ritual celebration of the deified ancestors and tutelary deities of people with the same surname organized into lineage societies in ancestral shrines. Ancestors, their ghosts, or spirits, and gods are considered part of “this world”, that is, they are neither supernatural (in the sense of being outside nature) nor transcendent in the sense of being organized beyond nature. The ancestors are humans who have become godly beings, beings who keep their individual identities. For this reason, Chinese religion is founded on the veneration of ancestors. Ancestors are believed to be a means of connection to the supreme power of god Tian as they are considered embodiments or reproducers of the creative order of Heaven.” ref 

“A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in pagan religions as well as in folklore across many parts of the world. Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity – typically a goddess – often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, with examples including the Greek Hestia and Norse Frigg. The second type of household deities are those that are not one singular deity, but a type, or species of animistic deity, who usually have lesser powers than major deities. This type was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the Lares of ancient Roman religion, the Gashin of Korean shamanism, and Cofgodas of Anglo-Saxon paganism.” ref 

My Thoughts on the Evolution of Goddesses/Gods?  

My speculations are, I would say, the evolution of deities went something like this: family ancestors evolved to metaphorical clan ancestors to deified metaphorical ancestors, thus to goddesses and gods. How the natural elements became deified is likely similar believed nature/weather spirits became metaphorical weather spirits with animal/human spirit connections in the family/clan as a form of ancestor spirits and then deified to goddesses and gods. Lastly, I challenge the notions Çatal Höyük figurines as not involve some kind of goddesses in at least some of the figurines found but possibly not others, by some others who have tried to debunk the figurines, saying at most they were ancestors and nothing else. They, in my opinion, are wrongly and are limited in their thinking that even if they were ancestors, such sacred ancestors could not become goddesses or gods after death, which I have shown they commonly can in ancestor worship happen through the world. To me, this is equally valid for and especially from the Neolithic onwards.  

“The geographic locations of the 33 hunter-gatherer societies were analyzed in the study on  Hunter-Gatherers and the Origins of Religion which demonstrated the distribution of the seven characters describing hunter-gatherer religiosity.” ref

  “Recent studies of the evolution of religion have revealed the cognitive underpinnings of belief in supernatural agents, the role of ritual in promoting cooperation, and the contribution of morally punishing high deities/gods/goddesses to the growth and stabilization of human society. The universality of religion across human society points to a deep evolutionary past. However, specific traits of nascent religiosity, and the sequence in which they emerged, have remained unknown. Here we reconstruct the evolution of religious beliefs and behaviors in early modern humans using a global sample of hunter-gatherers and seven traits describing hunter-gatherer religiosity: animism, belief in an afterlife, shamanism, ancestor worship, high deities/gods/goddesses, and worship of ancestors or high deities/gods/goddesses who are active in human affairs. We reconstruct ancestral character states using a time-calibrated supertree based on published phylogenetic trees and linguistic classification and then test for correlated evolution between the characters and for the direction of cultural change. Results indicate that the oldest trait of religion, present in the most recent common ancestor of present-day hunter-gatherers, was animism, in agreement with long-standing beliefs about the fundamental role of this trait. Belief in an afterlife emerged, followed by shamanism and ancestor worship. Ancestor spirits or high deities/gods/goddesses who are active in human affairs were absent in early humans, suggesting a deep history for the egalitarian nature of hunter-gatherer societies. There is a significant positive relationship between most characters investigated, but the trait “high deities/gods/goddesses” stands apart, suggesting that belief in a single creator deity can emerge in a society regardless of other aspects of its religion.” ref 

“High gods” as single, all-powerful creator deities who may be active in human affairs and supportive of human morality. The variable is coded as four states. It differentiates between societies in which a creator deity is (1) absent, (2) present but inactive in human affairs, (3) active in human affairs but does no support a moral agenda, or (4) active and morally punishing. In 28 of the 33 societies in our sample coded for high gods in 28 of the 33 societies in our sample. Original coding in the additional five societies, based on principal ethnographic sources, completed the coding for all 33 societies is different geographic locations around the earth were analyzed in the study on hunter-gatherers and the origins of religion which demonstrated the distribution of the seven characters describing hunter-gatherer religiosity.” ref 

“Research results reflect that animism was the earliest and most basic trait of religion because it enables humans to think in terms of supernatural beings or spirits. Animism is not a religion or philosophy, but a feature of human mentality, a by-product of cognitive processes that enable social intelligence, among other capabilities. It is a widespread way of thinking among hunter-gatherers. Animistic thought is a natural by-product of the human capacity for intentionality or “theory of mind mechanism”. This innate cognitive trait allows us to attribute a vital force to animate and inanimate elements in the environment. Once that vital force is assumed, attribution of other human characteristics will follow. Animistic beliefs are generally adaptive in the environments that prevail in hunter-gatherer societies. Animistic thinking would have been present in early hominins, certainly earlier than language. It can be inferred from the analyses, or indeed from the universality of animism, that the presence of animistic belief predates the emergence of belief in an afterlife.” ref 

“In the Indigenous African Spiritual Traditions tend to involve Animism, Ancestor Worship, Humans, and Deities. Few written records exist about the Traditional Beliefs of African spiritual traditions as they were passed orally by griots. A griot is a singing storyteller used to pass down belief systems through generations. Like the game of telephone, oral traditions change over time and explains how the beliefs and customs of one group of Africans are not universally shared by others. There is a great variety of beliefs and practices in African tradition. Indigenous African Animism: The belief in one supreme god, several other gods, spirits of ancestors, sacrifice to secure protection, and the need for a rite of passage are all included in Animism. Animism is the belief that everything on Earth has a powerful spirit that can help or harm human needs. Many Africans believed that the spirits of their dead ancestors were present on Earth and existed in animals or inanimate (lifeless) objects. These spirits would be called upon for help in times of need or trouble. Animism still exists today in Sub-Sahara Africa, Native American tribes in North and South America, and in aborigines in Australia.” ref  

“In animism: The animistic worldview…such as shamanism, totemism, or ancestor propitiation. These cults do not, in any case, constitute the whole religion of a people. They are, however, institutions that are not bound to one culture area—an Australian totemic cult does bear a “family resemblance” to an African one, though there are differences also.” ref 

“Indigenous African Spiritual Traditions may believe in a High Deity that created the world and governs the universe. The High Deity is too distant and has limited contact with the daily operation of human life, thus, calling a need for deities or gods and goddesses. The deities control the day-to-day occurrences in human life. These lesser spirits could control creation, nature, leadership, and agriculture.” ref  

“Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia included indigenous animisticpolytheistic beliefs. Arabian polytheism, the dominant form of religion in pre-Islamic Arabia, was based on veneration of deities and spirits. Worship was directed to various gods and goddesses, including Hubal and the goddesses al-Lāt, al-‘Uzzā, and Manāt, at local shrines and temples such as the Kaaba in Mecca. Deities were venerated and invoked through a variety of rituals, including pilgrimages and divination, as well as ritual sacrifice. Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in Meccan religion. Many of the physical descriptions of the pre-Islamic gods are traced to idols, especially near the Kaaba, which is said to have contained up to 360 of them. Nomadic religious belief systems and practices are believed to have included fetishism, totemism, and veneration of the dead. Settled urban Arabs, on the other hand, are thought to have believed in a more complex pantheon of deities.” ref 

“In the pre-Christian worldview and practices of the Norse and other Germanic peoples, we find totemism manifested in two especially prominent and powerful areas: the animal helping spirits, most notably the fylgjur, and the patron animals of shamanic military societies. Many of the gods and goddesses have personal totem animals which may or may not be fylgjur. For example, Odin is particularly associated with wolves, ravens, and horses, Thor with goats, and Freya and Freyr with wild boars. It should come as no surprise, then, that their human devotees have personal totems of their own.” ref  

“The term totem is derived from the Ojibwa word ototeman, meaning “one’s brother-sister kin.” The Great Spirit had given toodaims (“totems”) to the Ojibwa clans, and because of this act, it should never be forgotten that members of the group are related to one another and on this account may not marry among themselves. There is usually a prohibition or taboo against killing, eating, or touching the totem.  Totemism is frequently mixed with different kinds of other beliefs, such as ancestor worship, ideas of the soul, or animism.” ref 

“For the Ojibwa the supernatural world held a multitude of spiritual beings and forces. Some of these beings and forces—Sun, Moon, Four Winds, Thunder, and Lightning—were benign, but others—ghosts, witches, and Windigo, a supernatural cannibalistic giant—were malevolent and feared. Presiding over all other spirits was Kiccimanito, or Great Spirit, although this belief may have been a product of European influence. Ojibwa religion was very much an individual affair and centered on the belief in power received from spirits during dreams and visions.” ref

“The traditional Ojibwe religion, Midewiwin, sets down a path of life to follow (mino-bimaadizi). That path honors promises and elders, and values behaving moderately and in coherence with the natural world. Midewiwin is closely tied to indigenous medicine and healing practices based on an extensive understanding of the ethnobotany of the regions the Ojibwa reside in, as well as songs, dances, and ceremonies.” ref

“Midewiwin has its origin as: In the beginning, Midemanidoo (Gichimanidoo) made the midemanidoowag. He first created two men, and two women; but they had no power of thought or reason. Then Midemanidoo (Gichimanodoo) made them rational beings. He took them in his hands so that they should multiply; he paired them, and from this sprung the Anishinaabe. When there were people he placed them upon the earth, but he soon observed that they were subject to sickness, misery, as well as death and that unless he provided them with the Sacred Medicine they would soon become extinct.” ref

“According to Ojibwa religion, Midewiwin rituals were first performed by various supernatural beings to comfort Minabozho—a culture hero and intercessor between the Great Spirit and mortals—on the death of his brother. Minabozho, having pity on the suffering inherent in the human condition, transmitted the ritual to the spirit-being Otter and, through Otter, to the Ojibwa.” ref 

“Among the Kpelle people of Liberia there is not only group totemism but also individual totemism. The totem also punishes the breach of any taboo. Kpelle totems include animals, plants, and natural phenomena. The kin groups that live in several villages were matrilineal at an earlier time, but during the 20th century, they began to exhibit patrilineal tendencies. The group totems, especially the animal totems, are considered as the residence of the ancestors; they are respected and are given offerings.” ref 

Kpelle religious beliefs of the vast majority of people hold traditional animistic beliefs. Kpelle religion is rather inchoate, focused vaguely on God, the ancestors, and forest spirits and more sharply on the secret medicine societies and the masked spirits who operate within those societies. The Kpelle recognize a High God who created the world and then retired. They believe in a variety of lesser spirits or genii, including ancestors, personal totems, water spirits, and spirits in magically powerful masks. Witchcraft and sorcery figure prominently in the belief system. Kpelle religious practitioners. The Kpelle recognizes three principal types of shamans (medicine person of either sex): those associated with the Poro and Sande societies, those associated with other specific medicine societies, and those who are independent. The first two types mainly conduct rituals; the third type, and occasionally the second, primarily heal. The Kpelle also utilizes diviners who analyze problems for a fee.” ref 

“According to a self-reported practicing hereditary Siberian shaman, claiming to introduce the world to the wisdom of Siberian shamans in the book “Knowledge of Siberian Shamans”. And this book reportedly first draws a map of the shamanic map of the World. When it is seen it is realized that there are 4 deities of the shamanic world. God Tengri, deities who lives on the East, God Ulgen – lives on the South, Goddess Umai stays on the West, God Erlik is on the North.” ref 

“The most important examples for Shamanism in Siberia are Yakuts, Dolgans, and Tuvans.  A large minority of people in North Asia, particularly in Siberia, follow the religio-cultural practices of shamanism. Some researchers regard Siberia as the heartland of shamanism.” ref, ref

Yakuts,  are a Turkic ethnic group who mainly live in the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation, with some extending to the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions, and the Taymyr and Evenk Autonomous Districts. The Yakut language belongs to the Siberian branch of the Turkic languages.” ref  

Yakut religion derives from Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Russian ideas. Labels like “animist,” “shamanist,” or “Russian Orthodox” do not suffice. Ideas of sin are syncretized with concepts of contamination and taboo. Saints and bears are seen as shamanic spirit helpers. Christ is identified with the Yakut Bright Creator Elder God, Aiyy-toyon. A pantheon of gods, believed to live in nine hierarchical eastern heavens, was only one aspect of a complex traditional cosmology that still has meaning for some Yakut. Another crucial dimension was the spirit-soul ( ichchi ) of living beings, rocks, trees, natural forces, and objects crafted by humans. Most honored was the hearth spirit ( yot ichchite ), still fed morsels of food and drink by pious Yakut. Giant trees ( al lukh mas ), deep in the forest, were especially sacred: their ichchi are still given small offerings of coins, scarves, and ribbons. Belief in ichchi is related to ancient ideas of harmony and equilibrium with nature, and to shamanism. Yakut shamanism is a Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic blend of belief in the supernatural, with emphasis on the ability of “white,” or benign, shamans to intercede, through prayers and séances, with eastern spirits for the sake of humans. “Black” shamans, communing with evil spirits, could both benefit and harm humans. Shaman as Religious Practitioners. As with other Siberian peoples, Yakut shamans ( oiun if male, udagan if female) combine medical and spiritual practice.” ref 

“Dolgans (Russian: долганы; self-designation: долган, тыа-киһи, һака(саха)) are a Turkic people, who mostly inhabit Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. Most Dolgans practice old shamanistic beliefs; however, most are influenced by Eastern Orthodox Christianity.” ref 

“Dolgans call all supernatural beings saĭtaan, a word of Arabic origin brought to the Dolgans by the Russians, who borrowed it from Turkic-speaking Muslims. In practice, small stones and anthropomorphic and zoomorphic images carved from wood or reindeer antler, as well as certain household objects, figure as saĭtaans. All these objects are revered because they are bearers of spirits, either independently or by means of the shaman. A saĭtaan may be a personal helper of its owner or the protector of an entire family or nomadic group.” ref 

“Tuvans are a Turkic ethnic group native to Tuva and Mongolia. They speak Tuvan, a Siberian Turkic language. They are also regarded in Mongolia as one of the Uriankhai peoples. Tuvans have historically been cattle-herding nomads, tending to herds of goats, sheep, camels, reindeer, cattle, and yaks for the past thousands of years. The traditional religion of Tuvans is a type of Tengriism, or Turkic animistic shamanism. The religion is still widely practiced alongside Tibetan Buddhism.” ref 

Tengri, ‘Sky God’ and Mongolian shamanism?

“Worship of Tengri is Tengrism. The core beings in Tengrism are the Heavenly-Father (Tengri/Tenger Etseg) and the Earth Mother (Eje/Gazar Eej). It involves shamanism, animism, totemism, and ancestor worship. Tengrism is an ancient and medieval Central AsianEurasian Steppe sky god Tengri-centered state religion as well as a number of modern TurkoMongolic native religious movements and teachings. It was the prevailing religion of the Turks and Mongols (including Bulgars and Xiongnu), Huns, and, possibly, the Manchus and Magyars, as the religion of the several medieval states: Göktürk Khaganate, Western Turkic Khaganate, Eastern Turkic Khaganate, Old Great Bulgaria, Danube Bulgaria, Volga Bulgaria, and Eastern Tourkia (Khazaria). In Irk Bitig, Tengri is mentioned as Türük Tängrisi (God of Turks). According to many academics, at the imperial level, especially by the 12th–13th centuries, Tengrism was a monotheistic religion; most contemporary Tengrists present it as being monotheistic too. The forms of the name Tengri (Old Turkic: Täŋri‎) among the ancient and modern Turks and Mongols are Tengeri, Tangara, Tangri, Tanri, Tangre, Tegri, Tingir, Tenkri, Teri, Ter, and Ture. The name Tengri (“the Sky”) is derived from Old Turkic: Tenk‎ (“daybreak”) or Tan (“dawn”). Mongolia is sometimes poetically called the “Land of Eternal Blue Sky” (Munkh Khukh Tengriin Oron) by its inhabitants.” ref 

“Tengri was the national god of the Göktürks and the Göktürk khans based their power on a mandate from Tengri. These rulers were generally accepted as the sons of Tengri who represented him on Earth. They wore titles such as tengrikut, kutluġ or kutalmysh, based on the belief that they attained the kut, the mighty spirit granted to these rulers by Tengri. Tengri was the chief deity worshipped by the ruling class of the Central Asian steppe peoples in the 6th to 9th centuries (Turkic peoples, Mongols, and Hungarians). It lost its importance when the Uighuric kagans proclaimed Manichaeism the state religion in the 8th century. The worship of Tengri was brought into Eastern Europe by the Huns and early Bulgars. Tengri assumes the name Tengri Ülgen and withdraws into Heaven from which he tries to provide people with guidance through sacred animals that he sends among them. The Ak Tengris occupy the fifth level of Heaven. Shaman priests who want to reach Tengri Ülgen never get further than this level, where they convey their wishes to the divine guides. Tengri is considered to be the chief god who created all things. In addition to this celestial god, they also had minor divinities (Alps) that served the purposes of Tengri. As Gök Tanrı, he was the father of the sun (Koyash) and moon (Ay Tanrı) and also Umay, Erlik, and sometimes Ülgen. Tengri is considered to be strikingly similar to the Indo-European sky god, *Dyeus, and the structure of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion is closer to that of the early Turks than to the religion of any people of Near Eastern or Mediterranean antiquity.” ref 

“For the Huichol — a small tribe of around 15,000 who live in the Sierra Madre Mountains of central-western Mexico, shamanism is a way of being — the practice of honoring all life and remembering how we relate to the world around us through ceremony, prayer, and pilgrimage. The Huichols say that human beings are in the middle, between the earth and the sky, and that we are mirrors of the gods.” ref  

“The pre-Christian religion of the Germanic peoples teems with shamanic elements – so much so that it would be impossible to discuss them all here. Our discussion will have to be confined to those that are the most significant. We’ll start with Odin, the father of the gods, who possesses numerous shamanic traits. From there, we’ll examine shamanism in Norse magical traditions that were part of the female sphere of traditional northern European social life, and then move on to the male sphere of the berserkers and other “warrior-shamans” before concluding. Odin, the chief of the gods, is often portrayed as a consummate shamanic figure in the oldest primary sources that contain information about the pre-Christian ways of the Germanic peoples. His very name suggests this: “Odin” (Old Norse Óðinn) is a compound word comprised of óðr, “ecstasy, fury, inspiration,” and the suffix -inn, the masculine definite article, which, when added to the end of another word like this, means something like “the master of” or “a perfect example of.” The name “Odin” can, therefore, be most aptly translated as “The Master of Ecstasy.” The eleventh-century historian Adam of Bremen confirms this when he translates “Odin” as “The Furious.” This establishes a link between Odin and the ecstatic trance states that comprise one of the defining characteristics of shamanism.” ref 

“Odin’s shamanic spirit-journeys are well-documented. The Ynglinga Saga records that he would “travel to distant lands on his own errands or those of others” while he appeared to others to be asleep or dead. Another instance is recorded in the Eddic poem “Baldur’s Dreams,” where Odin rides Sleipnir, an eight-legged horse typical of northern Eurasian shamanism, to the underworld to consult a dead seeress on behalf of his son. Odin, like shamans all over the world, is accompanied by many familiar spirits, most notably the two ravens Hugin and Munin. The shaman must typically undergo a ritual death and rebirth in order to acquire his or her powers, and Odin underwent exactly such an ordeal when he discovered the runes. Having done so, he became one of the cosmos’s wisest, most knowledgeable, and most magically powerful beings. In any case, there were other forms of shamanism that were much more socially acceptable for men to practice. One of the central institutions of traditional Germanic society was the band of elite, ecstatic, totemistic warriors. Some of the warriors in these warbands were berserkers. These were no ordinary soldiers; the initiation rituals, fighting techniques, and other spiritual practices of these bands were such that their members could be aptly characterized as “warrior-shamans.” ref 

“Considering the nature and practices of Finnic shamanism, it is important to recognize the vital role that shamanic godheads, such as Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, Lemminkäinen, and Joukahainen have played in the Finno-Baltic pagan tradition as well as in the development of deep cosmological understanding and unity within a specific mortal shaman. Additionally, such mortal religious leaders may have influenced popular conceptions of Finno-Baltic pagan cosmology – through their powerful and influential role within pre-Christian communities. The cosmology and shamanic practices of pre-Christian Finnish society largely deppends upon the accurate mapping of the aforementioned deities, and the recognition of any elements that may have been transferred upon their godheads at a later time due to the contact with other cultures.” ref 

But the Bulders of Çatal Höyük did Ancestor Worship how can They then have Deities? 

“Primitive agriculture is called horticulture by anthropologists rather than farming because it is carried on like simple gardening, supplementary to hunting and gathering. It differs from farming also in its relatively more primitive technology. It is typically practiced in forests, where the loose soil is easily broken up with a simple stick, rather than on grassy plains with heavy sod. Nor do horticulturalists use fertilizer intensively or crop rotation, terracing, or irrigation. Horticulture is therefore much less productive than agriculture. The villages are small—some no larger than many hunting-gathering settlements—and the overall population density is low compared with farming regions.  In primitive culture: Horticultural societies…society does not usually practice ancestor worship as does the hierarchical society. Among horticultural peoples with chiefdoms, the chief’s ancestors, in time, become gods. The most remote ancestors, the founders of the chiefly lineage, are the most important gods; more recent ancestors and those of related but collateral lines have ref, ref  

“Ancestor veneration is a practice that nearly all pagan peoples, past and present, have shared, and the pre-Christian Norse and other Germanic peoples were certainly no exception. The dead remained in their community’s collective memory long after their passing, and were believed to confer blessings upon the land and the people they left behind. This may have been especially so if they were properly-revered by their descendants. In Old Norse literature, the most frequent gift of the ancestors is the fertility of the land, which, it hardly needs to be pointed out, corresponds very well to the ecological role of a decaying body – providing nourishment for other, living members of the ecological community.” ref  

Divine heroes/Hero worship in Finno-Ugric religion does not point to culture heroes who are described in myth and whose actions are located in cosmogonic contexts. In general, culture heroes are not worshipped. The matter is otherwise when dealing with divinized historical figures, the cults of which are found among several of the Finno-Ugric peoples. Mardan of the Yelabuga Udmurt is viewed as the progenitor of 11 villages and the one who led the dwellers therein from the north to their present habitations. There is a sacrificial ceremony in his honor every year. Also, there are signs of the worship of tribal chiefs—for example, in the forest sanctuary worship of the Udmurt (lud) and the Volga Finns (keremet). The best-known of the Cheremis princes, called “the old man of the Nemda Mountain,” is a great ancient warrior under whose rule the people were strong and united. According to this myth, he promised to return when war threatened; once he was called for unnecessarily and, after discovering the betrayal, he ordered the annual propitiation sacrifice of a foal. The Ob Ugrians have a large number of “local gods” of whom pictures have been made and who are sometimes associated with ancient mighty men, heroes, and saints. A death doll made by a shaman may also have been the origin of a hero cult; the Nenets have been known to cherish and feed such a doll for as long as 50 years.” ref 

Ancestor veneration in China: “Chinese traditional primordial religion” has been defined as the traditional religious system organized around the worship of ancestor-gods. Chinese ancestor worship, or Chinese ancestor veneration, also called the Chinese patriarchal religion, is an aspect of the Chinese traditional religion that revolves around the ritual celebration of the deified ancestors and tutelary deities of people with the same surname organized into lineage societies in ancestral shrines. Ancestors, their ghosts, or spirits, and gods are considered part of “this world”, that is, they are neither supernatural (in the sense of being outside nature) nor transcendent in the sense of being organized beyond nature. The ancestors are humans who have become godly beings, beings who keep their individual identities. For this reason, Chinese religion is founded on the veneration of ancestors. Ancestors are believed to be a means of connection to the supreme power of god Tian as they are considered embodiments or reproducers of the creative order of Heaven.” ref 

Ancestor Worship in Ancient China dates back to the Neolithic period: “The earliest clear evidence of ancestor worship in China dates to the Yangshao society which existed in the Shaanxi Province area before spreading to parts of northern and central China during the Neolithic period (8,000 to 3,000 years ago in this case). In the Shang dynasty (3,600 – 3,046  years ago) the ancestors of the royal family were thought to reside in heaven within the feudal hierarchy of other spirit-gods. These ancestors, it was believed, could be contacted via a shaman. In the Zhou period (3,046 – 2,256 years ago), the ancestors of rulers had their own dedicated temples, typically within the royal palace complexes, and the presence of such a temple was even a definition of a capital city in the 2,400-2,300 years ago.” ref 

“In some Afro-diasporic cultures, ancestors are seen as being able to intercede on behalf of the living, often as messengers between humans and the gods. As spirits who were once human themselves, they are seen as being better able to understand human needs than would a divine being. Ancestor veneration is prevalent throughout Africa and serves as the basis of many religions. It is often augmented by a belief in a supreme being, but prayers and/or sacrifices are usually offered to the ancestors who may ascend to becoming a kind of minor deities themselves.” ref  

“Amongst Hindus and Sikhs, ancestors may be worshiped as Gramadevata (village deity) or clan deity, such as Jathera (also called Dhok, from Sanskrit Dahak or fire).” ref 

“Ancestor worship in Assam, which is a state in India, situated south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. In the Ahom religion is based on ancestor-worship. The Ahoms believe that a man after his death remains as ‘Dam’ (ancestor) only for a few days and soon he becomes ‘Phi’ (God). They also believe that the soul of a man which is immortal unites with the supreme soul, possesses the qualities of a spiritual being and always blesses the family.” ref  

“Ancestor Worship in the Philippines Anito, also spelled anitu, refers to ancestor spirits, nature spirits, and deities (diwata) in the indigenous animistic religions of precolonial Philippines. It can also refer to carved humanoid figures, the taotao, made of wood, stone, or ivory, that represent these spirits. In the animistic indigenous religions of the precolonial Philippines, ancestor spirits were one of the two major types of spirits (anito) with whom shamans communicate. Ancestor spirits were known as umalagad (lit. “guardian” or “caretaker”). They can be the spirits of actual ancestors or generalized guardian spirits of a family.” ref, ref 

“In Japan, a family or a community may worship deified ancestral spirits as their “ancestral deity” (sojin) or “tutelary deity” (ujigami) guardian/patron deity, clan deity. Parent deities, are an extension of the image of parenthood to kami, expressing the belief that kami care for human beings in the same way that human parents care for their children. The term is believed to describe the close relationship between kami and humans, one embodying a particularly intimate affection toward the kami.” ref 

“Ancestral deities include family and communal forbears, heroes, and deities associated with the household or with origin myths of humankind. Not all mythical forbears have the status of divinities, nor do all deceased forbears achieve the status of venerated ancestors, or heroes.” ref 

Tutelary Deities

“A tutelary is a deity or spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of “tutelary” expresses the concept of safety, and thus of guardianship. Chinese folk religion, both past and present, includes a myriad of tutelary deities. Exceptional individuals may become deified after death.  In Hinduism, tutelary deities are known as ishta-devata and Kuldevi or Kuldevta. Gramadevata are guardian deities of villages. In Korean shamanism, jangseung and sotdae were placed at the edge of villages to frighten off demons. They were also worshiped as deities. In Shinto, the spirits, or kami, which give life to human bodies come from nature and return to it after death. Ancestors are therefore themselves tutelaries to be worshiped. In Philippine animism, Diwata or Lambana are deities or spirits that inhabit sacred places like mountains and mounds and serve as guardians. Thai provincial capitals have tutelary city pillars and palladiums. The guardian spirit of a house is known as Chao Thi or Phra Phum. Almost every Buddhist household in Thailand has a miniature shrine housing this tutelary deity, known as a spirit house. And in Tibetan Buddhism has Yidam as a tutelary deity.” ref 

I think most represent a Goddess as well as it is possible, a some could relate to a Demi-goddesses/Grandmother-Mother Ancestor Spirits

 A demigoddess or demi-goddess is a minor deity, or a mortal or immortal who is the offspring of a god and a human, or a figure who has attained divine status after death.” ref

Many figures were found in, under or in the walls or foundations of houses.

“A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in pagan religions as well as in folklore across many parts of the world. Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity – typically a goddess – often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, with examples including the Greek Hestia and Norse Frigg. The second type of household deities are those that are not one singular deity, but a type, or species of animistic deity, who usually have lesser powers than major deities. This type was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the Lares of ancient Roman religion, the Gashin of Korean shamanism, and Cofgodas of Anglo-Saxon paganism.” ref

“These survived Christianisation as fairy-like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish Brownieand Slavic Domovoy. Household deities were usually worshipped not in temples but in the home, where they would be represented by small idols (such as the teraphim of the Bible, often translated as “household gods” in Genesis 31:19 for example), amulets, paintings or reliefs. They could also be found on domestic objects, such as cosmetic articles in the case of Tawaret. The more prosperous houses might have a small shrine to the household god(s); the lararium served this purpose in the case of the Romans. The gods would be treated as members of the family and invited to join in meals, or be given offerings of food and drink.” ref

“Sumerian religion was the religion practiced and adhered to by the people of Sumer, the first literate civilization of ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerians regarded their divinities as responsible for all matters pertaining to the natural and social orders. Before the beginning of kingship in Sumer, the city-states were effectively ruled by theocratic priests and religious officials. Later, this role was supplanted by kings, but priests continued to exert great influence on Sumerian society. In early times, Sumerian temples were simple, one-room structures, sometimes built on elevated platforms.” ref

“The Sumerians believed that the universe had come into being through a series of cosmic births. First, Mother Goddess Nammu, the primeval waters, gave birth to An (the sky) and Ki (the earth), who mated together and produced a son named Enlil. Enlil separated heaven from earth and claimed the earth as his domain. Humans were believed to have been created by Enki, the son of An and Nammu. Heaven was reserved exclusively for deities and, upon their deaths, all mortals’ spirits, regardless of their behavior while alive, were believed to go to Kur, a cold, dark cavern deep beneath the earth, which was ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal and were the only food available was dry dust. In later times, Ereshkigal was believed to rule alongside her husband Nergal, the god of death.” ref

“Deities in ancient Mesopotamia were almost exclusively anthropomorphic, ( attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions). The Anunnaki were believed to be the offspring of An and his consort, the earth goddess Ki, has been identified with the Sumerian mother goddess Ninhursag, stating that they were originally the same figure. The oldest of the Anunnaki was Enlil, the god of air and chief god of the Sumerian pantheon. The deities typically wore melam, an ambiguous substance which “covered them in terrifying splendor”. Melamcould also is worn by heroes, kings, giants, and even demons. The effect that seeing a deity’s melam has on a human is described as ni, a word for the physical tingling of the flesh. Deities were almost always depicted wearing horned caps, consisting of up to seven superimposed pairs of ox-horns.” ref

“The ancient Mesopotamians believed that their deities lived in Heaven, but that a god’s statue was a physical embodiment of the god himself. As such, cult statues were given constant care and attention and a set of priests were assigned to tend to them. These priests would clothe the statues and place feasts before them so they could “eat”. A deity’s temple was believed to be that deity’s literal place of residence. The gods had boats, full-sized barges which were normally stored inside their temples and were used to transport their cult statues along waterways during various religious festivals.  Virtually every major deity in the Sumerian pantheon was regarded as the patron of a specific city and was expected to protect that city’s interests. The deity was believed to permanently reside within that city’s temple.” ref

“One text mentions as many as fifty Anunnaki associated with the city of Eridu. In Inanna’s Descent into the Netherworld, there are only seven Anunnaki, who reside within the Underworld and serve as judges. Inannastands trial before them for her attempt to take over the Underworld; they deem her guilty of hubris and condemn her to death. Major deities in Sumerian mythology were associated with specific celestial bodies. Inanna was believed to be the planet Venus. In the mythologies of the Hurrians and Hittites (which flourished in the mid to late second millennium BC in Turkey not that far from Catal Huyuk), the oldest generation of gods was believed to have been banished by the younger gods to the Underworld, where they were ruled by the goddess Lelwani. Hittite scribes identified these deities with the Anunnaki. In ancient Hurrian, the Anunnaki are referred to as karuileš šiuneš, which means “former ancient gods”, or kattereš šiuneš, which means “gods of the earth. The old gods had no identifiable cult in the Hurrio-Hittite religion; instead, the Hurrians and Hittites sought to communicate with the old gods through the ritual sacrifice of a piglet in a pit dug in the ground. The old gods were often invoked to perform ritual purifications. ”  ref

Grandmother-Mother Ancestor Spirits

“Ancestor worship is perhaps the world’s oldest religion. Some anthropologists theorize that it grew out of belief in some societies that dead people still exist in some form because they appear in dreams. Ancestor worship involves the belief that the dead live on as spirits and that it is the responsibility of their family members and descendants to make sure that they are well taken care of. If they are not they may come back and cause trouble to the family members and descendants that have ignored or disrespected them. Unhappy dead ancestors are greatly feared and every effort is made to make sure they are comfortable in the afterlife. Accidents and illnesses are often attributed to deeds performed by the dead and cures are often attempts to placate them.” ref

“In some societies, people go out of their way to be nice to one another, especially older people, out of fear of the nasty things they might do when they die. Ancestor worship is found in many forms in cultures throughout the world, Veneration of ancestors is regarded as a means through which an individual can assure his or her own immortality. Children are valued because they could provide for the spirits of their parents after death. Family members who remained together and venerated their forebears with strict adherence to prescribed ritual find comfort in the belief that the souls of their ancestors are receiving proper spiritual nourishment and that they are insuring their own soul’s nourishment after death.” ref  

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük

“The Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük (also Çatal Höyük) is a baked-clay, nude female form, seated between feline-headed arm-rests. It is generally thought to depict a corpulent and fertile Mother goddess in the process of giving birth while seated on her throne, which has two hand rests in the form of feline (lioness, leopard, or panther) heads in a Mistress of Animals motif. The statuette, one of several iconographically similar ones found at the site, is associated to other corpulent prehistoric goddess figures, of which the most famous is the Venus of Willendorf. It is a neolithic sculpture shaped by an unknown artist, and was completed in approximately 6000 BCE.” ref

Kubaba

“Kubaba is the only queen on the Sumerian King List, which states she reigned for 100 years – roughly in the Early Dynastic III period (ca. 2500–2330 BCE) of Sumerian history. A connection between her and a goddess known from HurroHittite and later Luwian sources cannot be established on the account of spatial and temporal differences. Kubaba is one of very few women to have ever ruled in their own right in Mesopotamian history. Most versions of the king list place her alone in her own dynasty, the 3rd Dynasty of Kish, following the defeat of Sharrumiter of Mari, but other versions combine her with the 4th dynasty, that followed the primacy of the king of Akshak. Before becoming monarch, the king list says she was an alewife, brewess or brewster, terms for a woman who brewed alcohol.” ref

“Kubaba was a Syrian goddess associated particularly closely with Alalakh and Carchemish. She was adopted into the Hurrian and Hittite pantheons as well. After the fall of the Hittite empire, she continued to be venerated by Luwians. A connection between her and the similarly named legendary Sumerian queen Kubaba of Kish, while commonly proposed, cannot be established due to spatial and temporal differences. Emmanuel Laroche proposed in 1960 that Kubaba and Cybele were one and the same. This view is supported by Mark Munn, who argues that the Phrygian name Kybele developed from Lydian adjective kuvavli, first changed into kubabli and then simplified into kuballi, and finally kubelli. However, such an adjective is a purely speculative construction.” ref

Cybele

“Cybele (Phrygian: “Kubileya/Kubeleya Mother”, perhaps “Mountain Mother”) is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük, where statues of plump women, sometimes sitting, have been found in excavations. Phrygia‘s only known goddess, she was probably its national deity. Greek colonists in Asia Minor adopted and adapted her Phrygian cult and spread it to mainland Greece and to the more distant western Greek colonies around the 6th century BCE. In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception. She became partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess Gaia, of her possibly Minoan equivalent Rhea, and of the harvest–mother goddess Demeter. Some city-states, notably Athens, evoked her as a protector, but her most celebrated Greek rites and processions show her as an essentially foreign, exotic mystery-goddess who arrives in a lion-drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music, wine, and a disorderly, ecstatic following.” ref

“Uniquely in Greek religion, she had a eunuch mendicant priesthood. Many of her Greek cults included rites to a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort Attis, who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele became associated with mountains, town and city walls, fertile nature, and wild animals, especially lions. In Rome, Cybele became known as Magna Mater (“Great Mother”). The Roman State adopted and developed a particular form of her cult after the Sibylline oracle in 205 BCE recommended her conscription as a key religious ally in Rome’s second war against Carthage (218 to 201 BCE). Roman mythographers reinvented her as a Trojan goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan prince Aeneas. As Rome eventually established hegemony over the Mediterranean world, Romanized forms of Cybele’s cults spread throughout Rome’s empire. Greek and Roman writers debated and disputed the meaning and morality of her cults and priesthoods, which remain controversial subjects in modern scholarship.” ref

“The first piece of domestic furniture seen in use is the stool with a rectangular frame. It is found over and over again on early Egyptian cylinder seals. These seals, short and fat, usually of black steatite (soapstone), are peculiar to the earliest dynastic period 5,100 years ago. The inscriptions they bear – among the first exam-pies of writing – often give the name and title of some priest or official, followed by a group of signs that represent the deceased seated on a stool behind a pile of offerings (Figures 2, 3). For the stool, or the chair, has always been the mark of an important personage: it raises him above the level of his inferiors. (Most people in Egypt and other parts of the Near East seem to still sit/squatting on the ground) This sign, scarcely changing, remained the determinative for a person of rank in Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.” ref

“The stools on the seals are seen either from the side (Figure 2), or from the top (Figure 3) in what was to become a characteristic Egyptian mode of illustration: the representation of each separate part of the whole in its most recognizable aspect. Many of these early seals show a feature retained in pictures of stools throughout the dynastic period and much exaggerated in late times: the frames end in projections shaped like papyrus umbels, suggesting that the first Egyptian furniture was of wickerwork and that the frames were made of bundles of reeds bound together. Sometimes the legs of the stools shown on the seals were carved in the form of bulls’ legs.” ref

“And when the legs of lions began to replace those of bulls, about the end of the III Dynasty, the idea was similar: the sitter was to share the characteristic qualities of the King of Beasts; spool-like supports under the animal hooves or paws. Known as casters, even though rigid, they were always present with animal feet. Although, as one might expect, stools were made before chairs, there is a picture of a royal throne of about the same period as the cylinder seals. Narmer, the first king of Egypt, dedicated a giant mace head – symbolizing the weapon with which he had conquered his enemies and united Upper and Lower Egypt – in the temple at Hierakonpolis.” ref

‘One of the scenes carved on its surface pictures Narmer seated on a canopy-sheltered throne mounted on a high stepped dais (Figure 4). The throne seems to be a rectangular block scooped out to fit the king’s posterior and offer support for his back. But possibly he is really shown suspended, as it were, above curving arms, and this, accordingly, would be one of the first examples of the Egyptian artist’s reluctance to conceal any part of an object by another closer to the spectator. There is no indication of the material of the throne, but the dais, to judge by its Egyptian name, was of wood. A couch of the I Dynasty was actually more a commodious stool and several beds. The couch also has the familiar bull legs.” ref

“The stool, no matter how it is embellished, remains a raised seat without back or arms. But as early as the II Dynasty, officials, as well as kings, seemed to feel the need of support behind them, and the world’s first chairs were born. A hieroglyph in the pyramid of Pepi I of the 6th Dynasty (4,323-4,150 years ago) implies that his “shining throne” had lions’ heads and constitute the Old Kingdom of Dynastic Egypt with a pyramid built at Saqqara. (Figure 5) Arm panel of the throne of Tuthmosis iv, from his tomb, Thebes, xviii Dynasty, about 3,420 years ago, Cedar, height 94 inches.” ref

What is Isis’ Connection with the Throne?

“The symbol of the throne has an intimate connection with Isis because “Throne” is the meaning of Her name. The Great Goddess Isis is the Great Goddess Throne. Many Egyptologists explain this by saying that Isis was originally the personification of the royal throne.” ref

“It is certainly true that Isis was associated with the kingship—as were all the major Deities and most of the minor ones. The living king, seen as the embodiment of the God Horus, was considered the son of Isis (and of many other Goddesses). After death, the king became an Osiris so naturally Isis became his mourning widow. As the personification of the royal throne, Isis is the institution of the kingship itself. If we seek a feminist interpretation, we could rightly say that no king could take his place on the throne unless he had a close relationship with the Goddess Throne. To rule, the king must sit in the lap of the Goddess as Her child and husband.” ref

“Yet for me, this explanation of the origin of the Goddess Who is the greatest Goddess of Egypt—and arguably the greatest Goddess of all time—is bloodless and boring.  And it is a vast understatement of the true meaning of the Throne.” ref

“As many readers know, Isis is the Greek version of the Goddess’ name. In Egyptian, She is Iset (Eset; Aset; Auset). One of the meanings of iset is throne. More generally, it means seat. The ancient Egyptians seemed to have had a flexible, idiomatic use for the word similar to its use in English. For example, when we say “he is in the seat of power,” we are not often referring to an actual seat, but mean that he is in charge. Similarly, iset smeter means judgment seat and the term referred to a tribunal of judges. Just as we say we have our heart set (a word that comes from seat) on something, the Egyptian wished for her iset ib—literally the seat of the heart—but meaning her heart’s desire.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref

There are other clothing resembling miniskirts that have been identified by archaeologists and historians as far back as 3,390–3,370 years ago. But this is much older. ref

Leopard claw-bone pendant from the Possible Woman Shaman/Priestess burial with the plastered and painted woman’s head in her arms that is several generations removed. She was buried under the floor of the history house (house with multiple burials beyond that of the connected family) with the twin facing leopards at Catal Huyuk. Ref

“From about 7500 B.C.E to 5700 B.C.E., early farmers grew wheat, barley, and peas, and raised sheep, goats, and cattle. At its height, some 10,000 people lived there. Among its more noteworthy features, Çatalhöyük’s inhabitants were obsessed with plaster, lining their walls with it, using it as a canvas for artwork, and even coating the skulls of their dead to recreate the lifelike countenances of their loved ones.” ref

Leopard Crown Male Hunter from wall art in a temple at level III wearing a leopard pelt. Here are two male figurines sitting, that seem to be wearing leopard skin caps that like the Male Hunter in the wall art that are not common and thus likely reflect elite. Moreover, the elite male skeleton seems to also be in a body position at burial like the two male figurines tightly sitting with his arms at his legs. Then there are the two depicted ceremonial daggers buried with elite males.

Picture Link: ref

“Dancer. From a wall painting. South Anatolian Early Neolithic Culture, c. 6000 BCE or around 8,000 years ago. From the temple in Level III of Catal Huyuk, Turkey. The male figure, a monochromatic silhouette, wears a cap of leopard skin and around his hips a leopard pelt.” ref

Picture Link: ref  

This figurine both appears to be male and wears a leopard skin crown-like depicted on the man that is hunting. Therefore, I surmise he is a clan/hunting-cult leader sitting not on a seat of power but could reference this or less likely, to me, a God/Demigod/Grandfather-father Ancestor Spirit.

A Modified Boar Skull from Çatalhöyük

“A boar skull with unusual modifications was discovered at the Anatolian Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. The cranium and the mandible were both present and in articulation. Most of the mandibular cheek teeth had been deliberately removed. The interior of the cranium was absent as well, but the upper canine teeth were found in approximately correct anatomical position. Wheat and barley phytoliths were found in the back of the mouth. This article describes the find, contextualizes the skull morphologically within the said populations of Çatalhöyük and the broader Anatolian Neolithic, and discusses its manufacture and possible use.” ref

No gentry but grave-makers: inequality beyond property accumulation at Neolithic Çatalhöyük

“ABSTRACT: Archaeologists have adopted the Gini coefficient to evaluate unequal accumulations of material, supporting narratives modeled on modern inequality discourse. Proxies are defined for wealth and the household, to render 21st century-style economic tensions perceptible in the past. This ‘property paradigm’ treats material culture as a generic rather than substantive factor in unequal pasts. We question this framing while suggesting that the Gini coefficient can prompt a deeper exploration of value. Our study grows from multi-material evaluation of inequality at Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Here we use the Gini coefficient to scrutinize distributions of burial practices among houses. To the expectations of the property paradigm, the result is unintuitive – becoming slightly more equal despite rising social complexity. We explore possible explanations for this result, each pointing to a more substantive link between past futures and differentiated lives as a framework for archaeologies of inequality.” ref

An inequality paradox: burial at Çatalhöyük: Çatalhöyük was first inhabited around 7100 BCE (Bayliss et al. Citation2015). It initially comprised clusters of mudbrick dwellings interspersed with open spaces. Over time it became larger overall, and buildings were wedged into almost all of its open spaces. By ca. 6700, it was a radically dense settlement of perhaps several thousand people, traversed in part by walking across rooftops and descending into buildings by ladder. After ca. 6500, the site dispersed, continuing as a lower-density settlement into the 6th millennium (Marciniak et al. Citation2015).” ref 

“Many narratives feature Neolithic settlements as likely locations for the first emergence of social inequality. However, it is now clear that interpreting the Neolithic in terms of social hierarchy is far from straightforward (Hodder Citation2022). Many analyses do show social and economic roles becoming more diversified between the ‘Early’ (7100–6700) and ‘Middle’ (6700–6500) periods at Çatalhöyük (chronology following Hodder Citation2022). Many buildings were richly decorated with sculpture and painting, while others contain less visual elaboration (Hodder and Pels Citation2010). Material culture such as body ornamentation, figurines, and lithics reveals makers of a range of skill levels (e.g. Bains et al. Citation2013). And certain material culture, such as groundstone tools and large timbers, are recovered disproportionately from a subset of houses (e.g. Wright Citation2014). Yet other analyses, such as Mazzucato’s (Citation2019) network analysis, complicate the picture, showing higher qualitative similarity between houses despite rising quantitative dissimilarity in the sums of things inside them. This complex picture presents ample material with which to study inequality – and also calls for caution.” ref

“Many authors see Çatalhöyük communities as organized around ‘history houses’, ‘memory houses’ or ‘meeting houses’, set apart by accumulations of some sort, whose inhabitants would have enjoyed outsized influence and opportunity (Hodder and Pels Citation2010; Kuijt Citation2018; Wright Citation2014). Others have discerned mechanisms of differentiation in Neolithic practices, arguing for the emergence of private food storage (Bogaard et al. Citation2009), central roles for elders (Pearson and Meskell Citation2015), and varying levels of access or seclusion for different households (Düring Citation2001). However, studies rarely agree about which houses were ‘socially central’.  illustrates this by evaluating houses in one Middle period neighborhood using several published criteria for ‘special’ buildings. Each set of criteria highlights different buildings. Incidentally, none identifies the largest and most storage-rich building (Building 59) as ‘special’.” ref

“A second challenge is the fragmented nature of inequality studies. Many studies focus one or two materials/practices, treating those measures as indicative of inequality across domains (e.g. Mazzucato et al. Citation2022). This is compounded by the property paradigm: buildings are sometimes treated as stand-ins for human beings (i.e. households), and sums of material culture within their walls are treated as reflections of those people’s social position. Ambiguous, contradictory, or changing traits of buildings become difficult to analyze (Kay Citation2020b).” ref

“In response to these challenges, Hodder (Citation2022) has recently argued for a ‘molar’ model of social structure at Çatalhöyük–one where overarching forms of value and habitus supported many domain-specific ways of connecting people together and defining their differences. He contrasts this with societies that arrange people into partially autonomous, formulaic (‘molecular’) groupings that hold true in almost all aspects of life. Put simply: some people may have been grouped together as a ‘social unit’ with ‘central’ people/places in one practice (e.g. burial) yet may have been grouped differently in other practices (e.g. harvesting crops).” ref

“Declining burial inequality at Çatalhöyük: To investigate domain-specific inequalities, we compiled data on a range of materials: artifacts such as clay objects and lithics; animal remains and botanical residues; information about the size and internal structure of buildings; as well as burials and display elements. Our goal was to see if narratives about inequality built around select datasets held up within a more robust, multi-practice evaluation of Neolithic life.” ref

“An initial step involved summing materials on a house-by-house basis. Despite the limitations of such an approach (Kay Citation2020a; Twiss Citation2012), this first move provides an overview of the distribution of materials around the site. We carried out a stratigraphic review so that our sums only include materials incorporated during construction, occupation, and immediate closure of buildings. We subsequently calculated the Gini coefficient for different material types in the site’s Early, Middle, and Late periods. The overall contours of this data are the focus of another work (Twiss et al. Citationunder revision). Broadly speaking, they fit the picture of rising social complexity through the early and middle 7th millennium as the town grew denser and more populous. Across (most of) the board, Gini coefficients rise between the Early and Middle periods, from relatively even distributions to considerably more unequal ones. (Late period dynamics involve extensive social changes and evidentiary complications beyond the scope of the present argument).” ref

However, not all data sets produced the expected values. In particular, data related to funerary practice produced slightly falling Gini coefficients (i.e. more even distribution among houses) (Figure 1). Intramural burial was practiced throughout the periods in question as the most common funerary rite. Large concentrations of burials occurred in just two excavated Early buildings (Building 17 and its superimposed successor, Building 6), with contemporary structures containing fewer (Buildings 18, 23, 43, 160, 161) or no burials (Building 2, likely Building 118). Similar patterns were reported during the 1960s excavations of the site, when more Early structures were excavated (Düring Citation2003). Although there are buildings without burials in the Middle period, the majority of structures did contain burials. A few buildings contained dramatic concentrations (up to 60 MNI in a single structure) yet most fall within a narrow range, from a few burials to around a dozen. Overall, this produces a slight decline in the Gini coefficient for MNI in buildings as the site grew, from 0.53 to 0.45.” ref

“We investigated other ways to quantify burials: perhaps buildings were distinguished by the kinds of people buried within, or their manner of burial. Although there is more to interrogate, most metrics produced the same pattern. Houses became more equal over time in the amount of material culture accompanying human bodies into the grave.Footnote2 They remained quite even in terms of ‘access’ to adult as opposed to subadult bodies (Gini coefficients 0.30 [Early] and 0.29 [Middle]), despite a site-wide emphasis on age as a distinguishing factor (Haddow et al. Citation2021; Knüsel et al. Citation2021; Pearson and Meskell Citation2015). The only emerging inequality concerned secondary burials: this practice is minimally evident in the Early period, while a few houses contain disproportionately many secondary burials in the Middle period.” ref

“Our data thus defy initial expectations. Burials have been considered a primary way that houses (and associated people) became central, powerful, or influential at Çatalhöyük (Hodder and Pels Citation2010; Kuijt Citation2018). From Early to Middle there is evidence that specific houses were becoming central – somehow – in particular tasks or domains, based on materials accumulated within them (Twiss et al. Citationunder revision). Yet burials became slightly more evenly distributed. This unexpected outcome invites us to rethink how accumulating interments in houses (or dispersing them among houses) worked within Çatalhöyük’s value systems.” ref

Marquis Amon “A leopard skin is no easy thing to get, and it seems that only highly distinguished people possessed them, either gender. If I recall an earlier discussion with you, this establishment seemed to have equal gender, but was possibly a matriarchy.

A few things hint to it. Women having leopard skins as well as their body image. Realistically it wouldn’t make sense for women to hunt if they were “fat”, given the dangerous animals they hunted. So to me, they likely held higher spiritual leadership roles. Some evidence had been found such as the male and female ornate plastered skulls. 

What I find interesting is that in my opinion, the city began to become increasingly religious. In my opinion, it looks to me like the gradual veneration of the dead (early art designated burial chambers) to more modern mainstream worship where it was found in work and oven areas. 

Another cool thing you point out is that the male ritual hunter may have taunted the animals. Namely with bulls come to mind is a modern-day Matador. I hypothesize that these leaders may be showing off bravery to ancestors or gods. We see a sort of shamanistic and totemistic nature as you mention. Not only do we see these animals in wall art, but carved in pillars if I am not mistaken. Suffice to say that these animals were not just very fierce but also played a role in their belief system. 

While I wouldn’t use the word “Skull Cult” here despite plastered skulls, head trauma injuries, ect. They definitely knew the head was important, and a leopard skin crown would have definitely been a high-status symbol. I am not sure of this, but it looks like to me that abandoned buildings became burial chambers. Or that events took place socially that designated certain places be burial chambers. Almost as if parts were a necropolis. Awesome article my friend.”  Marquis Amon

My response to Marquis Amon, Egalitarian society and possibly not matriarchy but there were elites and some difference even there with women eat more domesticated animals and men eat more wild animals both eat similar amounts its children that seem to get less. I see it as men as clan leaders and women as religious leaders. And, yes, “bulls come to mind is a modern-day Matador” I do think there is likely a connection. Moreover, to me, it was likely male hunting cult leaders or special members engaging in the taunting animals that may be showing off bravery to ancestors and/or goddesses.

Marquis Amon “I was thinking that if this was a theocratic state the religious influence would be ruling. Yet as you mention this was a hybridization of hunter-gathers and religion. Previously, we had more of semi-permanent religious sites of a similar kind. I was also thinking that if they worshiped a goddess that the women would be more closely linked. This may be erroneous on my part and the deity could be androgynous as you mention later, By no means am I saying I think I am right regarding the matriarchy comment, rather just wanted to explain my rationale. Separate but equal status, genders fulfilling different roles. Interestingly from a behavioral standpoint, we have seen it in Neanderthals, socially. This is more complex regarding modern humans, but wanted to say we do have a precedent for it.”

My response to Marquis Amon, I understand your thinking and would have thought the same thing but this is before the standard social norms we think of regarding gender that became more fixed around 4,000 years ago and after. This is 9,000 to before 7,000 years ago. It is largely at 7,000 to 5,000 that male and female gender treatment in society gradually changes favoring males over females. At around 4,000 is the first emerging of monotheistic type religion that with “only” male-gods pushing out paganism with male and female gods and goddesses. By 2,000 years ago relatively all goddesses faith was gone and man and sexism rained. 

Different types of egalitarian societies and the development of inequality in early Mesopotamia

Abstract: There is no single form that equality takes in past societies. Some societies, horizontal egalitarian systems, manifest an absence of hierarchy, but in other societies (vertical egalitarian systems), privileged status coexists with substantial equality. A detailed comparison of the Halaf culture of northern Mesopotamia and eastern Anatolia with the Samarra and Ubaid cultures of central and southern Mesopotamia, examining settlement patterns, economy, and burial customs, reveals the ways the vectors of egalitarianism in these two contrasting systems and enables key variables determining the nature and distribution of equality to be distinguished. The excavation of the Halaf settlement at Kazane is still limited to an extremely small area and is mostly unpublished. Only an extensive excavation, stratigraphically connecting in detail the individual building phases recognized in different trenches, could actually prove the absence of shifting in the settled areas during the course of the same archaeological phase. A certain quantity of charred grains has been found at Sabi Abyad in the area around these structures. Researchers have suggested the use of the Latin term cretula (a white clay used for sealing) to designate clay sealings and any kind of sealed administrative tools.” ref

“This, rather than exchange or transhumant pastoralism, was, in the researcher’s opinion, the main explanation for the Halaf ‘expansion’, also according with the extensive, gradual, and capillary occupation by this culture of the Eastern Anatolian regions. The exchange of valuables over long distances was certainly also intensified during the urbanization process in Mesopotamia, and the exploitation of metals had undergone a clear intensification, starting from the end of the Ubaid period and more evidently in the Uruk period. The economic sectors that were subjected to an increasingly complex and sophisticated administrative apparatus – and were therefore under a real centralized control – were still, however, in the Late Uruk period, those related to the production of staples and the management of the labor force, as documented by the archaeological evidence, where it exists, in more than one site both in the north (Jebel ArudaArslantepe) and in the south (Uruk-Warka). The researcher is therefore convinced that the basic sources of wealth for the emerging elites were primary products, whereas trade and production of valuables (the so-called ‘wealth finance’) accompanied this process as a consequence of the increased power of the high-rank units and their new requests for prestige and craft articles.” ref

A Study Of Anthropomorphic Figurines In The Neolithic

“In the Neolithic, figurines largely appear at a time when human cultures were going through significant and critical changes, so significant and critical that the period has often been referred to as the “Neolithic revolution.” These figurines do not appear in every Neolithic society but seem to be common to a great many. Nor do they appear continuously through time in each culture where they are found. Agriculture and sedentism begin to replace the lifeways of the hunter-gatherer nomads, and some of the earliest clear examples of public architecture and ceremonial gatherings begin to show up in the material records of such places as Nevalı Çori, Göbekli Tepe and Çatalhöyük. Prior to the invention of writing, symbols and signs appear in the archaeological record in the form of pictographs, petroglyphs, murals, pottery designs, and figurines. These artifacts are among the precious few sources of information about cultures long dead before the advent of writing.” ref

“The Neolithic periods of Southwest Asia and Southeastern Europe total at least 403 anthropomorphic figurines, around 11,000 to 4,300 years ago, 148 (36.7%) were from sites in Southwest Asia and 255 (63.3%) were from sites in Southeastern Europe mostly of terracotta and stone, a disproportionate number of figurines are representative of the female sex compared to male as well as that asexual-figurines are also equally disproportionate. Although most Neolithic societies may have differences among the many commonalities that these cultures shared are small portable figurines of terracotta and, sometimes, stone. Anthropomorphic figurines are recovered in a variety of archaeological contexts, many of which can be clearly defined as domestic, burial, and ritual. In Bulgaria and Moldavia, for instance, figurines are frequently found in association with Neolithic cemeteries. Neolithic figurines filled a variety of roles which included rituals for curing, protection, initiation, and marriage, as well as to support oral narratives.” ref

“Anthropomorphic figurines are also very striking examples of Neolithic artifacts that have the potential to act as external symbolic storage. The quality of individual identity within Chalcolithic Bulgarian settlements by analyzing figurines within burials. Offers five methods of decoration: incising, piercing, painting, piercing and painting, and non-decoration, and sexual identities in the figurines excavated: female (69%), male (less than 1%) and asexual (31%) thus probably multi-sexual and multi-gendered culture. Most male figurines dominated the cemeteries and female figurines prevailed in the domestic spaces, a significant presence of asexual figurines were found throughout the Neolithic and Chalcolithic.” ref

“Many figurines express obesity and while obesity is definitely represented in the archaeological records of Neolithic cultures, the discontinuity between the obesity in figurines found at Çatalhöyük and the body types excavated. To date, no clear evidence has been discovered that would indicate a body was that of an obese or robust person. The mortuary data retrieved thus far from Çatalhöyük are far from conclusive and at least one case of a burial “special treatment” could exist of a person that was obese. ” ref

“The Neolithic in Southeastern Europe begins by many accounts (e.g., Talalay at around 8,500 years ago). In southern Greece and the Aegean, a large corpus of anthropomorphic figurines emerge in many places beginning around this time in the regions of Thessaly and Central Greece, Macedonia, and Crete. The region of Greece that has, to date, produced the most Neolithic figurines. The Sesklo culture in Thessaly at Dimini Sesklo and Achilleion. Notably, Sesklo figurines share many attributes with those of the Near East, such as seated posture, conical shaped heads, and coffee-bean or cowrie-shaped eyes.” ref

“North of Greece, the Karanovo culture begins in the Eastern Balkan region at about 7,800 years ago and figurines produced are marked by “focus[ed] attention on faces and hips, buttocks and the pubis”. In the Central Balkans, the Vinča Complex begins around 7,265 and the figurines from this culture are very striking with distinctive triangular, mask-like faces, detailed incisions, and symmetrical perforations. Several other regions in Southeastern Europe also provide a rich body of distinct anthropomorphic figurine styles. The Tisza culture in Hungary emerged during the Late Neolithic (around 6,970-6,380 years ago), the Cucuteni culture in modern Romania and Moldavia flourished from around. 6,800-5,500 years ago.” ref

“And closer to the Adriatic but still on the Balkan Peninsula, the Butmir culture is dated to around 7,300-6,200 years ago also in the Middle and Late Neolithic periods. Also considered to be within Southeastern Europe are the island sites of Malta and Sardinia. Malta was first settled by Neolithic farmers around 7,000 years ago and through the Final Neolithic, the island produced a rich body of figurines modeled in clay or carved from stone and bone. Malone notes that current evidence supports the idea that Sardinia was occupied continuously from the Mesolithic to the Early Neolithic which began on the island around 7,230 years ago. The figurines of Sardinia are more likely to be carved of stone than modeled in clay and many are found carved from tuff, marble, alabaster, gypsum, and steatite.” ref

“It is also possible that the idea that figurines are not simply media that communicate messages or store information but also to express or be utilized as representations that have meanings that can change over time and vary from observer to observer. The mental representation of the figurine becomes the ideas and concepts held by the observer, likely influenced the figurine’s context as it was used in domestic, ritual, and ceremonial settings. Posture for most figurines is a central attribute though often one that includes a combination of limb positions. So while standing and seated are two very general descriptions of posture, the positions of limbs could define the figurine as seated with a left leg crossed over the right, legs folded underneath the figure, or even kneeling. Figurines, of course, do not have an agency that is independent of humans.” ref

“Southeastern Europe contributed a more diverse and dispersed set of sites to the corpus, with a majority of 73 (18.1%) originating from sites in Romania. Other significant contributors were sites in the regions of Bulgaria (34 figurines at 8.4%), Central Greece (23figurines at 5.7%), Sardinia (23 figurines at 5.7%), Serbia (22 figurines at 5.6%), Malta (21figurines at 5.2%), and the Peloponnese of Greece (19 figurines at 4.7%). Other contributing sites were in the regions of Kosovo (10 figurines at 2.5%), Hungary (9 figurines at 2.2%), Bosnia(9 figurines at 2.2%), and then Crete, Macedonia, and Moldavia (each with 3 figurines at 0.7%). A single contributing Neolithic figurine was from Italy which was 0.3% of the corpus.” ref

“A male figurine from Nevalı Çori dating to between 10,500 and 9,900 years ago that appears to be wearing a belt or sash around the hips that may have a leopard design. This stylistic motif is similar to that of the somewhat younger design associated with an anthropomorphic figure in a mural at Çatalhöyük also of a male(s) (which could represent a hunting cult). If their creators fashioned figurines to represent bodies they knew best, then many or most of the creators may have been female since figurines that are clearly male represent a small percentage of the corpus but what would it mean in relation to the very high percentage of asexual figurines in the Neolithic, (could mean trans/intersex people or that they were for use by several male and female individuals, or diverse gendered duties, maybe a little of both?).” ref

The often largely forgotten Gender Fluidity in the Goddesses and Gods

“Many cultures have gods, demi-gods, and heroes with both male and female attributes. In Hindu mythology, Shiva is seduced by Vishnu’s female avatar, Mohini, giving birth to the god Shasta (Ayyappa). Shiva himself is often represented as Ardhanarishvara, an androgynous composite of Shiva and Parvati with a body that is male on the right-hand side and female on the left. Arjuna, the great warrior of the Mahabharata epic, spent a year as a woman, during which he took the name of Brihannala and taught song and dance to the princess Uttara.” ref

“The Mesopotamian Ishtar, the beautiful goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex, is sometimes represented with a beard to emphasize her more bellicose side. She could change a man into a woman, and the assinnukurgarru, and kuku’u who performed her cult had both male and female features. After the hero Gilgamesh rejected her offer of marriage, Ishtar unleashed the Bull of Heaven, ultimately leading to the death of Enkidu, whom Gilgamesh loved more than anyone: “Hear me, great ones of Uruk/ I weep for Enkidu, my friend/ Bitterly mourning like a woman mourning.” ref

“Hapi, the Egyptian god of the annual flooding of the Nile, brought such fertility as to be regarded by some as the father of the gods: he is generally depicted as intersex, with pendulous breasts and a ceremonial false beard. To seduce the nymph Callisto, Zeus, the king of the Greek gods, took the form of the goddess Artemis.” ref

Ten Intersex Goddesses and Gods

“Many cultures have had religions and beliefs that feature human-like gods and goddesses, most of them being specifically male or female. However, for some, creation and fertility was not always a female feature, and many concepts of nature and the universe could only be explained from a dipole perspective. Sometimes, being intersex was a result of magical or mysterious events. 1. Hermaphroditus (Greek), 2. Agdistis (Phrygian, Greek, Roman), 3.“Hapi (Egyptian), 4. Ardhanarishvara (Hindu), 5. Lan Caihe (China), 6. Ymir (Norse), 7. Ometeotl (Aztec), 8. Jehovah (Hermetic Kabbalah), 9. Phanes (Greek), and Ahsonnutli (Navaho).” ref

The First Expression of the Male God around 7,000 years ago?

The Balkans, where I think the first male god originates is the site of a few major Neolithic cultures, including Butmir, Vinča, Varna, Karanovo, Hamangia. And the threat of violence that accompanied the Copper Age “Kurganization” of the eastern Balkans (and the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture) is associated with an early expansion of the Proto-Indo-European people of a Kurgan culture north of the Black Sea from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe, Eurasia and parts of Asia. In Serbia, a 7,500 years ago copper axe was found at Prokuplje. The European Corded Ware culture 4,900-4,350 years ago used stone axes modeled on copper axes, imitating “mold marks” carved in the stone. refrefrefrefrefrefref

To me, the “male god” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 7,000 years ago, whereas the now favored monotheism “male god” is more like 4,000 years ago or so. To me, the “female goddess” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 11,000-10,000 years ago or so, losing the majority of its once prominence around 2,000 years ago due largely to the now favored monotheism “male god” that grow in prominence after 4,000 years ago or so. 

Ancient mDNA “N1a1a1” and Pottery?

Bon005 – Boncuklu Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 10,220 years ago Turkey – Central Anatolia ref

Bon004 – Boncuklu Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 10,076 years ago Turkey – Central Anatolia ref

ZHAG – Boncuklu Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 9,900 years ago Turkey – Central Anatolia ref

People who lived in ancient settlement in central Turkey migrated to Europe: archaeologists

“10,300-year-old Boncuklu Höyük settlement in Turkey revealed that the people who lived in the settlement migrated to Europe. And the Boncuklu Höyük settlement was established a thousand years before Çatalhöyük, so is the ancestor of later Çatalhöyük.” ref

Ash040 – Aşıklı Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 9,875 years ago Turkey – Central Anatolia ref

CCH144 – Çatalhöyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 8,808 years ago Turkey – Central Anatolia ref

I1096 – Barcın Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 8,300 years ago Turkey – Northwest Anatolia ref

Bar25 – Barcın Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 8,295 years ago Turkey – Northwest Anatolia ref

Tep004 – Tepecik-Çiftlik Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 8,237 years ago Turkey – Northwest Anatolia ref

Tep006 – Tepecik-Çiftlik Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 8,099 years ago Turkey – Northwest Anatolia ref

I0725 – Mentese mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,950 years ago Turkey – South-Western corner, on the Aegean Sea ref

I0174 – Alsonyek-Bataszek mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,558 years ago Hungary – Starcevo ref (Starčevo–Körös–Criș culture: 6,200 – 4,500 BCE or around 8,223-6,523 years ago)

“Starčevo culture of Southeastern Europe originates in the spread of the Neolithic package of peoples and technological innovations including farming and ceramics from Anatolia to the area of Sesklo. The Starčevo culture marks its spread to the inland Balkan peninsula as the Cardial ware culture did along the Adriatic coastline. It forms part of the wider Starčevo–Körös–Criş culture which gave rise to the central European Linear Pottery culture c. 700 years after the initial spread of Neolithic farmers towards the northern Balkans.” ref

Klein1 – Kleinhadersd mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,500 years ago Austria – LBK/AVK ref (Linear Pottery culture *LBK*: 5,500–4,500 BCE or around 7,523-6,523 years ago)

UZZ74 – Grotta dell’Uzzo, Sicily mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,223 years ago Italy – Stentinello I ref (Stentinello culture: dated to the 5th millennium BCE: 5000 to 4000 BCE or around 7,023-6,023 years ago)

I0412 – Els Trocs, Bisaurri, Huesca, Aragón mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,177 years ago Spain – Epicardial ref (Cardium/Cardial–Epicardial pottery culture: 6400 – 5500 BCE or around 8,423-7,023 years ago)

A Common Genetic Origin for Early Farmers from Mediterranean Cardial and Central European LBK Cultures

“Fernández et al. 2014 found traces of maternal genetic affinity between people of the Linear Pottery Culture and Cardium pottery with earlier peoples of the Near Eastern Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, including the rare mtDNA (maternal) basal haplogroup N*, and suggested that Neolithic period was initiated by seafaring colonists from the Near East. Mathieson et al. 2018 examined three Cardials buried at the Zemunica Cave near Bisko in modern-day Croatia c. 5800 BCE the three samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to the maternal haplogroups H1, K1b1a, and N1a1.” ref

“European immigrants introduced farming to prehistoric North Africa. Around 7,500 years ago, agriculture and animal husbandry appeared in Morocco, along with Cardium pottery similar to Mediterranean Iberia.” ref

Boncuklu Höyük: The earliest ceramics on the Anatolian plateau?

“Boncuklu Höyük is a Neolithic site in Central Anatolia, Turkey, around 9 km/5.5 miles from Çatalhöyük.” ref

“12 fired clay samples and an unfired marl sample from the late 9th and early 8th-millennium BCE site of Boncuklu Höyük (8300–7800 cal BCE) in the Konya Plain, Turkey, were analyzed by optical microscopy and SEM-EDX. The plant remains in the pottery fabrics were also examined in the variable pressure scanning electron microscope. Chemical analyses show that the same clays were used for multiple purposes, and more than one type of raw material was used to make the fired clay objects examined. Only one sherd showed signs of having added temper. The presence of scattered organic remains in the fabrics also suggests that the clay was minimally processed. Although the minerals present do not show any optical alteration, the shrinkage of the plant matter and the discoloring of bone inclusions suggested that all but one sample were fired, albeit at a relatively low temperature. These sherds are therefore regarded as among the earliest ceramic vessels known in southwest Asia, although the manufacturing technique was different to that used to make the contemporaneous PPNB ceramics found at Kfar HaHoresh in Israel.” ref

“The clay vessels from Boncuklu Höyük, an early Neolithic site in central Anatolia. The site dates to c. 8300 to 7800 cal BCE, much earlier than the accepted date for the introduction of pottery in Anatolia, c. 7000 cal BCE. Thus the primary question is whether the clay vessels constitute true ceramics, i.e. were fired intentionally. Boncuklu Höyük appears to have been established on a rise within a wetland area. Evidence for the use of crop plants at Boncuklu is clearly present but sparse, and foraging was probably more important than farming. Seasonality proxies suggest that the site was occupied throughout the year, but the community may well have included more mobile groups that were absent at different times.” ref

“Excavation of several areas with a combined exposure of over 400 m2 has revealed houses with painted floors, bucrania, and clay and plaster relief decoration, predating similar practices at the nearby site of Çatalhöyük by about a millennium. A sequence of six buildings, reconstructed one above another, has been excavated in one area (Area K); as at Çatalhöyük, continuous reconstruction in the same place appears to have been important. The buildings at Boncuklu were c. 3 × 5 m and ellipsoidal with the walls made from mudbrick. The buildings showed evidence of ground-level entry, unlike at Çatalhöyük where entry was from the roof. As at Çatalhöyük, however, there is strong evidence for a highly structured use of internal space, and the presence of plaster installations and painting. Extensive midden deposits accumulated in open areas and were associated with hearths and lightweight structures that may have formed shelters for work areas.” ref

“The inhabitants of Boncuklu made a variety of objects from clay, including vessels, storage structures, figurines, and a large number of other geometric and amorphous objects. Seventy-seven fragments of fine and coarse clay vessels which can be assigned to the assemblage related to Neolithic phases of occupation at the site were recovered from the site by 2012. Circa one third of these are from securely stratified Neolithic contexts, from different parts of the sequences dated directly by C14. Around half of the stratified examples were isolated sherds within ashy midden deposits and found in areas outside buildings. Middens were associated with activities involving food preparation and consumption, which occurred both outside and inside buildings. Sherds were also found within buildings, mainly in the ‘dirty’ areas surrounding hearths. One sherd was found in a grave fill in a house, but seems to have been deposited unintentionally when the grave was closed. Given the early date of the site in terms of pottery use in southwest Asia, the main question discussed here is whether these vessels were fired or only sun-dried, and if they were fired, at what temperature?” ref

“Five potential categories of ware-types were identified: fine wares, coarse wares, structural wares, fired marl, and unfired marl. Two examples of fine wares were from open bowls with flat rim profiles, and diameters of 220 mm and 280 mm. Both rim fragments were decorated with lateral incised lines. Each showed breakage in a manner consistent with poorly smoothed and bonded coils. Coarse ware sherds were from open bowls, hole mouth pots, and jars. These were pinched, slab- or coil-built and all had rounded rims (diameters varied from 40 to 220 mm). For some examples, thin layers of clay were used to create the exterior surface. It was not always clear whether the fragments of structural wares were from large vessels, oven walls, or sections of storage bins, perhaps intentionally fired in situ to make them more robust.” ref

“Examples were coil- or slab-built, with well-smoothed outer and inner surfaces. Two sections of rim were found, one from an open bowl (diameter 320 mm) and one from a straight-necked jar (diameter 250 mm). The thickness of the walls suggests they were used for hot stone cooking, a technique that focuses on insulation rather than conduction. Other examples of structural wares may be derived from fire installations and thereby have been baked by default. Sherds incorporated into the base of hearths have been found in the midden area (Area M) at Boncuklu; possibly they increased thermal shock resistance and thereby the hearths’ use-life. It is unclear, however, if they were fired before their incorporation into the hearth or as a result of it.” ref

“Examples within the fired marl category were thought to be broken/detached sections of the basins and channels that have been found in situ on site. They may have helped to drain liquids and a light firing may have increased their durability. Similar ‘water-channels’ have been identified for the Pottery Neolithic phase at Tell Seker al-Aheimar. Many of the exterior surfaces were notably rough and pitted. Others showed plant impressions suggesting they may have been formed around or over basketry. Examples categorized as unfired marl were made in the same way with the same materials as the fired marl but not baked at all. No sections of rim were recovered, which is probably indicative of the friable nature of these objects. Thirteen samples were analyzed: a figurine fragment (BK15), two fragments of fine ware vessels (BK1, 2), two fragments of coarse ware vessels (BK4, 5), four examples of structural wares (BK6, 7, 9 and 10); three fragments of fired marl (BK11, 12 and 13) and a section of unfired marl (BK14).” ref

“Boncuklu Höyük in Central Anatolia, Turkey, situated around 9 km from the more famous Çatalhöyük site, the remains of one of the world’s oldest villages, occupied between around 8300 to 7800 BCE. The buildings are small and oval-shaped with walls constructed of mudbricks. The remains of burials of human bodies were found below the floors of the buildings. The earliest known ceramics of Anatolia have been discovered there.” ref

“Çatalhöyük is a tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 6400 BCE, and flourished around 7000 BCE. Çatalhöyük was composed entirely of domestic buildings, with no obvious public buildings. While some of the larger ones have rather ornate murals, the purpose of some rooms remains unclear. The population of the eastern mound has been estimated to be around 10,000 people, but the population likely varied over the community’s history. An average population of between 5,000 and 7,000 is a reasonable estimate.” ref

“Main cultures of the earliest Neolithic of Central and Western Europe around 6,000–5,500 cal BCE.” ref

“Research suggested Cardial and Linear Pottery Cultures were descended from a common farming population in the Balkans.” ref

SMH011 – Baden-Württemberg mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,127 years ago Germany – Linear Pottery Culture/LBK_SMH ref

XN205 – Baden-Württemberg mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,100 years ago Germany – Linear Pottery Culture/LBK_SMH ref

XN165 – Baden-Württemberg mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,099 years ago Germany – Linear Pottery Culture/LBK_SMH ref

I0057 – Halberstadt-Sonntagsfeld mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,070 years ago Germany – Linear Pottery Culture ref

SCH004 – Baden-Württemberg mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,050 years ago Germany – Linear Pottery Culture ref

I2008 – Halberstadt-Sonntagsfeld mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,041 years ago Germany – Linear Pottery Culture ref

OBN006 – Bas-Rhin mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,026 years ago France (Northeastern France near the border of Germany) – France_MN_OBN_C ref

XN215 – Baden-Württemberg mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,010 years ago Germany – Linear Pottery Culture/LBK_SMH ref

I2379 – Hejőkürt-Lidl logisztikai központ mtDNA N1a1a1 around 6,984 years ago Hungary – ALPc_Tiszadob_MN ref

I10942 – Europa 1, Gibraltar mtDNA N1a1a1 around 6,950 years ago Gibraltar (southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula/bordered to the north by Spain) – SW_Iberia_EN ref

ALE 16 – Alsónyék-Elkerülő 2. Site mtDNA N1a1a1 around 6,889 years ago Hungary – Sopot_LN ref

SZEH2 – Szemely-Hegye mtDNA N1a1a1 around 6,855 years ago Hungary – Sopot_LN ref

ALE16 – Alsónyék-elkerülő 2. lh. mtDNA N1a1a1 around 6,850 years ago Hungary – Sopot_MN ref

I0175 – Bátaszék-Lajvérpuszta mtDNA N1a1a1 around 6,650 years ago Hungary – Lengyel_Neolithic ref

BAM27 – Alsónyék-Bátaszék, Mérnöki telep mtDNA N1a1a1 around 6,580 years ago Hungary – Lengyel_LN ref

BAL16 – Bátaszék-Lajvér mtDNA N1a1a1 around 6,525 years ago Hungary – Lengyel_LN ref

BAL26 – Bátaszék-Lajvér mtDNA N1a1a1 around 6,525 years ago Hungary – Lengyel_LN ref

CSAT1 – Csabdi-Télizöldes mtDNA N1a1a1 around 6,525 years ago Hungary – Lengyel_LN ref

CSAT20 – Csabdi-Télizöldes mtDNA N1a1a1 around 6,525 years ago Hungary – Lengyel_LN ref

CSAT29 – Csabdi-Télizöldes mtDNA N1a1a1 around 6,525 years ago Hungary – Lengyel_LN ref

MORT12 – Mórágy-Tűzkődomb, B1 mtDNA N1a1a1 around 6,525 years ago Hungary – Lengyel_LN ref

N18 – Pikutkowo mtDNA N1a1a1 around 5,459 years ago Poland – Funnel Beaker ref (Funnel Beaker culture: 4300 – 2800 BCE or around 6,323-4,823 years ago north-central Europe)

“Genetic finds in the Funnelbeaker (TrB) culture, Malmström et al. 2015 examined 9 skeletons from Resmo, Sweden, and Gökhem, Sweden c. 3300-2600 BCE. The 8 samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to various subtypes of maternal haplogroup J, H/R, N, K, and T. The examined Funnelbeakers were closely related to Central European farmers, and different from people of the contemporary Pitted Ware culture. The striking diversity of the maternal lineages suggested that maternal kinship was of little importance in Funnelbeaker society. The evidence suggested that the Neolithization of Scandinavia was accompanied by significant human migration.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Arcane Capitalism: Primitive socialism, Primitive capital, Private ownership, Means of production, Market capitalism, Class discrimination, and Petite bourgeoisie (smaller capitalists)

7,522-6,522 years ago Linear Pottery culture, sometimes fortified or palisade settlements and weapon-traumatized bones also found, all which I think relates to Arcane Capitalism’s origins.

Arcane = complicated and therefore understood or known by only a few people

To me, societies start with primitive anarchism and socialism at least 100,000 years ago and are seen in animist-only thinking that is now largely limited to southern Africa today. Then they lose systematic anarchism possibly by 50,000 to 40,000 years ago but keeps socialism/primitive communism with the emergence of totemism largely limited to Europe and then spreading out from there. And to me, arcane/primitive capitalism emerges at or around 7,000 to 5,000 years ago in central Europe especially southern Germany or surrounding areas (Czecho-Slovakia and Austria), and then spread out from there.

Early Pottery People movements and its eventual emergence of Elites, Private property, and the Private ownership of the means of production, (private accumulation of capital) which are seen as characteristics that distinguish capitalism from socialism.

Private property creates monopoly power, harming allocative efficiency, unlike the Common ownership of property helping allocative efficiency. ref

“An earlier view saw the Linear Pottery Culture as living a “peaceful, unfortified lifestyle”. Since then, settlements with palisades and weapon-traumatized bones have been discovered, such as at Herxheim, which, whether the site of a massacre or of a martial ritual, demonstrates, “…systematic violence between groups”. Most of the known settlements, however, left no trace of violence.” ref

“In 2015 a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences details the findings of researchers at a site near Schöneck-Kilianstädten, who “found the skeletons of 26 adults and children, who were killed by devastating strikes to the head or arrow wounds. The skull fractures are classic signs of blunt force injuries caused by basic stone-age weapons.” Pottery has been found in long houses, as well as in graves. Analysis of the home pottery reveals that each house had its own tradition.” ref

“The early Neolithic in Europe featured burials of women and children under the floors of personal residences. Remains of adult males are missing. Probably, Neolithic culture featured sex discrimination in funerary customs, and women and children were important in ideology concerning the home. Burials beneath the floors of homes continued until about 4000 BCE or 6,022 years ago. However, in the Balkans and central Europe, the cemetery also came into use at about 5000 BCE or 7,022 years ago.” ref

“Linear Pottery Culture cemeteries contained from 20 to 200 graves arranged in groups that appear to have been based on kinship. Males and females of any age were included. Both cremation and inhumation were practiced. The inhumed were placed in a flexed position in pits lined with stones, plaster, or clay. Cemeteries were close to, but distinct from, residential areas. The presence of grave goods indicates both a sex and a dominance discrimination. Male graves included stone celts, flint implements, and money or jewelry of Spondylus shells. Female graves contained many of the same artifacts as male graves, but also most of the pottery and containers of ochre.” ref

“The goods have been interpreted as gifts to the departed or personal possessions. Only about 30% of the graves have goods. This circumstance has been interpreted as some sort of distinction in dominance, but the exact nature is not known. If the goods were gifts, then some were more honored than others; if they were possessions, then some were wealthier than others. These practices are contrasted with mass graves, such as the Talheim Death Pit and the Herxheim archeological site.” ref 

7,522-6,522 years ago Linear Pottery culture which I think relates to Arcane Capitalism’s origins

“The Linear Pottery Culture people were stock-raisers, as well, with cattle favored, though goats and swine are also recorded. Like farmers today, they may have used the better grain for themselves and the lower grades for the animals. The ubiquitous dogs are present here too, but scantly. Substantial wild faunal remains are found. The Linear Pottery Culture supplemented their diets by hunting deer and wild boar in the open forests of Europe as it was then.” ref

“The fast expansion of the Linear Pottery Culture culture of mostly Near Eastern farmers did not intermingle much with Mesolithic European hunter-gatherers – a fact now confirmed by the analysis of several LBK genomes that show only about 5 to 10% of indigenous European admixture. However, Mesolithic Europeans continued to live side by side with Linear Pottery Culture farmers and progressively interbred with them during the later Rössen (4600-4300 BCE) and Schöningen (4200-3950 BCE) periods. The only exception is northern France, where the Linear Pottery Culture-derived RRBP (French acronym standing for Recent Linear Pottery of the Parisian Basin) immediately shows high levels of indigenous European admixture.” ref

“Linear Pottery Culture people had an average body height of 166.6 cm for men (ranging from 156.5 to 175.5 cm) and 158 cm for women, considerably shorter than Mesolithic Europeans of the same period. Ancient DNA tests have shown that Linear Pottery Culture people had fair skin, brown eyes, and dark hair, while Mesolithic Europeans had darker skin, dark hair, but blue eyes. Both groups were lactose intolerant.” ref

“The initial Linear Pottery Culture population theory hypothesized that the culture was spread by farmers moving up the Danube practicing slash-and-burn methods. The presence of the Mediterranean sea shell, Spondylus gaederopus, and the similarity of the pottery to gourds, which did not grow in the north, seemed to be evidence of the immigration, as does the genetic evidence cited below. The lands into which they moved were believed untenanted or too sparsely populated by hunter-gatherers to be a significant factor. The barrier causing the hiatus mentioned above does not have an immediate geographical cause. The Körös culture ended in the middle of the Hungarian plain, and although the climate to the north is colder, the gradient is not so sharp as to form a barrier there.” ref

“The earliest theory of Linear Pottery culture origin is that it came from the Starčevo-Körös culture of Serbia and Hungary. Supporting this view is the fact that the Linear Pottery Culture appeared earliest about 5600–5400 BCE on the middle Danube in the Starčevo range. Presumably, the expansion northwards of early Starčevo-Körös produced a local variant reaching the upper Tisza that may have well been created by contact with native epi-Paleolithic people. This small group began a new tradition of pottery, substituting engravings for the paintings of the Balkanic cultures.” ref

“A site at Brunn am Gebirge just south of Vienna seems to document the transition to Linear Pottery Culture. The site was densely settled in a long house pattern around 5550–5200. The lower layers feature Starčevo-type plain pottery, with large number of stone tools made of material from near Lake Balaton, Hungary. Over the time frame, Linear Pottery Culture pottery and animal husbandry increased, while the use of stone tools decreased.” ref

“A second theory proposes an autochthonous development out of the local Mesolithic cultures. Although the Starčevo-Körös entered southern Hungary about 6000 BCE and the Linear Pottery Culture spread very rapidly, there appears to be a hiatus of up to 500 years in which a barrier seems to have been in effect. Moreover, the cultivated species of the near and middle eastern Neolithic do not do well over the Linear Pottery culture range. And finally, the Mesolithics in the region prior to the Linear Pottery Culture used some domestic species, such as wheat and flax. The La Hoguette culture on the northwest of the Linear Pottery Culture range developed their own food production from native plants and animals.” ref

“A third theory attributes the start of Linear Pottery to an influence from the Mesolithic cultures of the East European plain. The pottery was used in intensive food gatherings. The rate at which it spread was no faster than the spread of the Neolithic in general. Accordingly, Dolukhanov and others postulate that an impulse from the steppe to the southeast of the barrier stimulated the Mesolithics north of it to innovate their own pottery. This view only accounts for the pottery; presumably, the Mesolithics combined it de novo with local food production, which began to spread very rapidly throughout a range that was already producing some food.” ref

Early European Farmers

“In archaeogenetics, the terms Early European Farmers (EEF), First European Farmers (FEF), Neolithic European Farmers, Ancient Aegean Farmers (ANF), or Anatolian Neolithic Farmers (ANF) are names given to a distinct ancestral component that represents descent from early Neolithic farmers of Europe.” ref

“Ancestors of Early European Farmers are believed to have split off from Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHGs) around 43,000 BCE, and to have split from Caucasian Hunter-Gatherers (CHGs) around 23,000 BCE. They appear to have migrated from Anatolia to the Balkans in large numbers during the 7th millennium BCE or 9,022-8,022 years ago, where they almost completely replaced the WHGs. The Y-DNA (Men) of Early European Farmers was typically types of haplogroup G2a, and to a lesser extent H, T, J, C1a2, and E1b1, while their mtDNA (Women) was diverse. In the Balkans, the Early European Farmers appear to have divided into two wings, who expanded further west into Europe along the Danube (Linear Pottery culture) or the western Mediterranean (Cardial Ware). Large parts of Northern Europe and Eastern Europe nevertheless remained unsettled by Early European Farmers. During the Middle Neolithic there was a largely male-driven resurgence of WHG ancestry among many Early European Farmer-derived communities, leading to increasing frequencies of the hunter-gatherer paternal haplogroups among them.” ref

Lazaridis et al. 2014 identified Early European Farmers as a distinct ancestral component in a study published in Nature in 2014. Along with Ancient North Eurasians (ANEs) and Western Hunter-Gatherers, Early European Farmers were determined to be one of the three major ancestral populations of modern-Europeans. About 44% of Early European Farmers ancestry was determined to come from a “Basal Eurasian” population that split prior to the diversification of other non-African lineages. Ötzi was identified as Early European Farmers. Early European Farmers were determined to be largely of Near Eastern origin, with slight WHG admixture. It was through their Early European Farmers ancestors that most modern Southern Europeans acquired their WHG ancestry. Early European Farmers ancestry in modern Europe ranged from 30% in the Baltic States to 90% near the Mediterranean Sea.” ref

Olalde et al. 2015 found that the people of the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) in Central Europe and people of the Cardial Ware culture along the Mediterranean coast were descended from a homogenous community of Early European Farmers with a common origin in the Balkans. Early European Farmer’s ancestors of the Linear Pottery Culture people were expected to have migrated into Central Europe along the Danube river, while Early European Farmers ancestors of the Cardials were expected to have migrated along the Mediterranean coast. The Cardials appeared to have acquired a significant amount of hunter-gatherer ancestry during this process. Among modern populations, Sardinians and Basque people were found to harbor the largest amount of Early European Farmers ancestry, which they probably acquired through descent from the Cardials.” ref

Malmström et al. 2015 found that the people of the Funnelbeaker culture of southern Scandinavia were largely of Early European Farmers descent, with slight hunter-gatherer admixture, suggesting that the emergence of the Neolithic in Scandinavia was a result of human migration from the south. The Funnelbeakers were found to be genetically highly different from people of the neighboring hunter-gatherer Pitted Ware culture; the latter carried no Early European Farmers admixture and were instead genetically similar to other European hunter-gatherers.” ref

“During the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, the Early European Farmer-derived cultures of Europe were overwhelmed by successive invasions of Western Steppe Herders (WSHs) from the Pontic–Caspian steppe, who carried about 60% Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) and 40% Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer (CHG) admixture. These invasions led to Early European Farmers Y-DNA in Europe being almost entirely replaced with EHG/WSH Y-DNA (mainly R1b and R1a). Early European Farmers mtDNA however remained frequent, suggesting admixture between EHG/WSH males and Early European Farmers females. Through subsequent migrations of WSHs into Northern Europe and back into the Eurasian Steppe, Early European Farmers’ mtDNA was brought to new corners of Eurasia. Early European Farmers’ ancestry remains throughout Europe, ranging from about 60% near the Mediterranean Sea (with a peak of 65% in the island of Sardinia) and diminishing northwards to about 30% around the Baltic Sea.” ref

“The Linear Pottery Culture is viewed as the first true farming communities in central Europe and thus, is considered the first Neolithic culture in the European continent. the Name is related to the distinctive banded decoration found on pottery vessels on sites spread throughout central Europe, from south-western Ukraine and Moldova in the east to the Paris Basin in the west. In general, Linear Pottery Culture pottery consists of fairly simple bowl forms, made of local clay tempered with organic material, and decorated with curved and rectilinear lines incised in bands. The Linear Pottery Culture people are considered the importers of agricultural products and methods, moving the first domesticated animals and plants from the Near East and Central Asia into Europe.” ref

“N1a became particularly prominent in this debate when a team led by Wolfgang Haak analyzed skeletons from Linear Pottery Culture sites. The Linear Pottery Culture is credited with the first farming communities in Central Europe, marking the beginning of Neolithic Europe in the region some 7,500 years ago. As of 2010, mitochondrial DNA analysis has been conducted on 42 specimens from five locations. Seven of these ancient individuals were found to belong to haplogroup N1a.” ref 

“A separate study analyzed 22 skeletons from European hunter-gatherer sites dated 13400-2300 BCE. Most of these fossils carried the mtDNA haplogroup U, which was not found in any of the Linear Pottery Culture sites. Conversely, N1a was not identified in any of the hunter-gatherer fossils, indicating a genetic distinction between Early European Farmers and late European hunter-gatherers.” ref

“Haak’s team concludes that “the transition to farming in central Europe was accompanied by a substantial influx of people from outside the region.” However, they note that haplogroup frequencies in modern Europeans are substantially different from early farming and late hunter-gatherer populations. This indicates that “the diversity observed today cannot be explained by admixture between hunter-gatherers and early farmers alone” and that “major demographic events continued to take place in Europe after the early Neolithic.” ref

“Critics of these studies claim that the Linear Pottery Culture N1a specimens could have derived from local communities established in Europe before the introduction of farming. Ammerman’s team voiced concern due to some of the Linear Pottery Culture specimens coming from communities several hundred years after farming was first established in the region; a rebuttal was given.” ref

“In 2010, researchers led by Palanichamy conducted a genetic and phylogeographic analysis of N1a. Based on the results, they conclude that some of the Linear Pottery Culture samples were indigenous to Europe while others may have resulted from ‘leapfrog’ colonization. Deguilloux’s team agreed with Haak’s conclusion on a genetic discontinuity between ancient and modern Europeans. However, they consider demic diffusion, cultural diffusion, and long-distance matrimonial exchanges all equally plausible explanations for the current genetic findings.” ref

“Seven of 42 skeletons from Linear Pottery Culture (Linearbandkeramik) sites were found to be members of the N1a haplogroup (see Neolithic European). N1a was also identified in skeletal remains within a 6200-year-old megalithic long mound near Prissé-la-Charrière, France. A 2500-year-old fossil of a Scytho-Siberian in the Altai Republic, the easternmost representative of the Scythians, was found to be a member of N1a1. A study of a 10th and 11th century Hungarians found that N1a1a1 was present in high-status individuals but absent from commoners. One of thirteen skeletons analyzed from a medieval cemetery dated 1250-1450 CE in Denmark was found to be a member of subclade N1a1a.” ref

“The N1 subclade has also been found in various other fossils that were analyzed for ancient DNA, including specimens associated with the Starčevo (N1a1a1, Alsónyék-Bátaszék, Mérnöki telep, 1/3 or 33%), Linearbandkeramik (N1a1a1a3, Szemely-Hegyes, 1/1 or 100%; N1a1b/N1a1a3/N1a1a1a2/N1a1a1/N1a1a1a, Halberstadt-Sonntagsfeld, 6/22 or ~27%), Alföld Linear Pottery (N1a1a1, Hejőkürt-Lidl, 1/2 or 50%), Transdanubian Late Neolithic (N1a1a1a, Apc-Berekalja, 1/1 or 100%), Protoboleráz (N1a1a1a3, Abony, Turjányos-dűlő, 1/4 or 25%), Iberia Early Neolithic cultures (N1a1a1, Els Trocs, 1/4 or 25%),[14] RinaldoneGaudo Eneolithic cultures (N1a1a1a3, Monte San Biagio, 1/1 or 100%).” ref

“In 2005, scientists successfully sequenced mtDNA coding region 15997–16409 derived from twenty-four 7,500- to 7,000-year-old human remains associated with the Linear Pottery Culture culture. Of those remains, 22 were from locations in Germany near the Harz Mountains and the upper Rhine Valley, while one was from Austria and one from Hungary. The scientists did not reveal the detailed hypervariable segment I (HVSI) sequences for all the samples, but identified that seven of the samples belonged to H or V branch of the mtDNA phylogenetic tree, six belonged to the N1a branch, five belonged to the T branch, four belonged to the K(U8) branch, one belonged to the J branch, and one belonged to the U3 branch. All branches are extant in the current European population, although the K branch was present in roughly twice the percentages as would be found in Europe today (15% vs. 8% now.).” ref

“A comparison of the N1a HVSI sequences with sequences of living individuals found three of them to correspond with those of individuals currently living in Europe. Two of the sequences corresponded to ancestral nodes predicted to exist or to have existed on the European branch of the phylogenetic tree. One of the sequences is related to European populations, but with no apparent descendants amongst the modern population. The N1a evidence supports the notion that the descendants of Linear Pottery Culture culture have lived in Europe for more than 7,000 years and have become an integral part of the current European population. The lack of mtDNA haplogroup U5 supports the notion that U5 at this time is uniquely associated with mesolithic European cultures.” ref

“A 2010 study of ancient DNA suggested the Linear Pottery Culture population had affinities to modern-day populations from the Near East and Anatolia, such as an overall prevalence of G2. The study also found some unique features, such as the prevalence of the now-rare Y-haplogroup H2 and mitochondrial haplogroup frequencies.” ref

“Lipson et al. (2017) and Narasimhan et al. (2019) analyzed a large number of skeletons ascribed to the Linear Pottery Culture. Most of the Y-DNA belonged to G2a and subclades of it, some to I2 and subclades of it, beside few samples of T1a, CT, and C1a2. The samples of mtDNA extracted were various subclades of T, H, N, U, K, J, X, HV, and V.” ref

“The following mtDNA samples were tested by Adler (2012), Zvelebil and Pettitt (2012), Lazaridis et al. (2013), Brandt et al. (2013), Brotherton et al. (2013), Gamba et al. (2014), Szécsényi-Nagy (2014), Haak et al. (2015), Rivolat et al. (2015), and Mathieson et al. (2015).

  • Linear Pottery Culture (aka LBK, c. 8,000 to 6,500 ybp ; Central Europe): H (x12), H1, H1j, H5 (x2), H26b, HV (x2), J (x7), J1c17, K (x10), K1a (x8), K1a2, K1a3a3, K2a5, N1a1a (x3), N1a1a1, N1a1a1a, N1a1a1a1, N1a1a1a2, N1a1a1a3 (x5), N1a1a3, T (x3), T1a, T2 (x3), T2b (x9), T2b23 (x2), T2b23a, T2c (x2), T2c1, T2c1b, T2e (x4), U2, U3, U5a1, U5a1a’g, U5b, U5b2c, V, W (x2), X2d1
  • Alföld Linear Pottery Culture (c. 7,850 to 7,350 ybp : Hungary): H, J1c1, N1a
  • Rubané récent du Bassin parisien (aka RRBP, c. 7,500 to 6,300 ybp : northern France): H (x5), H1 (x8), H3 (x2), J (x3), J1, J2, K (x8), N1a (x3), T (x2), U, U4, U5 (x5), U5b, U5b2b1a, V (x2), X, X2b
  • Neolithic Alsace (c. 7,500 to 6,300 ybp : northern France): H, H1, HV, J1 (x2), K, K1a, K1a4a1e, N1a1a1a (x2), U5, V, X
  • Rössen Culture (c. 6,600 to 6,300 ybp ; Germany, Low Countries, France, Switzerland): H1, H5, H5b, H16, H89, HV0 (x2), K (x2), N1a1a, T2e, T2f7, U5b, V, X2c
  • Schöningen group (c. 6,200 to 5,950 ybp ; Germany): H (x2), H1e7, H10i, HV, J, J1c, J2b1a, K (x3), K1a (x3), N1a1a1a3, T2b, T2c, T2f, U5b3, U5b2a2c, U8b1b, W1c (x2), X2b1’2’3’4’5’6
  • Other samples from Middle Neolithic Germany (c. 5,900 to 5,000 ybp): H1c3, H2 (x2), H5 (x3), H11a, HV0 (x2), J, T2b, U3a1, U5b2a2 (x2), U5b2a5, X2″ ref 

Mathieson et al. 2015 found Early European Farmers to be closely genetically related to Neolithic farmers of Anatolia. Early European Farmers were found to have 7–11% more WHG ancestry than their Anatolian ancestors. This suggested that the Early European Farmers belonged to a common ancestral population before their expansion into Europe. With regards Y-DNA, in Early European Farmers, males typically carried types of G2a. The study found that most modern Europeans can be modeled as a mixture of WHGs, Early European Farmers, and descendants of the Yamnaya culture. The Anatolian ancestors of the Early European Farmers were found to be genetically different from modern peoples of the Near East, and were instead shifted towards Europe.” ref 

“Middle Neolithic and Chalcolithic peoples of Iberia were found to be genetically similar to each other, and harbored reduced levels of Early European Farmers and increased levels of WHG ancestry compared to Early Neolithic individuals of the region. Peoples of the Srubnaya culture and the earlier Sintashta culture were found to harbor c. 15% Early European Farmers ancestry, suggesting that these cultures emerged through the eastward migration of Central European peoples with steppe-related ancestry.” ref

Jones et al. 2017 found no evidence of Early European Farmers admixture among Neolithic populations of the eastern Baltic and the East European forest steppe, suggesting that the hunter-gatherers of these regions avoided genetic replacement while adopting Neolithic cultural traditions. Saag et al. 2017 found that the people of the subsequent Corded Ware culture in the eastern Baltic carried steppe and hunter-gatherer-related paternal and autosomal ancestry, and some Early European Farmers maternal ancestry.” ref 

Mathieson et al. 2018 found that the Early European Farmers had initially spread agriculture throughout Europe largely without admixture with local WHGs. It was proposed that this process had started through a single massive migration from Anatolia into the Balkans in the 7th millennium BCE. The Early European Farmers had subsequently split into two wings, one which spread northwards along the Danube through the Linear Pottery culture, and another which spread westward across the Mediterranean coast through the Cardial Ware culture. By 5600 BCE or 7,622 years ago, these cultures had brought agriculture to Iberia and Central Europe.” ref

“It was found that there was a significant increase hunter-gatherer ancestry in Iberia, Central Europe, and the Balkans during the Middle Neolithic. While the slight mixture between Early European Farmers and hunter-gatherers in the Early Neolithic appeared to have happened without sex-bias, increases in hunter-gatherer ancestry during the Middle Neolithic appeared to be largely the result of males with hunter-gatherer ancestry mixing with females with Early European Farmers ancestry. This conclusion was derived from the fact that examined Middle Neolithic Europeans overwhelmingly carried hunter-gatherer paternal lineages and Early European Farmers’ maternal lineages.” ref 

“Hunter-gatherer ancestry was even higher among Late Neolithic samples from the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture, Funnelbeaker culture, and Globular Amphora culture, which carried about 75-80% Early European Farmers ancestry while being dominated by hunter-gatherer paternal lineages. In the southern Balkans, the Middle Neolithic farmers display reduced levels of Early European Farmers ancestry and increased amounts of ancestry related to Caucasian Hunter-Gatherers (CHGs), suggesting further gene flow from Anatolia, which continued into the Bronze Age.” ref

“Although no significant population transfers were associated with the start of the Linear Pottery Culture, population diffusion along the wetlands of the mature civilization (about 5200 BCE) had leveled the high percentage of the rare gene sequence mentioned above by the late Linear Pottery Culture. The population was much greater by then, a phenomenon termed the Neolithic demographic transition (NDT). According to Bocquet-Appel beginning from a stable population of “small connected groups exchanging migrants” among the “hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists,” the Linear Pottery Culture experienced an increase in birth rate caused by a “reduction in the length of the birth interval.” ref 

“The author hypothesizes a decrease in the weaning period made possible by the division of labor. At the end of the Linear Pottery Culture, the NDT was over and the population growth disappeared due to an increase in the mortality rate, caused, the author speculates, by new pathogens passed along by increased social contact. Investigation of the Neolithic skeletons found in the Talheim Death Pit suggests that prehistoric men from neighboring tribes were prepared to fight and kill each other in order to capture and secure women. The mass grave at Talheim in southern Germany is one of the earliest known sites in the archaeological record that shows evidence of organized violence in Early Neolithic Europe, among various Linear Pottery Culture tribes.” ref

Mass graves and Mass Deaths related to the Linear Pottery Culture tribes

“The Talheim Death Pit was a mass grave found in a Linear Pottery Culture settlement, also known as a Linear Pottery Culture. It dates back to about 5000 BCE or 7,022 years ago. The pit takes its name from its site in Talheim, Germany. The pit contained the remains of 34 bodies, and evidence points toward the first signs of organized violence in Early Neolithic Europe. And Warfare is thought to have been more prevalent in primitive, ungoverned regions than in civilized states. The massacre at Talheim supports this idea by giving evidence of habitual warfare between Linear Pottery Culture settlements. It is most likely that the violence occurred among Linear Pottery Culture populations since the head wounds indicate the use of weapons from Linear Pottery Culture cultures and all skeletons found to resemble those of Linear Pottery Culture settlers.” ref 

“The Talheim grave contained a total of 34 skeletons, consisting of 16 children, nine adult males, seven adult women, and two more adults of indeterminate sex. Several skeletons of this group exhibited signs of repeated and healed-over trauma, suggesting that violence was a habitual or routine aspect of the culture. Not all of the wounds, however, were healed at the time of death. All of the skeletons at Talheim showed signs of significant trauma that were likely the cause of death. Broken down into three categories, 18 skulls were marked with wounds indicating the sharp edge of adzes of the Linearbandkeramik or Linear Pottery culture (LBK); 14 skulls were similarly marked with wounds produced from the blunt edge of adzes, and 2–3 had wounds produced by arrows. The skeletons did not exhibit evidence of defensive wounds, indicating that the population was fleeing when it was killed.” ref 

“Investigation of the Neolithic skeletons found in the Talheim death pit suggests that prehistoric men from neighboring tribes were prepared to fight and kill each other in order to capture and secure women. Researchers discovered that there were women among the immigrant skeletons, but within the local group of skeletons, there were only men and children. They concluded that the absence of women among the local skeletons meant that they were regarded as somehow special, thus they were spared execution and captured instead. The capture of women may have indeed been the primary motive for the fierce conflict between the men. Other speculations as to the reasons for violence between settlements include vengeance, conflicts over land, and resources, poaching, demonstration of superiority, and kidnapping slaves. Some of these theories related to the lack of resources are supported by the discovery that various Linear Pottery Culture fortifications bordering indigenously inhabited areas appear to have not been in use for very long.” ref

“The mass grave near Schletz, part of Asparn an der Zaya, was located about 33 kilometres (roughly 20 miles) to the north of Vienna, Austria, and dates back about 7,500 years. Schletz, just like the Talheim death pit, is one of the earliest known sites in the archaeological record that shows proof of genocide in Early Neolithic Europe, among various Linear Pottery Culture tribes. The site was not entirely excavated, but it is estimated that the entire ditch could contain up to 300 individuals. The remains of 67 people have been uncovered, all showing multiple points of trauma. Scientists have concluded that these people were also victims of genocide. Since the weapons used were characteristic of Linear Pottery Culture peoples, the attackers are believed to be members of other Linear Pottery Culture tribes. In similar proportions to those found at Talheim, fewer young women were found than men at Schletz. Because of this scarcity of young women among the dead, it is possible that other women of the defeated group were kidnapped by the attackers. The site was enclosed, or fortified, which serves as evidence of violent conflict among tribes and means that these fortifications were built as a form of defense against aggressors. The people who lived there had built two ditches to counter the menace of other Linear Pottery Culture communities.” ref

“Another Early Neolithic mass grave was found at Herxheim, near Landau in the Rhineland-Palatinate. The site, unlike the mass burials at Talheim and Schletz, serves as proof of ritual cannibalism rather than of the first signs of violence in Europe. Herxheim contained 173 skulls and skull-plates, and the scattered remains of at least 450 individuals. Two complete skeletons were found inside the inner ditch. The crania from these bodies were discovered at regular intervals in the two defensive ditches surrounding the site. After the victims were decapitated, their heads were either thrown into the ditch or placed on top of posts that later collapsed inside the ditch. The heads showed signs of trauma from axes and one other weapon. Moreover, the organized placing of the skulls suggests a recurrent ritual act, instead of a single instance. Herxheim also contained various high-quality pottery artifacts and animal bones associated with the human remains. Unlike the mass burial at Talheim, scientists have concluded that instead of being a fortification, Herxheim was an enclosed center for ritual.” ref

“Yet another is the mass burial at Schöneck-Kilianstädten. This Neolithic mass grave, also in modern-day Germany, may exhibit signs of deliberate mutilation and/or torture. Skeletal analysis of the interred remains showed a remarkably high percentage of long bones (especially in the lower leg) that were broken around the time of the individuals’ deaths, which insinuates a deliberate targeting of these areas of the body, possibly as the victims were still alive. The mass grave dates to 5207–4849 BCE or 7,229-6,871 years ago and has been referred to as “indisputable evidence for another massacre.” ref

Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city”

around 9,500 to 7,700 years ago (Turkey)

                                                      

Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city” dated to around 9,500 to 7,700 years ago (Turkey) of one-room homes, accessed from the roof, that were also places of worship and often featured sacred bulls or leopards, as well as anthropomorphic bears. This also Includes sacred vultures and other ritual animals in cultic hunting scenes.

9,500 – 7,700 Years Ago – Catal Huyuk (Turkey), is the “first religious designed city” settlement where evidence of religious civilization develop likely contains a spiritual center making it a religious temple city. Catal Huyuk, which in Turkish Catal is for “fork,” Huyuk for “mound.” Likely, inhabitants practicing worship in communal shrines, leaving behind numerous clay figurines and impressions of phallic, feminine, and hunting scenes. Catal Huyuk, a town in southcentral Turkey with an estimated population of 5,000 – 10,000 people, is the apparent center of fertility cult and goddess worship. The houses are accessed via their rooftops, were crammed tightly together, and with little evidence of specialization, hierarchy, or elite. A site of this size might be expected to produce evidence of specialization, elite, and large communal areas, rather than the evidence for an even distribution of labor and resource. However, the site does reveal evidence of rich symbolic and artistic actions, including shrine areas, plastered features, bucrania, wall paintings, figurines, and burials, focused on particular houses, and described as ‘history houses’.

Along with goddess and bull cults has been a broader perception of a ‘cult of skulls’ or skull cult. The skull cult has its roots in the Levantine PPNB, with plastered skulls recovered from sites including Jericho, ‘Ain Ghazal, Kfar HaHoresh, and Tell Aswad. Recent excavations have extended this phenomenon into Anatolia, with plastered skulls recovered from Catal Huyuk, and one skull of an adult male, buried in the arms of an adult female at Catal Huyuk. Such plastered skulls were originally believed to venerate elder, male ancestors. However, recent analysis has revealed that many plastered skulls were of children and females, which suggest that these were related to ancestors, the ‘ancestor’ category was not one limited to the elder male image. On this same site, one of the oldest known representation of a drum was discovered in a fresco with more than thirty characters, some of which playing percussions, dancing around a huge bull. Two characters hold what looks like musical instruments similar to the malunga or berimbau, a single-string percussion instrument or musical bow, originally from southern parts of Africa. Although the bow is now thought of as a weapon, a 15,000 years old cave painting in France, displays a bow being played as a musical instrument. Also of relevance in Catal Huyuk is a mural where the color of the dancers’ skin seems to say they might belong to different ethnic groups.

Some are black, others white, and others half black and white. Blacks are sometimes covered with a leopard skin. Also found at Catal Huyuk are stone and bone figures shaped in the form of feminine and rooms with altars of veneration. In fact, over 25% of the rooms have altars to a seeming feminine deity. Many of them are linked with images of horns, the horns of the bull. It is a curious anomaly. At first sight, the mother goddess is a symbol of fertility. The horns of the bull are identified with male potency. Yet both are linked in an altar, which is seemingly of primary honor to a feminine deity. In Building 42, a woman held the head of a man in a burial. The man’s head had been plastered to create the features of his face and had been painted red; indeed, it had been plastered several times, suggesting that the plastered skull had been retained for some time before burial with the woman. This burial seems to hold special significance as suggested by the fact that this is the only example of a plastered skull found at the site, and indeed there is only one other example from anywhere in Turkey. The burial was in fact a foundation burial: it had not been dug through the floors of the house, but the floors of the house had been built up above the burial. Therefore, this event must have had a social significance, the founding of a new house. The event had both practical and religious significance.

The religious significance was heightened by the placing in the grave of another remarkable object, the claw of a leopard. The detailed study of the figurines at Catal Huyuk has shown that removable heads and dowel holes in torsos to contain heads were much more prevalent than had been thought. The paintings too show headless bodies associated with vultures. The art from Gobekli Tepe also shows a headless body with an erect penis associated with birds. Overall, it is possible that myths circulated in which heads were removed and carried upward by birds of prey. This process could be reenacted in the removal and replacement of heads on figurines. It seems possible that the process of removing and circulating human heads created ancestors that could communicate with the world of animal spirits. This is seen in the artistic renderings of humans interacting with oversized animals at Catal Huyuk as well as be communicated with by humans in the caring for and replastering of skulls, and in the reenactment of head removal on figurines.

Those studying the figurines have increasingly noted the fascination with body parts, buttocks, breasts, navels and so on. Indeed, the more examples of art found, the more the focus on the human form. It has long been assumed that the primary focus of symbolism at early village sites in the Middle East is a nurturing ‘mother goddess’ who embodies notions of birth and rebirth. However, recent finds at both Gobekli Tepe and Catal Huyuk have suggested a link to death and violence as much as to birth and rebirth. Recent finds at Catal Huyuk include a figurine that looks like a typical ‘mother goddess’ from the front, with full breasts and extended belly, but at the back she is a skeleton, with ribs, vertebrae, scapulae, and pelvic bones clearly shown. In 2004, a grave was found in which a woman held a plastered skull of a man in her arms; she was also found with the only leopard bone ever found onsite, worn as a claw pendant. In fact, there is much imagery and symbolism of death and violence at Catal Huyuk.

There are bulls’ heads fixed to walls, and other installations on and in walls, including the tusks of wild boars, vulture skulls, and the teeth of foxes and weasels. The new finds from the earlier sites of Gobekli Tepe and Nevali Cori in southeastern Anatolia indicate that this focus on dangerous, wild animals is a central theme of the development of early villages and settled life. Death acted as a focus of transcendent religious experience during the transitions of the early Holocene in the Middle East and that it was central to the creation of social life in the first large agglomerations of people. This seems to be the role of dead ancestors in the creation of ‘houses’. Certain houses at Catal Huyuk had many more complete skeletons than there were people who could have lived in those houses. For example, Building 1, which was inhabited for only 40 years by a family-sized group, had 62 burials beneath the floors. It was clear that people had been buried into this house from other houses. So while some houses have no burials in them, the average is 5-8, there appear to be a small number of houses that have 30-62 burials and therefore seem to have a special nature and in the upper levels, there are more representations of women in the figurine corpus. Social status early in the site seems to have focused on wild animals, associated feasts and male prowess, whereas in the upper levels the success of the house was represented by the size of the house, by the centrality of the hearth and by representations of women.

The teeth of foxes and weasels, the tusks of wild boars, the claws of bears and the beaks of vultures were placed in protrusions on the walls and also found was a leopard claw and the talons of raptors in burials. In addition, there are stamp seals of bears with the same body shape of the mother goddess with legs bent and arms raised which may symbolize an exhibit connection of motherhood, power, and violence. The focus was on parts of animals that are dangerous or piercing and there is little symbolic emphasis on femurs, humeri, molar teeth, and so on. Dangerous or flesh-eating wild animals and birds are also chosen for representation. The economy at Catal Huyuk is based on domestic sheep and goats, but these hardly appear in the symbolism. At Catal Huyuk, many figurines are found without heads, and in one case, there is evidence for the intentional severing of a stone figurine head by cutting, probably using an obsidian blade. Archaeologists have found numerous obsidian tools that show flattened and abraded edges from working stone surfaces.

About a dozen clay figurines have dowel holes, suggesting that the process of removing and keeping heads could be played out in miniature. The ability to remove and replace certain heads might allow for multiple identities and potential narrativization, it has been argued that detachable heads at Catal Huyuk ‘were used to portray a range of emotions, attitudes, or states of being’. There are several bodies with dowel holes than heads made for attachment, which could suggest that the head is more determinative and the bodies are deemed more generic, although this may not imply a hierarchy. Among the figurines, almost all of the examples have detachable heads, are large female forms, and depict breasts, and one is androgynous. At lower levels of the site, as already noted, obsidian is present in hoards or caches below the floors. In the upper levels, these hoards cease and obsidian becomes more bound by new specialist technologies. Pottery too becomes more complex and more specialized after Level V. It gradually becomes more decorated and by the time of Catal Huyuk West, 8,000 years ago, it is heavily decorated with complex designs.

By this time of the West Mound as well, burial in houses of adults largely ends. It is presumed that burials are offsite and perhaps in cemeteries. Catal Huyuk acts as a bridge between societies in the Fertile Crescent to the east where agriculture and settled life began the earliest, and in societies in western Anatolia, Greece, and southeast Europe where agriculture and settled life did not begin until 9,000 years ago with economies that quickly included domestic cattle. To the east, there is more evidence of collective ritual and there are more claims for social differentiation related to ritual. Scholars agree that the major monuments of this area and period from 12,000 – 9,000 years ago, such as the temples of Gobekli Tepe, the towers of Jericho and of Tell Qaramel, the large circular buildings at Jerf el Ahmar and the Skull Building of Cayonu, indicate collective rituals.

There is little clear evidence of concentrations of power that depend on or are related to the control of production of the temples. To the west of Catal Huyuk, there is less evidence for large-scale rituals, temples, or religious monuments. Indeed, early Neolithic sites to the west of Catal Huyuk are more similar to Catal Huyuk in that the symbolism is often house-based and associated with clearly egalitarian villages. These societies had a fully-fledged agriculture in which domestic cattle and sheep played key roles, allowing smaller scale societies to spread over a diversity of environmental zones. It seems that the shifts made at Catal Huyuk around 10,500 years ago contributed to the ability of societies to break out of “history making” toward more flexible and individual house-based production.

Çatalhöyük was a street-less settlement of houses clustered together in a honeycomb-like maze.

Through analysis of wall paintings, sculptures, and burials, researchers have concluded that men and women held equal status in Çatalhöyük. “Thanks to modern scientific techniques, we have seen that women and men were eating very similar foods, lived similar lives and worked in similar works,” said Stanford University Professor Ian Hodder, who directed the excavations. “The same social stature was given to both men and women.” The level of equality also extended beyond gender and appears to have applied to the society as a whole. “People lived with the principle of equality in Çatalhöyük, especially considering the hierarchy that appeared in other settlements in the Middle East. This makes Çatalhöyük different. There was no leader, government or administrative building,” Professor Hodder said. Another interesting discovery that emerged from excavations was that burials of the deceased, which were typically in pits under the floor or beneath hearths in houses, were not organised according to family relationships. “We have also seen that people who were buried under houses were not biologically relatives or members of the same family. They lived as a family but their natural parents are not the same. Those who were born in Çatalhöyük did not live with their biological parents but with others,” said Hodder.

A pit burial in Çatalhöyük. 

Çatalhöyük was composed entirely of domestic buildings, with no obvious public buildings. While some of the larger ones have rather ornate murals, the purpose of some rooms remains unclear. The population of the eastern mound has been estimated to be, at maximum, 10,000 people, but the population likely varied over the community’s history. An average population of between 5,000 and 7,000 is a reasonable estimate. The sites were set up as large numbers of buildings clustered together. Households looked to their neighbors for help, trade, and possible marriage for their children. The inhabitants lived in mudbrick houses that were crammed together in an aggregate structure. No footpaths or streets were used between the dwellings, which were clustered in a honeycomb-like maze. Most were accessed by holes in the ceiling, with doors reached by ladders and stairs. The rooftops were effectively streets. The ceiling openings also served as the only source of ventilation, allowing smoke from the houses’ open hearths and ovens to escape. 

Houses had plaster interiors characterized by squared-off timber ladders or steep stairs. These were usually on the south wall of the room, as were cooking hearths and ovens. The main rooms contained raised platforms that may have been used for a range of domestic activities. Typical houses contained two rooms for everyday activity, such as cooking and crafting. All interior walls and platforms were plastered to a smooth finish. Ancillary rooms were used as storage, and were accessed through low openings from main rooms. All rooms were kept scrupulously clean. Archaeologists identified very little rubbish in the buildings, finding middens outside the ruins, with sewage and food waste, as well as significant amounts of wood ash. In good weather, many daily activities may also have taken place on the rooftops, which may have formed a plaza. In later periods, large communal ovens appear to have been built on these rooftops. Over time, houses were renewed by partial demolition and rebuilding on a foundation of rubble, which was how the mound was gradually built up. As many as eighteen levels of settlement have been uncovered. 

As a part of ritual life, the people of Çatalhöyük buried their dead within the village. Human remains have been found in pits beneath the floors and, especially, beneath hearths, the platforms within the main rooms, and under beds. Bodies were tightly flexed before burial and were often placed in baskets or wound and wrapped in reed mats. Disarticulated bones in some graves suggest that bodies may have been exposed in the open air for a time before the bones were gathered and buried. In some cases, graves were disturbed, and the individual’s head removed from the skeleton. These heads may have been used in rituals, as some were found in other areas of the community. In a woman’s grave spinning whorls were recovered and in a man’s grave, stone axes. Some skulls were plastered and painted with ochre to recreate faces, a custom more characteristic of Neolithic sites in Syria and at Neolithic Jericho than at sites closer by. Vivid murals and figurines are found throughout the settlement, on interior and exterior walls.

Distinctive clay figurines of women, notably the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük, have been found in the upper levels of the site. Although no identifiable temples have been found, the graves, murals, and figurines suggest that the people of Çatalhöyük had a religion rich in symbols. Rooms with concentrations of these items may have been shrines or public meeting areas. Predominant images include men with erect phalluses, hunting scenes, red images of the now extinct aurochs (wild cattle) and stags, and vultures swooping down on headless figures. Relief figures are carved on walls, such as of lionesses facing one another. Heads of animals, especially of cattle, were mounted on walls. A painting of the village, with the twin mountain peaks of Hasan Dağ in the background, is frequently cited as the world’s oldest map and the first landscape painting. However, some archaeologists question this interpretation. Stephanie Meece, for example, argues that it is more likely a painting of a leopard skin instead of a volcano, and a decorative geometric design instead of a map. Çatalhöyük had no apparent social classes, as no houses with distinctive features (belonging to royalty or religious hierarchy, for example) have been found so far. The most recent investigations also reveal little social distinction based on gender, with men and women receiving equivalent nutrition and seeming to have equal social status, as typically found in Paleolithic cultures. Children observed domestic areas. They learned how to perform rituals and how to build or repair houses by watching the adults make statues, beads and other objects.

Çatalhöyük’s spatial layout may be due to the close kin relations exhibited amongst the people. It can be seen, in the layout, that the people were “divided into two groups who lived on opposite sides of the town, separated by a gully.” Furthermore, because no nearby towns were found from which marriage partners could be drawn, “this spatial separation must have marked two intermarrying kinship groups.” This would help explain how a settlement so early on would become so large. In upper levels of the site, it becomes apparent that the people of Çatalhöyük were gaining skills in agriculture and the domestication of animals. Female figurines have been found within bins used for storage of cereals, such as wheat and barley, and the figurines are presumed to be of a deity protecting the grain. Peas were also grown, and almonds, pistachios, and fruit were harvested from trees in the surrounding hills. Sheep were domesticated and evidence suggests the beginning of cattle domestication as well. However, hunting continued to be a major source of food for the community. Pottery and obsidian tools appear to have been major industries; obsidian tools were probably both used and also traded for items such as Mediterranean sea shells and flint from Syria.

Anatolian Cultural Evolution

10,000 Years Ago – Turkey, Anatolian Cultural Evolution round this time there is no identifiable community buildings. Presumed family lineage, age- and gender-based social ranking; village management by council and/or chiefs; pottery production. Symbolisms relating to fecundity, life, and death in naturalistic human and animal forms. Local changes in pottery and lithic typologies and technologies reflect changes in subsistence modes. Then around 9,500 – 7,700 years ago – Catal Huyuk, Turkey, is the “first religious created city” settlement where evidence of religious civilization develop likely contains a spiritual center making it a religious temple city. Catal Huyuk which in Turkish Catal is for “fork”, Huyuk for “mound”. Inhabitant’s likely practicing worship in communal shrines, leaving behind numerous clay figurines and impressions of phallic, feminine, and hunting scenes.

Catal Huyuk, a town in Southcentral Turkey with an estimated population of 5,000 -10,000 people, is the apparent center of fertility cult and goddess worship. The houses are accessed via their rooftops, were crammed tightly together, and with little evidence of specialization, hierarchy, or elite. A site of this size might be expected to produce evidence of specialization, elite, and large communal areas, rather than the evidence for a fairly even distribution of labor and resource. However, the site does reveal evidence of rich symbolic and artistic actions, including shrine areas, plastered features, bucrania, wall-paintings, figurines, and burials, focused on particular houses, and described as ‘history houses’. Along with goddess and bull cults has been a broader perception of a ‘cult of skulls’ or skull cult. The skull cult has its roots in the Levantine PPNB, with plastered skulls recovered from sites including Jericho, ‘Ain Ghazal, Kfar HaHoresh, and Tell Aswad.

Recent excavations have extended this phenomenon into Anatolia, with plastered skulls recovered from Catal Huyuk, and one skull of an adult male, buried in the arms of an adult female at Catal Huyuk. Such plastered skulls were originally believed to venerate elder, male ancestors. However, recent analysis has revealed that many plastered skulls were of children and females which suggest that these were related to ancestors, the ‘ancestor’ category was not one limited to the elder male image. On this same site, one of the oldest known representation of a drum was discovered in a fresco with more than thirty characters, some of which playing percussions, dancing around a huge bull. Two characters hold what looks like musical instruments similar to the malunga or berimbau, a single-string percussion instrument or musical bow, originally from southern parts of Africa. Although the bow is now thought of as a weapon, a 15,000 years old cave painting in France, displays a bow being played as a musical instrument. Also of relevance in Catal Huyuk is a mural where the color of the dancers’ skin seems to say they might belong to different ethnic groups. Some are black, others white, and others half black and white. Blacks are sometimes covered with a leopard skin.

Also found at Catal Huyuk are stone and bone figures shaped in the form of feminine and rooms with altars of veneration.  In fact, over 25% of the rooms have altars to a feminine deity. Many of them are linked with images of horns, the horns of the bull. It is a curious anomaly. At first sight, the mother goddess is a symbol of fertility. The horns of the bull are identified with male potency. Yet both are linked in an altar which is seemingly of primary honor to a feminine deity. In Building 42, there was a burial in which a woman held the head of a man. The man’s head had been plastered to create the features of his face and had been painted red; indeed, it had been plastered several times, suggesting that the plastered skull had been retained for some time before burial with the woman. This was a highly charged event, as suggested by the fact that this is the only example of a plastered skull found at the site, and indeed there is only one other example from anywhere in Turkey. The burial was in fact a foundation burial: it had not been dug through the floors of the house, but the floors of the house had been built up above the burial. So this highly charged event had a social significance, the founding of a new house. The event had both practical and religious significance. The religious significance was heightened by the placing in the grave of another remarkable object, the claw of a leopard. The detailed study of the figurines at Catal Huyuk has shown that removable heads and dowel holes in torsos to contain heads were much more prevalent than had been thought. The paintings too show headless bodies associated with vultures. The art from Gobekli Tepe also shows a headless body with an erect penis associated with birds.

Overall, it is possible to argue that myths circulated in which heads were removed and carried upward by birds of prey. This process could be reenacted in the removal and replacement of heads on figurines. It seems possible that the process of removing and circulating human heads created ancestors that could communicate with the world of animal spirits (as seen in the artistic renderings of humans interacting with oversized animals at Catal Huyuk) as well as be communicated with by humans (in the caring for and replastering of skulls, and in the reenactment of head removal on figurines). Those studying the figurines have increasingly noted the fascination with body parts, buttocks, breasts, navels and so on. Indeed, the more examples of art found, the more the focus on the human form. It has long been assumed that the primary focus of symbolism at early village sites in the Middle East is a nurturing ‘mother goddess’ who embodies notions of birth and rebirth. But recent finds at both Gobekli Tepe and Catal Huyuk have suggested a link to death and violence as much as to birth and rebirth. Recent finds at Catal Huyuk include a figurine that looks like a typical ‘mother goddess’ from the front, with full breasts and extended belly, but at the back she is a skeleton, with ribs, vertebrae, scapulae, and pelvic bones clearly shown.

And in 2004 a grave was found in which a woman held a plastered skull of a man in her arms; she was also found with the only leopard bone ever found onsite, worn as a claw pendant. In fact, there is much imagery and symbolism of death and violence at Catal Huyuk. There are bulls’ heads fixed to walls, and other installations on and in walls, including the tusks of wild boars, vulture skulls, and the teeth of foxes and weasels. The new finds from the earlier sites of Gobekli Tepe and Nevali Cori in Southeastern Anatolia indicate that this focus on dangerous, wild animals is a central theme of the development of early villages and settled life. Death acted as a focus of transcendent religious experience during the transitions of the early Holocene in the Middle East and that it was central to the creation of social life in the first large agglomerations of people. This is because of the role of dead ancestors in the creation of ‘houses’. Certain houses at Catal Huyuk had many more complete skeletons than there were people who could have lived in those houses. For example, Building 1, which was inhabited for only 40 years by a family-sized group, had 62 burials beneath the floors.

It was clear that people had been buried into this house from other houses. So while some houses have no burials in them, the average is 5-8, there appear to be a small number of houses that have 30-62 burials and therefore seem to have a special nature and in the upper levels, there are more representations of women in the figurine corpus. Social status early in the site seems to have focused on wild animals, associated feasts and male prowess, whereas in the upper levels the success of the house was represented by the size of the house, by the centrality of the hearth and by representations of women. The teeth of foxes and weasels, the tusks of wild boars, the claws of bears and the beaks of vultures were placed in protrusions on the walls and also found was a leopard claw and the talons of raptors in burials. So there is a focus on parts of animals that are dangerous or piercing; there is little symbolic emphasis on femurs, humeri, molar teeth, and so on. Dangerous or flesh-eating wild animals and birds are also chosen for representation. The economy at Catal Huyuk is based on domestic sheep and goats, but these hardly appear in the symbolism.

At Catal Huyuk many figurines are found without heads, and in one case there is evidence for the intentional severing of a stone figurine head by cutting, probably using an obsidian blade. Archeologists have found numerous obsidian tools that show flattened and abraded edges from working stone surfaces. About a dozen clay figurines have dowel holes, suggesting that the process of removing and keeping heads could be played out in miniature. The ability to remove and replace certain heads might allow for multiple identities and potential narrativization, it has been argued that detachable heads at Catal Huyuk ‘were used to portray a range of emotions, attitudes, or states of being’. There are several bodies with dowel holes than heads made for attachment, which could suggest that the head is more determinative and the bodies are deemed more generic, although this may not imply a hierarchy. Among the figurines, almost all of the examples have detachable heads, are large female forms and depict breasts, and one is androgynous. At lower levels of the site, as already noted, obsidian is present in hoards or caches below the floors.

In the upper levels these hoards cease and obsidian becomes more bound by new specialist technologies. Pottery too becomes more complex and more specialized after Level V. It gradually becomes more decorated until, by the time of Catal Huyuk West, 8,000 years ago, it is heavily decorated with complex designs. By this time of the West Mound as well, burial in houses of adults largely ends. It is presumed that burials are offsite and perhaps in cemeteries. Catal Huyuk acts as a bridge between societies in the Fertile Crescent to the east where agriculture and settled life began the earliest, and in societies in Western Anatolia, Greece, and Southeast Europe where agriculture and settled life did not begin until 9,000 years ago with economies that quickly included domestic cattle. To the east, there is more evidence of collective ritual and there are more claims for social differentiation related to ritual.

Scholars agree that the major monuments of this area and period from 12,000 – 9,000 years ago, such as the temples of Gobekli Tepe, the towers of Jericho and of Tell Qaramel, the large circular buildings at Jerf el Ahmar and the Skull Building of Cayonu, indicate collective rituals. There is little clear evidence of concentrations of power that depend on or are related to the control of production of the temples. To the west of Catal Huyuk, there is less evidence for large scale rituals, temples, or religious monuments. Indeed, early Neolithic sites to the west of Catal Huyuk are more similar to Catal Huyuk in that the symbolism is often house-based and associated with clearly egalitarian villages. These societies had a fully fledged agriculture in which domestic cattle and sheep played key roles, allowing smaller scale societies to spread over a diversity of environmental zones. It seems that the shifts made at Catal Huyuk around 10,500 years ago contributed to the ability of societies to break out of “history making” toward more flexible and individual house-based production.

References

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Insoll, T. (2012). The Oxford handbook of the archaeology of ritual and religion. Oxford, United Kingdom. Oxford University Press.

Hodder, I. (2013). Religion at Work in a Neolithic Society: Vital Matters. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, United Kingdom. Kindle Edition.

Understanding the bible (7th Ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Gobeklitepe.info 

Around 13,000 years ago the site functioned as a ritual or religious center with the early circles around 11,600 years ago and then 11,130–10,620 years ago is Layer III first building stage. A totemistic-shamanistic proto-paganism meeting place of ancestor worship and cultic feasting as well as drinking, with evidence of beer brewing almost 11,000 years ago. Next, around 10,280–9,970 is enclosure B, and at around 9,560–9,370 is enclosure C building stages. Some pillars are around 15 to 20 ft-foot-high and can weigh up to 20 tons, many with totem animals and anthropomorphic human-like fertility cult representations. ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Pre-Pottery Neolithic Chronology

* “paganist” (to me) Believe in spirit-filled life and/or afterlife can be attached to or be expressed in things or objects, and these objects can be used by special persons or in special rituals can connect to spirit-filled life and/or afterlife who are guided/supported by a goddess/god or goddesses/gods (you are a hidden paganist)

Paganism: (to me) an approximately 12,000-year-old belief system) And GobekliTepe:the  “first human-made temple”

as well as Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city”, are both evidence of some kind of early paganism which was a move from shamanism to shamanistic paganism.

“Göbekli Tepe is one of the world’s most significant, yet mysterious, archaeological sites, where ancient people erected a series of massive stone circles where groups gathered for religious and social purposes. Analysis of bone fragments found at the site suggests that human skulls may once have hung there on prominent display. The fragments belong to three partially preserved skulls that were carved and altered after death. This is the first indication of how Göbekli Tepe’s inhabitants may have treated their dead, and archaeologists believe it may provide evidence of an Early Neolithic “skull cult” (a veneration of human skulls, usually those of ancestors). One of the most striking features of prehistoric Jericho (Tell es-Sultan, Palestine) are 45 plastered human skulls from Pre-Pottery Neolithic layers. Development of the same process of image making that started with skulls separated burials. Both phenomena can be set into the long-duration panorama of the transition from foraging to farming. A synthesis of finds seems to show the development of this custom ranging from between Pre-Pottery Neolithic A  (PPNA) around 11,500-10,000 years ago and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) around 9,600–8,000 years ago early Levantine, Anatolian Neolithic culture and ranging to Upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent focusing on separated skulls. And this custom of modeling with plaster human-like images arose in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic(10,500-6000 BC). ” ref, ref, ref

I think the mask aspect of the ancestor cult starts in Turkey, seen at Gobekli Tepe: the “first human-made pagan temple” (around 11,130-10,620 years ago), as well as at Nevalı Çori (around 10,400-10,100 years ago) known for having some of the world’s oldest known communal buildings. And both have masks and seem to have the earliest skull cult evidence. ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

refrefrefrefrefref  

Göbekli Tepe 12,000 years old T-shaped Pillars are not Alone (not Ancient Aliens)

The number of settlements contemporaneous with Gobekli Tepe Layer II (assigned to Pre-Pottery Neolithic B: 10,800 – 8,500 years ago) increased amongst the Neolithic settlements in the Urfa region and become widespread all around the region.

  1. Gobekli Tepe, 2. Nevali Cori, 3. Tasli Tepe, 4. Kurt Tepesi, 5. Sefer Tepe, 6. Karahan Tepe, 7. Harbetsuvan Tepesi, 8. Hamzan Tepe, 9. Urfa, 10. Ayanlar Hoyuk/Gaziantep, 11. Kilisik, 12. Tell Abr 3, 13. Boncuklu Tarla, 14. Gusir Hoyuk, 15. Nemrik 9, 16. Qermez Dere, 17. Hasankeyf, 18. Cayonu, 19. Hallan Cemi, 20. Demirci, 21. Kortik Tepe, 22. Mureybet, 23. Cheik Hassan, 24. Jerf el Ahmar, 25. Dja’de, 26. Tell Abr, 27. Akarcay, and 28. Tell Qarmel

Göbekli Tepe is not alone, in fact, it is part of a religious/cultural connected ritual culture in the general region. There are several other similar sites with similar T-pillars to Göbekli Tepe or other types of stone pillar providing a seeming connected cult belief or religious culture of pillars seen in the PPNA-PPNB in the northern portion of the Near East.

“The locations of the sites that contain “T” shaped pillars are the main topic that needs more understanding to grasp the larger sociocultural-religious cultural complex in the same general region. Another matter under discussion is to comprehend the differences between the small-scale settlements that contain cult centers and “T” shaped pillars and the larger ones found at Gobekli Tepe layer III. The fact that settlements with “T” shaped pillars contain both the remains of circular domestic buildings and the pil­lars such as seen at Cayonu and Nevali Cori, which are also known to contain cult and domestic buildings. It is contemplated that such settlements are contemporary with Gobekli Tepe layer II and the cult building known from Nevali Cori based on the similarities and differences of the “T” shaped pillars. In the light of the finds unearthed from the settlements in Şanliurfa region that conta­in “T” shaped pillars, such settlements should be dated to the end of Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (LPPNA) and the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (EPPNB).” ref

Gobekli is not alone there are many megalith T pillars, nor is it a one-off as the uninformed Media seems to imply. And why most seem connected is in a way they are, but as I told you, it’s not something like aliens it’s from a similar set of religious beliefs or behaviors. Both were inspired by Eastern Hunter gathering shamans turning into the first paganists. 

The current distribution of sites with T-shaped pillars: https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/2016/05/08/the-current-distribution-of-sites-with-t-shaped-pillars/

“Damien, based on your amazing research & artistic presentation do you think Göbekli Tepe is unique, special, in any way with human development?” – Questioner

My response, I think it was involved in the rise of agricultural religion (I label it paganism), this was at the very beginning and thus was more shamanism (with heavy totemism) related but they added deities to me likely totemistic animals around 13,000/12,000 years ago.

My thoughts on how cultural/ritual was influenced in the area of Göbekli Tepe. I think it relates to a few different cultures starting in the area before the Neolithic. Two different groups of Siberians first from northwest Siberia with U6 haplogroup 40,000 to 30,000 or so. Then R Haplogroup (mainly haplogroup R1b but also some possible R1a both related to the Ancient North Eurasians). This second group added its “R1b” DNA of around 50% to the two cultures Natufian and Trialetian. To me, it is likely both of these cultures helped create Göbekli Tepe. Then I think the female art or graffiti seen at Göbekli Tepe to me possibly relates to the Epigravettians that made it into Turkey and have similar art in North Italy. I will also show you my art explaining this to help show my thoughts. I also have lots of links if interested to validate all this.

Paganism 12,000 years old: (Pre-Capitalism) the beginning of inequality and hierarchy of power:

“Social stratification is a system of ranking individuals and groups within societies. It refers to a society’s ranking of its people into socioeconomic tiers based on factors like wealth, income, race, education, and power. You may remember the word “stratification” from geology class. The distinct horizontal layers found in rock, called “strata,” are an illustrative way to visualize social structure. Society’s layers are made of people, and society’s resources are distributed unevenly throughout the layers. Social stratification has been a part of all societies dating from the agricultural revolution, which took place in various parts of the world between 7,000-10,000 BCE. Unlike relatively even strata in rock, though, there are not equal numbers of people in each layer of society. There are typically very few at the top and a great many at the bottom, with some variously populated layers in the middle.” ref

Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and slaves:

“Something Weird Happened to Men 7,000 Years Ago, it fell to one man for every 17 women: fighting between patrilineal clans. Around 7,000 years ago – all the way back in the Neolithic – something really peculiar happened to human genetic diversity. Over the next 2,000 years, and seen across Africa, Europe, and Asia, the genetic diversity of the Y chromosome collapsed, becoming as though there was only one man for every 17 women. This points to a social, rather than an environmental, cause, and given the social restructures between 12,000 and 8,000 years ago as humans shifted to more agrarian cultures with patrilineal structures, this may have had something to do with it.” ref

“Slavery predates written records and has existed in many cultures. Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations because it requires economic surpluses and a substantial population density. Thus, although it has existed among unusually resource-rich hunter-gatherers, such as the American Indian peoples of the salmon-rich rivers of the Pacific Northwest coast, slavery became widespread only with the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution about 11,000 years ago.” ref

When the First Farmers Arrived in Europe, Inequality Evolved

“Forests gave way to fields, pushing hunter-gatherers to the margins—geographically and socially. There is no clear genetic evidence of interbreeding along the central European route until the (Linear Pottery culture 5500–4500 BCE or 7,522-6,522 years ago) LBK farmers reached the Rhine. And yet the groups mixed in other ways—potentially right from the beginning. A tantalizing hint of such interactions came from Gamba’s discovery of a hunter-gatherer bone in a farming settlement at a place called Tiszaszőlős-Domaháza in Hungary. But there was nothing more to be said about that individual. Was he a member of that community? A hostage? Someone passing through?” ref

“With later evidence, the picture became clearer. At Bruchenbrücken, a site north of Frankfurt in Germany, farmers, and hunter-gatherers lived together roughly 7,300 years ago in what Gronenborn calls a “multicultural” settlement. It looks as if the hunters may have come there originally from farther west to trade with the farmers, who valued their predecessors’ toolmaking techniques—especially their finely chiseled stone arrowheads. Perhaps some hunter-gatherers settled, taking up the farming way of life. So fruitful were the exchanges at Bruchenbrücken and other sites, Gronenborn says, that they held up the westward advance of farming for a couple of centuries.” ref

“There may even have been rare exceptions to the rule that the two groups did not interbreed early on. The Austrian site of Brunn 2, in a wooded river valley not far from Vienna, dates from the earliest arrival of the LBK farmers in central Europe, around 7,600 years ago. Three burials at the site were roughly contemporaneous. Two were of individuals of pure farming ancestry, and the other was the first-generation offspring of a hunter and a farmer. All three lay curled up on their sides in the LBK way, but the “hunter” was buried with six arrowheads.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art  

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

“Sky Burial” and its possible origins at least 12,000 years ago to likely 30,000 years ago or older.

“In archaeology and anthropology, the term excarnation (also known as defleshing) refers to the practice of removing the flesh and organs of the dead before burial, leaving only the bones. Excarnation may be precipitated through natural means, involving leaving a body exposed for animals to scavenge, or it may be purposefully undertaken by butchering the corpse by hand. Practices making use of natural processes for excarnation are the Tibetan sky burial, Comanche platform burials, and traditional Zoroastrian funerals (see Tower of Silence).  Some Native American groups in the southeastern portion of North America practiced deliberate excarnation in protohistoric times. Archaeologists believe that in this practice, people typically left the body exposed on a woven litter or altar.” ref

Tutelary deity

“A tutelary (also tutelar) is a deity or spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of “tutelary” expresses the concept of safety and thus of guardianship. In late Greek and Roman religion, one type of tutelary deity, the genius, functions as the personal deity or daimon of an individual from birth to death. Another form of personal tutelary spirit is the familiar spirit of European folklore.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) iKorean shamanismjangseung and sotdae were placed at the edge of villages to frighten off demons. They were also worshiped as deities. Seonangshin is the patron deity of the village in Korean tradition and was believed to embody the SeonangdangIn Philippine animism, Diwata or Lambana are deities or spirits that inhabit sacred places like mountains and mounds and serve as guardians. Such as: Maria Makiling is the deity who guards Mt. Makiling and Maria Cacao and Maria Sinukuan. In Shinto, the spirits, or kami, which give life to human bodies come from nature and return to it after death. Ancestors are therefore themselves tutelaries to be worshiped. And similarly, Native American beliefs such as Tonás, tutelary animal spirit among the Zapotec and Totems, familial or clan spirits among the Ojibwe, can be animals.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Austronesian beliefs such as: Atua (gods and spirits of the Polynesian peoples such as the Māori or the Hawaiians), Hanitu (Bunun of Taiwan‘s term for spirit), Hyang (KawiSundaneseJavanese, and Balinese Supreme Being, in ancient Java and Bali mythology and this spiritual entity, can be either divine or ancestral), Kaitiaki (New Zealand Māori term used for the concept of guardianship, for the sky, the sea, and the land), Kawas (mythology) (divided into 6 groups: gods, ancestors, souls of the living, spirits of living things, spirits of lifeless objects, and ghosts), Tiki (Māori mythologyTiki is the first man created by either Tūmatauenga or Tāne and represents deified ancestors found in most Polynesian cultures). ” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Pictures link, linklinklinklinklinklinklink  

“At Göbekli Tepe, was found a monumental porthole stone from the northwestern hilltop areas. Several such stones with a central opening are known from the site, and they could have played a role as entrances to the enclosures or other buildings. One of them lies approximately in the center of Enclosure B and gives some reason to think about an entrance through a possible roof for that building.  However, this new porthole stone from the northwestern areas was completely different, and that not only regarding its enormous measurements. First, unlike all examples found before, it has two openings. Second, it is richly decorated with three sculptures of quadrupeds (bull, ram, and a wildcat) and a snake in high relief, as well as a row of cup holes. Unfortunately, the stone was not in situ, that is, not in its original architectonic context. But the decorations clearly show that it must have been part of an important building whose entrance had to be guarded accordingly.” ref

“The megalith pillars themselves, 43 of which have been unearthed so far, are mainly T-shaped pillars of soft limestone up to around 16 feet in height and were excavated and transported from a stone quarry on the lower southwestern slope of the hill. Geophysical surveys on the hill indicate that there are as many as 250 more megaliths lying buried around the site, suggesting that another 16 complexes once existed at Göbekli Tepe. Although some of the standing stones at Göbekli Tepe are blank, others display extraordinary artwork in the form of elaborately carved foxes, lions, bulls, scorpions, snakes, wild boars, vultures, waterfowl, insects, and arachnids. Although the pictograms at Göbekli Tepe do not represent a form of writing, they may have functioned as sacred prewriting symbols whose meanings were implicitly understood by local populations at the time.” ref 

“The many animals depicted include foxes, birds, lions, scorpions, snakes, and boars. There is a scorpion the size of a small suitcase, and a jackal-like creature with an exposed rib cage. The exact meanings of the carvings appear to be unknown. On one pillar a row of lumpy, eyeless “ducks” float above a boar, with an erect penis. Another relief consists of the simple contour of a fox also with a distinct penis. Most mammals represented at Göbekli Tepe are visibly male, except for one fox, which, in place of a penis, has several snakes coming out of its abdomen. Perhaps the most debated composition portrays a vulture carrying a round object on one wing; below its feet, a headless male torso displays yet another erect penis.” ref

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“This is from Göbekli Tepe’s Enclosure D – P22, with a snake.” ref

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“This is from Göbekli Tepe’s  Enclosure D – P21, with goitred gazelle and Asiatic wild ass.” ref

Pictures linklinklink, link

Göbekli Tepe is on the Syrian border of south-stern Turkey lies the biggest archaeology mystery on the planet. The site is spectacular. The tell (artificial mound) has a height of 15 m (49 ft) and is about 300 m (980 ft) in diameter. The stones weigh up in excess of 16 tons and are up to 22 ft tall.  ref, ref

“The enclosures of Göbekli Tepe show a variation in the animal species depicted prominently in the iconography of each circle. While in Enclosure A the snake prevails, in Enclosure B foxes are dominant, for example. In Enclosure C boars take over and in Enclosure D birds are playing an important role. Interpreting these differences as figurative expression of community patterns could probably hint at the different groups building the particular enclosures. Distinct enclosures may have served different social entities. The character of these entities remains open to discussion at the moment. There are some clues, however. Restriction of the access to knowledge and participation in rituals seems to be attestable at Göbekli Tepe (Layer III 11,130–10,800 years ago, Layer II, 10,800–10,000 years ago in enclosure B 10,280–9,970 years ago, and enclosure C 9,560–9,370 years ago) in Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey and clay figurines are seemingly absent completely from Göbekli. This observation gains importance in comparison to Nevalı Çori (10,400 – 10,100 years ago), in Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey where clay figurines are abundant, missing only in the ‘cult building’ with its stone sculptures and T-shaped pillars. Clay and stone sculptures may thus well form two different functional groups, one connected to domestic space (and cult?) and one to the specialized ‘cult buildings’ – and to another sphere of ritual also evident at Göbekli Tepe. Its iconography is exclusively male, and while evidence for some domestic tasks is missing, there is evidence for flint knapping on a much larger scale than in any contemporary settlement, and shaft straighteners are very frequent, too. Göbekli Tepe could have been a place for just a part of society, for male hunters. At least their ideology is exclusively represented at the site.” ref 

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On the front side of Pillar 20 in Enclosure D we see a snake moving towards an aurochs or bull. The aurochs’ body is seen from the side, the head from above. The position of the head lowered for an attack, could be in defense or attack towards the snake. The aurochs legs are depicted oddly flexed, which could indicate his defeat and near death. As could the size of the snake which is depicted considerably larger than the aurochs. If this depiction really shows a battle between snake and aurochs (life and death, maybe), possibly even some meaning that expresses the snake prevailing but of course hypothetical, still there are connections to other aspects of Göbekli´s material culture. ref

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Göbekli Tepe is not alone, in fact, it is part of a religious/cultural connected ritual culture in the general region. There are several other similar sites with similar T-pillars to Göbekli Tepe or other types of stone pillar providing a seeming connected cult belief or religious culture of pillars seen in the PPNA-PPNB in the northern portion of the Near East.

Pictures link, link

A few of these next pictures help to understand the height of the Göbekli Tepe pillars in relation to people. However, some of them are a recreation of the Göbekli Tepe pillars at the region’s museum it helps understand what their relationship would have been.

Göbekli Tepe’s Level III enclosures, what can be said about them: 

“First, they were almost certainly roofed at some point or braced in some way with beams and thus partially roofed, with the beams supported by the great central T-pillars. This lays doubt on claims they were astronomical observatories. The footings for the standing T-pillars are surprisingly shallow, suggesting that the roof actually stabilized them in their upright position. Note that they are now necessarily stabilized with cables, or they would fall over.” ref

“Second, the fabulous decoration on the pillars is a whole menagerie of animal species, but their distribution is not random. In each of the four enclosures most fully excavated, one class predominates: snakes in Enclosure A, foxes in B, boars in C, and birds in D. A plausible explanation is that these were totemic animals for different clans, social groupings, hunting societies, or even secret societies, each with its own exclusive communal clubhouse. Combinations of animals with other pictorial elements open up the possibility of commemorative narratives—say, of memorable hunts, raids, or feasts. The few human figures are mainly headless, which ties into a longstanding funerary tradition across the Fertile Crescent. Indeed, some of the skull fragments recovered from the fill are neatly pierced and grooved as if to facilitate hanging decoratively from the rafters—more Temple of Doom than Temple of Light.” ref

Pictures linklinklink, link, linklinklinklinklinklinklinklinklinklinklinklinklinklinklink   

There are also anthropomorphic human-like totem features on the two center “T” shaped pillars, where arms and hands are depicted indicating the monolithic pillars maybe a stylized person. These “T” shaped stones may connect to sky burial offerings already seen in the hunter-gather shamanism which preceded this site. This may have been directly on the pillars, hanging on the pillars in some fashion, or laid between then like an offering if the site was open to the air. Alternatively, if the site was roofed the sky burials may have been nearby at Göbekli Tepe or at some other site then were brought to Göbekli Tepe. 

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One of the most impressive pillars from Göbekli Tepe, Pillar 43 in Enclosure D, which, to me, may relate to sky burial ritualism.

“Some images on Göbekli Tepe’s pillars indicate a narrative meaning. One striking example for this is Pillar 43 in Enclosure D. The whole western broadside of this pillar is covered by a variety of motifs. Dominant is a big vulture. It lifts its left wing, while the right wing points to the front. It is possible that this gesture aims at the sphere or disc that can be seen above the tip of the right wing. But to the right of the vulture another bird, maybe an ibis or a young vulture is shown. If we take this image as a depiction of a young bird, then the stretched-out wing of the vulture could be a gesture of protection, and the sphere could be the egg the young bird hatched from. Another possibility would be a depiction of the sun or the moon. However, the scenery could also mean something completely different, as we will see below.” ref

“To the right above this scene, a snake, two H-shaped symbols and wild fowl are depicted. On the pillar’s shaft, a huge scorpion as well as the head and neck of another bird are dominating the scene. While some more reliefs to the left of the scorpion and the bird are hidden by the perimeter wall, to the right of the bird’s neck an especially interesting motif is depicted. Due to damage to the pillar it is not preserved completely, but the representation of a headless human with an erect penis is quite clearly recognizable. The depiction seems to relate to aspects of the Early Neolithic death cult known from several sites and offers another interpretation for the spherical object above the vultures wing: it could be the depiction of the person’s head. But even without giving too much weight to this aspect of the pillar’s reliefs, it is clear that the intention behind the imagery goes well beyond depicting nature.” ref

“On the uppermost part of Pillar 43, a row of three rectangular objects with cupola-like ‘arches’ on their tops can be seen. Every one of these objects is accompanied by an animal added on the ’arch’. The meaning of these images is hard to guess, but they might represent the enclosures during their time of use, seen from the side. The rectangular part would represent the perimeter walls, while the cupolas may indicate roofs. What appears to be the norm in the animal art found at Göbekli Tepe are depictions of one animal species that seem to dominate in every enclosure, it is an intriguing thought that buildings of different groups are depicted here with the emblematic animals of these groups added for recognition. Following this line of argument, one would also have to assume that the enclosures were depicted here rather schematic in an almost technical sectional view – what would be highly unusual compared to the other naturalistic representations from Göbekli Tepe. A final decision on the meaning of these images is not possible at the moment.” ref

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This is found at the base of Göbekli Tepe’s two center human-like T-Pillars seven birds carved into the heavy base supporting a statue T-Pillar. ref

Pictures link, linklink, link 

“Göbekli Tepe, engraving of a female person from layer II.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Here are my thoughts/speculations on where I believe is the possible origin of shamanism, which may have begun sometime around 35,000 to 30,000 years ago seen in the emergence of the Gravettian culture, just to outline his thinking, on what thousands of years later led to evolved Asian shamanism, in general, and thus WU shamanism as well. In both Europe-related “shamanism-possible burials” and in Gravettian mitochondrial DNA is a seeming connection to Haplogroup U. And the first believed Shaman proposed burial belonged to Eastern Gravettians/Pavlovian culture at Dolní Věstonice in southern Moravia in the Czech Republic, which is the oldest permanent human settlement that has ever been found. It is at Dolní Věstonice where approximately 27,000-25,000 years ago a seeming female shaman was buried and also there was an ivory totem portrait figure, seemingly of her.

And my thoughts on how cultural/ritual aspects were influenced in the area of Göbekli Tepe. I think it relates to a few different cultures starting in the area before the Neolithic. Two different groups of Siberians first from northwest Siberia with U6 haplogroup 40,000 to 30,000 or so. Then R Haplogroup (mainly haplogroup R1b but also some possible R1a both related to the Ancient North Eurasians). This second group added its “R1b” DNA of around 50% to the two cultures Natufian and Trialetian. To me, it is likely both of these cultures helped create Göbekli Tepe. Then I think the female art or graffiti seen at Göbekli Tepe to me possibly relates to the Epigravettians that made it into Turkey and have similar art in North Italy. I speculate that possibly the Totem pole figurines seen first at Kostenki, next went to Mal’ta in Siberia as seen in their figurines that also seem “Totem-pole-like”, and then with the migrations of R1a it may have inspired the Shigir idol in Russia and the migrations of R1b may have inspired Göbekli Tepe.

I am looking into the seeming connections between totem poles, ceremonial poles, spirit poles, sacred poles, god/goddess poles, deities associated with poles (like an old woman or man that holds up the earth on a pole in mythology), sacred trees, pole star, axis mundi, maypole, Native American sun dance with poles, etc. I see lots of connections between Eurasia and Native American mythology and religious beliefs.

Haplogroup R is seen in several cultures

Haplogroup R possible time of origin about 27,000 years in Central Asia, South Asia, or Siberia:

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Trialetian culture (16,000–8000 years ago) the Caucasus, Iran, and Turkey, likely involved in Göbekli Tepe. Migration 1?

Haplogroup R possible time of origin about 27,000 years in Central Asia, South Asia, or Siberia:

Trialetian sites

Caucasus and Transcaucasia:

Eastern Anatolia:

Trialetian influences can also be found in:

Southeast of the Caspian Sea:

  • Hotu (Iran)
  • Ali Tepe (Iran) (from cal. 10,500 to 8,870 BCE)
  • Belt Cave (Iran), layers 28-11 (the last remains date from ca. 6,000 BCE)
  • Dam-Dam-Cheshme II (Turkmenistan), layers7,000-3,000 BCE)” ref

Paganism: an approximately 12,000-year-old belief system

Paganism (beginning around 12,000 years ago)

Paganism (such as that seen in Turkey: 12,000 years ago). Gobekli Tepe: “first human-made temple” around 12,000 years ago. Sedentism and the Creation of goddesses around 12,000 years ago as well as male gods after 7,000 years ago. Pagan-Shaman burial in Israel 12,000 years ago and 12,000 – 10,000 years old Paganistic-Shamanistic Art in a Remote Cave in Egypt. Skull Cult around 11,500 to 8,400 Years Ago and Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city” around 10,000 years ago.

Paganism is approximately a 12,000-year-old belief system and believe in spirit-filled life and/or afterlife that can be attached to or be expressed in things or objects and these objects can be used by special persons or in special rituals that can connect to spirit-filled life and/or afterlife and who are guided/supported by a goddess/god, goddesses/gods, magical beings, or supreme spirits. If you believe like this, regardless of your faith, you are a hidden paganist.



Around 12,000 years ago, in Turkey, the first evidence of paganism is Gobekli Tepe: “first human-made temple” and around 9,500 years ago, in Turkey, the second evidence of paganism is Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city”. In addition, early paganism is connected to Proto-Indo-European language and religion. Proto-Indo-European religion can be reconstructed with confidence that the gods and goddesses, myths, festivals, and form of rituals with invocations, prayers, and songs of praise make up the spoken element of religion. Much of this activity is connected to the natural and agricultural year or at least those are the easiest elements to reconstruct because nature does not change and because farmers are the most conservative members of society and are best able to keep the old ways.

Regional variants Pre-Pottery Neolithic A:

  • Sultanian in the Jordan River valley and the southern Levant, with the type site of Jericho. Other sites include Netiv HaGdud, El-Khiam, Hatoula, and Nahal Oren.
  • Mureybetian in the Northern Levant, defined by the finds from Mureybet IIIA, IIIB, typical: Helwan points, sickle-blades with base amenagée or short stem and terminal retouch. Other sites include Sheyk Hasan and Jerf el-Ahmar.
  • Aswadian in the Damascus Basin, defined by finds from Tell Aswad IA; typical: bipolar cores, big sickle blades, Aswad points. The ‘Aswadian’ variant recently was abolished by the work of Danielle Stordeur in her initial report from further investigations in 2001–2006. The PPNB horizon was moved back at this site, to around 10,700 years ago.
  • Sites in ‘Upper Mesopotamia’ include Çayönü and Göbekli Tepe, with the latter possibly being the oldest ritual complex yet discovered.
  • Sites in central Anatolia that include the ‘mother city’ Çatalhöyük and the smaller, but the older site, rivaling even Jericho in age, Aşıklı Höyük. ref

“Pre-Pottery Neolithic B fossils that were analysed for ancient DNA were found to carry the Y-DNA (paternal) haplogroups E1b1b (2/7; ~29%), CT (2/7; ~29%), E(xE2,E1a,E1b1a1a1c2c3b1,E1b1b1b1a1,E1b1b1b2b) (1/7; ~14%), T(xT1a1,T1a2a) (1/7; ~14%), and H2 (1/7; ~14%). The CT clade was also observed in a Pre-Pottery Neolithic C specimen (1/1; 100%). Maternally, the rare basal haplogroup N* has been found among skeletal remains belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, as have the mtDNA clades L3 and K. DNA analysis has also confirmed ancestral ties between the Pre-Pottery Neolithic culture bearers and the makers of the Epipaleolithic Iberomaurusian culture of North Africa, the Mesolithic Natufian culture of the Levant, the Savanna Pastoral Neolithic culture of East Africa, the Late Neolithic Bell-Beaker culture of Morocco, and the Ancient Egyptian culture of the Nile Valley, with fossils associated with these early cultures all sharing a common genomic component.” ref

The spreading of Early Anatolian/Turkey Farmer Paganism

“Sedentary farming communities emerged in parts of the Fertile Crescent during the 12,000-11,000 years ago and had appeared in central Turkey by 10,300 years ago. Farming spread into west Turkey by the early 7th millennium BC (9,000 8,500 years ago) and quasi-synchronously into Europe, although the timing and process of this movement remain unclear.” ref 

“The earliest Neolithic central Anatolians belonged to the same gene pool as the first Neolithic migrants spreading into Europe. Further, genetic affinities between later Anatolian farmers and 6,000-5,000 years ago Chalcolithic south Europeans suggest an additional wave of Anatolian migrants, after the initial Neolithic spread but before the Yamnaya (Kurgan culture, Pit Grave culture, or Ochre Grave culture, was a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age) related migrations. We propose that the earliest farming societies demographically resembled foragers and that only after regional gene flow and rising heterogeneity did the farming population expansions into Europe occur.” ref

Defining paganism is problematic. Understanding the context of its associated terminology is important.

To me, paganism roughly emergence around 13,000 years ago with the agricultural explosion in turkey “Anatolia” and the connected areas such as in the lavant (described as the “crossroads of western Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, and northeast Africa”, and the “northwest of the Arabian plate” including Cyprus, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey).

Turkey is a nation straddling eastern Europe and western Asia with cultural connections to the ancient Greek, Persian, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires. Paganism is part of a linked group of religious thinking seeming to turn the once believed animistic spirits” (a belief system dating back at least 100,000 years ago on the continent of Africa), that in totemism (dating back at least 50,000 years ago on the continent of Europe) with newly perceived needs were given artistic expression of animistic spirits both animal or human “seemingly focused on female humans, to begin with and only much much later is there what look like could be added male focus”, but even this evolved into a believed stronger communion with more connections in shamanism (a belief system dating back at least 30,000 years ago on the continent of Aisa) with newly perceived needs.

Then this also evolved into Paganism (a belief system dating back at least 13,000 years ago on the continent of eastern Europe/western Asia turkey mainly but eastern Mediterranean lavant as well to some extent or another) with newly perceived needs where you see the emergence of animal gods and female goddesses around into more formalized animal gods and female goddesses and only after 7,000 to 6,000 do male gods emerge one showing its link in the evolution of religion and the other more on it as a historical religion.

Here are my blogs on Paganism; Paganism?: link; Paganism, Folk religion, & Ethnic/indigenous religion: link; Sky Burials: Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, and Paganism: link; Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, and Paganism: link

Early Christians referred to paganism as the diverse array of cults around them as a single group for reasons of convenience and rhetoric. While most pagan religions express a world view that is pantheistic, polytheistic, or animistic, there are some monotheistic pagans.

While paganism generally implies polytheism, the primary distinction between classical pagans and Christians was not one of monotheism versus polytheism. Not all pagans were strictly polytheist. Throughout history, many of them believed in a supreme deity. (However, most such pagans believed in a class of subordinate gods/daimons—see henotheism—or divine emanations) paganism traditionally encompasses the collective pre- and non-Christian cultures in and around the classical world; including those of the Greco-Roman, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic tribes.

Moreover, it also encompasses the modern parlance of folklorists and contemporary pagans in particular has extended the original four millennia scope used by early Christians to include similar religious traditions stretching far into prehistory. Early paganism is connected to Proto-Indo-European language and religion.

Proto-Indo-European religion can be reconstructed with confidence such as the Gods and Goddesses, the myths, the festivals, and the form of rituals with invocations, prayers, and songs of praise that make up the spoken element of religion. Much of this activity is connected to the natural and agricultural year, or at least those are the easiest elements to reconstruct because nature doesn’t change and because farmers are the most conservative members of society and are best able to keep the old ways.

Goddesses: There are at least 40 deities, although the gods may be different than we think of and only evolved later to the ways we know. Such as, how a deity’s gender may not be a fixed characteristic since they are often deified forces of nature that tened to not have genders. Among the Goddesses reconstructed so far are: *Pria*Pleto*Devi*Perkunos*Aeusos, and *Yama.

Myths: There are at least 28 myths that can be reconstructed to Proto-Indo-European. Many of these myths have since been confirmed by additional research, including some in areas that were not accessible to the early writers, such as Latvian folk songs and Hittite hieroglyphic tablets. One of the most widely recognized myths of the Indo-Europeans is the myth in which *Yama is killed by his brother *Manu, and the world is made from his body. Some of the forms of this myth in various Indo-European languages are given in this article about the Creation Myth of the Indo-Europeans.

The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is estimated to have been spoken as a single language from at around 6,500 years ago, the Kurgan hypothesis relating to the construction of kurgans (mound graves). The earliest kurgans date to the 6,000 years ago in the Caucasus and are associated with the Indo-Europeans. Kurgans were built in the EneolithicBronzeIronAntiquity, and Middle Ages, with ancient traditions still active in Southern Siberia and Central Asia. Kurgan cultures are divided archeologically into different sub-cultures, such as Timber GravePit GraveScythianSarmatianHunnish, and KumanKipchak.

Kurgan barrows were characteristic of Bronze Age peoples, and have been found from the Altay Mountains to the CaucasusUkraineRomania, and Bulgaria. Kurgans were used in the Ukrainian and Russian steppes, their use spreading with migration into eastern, central, and northern Europe in the around 5,000 years ago. Burial mounds are complex structures with internal chambers. Within the burial chamber at the heart of the kurgan, elite individuals were buried with grave goods and sacrificial offerings, sometimes including horses and chariots.

The structures of the earlier Neolithic period from the 4th to the 3rd millenniums BCE, and the Bronze Age until the 1st millennium BCE, display continuity of the archaic farming methods. They were inspired by common ritual-mythological ideas. Whereas, the Anatolian hypothesis suggests that the speakers of Pre-Proto-Indo-European to the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) lived in Anatolia during the Neolithic era, and it associates the distribution of historical Indo-European languages with the expansion during the Neolithic revolution around 9,000 years ago, with a proposed homeland of Proto-Indo-European proper in the Balkans around 7,000 years ago, which he explicitly identified as the “Old European culture. “

This hypothesis states that Indo-European languages began to spread peacefully, by demic diffusion, into Europe from Asia Minor or Turkey, the Neolithic advance of farming (wave of advance). Accordingly, most inhabitants of Neolithic Europe would have spoken Indo-European languages, and later migrations would have replaced the Indo-European varieties with other Indo-European varieties. The expansion of agriculture from the Middle East would have diffused three language families: Indo-European toward Europe, Dravidian toward Pakistan and India, and Afro-Asiatic toward Arabia and North Africa.

Reconstructions of a Bronze Age PIE society, based on vocabulary items like “the wheel”, do not necessarily hold for the Anatolian branch, which appears to have separated at an early stage, prior to the invention of wheeled vehicles. The Proto-Indo-European Religion seemingly stretches at least back around 6000 years ago or likely much further back.

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Haplogroup R

Paleolithic mammoth hunters

“Haplogroup R* originated in North Asia just before the Last Glacial Maximum (26,500-19,000 years before present). This haplogroup has been identified in the 24,000 year-old remains of the so-called “Mal’ta boy” from the Altai region, in south-central Siberia (Raghavan et al. 2013). This individual belonged to a tribe of mammoth hunters that may have roamed across Siberia and parts of Europe during the Paleolithic. Autosomally this Paleolithic population appears to have passed on its genes mostly to the modern populations of Europea and South Asia, the two regions where haplogroup R also happens to be the most common nowadays (R1b in Western Europe, R1a in Eastern Europe, Central and South Asia, and R2 in South Asia).” ref

“The series of mutations that made haplogroup R1* evolve into R1a probably took place during or soon after the Last Glacial Maxium. Little is know for certain about R1a’s place of origin. Some think it might have originated in the Balkans or around Pakistan and Northwest India, due to the greater genetic diversity found in these regions. The diversity can be explained by other factors though. The Balkans have been subject to 5000 years of migrations from the Eurasian Steppes, each bringing new varieties of R1a. South Asia has had a much bigger population than any other parts of the world (occasionally equalled by China) for at least 10,000 years, and larger population bring about more genetic diversity. The most likely place of origin of R1a is Central Asia or southern Russia/Siberia.” ref

“From there, R1a could have migrated directly to eastern Europe (European Russia, Ukraine, Belarus), or first southward through Central Asia and Iran. In that latter scenario, R1a would have crossed the Caucasus during the Neolithic, alongside R1b, to colonise the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. In the absence of ancient Y-DNA from those regions the best evidence supporting a Late Paleolithic migration to Iran is the presence of very old subclades of R1a (like M420) in the region, notably in the Zagros mountains. However these samples only make up a fraction of all R1a in the region and could just as well represent the descendants of Eastern European hunter-gatherers who branched off from other R1a tribes and crossed from the North Caucasus any time between 20,000 and 8,000 years ago. The logic behind this is that most known historical migrations in Eurasia took place from north to south, as people sought warmer climes. The only exception happened during the Holocene warming up of the climate, which corresponds to the Neolithic colonisation of Europe from the Near East. A third possibility is that R1a tribes split in two around Kazakhstan during the Late Paleolithic, with one group moving to eastern Europe, while the other moved south to Iran.” ref

“Some people have theorized that R1a was one of the lineages of the Neolithic farmers, and would have entered Europe through Anatolia, then spread across the Balkans toward Central Europe, then only to Eastern Europe. There are many issues with this scenario. The first is that 99% of modern R1a descends from the branch R1a-M417, which clearly expanded from the Bronze Age onwards, not from the early Neolithic. Its phylogeny also points at an Eastern European origin. Secondly, most of the R1a in Middle East are deep subclades of the R1a-Z93 branch, which originated in Russia (see below). It could not have been ancestral to Balkanic or Central European R1a. Thirdly, there is a very strong correlation between the Northeast European autosomal admixture and R1a populations, and this component is missing from the genome of all European Neolithic farmers tested to date – even from Ötzi, who was a Chalcolithic farmer. This admixture is also missing from modern Sardinians, who are mostly descended from Neolithic farmers. This is incontrovertible evidence that R1a did not come to Europe with Neolithic farmers, but only propagated from Eastern Europe to the rest of Europe from the Bronze Age onwards.” ref

“The oldest forms of R1b (M343, P25, L389) are found dispersed at very low frequencies from Western Europe to India, a vast region where could have roamed the nomadic R1b hunter-gatherers during the Ice Age. The three main branches of R1b1 (R1b1a, R1b1b, R1b1c) all seem to have stemmed from the Middle East. The southern branch, R1b1c (V88), is found mostly in the Levant and Africa. The northern branch, R1b1a (P297), seems to have originated around the Caucasus, eastern Anatolia, or northern Mesopotamia, then to have crossed over the Caucasus, from where they would have invaded Europe and Central Asia. R1b1b (M335) has only been found in Anatolia.” ref

Neolithic cattle herders

“It has been hypothesized that R1b people (perhaps alongside neighboring J2 tribes) were the first to domesticate cattle in northern Mesopotamia some 10,500 years ago. R1b tribes descended from mammoth hunters, and when mammoths went extinct, they started hunting other large game such as bisons and aurochs. With the increase of the human population in the Fertile Crescent from the beginning of the Neolithic (starting 12,000 years ago), selective hunting and culling of herds started replacing indiscriminate killing of wild animals. The increased involvement of humans in the life of aurochs, wild boars, and goats led to their progressive taming. Cattle herders probably maintained a nomadic or semi-nomadic existence, while other people in the Fertile Crescent (presumably represented by haplogroups E1b1b, G, and T) settled down to cultivate the land or keep smaller domesticates.” ref

“The analysis of bovine DNA has revealed that all the taurine cattle (Bos taurus) alive today descend from a population of only 80 aurochs. The earliest evidence of cattle domestication dates from circa 8,500 BCE in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures in the Taurus Mountains. The two oldest archaeological sites showing signs of cattle domestication are the villages of Çayönü Tepesi in southeastern Turkey and Dja’de el-Mughara in northern Iraq, two sites only 250 km away from each others. This is presumably the area from which R1b lineages started expanding – or in other words, the “original homeland” of R1b.” ref

“The early R1b cattle herders would have split in at least three groups. One branch (M335) remained in Anatolia, but judging from its extreme rarity, today wasn’t very successful, perhaps due to the heavy competition with other Neolithic populations in Anatolia, or to the scarcity of pastures in this mountainous environment. A second branch migrated south to the Levant, where it became the V88 branch. Some of them searched for new lands south in Africa, first in Egypt, then colonising most of northern Africa, from the Mediterranean coast to the Sahel. The third branch (P297), crossed the Caucasus into the vast Pontic-Caspian Steppe, which provided ideal grazing grounds for cattle. They split into two factions: R1b1a1 (M73), which went east along the Caspian Sea to Central Asia, and R1b1a2 (M269), which at first remained in the North Caucasus and the Pontic Steppe between the Dnieper and the Volga. It is not yet clear whether M73 actually migrated across the Caucasus and reached Central Asia via Kazakhstan, or if it went south through Iran and Turkmenistan. In any case, M73 would be a pre-Indo-European branch of R1b, just like V88 and M335.” ref

“R1b-M269 (the most common form in Europe) is closely associated with the diffusion of Indo-European languages, as attested by its presence in all regions of the world where Indo-European languages were spoken in ancient times, from the Atlantic coast of Europe to the Indian subcontinent, which comprised almost all Europe (except Finland, Sardinia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina), Anatolia, Armenia, European Russia, southern Siberia, many pockets around Central Asia (notably in Xinjiang, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan), without forgetting Iran, Pakistan, northern India, and Nepal. The history of R1b and R1a are intricately connected to each others.” ref

Levantine & African branch of R1b (V88)

“Like its northern counterpart (R1b-M269), R1b-V88 is associated with the domestication of cattle in northern Mesopotamia. Both branches of R1b probably split soon after cattle were domesticated, approximately 10,500 years ago (8,500 BCE). R1b-V88 migrated south towards the Levant and Egypt. The migration of R1b people can be followed archeologically through the presence of domesticated cattle, which appear in central Syria around 8,000-7,500 BCE (late Mureybet period), then in the Southern Levant and Egypt around 7,000-6,500 BCE (e.g. at Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba). Cattle herders subsequently spread across most of northern and eastern Africa. The Sahara desert would have been more humid during the Neolithic Subpluvial period (c. 7250-3250 BCE), and would have been a vast savannah full of grass, an ideal environment for cattle herding.” ref

“Evidence of cow herding during the Neolithic has shown up at Uan Muhuggiag in central Libya around 5500 BCE, at the Capeletti Cave in northern Algeria around 4500 BCE. But the most compelling evidence that R1b people related to modern Europeans once roamed the Sahara is to be found at Tassili n’Ajjer in southern Algeria, a site famous pyroglyphs (rock art) dating from the Neolithic era. Some painting dating from around 3000 BCE depict fair-skinned and blond or auburn haired women riding on cows. The oldest known R1b-V88 sample in Europe is a 6,200 year-old farmer/herder from Catalonia tested by Haak et al. (2015). Autosomally this individual was a typical Near Eastern farmer, possessing just a little bit of Mesolithic West European admixture.” ref

“After reaching the Maghreb, R1b-V88 cattle herders could have crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Iberia, probably accompanied by G2 farmers, J1 and T1a goat herders. These North African Neolithic farmers/herders could have been the ones who established the Almagra Pottery culture in Andalusia in the 6th millennium BCE. The maternal lineages associated with the spread of R1b-V88 in Africa are mtDNA haplogroups J1b, U5, and V, and perhaps also U3 and some H subclades (=> see Retracing the mtDNA haplogroups of the original R1b people).” ref

“Nowadays, small percentages (1 to 4%) of R1b-V88 are found in the Levant, among the Lebanese, the Druze, and the Jews, and almost in every country in Africa north of the equator. Higher frequency in Egypt (5%), among Berbers from the Egypt-Libya border (23%), among the Sudanese Copts (15%), the Hausa people of Sudan (40%), the Fulani people of the Sahel (54% in Niger and Cameroon), and Chadic tribes of northern Nigeria and northern Cameroon (especially among the Kirdi), where it is observed at a frequency ranging from 30% to 95% of men. According to Cruciani et al. (2010) R1b-V88 would have crossed the Sahara between 9,200 and 5,600 years ago, and is most probably associated with the diffusion of Chadic languages, a branch of the Afroasiatic languages. V88 would have migrated from Egypt to Sudan, then expanded along the Sahel until northern Cameroon and Nigeria. However, R1b-V88 is not only present among Chadic speakers, but also among Senegambian speakers (Fula-Hausa) and Semitic speakers (Berbers, Arabs).” ref

“R1b-V88 is found among the native populations of Rwanda, South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau. The wide distribution of V88 in all parts of Africa, its incidence among herding tribes, and the coalescence age of the haplogroup all support a Neolithic dispersal. In any case, a later migration out of Egypt would be improbable since it would have brought haplogroups that came to Egypt during the Bronze Age, such as J1, J2, R1a, or R1b-L23.” ref

Progressed organized religion (around 5,000 years ago)

Progressed organized religion (such as that seen in Egypt: 5,000 years ago “The First Dynasty dates to 5,150 years ago”). This was a time of astonishing religion development and organization with a new state power to control. Around the time of 5,000 to 4,000 years ago, saw the growth of these riches, both intellectually and physically, became a source of contention on a political stage, and rulers sought the accumulation of more wealth and more power.

*The First Dynasty* Date: 3,150 B.C.E. (5,150 years ago)

 The Beginning Rise of the Unequal State Government Hierarchies, Religions and Cultures Merger

The Pharaoh in ancient Egypt was the political and religious leader holding the titles ‘Lord of the Two Lands’ Upper and Lower Egypt and ‘High Priest of Every Temple’. In 5,150 years ago the First Dynasty appeared in Egypt and this reign was thought to be in accordance with the will of the gods; but the office of the king itself was not associated with the divine until later.

Around 4,890 years ago during the Second Dynasty, the King was linked with the divine and reign with the will of the gods. Following this, rulers of the later dynasties were equated with the gods and with the duties and obligations due to those gods. As supreme ruler of the people, the pharaoh was considered a god on earth, the intermediary between the gods and the people, and when he died, he was thought to become Osiris, the god of the dead. As such, in his role of ‘High Priest of Every Temple’, it was the pharaoh’s duty to build great temples and monuments celebrating his own achievements and paying homage to the gods of the land. Among the earliest civilizations that exhibit the phenomenon of divinized kings are early Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt.

In 5,150 years ago the First Dynasty appeared in Egypt with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt by the king Menes (now believed to be Narmer). Menes/Narmer is depicted on inscriptions wearing the two crowns of Egypt, signifying unification, and his reign was thought to be in accordance with the will of the gods; but the office of the king itself was not associated with the divine until later. During the Second Dynasty of Egypt 4,890-4,670 years ago King Raneb (also known as Nebra) linked his name with the divine and his reign with the will of the gods. Following Raneb, the rulers of the later dynasties were equated with the gods and with the duties and obligations due to those gods. As supreme ruler of the people, the pharaoh was considered a god on earth.

The honorific title of `pharaoh’ for a ruler did not appear until the period known as the New Kingdom 3,570-3,069 years ago. Monarchs of the dynasties before the title of `pharaoh’ from the New Kingdom were addressed as `your majesty’ by foreign dignitaries and members of the court and as `brother’ by foreign rulers; both practices would continue after the king of Egypt came to be known as a pharaoh. Ref Ref


CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago)

Hinduism around 3,700 to 3,500 years old.
Judaism around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (The first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew” dated to around 3,000 years ago)
Jainism around 2,599 – 2,527 years old.
Confucianism around 2,600 – 2,551 years old.
Buddhism around 2,563/2,480 – 2,483/2,400 years old.
Christianity around 2,o00 years old.
Shinto around 1,305 years old.
Islam around 1407–1385 years old.
Sikhism around 548–478 years old.
Bahá’í around 200–125 years old.

Paganism (such as that seen in Turkey: 12,000 years ago)



Haplogroup G2a (Y-chromosomal DNA) and the Seeming Development of Early Agriculture  “Haplogroup G descends from macro-haplogroup F, which is thought to represent the second major migration of Homo sapiens out of Africa, at least 60,000 years ago. Haplogroup G has 303 mutations confirming a severe bottleneck before splitting into haplogroups G1 and G2. G1might have originated around modern Iran around 26,000 years ago. G2 would have developed around the same time in West Asia and haplogroup G2 appear to have been closely linked to the development of early agriculture in the Fertile Crescent part, around 11,500 years before present. G2a branch expanded to Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Europe, while G2b diffused from Iran across the Fertile Crescent and east to Pakistan.

There has so far been ancient Y-DNA analysis from Early Neolithic Anatolia, Iran, Israel, Jordan as well as most Neolithic cultures in Europe (Thessalian Neolithic in Greece, Starčevo culture in Hungary/Croatia, LBK culture in Germany, Remedello in Italy, and Cardium Pottery in south-west France and Spain) and all sites yielded a majority of G2a individuals, except those from the Levant. This strongly suggests that farming was disseminated by members of haplogroup G at least from Anatolia/Iran then moved to Europe. 44 ancient Near Eastern samples, including Neolithic farmers from Jordan and western Iran, and found one G2b sample dating from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (9,250 years ago) and a G2a1 from the Early Pottery Neolithic (7,700 years ago), both from Iran. The highest genetic diversity within haplogroup G is found in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent, between the Levant and the Caucasus, which is a good indicator of its region of origin.

Çatalhöyük in south-central Anatolia/Turkey was founded by farmers who also brought domesticated goats and sheep. Also around 8,500 years ago, G2a Neolithic farmers arrived in northwest Anatolia and Thessaly in central Greece, as attested by the ancient genomes around the time that it seems cattle domestication was introduced to Çatalhöyük and other sites in Central Anatolia, presumably by trading with their eastern neighbors. Ancient skeletons from the Starčevo–Kőrös–Criș culture (8,000-6,500 years ago) in Hungary and Croatia, and the Linear Pottery culture (7,500-6,500 years ago) in Hungary and Germany, all confirmed that G2a (both G2a2a and G2a2b) remained the principal paternal lineage even after farmers intermingled with indigenous populations as they advanced. G2a farmers from the Thessalian Neolithic quickly expanded across the Balkans and the Danubian basin, reaching Serbia, Hungary, and Romania by 7,800 years ago, Germany by 7,500 years ago, and Belgium and northern France by 7,200 years ago. By 7,800 years ago, farmers making cardial pottery arrived at the Marmara coast in northwest Anatolia with ovicaprids and pigs.

These people crossed the Aegean by boat and colonized the Italian peninsula, the Illyrian coast, southern France and Iberia, where they established the Cardium Pottery culture (5000-1500 BCE). Once again, ancient DNA yielded a majority of G2a samples in the Cardium Pottery culture, with G2a frequencies above 80% (against 50% in Central and Southeast Europe). Nevertheless, substantial minorities of other haplogroups have been found on different Neolithic sites next to a G2a majority, including C1a2, H2, I*, I2a1, I2c, and J2a in Anatolia, C1a2, E-M78, H2, I*, I1, I2a, I2a1, J2 and T1a in Southeast and Central Europe (Starčevo, Sopot, LBK), as well as E-V13, H2, I2a1, I2a2a1 and R1b-V88 in western Europe (Cardium Pottery, Megalithic). H2 and T1a were found in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Levant and are undeniably linked to the early development of agriculture alongside G2a. That being said, C1a2 was also found in Mesolithic Spain and, as it is an extremely old lineage associated with the first Paleolithic Europeans, it could have been found all over Europe and Anatolia before the Neolithic. E1b1b was also found in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Levant, but the subclades may not be E-M78 or E-V13 (more likely E1b1b1* or E-M123).

R1b-V88 surely spread from the Near East too, although through a different route, with cattle herders via North Africa, then crossing over to Iberia. The rest probably represent assimilated hunter-gatherers descended from Mesolithic western Anatolian (I*, I2c, J2) and Europeans (E-V13, I*, I1, I2a, I2a1, I2a2). It is interesting to note that many of these lineages, such as C1a2, H2 and I* are virtually extinct anywhere nowadays, and several others are now very rare in Europe (I2c, R1b-V88).” ref



Haplogroup J (mtDNA) and the Seeming Spread of Early Agriculture – “Samples have been identified from various Neolithic sites, including Linear Pottery culture (LBK) in Central Europe, the Cardium Pottery culture in southern France, Megalithic cultures in northern Spain, and the Funnelbeaker culture in Germany and Sweden. All Neolithic samples tested to date belonged to J1*J1c or J2b1a. One question that follows is: did J1c and J2b1a lineages actually come from the Near East during the Neolithic, or whether they were already in the Balkans and just expanded from there? Both being rare in the Near East today, the second hypothesis might seem more convincing at first. However, the age of J2b1a has been estimated at 11,000 years before present, while the Neolithic started over 12,000 years ago in the Near East. In other words, it could have arrived from the Near East as J2b1* and developed into J2b1a only after reaching Europe, which would explain why this particular subclade is almost exclusively European while all other subclades of J2b1 are mostly Middle Eastern or the eastern Mediterranean. J2b1a would, therefore, have come as a maternal lineage of early agriculturalists alongside the paternal lineage G2a (and perhaps also E1b1b and T1a). J1c, however, is too old (15,000 years) for that scenario.

If it had been part of the Neolithic expansion from the Fertile Crescent, many J1c subclades would be primarily West Asian today, which isn’t the case. The only J1c individuals outside Europe belong to deep clades that clearly originated in Europe or in Anatolia. DNA of Early Neolithic farmers from western Anatolia and from the Starcevo culture in Hungary and Croatia, and found that J1c was present in both cultures, alongside other typical European Neolithic lineages like H5, K1a, N1a, T2, and X2. Of 44 ancient Near Eastern samples, including Neolithic farmers from Jordan and western Iran, and well as Chalcolithic and Bronze Age samples from Armenia and the Levant, but did not find any J1c, apart from a single sample in Neolithic Iran.

This suggests that J1c lineages were probably not found among the very first farmers of the Fertile Crescent but were rather assimilated in neighboring populations further north, notably in Anatolia and Iran, but probably also in the Balkans, which were connected to Anatolia by a land bridge during the glacial and immediate post-glacial periods. Haplogroup J has been found in Bronze Age samples from the Yamna culture (J2b), Corded Ware culture (J1c and J2b1a), the Catacomb culture (J1b1a1), the Unetice culture (J1b1a1), and the Urnfield culture (J1b1), all in Central Europe. The Corded Ware culture is associated with the expansion of Y-haplogroup R1a from the northern Russian steppe, and in light of the continuity with Neolithic samples from Central Europe it can be assumed that J1c and J2b1a maternal lineages were not brought by the newcomers, but absorbed by the male invaders. On the other hand, J1b has never been found in Europe before the Bronze Age and was very probably brought by the Indo-Europeans carrying R1b paternal lineages. Both the Unetice and the Urnfield cultures are thought to have been founded mainly by R1b men.” ref




Paganism is approximately a 12,000-year-old belief system and believe in spirit-filled life and/or afterlife that can be attached to or be expressed in things or objects and these objects can be used by special persons or in special rituals that can connect to spirit-filled life and/or afterlife and who are guided/supported by a goddess/god, goddesses/gods, magical beings, or supreme spirits. If you believe like this, regardless of your faith, you are a hidden paganist.



Around 12,000 years ago, in Turkey, the first evidence of paganism is Gobekli Tepe: “first human-made temple” and around 9,500 years ago, in Turkey, the second evidence of paganism is Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city”. In addition, early paganism is connected to Proto-Indo-European language and religion. Proto-Indo-European religion can be reconstructed with confidence that the gods and goddesses, myths, festivals, and form of rituals with invocations, prayers, and songs of praise make up the spoken element of religion. Much of this activity is connected to the natural and agricultural year or at least those are the easiest elements to reconstruct because nature does not change and because farmers are the most conservative members of society and are best able to keep the old ways.

The reconstruction of goddesses/gods characteristics may be different than what we think of and only evolved later to the characteristics we know of today. One such characteristic is how a deity’s gender may not be fixed, since they are often deified forces of nature, which tend to not have genders. There are at least 40 deities and the Goddesses that have been reconstructed are: *Pria*Pleto*Devi*Perkunos*Aeusos, and *Yama.

The reconstruction of myths can be connected to Proto-Indo-European culture/language and by additional research, many of these myths have since been confirmed including some areas that were not accessible to the early writers such as Latvian folk songs and Hittite hieroglyphic tablets. There are at least 28 myths and one of the most widely recognized myths of the Indo-Europeans is the myth, “Yama is killed by his brother Manu” and “the world is made from his body”. Some of the forms of this myth in various Indo-European languages are about the Creation Myth of the Indo-Europeans.

The reconstruction of rituals can be connected to Proto-Indo-European culture/language and is estimated to have been spoken as a single language from around 6,500 years ago. One of the earliest ritual is the construction of kurgans or mound graves as a part of a death ritual. kurgans were inspired by common ritual-mythological ideas. Kurgans are complex structures with internal chambers. Within the burial chamber at the heart of the kurgan, elite individuals were buried with grave goods and sacrificial offerings, sometimes including horses and chariots.

The speakers of Pre-Proto-Indo-European lived in Turkey and it associates the distribution of historical Indo-European languages with the expansion around 9,000 years ago, with a proposed homeland of Proto-Indo-European proper in the Balkans around 7,000 years ago. The Proto-Indo-European Religion seemingly stretches at least back around 6,000 years ago or likely much further back and I believe Paganism is possibly an approximately 12,000-year-old belief system.

At a mound is called Gadachrili Gora, and the Stone Age farmers who lived here 8,000 years ago were grape lovers: Their rough pottery is decorated with bunches of the fruit, and analysis of pollen from the site suggests the wooded hillsides nearby were once decked with grapevines. Combined with the grape decorations on the outside of the jars, ample grape pollen in the site’s fine soil, and radiocarbon dates from 7,800 to 8,000 years ago, the chemical analysis indicates the people at Gadachrili Gora were the world’s earliest winemakers.  ref

Starting from 9,500 years ago, a new population began to settle the Balkans and the Danube valley. Evidence shows that the Neolithic newcomers mixed with the indigenous population in Lepenski Vir. Arriving from Asia Minor/Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), the immigrants had a completely different physical appearance and lifestyle. With them, they brought a knowledge of agriculture, first grain crops, and husbandry: sheep, cattle, and goats. Based on the research, Starović concluded that the blending of the population occurred almost immediately, during the first immigrant generation, which was unique as in the other parts of Europe two such different communities would live next to each other at first. He believes that this melting pot was a keystone of human development in Europe. It produced the boom of the Lepenski Vir culture, establishing the “original Balkan Neolithic, the most original occurrence in the entire prehistory in Europe, which founded all we know today – the concepts of village, square, family – which then spread over and overwhelmed the continent”. ref

The culture of Lepenski Vir is around 8,5 millennia old and is located on the right bank of the Danube in the Djerdap gorge (The Iron gates of the Danube) near the town of Donji Milanovac. It was the center of one of the most complex prehistoric cultures. Rich cultural layer reveals the traces of the highly developed culture that had complex social relations and as such was the first in Europe to organize its settlement according to a plan. Trapezoid-base houses with a primitive wooden construction which were organized in the shape of a horseshoe. The buildings surrounded an open space – the first known square, with the central building, probably some kind of a temple or a shrine. Fireplace surrounded by fishlike stone figurines took central place in every house. Stone idols found in Lepenski Vir represent the oldest monumental stone sculptures found in Europe. At first, they only had a head with a strange expression, while in later stages these figurines had anthropomorphic shapes. Besides these figurines, numerous tools and arms made of stone, bone, and antler, pottery and jewelry made of shells and pebbles were found here. Based on these pieces of evidence we can conclude that these first inhabitants of the Danube banks lived at the time of the so-called Neolithic revolution when the first communities started working the land and tamed some animals. The culture of Lepenski Vir developed in the period from 8,500 to 7,500 years ago. refref

The main site consists of several archeological phases starting with Proto-Lepenski Vir, then Lepenski Vir Ia-e, Lepenski Vir II and Lepenski Vir III, whose occupation spanned from 1,500 to 2,000 years, from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic period, when it was succeeded by the Neolithic Vinča culture and Starčevo culture, both upstream the Danube, 135 km (84 mi) and 139 km (86 mi) from Lepenski Vir, respectively. The Vinca culture a Neolithic archaeological culture in Serbia and smaller parts of Romania (particularly Transylvania), dated to the period 7,700–8,500 or 7,300–6,700/6,500 years ago.

The Vinča culture occupied a region of Southeastern Europe (i.e. the Balkans) corresponding mainly to modern-day Serbia (with Kosovo), but also parts of RomaniaBulgariaBosniaMontenegroRepublic of Macedonia, and GreeceThis region had already been settled by farming societies of the First Temperate Neolithic, but during the Vinča period sustained population growth led to an unprecedented level of settlement size and density along with the population of areas that were bypassed by earlier settlers.  it was thought, on the basis of typological similarities, that Vinča and other Neolithic cultures belonging to the ‘Dark Burnished Ware’ complex were the product of migrations from Anatolia to the Balkans but the Dark Burnished Ware complex appeared at least a millennium before Troy I, the putative starting point of the westward migration. An alternative hypothesis where the Vinča culture developed locally from the preceding Starčevo culture.

Named for its type siteVinča-Belo Brdo, a large tell settlement. These settlements maintained a high degree of cultural uniformity through the long-distance exchange of ritual items but were probably not politically unified. Various styles of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figurines are hallmarks of the culture, as are the Vinča symbols, which some conjecture to be the earliest form of proto-writing. Although not conventionally considered part of the Chalcolithic or “Copper Age”, the Vinča culture provides the earliest known example of copper metallurgy. A number of satellite villages belonging to the same culture and time period were discovered in the surrounding area. These additional sites include Hajdučka Vodenica, Padina, Vlasac, Ikaona, Kladovska Skela, and others. Found artifacts include tools made from stone and bones, the remains of houses, and numerous sacral objects including unique stone sculptures.

It is assumed that the people of Lepenski Vir culture represent the descendants of the early European population of the BrnoPředmostí (Czech Republichunter-gatherer culture from the end of the last ice age. Archeological evidence of human habitation of the surrounding caves dates back to around 20,000 BC. The first settlement on the low plateau dates back to 11,500–9,200 BC. The late Lepenski Vir (8,300–8,000 years ago) architectural development was the development of the Trapezoidal buildings and monumental sculpture.[1] The Lepenski Vir site consists of one large settlement with around ten satellite villages. Numerous piscine sculptures and peculiar architecture have been found at the site. And the sculptures of this size so early in human history and original architectural solutions, define Lepenski Vir as the specific and very early phase in the development of the prehistoric culture in Europe. refref

An 8,000-YEAR-OLD VEILED MOTHER GODDESS NEAR BULGARIA’S VIDIN ‘PUSHES BACK’ NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION IN EUROPE. The head of the Neolithic Mother Goddess, the earliest deity of Europe’s first sedentary farmers was found along with and other artifacts and structures in the settlement in Mayor Uzunovo, Vidin District, close to the Danube River, in Northwest Bulgaria. Also, in Bulgaria is found one of the oldest funerals in the Balkans – an early Neolithic funeral of a person at the age of 12-13, which dates back to around 8,300-8,150 years ago. The Neolithic settlement at Dzhulyunitsa existed between 8,300 and 7,700 years ago. Bulgaria farming inhabitants of 8,000 years ago deliberately burned individual homes down, perhaps as some sort of sacrifice. It’s likely they followed a religion concerned with fertility and there are graves dating to the end of the sixth millennium BC, with one skeleton buried in a fetal position. Some of the earliest European evidence for farming is found here as the new crops and domestic animals spread from the Near East through modern-day Turkey.

The finds from the Ohoden excavations indicate that the Balkan Peninsula was the center of a prehistoric civilization which spread to the rest of Europe and we can ponder what they spread the settlement, also had a religious shrine of the sun cultEarly Neolithic pits with traces of fire were next to a northern pit, and an 8,000-year-old stone structure set at a right angle and featuring an arch has been discovered. This is one of the earliest stone structures in the Balkans. The shrine is believed to have been a fertility and sun temple as its floor was paved with U-shaped stones directed to the east; it contained dozens of clay and stone disc symbolizing the sun disc, respectively the sun cult, in early agrarian societies. At the Ohoden site with the sanctuary containing a prehistoric altar decorated with huge trophy elk horns placed 2 meters away from a ritual burial of a man. refrefrefrefrefref

The earliest kurgans date to 6,000 years ago and are connected to the Proto-Indo-European in the Caucasus. In fact, around 7,000 years ago, there appears to be pre-kurgan in Siberia. Around 7,000 to 2,500 years ago and beyond, kurgans were built with ancient traditions still active in Southern Siberia and Central Asia, which display the continuity of the archaic forming methods. Kurgan cultures are divided archaeologically into different sub-cultures such as Timber GravePit GraveScythianSarmatianHunnish, and KumanKipchak. Kurgans have been found from the Altay Mountains to the Caucasus, Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria. Around 5,000 years ago, kurgans were used in the Ukrainian and Russian flat unforested grasslands and their use spread with migration into eastern, central, northern Europe, Turkey, and beyond. refrefrefrefrefrefrefrefrefrefrefref, & ref

Y-DNA G2a, F* and J2 are what we would expect from a source in Anatolia or the Caucasus Mountains or the highlands of Iran, not the Levant or Arabia or even the lowlands of Mesopotamia (although J2 would surely be found in Mesopotamia in significant proportions). The first European farmers probably emerged from the highlands that form the Southern boundaries of Europe and West Asia, rather than from what we would conventionally think of as the “Near East” proper. And rather than being European hunter-gatherers who were assimilated into the first wave of Neolithic farmers in the Balkans, that the Pelasgians (the indigenous inhabitants of the Aegean Sea region and their cultures) may have been the first wave Neolithic farmers in the Balkans (who probably arrived around 9,000-6,000 years ago). ref

The arrival of the Neolithic culture comes from Anatolia between 9.000 and 5.000 years ago, mtDNA data from Early Neolithic farmers of the Starčevo Criş culture in Romania (Cârcea, Gura Baciului, and Negrileşti sites), confirm their genetic relationship with those of the LBK culture (Linienbandkeramik Kultur) in Central Europe, and they show little genetic continuity with modern European populations. On the other hand, populations of the Middle-Late Neolithic (Boian, Zau and Gumelniţa cultures), supposedly the second wave of Neolithic migration from Anatolia, had a much stronger effect on the genetic heritage of the European populations. In contrast, we find a smaller contribution of Late Bronze Age migrations to the genetic composition of Europeans. Based research findings, it has been proposed that permeation of mtDNA lineages from the second wave of Middle-Late Neolithic migration from North-West Anatolia into the Balkan Peninsula and Central Europe represent an important contribution to the genetic shift between Early and Late Neolithic populations in Europe, and consequently to the genetic make-up of modern European populations.

The study of the genomes of a 7,000-year-old farmer from Germany and eight ~8,000-year-old hunter-gatherers from Luxembourg and Sweden have shown that most present-day Europeans derive from at least three highly differentiated populations. Besides, authors have proposed that early European farmers had a ~44% ancestry from a ‘basal Eurasian’ population.

Archaeological data show that the Neolithic expansion from Anatolia was not a single event but was represented by several waves of migrants. In this respect, the Proto-Sesklo culture in Greece, from which directly Starčevo-Criş in the northern Balkans and indirectly LBK in Central Europe originate represents only the first great wave of Neolithisation of Europe. A later great wave of migration from North-West Anatolia led to important cultures of South-Eastern Europe such as Vinča and Boian cultures.

aDNA studies of hunter-gatherers revealed a high genetic homogeneity in the pre-Neolithic groups throughout Europe, whether from Scandinavia, Central Europe or the Iberian Peninsula. The analysis of aDNA from Early European farmer groups of the Linear Pottery Culture (LPC, also known as Linienbandkeramik Kultur or LBK) in Central Europe suggested a genetic discontinuity in Central Europe and favored instead of a process of Neolithic transition through a of population diffusion into and across the area, based on a high frequency of the N1a haplogroup (about 15%) in the LBK farmers, absent in hunter-gatherers in this same region and almost nonexistent (0.2%) in the present-day European populations. Moreover, these first farmers shared an affinity with the modern-day populations from the Near East and Anatolia, supporting a major genetic input from this area during the advent of farming in Europe. Studies of other Neolithic sites in the North of France, Hungary and the Northeast of Iberian Peninsula also supported this view. However, an ancient mtDNA study of a Neolithic site in the Mediterranean region of Europe, namely in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), led to the proposal of a dual model for explaining the Neolithic dispersion process in Europe: DD in Mediterranean area and CD in Central Europe. ref



Progressed organized religion

Progressed organized religion (such as that seen in Egypt: 5,000 years ago),

(Prehistoric Egypt 40,000 years ago to The First Dynasty 5,150 years ago)

4,600 years ago: (2600 BC): Writing is developed in Sumer 

and Egypt, triggering the beginning of recorded history.



*The First Dynasty*

Date: 3,150 B.C.E. (5,150 years ago)

 The Beginning Rise of the Unequal State Government Hierarchies, Religions and Cultures Merger

The Pharaoh in ancient Egypt was the political and religious leader holding the titles ‘Lord of the Two Lands’ Upper and Lower Egypt and ‘High Priest of Every Temple’. In 5,150 years ago the First Dynasty appeared in Egypt and this reign was thought to be in accordance with the will of the gods; but the office of the king itself was not associated with the divine until later.

Around 4,890 years ago during the Second Dynasty the King was linked with the divine and reign with the will of the gods. Following this rulers of the later dynasties were equated with the gods and with the duties and obligations due those gods. As supreme ruler of the people, the pharaoh was considered a god on earth, the intermediary between the gods and the people, and when he died, he was thought to become Osiris, the god of the dead. As such, in his role of ‘High Priest of Every Temple’, it was the pharaoh’s duty to build great temples and monuments celebrating his own achievements and paying homage to the gods of the land. Among the earliest civilizations that exhibit the phenomenon of divinized kings are early Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt.

In 5,150 years ago the First Dynasty appeared in Egypt with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt by the king Menes (now believed to be Narmer). Menes/Narmer is depicted on inscriptions wearing the two crowns of Egypt, signifying unification, and his reign was thought to be in accordance with the will of the gods; but the office of the king itself was not associated with the divine until later. During the Second Dynasty of Egypt 4,890-4,670 years ago King Raneb (also known as Nebra) linked his name with the divine and his reign with the will of the gods. Following Raneb, the rulers of the later dynasties were equated with the gods and with the duties and obligations due those gods. As supreme ruler of the people, the pharaoh was considered a god on earth.

The honorific title of `pharaoh’ for a ruler did not appear until the period known as the New Kingdom 3,570-3,069 years ago. Monarchs of the dynasties before the title of `pharaoh’ from the New Kingdom were addressed as `your majesty’ by foreign dignitaries and members of the court and as `brother’ by foreign rulers; both practices would continue after the king of Egypt came to be known as a pharaoh. Ref Ref


“This was a time of astonishing creativity as city-states and empires emerged in a vast area stretching from the Mediterranean to the Indus Valley. The previous millennium had seen the emergence of advanced, urbanized civilizations, new bronze metallurgy extending the productivity of agricultural work, and highly developed ways of communication in the form of writing. Around the time of 5,000 to 4,000 years ago, saw the growth of these riches, both intellectually and physically, became a source of contention on a political stage, and rulers sought the accumulation of more wealth and more power. The civilizations of Sumer and Akkad in Mesopotamia became a collection of volatile city-states in which warfare was common. Uninterrupted conflicts drained all available resources, energies, and populations. Also, in Egypt, pharaohs began to posture themselves as living gods made of an essence different from that of other human beings. Even in Europe, which was still largely Neolithic during the same period, the builders of megaliths were constructing giant monuments of their own. In the Near East and the Occident around 5,000 years ago and religion developed and advanced to roughly the ways we are somewhat familiar to a large amount, limits were being pushed by architects and rulers. After lengthy wars, the Sumerians recognized the benefits of unification into a stable form of national government and became a relatively peaceful, well-organized, complex technocratic state called the 3rd dynasty of Ur. This dynasty was later to become involved with a wave of nomadic invaders known as the Amorites, who were to play a major role in the region during the following centuries.” ref



“Foreign artifacts dating to the 7,000 years ago in the Badarian culture in Egypt indicate contact with distant Syria. In predynastic Egypt, by the beginning of the 6,000 years ago, ancient Egyptians in Maadi were importing pottery as well as construction ideas from Canaan. By the 4th millennium BCE, shipping was well established, and the donkey and possibly the dromedary had been domesticated. Domestication of the Bactrian camel and use of the horse for transport then followed. Charcoal samples found in the tombs of Nekhen, which were dated to the Naqada I and II periods, have been identified as cedar from Lebanon. Predynastic Egyptians of the Naqada I period also imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. The Naqadans traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the western desert to the west, and the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean to the east. Pottery and other artifacts from the Levant that date to the Naqadan-era have been found in ancient Egypt. Egyptian artifacts dating to this era have been found in Canaan and other regions of the Near East, including Tell Brak and Uruk and Susa in Mesopotamia. By the second half of the 4th millennium BCE, the gemstone lapis lazuli was being traded from its only known source in the ancient world—Badakhshan, in what is now northeastern Afghanistan—as far as Mesopotamia and Egypt. By the 3rd millennium BCE, the lapis lazuli trade was extended to Harappa, Lothal and Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley Civilization of modern-day Pakistan and northwestern India. The Indus Valley was also known as Meluhha, the earliest maritime trading partner of the Sumerians and Akkadians in Mesopotamia. The ancient harbor constructed in Lothal, India, around 4,400 years ago is the oldest seafaring harbor known. The overland route through the Wadi Hammamat from the Nile to the Red Sea was known as early as predynastic times; drawings depicting Egyptian reed boats have been found along the path dating to 6,000 years ago. Ancient cities dating to the First Dynasty of Egypt arose along both its Nile and Red Sea junctions, testifying to the route’s ancient popularity. It became a major route from Thebes to the Red Sea port of Elim, where travelers then moved on to either Asia, Arabia or the Horn of Africa.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_trade





Genetic analyses shows that 7,000-8,000 years ago, a closely related group of early farmers moved into Europe from the Near East, confirming the findings of previous studies. ref



Progressed organized religion is approximately a 5,000-year-old belief system and believe in spirit-filled life and/or afterlife that can be attached to or be expressed in things or objects and these objects can be used by special persons or in special rituals that can connect to spirit-filled life and/or afterlife and who are guided/supported by a goddess/god, goddesses/gods, magical beings, or supreme spirits and are attached to a standardized and hierarchy structure of control, rules, male dominance, oppression, and lowering of women status. If you believe like this, regardless of your faith, you are a hidden animist, shamanist, totemist, and paganist.

This was a time of astonishing creativity as city-states and empires emerged into a vast area that stretch from the Mediterranean to the Indus Valley. The previous thousand years had seen the emergence of advanced and urbanized civilizations, new bronze metallurgy that extend the productivity of agricultural work, and highly developed ways of communication in the form of writing. 5,000 years ago, the growth of these riches, both intellectually and physically, became a source of contention on a political stage, and rulers sought the accumulation of more wealth and more power. Along with this came the first appearances of mega-architecture, imperialism, organized absolutism, and internal revolution. The civilizations of Sumer and Akkad in Mesopotamia became a collection of volatile city-states where warfare was common and the uninterrupted conflicts drained all the available resources, energies, and populations.

In addition, during this period, larger empires succeeded the last and conquerors grew in stature until the great Sargon of Akkad pushed his empire to the whole of Mesopotamia and beyond. It would not be surpassed in size until Assyrian times 1,500 years later. In the Old Kingdom of Egypt, the Egyptian pyramids were constructed and would remain the tallest and largest human constructions for thousands of years. Also in Egypt, pharaohs began to posture themselves as living gods made of an essence different from that of other human beings. Even in Europe, during the same period, which was still largely primitive, the builders of megaliths were constructing giant monuments of their own. Around 5,000 years ago, in the Near East and Fertile Cresent where agriculture arose, religion developed and advanced to roughly the ways we are somewhat familiar with today, and limits were being pushed by architects and rulers. refrefref, ref



Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“The shaman is, above all, a connecting figure, bridging several worlds for his people, traveling between this world, the underworld, and the heavens. He transforms himself into an animal and talks with ghosts, the dead, the deities, and the ancestors. He dies and revives. He brings back knowledge from the shadow realm, thus linking his people to the spirits and places which were once mythically accessible to all.–anthropologist Barbara Meyerhoff” ref

I classify Animism (animated ‘spirit‘ or “supernatural” perspectives). I see all religious people as at least animists, so, all religions have at least some amount, kind, or expression of animism as well.

I want to make something clear as I can, as simple as I can, even though I classify Animism (animated and alive from Latin: anima, ‘breathspiritlife‘ or peoples’ “spiritual” or “supernatural” perspectives. Potentially, in some animism perceives, all things may relate to some spiritual/supernatural/non-natural inclinations, even a possible belief that objects, places, and/or creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence, and/or thinking things like all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and perhaps even words— could be as animated and alive ref) as the first expression of religious thinking or religion, it is not less than, nor is it not equal to any other religion, or religious thinking. I see all religious people as at least animists any way, so everyone is at least animist, how could it be less than other religions as all other religions have at least some amount, kind, or expression of animism. Animism, +? is what I think about all that say they are spiritual or religious in thinking. Regardless if they know it, understand it, or claim it, they all, to me, an animistic-thinker, plus a paganistic, totemistic, and shamanistic-monotheist, calling themselves a Christian, Jew, or Muslim, as an example of my thinking. Animism (is the other-then-reality thinking relates to, thus it is in all such non-reality thinking generally.

Furthermore, I actually am impressed by animist cultures in Africa, others have seen them as primitive or something, help with that, they are revolutionaries with women’s rights, child rights. I mean if I had to choose a religion it would be animism only like in Africa so I don’t look down on them nor any indigenous peoples, who I care about, as well as I am for “humanity for all.” I challenge religious Ideas, and this is not meant to be an attack on people, but rather a challenge to think or rethink ideas, I want what is actually true. May we all desire a truly honest search for what is true even if we have to update what we believe or know. I even have religious friends, as I am not a bigot. 

I class religious thinking in “time of origin” not somehow that any are better or worse or more reasoned than others. No, I am trying to help others understand how things happened, so they understand, and for themselves can finally think does the religion they say they believe in, still seems true, as they believed before learning my information and art. I am hoping I inspire freedom of thought and development of heart as well as mind as we need such a holistic approach in our quest for a humanity free for all and supportive of all. Until then, train your brain to think ethically. We are responsible for the future, we are the future, living in the present, soon to be passed, so we must act with passion, because life is over just like that. I am just another fellow dignity being. May I be a good human.

When I describe the evolution of religion, I will use the prefixes (primal, proto, and progressed) for the set of stages of development of religion. My use of primal, proto and progressed as prefixes for subclasses I have organized such as early superstitionism, early religionism and organized religionism all connected parts in the evolution of religion. The “Primal” prefix is meant to express the very basic aspects appear but not yet fully evolved or beginning assemblages are starting to come together but lack form, The “Proto” prefix is meant to express the “earliest form of” or all parts of the earliest aspects are now assembled. And, the “Progressed” prefix is meant to express the “concepts or behaviors more fully solidify” or all parts of the aspects are now further developed from previously assembled concepts or behaviors. I would first like to point out that there seems to be some scant possible hinting of the earliest pseudo-superstition before 1 million years ago and possibly back to 2 million years ago, yet likely this is not yet full superstitionism and defiantly not religion, but there are still elements there that are forming that will further religions’ future evolution. This pseudo-superstition starts with symbolic, superstition, or sacralized behaviors that may have been possibly exhibited even if only in the most limited ways at start to further standardize around 1 million years ago with primal superstition. Then the development of religion evolution increased around 600,000 years ago with proto superstition and then even to a greater extent around 300,000 years ago with progressed superstition. Religions’ evolution moves from the loose growing of superstitionism to a greater developed thought addiction that was used to manage fear and the desire to sway control over a dangerous world. This began to happen around 100,000 years ago with primal religion, next the proto religion stage is around 75,000 years ago or less, the progressed religion stage is around 50,000 years ago, and finally after around 13, 500 years ago, begins with the evolution of organized religion. The set of stages for the development of organized religion is subdivided into the following: the primal stage of organized religion is 13,000 years ago, the proto organized religion stage is around 10,000 years ago, and finally the progressed organized religion stage is around 7,000 years ago with the forming of mythology and its connected set of Dogmatic-Propaganda strains of sacralized superstitionism.


“Religion is an Evolved Product”

What we don’t understand we can come to fear. That which we fear we often learn to hate. Things we hate we usually seek to destroy. It is thus upon us to try and understand the unknown or unfamiliar not letting fear drive us into the unreasonable arms of hate and harm.

If you are a religious believer, may I remind you that faith in the acquisition of knowledge is not a valid method worth believing in. Because, what proof is “faith”, of anything religion claims by faith, as many people have different faith even in the same religion?

I think at least one figure is likely male and an elite. Thus, possibly elite Males are represented as thicker than the hunting males. But I don’t think we can determine some of them as male and don’t express obvious women’s features either. So maybe third gender, ambiguous on purpose, or ambiguous to us but not to them, or maybe meant to be both, or either, and there are such deities in history of mythology and the like. I personally think there is a goddess and not enough evidence to support a male god at Çatalhöyük, but if there was both a male and female god and goddess, then I know the kind of gods they were like Proto-Indo-European mythology.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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The Hamangia culture began around 7,250-7,200 years ago and lasted until around 6,550-6,500 years ago It was absorbed by the expanding Boian culture in its transition towards the Gumelnitsa. Its cultural links with Anatolia suggest that it was the result of a settlement by people from Anatolia, unlike the neighboring cultures, which appear descended from an earlier Neolithic settlement. ref 

“The Hamangia culture is a Late Neolithic archaeological culture of Dobruja (Romania and Bulgaria) between the Danube and the Black Sea and Muntenia in the south. It is named after the site of Baia-Hamangia. The Hamangia culture began around 5250/5200 BCE and lasted until around 4550/4500 BCE. It was absorbed by the expanding Boian culture in its transition towards the Gumelniţa. Pottery figurines are normally extremely stylized and show standing naked faceless women with emphasized breasts and buttocks. Cernavodă, the necropolis where the famous statues “The Thinker” and “The Sitting Woman” were discovered.” ref

“The Boian culture emerged from two earlier Neolithic groups: the Dudeşti culture that originated in Anatolia (present-day Turkey); and the Musical note culture (also known as the Middle Linear Pottery culture or LBK) from the northern Subcarpathian region of southeastern Poland and western Ukraine. There have not been many artifacts found in Boian culture sites of sculptures or figurines. There is evidence that the Boian culture acquired the technology for copper metallurgy; as a result, this culture bridged the change from the Neolithic to the Copper Age.” ref

 Hamangia culture and then Boian culture was followed or taken over by the Varna culture. Burials at Varna have the oldest human-modified gold artifacts in history jewelry. There are crouched and extended inhumations. Some graves do not contain a skeleton, but grave gifts (cenotaphs). The symbolic (empty) graves are the richest in gold artifacts. 3000 gold artifacts were found, with a weight of approximately 6 kilograms. Grave 43 contained more gold than has been found in the entire rest of the world for that epoch. The culture had sophisticated religious beliefs about afterlife and developed hierarchical status differences: it constitutes the oldest known burial evidence of an elite male. The end of the fifth millennium BC is the time that Marija Gimbutas, founder of the Kurgan hypothesis claims the transition to male dominance began in Europe. The high-status male was buried with remarkable amounts of gold, held a war axe or mace, and wore a gold penis sheath. The bull-shaped gold platelets perhaps also venerated virility, instinctive force, and warfare. ref

Fear of Wars Violence and the Creation of Male God: Hamangia culture around 7,250-6,500 years ago (Romania and Bulgaria)?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Something Weird Happened to Men 7,000 Years Ago, And We Finally Know Why

“Around 7,000 years ago – all the way back in the Neolithic – something really peculiar happened to human genetic diversity. Over the next 2,000 years, and seen across Africa, Europe, and Asia, the genetic diversity of the Y chromosome collapsed, becoming as though there was only one man for every 17 women.” ref

“Now, through computer modeling, researchers believe they have found the cause of this mysterious phenomenon: fighting between patrilineal clans. Drops in genetic diversity among humans are not unheard of, inferred based on genetic patterns in modern humans. But these usually affect entire populations, probably as the result of a disaster or other event that shrinks the population and therefore the gene pool.” ref

“But the Neolithic Y-chromosome bottleneck, as it is known, has been something of a puzzle since its discovery in 2015. This is because it was only observed on the genes on the Y chromosome that get passed down from father to son – which means it only affected men.” ref

“This points to a social, rather than an environmental, cause, and given the social restructures between 12,000 and 8,000 years ago as humans shifted to more agrarian cultures with patrilineal structures, this may have had something to do with it. In fact, a drop in genetic diversity doesn’t mean that there was necessarily a drop in population. The number of men could very well have stayed the same, while the pool of men who produced offspring declined.” ref

Why Do Genes Suggest Most Men Died Off 7,000 Years Ago?

“Modern men’s genes suggest that something peculiar happened 5,000 to 7,000 years ago: Most of the male population across Asia, Europe, and Africa seems to have died off, leaving behind just one man for every 17 women.” ref

“This so-called population “bottleneck” was first proposed in 2015, and since then, researchers have been trying to figure out what could’ve caused it. One hypothesis held that the drop-off in the male population occurred due to ecological or climatic factors that mainly affected male offspring, while another idea suggested that the die-off happened because some males had more power in society, and thus produced more children.” ref

“Now, a new paper, published May 25 in the journal Nature Communications, offers yet another explanation: People living in patrilineal clans (consisting of males from the same descent) might have fought with each other, wiping out entire male lineages at a time. [Image Gallery: Our Closest Human Ancestor]” ref

“That ratio of 17 females for every one male “struck us as being very extreme, and there must be another explanation,” said senior study author Marcus Feldman, a population geneticist at Stanford University in California. According to their new explanation, the male population didn’t take a nosedive, but rather the diversity of the Y chromosome decreased due to the way people lived and fought with each other. In other words, there weren’t actually fewer males, just less diversity among the males.” ref

“Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes that carry most of our genes. Of these, the 23rd pair is what determines our sex: Whereas females have two X chromosomes, males have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome.” ref

“Because offspring inherit one chromosome from each parent, genes usually get shuffled around, increasing the diversity across species. But the Y chromosome, having no female counterpart, doesn’t get shuffled, so it stays pretty much the same from grandfather to father to son (save for any mutations that occur, which explains why the Y chromosome does differ among males).” ref

War might’ve caused the Y chromosome bottleneck

“To test their theory, the researchers conducted 18 simulations in which they created different scenarios for the bottleneck that included factors such as Y chromosome mutations, competition between groups, and death. Their simulations showed that warfare between patrilineal clans could have caused this so-called “Y chromosome bottleneck,” because the members of each patrilineal clan would have very similar Y chromosomes to each other. So, if one clan killed off another, it would also slash the chance of that family’s Y chromosome moving on to offspring.” ref

“In the researchers’ simulations in which patrilineal clans didn’t exist, however, the bottleneck didn’t occur. ref

“What’s more, there was no such bottleneck in the women of the time, as is shown by mitochondrial DNA — a type of DNA that’s passed down only from mother to child. “In that same group, the women could have come from anywhere,” Feldman told Live Science. “They would’ve been brought into the group from either the victories that they had over other groups, or they could’ve been females who were residing in that area before.” ref

“As an example, he added, if you look at colonization throughout history, people generally “killed all the men and kept the women for themselves. ref

“Monika Karmin, a population geneticist at the University of Tartu in Estonia who was not part of the new study, told Live Science that the “beauty of their study” is the way the researchers framed their hypothesis and demonstrated that “fighting clans are indeed likely to cause a drastic drop in male genetic diversity. [Gallery: Ancient Chinese Warriors Protect Secret Tomb]” ref

“However, we do have to keep in mind that there is very little information on the actual societal organization from that time,” said Karmin, who was the lead author of the 2015 study that first proposed the bottleneck. So, there could have been other “sociocultural” forces at play, she said.” ref

“The researchers did “careful computer simulations, whereas the previous papers had not,” said Chris Tyler-Smith, an evolutionary geneticist at the Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom who was not involved with the study. “The assumption that [the cause of the bottleneck] was warfare is a reasonable one,” especially given the time period, he added.” ref

“People were still living in small clans doing small-scale farming 5,000 to 7,000 years ago, a time right before people moved into larger societies and built large cities. It was a “transition between early farming using stone tools and later farming in societies using metal tools,” Tyler-Smith told Live Science.” ref

“But after this bottleneck, “you see the start of societal organizations and the shift from small-scale societies to having cities and organizations of people into groups that are not so intent on maintaining the Y chromosome lineage,” Feldman said. During this time, the male population bounced back, he added.” ref

“Normally, researchers focus on behavior that may have a genetic basis but not on behavior that influences genes, Feldman said. The new finding is “an example of what a cultural preference can do in changing the level of genetic variation.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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From the Evidence, I Speculate, the First Human-Male God was Created in the Balkans around or after 7,000 years ago following Harsher climate, Emerging social hierarchy, and Fear of violence.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Art and info adapted from: Pre-Columbian Central America, Colombia, and Ecuador: Toward an Integrated Approach (Dumbarton Oaks Other Titles in Pre-Columbian Studies) by Colin McEwan (Editor), John W. Hoopes (Editor)

I enjoy this book a lot. I liked the part about the seats and their relations. I see seating in art and archaeology can often seem to relate to hierarchy: elites, chiefdom/religious figures, or deities.

“We recognize that communities and constellations of practice entail activities that overlap, transcend, and defy categorization within conventional geographic or cultural boundaries. Indigenous peoples of the Americas include more than half a million speakers of indigenous languages. And while identity can sometimes to linked to indigenous languages, indigenous identities are further complicated for indigenous groups whose identities are not strictly tied to language.” – Info from: Pre-Columbian Central America, Colombia, and Ecuador: Toward an Integrated Approach (Dumbarton Oaks Other Titles in Pre-Columbian Studies) by Colin McEwan (Editor), John W. Hoopes (Editor)

“Shellfish was a major source of protein, and shells also became tools and artifacts. In Pre-Colombia art and oral traditions, many animals that were not utilized for food, still feature prominently: birds (Vultures and Eagles), felids (Jaguars, Ocelots, Margays, and others), crocodiles (Crocodiles and Caymans), saurian (Iguanas and basilisks), anurans (Frogs and Toads), rodents (Agoutis and Rabbits), snakes (Pit vipers and Rattlesnakes), and simians (Spider, Howler, Capuchin, and Squirrel monkeys) .” – Info from: Pre-Columbian Central America, Colombia, and Ecuador: Toward an Integrated Approach (Dumbarton Oaks Other Titles in Pre-Columbian Studies) by Colin McEwan (Editor), John W. Hoopes (Editor)  

The early Holocene period (“The Holocene: began approximately 9,700 BCE or 11,650 cal years ago, and corresponds with the rapid proliferation, growth, and impacts of the human species worldwide, including all of its written historytechnological revolutions, development of major civilizations, and overall significant transition towards urban living in the present. ref), saw the first documented use of wild food plants.” – Info from: Pre-Columbian Central America, Colombia, and Ecuador: Toward an Integrated Approach (Dumbarton Oaks Other Titles in Pre-Columbian Studies) by Colin McEwan (Editor), John W. Hoopes (Editor)   

Genetic diversity may have begun in the Late Pleistocene (“between 129,000 to 11,700 years ago ref) as populations crossing the Isthmus (“Isthmus and land bridge are related terms, with isthmus having a broader meaning. A land bridge is an isthmus connecting Earth’s major land masses. ref) dispersing both eastward and south. According to the linguistic and genetic evidence, the Chibchan-speaking populations separated into distinct groups in the Early Holocene and maintained a significant level of identity and cohesion thought the archaeological record.” – Info from: Pre-Columbian Central America, Colombia, and Ecuador: Toward an Integrated Approach (Dumbarton Oaks Other Titles in Pre-Columbian Studies) by Colin McEwan (Editor), John W. Hoopes (Editor)    

“People spoke Chibchan languages throughout the Isthmo-Colombian Area, from eastern Honduras to southern Colombia. There is no reason to characterize Chibchan languages as “South American” than there is to label them “Central American.” Furthermore, what some authors called “Mesoamerican influence” in Colombia may have come from southern Central America instead. New evidence confirms chthonous expansion beginning in the Late Pleistocene of populations, technologies, sociopolitical strategies, interregional interactions, and ideological systems.” – Info from: Pre-Columbian Central America, Colombia, and Ecuador: Toward an Integrated Approach (Dumbarton Oaks Other Titles in Pre-Columbian Studies) by Colin McEwan (Editor), John W. Hoopes (Editor)  

CHIBCHA RELIGION

The Chibcha, a group of South American natives, occupied the high valleys surrounding the modern cities of Bogotá and Tunja in Colombia before the Spanish conquest. The Chibcha religion was of both state and individual concern. Each political division had its own set of priests. Apparently some kind of hierarchy was recognized and the priests were a professional hereditary class. Priests, who were clearly distinguished from shamans, had as their functions the intercession at public ceremonies for the public good, the dispensing of oracles, and consultation with private individuals. Shamans served the individual more than the state and cured illnesses, interpreted dreams, and foretold the future. The Chibchas had an elaborate pantheon of gods headed by Chiminigagua, the supreme god and creator. In addition to the state temples and idols, many natural habitats were considered to be holy places. Ceremonial practices included offerings, public rites, pilgrimages, and human sacrifice. Human sacrifice was said to be fairly common and was made primarily to the sun.” ref

The esoteric world of socio-religious and political rituals related to seats and seating.

“Shaman Seats” 

Photo credits for the first Pic is John Hoopes. The objects are in the Real Alto site museum.

Seats of Power

It was common for ancient furniture to have religious or symbolic purposes. The Incans had chacmools which were dedicated to sacrifice. Similarly, in Dilmun they had sacrificial altars. In many civilizations, the furniture depended on wealth. Sometimes certain types of furniture could only be used by the upper class citizens. For example, in Egypt, thrones could only be used by the rich. Sometimes the way the furniture was decorated depended on wealth. For example, in Mesopotamia tables would be decorated with expensive metals, chairs would be padded with felt, rushes, and upholstery. Some chairs had metal inlays.” ref

“As some of the earliest forms of seat, stools are sometimes called backless chairs despite how some modern stools have backrests. The origins of stools are obscure, but they are known to be one of the earliest forms of wooden furniture. Several kingdoms and chiefdoms in Africa had and still have traditions of using stools in the place of chairs as thrones. One of the most famous of them, the Golden Stool of the Asantehene in Ghana, was the cause of one of the most famous events in the history of colonized Africa, the so-called War of the Golden Stool between the British and the Ashanti.” ref

“Some of the first people that Christopher Columbus met in the American continent were the Taino people. Duhos are carved seats found in the houses of Taino caciques or chiefs throughout the Caribbean region. Duhos “figured prominently in the maintenance of Taino political and ideological systems . . . [and were] . . . literally seats of power, prestige, and ritual.” The Taíno ritual seat is a Pre-Columbian wooden seat made in the form of a man on all fours. It was made by the Taino people and found in a cave near the city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. The seat was made before Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean and is an important remnant of the Taino culture and civilisation that existed before the arrival of Europeans.” ref

“In Akkad, Chairs would also have brightly colored wooden and ivory finials depicting arms and bull’s heads. Oftentimes the chairs would have bronze panels that had images of griffins and winged deities carved into them. The Royal Standard of Ur showcases the king of Ur on a low-back chair with animal legs. The seats depicted on the Royal Standard were likely made of Rush and Cane. During this period of Sumerian history chairs were not used by the majority of people. Most people simply sat on the floor. Low-backed chairs with curved or flat seats and turned legs were incredibly common in the Akkadian Empire.” ref 

“From the Assyrian records we learn that Mesopotamian furniture was similar to Egyptian furniture. There was a wide variety of Assyrian chairs. Some chairs had backs and arms, some resembled a footstool. Tombs dating back to the First Dynasty have wooden furniture. The chair developed from the stool in the second dynasty. A stele found in a tomb from this time period depicts Prince Nisuheqet sitting on a chair. The chair has a high back made of plain sawn boards. Suggesting that the earliest chairs were used by the wealthy. Egyptian chairs likely continued to be status symbols. In another tomb, this time from the third dynasty, more depictions of chairs are found.” ref

“Animal legs were usually supported on a small cone-shaped pedestal. In the Middle Kingdom of Egypt chairs were still straight legged with cushioned backs and upholstered vertical backs. During this period, chairs became more stylized. The legs of these chairs were animal shaped, however instead of bovine shaped, they were slender and gazelle shaped or lion shaped. Much of the old Egyptian furniture which still survives to this day has only survived due to the ancient Egyptians beliefs about the afterlife. Furniture would be placed in tombs, and a result would survive to the modern day.” ref

“The chairs from Tutankhamen’s tomb were highly decorated with imported ebony and ivory inlay. They were also made for ceremonial purposes. Funerary paraphernalia was common amongst these chairs. Stools did not come into being in Egypt until the 18th Dynasty. Still, the majority of people did not have chairs, so stools were most people’s only option for comfortable seating. Ceremonial stools would be blocks of stone or wood. If the stool was made out of wood it would have a flint seat. Footstools were made of wood. The Royal Footstool had enemies of Egypt painted on the footstool, so that way the pharaoh could symbolically crush them. Stools used by the upper-class would have upward sweeping corners and woven leather seats, with a padded cushion on top.” ref

“The modern word “throne” is derived from the ancient Greek thronos (Greek singular: θρόνος), which was a seat designated for deities or individuals of high status or honor. The colossal chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia, constructed by Phidias and lost in antiquity, featured the god Zeus seated on an elaborate throne, which was decorated with gold, precious stones, ebony, and ivory, according to Pausanias. Less extravagant though more influential in later periods is the klismos (Greek singular: κλισμός), an elegant Greek chair with a curved backrest and legs whose form was copied by the Romans and is now part of the vocabulary of furniture design. A fine example is shown on the grave stele of Hegeso, dating to the late fifth century BCE. As with earlier furniture from the east, the klismos and thronos could be accompanied by footstools.” ref

“The most common form of Greek seat was the backless stool. These were known as diphroi (Greek singular: δίφρος) and they were easily portable. The Parthenon frieze displays numerous examples, upon which the gods are seated. Several fragments of a stool were discovered in the forth-century BCE. tomb in Thessaloniki, including two of the legs and four transverse stretchers. The Greek folding stool survives in numerous depictions, indicating its popularity in the Archaic and Classical periods; the type may have been derived from earlier Minoan and Mycenaean examples, which in turn were likely based on Egyptian models. Greek folding stools might have plain straight legs or curved legs that typically ended in animal feet. The sella curulis, or folding stool, was an important indicator of power in the Roman period.” ref

“In one Mayan ceramic, a god who is possibly the God L is shown seated on a throne-like stool covered in cloth placed on a raised platform. Most likely, the only big furniture in a home would be wooden stools or benches. A quantity of furniture in an Aztec home would have been uncommon sight. Usually instead of beds or chairs, mats made of reeds or dirt platforms were used to sit or sleep on.” ref

Chair comes from the early 13th-century English word chaere, from Old French chaiere (“chair, seat, throne”), from Latin cathedra (“seat”). Chairs were in existence since at least the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt (c. 3100 BCE or around 5,100 years ago). In ancient Egypt, chairs appear to have been of great richness and splendor. Generally speaking, the higher ranked an individual was, the taller and more sumptuous was the chair he sat on and the greater the honor. On state occasions, the pharaoh sat on a throne, often with a little footstool in front of it. The average Egyptian family seldom had chairs, and if they did, it was usually only the master of the household who sat on a chair.” ref

According to the Hebrew Bible, the kaporet (Hebrewכַּפֹּרֶת kapōreṯ) or mercy seat was the gold lid placed on the Ark of the Covenant, with two cherubim beaten out of the ends to cover and create the space in which Yahweh appeared and dwelled. This was connected with the rituals of the Day of Atonement. The term also appears in later Jewish sources, and twice in the New Testament, from where it has significance in Christian theology. Two golden cherubim were placed at each end of the cover facing one another and the mercy seat, with their wings spread to enclose the mercy seat (Exodus 25:18–21). The cherubim formed a seat for Yahweh (1 Samuel 4:4). The Holy of Holies could be entered only by the high priest on the Day of Atonement. The high priest sprinkled the blood of a sacrificial bull onto the mercy seat as an atonement for the sins of the people of Israel.” ref

“Although the Holy See is sometimes metonymically referred to as the “Vatican“, the Vatican City State was distinctively established with the Lateran Treaty of 1929, the word “see” comes from the Latin word sedes, meaning ‘seat’, which refers to the episcopal throne (cathedra). The Holy See is one of the last remaining seven absolute monarchies in the world, along with Saudi ArabiaEswatiniUnited Arab EmiratesQatarBrunei and Oman.” ref

“A sacrificial tripod, whose name comes from the Greek meaning “three-footed”, is a three-legged piece of religious furniture used in offerings and other ritual procedures. Tripods had two types and several functions. Firstly, some oracles sat on large tripods to pronounce. Far more common were the tripods and bowls in which smaller sacrifices were burnt. These are particularly associated with Apollo and the Delphic oracle in ancient Greece. These were also given to temples as votive offerings, awarded as prizes in contests associated with religious festivals, and just given as gifts between individuals. The most famous tripod of ancient Greece was the Delphic Tripod on which the Pythian priestess took her seat to deliver the oracles of the deity.” ref 

“Sacrificial tripods also were used as dedicatory offerings to the deities, and in the dramatic contests at the Dionysia the victorious choregus (a wealthy citizen who bore the expense of equipping and training the chorus) received a crown and a tripod. He would either dedicate the tripod to some deity or set it upon the top of a marble structure erected in the form of a small circular temple in a street in Athens, called the street of tripods, from the large number of memorials of this kind. According to Herodotus (The Histories, I.144), the victory tripods were not to be taken from the temple sanctuary precinct, but left there as dedications.” ref

Thrones: Seating of Power

Isaiah 40:22: 22 “God sits on his throne above the circle of the earth, and compared to him, people are like grasshoppers.” 

Matthew 23:22: “And whoever swears by heaven, swears both by the throne of God and by Him who sits upon it.”

Revelation 4:9: “When the living creatures give glory and honor to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever.”

“A throne is the seat of state of a potentate or dignitary, especially the seat occupied by a sovereign (or viceroy) on state occasions; or the seat occupied by a pope or bishop on ceremonial occasions. “Throne” in an abstract sense can also refer to the monarchy or the Crown itself, an instance of metonymy, and is also used in many expressions such as “the power behind the throne“. A throne is a symbol of divine and secular rule and the establishment of a throne as a defining sign of the claim to power and authority. It can be with a high backrest and feature heraldic animals or other decorations as adornment and as a sign of power and strength.” ref

The throne of God is the reigning centre of God in the Abrahamic religions: primarily JudaismChristianity, and Islam. The throne is said by various holy books to reside beyond the Seventh Heaven which is called Araboth (Hebrewעֲרָבוֹת ‘ărāḇōṯ) in Judaism. The heavenly throne room or throne room of God is a more detailed presentation of the throne, into the representation of throne room or divine courtMicaiah‘s extended prophecy (1 Kings 22:19) is the first detailed depiction of a heavenly throne room in Judaism. Zechariah 3 depicts a vision of the heavenly throne room where Satan and the Angel of the Lord contend over Joshua the High Priest in the time of his grandson Eliashib the High Priest“The concept of a heavenly throne occurs in three Dead Sea Scroll texts.” ref

Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi (d. 429/1037) in his al-Farq bayn al-Firaq (The Difference between the Sects) reports that ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, said: “God created the Throne as an indication of His power, not for taking it as a place for Himself.” The vast majority of Islamic scholars, including Sunnis (Ash’arisMaturidis and Sufis), Mu’tazilis, and Shi’is (Twelvers and Isma’ilis) believe the Throne (Arabicالعرش al-‘Arsh) as a symbol of God’s power and authority and not as a dwelling place for Himself, while some Islamic sects, such as the Karramis and the Salafis/Wahhabis believe that God has created it as a place of dwelling. The Quran depicts the angels as carrying the throne of God and praising his glory, similar to Old Testament images. Prophetic hadith also establish that The Throne is above the roof of Al-Firdaus Al-‘Ala, the highest level of Paradise where God’s closest and most beloved servants in the hereafter shall dwell.” ref

“The Quran mentions the throne some 25 times (33 times as Al-‘Arsh), such as in verse Q10:3 and Q23:116:

Indeed, your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and the earth in six days and then established Himself above the Throne (Arsh), arranging the matter [of His creation]. There is no intercessor except after His permission. That is Allah, your Lord, so worship Him. Then will you not remember? – Yunus 10:3

And it is He who created the heavens and the earth in six days – and His Throne had been upon water – that He might test you as to which of you is best in deed. But if you say, “Indeed, you are resurrected after death,” those who disbelieve will surely say, “This is not but obvious magic.” – Hud 11:7

So Exalted be Allah, the True King – None has the right to be worshipped but He – Lord of the Supreme Throne! – al-Mu’minoon 23:116” ref

“A throne can be placed underneath a canopy or baldachin. The throne can stand on steps or a dais and is thus always elevated. The expression “ascend (mount) the throne” takes its meaning from the steps leading up to the dais or platform, on which the throne is placed, being formerly comprised in the word’s significance. Coats of arms or insignia can feature on throne or canopy and represent the dynasty. Even in the physical absence of the ruler an empty throne can symbolise the everlasting presence of the monarchical authority.” ref

“When used in a political or governmental sense, a throne typically exists in a civilization, nation, tribe, or other politically designated group that is organized or governed under a monarchical system. Throughout much of human history societies have been governed under monarchical systems, in the beginning as autocratic systems and later evolved in most cases as constitutional monarchies within liberal democratic systems, resulting in a wide variety of thrones that have been used by given heads of state. These have ranged from stools in places such as in Africa to ornate chairs and bench-like designs in Europe and Asia, respectively.” ref

“Often, but not always, a throne is tied to a philosophical or religious ideology held by the nation or people in question, which serves a dual role in unifying the people under the reigning monarch and connecting the monarch upon the throne to his or her predecessors, who sat upon the throne previously. Accordingly, many thrones are typically held to have been constructed or fabricated out of rare or hard to find materials that may be valuable or important to the land in question. Depending on the size of the throne in question it may be large and ornately designed as an emplaced instrument of a nation’s power, or it may be a symbolic chair with little or no precious materials incorporated into the design. When used in a religious sense, throne can refer to one of two distinct uses. Many of these thrones—such as China’s Dragon Throne—survive today as historic examples of nation’s previous government.” ref

The first use derives from the practice in churches of having a bishop or higher-ranking religious official (archbishoppope, etc.) sit on a special chair which in church referred to by written sources as a “throne”, or “cathedra” (Latin for ‘chair’) and is intended to allow such high-ranking religious officials a place to sit in their place of worship. The other use for throne refers to a belief among many of the world’s monotheistic and polytheistic religions that the deity or deities that they worship are seated on a throne. Such beliefs go back to ancient times, and can be seen in surviving artwork and texts which discuss the idea of ancient gods (such as the Twelve Olympians) seated on thrones. In the major Abrahamic religions of JudaismChristianity, and Islam, the Throne of God is attested to in religious scriptures and teachings, although the origin, nature, and idea of the Throne of God in these religions differs according to the given religious ideology practiced.” ref

“Thrones were found throughout the canon of ancient furniture. The depiction of monarchs and deities as seated on chairs is a common topos in the iconography of the Ancient Near East. The word throne itself is from Greek θρόνος (thronos), “seat, chair”, in origin a derivation from the PIE root *dher- “to support” (also in dharma “post, sacrificial pole”). Early Greek Διὸς θρόνους (Dios thronous) was a term for the “support of the heavens”, i.e. the axis mundi, which term when Zeus became an anthropomorphic god was imagined as the “seat of Zeus”. In Ancient Greek, a “thronos” was a specific but ordinary type of chair with a footstool, a high status object but not necessarily with any connotations of power. The Achaeans (according to Homer) were known to place additional, empty thrones in the royal palaces and temples so that the gods could be seated when they wished to be. The most famous of these thrones was the throne of Apollo in Amyclae.” ref

“The word “throne” in English translations of the Bible renders Hebrew כסא kissē’. The pharaoh of the Exodus is described as sitting on a throne (Exodus 11:5, 12:29), but mostly the term refers to the throne of the kingdom of Israel, often called the “throne of David” or “throne of Solomon“. The literal throne of Solomon is described in 1 Kings 10:18–20: “Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with the best gold.. The throne had six steps, and the top of the throne was round behind: and there were stays on either side on the place of the seat, and two lions stood beside the stays. And twelve lions stood there on the one side and on the other upon the six steps: there was not the like made in any kingdom.” In the Book of Esther (5:3), the same word refers to the throne of the king of Persia.” ref

“The God of Israel himself is frequently described as sitting on a throne, referred to outside of the Bible as the Throne of God, in the Psalms, and in a vision Isaiah (6:1), and notably in Isaiah 66:1, YHWH says of himself “The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool” (this verse is alluded to by Matthew 5:34-35). In the Old TestamentBook of Kings I explicits the throne of Solomon: “Then the king made a great throne covered with ivory and overlaid with fine gold. The throne had six steps, and its back had a rounded top. On both sides of the seat were armrests, with a lion standing beside each of them. Twelve lions stood on the six steps, one at either end of each step” in Chapter 10 18-20. Jesus promised his apostles that they would sit upon “twelve thrones”, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:28). John‘s Revelation states: “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away” (Revelation 20:11).” ref

“In the Indian subcontinent, the traditional Sanskrit name for the throne was siṃhāsana (lit., seat of a lion). In the Mughal times the throne was called Shāhī takht ([ˈʃaːhiː ˈtəxt]). The term gadi or gaddi (Hindustani pronunciation: [ˈɡəd̪ːi], also called rājgaddī) referred to a seat with a cushion used as a throne by Indian princes. That term was usually used for the throne of a Hindu princely state‘s ruler, while among Muslim princes or Nawabs, save exceptions such as the Travancore State royal family, the term musnad ([ˈməsnəd]), also spelt as musnud, was more common, even though both seats were similar.” ref

“The Dragon Throne is the term used to identify the throne of the emperor of China. As the dragon was the emblem of divine imperial power, the throne of the emperor, who was considered a living god, was known as the Dragon Throne. The throne of the emperors of Vietnam are often referred to as ngai vàng (“golden throne”) or ngôi báu (大寳/寶座) literally “great precious” (seat/position). The throne is always adorned with the pattern and motif of the Vietnamese dragon, which is the exclusive and privileged symbol of the Vietnamese emperors. In Vietnamese folk religion, the gods, deities and ancestral spirits are believed to seat figuratively on thrones at places of worship. Therefore, on Vietnamese altars, there are various types of liturgical “throne” often decorated with red paint and golden gilding.” ref

Chatting with John Hoopes

“The oldest known “shaman seats” are small ceramic models from the Valdivia culture in Ecuador that date to about 2500 BCE. Seats and their relations are such a rich source of information. I could do a whole book on just seats, stools, duhos, and thrones. Donald Lathrap thought this modeled spout was an early representation (ca. 2500 BCE) of a shaman wearing a jaguar pelt. You’ll be interested to know that I’m returning to more scholarship on shamanism.” – John Hoopes @KUHoopes (Anthropologist with broad training in the archaeology of pre-Hispanic indigenous cultures in Latin America)

My response, Wonderful, I look forward to learning more from you. I support you and all you do. I want to understand what is actually true. And I think it is an interesting topic as what seems like the emergence of male god/elite: socio-political or religious all are sitting around 7,000 years ago in the Balkins.

“Archaeology is all about getting as close as we can to the best possible approximation of the truth without actually declaring that we know it. We are always tinkering and fine-tuning as well as trying to answer more questions. As technical as those books from Dumbarton Oaks are, they do have art as the central focus. I’ve always felt that art is a more successful path to truth than science. It’s nice to combine the two. On the jadeite and gold objects: for the people who made and used them, they were tools for creating both magic and power. And together, the books help tell the story of peoples who have been largely forgotten but deserve to be remembered.” – John Hoopes @KUHoopes (Anthropologist with broad training in the archaeology of pre-Hispanic indigenous cultures in Latin America)

“The Isthmo-Colombian Area was the first part of the mainland to be colonized by the Spanish. As a consequence, its peoples were the first—after the Taíno of the Antilles—to suffer genocide and see their ancient cultures destroyed. However, because they did not build pyramids, they tend to be overlooked, even by archaeologists. The first Spanish colony on the mainland was in Panama in 1500. Cortes didn’t arrive in Mexico until 1519 and Pizarro didn’t reach Peru until 1532. The first place Columbus’s men set foot on the mainland was in southern Costa Rica.” – John Hoopes @KUHoopes (Anthropologist with broad training in the archaeology of pre-Hispanic indigenous cultures in Latin America)

Conquest, Imagination, and the Dawn of the Modern Age: The Gold of Panama In Its Historical Context, this article helps put things in context. A lot of what shapes our world right now has roots in what happened back then. The anticipation of vast quantities of stolen gold from the Americas is the story that Charles V took to his bankers in order to get massive loans to underwrite the Spanish conquest. Ultimately, much less loot was found than was expected. Charles V ultimately stepped down because of his massive debts.” – John Hoopes @KUHoopes (Anthropologist with broad training in the archaeology of pre-Hispanic indigenous cultures in Latin America)

However, in the meantime, these loans allowed Charles V to equip armies that successfully prevented Muslim armies from invading Central Europe. Ironically, the promise of gold from the Americas is what kept Europe Christian. And, of course, allowed the spread of Christianity in the Americas. It was the beginning of massive international debt and its consequences. The engine of capitalism. The beginning of the Modern Age. The notion of progress is highly overrated. For me, progress is discovering, recovering, and learning from what was destroyed long ago.” – John Hoopes @KUHoopes (Anthropologist with broad training in the archaeology of pre-Hispanic indigenous cultures in Latin America)

The intimate relationship between European conquests of the Americas and the Protestant Reformation is worth exploring. Martin Luther was doing his thing as Cortes and his men were dismantling the Aztec empire. Jean Cauvin (John Calvin) was doing his thing as the Pizarros and their thugs were destroying the Inca empire. These big events of long ago shaped the world we have now.” – John Hoopes @KUHoopes (Anthropologist with broad training in the archaeology of pre-Hispanic indigenous cultures in Latin America)

My response, You have a lot to teach. I think you are great.

Yes, and teachers gonna teach. Thanks. I do what I can but without getting all commercial about it. I get zero royalties from those books and don’t have anything to sell. In our capitalist society, that confuses people about the issue of value.” – John Hoopes @KUHoopes (Anthropologist with broad training in the archaeology of pre-Hispanic indigenous cultures in Latin America)

My response, I like how open you are to teaching for free. I do the same. I do plan on finishing writing my book, The Tree of Lies and its Hidden Roots: exposing the evolution of religion and removing the rationale of faith.” I have been working on it for years. I will make something on it but will not try that hard to push it all the time. Rather, I will do a little promoting, and then I plan on transitioning to making my own Jewelry and doing that commercially. But still will do most things for free as I want to make my stuff available for anyone and money is not stopping them.

The compensation that academic archaeologists get comes in the form of our salaries. In my case, that’s from a state university. So, public funds pay for my labor. I’m grateful for that and try to give back what I can.” – John Hoopes @KUHoopes (Anthropologist with broad training in the archaeology of pre-Hispanic indigenous cultures in Latin America

My response, I am happy John, that public funds, pay for your labor as you are working on understanding humanity, from the past.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

People don’t commonly teach religious history, even that of their own claimed religion. No, rather they teach a limited “pro their religion” history of their religion from a religious perspective favorable to the religion of choice. 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Do you truly think “Religious Belief” is only a matter of some personal choice?

Do you not see how coercive one’s world of choice is limited to the obvious hereditary belief, in most religious choices available to the child of religious parents or caregivers? Religion is more commonly like a family, culture, society, etc. available belief that limits the belief choices of the child and that is when “Religious Belief” is not only a matter of some personal choice and when it becomes hereditary faith, not because of the quality of its alleged facts or proposed truths but because everyone else important to the child believes similarly so they do as well simply mimicking authority beliefs handed to them. Because children are raised in religion rather than being presented all possible choices but rather one limited dogmatic brand of “Religious Belief” where children only have a choice of following the belief as instructed, and then personally claim the faith hereditary belief seen in the confirming to the belief they have held themselves all their lives. This is obvious in statements asked and answered by children claiming a faith they barely understand but they do understand that their family believes “this or that” faith, so they feel obligated to believe it too. While I do agree that “Religious Belief” should only be a matter of some personal choice, it rarely is… End Hereditary Religion!

Opposition to Imposed Hereditary Religion

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

refrefrefref 

Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey 

“How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

We are like believing machines we vacuum up ideas, like Velcro sticks to almost everything. We accumulate beliefs that we allow to negatively influence our lives, often without realizing it. Our willingness must be to alter skewed beliefs that impend our balance or reason, which allows us to achieve new positive thinking and accurate outcomes.

My thoughts on Religion Evolution with external links for more info:

“Religion is an Evolved Product” and Yes, Religion is Like Fear Given Wings…

Atheists talk about gods and religions for the same reason doctors talk about cancer, they are looking for a cure, or a firefighter talks about fires because they burn people and they care to stop them. We atheists too often feel a need to help the victims of mental slavery, held in the bondage that is the false beliefs of gods and the conspiracy theories of reality found in religions.

“Understanding Religion Evolution: Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, Paganism & Progressed organized religion”

Understanding Religion Evolution:

“An Archaeological/Anthropological Understanding of Religion Evolution”

It seems ancient peoples had to survived amazing threats in a “dangerous universe (by superstition perceived as good and evil),” and human “immorality or imperfection of the soul” which was thought to affect the still living, leading to ancestor worship. This ancestor worship presumably led to the belief in supernatural beings, and then some of these were turned into the belief in gods. This feeble myth called gods were just a human conceived “made from nothing into something over and over, changing, again and again, taking on more as they evolve, all the while they are thought to be special,” but it is just supernatural animistic spirit-belief perceived as sacred.

 

Quick Evolution of Religion?

Pre-Animism (at least 300,000 years ago) pre-religion is a beginning that evolves into later Animism. So, Religion as we think of it, to me, all starts in a general way with Animism (Africa: 100,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in supernatural powers/spirits), then this is physically expressed in or with Totemism (Europe: 50,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in mythical relationship with powers/spirits through a totem item), which then enlists a full-time specific person to do this worship and believed interacting Shamanism (Siberia/Russia: 30,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in access and influence with spirits through ritual), and then there is the further employment of myths and gods added to all the above giving you Paganism (Turkey: 12,000 years ago) (often a lot more nature-based than most current top world religions, thus hinting to their close link to more ancient religious thinking it stems from). My hypothesis is expressed with an explanation of the building of a theatrical house (modern religions development). Progressed organized religion (Egypt: 5,000 years ago)  with CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago).

Historically, in large city-state societies (such as Egypt or Iraq) starting around 5,000 years ago culminated to make religion something kind of new, a sociocultural-governmental-religious monarchy, where all or at least many of the people of such large city-state societies seem familiar with and committed to the existence of “religion” as the integrated life identity package of control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine, but this juggernaut integrated religion identity package of Dogmatic-Propaganda certainly did not exist or if developed to an extent it was highly limited in most smaller prehistoric societies as they seem to lack most of the strong control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine (magical beliefs could be at times be added or removed). Many people just want to see developed religious dynamics everywhere even if it is not. Instead, all that is found is largely fragments until the domestication of religion.

Religions, as we think of them today, are a new fad, even if they go back to around 6,000 years in the timeline of human existence, this amounts to almost nothing when seen in the long slow evolution of religion at least around 70,000 years ago with one of the oldest ritual worship. Stone Snake of South Africa: “first human worship” 70,000 years ago. This message of how religion and gods among them are clearly a man-made thing that was developed slowly as it was invented and then implemented peace by peace discrediting them all. Which seems to be a simple point some are just not grasping how devastating to any claims of truth when we can see the lie clearly in the archeological sites.

I wish people fought as hard for the actual values as they fight for the group/clan names political or otherwise they think support values. Every amount spent on war is theft to children in need of food or the homeless kept from shelter.

Here are several of my blog posts on history: