12,400 – 11,700 Years Ago – Kortik Tepe (Turkey) Pre/early-Agriculture Cultic Ritualism

12,400 – 11,700 Years Ago – Kortik Tepe (Turkey) found mound structures, tombs and grave goods as well as ritual art, demonstrating examples of the symbolic bee carved stone ritual objects possibly represents a mythic creature(s). Ritualistic behavior is also found on the bones of ten individuals who exhibit cut marks that seem to indicate deflating along with application of plaster and paint as part of the burial customs has been interpreted by some as corpse purification possibly to help the desist pass to the afterlife. Back to animal veneration, the specific bee idol motif appears early at Hallan Cemi, in southeastern Turkey. Each phase at Kortik Tepe which is also in southeastern Turkey, includes common religio-cultural features particularly true with the burial rites and grave goods.

Similar structures are known at Hallan Çemi, Demirköy in northwest Turkey and the earliest layers of Çayonu in southeastern Turkey. Kortik Tepe is similar to Demirköy and other sites along the Batman River, which is a major tributary of the Tigris River, in southeast Turkey. Kortik Tepe demonstrated changing mortuary practices as time progressed, going from barring people outside the village to inside the village or structures, showing difference but still holding a shared cultural transfer. Even more interesting is how Hallan Cemi, burials of the dead are not found in the site at all, so perhaps a they used a cemetery nearby, which is what happened with Zawi Chemi in northern Iraq, who used a cemetery nearby with 28 burials, 26 of which were associated with a stone platform and existed contemporary Levantine Natufian sites. The Zawi Chemi site had evidence of far reaching trade connections exhibited in obsidian that was found there but comes from the Lake Van region of southeastern Turkey.

Similarly, the flint and obsidian tools found at Kortik Tepe connecting its culture to contemporary settlements such as Hallan Çemi, Demirköy and Çayönü in the region and in some ways, its seeming religious themes with contemporaries among other Near East cultures and is one of the earliest manifestations of settled life but had obsidian likely from eastern Turkey, already points to the presence of trade in the region. Demirkoy which had way less obsidian that at Hallan Cemi and held less ritualistic significance in general having only two small canid burials and while the human burials maybe found in the Demirkoy site, it held only an occasional artifact and no grave goods. As the Kortik Tepe site progressed the new onsite primary burial continues but started to contain valuable grave goods, often including numerous elaborately decorated stone bowls and multiple strands of stone beads all of which were buried with the dead. (26) Ritual may take many forms such as intoxication which does produce an altered state. Along this line of thinking there is the two stone vessels at Kortik Tepe seems to demonstrate alcohol production similar the finding of six large trough-shaped stone vessels hint at fermenting of grain from Gobekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey.

Turkey interestingly enough is home to both wild wheat and the first cultivated wheat 11,000 years ago originating from the Karacadag mountains in southeast Turkey, not too far from several archeological sites in Turkey with wheat, Cafer Hoyuk around 9600 to 8,200 years ago, Cayonu around 9,500 to 8,700 years ago, and Nevali Cori around 9,200 years ago. The Karacadag mountains with the earliest domestication of grain is near to Göbekli Tepe, possibly linking alcohol fermentation, religion and wheat domestication as use and consumption may have been involved in cultic/shamanistic feast celebrations.

It seems wild wheat was still gathered but not yet cultivated at Hallan Cemi and Demirkoy and Gobekli Tepe. Wheat, which we may currently take for granted was once highly sacralized even somewhat supernaturally deified. Though odd to present thinkers such cultic/shamanistic connection to wheat seems to have held some kind of sacred or ritualistic significance or was used (possibly fermented) practices in how deities related to fertility usually involve wheat like Tammuz, Kybele, Kubaba, Ceres, and Demeter. Tammuz (Turkish “Temmuz”) a Babylonian deity derived from Dumuzid (Sumerian: Zi(d), “faithful, true”) is similar to central Turkey’s people the Hittites whose word for wheat was “Ziz” with cultural connections to a current local Turkish name of wheat, siyez first utilized around 10,000 years ago.

Moreover, from Catal Hoyuk and Cayonu in Turkey we can also trace the early stages of farming and female representations like that at Hacilar may possibly connect to some of the earliest traces of a goddess fertility cult. Catal Hoyuk seems to demonstrate the connected worship of a sacred females maybe a kind of spirit or cultic ancestor or goddess, maybe a mother or fertility figure along with possible sacred bulls. It is thought that possibly the Goddess Kybele originates around the 9000 years ago, which is around the time of the settlement at Hacilar in in southwestern Turkey, where ritual animal shaped vessels can be found dating to at least around 8,600 years ago and almost every house held what seemingly could be goddess figurines.

One such figure reclines dating to as old as 8,000 years ago holds a child and has traces of black paint on her hair and eyes. An innovation around 7,500 years ago seems to have occurred at Hacilar involving the use of obsidian inlay for eyes and in one case for the navel. Similarly, animal vessels (possibly of a deity) continue to be made but start to have images of a seated and dressed female which could reference a goddess and at the same time figurines of animals appear when before they were rare. Further linking goddesses to grain is where some were found which was buried in grain bins such as wheat in Catal Hoyuk.

References 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

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

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 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 where 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 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, Slavic tribes. However, 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.

* “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) AndGobekli Tepe: “first human made temple” as well as Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city” are both evidence of some kind of early paganism. 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 which 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 which 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 Eneolithic, Bronze, Iron, Antiquity 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 Grave, Pit Grave, Scythian, Sarmatian, Hunnish and Kuman–Kipchak. Kurgan barrows were characteristic of Bronze Age peoples, and have been found from the Altay Mountains to the Caucasus, Ukraine, Romania, 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 yea5rs 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 BC, and Bronze Age until the 1st millennium BC, display continuity of the archaic forming 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 “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 I believe possibly an approximately 12,000-year-old belief system.

12,400 – 11,700 Years Ago – Kortik Tepe (Turkey) Pre/early-Agriculture Cultic Ritualism

The Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries Shows in the prehistory series:

Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):

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