Paganism, Folk religion, & Ethnic/indigenous religion

by | May 24, 2017 | Blog

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Low Gods “Earth” or Tutelary deity and High Gods “Sky” or Supreme deity

“An Earth goddess is a deification of the Earth. Earth goddesses are often associated with the “chthonic” deities of the underworld. Ki and Ninhursag are Mesopotamian earth goddesses. In Greek mythology, the Earth is personified as Gaia, corresponding to Roman Terra, Indic Prithvi/Bhūmi, etc. traced to an “Earth Mother” complementary to the “Sky Father” in Proto-Indo-European religion. Egyptian mythology exceptionally has a sky goddess and an Earth god.” ref

“A mother goddess is a goddess who represents or is a personification of nature, motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction or who embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother. In some religious traditions or movements, Heavenly Mother (also referred to as Mother in Heaven or Sky Mother) is the wife or feminine counterpart of the Sky father or God the Father.” ref

“Any masculine sky god is often also king of the gods, taking the position of patriarch within a pantheon. Such king gods are collectively categorized as “sky father” deities, with a polarity between sky and earth often being expressed by pairing a “sky father” god with an “earth mother” goddess (pairings of a sky mother with an earth father are less frequent). A main sky goddess is often the queen of the gods and may be an air/sky goddess in her own right, though she usually has other functions as well with “sky” not being her main. In antiquity, several sky goddesses in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Near East were called Queen of Heaven. Neopagans often apply it with impunity to sky goddesses from other regions who were never associated with the term historically. The sky often has important religious significance. Many religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, have deities associated with the sky.” ref

“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

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) in Korean shamanism, jangseung 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 Seonangdang. In 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 (Kawi, Sundanese, Javanese, 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 mythology, Tiki 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

Mesopotamian Tutelary Deities can be seen as ones related to City-States 

“Historical city-states included Sumerian cities such as Uruk and Ur; Ancient Egyptian city-states, such as Thebes and Memphis; the Phoenician cities (such as Tyre and Sidon); the five Philistine city-states; the Berber city-states of the Garamantes; the city-states of ancient Greece (the poleis such as Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth); the Roman Republic (which grew from a city-state into a vast empire); the Italian city-states from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, such as Florence, Siena, Ferrara, Milan (which as they grew in power began to dominate neighboring cities) and Genoa and Venice, which became powerful thalassocracies; the Mayan and other cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (including cities such as Chichen Itza, Tikal, Copán and Monte Albán); the central Asian cities along the Silk Road; the city-states of the Swahili coast; Ragusa; states of the medieval Russian lands such as Novgorod and Pskov; and many others.” ref

“The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BCE; also known as Protoliterate period) of Mesopotamia, named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and the Sumerian civilization. City-States like Uruk and others had a patron tutelary City Deity along with a Priest-King.” ref

“Chinese folk religion, both past, and present, includes myriad tutelary deities. Exceptional individuals, highly cultivated sages, and prominent ancestors can be deified and honored after death. Lord Guan is the patron of military personnel and police, while Mazu is the patron of fishermen and sailors. Such as Tu Di Gong (Earth Deity) is the tutelary deity of a locality, and each individual locality has its own Earth Deity and Cheng Huang Gong (City God) is the guardian deity of an individual city, worshipped by local officials and locals since imperial times.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Hinduism, personal tutelary deities are known as ishta-devata, while family tutelary deities are known as Kuladevata. Gramadevata are guardian deities of villages. Devas can also be seen as tutelary. Shiva is the patron of yogis and renunciants. City goddesses include: Mumbadevi (Mumbai), Sachchika (Osian); Kuladevis include: Ambika (Porwad), and Mahalakshmi. In NorthEast India Meitei mythology and religion (Sanamahism) of Manipur, there are various types of tutelary deities, among which Lam Lais are the most predominant ones. Tibetan Buddhism has Yidam as a tutelary deity. Dakini is the patron of those who seek knowledge.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) The Greeks also thought deities guarded specific places: for instance, Athena was the patron goddess of the city of Athens. Socrates spoke of hearing the voice of his personal spirit or daimonion:

You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me … . This sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician.” ref

“Tutelary deities who guard and preserve a place or a person are fundamental to ancient Roman religion. The tutelary deity of a man was his Genius, that of a woman her Juno. In the Imperial era, the Genius of the Emperor was a focus of Imperial cult. An emperor might also adopt a major deity as his personal patron or tutelary, as Augustus did Apollo. Precedents for claiming the personal protection of a deity were established in the Republican era, when for instance the Roman dictator Sulla advertised the goddess Victory as his tutelary by holding public games (ludi) in her honor.” ref

“Each town or city had one or more tutelary deities, whose protection was considered particularly vital in time of war and siege. Rome itself was protected by a goddess whose name was to be kept ritually secret on pain of death (for a supposed case, see Quintus Valerius Soranus). The Capitoline Triad of Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva were also tutelaries of Rome. The Italic towns had their own tutelary deities. Juno often had this function, as at the Latin town of Lanuvium and the Etruscan city of Veii, and was often housed in an especially grand temple on the arx (citadel) or other prominent or central location. The tutelary deity of Praeneste was Fortuna, whose oracle was renowned.” ref

“The Roman ritual of evocatio was premised on the belief that a town could be made vulnerable to military defeat if the power of its tutelary deity were diverted outside the city, perhaps by the offer of superior cult at Rome. The depiction of some goddesses such as the Magna Mater (Great Mother, or Cybele) as “tower-crowned” represents their capacity to preserve the city. A town in the provinces might adopt a deity from within the Roman religious sphere to serve as its guardian, or syncretize its own tutelary with such; for instance, a community within the civitas of the Remi in Gaul adopted Apollo as its tutelary, and at the capital of the Remi (present-day Rheims), the tutelary was Mars Camulus.” ref 

Household deity (a kind of or related to a Tutelary deity)

“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 paganism 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, such as the ancient Greek Hestia.” ref

“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. These survived Christianisation as fairy-like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish Brownie and Slavic Domovoy.” ref

“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

“In many religions, both ancient and modern, a god would preside over the home. Certain species, or types, of household deities, existed. An example of this was the Roman Lares. Many European cultures retained house spirits into the modern period. Some examples of these include:

“Although the cosmic status of household deities was not as lofty as that of the Twelve Olympians or the Aesir, they were also jealous of their dignity and also had to be appeased with shrines and offerings, however humble. Because of their immediacy they had arguably more influence on the day-to-day affairs of men than the remote gods did. Vestiges of their worship persisted long after Christianity and other major religions extirpated nearly every trace of the major pagan pantheons. Elements of the practice can be seen even today, with Christian accretions, where statues to various saints (such as St. Francis) protect gardens and grottos. Even the gargoyles found on older churches, could be viewed as guardians partitioning a sacred space.” ref

“For centuries, Christianity fought a mop-up war against these lingering minor pagan deities, but they proved tenacious. For example, Martin Luther‘s Tischreden have numerous – quite serious – references to dealing with kobolds. Eventually, rationalism and the Industrial Revolution threatened to erase most of these minor deities, until the advent of romantic nationalism rehabilitated them and embellished them into objects of literary curiosity in the 19th century. Since the 20th century this literature has been mined for characters for role-playing games, video games, and other fantasy personae, not infrequently invested with invented traits and hierarchies somewhat different from their mythological and folkloric roots.” ref

“In contradistinction to both Herbert Spencer and Edward Burnett Tylor, who defended theories of animistic origins of ancestor worship, Émile Durkheim saw its origin in totemism. In reality, this distinction is somewhat academic, since totemism may be regarded as a particularized manifestation of animism, and something of a synthesis of the two positions was attempted by Sigmund Freud. In Freud’s Totem and Taboo, both totem and taboo are outward expressions or manifestations of the same psychological tendency, a concept which is complementary to, or which rather reconciles, the apparent conflict. Freud preferred to emphasize the psychoanalytic implications of the reification of metaphysical forces, but with particular emphasis on its familial nature. This emphasis underscores, rather than weakens, the ancestral component.” ref

“William Edward Hearn, a noted classicist, and jurist, traced the origin of domestic deities from the earliest stages as an expression of animism, a belief system thought to have existed also in the neolithic, and the forerunner of Indo-European religion. In his analysis of the Indo-European household, in Chapter II “The House Spirit”, Section 1, he states:

The belief which guided the conduct of our forefathers was … the spirit rule of dead ancestors.” ref

“In Section 2 he proceeds to elaborate:

It is thus certain that the worship of deceased ancestors is a vera causa, and not a mere hypothesis. …

In the other European nations, the Slavs, the Teutons, and the Kelts, the House Spirit appears with no less distinctness. … [T]he existence of that worship does not admit of doubt. … The House Spirits had a multitude of other names which it is needless here to enumerate, but all of which are more or less expressive of their friendly relations with man. … In [England] … [h]e is the Brownie. … In Scotland this same Brownie is well known. He is usually described as attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house, and performing similar household tasks. His favorite gratification was milk and honey.” ref

My best Video talking about My thoughts on “Religion and Deity Evolution” with Questions and Answers

Paganism? Siberian Shamanism migrated to Turkey and then emerged as Paganism because of Agriculture.

Paganism 12,000-4,000 years old

12,000-7,000 years old: related to (Pre-Capitalism)

7,000-5,000 years old: related to (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!

5,000 years old: related to (Kings and the Rise of the State)

4,000 years old: related to (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)

Paganism, Folk religion, & Ethnic/indigenous religion
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.
 
Paganism: broadly defined as anyone involved in any religion other than one of the main world religions.
 
Folk religion: broadly defined as anyone involved in any religion deemed distinct from the official doctrines and practices of organized religion.
 
Ethnic/indigenous religion: broadly defined as anyone involved in any religion deemed “primal religion,” “primitive religion,” and “tribal religion” so it is overlapping with “folk religion” but particular in relationship to an ethnic group, thus speak of Chinese and African indigenous religions, but can also refer to popular institutionalized religions, such as Hinduism of the Indians, Judaism of the Jews, Shenism of the Han Chinese, and Shinto of the Japanese.
 
Finally, paganism also overlaps with “folk religion” as well as “Ethnic/indigenous religion” and can express a worldview that is animistic, totemistic, shamanistic, pantheistic, deistic, deityistic, monotheistic, duotheistic, polytheistic, or monotheistic persuasions. Paganism originally meant “rustic, rural, country dweller ” a traditional class of herders/farmers/laborers or “nonparticipant, civilian” later referring to anyone involved in any religion other than one of the main world religions, specifically non-christian. Thus, paganism and folk religion are relatively the same things to me, just different words meaning relatively the same things so I just use the term paganism.

Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, and Paganism

Here are the religious terms defined:
 
Animism: the belief that natural objects and phenomena and the universe itself possess souls and consciousness or the belief in spiritual beings or agencies.
 
Bitheism: a belief in two gods (brothers/ father-son) or two goddesses (sisters/ mother-daughter).
 
Deism: god created the universe and started it functioning, but is no longer actively involved in it.
 
Deityism: is acceptance or belief in the existence or possible existence of deities or supernatural nonhuman beings. This can entail belief in existence of a god, gods, or supernatural beings without personal worship of them or even thinking it or they do not deserve honor or following, such as seen in some forms of buddhism.
 
Ditheism: the belief or doctrine that there are two gods of equal power, possibly two antagonistic deities one a force for good and the other a force for evil.
 
Duotheism: belief in the existence of precisely two deities usually framed as a god and goddess possibly a divine couple.
 
Henotheism: belief in a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities or a main deity accompanied by many subservient lesser deities.
 
Herotheism: is a belief system which posits worship of a mortal human into deified heroes (a type of ancestor worship or early god creation often from a high regarded or high status person like a king made god.
 
Monotheism: belief in a single, usually male, deity.
 
Pantheism: is a belief which holds that the divine is synonymous with the universe, but it exists beyond the universe as well or god not a being but is the inner spiritual essence of everything in the universe.
 
Polytheism: belief in a pantheon of many deities and is usually male and female.
 
Tritheism: a belief in three gods such as a christian heresy holding that the Trinity consists of three distinct gods.
 
Zemiism: spirits or supernatural beings often dwelling in objects.
 
Zoomorphism: the attribution of animal form or nature to a deity.
References: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

 “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.

“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.er of positive education.

The Evolution of Religion and Removing the Rationale of Faith

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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:

I am not an academic. I am a revolutionary that teaches in public, in places like social media, and in the streets. I am not a leader by some title given but from my commanding leadership style of simply to start teaching everywhere to everyone, all manner of positive education. 

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

To me, Animism starts in Southern Africa, then to West Europe, and becomes Totemism. Another split goes near the Russia and Siberia border becoming Shamanism, which heads into Central Europe meeting up with Totemism, which also had moved there, mixing the two which then heads to Lake Baikal in Siberia. From there this Shamanism-Totemism heads to Turkey where it becomes Paganism.

My thoughts on the Evolution of Religion: from Animism to Paganism

Philosophy to the Rescue: explaining Reason, Logic, Evidence, Truth, Certainty, Reality, and Science

Talking about “Religion and Deity Evolution” on Twitter (X) Questions and Answers

You can’t change people, by reason and evidence. WRONG, I do it all the time.

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

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Not all “Religions” or “Religious Persuasions” have a god(s) but

All can be said to believe in some imaginary beings or imaginary things like spirits, afterlives, etc.

Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, and Paganism

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref

“When researchers completed the final analysis of the Human Genome Project in April 2003, they confirmed that the 3 billion base pairs of genetic letters in humans were 99.9 percent identical in every person. It also meant that individuals are, on average, 0.1 percent different genetically from every other person on the planet. And in that 0.1 percent lies the mystery of why some people are more susceptible to a particular illness or more likely to be healthy than their neighbor – or even another family member.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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This is my thoughts/speculations on the origins of Totemism

Totemism as seen in Europe: 50,000 years ago, mainly the Aurignacian culture

  • Pre-Aurignacian “Châtelperronian” (Western Europe, mainly Spain and France, possible transitional/cultural diffusion between Neanderthals and humans around 50,000-40,000 years ago)
  • Archaic–Aurignacian/Proto-Aurignacian (Europe around 46,000-35,000) 
  • Aurignacian “classical/early to late” (Europe and other areas around 38,000 – 26,000 years ago)

“In the realm of culture, the archeological evidence also supports a Neandertal contribution to Europe’s earliest modern human societies, which feature personal ornaments completely unknown before immigration and are characteristic of such Neandertal-associated archeological entities as the Chatelperronian and the Uluzzian.” – (PDF) Neandertals and Moderns Mixed, and It Matters: Link

Totemism as seen in Europe: 50,000 years ago, mainly the Aurignacian culture

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“Haplogroup U is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup (mtDNA). The clade arose from haplogroup R, likely during the early Upper Paleolithic. Its various subclades (labeled U1–U9, diverging over the course of the Upper Paleolithic) are found widely distributed across Northern and Eastern Europe, Central, Western, and South Asia, as well as North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Canary Islands. Basal U was found in the 26,000-year-old remains of Ancient North Eurasian, Mal’ta boy (MA1). The age of U5 is estimated at between 25,000 and 35,000 years old, roughly corresponding to the Gravettian culture. and is the DNA associated with the seeming first Gravettian shaman burial seen in the Pavlovian culture, around Dolní Věstonice in southern Moravia. One of the Dolní Věstonice burials, located near the huts, revealed a human female skeleton aged to 40+ years old, ritualistically placed beneath a pair of mammoth scapulae, one leaning against the other. Surprisingly, the left side of the skull was disfigured in the same manner as the aforementioned carved ivory figure, indicating that the figure was an intentional depiction of this specific individual. The bones and the earth surrounding the body contained traces of red ocher, a flint spearhead had been placed near the skull, and one hand held the body of a fox. This evidence suggests that this was the burial site of a shaman. This is the oldest site not only of ceramic figurines and artistic portraiture, but also of evidence of female shamans.” ref, ref, ref, ref

“Haplogroup U5 is one of the most ancient mtDNA lineages to have existed in Central Europe prior to its dispersal into Northern Europe. This haplogroup is thought to have evolved in the western steppe region and then entered Europe around 30,000 to 55,000 years ago. It appears to have expanded into Europe before the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) over 20 thousand years ago, i.e., before the thick ice sheets covering most of northern continental Europe were in the final stages of dissipating away from the interior.” ref

“Approximately 11% of Europeans (10% of European-Americans) have some variant of haplogroup U5. U5 was the predominant mtDNA of mesolithic Western Hunter Gatherers (WHG). U5 has been found in human remains dating from the Mesolithic in England, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, France, and Spain. Neolithic skeletons (~7,000 years old) that were excavated from the Avellaner cave in Catalonia, northeastern Spain included a specimen carrying haplogroup U5. Haplogroup U5 and its subclades U5a and U5b today form the highest population concentrations in the far north, among Sami, Finns, and Estonians. However, it is spread widely at lower levels throughout Europe. This distribution, and the age of the haplogroup, indicate individuals belonging to this clade were part of the initial expansion tracking the retreat of ice sheets from Europe around 10,000 years ago. The modern Basques and Cantabrians possess almost exclusively U5b lineages (U5b1f, U5b1c1, U5b2).” ref

6 Ice Age Humans (30,000 Years Ago)

“Abstract: Starting about 35,000 years ago, humans seem to have made a great leap forward culturally. The authors argue that this wasn’t because of genetic changes that caused the human brain to have increased capacity. It was because some groups culturally evolved the “social tools” that allowed them to maintain connections and share information over long distances. The groups with the most effective social tools managed to stay connected and to survive, and their descendants inherited this culture of connectedness. It’s likely that forming greater connectedness and more complex culture was necessary in order to survive the periods of high climate variability that were a feature of the last ice age.” ref

“Archaeologists usually describe two regional variants: the western Gravettian, known mainly from cave sites in France, Spain, and Britain, and the eastern Gravettian in Central Europe and Russia. The eastern Gravettians, which include the Pavlovian culture, were specialized mammoth hunters, whose remains are usually found not in caves but in open air sites. Gravettian culture thrived on their ability to hunt animals. They utilized a variety of tools and hunting strategies. Compared to theorized hunting techniques of Neanderthals and earlier human groups, Gravettian hunting culture appears much more mobile and complex. They lived in caves or semi-subterranean or rounded dwellings which were typically arranged in small “villages”. Gravettians are thought to have been innovative in the development of tools such as blunted-back knives, tanged arrowheads, and boomerangs. Other innovations include the use of woven nets and oil lamps made of stone. Blades and bladelets were used to make decorations and bone tools from animal remains.” ref

“Gravettian culture extends across a large geographic region, as far as Estremadura in Portugal. but is relatively homogeneous until about 27,000 years ago. They developed burial rites, which included simple, purpose-built offerings and/or personal ornaments owned by the deceased, placed within the grave or tomb. Surviving Gravettian art includes numerous cave paintings and small, portable Venus figurines made from clay or ivory, as well as jewelry objects. The fertility deities mostly date from the early period; there are over 100 known surviving examples. They conform to a very specific physical type, with large breasts, broad hips and prominent posteriors. The statuettes tend to lack facial details, and their limbs are often broken off. During the post glacial period, evidence of the culture begins to disappear from northern Europe but was continued in areas around the Mediterranean. The Mal’ta Culture (c. 24,000 years ago) in Siberia is often considered as belonging to the Gravettian, due to its similar characteristics, particularly its Venus figurines, but any hypothetical connection would have to be cultural and not genetic: a 2016 genomic study showed that the Mal’ta people have no genetic connections with the people of the European Gravettian culture (the Vestonice Cluster).” ref

“Fu et al. (2016) examined the remains of fourteen Gravettians. The eight males included three samples of Y-chromosomal haplogroup CT, one of I, one IJK, one BT, one C1a2, and one sample of F. Of the fourteen samples of mtDNA, there were thirteen samples of U and one sample of M. The majority of the sample of U belonged to the U5 and U2. Teschler et al. (2020) examined the remains of one adult male and two twin boys from a Gravettian site in Austria. All belonged to haplogroup Y-Haplogroup I. and all had the same mtDNA, U5. According to Scorrano et al. (2022), “the genome of an early European individual from Kostenki 14, dated to around 37,000 years ago, demonstrated that the ancestral European gene pool was already established by that time.” ref

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Here are Damien’s thoughts/speculations on where he believes 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.

“The Pavlovian is an Upper Paleolithic culture, a variant of the Gravettian, that existed in the region of Moravia, northern Austria, and southern Poland around 29,000–25,000 years ago. Its name is derived from the village of Pavlov, in the Pavlov Hills, next to Dolní Věstonice in southern Moravia. The culture used sophisticated stone age technology to survive in the tundra on the fringe of the ice sheets around the Last Glacial Maximum. Excavation has yielded flint implements, polished and drilled stone artifacts, bone spearheads, needles, digging tools, flutes, bone ornaments, drilled animal teeth, and seashells. Art or religious finds are bone carvings and figurines of humans and animals made of mammoth tusk, stone, and fired clay.” ref

“One of the burials, located near the huts, revealed a human female skeleton aged to 40+ years old, ritualistically placed beneath a pair of mammoth scapulae, one leaning against the other. Surprisingly, the left side of the skull was disfigured in the same manner as the aforementioned carved ivory figure, indicating that the figure was an intentional depiction of this specific individual. The bones and the earth surrounding the body contained traces of red ocher, a flint spearhead had been placed near the skull, and one hand held the body of a fox. This evidence suggests that this was the burial site of a shaman. This is the oldest site not only of ceramic figurines and artistic portraiture, but also of evidence of female shamans.” ref

“A burial of an approximately forty-year-old woman was found at Dolní Věstonice in an elaborate burial setting. Various items found with the woman have had a profound impact on the interpretation of the social hierarchy of the people at the site, as well as indicating an increased lifespan for these inhabitants. The remains were covered in red ochre, a compound known to have religious significance, indicating that this woman’s burial was ceremonial in nature. Also, the inclusion of a mammoth scapula and a fox are indicative of a high-status burial.” ref

“In the Upper Paleolithic, anatomically modern humans began living longer, often reaching middle age, by today’s standards. Rachel Caspari argues in “Human Origins: the Evolution of Grandparents,” that life expectancy increased during the Upper Paleolithic in Europe (Caspari 2011). She also describes why elderly people were highly influential in society. Grandparents assisted in childcare, perpetuated cultural transmission, and contributed to the increased complexity of stone tools (Caspari 2011). The woman found at Dolní Věstonice was old enough to have been a grandparent. Although human lifespans were increasing, elderly individuals in Upper Paleolithic societies were still relatively rare. Because of this, it is possible that the woman was attributed with great importance and wisdom, and revered because of her age. Because of her advanced age, it is also possible she had a decreased ability to care for herself, instead relying on her family group to care for her, which indicates strong social connections.” ref

“Furthermore, a female figurine was found at the site and is believed to be associated with the aged woman, because of remarkably similar facial characteristics. The woman was found to have deformities on the left side of her face. The special importance accorded with her burial, in addition to her facial deformity, makes it possible that she was a shaman in this time period, where it was “not uncommon that people with disabilities, either mental or physical, are thought to have unusual supernatural powers” (Pringle 2010).” ref

“In 1981, Patricia Rice studied a multitude of female clay figurines found at Dolní Věstonice, believed to represent fertility in this society. She challenged this assumption by analyzing all the figurines and found that, “it is womanhood, rather than motherhood that is symbolically recognized or honored” (Rice 1981: 402). This interpretation challenged the widely held assumption that all prehistoric female figurines were created to honor fertility. The fact is that we have no idea why these figurines proliferated nor of their purpose or usage.” ref

“Haplogroup U5 is estimated to be about 30,000 years old, and it is primarily found today in people with European ancestry. Both the current geographic distribution of U5 and testing of ancient human remains indicate that the ancestor of U5  expanded into Europe before 31,000 years ago. A 2013 study by Fu et al. found two U5 individuals at the Dolni Vestonice burial site in the Czech Republic that has been dated to 31,155 years ago.  A third person from the same burial was identified as haplogroup U8. The Dolni Vestonice samples have only two of the five mutations ( C16192T and C16270T) that are found in the present day U5 population. This indicates that the U5-(C16192T and C16270T) mtDNA sequence is ancestral to the present day U5 population that includes the additional three mutations T3197C, G9477A and T13617C.” ref

“Haplogroup U5 is thought to have evolved in the western steppe region and then entered Europe around 30,000 to 55,000 years ago. Results support previous hypotheses that haplogroup U5 mtDNAs expanded throughout Northern, Southern, and Central Europe with more recent expansions into Western Europe and Africa. The results further allow us to explain how U5 mtDNAs are now found with high frequency in Northern Europe, as well as delineate the origins of the specific U5 subhaplogroups found in that part of Europe.” ref 

“Haplogroup U5 is found throughout Europe with an average frequency ranging from 5% to 12% in most regions. U5a is most common in north-east Europe and U5b in northern Spain. Nearly half of all Sami and one fifth of Finnish maternal lineages belong to U5. Other high frequencies are observed among the Mordovians (16%), the Chuvash (14.5%) and the Tatars (10.5%) in the Volga-Ural region of Russia, the Estonians (13%), the Lithuanians (11.5%) and the Latvians in the Baltic, the Dargins (13.5%), Avars (13%) and the Chechens (10%) in the Northeast Caucasus, the Basques (12%), the Cantabrians (11%) and the Catalans (10%) in northern Spain, the Bretons (10.5%) in France, the Sardinians (10%) in Italy, the Slovaks (11%), the Croatians (10.5%), the Poles (10%), the Czechs (10%), the Ukrainians (10%) and the Slavic Russians (10%). Overall, U5 is generally found in population with high percentages of Y-haplogroups I1, I2, and R1a, three lineages already found in Mesolithic Europeans. The highest percentages are observed in populations associated predominantly with Y-haplogroup N1c1 (the Finns and the Sami), although N1c1 is originally an East Asian lineage that spread over Siberia and Northeast Europe and assimilated indigenous U5 maternal lineages.” ref

“The age of haplogroup U5 is uncertain at present. It could have arisen as recently as 35,000 years ago, or as early was 50,000 years ago. U5 appear to have been a major maternal lineage among the Paleolithic European hunter-gatherers, and even the dominant lineage during the European Mesolithic. In two papers published two months apart, Posth et al. 2016 and Fu et al. 2016 reported the results of over 70 complete human mitochondrial genomes ranging from 45,000 to 7,000 years ago. The oldest U5 samples all dated from the Gravettian culture (c. 32,000 to 22,000 years ago), while the older Aurignacian samples belonged to mt-haplogroups M, N, R*, and U2. Among the 16 Gravettian samples that yielded reliable results, six belonged to U5 – the others belonging mostly to U2, as well as isolated samples of M, U*, and U8c. Two Italian Epigravettian samples, one from the Paglicci Cave in Apulia (18,500 years ago), and another one from Villabruna in Veneto (14,000 years ago), belonged to U5b2b, as did two slightly more recent Epipaleolithic samples from the Rhône valley in France. U5b1 samples were found in Epipalaeolithic Germany, Switzerland (U5b1h in the Grotte du Bichon), and France. More 80% of the numerous Mesolithic European mtDNA tested to date belonged to various subclades of U5. Overall, it appears that U5 arrived in Europe with the Gravettian tool makers, and that it particularly prospered from the end of the glacial period (from 11,700 years ago) until the arrival of Neolithic farmers from the Near East (between 8,500 and 6,000 years ago).” ref

“Carriers of haplogroup U5 were part of the Gravettian culture, which experienced the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 26,000 to 19,000 years ago). During this particularly harsh period, Gravettian people would have retreated into refugia in southern Europe, from which they would have re-expanded to colonise the northern half of the continent during the Late Glacial and postglacial periods. For reasons that are yet unknown, haplogroup U5 seems to have resisted better to the LGM to other Paleolithic haplogroups like U*, U2 and U8. Mitochondrial DNA being essential for energy production, it could be that the mutations selected in early U5 subclades (U5a1, U5a2, U5b1, U5b2) conferred an advantage for survival during the coldest millennia of the LGM, which had for effect to prune less energy efficient mtDNA lineages.” ref

“It is likely that U5a and U5b lineages already existed prior to the LGM and they were geographically scattered to some extent around Europe before the growing ice sheet forced people into the refugia. Nonetheless, founder effects among the populations of each LGM refugium would have amplified the regional division between U5b and U5a. U5b would have been found at a much higher frequency in the Franco-Cantabrian region. We can deduce this from the fact that modern Western Europeans have considerably more U5b than U5a, but also because the modern Basques and Cantabrians possess almost exclusively U5b lineages. What’s more, all the Mesolithic U5 samples from Iberia whose subclade could be identified belonged to U5b.” ref

“Conversely, only U5a lineages have been found so far in Mesolithic Russia (U5a1) and Sweden (U5a1 and U5a2), which points at an eastern origin of this subclade. Mesolithic samples from Poland, Germany and Italy yielded both U5a and U5b subclades. German samples included U5a2a, U5a2c3, U5b2 and U5b2a2. The same observations are valid for the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods too, with U5a1 being found in Russia and Ukraine, U5b in France (Cardium Pottery and Megalithic), U5b2 in Portugal. U5b1b1 arose approximately 10,000 years ago, over two millennia after the end of the Last Glaciation, when the Neolithic Revolution was already under way in the Near East. Despite this relatively young age, U5b1b1 is found scattered across all Europe and well beyond its boundaries. The Saami, who live in the far European North and have 48% of U5 and 42% of V lineages, belong exclusively to the U5b1b1 subclade. Amazingly, the Berbers of Northwest Africa also possess that U5b1b1 subclade and haplogroup V.” ref

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.

Seeming Connections: Totem poles, Ceremonial poles, Spirit poles, Sacred poles, Deity poles, Deities with poles, Pole star, Axis Mundi, Sacred trees, World tree, Maypole, Sun Dance with poles, etc.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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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?

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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

“The belonging of these Caspian Mesolithic sites to the Trialetian has been questioned. Little is known about the end of the Trialetian. 6k BC has been proposed as the time on which the decline phase took place. From this date are the first evidence of the Jeitunian, an industry that has probably evolved from the Trialetian. Also from this date are the first pieces of evidence of Neolithic materials in the Belt cave.” ref

“In the southwest corner of the Trialetian region it has been proposed that this culture evolved towards a local version of the PPNB around 7,000 BCE, in sites as Cafer Höyük. Kozłowski suggests that the Trialetian does not seem to have continuation in the Neolithic of Georgia (as for example in Paluri and Kobuleti). Although in the 5,000 BCE certain microliths similar to those of the Trialetian reappear in Shulaveris Gora (see Shulaveri-Shomu) and Irmis Gora.” ref

“The genome of a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer individual found at the layer A2 of the Kotias Klde rock shelter in Georgia (labeled KK1), dating from 9,700 years ago, has been analyzed. This individual forms a genetic cluster with another hunter-gatherer from the Satsurblia Cave, the so-called Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer (CHG) cluster. KK1 belongs to the Y-chromosome haplogruoup J2a (an independent analysis has assigned him J2a1b-Y12379*).” ref

“Although the belonging of the Caspian Mesolithic to the Trialetian has been questioned, it is worth noting that genetic similarities have been found between an Mesolithic hunther-gatherer from the Hotu cave (labeled Iran_HotuIIIb) dating from 9,100-8,600 BCE and the CHG from Kotias Klde. The Iran_HotuIIIb individual belongs to the Y-chromosome haplogroup J (xJ2a1b3, J2b2a1a1) (an independent analysis yields J2a-CTS1085(xCTS11251,PF5073) -probably J2a2-). Then, both KK1 and Iran_HotuIIIb individuals share a paternal ancestor that lived approximately 18.7k years ago (according to the estimates of full). At the autosomal level, it falls in the cluster of the CHG’s and the Iranian Neolithic Farmers.” ref

“Göbekli Tepe (“Potbelly Hill”) is a Neolithic archaeological site near the city of Şanlıurfa in Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey. Dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, between c. 9500 and 8000 BCE, the site comprises a number of large circular structures supported by massive stone pillars – the world’s oldest known megaliths. Many of these pillars are richly decorated with abstract anthropomorphic details, clothing, and reliefs of wild animals, providing archaeologists rare insights into prehistoric religion and the particular iconography of the period..” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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12,000-year-old Gobekli Tepe: “first human-made pagan temple”

Just think of the kind and amount of religious faith one would need to build such a site as this. Speaking of building, one of the most fascinating facts about this site is that they didn’t have the wheel nor metal tools. All they had were stone tools and little else.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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R1 Origin and dispersals

“The Mal’ta–Buret’ culture is an archaeological culture of around 24,022 to 15,022 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic on the upper Angara River in the area west of Lake Baikal in the Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, Russia. At this site and time, a boy whose remains were found near Mal’ta is usually known by the abbreviation MA-1 (or MA1), the remains have been dated to around 24,022 years ago. MA-1 belonged to a population related to the genetic ancestors of Siberians, American Indians, and Bronze Age Yamnaya and Botai people of the Eurasian steppe.” ref 

“MA-1 is the only known example of basal Y-DNA R* (R-M207*) – that is, the only member of haplogroup R* that did not belong to haplogroups R1, R2 or secondary subclades of these. The mitochondrial DNA of MA-1 belonged to an unresolved subclade of haplogroup U. The term Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) has been given in genetic literature to an ancestral component that represents descent from the people similar to the Mal’ta–Buret’ culture or a population closely related to them. The ANE population is considered to have been “basal to modern-day western Eurasians” but not especially related to east Asians, and suggested to have perhaps originally lived in Europe or Western Asia. According to Lazaridis et al. 2014, the common ancestor of ANEs and WHGs (western European hunter-gatherers) separated from eastern Eurasians around 40,000 BCE, and ANEs split from WHGs around 22,000 BCE (ANE is also described as a lineage “which is deeply related to Paleolithic/Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Europe…”). Genomic studies by Raghavan et al. (2014) and Fu et al. (2016) found Mal’ta Buret boy had brown eyes, dark hair and dark skin.” ref

“A people similar to MA1 and Afontova Gora were important genetic contributors to Native Americans, Siberians, Europeans, Caucasians, Central Asians, with smaller contributions to Middle Easterners and some East Asians. Lazaridis et al. (2016) notes “a cline of ANE ancestry across the east-west extent of Eurasia.” A 2016 study found that the global maximum of ANE ancestry occurs in modern-day Kets, Mansi, Native Americans, and Selkups. Additionally, it has been reported in ancient Bronze-age-steppe Yamnaya and Afanasevo cultures. Between 14 and 38 percent of Native American ancestry may originate from gene flow from the Mal’ta–Buret’ people, while the other geneflow in Native Americans appears to have an Eastern Eurasian origin. MA1 is also related to two older Upper Paleolithic Siberian individuals found at the Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site called Ancient North Siberians (ANS).” ref

“The age of R1 was estimated by Tatiana Karafet et al. (2008) at between 12,522 and 25,700 years ago, and most probably occurred about 18,500 years ago. Since the earliest known example has been dated at around 14,022 years ago, and belongs to R1b1a (R-L754), R1b must have arisen relatively soon after the emergence of R1. Three genetic studies in 2015 gave support to the Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas regarding the Proto-Indo-European homeland. According to those studies, haplogroups R1b-M269 and R1a, now the most common in Europe (R1a is also common in South Asia) would have expanded from the West Eurasian Steppe, along with the Indo-European languages; they also detected an autosomal component present in modern Europeans which was not present in Neolithic Europeans, which would have been introduced with paternal lineages R1b and R1a, as well as Indo-European languages.” ref 

“Early human remains found to carry R1b include:

  • Villabruna 1 (individual I9030), a Western Hunter-Gatherer (WHG), found in an Epigravettian culture setting in the Cismon valley (modern Veneto, Italy), who lived circa 14000 BP and belonged to R1b1a.
  • Several males of the Iron Gates Mesolithic in the Balkans buried between around 11,222 and 8,222 years ago carried R1b1a1a. These individuals were determined to be largely of WHG ancestry, with slight Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) admixture.
  • Several males of the Mesolithic Kunda culture and Neolithic Narva culture buried in the Zvejnieki burial ground in modern-day Latvia c. 9522–6022 years ago carried R1b1b. These individuals were determined to be largely of WHG ancestry, with slight EHG admixture.
  • Several Mesolithic and Neolithic males buried at Deriivka and Vasil’evka in modern-day Ukraine c. 9522-7022 years ago carried R1b1a. These individuals were largely of EHG ancestry, with significant WHG admixture.
  • A WHG male buried at Ostrovul Corbuli, Romania c. 8722 years ago carried R1b1c.
  • A male buried at Lepenski Vir, Serbia c. 8222-7922 years ago carried R1b1a.
  • An EHG buried near Samara, Russia 7522 years ago carried R1b1a1a.
  • An Eneolithic male buried at Khvalynsk, Russia c. 7222-6022 years ago carried R1b1a.
  • A Neolithic male buried at Els Trocs, Spain c. 7200-7088 years ago, who may have belonged to the Epi-Cardial culture, was found to be a carrier of R1b1.
  • A Late Chalcolithic male buried in Smyadovo, Bulgaria c. 6522 years ago carried R1b1a.
  • An Early Copper Age male buried in Cannas di Sotto, Carbonia, Sardinia c. 6472 years ago carried R1b1b2.
  • A male of the Baalberge group in Central Europe buried c. 5622 years ago carried R1b1a.
  • A male of the Botai culture in Central Asia buried c. 5522 years ago carried R1b1a1 (R1b-M478).
  • Males of the closely related Yamnaya culture (c. 5322-4822 years ago) Afanasievo culture (5322-4522 years ago), Catacomb culture (4800-3700 BP), Poltavka culture (4722-4122 years ago), and Bell Beaker culture (4822-3822 years ago) of Eurasia overwhelmingly carry R1b1a1a2a2.” ref

“Analysis of ancient Y-DNA from the remains from early Neolithic Central and North European Linear Pottery culture settlements have not yet found males belonging to haplogroup R1b-M269. Olalde et al. (2017) trace the spread of haplogroup R1b-M269 in western Europe, particularly Britain, to the spread of the Beaker culture, with a sudden appearance of many R1b-M269 haplogroups in Western Europe ca. 5022–4522 years ago during the Early Bronze Age. In the 2016 Nature article “The genetic history of Ice Age Europe. Also, R1b subclades have also been found in Han Chinese from Shandong, Heilongjiang, and Gansu provinces.” ref 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Raqefet Cave

13,000-year-old stone mortars offers the earliest known physical evidence of an extensive ancient beer-brewing operation.

“The find comes on the heels of a July report that archaeologists working in northeastern Jordan discovered the charred remains of bread baked by Natufians some 11,600 to 14,600 years ago. According to the Stanford scientists, the ancient beer residue comes from 11,700 to 13,700 years old. Through laboratory analysis, other archaeological evidence found in the cave, and the wear of the stones, the team discovered that the ancient Natufians used species from seven plant families, “including wheat or barley, oat, legumes and bast fibers (including flax),” according to the article. “They packed plant-foods, including malted wheat/barley, in fiber-made containers and stored them in boulder mortars. They used bedrock mortars for pounding and cooking plant-foods, including brewing wheat/barley-based beer likely served in ritual feasts ca. 13,000 years ago,” the scientists write. “It has long been speculated that the thirst for beer may have been the stimulus behind cereal domestication, which led to a major social-technological change in human history; but this hypothesis has been highly controversial,” the Stanford authors say. “We report here of the earliest archaeological evidence for cereal-based beer brewing by a semi-sedentary, foraging people.” ref

“Beer making was an integral part of rituals and feasting, a social regulatory mechanism in hierarchical societies,” said Stanford’s Wang. The Raqefet Cave discovery of the first man-made alcohol production, the cave also provides one of the earliest pieces of evidence of the use of flower beds on gravesites, discovered under human skeletons. “The Natufian remains in Raqefet Cave never stop surprising us,” co-author Prof. Dani Nadel, of the University of Haifa’s Zinman Institute of Archaeology, said in a press release. “We exposed a Natufian burial area with about 30 individuals, a wealth of small finds such as flint tools, animal bones and ground stone implements, and about 100 stone mortars and cupmarks. Some of the skeletons are well-preserved and provided direct dates and even human DNA, and we have evidence for flower burials and wakes by the graves.” ref

“And now, with the production of beer, the Raqefet Cave remains provide a very vivid and colorful picture of Natufian lifeways, their technological capabilities, and inventions,” he said. Stanford’s Liu posited that the beer production was of a religious nature because its production was found near a graveyard. “This discovery indicates that making alcohol was not necessarily a result of agricultural surplus production, but it was developed for ritual purposes and spiritual needs, at least to some extent, prior to agriculture,” she said. “Alcohol making and food storage were among the major technological innovations that eventually led to the development of civilizations in the world, and archaeological science is a powerful means to help reveal their origins and decode their contents,” said Liu. “We are excited to have the opportunity to present our findings, which shed new light on a deeper history of human society.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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DNA of Bronze Age Proto-Indo-Europeans

“The so-called Kurgan hypothesis, which postulates that the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language arose in the Pontic steppe. During the Yamna period, one of the world’s first Bronze Age cultures, Proto-Indo-European speakers migrated west towards Europe and east towards Central Asia, then South Asia, spreading with them the Indo-European languages spoken today in most of Europe, Iran, and a big part of the Indian subcontinent. The Kurgan model is the most widely accepted scenario of Indo-European origins. Most linguists agree that PIE may have been spoken as a single language (before divergence began) around 3500 BCE, which coincides with the beginning of the Yamna culture in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, and of the related Maykop culture in the northwest Caucasus. .” ref 

“There is now compelling genetic evidence that haplogroups R1a and R1b, the most common paternal lineages in Europe, Central Asia, and parts of South Asia, were mainly propagated by the Indo-European migrations during the Bronze Age. A sizeable part of European maternal lineages also seem to be of Indo-European origin, although the proportion varies a lot across Europe, but generally correlating to a large extent with the proportion of Y-haplogroups R1a and R1b. Other paternal lineages, such as G2a3b, J2b2, and T1a, are thought to have spread the Copper Age from the Balkans to modern Ukraine, then to have been absorbed by the expansion of R1a and R1b people respectively from central Russia (Volga basin) and southern Russia (Kuban, northwest Caucasus).” ref 

“The first PIE expansion into Europe was the Corded Ware culture, which so far have yielded only R1a samples. R1b is thought to have invaded the Balkans, then followed the Danube until Germany, from where it spread to western Europe and Scandinavia. The Asian branch originated around the Volga basin, then expanded across the Urals with the Sintashta culture, then over most of Central Asia and southern Siberia.” ref

“In the Chalcolithic (5,022-4,022 years ago), a series of complex cultures developed that would give rise to the peninsula’s first civilizations and to extensive exchange networks reaching to the Baltic, Middle East, and North Africa. Around 4,822 – 4,722 years ago, the Beaker culture, which produced the Maritime Bell Beaker, probably originated in the vibrant copper-using communities of the Tagus estuary in Portugal and spread from there to many parts of western Europe.” ref 

“R1b is the most common haplogroup in Western Europe, reaching over 80% of the population in Ireland, the Scottish Highlands, western Wales, the Atlantic fringe of France, the Basque country, and Catalonia. It is also common in Anatolia and around the Caucasus, in parts of Russia, and in Central and South Asia. Besides the Atlantic and North Sea coast of Europe, hotspots include the Po valley in north-central Italy (over 70%), Armenia (35%), the Bashkirs of the Urals region of Russia (50%), Turkmenistan (over 35%), the Hazara people of Afghanistan (35%), the Uyghurs of North-West China (20%) and the Newars of Nepal (11%). R1b-V88, a subclade specific to sub-Saharan Africa, is found in 60 to 95% of men in northern Cameroon.” 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/Turkey.” 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 Taurus Mountains (Turkish: Toros Dağları), are a mountain complex in southern Turkey, separating the Mediterranean coastal region of southern Turkey from the central Anatolian Plateau. 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, 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 colonizing 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.” ref 

“In any case, M73 would be a pre-Indo-European branch of R1b, just like V88 and M335. 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 

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Creation myths: From chaos, Ex nihilo, Earth-diver, Emergence, World egg, and World parent

“A creation myth (or cosmogonic myth) is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term myth often refers to false or fanciful stories, members of cultures often ascribe varying degrees of truth to their creation myths. In the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths – metaphorically, symbolically, historically, or literally. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths – that is, they describe the ordering of the cosmos from a state of chaos or amorphousness.” ref

“Creation myths often share a number of features. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in nearly all known religious traditions. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either deities, human-like figures, or animals, who often speak and transform easily. They are often set in a dim and nonspecific past that historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore (‘at that time’). Creation myths address questions deeply meaningful to the society that shares them, revealing their central worldview and the framework for the self-identity of the culture and individual in a universal context. Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions; found throughout human culture, they are the most common form of myth.” ref

Creation myth definitions from modern references:

  • “A “symbolic narrative of the beginning of the world as understood in a particular tradition and community. Creation myths are of central importance for the valuation of the world, for the orientation of humans in the universe, and for the basic patterns of life and culture.”
  • “Creation myths tell us how things began. All cultures have creation myths; they are our primary myths, the first stage in what might be called the psychic life of the species. As cultures, we identify ourselves through the collective dreams we call creation myths, or cosmogonies. … Creation myths explain in metaphorical terms our sense of who we are in the context of the world, and in so doing they reveal our real priorities, as well as our real prejudices. Our images of creation say a great deal about who we are.”
  • A “philosophical and theological elaboration of the primal myth of creation within a religious community. The term myth here refers to the imaginative expression in narrative form of what is experienced or apprehended as basic reality … The term creation refers to the beginning of things, whether by the will and act of a transcendent being, by emanation from some ultimate source, or in any other way.” ref

Religion professor Mircea Eliade defined the word myth in terms of creation:

“Myth narrates a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial Time, the fabled time of the “beginnings.” In other words, myth tells how, through the deeds of Supernatural Beings, a reality came into existence, be it the whole of reality, the Cosmos, or only a fragment of reality – an island, a species of plant, a particular kind of human behavior, an institution.” ref

“All creation myths are in one sense etiological because they attempt to explain how the world formed and where humanity came from. Myths attempt to explain the unknown and sometimes teach a lesson.” ref

“Some Ethnologists and anthropologists who study origin myths say that in the modern context theologians try to discern humanity’s meaning from revealed truths and scientists investigate cosmology with the tools of empiricism and rationality, but creation myths define human reality in very different terms. In the past, historians of religion and other students of myth thought of such stories as forms of primitive or early-stage science or religion and analyzed them in a literal or logical sense. Today, however, they are seen as symbolic narratives which must be understood in terms of their own cultural context. Charles Long writes: “The beings referred to in the myth – gods, animals, plants – are forms of power grasped existentially. The myths should not be understood as attempts to work out a rational explanation of deity.” ref

“While creation myths are not literal explications, they do serve to define an orientation of humanity in the world in terms of a birth story. They provide the basis of a worldview that reaffirms and guides how people relate to the natural world, to any assumed spiritual world, and to each other. A creation myth acts as a cornerstone for distinguishing primary reality from relative reality, the origin and nature of being from non-being. In this sense, cosmogonic myths serve as a philosophy of life – but one expressed and conveyed through symbol rather than through systematic reason. And in this sense, they go beyond etiological myths (which explain specific features in religious rites, natural phenomena, or cultural life). Creation myths also help to orient human beings in the world, giving them a sense of their place in the world and the regard that they must have for humans and nature.” ref

Historian David Christian has summarised issues common to multiple creation myths:

“Each beginning seems to presuppose an earlier beginning. … Instead of meeting a single starting point, we encounter an infinity of them, each of which poses the same problem. … There are no entirely satisfactory solutions to this dilemma. What we have to find is not a solution but some way of dealing with the mystery …. And we have to do so using words. The words we reach for, from God to gravity, are inadequate to the task. So we have to use language poetically or symbolically; and such language, whether used by a scientist, a poet, or a shaman, can easily be misunderstood.” ref

“Mythologists have applied various schemes to classify creation myths found throughout human cultures. Eliade and his colleague Charles Long developed a classification based on some common motifs that reappear in stories the world over. The classification identifies five basic types: Brahmā, the Hindu deva of creation, emerges from a lotus risen from the navel of Viṣņu, who lies with Lakshmi on the serpent Ananta Shesha.” ref

  • “Creation ex nihilo in which the creation is through the thought, word, dream, or bodily secretions of a divine being.
  • Earth diver creation in which a diver, usually a bird or amphibian sent by a creator, plunges to the seabed through a primordial ocean to bring up sand or mud which develops into a terrestrial world.
  • Emergence myths in which progenitors pass through a series of worlds and metamorphoses until reaching the present world.
  • Creation by the dismemberment of a primordial being.
  • Creation by the splitting or ordering of a primordial unity such as the cracking of a cosmic egg or a bringing order from chaos.” ref

“Marta Weigle further developed and refined this typology to highlight nine themes, adding elements such as deus faber, a creation crafted by a deity, creation from the work of two creators working together or against each other, creation from sacrifice, and creation from division/conjugation, accretion/conjunction, or secretion.” ref

An alternative system based on six recurring narrative themes was designed by Raymond Van Over:

  • “Primeval abyss, an infinite expanse of waters or space.
  • Originator deity which is awakened or an eternal entity within the abyss.
  • Originator deity poised above the abyss.
  • Cosmic egg or embryo.
  • Originator deity creating life through sound or word.
  • Life generating from the corpse or dismembered parts of an originator deity.” ref

Creation from Chaos

“In creation from chaos myths, initially there is nothing but a formless, shapeless expanse. In these stories the word “chaos” means “disorder”, and this formless expanse, which is also sometimes called a void or an abyss, contains the material with which the created world will be made. Chaos may be described as having the consistency of vapor or water, dimensionless, and sometimes salty or muddy. These myths associate chaos with evil and oblivion, in contrast to “order” (cosmos) which is the good. The act of creation is the bringing of order from disorder, and in many of these cultures it is believed that at some point the forces preserving order and form will weaken and the world will once again be engulfed into the abyss. One example is the Genesis creation narrative from the first chapter of the Book of Genesis.” ref

“Chaos (Ancient Greek: χάος, romanized: kháos) is the mythological void state preceding the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in Greek creation myths. In Christian theology, the same term is used to refer to the gap / abyss created by the separation of heaven and earth. Greek kháos (χάος) means ‘emptiness, vast void, chasm, abyss‘, related to the verbs kháskō (χάσκω) and khaínō (χαίνω), ‘gape, be wide open’, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₂n-, cognate to Old English geanian, ‘to gape’, whence English yawn.” ref

“It may also mean space, the expanse of air, the nether abyss or infinite darkness. Pherecydes of Syros (fl. 6th century BCE) interprets chaos as water, like something formless that can be differentiated. The motif of Chaoskampf (German: [ˈkaːɔsˌkampf]; lit. ‘struggle against chaos’) is ubiquitous in myth and legend, depicting a battle of a culture hero deity with a chaos monster, often in the shape of a serpent or dragon. Parallel concepts appear in the Middle East and North Africa, such as the abstract conflict of ideas in the Egyptian duality of Maat and Isfet or the battle of Horus and Set.” ref

“Hesiod and the Pre-Socratics use the Greek term in the context of cosmogony. Hesiod’s Chaos has been interpreted as either “the gaping void above the Earth created when Earth and Sky are separated from their primordial unity” or “the gaping space below the Earth on which Earth rests.” Passages in Hesiod’s Theogony suggest that Chaos was located below Earth but above Tartarus. Primal Chaos was sometimes said to be the true foundation of reality, particularly by philosophers such as Heraclitus.” ref

“In Roman tradition For Ovid, (43 BCE – 17/18 CE), in his Metamorphoses, Chaos was an unformed mass, where all the elements were jumbled up together in a “shapeless heap”. According to Hyginus: “From Mist (Caligo) came Chaos. From Chaos and Mist, came Night (Nox), Day (Dies), Darkness (Erebus), and Ether (Aether).” An Orphic tradition apparently had Chaos as the son of Chronus and Ananke.” ref

“Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia caelumunus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe,quem dixere chaos: rudis indigestaque molesnec quicquam nisi pondus iners congestaque eodemnon bene iunctarum discordia semina rerum.Before the ocean and the earth appeared— before the skies had overspread them all—the face of Nature in a vast expanse was naught but Chaos uniformly waste. It was a rude and undeveloped mass, that nothing made except a ponderous weight; and all discordant elements confused, were there congested in a shapeless heap.” ref 

“And in Biblical tradition, Chaos has been linked with the term abyss / tohu wa-bohu of Genesis 1:2. The term may refer to a state of non-being prior to creation or to a formless state. In the Book of Genesis, the spirit of God is moving upon the face of the waters, displacing the earlier state of the universe that is likened to a “watery chaos” upon which there is choshek (which translated from the Hebrew is darkness/confusion).” ref

“The Septuagint makes no use of χάος in the context of creation, instead using the term for גיא, “cleft, gorge, chasm”, in Micah 1:6 and Zacharia 14:4. The Vulgate, however, renders the χάσμα μέγα or “great gulf” between heaven and hell in Luke 16:26 as chaos magnum. This model of a primordial state of matter has been opposed by the Church Fathers from the 2nd century, who posited a creation ex nihilo by an omnipotent God.” ref

“In modern biblical studies, the term chaos is commonly used in the context of the Torah and their cognate narratives in Ancient Near Eastern mythology more generally. Parallels between the Hebrew Genesis and the Babylonian Enuma Elish were established by Hermann Gunkel in 1910. Besides Genesis, other books of the Old Testament, especially a number of Psalms, some passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah and the Book of Job are relevant.” ref

“In Hawaiian folklore, a triad of deities known as the Ku-Kaua-Kahi (AKA “Fundamental Supreme Unity”) were said to have existed prior to and during Chaos ever since eternity, or put in Hawaiian terms, mai ka po mai, meaning ‘from the time of night, darkness, Chaos’. They eventually broke the surrounding Po (‘night’) and light entered the universe. Next the group created three heavens for dwelling areas together with the earth, Sun, Moon, stars, and assistant spirits.” ref

Creation Ex nihilo

“Creatio ex nihilo (Latin for “creation out of nothing”) is the doctrine that matter is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act. It is a theistic answer to the question of how the universe comes to exist. It is in contrast to Ex nihilo nihil fit or “nothing comes from nothing“, which means that all things were formed from preexisting things; an idea by the Greek philosopher Parmenides (c.540-480 BCE) about the nature of all things, and later more formally stated by Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99 – c. 55 BCE).” ref

“The myth that God created the world out of nothing – ex nihilo – is central today to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides felt it was the only concept that the three religions shared. Nonetheless, the concept is not found in the entire Hebrew Bible. The authors of Genesis 1 were concerned not with the origins of matter (the material which God formed into the habitable cosmos), but with assigning roles so that the Cosmos should function. In the early 2nd century CE, early Christian scholars were beginning to see a tension between the idea of world-formation and the omnipotence of God, and by the beginning of the 3rd-century creation ex nihilo had become a fundamental tenet of Christian theology.” ref

“Ex nihilo creation is found in creation stories from ancient Egypt, the Rig Veda, and many animistic cultures in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and North America. In most of these stories, the world is brought into being by the speech, dream, breath, or pure thought of a creator but creation ex nihilo may also take place through a creator’s bodily secretions.” ref

“The literal translation of the phrase ex nihilo is “from nothing” but in many creation myths, the line is blurred whether the creative act would be better classified as a creation ex nihilo or creation from chaos. In ex nihilo creation myths, the potential and the substance of creation springs from within the creator. Such a creator may or may not be existing in physical surroundings such as darkness or water, but does not create the world from them, whereas in creation from chaos the substance used for creation is pre-existing within the unformed void.” ref

“Ex nihilo nihil fit means that nothing comes from nothing. In ancient creation myths, the universe is formed from eternal formless matter, namely the dark and still primordial ocean of chaos. In Sumerian myth this cosmic ocean is personified as the goddess Nammu “who gave birth to heaven and earth” and had existed forever; in the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish pre-existent chaos is made up of fresh-water Apsu and salt-water Tiamat, and from Tiamat the god Marduk created Heaven and Earth; in Egyptian creation myths a pre-existent watery chaos personified as the god Nun and associated with darkness, gave birth to the primeval hill (or in some versions a primeval lotus flower, or in others a celestial cow); and in Greek traditions the ultimate origin of the universe, depending on the source, is sometimes Okeanos (a river that circles the Earth), Night, or water.” ref

“To these can be added the account of the Book of Genesis, which opens with God separating and restraining the waters, not creating the waters themselves out of nothing.[9] The Hebrew sentence which opens Genesis, Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’aretz, can be translated into English in at least three ways:

  1. As a statement that the cosmos had an absolute beginning (In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth).
  2. As a statement describing the condition of the world when God began creating (When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was untamed and shapeless).
  3. As background information (When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth being untamed and shapeless, God said, Let there be light!).” ref

“It has been known since the Middle Ages that on strictly linguistic and exegetical grounds option 1 is not the preferred translation. Our society sees the origin of matter as a question of crucial importance, but for ancient cultures this was not the case, and the authors of Genesis wrote of creation they were concerned with God bringing the cosmos into operation by assigning roles and functions.” ref

“Creatio ex nihilo, in contrast to ex nihilo nihil fit, is the idea that matter is not eternal but was created by God at the initial cosmic moment. In the second century, a new cosmogony arose, articulated by Plotinus, that the world was an emanation from God and thus part of God. This view of creation was repugnant to Christian church fathers as well as to Arabic and Hebrew philosophers, and they forcefully argued for the otherness of God and his creation and that God created all things from nothing by the word of God. The first articulation of the notion of creation ex nihilo is found in the 2nd century writing To Autocylus (2.10) authored by Theophilus of Antioch. By the beginning of the 3rd century, the tension was resolved and creation ex nihilo had become a fundamental tenet of Christian theology. Theophilus of Antioch is the first post New Testament author to unambiguously argues for an ontological ex nihilo creation from nothing, contrasting it to the views of Plato and Lucretius who asserted clearly that matter was preexistent.” ref

“In modern times some Christian theologians argue that although the Bible does not explicitly mention creation ex nihili, various passages suggest or imply it. Others assert that it gains validity from having been held by so many for so long; and others find support in modern cosmological theories surrounding the Big Bang. Some examine alternatives to creatio ex nihilo, such as the idea that God created from his own self or from Christ, but this seems to imply that the world is more or less identical with God; or that God created from pre-existent matter, which at least has biblical support, but this implies that the world does not depend on God for its existence.” ref

Earth-Diver Creation

“The earth-diver is a common character in various traditional creation myths. In these stories, a supreme being usually sends an animal (most often, a type of bird, but also crustaceans, insects, and fishes in some narratives) into the primal waters to find bits of sand or mud with which to build habitable land. Some scholars interpret these myths psychologically while others interpret them cosmogonically. In both cases emphasis is placed on beginnings emanating from the depths.” ref

“This earth-diver myth is diffused throughout practically all of Eurasia and is found in ancient India as well. Closely related to the above type of myth is the myth that states that the world is created as the progeny of a primordial mother and father. The mother and father are symbols of earth and sky, respectively. In myths of this kind, the world parents generally appear at a late stage of the creation process; chaos in some way exists before the coming into being of the world parents. In the Babylonian myth Enuma elish, it is stated, The Maori make the same point when they state that the world parents emerge out of po.” ref, ref

“The widely distributed earth-diver myth is the most familiar example of dualistic creation. The most widespread account of the creation among the Finno-Ugric peoples is the earth-diver myth. In the north it is known in an area extending from eastern Finland to the Ob River, and in the south it is found, for example, among the Mordvins. This myth, which is well known in North America and Siberia, is fairly constant in form among the Finno-Ugric peoples. In the Mordvin variant, God sits on a rock in the middle of the primeval sea and spits into the water; the saliva begins to grow and God strikes it with a staff, whereupon the Devil comes out of it (sometimes in the form of a goose). God orders the Devil to dive into the sea for earth from the bottom; at the third attempt, he succeeds but tries to hide some of the earth in his mouth. While God scatters sand, the earth begins to grow and the Devil’s deceit is unmasked, and the earth found in his cheek becomes mountains and hills. The eastern Finnish myth contains an interesting detail: God stands on the top of a golden statue and orders his reflection on the water to rise, and this becomes the Devil.” ref, ref

Etiological (explanatory and expanding) continuations of the basic myth are common. The Devil demands for himself a piece of earth the size of the end of a stick, and from the hole that results vermin emerge—mice, fleas, mosquitoes, flies, and other such living things. Indo-Iranian influence has been seen in the dualism of the myth—setting God against the Devil—since religious dualism is most significant in Indo-Iranian religion. A water bird may be older than the Devil. It also occurs, however, without the dualistic emphasis. Thus, in an account by the Yenisey Khanty, the great shaman (a medicine man with psychic abilities) Doh glides above the primeval sea among the water birds, and asks the red-throated loon to dive for earth from the bottom of the sea, and with the earth makes an island. A rarer, but apparently ancient, myth is found among the Mansi: the god of the skies lets earth come down from heaven and places it on the surface of the great primeval sea.” ref

“Creation myths are a part of the oral tradition and culture of every Native North American tribe. The different creation myths reflect different levels of creation or existence. Some describe the beginning of the universe, or the creation of the earth, or the birth of humankind.  The earth diver stories portray a heavenly, celestial world from which a being falls and creates the earth. This type of myth is similar to many other of the world’s creation myths that place creation in the hands of higher beings like the Elohim (angelic beings, gods, and goddesses) and can be seen in comparing the Iroquois, Seneca, and Blackfoot creation myths.” ref

“The earth diver myths begin with beings who falls to the earth plane below from a higher plane inhabited by more evolved beings. The woman who falls creates the earth as we know it.  This storyline is present in the Blackfoot, Seneca, and Iroquois myths. The Iroquois legend states that “the first people were the Sky People” the higher beings from which the human race was created. These beings are human-like in their description, as in the Seneca story The Woman who fell from the Sky, named “sky woman”, and describes the beings of her world as resembling the Seneca people, only more handsome and well-kept.  When sky woman falls from her celestial world, she encounters an earth made of water.  The watery earth is another motif of the earth diver myths and is seen in the myths of many tribes such as Iroquois, Blackfoot, Cherokee, and Lakota myths.” ref

“When sky woman falls from above, she clutches a handful of soil from the heavenly realm, and with this the great turtle dives into the ocean to find the tree in order to fecundate the earth. The great turtle, who is also a principal protagonist in the earth diver stories, counsels sky woman and rallies the other animals to help build the earth, which will be sky woman’s home.  One by one the animals sacrifice themselves to dive into the sea and gather materials to build sky woman a home.” ref

“At the end of the myth, sky woman sacrifices her body “from her head grew the corn, beans, and squash…the three sisters” which become staples of the Native American diet, and “from her heart, the sacred tobacco”.  These interactions show the interdependent relationship between humans and animals. There is no dominion portrayed in how they relate to each other, only collaboration.  For example,  in the Iroquois version of the Sky Woman myth, called Turtle Dives to the Bottom of the Sea, sky woman lives on the back of great turtle. The turtle sees the woman as a blessing and generously offers her a home. She uses the soil she clutched from the celestial Tree of Life, to fecundate the earth plane below.” ref

“The way human, animal and plant relationships are portrayed speak of a time when human life was in balance with the earth’s offerings and rhythms (i.e. seasonal rounds). Duality and balance are portrayed as twin brothers in many myths such as the Iroquois, Algonquin, and Sioux stories, and the sky woman myths, too.  The twins represent the duality of human life and the coexistence of night and day, light and dark, good and evil, and how they are inseparable and necessary.  In the Seneca myth, sky woman gives birth to twins and these twins manage earth’s creation.” ref

For example, the historian Axtell recounts the myth a time when humankind and animals lived in harmony and cooperation as related from the Iroquois tradition:

“the world the twins made was a balanced and orderly world…the plant-eating animals created by the right-handed twin would eat up all the vegetation if their numbers was not kept down by the meat-eating animals which the left-handed twin created. But if these carnivorous animals ate too many other animals they would run out of meat and starve. so the right and the left-handed twins built balance into the world.” ref

“This excerpt beautifully demonstrates how many the Iroquois people viewed and accepted duality in their lives and saw them as inseparable. Geographically, the Seneca and Iroquois tribes lived near the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, but the Blackfoot and Lakota were plains people. Perhaps, the fact that the Iroquois and Seneca (whom are considered part of the Iroquois Nation) were geographically surrounded by water influenced their earth diver creation myths.” ref

“Characteristic of many Native American myths, earth-diver creation stories begin as beings and potential forms linger asleep or suspended in the primordial realm. The earth-diver is among the first of them to awaken and lay the necessary groundwork by building suitable lands where the coming creation will be able to live. In many cases, these stories will describe a series of failed attempts to make land before the solution is found. Among the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the earth diver cosmogony is attested in Iroquois mythology: a female sky deity falls from the heavens, and certain animals, the beaver, the otter, the duck, and the muskrat dive in the waters to fetch mud to construct an island.” ref

“In a similar story from the Seneca, people lived in a sky realm. One day, the chief’s daughter was afflicted with a mysterious illness, and the only cure recommended for her (revealed in a dream) was to lie beside a tree and to have it be dug up. The people do so, but a man complains that the tree was their livelihood, and kicks the girl through the hole. She ends up falling from the sky to a world of only water, but is rescued by waterfowl. A turtle offers to bear her on its shell, but asked where would be a definitive dwelling place for her. They decide to create land, and the toad dives into the depths of the primal sea to get pieces of soil. The toad puts it on the turtle’s back, which grows larger with every deposit of soil.” ref

“In another version from the Wyandot, the Wyandot lived in heaven. The daughter of the Big Chief (or Mighty Ruler) was sick, so the medicine man recommends that they dig up the wild apple tree that stands next to the Lodge of the Mighty Ruler, because the remedy is to be found on its roots. However, as the tree has been dug out, the ground begins to sink away, and the treetops catch and carry down the sick daughter with it. As the girl falls from the skies, two swans rescue her on their backs. The birds decide to summon all the Swimmers and the Water Tribes. Many volunteer to dive into the Great Water to fetch bits of earth from the bottom of the sea, but only the toad (female, in the story) is the one successful.” ref

Emergence Creation

“In emergence myths, humanity emerges from another world into the one they currently inhabit. The previous world is often considered the womb of the earth mother, and the process of emergence is likened to the act of giving birth. The role of midwife is usually played by a female deity, like the spider woman of several mythologies of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Male characters rarely figure into these stories, and scholars often consider them in counterpoint to male-oriented creation myths, like those of the ex nihilo variety.” ref

“Emergence myths commonly describe the creation of people and/or supernatural beings as a staged ascent or metamorphosis from nascent forms through a series of subterranean worlds to arrive at their current place and form. Often the passage from one world or stage to the next is impelled by inner forces, a process of germination or gestation from earlier, embryonic forms. The genre is most commonly found in Native American cultures where the myths frequently link the final emergence of people from a hole opening to the underworld to stories about their subsequent migrations and eventual settlement in their current homelands.” ref

Creation from World Egg

“The world egg, cosmic egg, or mundane egg is a mythological motif found in the cosmogonies of many cultures that is present in Proto-Indo-European culture and other cultures and civilizations. Typically, the world egg is a beginning of some sort, and the universe or some primordial being comes into existence by “hatching” from the egg, sometimes lain on the primordial waters of the Earth. Eggs symbolize the unification of two complementary principles (represented by the egg white and the yolk) from which life or existence, in its most fundamental philosophical sense, emerges.” ref

“The earliest idea of the “cosmic egg” comes from some of the Sanskrit scriptures. The Sanskrit term for it is Brahmanda (ब्रह्माण्ड) which is derived from two words – ‘Brahma‘ (ब्रह्मा) the ‘creator god’ in Hinduism and ‘anda’ (अण्ड) meaning ‘egg’. Certain Puranas such as the Brahmanda Purana speak of this in detail.” ref

“The Rig Veda (RV 10.121) uses a similar name for the source of the universe: Hiranyagarbha (हिरण्यगर्भ) which literally means “golden fetus” or “golden womb” and is associated with the universal source Brahman where the whole of all existence is believed to be supported. The Upanishads elaborate that the Hiranyagarbha floated around in emptiness for a while, and then broke into two halves which formed Dyaus (the Heavens) and Prithvi (Earth). The Rig Veda has a similar coded description of the division of the universe in its early stages.” ref

“According to Zoroastrian cosmology, the period of (material) creation, also to last 3,000 years, began after the treaty, when Ohrmazd recited the Ahunwar (Av. Ahuna Vairiia) prayer, revealing to Ahriman his ultimate defeat and causing him to fall back into the darkness in a stupor, which lasted for the entire period of the creation. During this time Ohrmazd fashioned his creations in material (gētīg) form, by celebrating a “spiritual yasna”. He placed each creation under the protection of one of the seven Amahraspands (Av. Aməša Spənta).” ref

“First he created the sky (protected by Šahrewar, Av. Xšaθra Vairiia), which enclosed the world like the shell of an egg. The second creation was water (protected by Hordād, Av. Haurvatāt), which filled the lower half of the “egg.” The third creation, earth (protected by Spandārmad, Av. Spənta Ārmaiti), shaped like a flat disk, floated on the primeval waters. On it stood the fourth, fifth, and sixth creations, respectively the single plant or tree (protected by Amurdād; Av. Amərətāt), the uniquely created bull (protected by Wahman, Av. Vohu Manah), and the first man, Gayōmard (Av. Gaiiō.marətan, protected by Ohrmazd himself). The seventh creation, fire (protected by Ardwahišt; Av. Aṧa Vahišta), was said to have permeated all other creations. During the 3,000 years of the period of material creation these creations were motionless, and the sun stood still in the middle of the sky.” ref

“The Orphic Egg in the ancient Greek Orphic tradition is the cosmic egg from which hatched the primordial hermaphroditic deity Phanes/Protogonus (variously equated also with Zeus, Pan, Metis, Eros, Erikepaios, and Bromius) who in turn created the other gods. The egg is often depicted with a serpent wound around it. Many threads of earlier myths are apparent in the new tradition. Phanes was believed to have been hatched from the World egg of Chronos (Time) and Ananke (Necessity) or Nyx (Night). His older wife Nyx called him Protogenus. As she created nighttime, he created daytime. He also created the method of creation by mingling. He was made the ruler of the deities and passed the sceptre to Nyx. This new Orphic tradition states that Nyx later gave the sceptre to her son Uranos before it passed to Cronus and then to Zeus, who retained it.” ref

“The ancient Egyptians accepted multiple creation myths as valid, including those of the Hermopolitan, Heliopolitan, and Memphite theologies. Under the Hermopolitan theology, there is the Ogdoad, which represents the conditions before the gods were created. An aspect within the Ogdoad is the Cosmic Egg, from which all things are born. Life comes from the Cosmic Egg; the sun god Ra was born from the primordial egg in a stage known as the first occasion.” ref

“A philosophical creation story traced to “the cosmogony of Taautus, whom Philo of Byblos explicitly identified with the Egyptian Thoth—”the first who thought of the invention of letters, and began the writing of records”— which begins with Erebus and Wind, between which Eros ‘Desire’ came to be. From this was produced Môt which seems to be the Phoenician/Ge’ez/Hebrew/Arabic/Ancient Egyptian word for ‘Death’ but which the account says may mean ‘mud’. In a mixed confusion, the germs of life appear, and intelligent animals called Zophasemin (explained probably correctly as ‘observers of heaven’) formed together as an egg, perhaps.” ref

“The account is not clear. Then Môt burst forth into light and the heavens were created and the various elements found their stations. Following the etymological line of Jacob Bryant one might also consider with regard to the meaning of Môt, that according to the Ancient Egyptians Ma’at was the personification of the fundamental order of the universe, without which all of creation would perish. She was also considered the wife of Thoth.” ref

“In the myth of Pangu, developed by Taoist monks hundreds of years after Lao Zi, the universe began as an egg that symbolizes the primordial state of Taiji. A primeval hermaphroditic giant named Pangu, born inside the egg, broke it into two halves: the upper half became the sky, while the lower half became the earth. As the god grew taller, the sky and the earth grew thicker and were separated further. Finally, Pangu died and his body parts became different parts of the earth.” ref

“In the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, there is a myth of the world being created from the fragments of an egg laid by a goldeneye on the knee of Ilmatar, goddess of the air:

“One egg’s lower half transformed and became the earth below, And its upper half transmuted and became the sky above; From the yolk the sun was made, Light of day to shine upon us; From the white, the moon was formed, Light of night to gleam above us; All the colored brighter bitsRose to be the stars of heaven and the darker crumbs changed into Clouds and cloudlets in the sky. And in many original folk poems, the duck – or sometimes an eagle – laid its eggs on the knee of Väinämöinen.” ref

“From Polynesian mythology, such as in Cook Islands mythology, deep within Avaiki (the Underworld), a place described as resembling a vast hollow coconut shell, there dwelt in the deepest depths, the primordial mother goddess, Varima-te-takere. Her domain was described as being so narrow, that her knees touched her chin. It was from this place that she created the first man, Avatea, a god of light, a hybrid being half man and half fish. He was sent to the Upperworld to shine light in the land of men, and his eyes were believed to be the sun and the moon.” ref

“In Samoan and Tahitian mythology, all existence began inside an egg-like shell called Rumia. The first being to exist within Rumia was Tangaloa. Tangaloa instigated the creation of many aspects of reality, the atea/lagi heavens, the papa earth, and additional living creatures (the atua / gods) tightly compressed within the shell. The new creatures eventually worked to release the shell and pushed the heavens and earth apart, resulting in the universe as we know it.” ref

World Parent Creation

“There are two types of world parent myths, both describing a separation or splitting of a primeval entity, the world parent or parents. One form describes the primeval state as an eternal union of two parents, and the creation takes place when the two are pulled apart. The two parents are commonly identified as Sky (usually male) and Earth (usually female), who in the primeval state were so tightly bound to each other that no offspring could emerge. These myths often depict creation as the result of a sexual union and serve as genealogical record of the deities born from it.” ref

“In the second form of world parent myths, creation itself springs from dismembered parts of the body of the primeval being. Often, in these stories, the limbs, hair, blood, bones, or organs of the primeval being are somehow severed or sacrificed to transform into sky, earth, animal or plant life, and other worldly features. These myths tend to emphasize creative forces as animistic in nature rather than sexual, and depict the sacred as the elemental and integral component of the natural world. One example of this is the Norse creation myth described in Völuspá, the first poem of Gylfaginning.” ref

“Creation by world parents is closely related to a type of myth that states that the world is created as the progeny of a primordial mother and father. The mother and father are symbols of earth and sky, respectively. In myths of this kind, the world parents generally appear at a late stage of the creation process; chaos in some way exists before the coming into being of the world parents. In the Babylonian myth Enuma elish, it is stated,

When on high the heaven had not been namedFirm ground below had not been called by name,Naught but primordial Apsu, their begetter,(And) Mummu-Tiamat, she who bore them all,Their waters comingling as a single body;

The Maori make the same point when they state that the world parents emerge out of po. Po for the Maori means the basic matter and the method by which creation comes about. There is thus some form of reality before the appearance of the world parents.” ref

“Even though the world parents are depicted and described as in sexual embrace, no activity is taking place. They appear as quiescent and inert. The chthonic (underworld) structure of the earth as latent potentiality tends to dominate the union. The parents are often unaware that they have offspring, and thus a kind of indifference regarding the union is expressed. The union of male and female in sexual embrace is another symbol of completeness and totality. As in the African myth from the Dogon referred to above, sexual union is a sign of androgyny (being both male and female) and androgyny, in turn, a sign of perfection. The indifference of the world parents is thus not simply a sign of ignorance but equally of the silence of perfection. The world parents in the Babylonian and Maori myths do not wish to be disturbed by their offspring. As over against the parents, the offspring are signs of actuality, fragmentation, specificity; they define concrete realities.” ref

“The separation of the world parents is again a rupture within the myth. This separation is caused by offspring who wish either to have more space or to have light, for they are situated between the bodies of the parents. In some myths the separation is caused by a woman who lifts her pestle so high in grinding grain that it strikes the sky, causing the sky to recede into the background, thus providing room for human activities. In both cases, an antagonistic motive must be attributed to the agents of separation. In the Babylonian and Maori versions of this myth, actual warfare takes place as a result of the separation.” ref

“Over against the primordial union of the world parents, there is the desire for knowledge and a different orientation in space. After the separation, lesser deities related to solar symbolism take precedence in the creation. The sun and light must be seen in these myths as representing the desire for a humanizing and cultural knowledge as over against the passive and inert forms of the union of the parent deities. From the point of separation, the mythic narrative of the world-parent myths states how different forms of cultural knowledge are brought to human beings by the offspring, the agents of separation. The separation of the world parents is the sign of a new cosmic order, an order dedicated to the techniques, crafts, and knowledge of culture.” ref

List of creation myths

Creation from chaos

Main article: Chaos (cosmogony)

Earth diver

Main article: Earth-diver

Emergence

Main article: Emergence

Ex nihilo (out of nothing)

Main article: Ex nihilo

World parent

Main article: World parent

World egg

Divine twins

Main article: Divine twins

Regional Creation myths

Africa

Americas

Mesoamerica

Mid North America

South America

Asia

Central Asia

East Asia

Indian subcontinent

Europe

Middle East

Pacific Islands/Oceanic

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.[39] 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. ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

J DNA and the Spread of Agricultural Religion (paganism)

Haplogroup J-M304, also known as J*,[Phylogenetics 1] is a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. It is believed to have evolved in Western Asia.ref Possible time of origin 48,000 years agoref and the main current subgroups J-M267 and J-M172, which now comprise between them almost all of the haplogroup’s descendant lineages, are both believed to have arisen very early, at least 10,000 years ago. Y-DNA haplogroup J1, defined by the SNP mutation M267, is estimated to be approximately 20 thousand years old and is thought to have originated somewhere between Anatolia and Mesopotamia. ref Haplogroup J-M304 is found in its greatest concentration in the Arabian peninsula. Outside of this region, haplogroup J-M304 has a significant presence in North Africa and the Horn of Africa. It also has a moderate occurrence in Southern Europe, especially in central and southern Italy, Malta, Greece, and Albania. The J-M410 subclade is mostly distributed in Anatolia, Greece, and southern Italy. Additionally, J-M304 is observed in Central Asia and South Asia, particularly in the form of its subclade J-M172. J-12f2 and J-P19 are also found among the Herero (8%).ref The basal haplogroup J*(xJ1, J2) is found at its highest frequencies among the Soqotri (71.4%).

Haplogroup J-M267[Phylogenetics 3] defined by the M267 SNP is in modern times most frequent in the Arabian Peninsula: Yemen (up to 76%), Saudi (up to 64%) (Alshamali 2009), Qatar (58%), and Dagestan (up to 56%). J-M267 is generally frequent among Arab Bedouins(62%), Ashkenazi Jews (20%) (Semino 2004), Algeria (up to 35%) (Semino 2004), Iraq (up to 33%) (Semino 2004), Tunisia (up to 31%), Syria (up to 30%), Egypt (up to 20%) (Luis 2004), and the Sinai Peninsula. To some extent, the frequency of Haplogroup J-M267 collapses at the borders of Arabic/Semitic-speaking territories with mainly non-Arabic/Semitic speaking territories, such as Turkey (9%), Iran(5%), Sunni Iraqi Biradari of North India (38%) and Northern Indian Shia (11%) (Eaaswarkhanth 2009). However, it should be noted that some figures above tend to be the larger ones obtained in some studies, while the smaller figures obtained in other studies are omitted. It is also highly frequent among Jews, especially the Kohanim line (46%) (Hammer 2009). ISOGG states that J-M267 originated in the Middle East. It is found in parts of the Near East, Anatolia, and North Africa, with a much sparser distribution in the southern Mediterranean flank of Europe, and in Ethiopia. But not all studies agree on the point of origin. The Levant has been proposed but a 2010 study concluded that the haplogroup had a more northern origin, possibly Anatolia. The origin of the J-P58 subclade is likely in the more northerly populations and then spreads southward into the Arabian Peninsula. The high Y-STR variance of J-P58 in ethnic groups in Turkey, as well as northern regions in Syria and Iraq, supports the inference of an origin of J-P58 in nearby eastern Anatolia. Moreover, the network analysis of J-P58 haplotypes shows that some of the populations with low diversity, such as Bedouins from Israel, Qatar, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates, are tightly clustered near high-frequency haplotypes. This suggests that founder effects with star burst expansion into the Arabian Desert (Chiaroni 2010). ref

J-M172

Haplogroup J-M172[Phylogenetics 4] is found in the highest concentrations in the Caucasus and the Fertile Crescent/Iraq and is found throughout the Mediterranean(including the Italian, Balkan, Anatolian and Iberian peninsulas and North Africa) (Giacomo 2003). The highest ever reported concentration of J-M172 was 72% in Northeastern Georgia (Nasidze 2004). Other high reports include Ingush 32% (Nasidze 2004), Cypriots30-37% (Capelli 2005), Lebanese 30% (Wells et al. 2001), Assyrian, Mandean and Arab Iraqis 29.7% (Sanchez et al. 2005), Syrians and Syriacs 22.5%, Kurds24%-28%, Iranians 23% (Aburto 2006), Ashkenazi Jews 24%, Palestinian Arabs 16.8%-25%, Sephardic Jews 29% and North Indian Shia Muslim 18%, Chechens 26%, Balkars 24%, Yaghnobis 32%, Armenians 21-24%, and Azerbaijanis 24%-48%. Some J-M172 haplotypes (as well as some J-M267 ones) belong to the “Cohen Modal Haplotype“. In South Asia, J2-M172 was found to be significantly higher among Dravidian castes at 19% than among Indo-European castes at 11%. J2-M172 and J-M410 is found 21% among Dravidian middle castes, followed by upper castes, 18.6%, and lower castes 14%. (Sengupta 2006) Subclades of M172 such as M67 and M92 were not found in either Indian or Pakistani samples which also might hint at a partial common origin.(Sengupta 2006) According to a genetic study in China by Shou et al., J2-M172 is found with high frequency among Uygurs (17/50 = 34%) and Uzbeks (7/23 = 30.4%), moderate frequency among Pamiris (5/31 = 16.1%), and low frequency among Yugurs (2/32 = 6.3%) and Monguors (1/50 = 2.0%). The authors also found J-M304(xJ2-M172) with low frequency among the Russians (1/19 = 5.3%), Uzbeks (1/23 = 4.3%), Sibe people (1/32 = 3.1%), Dongxiangs (1/35 = 2.9%), and Kazakhs (1/41 = 2.4%) in Northwest China. ref

Sedentism and the Creation of goddesses as well as gods

Need to Mythicized: gods and goddesses

Sun and Moon Goddesses

I fall from the treetops like a summer rain of new things that invigorates the mind to thought as if reaching out for a phantom to see what is really true. We light a candle in our mind when we let reason be our master because reason requires its user to change to what is reasoned over what may be preferred. I am a reason-driven “I dare you, to think” kind of philosopher. Simple but when the philosophy thinking is so inarticulate, or such monumental architecture of mental gymnastics erected on top of “reason”, that to most people, not in philosophy, it is just like bla, bla, bla. Lol

It is not a matter of being the only flame but to inspire us all to unify as one, to bring light to all we can. Be an honest thinker who values only reason and evidence as your main helpful guides. Follow an “ethics of belief” and don’t “believe what you like” rather what is justified soundly, thus let “Reason” be your master, and may you master “Reason.” Anger has been easier than care but it is my care I hold as value and it is this care, not some anger, I wish to inspire. In fact, I wish for us all to truly slow down and think, to add the needed care. Yea, we should do the needful, the worthy, and what is true. Reason rules.

No God: No evidence, No intelligence, and No goodness = Valid Atheism Conclusion

1. No evidence, To move past the Atheistic Null Hypothesis: There is no God/Gods (in inferential statistics, a Null Hypothesis generally assumed to be true until evidence indicates otherwise. Thus, a Null Hypothesis is a statistical hypothesis that there is no significant difference reached between the claim and the non-claim, as it is relatively provable/demonstratable in reality in some way. “The god question” Null Hypothesis is set at as always at the negative standard: Thus, holding that there is no God/Gods, and as god faith is an assumption of the non-evidentiary wishful thinking non-reality of “mystery thing” found in all god-talk, until it is demonstratable otherwise to change. Alternative hypothesis: There is a God (offered with no proof: what is a god and how can anyone say they know), therefore, results: Insufficient evidence to overturn the null hypothesis of no God/Gods.

2. No intelligence, Taking into account the reality of the world we do know with 99 Percent Of The Earth’s Species Are Extinct an intelligent design is ridiculous. Five Mass Extinctions Wiped out 99 Percent of Species that have ever existed on earth. Therefore like a child’s report card having an f they need to retake the class thus, profoundly unintelligent design.

3. No goodness, Assessed through ethically challenging the good god assumptions as seen in the reality of pain and other harm of which there are many to demonstrates either a god is not sufficiently good, not real or as I would assert, god if responsible for this world, would make it a moral monster ripe for the problem of evil and suffering (Argument from Evil). God would be responsible for all pain as life could easily be less painful and yet there is mass suffering. In fact, to me, every child born with diseases from birth screams out against a caring or loving god with the power to do otherwise. It could be different as there is Congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP), also known as congenital analgesia, in which a person cannot feel (and has never felt) physical pain.

My Thought on the Evolution of God?

Animal protector deities from old totems/spirit animal beliefs come first to me, 13,000/12,000 years ago, then women as deities 11,000/10,000 years ago, then male gods around 7,000 years ago. Then Moralistic gods around 5,000 years ago.

Silence is no virtue, especially against injustice, oppression, or untruths. From our natural only reality, there is no need to hide, for Atheism and a magic-free universe is the truth and theism religion and its supernatural thinking gods are just a lie. Truth deserves to be supported and has no need to remain silent and should instead, inspire its strong championing. I hear this call deep in me to bravely champion the truth of atheism and I do it with pride. To me, Animistic Somethingism: You just feel/think there has to be something supernatural/spirit-world or feel/think things are supernatural/spirit-filled. “Somethingism” is commonly an unspecified belief in an undetermined supernatural reality, stated sometimes as spiritual but not religious, but, to me, is basically unrealized animism. Vague Theism or god Somethingism: just say NO! May I remind you , vague theism, somethingism or “ietsism” is not some Philosophers Stone of Theism removed from strong critique.

So loudly, I will proclaim supernatural, and gods are willful mental illusions, confusions, and lies that are commonly inspired by a life of religious influences, religiously motivated fears, and or religious indoctrination. I laugh at questions like “what would convince you of god” as if I approach thinking differently dependent. As a rationalist I am always moved best by valid and reliable reason and evidence, you know the very stuff, all religions and any supernatural claim always lack in the end. Religion is big on claims but small of real reasoning, full of logical fallacies in thinking, and no evidence to quorate all their delusionary supernatural nonsense and superstitions.

My thoughts on religious progression, and reasoned speculations from the evidence:

Animism (100,000 years ago)

Totemism (50/45,000 years ago)

Shamanism (30/35,000 years ago)

Paganism (13/12,000 years ago)

“Institutional” Progressed Organized Religion (5,000 years ago)

 Religion Progression

  1. Animism (belief in a perceived spirit world) passably by at least 100,000 years ago “the primal stage of early religion”
  2. Totemism (belief that these perceived spirits could be managed with created physical expressions) passably by at least 50,000 years ago “progressed stage of early religion”
  3. Shamanism (belief that some special person can commune with these perceived spirits on the behalf of others by way rituals) passably by at least 30,000 years ago
  4. Paganism “Early organized nature-based religion” mainly like an evolved shamanism with gods (passable by at least 13,000 years ago).
  5. Institutional religion developed stage of “Progressed Organized Type Religion” as a social institution with official dogma usually set in a hierarchical/bureaucratic structure that contains strict rules and practices dominating the believer’s life.
Religion Progression
 
1. Animism (belief in a perceived spirit world) passably by at least 100,000 years ago “the primal stage of early religion”
 
2. Totemism (belief that these perceived spirits could be managed with created physical expressions) passably by at least 50,000 years ago “progressed stage of early religion”
 
3. Shamanism (belief that some special person can commune with these perceived spirits on the behalf of others by way rituals) passably by at least 30,000 years ago
 
4. Paganism “Early organized religion” (passably by at least 13,000/12,000 to 5,000 years ago):
 
*primal stage of organized religion is 13,000 years ago.
 
*proto stage of organized religion is around 10,000 years ago.
 
*origin elements leading to the progressed stage of organized religion is around 7,000 years ago.
 
*developed stage of organized religion is around 5,000 years ago.

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, ‘breath, spirit, life‘ 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.

Progressed organized religion starts and is approximately a 5,000-year-old belief system)

“Damien, wouldn’t Sumer have predated Egypt in organized religion, having likely predated them in most other cultural endeavors.” – Questioner 
My response, Not with the small city-states in Mesopotamia compared to a unified Egypt.
“I don’t know that this is necessarily what would dictate a “progressed organized religion” over other factors. I would guess that writing would play a larger role in this. However, I’m having reservations on the accuracy of conventional history anyway.” – Questioner
My response, It goes from loose tribe gods with attached to the small individual waring city-states with disagreement in gods in Mesopotamia compared to a unified Egypt established of a religious country or unified empire religion.

DNA analysis of 6,500-year-old human remains in Israel points to origin of ancient culture-Skeletons buried in Israel’s Upper Galilee reveal migration from ancient Turkey and Iran, Tel Aviv University researchers say 

Modern Europe was formed by milk-drinking Russians:

Mass migration brought new genetic make-up to continent 5,000 years ago.

Megalithic Mass Grave From 5,000 Years Ago Discovered in Kenya

“Researchers studied the DNA of skeletons from the Bronze Age period. They found white Europeans only arrived on the continent 5,000 years ago Came after a mass period of migration by the Yamnaya in southern Russia. They brought new technology and a genetic mutation allowing them to drink cow’s milk.” Ref

5,000-year-old tomb in southeast Turkey gives the earliest evidence of child sacrifice

 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

* “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. 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 tended 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 “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 I believe possibly an approximately 12,000-year-old belief system. ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, & ref

Invasion vs. diffusion scenarios?

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. According to the “Anatolian hypothesis“, Indo-European languages were spread by the first farmers from the Near East 7,000-8,000 years ago. the “Steppe/Kurgan hypothesis“, which proposes that early Indo-European speakers were farmers on the grasslands north of the Black and Caspian Seas. Anthony’s “Revised Steppe Theory”, which David Anthony‘s The Horse, the Wheel and Language describes his “Revised Steppe Theory”. David Anthony considers the term “Kurgan culture” so lacking in precision as to be useless, instead of using the core Yamna culture and its relationship with other cultures as a point of reference. He points out that the Kurgan culture | prehistoric culture was so broadly defined that almost any culture with burial mounds, or even (like the Baden culture) without them could be included. He does not include the Maykop culture among those that he considers being IE-speaking, presuming instead that they spoke a Caucasian language.

Kurgans 6,000 years ago/dolmens 7,000 years ago: funeral, ritual, and other?

The Kurgan hypothesis (also known as the Kurgan theory or Kurgan model) or steppe theory is the most widely accepted proposal to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe and parts of Asia. It postulates that the people of a Kurgan culture in the Pontic steppe north of the Black Sea were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). The term is derived from the Russian kurgan, meaning tumulus or burial mound.

Researchers have identified a massive migration of Kurgan populations (Yamna culture) which went from the Russian steppes to the center of Europe some 4,500 years ago, favoring the expansion of Indo-European languages throughout the continent.

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. In the 3rd millennium BC, 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 in which warfare was common. Uninterrupted conflicts drained all available resources, energies and populations. In this millennium, 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, 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. Towards the close of the millennium, Egypt became the stage of the first popular revolution recorded in history. 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. In the Near East and the Occident during the 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. Towards the close of the millennium, Egypt became the stage of the first popular revolution recorded in history. 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

Stars: Ancestors, Spirit Animals, and Deities (at least back to around 6,000 years ago)

When was the beginning:

TIMELINE OF CURRENT RELIGIONS?

Around 4,000 years ago

“ISLAM IS THE OLDEST RELIGION IN THE WORLD.” – Claimer (a post that was posted in the Facebook group: Atheist vs Theist Debates w/o Bans or Blocking and that inspired this blog)
My response, Islam’s beginning is no way older than 610 CE or 2,017 years ago and here is the progression of Religion:
 
1. Animism (a belief in a perceived spirit world) possibly by at least 100,000 years ago “the primal stage of early religion”
2. Totemism (a belief that these perceived spirits could be managed with created physical expressions) possibly by at least 50,000 years ago “progressed stage of early religion”
3. Shamanism (a belief that some special person can commune with these perceived spirits on the behalf of others by way rituals) possibly by at least 30,000 years ago
4. Paganism “Early organized nature-based religion” mainly like an evolved shamanism with gods (possibly by at least 13,000 years ago).
5. Progressed Organized Religion (Institutional religion “organized religion”) as a social institution with official dogma usually set in a hierarchical/bureaucratic structure that contains strict rules and practices dominating the believer’s life. And to me paganism and Institutional religion categorized into the following stages:
 *primal stage of organized religion is 13,000 years ago.
*proto-stage of organized religion is around 10,000 years ago.
*progressed stage of organized religion is around 7,000 years ago.
*developed stage of organized “Institutional” religion is around 5,000 years ago.
 
“Sikhism is much older than Islam.” – Commenter
 
My response, No, Sikhism is based on the spiritual teachings of Guru Nanak, the first Guru (1469 – 1539) and Islam is based on the spiritual teachings of Muhammad (c. 570 – June 8, 632). So Islam is older but is based on the spiritual teachings of Vedic period (1500 BCE to 500 BCE) so around 3,500 years old.
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 Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley. And many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed around 2,500)
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.

Gobekli Tepe: “first human made temple”

Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city”

Animism: the (often hidden) religion thinking all religionists (as well as most who say they are the so-called spiritual and not religious which to me are often just reverting back to have to Animism (even though this religious stance is often hidden to their realization so they are still very religious whether they know it or not) some extent or another. Ref

Possible Religion Motivations in the First Cave Art?

Interconnectedness of religious thinking

Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, and Paganism and Beyond

So, it all starts in a general way with Animism (theoretical belief in supernatural powers/spirits), then this is physically expressed in or with Totemism (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 (theoretical belief in access and influence with spirits through ritual), and then there is the further employing of myths and gods added to all the above giving you Paganism (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). Sky Burials: Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, and Paganism

What is the Afterlife in most religions?

Why do people think Religion is much more than supernaturalism and superstitionism?

Need to Mythicized: gods and goddesses

Single God Religions (Monotheism) = Man-o-theism

Sexism in the Major World Religions

The Evolution of Fire Sacralizing and/or Worship

Hidden Religious Expressions
 
“animist, totemist, shamanist & paganist”
 * “animist” Believe in spirit-filled life and/or afterlife (you are a hidden animist/Animism : an approximately 100,000-year-old belief system Qafzeh: Oldest Intentional Burial of 15 individuals with red ocher and Border Cave: intentional burial of an infant with red ochre and a shell ornament (possibly extending to or from Did Neanderthals teach us “Primal Religion (Animism?)” 120,000 Years Ago, as they too used red ocher? well it seems to me it may be Neanderthals who may have transmitted a “Primal Religion (Animism?)” or at least burial and thoughts of an afterlife they seem to express what could be perceived as a Primal “type of” Religion, which could have come first is supported in how 250,000 years ago Neanderthals used red ochre and 230,000 years ago shows evidence of Neanderthal burial with grave goods and possibly a belief in the afterlife. Think the idea that Neanderthals who may have transmitted a “Primal Religion” as crazy then consider this, it appears that Neanderthals built mystery underground circles 175,000 years ago. Evidence suggests that the Neanderthals were the first humans to intentionally bury the dead, doing so in shallow graves along with stone tools and animal bones. Exemplary sites include Shanidar in Iraq, Kebara Cave in Israel and Krapina in Croatia. Or maybe Neanderthals had it transmitted to them Evidence of earliest burial: a 350,000-year-old pink stone axe with 27 Homo heidelbergensis. As well as the fact that the oldest Stone Age Art dates to around 500,000 to 233,000 Years Old and it could be of a female possibly with magical believed qualities or representing something that was believed to) 

* “totemist” Believe in spirit-filled life and/or afterlife can be attached to or be expressed in things or objects (you are a hidden totemist/Totemism: an approximately 50,000-year-old belief system (though it may be older as there is evidence of what looks like a Stone Snake in South Africa which may be the “first human worship” dating to around 70,000 years ago)  (possibly extending to or from Neanderthals Likewise a number of archeologists propose that Middle Paleolithic societies — such as that of the Neanderthals — may also have practiced the earliest form of totemism or animal worship in addition to their (presumably religious) burial of the dead. Emil Bächler in particular suggests (based on archeological evidence from Middle Paleolithic caves) that a widespread Neanderthal bear-cult existed. Animal cults in the following Upper Paleolithic period — such as the bear cult — may have had their origins in these hypothetical Middle Paleolithic animal cults. Animal worship during the Upper Paleolithic intertwined with hunting rites. For instance, archeological evidence from art and bear remains reveals that the bear cult apparently had involved a type of sacrificial bear ceremonialism in which a bear was shot with arrows and then was finished off by a shot in the lungs and ritualistically buried near a clay bear statue covered by a bear fur, with the skull and the body of the bear buried separately. 100,000 to 50,000 years ago – Increased use of red ochre at several Middle Stone Age sites in Africa. Red Ochre is thought to have played an important role in ritual. 42,000 years ago – Ritual burial of a man at Lake Mungo in Australia. The body is sprinkled with copious amounts of red ochre. 40,000 years ago – Upper Paleolithic begins in Europe. An abundance of fossil evidence includes elaborate burials of the dead, Venus figurines (depiction of female) and cave art also involving red ochre. Venus figurines are thought to represent fertility. The cave paintings at Chauvet and Lascaux are believed to represent religious thought. ref

* “shamanist” 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 (you are a hidden shamanist/Shamanism: an approximately 30,000-year-old belief system) there is what is believed to be a female shaman burial with a matching carved ivory female head belonging to the Pavlovian culture  29,000 to 25,000 a variant of the Gravettian/(Gravettian culture 33,000 to 22,000 years ago), dated to 29,000 to 25,000-years old Dolní Vestonice, Moravia, Czech Republic. A carved ivory figure in the shape of a female head was discovered near the huts. The left side of the figure’s face was distorted image is believed to be a description of elder female’s burial around 40 years old, she was ritualistically placed beneath a pair of mammoth scapulae, one leaning against the other. Surprisingly, the left side of the skull was disfigured in the same manner as the aforementioned carved ivory figure, indicating that the figure was an intentional depiction of this specific individual. The bones and the earth surrounding the body contained traces of red ocher, a flint spearhead had been placed near the skull, and one hand held the body of a fox. This evidence suggests that this was the burial site of a shaman. This is the oldest site not only of ceramic figurines and artistic portraiture but also of evidence of early female shamans. Archaeologists usually describe two regional variants: the western Gravettian, known namely from cave sites in France, Spain and Britain, and the eastern Gravettian in Central Europe and Russia. The eastern Gravettians — they include the Pavlovian culture — were specialized mammoth hunters, whose remains are usually found not in caves but in open air sites. The origins of the Gravettian people are not clear, they seem to appear simultaneously all over Europe. Though they carried distinct genetic signatures, the Gravettians and Aurignacians before them were descended from the same ancient founder population. According to genetic data, 37,000 years ago, all Europeans can be traced back to a single ‘founding population’ that made it through the last ice age. Furthermore, the so-called founding fathers were part of the Aurignacian culture which was displaced by another group of early humans members of the Gravettian culture. Between 37,000 years ago and 14,000 years ago, different groups of Europeans were descended from a single founder population. To a greater extent than their Aurignacian predecessors, they are known for their Venus figurines. ref ref, ref, 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.
 Ps. Progressed organized religion starts approximately 5,000-year-old belief system) 
Animism (from Latin anima, “breath, spirit, life”) is the religious belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork and perhaps even words—as animated and alive. Animism is the oldest known type of belief system in the world that even predates paganism. It is still practiced in a variety of forms in many traditional societies. Animism is used in the anthropology of religion as a term for the belief system of many indigenous tribal peoples, especially in contrast to the relatively more recent development of organized religions. Although each culture has its own different mythologies and rituals, “animism” is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples’ “spiritual” or “supernatural” perspectives. The animistic perspective is so widely held and inherent to most animistic indigenous peoples that they often do not even have a word in their languages that corresponds to “animism” (or even “religion”); the term is an anthropological construct.
Do you believe in god?

What is a god, as most so-called god claims sound like hidden animist inspiring Anthropomorphism conclusions/confusions about the nature of reality? Are you asking me if magic exists? I am not a hidden animist. If so, well my answer as an ignostic atheist is, first prove the actuality of simple magic before you try to ask anyone about the possibility of some supreme magic.

Animism (“magical thinking supernatural/superstitious spirit/spiritual” religious beliefs”)
Anthropomorphism (attribution of human characteristics or behavior to non-things)
 Why do we think only we are prone to animism as even: Chimpanzees Sacralizing Trees?

Timeline of religion – Wikipedia

The timeline of religion is a chronological catalogue of important and noteworthy religious events in pre-historic and modern times. This article reaches into pre-historic times, as the bulk of the human religious experience pre-dates written history. Written history (the age of formal writing) is only around 5000 years old. A lack of written records results in most of the knowledge of pre-historic religion being derived from archaeological records and other indirect sources, and from suppositions. Much pre-historic religion is subject to continued debate. ref

According to Pettitt, Paul (August 2002). “When Burial Begins”. British Archeology. No. 66. Archived from the original on 2 June 2007, 15,000–10,000 years ago noticeable burial activity resumed. Prior mortuary activity had either taken a less obvious form or contemporaries retained some of their burial knowledge in the absence of such activity. Dozens of men, women, and children were being buried in the same caves which were used for burials 10,000 years beforehand. All these graves are delineated by the cave walls and large limestone blocks. The burials share a number of characteristics (such as use of ochre, and shell and mammoth ivory jewellery) that go back thousands of years. Some burials were double, comprising an adult male with a juvenile male buried by his side. They were now beginning to take on the form of modern cemeteries. Old burials were commonly re-dug and moved to make way for new ones, with the older bones often being gathered and cached together. Large stones may have acted as grave markers. Pairs of ochred antlers were sometimes mounted on poles within the cave; this is compared to the modern practice of leaving flowers at a grave. ref

11,130–9,370 years ago or so: This was the apparent period of use of Göbekli Tepe, one of the oldest human-made sites of worship yet discovered; evidence of similar usage has also been found in another nearby site, Nevalı Çori. This period is also noted as the beginning of the First Sangam period in South India. ref

9,500–9,700 years ago or so: The settlements of Catalhoyuk developed as a likely spiritual center of Anatolia. Possibly practicing worship in communal shrines, its inhabitants left behind numerous clay figurines and impressions of phallic, feminine and hunting scenes. ref
7,500–6,500 years ago or so: The Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE) emerged, probably within the Pontic-Caspian steppe (though their exact urheimat is debated). The PIE peoples developed a religion focused on sacrificial ideology, which would influence the religions and cultures throughout Eurasia. ref
5,750 years ago or so: The Proto-Semitic people emerged from a generally accepted urheimat in the Levant. The Proto-Semitic people would migrate throughout the Near East into Mesopotamia, Egypt, Ethiopia and the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. ref
5,300–3,300 years ago or so: The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE) in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, noted for its cities built of brick, roadside drainage system and multi-storeyed houses, as well as for creating artifacts which could be linked to pre-vedic religions. ref
5,102 years ago or so: This was the beginning of Kaliyuga, a new age among the followers of Indian religions. ref
5,100 years ago or so: The initial form of Stonehenge was completed. The circular bank and ditch enclosure, about 110 metres (360 ft) across, may have been completed with a timber circle. ref
5,100–4,900 years ago or so: Newgrange, the 250,000 ton (226,796.2 tonne) passage tomb aligned to the winter solstice in Ireland, was built. ref
5,000 years ago or so: Sumerian Cuneiform emerged from the proto-literateUruk period, allowing the codification of beliefs and creation of detailed historical religious records. The second phase of Stonehenge was completed and appeared to function as the first enclosed cremation cemetery in the British Isles. ref
4,635–4,610 years ago or so: The oldest surviving Egyptian Pyramid was commissioned by Pharaoh Djoser. ref
4,600 years ago or so: Stonehenge began to take on the form of its final phase. The wooden posts were replaced with bluestone. It began taking on an increasingly complex setup (including an altar, a portal, station stones, etc.) and shows consideration of solar alignments. ref
4,560 years ago or so: This is the approximate time accepted as the completion of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest pyramid of the Giza Plateau. ref
4,494–4,345 years ago or so: The first of the oldest surviving religious texts, the Pyramid Texts, was composed in Ancient Egypt. ref
4,200 years ago or so: The Minoan Civilization developed in Crete. Citizens worshipped a variety of goddesses. ref
4,150–4,000 years ago or so: The earliest surviving versions of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh—originally titled He who Saw the Deep (Sha naqba īmuru) or Surpassing All Other Kings (Shūtur eli sharrī)—were written. ref
3,700–3,100 years ago or so: The oldest of the Hindu Vedas (scriptures), the Rig Veda was composed. ref
3,600 years ago or so: The ancient development of Stonehenge came to an end. ref
3,500 years ago or so: The Vedic Age began in India after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation. ref

3,450 or 3,250 years ago or so: This is the traditionally accepted period in which, according to legend, the Israelite lawgiver Moses gave the Ten Commandments ref The Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament (abbreviated OT) is the first part of Christian Bibles based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh), a collection of ancient religious writings by the Israelites dates to around 2,500/2,400 or less. The most accepted hypothesis, the canon formed in stages, first the Pentateuch by around 400 BC, then the Prophets during the Hasmonean dynasty (140-116 BC), and finally the remaining books. Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections: (1) the first five books or Pentateuch (Torah); (2) the history books telling the history of the Israelites, from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon; (3) the poetic and “Wisdom books” dealing, in various forms, with questions of good and evil in the world; and (4) the books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God. ref  The bible inspired religion was not one thing but many:

(Henotheism Exodus 20:23 “You shall not make other gods besides Me (not saying there are no other gods just not to worship hem); gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves.”

(Polytheism: Judges 10:6 “Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the sons of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; thus they forsook the LORD and did not serve Him. 1 Corinthians 8:5 “For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords.”)

In the Hebrew Bible, there are multiple descriptions of Yahweh presiding over a great assembly of Heavenly Hosts. Some interpret these assemblies as examples of Divine Council: “The Old Testament description of the ‘divine assembly’ all suggest that this metaphor for the organization of the divine world was consistent with that of Mesopotamia and Canaan. One difference, however, should be noted. In the Old Testament, the identities of the members of the assembly are far more obscure than those found in other descriptions of these groups, as in their polytheistic environment. Israelite writers sought to express both the uniqueness and the superiority of their God Yahweh.” The Book of Psalms (Psalm 82:1), states “God (אֱלֹהִ֔ים elohim) stands in the divine assembly (בַּעֲדַת-אֵל ); He judges among the gods (אֱלֹהִ֔ים elohim)” (אֱלֹהִים נִצָּב בַּעֲדַת־אֵל בְּקֶרֶב אֱלֹהִים יִשְׁפֹּט). The meaning of the two occurrences of “elohim” has been debated by scholars, with some suggesting both words refer to Yahweh, while others propose that the God of Israel rules over a divine assembly of other Gods or angels. Some translations of the passage render “God (elohim) stands in the congregation of the mighty to judge the heart as God (elohim)” (the Hebrew is “beqerev elohim”, “in the midst of gods”, and the word “qerev” if it were in the plural would mean “internal organs”). Later in this Psalm, the word “gods” is used (in the KJV): Psalm 82:6 – “I have said, Ye [are] gods; and all of you [are] children of the most High.” Instead of “gods”, another version has “godlike beings”, but here again, the word is elohim/elohiym (Strong’s H430). This passage is quoted in the New Testament in John 10:34. In the Books of Kings (1 Kings 22:19), the prophet Micaiah has a vision of Yahweh seated among “the whole host of heaven” standing on his right and on his left. He asks who will go entice Ahab and a spirit volunteers. This has been interpreted as an example of a divine council. The first two chapters of the Book of Job describe the “Sons of God” assembling in the presence of Yahweh. Like “multitudes of heaven”, the term “Sons of God” defies certain interpretation. This assembly has been interpreted by some as another example of divine council. Others translate “Sons of God” as “angels”, and thus argue this is not a divine council because angels are God’s creation and not deities. “The role of the divine assembly as a conceptual part of the background of Hebrew prophecy is clearly displayed in two descriptions of prophetic involvement in the heavenly council. In 1 Kings 22:19-23… Micaiah is allowed to see God (elohim) in action in the heavenly decision regarding the fate of Ahab. Isaiah 6 depicts a situation in which the prophet himself takes on the role of the messenger of the assembly and the message of the prophet is thus commissioned by Yahweh. The depiction here illustrates this important aspect of the conceptual background of prophetic authority.” The concept of a divine assembly (or council) is attested in the archaic Sumerian, Akkadian, Old Babylonian, Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Caananite, Israelite, Celtic, Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman and Nordic pantheons. Ancient Egyptian literature reveals the existence of a “synod of the gods”. Some of our most complete descriptions of the activities of the divine assembly are found in the literature from Mesopotamia. Their assembly of the gods, headed by the high god Anu, would meet to address various concerns. The term used in Sumerian to describe this concept was Ukkin, and in later Akkadian and Aramaic was puhru. Sons of God (Heb: bənê hāʼĕlōhîm, בני האלהים) is a phrase used in the Hebrew Bible and apocrypha. The phrase is also used in Kaballah where Bene elohim are part of different Jewish angelic hierarchies. ref, ref

Genesis 6: When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. — Genesis 6:1-4

The first mention of “sons of God” in the Hebrew Bible occurs at Genesis 6:1-4. In terms of literary-historical origin, this phrase is typically associated with the Jahwist tradition. This passage has had two interpretations in Judaism.

Rabbinic Judaism traditionally adheres to the first interpretation, with some exceptions, and modern Jewish translations may translate bnei elohim as “sons of rulers” rather than “sons of God”. Regardless, the second interpretation (sons of angels or other divine beings) is nonexistent in modern Judaism. This is reflected by the rejection of Enoch and other Apocrypha supporting the second interpretation from the Hebrew Bible Canon. Joseph Hong believes that Genesis 6:1-4 has gone through drastic abridgment by either the original writer or later editors. Nahum M. Sarna believes that the text defies certain interpretation, based on difficulties with the text’s themes, extreme terseness, vocabulary, and syntax. Sarna postulates that such a passage cannot be other than a fragment, or bare outline, from a well-known fuller story. ref, ref

(Monotheism: Isaiah 43:10 “You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.

3,351 or 3,353 years ago or so: The reign of Akhenaten, sometimes credited with starting the earliest known recorded monotheistic or at least Henotheism a religion, in Ancient Egypt. ref
3,300 – 3,000 years ago or so: The “standard” Akkadian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh was edited by Sin-liqe-unninni. ref
3,250 – 2,600 years ago or so: The Upanishads (Vedic texts) were composed, containing the earliest emergence of some of the central religious concepts of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. ref
3,200 years ago or so: The Olmecs built the earliest pyramids and temples in Central America. ref

2,800 to 2,600 years ago or so: The Chandogya Upanishad is compiled, significant for containing the earliest to date mention of Krishna. Verse 3.17.6 mentions Krishna Devakiputra as a student of the sage Ghora Angirasa. ref

2,600 – 2,500 years ago or so: The Earliest Confucian type writing, Shu Ching, incorporates ideas of harmony and heaven. ref
2,599 – 2,527 years ago or so: The life of Mahavira, 24th and last Tirthankara of Jainism. The Kalpasutra, a popular text in Jainism, cites Kundagrama as the place where he was born, Present-day Vaishali district, Bihar, India. Though it is universally accepted by scholars of Jainism that Mahavira was an actual person who lived in ancient India, the details of his biography and the year of his birth are uncertain, and continue to be a subject of considerable debate among scholars. The Jain Śvētāmbara tradition believes he was born in 599 BC and died in 527 BC, while the Digambara tradition believes 510 BC was the year he died. The scholarly controversy arises from efforts to date him and the Buddha, because both are believed to be contemporaries according to Buddhist and Jain texts, and because, unlike for Jain literature, there is extensive ancient Buddhist literature that has survived. Almost all Indologists and historians, state Dundas and others, accordingly date Mahavira’s birth to about 497 BC and his death to about 2,425 years ago. However, the Vira era tradition that started in 527 BC and places Mahavira in the 6th century BC is a firmly established part of the Jain community tradition. The 12th-century Jain scholar Hemachandra placed Mahavira in the 5th century BC. According to Kailash Jain, Hemachandra made an incorrect analysis that, along with attempts to establish Buddha’s nirvana date, has been a source of confusion and controversy about Mahavira’s year of nirvana. Kailash Jain states the traditional date of 527 BC is accurate, adding that the Buddha was a junior contemporary of the Mahavira and that the Buddha “might have attained nirvana a few years later”. The place of his death, Pavapuri (now in Bihar), is a pilgrimage site for Jains. According to the Digambara Jains, Mahavira was born in 582 BC. According to the Svetambara Jain texts, he was born in 599 BC. Mahavira’s birthday, in the traditional calendar, falls on the thirteenth day of the rising moon in the month of Chaitra in the Vira Nirvana Samvat calendar. In the Gregorian calendar, this date falls in March or April and is celebrated by Jains as Mahavir Jayanti. ref, ref
2,563/2,480 – 2,483/2,400 years ago or so: Gautama Buddha, founder of Buddhism was born. ref
2,551 years ago or so: Confucius, founder of Confucianism, was born. ref
2,440 years ago or so: Zoroastrianism entered recorded history. ref
2,399 years ago or so: Socrates was tried for impiety.2,300 years ago or so: The oldest known version of the Tao Te Ching was written on bamboo tablets. ref
2,300 years ago or so: Theravada Buddhism was introduced to Sri Lanka by the Venerable Mahinda. ref
2,250 years ago or so: The Third Buddhist council was convened. ref
2,140 years ago or so: The earliest grammar of Sanskrit literature was composed by Pāṇini. ref
2,100 – 1,517 years ago or so: The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, constituting the foundational texts of Yoga, were composed. ref

The Common Era

Around years 30/33: The reported death of Jesus of Nazareth, the central figure of Christianity. ref

Around years 31-36: The death of John the Baptist. ref
Around years 50–62: The first Christian Council was convened in Jerusalem. ref
Around years 70: The Siege of Jerusalem, the Destruction of the Temple and the rise of Rabbinic Judaism. ref
Around years 220: Manichaean Gnosticism was formed by the prophet Mani. ref
Around years 250–900: Classic Mayan step pyramids were constructed. ref
Around years 313: The Edict of Milan decreed religious toleration in the Roman empire. ref
Around years 325: The first ecumenical council (the Council of Nicaea) was convened to attain a consensus on doctrine through an assembly representing all Christendom. It established the original Nicene Creed and fixed the date of Easter. It also confirmed the primacy of the Sees of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch, and granted the See of Jerusalem a position of honor. ref
Around years 350: The oldest record of the complete biblical texts (the Codex Sinaiticus) survives in a Greek translation called the Septuagint, dating to the 4th century CE. ref
Around years 380: Theodosius I declared Nicene Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. ref
Around years 381: The second ecumenical council (the First Council of Constantinople) reaffirmed and revised the Nicene Creed, repudiating Arianism and Macedonianism. ref
Around years 381–391: Theodosius proscribed paganism within the Roman Empire. ref
Around years 393: A council of early Christian bishops listed and approved a biblical canon for the first time at the Synod of Hippo. ref

Around years 405: St. Jerome completed the Vulgate, the first Latin translation of the Bible. ref

Around years 410: The Western Roman Empire began to decline, signalling the onset of the Dark Ages. ref
Around years 424: The Assyrian Church of the East formally separated from the See of Antioch and the western Syrian Church. ref
Around years 431: The third ecumenical council (the First Council of Ephesus) was convened as a result of the controversial teachings of Nestorius of Constantinople. It repudiated Nestorianism, proclaimed the Virgin Mary as the Theotokos (the God-bearer or Mother of God). It also repudiated Pelagianism and again reaffirmed the Nicene Creed. ref
Around years 449: The Second Council of Ephesus declared support for Eutyches and attacked his opponents. Originally convened as an ecumenical council, its ecumenical nature was rejected by the Chalcedonians, who denounced the council as latrocinium. ref
Around years 451: The fourth ecumenical council (the Council of Chalcedon) rejected the Eutychian doctrine of monophysitism, adopting instead the Chalcedonian Creed. It reinstated those deposed in 449, deposed Dioscorus of Alexandria and elevated the bishoprics of Constantinople and Jerusalem to the status of patriarchates. ref
Around years 451: The Oriental Orthodox Church rejected the christological view put forth by the Council of Chalcedon and was excommunicated. ref
Around years 480–547: Benedict of Nursia wrote his Rule, laying the foundation of Western Christian monasticism. ref
Around years 553: The fifth ecumenical council (the Second Council of Constantinople) repudiated the Three Chapters as Nestorian and condemned Origen of Alexandria. ref
Around years 570–632: The life of Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh, the Prophet of Islam. ref
Around years 632–661: The Rashidun Caliphate heralded the Arab conquest of Persia, Egypt and Iraq, bringing Islam to those regions. ref

Around years 610 –632: Muslims believe that the verses of the Quran were revealed to Muhammad by God through the archangel Gabriel (Jibrīl) on many occasions between 610 CE until his death on June 8, 632. While Muhammad was alive, all of these revelations were written down by his companions (sahabah), although the prime method of transmission was orally through memorization. ref ref

Around year 650: The verses of the Qur’an were compiled in the form of a book in the era of Uthman, the third Caliph of Islam. The Quran is divided into 114 suras, or chapters, which combined, contain 6,236 āyāt, or verses. The chronologically earlier suras, revealed at Mecca, are primarily concerned with ethical and spiritual topics. The later Medinan suras mostly discuss social and moral issues relevant to the Muslim community. ref ref
Around years 661–750: The Umayyad Caliphate brought the Arab conquest of North Africa, Spain and Central Asia, marking the greatest extent of the Arab conquests and bringing Islam to those regions. ref
Around years 680–681: The sixth ecumenical council (the Third Council of Constantinople) rejected Monothelitism and Monoenergism. ref
Around years 680: The division between Sunni and Shiites Muslims developed. ref
Around years 712: Kojiki, the oldest Shinto text, was written. ref
Around years 716–936: The migration of Zoroastrian (Parsi) communities from Persia to India began, caused by Muslim conquest of their lands and the ensuing persecution. ref
Around years 788–820: The life of Hindu philosopher Adi Shankara, who consolidated the doctrine of Advaita Vedānta. ref
Around year 850: The oldest extant manuscripts of the vocalized Masoretic text, upon which modern editions are based, date to 9th century CE. ref

Around year 1054: The Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches was formalized. ref

Around years 1095–1099: The First Crusade led to the capture of Jerusalem. ref
Around years 1107–1110: Sigurd I of Norway led the Norwegian Crusade against Muslims in Spain, the Balearic Islands and in Palestine. ref
Around years 1147–1149: The Second Crusade was waged in response to the fall of the County of Edessa. ref
Around years 1189–1192: In the Third Crusade European leaders attempted to reconquer the Holy Land from Saladin. ref
Around years 1202–1204: The Fourth Crusade, originally intended to recapture Jerusalem, instead led to the sack of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. ref
Around years 1209–1229: The Albigensian Crusade was conducted to eliminate Catharism in Occitania, Europe. ref
Around years 1217–1221: With the Fifth Crusade, Christian leaders again attempted (but failed) to recapture Jerusalem. ref
Around years 1222−1282: The life of Nichiren Daishonin, the Buddha of the Latter Day of the Law and founder of Nichiren Buddhism. Based at the Nichiren Shoshu Head Temple Taisekiji (Japan), this branch of Buddhism teaches the importance of chanting the mantra Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. ref
Around years 1228–1229: The Sixth Crusade won control of large areas of the Holy Land for Christian rulers, more through diplomacy than through fighting. ref
Year 1244: Jerusalem was sacked again, instigating the Seventh Crusade. ref
Around year 1270: The Eighth Crusade was launched by Louis IX of France but largely petered out when Louis died shortly after reaching Tunis. ref
Around years 1271–1272: The Ninth Crusade failed. ref
Around year 1320: Pope John XXII laid the groundwork for future witch-hunts with the formalization of the persecution of witchcraft. ref
Around years 1378–1417: The Roman Catholic Church split during the Western Schism. ref
Around years 1469–1539: The life of Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism. ref
Around year 1484: Pope Innocent VIII marked the beginning of the classical European witch-hunts with his papal bull Summis desiderantes. ref
Around years 1486-1534: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu popularised the chanting of the Hare Krishna and composed the Siksastakam (eight devotional prayers) in Sanskrit. His followers, Gaudiya Vaishnavas, revere him as a spiritual reformer, a Hindu revivalist and an avatar of Krishna. ref

Around year 1500: African religious systems were introduced to the Americas, with the commencement of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In the Spanish Empire, Catholicism was spread and encouraged through such institutions as the missions and the Inquisition. ref

Around year 1517: Martin Luther posted The Ninety-Five Theses on the door of All Saints’ Church, Wittenberg, launching the Protestant Reformation. ref
Around year 1534: Henry VIII separated the English Church from Rome and made himself Supreme Head of the Church of England. ref
Around year 1555: [Atlantic Slave Trade begins]. ref
Around year 1562: The Massacre of Vassy sparked the first of a series of French Wars of Religion. ref

Around year 1699: Guru Gobind Singh Ji created the Khalsa in Sikhism. ref

Around year 1708: Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the last Sikh guru, died after instituting the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, as the eternal Guru. ref

Around year 1770: Baron d’Holbach published The System of Nature said to be the first positive, unambiguous statement of atheism in the West. ref
Around year 1781: Ghanshyam, later known as Sahajanand Swami/Swaminarayan, was born in Chhapaiya at the house of Dharmadev and Bhaktimata. ref
Around years 1789–1799: In the Dechristianisation of France the Revolutionary Government confiscated Church properties, banned monastic vows and, with the passage of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, removed control of the Church from the Pope and subordinated it as a department of the Government. The Republic also replaced the traditional Gregorian Calendar and abolished Christian holidays. ref
Around year 1791: Freedom of religion, enshrined in the Bill of Rights, was added as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, forming an early and influential secular government. ref

Around year 1801: The French Revolutionary Government and Pope Pius VII entered into the Concordat of 1801. While Roman Catholicism regained some powers and became recognized as “the religion of the great majority of the French”, it was not afforded the latitude it had enjoyed prior to the Revolution and was not re-established as the official state religion. The Church relinquished all claims to estate seized after 1790, the clergy was state salaried and was obliged to swear allegiance to the State. Religious freedom was restored. ref

Around years 1819–1850: The life of Siyyid ‘Alí Muḥammad Shírází Bab, the founder of Bábism. ref
Around years 1817–1892: The life of Bahá’u’lláh, founder of the Bahá’í Faith. ref

Around years 1823: September 21, The Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith saw the Angel Moroni and prophesied of what is now the Book Of Mormon. ref

Around year 1830: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded by Joseph Smith. ref
Around years 1835–1908: The life of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the messianic Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam. ref
Around years 1836–1886: The life of Ramakrishna, saint and mystic of Bengal. ref
Around year 1841: Satguru Ram Singh Ji created the Namdhari sect within the Sikh religion. ref
Around year 1879: Christian Science was granted its charter in Boston, Massachusetts. ref
Around year 1889: The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was established. ref
Around year 1893: Swami Vivekananda‘s first speech at The Parliament of World Religions, Chicago, brought the ancient philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the western world. ref
Around year 1899: Aradia (aka The Gospel of the Witches), one of the earliest books describing post witchhunt European religious Witchcraft, was published by Charles Godfrey Leland. ref

Around year 1901: The incorporation of the Spiritualists’ National Union legally representing Spiritualism in the United Kingdom. ref

Around year 1904: Thelema was founded by Aleister Crowley. ref
Around year 1905: In France the law on the Separation of the Churches and the State was passed, officially establishing state secularism and putting an end to the funding of religious groups by the state. Becoming a place of pilgrimage for neo-druids and other pagans, the Ancient Order of Druids organised the first recorded reconstructionist ceremony in Stonehenge. ref
Around year 1908: The Khalifatul Masih was established in the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community as the “Second Manifestation of God’s Power”. ref
Around year 1915: The Ottoman Empire committed the Armenian Genocide killing 1.5 million. ref
Around year 1917: The October Revolution in Russia led to the annexation of all church properties and subsequent religious suppression. The 1917 Constitution of Mexico made Mexico a secular state. ref
Around year 1920: The Self Realization Fellowship Church of all Religions with its headquarters in Los Angeles, CA, was founded by Paramahansa Yogananda. ref
Around year 1926: Cao Dai founded. ref
Around year 1929: The Cristero War, fought between the secular government and religious Christian rebels in Mexico, ended. ref
Around year 1930: The Rastafari movement began following the coronation of Haile Selassie I as Emperor of Ethiopia. The Nation of Islam was founded in Detroit, Michigan. ref
Around year 1932: A neo-Hindu religious movement, the Brahma Kumaris or “Daughters of Brahma”, started. Its origin can be traced to the group “Om Mandali”, founded by Lekhraj Kripalani(1884–1969). ref
Around years 1939–1945: Millions of Jews were relocated and murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. ref
Around year 1947: First nation in the name of Islam was created called Pakistan. British India was partitioned into the Islamic nation of Pakistan and the secular nation of India with a Hindu majority. ref
Around year 1948: The modern state of Israel was established as a homeland for the Jews. ref
Around year 1952: Scientology was created. ref
Around year 1954: Wicca was publicised by Gerald Gardner. ref
Around year 1956: B. R. Ambedkar was founded by Navayana Buddhism (Neo-Buddhism). And Ambedkar converted to Navayana with his more than 500,000 followers. ref
Around years 1960s: Various Neopagan and New Age movements gained momentum. ref
Around year 1961: Unitarian Universalism was formed from the merger of Unitarianism and Universalism. ref
Around year 1962: The Church of All Worlds, the first American neo-pagan church, was formed by a group including Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart, and Richard Lance Christie. ref
Around years 1962–1965: The Second Vatican Council was convened. ref
Around year 1965: Srila Prabhupada established the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and introduced translations of the Bhagavad-Gita and Vedic Scriptures in mass production all over the world. ref
Around year 1966: Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan. ref
Around years 1972–1984: The Stonehenge free festivals started. ref
Around years 1972–2004: Germanic Neopaganism (aka Heathenism, Heathenry, Ásatrú, Odinism, Forn Siðr, Vor Siðr, and Theodism) began to experience a second wave of revival. ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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

“These ideas are my speculations from the evidence.”

I am still researching the “god‘s origins” all over the world. So you know, it is very complicated but I am smart and willing to look, DEEP, if necessary, which going very deep does seem to be needed here, when trying to actually understand the evolution of gods and goddesses. I am sure of a few things and less sure of others, but even in stuff I am not fully grasping I still am slowly figuring it out, to explain it to others. But as I research more I am understanding things a little better, though I am still working on understanding it all or something close and thus always figuring out more. 

Sky Father/Sky God?

“Egyptian: (Nut) Sky Mother and (Geb) Earth Father” (Egypt is different but similar)

Turkic/Mongolic: (Tengri/Tenger Etseg) Sky Father and (Eje/Gazar Eej) Earth Mother *Transeurasian*

Hawaiian: (Wākea) Sky Father and (Papahānaumoku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*

New Zealand/ Māori: (Ranginui) Sky Father and (Papatūānuku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*

Proto-Indo-European: (Dyḗus/Dyḗus ph₂tḗr) Sky Father and (Dʰéǵʰōm/Pleth₂wih₁) Earth Mother

Indo-Aryan: (Dyaus Pita) Sky Father and (Prithvi Mata) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Italic: (Jupiter) Sky Father and (Juno) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Etruscan: (Tinia) Sky Father and (Uni) Sky Mother *Tyrsenian/Italy Pre–Indo-European*

Hellenic/Greek: (Zeus) Sky Father and (Hera) Sky Mother who started as an “Earth Goddess” *Indo-European*

Nordic: (Dagr) Sky Father and (Nótt) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Slavic: (Perun) Sky Father and (Mokosh) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Illyrian: (Deipaturos) Sky Father and (Messapic Damatura’s “earth-mother” maybe) Earth Mother *Indo-European*

Albanian: (Zojz) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*

Baltic: (Perkūnas) Sky Father and (Saulė) Sky Mother *Indo-European*

Germanic: (Týr) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*

Colombian-Muisca: (Bochica) Sky Father and (Huythaca) Sky Mother *Chibchan*

Aztec: (Quetzalcoatl) Sky Father and (Xochiquetzal) Sky Mother *Uto-Aztecan*

Incan: (Viracocha) Sky Father and (Mama Runtucaya) Sky Mother *Quechuan*

China: (Tian/Shangdi) Sky Father and (Dì) Earth Mother *Sino-Tibetan*

Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian: (An/Anu) Sky Father and (Ki) Earth Mother

Finnish: (Ukko) Sky Father and (Akka) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*

Sami: (Horagalles) Sky Father and (Ravdna) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*

Puebloan-Zuni: (Ápoyan Ta’chu) Sky Father and (Áwitelin Tsíta) Earth Mother

Puebloan-Hopi: (Tawa) Sky Father and (Kokyangwuti/Spider Woman/Grandmother) Earth Mother *Uto-Aztecan*

Puebloan-Navajo: (Tsohanoai) Sky Father and (Estsanatlehi) Earth Mother *Na-Dene*

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

 

Sky Father/Sky Mother “High Gods” or similar gods/goddesses of the sky more loosely connected, seeming arcane mythology across the earth seen in Siberia, China, Europe, Native Americans/First Nations People and Mesopotamia, etc.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref

Hinduism around 3,700 to 3,500 years old. ref

 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 Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley. And many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed around 2,500) ref, ref

Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)

“Judaism is an Abrahamic, its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Some scholars argue that modern Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, by the late 6th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions.” ref

“Yahwism is the name given by modern scholars to the religion of ancient Israel, essentially polytheistic, with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Heading the pantheon was Yahweh, the national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with his consort, the goddess Asherah; below them were second-tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot, and Astarte, all of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees, and a third and fourth tier of minor divine beings, including the mal’ak, the messengers of the higher gods, who in later times became the angels of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yahweh, however, was not the ‘original’ god of Israel “Isra-El”; it is El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon, whose name forms the basis of the name “Israel”, and none of the Old Testament patriarchs, the tribes of Israel, the Judges, or the earliest monarchs, have a Yahwistic theophoric name (i.e., one incorporating the name of Yahweh).” ref

“El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “god” or “deity“, or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ‘ila, represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-, meaning “god”. Specific deities known as ‘El or ‘Il include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period. ʼĒl is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, ʼĒl played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean “ʼĒl the King” but ʾil hd as “the god Hadad“. The Semitic root ʾlh (Arabic ʾilāh, Aramaic ʾAlāh, ʾElāh, Hebrew ʾelōah) may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning “gods” is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm “powers”. In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for “god” by biblical commentators. However the documentary hypothesis for the Old Testament (corresponds to the Jewish Torah) developed originally in the 1870s, identifies these that different authors – the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and the Priestly source – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. Inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis.” ref

 

Jainism around 2,599 – 2,527 years old. ref

Confucianism around 2,600 – 2,551 years old. ref

Buddhism around 2,563/2,480 – 2,483/2,400 years old. ref

Christianity around 2,o00 years old. ref

Shinto around 1,305 years old. ref

Islam around 1407–1385 years old. ref

Sikhism around 548–478 years old. ref

Bahá’í around 200–125 years old. ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref

“Theists, there has to be a god, as something can not come from nothing.”

Well, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something. This does not tell us what the something that may have been involved with something coming from nothing. A supposed first cause, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something is not an open invitation to claim it as known, neither is it justified to call or label such an unknown as anything, especially an unsubstantiated magical thinking belief born of mythology and religious storytelling.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Advocating Anarchism: Morality, Non-coercion, Anti-hierarchy, Solidarity, Internationalism, Mutualism, Cooperationism, Empowermentism, etc.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

While hallucinogens are associated with shamanism, it is alcohol that is associated with paganism.

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

Show one: Prehistory: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” the division of labor, power, rights, and recourses.

Show two: Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”

Show tree: Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”

Show four: Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”

Show five: Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”

Show six: Emergence of hierarchy, sexism, slavery, and the new male god dominance: Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!

Show seven: Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State)

Show eight: Paganism 4,000 years old: Moralistic gods after the rise of Statism and often support Statism/Kings: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)

Prehistory: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” the division of labor, power, rights, and recourses: VIDEO

Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO

Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO

Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO

Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism): VIDEO

Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves: VIEDO

Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State): VIEDO

Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism): VIEDO

I do not hate simply because I challenge and expose myths or lies any more than others being thought of as loving simply because of the protection and hiding from challenge their favored myths or lies.

The truth is best championed in the sunlight of challenge.

An archaeologist once said to me “Damien religion and culture are very different”

My response, So are you saying that was always that way, such as would you say Native Americans’ cultures are separate from their religions? And do you think it always was the way you believe?

I had said that religion was a cultural product. That is still how I see it and there are other archaeologists that think close to me as well. Gods too are the myths of cultures that did not understand science or the world around them, seeing magic/supernatural everywhere.

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.

This series idea was addressed in, Anarchist Teaching as Free Public Education or Free Education in the Public: VIDEO

Our 12 video series: Organized Oppression: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of power (9,000-4,000 years ago), is adapted from: The Complete and Concise History of the Sumerians and Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia (7000-2000 BC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szFjxmY7jQA by “History with Cy“

Show #1: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Samarra, Halaf, Ubaid)

Show #2: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Eridu: First City of Power)

Show #3: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Uruk and the First Cities)

Show #4: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (First Kings)

Show #5: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Early Dynastic Period)

Show #6: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (King Lugalzagesi and the First Empire)

Show #7: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Sargon and Akkadian Rule)

Show #8: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Naram-Sin, Post-Akkadian Rule, and the Gutians)

Show #9: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Gudea of Lagash and Utu-hegal)

Show #10: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Third Dynasty of Ur / Neo-Sumerian Empire)

Show #11: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Amorites, Elamites, and the End of an Era)

Show #12: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Aftermath and Legacy of Sumer)

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

The “Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries”

Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ Atheist Leftist @Skepticallefty & I (Damien Marie AtHope) @AthopeMarie (my YouTube & related blog) are working jointly in atheist, antitheist, antireligionist, antifascist, anarchist, socialist, and humanist endeavors in our videos together, generally, every other Saturday.

Why Does Power Bring Responsibility?

Think, how often is it the powerless that start wars, oppress others, or commit genocide? So, I guess the question is to us all, to ask, how can power not carry responsibility in a humanity concept? I know I see the deep ethical responsibility that if there is power their must be a humanistic responsibility of ethical and empathic stewardship of that power. Will I be brave enough to be kind? Will I possess enough courage to be compassionate? Will my valor reach its height of empathy? I as everyone, earns our justified respect by our actions, that are good, ethical, just, protecting, and kind. Do I have enough self-respect to put my love for humanity’s flushing, over being brought down by some of its bad actors? May we all be the ones doing good actions in the world, to help human flourishing.

I create the world I want to live in, striving for flourishing. Which is not a place but a positive potential involvement and promotion; a life of humanist goal precision. To master oneself, also means mastering positive prosocial behaviors needed for human flourishing. I may have lost a god myth as an atheist, but I am happy to tell you, my friend, it is exactly because of that, leaving the mental terrorizer, god belief, that I truly regained my connected ethical as well as kind humanity.

Cory and I will talk about prehistory and theism, addressing the relevance to atheism, anarchism, and socialism.

At the same time as the rise of the male god, 7,000 years ago, there was also the very time there was the rise of violence, war, and clans to kingdoms, then empires, then states. It is all connected back to 7,000 years ago, and it moved across the world.

Cory Johnston: https://damienmarieathope.com/2021/04/cory-johnston-mind-of-a-skeptical-leftist/?v=32aec8db952d  

The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist (YouTube)

Cory Johnston: Mind of a Skeptical Leftist @Skepticallefty

The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist By Cory Johnston: “Promoting critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics by covering current events and talking to a variety of people. Cory Johnston has been thoughtfully talking to people and attempting to promote critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics.” http://anchor.fm/skepticalleft

Cory needs our support. We rise by helping each other.

Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ @Skepticallefty Evidence-based atheist leftist (he/him) Producer, host, and co-host of 4 podcasts @skeptarchy @skpoliticspod and @AthopeMarie

Damien Marie AtHope (“At Hope”) Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist. Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Poet, Philosopher, Advocate, Activist, Psychology, and Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Historian.

Damien is interested in: Freedom, Liberty, Justice, Equality, Ethics, Humanism, Science, Atheism, Antiteism, Antireligionism, Ignosticism, Left-Libertarianism, Anarchism, Socialism, Mutualism, Axiology, Metaphysics, LGBTQI, Philosophy, Advocacy, Activism, Mental Health, Psychology, Archaeology, Social Work, Sexual Rights, Marriage Rights, Woman’s Rights, Gender Rights, Child Rights, Secular Rights, Race Equality, Ageism/Disability Equality, Etc. And a far-leftist, “Anarcho-Humanist.”

I am not a good fit in the atheist movement that is mostly pro-capitalist, I am anti-capitalist. Mostly pro-skeptic, I am a rationalist not valuing skepticism. Mostly pro-agnostic, I am anti-agnostic. Mostly limited to anti-Abrahamic religions, I am an anti-religionist.

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.

My Thought on the Evolution of Gods?

Animal protector deities from old totems/spirit animal beliefs come first to me, 13,000/12,000 years ago, then women as deities 11,000/10,000 years ago, then male gods around 7,000/8,000 years ago. Moralistic gods around 5,000/4,000 years ago, and monotheistic gods around 4,000/3,000 years ago. 

To me, animal gods were likely first related to totemism animals around 13,000 to 12,000 years ago or older. Female as goddesses was next to me, 11,000 to 10,000 years ago or so with the emergence of agriculture. Then male gods come about 8,000 to 7,000 years ago with clan wars. Many monotheism-themed religions started in henotheism, emerging out of polytheism/paganism.

Gods?
 
“Animism” is needed to begin supernatural thinking.
“Totemism” is needed for supernatural thinking connecting human actions & related to clan/tribe.
“Shamanism” is needed for supernatural thinking to be controllable/changeable by special persons.
 
Together = Gods/paganism

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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

Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist, Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Jeweler, Poet, “autodidact” Philosopher, schooled in Psychology, and “autodidact” Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Pre-Historian (Knowledgeable in the range of: 1 million to 5,000/4,000 years ago). I am an anarchist socialist politically. Reasons for or Types of Atheism

My Website, My Blog, & Short-writing or Quotes, My YouTube, Twitter: @AthopeMarie, and My Email: damien.marie.athope@gmail.com

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