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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“A 7,000 year old Siberian warrior, more advanced than would have been assumed, who was buried with an ax and an arrow, are ancient remains that have archeologists reshaping their assumptions. It is a fair assumption to say, as this fact proves, that the burial mounds emerged much earlier than the Bronze Age, in Neolithic times.” ref 

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Genetic Relations to Ancient North Eurasians: Zagros/Iranian, Anatolian, Eastern, Caucasus, Western, Scandinavian, and Iberian hunter-gatherers

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Earth diver mythology or something similar??? Could be. In a way, snails are a kind of mound shape, thus similar to turtle shells, both may represent a mound of creation in the earth-diver myth. In Peru, there were snail shells, and snail shells are also used in the earth diver.

My thoughts on Dolmen origins and migrations, as well as Snail Shell Middens or Snail Burials/Turtle Shell Burials, and links from “Y-DNA R (R1a, R1b, and R2a)” migrations, maybe R2a leading to Proto-Indo-European, transferring it to R1b, taking it to the steppe 7,500 years ago.

Religion is a cultural product. So, it has been part of the human experience, similar to languages, from before we left Africa, spreading humanity across the world.

My thoughts on Dolmen origins and migrations, as well as Snail Shell Middens or Snail Burials/Turtle Shell Burials, and links from “Y-DNA R (R1a, R1b, and R2a)” migrations

Samara culture with 7,000-year-old pre-kurgan Mounds

The Samara culture is an Eneolithic culture of the early 5th millennium BCE at the Samara bend region of the middle Volga, at the northern edge of the steppe zone. The later stages of the Samara culture are contemporaneous with its successor culture in the region, the early Khvalynsk culture (4700–3800 BCE or 6,700 to 5,800 years ago)-(with the first full Kurgans). Khvalynsk evidences the further development of the kurgan. It began in the Samara with individual graves or small groups sometimes under stone. A male sample carried Y-haplogroup R1b1a1a and mitochondrial haplogroup U5a1d.” ref

“The culture is characterized by the remains of animal sacrifice, which occur over most of the sites. There is no indisputable evidence of riding, but there were horse burials, the earliest in the Old World. Typically the head and hooves of cattle, sheep, and horses are placed in shallow bowls over the human grave, smothered with ochre. Some have seen the beginning of the horse sacrifice in these remains, but this interpretation has not been more definitely substantiated. It is known that the Indo-Europeans sacrificed both animals and people, like many other cultures. “Some of the graves are covered with a stone cairn or a low earthen mound, the very first predecessor of the kurgan. The later, fully developed kurgan was a hill on which the deceased chief might ascend to the sky god, but whether these early mounds had that significance is unknown.” ref

“Although there are disparities in the wealth of the Khvalynsk grave goods, there seems to be no special marker for the chief. This deficit does not exclude the possibility of a chief. In the later kurgans, one finds that the kurgan is exclusively reserved for a chief and his retinue, with ordinary people excluded. This development of the Khvalynsk culture suggests a growing disparity of wealth, which in turn implies a growth in the wealth of the whole community and an increase in population. The explosion of the kurgan culture out of its western steppe homeland must be associated with an expansion of population. The causes of this success and expansion remain obscure.” ref

“Recent genetic studies have shown that males of the Khvalynsk culture carried primarily the paternal haplogroup R1b, although a few samples of R1a, I2a2, Q1a and J have been detected. They belonged to the Western Steppe Herder (WSH) cluster, which is a mixture of Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) and Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer (CHG) ancestry. This admixture appears to have happened on the eastern Pontic–Caspian steppe starting around 5,000 BCE. Mathieson et al. (2015, 2018) found in three Eneolithic males buried near Khvalynsk between 5,200 and 4,000 BCE the Y-haplogroups R1b1a and R1a1, and the mt-haplogroups H2a1, U5a1i, and Q1a and a subclade of U4.” ref

“Among the later 3,300 – 2,600 BCE or 5,300 to 4,600 years ago Yamnaya culture (Who is related to the main Kurgans hypothesis) are , males carry exclusively R1b and I2. (yamnaya) is a Russian adjective that means ‘related to pits (yama)’, as these people used to bury their dead in tumuli (kurgans) containing simple pit chambers. The people of the Yamnaya culture lived primarily as nomads, with a chiefdom system and wheeled carts and wagons that allowed them to manage large herds. They are also closely connected to Final Neolithic cultures, which later spread throughout Europe and Central Asia. According to the widely-accepted Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas, the people that produced the Yamnaya culture spoke a stage of the Proto-Indo-European language, which later spread eastwards and westwards as part of the Indo-European migrations.” ref

“Archaeologists discover ancient 5,000-year-old jade dragon in stone tomb at largest known burial mountain in Mongolia. The 5,000-year-old jade dragon is believed to be linked to the Hongshan culture.” ref

“2,800-year-old burial mound with sacrifices unearthed in Siberia is eerily similar to Scythian graves. The sacrifices could be an early form of a Scythian burial tradition that lasted for hundreds of years.” ref

“A fresh look at the Kurgan hypothesis explores the possible link between North American First Nations and Indo-European cultures.” ref

“The theory was supported by two key lines of cultural evidence. The first line of evidence focused on so called “kurgans,” which were a type of earthen mound, functioning as burial chambers. The locations of known kurgan sites formed a recognizable cultural pattern across a vast swath of Europe and Asia. This widespread cultural artifact indicated a prevalence of cultural influence across a geographically diverse area. Notably, the excavation of said mounds yielded a wealth of datable material which enabled archaeologists to pin the mounds to a specific period, around six to eight thousand years ago. According to most prevalent archaeological timelines, this date precedes other megalithic constructions or advanced societies, thus the hypothesis has had a significant impact on Indo-European studies.” ref

“The second line of evidence was built on linguistic evidence. The Kurgan hypothesis postulates that the people of this early Kurgan culture in the steppes north of the Black Sea were quite possibly the earliest speakers of a proposed mother language – “the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE),” which went on to spread across Europe and the Indian subcontinent, eventually evolving into the Romance, Hellenic, Germanic, Celtic, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, and Armenian language groups.” ref

“On the one hand, linguists had been identifying hundreds of words that were obviously related to one another across languages. On the other hand, unlike earthen mounds, words themselves tend to be difficult to tie to a specific location. There were some words that stood out though; words that appeared in the Proto-Indo-European lexicon, but that also implied geographic limitations. Such words tended to be tied to physical botanical or zoological species with specific known ranges, such as animals like “bear” and “seal,” and plants including “oak.” Conversely, the Proto-Indo-European did not include words for “palm tree” or “lion.” The inclusion of bears and seals and the conspicuous lack of other animals, like lions or elephants began to indicate a climatic pattern. It soon became apparent that the original PIE homeland must have been somewhere in a temperate climate, within the range of the named species. Notably, the PIE also included “snow.” The geographic location of the PIE homeland was somewhere with bears, oak trees, and snow.” ref

“Another of these more geographically specific words was “lox.” Anyone who has visited New York City can tell you that lox is a favorite bagel topping consisting of smoked salmon. It is easy to trace the etymology of lox into English from the German word ‘lachs,’ (meaning “salmon”), brought to the new world by immigrants. Many of the nineteenth century linguists were fluent in German and ‘lachs’ was among one of the many words on their lists with continent-spanning similarities. The etymological similarities of lox were well attested across the Asian and European language groups.” ref

THE PRIMEVAL MOUND

“The mastabas of the early dynasties had within them a development of the primeval mound, the place of original creation in Zep Tepi, the First Time, an embryonic stepped structure, concealed inside the internal fabric of the building. It was almost inevitable, therefore, that later generations should express their creative spirit in a shape of pure force, colossal but surging upwards, resting with absolute confidence on the earth, immovable but expressing that reaching out for the firmament — and beyond it, to the realm of the Imperishable Stars — which is so typical of the spirit of early Egypt.” ref

“It would have been more extraordinary, perhaps, if the Egyptians had not produced so perfect a shape as the pyramid, at this particular point in their development. That they did so sets the final seal on their achievement; after that expression of creative energy it was only to be expected that decline would inevitably follow. It was not a performance that could ever be repeated, nor one that could even be sustained; indeed, it may be argued that it could not be matched.” ref

“The pyramid, the supreme artefact of the age which was now approaching, represented in stone the summation of all that early Egypt was seeking to express. In every aspect of life, particularly those which touched the king in any way, the early builders of the Egyptian state were attempting to reconcile the cosmic with the human, to identify their society with concepts which otherwise defied articulation.” ref

“The Egyptians possessed an exceptional ability to synthesize complex propositions and penetrating perceptions in symbol and in expressions of the form and content of buildings. Often such synthesis was occluded. An example, which is pertinent to the origins of the Step Pyramid, is the terraced mound, whose origin lies in the little pile of sand raised above a Badarian grave. The mound signifies the Primeval Hill, the mound of creation on which the creator god settled himself when it first appeared above or out of the waters of the Abyss, on which he performed the first acts which inaugurated the cycle of creation itself.” ref

“The most spectacular manifestations of the terraced mound are the Step Pyramid and its companions in other parts of the Valley. The terraced mound would have had a powerful mystical appeal both to Imhotep and to his master. By means of it, Netjerykhet is able to mount to the stars; also it permits the king to fulfil the role of the creator god on his mound, in the perpetual renewal of the life of Egypt, which the whole complex at Saqqara encompasses.” ref

“The terraced mound evidently meant something of profound importance to the powers of the Third Dynasty and, so far as we can judge, particularly to them. Their successors of the Fourth Dynasty began at once to break away from the stepped form in the experimental structures which King Sneferu developed at Dahshur and Maidum, which achieved their consummation in the pyramids which his successors raised on the plateau at Giza.” ref

“There is a still more numinous form of the terraced mound, from much earlier times which is, in a quite literal sense, even more occult. Hidden in the core of the brick-enclosed rubble superstructures of several of the large First Dynasty mastabas at Saqqara is buried, as though waiting for its ultimate liberation or rebirth in the soaring terraces of the Third Dynasty pyramids. The terraced mound is to be found in all periods of Egyptian history, even in the latest, most decadent days. It is one of the most enduring and persistent images developed by the genius of the Egyptian creative spirit.” ref

“Some might see elements in the Netjerykhet complex as the last flowering of the ‘Mesopotamian connection’ in Egypt. The great wall, running for a total length of over one and a half miles, is recessed in a way reminiscent of the recessing of mastaba tombs which are in turn derived from Mesopotamian precedents. This similarity with the exterior of a mastaba is in line with the monument’s rich and complex symbols, and it probably deliberately recalls the earlier structure.” ref

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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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Kurgan/Steppe hypothesis: Kurgan hypothesis

“The Kurgan hypothesis 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 (курга́н), meaning tumulus or burial mound.” ref

Pontic-Caspian steppe hypothesis

“The Kurgan (or Steppe) hypothesis was first formulated by Otto Schrader (1883) and V. Gordon Childe (1926), and was later systematized by Marija Gimbutas from 1956 onwards. The name originates from the kurgans (burial mounds) of the Eurasian steppes. The hypothesis suggests that the Indo-Europeans, a patriarchal, patrilinear, and nomadic culture of the Pontic–Caspian steppe (now part of Eastern Ukraine and Southern Russia), expanded in several waves during the 3rd millennium BCE, coinciding with the taming of the horse. Leaving archaeological signs of their presence (see Corded Ware culture), they subjugated the supposedly peaceful, egalitarian, and matrilinear European neolithic farmers of Gimbutas’ Old Europe. A modified form of this theory by J. P. Mallory, dating the migrations earlier (to around 3500 BCE or 5,522 years ago) and putting less insistence on their violent or quasi-military nature, remains the most widely accepted view of the Proto-Indo-European expansion.” ref

Kurgans 7,000/6,000 years ago/Dolmens 7,000/6,000 years ago:

funeral, ritual, and other?

“After 10 years of research, we understand that Anatolia/Turkey, especially from the North West, is part of the basis of all European peoples spreading from both the Mediterranean and Balkan routs. Matching how all European cattle are all descended from Iranian cattle dispersed by farmer herders leaving Anatolia/Turkey.” – Joachim Burger – Anthropologist & Population Geneticist Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz. ref

Access to milk and cheese has been linked to the spread of agriculture across Europe starting around 9,000 years ago. And there is Mediterranean Cheese Production dated to around 7,200 Years Ago from the analysis of fatty residue in pottery from two Neolithic archaeological sites in Croatia has revealed evidence of fermented dairy products (soft cheeses and yogurts). ref

• Megalithic structures and Dolmen orientation
• Dolmens of the Caucasus Russia Deciphered
• Ancient DNA and the rewriting of human history
• Europe is based on Migration

Funnelbeaker culture

The Funnel Beaker Culture – “First Farmers of Scandinavia” around 6,200-4,650 years ago marks the arrival of Megalithic structures in Scandinavia from western Europe. Megaliths seem to have originated in the Near East. The oldest ones in Europe were found in Sicily and southern Portugal and date from around 9,000 years ago. The Funnelbeaker culture marks the appearance of megalithic tombs at the coasts of the Baltic and of the North sea, an example of which are the Sieben Steinhäuser in northern Germany. At graves, the people sacrificed ceramic vessels that contained food along with amber jewelry and flint-axes. Flint-axes and vessels were also deposed in streams and lakes near the farmlands, and virtually all Sweden’s 10,000 flint axes that have been found from this culture were probably sacrificed in water. They also constructed large cult centres surrounded by pales, earthworks, and moats. The Atlantic Megalithic culture really started with the advent of farming and would have spread from Iberia to France, the British Isles, and the Low Countries before reaching Scandinavia. Considering the high Northwest African admixture in Funnelbeaker, there is a good chance that Iberian Megalithic people inherited genes from Northwest Africans, probably from the North African Neolithic route that brought R1b-V88, E-M78, J1 and T1a to Iberia. R1b-V88 and E-M78 (V13) have both been found in Early Neolithic Iberia, and are both found throughout western Europe today. The two samples below also carried about 3% of Southwest Asian admixture, which is perfectly consistent with a Neolithic dispersal from the southern Levant across North Africa until Iberia. ref, ref

• Funnelbeaker Culture (samples from Sweden) : H (x3), H1, H24, J1d5, J2b1a, K1a5, T2b
  • Baalberge group (c. 5,800 to 5,350 ybp ; central-east Germany): H (x3), H1e1a, H7d5, HV, J, K1a (x2), N1a1a, T1a1, T2b, T2c (x2), T2e1, U5b2a2, U8a1a, X, X2c
  • Walternienburg-Bernburg group (c. 5,100 to 4,700 ybp ; central-east Germany): H, H1e1a3, H5, K1, K1a (x2), T2b, U5a, U5b, U5b1c1, U5b2a1a, V, W, X
  • Salzmünde group (5,400 to 5,000 ybp : central-east Germany): H (x2), H3 (x2), H5, HV, HV0, J, J1c (x2), J2b1a, K1, K1a, K1a4a1a2, N1a1a1a3 (x2), T2b (x2), U3a, U3a1, U5b, V, X2b1’2’3’4’5’6
  • Outliers from Gotland, Sweden (5,300 to 4,700 ybp): H7d, HV0a, J1c5 (2x), J1c8a, K1a2b (2x), K2b1a, T2b8 ref

The presence of H1 was confirmed in remains from the Late Neolithic Funnel Beaker culture in Scandinavia, which can also be classified as a Megalithic culture. H1 and H3 lineages would have been some of the most prevalent mt-haplogroups among the Megalithic cultures of Western Europe, which spanned the whole Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, from the 5th millennium BCE until the arrival of the Proto-Celts (Y-DNA R1b) from 2200 BCE to 1800 BCE (or up to 1200 BCE in parts of Iberia). Megalithic people would have belonged essentially to Y-haplogroups I2, G2a and E1b1b, with the possible addition of J2 lineages during the Chalcolithic. From the Bronze Age, R1b male lineages replaced a large percentage of Megalithic Y-haplogroups, but female Megalithic lineages survived almost unchanged in frequency. Celtic culture was born from the fusion of Indo-European paternal lineages (R1b) with native Central and Western European maternal lineages (including H1, H3, H10, J1c, K1a, T2, U5, and X2). The first pottery produced in the Fertile Crescent appeared circa 6500 BCE. It is from this period that early agriculturalists began expanding towards western Anatolia and Greece. These Neolithic farmers potentially belonged to haplogroups H5, as well as J1c, K1a, N1a, T2 and X2, all of which have been found in ancient Neolithic samples from Europe and Anatolia, and are also found throughout the Middle East today. The mutation defining haplogroup H took place at least 25,000 years ago, and perhaps closer to 30,000 years ago. Its place of origin is unknown, but it was probably somewhere around the northeastern Mediterraean (Balkans, Anatolia or Levant), possibly even in Italy. ref

Journeys to the Sun: Heavenly Symbols in Shamanism and Rock Art of Siberia and Central Asia

7,000-year-old burial mound unearthed in Siberia (pre-kurgan?)

It was thought by many, until now that such burial mounds, in Siberia, there is such a 7,000-year-old burial mound dating to the Neolithic Age from Novosibirsk region located in the southwestern part of Siberia on the banks of the Ob River adjacent to the Ob River Valley. In the mound were nine people, including women and children, and in the lower layer, they discovered a man with a stone axe and a horn tipped arrow. Dwellings of ancient people were also found close to the mound which may have contained a family grouping. ‘It is a fair assumption to say, as this fact proves, that the burial mounds emerged much earlier than the Bronze Age, in Neolithic times. 1 ‘ Unusual Artifacts Recovered in Russia  NOVOSIBIRSK, RUSSIA a figurine that appears to be wearing a feathered headdress at an approximately 5,000-year-old site near the Ob River in western Siberia. And this unusual artifact was found along with a bird carved from bone that was probably sewn onto clothing or worn as a pendant, and several anthropomorphic figurines, also equipped with holes, made of mammoth tusk, sandstone, birch burl, and an organic material that has not yet been identified. A moose figurine, made of shale, was also recovered. 1

Shahr-e Yeri, in northwest Iran, sometimes referred to as the “city of the mouthless” estimated to be more than 6,000 years old. Three prehistoric temples and 280 carved stones on which mouthless faces are depicted, all stretched across 1 1/2 miles on several small hills. It is thought these stones were used as totems, worshipped by the inhabitants of Shahr’e Yeri before the collapse of the city after it fell to the Urartians. The dead were buried in megalithic Dolman like tombs. Tombs of different sizes and other evidence expresses, rituals and religious beliefs. ref, ref

More than 5,000 years ago a nomadic group of shepherds rode out of the steppes of eastern Europe to conquer the rest of the continent. The Iberian peninsula was colonized by Neolithic migration wave 8,000 or 9,000 years ago then again 4,500 years ago, which brought with it a very different culture. War axes and carts with four wheels can be found in the layers of earth that date back 4,500 years. From then on, almost all men’s tombs were filled with weaponry, adornments, displays of wealth, reveals marked signs of a hierarchical society that broke with the old egalitarianism of the early Neolithic period. The group, today is known as the Yamna or Pit Grave culture, brought with them an innovative new technology, wheeled carts, which enabled them to quickly occupy new lands. More than 4,500 years ago, the descendants of these people reached the Iberian peninsula and wiped out the local men, according to new research by a team of international scientists. 1

A large number of religious casting in the style of the Scythian-Siberian was discovered in Birch island in the Kolyvan district of the Novosibirsk region for more than 2.5 thousand years, can indicate joint activities of the steppe nomads and hunting britainy tribes. In a small area, there was found figures of deer, horses, Scythian bow, small cooking kotelkina, they belong to the so-called Scythian – Siberian style and associated with the culture of nomads of the Kazakh Altai and the Baraba steppes. Such isolated figures found here before, but the mass appearance of these things in britainas area inhabited by tribes of hunters kulaika culture relates with possible joint activities of the ancient tribes he said. Perhaps the nomadic tribes came to petinou area for trade with the tribes of hunters. This is evidenced by found next to the Scythian-Siberian casting items kulaika culture – figures of moose, bear, birds of prey, and arrowheads belonging to the forest hunters. Moreover, could it be it was a joint magical rites tribes or evidence that representatives of different tribes joined together in marriage. The layer associated with the early iron age (3-2,5 thousand years ago) is not a settlement and not a burial: judging by the number of holes, animal bones, and objects found there, it seems like a sanctuary/(temple-like area?), where they celebrated secret rites. 1

The earliest known kurgans are dated to the 6,000 years ago in the Caucasus except it seems there is a pre-kurgan burial mound in Siberia from Novosibirsk region, dating to around 7,000-years ago. I think they could have so religious thinking transfer to things like pyramids. Maybe even to Ziggurats (multi-platform temples: 4,900 years old) or to Pyramids (multi-platform tombs: 4,700 years old). Ziggurats were huge religious monuments built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels. There are 32 ziggurats known at, and near, Mesopotamia. Twenty-eight of them are in Iraq, and four of them are in Iran. Ziggurats were built by the Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites, and Assyrians as monuments to local religions. The probable predecessors of the ziggurat were temples supported on raised platforms or terraces that date from the Ubaid period during the 6,000 years ago and the latest date from the 2,600 years ago. The earliest ziggurats probably date from the latter part of the Early Dynastic Period of Sumer. Tepe Sialk ziggurat, Iran was built around 5,000 years ago and the oldest settlements in Sialk to date back from 8,000-7,500 years ago. ref, ref, ref

• SREDNY STOG STAGE OF KURGAN CULTURE  In Search of the Indo-Europeans Language, Archaeology and Myth
• Yamna/Afanasevo elite males dominated by R1b-L23, Okunevo brings ancient Siberian/Asian population

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 around 5,000 years ago. The tradition of kurgan burials was adopted by some neighboring peoples who did not have such a tradition. Various Thracian kings and chieftains were buried in elaborate mound tombs found in modern Bulgaria. Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, was buried in a magnificent kurgan in present Greece; and Midas, a king of ancient Phrygia, was buried in a kurgan near his ancient capital of Gordion. 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 6,000 to 5,000 years ago, and Bronze Age until the 3,000 years ago, display continuity of the archaic forming methods. They were inspired by common ritual-mythological ideas. The Ipatovo kurgan revealed a long sequence of burials from the Maykop culture 6,000 years ago, down to the burial of a Sarmatian princess of the 2,300 years ago. The Maikop kurgan dates to the 5,000 years ago. Kurgan 4 at Kutuluk near Samara, Russia, dated to 4,400 years ago, contains the skeleton of a man, estimated to have been 35 to 40 years old and about 152 cm tall. Resting on the skeleton’s bent left elbow was a copper object 65 cm long with a blade of a diamond-shaped cross-section and sharp edges, but no point, and a handle, originally probably wrapped in leather. No similar object is known from Bronze Age Eurasian steppe cultures. The Kostromskaya kurgan of the 2,700 years ago produced a famous Scythian gold stag, next to the iron shield it decorated. Apart from the principal male body with his accoutrements, the burial included thirteen humans with no adornment above him, and around the edges of the burial twenty-two horses were buried in pairs. Females were buried in about 20% of graves of the lower and middle Volga river region during the Yamna and Poltavka cultures. Two thousand years later, females dressed as warriors were buried in the same region. David Anthony notes, “About 20% of Scythian–Sarmatian “warrior graves” on the lower Don and lower Volga contained females dressed for battle as if they were men, a phenomenon that probably inspired the Greek tales about the Amazons.” A near-equal ratio of male-to-female graves was found in the eastern Manych steppes and Kuban–Azov steppes during the Yamna culture. In Ukraine, the ratio was intermediate between the other two regions. ref

Carved stone in Inner Mongolia said to be nearly 7,700 years old involving an image featuring two eyes, a mouth, and four vertical slits, perhaps meant to indicate teeth with possible comparisons to rock paintings and carvings discovered in Siberia and with other parts of Inner Mongolia. Moreover, such face-like rock paintings and carvings have been found in many areas of Inner Mongolia and have provided information related to studies of ancient human migration and culture. 1

Stone Shamans and Flying Deer of Northern Mongolia Mongolia’s Bronze Age Deer stones are one of the most striking expressions of early monumental art in Central Asia, yet their age, origins, relationships, and meaning remain obscure. Speculation about Scythian connections has stimulated recent research in Mongolia that has begun to peel away their mysteries and reveals connections to Scytho-Siberian and northern art. Radiocarbon-dated horse skulls indicate pre-Scythian ages of “classic Mongolian” deer stones as well as firm association with the Late Bronze Age khirigsuur [kurgan] burial mound complex. 1

Deer stones (to me, similar to a kind of Totem poles; also known as reindeer stones) are ancient megaliths carved with symbols found largely in Siberia and Mongolia. The name comes from their carved depictions of flying deer. Deer stones are usually constructed from granite or greenstone, depending on which is the most abundant in the surrounding area. They have varying heights; most are over 3 feet tall, but some reach a height of 15 feet. The tops of the stones can be flat, round or smashed, suggesting that perhaps the original top had been deliberately destroyed. The stones are usually oriented with the decorated face to the east. The carvings and designs were most usually completed before the stone was erected, though some stones show signs of being carved in place. The designs were pecked or ground into the stone surface. Deep-grooved cuts and right-angle surfaces indicate the presence of metal tools. Stone tools were used to smooth the harsh cuts of some designs. Nearly all the stones were hand carved, but some unusual stones show signs that they could have been cut with a primitive type of mechanical drill. Reindeer are depicted as flying through the air, rather than merely running on land. (could this relate to star or northern lights reference?; Northern Lights Folklore: In the Sami language, the northern lights are called guovssahasah “the sun glowing in the sky in the morning or in the evening,” as in Aurora, the Latin word for dawn. But this word could also be translated as “the fire lit by a bird, the Siberian Jay”. Most Eskimo groups have a myth of the northern lights as the spirits of the dead playing ball with a walrus head or skull. The Eskimos of Nunivak Island had the opposite idea, of walrus spirits playing with a human skull. The Salteaus Indians of eastern Canada and the Kwakiutl and Tlingit of Southeastern Alaska interpreted the northern lights as the dancing of human spirits. The Eskimos who lived on the lower Yukon River believed that the aurora was the dance of animal spirits, especially those of deer, seals, salmon, and beluga. ref “It is said that many of the early Chinese legends associated with dragons were a result of the Northern Lights. The belief is that the lights were viewed as a celestial battle between good and evil dragons who breathed fire across the firmament”ref) Particularly in the Sayan-Altai stones, a multitude of other animals are present in deer stone imagery. One can see depictions of tigers, pigs, cows, horse-like creatures, frogs, and birds. Unlike the reindeer, however, these animals are depicted in a more natural style. This lack of ornate detailing indicates the lack of supernatural importance of such animals, taking an obvious backseat against the reindeer. Weapons and tools can be seen throughout all the stones, though weapons make a strong appearance in the Sayan-Altai stones. Bows and daggers crop up frequently, as well as typical Bronze-Age implements, such as fire-starters or chariot reins. The appearance of these tools helps date the stones to the Bronze Age. Chevron patterns crop up occasionally, usually in the upper regions of the stone. These patterns can be likened to military shields, suggesting the stones’ connection to armed conflict. It has also been suggested that chevron patterns could be a shamanic emblem representing the skeleton. Human faces are a much rarer occurrence and are usually carved into the top of the stone. Similar to The ‘Urfa Man’ These faces are carved with an open mouth, as though singing. This also suggests a religious/shamanistic connection of the deer stone, as a vocal expression is a common and important theme in shamanism. Deer stones were probably originally erected by Bronze Age nomads around 3,000 years ago though further research into the Cimmerian stone stelae-Kurgan stelae should be taken into much consideration. Deer stones as clan ancestor totem like the wood one (11,000-year-old statue unearthed in Siberia, the journal Antiquity argues that the statue was crafted from a single Larchwood log 11,600 years ago, the so-called Shigir Idol resembles the stone sculptures of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, which is often cited as the first monumental ritual structures. ref) Some stones include a circle at the top and stylised dagger and belt at the bottom, which has led some scholars, such as William Fitzhugh, to speculate that the stones could represent a spiritualized human body, particularly that of a prominent figure such as a warrior or leader. This theory is reinforced by the fact that the stones are all very different in construction and imagery, which could be because each stone tells a unique story for the individual it represents. Furthermore, drawings showed the highly stylized images of deer on the stones, as well as the settings in which they were placed. Radlov showed that in some instances the stones were set in patterns suggesting the walls of a grave, and in other instances, the deer stones were set in elaborate circular patterns, suggesting use in rituals. It identified two cultural conditions behind the deer stones. The eastern deer stones appear to be associated with cemeteries composed of above-ground slab graves. The other cultural tradition is associated with the circular structures suggesting use as the center of rituals. Deer stones will usually be found together with extraordinary monuments called khirgisuur, with slab burials or in some cases with petroglyphs forming a complex site. Deer stones are unique monuments dating to the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age that are found mostly in Mongolia and in some Central Asian countries. The Bronze Age funeral practice, sacrificial ritual and ideology and animal style art, which were spread among ancient nomads, are altogether represented through deer stones. 1, 2

The ‘Urfa Man’ found during construction work in the area of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site at Urfa-Yeni Mahalle / Yeni Yol, broken in four nearly equal pieces. The settlement was largely destroyed, it featured a small T-shaped pillar, similar to those from Göbekli Tepe’s Layer II.  This speaks for a PPN B date, as does the archaeological material recovered. It is the oldest known statue of a man, slightly larger than life-size. In contrast to the cubic and faceless T-shaped pillars, the ‘Urfa man’ has a face, eyes originally emphasized by segments of black obsidian sunk into deep holes, and ears ; a mouth, however, is not depicted. The statue seems to be naked with the exception of a V-shaped necklace. Legs are not depicted; below the body, there is only a conical plug, which allows the statue to be set into the ground. Both hands seem to grab his penis. There are several fragments, especially heads, of similar sculptures from Göbekli Tepe. At this site, statues like the ‘Urfa Man’ seem to have been part of a complex hierarchical system of imagery directly related to the functions of the circular enclosures. You can find a longer text about this here. The presence of a sculpture like the ‘Urfa Man’ and of T-shaped pillars are strong evidence for the presence of a special building inside the settlement at Urfa-Yeni Yol. It may have been comparable to the PPN B ‘cult buildings’ of Nevalı Çori (Hauptmann 1993), but this will remain pure speculation. 1

The earliest known dolmens are dated to the 7,000 years ago in Brittany, France’s northwesternmost region.

“Astronomers are exploring what might be described as the first astronomical observing tool, potentially used by prehistoric humans 6,000 years ago in Portugal. They suggest that the long, narrow entrance passages to ancient stone, or ‘megalithic’, tombs may have enhanced what early human cultures could see in the night sky, an effect that could have been interpreted as the ancestors granting special power to the initiated.” – ref

Dolmens used in this way seems like the features found in some pyramids, aiming to the stars that could have been thought to actually be ancestors or the place they go as in a possible reason to think ghosts live in the skies, that could relate to things like the zodiac. Could this also relate in some way to ‘Sky Burial’ theory and its possible origins at least 12,000 years ago to likely 30,000 years ago or older. The dolmens reached Britain, Ireland and southern Scandinavia about 6,000 years ago. Sites in central and southern Europe were constructed at a similar date. They are generally all regarded as tombs or burial chambers, despite the absence of clear evidence for this. Human remains, sometimes accompanied by artefacts, have been found in or close to the dolmens which could be scientifically dated using radiocarbon dating. However, it has been impossible to prove that these remains date from the time when the stones were originally set in place. A dolmen is a type of single-chamber megalithic, usually consisting of two or more vertical megaliths stones supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or “table”. ref

Understanding Religion Evolution

Scythian-Saka-Siberian Kurgan monuments

The monuments of these cultures coincide with Scythian–Saka–Siberian monuments. Scythian-Saka-Siberian monuments have common features, and sometimes common genetic roots. Also associated with these spectacular burial mounds are the Pazyryk, an ancient people who lived in the Altai Mountains lying in Siberian Russia on the Ukok Plateau, near the borders with China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The archaeological site on the Ukok Plateau associated with the Pazyryk culture is included in the Golden Mountains of Altai. Scythian-Saka-Siberian classification includes monuments from the 8th to the 2,300 years ago. This period is called the Early or Ancient Nomads epoch. “Hunnic” monuments date from the 2,300 to the 6th century AD, and other Turkic ones from the 6th century AD to the 13th century AD, leading up to the Mongolian epoch. The Scythians (/ˈsɪθiən, –ˈsɪð-/; from Greek Σκύθης, Σκύθοι), also known as Scyth, Saka, Sakae, Sai, Iskuzai, or Askuzai, were Eurasian nomads, probably mostly using Eastern Iranian languages, who were mentioned by the literate peoples surrounding them as inhabiting large areas in the central Eurasian steppes from about the 2,900 up until the 4th century AD. Saka, is the name used in Middle Persian and Sanskrit sources for the Scythians, a large group of Eurasian nomads on the Eurasian Steppe speaking Eastern Iranian languages. Modern scholars usually use the term Saka to refer to Iranians of the Eastern Steppe and the Tarim Basin. René Grousset wrote that they formed a particular branch of the “Scytho-Sarmatian family” originating from nomadic Iranian peoples of the northwestern steppe in Eurasia. They migrated into Sogdia and Bactria in Central Asia and then to the northwest of the Indian subcontinent where they were known as the Indo-Scythians. In the Tarim Basin and Taklamakan Desert region of Northwest China, they settled in Khotan and Kashgar which were at various times vassals to greater powers, such as Han China and Tang China. ref, ref, ref

Pre-Scythian-Saka-Sibirian kurgans (Bronze Age)

The Bronze Pre-Scythian-Saka-Sibirian culture developed in close similarity with the cultures of Yenisei, Altai, Kazakhstan, southern, and southeast Amur regions. In the 2nd millennium BC appeared so-called “kurgans-maidans”. On a prepared platform were installed earthen images of a swan, a turtle, a snake, or other image, with and without burials. Similar structures have been found in Ukraine, India and South America. Some kurgans had facing or tiling. One tomb in Ukraine has 29 large limestone slabs set on end in a circle underground. They were decorated with carved geometrical ornamentation of rhombuses, triangles, crosses, and on one slab, figures of people. Another example has an earthen kurgan under a wooden cone of thick logs topped by an ornamented cornice up to 2 m in height. In the Bronze Age, kurgans were built with stone reinforcements. Some of them are believed to be Scythian burials with built-up soil, and embankments reinforced with stone. Pre-Scythian-Saka-Sibirian kurgans were surface kurgans. Underground wooden or stone tombs were constructed on the surface or underground and then covered with a kurgan. The kurgans of Bronze culture across Europe and Asia were similar to housing; the methods of house construction were applied to the construction of the tombs. Kurgan Ak-su – Aüly (2,120– 2,110 years ago) with a tomb covered by a pyramidal timber roof under a kurgan has space surrounded by double walls serving as a bypass corridor. This design has analogies with Begazy, Sanguyr, Begasar, and Dandybay kurgans. These building traditions survived into the early Middle Ages, to the 8th-10th centuries AD. ref

Kurgan hypothesis

The Kurgan hypothesis postulates that the Proto-Indo-Europeans were the bearers of the Kurgan culture of the Black Sea and the Caucasus and west of the Urals. The hypothesis combined kurgan archaeology with linguistics to locate the origins of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE)-speaking peoples, named the culture “Kurgan” after their distinctive burial mounds and traced its diffusion into Europe. This hypothesis has had a significant impact on Indo-European studies. Three genetic studies in 2015 gave partial support to Gimbutas’s Kurgan theory regarding the Indo-European Urheimat. According to those studies, haplogroups R1b and R1a, now the most common in Europe (R1a is also common in South Asia) would have expanded from the Russian and Ukrainian steppes, 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. The Kurgan model of Indo-European origins identifies the Pontic–Caspian steppe as the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) urheimat, and a variety of late PIE dialects are assumed to have been spoken across the region. According to this model, the Kurgan culture gradually expanded until it encompassed the entire Pontic–Caspian steppe, Kurgan IV being identified with the Yamna culture of around 5,000 years ago. The mobility of the Kurgan culture facilitated its expansion over the entire region, and is attributed to the domestication of the horse and later the use of early chariots. The first strong archaeological evidence for the domestication of the horse comes from the Sredny Stog culture north of the Azov Sea in Ukraine, and would correspond to an early PIE or pre-PIE nucleus of the 7,000 years ago. ref

Cultures considered as part of the “Kurgan culture”:

• Bug–Dniester (6th millennium)
• Samara (5th millennium)
• Khvalynsk (5th millennium)
• Dnieper–Donets (5th to 4th millennia)
• Sredny Stog (mid-5th to mid-4th millennia)
• Maikop–Dereivka (mid-4th to mid-3rd millennia)
• Yamna (Pit Grave): This is itself a varied cultural horizon, spanning the entire Pontic–Caspian steppe from the mid-4th to the 3rd millennium.
• Usatovo culture (late 4th millennium) ref

Kurgan hypothesis Timeline

• 6,500–6,000: Early PIE. Sredny Stog, Dnieper–Donets and Samara cultures, domestication of the horse(Wave 1).
• 6,000–5,500: The Pit Grave culture (a.k.a. Yamna culture), the prototypical kurgan builders, emerges in the steppe, and the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. Indo-Hittite models postulate the separation of Proto-Anatolian before this time.
• 5,500–5,000: Middle PIE. The Pit Grave culture is at its peak, representing the classical reconstructed Proto-Indo-European society with stone idols, predominantly practicing animal husbandry in permanent settlements protected by hillforts, subsisting on agriculture, and fishing along rivers. Contact of the Pit Grave culture with late Neolithic Europe cultures results in the “kurganized” Globular Amphora and Baden cultures (Wave 2). The Maykop culture shows the earliest evidence of the beginning Bronze Age, and Bronze weapons and artifacts are introduced to Pit Grave territory. Probable early Satemization.
• 5,000–4,500: Late PIE. The Pit Grave culture extends over the entire Pontic steppe (Wave 3). The Corded Ware culture extends from the Rhine to the Volga, corresponding to the latest phase of Indo-European unity, the vast “kurganized” area disintegrating into various independent languages and cultures, still in loose contact enabling the spread of technology and early loans between the groups, except for the Anatolian and Tocharian branches, which are already isolated from these processes. The centum–satem break is probably complete, but the phonetic trends of Satemization remain active. ref

Thousands of horsemen may have swept into Bronze Age Europe, transforming the local population

 Early Bronze Age men from the vast grasslands of the Eurasian steppe swept into Europe on horseback about 5000 years ago—and may have left most women behind. This mostly male migration may have persisted for several generations, sending men into the arms of European women who interbred with them, and leaving a lasting impact on the genomes of living Europeans. It looks like males migrating in war, with horses and wagons. Europeans are the descendants of at least three major migrations of prehistoric people. First, a group of hunter-gatherers arrived in Europe about 37,000 years ago. Then, farmers began migrating from Anatolia (a region including present-day Turkey) into Europe 9000 years ago, but they initially didn’t intermingle much with the local hunter-gatherers because they brought their own families with them. Finally, 5000 to 4800 years ago, nomadic herders known as the Yamnaya swept into Europe. They were an early Bronze Age culture that came from the grasslands, or steppes, of modern-day Russia and Ukraine, bringing with them metallurgy and animal herding skills and, possibly, Proto-Indo-European, the mysterious ancestral tongue from which all of today’s 400 Indo-European languages spring. They immediately interbred with local Europeans, who were descendants of both the farmers and hunter-gatherers. Within a few hundred years, the Yamnaya contributed to at least half of central Europeans’ genetic ancestry. ref

Some had thought there was a male shaman in China in Tomb M45 at Puyang, Xishuipo, Henan, which date to between circa 4,500 and 3,000 BC arrangement of Tomb M45 to reflect shamanic practices, no particular evidence supports or even suggests this interpretation. On the other hand, Feng Shi and others have argued that this tomb configuration represents certain asterisms. In fact, it appears that the burial was situated in a way that mirrored certain circumpolar and non-circumpolar asterisms. Four human bodies lie in the tomb that is shaped overall like a turtle plastron, while the center skeleton, that of a young man, represents the “owner” of the tomb. At least one of the other bodies, prior to being interred in the tomb, had been sacrificed or otherwise killed with blade applied to the throat. The owner’s head faces south and his feet north, and at each of his sides lies an animal figure, head positioned toward the north and lying at the feet of the grave owner. The animal figures were constructed from cowrie shells. The figures appear to be guarding the tomb owner. Strikingly, they very obviously take the forms of a dragon and a tiger. It is well known that during and after the Warring States period the dragon and tiger became spirit protectors / mythical creatures of the directions of east and west, respectively. Indeed, by as early as the 5th century BC their respective positions and apparent roles as helper spirits (shen 神) were already established: on a lacquer clothes chest dating to 433 BC, the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng in Hubei province the dragon and tiger appear in precisely the same arrangement surrounding the pole star as they do in M45 at Puyang. The Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng was made around 433 BC, either at the end of the Spring and Autumn period or the start of the Warring States period. The tomb comes from the end of the thousand-year-long period of the burial of large sets of Chinese ritual bronzes in elite tombs and is also unusual in containing large numbers of musical instruments, including the great set of bells for which it is most famous. Along with the Late Shang dynasty tomb of Fu Hao, the tomb represents one of the largest sets of ritual bronze vessels, seeming clear that most pieces would have originally come from large groups deposited in an elite tomb not a spiritual religious shaman. This tomb is important in the history of Ancient Chinese glass, as it contains 173 eye beads that were made in a western Asian style, similar to some found in Gilan, Iran. In Han and later correlative cosmology, and therefore in traditions of internal alchemy, as well, the dragon and tiger, together with the tortoise/snake (north) and Vermilion bird/Phoenix (south), became the Four Spirits (si shen 四神) of the four directions. In fact, yet another of the later Four Spirits seems to lie in tomb M45, in a position directly north of the owner’s feet. This figure, consisting of a head and stem, is constructed of cowrie shells (head) placed in contact with two human femurs (stem) taken from another skeleton interred nearby. Ancient Yangshao culture at Puyang appears to have looked to the night sky to establish a sense of security, and that already in the 5th–4th millennia BC ancient people of China seemingly observed the northern celestial pole and considered it central in their religion. It might be that the stellar configurations in the night sky centering on the stellar pole were thought to provide, likely sympathetically, the dead with protection by or communion with the high stellar powers of the pole. Furthermore, their religious recognition and sympathetic imitation of the pole also would have provided those who remained alive with the assurance that some form of life continued after death, for otherwise the living would not have incurred the enormous expense and taken such remarkable care to bury someone so elaborately to conform to nocturnal stellar patterns, especially considering that they placed the center of the corpse of the deceased precisely where the northern celestial pole would be in relation to the stellar dragon and tiger. Indeed, the presence of the three other skeletons lying in the tomb with the tomb owner, at least one of which was apparently a sacrificial victim, and placed as they were in special niches carved into the walls of the tomb as if in shrines to gods of the north, east, and west, appears to confirm that the grave layout was not merely imitative but also religious in meaning. Thus, in this Neolithic culture of China of the 5th and 4th millennia BC, human death, and therefore most
certainly also life, seemingly were locked intimately into the mysteries of the night sky’s pivot, the northern celestial pole. 1, 2

2,500 years old mummified remains of the “Ice Maiden,” a Scytho-Siberian woman a representative of the Pazyryk culture that thrived between the 2,600 and 2,200 years ago in the Siberian steppe and who lived on the Eurasian Steppes in the 2,500 years ago, were found undisturbed in a subterranean burial chamber. The Ice Maiden’s tomb was found on the Ukok Plateau near the border of China, in what is now the Autonomous Republic of Altai. The plateau, part of the Eurasian Steppes, is characterized by a harsh, arid climate. Discovery was among a group of kurgans located in a strip of territory disputed between Russia and China. A kurgan is a burial mound filled in with smaller sediment and covered with a pile of rocks; typically, the mound covered a tomb chamber, which contained a burial inside a log coffin, with accompanying grave goods. Such burial chambers were built from notched wood logs to form a small cabin, which may have resembled the semi-nomads’ winter shelters. The Ice Maiden’s tomb chamber was constructed in this way, and the wood and other organic materials present have allowed her burial to be dated. A core sample from the logs of her chamber was analyzed by a dendrochronologist, and samples of organic matter from the horses’ stomachs were examined as well, indicating that the Ice Maiden was buried in the spring, at some point during the 2,500 years ago. Before Polosmak and her crew reached the Ice Maiden’s chamber, they hit upon a second later burial in the same kurgan positioned on top of the Maiden’s wooden tomb chamber. The contents included a stone and wood coffin containing a skeleton, along with three horses. Polosmak believes that this secondary burial was that of an outside group, perhaps of subordinate peoples, who considered it honorable to bury their dead in Pazyryk kurgans. A shaft dug into the kurgan indicated that this later grave had been robbed, another means by which water and snow entered and seeped into the Ice Maiden’s hollow burial chamber. The water collected, froze, and formed an ice block within the chamber which never fully thawed because of the steppe climate, permafrost, and the rocks piled on top of the mound which deflected the sun’s rays. The finding of cannabis in a container near the body led to the supposition that the drug was used to relieve the chronic pain that the woman would have suffered. She may have had the elevated status of a priestess in her community based upon the items found in her chamber. The Ice Maiden’s preserved skin has the mark of an animal-style deer tattoo on one of her shoulders, and another on her wrist and thumb. She was buried in a yellow silk tussah blouse, a crimson-and-white striped wool skirt with a tassel belt, thigh-high white felt leggings, with a marten fur, a small mirror made from polished metal and wood with carved deer figures, and a headdress that stood nearly three feet tall. The size of the headdress necessitated a coffin that was eight feet long. The headdress had a wooden substructure with a molded felt covering and eight carved feline figures covered in gold. There were remains of coriander seeds in a stone dish that may have been provided for the Maiden’s medicinal use. ref

The Pazyryk burials are a number of Scythian Iron Age tombs found in the Pazyryk Valley of the Ukok plateau in the Altai Mountains, Siberia, south of the modern city of Novosibirsk, Russia; the site is close to the borders with China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Craniological studies of samples from the Pazyryk burials determined that skulls were generally of Europoid type, with some showing Mongoloid features. Numerous comparable burials have been found in neighboring western Mongolia. The tombs are Scythian-type kurgans, barrow-like tomb mounds containing wooden chambers covered over by large cairns of boulders and stones, dated to the 2,400 – 2,300 years ago. The spectacular burials at Pazyryk are responsible for the introduction of the term kurgan, a Russian word of Turkic origin, into general usage to describe these tombs. The region of the Pazyryk kurgans is considered the type site of the wider Pazyryk culture. Certain geometric designs and sun symbols, such as the circle and rosette, recur at Pazyryk but are completely outnumbered by animal motifs. Such specifically Scythian features as zoomorphic junctures, i.e. the addition of a part of one animal to the body of another, are rarer in the Altaic region than in southern Russia. The stag and its relatives, however, figure as prominently in Altaic as in Scythian art. Pazyryk kurgans were tattooed. No instruments specifically designed for tattooing were found, but the Pazyryks had extremely fine needles with which they did miniature embroidery, and these were probably used for tattooing. The chief was elaborately decorated with an interlocking series of striking designs representing a variety of fantastic beasts. The best-preserved tattoos were images of a donkey, a mountain ram, two highly stylized deer with long antlers and an imaginary carnivore on the right arm. Two monsters resembling griffins decorate the chest, and on the left arm are three partially obliterated images which seem to represent two deer and a mountain goat. On the front of the right leg a fish extends from the foot to the knee. A monster crawls over the right foot, and on the inside of the shin is a series of four running rams which touch each other to form a single design. The left leg also bears tattoos, but these designs could not be clearly distinguished. In addition, the chief’s back is tattooed with a series of small circles in line with the vertebral column. This tattooing was probably done for therapeutic reasons. Contemporary Siberian tribesmen still practice tattooing of this kind to relieve back pain. The Pazyryk culture has been connected to the Scythians whose similar tombs have been found across the steppes. The Siberian animal style tattooing is characteristic of the Scythians. Trading routes between Central Asia, China, and the Near East passed through the oases on the plateau and these ancient Altai nomads profited from the rich trade and culture passing through. There is evidence that Pazyryk trade routes were vast and connected with large areas of Asia including India, perhaps Pazyryk merchants largely trading in high-quality horses. ref

Several kurgan burial mounds, where found in the Uyuk Valley in Tuva, a Russian republic, just northwest of Mongolia. The area is sometimes called the Siberian “Valley of the Kings,” referring to the place where pharaohs were buried for 500 years in ancient Egypt. ref

Mysterious Indo-European homeland may have been in the steppes of Ukraine and Russia

Ever since the mid-17th century, scholars have noted such similarities among the so-called Indo-European languages, which span the world and number more than 400 if dialects are included. Researchers agree that they can probably all be traced back to one ancestral language, called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). But for nearly 20 years, scholars have debated vehemently when and where PIE arose. Two long-awaited studies, one described online this week in a preprint and another scheduled for publication later this month, have now used different methods to support one leading hypothesis: that PIE was first spoken by pastoral herders who lived in the vast steppe lands north of the Black Sea beginning about 6000 years ago. One study points out that these steppe land herders have left their genetic mark on most Europeans living today. The studies’ conclusions emerge from state-of-the-art ancient DNA and linguistic analyses, but the debate over PIE’s origins is likely to continue. A rival hypothesis—that early farmers living in Anatolia (modern Turkey) about 8000 years ago were the original PIE speakers—is not ruled out by the new analyses, most agree. Although the steppe hypothesis has now received a major boost, “I would not say the Anatolian hypothesis has been killed,” says Carles Lalueza-Fox, a geneticist at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, who participated in neither of the new studies. ref

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. 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). 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

5000 years of migrations from the Eurasian steppes to Europe

The Pontic-Caspian steppe, extending from the Danube estuary to the Ural mountains, has played a crucial part in European and Asian history. This is where the horse was domesticated, chariots invented, and one of the earliest place where the Bronze Age flourished and from which it expanded. From approximately 6,000 years ago steppe people moved westwards to establish themselves around the Danube valley and the Carpathian basin, then little by little deeper into Europe. Here is a summary of this long series of migrations that is thought to have brought Indo-European languages and culture to Europe and contributed significantly to the modern European gene pool. Nowadays, approximately two-thirds of European men belong to the Y-chromosomal haplogroups R1a or R1b, two patrilineal lineages that have now been confirmed by ancient DNA tests to have arrived in Europe with the Indo-European migrations from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe during the Bronze Age. Yet, long after the Bronze Age ended, nomadic Steppe people frequently led more incursions into Europe. Not all of them were Indo-European speakers and, by the Late Bronze Age, even those that were, like the Scythians, had become admixed with a variety of non-Indo-European peoples from the Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia or even the Middle East. You can visualize here the maps of Bronze Age migrations into Europe and read more at this (link). ref

Historical summary of the migrations from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe to other parts of Europe

• 6,200-5,900 years ago: Late Copper Age horse riders invade the old Balkanese tell settlements of eastern Romania and Bulgaria. Most of the towns and villages of the Gumelnita, Varna and Karanovo VI cultures are abandoned. A new hybrid culture emerge, the Suvorovo-Cernavodă culture (6,000-5,200 years ago), which will expand further south to the Aegean during the Ezero period (3300-2700 BCE).
• 5,500 years ago: Other advances from the steppe into the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture lead to the formation of the hybrid Coţofeni culture, also known as Usatovo culture, in north-eastern Romania.
• 5,200-4,800 years ago: First north-west expansion of the Yamna culture from the western steppe to modern Poland, Germany, Scandinavia and Baltic countries. Creation of the Corded-Ware (or Single Grave, or Battle-Axe) culture (3200-1800 BCE).
• 4,800-4,500 years ago: Hybrid people from the Cotsofeni and Ezero cultures start moving up the Danube and settle in mass in the Hungarian plain. The southward expansion of the Abashevo, Poltakva and Catacomb cultures from the Volga-Ural to the Black Sea shores pushed more pastoralists of the late Yamna culture to Europe.
• 4,500-4,2300 years ago: Indo-Europeans expand from the Hungarian plain to Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, southern Poland and southern Germany and start the most important Central European Bronze Age culture: Unetice (or Aunjetitz).
• 4,300-4,000 years ago: The Indo-Europeans continue their advance to Western and Northern Europe, spreading the Bronze Age and the single grave tradition with them.
• 4,000-3,100 years ago: The Sea Peoples invade the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean from the north (probably from the Black Sea). This is one of the most controversial part of ancient history due to the lack of clear evidence about the origin of the Sea Peoples. The Indo-Europeans from the steppe or from Europe itself were the only warriors with sufficiently advanced weapons and knowledge of seafaring to have destroyed the powerful palace-states of Greece, Anatolia, the Levant and Egypt. It also fits the 1000-year interval otherwise lacking any major migration from the steppes, at the time when the eastern Indo-Europeans were conquering Pakistan and India from Central Asia.
• 2,800-2,550 years ago: The Cimmerians are ousted from the Pontic steppe by their cousins the Scythians coming from the Volga-Ural region and Central Asia. The Cimmerians settle in Anatolia and around modern Romania around 800 BCE. The Cimmerian culture commenced circa 1200 BCE. Some archaeologists place their origins in the North Caucasus. Some accounts have it that the Cimmerians moved to northern Germany and the Netherlands and became the ancestors of some Germanic tribes, like the Sicambri (ancestors of the Franks). The Scythians followed between 650 and 550 BCE in Transylvania, Hungary and southern Slovakia. They kept trade routes with the steppes until the Roman conquest of Pannonia and Dacia.
• 100-500 CE : The Huns from southern Siberia invade Eastern Europe, pushing the Alans (a Samartian-descended tribe) westward. The Goths, Vandals, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Jutes and others cross into the Roman Empire under pressure from the new steppe migrants, which caused the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
• 550-1000 CE : The next invaders from the steppe were the Avars, who entered the lower Danube region in 562. The Avars established their dominion over the Danube basin, from central Romania to eastern Austria, from the late 6th to early 9th century.In the 4th century, some Bulgars had crossed the Caucasus into Armenia while others had already followed the Huns, then the Avars to Central Europe. The Pontic steppe and North Caucasus was ruled by the Bulgars during the Old Great Bulgaria period in the 7th century. Under pressure from the Khazars, the Bulgars split in two groups; one migrating north to Volga Bulgaria, and the other to the Carpathians founding the First Bulgarian Empire (680–1018 CE) around modern Romania and Bulgaria.The Magyars and Khazars migrated from the Ural-Volga region to modern Ukraine around 830, raided their way across the Carpathians as far as Bavaria, where they were stopped in 956, then established themselves permanently in Hungary in the 10th century and founding the Kingdom of Hungary in 1001.
• 1235-1300 CE : The Mongol Empire reached Europe around 1235 and the Mongols invaded relentlessly Bulgaria, Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, Serbia and Byzantine Thrace. They were eventually defeated and expelled from Europe, but may have left some genetic traces (although very minor ones based on current evidence).
• 1350-1550 CE : The last people from Central Asia to come to Europe were the Turks, who conquered the Balkans from 1359 to 1481, then the Carpathians and Hungary from 1520 to 1566. They were not technically from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, but from areas of Central Asia settled over 4000 years ago by the Indo-Europeans from the Volga-Ural steppe. Like other Turkic peoples (Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Khazars, Tatars) the Turks supposedly brought a lot of R1a lineages with them (+ a little R1b). ref

The Greeks really do have near-mythical origins, ancient DNA reveals

Ever since the days of Homer, Greeks have long idealized their Mycenaean “ancestors” in epic poems and classic tragedies that glorify the exploits of Odysseus, King Agamemnon, and other heroes who went in and out of favor with the Greek gods. Although these Mycenaeans were fictitious, scholars have debated whether today’s Greeks descend from the actual Mycenaeans, who created a famous civilization that dominated mainland Greece and the Aegean Sea from about 3,600 to 3,200 years ago, or whether the ancient Mycenaeans simply vanished from the region. Now, ancient DNA suggests that living Greeks are indeed the descendants of Mycenaeans, with only a small proportion of DNA from later migrations to Greece. And the Mycenaeans themselves were closely related to the earlier Minoans, the study reveals, another great civilization that flourished on the island of Crete from 4,600 to 3,400 years ago (named for the mythical King Minos). The ancient DNA comes from the teeth of 19 people, including 10 Minoans from Crete dating to 4,900 to 3,700 years ago, four Mycenaeans from the archaeological site at Mycenae and other cemeteries on the Greek mainland dating from 3,700 to 3,200 years ago, and five people from other early farming or Bronze Age (7,400 to 3,340 years ago) cultures in Greece and Turkey. By comparing 1.2 million letters of genetic code across these genomes to those of 334 other ancient people from around the world and 30 modern Greeks, the researchers were able to plot how the individuals were related to each other. The ancient Mycenaeans and Minoans were most closely related to each other, and they both got three-quarters of their DNA from early farmers who lived in Greece and southwestern Anatolia, which is now part of Turkey, the team reports today in Nature. Both cultures additionally inherited DNA from people from the eastern Caucasus, near modern-day Iran, suggesting an early migration of people from the east after the early farmers settled there but before Mycenaeans split from Minoans. The Mycenaeans did have an important difference: They had some DNA—4% to 16%—from northern ancestors who came from Eastern Europe or Siberia. This suggests that a second wave of people from the Eurasian steppe came to mainland Greece by way of Eastern Europe or Armenia, but didn’t reach Crete, says Iosif Lazaridis, a population geneticist at Harvard University who co-led the study. ref

Afghanistan’s Ethnic Groups Share a Y-Chromosomal Heritage Structured by Historical Events, around Neolithic Revolution (12,000-5,000 years ago) and Bronze Age (5,000-3,000 years ago), probably driven by the formation of the first civilizations in the region. Later migrations and invasions into the region have been assimilated differentially among the ethnic groups, increasing inter-population genetic differences, and giving the Afghans a unique genetic diversity in Central Asia.

One wave of migration from Siberia populated the Americas, DNA shows

Native American ancestors reached the new world in a single, initial migration from Siberia at most 23,000 years ago, only later differentiating into today’s distinct groups, DNA research revealed. ref

12,000 – 7,000 Years Ago – Paleo-Indian Culture (The Americas)

Early Shamanism around 30,000 years ago: Sungar (Russia) and Dolni Vestonice (Czech Republic)

Black, White, and Yellow Shamanism?

Shamanism: an approximately 30,000-year-old belief system

Sky Burials: Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, and Paganism

Similarity in Shamanism?

‘Sky Burial’ theory and its possible origins at least 12,000 years ago to likely 30,000 years ago or older.

Out of Africa: “the evolution of religion seems tied to the movement of people”

J DNA and the Spread of Agricultural Religion (paganism)

The info below is from the book Megalithism: Sacred and Pagan Architecture in Prehistory

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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5,000-Year-Old Kurgan-Style Tumulus Discovered in Istanbul

In the Silivri district of Istanbul have uncovered the oldest kurgan-style tumulus (5,000 years old) ever found in Turkey. Researchers believe the tumulus belongs to a prominent warrior or soldier from the Bronze Age given the spearhead that was found buried with him. A tumulus is a mound of stones and earth that has been built over a grave (or graves), and although they were used almost universally during the Neolithic era they vary in structure, size, and usage in individual cultures (kurgan is the Russian word for tumulus). Often categorized by their apparent shape, a tumulus can be described as either a long barrow: a tumulus typically constructed on top of several graves, or a round barrow, which is of course a round tumulus. The architecture and internal structure of both barrows can vary widely, the categorization refers just to the apparent external shape. Kurgan style tumuli were originally used in the Russian Steppes and later spread into central, northern, and eastern Europe during the 5,000 years ago. They were often structurally complex, with internal rooms and a centralized burial chamber, which was likely to contain funerary goods, weapons and sacrificial offerings, and for members of the elite class; horses and even chariots. Thrace, a historical as well as a geographic region, is centered (generally) on the borders of modern-day Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece. In antiquity it was referred to as Europe, before the term was extended to describe the entire continent. The areas it comprises are in the southeastern region of Bulgaria, the northeastern region of Greece, and the European region of Turkey. The largest part of Thrace is within modern-day Bulgaria. The indigenous people of Thrace (Thracians) were divided into multiple tribal groups. Thracian soldiers were known to fight with the Persian armies while the Persian Empire controlled the region, later, they sided with Alexander the Great when he fought the Persians. Divided as they were into separate tribes, the Thracians didn’t have any permanent political organization until the Odrysian state was founded in the fourth century BCE, before then the mountainous tribes kept with a warrior tradition while the tribes living across the plains lived, supposedly, more peacefully. ref

Mapping the trail of ziggurats chronologically, from the oldest to the newest, would show the direction these people have arrived from! 

Written evidence

Goddess of war and love Inanna’s descent into the netherworld is the earliest of the Sumerian myths that we know from cuneiform tablets.

The verses regarding mountains define them as reaching high heaven, as written by the late American Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer, who not only provided a major contribution to research but also introduced Sumer civilization to a greater audience. Via Japanese scholar Toshikazu Kuwabara’s paper (A Study of Terminology of the Netherworld in Sumero-Akkadian Literature), we may see some aspects of Sumerian mythology: “My house which stands from the very heavens upon the earth.” In Sumerian language, Ki denotes earth and An denotes sky and sky god. Ki is the basis of the word geo as in geography and “an” (which also means sky in Sumerian) is the probable basis of the word sun in English. Other very important verses from Sumerian myths: “Man the tallest, cannot stretch to heaven Man the widest, cannot cover the wider world” The above lines from Gilgamesh and the Land of the Living Sumerian myth clearly show what height means for the Sumerians: a way to reach heaven above! Pyramids are tall and wide, just like the mountains. The word Kurgal: the great mountain is an epithet of Enlil, the god of air. In the below sentence, the great land is actually the great mountain (in Sumerian the word is Kurgal)!  “Sumer, the great land, the country of heaven and earth.” In Sumer, the cosmic mountain signified a united heaven and earth, the base being the earth and the netherworld and the top reaching the heaven. All this centers around the belief in the sky god An and the sky heavens, central to a Sumerian belief system and mythology. What do ziggurats, Sumerian step pyramids, and Egyptian pyramids look like? Man-made mountains! Moreover, pyramids, like mountains, rise towards the sky, as high as their technology allowed. Pyramids are the representation of the aforementioned beliefs found in Sumerian myths written in cuneiform. The reason for Sumerians building the pyramids—and step pyramids prior to them—is right there in their myths, and in writing, no less! Mountains were, in fact, central to Sumerian mythology, and there are no mountains in Sumer or Egypt where the pyramids were built. ref

Mountains in Turkish Mythology of Siberia and Central Asia

According to Siberian Turks, mountains were sacred. Turks thought that the higher they were, the closer they were to gods, just like the Sumerians did. In fact, Tengriism is the Turkish religious belief in a sky god/Kok Tengri. The cosmic mountain is central to Turkish mythology too. In Central Asia, many mountains and mountain ranges were named after gods, such as the current Tanri mountain—which is the same word as Dingir in Sumerian—the highest Sumerian god whose Sumerian sign looks like a star. So, we find the name of the highest god of Sumer civilization in Central Asia today with the same word and meaning. There are uch-Sumer peaks in the Altai mountains. As an interesting side note, Sumeru/Sumerula is the highest Buddhist mountain. Once more, we see a mountain is named after the highest god and with Sumer/Subar names. For many Turkic people, mountains were also grounds for sacrificial rituals. Shamans would—and in some Altay tribes they still do—pray to the mountains. They would lay food, and sometimes sacrifice animals during rituals. Some mountains were seen as layers reaching the heaven of Ulgen, one of the primordial Turkic gods in Turkish mythology in Siberia. One should also note that Siberian Turkic mythology is extremely vast, probably dwarfing any other ancient mythologies. Muazzez Ilmiye Cig wrote in her 2013 book “Sumer are Turkish” that Turks could not spell out the name of the mountains out of fear of retribution/reprisal, so they gave the same mountains many names. Some Turkic tribes in Altai region would whisper around the mountains to avoid angering the spirits. They were scared of the power of mountains and offered sacrifices to them, such as white horses in some Hunnic tribes some two thousand years ago. These sacrifices were made to heal their sick and to revere their ancestors, and they did other ritualistic acts to show their respect to the mountains. In a Sumerian tale, the war goddess Ninurta gives a mountain as a gift to her mother. The word “orta” (war) is still used in Turkish as Ordu/army and is the source of the English word “horde” as well as the Pakistani language Urdu. For Sumerians, ziggurat must have been the mountain of underworld spirits. Zi means spirit, and gur/kur have two meanings—the underworld and the earth. Ziggurats/Egyptian pyramids are the image of the cosmic mountain depicted in shamanistic rituals and Turkic people’s beliefs, whose ancestral home is Siberia. ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey 

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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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. 

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