(Magdalenian/Iberomaurusian)
Connections to the First Paganists of the early Neolithic Near East
Dating from around 17,000 to 12,000 Years Ago
In the picture above is a reference to the paganistic Goddess cult concept relating to the three realms: heaven (assumed goddess figure arms up), earth (assumed pre-goddess figure arms around the body or little to no arms), and the underworld (assumed goddess figure arms down). “My Speculations.”
I surmise that there is an expression in goddess representation that relates to the three realms sky goddess with the upturned arms relating to the waxing crescent, the fat sitting goddess is a representation to the full moon and the arms turned down are a representation of the waning crescent. And it this way both up and down arms represent metaphorical bullhorns and why goddesses are associated with bulls or as bulls. Especially, with paganism.
Could it be that the emergence of this new goddess cult of the sitting mother goddess in the Levant, somehow related to the new problems these Neolithic women faced as there was a decrease in mean age at death for Neolithic females which may be the result in higher levels or maternal risk associated with child-birth. It is intriguing to consider the shifts in perceptions and behaviors surrounding women’ health, pregnancy, and childbirth, and kin relations that might extend from such changes. Studies point to increasing fertility and higher birth rates among some newly sedentary groups. ref
The monumental figures from MPPNB contexts: ‘Ain Ghazal, Jericho, and, possibly, Nahal Hemar. The most numerous (n=34) and best-studied examples come from ‘Ain Ghazal. Some of the figures are busts and others are full-bodied. They were made by applying plaster over bundles of reeds that are bent and tied into the torso, limb, and head elements. The majority of statues lack overt sexual characteristics. There are three exceptions, two statues with breasts, and one with external genitals, especially a woman’s. There is a general acceptance that these larger figures had a role in public events. First, they are typically found in caches, which represent unique depositional contexts. Second, aspects of their morphology suggest that they were produced to be viewed at some distance, i.e. their size/weight and stylized features. Embedded dirt and pigment indicate that they were placed on the ground or another flat surface. Their flattened profiles seem to suggest that they were placed against a wall or niche, rather than being viewed from 360 degrees. ref
Ain-Ghazal (Jordan) Pre-pottery Neolithic B Period
Ain-Ghazal human-like figures could represent special ancestors (which later may attach to the emergence of gods), several lack arms, have a non-anthropomorphic feature that include elongated almond-shaped eyes with pupils and irises shaped like diamonds rather than circles. In addition, a number of the large figures have two heads and others have six or seven toes. Possibly, the figures represent part of the southern Levant’s PPNB emerging pantheon. Two-headed statues and images occur from the Neolithic era down through the 5,000 years ago. Babylonian texts seem to refer to these explicitly as deities. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic examples also have similarities to statues associated with ghost and witchcraft rituals in Babylonian cuneiform literature. Whatever explanation one finds most appealing, it is noteworthy that most of the Neolithic examples have indecipherable sex, while a small number have female attributes. ref
Goddess and the Bull and what of the smaller figurines from Neolithic contexts in the southern Levant?
Neolithic Levantine figurines are typically deposited in domestic fill, rather than pits, caches, or other distinctive features. Some are made of stone, but most are made of clay. Breakage patterns suggest that some of the figurines may have been intentionally broken. The stone examples indicate perhaps different meanings attached to different kinds of rituals being performed as in a more personal domestic cult (involving an association with mother goddess) and an additional clan ancestor cult many seem male in expression some with erect or presented phallus and the many associations in art like that at Çatalhöyük it wich groups of men are believed to be performing ritual hunting scenes that may involve group taunting of the horned animals (involving an association with horned animals such as the bull-horns being both a part of the early phallus phenomena as well as a representation of the moons emerging crescent or dissipating crescent associated with arms of the goddess). In terms of sex/gender identification, there are figurines that encode no recognizable clues about sex or gender. And there are also examples of figurines with dual-sex connotations. While the majority exhibit a female form, there are also examples of male figurines. ref, ref
Dzudzuana Cave individuals from the Southern Caucasus dated to around 27,000-24,000 years ago
DNA proves that the European affinity of Neolithic Anatolians does not necessarily reflect admixture into the Near East from Europe, as an Anatolian Neolithic-like population already existed in parts of the Near East by around 26, 000. The Dzudzuana cave individuals share more alleles with Villabruna-cluster groups than with other ESHG, suggesting that this European affinity was specifically related to the Villabruna cluster, and possibly indicating that the Villabruna affinity of PGNE populations from Anatolia and the Levant is not the result of a migration into the Near East from Europe, ancestry deeply related to the Villabruna cluster was present not only in Gravettian and Magdalenian-era Europeans but also in the populations of the Caucasus, by around 26,000 years ago. ref
Surprisingly, the Dzudzuana population was more closely related to early agriculturalists from western Anatolia around 8,000 years ago than to the hunter-gatherers of the Caucasus from the same region of western Georgia of around 13,000-10,000 thousand years ago. Most of the Dzudzuana population’s ancestry was deeply related to the post-glacial western European hunter-gatherers of the ‘Villabruna cluster’, but it also had ancestry from a lineage that had separated from the great majority of non-African populations before they separated from each other, proving that such ‘Basal Eurasians’ were present in West Eurasia twice as early as previously recorded. We document major population turnover in the Near East after the time of Dzudzuana, showing that the highly differentiated Holocene populations of the region were formed by ‘Ancient North Eurasian’ admixture into the Caucasus and Iran and North African admixture into the Natufians of the Levant. We finally show that the Dzudzuana population contributed the majority of the ancestry of post-Ice Age people in the Near East, North Africa, and even parts of Europe, thereby becoming the largest single contributor of the ancestry of all present-day West Eurasians. Neolithic Anatolians, while forming a clade with Dzudzuana with respect to ESHG, share more alleles with all other PGNE, suggesting that PGNE share at least partially common descent to the exclusion of the much older samples from Dzudzuana. ref
Co-modeling of Epipaleolithic Natufians and Ibero-Maurusians from Taforalt confirms that the Taforalt population was mixed, but instead of specifying gene flow from the ancestors of Natufians into the ancestors of Taforalt as originally reported, we infer gene flow in the reverse direction (into Natufians). The Neolithic population from Morocco, closely related to Taforalt is also consistent with being descended from the source of this gene flow, and appears to have no admixture from the Levantine Neolithic (Supplementary Information 166 section 3). If our model is correct, Epipaleolithic Natufians trace part of their ancestry to North Africa, consistent with morphological and archaeological studies that indicate a spread of morphological features and artifacts from North Africa into the Near East. Such a scenario would also explain the presence of Y-chromosome haplogroup E in the Natufians and Levantine farmers, a common link between the Levant and Africa.
(…) we cannot reject the hypothesis that Dzudzuana and the much later Neolithic Anatolians form a clade with respect to ESHG (P=0.286), consistent with the latter being a population largely descended from Dzudzuana-like pre-Neolithic populations whose geographical extent spanned both Anatolia and the Caucasus. Dzudzuana itself can be modeled as a 2-way mixture of Villabruna-related ancestry and a Basal Eurasian lineage.
In modeling, a deeply divergent hunter-gatherer lineage that contributed in relatively unmixed form to the much later hunter-gatherers of the Villabruna cluster is specified as contributing to earlier hunter-gatherer groups (Gravettian Vestonice16: 35.7±11.3% and Magdalenian ElMiron: 60.6±11.3%) and to populations of the Caucasus (Dzudzuana: 199 72.5±3.7%, virtually identical to that inferred using ADMIXTUREGRAPH). In Europe, descendants of this lineage admixed with pre-existing hunter-gatherers related to Sunghir3 from Russia for the Gravettians and GoyetQ116-1 from Belgium for the Magdalenians, while in the Near East it did so with Basal Eurasians. Later Europeans prior to the arrival of agriculture were the product of re-settlement of this lineage after ~15kya in mainland Europe, while in eastern Europe they admixed with Siberian hunter-gatherers forming the WHG-ANE cline of ancestry [See PCA above]. In the Near East, the Dzudzuana-related population admixed with North African-related ancestry in the Levant and with Siberian hunter-gatherer and eastern non-African-related ancestry in Iran and the Caucasus. Thus, the highly differentiated populations at the dawn of the Neolithic were primarily descended from Villabruna Cluster and Dzudzuana-related ancestors, with varying degrees of additional input related to both North Africa and Ancient North/East Eurasia whose proximate sources may be clarified by future sampling of geographically and temporally intermediate populations. ref
Ancient DNA has shed a great deal of light on how Pleistocene North African genomes link Near Eastern and sub-Saharan African human populations. The preprint is Ancient genomes from North Africa evidence prehistoric migrations to the Maghreb from both the Levant and Europe. ref
Magdalenian Culture Y-DNA: IJK, I and M-DNA R0, R1b, U2’3’4’7’8’9, U5b (x2), U8a (x5)
Haplogroup IJ branched from IJK in West Asia and/or the Middle East. While early estimates suggested that the most recent common ancestor of haplogroup IJ could have lived 30,500 years ago, the latest estimates suggest that he lived 42,400–46,400 years before present. Examples of the basal/paragroup Haplogroup IJ* (M429) were first reported in a 2012 study of genetic diversity in Iran, by Grugni et al. These individuals were reported to be positive for M429 and negative for the SNPs M170 and M304, which define haplogroup I and haplogroup J respectively. IJ split in a typical, disjunctive, almost mutually-exclusive geographical pattern, with J-M304 far more common on the Arabian Plate (hence Arabid) and I-M170 far more common in Continental Europe (hence Europid); the age of IJ and its subclades suggest that IJ probably entered Europe through the Balkans, sometime before the last glacial maximum (about 26,500 years BP). The same geographic corridor (the Balkans) is likely to have supported subsequent gene flows, including some identified with Early European Farmers (from about 9,000 years BP). ref
The immediate descendants of Haplogroup IJ are Haplogroup I and Haplogroup J. Haplogroup IJ derived populations account for a significant proportion of the pre-modern populations of Europe (especially Scandinavia and the Balkans), Anatolia, the Middle East (especially Arabia, The Caucasus, Levant, and Mesopotamia) and coastal North Africa. ref
Evidence of genetic stratification ascribable to the Sumerian development was provided by the Y-chromosome
data where the J1-Page08 branch reveals a local expansion, almost contemporary with the Sumerian
City State period that characterized Southern Mesopotamia. On the other hand, a more ancient background shared
with Northern Mesopotamia is revealed by the less represented Y-chromosome lineage J1-M267*. Overall our
results indicate that the introduction of water buffalo breeding and rice farming, most likely from the Indian subcontinent, only marginally affected the gene pool of autochthonous people of the region. Furthermore, a prevalent
Middle Eastern ancestry of the modern population of the marshes of southern Iraq implies that if the Marsh Arabs
are descendants of the ancient Sumerians, also the Sumerians were most likely autochthonous and not of Indian
or South Asian ancestry. ref
J2 Haplogroup
Haplogroup J2 is thought to have appeared somewhere in the Middle East towards the end of the last glaciation, between 15,000 and 22,000 years ago. The oldest known J2a samples at present were identified in remains from the Hotu Cave in northern Iran, dating from 11,100-10,600 years ago, and from Kotias Klde in Georgia, dating from 9,940-9,600 years ago. This confirms that haplogroup J2 was already found around the Caucasus and the southern Caspian region during the Mesolithic period. The first appearance of J2 during the Neolithic came in the form of a 10,000-year-old J2b sample from Tepe Abdul Hosein in north-western Iran in what was then the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Though haplogroup J2 does not seem to have been one of the principal lineages associated with the rise and diffusion of cereal farming from the Fertile Crescent and Anatolia to Europe. It is likely that J2 men had settled over most of Anatolia, the South Caucasus and Iran by the end of the Last Glaciation 12,000 years ago. It is possible that J2 hunter-gatherers then goat/sheep herders also lived in the Fertile Crescent during the Neolithic period, although the development of early cereal agriculture is thought to have been conducted by men belonging primarily to haplogroups G2a (northern branch, from Anatolia to Europe), as well as E1b1b and T1a (southern branch, from the Levant to the Arabian peninsula and North Africa). And according to a National Geographic report, the J2b haplogroup began in the Fertile Crescent area about 10,000 years ago and samples of this DNA have been found in Jericho. ref, ref
J (12f2.1, M304, S6, S34, S35)
-
- J*
- J1 (M267) Typical of populations of the Middle East, Dagestan and Semitic-speaking populations of North Africa and East Africa
- J1*
- J1a (M62)
- J1b (M365)
- J1c (M367, M368)
- J1d (M369)
- J1e (M390)
- J2 (M172) Typical of populations of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Southern Europe, and the Caucasus, with a moderate distribution throughout Southwest Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and North Africa ref
Haplogroup J1 is a prevalent Y-chromosome lineage within the Near East. We report the frequency and YSTR diversity data for its major sub-clade (J1e). The overall expansion time estimated from 453 chromosomes is 10 000 years. Moreover, the previously described J1 (DYS388=13) chromosomes, frequently found in the Caucasus and eastern Anatolian populations, were ancestral to J1e and displayed an expansion time of 9,000 years. For J1e, the Zagros/Taurus mountain region displays the highest haplotype diversity, although the J1e frequency increases toward the peripheral Arabian Peninsula. The southerly pattern of decreasing expansion time estimates is consistent with the serial drift and founder effect processes. The first such migration is predicted to have occurred at the onset of the Neolithic, and accordingly J1e parallels the establishment of rain-fed agriculture and semi-nomadic herders throughout the Fertile Crescent. Subsequently, J1e lineages might have been involved in episodes of the expansion of pastoralists into arid habitats coinciding with the spread of Arabic and other Semitic-speaking populations. ref
No Neolithic sample from Central or South Asia has been tested to date, but the present geographic distribution of haplogroup J2 suggests that it could initially have dispersed during the Neolithic from the Zagros mountains and northern Mesopotamia across the Iranian plateau to South Asia and Central Asia, and across the Caucasus to Russia (Volga-Ural). The first expansion probably correlated with the diffusion of domesticated of cattle and goats (starting c. 8000-9000 BCE), rather than with the development of cereal agriculture in the Levant.
A second expansion would have occurred with the advent of metallurgy. J2 could have been the main paternal lineage of the Kura-Araxes culture (Late Copper to Early Bronze Age), which expanded from the southern Caucasus toward northern Mesopotamia and the Levant. After that J2 could have propagated through Anatolia and the Eastern Mediterranean with the rise of early civilizations during the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age.
Quite a few ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations flourished in territories where J2 lineages were preponderant. This is the case of the Hattians, the Hurrians, the Etruscans, the Minoans, the Greeks, the Phoenicians (and their Carthaginian offshoot), the Israelites, and to a lower extent also the Romans, the Assyrians, and the Persians. All the great seafaring civilizations from the middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age were dominated by J2 men. There is a distinct association of ancient J2 civilizations with bull worship. The oldest evidence of a cult of the bull can be traced back to Neolithic central Anatolia, notably at the sites of Çatalhöyük and Alaca Höyük. Bull depictions are omnipresent in Minoan frescos and ceramics in Crete. Bull-masked terracotta figurines and bull-horned stone altars have been found in Cyprus (dating back as far as the Neolithic, the first presumed expansion of J2 from West Asia).
The Hattians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Canaanites, and Carthaginians all had bull deities (in contrast with Indo-European or East Asian religions). The sacred bull of Hinduism, Nandi, present in all temples dedicated to Shiva or Parvati, does not have an Indo-European origin, but can be traced back to Indus Valley civilization. Minoan Crete, Hittite Anatolia, the Levant, Bactria, and the Indus Valley also shared a tradition of bull leaping, the ritual of dodging the charge of a bull. It survives today in the traditional bullfighting of Andalusia in Spain and Provence in France, two regions with a high percentage of J2 lineages. ref
The Aurignacians: A 35,000-year-old male from Goyet, Belgium, belonged to a distinctive branch of the Ice Age population. DNA was extracted from the upper arm bone of the hunter, who was associated with the Aurignacian archaeological culture.
The Gravettians: This ancestral group displaced the Aurignacians to dominate much of Europe from 34,000 to 26,000 years ago. Though they carried distinct genetic signatures, the Gravettians and Aurignacians were descended from the same ancient founder population.
The Magdalenians: The Aurignacian genetic signature disappeared from much of Europe when the Gravettians arrived. But it resurfaced 15,000 years later in the “Red Lady of El Mirón Cave” from northern Spain. This tall, robust woman was a member of the Magdalenian archaeological culture, which expanded north as the ice sheets melted.
The Villabruna cluster: From about 14,000 years ago, the gene pools of Europe and the Middle East draw closer together – perhaps reflecting an expansion of people from the south-east. This genetic cluster is named after a male hunter from Villabruna, Italy, who had dark skin and blue eyes. ref
The earliest ancient DNA data of modern humans from Europe dates to around 40,000 years ago but that from the Caucasus and the Near East to only dates to around 14,000 years ago, from populations who lived long after 26,500 to 19,00 years ago. ref
European palaeogenomics 13,300 years old and Mesolithic at around 9,700 years old males from western Georgia in the Caucasus and a 13,700 years old male from Switzerland offer genomic continuity in both regions, showing that Caucasus hunter-gatherers belong to a distinct ancient clade that split from western hunter-gatherers at around 45,000 years ago, shortly after the expansion of anatomically modern humans into Europe and from the ancestors of Neolithic farmers around 25,000 years ago, around the Last Glacial Maximum. CHG genomes significantly contributed to the Yamnaya steppe herders who migrated into Europe around 5,000 years ago, supporting a formative Caucasus influence on this important Early Bronze age culture. CHG left their imprint on modern populations from the Caucasus and also central and south Asia possibly marking the arrival of Indo-Aryan languages. ref
To address this imbalance and to better understand the 31 relationships of Europeans and Near Easterners, report genome-wide data from two 32,000 to 26,000-year-old individuals from Dzudzuana Cave in Georgia in the Caucasus
the population was 34 more closely related to early agriculturalists from western Anatolia ~8 thousand years
ago 35 than to the hunter-gatherers of the Caucasus from the same region of western Georgia of ~13-10 thousand years ago. Most of the Dzudzuana population’s ancestry was deeply related to the post-glacial western European hunter-gatherers of the ‘Villabruna cluster’, but it also had ancestry from a lineage that had separated from
the great majority of non-African populations before they separated from each other, proving that such ‘Basal Eurasians’ were present in West Eurasia twice as early. ref
Paleolithic Y-chromosomal haplogroups by chronological period
- Proto-Aurignacian (47,000 to 43,000 years before present ; eastern Europe): F
- Aurignacian Culture (43,000 to 28,000 ybp ; all ice-free Europe): CT, C1a, C1b, I
- Gravettian Culture (31,000 to 24,000 ybp ; all ice-free Europe): BT, CT, F, C1a2
- Solutrean Culture (22,000 to 17,000 ybp ; France, Spain): ?
- Epiravettian Culture (22,000 to 8,000 ybp ; Italy): R1b1a
- Magdalenian Culture 17,000 to 12,000 ybp ; Western Europe): IJK, I
- Epipaleolithic France (13,000 to 10,000 ybp): I
- Azilian Culture (12,000 to 9,000 ybp ; Western Europe): I2 ref
The basal paragroup HIJK* has not been identified in living males or ancient remains. Populations with high proportions of males who belong to descendant major haplogroups of Haplogroup HIJK live across widely dispersed areas and populations. Subclades of IJK are now concentrated in males native to:
- Europe (e. g. haplogroups I, J, R and N);
- the Middle East and North East Africa (e. g. haplogroups J and T);
- South Asia (e.g. haplogroups J, L and R);
- East Asia，South East Asia and the Pacific (e. g. haplogroups K, M, O, P, S)
- Northern Eurasia, e. g. haplogroups N and Q) and;
- Native American peoples (e. g. haplogroup Q and R). ref
Paleolithic mitochondrial haplogroups by chronological period
- Proto-Aurignacian (47,000 to 43,000 years before present ; eastern Europe): N, R*
- Aurignacian Culture (43,000 to 28,000 ybp ; all ice-free Europe): M, U, U2, U6
- Gravettian Culture (31,000 to 24,000 ybp ; all ice-free Europe): M, U, U2’3’4’7’8’9, U2 (x5), U5 (x5), U8c (x2)
- Solutrean Culture (22,000 to 17,000 ybp ; France, Spain): U
- Epiravettian Culture (22,000 to 8,000 ybp ; Italy): U2’3’4’7’8’9, U5b2b (x2)
- Magdalenian Culture 17,000 to 12,000 ybp ; Western Europe): R0, R1b, U2’3’4’7’8’9, U5b (x2), U8a (x5)
- Epipaleolithic France (13,000 to 10,000 ybp): U5b1, U5b2a, U5b2b (x2)
- Epipaleolithic Germany (13,000 to 11,000 ybp): U5b1 (x2)
- Azilian Culture (12,000 to 9,000 ybp ; Western Europe): U5b1h ref
Basal Eurasian population contributing to present-day Europeans and ancient Near East individuals
The 40,000-year-old individual from Tianyuan Cave, China, was found to be more related to present-day and ancient Asians than he is to Europeans, but he shares more alleles with a 35,000-year-old European individual than he shares with other ancient Europeans, indicating that the separation between early Europeans and early Asians was not a single population split. We also find that the Tianyuan individual shares more alleles with some Native American groups in South America than with Native Americans elsewhere, providing further support for population substructure in Asia and suggesting that this persisted from 40,000 years ago until the colonization of the Americas. ancient Europeans who show no evidence of any Basal Eurasian ancestry and are of an age similar to him (Kostenki14, GoyetQ116-1, and Vestonice16). DNA results indicate that the Tianyuan individual is related to an ancestral group that contributed to all more recent populations with Asian ancestry. Also, the Tianyuan individual’s age indicates that a genetic separation of Europe and Asia must have been earlier than 40,000 years ago. This is consistent with a split time of 40,000–80,000 years ago estimated for European and Asian populations ref
The first farmers of the southern Levant (Israel and Jordan) and Zagros Mountains (Iran) were strongly genetically differentiated from two main local hunter-gatherer variants. By the time of the Bronze Age, these two populations and Anatolian-related farmers had mixed with each other and with the hunter-gatherers of Europe to greatly reduce genetic differentiation. The impact of the Near Eastern farmers extended beyond the Near East: farmers related to those of Anatolia spread westward into Europe; farmers related to those of the Levant spread southward into East Africa; farmers related to those of Iran spread northward into the Eurasian steppe; and people related to both the early farmers of Iran and to the pastoralists of the Eurasian steppe spread eastward into South Asia. ref
The Magdalenian dating to around 17,000 to 12,000 years ago, refers to one of the later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic in western Europe, such as that found ar La Madeleine, a rock shelter located in the Vézère valley, commune of Tursac, in the Dordogne department of France. This culture represents interesting prehistoric art. Numbers of bones, reindeer antlers, and animal teeth were found, with crude pictures carved or etched on them of seals, fishes, reindeer, mammoths, and other creatures. The earliest Magdalenian sites are all found in France. The Epigravettian is a similar culture appearing at the same time. Its known range extends from southeast France to the western shores of the Volga River, Russia, with a large number of sites in Italy. There is extensive debate about the precise nature of the earliest Magdalenian assemblages, and it remains questionable whether the Badegoulian culture is, in fact, the earliest phase of the Magdalenian. Similarly, finds from the forest of Beauregard near Paris often have been suggested as belonging to the earliest Magdalenian. The earliest Magdalenian sites are all found in France. The Epigravettian is a similar culture appearing at the same time. Its known range extends from southeast France to the western shores of the Volga River, Russia, with a large number of sites in Italy. The later phases of the Magdalenian are also synonymous with the human re-settlement of north-western Europe; evidence from Switzerland, southern Germany, and Belgium support this. The Magdalenian people as mobile hunter-gatherers that did not permanently re-settle in north-west Europe they often followed herds and moved depending on seasons.
By the end of the Magdalenian, the lithic technology shows a pronounced trend toward increased microlithisation. The bone harpoons and points have the most distinctive chronological markers within the typological sequence. As well as flint tools, the Magdalenians are best known for their elaborate worked bone, antler, and ivory that served both functional and aesthetic purposes, including perforated batons. Examples of Magdalenian portable art include batons, figurines, and intricately engraved projectile points, as well as items of personal adornment including seashells, perforated carnivore teeth (presumably necklaces), and fossils.
The seashells and fossils found in Magdalenian sites may be sourced to relatively precise areas of origin, and so have been used to support a hypothesis of Magdalenian hunter-gatherer seasonal ranges, and perhaps trade routes. Cave sites such as the world famous Lascaux contain the best-known examples of Magdalenian cave art. The site of Altamira in Spain, with its extensive and varied forms of Magdalenian art has been suggested to be an agglomeration site where many small groups of Magdalenian hunter-gatherers congregated. ref
Magdalenian funerary customs: Secondary burial in the Magdalenian: The Brillenhöhle (Blaubeuren, Southwest Germany) human skeletal remains of the Magdalenian were found grouped inside a fireplace in the center of the cave. The skeletal remains were very fragmentary and consisted of an adult skullcap, numerous heavily damaged elements of the postcranial skeleton of three other adults and a few skeleton parts of an infant. It is to point out that long bones were missing at the site and that only small skeletal remains or bones broken into small pieces were found. During the first study of the bones, several cut marks were noticed on the remains. As a result, the find was interpreted as evidence for cannibalistic activity. A comparison with Magdalenian butchering marks on animal remains uncovered major discrepancies. The greatest difference is that on the human remains the frequency of cut marks was much more important than those discovered on contemporary animal remains. The scratch marks on the human bones show that they have been intensively cleaned from flesh. That means that the manipulation of the human bones was far more intense than the work on the animal bones. In addition to these anthropogenic manipulation marks, taphonomic processes are evident. The bone surfaces, especially on the skullcap, show erosion, and one skeletal element had a puncture mark left by the tooth of a carnivore. As the conditions for preservation are extremely good at the site, and carnivores had no evident means to influence them, the skeletal remains must have been at a different place before they finally came to the site. The finds’ context and the high frequency of butchering and defleshing marks in combination with the evident selection of the skeletal elements allow an identification of the finds in the Brillenhöhle as a secondary burial of human skeletal remains. ref
Possible connections or deep similarities to the “Neolithic skull-cult” and “Sky Burial”:
“Pre-Pottery Neolithic Skull Cult around 11,500 to 8,400 Years Ago?”
The Iberomaurusian dating to around 25,000 to 11,000 years ago, is a backed bladelet lithic culture found near the coasts of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. It is also known from a single major site in Libya, the Haua Fteah, where the industry is locally known as the Eastern Oranian. The Iberomaurusian in Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, but not in Morocco, the industry is succeeded by the Capsian industry, whose origins are unclear. The Capsian is believed either to have spread into North-Africa from the Near East, or have descended from the Iberomaurusian. In Morocco and Western Algeria, the Iberomaurusian is succeeded by the Cardial culture after a long hiatus. ref
Iberomaurusian funerary customs: “distribution of intentionally modified specimens: ochre-dyeing, cut marks). The results suggested that the burial area included primary and secondary depositions of about 40 adolescents and adults. Treatment of the cadaver and manipulation of dry bones were attested, and intentional violence and cannibalism could be hypothesized.” ref
El Mirón Cave in Cantabrian Spain held the remains of an adult woman dating to the Lower Magdalenian (18,900-18,700 years ago) with abundant red ochre as well as abundant artifacts stone tools, animal remains, with some marine shells from around 15 miles from the burial of the “Red Lady of El Mirón”, buried between the rear cave vestibule wall and a large block, both of which (but especially the large block was also stained with red ochre in proximity to the corpse) bear engravings, possibly symbolically related to the burial. One must wonder what exact connections there were in relation to the archeological contexts, dating, and the rock art, ochre, artifacts and faunas associated with this burial, the first major human interment of Magdalenian age lead to connections discovered on the Iberian Peninsula as well as possible religious-cultural transfer to Iberomaurusian funerary customs and from them to the Natufians and the Yarmukian culture religious-cultural transfer.
Taforalt or Grotte des Pigeons is a cave in northern Oujda, Morocco, and possibly the oldest cemetery in North Africa (Humphrey et al. 2012). It contained at least 34 Iberomaurusian adolescent and adult human skeletons, as well as younger ones, from the Upper Palaeolithic between 15,100 and 14,000 calendar years ago. It held dozens of burials with some showing evidence of postmortem processing. Some show potential rituals with burials containing animal remains including horns, mandibles, a hoof, and a tooth. The cave floor has yielded hearths, lithics, and shell beads, among a variety of artifacts of varying ages. These Iberomaurusian layers contain microlithics, ostrich eggshells, potentially ritualized primary and secondary burials, and a notable increase in land snail remains, indicating a shift in dietary practices. Evidence of deliberate post-mortem modification includes cut marks that are not indicative of cannibalism and extensive ochre coloring with one grave, Grave XII, containing Individual 1 with both cut marks and ochre coloring present on the majority of the nearly intact skeleton. ref
All sample was rich in mtDNA U6a, with also one instance of M1b: All six male samples carried Y-DNA E1b1b, with most of them being well defined as E1b1b1a1-M78. ref
Although now found primarily in western, northern and north-eastern Africa, haplogroup U6 descends from the western Eurasian haplogroup U and therefore represents a back migration to Africa estimated that U6 arose very approximately 35,000 years ago. ref
The U1 subclades are: U1a (with deep-subclades U1a1, U1a1a, U1a1a1, U1a1b) and U1b.
Haplogroup U1 estimated to have arisen between 26,000 and 37,000 years ago. It is found at very low frequency throughout Europe. It is more often observed in eastern Europe, Anatolia and the Near East. It is also found at low frequencies in India. U1 is found in the Svanetia region of Georgia at 4.2%. Subclade U1a is found from India to Europe, but is extremely rare among the northern and Atlantic fringes of Europe including the British Isles and Scandinavia. Several examples in Tuscany have been noted. In India, U1a has been found in the Kerala region. U1b has a similar spread but is rarer than U1a. Some examples of U1b have been found among Jewish diaspora. Subclades U1a and U1b appear in equal frequency in eastern Europe. ref
mtDNA analysis shows that the Taforalt individuals belonged to mtDNA haplogroups U6a and M1b. Y-DNA analysis shows that the Taforalt males all belonged to Y-DNA haplogroupE1b1b1a1 (M78), which is closely related to the E1b1b1b (M123) subhaplogroup that has been observed in skeletal remains belonging to the Epipaleolithic Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures of the Levant. And as the Natufian samples, which are chronologically younger than the Taforalt samples by several thousands of years, were inferred to lack substantial African ancestry one is filled with questions. ref
- U6a’b’d
- U6a: found in western and northern Africa, western Europe, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa
- U6a1:
- U6a1a: found in the Maghreb, Iberia and southern Italy
- U6a1b: found in the Maghreb, Iberia, Italy, France, Belgium and Scandinavia / found in Late Paleolithic Morocco
- U6a2
- U6a2a: found in Ethiopia
- U6a2b: found in Ethiopia and the Arabian peninsula
- U6a2c: found in Armenia, Egypt and Portugal
- U6a3
- U6a3a: found in the Maghreb and Iberia
- U6a3a1: found in the Maghreb, Iberia and Finland
- U6a3a2: found in the Maghreb, Iberia and Germany
- U6a3c: found in Ghana
- U6a3d: found in Egypt and Palestine
- U6a3e: found in the Maghreb and Iberia
- U6a3f: found in Guinea-Bissau, Burkina Faso and Nigeria
- U6a3a: found in the Maghreb and Iberia
- U6a4: found in Iraq and Italy
- U6a5: found in the Maghreb, Iberia, Italy, Hungary, Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria
- U6a5a
- U6a5b
- U6a6
- U6a6a: found in Morocco
- U6a6b: found in Morocco and Tunisia / found in Late Paleolithic Morocco
- U6a7: found in Late Paleolithic Morocco
- U6a7a
- U6a7a1: found in France, Italy and Mauritania
- U6a7a1a: found among the Acadians
- U6a7a1b: found among Sephardic Jews
- U6a7a2: found in Britain
- U6a7a1: found in France, Italy and Mauritania
- U6a7b: found in Algeria, Tunisia, France and Britain / found in Late Paleolithic Morocco
- U6a7c: found in Tunisia
- U6a7a
- U6a8: found in the Maghreb
- U6a8a: found in the Maghreb
- U6a8b: found in the Maghreb and Spain
- U6b’d
- U6b: found mostly in southwest Asia, West Africa and Iberia
- U6b1: found in northern Spain and the Canaries
- U6b2: found in Morocco and Spain
- U6b3: found in Morocco, Portugal and Spain
- U6d: found mostly in the Maghreb and Iberia
- U6d1: found mostly in the Maghreb
- U6d1a: found in Britain
- U6d1b: found in the Maghreb and southern Italy
- U6d2: found in Algeria and Ethiopia
- U6d3: found in Morocco, Portugal and Spain
- U6d1: found mostly in the Maghreb
- U6a1:
- U6a: found in western and northern Africa, western Europe, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa
- U6c : found mostly in the northern Maghreb and southwest Europe
- U6c1: found in Italy and the Canaries
- U6c2: found in Morocco and France. ref
E-Z827M5323/S24409 * CTS7890/M5239 * Z827/CTS1243+1 SNPsformed 24100 ybp, TMRCA 23800 ybpinfo
E-Z827, also known as E1b1b1b, is a major human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. It is the parent lineage to the E-Z830 and E-V257 subclades, and defines their common phylogeny. The former is predominantly found in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East; the latter is most frequently observed in North Africa, with its E-M81 subclade observed among the ancient Guanche natives of the Canary Islands. E-Z827 is also found at lower frequencies in Europe, and in isolated parts of Southeast Africa.
E-M35M5290/S22882/S22282 * CTS9309/PF1766/M5265/V3515 * CTS4690/PF1672/M5171+94 SNPsformed 34800 ybp, TMRCA 24100 ybpinfo
- E-Z827M5323/S24409 * CTS7890/M5239 * Z827/CTS1243+1 SNPsformed 24100 ybp, TMRCA 23800 ybpinfo
- E-Z830CTS8182 * PF2009 * CTS3245+59 SNPsformed 23800 ybp, TMRCA 19200 ybpinfo
E-L539CTS3657/PF2134 * CTS10323/PF2167/V4083 * CTS8899+57 SNPsformed 24100 ybp, TMRCA 19800 ybpinfo
- E-V1039SK857/V1039 * Y21096 * Y27270+19 SNPs
id:ERS255977 SardinianITA [IT-CA]- id:HG02807 Gambian in the Western Division, The GambiaGWD
- E-M78CTS3941/PF2135 * CTS12979 * CTS10448/PF2170+94 SNPsformed 19800 ybp, TMRCA 13400 ybpinfo
- E-M78*
Iberomaurusian, Taforalt Morocco 15000-14000 ybp & I710 PPNB, ‘Ain Ghazal (Amman) Jordan 9600 ybp
- E-Z1902CTS256/V1129 * Z1902/CTS10890/PF2292 * Y6738/FGC2148/Z21150+1 SNPsformed 13400 ybp, TMRCA 11800 ybpinfo
- E-Z1919Z1920/CTS4235/PF2228 * CTS202/Z825/V1083 * Y2478/S8336/V1084+2 SNPsformed 13400 ybp, TMRCA 12100 ybpinfo
- E-M78*
Pre-Neolithic U6 Expansion
The oldest and largest subclade, U6a, would have appeared around the LGM. U6a lineages are thought to have spread in several waves across North Africa, probably starting around 20,000 years ago, following the northern coastline of Africa. Several U6a branches (U6a1, U6a3, U6a6, U6a6b, U6a7, and U6a7b) appear to have expanded within the Maghreb from 20,000 years ago, with some spreading to the Iberian Peninsula (U6a1, U6a1b).
DNA of seven 15,000-year-old modern humans from Taforalt Cave in northeastern Morocco and six out of seven of them belonged to haplogroup U6a (clades U6a1b, U6a6b, U6a7, and U6a7b) – the last one belonging to M1b. The six males belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup E1b1b (M78). U6b, U6c, and U6d emerged later, some time between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago, from the end of the Last Glacial period. ref
U6 Neolithic Expansion
U6a and U6b lineages underwent the most spectacular expansion since the Neolithic period, spreading from the Maghreb to West Africa (U6a3c, U6a3f, U6a5, U6b) and the Canary Islands (U6b1a), and crossing the Sahara all the way to the Sudan to Arabia (U6a3d). This expansion might have been carried by the arrival of domesticated cattle from the Middle East by men belonging to Y-haplogroup R1b-V88 as U6b is typically found in herding populations in which both R1b-V88 and U6b are present, including the Berbers of the Maghreb, the Fulani people of the Sahel and the Hausa people of Sudan. R1b-V88 cattle herders are believed to have started advancing into northern Africa during the Neolithic Subpluvial (c. 7250 BCE to 3250 BCE), when the Sahara was considerably wetter and greener than today, and would have reached the Maghreb by 4,500 BCE. Consequently, the expansion of R1b-V88 with the assimilated Maghreban lineages of that period (mostly H1, H3, U6, and HV0/V) would have taken place from c. 6,000 years ago, and may have continued until fairly recently in some regions. ref
Haplogroup U descends from the haplogroup R mtDNA are estimated to have arisen between 43,000 and 50,000 years ago. Ancient DNA classified as belonging to the U* mtDNA haplogroup from human remains in Western Siberia, dated to around 45,000 years ago the Aurignacian archaeological culture. The Peştera Muierii 1 individual from Romania dated to around 35,000 years ago possibly the Aurignacian archaeological culture has been identified as the basal haplogroup U6* not previously found in any ancient or present-day humans. And the DNA of a 35,000-year-old individual from Europe supports a Palaeolithic back-migration to Africa. ref, ref
Haplogroup U has been found among Iberomaurusian specimens dating from the Epipaleolithic at the Taforalt and Afalou prehistoric sites. Among the Taforalt individuals, around 13% of the observed haplotypes belonged to various U subclades, including U4a2b (1/24; 4%), U4c1 (1/24; 4%), and U6d3 (1/24; 4%). A further 41% of the analyzed haplotypes could be assigned to either haplogroup U or haplogroup H. Among the Afalou individuals, 44% of the analyzed haplotypes could be assigned to either haplogroup U or haplogroup H (3/9; 33%). Haplogroup U has also been observed among ancient Egyptian mummies excavated at the Abusir el-Meleq archaeological site in Middle Egypt, dated to the 1st millennium BC. ref, ref
- A ~ 35,000-year-old individual from northwest Europe represents an early branch of this founder population which was then displaced across a broad region, before reappearing in southwest Europe during the Ice Age ~19,000 years ago. During the major warming period after ~14,000 years ago, a new genetic component related to present-day Near Easterners appears in Europe. ref
- The “Vestonice Cluster” is composed of 14 pre-Ice Age individuals from 34,000-26,000 years ago, who are all associated with the archaeologically defined Gravettian culture. ref
- The “El Mirón Cluster” is composed of 6 Late Glacial individuals from 19,000-14,000 years ago, who are all associated with the Magdalenian culture. ref
Although the Vestonice Cluster individuals are assigned to the Gravettian cultural in Europe there is no genetic connection between them and the Mal’ta1 individual in Siberia despite the fact that Venus figurines are associated with both thus not likely just a coincidence thus religious/cultural transfer.
GoyetQ116-1 derives from a different deep branch of the European founder population than the Vestonice Cluster which became predominant in many places in Europe between 34,000 and 26,000 years ago including at Goyet Cave. GoyetQ116-1 is chronologically associated with the Aurignacian cultural complex. Thus, the subsequent spread of the Vestonice Cluster, which is associated with the Gravettian cultural complex, shows that the spread of the latter culture was mediated at least in part by population movements. Fourth, the population represented by GoyetQ116-1 did not disappear, as its descendants became widespread again after ~19,000 years ago in the El Mirón Cluster when we detect them in Iberia. The El Mirón Cluster is associated with the Magdalenian culture and may represent a post-ice age expansion from southwestern European refugia. Fifth, beginning with the Villabruna Cluster at least ~14,000 years ago, all European individuals analyzed show an affinity to the Near East. This correlates in time to the Bølling-Allerød interstadial, the first significant warming period after the Ice Age. Archaeologically, it correlates with cultural transitions within the Epigravettian in Southern Europe and the Magdalenian-to-Azilian transition in Western Europe. Thus, the appearance of the Villabruna Cluster may reflect migrations or population shifts within Europe at the end of the Ice Age, an observation that is also consistent with the evidence of turnover of mitochondrial DNA sequences at this time.
One scenario that could explain these patterns is a population expansion from southeastern European or west Asian refugia after the Ice Age, drawing together the genetic ancestry of Europe and the Near East. Sixth, within the Villabruna Cluster, some, but not all, individuals have an affinity to East Asians. ref
Evolution: A Palaeolithic back migration to Africa
The DNA from the Peştera Muierii 1 remains from Romania dated to 35,000 years ago, which sheds new light on the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) migrations in Eurasia and North Africa. One of the last Homo sapiens populations dispersal out of Africa carrying L3 mitochondrial lineage (green color). The Peştera Muierii 1 remains lineage could be an offshoot to South-East Europe of the Early Upper Paleolithic migration that leads U6 from Western Asia to Africa during which it diversified until the emergence of the present-day U6 African lineages. ref
Ancient DNA Analysis of Anatolian Goat Remains
All of the ancient sequences belonged to haplogroup A, which is the most widely distributed and frequently encountered haplogroup in modern goats. The results also pointed out that Anatolian ancient goats might have contributed to the genetic structure of modern goats in the Near East, the Mediterranean Region, and South-Southeastern Asia. ref
Site of Einkorn Wheat Domestication and the emergence of agriculture in the Near East from a wild group from the Karacadag˘ mountains (southeast Turkey) is the likely progenitor of cultivated einkorn varieties. Evidence from archeological excavations of early agricultural settlements nearby supports the conclusion that domestication of einkorn wheat began near the Karacadag˘ mountains. ref
The domestication of water: The Neolithic well at Sha’ar Hagolan
Although there is evidence of water supply structures during the early Neolithic in southwest Asia (i.e., during the period when agriculture was gradually adopted around 12,000-6000 years ago, this is primarily in the form of wells, such as at Sha’ar Hagolan, located in the State of Israel, whose placement has been attributed to “accidents of local geography” or otherwise attributed to “ritual uses” due to the evidence of the intentional deposition of human bodies within the well. Nonetheless, the first relatively uncontroversial period of the sustained creation of dams begins during the around 6,000 years ago in southwest Asia, close to the eastern Mediterranean littoral. ref
Magdalenian expansion before any climatic improvement led to inventing weapons, a conquering mythology, long-distance relays, flexibility in control over all kinds of environments, ritual delegation by shamanism, the “descent” of the mythical decoration of rock walls in favor of mobile ritual art like sacred woman figures and pendants or portable altars can be seen a “proof” by their simple spread on a map indicating waves of Magdalenian expansion appears to be around 14,000 years ago at Maszycka and corresponds to the core that would lead to the plains civilizations (Hamburgian and Creswellian) that a too rapid look tends to confuse with the phantom of a “Northern Magdalenian”, while these are actually entirely new civilizations, certainly with Magdalenian souvenirs, but recomposed a thousand other ways. We should thus view the expansion of the Magdalenian civilization as a series of successive waves rather than by a single population movement, as the dates (14,000-12,000 years ago), the arts and techniques demonstrate with eloquence. From the Middle Magdalenian, the whole of the hilly regions of Europe appears to have been colonized (Maszycka, Nebra, and Oelknitz at 14,000 years ago). Although, other waves contribute to the Late Magdalenian (13,000-12,000 years ago): Chaleux, Gönnersdorf, Monruz. ref
However, up to then, each could be attached to the original evolution in the Périgord, as if this metropolis created concepts regularly transmitted and transposed to pioneer, peripheral and distant frontiers. Art is particularly explicit at this stage: entirely naturalistic, it diversifies its themes while remaining within the animal register. Only feminine schemas suggest human contours, but conversely, rigorously codified to the limits of abstraction and reduced to a conventional sign. There are two forms of contemporaneous plastic language, sometimes in the same ensembles (e.g., Gönnersdorf), once again demonstrating the rigor of the codes, and thus the collective thought during the Magdalenian, regardless of the context. Such huge migrations and confronting unceasing challenges, this pioneering population as well as their technology and mythology began to crumble and became diluted across these immense expanses, where new generations could create their own myths. The widespread adoption of the bow, light armatures, with truncated point and shouldered base, this hunter-gatherer world reflects an entirely different relationship between man and nature, totally indentured. ref
Paganism of the Neolithic is not far off and the Female human image is present in what remains of symbolic and simplified stylized art, as a definitive sign of the appropriation of nature, well before and independent of Neolithic domestication the clanging hunter-gatherer world has shifted to that of predators in which nature becomes a
resource to exploit rather than an integral part of human life, now life proceeds by ritualized and controlled exchanges. This key difference shatters the old paradigm and is to me, part of the emergence of pre-paganism. Domestication logically soon follows this new emerging paradigm shift, but one may assume that such a phase may have been a need to involve natural world control dynamics over the environmental resources that anchor a religiousness and the pre-goddess connections and other pre-neolithic revolution evidences. ref
At the same time, the importance gained for human figures in art shows the same change because they indicate the presence of “pre-goddess deities”, that is to say, likely superior forces connected to a clan or metaphorical great grandmother spirit pendants and other, such as seen in the Venus figurines of Gönnersdorf. and a male clan leader/ancestor hunting cult with Magdalenian connections to the Phallus Phenomena (A Bull Horn) and the Shamanism Phenomena and a Possible Clan Leader/Special “MALE” Ancestor hunting cult connections with a phallus, the ideological change is one of the most dramatic because humanity shifts from Simplistic mythology (illustrated stories in simple art and basic rituals) to pre-organized religion (creating a place for the emerging gods). All human appearances prior to the Bölling were dissimulated (in animal forms), deformed (such as masks) or highly schematic (sexual signs). While the representations had meaning (and this is evident in the sacred art). It seems this new control and developing ritualization are shown both in the relationship to prey and to human images. Still, up to the present, the human figure would be the iconographic foundation and animal separated as favorable (domesticated herds) and unfavorable (wild and dangerous). ref
Geographical distribution of the figurines and female silhouettes of the GÖNNERSDORF type.
Here are some examples of this type: from left to right, at different scales, the statuette of Courbet (France); Neuchatel Pendant-Monruz (Switzerland); Enval figurine, (France); Parietal art by Grotta Di Pozzo (Italy).
The Venus figurines from Gönnersdorf, at Neuwied, are paleolithic sculptures depicting the female body.
The figures consist of carved bone, antler or Mammoth tusk ivory. They are between 15,000 and 11,500 years old and stem from the Magdalenian period. These figurines are between 5.4 and 8.7 cm long. At the same place, many engravings of animals, human beings and abstract signs on slate stone were found. The depictions of human beings were much stylized. Most often women were depicted, always in profile without a head. ref
The Magdalenian civilization is unique, abstract and realistic art, social rules, group exchanges, and such strengths led to its wide territorial expansion into regions formerly considered “uninhabitable”. In these new, immense geographic zones, the Magdalenian culture became thin, less substantial, and other civilizations emerged from it (Creswellian, Hamburgian, Ahrensburgian, Tjongerian, Azilian). ref
Among all these clades, the subhaplogroups H1 and H3 have been subject to a more detailed study and would be associated with the Magdalenian expansion from SW Europe at least around 13,000 years ago. ref
Complete sequencing of 62 mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) belonging (or very closely related) to haplogroup H revealed that this mtDNA haplogroup—by far the most common in Europe—is subdivided into numerous subhaplogroups, with at least 15 of them (H1–H15) identifiable by characteristic mutations. All the haplogroup H mtDNAs found in 5,743 subjects from 43 populations were then screened for diagnostic markers of subhaplogroups H1 and H3. This survey showed that both subhaplogroups display frequency peaks, centered in Iberia and surrounding areas, with distributions declining toward the northeast and southeast—a pattern extremely similar to that previously reported for mtDNA haplogroup V. Furthermore, the coalescence ages of H1 and H3 (∼11,000 years) are close to that previously reported for V. H3 is found throughout the whole of Europe and in the Maghreb but does not exist in the Far East and is believed to have originated among Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in south-western Europe between 9 000 and 11 000 years ago. These findings have major implications for the origin of Europeans since they attest that the Franco-Cantabrian refuge area was indeed the source of late-glacial expansions of hunter-gatherers that repopulated much of Central and Northern Europe from ∼15,000 years ago. ref
Study results are compatible with a pioneer colonization of northeastern Iberia at the Early Neolithic characterized by the arrival of small genetically distinctive groups, showing cultural and genetic connections with the Near East. ref
There is relevant genetic populations in western Eurasia around 9,000 years ago are five. We’ll start with the first two:
- Western Hunter-Gatherers or WHG*: this genetic population cluster occupied much of southern and western Europe at this time. In the north and east, they abutted…
- Eastern Hunter-Gatherers or EHG*: this genetic population is a kind of a hybrid between WHG and a population from the steppe known as Ancestral North Eurasians (ANE, currently represented by one much older ancient DNA sample known as Ma’lta from the Lake Baikal Area). ref
*These labels are those used by researchers in ancient genetics for the genetic clusters which they’ve identified.
The boundary between WHG and EHG passed west to east through the Baltic region, dividing the Baltic states in the east before taking a southward turn to join the Black Sea at its western end. Populations either side of the boundary appears to be hybrids between WHG and EHG (e.g. Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers or SHG and Ukraine Mesolithic), although there may be other minor components in the Balkans. And in the south-east, there are three other populations and these three populations appear to have interacted and mixed to some extent in the middle east in the period between around 9,000 – 6,000 years ago:
- Anatolian Neolithic: this population, located in Anatolia, is important in spreading farming to all of the Balkans, western Europe and parts of Ukraine between around 9,000 – 6,000 years ago. Unfortunately, the predecessors of AN in Anatolia have not yet been reported on. It is possible that it’s made up of a mix of earlier populations from the Balkans, Levant and Iran (due to their genetic similarity, on the diagram I’ve just lumped Anatolia and the Levant together in blue).
- Iran Neolithic: this population, found in NW Iran, shows some possible connection with modern south Asian populations.
- Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers or CHG: this population, found in the Caucasus of course, could be a mixture of Iran Neolithic and mixed EHG/WHG populations, perhaps from the steppe, but also needs to include another, unknown population (NB I’ve lumped these last two related populations together as yellow as it was just becoming too messy with them separate). ref
Haplogroup I-M170 they estimate time to 24,000 ±7,100 years ago and time to population divergence as 23,000 ±7,700 years ago. The time to subclade divergence of I1 and I2 to be 28,400 ±5,100 years ago, although they calculate the STR variation age of I1 at only 8,100 ±1,500 years ago. The speculated initial dispersion of this population corresponds to the diffusion of the Gravettian culture. Later along with two cases of Haplogroup C, belonging to the culture and in individuals of the Magdalenian and Azilian cultures. It has been thought that each of the ancestral populations now dominated by a particular subclade of Haplogroup I-M170 experienced an independent population expansion immediately after the Last Glacial Maximum. The role of the Balkans as a long-standing corridor to Europe from Anatolia and/or the Caucasus is shown by the common phylogenetic origins of both haplogroups I and J in the parent haplogroup IJ (M429). This common ancestry suggests that the subclades of IJ entered the Balkans from Anatolia or the Caucasus, sometime before the Last Glacial Maximum. I and J were subsequently distributed in Asia and Europe in a disjunctive phylogeographic pattern typical of “sibling” haplogroups. A natural geographical corridor like the Balkans is likely to have been used later by members of other subclades of IJ, as well as other haplogroups, including those associated with Early European Farmers. ref
Language groups in the Caucasus have been found to have a close correlation to genetic ancestry. A genetic study in 2015 by Fu et al. of many modern European populations, identified a previously unidentified lineage, which was dubbed “Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer” (CHG). The study detected a split between CHG and so-called “Western European Hunter-Gatherer” (WHG) lineages, about 45,000 years ago, the presumed time of the original peopling of Europe. CHG separated from the “Early Anatolian Farmers” (EAF) lineage later, at 25,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Maximum. (CHG was extrapolated from, among other sources, the genomes of two fossils from western Georgia – one about 13,300 years old (Late Upper Paleolithic) and the other 9,700 years (Mesolithic), which were compared to the 13,700-year-old Bichon man genome (found in Switzerland). There was probably a migration of populations from the Near East and Caucasus to Europe during the Mesolithic, around 14,000 years ago, much earlier than the migrations associated with the Neolithic Revolution. A few specimens from the Villabruna Cluster also show genetic affinities for East Asians that are derived from gene flow. The light skin pigmentation characteristic of modern Europeans is estimated to have spread across Europe in a “selective sweep” during the Mesolithic (19,000 to 11,000 years ago). The associated TYRP1 alleles, SLC24A5 and SLC45A2, emerge around 19,000 years ago – during the LGM and most likely in the Caucasus. The HERC2 variation for blue eyes first appears around 13,000 to 14,000 years ago in Italy and the Caucasus. Analyzing South Caucasian ancient mitochondrial DNA found continuity in descent in the maternal line for 8,000 years. The same study also found a rapid increase of the population at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, about 18,000 years ago. The 2015 study by Fu et al. analysed “Eurasian steppe ancestry” – which is associated with the so-called Ancient North Eurasian lineage – among modern European populations, which is linked to the Indo-European expansion. The CHG lineage was found to have contributed significantly to the Yamnaya lineage of Chalcolithic pastoralists in the Pontic steppe, which in turn expanded into Europe from about 5,000 years ago (Indo-European expansion). CHG admixture was also found in South Asia, in a possible marker of the Indo-Aryan migration there. Yardumian et al. (2017) in a population genetics study on the Svans of northwestern Georgia found significant heterogeneity in mt-DNA, with common haplogroups including U1‐U7, H, K, and W6, while Y-DNA haplogroups were less diverse, 78% of Svan males being bearers of Y-haplogroup G2a. ref
Magdalenian Style Females
To the left is two engraved Gönnersdorf stylized pre-goddess female figures that are interacting or merging as one? Could it reference a dual nature seen in later goddesses? To the right is an anthropomorphic pre-goddess female creature with a head of a herbivore of Tolentino (Italy). ref, ref
Haplogroup H and the Magdalenian expansion?
“Among all these clades, the subhaplogroups H1 and H3 have been subject to a more detailed study and would be associated to the Magdalenian expansion from SW Europe c. 13,000 years ago: H1 encompasses an important fraction of Western European mtDNA lineages, reaching its local peak among contemporary Basques (27.8%). The clade also occurs at high frequencies elsewhere in the Iberian Peninsula, as well as in the Maghreb (Tamazgha).” ref
“The Maghreb is also known as Northwest Africa and is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, Libya, Mauritania (also considered part of West Africa), Morocco, and Tunisia.” ref
“Tamazgha is a toponym in Berber languages denoting the lands traditionally inhabited by Berbers and which can also mean lands of the Imaziɣen in northern Africa. The region encompasses the geographical area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Niger River, a large swathe of territory spanning Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Egypt, the Western Sahara, the Canary Islands, Burkina Faso, and Senegal.” ref
“Haplogroup H is the most common mtDNA clade in Europe. It is found in approximately 41% of native Europeans. The lineage is also common in North Africa and the Middle East. As of 2010, the highest frequency of the H1 subclade has been found among the Tuareg inhabiting the Fezzan region in Libya (61%) in the Maghreb region in North Africa. The basal H1* haplogroup is found among the Tuareg inhabiting the Gossi area in Mali (4.76%) in West Africa. H3 is found throughout the whole of Europe and in the Maghreb but does not exist in the Far East and is believed to have originated among Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in south-western Europe between 9 000 and 11 000 years ago. H3 represents the second largest fraction of the H genome after H1 and has a somewhat similar distribution, with peaks in Portugal, Spain, Scandinavia, and Finland.” ref
“Haplogroup H has been found in various fossils that were analyzed for ancient DNA, including specimens associated with the Linearbandkeramik culture (H1e, Halberstadt-Sonntagsfeld, 1/22 or ~5%; H1 or H1au1b, Karsdorf, 1/2 or 50%), Germany Middle Neolithic (H1e1a, Esperstedt, 1/1 or 100%), Iberia Early Neolithic (H1, El Prado de Pancorbo, 1/2 or 50%), Iberia Middle Neolithic (H1, La Mina, 1/4 or 25%), and Iberia Chalcolithic (H1t, El Mirador Cave, 1/12 or ~8%). Haplogroup H has been observed in ancient Guanche fossils excavated in Gran Canaria and Tenerife on the Canary Islands, which have been radiocarbon-dated to between the 7th and 11th centuries CE. At the Tenerife site, these clade-bearing individuals were found to belong to the H1cf subclade (1/7; ~14%); at the Gran Canaria site, the specimens carried the H2a subhaplogroup (1/4; 25%). Additionally, ancient Guanche (Bimbaches) individuals excavated in Punta Azul, El Hierro, Canary Islands were all found to belong to the H1 maternal subclade. These locally born individuals were dated to the 10th century and carried the H1-16260 haplotype, which is exclusive to the Canary Islands and Algeria.” ref
Mitochondrial Haplogroup H1 in North Africa: An Early Holocene Arrival from Iberia
“Abstract: The Tuareg of the Fezzan region (Libya) are characterized by an extremely high frequency (61%) of haplogroup H1, a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup that is common in all Western European populations. To define how and when H1 spread from Europe to North Africa up to the Central Sahara, in Fezzan, we investigated the complete mitochondrial genomes of eleven Libyan Tuareg belonging to H1. Coalescence time estimates suggest an arrival of the European H1 mtDNAs at about 8,000–9,000 years ago, while phylogenetic analyses reveal three novel H1 branches, termed H1v, H1w, and H1x, which appear to be specific for North African populations, but whose frequencies can be extremely different even in relatively close Tuareg villages. Overall, these findings support the scenario of an arrival of haplogroup H1 in North Africa from Iberia at the beginning of the Holocene, as a consequence of the improvement in climate conditions after the Younger Dryas cold snap, followed by in situ formation of local H1 sub-haplogroups. This process of autochthonous differentiation continues in the Libyan Tuareg who, probably due to isolation and recent founder events, are characterized by village-specific maternal mtDNA lineages.” ref
“During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), approximately between 26,500 and 19,000 years ago ice sheets largely covered large portions of North America and Europe. In warmer regions of the world, the climate was cooler and drier and deserts spread over large regions, particularly in Northern Africa, Middle East, and Central Asia. Accordingly, during the LGM, humans concentrated in refugial areas of southwestern Europe, in the Balkans and Levant, and on the east European plains. The subsequent Bølling warming, around 15 kya, triggered re-expansion processes which led to the resettlement of Central and Northern Europe. Genetic signatures of these expansions are evident in mtDNA genealogies, for instance haplogroups H1, H3 and V contributed to the gradual re-peopling of Europe from the Franco-Cantabrian refuge in the postglacial. Similarly, though to a lesser extent, H5*(xH5a), H20, and H21 may be associated to a postglacial population expansion phase in the Caucasus area. Although restricted to the Mediterranean coast, an expansion took place also from the Italian peninsula northward, as attested to by the haplogroup U5b3.” ref
“Evidence of trans-Mediterranean contacts between Northern Africa and Western Europe has been assessed at the level of different genetic markers. With regards to the mtDNA, the high incidence of H1 and H3 in Northwest Africa, together with some other West European lineages (i.e. V and U5b), reveals a possible link with the postglacial expansion from the Iberian Peninsula, which not only directed north-eastward into the European continent, but also southward, beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, into North Africa. So, besides the ‘autochthonous’ South-Saharan component, the maternal pool of Northern Africa appears to be characterized by at least two other major components: (i) a Levantine contribution (i.e. haplogroups U6 and M1), associated with the return to Africa around 45 kya, and (ii) a more recent West European input associated with the postglacial expansion.” ref
“Within the West-European component in North Africa, H1 is the most represented haplogroup with frequencies ranging from 21% in some Tunisian Berber groups to 1% in Egypt. Recently, an extremely high incidence of H1 (61%) has been reported in a Tuareg population from the Central Sahara, in Libya. Tuareg are a semi-nomadic pastoralist people of Northwest Africa, who speak a Berber language. MtDNA analyses performed on the Libyan Tuareg have highlighted their genetic relatedness with some Berber groups and other North African populations, mainly resulting from the sharing of a common West-Eurasian component. A high degree of homogeneity in the Libyan H1 lineages was observed, suggesting that the high frequency of H1 in the Tuareg may be the result of genetic drift and recent founder events. To better define the nature and extent of H1 variation in the Tuareg from Libya we have now determined the complete sequence of eleven of their mtDNAs belonging to H1. The comparison of these H1 sequences with those already available from Europe and North Africa provides new clues on how and when H1 spread in Northern Africa up to the Central Sahara.” ref
The Natufian culture of the Levant and the contemporary
coastal North Africa cultures Iberomaurusian and Capsian
The Natufian generally there has been a discussion of the similarities of other cultures in the general area surrounding of Israel, along with those found in coastal North Africa. There seem to be some similarities in the archaeology finds of the Natufian culture of the Levant and of contemporary foragers in coastal North Africa across the late Pleistocene and early Holocene boundary”. As such it may be that there was some transfer between what the Natufians practiced the Iberomaurusian and Capsian custom of forcibly extracting the central incisor teeth. the earliest evidence for widespread dental modification in Northwest Africa. ref, ref
It seems that there are signs of influences coming from North Africa to the Levant, built upon the little evidence available to develop scenarios of intensive usage of plants having built up first in North Africa, as a precursor to the development of true farming in the Fertile Crescent, but then there is also the earliest known intensive usage of plants was in the Levant 23,000 years ago at the Ohalo II site. ref
| Haplogroup I-M170 | |
|---|---|
| Possible time of origin | Present 31–35,000 years BP |
| Possible place of origin | The Caucasus, Europe or Southwest Asia |
- Sultanian in the Jordan River valley and the southern Levant with the type site of Jericho. Other sites include Netiv HaGdud, El-Khiam, Hatoula, and Nahal Oren.
- Mureybetian in the Northern Levant. Defined by the finds from MureybetIIIA, IIIB, typical: Helwan points, sickle-blades with base amenagée or short stem and terminal retouch. Other sites include Sheyk Hasan and Jerf el-Ahmar.
- Aswadian in the Damascus Basin. Defined by finds from Tell Aswad IA. Typical: bipolar cores, big sickle blades, Aswad points. The ‘Aswadian’ variant was recently abolished by the work of Danielle Stordeur in her initial report from further investigations in 2001–2006. The PPNB horizon was moved back at this site, to around 10,700 BP.
- Sites in ‘Upper Mesopotamia’ as in Turkey, include Göbekli Tepe, Nevalı Çori and Çayönü, with the latter possibly being the oldest ritual complex yet discovered. And sites in central Anatolia which include the ‘mother city’ Çatalhöyük and the smaller but older site, rivaling even Jericho in age, Aşıklı Höyük. ref
- The Capsian culture was a Mesolithic culture centered in the Maghreb also known as Northwest Africa or Northern Africa that lasted from about 10,000 to 4,700 years ago. ranging from aurochs and hartebeest to hares and snails and their burial methods suggest a belief in an afterlife. Decorative art is widely found at their sites, including figurative and abstract rock art, and ochre is found coloring both tools and corpses. Ostrich eggshells were used to make beads and containers; seashells were used for necklaces. The Ibero-Maurusianpractice of extracting the central incisors continued sporadically but became rarer. Around 8000 years ago, a technological change occurred, corresponding with an environmental shift, and calls into question the contemporaneity of Typical and Upper Capsian. The causes, mechanisms, and implications of this technological change are integrated into a broader discussion leading to more questions about the way of life of the makers of the Capsian, their cultural evolution, and their persistence as hunter-gatherers in a Neolithic world. ref, ref
Nevali Çori numerous statues and smaller sculptures, including a more than life-sized bare human head with a snake or sikha-like tuft. There is also a statue of a bird. Some of the pillars also bore reliefs, including ones of human hands. The free-standing anthropomorphic figures of limestone excavated at Nevalı Çori belong to the earliest known life-size sculptures. The comparable material has been found at Göbekli Tepe. Several hundred small clay figurines (about 5 cm high), most of them depicting humans, have been interpreted as votive offerings. They were fired at temperatures between 500-600 °C, which suggests the development of ceramic firing technology before the advent of pottery proper. Nevalı Çori could be placed within the local relative chronology on the basis of its flint tools. The occurrence of narrow unretouched Byblos-type points places it on Oliver Aurenche’s Phase 3, i.e. early to middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB). Some tools indicate continuity into Phase 4, which is similar in date to Late PPNB. An even finer chronological distinction within Phase 3 is permitted by the settlement’s architecture; the house type with underfloor channels, typical of Nevalı Çori strata I-IV, also characterizes the “Intermediate Layer” at Çayönü, while the differing plan of the single building in stratum V, House 1, is more clearly connected to the buildings of the “Cellular Plan Layer” at Çayönü. A bas relief on a fragment of a limestone bowl depicts two humans and one tortoise-like creature dancing. ref
Dzudzuana: Dzudzuana-related ancestry as the most important component of West Eurasians and the one that is found across West Eurasian-North African populations at around 46-88% levels. Thus, Dzudzuana-related ancestry can be viewed as the common core of the ancestry of West Eurasian-North African populations. Its distribution reaches its minima in northern Europe and appears to be complementary to that of Villabruna, being most strongly represented in North Africa, the Near East (including the Caucasus) and Mediterranean Europe. Modeled ancient Near Eastern/North African populations (the principal ancestors of present-day people from the same regions) as deriving much of their ancestry from a Dzudzuana-related source. Migrations from the Near East/Caucasus associated with the spread of the Neolithic, but also the formation of steppe population introduced most of the Dzudzuana-related ancestry present in Europe, although (as we have seen above) some such ancestry was already present in some pre-agricultural hunter-gatherers in Europe. ref
The Khiamian (also referred to as El Khiam or El-Khiam) is a period of the Near-Eastern Neolithic, marking the transition between the Natufian and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Some sources date it from about 12,200 to 10,800. El-Khiam identifies sites of this period, which are found in Israel, as well as in Jordan (Azraq), Sinai (Abu Madi), and to the north as far as the Middle Euphrates (Mureybet). The Khiamien also sees a change occur in the symbolic aspects of culture, as evidenced by the appearance of small female statuettes, as well as by the burying of aurochs skulls. and the beginning of the worship of the Woman and the Bull, as evidenced in the following periods of the Near-Eastern Neolithic. Aside from the appearance of El Khiam arrowheads, the Khiamian is placed in the continuity of the Natufian, without any major technological innovations. However, for the first time houses were built on the ground level itself, and not half below ground as was previously done. Otherwise, the bearers of the El Khiam culture were still hunter-gatherers, and agriculture at that time was then still rather primitive, discoveries show that in the Middle East and Anatolia some experiments with agriculture were being made by around 12,900 years ago. ref
Prehistoric settlements of the Near East, during the Neolithic revolution (12,000 to 10,000 years ago)
remarkable changes occurred in the art of building.
“Stories from the Stone Age edited (VIDEO)” at 52 min to 54 min references sky burial behaviors at Ain-Ghazal (Jordan) Pre-pottery Neolithic B Period connected to the plaster skull cult behavior also found in the region. ref
The settlement at ‘Ain Ghazal (“Spring of the Gazelle”) an early farming community that herded domesticated goats and hunted wild animals, was first appeared in the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (MPPNB ) and is split into two phases. Phase I starts around 10,300 to 9,550 years ago. After 6500 BC, however, the population dropped sharply to about one-sixth within only a few generations, probably due to environmental degradation, the 8.2 kilo-year event.
Y-DNA haplogroup E1b1b1b2 has been found in 75% of the ‘Ain Ghazal population, along with 60% of PPNB populations (and is present in all three stages of PPNB) and in most Natufians.
T1a (T-M70) is found among the later Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (MPPNB) inhabitants from ‘Ain Ghazal, but was not found among the early and middle MPPNB populations. As was previously found in the early Neolithic settlement from Karsdorf (Germany) a subclade of mtDNA R0 was found with Y-DNA-T at ‘Ain Ghazal. It is thought, therefore, that the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B population is mostly composed of two different populations: members of at least the early Natufian civilization and a population resulting from immigration from the north, i.e. north-eastern Anatolia. as well as seemingly some ties to the Iberomaurusian. ref
The Cave of Ifri n’Amr o’ Moussa, is located in Central Morocco with archaeological sequence ranging from Iberomaurusian to the copper age. Evidence seems to suggest the arrival of the Neolithic package (barley grain and fruit) in this region during 7,200 to 6,900 years ago, indicating the presence of an Early Neolithic occupation. ref
Ancient DNA analysis of the Cave of Ifri n’Amr o’ Moussa, an Aterian and Iberomaurusian archaeological site specimens indicates that they carried paternal haplotypes related to the E1b1b1b1a (E-M81) subclade and the maternal haplogroups U6a and M1, all of which are frequent among present-day communities in the Tamazgha. These ancient individuals also bore an autochthonous North African genomic component that peaks among modern Berbers, indicating that they were ancestral to populations in the area. Of the old samples that the Early Neolithic Ifri n’Amr or Moussa skeletons were compared with, they were most closely related to fossils from the Late Neolithic Kelif el Boroud site near Rabat. They likewise showed ties with ancient specimens from the Mesolithic Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures of the Levant. The genomic composition of Ifri Amr U Mussa individuals was similar to the Later Stone Age samples from Taforalt and indicates a genetic continuity in North Africa since Paleolithic to Early Neolithic. ref
The high proportion of Near Eastern ancestry shows that connections between the continents of Africa and Eurasia began much earlier than many previously thought.
The Iberomaurusian is a backed bladelet lithic industry found near the coasts of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. It is also known from a single major site in Libya, the Haua Fteah, where the industry is locally known as the Eastern Oranian. The Iberomaurusian seems to have appeared around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), around 25,000 to 22,500 years ago until around 11,000 years ago. ref
The Eburran industry is the name of an East African tool assemblage that dates from 15,000 years ago and thereafter, found around Lake Nakuru in the Ol Doinyo Eburru volcano complex in the Rift Valley, Kenya. The culture was at one time known as the “Kenyan Capsian” because findings resemble those of the North African Capsian trans-Saharan culture. It was also formerly called the “Kenyan Aurignacian.” Eburran assemblages, as recovered from Gamble’s Cave and Nderit Drift, comprise largely backed blades, crescent microliths, burins, and endscrapers. Some tools at Gamble’s Cave were made from obsidian. ref
DNA from Morocco shows human populations had links which stretched across continents as far back as 25,000 years ago. Experts sequenced nuclear DNA from people who lived around 15,000 years ago. Connections between Africa and the Levant date back earlier than thought. The region’s Iberomaurusian inhabitants were first to produce fine stone tools. Two-thirds of their heritage is related to populations from the Near East. A further one-third is most similar to modern sub-Saharan Africans. A burial site in Grotte des Pigeons, near Taforalt in Morocco, which is associated with the Iberomaurusian culture. ref
The Iberomaurusians, who lived around 20,000 years to 10,000 years ago, are believed to be the first in the area to produce finer stone tools, known as microliths. DNA evidence revealed that around two-thirds of their heritage is related to populations from the Levant, a historical geographical region that encompasses the modern nations of Cyprus, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and parts of Turkey. A further one-third is most similar to modern sub-Saharan Africans, in particular, West Africans. An analysis shows that North Africa and the Near East, even at this early time, were part of one region without much of a genetic barrier. Clearly, human populations were interacting much more with groups from other, more distant areas, than was previously assumed. It is part of the African continent, but the Sahara Desert presents a substantial barrier to travel to and from southern regions. ref
The ancient Iberomaurusians appear to be related to Middle Easterners and shared about two-thirds of their genetic ancestry with Natufians, hunter-gatherers who lived in the Middle East 14,500 to 11,000 years ago, and one-third with sub-Saharan Africans who were most closely related to today’s West Africans and the Hadza of Tanzania.
The Iberomaurusians 25,000 to 11,000 years ago, lived before the Natufians 14,000 to 12,000 years ago, but they were not their direct ancestors: The Natufians lack DNA from Africa. This suggests that both groups inherited their shared DNA from a larger population that lived in North Africa or the Middle East more than 15,000 years ago. All this offers the first glimpse of the deep history of North Africans, who today have a large amount of European DNA. ref
Indisputably, there exists during phase Ib1 of the Final Natufian a very strong link between the living and their dead – being grouped together in a common space.
This feeling is reinforced by the fact that some of the dead are deposited directly on the structures or the floors without preliminary digging of a pit (this is the case in particular of H156 and H157). Such co-existence was never clearly shown for the Early or Late Natufian. Except for a few exceptions, burial space was always regarded as being in close proximity to, but not co-mingled, with habitation space. This co-mingling of burial and living spaces appear all the more remarkable because almost all graves from the previous period at Mallaha were grouped together in a well-defined zone remote from the houses (Perrot and Ladiray, 1988). The custom of grouping the graves show a long-term continuity (probably over several generations) and the term “cemetery” seems fully justified in this context. Thus, the Final Natufian marks a rupture in the organization of funerary space when compared to the Late Natufian. Most of these primary burials are also single ones. ref
The origins of the ancient Moroccans, known as the Iberomaurusians
About 15,000 years ago, in the oldest known cemetery in the world, people buried their dead in sitting positions with beads and animal horns, deep in a cave in what is now Morocco. These people were also found with small, sophisticated stone arrowheads and points, thus it had been assumed they were part of an advanced European culture that had migrated across the Mediterranean Sea to North Africa but had no European ancestry, they were related to both Middle Easterners and sub-Saharan Africans, suggesting that more people were migrating in and out of North Africa than previously believed. ref
E-M215 carrying men directly from North Africa to southwestern Europe, via a maritime route:
Natufian skeletal remains from the ancient Levant predominantly carried the Y-DNA haplogroup E1b1b. Of the five Natufian specimens analysed for paternal lineages, three belonged to the E1b1b1b2(xE1b1b1b2a,E1b1b1b2b), E1b1(xE1b1a1,E1b1b1b1) and E1b1b1b2(xE1b1b1b2a,E1b1b1b2b) subclades (60%). Haplogroup E1b1b was also found at moderate frequencies among fossils from the ensuing Pre-Pottery Neolithic B culture, with the E1b1b1 and E1b1b1b2(xE1b1b1b2a,E1b1b1b2b) subclades observed in two of seven PPNB specimens (~29%). The scientists suggest that the Levantine early farmers may have spread southward into East Africa, bringing along Western Eurasian and Basal Eurasian ancestral components separate from that which would arrive later in North Africa. No affinity of Natufians to sub-Saharan Africans is evident in the genome-wide analysis.
Additionally, haplogroup E1b1b1 has been found in an ancient Egyptian mummy excavated at the Abusir el-Meleq archaeological site in Middle Egypt, which dates from a period between the late New Kingdom and the Roman era. Fossils at the Iberomaurusian site of Ifri n’Amr or Moussa in Morocco, which have been dated to around 7,000 years ago, also carried haplotypes related to the E1b1b1b1a (E-M81) subclade. These ancient individuals bore a Maghrebi genomic component that peaks among modern North Africans, indicating that they were ancestral to populations in the area.
The clade-bearing individuals that were analyzed for paternal DNA were inhumed at the Tenerife site, with all of these specimens found to belong to the E1b1b1b1a1 or E-M183 subclade (3/3; 100%).DNA from seven ancient Iberomaurusian individuals from the Grotte des Pigeons near Taforalt in eastern Morocco. The fossils were directly dated to between 15,100 and 13,900 calibrated years before present. The scientists found that five male specimens with sufficient nuclear DNA preservation belonged to the E1b1b1a1 (M78) subclade, with one skeleton bearing the E1b1b1a1b1 parent lineage to E-V13, another male specimen belonged to E1b1b (M215*). In Africa, E-M215 is distributed in highest frequencies in the Horn of Africa and North Africa, whence it has in recent millennia expanded as far south as South Africa, and northwards into Western Asia and Europe (especially the Mediterranean and the Balkans).
Almost all E-M215 men are also in E-M35. In 2004, M215 was found to be older than M35 when individuals were found who have the M215 mutation, but do not have M35 mutation. One individual in Khorasan, North-East Iran, was found to be positive for M215 but negative for M35. E-M215 and E-M35 are quite common among Afroasiatic speakers. The linguistic group and carriers of E-M35 lineage have a high probability to have arisen and dispersed together from the Afroasiatic Urheimat. Amongst populations with an Afro-Asiatic speaking history, a significant proportion of Jewish male lineages are E-M35. Haplogroup E-M35, which accounts for approximately 18% to 20% of Ashkenazi and 8.6% to 30% of Sephardi Y-chromosomes, appears to be one of the major founding lineages of the Jewish population. ref, ref
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
Early Sitting Venus
Venus of Courbet 15,000 years ago, Bruniquel France made from fine-grained red quartzite. As with some of the other figurines, some of the cave’s artifacts included bone needles even at times bone whistles. One cave had a bone pipe. All part of the Magdalénien “Venus” dating from 17,000 to 12,000 years ago and seem focused on the female form only as a Stylistic Abstraction. ref
Early Sitting Venus
Venus of Courbet 15,000 years ago, Bruniquel France made from fine-grained red quartzite. As with some of the other figurines, some of the cave’s artifacts included bone needles even at times bone whistles. One cave had a bone pipe. All part of the Magdalénien “Venus” dating from 17,000 to 12,000 years ago and seem focused on the female form only as a Stylistic Abstraction.
There is seeming possible archaeological origins of Early Proto-Indo-European in the Baltic during the Mesolithic.
At a Stone Age cemetery located along a drumlin on the northern shore of Lake Burtnieks in northern Latvia.using many individuals, there was observe a transition in hunter-gatherer HG-related ancestry that is opposite to that seen in Ukraine. And that Mesolithic and Early Neolithic individuals (labelled ‘Latvia_HG’) associated with the Kunda and Narva cultures have ancestry that is intermediate between WHG (approximately 70%) and EHG (approximately 30%). We also detect a shift in ancestry between Early Neolithic individuals and those associated with the Middle Neolithic Comb Ware complex (labelled ‘Latvia_MN’), who have more EHG-related ancestry; we estimate that the ancestry of Latvia_MN individuals comprises 65% EHG-related ancestry, but two of the four individuals appear to be 100% EHG in principal component space. ref
The cemetery contains 330 burials, with roughly equal numbers of male and females. About one third of the burials are children. The principal grave goods are animal tooth pendants, occurring in both adult and child graves. A smaller number of male and female graves contain hunting and fishing equipment, including harpoons, spears, arrowheads and fish-hooks. The earliest burials are dated to the Middle Mesolithic, 8th millennium BCE, but they continue throughout the Stone Age, extending over at least four millennia. ref
In Europe it spans roughly 15,000 to 5,000 years ago; in Southwest Asia (the Epipalaeolithic Near East) roughly 20,000 to 8,000 BP. The term is less used of areas further east, and not all beyond Eurasia and North Africa. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymously, especially for outside northern Europe, and for the corresponding period in the Levant and Caucasus. Mesolithic societies are not seen as very complex, and burials are fairly simple; grandiose burial mounds are another mark of the Neolithic.
As “Mesolithic” suggests an intermediate period, followed by the Neolithic, some authors prefer the term “Epipaleolithic” for hunter-gatherer cultures who are not succeeded by agricultural traditions, reserving “Mesolithic” for cultures who are clearly succeeded by the Neolithic Revolution, such as the Natufian culture. The Balkan Mesolithic begins around 15,000 years ago. In Western Europe, the Early Mesolithic, or Azilian, begins about 14,000 years ago, in the Franco-Cantabrian region of northern Spain and southern France. In other parts of Europe, the Mesolithic begins by 11,500 years ago (the beginning Holocene), and it ends with the introduction of farming, depending on the region between ca. 8,500 and 5,500 years ago. ref
In northern Europe, for example, societies were able to live well on rich food supplies from the marshlands created by the warmer climate. Such conditions produced distinctive human behaviors that are preserved in the material record, such as the Maglemosian and Azilian cultures. Such conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic until some 5,500 BP in northern Europe. A culture very similar to the Azilian spread as well into Mediterranean Spain and southern Portugal. Because it lacked bone industry it is named distinctively as Iberian microlaminar microlithism. It was replaced by the so-called geometrical microlithism related to Tardenoisian culture. ref, ref
Approximate location of some sites
Open circles represent sites or levels dated to older than 10,000 years ago; filled circles are sites or levels dated to the early and roughly from 7,000 to 5,000 years ago and associated warming occurrence. The hatched areas, the limits of which are estimated, mostly contain sites that would be represented by filled circles. a, the main region for Capsian escargotières; b, the Pyrenean region, and southern France in which there are many sites containing abundant land snails; c, the northeastern Adriatic region which also contains numerous such sites. Individually numbered sites are:
1, the Muge middens – B Moita do Sebastião, Cabeço da Arruda, Cabeço da Amoreira – B where land snails appear to be found only with human burials;
2, Nerja Cave
3, Ifri n’Ammar, Ifri-el- Baroud, Taghit Haddouch, Hassi Ouenzga
4, Taforalt
5, Afalou bou Rhumel, Tamar Hat
6, Grotta di Pozzo, Grotta Continenza
7, Grotta della Madonna, Grotta Paglicci, Grotta di Latronico
8, Grotta dell’Uzzo, Grotta di Levanzo, Grotta Corruggi
9, Rosenburg
10, Pupi´cina Cave and other Istrian sites
11, Donja Branjevina
12, Foeni Salas
13, Cyclope Cave
14, Maroulas
15, Franchthi Cave
16, Haua Fteah
17, Laspi VII
18, Hoca Çesme
19, Ilıpınar
20, Öküzini Cave
21, Kissonerga Mylouthkia
22, Ksar ‘Akil
23, Djebel Kafzeh, Hayonim Cave, Erq el-Ahmar, Mugharet ez-Zuitina, Ein Gev
24, Asiab, Gerd Banahilk, Jarmo, Karim Shahir, Nemrik 9, Palegawra, Tepe Sarab, Shanidar Cave layer B, Warwasi, Zawi Chemi Shanidar. ref
At a Stone Age cemetery located along a drumlin on the northern shore of Lake Burtnieks in northern Latvia.using many individuals, there was observe a transition in hunter-gatherer HG-related ancestry that is opposite to that seen in Ukraine. And that Mesolithic and Early Neolithic individuals (labelled ‘Latvia_HG’) associated with the Kunda and Narva cultures have ancestry that is intermediate between WHG (approximately 70%) and EHG (approximately 30%). We also detect a shift in ancestry between Early Neolithic individuals and those associated with the Middle Neolithic Comb Ware complex (labelled ‘Latvia_MN’), who have more EHG-related ancestry; we estimate that the ancestry of Latvia_MN individuals comprises 65% EHG-related ancestry, but two of the four individuals appear to be 100% EHG in principal component space. ref
The cemetery contains 330 burials, with roughly equal numbers of male and females. About one third of the burials are children. The principal grave goods are animal tooth pendants, occurring in both adult and child graves. A smaller number of male and female graves contain hunting and fishing equipment, including harpoons, spears, arrowheads and fish-hooks. The earliest burials are dated to the Middle Mesolithic, 8th millennium BCE, but they continue throughout the Stone Age, extending over at least four millennia. ref
In Europe it spans roughly 15,000 to 5,000 years ago; in Southwest Asia (the Epipalaeolithic Near East) roughly 20,000 to 8,000 BP. The term is less used of areas further east, and not all beyond Eurasia and North Africa. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymously, especially for outside northern Europe, and for the corresponding period in the Levant and Caucasus. Mesolithic societies are not seen as very complex, and burials are fairly simple; grandiose burial mounds are another mark of the Neolithic.
As “Mesolithic” suggests an intermediate period, followed by the Neolithic, some authors prefer the term “Epipaleolithic” for hunter-gatherer cultures who are not succeeded by agricultural traditions, reserving “Mesolithic” for cultures who are clearly succeeded by the Neolithic Revolution, such as the Natufian culture. The Balkan Mesolithic begins around 15,000 years ago. In Western Europe, the Early Mesolithic, or Azilian, begins about 14,000 years ago, in the Franco-Cantabrian region of northern Spain and southern France. In other parts of Europe, the Mesolithic begins by 11,500 years ago (the beginning Holocene), and it ends with the introduction of farming, depending on the region between ca. 8,500 and 5,500 years ago. ref
In northern Europe, for example, societies were able to live well on rich food supplies from the marshlands created by the warmer climate. Such conditions produced distinctive human behaviors that are preserved in the material record, such as the Maglemosian and Azilian cultures. Such conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic until some 5,500 BP in northern Europe. A culture very similar to the Azilian spread as well into Mediterranean Spain and southern Portugal. Because it lacked bone industry it is named distinctively as Iberian microlaminar microlithism. It was replaced by the so-called geometrical microlithism related to Tardenoisian culture. ref, ref
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
My thoughts on Religion Evolution with external links for more info:
- (Pre-Animism Africa mainly, but also Europe, and Asia at least 300,000 years ago), (Pre-Animism – Oxford Dictionaries)
- (Animism Africa around 100,000 years ago), (Animism – Britannica.com)
- (Totemism Europe around 50,000 years ago), (Totemism – Anthropology)
- (Shamanism Siberia around 30,000 years ago), (Shamanism – Britannica.com)
- (Paganism Turkey around 12,000 years ago), (Paganism – BBC Religion)
- (Progressed Organized Religion “Institutional Religion” Egypt around 5,000 years ago), (Ancient Egyptian Religion – Britannica.com)
- (CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS after 4,000 years ago) (Origin of Major Religions – Sacred Texts)
- (Early Atheistic Doubting at least by 2,600 years ago) (History of Atheism – Wikipedia)
“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:
- Pre-Animism (at least 300,000 years ago)
- Animism (Africa: 100,000 years ago)
- Totemism (Europe: 50,000 years ago)
- Shamanism (Siberia: 30,000 years ago)
- Paganism (Turkey: 12,000 years ago)
- Progressed organized religion (Egypt: 5,000 years ago), (Egypt, the First Dynasty 5,150 years ago)
- CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago)
- Early Atheistic Doubting (at least by 2,600 years ago)
“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:
- To Find Truth You Must First Look
- (Magdalenian/Iberomaurusian) Connections to the First Paganists of the early Neolithic Near East Dating from around 17,000 to 12,000 Years Ago
- Natufians: an Ancient People at the Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Life
- Possible Clan Leader/Special “MALE” Ancestor Totem Poles At Least 13,500 years ago?
- Jewish People with DNA at least 13,200 years old, Judaism, and the Origins of Some of its Ideas
- Baltic Reindeer Hunters: Swiderian, Lyngby, Ahrensburgian, and Krasnosillya cultures 12,020 to 11,020 years ago are evidence of powerful migratory waves during the last 13,000 years and a genetic link to Saami and the Finno-Ugric peoples.
- The Rise of Inequality: patriarchy and state hierarchy inequality
- Fertile Crescent 12,500 – 9,500 Years Ago: fertility and death cult belief system?
- 12,400 – 11,700 Years Ago – Kortik Tepe (Turkey) Pre/early-Agriculture Cultic Ritualism
- Ritualistic Bird Symbolism at Gobekli Tepe and its “Ancestor Cult”
- Male-Homosexual (female-like) / Trans-woman (female) Seated Figurine from Gobekli Tepe
- Could a 12,000-year-old Bull Geoglyph at Göbekli Tepe relate to older Bull and Female Art 25,000 years ago and Later Goddess and the Bull cults like Catal Huyuk?
- Sedentism and the Creation of goddesses around 12,000 years ago as well as male gods after 7,000 years ago.
- Alcohol, where Agriculture and Religion Become one? Such as Gobekli Tepe’s Ritualistic use of Grain as Food and Ritual Drink
- Neolithic Ritual Sites with T-Pillars and other Cultic Pillars
- Paganism: Goddesses around 12,000 years ago then Male Gods after 7,000 years ago
- First Patriarchy: Split of Women’s Status around 12,000 years ago & First Hierarchy: fall of Women’s Status around 5,000 years ago.
- Natufians: an Ancient People at the Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Life
- J DNA and the Spread of Agricultural Religion (paganism)
- Paganism: an approximately 12,000-year-old belief system
- Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism)
- Shaman burial in Israel 12,000 years ago and the Shamanism Phenomena
- Need to Mythicized: gods and goddesses
- 12,000 – 7,000 Years Ago – Paleo-Indian Culture (The Americas)
- 12,000 – 2,000 Years Ago – Indigenous-Scandinavians (Nordic)
- Norse did not wear helmets with horns?
- Pre-Pottery Neolithic Skull Cult around 11,500 to 8,400 Years Ago?
- 10,400 – 10,100 Years Ago, in Turkey the Nevail Cori Religious Settlement
- 9,000-6,500 Years Old Submerged Pre-Pottery/Pottery Neolithic Ritual Settlements off Israel’s Coast
- Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city” around 9,500 to 7,700 years ago (Turkey)
- Cultic Hunting at Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city”
- Special Items and Art as well as Special Elite Burials at Catal Huyuk
- New Rituals and Violence with the appearance of Pottery and People?
- Haplogroup N and its related Uralic Languages and Cultures
- Ainu people, Sámi people, Native Americans, the Ancient North Eurasians, and Paganistic-Shamanism with Totemism
- Ideas, Technology and People from Turkey, Europe, to China and Back again 9,000 to 5,000 years ago?
- First Pottery of Europe and the Related Cultures
- 9,000 years old Neolithic Artifacts Judean Desert and Hills Israel
- 9,000-7,000 years-old Sex and Death Rituals: Cult Sites in Israel, Jordan, and the Sinai
- 9,000-8500 year old Horned Female shaman Bad Dürrenberg Germany
- Neolithic Jewelry and the Spread of Farming in Europe Emerging out of West Turkey
- 8,600-year-old Tortoise Shells in Neolithic graves in central China have Early Writing and Shamanism
- Swing of the Mace: the rise of Elite, Forced Authority, and Inequality begin to Emerge 8,500 years ago?
- Migrations and Changing Europeans Beginning around 8,000 Years Ago
- My “Steppe-Anatolian-Kurgan hypothesis” 8,000/7,000 years ago
- Around 8,000-year-old Shared Idea of the Mistress of Animals, “Ritual” Motif
- Pre-Columbian Red-Paint (red ochre) Maritime Archaic Culture 8,000-3,000 years ago
- 7,522-6,522 years ago Linear Pottery culture which I think relates to Arcane Capitalism’s origins
- Arcane Capitalism: Primitive socialism, Primitive capital, Private ownership, Means of production, Market capitalism, Class discrimination, and Petite bourgeoisie (smaller capitalists)
- 7,500-4,750 years old Ritualistic Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine
- Roots of a changing early society 7,200-6,700 years ago Jordan and Israel
- Agriculture religion (Paganism) with farming reached Britain between about 7,000 to 6,500 or so years ago and seemingly expressed in things like Western Europe’s Long Barrows
- My Thoughts on Possible Migrations of “R” DNA and Proto-Indo-European?
- “Millet” Spreading from China 7,022 years ago to Europe and related Language may have Spread with it leading to Proto-Indo-European
- Proto-Indo-European (PIE), ancestor of Indo-European languages: DNA, Society, Language, and Mythology
- The Dnieper–Donets culture and Asian varieties of Millet from China to the Black Sea region of Europe by 7,022 years ago
- Kurgan 6,000 years ago/dolmens 7,000 years ago: funeral, ritual, and other?
- 7,020 to 6,020-year-old Proto-Indo-European Homeland of Urheimat or proposed home of their Language and Religion
- Ancient Megaliths: Kurgan, Ziggurat, Pyramid, Menhir, Trilithon, Dolman, Kromlech, and Kromlech of Trilithons
- The Mytheme of Ancient North Eurasian Sacred-Dog belief and similar motifs are found in Indo-European, Native American, and Siberian comparative mythology
- Elite Power Accumulation: Ancient Trade, Tokens, Writing, Wealth, Merchants, and Priest-Kings
- Sacred Mounds, Mountains, Kurgans, and Pyramids may hold deep connections?
- Between 7,000-5,000 Years ago, rise of unequal hierarchy elite, leading to a “birth of the State” or worship of power, strong new sexism, oppression of non-elites, and the fall of Women’s equal status
- Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite & their slaves
- Hell and Underworld mythologies starting maybe as far back as 7,000 to 5,000 years ago with the Proto-Indo-Europeans?
- The First Expression of the Male God around 7,000 years ago?
- White (light complexion skin) Bigotry and Sexism started 7,000 years ago?
- Around 7,000-year-old Shared Idea of the Divine Bird (Tutelary and/or Trickster spirit/deity), “Ritual” Motif
- Nekhbet an Ancient Egyptian Vulture Goddess and Tutelary Deity
- 6,720 to 4,920 years old Ritualistic Hongshan Culture of Inner Mongolia with 5,000-year-old Pyramid Mounds and Temples
- First proto-king in the Balkans, Varna culture around 6,500 years ago?
- 6,500–5,800 years ago in Israel Late Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Period in the Southern Levant Seems to Express Northern Levant Migrations, Cultural and Religious Transfer
- KING OF BEASTS: Master of Animals “Ritual” Motif, around 6,000 years old or older…
- Around 6000-year-old Shared Idea of the Solid Wheel & the Spoked Wheel-Shaped Ritual Motif
- “The Ghassulian Star,” a mysterious 6,000-year-old mural from Jordan; a Proto-Star of Ishtar, Star of Inanna or Star of Venus?
- Religious/Ritual Ideas, including goddesses and gods as well as ritual mounds or pyramids from Northeastern Asia at least 6,000 years old, seemingly filtering to Iran, Iraq, the Mediterranean, Europe, Egypt, and the Americas?
- Maykop (5,720–5,020 years ago) Caucasus region Bronze Age culture-related to Copper Age farmers from the south, influenced by the Ubaid period and Leyla-Tepe culture, as well as influencing the Kura-Araxes culture
- 5-600-year-old Tomb, Mummy, and First Bearded Male Figurine in a Grave
- Kura-Araxes Cultural 5,520 to 4,470 years old DNA traces to the Canaanites, Arabs, and Jews
- Minoan/Cretan (Keftiu) Civilization and Religion around 5,520 to 3,120 years ago
- Evolution Of Science at least by 5,500 years ago
- 5,500 Years old birth of the State, the rise of Hierarchy, and the fall of Women’s status
- “Jiroft culture” 5,100 – 4,200 years ago and the History of Iran
- Stonehenge: Paganistic Burial and Astrological Ritual Complex, England (5,100-3,600 years ago)
- Around 5,000-year-old Shared Idea of the “Tree of Life” Ritual Motif
- Complex rituals for elite, seen from China to Egypt, at least by 5,000 years ago
- Around 5,000 years ago: “Birth of the State” where Religion gets Military Power and Influence
- The Center of the World “Axis Mundi” and/or “Sacred Mountains” Mythology Could Relate to the Altai Mountains, Heart of the Steppe
- Progressed organized religion starts, an approximately 5,000-year-old belief system
- China’s Civilization between 5,000-3,000 years ago, was a time of war and class struggle, violent transition from free clans to a Slave or Elite society
- Origin of Logics is Naturalistic Observation at least by around 5,000 years ago.
- Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State)
- Ziggurats (multi-platform temples: 4,900 years old) to Pyramids (multi-platform tombs: 4,700 years old)
- Did a 4,520–4,420-year-old Volcano In Turkey Inspire the Bible God?
- Finland’s Horned Shaman and Pre-Horned-God at least 4,500 years ago?
- 4,000-year-Old Dolmens in Israel: A Connected Dolmen Religious Phenomenon?
- Creation myths: From chaos, Ex nihilo, Earth-diver, Emergence, World egg, and World parent
- Bronze Age “Ritual” connections of the Bell Beaker culture with the Corded Ware/Single Grave culture, which were related to the Yamnaya culture and Proto-Indo-European Languages/Religions
- Low Gods (Earth/ Tutelary deity), High Gods (Sky/Supreme deity), and Moralistic Gods (Deity enforcement/divine order)
- The exchange of people, ideas, and material-culture including, to me, the new god (Sky Father) and goddess (Earth Mother) religion between the Cucuteni-Trypillians and others which is then spread far and wide
- Koryaks: Indigenous People of the Russian Far East and Big Raven myths also found in Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and other Indigenous People of North America
- 42 Principles Of Maat (Egyptian Goddess of the justice) around 4,400 years ago, 2000 Years Before Ten Commandments
- “Happy Easter” Well Happy Eostre/Ishter
- 4,320-3,820 years old “Shimao” (North China) site with Totemistic-Shamanistic Paganism and a Stepped Pyramid
- 4,250 to 3,400 Year old Stonehenge from Russia: Arkaim?
- 4,100-year-old beaker with medicinal & flowering plants in a grave of a woman in Scotland
- Early European Farmer ancestry, Kelif el Boroud people with the Cardial Ware culture, and the Bell Beaker culture Paganists too, spread into North Africa, then to the Canary Islands off West Africa
- Flood Accounts: Gilgamesh epic (4,100 years ago) Noah in Genesis (2,600 years ago)
- Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)
- When was the beginning: TIMELINE OF CURRENT RELIGIONS, which start around 4,000 years ago.
- Early Religions Thought to Express Proto-Monotheistic Systems around 4,000 years ago
- Kultepe? An archaeological site with a 4,000 years old women’s rights document.
- Single God Religions (Monotheism) = “Man-o-theism” started around 4,000 years ago with the Great Sky Spirit/God Tiān (天)?
- Confucianism’s Tiān (Shangdi god 4,000 years old): Supernaturalism, Pantheism or Theism?
- Yes, Your Male God is Ridiculous
- Mythology, a Lunar Deity is a Goddess or God of the Moon
- Sacred Land, Hills, and Mountains: Sami Mythology (Paganistic Shamanism)
- Horse Worship/Sacrifice: mythical union of Ruling Elite/Kingship and the Horse
- The Amorite/Amurru people’s God Amurru “Lord of the Steppe”, relates to the Origins of the Bible God?
- Bronze Age Exotic Trade Routes Spread Quite Far as well as Spread Religious Ideas with Them
- Sami and the Northern Indigenous Peoples Landscape, Language, and its Connection to Religion
- Prototype of Ancient Analemmatic Sundials around 3,900-3,150 years ago and a Possible Solar Connection to gods?
- Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)
- The Weakening of Ancient Trade and the Strengthening of Religions around 3000 years ago?
- Are you aware that there are religions that worship women gods, explain now religion tears women down?
- Animistic, Totemistic, and Paganistic Superstition Origins of bible god and the bible’s Religion.
- Myths and Folklore: “Trickster gods and goddesses”
- Jews, Judaism, and the Origins of Some of its Ideas
- An Old Branch of Religion Still Giving Fruit: Sacred Trees
- Dating the BIBLE: naming names and telling times (written less than 3,000 years ago, provable to 2,200 years ago)
- Did a Volcano Inspire the bible god?
- The Amorite/Amurru people’s God Amurru “Lord of the Steppe”, relates to the Origins of the Bible God?
- Dené–Yeniseian language, Old Copper Complex, and Pre-Columbian Mound Builders?
- No “dinosaurs and humans didn’t exist together just because some think they are in the bible itself”
- Sacred Shit and Sacred Animals?
- Everyone Killed in the Bible Flood? “Nephilim” (giants)?
- Hey, Damien dude, I have a question for you regarding “the bible” Exodus.
- Archaeology Disproves the Bible
- Bible Battle, Just More, Bible Babble
- The Jericho Conquest lie?
- Canaanites and Israelites?
- Accurate Account on how did Christianity Began?
- Let’s talk about Christianity.
- So the 10 commandments isn’t anything to go by either right?
- Misinformed christian
- Debunking Jesus?
- Paulism vs Jesus
- Ok, you seem confused so let’s talk about Buddhism.
- Unacknowledged Buddhism: Gods, Savior, Demons, Rebirth, Heavens, Hells, and Terrorism
- His Foolishness The Dalai Lama
- Yin and Yang is sexist with an ORIGIN around 2,300 years ago?
- I Believe Archaeology, not Myths & Why Not, as the Religious Myths Already Violate Reason!
- Archaeological, Scientific, & Philosophic evidence shows the god myth is man-made nonsense.
- Aquatic Ape Theory/Hypothesis? As Always, Just Pseudoscience.
- Ancient Aliens Conspiracy Theorists are Pseudohistorians
- The Pseudohistoric and Pseudoscientific claims about “Bakoni Ruins” of South Africa
- Why do people think Religion is much more than supernaturalism and superstitionism?
- Religion is an Evolved Product
- Was the Value of Ancient Women Different?
- 1000 to 1100 CE, human sacrifice Cahokia Mounds a pre-Columbian Native American site
- Feminist atheists as far back as the 1800s?
- Promoting Religion as Real is Mentally Harmful to a Flourishing Humanity
- Screw All Religions and Their Toxic lies, they are all fraud
- Forget Religions’ Unfounded Myths, I Have Substantiated “Archaeology Facts.”
- Religion Dispersal throughout the World
- I Hate Religion Just as I Hate all Pseudoscience
- Exposing Scientology, Eckankar, Wicca and Other Nonsense?
- Main deity or religious belief systems
- Quit Trying to Invent Your God From the Scraps of Science.
- Archaeological, Scientific, & Philosophic evidence shows the god myth is man-made nonsense.
- Ancient Alien Conspiracy Theorists: Misunderstanding, Rhetoric, Misinformation, Fabrications, and Lies
- Misinformation, Distortion, and Pseudoscience in Talking with a Christian Creationist
- Judging the Lack of Goodness in Gods, Even the Norse God Odin
- Challenging the Belief in God-like Aliens and Gods in General
- A Challenge to Christian use of Torture Devices?
- Yes, Hinduism is a Religion
- Trump is One of the Most Reactionary Forces of Far-right Christian Extremism
- Was the Bull Head a Symbol of God? Yes!
- Primate Death Rituals
- Christian – “God and Christianity are objectively true”
- Australopithecus afarensis Death Ritual?
- You Claim Global Warming is a Hoax?
- Doubter of Science and Defamer of Atheists?
- I think that sounds like the Bible?
- History of the Antifa (“anti-fascist”) Movements
- Indianapolis Anti-Blasphemy Laws #Free Soheil Rally
- Damien, you repeat the golden rule in so many forms then you say religion is dogmatic?
- Science is a Trustable Methodology whereas Faith is not Trustable at all!
- Was I ever a believer, before I was an atheist?
- Atheists rise in reason
- Mistrust of science?
- Open to Talking About the Definition of ‘God’? But first, we address Faith.
- ‘United Monarchy’ full of splendor and power – Saul, David, and Solomon? Most likely not.
- Is there EXODUS ARCHAEOLOGY? The short answer is “no.”
- Lacking Proof of Bigfoots, Unicorns, and Gods is Just a Lack of Research?
- Religion and Politics: Faith Beliefs vs. Rational Thinking
- Hammer of Truth that lying pig RELIGION: challenged by an archaeologist
- “The Hammer of Truth” -ontology question- What do You Mean by That?
- Navigation of a bad argument: Ad Hominem vs. Attack
- Why is it Often Claimed that Gods have a Gender?
- Why are basically all monotheistic religions ones that have a male god?
- Shifting through the Claims in support of Faith
- Dear Mr. AtHope, The 20th Century is an Indictment of Secularism and a Failed Atheist Century
- An Understanding of the Worldwide Statistics and Dynamics of Terrorist Incidents and Suicide Attacks
- Intoxication and Evolution? Addressing and Assessing the “Stoned Ape” or “Drunken Monkey” Theories as Catalysts in Human Evolution
- Sacred Menstrual cloth? Inanna’s knot, Isis knot, and maybe Ma’at’s feather?
- Damien, why don’t the Hebrews accept the bible stories?
- Dealing with a Troll and Arguing Over Word Meaning
- Knowledge without Belief? Justified beliefs or disbeliefs worthy of Knowledge?
- Afrocentrism and African Religions
- Crecganford @crecganford offers history & stories of the people, places, gods, & culture
- Empiricism-Denier?
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.
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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:
- Brownie (Scotland and England) or Hob (England) / Kobold (Germany) / Goblin / Hobgoblin
- Domovoy (Slavic)
- Nisse (Norwegian or Danish) / Tomte (Swedish) / Tonttu (Finnish)
- Húsvættir (Norse)” ref
“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
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
Knowledge to Ponder:
Stars/Astrology:
- Possibly, around 30,000 years ago (in simpler form) to 6,000 years ago, Stars/Astrology are connected to Ancestors, Spirit Animals, and Deities.
- The star also seems to be a possible proto-star for Star of Ishtar, Star of Inanna, or Star of Venus.
- Around 7,000 to 6,000 years ago, Star Constellations/Astrology have connections to the “Kurgan phenomenon” of below-ground “mound” stone/wood burial structures and “Dolmen phenomenon” of above-ground stone burial structures.
- Around 6,500–5,800 years ago, The Northern Levant migrations into Jordon and Israel in the Southern Levant brought new cultural and religious transfer from Turkey and Iran.
- “The Ghassulian Star,” a mysterious 6,000-year-old mural from Jordan may have connections to the European paganstic kurgan/dolmens phenomenon.
“Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindus, Chinese, and the Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Islamicate world and eventually Central and Western Europe. Contemporary Western astrology is often associated with systems of horoscopes that purport to explain aspects of a person’s personality and predict significant events in their lives based on the positions of celestial objects; the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems.” ref
Around 5,500 years ago, Science evolves, The first evidence of science was 5,500 years ago and was demonstrated by a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world. ref
Around 5,000 years ago, Origin of Logics is a Naturalistic Observation (principles of valid reasoning, inference, & demonstration) ref
Around 4,150 to 4,000 years ago: The earliest surviving versions of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, which was originally titled “He who Saw the Deep” (Sha naqba īmuru) or “Surpassing All Other Kings” (Shūtur eli sharrī) were written. ref
Hinduism:
- 3,700 years ago or so, the oldest of the Hindu Vedas (scriptures), the Rig Veda was composed.
- 3,500 years ago or so, the Vedic Age began in India after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Judaism:
- around 3,000 years ago, the first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew”
- around 2,500 years ago, many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed
Myths: The bible inspired religion is not just one religion or one myth but a grouping of several religions and myths
- Around 3,450 or 3,250 years ago, according to legend, is the traditionally accepted period in which the Israelite lawgiver, Moses, provided the Ten Commandments.
- Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, a collection of ancient religious writings by the Israelites based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament is the first part of Christianity’s bible.
- Around 2,400 years ago, the most accepted hypothesis is that the canon was formed in stages, first the Pentateuch (Torah).
- Around 2,140 to 2,116 years ago, the Prophets was written during the Hasmonean dynasty, and finally the remaining books.
- Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections:
- The first five books or Pentateuch (Torah).
- The proposed history books telling the history of the Israelites from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon.
- The poetic and proposed “Wisdom books” dealing, in various forms, with questions of good and evil in the world.
- The books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God:
- Henotheism:
- Exodus 20:23 “You shall not make other gods besides Me (not saying there are no other gods just not to worship them); 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.”
- 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.
Around 2,570 to 2,270 Years Ago, there is a confirmation of atheistic doubting as well as atheistic thinking, mainly by Greek philosophers. However, doubting gods is likely as old as the invention of gods and should destroy the thinking that belief in god(s) is the “default belief”. The Greek word is apistos (a “not” and pistos “faithful,”), thus not faithful or faithless because one is unpersuaded and unconvinced by a god(s) claim. Short Definition: unbelieving, unbeliever, or unbelief.
Expressions of Atheistic Thinking:
- Around 2,600 years ago, Ajita Kesakambali, ancient Indian philosopher, who is the first known proponent of Indian materialism. ref
- Around 2,535 to 2,475 years ago, Heraclitus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor or modern Turkey. ref
- Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, according to The Story of Civilization book series certain African pygmy tribes have no identifiable gods, spirits, or religious beliefs or rituals, and even what burials accrue are without ceremony. ref
- Around 2,490 to 2,430 years ago, Empedocles, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. ref
- Around 2,460 to 2,370 years ago, Democritus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher considered to be the “father of modern science” possibly had some disbelief amounting to atheism. ref
- Around 2,399 years ago or so, Socrates, a famous Greek philosopher was tried for sinfulness by teaching doubt of state gods. ref
- Around 2,341 to 2,270 years ago, Epicurus, a Greek philosopher known for composing atheistic critics and famously stated, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?” ref
This last expression by Epicurus, seems to be an expression of Axiological Atheism. To understand and utilize value or actually possess “Value Conscious/Consciousness” to both give a strong moral “axiological” argument (the problem of evil) as well as use it to fortify humanism and positive ethical persuasion of human helping and care responsibilities. Because value-blindness gives rise to sociopathic/psychopathic evil.
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 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!
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 “Tell Abu Shahrain”)
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/Ruler Lugalzagesi)
Show #7: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Sargon and Akkadian Rule)
Show #9: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Gudea of Lagash and Utu-hegal)
Show #12: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Aftermath and Legacy of Sumer)
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 (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