Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Axis Mundi

“In astronomy, axis mundi is the Latin term for the axis of Earth between the celestial poles. In a geocentric coordinate system, this is the axis of rotation of the celestial sphere. Consequently, in ancient Greco-Roman astronomy, the axis mundi is the axis of rotation of the planetary spheres within the classical geocentric model of the cosmos. In 20th-century comparative mythology, the term axis mundi – also called the cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, the center of the world, or world tree – has been greatly extended to refer to any mythological concept representing “the connection between Heaven and Earth” or the “higher and lower realms.” ref

“Mircea Eliade introduced the concept in the 1950s. Axis mundi closely relates to the mythological concept of the omphalos (navel) of the world or cosmos. Items adduced as examples of the axis mundi by comparative mythologists include plants (notably a tree but also other types of plants such as a vine or stalk), a mountain, a column of smoke or fire, or a product of human manufacture (such as a staff, a tower, a ladder, a staircase, a maypole, a cross, a steeple, a rope, a totem pole, a pillar, a spire). Its proximity to heaven may carry implications that are chiefly religious (pagoda, temple mount, minaret, church) or secular (obelisk, lighthouse, rocket, skyscraper). The image appears in religious and secular contexts. The axis mundi symbol may be found in cultures utilizing shamanic practices or animist belief systems, in major world religions, and in technologically advanced “urban centers”. In Mircea Eliade‘s opinion: “Every Microcosm, every inhabited region, has a Centre; that is to say, a place that is sacred above all.” ref

“There are multiple interpretations about the origin of the concept of the axis mundi. One psychological and sociological interpretation suggests that the symbol originates in a natural and universal psychological perception – i.e., that the particular spot that one occupies stands at “the center of the world”. This space serves as a microcosm of order because it is known and settled. Outside the boundaries of the microcosm lie foreign realms that – because they are unfamiliar or not ordered – represent chaos, death, or night. From the center, one may still venture in any of the four cardinal directions, make discoveries, and establish new centers as new realms become known and settled. The name of China — meaning “Middle Nation” (中国 pinyin: Zhōngguó) – is often interpreted as an expression of an ancient perception that the Chinese polity (or group of polities) occupied the center of the world, with other lands lying in various directions relative to it.” ref

“A second interpretation suggests that ancient symbols such as the axis mundi lie in a particular philosophical or metaphysical representation of a common and culturally shared philosophical concept, which is that of a natural reflection of the macrocosm (or existence at grand scale) in the microcosm (which consists of either an individual, community, or local environment that shares the same principles and structures as the macrocosm). In this metaphysical representation of the universe, mankind is placed into an existence that serves as a microcosm of the universe or the entire cosmic existence, and who – in order to achieve higher states of existence or liberation into the macrocosm – must gain necessary insights into universal principles that can be represented by his life or environment in the microcosm. In many religious and philosophical traditions around the world, mankind is seen as a sort of bridge between either: two worlds, the earthly and the heavenly (as in Hindu, and Taoist philosophical and theological systems); or three worlds, namely the earthly, heavenly, and the “sub-earthly” or “infra-earthly” (e.g., the underworld, as in the Ancient Greek, Incan, Mayan, and Ancient Egyptian religious systems). Spanning these philosophical systems is the belief that man traverses a sort of axis, or path, which can lead from man’s current central position in the intermediate realms into heavenly or sub-earthly realms. Thus, in this view, symbolic representations of a vertical axis represent a path of “ascent” or “descent” into other spiritual or material realms, and often capture a philosophy that considers human life to be a quest in which one develops insights or perfections in order to move beyond this current microcosmic realm and to engage with the grand macrocosmic order.” ref

“In other interpretations, an axis mundi is more broadly defined as a place of connection between heavenly and the earthly realms – often a mountain or other elevated site. Tall mountains are often regarded as sacred and some have shrines erected at the summit or base. Mount Kunlun fills a similar role in China. Mount Kailash is holy to Hinduism and several religions in Tibet. The Pitjantjatjara people in central Australia consider Uluru to be central to both their world and culture. The Teide volcano was for the Canarian aborigines (Guanches) a kind of axis mundi. In ancient Mesopotamia, the cultures of ancient Sumer and Babylon built tall platforms, or ziggurats, to elevate temples on the flat river plain. Hindu temples in India are often situated on high mountains – e.g., Amarnath, Tirupati, Vaishno Devi, etc. The pre-Columbian residents of Teotihuacán in Mexico erected huge pyramids, featuring staircases leading to heaven. These Amerindian temples were often placed on top of caves or subterranean springs, which were thought to be openings to the underworld. Jacob’s Ladder is an axis mundi image, as is the Temple Mount. For Christians, the Cross on Mount Calvary expresses this symbol. The Middle Kingdom, China, had a central mountain, Kunlun, known in Taoist literature as “the mountain at the middle of the world”. To “go into the mountains” meant to dedicate oneself to a spiritual life.” ref

“As the abstract concept of axis mundi is present in many cultural traditions and religious beliefs, it can be thought to exist in any number of locales at once. Mount Hermon was regarded as the axis mundi in Canaanite tradition, from where the sons of God are introduced descending in 1 Enoch 6:6. The ancient Armenians had a number of holy sites, the most important of which was Mount Ararat, which was thought to be the home of the gods as well as the center of the universe. Likewise, the ancient Greeks regarded several sites as places of Earth’s omphalos (navel) stone, notably the oracle at Delphi, while still maintaining a belief in a cosmic world tree and in Mount Olympus as the abode of the gods. Judaism has the Temple Mount; Christianity has the Mount of Olives and Calvary; and Islam has the Ka’aba (said to be the first building on Earth), as well as the Temple Mount (Dome of the Rock). In Hinduism, Mount Kailash is identified with the mythical Mount Meru and regarded as the home of Shiva; in Vajrayana Buddhism, Mount Kailash is recognized as the most sacred place where all the dragon currents converge and is regarded as the gateway to Shambhala. In Shinto, the Ise Shrine is the omphalos.” ref

“Sacred places can constitute world centers (omphaloi), with an altar or place of prayer as the axis. Altars, incense sticks, candles, and torches form the axis by sending a column of smoke, and prayer, toward heaven. It has been suggested by Romanian religious historian Mircea Eliade that architecture of sacred places often reflects this role: “Every temple or palace – and by extension, every sacred city or royal residence – is a Sacred Mountain, thus becoming a Centre.” Pagoda structures in Asian temples take the form of a stairway linking earth and heaven. A steeple in a church or a minaret in a mosque also serve as connections of earth and heaven. Structures such as the maypole, derived from the Saxons‘ Irminsul, and the totem pole among indigenous peoples of the Americas also represent world axes. The calumet, or sacred pipe, represents a column of smoke (the soul) rising from a world center. A mandala creates a world center within the boundaries of its two-dimensional space analogous to that created in three-dimensional space by a shrine. In the classical elements and the Vedic Pancha Bhoota, the axis mundi corresponds to Aether, the quintessence.” ref

“A common shamanic concept, and a universally told story, is that of the healer traversing the axis mundi to bring back knowledge from the other world. It may be seen in the stories from Odin and the World Ash Tree to the Garden of Eden and Jacob’s Ladder to Jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel. It is the essence of the journey described in The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. The epic poem relates its hero’s descent and ascent through a series of spiral structures that take him through the core of the earth, from the depths of hell to celestial paradise. It is also a central tenet in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Anyone or anything suspended on the axis between heaven and earth becomes a repository of potential knowledge. A special status accrues to the thing suspended: a serpent, a rod, a fruit, mistletoe. Derivations of this idea find form in the Rod of Asclepius, an emblem of the medical profession, and in the caduceus, an emblem of correspondence and commercial professions. The staff in these emblems represents the axis mundi, while the serpents act as guardians of, or guides to, knowledge.” ref

“Secular structures can also function as axes mundi. In Navajo culture, the hogan acts as a symbolic cosmic center. In some Asian cultures, houses were traditionally laid out in the form of a square oriented toward the four compass directions. A traditional home was oriented toward the sky through feng shui, a system of geomancy, just as a palace would be. Traditional Arab houses are also laid out as a square surrounding a central fountain that evokes a primordial garden paradise. Mircea Eliade noted that “the symbolism of the pillar in [European] peasant houses likewise derives from the ‘symbolic field’ of the axis mundi. In many archaic dwellings, the central pillar does in fact serve as a means of communication with the heavens, with the sky.” The nomadic peoples of Mongolia and the Americas more often lived in circular structures. The central pole of the tent still operated as an axis, but a fixed reference to the four compass points was avoided.” ref

“Plants often serve as images of the axis mundi. The image of the Cosmic Tree provides an axis symbol that unites three planes: sky (branches), earth (trunk), and underworld (roots). In some Pacific Island cultures, the banyan tree – of which the Bodhi tree is of the Sacred Fig variety – is the abode of ancestor spirits. In the Hindu religion, the banyan tree is considered sacred and is called ashwath vriksha (“Of all trees I am the banyan tree” – Bhagavad Gita). It represents eternal life because of its seemingly ever-expanding branches. The Bodhi tree is also the name given to the tree under which Gautama Siddhartha, the historical Buddha, sat on the night he attained enlightenment.” ref

“The Mesoamerican world tree connects the planes of the underworld and the sky with that of the terrestrial realm. The Yggdrasil, or World Ash, functions in much the same way in Norse mythology; it is the site where Odin found enlightenment. Other examples include Jievaras in Lithuanian mythology and Thor’s Oak in the myths of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples. The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis present two aspects of the same image. Each is said to stand at the center of the paradise garden from which four rivers flow to nourish the whole world. Each tree confers a boon. Bamboo, the plant from which Asian calligraphy pens are made, represents knowledge and is regularly found on Asian college campuses. The Christmas tree, which can be traced in its origins back to pre-Christian European beliefs, represents an axis mundi. In Yoruba religion, oil palm is the axis mundi (though not necessarily a “world tree”) that Ọrunmila climbs to alternate between heaven and earth.” ref

“The human body can express the symbol of the world axis. Some of the more abstract Tree of Life representations, such as the sefirot in Kabbalism and the chakra system recognized by Hinduism and Buddhism, merge with the concept of the human body as a pillar between heaven and earth. Disciplines such as yoga and tai chi begin from the premise of the human body as axis mundi. The Buddha represents a world center in human form. Large statues of a meditating figure unite the human form with the symbolism of the temple and tower. Astrology in all its forms assumes a connection between human health and affairs and celestial-body orientation. World religions regard the body itself as a temple and prayer as a column uniting earth and heaven. The ancient Colossus of Rhodes combined the role of the human figure with those of portal and skyscraper. The Renaissance image known as the Vitruvian Man represented a symbolic and mathematical exploration of the human form as world axis.” ref

The Center of the World “Axis Mundi” and/or “Sacred Mountains” Mythology Could Relate to the Altai Mountains, Heart of the Steppe

“Golden Mountains of Altai is the name of the Altai and Katun Natural Reserves, Lake Teletskoye, Belukha Mountain, and the Ukok Plateau. The region represents the most complete sequence of altitudinal vegetation zones in central Siberia, from steppe, forest-steppe, mixed forest, subalpine vegetation to alpine vegetation”. The Altai region is made up of four primary sites and landscapes: Mount Belukha, the Ukok Plateau, the Katun River, and the Karakol Valley. Mount Beluka is regarded as a sacred site to Buddhists and the Burkhanist. Their myths surrounding this portion of the mountain range lent credence to their claim that it was the location of Shangri-la (Shambala). The Ukok Plateau is an ancient burial site of the early Siberian people. Moreover, a number of myths are connected to this portion of the Golden Mountains. For example, the plateau was thought to have been the Elysian fields. The Katun River is an important religious location to the Altaians where they (during celebrations) utilize ancient ecological knowledge to restore and maintain the river. The Karakol Valley is home of three indigenous villages where tourism is greatly managed. While the Golden Mountains of Altai are listed on the World Heritage List under natural criteria, it holds information about the nomadic Scythian culture. The permafrost in these mountains has preserved Scythian burial mounds. These frozen tombs, or kurgans, hold metal objects, pieces of gold, mummified bodies, tattooed bodies, sacrificed horses, wood/leather objects, clothes, textiles, etc. However, the Ukok Plateau (in the Altai Mountains) is a sacred site to the Altai people, so archeologists and scholars who are looking to excavate the site for human remains raise controversy.” ref

Altai Mountains

“The Altai Mountains (also spelled Altay Mountains), are a mountain range in Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan come together, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their headwaters. The massif merges with the Sayan Mountains in the northeast, and gradually becomes lower in the southeast, where it merges into the high plateau of the Gobi Desert. It spans from about 45° to 52° N and from about 84° to 99° E. The region is inhabited by a sparse but ethnically diverse population, including Russians, Kazakhs, Altais, and Mongols. The local economy is based on bovine, sheep, and horse husbandry, agriculture, forestry, and mining. The controversial Altaic language family takes its name from this mountain range.” ref

“The name comes from two words: al meaning “gold/reddish/yellowish” in Mongolic language, and -tai meaning “mountain” in Turkic languages too; thus, literally, the “Golden Mountain”. That matches their old Chinese name 金山, literally “Gold Mountain”. Also, the word altın/altun/al which means gold is a cognate word for Turkic and Mongolic languages. The mountains are called Altain nuruu (Алтайн нуруу) in Khalkha Mongolian, altai-yin niruɣu in Chakhar Mongolian, and Altay tuular (Алтай туулар) in the Altay language. They are also called Алтай таулары or التاي تاۋلارى‎ in Kazakh; Altay dağları in Turkish; Altajskije gory (Алтайские горы) in Russian; Altay Taghliri (ىالتاي تاغلىرى‎ or Алтай Тағлири) in Uyghur; ā’ěrtài shānmài in Chinese (阿尔泰山脉 simplified, 阿爾泰山脈 traditional, or اَعَرتَىْ شًامَىْ‎ in Xiao’erjing); and Arteː shanmeː (Артэ Шанмэ) in Dungan.” ref

“In the north of the region is the Sailughem Mountains, also known as Kolyvan Altai, which stretch northeast from 49° N and 86° E towards the western extremity of the Sayan Mountains in 51° 60′ N and 89° E. Their mean elevation is 1,500 to 1,750 m. The snow-line runs at 2,000 m on the northern side and at 2,400 m on the southern, and above it the rugged peaks tower some 1,000 m higher. Mountain passes across the range are few and difficult, the chief being the Ulan-daban at 2,827 m (2,879 m according to Kozlov), and the Chapchan-daban, at 3,217 m, in the south and north respectively. On the east and southeast this range is flanked by the great plateau of Mongolia, the transition being affected gradually by means of several minor plateaus, such as Ukok (2,380 m) with Pazyryk Valley, Chuya (1,830 m), Kendykty (2,500 m), Kak (2,520 m), (2,590 m), and (2,410 m). This region is studded with large lakes, e.g. Uvs 720 m above sea level, Khyargas, Dorgon, and Khar 1,170 m, and traversed by various mountain ranges, of which the principal are the Tannu-Ola Mountains, running roughly parallel with the Sayan Mountains as far east as the Kosso-gol, and the Khan Khökhii mountains, also stretching west and east.” ref

“The Altai mountains are home to a diverse fauna, because of its different habitats, like steppes, northern taigas, and alpine vegetation. Steep slopes are home to the Siberian ibex (Capra sibirica), whereas the rare argali (Ovis ammon) is found on more gentle slopes. Deer are represented by five species: Altai wapiti (Cervus elaphus sibiricus), moose (Alces alces), forest reindeer (Rangifer tarandus valentinae), Siberian musk deer (Moschus moschiferus), and Siberian roe deer (Capreolus pygargus). Moose and reindeer, however, are restricted to the northern parts of the mountain range. The wild boar (Sus scrofa) is found in the lower foothills and surrounding lowlands. Until recently, the Mongolian gazelle (Procapra gutturosa) was found in the Russian Altai mountains, more specifically in the Chuya River steppe close to the Mongolian border. Large predators are represented by snow leopards (Panthera uncia, syn. Uncia uncia), wolves (Canis lupus), lynx (Lynx lynx), and brown bears (Ursus arctos), in the northern parts also by the wolverine (Gulo gulo). The Tien Shan dhole (Cuon alpinus hesperius) (a northwestern subspecies of the Asiatic wild dog) also lives there. And until the 20th century, the Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) was found in the southern parts of the Altai mountains, where it reached Lake Zaisan and the Black Irtysh. Single individuals were also shot further north, for example, close to Barnaul. Closely related to the Caspian tiger is the extant Amur tiger, which has the taxonomic name Panthera tigris altaica. The wisent was present in the Altai mountains until the Middle Ages, perhaps even until the 18th century. Today, there is a small herd in a nursery in the Altai Republic.” ref

“The Altai mountains have retained a remarkably stable climate-changing little since the last ice age. In addition, the mix of mammals has remained largely the same, with a few exceptions such as extinct mammoths, making it one of the few places on earth to retain an ice age fauna. The Altai mountains were home to the Denisovan branch of hominids who were contemporaries of Neanderthals and of Homo sapiens (modern humans), descended from Hominids who reached Asia earlier than modern humans. The Denisova hominin, dated to 40,000 years ago, was discovered in the Denisova Cave of the Altai mountains in southern Siberia. Knowledge of the Denisovan humans derives primarily from DNA evidence and artifacts, as no complete skeletons have yet been recovered. DNA evidence has been unusually well preserved because of the low average temperature in the Denisova caves. Neanderthal bones and tools made by Homo sapiens have also been found in the Denisova Cave, making it the only place in the world where all three hominids are known to have lived.” ref

A dog-like canid from 33,000 years ago was found in the Razboinichya Cave. DNA analysis published affirmed that it was more closely related to modern dogs than to wolves. The Altai Mountains have been identified as being the point of origin of a cultural enigma termed the Seima-Turbino Phenomenon which arose during the Bronze Age around the start of the 2nd millennium BCE and led to a rapid and massive migration of peoples from the region into distant parts of Europe and Asia.” ref

The five highest mountains of the Altai are:

· Belukha, 4,506 m (14,783 ft), Kazakhstan–Russia

· Khüiten Peak , 4,374 m (14,350 ft), China–Mongolia

· Mönkh Khairkhan , 4,204 m (13,793 ft), Mongolia

· Sutai Mountain , 4,220 m (13,850 ft), Mongolia

· Tsambagarav , 4,195 m (13,763 ft), Mongolia ref

“Sacred mountains are central to certain religions and are the subjects of many legends. For many, the most symbolic aspect of a mountain is the peak because it is believed that it is closest to heaven or other religious worlds. Many religions have traditions centered on sacred mountains, which either are or were considered holy (such as Mount Olympus in Greek mythology) or are related to famous events (like Mount Sinai in Judaism and descendant religions). In some cases, the sacred mountain is purely mythical, like the Hara Berezaiti in Zoroastrianism. Mount Kailash is believed to be the abode of the Hindu deities Shiva and Parvati, and is considered sacred in four religions: Hinduism, Bon, Buddhism, and Jainism. Volcanoes, such as Mount Etna in Italy, were also considered sacred, Mount Etna being believed to have been the home of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and the forge. The north face of Mount Kailash, a mountain in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China which is considered sacred by four religions.” ref

Greek and Inca

“Mount Olympus is the highest mountain peak in Greece. It was once regarded as the “home of the Greek Gods/The Twelve Olympians of the Hellenistic World”. It was also considered the site of the War of the Titans (Titanomachy) where Zeus and his siblings defeated the Titans. Mount Othrys is a mountain in Central Greece, which is believed to be the home of the Titans during the ten-year war with the Gods of Mount Olympus.” ref

“Mount Ida, also known as Mountain of the Goddess, refers to two specific mountains: one in the Greek island of Crete and the other in Turkey (formerly known as Asia Minor). Mount Ida is the highest mountain on the island of Crete is the sacred mountain of the Titaness Rhea, also known as the mother of the Greek Gods. It is also believed to be the cave where Greek God Zeus was born and raised.” ref

“The other Mount Ida is located in Northwestern Turkey alongside the ruins of Troy (in reference to the Hellenistic Period). The mountain was dedicated to Cybele, the Phrygian (modern-day Turkey) version of Earth Mother. Cybele was the goddess of caverns and mountains. Some refer to her as the “Great Mother” or “Mother of the Mountain”. The mythic Trojan War is said to have taken place at Mount Ida and that the Gods gathered upon the mountaintop to observe the epic fight. Mount Ida in Turkey is also represented in many of the stories of Greek author Homer such as Iliad and Odyssey.” ref

“Mount Athos, located in Greece, is also referred to as the Holy Mountain. It has great historical connections with religion and classical mythology. In Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox forms of Christianity, it is believed that after the Ascension of the Lord, the Virgin Mary landed on the island and came upon a pagan temple. It was there that the pagan practitioners converted from paganism to Christianity. The Virgin Mary then blessed the land and claimed it her own.” ref

“In classical mythology, Mount Athos is named after the Thracian giant who battled Poseidon, God of the Sea, during the clash of the titans and Gods. It is also said that Greek historian was given the task of creating a canal through the mountain after the failed journey of Persian leader, Xerxes. Over time, Alexander the Great has become associated with the mountain for his worldly powers. The myth states that Roman architect Dinocrates had wanted to carve Alexander the Great’s figure onto the top of the mountain in tribute to him.” ref

“The ancient Inca displayed a connection with death and their mountains. It is well known by scholars that the Inca sensed a deep reservoir of spirituality along the mountain range. Situating their villages in the mountains, they felt these places acted as portal to the gods. Ritual child sacrifices called Capachochas were conducted annually, where the most precious gift that could be given (innocent, blemishless, perfect human life) would be sacrificed to the gods. Tremendous effort would be taken as the sacrificial victims would be paraded alive throughout the cities, with multiple festivals and feasts taking place. The final destination would be the tops of some of the highest mountains near their villages, leaving these sacrifices to freeze in the snow. These would take place during great times of distress, during times of famine, violent periods of war, and even during times of political shift. This connection with the mountain as a sacred space is paramount. There would be no other place that would be sufficient or acceptable enough for the gods to accept these gifts. It is neither a surprise nor a coincidence that their honored dead were placed on the highest peaks of the mountains to express the shared connection between the sacred mountain, the gods, and the dead.” ref

Other religious beliefs

“Machapuchare, a sacred Nepalese mountain, viewed from foothills. Various cultures around the world maintain the importance of mountain worship and sacredness. One example is the Taranaki peoples of New Zealand. The Taranaki tribe view Mount Taranaki as sacred. The tribe was historically sustained by this mountain’s waterways. As in other instances in Māori mythology, the mountain is anthropomorphised in various stories. For the tribespeople, Mount Taranaki has a deep spiritual significance and is seen as a life force. It is viewed as the place where life is given and to where people are returned after death.” ref

“In Korea, people have maintained ancient ways of worshiping mountain spirits. While they are not in fact worshiping the land itself, the gods associated with this worship are united to the land. These spirits are female entities to whom people pay tribute while passing by the mountains, asking for good luck and protection. People also travel to these mountains to ask for fertility. While people generally hold to these female deities for protection or to perpetuate life, one of their most important functions is to protect the dead. The ponhyangsansin is a guardian spirit that is protecting an important clan grave site in the village. Each mountain goddess has an equally interesting story that is tied to their accounts of war against Japan, and the historical legacy of their emperors. Each spirit learned difficult lessons and experienced some sort of hardship. These legacies in the mountains serve as a kind of monument to the history of Korea. While many of the accounts may be true, their details and accuracy are shrouded by time and ritual. While the inaugurations of new ponhyang san sin are not being conducted, fallen important clansmen and leaders are strategically placed in the mountains in order for these strong, heroine-like spirits may fiercely guard their graves. The history of Korea is in turn protecting its own future.” ref

“In Japan, Mount Kōya-san is the home to one of the holiest Buddhist monastery complexes in the country. It was founded by a saint, Kukai, who is also known as Kobo Dashi and is regarded as a famous wandering mystic; his teachings are infamous throughout Japan and he is credited with being an important figure in shaping early Japanese culture. Buddhists believe that Kobo Dashi is not dead, but will instead awake and assist in bringing enlightenment to all people, alongside the Buddha and other bodhisattvas. It is believed that he was shown the sacred place to build the monastery by a forest god; this site is now the location of a large cemetery that is flanked by 120 esoteric Buddhist temples. Approximately a million pilgrims visit Mount Kōya-san a year; these pilgrims have included both royals and commoners who wish to pay their respects to Kobo Dashi. Mount Fuji, known as Fuji-san in Japanese, is another sacred mountain in Japan. Several Shinto temples flank its base, which all pay homage to the mountain. A common belief is that Fuji-san is the incarnation of the earth spirit itself. The Fuki-ko sect maintains that the mountain is a holy being, and the home to the goddess Sengen-sama. Annual fire festivals are held there in her honor. Fuji-san is also the site of pilgrimages; reportedly, 40,000 people climb up to its summit every year.” ref

“Tibet’s Mount Kailash is a sacred place to five religions: Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Bon Po (a native Tibetan religion prior to Buddhism), Sikhism, and Ayyavazhi religions. According to Hinduism and Ayyavazhi, Mount Kailash is the home of the deity Shiva. In the Hindu religion, Mount Kailash also plays an important role in Rama’s journey in the ancient Sanskrit epic, Ramayana. Buddhists hold that Mount Kailash is the home of Samvara, a guardian deity, and a representation of the Buddha. Buddhists believe that Mount Kailash has supernatural powers that are able to clean the sins of a lifetime of any person. Followers of Jainism believe that Kailash is the site where the founder of Jainism reached enlightenment. Bon Po teaches that Mount Kailash is the home of a wind goddess. Followers of Sikhism believe the 1st Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak arrived at Mt. Kailash during the 3rd Uddasi (divine journey) and debated with the Siddhas.” ref

“Mount Meru is a cosmic mountain which is described to be one of the highest points on Earth and is the center of all creation. In the Hindu religion, it is believed that Meru is home to the god Brahma, who is believed to be the father of the human race and all the demigods produced afterward. Indian cosmology believes that the sun, moon, and stars all revolve around Mount Meru. Folklore suggests the mountain rose up from the ground piercing the heavens giving it the moniker “navel of the universe”.” ref

“According to the Torah, and consequently the Old Testament of the Bible, Mount Sinai is the location that Moses received the Ten Commandments directly from God. The tablets form the covenant, which is a central cornerstone of the Jewish faith. Saint Catherine’s Monastery is located at the foot of Sinai. It was founded by empress Helena, who was the mother of the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine. It was completed under the rule of Justinian two centuries later. The monastery was visited by the prophet Muhammed, who blessed it and promised: “that it would be cherished by Muslims for all time”. Today, the monastery is home to a group of Greek Orthodox monks, as well as a large collection of Byzantine art, illuminated manuscripts, icons, and books; the collection of icons, in particular, has been proclaimed one of the oldest in the world.” ref

“The Navajo possess a strong belief system in regards to the natural-supernatural world and have a belief that objects have a supernatural quality. For example, the Navajo consider mountains to be sacred. There are four peaks, which are believed to have supernatural aspects. The mountains each represent a borderline of the original Navajo tribal land. The mountain ranges include Mount Taylor, the San Francisco Peaks, Blanca Peak, and Hesperus Peak located in the La Plata Mountains.” ref

“Each mountain/peak is representative of a color, direction, and correlates with a cultural light phenomenon dealing with the cosmic scheme of the rising and of the setting sun. Directionally, the mountains are described in a clockwise motion following the movement of the Sun beginning with the eastern mountain of Blanca Peak. Blanca Peak is associated with the color white and the “Dawn Man” referring to the rising of the sun. Next in the south is Mount Taylor, which is associated with the color blue and the “Horizontal Blue Man” referring to the daytime. In the west is the San Francisco Peaks, which is representative of the color yellow and the “Horizontal Yellow Woman” and is associated with the setting of the sun. And finally in the north is the Hesperus Peak of the La Plata Mountains which is given the color black and belongs to the light phenomenon of the “Darkness Woman” representing the nighttime.” ref

Community identity

“History shows that mountains were commonly part of a complex system of mountain and ancestor worship. Having immortalized fallen brethren in the edifice, the people share a common allegiance with all the other people of a community. The meanings that were etched into the mountain and mound terrain connected the villagers. They were all subject to the same landscape and village history, which were bound together by their cultural significance. The history of ancestors could be told by simply pointing at specific mountains and remembering the stories that were passed down throughout the generations. The worship of ancestors and the mountains were largely inseparable. An interconnected web between history, landscape, and culture was thus formed. Examples of this would be the Hindu belief that Mount Kailas is the final resting place for the souls of the dead, as well as the large cemetery placed on Mount Kōya-san.” ref

“Sacred mountains can also provide an important piece of a culture’s identity. For example, Bruno Messerli and Jack Ives write, “The Armenian people regard Mount Ararat, a volcano in eastern Turkey believed to be the site of Noah’s Ark in the Bible, to be a symbol of their natural and cultural identity”. As a result of the mountain’s role as a part of a cultural identity, even people who do not live close to the mountain feel that events occurring to the mountain are relevant to their own personal lives. This results in communities banning certain activities near the mountain, especially if those activities are seen as potentially destructive to the sacred mountain itself.” ref

Pilgrimages

“To date, Kailash has never been climbed, largely due to the fact that the idea of climbing the mountain is seen as a major sacrilege. Instead, the worshipful embark on a pilgrimage known as the kora. The kora consists of a 32-mile path that circles the mountain, which typically takes five days with little food and water. Various icons, prayer flags, and other symbols of the four religions that believe Kailash is sacred mark the way. To Buddhists and Hindus, the pilgrimage is considered a major moment in a person’s spiritual life. Olsen writes, “One circuit is believed to erase a lifetime of sin, while 108 circuits is believed to ensure enlightenment”. As one of the most sacred mountains in the Middle East, mentioned in the Old Testament can be seen on the mountain’s summit, such as the area where Moses “sheltered from the total glory of God”.” ref

“Sacred Mountains are often seen as a site of revelation and inspiration. Mount Sinai is an example, as this is the site where the covenant is revealed to Moses. Mount Tabor is where it is supposed Jesus was revealed to be the Son of God. Muhammed is said to have received his first revelation on Mount Hira. The mountains’ roles as places of revelation and transformation often serve to attract tourists as much as they do religious pilgrims. However, in some cases, the financial revenue is overlooked and sacred mountains are conserved first due to their role in the community. Members of The Aetherius Society conduct pilgrimages to 19 mountains around the world that they describe as being “holy mountains”.” ref

Conservation

“Sacred mountains are often viewed as the source of a power which is to be awed and revered. Often, this means that access to the sacred mountain is restricted. This could result in climbing being banned from a sacred mountain completely (as in the case of Mount Kailash) or for secular society to give the mountain a wide berth. Because of the respect accorded to a mountain’s sacred power, many areas have been declared off limit for construction and remain conserved. For example, a large amount of forest has been preserved due to its proximity to Mount Kōya-san. Additionally, sacred mountains can be seen as the source of something vital. This could be a blessing, water, life, or healing. Mount Kailash’s role as the source for four major rivers is celebrated in India and not simply seen as mundane. Rather, this also adds to its position as a sacred place, especially considering the sacred position of the Ganges river in Indian culture. Mountains that are considered home to deities are also central to prayers for the blessings from the gods reputed to live there. This also creates a sense of purity in the source of the mountain. This prompts people to protect streams from pollution that are from sacred mountains, for example.” ref

“Views of preservation and sacredness become problematic when dealing with diverse populations. When one observes the sacred mountain of the Sacramento Valley in the United States, it becomes clear that methods and opinions stretch over a vastly differing body of protesters. Shasta Mountain was first revered by the Native American tribe, the Wintu. Shasta was in effect a standing monument for the individuals of their cultural history. This bounded view of sacred mountains changed drastically during the 1800s. It is commonly assumed that sacred mountains are limited by a single society, trapped in a time capsule with only one definition to explain it: the indigenous tribe. Shasta’s glory had expanded to multiple regions of the world, communities of differing religions making their pilgrimage up to the summits of this glorious mountain. The Wintu tribe did not hold a monopoly on the sacredness anymore. There were others contesting to the meanings, adding new rituals and modifying old ones. With the advent of new technology and desires to turn this mountain into a skiing lodge, angry voices from all over the world rose up with variants of demands on why and how we should preserve this beautiful mountain.” ref

“Almost every day different religious practices such as nude bathing, camping out with magic crystals, yoga, and many “quasi-Christian” groups such as the I AM march their ways up to the tips of this mountain. With this activity the mountain pathways become clustered, cluttered, and littered. Even the pathways’ existence leads to erosion, and further slow degradation of the mountain. The Wintu tribe has voiced concerns and asked for support from the government to regulate the activities practiced on “their” mountain saying that “they are disturbed by the lack of respect” shown for this piece of land. It has become greatly debated if the more vulnerable and “spiritually desirable” places of the mountain should be closed and maintained only by the Wintu tribe, who see this land as a sacred graveyard of their ancestors, or open to all who seek spiritual fulfillment such as the modern-day group of the I AM.” ref

List of mountains

· “Adam’s peak – The second highest peak in Sri Lanka, regarded as a sacred by 5 religions – Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and native Chinese religion.” ref

· Áhkká – regarded by the Sámi people as a holy mountain

· Arunachala

· Black Hills

· Burkhan Khaldun – Khentii Province, Mongolia

· Ceahlău Massif – The most important peak is Toaca (1904 m altitude)

· Croagh Patrick – Mayo, Ireland

· Dakpa Sheri

· Emei Shan – China

· Jabal al-Nour

· Montserrat (mountain)

· Mount Athos – also known as the Holy Mountain, Greece

· Mount Aqraa (Zaphon)

· Mount Akhun – the sacred mountain of Ubykhia

· Mount Ararat – alleged by some to be the site of Noah’s ark and holy to the Armenian Apostolic Church” ref

· Mount Carmel

· Mount Damavand

· Mount Everest

· Mount Fuji – Japan

· Mount Gerizim – as claimed taught to be the location of the Holies of Holies by God to the Samaritans” ref

· Mount Graham – considered by Apache to be sacred. Believed to be Stargate by some. Site of court battle between the Vatican Observatory, and Apache” ref

· Hua Shan – China

· Huang Shan – China

· Mount Kailash, sacred to Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Bön” ref

· Mount Kenya, sacred traditionally to the Kikuyu ethnicity in Kenya” ref

· Mount Kilimanjaro, sacred to Chaga people who believe god Ruwa resides on the top” ref

· Mount Kinabalu – Known as “Aki Nabalu” which means “Revered Place of the Dead”. This mountain is regarded very sacred especially to the local Kadazan-Dusun people living in Sabah, Malaysia” ref

· Laoshan

· Mauna Loa/Mauna Kea – volcanic eruptions were thought to be a result from the Hawaiian Goddess of fire Pele (deity) when in an argument with her siblings” ref

· Mount Paektu – sacred to all Koreans, also a subject of the North Korean cult of personality, North Korea/China” ref

· Machu Picchu, Huayna Picchu, and other mountains were sacred to the Inca locals” ref

· Nanda Devi – India, also known as Bliss-Giving Goddess, This mountain is considered the home of the goddess Nanda Devi by Hindus” ref

· Mount Makiling, Mount Arayat, and Mount Lantoy, of the Philippines, and their protectors, Maria Makiling being the protector of Mount Makiling” ref

· Mount Miwa – Japan

· Mount Murud – highest mountain in Sarawak. Regarded by the Lun Bawang people as holy mountain in their Christian faith” ref

· Mount Banahaw, Mount San Cristobal– The Holiest place in the Philippines, termed as the Yin and Yang mountain” ref

· Mount of Olives

· Phnom Kulen

· Mount Sahand

· Mount Shasta

· Mount Sinai

· Sulayman Mountain

· Mount Tacoma/Mount Rainier, decade volcano in Washington state. Various indigenous tribal myths surround Mount Tacoma (now called Mount Rainier), from creation myths where it rescued natives from flood to it being a “mother’s breast” that nourishes the land with fresh water.” ref

· Tai Shan – China

· Teide – sacred mountains for the aboriginal Guanches of the Canary Islands

· Temple Mount

· Jabal Thawr– the mountain cave where the Islamic Prophet Muhammad and his companion Abu Bakr hid from the Quraish during the migration to Medina

· Uluru – also known as Ayers Rock, Australia

· Mount Vesuvius

· Wudang Shan – China

· Mount Zion

· Mount Ecclesia – a high mesa with a holy solar temple, spiritual healing ceremonies, and a record of spiritual visions

See also

· World mountain

· Sacred natural site ref

Sacred Mountains of China

“The Sacred Mountains of China are divided into several groups. The Five Great Mountains (simplified Chinese: 五岳; traditional Chinese: 五嶽; pinyin: Wǔyuè) refers to five of the most renowned mountains in Chinese history, and they were the subjects of imperial pilgrimage by emperors throughout ages. They are associated with the supreme God of Heaven and the five main cosmic deities of Chinese traditional religion. The group associated with Buddhism is referred to as the Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism (四大佛教名山; Sì dà fójiào míngshān), and the group associated with Taoism is referred to as the Four Sacred Mountains of Taoism (四大道教名山; Sì dà dàojiào míngshān). The sacred mountains have all been important destinations for pilgrimage, the Chinese expression for pilgrimage (朝圣; 朝聖; cháoshèng) being a shortened version of an expression which means “paying respect to a holy mountain” (朝拜圣山; 朝拜聖山; cháobài shèng shān).” ref

The Five Great Mountains

“The five elements, cosmic deities, historical incarnations, chthonic and dragon gods, and planets, associated to the five sacred mountains. This Chinese religious cosmology shows the Yellow Emperor, god of the earth and the year, as the center of the cosmos, and the four gods of the directions and the seasons as his emanations. The diagram is based on the Huainanzi. A Han Dynasty tile emblematically representing the five cardinal directions.” ref

“The Five Great Mountains or Wuyue are arranged according to the five cardinal directions of Chinese geomancy, which includes the center as a direction. The grouping of the five mountains appeared during the Warring States period (475 BC – 221 BCE), and the term Wuyue (“Five Summits”) was made popular during the reign of Emperor Wudi of the Western Han Dynasty 140-87 BCE. In Chinese traditional religion they have cosmological and theological significance as the representation, on the physical plane of earth, of the ordered world emanating from the God of Heaven (Tian–Shangdi), inscribing the Chinese territory as a tán (壇; ‘altar’), the Chinese concept equivalent of the Indian mandala.” ref

“The five mountains are among the best-known natural landmarks in Chinese history, and since the early periods in Chinese history, they have been the ritual sites of imperial worship and sacrifice by various emperors. The first legendary sovereigns of China went on excursions or formed processions to the summits of the Five Great Mountains. Every visit took place at the same time of the year. The excursions were hunting trips and ended in ritual offerings to the reigning god.” ref

“The emperors, starting with the First Emperor of Qin, formalized these expeditions and incorporated them into state ritual as prescribed by Confucianism. With every new dynasty, the new emperor hurried to the Five Great Mountains in order to lay claim to his newly acquired domains. Barring a number of interruptions, this imperial custom was preserved until the end of the last dynasty, when, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, Yuan Shikai had himself crowned as emperor at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. But just to be safe, he also made an offer to the god of the northern Mount Heng.” ref

“In the 2000s formal sacrifices both in Confucian and Taoist styles have been resumed. The Five Great Mountains have become places of pilgrimage where hundreds of pilgrims gather in temples and caves. Although the Five Great Mountains are not traditionally canonized as having any exclusive religious affiliations, many of them have a strong Taoist presence, thus the five mountains are also grouped by some as part of “Sacred Taoist Mountains”. There are also various Buddhist temples and Confucian academies built on these mountains.” ref

“Alternatively, these mountains are sometimes referred to by the respective directions: the “Northern Great Mountain” (北岳; 北嶽; Běi Yuè), “Southern Great Mountain” (南岳; 南嶽; Nán Yuè), “Eastern Great Mountain” (东岳; 東嶽; Dōng Yuè), “Western Great Mountain” (西岳; 西嶽; Xī Yuè), and “Central Great Mountain” (中岳; 中嶽; Zhōng Yuè).” ref

“According to Chinese mythology, the Five Great Mountains originated from the body of Pangu (盘古; 盤古; Pángǔ), the first being and the creator of the world. Because of its eastern location, Mount Tài is associated with the rising sun which signifies birth and renewal. Due to this interpretation, it is often regarded as the most sacred of the Five Great Mountains. In accordance with its special position, Mount Tài is believed to have been formed out of Pangu’s head. Mount Heng in Hunan is believed to be a remainder of Pangu’s right arm, Mount Heng in Shanxi of his left arm, Mount Song of his belly, and Mount Hua of his feet.” ref

Nature conservation

“In ancient times mountains were places of authority and fear, ruled by dark forces and faithfully worshipped. One reason for such worship was the value of the mountains to human existence as a spring of welfare and fertility, as the birthplace of rivers, as a place where herbs and medicinal plants grew, and as a source of materials to build houses and tools. A basic element of Taoist thought was, and still is, an intuitive feeling of connectedness with nature. As early as the fourth century, the Taoists presented the high priests with the 180 precepts of Lord Lao for how to live a good and honest life. Twenty of these precepts focused explicitly on the conservation of nature, while many other precepts were indirectly aimed at preventing the destruction of nature. Respect for nature has been a key component of Taoism from the very outset and, in its own right, explains why the Five Great Mountains are considered sacred. In addition, Taoists consider mountains as a means of communication between heaven and earth and as the place where immortality can be found. The sanctity of the Five Great Mountains is the reason why even today these mountains still host an exceptional diversity of plants, trees, and animal species.” ref

East Great Mountain: Tài Shān

Main article: Mount Tai

“Tranquil Mountain” (泰山) Shāndōng Province, 1,545 m (5,069 ft) 36°15′N 117°06′E” ref

West Great Mountain: Huà Shān

Main article: Mount Hua

“Splendid Mountain” (华山; 華山) Shaanxi Province (Shănxī), 2,154 m (7,067 ft) 34°29′N 110°05′E” ref

South Great Mountain: Héng Shān (Hunan)

Main article: Mount Heng (Hunan)

“Balancing Mountain” (衡山), Húnán Province, 1,290 m (4,230 ft) 27.254798°N 112.655743°E” ref

North Great Mountain: Héng Shān (Shanxi)

Main article: Mount Heng (Shanxi)

“Permanent Mountain” (恒山; 恆山), Shānxī Province, 2,017 m (6,617 ft) 39°40′26″N 113°44′08″E In the course of history, there had been more than one location with the designation for Mount Heng, the North Great Mountain. The Great Northern Mountain was designated on the original Mount Heng with the main peak known as Mount Damao (大茂山) today, located at the intersection of present-day Fuping County, Laiyuan County, and Tang County in Hebei province.” ref

“Mount Heng was renamed Mount Chang (常山) to avoid the taboo of sharing the same personal name as Emperor Wen of Han. The appellations Heng and Chang were used extensively in the past to name various districts in the region, such as Changshan Prefecture (常山郡), Hengshan Prefecture (恒山郡), and Hengzhou (恒州).” ref

“While it was customary of the ethnic Han emperors to order rites to be performed regularly to honor the Five Great Mountains, the location of the original Mount Heng meant that for much of the eras of fragmentation, the region was either under non-Han rulers or a contested area. The shrines built to perform the rites were neglected and damaged from time and natural disasters. The decline was especially acute after the overthrow of the Yuan Dynasty when the local population fell sharply after the wars.” ref

“This created opportunities for Ming Dynasty officials who were natives of Shanxi to spread rumors that the spirit of Mount Heng had abandoned the original location and settled on Xuanwu Mountain in Hunyuan County in Shanxi. Between the reigns of Emperor Hongzhi and Emperor Wanli, they kept petitioning the emperors to declare the change and decree for the rites for the Northern Great Mountain to be shifted there. In 1586, Emperor Wanli opted a compromise by re-designating the Xuanwu Mountain as Mount Heng, but ordered the relevant rites to continue to be performed in the historic Beiyue Temple. The movement for the change persisted after the demise of the Ming Dynasty and into the Qing Dynasty. Finally, Emperor Shunzhi consented to have the rites to be moved to Shanxi as well.” ref

Center Great Mountain: Sōng Shān

Main article: Mount Song

“Lofty Mountain” (嵩山), Hénán Province, 1,494 m (4,902 ft) 34°29′5″N 112°57′37″E” ref

The Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism

Wǔtái Shān

Main article: Wutai Shan

“Five-Platform Mountain” (五台山), Shānxī Province, 3,058 m (10,033 ft), 39°04′45″N 113°33′53″E Wutai is the home of the Bodhisattva of wisdom, Manjusri or Wenshu (Traditional: 文殊) in Chinese.” ref

Éméi Shān

Main article: Emei Shan

“High and Lofty Mountain” (峨嵋山), Sìchuān Province, 3,099 m (10,167 ft) The patron bodhisattva of Emei is Samantabhadra, known in Chinese as Puxian (普贤菩萨).” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Sacred Mounds, Mountains, Kurgans, and Pyramids may hold deep Mythology connections?

Dené–Yeniseian language, Old Copper Complex, and Pre-Columbian Mound Builders?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Shell Mounds, Earth Mounds, Raised Platforms, and Pyramids: which I think are somewhat related in mythology thinking and culture beliefs

“The world’s oldest known fort was constructed by hunter-gatherers 8,000 years ago in Siberia. The fact that this Stone Age fort was built by hunter-gatherers is transforming our understanding of ancient human societies.” ref 

“There is a long history of hunter-gatherer fortifications in western Siberia, starting 8,000 years ago, that hunter-gatherers built fortified settlements, many centuries before comparable enclosures first appeared in Europe (Figure 1). The building of fortifications by forager groups has been observed sporadically elsewhere around the world in various—mainly coastal—regions from later prehistory onwards, but the very early onset of this phenomenon in inland western Siberia is unparalleled. This phenomenon, largely unknown to international researchers, can contribute to the critical re-appraisal of narratives of linear pathways to social change increasingly explored in both scientific and popular debates.” ref

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Kurgan Hypothesis

“The Kurgan hypothesis (also known as the Kurgan theory or Kurgan model) or Steppe theory is the most widely accepted proposal to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe and parts of Asia. It postulates that the people of a Kurgan culture in the Pontic steppe north of the Black Sea were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). The term is derived from the Russian kurgan (курга́н), meaning tumulus or burial mound. The Steppe theory was first formulated by Otto Schrader (1883) and V. Gordon Childe (1926), then systematized in the 1950s by Marija Gimbutas, who used the term to group various prehistoric cultures, including the Yamnaya (or Pit Grave) culture and its predecessors. In the 2000s, David Anthony instead used the core Yamnaya culture and its relationship with other cultures as a point of reference.” ref

“Gimbutas defined the Kurgan culture as composed of four successive periods, with the earliest (Kurgan I) including the Samara and Seroglazovo cultures of the Dnieper–Volga region in the Copper Age (early 4th millennium BCE). The people of these cultures were nomadic pastoralists, who, according to the model, by the early 3rd millennium BCE had expanded throughout the Pontic–Caspian steppe and into Eastern Europe. Recent genetics studies have demonstrated that populations bearing specific Y-DNA haplogroups and a distinct genetic signature expanded into Europe and South Asia from the Pontic-Caspian steppe during the third and second millennia BCE. These migrations provide a plausible explanation for the spread of at least some of the Indo-European languages, and suggest that the alternative Anatolian hypothesis, which places the Proto-Indo-European homeland in Neolithic Anatolia, is less likely to be correct.” ref

“Cultures that Gimbutas considered as part of the “Kurgan culture”:

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

Pic ref 

Ancient Women Found in a Russian Cave Turn Out to Be Closely Related to The Modern Population https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-women-found-in-a-russian-cave-turn-out-to-be-closely-related-to-the-modern-population

Abstract

“Ancient genomes have revolutionized our understanding of Holocene prehistory and, particularly, the Neolithic transition in western Eurasia. In contrast, East Asia has so far received little attention, despite representing a core region at which the Neolithic transition took place independently ~3 millennia after its onset in the Near East. We report genome-wide data from two hunter-gatherers from Devil’s Gate, an early Neolithic cave site (dated to ~7.7 thousand years ago) located in East Asia, on the border between Russia and Korea. Both of these individuals are genetically most similar to geographically close modern populations from the Amur Basin, all speaking Tungusic languages, and, in particular, to the Ulchi. The similarity to nearby modern populations and the low levels of additional genetic material in the Ulchi imply a high level of genetic continuity in this region during the Holocene, a pattern that markedly contrasts with that reported for Europe.” ref

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Origins of ‘Transeurasian’ languages traced to Neolithic millet farmers in north-eastern China about 9,000 years ago

“A study combining linguistic, genetic, and archaeological evidence has traced the origins of a family of languages including modern Japanese, Korean, Turkish and Mongolian and the people who speak them to millet farmers who inhabited a region in north-eastern China about 9,000 years ago. The findings outlined on Wednesday document a shared genetic ancestry for the hundreds of millions of people who speak what the researchers call Transeurasian languages across an area stretching more than 5,000 miles (8,000km).” ref

“Millet was an important early crop as hunter-gatherers transitioned to an agricultural lifestyle. There are 98 Transeurasian languages, including Korean, Japanese, and various Turkic languages in parts of Europe, Anatolia, Central Asia, and Siberia, various Mongolic languages, and various Tungusic languages in Manchuria and Siberia. This language family’s beginnings were traced to Neolithic millet farmers in the Liao River valley, an area encompassing parts of the Chinese provinces of Liaoning and Jilin and the region of Inner Mongolia. As these farmers moved across north-eastern Asia over thousands of years, the descendant languages spread north and west into Siberia and the steppes and east into the Korean peninsula and over the sea to the Japanese archipelago.” ref 

“Eurasiatic is a proposed language with many language families historically spoken in northern, western, and southern Eurasia; which typically include Altaic (Mongolic, Tungusic, and Turkic), Chukchi-Kamchatkan, Eskimo–Aleut, Indo-European, and Uralic.” ref

“Voiced stops such as /d/ occur in the Indo-European, Yeniseian, Turkic, Mongolian, Tungusic, Japonic and Sino-Tibetan languages. They have also later arisen in several branches of Uralic.” ref

“Uralo-Siberian is a hypothetical language family of Uralic, Yukaghir, Eskimo–Aleut and besides linguistic evidence, several genetic studies, support a common origin in Northeast Asia.” ref

ref

“Altaic (also called Transeurasian) is a proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages.  Speakers of these languages are currently scattered over most of Asia north of 35 °N and in some eastern parts of Europe, extending in longitude from Turkey to Japan. The group is named after the Altai mountain range in the center of Asia.” ref

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Tracing population movements in ancient East Asia through the linguistics and archaeology of textile production – 2020

Abstract 

“Archaeolinguistics, a field which combines language reconstruction and archaeology as a source of information on human prehistory, has much to offer to deepen our understanding of the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Northeast Asia. So far, integrated comparative analyses of words and tools for textile production are completely lacking for the Northeast Asian Neolithic and Bronze Age. To remedy this situation, here we integrate linguistic and archaeological evidence of textile production, with the aim of shedding light on ancient population movements in Northeast China, the Russian Far East, Korea, and Japan. We show that the transition to more sophisticated textile technology in these regions can be associated not only with the adoption of millet agriculture but also with the spread of the languages of the so-called ‘Transeurasian’ family. In this way, our research provides indirect support for the Language/Farming Dispersal Hypothesis, which posits that language expansion from the Neolithic onwards was often associated with agricultural colonization.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Who were the Groups migrating and merging with the previous Groups of Europe 9,000 to 7,000 years ago?

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Ancient Human Genomes…Present-Day Europeans – Johannes Krause (Video)

Ancient North Eurasian (ANE)

Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG)

Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG)

Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer (SHG)

Early European Farmers (EEF)

A quick look at the Genetic history of Europe

“The most significant recent dispersal of modern humans from Africa gave rise to an undifferentiated “non-African” lineage by some 70,000-50,000 years ago. By about 50–40 ka a basal West Eurasian lineage had emerged, as had a separate East Asian lineage. Both basal East and West Eurasians acquired Neanderthal admixture in Europe and Asia. European early modern humans (EEMH) lineages between 40,000-26,000 years ago (Aurignacian) were still part of a large Western Eurasian “meta-population”, related to Central and Western Asian populations. Divergence into genetically distinct sub-populations within Western Eurasia is a result of increased selection pressure and founder effects during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, Gravettian). By the end of the LGM, after 20,000 years ago, A Western European lineage, dubbed West European Hunter-Gatherer (WHG) emerges from the Solutrean refugium during the European Mesolithic. These Mesolithic hunter-gatherer cultures are substantially replaced in the Neolithic Revolution by the arrival of Early European Farmers (EEF) lineages derived from Mesolithic populations of West Asia (Anatolia and the Caucasus). In the European Bronze Age, there were again substantial population replacements in parts of Europe by the intrusion of Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) lineages from the Pontic–Caspian steppes. These Bronze Age population replacements are associated with the Beaker culture archaeologically and with the Indo-European expansion linguistically.” ref 

“As a result of the population movements during the Mesolithic to Bronze Age, modern European populations are distinguished by differences in WHG, EEF, and ANE ancestry. Admixture rates varied geographically; in the late Neolithic, WHG ancestry in farmers in Hungary was at around 10%, in Germany around 25%, and in Iberia as high as 50%. The contribution of EEF is more significant in Mediterranean Europe, and declines towards northern and northeastern Europe, where WHG ancestry is stronger; the Sardinians are considered to be the closest European group to the population of the EEF. ANE ancestry is found throughout Europe, with a maximum of about 20% found in Baltic people and Finns. Ethnogenesis of the modern ethnic groups of Europe in the historical period is associated with numerous admixture events, primarily those associated with the Roman, Germanic, Norse, Slavic, Berber, Arab and Turkish expansions. Research into the genetic history of Europe became possible in the second half of the 20th century, but did not yield results with a high resolution before the 1990s. In the 1990s, preliminary results became possible, but they remained mostly limited to studies of mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal lineages. Autosomal DNA became more easily accessible in the 2000s, and since the mid-2010s, results of previously unattainable resolution, many of them based on full-genome analysis of ancient DNA, have been published at an accelerated pace.” ref

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Ancient North Eurasian (ANE)

Ancient Beringian/Ancestral Native American (AB/ANA)

Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG)

Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG)

Western Steppe Herders (WSH) 

Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer (SHG)

Early European Farmers (EEF)

Jōmon people (Ainu people OF Hokkaido Island) 

Neolithic Iranian farmers (Iran_N) (Iran Neolithic)

Amur Culture (Amur watershed)

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

• Mal’ta–Buret’ culture (24,000-15,000 years ago)
• Afontova Gora culture (21,000-12,000 years ago)
• Trialetian culture (16,000–8000 years ago)
• Samara culture (7,000-6,500 years ago)
• Khvalynsk culture (7,000-6,500 years ago)
• Afanasievo culture (5,300-4,500 years ago)
• Yamna/Yamnaya Culture (5,300-4,500 years ago)
• Andronovo culture (4,000–2,900 years ago) ref

Groups partially derived from the Ancient North Eurasians

“The ANE lineage is defined by association with the MA-1, or “Mal’ta boy”, remains of 24,000 years ago in central Siberia Mal’ta-Buret’ culture 24,000-15,000 years ago. The Ancient North Eurasians (ANE) samples (Afontova Gora 3, Mal’ta 1, and Yana-RHS) show evidence for minor gene flow from an East Asian-related group (simplified by the Amis, Han, or Tianyuan) but no evidence for ANE-related geneflow into East Asians (Amis, Han, Tianyuan), except the Ainu, of North Japan.” ref 

“The ANE lineage is defined by association with the MA-1, or “Mal’ta boy”, remains of 24,000 years ago in central Siberia Mal’ta-Buret’ culture 24,000-15,000 years ago “basal to modern-day Europeans”. Some Ancient North Eurasians also carried East Asian populations, such as Tianyuan Man.” ref

“Bronze-age-steppe Yamnaya and Afanasevo cultures were ANE at around 50% and Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) at around 75% ANE. Karelia culture: Y-DNA R1a-M417 8,400 years ago, Y-DNA J, 7,200 years ago, and Samara, of Y-haplogroup R1b-P297 7,600 years ago is closely related to ANE from Afontova Gora, 18,000 years ago around the time of blond hair first seen there.” ref 

Ancient North Eurasian

“In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient North Eurasian (often abbreviated as ANE) is the name given to an ancestral West Eurasian component that represents descent from the people similar to the Mal’ta–Buret’ culture and populations closely related to them, such as from Afontova Gora and the Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site. Significant ANE ancestry are found in some modern populations, including Europeans and Native Americans.” ref

“The ANE lineage is defined by association with the MA-1, or “Mal’ta boy“, the remains of an individual who lived during the Last Glacial Maximum, 24,000 years ago in central Siberia, Ancient North Eurasians are described as a lineage “which is deeply related to Paleolithic/Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Europe,” meaning that they diverged from Paleolithic Europeans a long time ago.” ref

“The ANE population has also been described as having been “basal to modern-day Europeans” but not especially related to East Asians, and is suggested to have perhaps originated in Europe or Western Asia or the Eurasian Steppe of Central Asia. However, some samples associated with Ancient North Eurasians also carried ancestry from an ancient East Asian population, such as Tianyuan Man. Sikora et al. (2019) found that the Yana RHS sample (31,600 years ago) in Northern Siberia “can be modeled as early West Eurasian with an approximately 22% contribution from early East Asians.” ref

“Populations genetically similar to MA-1 were an important genetic contributor to Native Americans, Europeans, Central Asians, South Asians, and some East Asian groups, in order of significance. Lazaridis et al. (2016:10) note “a cline of ANE ancestry across the east-west extent of Eurasia.” The ancient Bronze-age-steppe Yamnaya and Afanasevo cultures were found to have a noteworthy ANE component at ~50%.” ref

“According to Moreno-Mayar et al. 2018 between 14% and 38% of Native American ancestry may originate from gene flow from the Mal’ta–Buret’ people (ANE). This difference is caused by the penetration of posterior Siberian migrations into the Americas, with the lowest percentages of ANE ancestry found in Eskimos and Alaskan Natives, as these groups are the result of migrations into the Americas roughly 5,000 years ago.” ref

“Estimates for ANE ancestry among first wave Native Americans show higher percentages, such as 42% for those belonging to the Andean region in South America. The other gene flow in Native Americans (the remainder of their ancestry) was of East Asian origin. Gene sequencing of another south-central Siberian people (Afontova Gora-2) dating to approximately 17,000 years ago, revealed similar autosomal genetic signatures to that of Mal’ta boy-1, suggesting that the region was continuously occupied by humans throughout the Last Glacial Maximum.” ref

“The earliest known individual with a genetic mutation associated with blonde hair in modern Europeans is an Ancient North Eurasian female dating to around 16000 BCE or around 18,000 years ago from the Afontova Gora 3 site in Siberia. It has been suggested that their mythology may have included a narrative, found in both Indo-European and some Native American fables, in which a dog guards the path to the afterlife.” ref

“Genomic studies also indicate that the ANE component was introduced to Western Europe by people related to the Yamnaya culture, long after the Paleolithic. It is reported in modern-day Europeans (7%–25%), but not of Europeans before the Bronze Age. Additional ANE ancestry is found in European populations through paleolithic interactions with Eastern Hunter-Gatherers, which resulted in populations such as Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers.” ref

“The Ancient North Eurasians (ANE) split from the ancestors of European peoples somewhere in the Middle East or South-central Asia, and used a northern dispersal route through Central Asia into Northern Asia and Siberia. Genetic analyses show that all ANE samples (Afontova Gora 3, Mal’ta 1, and Yana-RHS) show evidence for minor gene flow from an East Asian-related group (simplified by the Amis, Han, or Tianyuan). In contrast, no evidence for ANE-related geneflow into East Asians (Amis, Han, Tianyuan), except the Ainu, was found.” ref

“Genetic data suggests that the ANE formed during the Terminal Upper-Paleolithic (36,000 years ago) period from a deeply European-related population, which was once widespread in Northern Eurasia, and from an early East Asian-related group, which migrated northwards into Central Asia and Siberia, merging with this deeply European-related population. These population dynamics and constant northwards geneflow of East Asian-related ancestry would later gave rise to the “Ancestral Native Americans” and Paleosiberians, which replaced the ANE as dominant population of Siberia.” ref

Groups partially derived from the Ancient North Eurasians 

“Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) is a lineage derived predominantly (75%) from ANE. It is represented by two individuals from Karelia, one of Y-haplogroup R1a-M417, dated c. 8,400 years ago, the other of Y-haplogroup J, dated c. 7,200 years ago; and one individual from Samara, of Y-haplogroup R1b-P297, dated c. 7,600 years ago. This lineage is closely related to the ANE sample from Afontova Gora, dated c. 18,000 years ago. After the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, the Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG) and EHG lineages merged in Eastern Europe, accounting for early presence of ANE-derived ancestry in Mesolithic Europe. Evidence suggests that as Ancient North Eurasians migrated West from Eastern Siberia, they absorbed Western Hunter-Gatherers and other West Eurasian populations as well.” ref

“Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer (CHG) is represented by the Satsurblia individual dated ~13,000 years ago (from the Satsurblia cave in Georgia), and carried 36% ANE-derived admixture. While the rest of their ancestry is derived from the Dzudzuana cave individual dated ~26,000 years ago, which lacked ANE-admixture, Dzudzuana affinity in the Caucasus decreased with the arrival of ANE at ~13,000 years ago Satsurblia.” ref

“Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer (SHG) is represented by several individuals buried at Motala, Sweden ca. 6000 BCE or around 8,000 years ago. They were descended from Western Hunter-Gatherers who initially settled Scandinavia from the south, and later populations of EHG who entered Scandinavia from the north through the coast of Norway.” ref

“Iran Neolithic (Iran_N) individuals dated ~8,500 years ago carried 50% ANE-derived admixture and 50% Dzudzuana-related admixture, marking them as different from other Near-Eastern and Anatolian Neolithics who didn’t have ANE admixture. Iran Neolithics were later replaced by Iran Chalcolithics, who were a mixture of Iran Neolithic and Near Eastern Levant Neolithic.” ref

“Ancient Beringian/Ancestral Native American are specific archaeogenetic lineages, based on the genome of an infant found at the Upward Sun River site (dubbed USR1), dated to 11,500 years ago. The AB lineage diverged from the Ancestral Native American (ANA) lineage about 20,000 years ago.” ref

“West Siberian Hunter-Gatherer (WSHG) are a specific archaeogenetic lineage, first reported in a genetic study published in Science in September 2019. WSGs were found to be of about 30% EHG ancestry, 50% ANE ancestry, and 20% to 38% East Asian ancestry.” ref

“Western Steppe Herders (WSH) is the name given to a distinct ancestral component that represents descent closely related to the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic–Caspian steppe. This ancestry is often referred to as Yamnaya ancestry or Steppe ancestry.” ref

“Late Upper Paeolithic Lake Baikal – Ust’Kyakhta-3 (UKY) 14,050-13,770 years ago were mixture of 30% ANE ancestry and 70% East Asian ancestry.” ref

“Lake Baikal Holocene – Baikal Eneolithic (Baikal_EN) and Baikal Early Bronze Age (Baikal_EBA) derived 6.4% to 20.1% ancestry from ANE, while rest of their ancestry was derived from East Asians. Fofonovo_EN near by Lake Baikal were mixture of 12-17% ANE ancestry and 83-87% East Asian ancestry.” ref

“Hokkaido Jōmon people specifically refers to the Jōmon period population of Hokkaido in northernmost Japan. Though the Jōmon people themselves descended mainly from East Asian lineages, one study found an affinity between Hokkaido Jōmon with the Northern Eurasian Yana sample (an ANE-related group, related to Mal’ta), and suggest as an explanation the possibility of minor Yana gene flow into the Hokkaido Jōmon population (as well as other possibilities). A more recent study by Cooke et al. 2021, confirmed ANE-related geneflow among the Jōmon people, partially ancestral to the Ainu people. ANE ancestry among Jōmon people is estimated at 21%, however, there is a North to South cline within the Japanese archipelago, with the highest amount of ANE ancestry in Hokkaido and Tohoku.” ref

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Pre-Pottery Neolithic (10000 – 6500 BCE) and Pottery Neolithic (7000–5000 BCE)

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Bridging the Boreal Forest: Siberian Archaeology and the Emergence of Pottery among Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers of Northern Eurasia

• Globalization and the Emergence of Ceramic-using Hunter-gatherers in Northern Eurasia
• A comparative perspective on the ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ Neolithics of Eurasia: Ceramics; agriculture and sedentism
• The transmission of pottery technology among prehistoric European hunter-gatherers

“The arrival of haplogroup R1a-M417 in Eastern Europe, and the east-west diffusion of pottery through North Eurasia.” https://indo-european.eu/2018/02/the-arrival-of-haplogroup-r1a-m417-in-eastern-europe-and-the-east-west-diffusion-of-pottery-through-north-eurasia/

Ancient North Eurasian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_North_Eurasian

Ancient North Eurasian/Mal’ta–Buret’ culture haplogroup R* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal%27ta%E2%80%93Buret%27_culture

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“The arrival of haplogroup R1a-M417 in Eastern Europe, and the east-west diffusion of pottery through North Eurasia.” ref 

R-M417 (R1a1a1)

“R1a1a1 (R-M417) is the most widely found subclade, in two variations which are found respectively in Europe (R1a1a1b1 (R-Z282) ([R1a1a1a*] (R-Z282) and Central and South Asia (R1a1a1b2 (R-Z93) ([R1a1a2*] (R-Z93).” ref

R-Z282 (R1a1a1b1a) (Eastern Europe)

“This large subclade appears to encompass most of the R1a1a found in Europe.

• R1a1a1b1a [R1a1a1a*] (R-Z282*) occurs in northern Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia at a frequency of c. 20%.
• R1a1a1b1a3 [R1a1a1a1] (R-Z284) occurs in Northwest Europe and peaks at c. 20% in Norway.
• R1a1a1c (M64.2, M87, M204) is apparently rare: it was found in 1 of 117 males typed in southern Iran.” ref

R1a1a1b2 (R-Z93) (Asia)

“This large subclade appears to encompass most of the R1a1a found in Asia, being related to Indo-European migrations (including Scythians, Indo-Aryan migrations, and so on).

• R-Z93* or R1a1a1b2* (R1a1a2* in Underhill (2014)) is most common (>30%) in the South Siberian Altai region of Russia, cropping up in Kyrgyzstan (6%) and in all Iranian populations (1-8%).
• R-Z2125 occurs at highest frequencies in Kyrgyzstan and in Afghan Pashtuns (>40%). At a frequency of >10%, it is also observed in other Afghan ethnic groups and in some populations in the Caucasus and Iran.
• R-M434 is a subclade of Z2125. It was detected in 14 people (out of 3667 people tested), all in a restricted geographical range from Pakistan to Oman. This likely reflects a recent mutation event in Pakistan.
• R-M560 is very rare and was only observed in four samples: two Burushaski speakers (north Pakistan), one Hazara (Afghanistan), and one Iranian Azerbaijani.
• R-M780 occurs at high frequency in South Asia: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Himalayas. The group also occurs at >3% in some Iranian populations and is present at >30% in Roma from Croatia and Hungary.” ref

R-M458 (R1a1a1b1a1)

“R-M458 is a mainly Slavic SNP, characterized by its own mutation, and was first called cluster N. Underhill et al. (2009) found it to be present in modern European populations roughly between the Rhine catchment and the Ural Mountains and traced it to “a founder effect that … falls into the early Holocene period, 7.9±2.6 KYA.” M458 was found in one skeleton from a 14th-century grave field in Usedom, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The paper by Underhill et al. (2009) also reports a surprisingly high frequency of M458 in some Northern Caucasian populations (for example 27.5% among Karachays and 23.5% among Balkars, 7.8% among Karanogays and 3.4% among Abazas).” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Haplogroup N

“Haplogroup N (M231) is a Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup defined by the presence of the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) marker M231.^{[Phylogenetics 1]} It is most commonly found in males originating from northern Eurasia. It also has been observed at lower frequencies in populations native to other regions, including parts of the Balkans, Central Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Haplogroup NO-M214 – its most recent common ancestor with its sibling, haplogroup O-M175 – is estimated to have existed about 36,800–44,700 years ago. It is generally considered that N-M231 arose in East Asia approximately 19,400 (±4,800) years ago and populated northern Eurasia after the Last Glacial Maximum. Males carrying the marker apparently moved northwards as the climate warmed in the Holocene, migrating in a counter-clockwise path, to eventually become concentrated in areas as far away as Fennoscandia and the Baltic (Rootsi et al. 2006). The apparent dearth of haplogroup N-M231 amongst Native American peoples indicates that it spread after Beringia was submerged (Chiaroni, Underhill & Cavalli-Sforza 2009), about 11,000 years ago.” ref

Haplogroup N from China to Fennoscandia: Migrations and Relationship of Language (Dene-Yeniseian and Uralic), DNA, and Cultures

Shamanism Among the Peoples of the North: Uralic, Transeurasian, Dené–Yeniseian, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and Eskaleut languages

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Ritual, Religion, Elites, Language, and Civilization relating to Neolithic and Ancient China

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Investigating Asian Shamanism: “Wu” (Chinese shaman) and (Chinese shamanism) “Wuism” or “Wu” religion as well as Others to Understand

Women/Feminine-Natured people as the first Shamans from around 30,000 to 7,000 years ago?

“Chinese shamanism, alternatively called Wuism (Chinese: 巫教; pinyin: wū jiào; lit. ‘wu religion’, ‘shamanism‘, ‘witchcraft‘; alternatively 巫觋宗教 wū xí zōngjiào), refers to the shamanic religious tradition of China. Its features are especially connected to the ancient Neolithic cultures such as the Hongshan culture.  Chinese shamanic traditions are intrinsic to Chinese folk religion. Various ritual traditions are rooted in original Chinese shamanism: contemporary Chinese ritual masters are sometimes identified as wu by outsiders, though most orders don’t self-identify as such. Also, Taoism has some of its origins from Chinese shamanism: it developed around the pursuit of long life (shou 壽/寿), or the status of a xian (仙, “mountain man”, “holy man”). The Chinese word wu 巫 “shaman, wizard”, indicating a person who can mediate with the powers generating things (the etymological meaning of “spirit”, “god”, or nomen agentis, virtus, energeia), was first recorded during the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600-1046 BCE or 3,600 to 3,046 years ago), when a wu could be either sex. During the late Zhou dynasty (1045-256 BCE) wu was used to specify “female shaman; sorceress” as opposed to xi 覡 “male shaman; sorcerer” (which first appears in the 4th century BCE Guoyu). Other sex-differentiated shaman names include nanwu 男巫 for “male shaman; sorcerer; wizard”; and nüwu 女巫, wunü 巫女, wupo 巫婆, and wuyu 巫嫗 for “female shaman; sorceress; witch”. The word tongji 童乩 (lit. “youth diviner”) “shaman; spirit-medium” is a near-synonym of wu. Modern Chinese distinguishes native wu from “Siberian shaman“: saman 薩滿 or saman 薩蠻; and from Indian Shramana “wandering monk; ascetic”: shamen 沙門, sangmen 桑門, or sangmen 喪門.” ref

Shamanism in Siberia

“A large minority of people in North Asia, particularly in Siberia, follow the religio-cultural practices of shamanism. Some researchers regard Siberia as the heartland of shamanism. The people of Siberia comprise a variety of ethnic groups, many of whom continue to observe shamanistic practices in modern times. Many classical ethnographers recorded the sources of the idea of “shamanism” among Siberian peoples. Siberian shamans’ spirit-journeys (reenacting their dreams wherein they had rescued the soul of the client) were conducted in, e.g., Oroch, Altai, and Nganasan healing séances. Shamanistic practice shows great diversity, even if restricted to Siberia. In some cultures, the music or song related to shamanistic practice may mimic natural sounds, sometimes with onomatopoeia. This holds true for the practices of the noaidi among Sami groups. Although the Sami people live outside of Siberia, many of their shamanistic beliefs and practice shared important features with those of some Siberian cultures. The joiks of the Sami were sung on shamanistic rites.” ref

“The intention to mimic natural sounds is present in some Siberian cultures as well: overtone singing, and also shamanic songs of some cultures can be examples. In a Soyot shamanic song, sounds of bird and wolf are imitated to represent the helping spirits of the shaman. The seances of Nganasan shamans were accompanied by women imitating the sounds of the reindeer calf, (thought to provide fertility for those women). In 1931, A. Popov observed the Nganasan shaman Dyukhade Kosterkin imitating the sound of polar bear: the shaman was believed to have transformed into a polar bear. Sound mimesis is not restricted to Siberian cultures and is not necessarily linked to shamanistic beliefs or practices. See, for example, Inuit throat singing, a game played by women, an example of Inuit music that employs overtone singing, and, in some cases, the imitation of natural sounds (mostly those of animals, e.g. geese). The imitation of animal sounds can also serve such practical reasons as luring game animals in a hunt.” ref

“Terminology in Siberian languages

• ‘shaman’: saman (Nedigal, Nanay, Ulcha, Orok), sama (Manchu). The variant /šaman/ (i.e., pronounced “shaman”) is Evenk (whence it was borrowed into Russian).
• ‘shaman’: alman, olman, wolmen (Yukagir)
• ‘shaman’: [qam] (Tatar, Shor, Oyrat), [xam] (Tuva, Tofalar)
• The Buryat word for shaman is бөө (böö) [bøː], from early Mongolian böge. Itself borrowed from Proto-Turkic *bögü (“sage, wizard”)
• ‘shaman’: ńajt (Khanty, Mansi), from Proto-Uralic *nojta (c.f. Sámi noaidi)
• ‘shamaness’: [iduɣan] (Mongol), [udaɣan] (Yakut), udagan (Buryat), udugan (Evenki, Lamut), odogan (Nedigal). Related forms found in various Siberian languages include utagan, ubakan, utygan, utügun, iduan, or duana. All these are related to the Mongolian name of Etügen, the hearth goddess, and Etügen Eke ‘Mother Earth’. Maria Czaplicka points out that Siberian languages use words for male shamans from diverse roots, but the words for female shaman are almost all from the same root. She connects this with the theory that women’s practice of shamanism was established earlier than men’s, that “shamans were originally female.” ref

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6,720 to 4,920 years old Ritualistic Hongshan Culture of Inner Mongolia with 5,000-year-old Pyramid Mounds and Temples

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

4,320-3,820 years old “Shimao” (North China) site with Totemistic-Shamanistic Paganism and a Stepped Pyramid

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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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?

Ancient Megaliths: Kurgan, Ziggurat, Pyramid, Menhir, Trilithon, Dolman, Kromlech, and Kromlech of Trilithons

Is there a connection between Dolmans/Kurgans and Ziggurats/Pyramids?

Ziggurats (multi-platform temples: 4,900 years old) to Pyramids (multi-platform tombs: 4,700 years old)

Sacred Mountains

Jǐuhuá Shān

Main article: Jiuhuashan

“Nine Glories Mountain” (九华山; 九華山), Ānhuī Province, 1,341 m (4,400 ft), 30°28′56″N 117°48′16″E

Many of the mountain’s shrines and temples are dedicated to Ksitigarbha (known in Chinese as Dìzàng, 地藏, in Japanese as Jizō), who is a bodhisattva and protector of beings in hell realms” ref

Pǔtuó Shān

Main article: Putuo Shan

“Mount Potalaka (Sanskrit)” (普陀山), Zhèjiāng Province, 284 m (932 ft) 30°00′35″N 122°23′06″E This mountain is considered the bodhimanda of Avalokitesvara (Guan Yin), bodhisattva of compassion. It became a popular pilgrimage site and received imperial support in the Song Dynasty.” ref

The Four Sacred Mountains of Taoism 

The Wudang Mountains

Wǔdāng Shān

Main article: Wudang Mountains

Literally “Military Wherewithal” (武当山; 武當山); northwestern part of Hubei. Main peak: 1,612 m (5,289 ft). 32°40′0″N 111°00′4″E.” ref

Lónghŭ Shān

Main article: Mount Longhu

Literally “Dragon and Tiger” (龙虎山; 龍虎山), Jiangxi. Main peak: 247.4 m (812 ft). 28°06′48.999″N 116°57′29.998″E” ref

Qíyún Shān

Main article: Mount Qiyun

Literally “Neat Clouds” (齐云山; 齊雲山), Anhui. Main peak: 585 m (1,919 ft). 29°48′29.9988″N 118°01′56.9994″E” ref

Qīngchéng Shān

Main article: Mount Qingcheng

“Literally “Misty Green City Wall” (青城山); (Nearby city: Dujiangyan, Sichuan. Main peak: 1,260 m (4,130 ft) (surveyed in 2007). In ancient Chinese history, Mount Qingcheng area was famous for being for “The most secluded place in China”. 30°58′35.73″N 103°30′59.90″E.” ref

· Sacred mountains

· Grotto-heavens, Sacred grottoes, sometimes associated with sacred mountains ref

Other mountains with spiritual/religious significance in China

· Three Famous Mountains (Three Shan, 三山)

o Mount Huang

o Mount Lu

o Yandang

· Five Garrison Mountains (Five Zhen, 五镇)

o Yiwulü Mountain

o Mount Yi

o Mount Wu

o Mount Huo

o Kuaiji

· Mount Lao

· Mount Mian

· Mount Sanqing

· Gongga

· Mount Changbai – regarded by Manchus of the Qing dynasty as Holy Mountain

· Kunlun Mountains – the location of the peach tree of immortality wardened by Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West

· Mount Tian

· Three Holy Mountain Peaks at Daocheng

o Chanodug

o Chenresig

o Jambeyang

· Four Sacred Mountains in Tibetan Buddhism

o Amne Machin

o Kailash

o Ghado Jobo

o Kawagarbo ref

Great White Pyramid of Xi’an, China?

“Is there a 1,000 foot white pyramid in China? in the 1940s, U.S. service members have reported seeing a 1,000 foot white pyramid in Xi’an, China. If true, it would be the tallest pyramid in the world. The legend of the Great White Pyramid of China does not go back very far. In fact, the story appears to have originated less than a century ago. The legendary pyramid in Xi’an is over twice as high as the Great Pyramid of Giza. Those measurements would make the pyramid more than twice the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. It would be the largest such pyramid ever found. Many explorers have gone out in search of the Great White Pyramid, but none have discovered it.” ref

White Pyramid Sightings

“The legend of the Great White Pyramid of China does not go back very far. In fact, the story appears to have originated less than a century ago.” – James Gaussman The first account is from a United States Army Air Corps pilot named James Gaussman, who reportedly saw a massive pure white pyramid with a large jewel for a cap in 1945. He was flying from India to China when he spotted it to the southwest of Xi’an. Unfortunately, this story does not seem to go back to an original source. “However, Gaussman’s information, whether it is true or not, is neither the only account nor the most fantastic.” – Maurice Sheahan Just two years after the supposed Gaussman sighting, Colonel Maurice Sheahan told The New York Times that he saw a pyramid that was roughly 1,000 feet tall in a mountain valley southwest of Xi’an. The article ran on March 30, 1947.” ref

Pyramids of Xi’an

“Interestingly, there are over 400 pyramids located within 35 kilometers northwest of Xi’an. They are dissimilar in material to most other ancient pyramids. These pyramids are more like the burial mounds of northern Europe than the pyramids of Egypt. The monuments consist of soil, stones, and sticks. They are pyramidal, but the covering consists of grass, not carved stones and jewels. Furthermore, none of them is equal in size to the pyramid Sheahan reportedly saw. (Controversial Yonaguni Monument of Japan)” ref

Details Emerge on the New York Time Article

“One clue to the location of the Great White Pyramid of Xi’an, China, is a photograph posted in The New York Times a few days after Sheahan’s statements ran. The pyramid in the picture was not pure white. It was not capped with a jewel and subsequently identified as the well-known Maoling Mausoleum of Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE to CE 220). That should have put the story of the Great White Pyramid of China to rest, but it did not. Sheahan later spoke about the article and stated some of the translations from Chinese measurements to U.S. standards were incorrect. He allegedly never said anything about the picture, which many think was not associated with him at all, but rather filler added by the magazine. It was not the first, nor would it be the last time a magazine would run a misleading photo if that were the case. (Etruscan Pyramid of Bomarzo, Italy)” ref

The Legend Remains

“The alleged Great White Pyramid allegedly sits in a mountain range that is very steep and rugged. It could potentially hide a pyramid, but many doubt it could conceal a pyramid of such grand size. Satellite images, planes, and searches for the pyramid have yet to turn up anything. Not even a valley that would fit such a structure has been identified.” ref

Top Pyramids in China?

“With more than 100 pyramids located in a hundred-kilometer radius encircling the city of Xian, today China enjoys a good reputation like Egypt when it comes to pyramids. The best known Chinese pyramid is the Mausoleum of the 1st Qin Emperor. Constructed with dirt and mud, this pyramid is located northeast of Xi’an where the Terracotta Warriors were found. Qin Shi Huang’s tomb or Mount Li mausoleum is the largest and one of the best Chinese pyramids with an original height of 249 ft. However, the present height of this pyramid is just 154 ft. Featuring a flat top as that of Mexican pyramids, Mount Li mausoleum was constructed during the short-span of the imperial Qin Dynasty. The Great White Pyramid near the city of Xi’an, appears as if you have landed into a fairyland. Much larger than any Egyptian pyramid, this Chinese pyramid remained undiscovered for almost a millennium. Made of pressed clay, the pyramid got its name from the color of stone plates that covers the entire structure. Although terraces or steps have been made to the pyramid, it also has depressions that look like natural troughs. The Inner Mongolian pyramid located beautifully on a mountain ridge, approximately 1 kilometer towards the north of Sijiazi Town, Aohan County is known to have been constructed 5000 years ago. The pyramid belongs to the Hongshan Culture. Overall, the pyramids of China are the exemplary expression of Chinese culture and history that dates back to more than a millennium. Although far detached from today’s time, these special structures are worth admiring.” ref

The “Ovoo” with the wolf is at the summit of Burkhan Khaldun (meaning the “God Mountain”). “The Burkhan Khaldun mountain is one of the Khentii Mountains in the Khentii Province of northeastern Mongolia. The mountain or its locality is believed to be the birthplace of Genghis Khan as well as his tomb. It is also the birthplace of one of his most successful generals, Subutai. The mountain is part of the 12,000 square kilometres (4,600 sq mi). It had strong religious significance before Genghis Khan made it a powerful landmark and is considered the most sacred mountain in Mongolia since it was designated as sacred by Genghis Khan. Ovoo, oboo, or obo (“magnificent bundle [i.e. shrine]”) are sacred stone heaps used as altars or shrines in Mongolian folk religious practice and in the religion of other Mongolic peoples. Wolf and deer are the most frequent totems.” ref, ref, ref, ref

“Ovoos are often found at the top of mountains and in high places, some like temples than simple altars. An Ovoo, is a “magnificent bundle” and are sacred stone heaps used as altars or shrines. Ovoos serve mainly as sites for the worship of Heaven and lesser gods led by shamans and kin elders. But Ovoos also serve for Buddhist ceremonies. Ovoos may have influenced or given birth to the Korean seonangdang, holy stone cairns or trees that are dedicated to a tutelary deity.” ref

“The blue khadag is tied as symbolic of the sky and the sky spirit Tengger, or Tengri. Tengger, Tngri, Tengri, Tegri constitute the highest class of divinities in the pantheon of Mongolian shamanism Mongolian shamanism (Böö mörgöl) or Tengerism, refers to the animistic and shamanic ethnic religion that has been practiced by the Mongols at least since the age of recorded history.” ref, ref

Wolves in Religion and Mythology

“The wolf is a common motif in the foundational mythologies and cosmologies of peoples throughout Eurasia and North America (corresponding to the historical extent of the habitat of the gray wolf). The obvious attribute of the wolf is its nature of a predator, and correspondingly it is strongly associated with danger and destruction, making it the symbol of the warrior on one hand, and that of the devil on the other. The modern trope of the Big Bad Wolf is a development of this. The wolf holds great importance in the cultures and religions of the nomadic peoples, both of the Eurasian steppe and North American Plains.” ref

“Wolves were sometimes associated with witchcraft in both northern European and some Native American cultures: in Norse folklore, the völva (witch) Hyndla and the giantess Hyrrokin are both portrayed as using wolves as mounts, while in Navajo culture, wolves were feared as witches in wolf’s clothing. Similarly, the Tsilhqot’in believed that contact with wolves could cause mental illness and death.” ref

Akkadian 

“(Akkadian Empire: established 2334 BCE, Conquests of Sargon of Akkad 2340 – 2284 BCE, ended 2154 BCE), One of the earliest written references to black wolves occurs in the Babylonian epic Gilgamesh, in which the titular character rejects the sexual advances of the goddess Ishtar, reminding her that she had transformed a previous lover, a shepherd, into a wolf, thus turning him into the very animal that his flocks must be protected against.” ref, ref

Indo-European

“In Proto-Indo-European mythology, the wolf was presumably associated with the warrior class (kóryos), who would “transform into wolves” (or dogs) upon their initiation. This is reflected in Iron Age Europe in the Tierkrieger depictions from the Germanic sphere, among others. The standard comparative overview of this aspect of Indo-European mythology.” ref

Baltic

“According to legend, the establishment of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius began when the grand duke Gediminas dreamt of an iron wolf howling near the hill. Lithuanian goddess Medeina was described as a single, unwilling to get married, though voluptuous and beautiful huntress. She was depicted as a she-wolf with an escort of wolves.” ref

Dacian

“In his book From Zalmoxis to Genghis Khan, Mircea Eliade attempted to give a mythological foundation to an alleged special relation between Dacians and the wolves:

• Dacians might have called themselves “wolves” or “ones the same with wolves”, suggesting religious significance.
• Dacians draw their name from a god or a legendary ancestor who appeared as a wolf.
• Dacians had taken their name from a group of fugitive immigrants who arrived from other regions or from their own young outlaws, who acted similarly to the wolves circling villages and living from looting. As was the case in other societies, those young members of the community went through an initiation, perhaps up to a year, during which they lived as a “wolf”. Comparatively, Hittite laws referred to fugitive outlaws as “wolves”.
• The existence of a ritual that provides one with the ability to turn into a wolf. Such a transformation may be related either to lycanthropy itself, a widespread phenomenon, but attested especially in the Balkans–Carpathian region, or a ritual imitation of the behavior and appearance of the wolf. Such a ritual was presumably a military initiation, potentially reserved to a secret brotherhood of warriors (or Männerbünde). To become formidable warriors they would assimilate the behavior of the wolf, wearing wolf skins during the ritual. Traces related to wolves as a cult or as totems were found in this area since the Neolithic period, including the Vinča culture artifacts: wolf statues and fairly rudimentary figurines representing dancers with a wolf mask. The items could indicate warrior initiation rites, or ceremonies in which young people put on their seasonal wolf masks. The element of unity of beliefs about werewolves and lycanthropy exists in the magical-religious experience of mystical solidarity with the wolf by whatever means used to obtain it. But all have one original myth, a primary event.” ref
• “The Dacian Draco [draˈko] was the standard ensign of troops of the ancient Dacian people, which can be seen in the hands of the soldiers of Decebalus in several scenes depicted on Trajan’s Column in Rome, Italy. It has the form of a dragon with open wolf-like jaws containing several metal tongues. The hollow dragon’s head was mounted on a pole with a fabric tube affixed at the rear. In use, the draco was held up into the wind, or above the head of a horseman, where it filled with air and gave the impression it was alive while making a shrill sound as the wind passed through its strips of material.” ref
• “The Dacians were a Thracian people who were the ancient inhabitants of the cultural region of Dacia, located in the area near the Carpathian Mountains and west of the Black Sea. This area includes mainly the present-day countries of Romania and Moldova, as well as parts of Ukraine, Eastern Serbia, Northern Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, and Southern Poland. The Dacians spoke the Dacian language, a sub-group of Thracian, but were somewhat culturally influenced by the neighboring Scythians and by the Celtic invaders of the 4th century BCE.” ref

Germanic

“Norse mythology prominently includes three malevolent wolves, in particular: the giant Fenrisulfr or Fenrir, eldest child of Loki and Angrboda who was feared and hated by the Æsir, and Fenrisulfr’s children, Sköll and Hati. Fenrir is bound by the gods, but is ultimately destined to grow too large for his bonds and devour Odin during the course of Ragnarök. At that time, he will have grown so large that his upper jaw touches the sky while his lower touches the earth when he gapes. He will be slain by Odin’s son, Viðarr, who will either stab him in the heart or rip his jaws asunder, according to different accounts. Fenrir’s two offspring will, according to legend, devour the sun and moon at Ragnarök. On the other hand, however, the wolves Geri and Freki were the Norse god Odin‘s faithful pets who were reputed to be “of good omen.” ref

“Wolves were seen as both being negative and positive to the Norse people. On one hand, they can represent chaos and destruction (e.g. Fenrir, Skoll, and Hati), while on the other hand, they can also represent bravery, loyalty, protection, and wisdom. In the Hervarar saga, king Heidrek is asked by Gestumblindi (Odin), “What is that lamp which lights up men, but flame engulfs it, and wargs grasp after it always.” Heidrek knows the answer is the Sun, explaining: “She lights up every land and shines over all men, and Skoll and Hatti are called wargs. Those are wolves, one going before the sun, the other after the moon. But wolves also served as mounts for more or less dangerous humanoid creatures. For instance, Gunnr‘s horse was a kenning for “wolf” on the Rök runestone, in the Lay of Hyndla, the völva (witch) Hyndla rides a wolf, and to Baldr‘s funeral, the giantess Hyrrokin arrived on a wolf. Wolf or Wulf is used as a surname, given name, and a name among Germanic-speaking peoples.” ref

“Wolf” is also a component in other Germanic names:

• Wolfgang (wolf + gang (“path, journey”))
• Adolf, derived from the Old High German Athalwolf, a composition of athal, or adal, meaning noble, and wolf; its Anglo-Saxon cognate is Æthelwulf.
• Rudolf, deriving from two stems: Rod or Hrōð, meaning “fame”, and olf meaning “wolf” (see also Hroðulf).” ref

Greek

Further information: Lycaon (Arcadia)

“The Ancient Greeks associated wolves with the sun god Apollo. Mount Lykaion (Λύκαιον ὄρος) is a mountain in Arcadia where an altar of Zeus was located. Zeus Lykaios was said to have been born and brought up on it, and was the home of Pelasgus and his son Lycaon, who is said to have founded the ritual of Zeus practiced on its summit. This seems to have involved a human sacrifice, and a feast in which the man who received the portion of a human victim was changed to a wolf, as Lycaon had been after sacrificing a child. The sanctuary of Zeus played host to athletic games held every four years, the Lykaia. According to Suda the bodyguards of Peisistratos were called wolf-feet (Λυκόποδες), because they always had their feet covered with wolf-skins, to prevent frostbite; alternatively because they had a wolf symbol on their shields.” ref

Indic

“In the Rig Veda, Ṛjrāśva is blinded by his father as punishment for having given 101 of his family’s sheep to a she-wolf, who in turn prays to the Ashvins to restore his sight. Wolves are occasionally mentioned in Hindu mythology. In the Harivamsa, Krishna, to convince the people of Vraja to migrate to Vṛndāvana, creates hundreds of wolves from his hairs, which frighten the inhabitants of Vraja into making the journey. Bhima, the voracious son of the god Vayu, is described as Vrikodara, meaning “wolf-stomached”.” ref

Iranic

“According to Zoroastrian legends, Zoroaster as a child was carried by the devs (the gods) to the lair of the she-wolf, in the expectation that the savage beast would kill it; but she accepted it among her own cubs, and Vahman brought an ewe to the den which suckled it. (It was impossible in the Zoroastrian legend for the wolf herself to give milk to the infant, since wolves are regarded as daevic creatures.)  According to the Avesta, the sacred text of the Zoroastrians, wolves are a creation from the ‘darkness’ of the evil spirit Ahriman, and are ranked among the most cruel of animals and belong to the daevas. The Bundahishn, which is a Middle Persian text on the Zoroastrian creation myth, has a chapter dedicated to the ‘nature of wolves’ as seen in Zoroastrian mythology and belief.” ref

“Wusuns, an Indo-European semi-nomadic steppe people of Iranian origin, had a legend that after their king Nandoumi was killed by Yuezhi, another Indo-European people, Nandoumi’s infant son Liejiaomi was left in the wild and He was miraculously saved from hunger being suckled by a she-wolf, and fed meat by ravens.” ref

Roman

“In Roman mythology wolves are mainly associated with Mars, god of war, and agriculture. The Capitoline Wolf nurses Romulus and Remus, sons of Mars and future founders of Rome. The twin babies were ordered to be killed by their great uncle Amulius. The servant ordered to kill them, however, relented and placed the two on the banks of the Tiber river. The river, which was in flood, rose and gently carried the cradle and the twins downstream, where under the protection of the river deity Tiberinus, they would be adopted by a she-wolf known as Lupa in Latin, an animal sacred to Mars. As a consequence, the Italian wolf is the national animal of the modern Italian Republic.” ref

“In Antiquity, the she-wolf was identified as a symbol of Rome by both the Romans themselves and nations under the Roman rule. The Lupa Romana was an iconic scene that represented in the first place the idea of romanitas, being Roman. When it was used in the Roman Provinces, it can be seen as an expression of loyalty to Rome and the emperor. The treatment given to wolves differed from the treatment meted out to other large predators. The Romans generally seem to have refrained from intentionally harming wolves. For instance, they were not hunted for pleasure (but only in order to protect herds that were out at pasture), and not displayed in the venationes, either. The special status of the wolf was not based on national ideology, but rather was connected to the religious importance of the wolf to the Romans. The comedian Plautus used the image of wolves to ponder the cruelty of man as a wolf unto man. “Lupus” (Wolf) was used as a Latin first name and as a Roman cognomen.” ref

Slavic

“The Slavic languages share a term for “werewolf” derived from a Common Slavic vuko-dlak “wolf-furr”. The wolf as a mythological creature is greatly linked to Balkan and Serbian mythology and cults. It has an important part in Serbian mythology. In the Slavic, old Serbian religion and mythology, the wolf was used as a totem. In the Serbian epic poetry, the wolf is a symbol of fearlessness. Vuk Karadžić, 19th-century Serbian philologist and ethnographer, explained the traditional, apotropaic use of the name Vuk (wolf): a woman who had lost several babies in succession, would name her newborn son Vuk, because it was believed that the witches, who “ate” the babies, were afraid to attack the wolves.” ref

Turkic

Further information: Asena

“In the mythology of the Turkic peoples, the wolf is a revered animal. In the Turkic mythology, wolves were believed to be the ancestors of their people. The legend of Asena is an old Turkic myth that tells of how the Turkic people were created. In Northern China a small Turkic village was raided by Chinese soldiers, but one small baby was left behind. An old she-wolf with a sky-blue mane named Asena found the baby and nursed him, then the she-wolf gave birth to half-wolf, half-human cubs, from whom the Turkic people were born. Also in Turkic mythology, it is believed that a gray wolf showed the Turks the way out of their legendary homeland Ergenekon, which allowed them to spread and conquer their neighbors. In modern Turkey, this myth inspired nationalist groups known as “Grey Wolves“. As with most ancient peoples’ beliefs, the wolf was thought to possess spiritual powers, and that parts of its body retained specific powers that could be used by people for various needs.” ref

Mongolian

“In the Secret History of the Mongols, the Mongol peoples are said to have descended from the mating of a doe (gua maral) and a wolf (boerte chino). In modern Mongolia, the wolf is still seen as a good luck symbol, especially for males. In Mongolian folk medicine, eating the intestines of a wolf is said to alleviate chronic indigestion, while sprinkling food with powdered wolf rectum is said to cure hemorrhoids. Mongol mythology explains the wolf’s occasional habit of surplus killing by pointing to their traditional creation story. It states that when God explained to the wolf what it should and should not eat, he told it that it may eat one sheep out of 1,000. The wolf however misunderstood and thought God said kill 1,000 sheep and eat one.” ref

Japanese

“In Japanese mythology, grain farmers once worshiped wolves at shrines and left food offerings near their dens, beseeching them to protect their crops from wild boars and deer. Talismans and charms adorned with images of wolves were thought to protect against fire, disease, and other calamities and brought fertility to agrarian communities and to couples hoping to have children. The Ainu people believed that they were born from the union of a wolf like creature and a goddess.” ref

Finno-Ugric

Finnish

“Unlike the fox and the bear, the wolf has been feared and hated in Finland for a long time. The wolf has been the symbol of destruction and desolation to the extent that the very word for wolf in the Finnish language, susi, also means “a useless thing”, and the by-name hukka means perdition and annihilation. While the bear has been the sacred animal of the Finns, wolves have been hunted and killed mercilessly for a long time. The wolf has been represented as an implacable and malicious predator, killing more than it manages to eat.” ref

The Arctic and North America

“In most Native American cultures, wolves are considered a medicine being associated with courage, strength, loyalty, and success at hunting.” ref

Arctic and Canada

“Wolves were generally revered by Aboriginal Canadians that survived by hunting, but were thought little of by those that survived through agriculture. Some Alaska Natives including the Nunamiut of both northern and northwestern Alaska respected the wolf’s hunting skill and tried to emulate the wolf in order to hunt successfully. First Nations such as Naskapi as well as Squamish and Lil’wat view the wolf as a daytime hunting guide. The Naskapis believed that the caribou afterlife is guarded by giant wolves that kill careless hunters who venture too near. The Netsilik Inuit and Takanaluk-arnaluk believed that the sea-woman Nuliayuk’s home was guarded by wolves. Wolves were feared by the Tsilhqot’in, who believed that contact with wolves would result in nervous illness or death. The Dena’ina believed wolves were once men, and viewed them as brothers.” ref

United States

“In the cardinal directions of Midwestern Native Americans, the wolf represented the west, but it represented the southeast for the Pawnee tribe. According to the Pawnee creation myth, the wolf was the first creature to experience death. The Wolf Star, enraged at not having been invited to attend a council on how the Earth should be made, sent a wolf to steal the whirlwind bag of The Storm that Comes out of the West, which contained the first humans. Upon being freed from the bag, the humans killed the wolf, thus bringing death into the world. Native Americans have long seen the wolf as an animal of power. Many tribes credit the actual creator of the earth to be a wolf. The Arikara and Ojibwe believed a wolfman spirit made the Great Plains for them and for other animals. Many tribes consider wolves to be closely related to humans. The reason for this belief is because of the wolf’s dedication to its pack, a trait the tribes attributed with themselves.” ref

“The Navajo tribe was known for performing healing ceremonies where they would call upon wolves to restore health to their ill. Wolves were admired for their superb hunting skills. Prayers were offered in honor of wolves before they went out of hunting excursions. The Pawnee’s connection with wolves was so great that their hand signal for Pawnee was actually the same one that they had for wolf. Before battles, Apache warriors would pray, sing, and dance to gain the teamwork, strength, and bravery of wolves. The Pawnee, being both an agricultural and hunting people, associated the wolf with both corn and the bison; the “birth” and “death” of the Wolf Star (Sirius) was to them a reflection of the wolf’s coming and going down the path of the Milky Way known as Wolf Road. The Navajo tribe feared taboo-breaking witches (nearly always male) in wolves’ clothing called yee naaldlooshii, literally “with it, he goes on all fours”. Wolf in Navajo is mąʼiitsoh– literally “large coyote”.” ref

“There is an Omaha legend in which a wolf guides a wounded warrior back to his camp, alerting him whenever there are rival warriors nearby and showing him the easiest path. There is a story that was pushed around as Cherokee legend, Two Wolves, that is often referenced in media but actually has ties to Christian-style parables that was told by Minister Billy Graham and actually mentioned, specifically, eskimo, and because it’s been attributed to the Cherokee – the one that goes around the Cherokee world has a deeper meaning and negates the “GOOD” VS “EVIL” trope. In Cherokee beliefs, there is a clan called the wolf people. They would never kill a wolf, believing the spirit of the slain wolf would revenge its death. The Cherokee also believed that if a hunter showed respect and prayed before and after killing an animal such as a deer, a wolf, a fox, or an opossum would guard his feet against frostbite. The Tewa tribe believed that wolves held the powers of the east and were one of the zenith power-medicine animals.” ref

Caucasus

See also: Chechen wolf

“The wolf is a national symbol of Chechnya. According to folklore, the Chechens are “born of a she-wolf”, as included in the central line in the national myth. The “lone wolf” symbolizes strength, independence, and freedom. A proverb about the teips (sub-clans) is “equal and free like wolves”.” ref

Hongshan culture 6,720-4,920 years ago

The Hongshan culture was a Neolithic culture in the Liao river basin in northeast China. Hongshan sites have been found in an area stretching from Inner Mongolia to Liaoning, and dated from about 4700 to 2900 BCE or 6,720-4,920 years ago. “63% of Hongshan sites had haplogroup N, which today is more common in Finland, Baltic states, and Siberian ethnicities.” ref 

“In northeast China, Hongshan culture was preceded by Xinglongwa culture (6200–5400 BCE or 8,220-7,420 years ago), Xinle culture (5500–4800 BCE or 7,520-6,820 years ago), and Zhaobaogou culture (5400–4500 BCE or 7,420-6,520 years ago). Then the Yangshao culture (5000-3000 BCE or 7,020-5,020 years ago) was in the larger area and contemporary with Hongshan culture (see map). These two cultures interacted with each other.” ref, ref, ref, ref 

A study by Yinqiu Cui et al. from 2013 found that 63% of the combined samples from various Hongshan archeological sites belonged to the subclade N1 (xN1a, N1c) of the paternal haplogroup N-M231 and calculated N to have been the predominant haplogroup in the region in the Neolithic period at 89%, its share gradually declining over time. Today this haplogroup is most common in Finland, the Baltic states, and among northern Siberian ethnicities, such as the Yakuts. Other paternal haplogroups identified in the study were C and O2a (O2a2), both of which predominate among the present-day inhabitants. Nelson et al. 2020 attempts to link the Hongshan culture to a “Transeurasian” linguistic context (see Altaic).” ref

Hongshan Religion? 

“Chinese shamanism, alternatively called Wuism (Chinese: 巫教; pinyin: wū jiào; lit. ‘wu religion’, ‘shamanism‘, ‘witchcraft‘; alternatively 巫觋宗教 wū xí zōngjiào), refers to the shamanic religious tradition of China. Its features are especially connected to the ancient Neolithic cultures such as the Hongshan culture.  Chinese shamanic traditions are intrinsic to Chinese folk religion. Various ritual traditions are rooted in original Chinese shamanism: contemporary Chinese ritual masters are sometimes identified as wu by outsiders, though most orders don’t self-identify as such. Also Taoism has some of its origins from Chinese shamanism: it developed around the pursuit of long life (shou 壽/寿), or the status of a xian (仙, “mountain man”, “holy man”).The Chinese word wu 巫 “shaman, wizard”, indicating a person who can mediate with the powers generating things (the etymological meaning of “spirit”, “god”, or nomen agentis, virtus, energeia), was first recorded during the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600-1046 BCE or 3,600 to 3,046 years ago), when a wu could be either sex. During the late Zhou dynasty (1045-256 BCE) wu was used to specify “female shaman; sorceress” as opposed to xi 覡 “male shaman; sorcerer” (which first appears in the 4th century BCE Guoyu). Other sex-differentiated shaman names include nanwu 男巫 for “male shaman; sorcerer; wizard”; and nüwu 女巫, wunü 巫女, wupo 巫婆, and wuyu 巫嫗 for “female shaman; sorceress; witch”. The word tongji 童乩 (lit. “youth diviner”) “shaman; spirit-medium” is a near-synonym of wu. Modern Chinese distinguishes native wu from “Siberian shaman“: saman 薩滿 or saman 薩蠻; and from Indian Shramana “wandering monk; ascetic”: shamen 沙門, sangmen 桑門, or sangmen 喪門.” ref

“The archaeological site at Niuheliang is a unique ritual complex associated with the Hongshan culture. Hongshan burial artifacts include some of the earliest known examples of jade working. The Hongshan culture is known for its jade pig dragons and embryo dragons. Clay figurines, including figurines of pregnant women, are also found throughout Hongshan sites. Small copper rings were also excavated.” ref

“Excavators have discovered an underground temple complex—which included an altar—and also cairns in Niuheliang. The temple was constructed of stone platforms, with painted walls. Archaeologists have given it the name Goddess Temple due to the discovery of a clay female head with jade inlaid eyes. It was an underground structure, 1m deep. Included on its walls are mural paintings.” ref

“Housed inside the Goddess Temple are clay figurines as large as three times the size of real-life humans. The exceedingly large figurines are possibly deities, but for a religion not reflective in any other Chinese culture. The existence of complex trading networks and monumental architecture (such as pyramids and the Goddess Temple) point to the existence of a “chiefdom” in these prehistoric communities.” ref

“Painted pottery was also discovered within the temple. Over 60 nearby tombs have been unearthed, all constructed of stone and covered by stone mounds, frequently including jade artifacts. Cairns were discovered atop two nearby two hills, with either round or square stepped tombs, made of piled limestone. Entombed inside were sculptures of dragons and tortoises. It has been suggested that religious sacrifice might have been performed within the Hongshan culture.” ref

Feng shui

“Just as suggested by evidence found at early Yangshao culture sites, Hongshan culture sites also provide the earliest evidence for feng shui. The presence of both round and square shapes at Hongshan culture ceremonial centers suggests an early presence of the gaitian cosmography (“round heaven, square earth”). Early feng shui relied on astronomy to find correlations between humans and the universe.” ref

Hongshan culture and the Development of Chinese civilization

“Some Chinese archaeologists such as Guo Da-shun see the Hongshan culture as an important stage of early Chinese civilization. Whatever the linguistic affinity of the ancient denizens, Hongshan culture is believed to have exerted an influence on the development of early Chinese civilization. The culture also have contributed to the development of settlements in ancient Korea.” ref

Xinglongwa culture 8,220-7,420 years ago

“The Xinglongwa culture (6200–5400 BCE) was a Neolithic culture in northeastern China, found mainly around the Inner Mongolia–Liaoning border at the Liao River basin. Xinglongwa pottery was primarily cylindrical, and baked at low temperatures. The Xinglongwa culture showed several signs of communal planning. At three Xinglongwa sites, houses were built in rows. Several Xinglongwa sites also featured a large central building. In addition, several Xinglongwa sites were surrounded by ditches. The recently discovered site at Xinglonggou is the only site of the culture to show evidence of any sort of agriculture, with evidence of millet remains. Some of the oldest Comb Ceramic artifacts were found in the Xinglongwa culture.” ref 

“The type site at Xinglongwa is located on the southwest side of a hill at Aohan Banner, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia; the site is named after a village 1.3 km to the southeast of the site. 120 pit-houses were discovered at Xinglongwa. Each home had a hearth at its center. Xinglongwa also featured a large building in the center of the village. Xinglongwa is the earliest discovered site in China to be surrounded by a ditch. Xinglongwa also featured an unusual burial custom, as some bodies were buried directly under the houses. Like other Xinglongwa sites, jade objects were also discovered. In the most lavish grave, a man was buried with a pair of pigs, as well as jade objects.” ref 

“According to the study of 34 sets of human remains from Xinglongwa in-house burials, male individuals apparently predominate over female individuals at roughly 2:1 ratio (23 males vs. 11 females). Within the male group, no individuals were identified as being over 55 in age, whereas all of females belong to middle-to-old age group (no one younger than 35 years old). The youngest individuals examined were at age of 13 or 14 years old, so it’s suspected that children before mature sex-awareness age might not have participated in in-house burial ritual if they die. From examined samples, the average height of male was between 163.8 cm and 168.8 cm, while the average height of female between 153.4 cm – 159.9 cm. Both male and female Xinglongwa individuals showed strong Mongoloid cranial features, and are thought to be the distant ancestors of the present-day Northeast Asian peoples that belong to the proposed “Transeurasian” (aka Altaic) language family.” ref 

Xinle culture 7,520-6,820 years ago

“The Xinle culture (5500–4800 BCE) was a Neolithic culture in northeast China, found primarily around the lower Liao River on the Liaodong Peninsula in Liaoning. The culture showed evidence of millet cultivation and pig domestication. The type site at Xinle was discovered in the Huanggu District of Shenyang, Liaoning. The excavations at the site discovered evidence for some 40 neolithic houses. Artifacts uncovered during the dig included stone tools, pottery, jade, bone tools, wood carvings, and refined coal. In another dig uncovered yet more artifacts including one wooden carving that was some 7,200 years old, presumably a type of totem worshipped by the clan. No other find in the whole of Shenyang has been older, the find is also one of the oldest wooden carvings found anywhere in the world. The excavations also discovered two Khitan tombs from 1,000 years ago.” ref 

Zhaobaogou culture 7,420-6,520 years ago

“The Zhaobaogou culture (5400–4500 BCE) was a Neolithic culture in northeast China, found primarily in the Luan River valley in Inner Mongolia and northern Hebei. The culture produced sand-tempered, incised pottery vessels with geometric and zoomorphic designs. The culture also produced stone and clay human figurines. The type site at Zhaobaogou, excavated in 1986, was discovered in Aohan Banner, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia.” ref 

Yangshao culture 7,020-5,020 years ago

“The Yangshao culture was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the Yellow River in China. It is dated from around 5000-3000 BCE. The culture is named after Yangshao, the first excavated site of this culture, which was discovered in 1921 in Mianchi County, Henan Province by the Swedish geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson (1874–1960). The culture flourished mainly in the provinces of Henan, Shaanxi, and Shanxi. Recent research indicates a common origin of the Sino-Tibetan languages with the Cishan, Yangshao, and/or the Majiayao cultures.” ref

“The main food of the Yangshao people was millet, with some sites using foxtail millet and others proso millet, though some evidence of rice has been found. The exact nature of Yangshao agriculture, small-scale slash-and-burn cultivation versus intensive agriculture in permanent fields, is currently a matter of debate. Once the soil was exhausted, residents picked up their belongings, moved to new lands, and constructed new villages. However, Middle Yangshao settlements such as Jiangzhi contain raised-floor buildings that may have been used for the storage of surplus grains. Grinding stones for making flour were also found. The Yangshao people kept pigs and dogs. Sheep, goats, and cattle are found much more rarely. Much of their meat came from hunting and fishing with stone tools. Their stone tools were polished and highly specialized. They may also have practiced an early form of sericulture.” ref

“The Yangshao culture crafted pottery. Yangshao artisans created fine white, red, and black painted pottery with human facial, animal, and geometric designs. Unlike the later Longshan culture, the Yangshao culture did not use pottery wheels in pottery-making. Excavations found that children were buried in painted pottery jars. The Yangshao culture produced silk to a small degree and wove hemp. Men wore loin clothes and tied their hair in a top knot. Women wrapped a length of cloth around themselves and tied their hair in a bun. Houses were built by digging a rounded rectangular pit a few feet deep. Then they were rammed, and a lattice of wattle was woven over it. Then it was plastered with mud. The floor was also rammed down.” ref

“Next, a few short wattle poles would be placed around the top of the pit, and more wattle would be woven to it. It was plastered with mud, and a framework of poles would be placed to make a cone shape for the roof. Poles would be added to support the roof. It was then thatched with millet stalks. There was little furniture; a shallow fireplace in the middle with a stool, a bench along the wall, and a bed of cloth. Food and items were placed or hung against the walls. A pen would be built outside for animals. Yangshao villages typically covered ten to fourteen acres and were composed of houses around a central square.” ref

“Although early reports suggested a matriarchal culture, others argue that it was a society in transition from matriarchy to patriarchy, while still others believe it to have been patriarchal. The debate hinges on differing interpretations of burial practices. The discovery of a dragon statue dating back to the fifth millennium BC in the Yangshao culture makes it the world’s oldest known dragon depiction, and the Han Chinese continue to worship dragons to this day.” ref

“Yangshao, in Mianchi County, Sanmenxia, Henan, the place which gave the culture its name, has a museum next to the archaeological site. The archaeological site of the village of Banpo near Xi’an is one of the best-known ditch-enclosed settlements of the Yangshao. Another major settlement called Jiangzhai was excavated out to its limits, and archaeologists found that it was completely surrounded by a ring-ditch. Both Banpo and Jiangzhai also yielded incised marks on pottery which a few have interpreted as numerals or perhaps precursors to Chinese characters, but such interpretations are not widely accepted.” ref

“The Yangshao culture is conventionally divided into three phases:

• The early period or Banpo phase, c. 5000–4000 BCE) is represented by the Banpo, Jiangzhai, Beishouling, and Dadiwan sites in the Wei River valley in Shaanxi.
• The middle period or Miaodigou phase, c. 4000–3500 BCE) saw an expansion of the culture in all directions, and the development of hierarchies of settlements in some areas, such as western Henan.
• The late period (c. 3500–3000 BCE) saw a greater spread of settlement hierarchies. The first wall of rammed earth in China was built around the settlement of Xishan (25 ha) in central Henan (near modern Zhengzhou).” ref 

“The Majiayao culture (c. 3300–2000 BC) to the west is now considered a separate culture that developed from the middle Yangshao culture through an intermediate Shilingxia phase.” ref 

The Neolithization of Siberia and the Russian Far East

“Using both 14C and archeological data (mostly pottery decoration), we can tentatively date the origins of pottery and its spread throughout Siberia. It seems that both the Lower Amur River basin and Transbaikal represent independent centers of pottery invention, and both pre-date 10,000 years ago. In particular, the Russian Far East is characterized by the indigenous emergence of pottery. The net-impressed pottery might have originated in the Angara River headwaters around 8000 years ago, and the Kitoi culture represents the earliest evidence for net-impressed decoration. Later, this pottery may have spread northward (the Syalakh culture of Yakutia). The West Siberian Neolithic most probably originated independently from the Eastern Siberian and the Russian Far East, but is significantly later than the Neolithic of Transbaikal and the Amur River basin.” ref 

“The Neolithic of the Altai and Sayan Mountains has not been adequately investigated. Thus, there were a number of separate centers at which pottery originated in Siberia. Some, such as Amur River basin and Transbaikal, are among the earliest areas in the world along with southern China and southern Japan for the emergence of the Neolithic, and are dated to around 13,000-10,000 years ago. The rest of Siberia is characterized by the significantly later appearance of the Neolithic cultures, between c. 8000 years ago and around 4600-2600 years ago. For some areas (such as the forest zone of Western Siberia and Yakutia, and both the forest and tundra zones of Northeastern Siberia including the Kolyma River headwaters and Chukotka), migrations and other forms of cultural exchange might have played a determining role in the Neolithization process.” ref 

Syalakh Culture

“Syalakh culture is an early Neolithic culture of Yakutia and Eastern Siberia. It formed in the middle Lena river basin in the 5 —4 millenniums BCE as a result of the migration of tribes from Transbaikalia, which assimilated the local Sumnagin culture (around 10,500-6,500 years ago) that was preceramic. The culture got its name from Lake Syalakh, located 90 km from the town of Zhigansk in Yakutia (Saha). The sites of the carriers of Syalakh culture are marked by the first appearance of polished stone tools, as well as the earliest ceramics (fired clay pottery with a characteristic mesh pattern). Bone harpoons, and bow and arrows have also been found. More than 50 sites of the Syalakh culture are known. In the decorative arts, a central place is occupied by the images of moose, which reflect mythological representation. The Syalakh culture was followed by the Belkachi culture. According to the linguists, the most likely hypothesis is that representatives of this culture spoke one of the Dené–Yeniseian languages. The new wave of population from northeastern Asia that arrived in Alaska at least 4,800 years ago displays clear archaeological precedents leading back to Central Siberia. … the Syalakh culture peoples, spreading across Siberia after 6,500 years ago, might represent the “ghost population” that split off around 6,500-7,000 years ago, and later gave rise to migrants into America. The ancient Paleo-Eskimo peoples were probably involved in these migrations.” ref 

Bel’kachi Culture

Ymyyakhtakh culture:

“Early Paleolithic southern Siberians appear to be related to paleolithic Europeans and the paleolithic Jōmon people of Japan. Various scholars point out similarities between the Jōmon and paleolithic and Bronze Age Siberians. A genetic analysis of HLA I and HLA II genes as well as HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1 gene frequencies links the Ainu people and some Indigenous peoples of the Americas, especially populations on the Pacific Northwest Coast such as Tlingit, to paleolithic southern Siberians. Finds from the Lower Paleolithic appear to be attested between east Kazakhstan and Altai. The burial of a Neanderthal child shows similarities with the Mousterian of Iraq and Iran. In the Upper Palaeolithic, by contrast, most remains are found in the Urals, where, among other things, rock carvings depicting mammoths are found, in Altai, on the upper Yenissei, west of Lake Baikal and around 25,000 on the shore of the Laptev Sea, north of the arctic circle. The remains of huts have been found in the settlement of Mal’ta near Irkutsk. Sculptures of animals and women (Venus figurines) recall the European Upper Palaeolithic. The Siberian Palaeolithic continues well into the European Mesolithic. In the postglacial period, the taiga developed. Microliths, which are common elsewhere, have not been found.” ref 

“In North Asia, the Neolithic (5500–3400 BCE or 7,520 to 5,420 years ago) is mostly a chronological term, since there is no evidence for agriculture or even pastoralism in Siberia during the central European Neolithic. However, the neolithic cultures of North Asia are distinguished from the preceding Mesolithic cultures and far more visible as a result of the introduction of pottery. Southwest Siberia reached a neolithic cultural level during the Chalcolithic, which began here towards the end of (the fourth millennium BCE that ranges from 6,000 to 5,000 years ago), which roughly coincided with the introduction of copper–working. In the northern and eastern regions, there is no detectable change. Bronze Age (c. 2400–800 BC): In the second half of the third millennium BC, bronzeworking reached the cultures of western Siberia. Chalcolithic groups in the eastern Ural foothills developed the so-called Andronovo culture, which took various local forms. The settlements of Arkaim, Olgino and Sintashta are particularly notable as the earliest evidence for urbanisation in Siberia. In the valleys of the Ob and Irtysh the same ceramic cultures attested there during the neolithic continue; the changes in the Baikal region and Yakutia were very slight.”  ref 

The Altai or Golden Mountains

“In southwestern Siberia, along Russia’s border with China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan, the Altai or “Golden” Mountains are home to the semi-nomadic Altai people and too many endangered species, including the totemic snow leopard and argali mountain sheep. The Golden Mountains are sacred to the Altaians and to Buddhists and Burkhanists around the world. Siberia’s highest peak, Mount Belukha, is especially revered. Within the Altai Republic of the Russian Federation, the Ukok Plateau is also famous as a burial ground and has been the subject of controversy in Russia over rights to the more than 150 archaeological sites that have been excavated there since the 1920s. The state-owned energy giant Gazprom has proposed building a natural gas pipeline to China across the Ukok Plateau. Mount Belukha and the sacred Katun River have seen recent influxes of tourists that bring a measure of prosperity to the impoverished Altai Republic, but may also have lasting impacts. Altaians wish to preserve their burial sites, as well as the land that nurtures their livestock, their crops and herbal medicines, and the forests that ensure the survival of their people. “We maintain a connection to the land through petroglyphs, standing stones, kurgans, throat singing, totem plants and animals like snow leopard and wolf,” says Igor Sailankin, director of Nature Park Belukha. “It’s something people live with every day.” ref

Na-Dene languages

“Na-Dene (also Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Tlina–Dene) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. Haida was formerly included, but is now considered doubtful. By far the most widely spoken Na-Dene language today is Navajo. In February 2008, a proposal connecting Na-Dene (excluding Haida) to the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia into a Dené–Yeniseian family was published and well-received by a number of linguists. It was proposed in a 2014 paper that the Na-Dene languages of North America and the Yeniseian languages of Siberia had a common origin in a language spoken in Beringia, between the two continents.

In its uncontroversial core, Na-Dene consists of two branches, Tlingit and Athabaskan–Eyak:

• Tlingit: 1,360 speakers
• Athabaskan–EyakEyak: the last native speaker died in 2008

  AthabaskanNorthern
  Pacific Coast
  Southern

“For linguists who follow Edward Sapir in connecting Haida to the above languages, Haida represents an additional branch, with Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit together forming the other. Dene or Dine (the Athabaskan languages) is a widely distributed group of Native languages spoken by associated peoples in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Saskatchewan, Yukon, Alaska, parts of Oregon, northern California, and the American Southwest as far as northern Mexico. The southwestern division of Athabaskan is also called Southern Athabaskan or Apachean, and includes Navajo and all the Apache languages. Eyak was spoken in south-central Alaska; the last first-language speaker died in 2008. Navajo is by far the most widely spoken language of the Na-Dene family, spoken in Arizona, New Mexico, and other regions of the American Southwest.

“All of these languages share a highly complex prefixing verb structure in which tense and mood markers are interdigitated between subject and object agreement markers. The morphological hallmark of the family is a series of prefixes found directly before the verb root that raise or lower the transitivity of the verb word. These prefixes, traditionally known as “classifiers”, derive historically from a combination of three distinct classes of morphemes and are not found in any other Native American language family.

“The phoneme system contains a large number of dorsal (velar or uvular) consonants (fronting in many modern Athabaskan languages to palatals and velars, correspondingly) as well as a general absence of labial obstruents (except where /b/ has arisen from *w). In the historical phonology, there is a widespread tendency, observable across many Athabaskan languages, for phonemic tonal distinctions to arise from glottal features originally found at the end of the syllable. The glottal features in question are often evident in Eyak or Tlingit. These languages are typologically unusual in containing extensive prefixation yet being SOV and postpositional, features normally associated with suffixing languages.” ref 

Dené-Yeniseian Languages 

· Yeniseian

· Tlingit, Eyak

· South Pacific Coast Athabaskan (California)

· Athabaskan (excluding South Pacific Coast Athabaskan)

o Tsetsaut

o Upper Kuskokwim

o Ahtna

o Dena’ina

o West Alaska (Koyukon)

§ Deg Xinag

§ Holikachuk, Koyukon

o North Pacific Coast (Oregon)

o Alaska-Canada-2

§ Gwich’in

§ Dogrib

§ North Slavey

§ Carrier, Dane-zaa (Beaver)

o Plains-Apachean

§ Sarsi

§ Southern Athabaskan

o Alaska-Canada-1

§ Tanana

§ Upper Tanana

§ Lower Tanana, Tanacross

§ Northwestern Canada

§ Hän

§ South Slavey, Kaska

§ Dene, Northern Tutchone, Southern Tutchone

Ket and Navajo word pairs Below is a table of Ket and Navajo words.

Notes: Navajo inalienable nouns are attached with the prefix a-, which means “someone’s”.

Word Ket Ket Cyrillic Navajo Vajda 2010a 

stone təˀs ты’сь tsé cf. Vajda 2010a

foot kiˀs ки’сь (a)keeʼ cf. Vajda 2010a

old sīn синь sání cf. Vajda 2010a

snake tìɣ тиг, тих tłʼiish cf. Vajda 2010a” ref 

“The Ket people are a Yeniseian people in Siberia. In the Russian Empire, they were called Ostyaks. The Ket are thought to be the only survivors of an ancient nomadic people believed to have originally lived throughout central and southern Siberia. Today’s Kets are the descendants of the tribes of fishermen and hunters of the Yenisei taiga, who adopted some of the cultural ways of those original Ket-speaking tribes of South Siberia. The earlier tribes engaged in hunting, fishing, and even reindeer breeding in the northern areas. The Ket were incorporated into the Russian state in the 17th century. Their efforts to resist were futile as the Russians deported them to different places to break up their resistance. This also broke up their strictly organized patriarchal social system and their way of life disintegrated. The Ket people ran up huge debts with the Russians. Some died of famine, others of diseases introduced from Europe.” ref

“The Ket language has been linked to the Na-Dené languages of North America in the Dené–Yeniseian language family. This link has led to some collaboration between the Ket and some northern Athabaskan peoples. Ket means “man” (plural deng “men, people”). The Kets of the Kas, Sym and Dubches rivers use jugun as a self-designation.The Ket have a rich and varied culture, filled with an abundance of colorful Siberian mythology including Shamanistic practice and oral traditions. Siberia, the area of Russia in which the Ket’s reside, has long been identified as the originating place of the Shaman or Shamanism.” ref

“Since the beginning of the [20th] century, ethnologists have fallen into the habit of using the terms “shaman,” medicine man,” “sorcerer,” and “magician” interchangeably to designate certain individuals possessing magico-religious powers and found in all “primitive” societies, […] If the word “shaman” is taken to mean any magician, sorcerer, medicine man, or ecstatic found throughout the history of religion and religious ethnology, we arrive at a notion at once extremely complex and extremely vague; it seems, furthermore, to serve no purpose, for we already have the terms “magician” or “sorcerer” to express notions as unlike and ill-defined as “primitive magic” or “primitive mysticism. The Shamans of the Ket people have been identified as practitioners of healing as well as other local ritualistic spiritual practices.” ref

“Supposedly, there were several types of Ket shamans, differing in function (sacral rites, curing), power, and associated animals (deer, bear). Also, among Kets (as with several other Siberian peoples such as the Karagas) there are examples of the use of skeleton symbolics. Hoppál interprets this as a symbol of shamanic rebirth, although it may symbolize also the bones of the loon (the helper animal of the shaman, joining the air and underwater worlds, just like the story of the shaman who traveled both to the sky and the underworld). The skeleton-like overlay represented shamanic rebirth among some other Siberian cultures as well. Shamanistic practices of the Ket Shamans have been found amongst the Turkic and Mongolic peoples.” ref 

“Dené–Yeniseian is a proposed language family consisting of the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia and the Na-Dené languages of northwestern North America. Reception among experts has been largely, though not universally, favorable; thus, Dené–Yeniseian has been called “the first demonstration of a genealogical link between Old World and New World language families that meets the standards of traditional comparative-historical linguistics,” besides the Eskimo–Aleut languages spoken in far eastern Siberia and North America. At a symposium in Alaska in 2008, Edward Vajda of Western Washington University summarized ten years of research, based on verbal morphology and reconstructions of the proto-languages, indicating that the Yeniseian and Na-Dené families might be related. The summation of Vajda’s research was published in June 2010 in The Dene–Yeniseian Connection in the Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska. This 369-page volume, edited by James Kari and Ben Potter, contains papers from the February 26–29, 2008, symposium plus several contributed papers. Accompanying Vajda’s lead paper are primary data on Na-Dene historical phonology by Jeff Leer, along with critiques by several linguistic specialists and articles on a range of topics (archaeology, prehistory, ethnogeography, genetics, kinship, and folklore) by experts in these fields.” ref 

“The evidence offered by Vajda includes over 110 proposed cognate morphemes and about ten homologous prefix and suffix positions of the verbs. Vajda compared the existing reconstructions of Proto-Yeniseian and Proto-Na-Dené, augmented the reconstructions based on the apparent relationship between the two, and suggested sound changes linking the two into a putative Proto-Dené-Yeniseian language. He suggested that Yeniseian tone differences originated in the presence or absence of glottalized consonants in the syllable coda, as still present in the Na-Dené languages. Vajda and others also note that no compelling evidence has been found linking Haida with either Na-Dené or Yeniseian. As for the wider Dené-Caucasian hypothesis (see above), while Vajda did not find the kinds of morphological correspondences with these other families that he did with Yeniseian and Na-Dené, he did not rule out the possibility that such evidence exists, and urges that more work be done (Vajda 2010b). In 2011 Vajda published a short-annotated bibliography on Dené–Yeniseian languages. On March 24, 2012, the Alaska Native Language Center hosted the Dené-Yeniseian Workshop at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. There were nine papers, the first new papers on Dené–Yeniseian since the 2010 volume was published.” ref 

“As of July 2012, there are no plans to publish the papers, but video from the workshop is available. Vajda’s presentations at the 2012 workshop augmented his proposal with additional linguistic and non-linguistic evidence. He discussed a study he did with Johanna Nichols investigating the history of complex prefixing verb structures in various families possessing morphology of this sort. His conclusion was that, contrary to prevailing belief, such structures are often preserved intact with little change over several thousands of years, and as a result may actually be stronger evidence of a genetic connection than the lexical relationships that are traditionally sought. As a result, he agreed with the consensus belief that lexical evidence of a genetic relationship becomes virtually undetectable after about 8,000 to 10,000 years of linguistic separation, but suggested that certain sorts of complex morphology may remain stable beyond this time period. Further evidence for Dené–Yeniseian is in Vajda’s 2013a article “Vestigial possessive morphology in Na-Dene and Yeniseian”. Vajda presents comparanda for an ancient Dene-Yeniseian possessive connector prefix (possibly *ŋ) that appears in idiosyncratic ways in Dene (or Athabaskan), Eyak, Tlingit, and Yeniseian nouns, postpositions, directionals, and demonstratives. Vajda also suggests one new lexical cognate: PA directional *ñəs-d “ahead”, “out on open water” and Yeniseian root *es “open space”.” ref  

“In a subsequent article, Vajda discusses features in Ket that arose due to prolonged areal contact with suffixal agglutinating languages. In his 2012 presentation Vajda also addressed non-linguistic evidence, including analyses of Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups, which are passed unchanged down the male and female lines, respectively, except for mutations. His most compelling DNA evidence is the Q1 Y-chromosomal haplogroup subclade, which he notes arose c. 15,000 years ago and is found in nearly all Native Americans and nearly all of the Yeniseian Ket people (90%), but almost nowhere else in Eurasia except for the Selkup people (65%), who have intermarried with the Ket people for centuries. Using this and other evidence, he proposes a Proto-Dené-Yeniseian homeland located in eastern Siberia around the Amur and Aldan Rivers. These people would have been hunter-gatherers, as are the modern Yeniseians, but unlike nearly all other Siberian groups (except for some Paleosiberian peoples located around the Pacific Rim of far eastern Siberia, who appear genetically unrelated to the Yeniseians). Eventually all descendants in Eurasia were eliminated by the spread of reindeer-breeding pastoralist peoples (e.g. the speakers of the so-called Altaic languages) except for the modern Yeniseians, who were able to survive in swampy refuges far to the west along the Yenisei River because it is too mosquito-infested for reindeer to survive easily.” ref

“Contrarily, the caribou (the North American reindeer population) were never domesticated, and thus the modern Na-Dené people were not similarly threatened. In his 2012 reply to George Starostin, Vajda clarifies that Dené-Yeniseian “as it currently stands is a hypothesis of language relatedness but not yet a proper hypothesis of language taxonomy”. He leaves “open the possibility that either Yeniseian or ND (or both) might have a closer relative elsewhere in Eurasia. 2014, applying Bayesian analysis to typological data from Dene and Yeniseian languages constructed phylogenies that suggest that the Dene-Yeniseian connection “more likely represents a radiation out of Beringia with a back migration into Central Asia than a migration from Central Asia or Western Asia to North America. 2012, linguist George Starostin questioned the validity of the macrofamily, citing the fact that “Vajda’s ‘regular correspondences’ are not… properly ‘regular’ in the classic comparative-historical sense of the word”. He also notes that Vajda’s “treatment of the verbal morphology” involves “a tiny handful of intriguing isomorphisms… surrounded by an impenetrable sea of assumptions and highly controversial internal reconstructions that create an illusion of systemic reconstruction where there really is none”.” ref 

“Nonetheless, Starostin concedes that Vajda’s work “is, by all means, a step forward”, and that it “may eventually point the way towards research on grammaticalization paths in Yeniseian and Na-Dené”. Instead of forming a separate family, Starostin believes that both Yeniseian and Na-Dené are part of a much larger grouping called Dene-Caucasian. So Starostin states that the two families are related in a large sense, but there is no special relationship between them that would suffice to create a separate family between these two language families. In 2015, linguist Paul Kiparsky endorsed Dené–Yeniseian, saying that “the morphological parallelism and phonological similarities among corresponding affixes is most suggestive, but most compelling evidence for actual relationship comes from those sound correspondences which can be accounted for by independently motivated regular sound changes”. Paleo-Eskimo and Na-Dene: A 2017 study identifies Paleo-Eskimo genetic ancestry in Athabaskans, as well as in other Na-Dene-speaking populations. The Paleo-Eskimo peoples inhabited the Arctic region from Chukotka to Greenland c. 2500 BCE or 4,520 years ago. The authors argue that the Paleo-Eskimos lived alongside Na-Dene ancestors for millennia. This provides evidence of a genetic connection between Siberian and Na-Dene populations mediated by Paleo-Eskimos.” ref 

Dené–Caucasian languages

Dené–Caucasian is a proposed language family that includes widely-separated language groups spoken in the Northern Hemisphere: Sino-Tibetan languages, Yeniseian languages, Burushaski, and North Caucasian languages in Asia; Na-Dené languages in North America; and the Vasconic languages from Europe (including Basque). A narrower connection specifically between North American Na-Dené and Siberian Yeniseian (the Dené–Yeniseian languages hypothesis) was proposed by Edward Vajda in 2008, and has met with some acceptance within the community of professional linguists. The validity of the rest of the family, however, is viewed as doubtful or rejected by nearly all historical linguists.” ref

History of the hypothesis

“Classifications similar to Dené–Caucasian were put forward in the 20th century by Alfredo Trombetti, Edward Sapir, Robert Bleichsteiner, Karl Bouda, E. J. Furnée, René Lafon, Robert Shafer, Olivier Guy Tailleur, Morris Swadesh, Vladimir N. Toporov, and other scholars. Morris Swadesh included all of the members of Dené–Caucasian in a family that he called “Basque-Dennean” (when writing in English, 2006/1971) or “vascodene” (when writing in Spanish, 1959). It was named for Basque and Navajo, the languages at its geographic extremes. According to Swadesh (1959), it included “Basque, the Caucasian languages, Ural-Altaic, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Chinese, Austronesian, Japanese, Chukchi (Siberia), Eskimo-Aleut, Wakash, and Na-Dene”, and possibly “Sumerian”.” ref 

“Swadesh’s Basque-Dennean thus differed from Dené–Caucasian in including (1) Uralic, Altaic, Japanese, Chukotian, and Eskimo-Aleut (languages which are classed as Eurasiatic by the followers of Sergei Starostin and those of Joseph Greenberg), (2) Dravidian, which is classed as Nostratic by Starostin’s school, and (3) Austronesian (which according to Starostin is indeed related to Dené–Caucasian, but only at the next stage up, which he termed Dené–Daic, and only via Austric (see Starostin’s Borean macrofamily)). Swadesh’s colleague Mary Haas[citation needed] attributes the origin of the Basque-Dennean hypothesis to Edward Sapir. In the 1980s, Sergei Starostin, using strict linguistic methods (proposing regular phonological correspondences, reconstructions, glottochronology, etc.), became the first[citation needed] to put the idea that the Caucasian, Yeniseian, and Sino-Tibetan languages are related on firmer ground. In 1991, Sergei L. Nikolaev added the Na-Dené languages to Starostin’s classification.” ref

“The inclusion of the Na-Dené languages has been somewhat complicated by the ongoing dispute over whether Haida belongs to the family. The proponents of the Dené–Caucasian hypothesis incline towards supporters of Haida’s membership in Na-Dené, such as Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow or, most recently, John Enrico. Edward J. Vajda, who otherwise rejects the Dené–Caucasian hypothesis, has suggested that Tlingit, Eyak, and the Athabaskan languages are closely related to the Yeniseian languages, but he denies any genetic relationship of the former three to Haida. Vajda’s ideas on the relationship of Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, and Yeniseian have found support independently in works of various authors, including Heinrich K. Werner or Merritt Ruhlen. DNA analyses have not shown any special connection between the modern Ket population and the modern speakers of the Na-Dené languages.” ref

“In 1996, John D. Bengtson added the Vasconic languages (including Basque, its extinct relative or ancestor Aquitanian, and possibly Iberian), and in 1997 he proposed the inclusion of Burushaski. The same year, in his article for Mother Tongue, Bengtson concluded that Sumerian might have been a remnant of a distinct subgroup of the Dené–Caucasian languages. However, two other papers on the genetic affinity of Sumerian appeared in the same volume: while Allan R. Bomhard considered Sumerian to be a sister of Nostratic, Igor M. Diakonoff compared it to the Munda languages.” ref

“In 1998, Vitaly V. Shevoroshkin rejected the Amerind affinity of the Almosan (Algonquian-Wakashan) languages, suggesting instead that they had a relationship with Dené–Caucasian. Several years later, he offered a number of lexical and phonological correspondences between the North Caucasian, Salishan, and Wakashan languages, concluding that Salishan and Wakashan may represent a distinct branch of North Caucasian and that their separation from it must postdate the dissolution of the Northeast Caucasian unity (Avar-Andi-Tsezian), which took place around the 2nd or 3rd millennium BCE.” ref

Evidence for Dené–Caucasian?

Main articles: Proto-Dené–Caucasian language and Proto-Dené-Caucasian roots

“The existence of Dené–Caucasian is supported by:

• Many words that correspond between some or all of the families referred to Dené–Caucasian.
• The presence in the shared vocabulary of words that are rarely borrowed or otherwise replaced, such as personal pronouns (see below).
• Elements of grammar, such as verb prefixes and their positions (see below), noun class prefixes (see below), and case suffixes that are shared between at least some of the component families.
• A reconstruction of the sound system, the basic parts of the grammar, and much of the vocabulary of the macrofamily’s most recent common ancestor, the so-called Proto-Dené–Caucasian language.” ref

Potential problems include:

• “The somewhat heavy reliance on the reconstruction of Proto-(North-)Caucasian by Starostin and Nikolayev. This reconstruction contains much uncertainty due to the extreme complexity of the sound systems of the Caucasian languages; the sound correspondences between these languages are difficult to trace.
• The use of the reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan by Peiros and Starostin, parts of which have been criticized on various grounds, although Starostin himself has proposed a few revisions. All reconstructions of Proto-Sino-Tibetan suffer from the facts that many languages of the huge Sino-Tibetan family are underresearched and that the shape of the Sino-Tibetan tree is poorly known and partly controversial.
• The use of Starostin’s reconstruction of Proto-Yeniseian rather than the competing one by Vajda or that by Werner.
• The use of Bengtson’s reconstruction of Proto-/Pre-Basque rather than Trask’s.
• The slow progress in the reconstruction of Proto-Na-Dené, so that Haida and Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit have so far mostly been considered separately.” ref

Shared pronominal morphemes

“Several roots can be reconstructed for the 1st and 2nd person singular pronouns. This may indicate that there were pronouns with irregular declension (suppletion) in Proto-Dené–Caucasian, like “I” vs “me” throughout Indo-European. In the presumed daughter languages some of the roots are often affixes (such as verb prefixes or possessive noun prefixes) instead of independent pronouns. The Algic, Salishan, Wakashan, and Sumerian comparisons should be regarded as especially tentative because regular sound correspondences between these families and the more often accepted Dené–Caucasian families have not yet been reconstructed. To a lesser degree, this also holds for the Na-Dené comparisons, where only a few sound correspondences have yet been published.” ref

Shared noun class pre- and infixes

“Noun classification occurs in the North Caucasian languages, Burushaski, Yeniseian, and the Na-Dené languages. In Basque and Sino-Tibetan, only fossilized vestiges of the prefixes remain. One of the prefixes, */s/-, seems to be abundant in Haida, though again fossilized.” ref

Verb morphology

“In general, many Dené–Caucasian languages (and Sumerian) have polysynthetic verbs with several prefixes in front of the verb stem, but usually few or no suffixes. (The big exceptions are East Caucasian, where there is usually only one prefix and many suffixes, the similarly suffixing Haida, and Sino-Tibetan, for which little morphology can so far be reconstructed at all; Classical Tibetan with its comparatively rich morphology has at most two prefixes and one suffix. In Burushaski, the number of suffixes can surpass the rather large number of prefixes.)” ref

Bengtson (2008) suggests correspondences between some of these prefixes (sometimes suffixes) and between their positions.

“For example, a preverb /t/- occurs in Yeniseian languages and appears in position −3 (Ket) or −4 (Kott) in the verb template (where the verb stem is in position 0, suffix positions get positive numbers, and prefix positions negative numbers). In Burushaski, a fossilized preverb /d/- appears in position −3. In Basque, an element d- appears in position −3 of auxiliary verbs in the present tense unless a first or second person absolutive agreement marker occupies that position instead. The Na-Dené languages have a “classifier” /d/- (Haida, Tlingit, Eyak) or */də/- (Proto-Athabaskan) that is either fossilized or has a vaguely transitive function (reflexive in Tlingit) and appears in position −3 in Haida. In Sino-Tibetan, Classical Tibetan has a “directive” prefix /d/-, and Nung has a causative prefix /d/- (positions do not apply because Sino-Tibetan verbs have at most two prefixes depending on the language).” ref

“A past tense marker /n/ is found in Basque, Caucasian, Burushaski, Yeniseian, and Na-Dené (Haida, Tlingit, and Athabaskan); in all of these except Yeniseian, it is a suffix or circumfix, which is noteworthy in these (with the exception of East Caucasian and Haida) suffix-poor language families. Another prefix /b/ is found in some Sino-Tibetan languages; in Classical Tibetan it marks the past tense and precedes other prefixes (if any). It may correspond to the Tlingit perfect prefix wu-/woo- /wʊ, wu/, which occurs in position −2, and the fossilized Haida wu-/w- /wu, w/ which occurs in verbs with “resultative/perfect” meanings.” ref

“There are also some commonalities in the sequential ordering of verbal affixes: typically the transitive/causative *s- is directly before the verb stem (−1), a pronominal agent or patient in the next position (−2). If both subject/agent and object/patient are referenced in the same verbal chain, the object typically precedes the subject (OSV or OVS, where V is the verb stem): cf. Basque, West Caucasian [see table above], Burushaski, Yeniseian, Na-Dené, Sumerian templates […]. [Footnote: “Alone in N[a]-D[ene] Eyak allows for subjects and objects in a suffix position.”] In Yeniseian (position −5) […] and Na-Dene (position −5) […] noun stems or (secondary) verb stems can be incorporated into the verbal chain.” ref 

“The mentioned “transitive/causative” */s/- is found in Haida, Tlingit, Sino-Tibetan, Burushaski, possibly Yeniseian (“an ’empty’ morpheme occupying the position of object in intransitive verbs with an animate subject”; Bengtson 2008:107) and maybe in Basque. A causative suffix *-/s/ is found in many Nostratic languages, too, but its occurrence as a prefix and its position in the prefix chain may nevertheless be innovations of Dené–Caucasian.” ref

Family tree proposals

Starostin’s theory

“The Dené–Caucasian family tree and approximate divergence dates (estimated by modified glottochronology) proposed by S. A. Starostin and his colleagues from the Tower of Babel project:

1. Dené–Caucasian languages [8,700 BCE or 10,720 years ago]

1.1. Na-Dené languages (Athabascan–Eyak–Tlingit)

1.2. Sino-Vasconic languages [7,900 BCE or 9,920 years ago]

1.2.1. Vasconic (see below)

1.2.2. Sino-Caucasian languages [6,200 BCE or 8,220 years ago]

1.2.2.1. Burushaski

1.2.2.2. Caucaso-Sino-Yeniseian [5,900 BCE or 7,920 years ago]

1.2.2.2.1. North Caucasian languages

1.2.2.2.2. Sino-Yeniseian [5,100 BCE or 7,120 years ago]

1.2.2.2.2.1. Yeniseian languages

1.2.2.2.2.2. Sino-Tibetan languages” ref

Bengtson’s theory

“John D. Bengtson groups Basque, Caucasian, and Burushaski together in a Macro-Caucasian (earlier Vasco-Caucasian) family (see the section on Macro-Caucasian below). According to him, it is as yet premature to propose other nodes or subgroupings, but he notes that Sumerian seems to share the same number of isoglosses with the (geographically) western branches as with the eastern ones:

1. Dené–Caucasian

1.1. The Macro-Caucasian family

1.1.1. Basque

1.1.2. North Caucasian

1.1.3. Burushaski

1.2. Sumerian

1.3. Sino-Tibetan

1.4. Yeniseian

1.5. Na-Dené” ref

Proposed subbranches

Macro-Caucasian

“John Bengtson (2008) proposes that, within Dené–Caucasian, the Caucasian languages form a branch together with Basque and Burushaski, based on many shared word roots as well as shared grammar such as:

• the Caucasian plural/collective ending *-/rV/ of nouns, which is preserved in many modern Caucasian languages, as well as sometimes fossilized in singular nouns with collective meaning; one of the many Burushaski plural endings for class I and II (masculine and feminine) nouns is -/aro/.
• the consonant -/t/, which is inserted between the components of some Basque compound nouns and can be compared to the East Caucasian element -*/du/ which is inserted between the noun stem and the endings of cases other than the ergative.
• the presence of compound case endings (agglutinated from the suffixes of two different cases) in all three branches.” ref

“As Bengtson (2008) himself notes, an ergative ending -/s/, which may be compared to the ending that has an instrumental function in Basque, occurs in some Sino-Tibetan languages, and the Yeniseian language Ket has an instrumental/comitative in -/s/, -/as/, -/aɕ/. This suffix may therefore be shared among a larger group, possibly Dené–Caucasian as a whole. On the other hand, comparison of noun morphology among Dené–Caucasian families other than Basque, Burushaski, and Caucasian is usually not possible: little morphology can so far be reconstructed for Proto-Sino-Tibetan at all; “Yeniseian has case marking, but it seems to have little in common with the western DC families” except for the abovementioned suffix (Bengtson 2008:footnote 182, emphasis added); and Na-Dené languages usually express case relations as prefixes on the polysynthetic verb. It can therefore not be excluded that some or all of the noun morphology presented here was present in Proto-Dené–Caucasian and lost in Sino-Tibetan, Yeniseian, and Na-Dené; in this case, it cannot be considered evidence for the Macro-Caucasian hypothesis. That said, as mentioned above, Basque, Caucasian, and Burushaski also share words that do not occur in other families. A genitive suffix -/nV/ is also widespread among Nostratic languages.” ref

Karasuk

Main article: Karasuk languages

“George van Driem has proposed that the Yeniseian languages are the closest known relatives of Burushaski, based on a small number of similarities in grammar and lexicon. The Karasuk theory as proposed by van Driem does not address other language families that are hypothesized to belong to Dené–Caucasian, so whether the Karasuk hypothesis is compatible or not with the Macro-Caucasian hypothesis remains to be investigated.” ref 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Bronze Age Exotic Trade Routes Spread Quite Far as well as Spread Religious Ideas with Them

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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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

 Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Masseboth similar but much smaller than a European Menhir, dates to around 13,000-11,000 years ago in the Near East. Kurgan a burial mound over a timber burial chamber, dates to around 7,000/6,000 years ago. Dolmen a single-chamber ritual megalith, dates to around 7,000/6,000 years ago. Ziggurat a multi-platform temple around 4,900 years ago. Pyramid a multi-platform tomb, dates to around 4,700 years ago. #3 is a Step Pyramid (or proto pyramid) for the burial of Pharaoh Djoser it went through several revisions and redevelopments. First are three layers of Mastaba “house of eternity” a flat-roofed rectangular structure, then two step pyramid one on top the other, showing the evolution of ideas.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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7,500-4,750 years old Ritualistic Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine

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?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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

When the First Farmers Arrived in Europe, Inequality Evolved

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

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

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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Kura-Araxes Cultural 5,520 to 4,470 years old DNA traces to the Canaanites, Arabs, and Jews

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Pre-Columbian Red-Paint (red ochre) Maritime Archaic Culture 8,000-3,000 years ago

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Shamanism and the Peopling of the Americas: Pre-Paleoindians/Paleoamericans around 30,000 to 12,000 years ago and beyond.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“Several linguists and geneticists suggest that the Uralic languages are related to various Siberian languages and possibly also some languages of northern Native Americans. A proposed family is named Uralo-Siberian, it includes Uralic, Yukaghir, Eskimo–Aleut (Inuit), possibly Nivkh, and Chukotko-Kamchatkan. Haplogroup Q is found in nearly all Native Americans and nearly all of the Yeniseian Ket people (90%).” ref, ref

You can find some form of Shamanism, among Uralic, Transeurasian, Dené–Yeniseian, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and Eskaleut languages.

My speculations of shamanism are its dispersals, after 24,000 to 4,000 years ago, seem to center on Lake Baikal and related areas. To me, the hotspot of Shamanism goes from west of Lake Baikal in the “Altai Mountains” also encompassing “Lake Baikal” and includes the “Amur Region/Watershed” east of Lake Baikal as the main location Shamanism seems to have radiated out from. 

Shamanism Among the Peoples of the North: Uralic, Transeurasian, Dené–Yeniseian, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and Eskaleut languages

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Shamanistic and Animistic Cultures map by “The Shamanism Magazine” (http://SacredHoop.org)

https://sacredhoop.org/Free-Guide-To-Shamanism/Sacred-Hoop-Free-Guide-To-Shamanism.pdf

https://vebuka.com/print/171116090613-9bd8504b25af4f7e2fe52d3cfe620241/quotSACRED_HOOPquot_GUIDE_TO_SHAMANISM

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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4,320-3,820 years old “Shimao” (North China) site with Totemistic-Shamanistic Paganism and a Stepped Pyramid

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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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

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

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

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

White (light complexion skin) Bigotry and Sexism started 7,000 years ago?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“Jiroft culture” Mythic Ritualism 5,100 – 4,200 Years Ago and the History of Iran

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Minoan/Cretan (Keftiu) Civilization and Religion around 5,520 to 3,120 years ago

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Stonehenge: Paganistic Burial and Astrological Ritual Complex, England (5,100-3,600 years ago)

*Around 5,000 years ago Stonehenge (Britain):

Stonehenge: Paganistic Burial and Astrological Ritual Complex, England. 

Stonehenge evolved in several construction phases, 1 (5,100 years ago), 2 (5,000 years ago), 3 I (4,600 years ago), 3 II (4,600-4,400 years ago), 3 III (2400-4,280 years ago), 3 IV (4,280-3,930 years ago), & 3 V (3,930-3,600 years ago). Anatolian/Turkish-farmers built Britain’s famous Stonehenge, as well as current males of Britain, 60-65% have Turkish genetics. Almost as the same as in Ireland where 85 percent of Irish men are descended from farming people that arrived 6,000 years ago. At or around Stonehenge 5,000-4,400 years ago, there were two separate burial rites, either letting the birds feed on bodies or cremation. And a 4,000-year-old burial pit for elite contains 14 females and only 9 males, as well as a chieftain’s grave, held several items including the depicted 4,000-year-old dagger. And a 4,000-year-old child’s grave held the depicted Folkton drums. As well as items from 4,600-3,600 involved gold beads, necklaces, earrings, pendants, and other jewelry show sophisticated burial culture. ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, & ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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4,100-year-old beaker with medicinal & flowering plants in a Bell Beaker culture grave of a woman found in Scotland

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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4,250 to 3,400 Year old Stonehenge from Russia: Arkaim?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.

• By day the “Bible God” was in a cloud pillar.
• By night the “Bible God” was in a fire pillar.

Did a 4,520–4,420-year-old Volcano In Turkey Inspire the Bible God?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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

4,000-year-Old Dolmens in Israel: A Connected Dolmen Religious Phenomenon?

Now can you understand the connections better as they relate to this art I made? I think the first farmers 12,000 to 7,000 had female shamans and a female set of goddesses and men were clan leaders or something close to that then as they moved into Europe by around 7,000 they either invented the male god a high god like that the female goddesses already had. So then it was earth mother and sky father or sky father and mother and possibly animals as with totems relating to the sky gods or the gods were seen as having avatars like Hinduism or multiple gods and goddesses like a counsel that mirrors possible relations in the clan’s social order. Thus, they are simply reacting as above, so below. So to me, the Proto-Indo_Europiens got the bulk of their religion from the late farmers that already had male gods then the PE I believe blended the Siberian beliefs with the late farmers making the PE religions we know as paganism.

EARLY TRANSCAUCASIAN CULTURES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS: Unraveling Migration, Trade, and Assimilation

“Much of what happens in our modern world depends on how people define their identity (and their loyalties), how they adapt to local conditions, and how they interact economically, politically, and socially to create new impetus and opportunities for change. When people migrate, they affect the places to which they move, causing both the old and new populations to assimilate to one another to some degree. Sometimes, the migrants’ identity is retained; at other times it mostly disappears. Since the distribution of resources for subsistence and trade shapes this process, we must see culture change in a broad geographical context and in many cultural dimensions.” ref

“Archaeologists are interested in how these same factors determined the evolution of the ancient world and how insights from the modern world can solve ancient puzzles. One example using this framework concerns the spread of a series of cultures called Early Transcaucasian or ETC. Marked largely by distinctive pottery styles and associated artifacts, ETC cultural materials appeared across the Near East in the Late Chalcolithic and especially the Early Bronze Age (4th–3rd millennia BCE). At this time the world was erupting with new social and political realities: kings, cities, armies, bureaucrats, specialized and large-scale economic production, and increasingly formal systems of intra- and inter-regional trade. These changes were the impetus for new adaptations in pastoral nomads’, village farmers’, and artisans’ traditional lifestyles.” ref

“A number of theories have been proposed to explain the geographically wide distribution of ETC pottery over a period of almost 2,000 years. The earliest theory saw a single mass migration of small farmers out of the ETC homeland in the Transcaucasus, moving progressively southwest into modern Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel/Palestine, and southeast into western Iran. Others have emphasized the role of trade and emulation, in which ETC pottery and pottery styles passed along the same routes as metals, precious and semiprecious stones, and perhaps viticulture (the cultivation of grapes). None of these possibilities alone, however, is completely satisfactory for all cases.” ref

“Some archaeologists say that only cultures within the ETC homeland are truly Transcaucasian. Others, like us, see it as a broader phenomenon that requires explanation wherever it appears. Solving this problem requires learning how the bearers of various ETC cultures interacted and adapted to new contacts—whether peoples, trade goods, or pottery styles. Recent excavations and surveys have determined that ETC sites were small villages occupied by farmers and pastoral nomads, who were wedded to their particular pottery styles.” ref

“In the Transcaucasus, this indicates a persistent cultural tradition, while in the areas to which the pottery spread, it may indicate the migration of peoples who brought their pottery styles with them. In some localities outside of the Transcaucasus, this ETC ware became the dominant style. In other places, it existed alongside local pottery-making traditions. To further the discussion we focus here on the appearance of ETC artifacts in the hills and valleys of eastern Turkey (particularly the Muş province, the Malatya plain, and the ‘Amuq plain), central-western Iran (the Kangavar valley), and the Levant (the north Jordan valley). These are diverse ecological zones—some quite similar and others quite different from the original ETC homeland—and all are situated on traditional routes that connect regions. For each, we will describe the natural environment, the changing balance of preexisting local populations and potential immigrants over time, and the ETC pottery styles in each area. From this analysis, we will propose patterns of migration, trade, and assimilation, despite the problems faced in finding archaeological evidence of pastoral nomads, trans-humants (pastoralists with a settled home base who practice some agriculture), or very small farming communities.” ref

The Muş Province

“The Muş province lies west and northwest of Lake Van in highland eastern Turkey. The lowest elevation on the plain is 1,500 m above sea level, with mountains rising up to 2,900 m. Although it is a marginal zone for agriculture, with poor soils, bad drainage, and six feet of snow six months of the year, there are large areas of rich pasture for sheep and goat. It is also endowed with rich sources of fine tool-making obsidian (volcanic glass), providing opportunities for trade.” ref

“During the Late Chalcolithic, settlements were sparse and isolated in the middle and northern edges of the plain. The only new sites founded during the following Early Bronze Age I and IIA periods (EB 1/2A) were located in the hills on the routes toward the Transcaucasus, an ideal zone for pastoralism and gardening. During the subsequent Early Bronze Age IIB and III periods (EB 2B/3), the number of sites, including many on the plain, increased dramatically.” ref

“While the number of settlements increased, new pottery styles using Transcaucasian forms and techniques appeared in ş alongside preexisting local styles. Through time ceramics appeared that were admixtures of both pottery-making techniques. This seems to indicate ETC migration in the form of numerous separate migrations or ripples in streams of migration. The first ones, during the EB 1/2A, consisted mostly of pastoral nomads, while the latter ones, during the EB 2B/3, involved small groups of transhumant pastoralists mixing with the local population.” ref

The Malatya Plain

“The Malatya plain presents a contrasting picture. Approximately 900 m above sea level, its soils are rich for agriculture and horticulture, and it experiences much less snow during the winter. Malatya is also a transportation hub where routes from the east over the Taurus Mountains and along the Murat River intersect with those through passes from the west to the Anatolian plateau and those from the south along the Euphrates River.” ref

“Although comprehensive archaeological surveys have just begun and settlement patterns are not yet available, modern excavations at Arslantepe—the center of a late 4th millennium BCE state—have identified some of the earliest examples of ETC pottery to appear outside the high mountain areas. These finds seem to indicate the presence of traders, or perhaps pastoral nomads (rather than settlers), from the Transcaucasus. Later, toward the end of the 4th millennium, the number and percentage of ETC pottery types increase, and suggest the appearance of actual ETC settlements. After the collapse of Arslantepe (ca. 3000 BCE or 5,020 years ago), settlers with their largely ETC styled pottery occupied the settlement. Excavators recovered a tomb with sacrificed individuals and rich funerary goods from this period that contained both ETC wares and local Plain Simple Wares. Following this occupation, ancient residents built a small walled town with houses and pottery more typical of the pre-ETC period once again, a reestablishment of the earlier local culture as dominant.” ref

The ‘Amuq Valley

“The ‘Amuq valley sits between the Anatolian plateau to the north and the low plains of the Levant to the south, much closer to sea level than either Malatya or Muş. Snows are limited in winter, and its fertile soils are fed by many streams, rivers, and springs, providing rich agricultural and horticultural potential along with pasture land and mineral deposits in the surrounding foothills and mountains.” ref

“At the end of the Late Chalcolithic and the beginning of the Early Bronze Age the first ETC ceramics appear, followed by a dramatic increase during the EB 2B/3 of ETC wares alongside local wares. This increase in ETC ceramics corresponds with a dramatic shift in settlement from relatively large sites found in the valley’s center during the earlier period to a proliferation of small sites (1-2 ha) along its outskirts during the later period. Furthermore, at large sites (e.g. Tell Tayinat) excava-tors found a mixture of local wheel-made pottery and handmade ETC wares. In contrast, the smaller sites (e.g. Tabarat al-Akrad) yielded almost exclusively ETC ceramics.” ref

“This situation is similar to the Muş region and probably indicates multiple migrations—first, pastoralists and/or traders, followed by farmers establishing themselves on the outskirts of the indigenous settlement system. During the EB 2B/3 the local and “foreign” cultures assimilated to each other. Variations in the fabrics of the ceramics suggest that all were made locally, perhaps in households, following local forms and those from Elazıg.” ref

The Southern Levant

“The southern Levant provides an interesting contrast to the other regions and an environment completely different from the Transcaucasus. Ranging from 300 m above to 200 m below sea level, and with higher temperatures and lower precipitation, it is still marginal in some senses. However, sites are located on predominantly arable or irrigable land and, similar to the ‘Amuq, have high agricultural and horticultural potential.” ref

“Although ETC ceramics (the local variant is Khirbet Kerak ware) are found at 45 sites over substantial parts of the southern Levant, they are most intensely concentrated in the north Jordan and adjacent river valleys. ETC wares make a sudden appearance in the southern Levant around 2700 BCE at sites generally located in the lowlands on fertile soils with good access to water. Once again, larger sites (e.g. Khirbet Kerak or Megiddo) yielded a mixed assemblage of local pottery and ETC wares, while smaller (2 ha) sites (e.g. Beth Shean or Tell Yaqush) produced almost exclusively handmade, slipped, and heavily burnished ETC ceramics.” ref

“Variations in the ceramic fabrics again suggest that ETC wares are being locally made in the north Jordan valley at each site, mixing earlier local traditions with the intrusive Transcaucasian forms and techniques. Although some pottery appears to be inspired by local traditions, a number of forms are either unique or innovations from the ‘Amuq assemblage from the north. Some forms can even be traced back to eastern Anatolia.” ref

The Kangavar Valley

“The Kangavar valley in the central-western Zagros Mountains of Iran has a natural environment similar to Muş. Its small valley bottoms are surrounded by highlands where snow is deep in winter, herding is common, and large-scale agriculture is not possible. Like Malatya, Kangavar sits along a major trade route, the High Road, which later became part of the Great Silk Road to the East.” ref

“Unlike Muş however, the number of valley bottom settlements here declined dramatically during the Late Chalcolithic, including the abandonment of the largest site, Godin Tepe. At the same time, the number of cave sites, open-air sites, and graveyards unattached to settlements increased along the slopes. This pattern and the few pieces of ETC pottery found in these early slope sites suggest that ETC pastoral nomads arrived at this time. This was followed in the Early Bronze Age by the founding of many sites with exclusively ETC ceramics on the valley bottom (e.g. Karkhaneh). While local peoples may have continued to occupy smaller sites in the area, few of the abandoned Late Chalcolithic sites (e.g. Godin Tepe) were reoccupied by ETC immigrants.” ref

“At Godin Tepe, highly burnished, ETC black-black, handmade wares are found with no Late Chalcolithic local wares mixed in. The style of these ceramics, however, is unlike the pottery of eastern Turkey or much of the Transcaucasus at the time. Instead, it corresponds to material found on the eastern side of Lake Urmia from Yanik Tepe to Hamadan, suggesting that Godin Tepe was the southernmost extension of this ETC migration.” ref

Interpreting The Archaeological Record

“The ETC is clearly not a unitary phenomenon, but probably does represent the significant movement of peoples. Rather than a single outward migration it probably consisted of stream after stream of people moving out of the Transcaucasus and northeastern Turkey with their subsequent generations migrating again later. Sometimes they jumped over territory, sometimes they filled in that territory, sometimes they moved from one migration site along to others, and in some cases, probably returned to territories from which they came.” ref

“The pattern of ceramics linked with settlements is fairly consistent. First, a trickle of potsherds appeared at sites, then the number of sites with almost exclusively ETC ceramics increase, and finally, a mixture of ETC pottery types and local wares appear at large sites, while small sites with only ETC wares continue as scattered enclaves. Although the pattern is becoming clear, the social dynamics behind it remains to be explained. Why and how did this happen?” ref

“Charles Burney has suggested that population pressure “pushed” ETC migrants out of the Transcaucasus. Tony Sagona, in contrast, has argued that environmental degradation did the pushing. But could there have been other reasons, possibly “pulling” immigrants to the lands to which the ETC spread? One of us (Batiuk) has proposed such a model that focuses on the political and social opportunities that migration provides nascent leaders.” ref

“Based on archaeological evidence and ethnographic parallels, the Transcaucasian and eastern Anatolian cultures of the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age were tribally based societies with social systems that limited opportunities for individuals to achieve a higher social rank. In such egalitarian societies, decision-making by consensus is the norm. Opportunities for individuals to attain special influence tend to arise only when there is a need to coordinate essential tasks, such as raiding neighbors, distributing supplies, or settling disputes. At these times, individuals who are well placed in the local kinship system or who are well respected because of their personal achievements can sometimes parlay their designation as raid leader, supply coordinator, or dispute settler into a higher social rank. Ethnographers call these “Big Man” societies.” ref

“Another opportunity could arise when there was a need (or a desire) for a group to fission and establish new groups, for example, to better exploit the limited resources found in the natural environment. In such cases, some individuals might have realized that they could achieve a higher social rank if they led the way to a new location and founded a new community. In that way, these new lands could have “pulled” would-be leaders to migrate, whether or not they or their people were being “pushed” from their traditional lands. Given that the ETC migrations took place over 2,000 years, no one theory can explain all of the patterns we observe. Each theory or a combination of them may be true at certain times and places, and other processes still need to be identified.” ref

Identifying Patterns

“One pattern that seems clear is the early appearance of some ETC ceramics in the various areas we discuss. Who were the agents who brought these goods to these new places? Pastoral nomads, wandering far afield looking for water and pasture in often marginal agricultural lands, are a good possibility. Consistently on the move, such nomads carry their possessions with them over long distances and typically must interact with local farmers to obtain agricultural goods and pasture rights. In exchange for these goods, pastoral nomads often trade animal products (e.g. milk, wool, and meat), exotic goods (e.g. ceramics, metals, tool-making, and precious or semiprecious stones), and technical knowledge (e.g. grape growing and wine-making skills). Of these items, ETC nomads transporting pottery in significant amounts on donkey-back seems unlikely—horses only appear toward the end of the ETC period and camels long afterward. This might explain the relatively low number of ETC sherds found during the earliest phase of ETC migration and the evidence for local production of ETC pottery by these nomads or local potters attracted to its qualities.” ref

“Another pattern that seems clear is the subsequent appearance of sites, especially small villages, with exclusively ETC pottery in these areas that were previously dominated by local Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age cultures (and pottery styles). This suggests that the later spread of ETC material resulted from streams of immigrants who came as settlers (farmers or transhumants), not pastoral nomads. Whether or not they were pushed out of the ETC homelands, they apparently were pulled toward the places where earlier ETC pastoral nomads spread, particularly to those places where their native ETC subsistence practices were most easily adapted, and their skills could be of some value in local societies.” ref

“Uncovered pre-Kura-Araxes/Late Chalcolithic materials from the settlement of Boyuk Kesik and the kurgan necropolis of Soyuq Bulaq in northwestern Azerbaijan, and also excavated was a pre-Kura-Araxes kurgan, Kavtiskhevi, in central Georgia. Materials recovered from both these recent excavations can be related to remains from the metal-working Late Chalcolithic site of Leilatepe on the Karabakh steppe near Agdam and from the earliest level at the multi-period site of Berikldeebi in Kvemo Kartli. They reveal the presence of early 4th millennium raised burial mounds or kurgans in the southern Caucasus. Similarly, on the basis of her survey work in eastern Anatolia north of the Oriental Taurus mountains, The chafffaced wares collected at Hanago in the Sürmeli Plain and Astepe and Colpan in the eastern Lake Van district in northeastern Turkey with those found at the sites mentioned above and relates these to similar wares (Amuq E/F) found south of the Taurus Mountains in northern Mesopotamia.” ref

“The new high dating of the Maikop culture essentially signifies that there is no chronological hiatus separating the collapse of the Chalcolithic Balkan center of metallurgical production and the appearance of Maikop and the sudden explosion of Caucasian metallurgical production and use of arsenical copper/bronzes. More than forty calibrated radiocarbon dates on Maikop and related materials now support this high chronology; and the revised dating for the Maikop culture means that the earliest kurgans occur in the northwestern and southern Caucasus and precede by several centuries those of the Pit-Grave (Yamnaya) cultures of the western Eurasian steppes. The calibrated radiocarbon dates suggest that the Maikop ‘culture’ seems to have had a formative influence on steppe kurgan burial rituals and what now appears to be the later development of the Pit-Grave (Yamnaya) culture on the Eurasian steppes.” ref

“In other words, sometime around the middle of the 4th millennium BCE or slightly subsequent to the initial appearance of the Maikop culture of the NW Caucasus, settlements containing proto-Kura-Araxes or early Kura-Araxes materials first appear across a broad area that stretches from the Caspian littoral of the northeastern Caucasus in the north to the Erzurum region of the Anatolian Plateau in the west. For simplicity’s sake these roughly simultaneous developments across this broad area will be considered as representing the beginnings of the Early Bronze Age or the initial stages of development of the KuraAraxes/Early Transcaucasian culture.” ref

“The ‘homeland’ (itself a very problematic concept) of the Kura-Araxes culture-historical community is difficult to pinpoint precisely, a fact that may suggest that there is no single well-demarcated area of origin, but multiple interacting areas including northeastern Anatolia as far as the Erzurum area, the catchment area drained by the Upper Middle Kura and Araxes Rivers in Transcaucasia and the Caspian corridor and adjacent mountainous regions of northeastern Azerbaijan and southeastern Daghestan. While broadly (and somewhat imprecisely) defined, these regions constitute on present evidence the original core area out of which the Kura-Araxes ‘culture-historical community’ emerged.” ref

“Kura-Araxes materials found in other areas are primarily intrusive in the local sequences. Indeed, many, but not all, sites in the Malatya area along the Upper Euphrates drainage of eastern Anatolia (e.g., Norsun-tepe, Arslantepe) and western Iran (e.g., Yanik Tepe, Godin Tepe) exhibit— albeit with some overlap—a relatively sharp break in material remains, including new forms of architecture and domestic dwellings, and such changes support the interpretation of a subsequent spread or dispersal from this broadly defined core area in the north to the southwest and southeast. The archaeological record seems to document a movement of peoples north to south across a very extensive part of the Ancient Near East from the end of the 4th to the first half of the 3rd millennium BCE. Although migrations are notoriously difficult to document on archaeological evidence, these materials constitute one of the best examples of prehistoric movements of peoples available for the Early Bronze Age.” ref

Long ago I was told no one truly knows the evolution of religion, so not you or anyone will ever figure all of religion out, some things are beyond us… All I heard is no one had fully achieved, and I knew someone had to try as a gift to the world, and this does not mean it never will. Well like almost 15 years and guess what, you know what, ACTUALLY I can finally explain most of the basic outline of the evolution of religion in human prehistory to history!

Ust-Belaya

“The area in the vicinity of the settlement was populated during neolithic times, and a toggled harpoon head found in a grave indicated that there was a viable walrus hunting economy present in the area around 3000 BCE or 5,020 years ago. Furthermore, in the 1950s, the archeologist N.N. Dikov identified a burial site for a previously unknown people, who have been named after the village as the Ust-Belayan culture. Several Neolithic sites have been discovered in the vicinity of the village, on the banks of the river, and at the eastern end of the settlement, an ancient cemetery was partially destroyed during the construction of some warehouses. The settlement was established by villagers from Markovo towards the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th century, and is one of the oldest settlements in Chukotka. The village is located in the immediate area where famous Chukchi reindeer herder Tenevil lived and the main economic driver of the settlement is still traditional reindeer husbandry aided by the fact that more than two-thirds of the population of the village are of indigenous origin.” ref

Chukchi indigenous peoples of Siberia X DNA 

“Laminar armor of hardened leather enforced by wood and bones worn by the Chukchi indigenous people and Late lamellar armor worn by indigenous peoples of Siberia. The Chukchi wore laminar armor of hardened leather enforced by wood and bones. Kutkh (also Kutkha, Kootkha, Kutq Kutcha and other variants, Russian: Кутх), is a raven spirit traditionally revered by the Chukchi and other Siberian tribal groups. He is said to be very-powerful. Toko’yoto or the “Crab” was the Chukchi god of the sea. Nu’tenut is the chief god of the Chukchi people. The Chukchi people also respect reindeer in both mortal and holy life. They have several rituals involving them. The Supreme Deity of the Yukaghirs is called Pon, meaning “Something.” He is said to be very-powerful.” ref

(Somethingism: is an unspecified belief in an undetermined transcendent reality.)

“The ancient Egyptians saw mountains as a symbol of what is real, and it also relates to their cosmic mythology beliefs. The Egyptian necropolis was typically located in the mountainous desert and so the mountain symbol “Djew” was strongly associated with the concepts of the tomb and of the afterlife. To them, the “mountain symbol” was an image of the universal mountain whose two peaks were believed to hold up the sky. The god of mummification, an epithet for Anubis, “He who is upon his mountain.” Hathor, while in the form of a cow, emerges from the side of the western mountain.” ref

Mount Meru and Religion

“Mount Meru, also recognized as Sumeru, Sineru or Mahāmeru, is the sacred five-peaked mountain of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist cosmology and is considered to be the center of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes. Many famous Buddhist and similar Jain, as well as Hindu temples, have been built as symbolic representations of this mountain. The “Sumeru Throne” 須彌座 xūmízuò style base is a common feature of Chinese pagodas. The highest point (the finial bud) on the pyatthat, a Burmese-style multi-tiered roof, represents Mount Meru. Etymologically, the proper name of the mountain is Meru (Pāli Meru), to which is added the approbatory prefix su-, resulting in the meaning “excellent Meru” or “wonderful Meru”. Meru is also the name of the central bead in a mālā.” ref

“In other languages, Mount Meru is pronounced:

· Burmese: မြင်းမိုရ်တောင် ([mjɪ̰ɴ mò tàʊɰ̃])

· Chinese: 須彌山 (Xūmíshān)

· Japanese: 須弥山 (Shumisen)

· Khmer: ភ្នំព្រះសុមេរុ (Phnom Preah Someru) or (Phnom Preah Somae)

· Korean: 수미산 (Sumisan)

· Pāli: Sineru

· Tamil: மகா மேரு மலை

· Tibetan: ཪི་རྒྱལ་པོ་རི་རབ་

· Malayalam: മഹാമേരു പർവ്വതം

· Kannada: ಮೇರು ಪವ೯ತ

· Telugu: మేరు పర్వతం

· Thai: เขาพระสุเมรุ (Khao phra sumen)

· Vietnamese: Núi Tu-di

· Javanese: Semeru” ref

Geography

“The dimensions attributed to Mount Meru — which all refer to it as a part of the Cosmic Ocean, along with several other statements that describe it in geographically vague terms (e.g., “the Sun along with all the planets circle the mountain”) — make the determination of its location most difficult, according to most scholars. Some researchers identify Mount Meru or Sumeru with the Pamirs, northwest of Kashmir. The Suryasiddhanta mentions that Mt. Meru lies in the middle of the Earth (“bhuva-madhya”) in the land of the Jambunad (Jampudvīpa). Narapatijayacharyasvarodaya, a ninth-century text, based on mostly unpublished texts of Yāmal Tantr, mentions: “Sumeruḥ Prithvī-madhye shrūyate drishyate na tu” (Su-meru is heard to be in the middle of the Earth, but is not seen there). Several versions of cosmology can be found in existing Hindu texts. In one of them, cosmologically, the Meru mountain was also described as being surrounded by Mandrachala Mountain to the east, Suparshva Mountain to the west, Kumuda Mountain to the north, and Kailasa to the south.” ref

In Buddhism

“According to Buddhist cosmology, Mount Meru (or Sumeru) is at the center of the world, and Jambūdvīpa is south of it. It is 80,000 yojanas wide and 80,000 yojanas high according to the Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam and 84,000 yojanas high according to the Long Āgama Sutra. Trāyastriṃśa is on its peak, where Śakra resides. The Sun and the Moon revolve around Mount Meru, and as the Sun passes behind it, it becomes nighttime. The mountain has four faces — each one made of a different material; the northern face is made of gold, the eastern one is made of crystal, the southern one is made of lapis lazuli, and the western one is made of ruby. In Vajrayāna, maṇḍala offerings often include Mount Meru, as they in part represent the entire universe. It is also believed that Mount Meru is the home of the buddha Cakrasaṃvara.” ref

In Hinduism

“Mount Meru of Hindu traditions is described as 84,000 yojanas high, about 1,082,000 km (672,000 mi), which would be 85 times the Earth’s diameter. The Sun, along with all the planets in the Solar System, revolve around Mt. Meru as one unit. One yojana can be taken to mean about 11.5 km (9 miles), though its magnitude seems to differ over time periods — e.g., the Earth’s circumference is 3,200 yojanas according to Varahamihira and slightly less so in the Aryabhatiya, but is said to be 5,026.5 yojanas in the Suryasiddhānta. The Matsya Purana and the Bhagvata Purana, along with some other Hindu texts, consistently give the height of 84,000 yojanas to Mount Meru, which translates into 672,000 miles or 1,082,000 kilometers.” ref

“Mount Meru was said to be the residence of King Padamja Brahma in antiquity. According to Charles Allen, Mount Kailash is identified with Mount Meru. One description in the Vishnu Purana of the mountain states that its four faces are made of crystal, ruby, gold, and lapis lazuli. It is a pillar of the world and is located at the heart of six mountain ranges symbolizing a lotus.” ref

In Jainism

“According to Jain cosmology, Mount Meru (or Sumeru) is at the center of the world surrounded by Jambūdvīpa, in form of a circle forming a diameter of 100,000 yojans. There are two sets of sun, moon, and stars revolving around Mount Meru; while one set works, the other set rests behind Mount Meru. The 24th and last Tirthankara, Lord Mahāvīra, was taken to the summit of Meru by Indra shortly after his birth, after putting his mother Queen Trishala into deep slumber. There, he was bathed and anointed with precious unctions. Indra and other Devas celebrated his birth.” ref

Javanese legends

“This mythical mountain of gods was mentioned in the Tantu Pagelaran, an Old Javanese manuscript written in the 15th-century Majapahit period. The manuscript describes the mythical origin of the island of Java, as well as the legendary movement of portions of Mount Meru to Java. The manuscript explains that Batara Guru (Shiva) ordered the gods Brahma and Vishnu to fill Java with human beings. However, at that time, Java island was floating freely on the ocean, always tumbling and shaking. To stop the island’s movement, the gods decided to nail it to the Earth by moving the part of Mahameru in Jambudvipa (India) and attaching it to Java. The resulting mountain is Mount Semeru, the tallest mountain on Java. Mount Semeru, a large active volcano on Java, is named after the mount.” ref

Architecture

“The five central towers of Angkor Wat, a Buddhist temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia, symbolize the peaks of Mount Meru. The concept of a holy mountain surrounded by various circles was incorporated into ancient Hindu temple architecture with a Shikhara (Śikhara) — a Sanskrit word translating literally to “mountain peak.” Early examples of this style can be found at the Harshat Mata Temple and Harshnath Temple from the 8th century CE in Rajasthan, Western India. This concept also continued outside India, such as in Bali, where temples feature Meru towers. In Buddhist temples, the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya is the earliest example of the 5th- to 6th-century depiction. Many other Buddhist temples took on this form, such as the Wat Arun in Thailand and the Hsinbyume Pagoda in Myanmar.” ref

Mongolian Totemism

“Totemism is the belief that each group or tribe is related to a totem, most often an animal. Wolf and deer are the most frequent totems. Genghis Khan‘s line is supposed to come from these two animals. The deer is mostly represented in the sculptures of Bronze Age, especially the monuments found in Northern country. The famous felt embroidery found in Noyon Uul’s tomb, dating from Huns, proves the religious symbolism of the worship of deer. The wolf is less commonly represented in prehistorical art, but regarding the wolf as a sacred creature is a custom that still exists today. It’s a good omen to meet a wolf, especially during a trip or when you’re searching lost cattle. Although today wolves can be killed to protect the cattle, killing a wolf has been considered as a taboo for a long time. The worship of bears was also very commun among some ethnic groups, especially for Eastern Siberia’s people, for whom the bear was the main totemic symbol. Old Mongolians are said to have worshiped bears: they used to fasten a picture of a bear’s head on the posts of their house and to dance around it.” ref

Mongolian Shamanism

“Mongolian shamanism (Mongolian: Бөө мөргөл — Böö mörgöl), more broadly called the Mongolian folk religion, or occasionally Tengerism, refers to the animistic and shamanic ethnic religion that has been practiced in Mongolia and its surrounding areas (including Buryatia and Inner Mongolia) at least since the age of recorded history. In the earliest known stages it was intricately tied to all other aspects of social life and to the tribal organization of Mongolian society. Along the way, it has become influenced by and mingled with Buddhism.” ref

“Yellow shamanism defines a distinct form of shamanism practiced in Mongolia and Siberia, the term yellow in “Yellow Shamanism” is derived from “Yellow Buddhist” more commonly known as Tibetan Buddhism, this style of Shamanism integrated elements of ritual practice and traditional Buddhist customs. The Gelukpa (or Geluk) school of Buddhism, otherwise known as “Yellow Hat” is one of four major schools (Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya) established by the early 1400s in Tibetan Buddhism. Similar to the other Buddhist schools, Geluk combined the philosophy and cosmology of Mahayana Buddhism and incorporated distinctive qualities from the Vajrayana teachings to develop and cultivate its own traditions. The term Geluk means, “Order of excellence or Virtuous order” in the Tibetan language, which reflects the belief in the institution of the Tulku (incarnate lama) unique only to Tibetan Buddhism. Additionally, the color yellow is a significant color in Tibetan Buddhism, as it represents the color closest to daylight and symbolizes the humility Gautam Buddha displayed in choosing a color previously worn by criminals.” ref

“Another distinctive quality of Tibetan Buddhism are the yellow pandita hats typically worn by monks. The term “yellow shamanism” also serves to distinguish it from a form of shamanism not influenced by Buddhism (according to its adherents), called black shamanism. Mongolian shamanism revolves around the worship of the “[Tngri]” (Ancestor spirits) and devotion to “Father sky” otherwise known as “[Tengri|Tenger]” or “[Qormusta Tengri]” in Mongolian. In the Mongolian folk religion, Genghis Khan is considered one of the embodiments, if not the main embodiment, of the Tenger spirit. The Mausoleum of Genghis Khan in Ordos City, in Inner Mongolia, is an important center of this worship tradition.” ref

“Mongolian shamanism is an all-encompassing system of belief that includes medicine, religion, a reverence of nature, and ancestor worship. Central to the system were the activities of male and female intercessors between the human world and the spirit world, shamans (böö) and shamanesses (udgan). They were not the only ones to communicate with the spirit world: nobles and clan leaders also performed spiritual functions, as did commoners, though the hierarchy of Mongolian clan-based society was reflected in the manner of worship as well.” ref

Divinities and their class divisions

“Klaus Hesse described the complex spiritual hierarchy in clan-based Mongolian society based on sources that go back to the 13th century. The highest group in the pantheon consisted of 99 tngri (55 of them benevolent or “white” and 44 terrifying or “black”), 77 natigai or “earth-mothers”, besides others. The tngri were called upon only by leaders and great shamans and were common to all the clans. After these, three groups of ancestral spirits dominated. The “Lord-Spirits” were the souls of clan leaders to whom any member of a clan could appeal for physical or spiritual help. The “Protector-Spirits” included the souls of great shamans (ĵigari) and shamanesses (abĵiya). The “Guardian-Spirits” were made up of the souls of smaller shamans (böö) and shamanesses (udugan) and were associated with a specific locality (including mountains, rivers, etc.) in the clan’s territory.” ref

“The difference between great, white and small, black (in shamans, tngri, etc.) was also formative in a class division of three further groups of spirits, made up of “spirits who were not introduced by shamanist rites into the communion of ancestral spirits” but who could nonetheless be called upon for help—they were called “‘the three accepting the supplications’ (jalbaril-un gurban)”. The whites were of the nobles of the clan, the blacks of the commoners, and a third category consisted of “the evil spirits of the slaves and non-human goblins”. White shamans could only venerate white spirits (and if they called upon black spirits they “lost their right in venerating and calling the white spirits”), black shamans only black spirits (and would be too terrified to call upon white spirits since the black spirits would punish them). Black or white was assigned to spirits according to social status, and to shamans “according to the capacity and assignment of their ancestral spirit or spirit of the shaman’s descent line.” ref

“Nationwide reverence of Genghis Khan had existed until the 1930s, centered on a shrine which preserved mystical relics of Genghis, that was located in the Ordos Loop of the region of Inner Mongolia, in China. The Japanese, during the occupation of China, tried to take possession of the relics in order to catalyze a pro-Japanese Mongol nationalism, but they failed. Within the Mongolian People’s Republic (1924–92) the Mongolian native religion was suppressed, and Genghis’ shrines destroyed. In Inner Mongolia, otherwise, the worship of the cultural hero persisted; the hereditary custodians of the shrines survived there, preserving ancient manuscripts of ritual texts, written partially in an unintelligible language called the “language of the gods”.” ref

“With the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese rallied Mongol nationalism to the new state and constructed the Shrine of Genghis Khan (or Shrine of the Lord, as it is named in Mongolian) in Ordos City, where they gathered the old sanctuary tents, confirmed the guardians of the groups in office, and subsidized annual sacrifices. The shrine in Ordos has since then become the focal point of a revival of Genghis Khan’s reverence throughout Inner Mongolia. The Han Chinese, the major ethnic group in Inner Mongolia, pay themselves homage to him as the spiritual foundation of the Yuan dynasty. Various other temples of Genghis Khan, or branches of the shrine in Ordos, have been established in Inner Mongolia and northern China.” ref

Ovoo

“Ovoos or aobaoes (Mongolian: овоо, Traditional Mongol: ᠥᠪᠥᠭᠭᠠ) are sacrificial altars of the shape of a mound that are traditionally used for worship in the indigenous religion of Mongols and related ethnic groups. Every ovoo is thought as the representation of a god. There are ovoos dedicated to heavenly gods, mountain gods, other gods of nature, and also to gods of human lineages and agglomerations. In Inner Mongolia, the aobaoes for the worship of ancestral gods can be private shrines of an extended family or kin (people sharing the same surname), otherwise, they are common to villages (dedicated to the god of a village), banners, or leagues. Sacrifices to the aobaoes are made offering slaughtered animals, joss sticks, and libations.” ref

Mongolia

“Various aspects of shamanism, including the tngri and their chief deity Qormusata Tngri, are described in the thirteenth-century The Secret History of the Mongols, the earliest historical source in Mongolian. Sources from that time period, though, do not present a complete or coherent system of beliefs and traditions. A much richer set of sources is found from the seventeenth century on; these present a Buddhist-influenced “yellow” shamanism but in the opinion of many scholars they indicate the continued tradition of an older shamanism.” ref

“Buddhism first entered Mongolia during the Yuan dynasty (thirteenth-fourteenth century) and was briefly established as a state religion. The cult of Genghis Khan, who had been accepted into the tngri, the highest pantheon of spirits in Mongolian shamanism, became annexed into Buddhist practice as well. Mongolia itself was at a political and developmental standstill until the sixteenth century, when after the conversion of Altan Khan Buddhism re-established itself. In 1691, after Outer Mongolia had been annexed by the Qing Dynasty, Buddhism became the dominant religion of the entire area and shamanism began incorporating Buddhist elements. Violent resistance in the eighteenth century by the hunting tribes of Northern Mongolia against the (Buddhist) ruling group, the Khalka Mongols, led to the foundation of black shamanism.” ref

“During the Soviet domination of the Mongolian People’s Republic, all varieties of shamanism were repressed; after 1991, when the era of Soviet influence was over, religion (including Buddhism and shamanism) made a comeback. Recent research by anthropologists has indicated that shamanism continues to be a part of Mongolian spiritual life; Ágnes Birtalan [hu], for instance, recorded a series of invocations and chants to the important deity Dayan Deerh in 2005 in Khövsgöl Province.” ref

“In June 2017 psychology professors Richard Noll and Leonard George conducted fieldwork among Mongol shamans and posted to YouTube seven short videos of a nocturnal summer solstice (Ulaan Tergel) “fire ritual” held near midnight some 20 km (12 mi) outside Ulaanbaatar. The event was organized by Jargalsaichan, the head of the Corporate Union of Mongolian Shamans, and was closed to tourists.” ref

Buryatia

“The territory of the Buryats, who live around Lake Baikal, was invaded by the Russian Empire in the seventeenth century, and came to accept Buddhism in the eighteenth century at the same time they were recognizing themselves as Mongol; to which extent Buryat shamanism mixed with Buddhism is a matter of contention among scholars. A nineteenth-century division between black and white shamanism, where black shamanism called on evil deities to bring people misfortune while white shamanism invoked good deities for happiness and prosperity, had completely changed by the twentieth century.” ref

“Today, black shamanism invokes traditional shamanic deities, whereas white shamanism invokes Buddhist deities and recites Buddhist incantations but wears black shamanist accouterments. White shamans worship Sagaan Ubgen and Burkhan Garbal (the “Ancestral Buddha”). The proliferation of Buryat shamans in the 1990 to 2001 period is analyzed as an aspect of historical and genetic “search for roots” among the marginalized Buryat peoples of Mongolia, Russia and China by Ippei Shimamura.” ref

Attributes of the shamans

“An important attribute for Mongolian shamans is shared with all other shamanisms of Inner Asia: the drum. Mongolian shaman drums may incorporate the shaman’s ongon or ancestral spirit, as in a drum described by Carole Pegg, where the drum handle represents that ongon. The drum’s skin was often made of horse skin, the drum itself standing for “the saddle animal on which the shaman rides or the mount that carries the invoked spirit to the shaman.” ref

List of movements

• Heaven’s Dagger
• Mongolian Shamans’ Association (Golomt Tuv)Circle of Tengerism (Mongolian shamanic association of America)
  Golomt Center for Shamanist Studies
• Samgaldai Center (Mongolian: Хаант Тэнгэрийн Самгалдай)
• List of Tengrist movements
• Sami drum
• Shamanism in Siberia
• Toli (shamanism)
• Tengrism ref

Religion in Mongolia

“Religion in Mongolia has been traditionally dominated by the schools of Mongolian Buddhism and by Mongolian shamanism, the ethnic religion of the Mongols. Historically, through their Mongol Empire the Mongols were exposed to the influences of Christianity (Nestorianism and Catholicism) and Islam, although these religions never came to dominate. During the communist period of the Mongolian People’s Republic (1924–1992) all religions were suppressed, but with the transition to the parliamentary republic in the 1990s there has been a general revival of faiths. Islam is another important religion of the Mongols. The Mogul empire which is the continuation of the Mongol Empire was created by Muslim Mongols that migrated to India. Buddhism was passed to Mongols by Chinese people.” ref

“According to the national census of 2020, 51.7% of the Mongolians identify as Buddhists, 40.6% as unaffiliated, 3.2% as Muslims (predominantly of Kazakh ethnicity), 2.5% as followers of the Mongol shamanic tradition, 1.3% as Christians, and 0.7% as followers of other religions.” ref

“Mongolian shamanism, more broadly called the Mongolian folk religion, or occasionally Tengerism, refers to the animistic and shamanic ethnic religion that has been practiced by the Mongols at least since the age of recorded history. The Mongolian name of the practice is Böö mörgöl (Бөө мөргөл). In the earliest known stages, it was tied to all other aspects of social life and to the tribal organization of Mongolian society. When the Mongols adopted Buddhism, Mongolian shamanism was influenced and merged with the new religion. During the communist republic of the twentieth century, it was heavily repressed, but after the fall of communism, it was revived. According to the 2020 census, 2.5% of the population of Mongolia, that is 82,422 people, declare that they are shamans.” ref

“Mongolian shamanism is centered on the worship of the tngri (gods) and the highest Tenger (“Heaven”, “God of Heaven”, or “God”), also called Qormusta Tengri. In the Mongolian folk religion, Genghis Khan is considered one of the embodiments, if not the main embodiment, of the supreme God. The Mausoleum of Genghis Khan in Ordos City, in Inner Mongolia, is an important center of this tradition.” ref

“Yellow shamanism is the term used to designate the particular version of Mongolian shamanism which adopts the expressive style of Buddhism. “Yellow” indicates Buddhism in Mongolian culture, since most Buddhists there belong to what is called the Gelug or “Yellow sect” of Tibetan Buddhism, whose members wear yellow hats while performing rituals. The term also serves to distinguish it from a form of shamanism not influenced by Buddhism, called black shamanism.” ref

Pre-Neolithic and Early Neolithic Steppe Route

“The overall migration diagram of these populations is still unclear. Then, these hunter-gatherers were slowly replaced around 9,000 BCE by new migrants from the Near East who had superior subsistence capacities due to their knowledge of primitive farming.” ref

“The dominant position occupied by nomadic communities in the ecological niche is a result of their nomadic military and technical superiority and is thought to have originated in the North Caucasian steppes as early as the 8th millennium BCE. The post glacial period was marked by a gradual rise of temperatures which peaked in the 5th and 4th millennia. These more hospitable conditions provided humans with grasslands and more stable food supplies and resulted in a sharp increase in their numbers. The regular collection of wild cereals led to the empirical breeding and selection of cereals (wheat, barley) that could be cultivated. It also led to the domestication of animals (donkeys, asses, horses, sheep, goats predecessors) to stockbreeding. Although the quality and quantity of artifacts varied from site to site, the general impression is that the development of craftsmanship contributed to more stable settlements and a more precise definition of routes connecting certain communities with each other. The Aurignacian culture spread through Siberia, and as a testimony of its presence, an Aurignacian venus was found near Irkutsk, on the Upper Angara river. Traces of the Magdalenian culture were also identified in Manchouria, Siberia, and Hopei. Pastoralism introduced a qualitative leap in social development and prepared the necessary base for the creation of ancient semi nomadic civilizations along the Eurasian Steppe Route.” ref

“The analysis of carbon and nitrogen isotopes of skeletal collagen of the same human remains helps to classify their dietary background and to characterize the economy of the steppe communities. Strontium isotope analysis helps identify the various faunal and human movements between various regions. Oxygen isotope analysis is applied to reconstruct drinking habits and climatic change impact on populations. The combination of these factors aims at reconstructing a more precise picture of the living conditions of the time. The analysis of 1,500 mitochondrial genome lineages helped dating the arrival in different regions of Europe of human hunter-gatherers who later developed a knowledge of farming. It was found that in central and south west Europe, these could mainly be traced to the Neolithic. In the central and eastern Mediterranean, the arrival of the first human migrants can be dated to the much earlier Late Glacial period.” ref

“The early acquaintance with a food-producing economy in the Ponto-Caspian Steppe is assigned to this period. The transition from a food-gathering to a food-producing economy through farming and stock-keeping, led to a profound social and cultural change. Hunting and river fishing have likely continued to play a significant role in subsistence, especially in the forest-steppe areas. This transition to animal husbandry played a critical role in the history of the rise of human society, and is a significant contributor to the “Neolithic revolution“. Simultaneously, a new way of life emerged with the construction of more comfortable settlements for plant and animal domestication, craft activities (resulting in the wide use of ornaments), and burial practices, including the erection of the first burial mounds in the Eneolithic period (the transition between Neolithic and the Bronze Age).” ref

“The Inner Eurasian steppe lands were occupied, possibly since the fourth millennium BCE, by nomadic communities practicing extensive forms of horse pastoralism, wandering from place to places. This ensured that their contacts and influence would extend over large areas. The earliest evidence for small horse riding comes from the Sredny Stog communities of east Ukraine and with south Russia the domestication of the Bactrian camel date to c. 4000 BCE or 6,020 years ago. This two humps heavy load carrier is one of the most adaptive animals in the world capable to withstand temperatures from 40 °C to -30 °C. On the East of Eurasia, agriculture was likely started by Indo-European communities (Tocharians) established in the Tarīm Basin (northwest China) around 4000 BCE or 6,020 years ago. On the Western part of Eurasia, the writing revolution, dated from the same epoch originated from accounting in a primitive way and developed with the Sumerian concern to leave messages for the afterlife. In Inner China which must then also be represented as half of the territory of the PRC i.e. excluding Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, and the Qinghai-Tibet plateau as the association of loosely connected “macro-regions”, there have been discoveries of tortoise-shell carvings (e.g. Jiahu symbols) dating back to c. 6200-6600 BCE or 8,220-8,620 years ago. For now, they qualify more as symbols rather than the evidence of systematic writing. Writing and accounting (calculus) have likely started independently on various areas of Eurasia (Mediterranean, Sumer, and Mesopotamia) but appears to have spread relatively fast alongside the Route.” ref

Bronze Age

“The transition period to the Bronze Age shows varying patterns in the different geographical regions of the steppe route, however, numerous craft activities involved the manufacture of ornaments, instrumental goods, and domestic commodities. As early as the 6-5th millennium BCE Vinča culture, situated in what is now Serbia, the Pontic-Caspian steppe can be traced as the homeland of copper production and then spread throughout the entire steppe zone over two millennia. At the beginning of the fourth millennium, copper technology was introduced in the Altai region by steppe herders. The Bronze Age was marked by an abrupt cooling of the climate, which at the turn of the third-second millennium BCE. gave way to a new temperature rise more favorable to farming and herding. The dual use of a prehistoric cavalry and metal weapons probably laid the framework of a much more militarized and possibly more hostile environment, triggering the migration of the most peaceful – or weakest – homo sapiens populations to more remote parts of the steppe route.” ref

“Advanced craftsmanship such as metal-smelting and pottery production (painted vessels and terracotta sculpture) are found side by side with large areas covered with wasters from the production of ornaments made of semi-precious stones: lapis-lazulis, turquoise, spinel, quartz. Economic prosperity led to an exceptional richness of artistic expression which was to be found in the smaller forms, particularly in painted ceramics, small carved objects, ornaments inspired by wildlife, and funerary gifts. It was also conducive to a more complex organization of society.” ref

“The first Bronze Age of Korea began with the expansion of the Seima-Turbino metallurgy phenomenon (1500–900 BCE). Schyto-Siberian Culture and the Lute-shaped Dagger Culture existed in Manchuria. Upper Xiajiadian culture formed and interacted with that of the Karasuk and early Scyto-Siberian periods in 1100–700 BCE. During this time, Karasuk-style bronzeware spread not only to the Upper Xiajadian, but also to North Korea, the Liaoning area, and the far eastern region of Russia (Primorisky). During this time, the Lute-shaped Dagger Culture was clearly present in Manchuria and the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. The trades on the Steppe Routes show that the East Asian silk did not only come from China.” ref

“The Neolithic remains (4000-3000 BCE or 6,020-5,020 years ago) of the Goguryeo kingdom (Korea) showed earthenware with silkworm and mulberry leaf patterns and small carvings in rock of silkworms. The records of the Three Kingdoms noted that both confederacies of Byeonhan and Jinhan (later known as Silla and Gaya kingdoms in Korea), “had many mulberry trees and silkworms”, indicating that the silk produced on the Korean Peninsula was known in other countries from ancient times. In the late 3rd millennium BCE, military-oriented stockbreeding communities settled in Eastern Central Asia (Sayan-Altai, Mongolia). The Nephrite (jade) Road materialized, the minerals were quarried in Khotan and Yarkand and sold to China. Communities were even more mobile on the Steppe route with the introduction of carts.” ref

“The end of the Bronze Age on the Eurasian Steppe route shows that production and a new economic organization led to the accumulation of riches by a number of families and new economic interactions. Their male leaders then became warlords clashing and striking alliances for the control of the best pastures or migrating to start what may become civilizations.” ref

Dynastic ages

“By 2000 BCE or 4,020 years ago the network of Steppe Routes exchanges started to transition to the Silk Road. By the middle of this millennium, the “steppe route” cultures were well established. Slow-moving groups following a heavy chariot with four plain wheels led by hunters and fishermen, who practiced some form of productive economy, were gradually replaced or enslaved by herdsmen from the steppes and semi-deserts. Nomads rode small horses and knew how to fight from the horseback primarily with a bow which was the distinctive weapon from the steppe and sometimes even with a sword or a saber when he was more affluent. These mobile, energetic, and resourceful communities using light war-chariots with wheels having a diameter up to one meter with ten spokes each drawn by horses, spread in many different directions. This evolution strengthened an already robust system of vigorous and widespread exchanges within and sometimes beyond the Inner Eurasian steppes. And these early systems of exchange depended largely on the role of intertwined pastoralist communities. This resulted in a complex pattern of migratory movements, transformations, and cultural interactions alongside the steppe route. In the 2nd millennium BCE, there were major shifts of population over a wide area of Central Asia, and the whole picture of ethnocultural development changed. According to the writings of Roman historian Dio Cassius, Romans saw high-quality silk for the first time in 53 BCE, in the form of Parthian banners unfurled before the Roman defeat at the battle of Carrhae.” ref

“Various artifacts, including glassware, excavated from tombs in Silla were similar to those found in the Mediterranean part of the Roman Empire showing that exchange did take place between the two extremities of the Steppe road. It was estimated that the travel time for commercial goods from Constantinople (Istanbul) in Turkey to reach Gyeongju in Korea would not exceed six months. this Roman glass and artifacts were passed through Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and through Manchuria to Gyeongju. The trades on the Steppe Routes show that Trade through Steppe Routes still active in 600 CE. The inter-relation of China with the steppe route resulted in the brilliant progress of the Chinese civilization in the Yin (Shang 商) dynasty on the appearance of three major innovations most probably imported from the Eurasian steppe western communities: wheeled transport, the horse, and metallurgy. The common references which had been traveling alongside the Steppe Route can be traced from the Mediterranean to the Korean Peninsula in similar techniques, styles, cultures, and religions, and even disease patterns.” ref

History of the eastern steppe

“The eastern third of the Eurasian Steppe, that is, the grasslands of Mongolia and northern China. It is a companion to History of the central steppe and History of the western steppe. Most of its recorded history deals with conflicts between the Chinese and the steppe nomads. Most of the sources are Chinese. The area is bounded on the north by the forests of Siberia, on the east by mountains along the Pacific coast, on the southeast by a small area of agricultural China, on the south by the Tibetan plateau, and on the west by the mountains along the former Sino-Soviet border. Between these mountains and Siberia the so-called Dzungarian Gate opens out onto the vast Kazakh steppe to the west.” ref

“The area has three parts: Manchuria, Mongolia, and Dzungaria. The core of the area is Mongolia, not only the Outer Mongolia that we see on maps but also Inner Mongolia and much of Gansu which are now part of China. The Gobi Desert or semi-desert separates Outer and Inner Mongolia. The best grazing lands are in the north around such places as the Orkhon River and Onon Rivers. To the east the steppe extends into “Manchuria” but does not reach the coast because of mountains and moisture from the Pacific. The Manchurian steppe merges northward to a deciduous forest-steppe and then the coniferous forest of Siberia. To the south it merges into agricultural China. In the west Dzungaria or northern Xinjiang is a westward extension of Mongolia. To the west of that the Dzungarian Gate leads to the extensive steppes of Kazakhstan, particularly the region of Jetysu.” ref

“In the southeast is the agricultural area of the North China Plain, roughly around Beijing and southward. West of that are the mountains of Shanxi (the name means “western mountains”). West of the mountains is the Ordos Loop of the Yellow River. On the southern side of the Ordos country is the Wei River valley which was long a center of Chinese civilization. The northern Ordos region is semi-desert and part of Inner Mongolia. The area was often disputed between agricultural China and the steppe nomads. West of that is the long and narrow Gansu Corridor. It is bounded on the south by the high and desolate Tibetan plateau and on the north by the grasslands of Mongolia. Along it is a chain of oases which form a natural caravan route from China westward. At the west end of the Gansu corridor is the oval Tarim Basin with its central desert and ring of oases around the edges. The Tarim is desert rather than steppe but interacted with the steppe in various ways. At the west end of the Tarim Basin passes lead over the mountains south to India and west to central Asia, Persia, and Europe. The Gansu-Tarim route was the main axis of the Silk Road that connected China with the rest of the world. When Chinese dynasties were strong they would often extend a finger of power along the Gansu corridor into the Tarim Basin. When the nomads were strong they would try to control, tax, or loot the Gansu-Tarim region.” ref

“On the northern edge, we might note the forest-steppe of north Manchuria and west of that the thinly-populated mountains of Transbaikalia. Around Lake Baikal the forest and steppe peoples have tended to blend, producing the modern Buryats. West of that is the Altai-Sayan region noted for its metalwork, especially the Minusinsk Basin.” ref

Historical outline

“A note on ethnonyms: Most of steppe history consists of statements like “in a certain year people A replaced people B.” These “peoples” are usually some dynasty, clan, or tribe that gained control over its neighbors and became militarily or politically significant. Borders were ill-defined and fluctuated, as did the ruler’s power. Daily life went on without much regard to whoever was in power. “Replacement” usually means a mere change of ruling group, but sometimes involved a genuine folk migration or change in language or religion. Since historical records depend on scattered reports from neighboring literate societies, there is substantial uncertainty, especially in the early period.” ref

Early period

“Civilization emerged in north China in the second millennium BC. At this time the Tarim Basin was inhabited by people of European appearance who probably spoke an Indo-European language (Tocharian). They may have introduced the chariot and bronze-working into China. The later Yuezhi in the Gansu corridor may have also been Tocharian. The origin of steppe pastoral nomadism is not well understood. Mounted archery began in the west and reached east Asia some time before 307 BC. The steppes were inhabited by various disunited tribes that the Chinese called Rong (west), Beidi (north), Donghu (east), and other names.” ref

Han and Xiongnu (206 BC-220 CE)

“In 221 BC China was unified by the Qin dynasty and after a brief civil war, more permanently by the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). About 209 BC the steppe tribes were united by the Xiongnu. The two unifications were connected in that the nomads had to unite to protect themselves from the now-powerful Chinese state and the Xiongnu ruler could strengthen himself with Chinese tribute. In the east, the Xiongnu conquered the Donghu in Manchuria, and in the west they drove the Wusun and Yuezhi westward. The Wusun soon disappeared, but the Yuezhi later had a great career as the Kushans of Afghanistan. In China, after about 75 years of internal consolidation and external tribute, Emperor Wu of Han adopted a forward policy. Zhang Qian went west (138-125 BC) and returned with the first good reports of the Western Regions. During the Han-Xiongnu Wars the southern Xiongnu in Inner Mongolia were subjugated and the northern Xiongnu were driven to northern Mongolia where they were broken up around 89 AD. The Han gained control of the Gansu Corridor and the Tarim Basin with some influence westward. This opened the Silk Road and led to the appearance of Chinese silk in the Roman Empire. As the Han declined the Tarim Basin experienced complex shifts of power between the Chinese, Xiongnu remnants, and local rulers.” ref

Xianbei, Rouran and Turk (220–840)

· 220–589: China disunited: From the fall of the Han until the foundation of the Sui dynasty north China was usually ruled by short-lived dynasties of steppe origin. During this period Buddhism spread from northern India north to the Tarim Basin and east along the Gansu corridor to China.” ref

· 93–234: Xianbei: The Mongolic Xianbei (former Donghu) spread from Manchuria and ruled the steppes as the Xianbei state. They were defeated by the short-lived Cao Wei dynasty which had some control over Gansu.” ref

· 402–552: Rouran: A branch of the Xianbei reunited Mongolia as the Rouran Khaganate. The Rouran were the first to use the title Khagan or Khan.

· 589–907: China united: China was reunited by the short-lived Sui dynasty followed by the longer-lived Tang dynasty (618–907) which regained the Tarim Basin, entered the Pamirs, and fought the expanding Muslims at the Battle of Talas in 751.” ref

· 552–744:Turkic Khaganate: The Gokturks lived in the Altai region, engaged in metalwork, and were subjects of the Rouran. They were the first ruling group who were clearly Turkic (Orkhon Inscriptions). In 552 they overthrew the Rouran and established the First Turkic Khaganate which extended far to the west. After about 25 years the western half broke off and we speak of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate. This lasted from 581 to 630, was conquered by the Tang (630–682), and was restored (682–744).” ref

· 744–840 Uighurs: These Turkic people lived around Lake Baikal and were probably descended from the Tiele and earlier Dingling. They founded the Uyghur Khaganate and were much influenced by Sogdian merchants from central Asia. After their defeat, many fled to the Tarim Basin, contributing to the Islamicisation and Turkicisation of Xinjiang. In the twentieth century their name was given to the Turkic inhabitants of the Tarim Basin.” ref

· 840-?: Kirghiz: The Yenisei Kirghiz came from the Altai region, overthrew the Uighurs with Chinese help, but never formed a great empire.” ref

Mongols and Manchus (907–1912)

· 907–1125 Kitans: The Mongolic Kitans came out of central Manchuria and ruled Manchuria, Mongolia, and north China as the Liao dynasty. After their defeat, remnants fled west and formed the Karakitai empire in central Asia.” ref

· 1125–1234: Jurchens: The Jurchens were a Tungusic forest people in north Manchuria. They overthrew the Kitans and ruled Manchuria and north China as the Jin dynasty. Mongolia was independent and south China remained under the Song dynasty.” ref

· 982–1227: Tanguts: In Kitan and Jerchen times, the Tibetan Tanguts controlled the Gansu corridor as the Western Xia.” ref

· 1206–1368 Mongols: In 1206, Mongolia was united by Genghis Khan who captured north China and most of central Asia. His sons and grandsons took Manchuria, south China, Persia, and Russia forming the Mongol Empire. It split into four parts and China-based Mongols ruled China, Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet as the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368). Xinjiang was ruled from central Asia by the Chagatai Khanate.” ref

· 1368–1644 Ming China: The nativist Ming dynasty drove out the Mongols and ruled China, but not Manchuria, Mongolia, or Tibet. The Mongols retreated to their homeland and formed the so-called Northern Yuan dynasty which was rather weak.” ref

· 1644–1912 Manchu China: A group of Jurchens took the name Manchu and conquered China, forming the long-lived Qing dynasty. Its westward expansion is noted under Dzungars below.” ref

· 1582–present: Russia: From 1582 Russian adventurers made themselves masters of the Siberian forests. The Manchurian border was defined in 1689 and the Mongolian in 1727.” ref

· 1620–1759 Dzungars: Around 1620 the western Mongols established the Dzungar Khanate in Dzungaria which was the last of the steppe empires. In 1696 they were driven out of Mongolia which fell to the Chinese. In 1720 they were driven out of Tibet which became a Chinese protectorate. In 1759 Dzungaria was conquered by the Chinese who then moved south to the Tarim Basin, thereby completing the current western border of China. Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin were combined for the first time as the province of Xinjiang.” ref

Baltic states

“The Baltic states (Estonian: Balti riigid, Baltimaad; Latvian: Baltijas valstis; Lithuanian: Baltijos valstybės), also known as the Baltic countries, Baltic republics, Baltic nations, or simply the Baltics, is a geopolitical term, typically used to group the three sovereign states on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The term is not used in the context of cultural areas, national identity, or language, because while the majority of people in Latvia and Lithuania are Baltic people, the majority in Estonia are Finnic. The three countries do not form an official union, but engage in intergovernmental and parliamentary cooperation. The most important areas of cooperation among the three countries are foreign and security policy, defense, energy, and transportation.” ref

“All three countries are members of NATO, the eurozone, the OECD, and the European Union. Estonia is also a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. All three are classified as high-income economies by the World Bank and maintain a very high Human Development Index.” ref

“The term Baltic stems from the name of the Baltic Sea – a hydronym dating back to the 3rd century B.C. (Erastothenes mentioned Baltia in Ancient Greek) and earlier. Although there are several theories about its origin, most ultimately trace it to the Indo-European root *bhel meaning ‘white, fair’. This meaning is retained in modern Baltic languages, where baltas in Lithuanian and balts in Latvian mean ‘white’.” ref

“Since the Middle Ages, the Baltic Sea has appeared on maps in Germanic languages as the equivalent of ‘East Sea’: German: Ostsee, Danish: Østersøen, Dutch: Oostzee, Swedish: Östersjön, etc. Indeed, the Baltic Sea lies mostly to the east of Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The term was also used historically to refer to Baltic Dominions of the Swedish Empire (Swedish: Östersjöprovinserna) and, subsequently, the Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire (Russian: Остзейские губернии, romanized: Ostzejskie gubernii). Terms related to modern name Baltic appear in ancient texts, but had fallen into disuse until reappearing as the adjective Baltisch in German, from which it was adopted in other languages. During the 19th century, Baltic started to supersede Ostsee as the name for the region. Officially, its Russian equivalent Прибалтийский (Pribaltiyskiy) was first used in 1859. This change was a result of the Baltic German elite adopting terms derived from Baltisch to refer to themselves.” ref

“The term Baltic states was, until the early 20th century, used in the context of countries neighboring the Baltic Sea: Sweden and Denmark, sometimes also Germany and the Russian Empire. With the advent of Foreningen Norden (the Nordic Associations), the term was no longer used for Sweden and Denmark. After World War I, the new sovereign states that emerged on the east coast of the Baltic Sea – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland – became known as the Baltic states. After the First World War the term “Baltic states” came to refer to countries by the Baltic Sea that had gained independence from the Russian Empire. The term includes Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and originally also included Finland, which later became grouped among the Nordic countries.” ref

“The areas of the Baltic states have seen different regional and imperial affiliations during their existence. They were first included under the same political entity when the Russian Empire expanded in the 18th century. The territories of Estonia and Latvia were joined into the Russian Empire at the end of the Great Northern War in 1721, while the territory of Lithuania came under the Russian rule after the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. The territories of the Baltic states were ruled by the Russian Empire until the end of the World War I when Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania gained their sovereignty. They remained independent until the occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union and briefly, Nazi Germany during World War II before the Soviets regained control of the Baltic states. Soviet rule ended when the three countries declared the occupation illegal and culminated with the restoration of independence to their pre-war status in 1990–1991 when the communist rule collapsed in Eastern Europe.” ref

11,600-year-old statue unearthed in Siberia may reveal ancient views of taboos and demons

“In 1894, gold prospectors digging up a peat bog near the Russian city of Yekaterinburg unearthed something bizarre: a carved wooden idol 5 meters long. Carefully smoothed into a plank, the piece was covered front and back with recognizable human faces and hands, along with zigzag lines and other mysterious details. It also had a recognizably human head, with its mouth open in an “o.” For more than a century, the statue was displayed as a curiosity in a Yekaterinburg museum, assumed to be at most a few thousand years old.” ref

“The journal Antiquity argues that the statue was crafted from a single larchwood log 11,600 years ago, making it one of the world’s oldest examples of monumental art. In age and appearance although not material, the authors write, the so-called Shigir Idol resembles the stone sculptures of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, which are often cited as the first monumental ritual structures. Both monuments represent a leap beyond the naturalistic images of the ice age.” ref

“The idol also shows that large-scale, complex art emerged in more than one place—and that it was the handiwork of hunter-gatherers and not, as was once assumed, of later farming societies. “We have to conclude hunter-gatherers had complex ritual and expression of ideas. Ritual doesn’t start with farming, but with hunter-gatherers,” says Thomas Terberger, an archaeologist at the University of Göttingen in Germany and a co-author of the paper.” ref

“The first radiocarbon dating of the idol, in the 1990s, yielded a startlingly early date: 9800 years old. But many scholars rejected the result as implausibly old. They argued that hunter-gatherers couldn’t have produced such a large sculpture, nor have had the complex symbolic imagination to decorate it.” ref

“New samples were taken in 2014. At a 2015 press conference in Yekaterinburg, team members announced (before the results were peer-reviewed), that these samples revealed even older dates, moving the age of the sculpture back 1500 years, to a time when the world was still transitioning out of the last ice age.” ref

“The new dates come from samples taken from the core of the log, uncontaminated by earlier efforts to conserve the wood. “The further you go inside, the older [the date] becomes—it’s very indicative some sort of preservative or glue was used” after discovery, says Olaf Jöris, an archaeologist at the Monrepos Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution in Neuwied, Germany, who wasn’t involved with the study. An antler carving discovered near the original find spot in the 19th century yielded similar dates, adding credibility to the result.” ref

“The date places the statue at a time when forests were spreading across a warmer, postglacial Eurasia. As the landscape changed, art did, too, perhaps as a way to help people come to grips with the unfamiliar forest environments they were navigating, says Peter Vang Petersen, an archaeologist at The National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen who was not involved with the study. “Figurative art in the Paleolithic and naturalistic animals painted in caves and carved in rock all stop at the end of the ice age. From then on, you have very stylized patterns that are hard to interpret,” Petersen says. “They’re still hunters, but they had another view of the world.” ref

“At a conference in Yekaterinburg last year, experts debated the meaning of the Shigir symbols, comparing them to other art from the period and more recent ethnographic examples. The most similar finds from that time are those at Göbekli, more than 2500 kilometers away, where hunter-gatherers gathered for rituals and carved similar stylized animals on stone pillars more than 5 meters high.” ref

“Terberger sees a more recent parallel: the totem poles of the Pacific Northwest, meant to honor gods or venerate ancestors. Co-author and archaeologist Mikhail Zhilin of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow says the idol might depict local forest spirits or demons. Petersen suggests that the zigzag carvings could be a kind of “Keep out!” sign intended to mark a dangerous or taboo space.” ref

“The society that carved the idol is starting to come out of the shadows. Equipped with pumps and special equipment, Zhilin has returned to Shigir and another bog site about 50 kilometers away to excavate finds buried several meters deep in the waterlogged soil. He and his team have found hundreds of small bone points and daggers from the same time period, along with elk antlers carved with animal faces.” ref

“They’ve also found ample evidence of prehistoric carpentry: stone adzes, other woodworking tools, and even part of a pine log smoothed with an adze. “They knew how to work wood perfectly,” Zhilin says. The idol is a reminder that stone wasn’t the only material people in the past used to make art and monuments—just the one most likely to survive, possibly skewing our understanding of prehistory. “Wood normally doesn’t last,” Terberger says. “I expect there were many more of these and they’re not preserved.” ref

Why did the ancient Egyptians use the pyramid shape?

“Egyptologists have developed many theories about why the tombs of the early pharaohs were built in the pyramid shape. Here are three different ideas:

1. The pyramid represented the first land to appear at the beginning of time- a hill called ‘Ben-Ben’.

2. The pyramid had sloping sides so that the dead pharaoh could symbolically climb to the sky and live forever.

3. The pyramid represented the rays of the sun.” ref

‘Pit and mound’

“The earliest royal burials in ancient Egypt were pits dug in the ground with mounds built over them. The mound was built roughly in the shape of a pyramid.” ref

Odinov culture mass burial

“‘Given that the discovery is 5,000 years old, you can imagine how important it is to understand the beliefs of the ancient people populating Siberia’, said Vyacheslav Molodin. Picture: Novosibirsk Institute of Archeology and Ethnography.  The discovery was made this summer inside the mass burial of people from Odinov culture in Vengerovsky district of Novosibirsk region, Western Siberia. The small – about a palm-size – statuette found in situ by the team of Novosibirsk Institute of Archeology and Ethnography had a mask depicting a bear made of a horse vertebrae.” ref

“‘Interestingly, our anthropologists and genetics found that the Odino people were Mongoloids, yet the face of the figurine had clear Caucasian features. We don’t see the gender of the figurine, which is unusual, and we can’t say if it was dressed’, said Vyacheslav Molodin. ‘This is without a doubt the find of the season, the find that any world museum from the Hermitage to the Louvre museum would love to exhibit’, said professor Vyacheslav Molodin, head of the Ust-Tartas 2 expedition. ‘We’ve never come across anything like this, despite our extensive knowledge of the Odinov culture’s burial rites.” ref

“‘The woman must have been an unusual person to have such a figurine ‘escoring’ her to the afterlife’, he said.
The woman was laid to rest on top of a man, lying on her front so that she faced him. The two of them were wrapped in a cocoon of birch bark, which was set on fire before the burial. The little statuette had a stripe going along its face, which symbolized a tattoo. It was placed on its tummy, and then its head was broken off and turned upside down so that it ‘looked up’ in a ritual yet unseen by Novosibirsk archeologists.” ref

“There was a deepening in the middle of the clay statuette, which had a bronze plate and also some organic substance inside it. Further chemical tests are needed to establish what exactly was placed inside that deepening. The bone mask made of a horse vertebrae that covered the statuette’s head depicted a bear’s muzzle, archeologists believe. Such as a stunning Bronze Age statuette with a tattooed face and a bone mask found in Siberia.” ref

“Two more people were buried underneath the man and the woman in the tiered grave, which is quite typical for the Odino culture. ‘Given that the discovery is 5,000 years old, you can imagine how important it is to understand the beliefs of the ancient people populating Siberia.” ref

“‘Interestingly, our anthropologists and genetics found that the Odino people were Mongoloids, yet the face of the figurine had clear Caucasian features. We don’t see the gender of the figurine, which is unusual, and we can’t say if it was dressed’, said Vyacheslav Molodin. The people of Odino culture were cattle breeders, tending to sheep and horses. They were hunters and anglers, too.” ref

Odinov culture

“The Odinov culture is the archeological culture of foot hunters named after the settlement Odino in the basin of the lower Ishim river in Western Siberia. The culture is dated to the 18th to 16th centuries BCE, considered the beginning of the Bronze Age, but may be older. The Odinov culture is an island surrounded by forest-steppe-type cultural array. Its settlements are situated along the terraces of the rivers and creeks. Certain insufficiently understood dwellings appear to be dug-outs. It is thought that Odinov culture rose from Eneolithic forest-steppe cultures in the Ishim area.” ref

“The available materials indicate the beginning of a tradition of an economy based on animal husbandry. Osteological material is represented exclusively by domesticated animals’ bones indicating the central role of animal husbandry to the Odinov economy. Similarity with typical products of tin bronze alloys indicate affiliation with the Seima-Turbino phenomenon. The Odinov culture stone industry has not been fully studied.” ref

Archeology

“Odinov culture burials are similar to those of the Krotov culture, which indicate the presence of common rituals typical for the cultures of the northern forest-steppe belonging to the Seima Turbino metallurgical province. The Odinov culture is notable for its ceramics, with dishes decorated with comb impressions with or without rows of pit indentations, coarse textile prints, and some pit ornament elements forming geometrical figures. Odinov culture is marked by specific borrowings in ornamentation, including pseudo-textile prints, which indicates close ties with the taiga populations.” ref

Krotov culture

“Krotov culture is an indigenous 2nd millennium BCE Bronze Age culture of animal breeders in the steppe and forest-steppe area of the Western Siberia Altai mountainous area of Russia in the upper Irtysh river basin. The Krotov culture is an areal period named for a circle of cultures that include Elunin culture, Krotov culture, Loginov culture, and similar cultures with identical or close traits and variations. Krotov culture people engaged in cattle breeding, hunting, and fishing. In the territory of the culture were found stone and bronze tools.” ref

“Krotov culture embraces the period from the turn of the 3rd and 2nd millenniums to the 13th to 12th centuries BCE. It is a first (pre-Andronovan) period of developed bronze in the Western Siberia. Some scientists attribute the materials of the Tashkov culture to the Krotov culture people (Kovalev, Chairkina, 1991), with a corollary that Tashkov culture people also had an animal husbandry economy with short-distance grazing. The Tashkov culture people were in regular cultural contact with the population of the Southern Urals, and they also learned metalworking.” ref

Seima-Turbino Metallurgical Province phenomenon

“Krotov culture, along with Elunin, Loginov and similar cultures constituted one component of the Seima-Turbino Phenomenon. The tribes of the Krotov circle cultures were located in the Altai area steppes, forest-steppes, and foothills; they were metallurgists and pastoral animal breeders. They developed entirely new designs of socketed weapons, and art images that included horses, oxen, sheep, camels, and more. The other component was located in the area of the Sayan highlands, where lived populations of the southern zone of East Siberian taiga hunters and fishermen. They belonged to the Glazkov, Shiver, and other cultures around the Baikal and Angara River basin, who mastered bronze casting and the manufacture of flint, jade, and bone implements, and produced twin blade knives, scraper knives, and saws; their imagery had snakes, elk, bear, and more. The organic fusion of the Altai and Sayan components into a single culture is thought to have occurred in the steppe foothills between the Ob and Irtysh rivers.” ref