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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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There will be 6 shows on this blog in total:

1. Show One: Paleolithic or Old Stone Age in China and Different Approaches to Defining Civilization
2. Show Two: Early Neolithic China: Ritual, Religion, and Civilization
3. Show Three: Middle Neolithic China: Ritual, Religion, Elites, and Language
4. Show Four: Late Neolithic and Bronze Age China: Ritual, Religion, Elites, Language, and Empires
5. Show Five: Bronze Age and Ancient China: Ritual, Religion, Elites, Language, and Empires
6. Show Six: Ancient China: Ritual, Religion, Elites, Language, Slavery, Eunuchs, and Empires

Show One: Paleolithic or Old Stone Age in China and Different Approaches to Defining Civilization

Show Two: Early Neolithic China: Ritual, Religion, and Civilization

Show 3 (part A) “Middle Neolithic” China: Ritual, Religion, Elites, and Language

Show 3 (part b) Middle Neolithic China: 7,000-5,000 years ago, (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!

Show 4 “Late Neolithic and Bronze Age” China: Ritual, Religion, Elites, Language, and Empires

Show Five: Bronze Age and Ancient China: Ritual, Religion, Elites, Language, and Empires

Show 6 “Ancient China” Ritual, Religion, Elites, Language, Slavery, Eunuchs, and Empires

Part one Paleolithic or Old Stone Age in China

First let’s address the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age (from 3 million years ago, to around 12,000 years ago when it becomes the Neolithic or New Stone Age: 12,000 years ago to around 6,500 years ago when it becomes the Chalcolithic or Copper Age) in China. I am adding this so there is an understanding of how China’s populations formed and led to more cultural development in the Neolithic and beyond.

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“Peking Man (Homo erectus pekinensis) is a subspecies of H. erectus which inhabited the Zhoukoudian cave site in modern northern China, discovered in the Zhoukoudian Cave has since then become the most productive Homo erectus site in the world. The fossils became the center of anthropological discussion and were classified as a direct human ancestor, propping up the Out of Asia hypothesis that humans evolved in Asia. Peking Man also played a vital role in the restructuring of the Chinese identity following the Chinese Communist Revolution, and was intensively communicated to working class and peasant communities to introduce them to Marxism and science (overturning deeply-rooted superstitions and creation myths).” ref

“Early models of Peking Man society strongly leaned towards communist or nationalist ideals, leading to discussions on primitive communism and polygenism. This produced a strong schism between Western and Eastern interpretations, especially as the West adopted the Out of Africa hypothesis by late 1967, and Peking Man’s role in human evolution diminished as merely an offshoot of the human line. Though Out of Africa is now the consensus, Peking Man interbreeding with human ancestors is frequently discussed especially in Chinese circles. Peking Man lived in a cool, predominantly steppe, partially forested environment, alongside deer, rhinos, elephants, bison, buffalo, bears, wolves, big cats, and a menagerie of other creatures. Peking Man intermittently inhabited the Zhoukoudian Cave, but the exact chronology is unclear, with estimates as far back as 780,000 years ago and as recent as 230,000 years ago.” ref 

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Morphological Description and Evolutionary Significance of 300, ooo-year-old hominin facial bones from Hualongdong, China

“Abstract: Late Middle Pleistocene hominins in Africa displaying key modern morphologies by 315,000 years ago are claimed as the earliest Homo sapiens. Evolutionary relationships among East Asian hominins appear complex due to a growing fossil record of late Middle Pleistocene hominins from the region, reflecting mosaic morphologies that contribute to a lack of consensus on when and how the transition to modern humans transpired. Newly discovered 300,000 years ago hominin fossils from Hualongdong, China, provide further evidence to clarify these relationships in the region. In this study, facial morphology of the juvenile partial cranium (HLD 6) is described and qualitatively and quantitatively compared with that of other key Early, Middle, and Late Pleistocene hominins from East Asia, Africa, West Asia, and Europe and with a sample of modern humans. Qualitatively, facial morphology of HLD 6 resembles that of Early and Middle Pleistocene hominins from Zhoukoudian, Nanjing, Dali, and Jinniushan in China, as well as others from Java, Africa, and Europe in some of these features (e.g., supraorbital and malar regions), and Late Pleistocene hominins and modern humans from East Asia, Africa, and Europe in other features (e.g., weak prognathism, flat face and features in nasal and hard plate regions). Comparisons of HLD 6 measurements to group means and multivariate analyses support close affinities of HLD 6 to Late Pleistocene hominins and modern humans. Expression of a mosaic morphological pattern in the HLD 6 facial skeleton further complicates evolutionary interpretations of regional morphological diversity in East Asia. The prevalence of modern features in HLD 6 suggests that the hominin population to which HLD 6 belonged may represent the earliest pre-modern humans in East Asia. Thus, the transition from archaic to modern morphology in East Asian hominins may have occurred at least by 300,000 years ago, which is 80,000 to 100,000 years earlier than previously recognized.” ref

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Y Chromosome Study Suggests Asians, Too, Came from Africa

“Geneticist Li Jin of the University of Texas and his colleagues examined Y chromosomal DNA from more than 12,000 males belonging to 163 populations in Asia and Oceania. Multiregionalism posits that archaic humans such as Neandertals contributed to the modern human gene pool. Thus modern Southeast Asian populations, for example, should retain some ancient lineages inherited from the archaic populations that once inhabited that region, an argument that the multiregionalists have bolstered with fossil evidence. But Jin and his colleagues only found markers associated with a gene mutation known to have arisen in an African ancestor sometime between 35,000 and 89,000 years ago. This, the authors write, “indicates that modern humans of African origin completely replaced earlier populations in East Asia.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“There are two geographically plausible routes that have been proposed for humans to emerge from Africa: through the current Egypt and Sinai (Northern Route), or through Ethiopia, the Bab el Mandeb strait, and the Arabian Peninsula (Southern Route).” ref

“Although there is a general consensus on the African origin of early modern humans, there is disagreement about how and when they dispersed to Eurasia. This paper reviews genetic and Middle Stone Age/Middle Paleolithic archaeological literature from northeast Africa, Arabia, and the Levant to assess the timing and geographic backgrounds of Upper Pleistocene human colonization of Eurasia. At the center of the discussion lies the question of whether eastern Africa alone was the source of Upper Pleistocene human dispersals into Eurasia or were there other loci of human expansions outside of Africa? The reviewed literature hints at two modes of early modern human colonization of Eurasia in the Upper Pleistocene: (i) from multiple Homo sapiens source populations that had entered Arabia, South Asia, and the Levant prior to and soon after the onset of the Last Interglacial (MIS-5), (ii) from a rapid dispersal out of East Africa via the Southern Route (across the Red Sea basin), dating to ~74,000-60,000 years ago.” ref

“Within Africa, Homo sapiens dispersed around the time of its speciation, roughly 300,000 years ago. The so-called “recent dispersal” of modern humans took place about 70–50,000 years ago. It is this migration wave that led to the lasting spread of modern humans throughout the world. The coastal migration between roughly 70,000 and 50,000 years ago is associated with mitochondrial haplogroups M and N, both derivative of L3. Europe was populated by an early offshoot that settled the Near East and Europe less than 55,000 years ago. Modern humans spread across Europe about 40,000 years ago, possibly as early as 43,000 years ago, rapidly replacing the Neanderthal population.” ref, ref

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• Lower Paleolithic (around 3.3 million to 300,000 years ago)
• Middle Paleolithic (around 300,000 to 50,000 years ago)
• Upper Paleolithic (around 50,000 to 12,000 years ago)

The ROCEEH Out of Africa Database (ROAD): A large-scale research database serves as an indispensable tool for human evolutionary studies

“Abstract: Large-scale databases are critical for helping scientists decipher long-term patterns in human evolution. This paper describes the conception and development of such a research database and illustrates how big data can be harnessed to formulate new ideas about the past. The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans (ROCEEH) is a transdisciplinary research center whose aim is to study the origins of culture and the multifaceted aspects of human expansions across Africa and Eurasia over the last three million years. To support its research, the ROCEEH team developed an online tool named the ROCEEH Out of Africa Database (ROAD) and implemented its web-based applications. ROAD integrates geographical data as well as archaeological, paleoanthropological, paleontological, and paleobotanical content within a robust chronological framework. In fact, a unique feature of ROAD is its ability to dynamically link scientific data both spatially and temporally, thereby allowing its reuse in ways that were not originally conceived. The data stem from published sources spanning the last 150 years, including those generated by the research team. Descriptions of these data rely on the development of a standardized vocabulary and profit from online explanations of each table and attribute. By synthesizing legacy data, ROAD facilitates the reuse of heritage data in novel ways. Database queries yield structured information in a variety of interoperable formats. By visualizing data on maps, users can explore this vast dataset and develop their own theories. By downloading data, users can conduct further quantitative analyses, for example with Geographic Information Systems, modeling programs, and artificial intelligence. In this paper, we demonstrate the innovative nature of ROAD and show how it helps scientists studying human evolution to access datasets from different fields, thereby connecting the social and natural sciences. Because it permits the reuse of “old” data in new ways, ROAD is now an indispensable tool for researchers of human evolution and paleogeography.”
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0289513

“Abstract: The evolutionarily recent dispersal of anatomically modern humans (AMH) out of Africa (OoA) and across Eurasia provides a unique opportunity to examine the impacts of genetic selection as humans adapted to multiple new environments. Analysis of ancient Eurasian genomic datasets (~1,000 to 45,000 y old) reveals signatures of strong selection, including at least 57 hard sweeps after the initial AMH movement OoA, which have been obscured in modern populations by extensive admixture during the Holocene. The spatiotemporal patterns of these hard sweeps provide a means to reconstruct early AMH population dispersals OoA. We identify a previously unsuspected extended period of genetic adaptation lasting ~30,000 y, potentially in the Arabian Peninsula area, prior to a major Neandertal genetic introgression and subsequent rapid dispersal across Eurasia as far as Australia. Consistent functional targets of selection initiated during this period, which we term the Arabian Standstill, include loci involved in the regulation of fat storage, neural development, skin physiology, and cilia function. Similar adaptive signatures are also evident in introgressed archaic hominin loci and modern Arctic human groups, and we suggest that this signal represents selection for cold adaptation. Surprisingly, many of the candidate selected loci across these groups appear to directly interact and coordinately regulate biological processes, with a number associated with major modern diseases including the ciliopathies, metabolic syndrome, and neurodegenerative disorders. This expands the potential for ancestral human adaptation to directly impact modern diseases, providing a platform for evolutionary medicine.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“There were at least several “out-of-Africa” dispersals of modern humans, possibly beginning as early as 270,000 years ago, including 215,000 years ago to at least Greece, and certainly via northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula about 130,000 to 115,000 years ago. These early waves appear to have mostly died out or retreated by 80,000 years ago.” ref

“The most significant “recent” wave out of Africa took place about 70,000–50,000 years ago, via the so-called “Southern Route“, spreading rapidly along the coast of Asia and reaching Australia by around 65,000–50,000 years ago, (though some researchers question the earlier Australian dates and place the arrival of humans there at 50,000 years ago at earliest, while others have suggested that these first settlers of Australia may represent an older wave before the more significant out of Africa migration and thus not necessarily be ancestral to the region’s later inhabitants) while Europe was populated by an early offshoot which settled the Near East and Europe less than 55,000 years ago.” ref

• “An Eastward Dispersal from Northeast Africa to Arabia 150,000–130,000  years ago based on the finds at Jebel Faya dated to 127,000 years ago (discovered in 2011). Possibly related to this wave are the finds from Zhirendong cave, Southern China, dated to more than 100,000 years ago. Other evidence of modern human presence in China has been dated to 80,000 years ago.” ref
• “The most significant out of Africa dispersal took place around 50–70,000 years ago via the so-called Southern Route, either before or after the Toba event, which happened between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago. This dispersal followed the southern coastline of Asia, and reached Australia around 65,000-50,000 years ago, or according to some research, by 50,000 years ago at earliest. Western Asia was “re-occupied” by a different derivation from this wave around 50,000 years ago, and Europe was populated from Western Asia beginning around 43,000 years ago.” ref
• “Wells (2003) describes an additional wave of migration after the southern coastal route, namely a northern migration into Europe at circa 45,000 years ago. However, this possibility is ruled out by Macaulay et al. (2005) and Posth et al. (2016), who argue for a single coastal dispersal, with an early offshoot into Europe.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Why are these 32 symbols found in caves all over Europe

32 Sacred Cave Art Pre-Writing Shapes Dated to 35,000 to 13,000 Years Ago

• 1. Aviform: less than 10% of sites, 30,000 to 13,000 years ago.
• 2. Cruciform: 13% of sites, all time periods.
• 3. Half Circle: 18% of sites, all time periods.
• 4. Penniform: 25% of sites, starting 25,000 years ago.
• 5. Serpentiform: 7% of sites, starting 30,000 to 13,000 years ago.
• 6. Circle: 20% of sites, all time periods.
• 7. Cupule: 15% of sites, all time periods.
• 8. Line: 70% of sites, all time periods.
• 9. Dot: 42% of sites, all time periods.
• 10. Negative Hand: 15% of sites, 30,000 to 13,000 years ago.
• 11. Positive Hand: 7% of sites, 30,000 to 13,000 years ago.
• 12. Claviform: 15% of sites, all time periods.
• 13. Spiral: 2 sites, 25,000 to 15,000 years ago.
• 14. Open-Angle: 42% of sites, all time periods.
• 15. Quadrangle: 20% of sites, all time periods.
• 16. Tectiform: 10% of sites, 25,000 to 13,000 years ago.
• 17. Cordiform: 3 sites, 30,000 to 15,000 years ago.
• 18. Finger Fluting: 15% of sites, all time periods.
• 19. Oval: 30% of sites, all time periods.
• 20. Reniform: rare, 35,000 to 13,000 years ago.
• 21. Triangle: 20% of sites, all time periods.
• 22. Crosshatch: 17% of sites, all time periods.
• 23. Flabelliform: 18% of sites, all time periods.
• 24. Pectiform: 5% of sites, starting 25,000 years ago.
• 25. Scalariform: 3 sites, starting 25,000 years ago.
• 26. Zig-Zag: 7 sites, 20,000 to 13,000 years ago.

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Even though not all signs are shown, palaeoanthropologist Von Petzinger, found through investigation of Europe’s cave art that there are at least 32 shapes. These are possibly a source of writings’ origin seen many times and places, thus the world’s oldest sacred code. A paleoanthropologist and rock art researcher explains that even though to many written language is the hallmark of human civilization, this construct in behavior didn’t just suddenly appear one day. Thousands of years before the first fully developed writing systems, our ancestors scrawled geometric signs across the walls of the caves they sheltered in. She has studied and codified these ancient markings in caves across Europe, suggesting that graphic communication, and the ability to preserve and transmit messages beyond a single moment in time, may be much older than we think. ref, ref, ref, ref

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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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 BP) 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 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+-1,5ka) 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. 8.4 kya, the other of Y-haplogroup J, dated c. 7.2 kya; and one individual from Samara, of Y-haplogroup R1b-P297, dated c. 7.6 kya. This lineage is closely related to the ANE sample from Afontova Gora, dated c. 18 kya. 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 kya (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 kya, which lacked ANE-admixture, Dzudzuana affinity in the Caucasus decreased with the arrival of ANE at ~13 kya Satsurblia.” ref

“Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer (SHG) is represented by several individuals buried at Motala, Sweden ca. 6000 BC. 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 ~8.5 kya 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 BP 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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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Here are my thoughts/speculations on where I believe is the possible origin of shamanism, which may have begun sometime around 35,000 to 30,000 years ago seen in the emergence of the Gravettian culture, just to outline his thinking, on what thousands of years later led to evolved Asian shamanism, in general, and thus WU shamanism as well. In both Europe-related “shamanism-possible burials” and in Gravettian mitochondrial DNA is a seeming connection to Haplogroup U. And the first believed Shaman proposed burial belonged to Eastern Gravettians/Pavlovian culture at Dolní Věstonice in southern Moravia in the Czech Republic, which is the oldest permanent human settlement that has ever been found. It is at Dolní Věstonice where approximately 27,000-25,000 years ago a seeming female shaman was buried and also there was an ivory totem portrait figure, seemingly of her.

And my thoughts on how cultural/ritual aspects were influenced in the area of Göbekli Tepe. I think it relates to a few different cultures starting in the area before the Neolithic. Two different groups of Siberians first from northwest Siberia with U6 haplogroup 40,000 to 30,000 or so. Then R Haplogroup (mainly haplogroup R1b but also some possible R1a both related to the Ancient North Eurasians). This second group added its “R1b” DNA of around 50% to the two cultures Natufian and Trialetian. To me, it is likely both of these cultures helped create Göbekli Tepe. Then I think the female art or graffiti seen at Göbekli Tepe to me possibly relates to the Epigravettians that made it into Turkey and have similar art in North Italy. I speculate that possibly the Totem pole figurines seen first at Kostenki, next went to Mal’ta in Siberia as seen in their figurines that also seem “Totem-pole-like”, and then with the migrations of R1a it may have inspired the Shigir idol in Russia and the migrations of R1b may have inspired Göbekli Tepe.

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“(ANE) Ancient North Eurasians within a tentative sketch modeling the genetic history of Europe and West Eurasia from ancient populations up to the Neolithic (2017).” ref

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The video used for this blog and our “Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries” YouTube show is:

(The Rise of Early Chinese Civilization ~ Dr. Min Li): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz4EQ0iYDI4&t=413s

“In this superb and intense crash course, Dr. Min Li defines the different approaches to defining Civilization and how these concepts are applied to Neolithic and Ancient China when tracing the early origins of Chinese Civilization.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz4EQ0iYDI4&t=413s

“Li, Min (Ph.D, University of Michigan, 2008) is an associate professor of East Asian archaeology with a joint appointment at Department of Anthropology and Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA. His archaeological research spans from state formation in early China to early modern global trade network. He is also co-director of the landscape archaeology project in the Bronze Age city of Qufu, China. His first book Social Memory and State Formation in Early China with the Cambridge University Press.” https://www.academia.edu/83568661/Water_Management_at_the_Liangzhu_Prehistoric_Mound_Center_China

Show 1 “Palaeolithic” China and the Different Approaches to Defining Civilization

Use time 0:33 to 6:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz4EQ0iYDI4&t=413s

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Neolithic_cultures_of_China

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Chinese pottery dates to about 20,000 years BCE.

“China holds the earliest pottery yet known anywhere in the world was found at this site dating by radiocarbon to between 20,000 and 19,000 years ago. The carbon 14 datation was established by careful dating of surrounding sediments. Many of the pottery fragments had scorch marks, suggesting that the pottery was used for cooking. These early pottery containers were made well before the invention of agriculture (dated to 10,000 to 8,000 BC), by mobile foragers who hunted and gathered their food during the Late Glacial Maximum.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xianren_Cave

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

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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

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The transmission of pottery technology among prehistoric European hunter-gatherers
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01491-8

“Although isolated cases of innovation cannot be excluded, a continuous process of adoption with the earlier occurrence of an antecedent tradition in western Siberia or central Asia, Siberia fit better though both are consistent with an ultimate origin for these traditions in the Far East.” ref

Show 2 “Early Neolithic” China: Ritual, Religion, and Civilization

Use time 6:30 to 8:24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz4EQ0iYDI4&t=413s

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Starting in areas that included North China, the map shows the history of how cannabis traveled throughout the world.

“Hemp was also one of the first plants to be spun into usable fiber 50,000 years ago. It may also be one of the earliest plants to have been cultivated. The world-leading producer of hemp is China, which produces more than 70% of the world output.” ref

“Cannabis plants are believed to have evolved on the steppes of Central Asia, specifically in the regions that are now Mongolia and southern Siberia, according to Warf. The history of cannabis use goes back as far as 12,000 years, which places the plant among humanity’s oldest cultivated crops, according to information in the book “Marihuana: The First Twelve Thousand Years.” “It likely flourished in the nutrient-rich dump sites of prehistoric hunters and gatherers,” Warf wrote in his study.” ref

“Cannabis in China has been confirmed to have originated in Northwest China before the Ancient Chinese domesticated the plant to India and other parts of Asia, particularly the Central Asian steppe in 10,000 BCE or around 12,000 years ago.” ref

“Cannabis or marijuana, was first domesticated around 12,000 years ago in China, researchers found, after analyzing the genomes of plants from across the world. The study, published in the journal Science Advances on Friday, said the genomic history of cannabis domestication had been under-studied compared to other crop species, largely due to legal restrictions. The researchers compiled 110 whole genomes covering the full spectrum of wild-growing feral plants, landraces, historical cultivars, and modern hybrids of plants used for hemp and drug purposes.” ref

“Cannabis has a high nutritional content, which is why all parts of the plant, including the stem, seeds, roots, and flowers, have been used for food, feed, and therapeutic purposes for a long time.” ref

“The history of wheat from about 10,000 BCE or around 12,000 years ago and thought to have first been cultivated in the Fertile Crescent, an area in the Middle East spreading from Jordan, Palestine, and Lebanon to Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.” ref

“One of the first cultivated grains of the Fertile Crescent, barley was domesticated about 8000 BCE or around 10,000 years ago.” ref

“Earliest domestication of common millet (Panicum miliaceum) in East Asia extended to 10,000 years ago” ref

“Lentils were first cultivated in Southwest Asia 8000–10,000 years ago but archeological evidence is unclear as to how many times it may have been independently domesticated.” ref

“The earliest archaeological evidence of Rice comes from central and eastern China and dates to 7000–5000 BCE or around 9,000 to 7,000 years ago.” ref

“The study said it identified “the time and origin of domestication, post-domestication divergence patterns, and present-day genetic diversity”. “Researchers show that cannabis sativa was first domesticated in early Neolithic times in East Asia and that all current hemp and drug cultivars diverged from an ancestral gene pool currently represented by feral plants and landraces in China”. Cannabis has been used for millennia for things like textiles/clothing, nets/etc. and for its medicinal and recreational properties, not to mention its likely ritual use. The evolution of the cannabis genome suggests the plant was cultivated for multipurpose use over several millennia.” ref

“Our genomic dating suggests that early domesticated ancestors of hemp and drug types diverged from Basal cannabis”, around 12,000 years ago, “indicating that the species had already been domesticated by early Neolithic times”, it said. “Contrary to a widely-accepted view, which associates cannabis with a Central Asian center of crop domestication, our results are consistent with a single domestication origin of cannabis sativa in East Asia, in line with early archaeological evidence.” It said that some of the wild plants currently found in China represent the closest descendants of the ancestral gene pool from which hemp and marijuana varieties have since derived.” ref

“East Asia has been shown to be an important ancient hot spot of domestication for several crop species… our results thus add another line of evidence,” the study said. The researchers said their study offered an “unprecedented” base of genomic resources for ongoing molecular breeding and functional research, both in medicine and in agriculture. The study, they said, also “provides new insights into the domestication and global spread of a plant with divergent structural and biochemical products at a time in which there is a resurgence of interest in its use, reflecting changing social attitudes and corresponding challenges to its legal status in many countries.” ref

“For the most part, it was widely used for medicine and spiritual purposes,” during pre-modern times, said Warf, a professor of geography at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. “The idea that this is an evil drug is a very recent construction,” and the fact that it is illegal is a “historical anomaly,” Warf said. Marijuana has been legal in many regions of the world for most of its history.” ref

“The use of hemp in Taiwan dates back at least 10,000 years.” An archeological site in the Oki Islands near Japan contained cannabis achenes from about 8000 BCE or 10,000 years ago, probably signifying use of the plant.” ref

“The Peiligang culture was a Neolithic culture in the Yi-Luo river basin (in modern Henan Province, China) that existed from about 7000 to 5000 BCE or around 9,000 to 7,000 years ago. The Peiligang culture used nets made from hemp fibers. The site at Jiahu also with nets made of hemp fibers, is the earliest site associated with Peiligang culture.” ref, ref

“Hemp use archaeologically dates back to the Neolithic Age in China, with hemp fiber imprints found on Yangshao culture pottery dating from the 5th millennium BCE or around 7,000 to 6,000 years ago.” ref

“Both hemp and psychoactive marijuana were used widely in ancient China, Warf wrote. The first record of the drug’s medicinal use dates to 4000 BCE or around 6,000 years ago. Burned cannabis seeds have also been found in kurgan burial mounds in Siberia dating back to 3,000 BCE or around 5,000 years ago.” ref

“The medicinal properties of the cannabis plant have been known for millennia. As far back as 2800 BCE or around 4,800 years ago, cannabis was used to treat a vast array of health problems and was listed in Emperor Shen Nung’s pharmacopoeia. Cannabis has a long and colorful history. The use of cannabis originated in central Asia or western China. Cannabis has been used for its alleged healing properties for millennia. The first documented case of its use dates back to 2800 BCE, when it was listed in the Emperor Shen Nung’s (regarded as the father of Chinese medicine) pharmacopoeia. Therapeutic indications of cannabis are mentioned in the texts of the Indian Hindus, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans. Hindu legend holds that Shiva, the supreme Godhead of many sects, was given the title ‘The Lord of Bhang’, because the cannabis plant was his favorite food. The ancient Hindus thought the medicinal benefits of cannabis were explained by pleasing the gods such as Shiva. Ancient Hindu texts attribute the onset of fever with the ‘hot breath of the gods’ who were angered by the afflicted person’s behavior. Using cannabis in religious rites appeased the gods and hence reduced the fever.” ref

“The herb was used, for instance, as an anesthetic during surgery, and stories say it was even used by the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung in 2737 BCE. (However, whether Shen Nung was a real or a mythical figure has been debated, as the first emperor of a unified China was born much later than the supposed Shen Nung.) And some of the tombs of noble people buried in Xinjiang region of China and Siberia around 2500 BCE have included large quantities of mummified psychoactive marijuana.” ref

“Historically, cannabis has been used in China for fiber, seeds, as a traditional medicine, as well as for some ritual purposes within Taoism. Má (Mandarin pronunciation: [mǎ]), a Chinese word for cannabis, is represented by the Han character 麻. The term ma, used to describe medical marijuana by 2700 BCE or around 4,700 years ago, is the oldest recorded name for the hemp plant. The word ma has been used to describe the cannabis plant since before the invention of writing five-thousand years ago. Ma might share a common root with the Proto-Semitic word mrr, meaning “bitter.” Evidence of the earliest human cultivation of cannabis was found in Taiwan. Ancient Chinese prose and poems, including poetry in the Shi jing (Book of Odes), mention the word ma many times. An early song refers to young women weaving ma into clothing. The word ma is often paired with the Chinese word for “big” or “great” to form the compound word dama or 大麻 (dàmá). Dama is sometimes used to describe industrial hemp, as there is a negative connotation meaning “numbness” associated with the word ma by itself.” ref

“The current highly-specialized hemp and drug varieties are thought to come from selective cultures initiated about 4,000 years ago, optimized for the production of fibers or cannabinoids. The selection led to unbranched, tall hemp plants with more fiber in the main stem, and well-branched, short marijuana plants with more flowers, maximizing resin production.” ref

Archaeobotanical evidence of the use of medicinal cannabis in a secular context unearthed from south China

Abstract: “As one of the first plants used by ancient people, cannabis has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. The long history of medicinal cannabis use contrasts with the paucity of archaeobotanical records. Moreover, physical evidence of medicinal cannabis use in a secular context is much rarer than evidence of medicinal cannabis use in religious or ritual activities, which impedes our understanding of the history of medicinal cannabis use. Plant remains were collected from the Laoguanshan Cemetery of the Han Dynasty in Chengdu, South China. The botanical remains were accurately identified as cannabis. More than 120 thousand fruits were found, which represents the largest amount of cannabis fruit remains that have been statistically analyzed from any cemetery in the world thus far.” ref

“Charred cannabis seeds that are more than 4,000 years old have been found in special braziers from graves at Gurbanesti and the northern Caucasus region in Eastern Europe. These seeds may be the earliest evidence of the intentional burning of cannabis for psychoactive use and may thus represent the first physical evidence of medicinal cannabis use (the non-psychoactive cannabis seeds remain after the psychoactive inflorescences and leaves have been burnt away). In addition, some remains from Central Asia, such as nearly 13 whole cannabis plants from Jiayi Cemetery, female inflorescences of cannabis from Yanghai Cemetery in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Northwest China, and cannabis fruits from Pazyryk Cemetery in East Siberia, are thought to indicate the use of cannabis for medical purposes.” ref

“From China, coastal farmers brought pot to Korea about 2000 BCE at around 4,000 years ago, or earlier, according to the book “The Archeology of Korea. Cannabis came to the South Asian subcontinent between 2000 to 1000 BCE, when the region was invaded by the Indo-Iranian speaking peoples — a group that spoke an archaic Indo-European language. The drug became widely used in India, where it was celebrated as one of “five kingdoms of herbs … which release us from anxiety” in one of the ancient Sanskrit Vedic poems whose name translate into “Science of Charms.” ref

“From Asia to Europe, Cannabis came to the Middle East between 2000 to 1400 BCE or around 4,000 to 3,400 years ago, and it was probably used there by the Scythians, a nomadic Indo-European group. The Scythians also likely carried the drug into southeast Russia and Ukraine, as they occupied both territories for years, according to Warf’s report. Germanic tribes brought the drug into Germany, and marijuana went from there to Britain during the 5th century with the Anglo-Saxon invasions.” ref

“Different religions have varying stances on the use of cannabis, historically and presently. In ancient history some religions used cannabis as an entheogen, particularly in the Indian subcontinent where the tradition continues on a more limited basis. In Ancient Egypt there is a written record of the medicinal use of hemp. Thus the Ebers papyrus (written 1500 BCE or around 3,500 years ago) mentions the use of oil from hempseed to treat vaginal inflammation. Cannabis pollen was recovered from the tomb of Ramses II, who governed for sixty‐seven years during the 19th dynasty, and several mummies contain trace cannabinoids.” ref

“The Assyrians, Egyptians, and Hebrews, among other Semitic cultures of the Middle East, mostly acquired cannabis from Aryan cultures and have burned it as an incense as early as 1000 BCE or around 3,000 years ago. Cannabis has been used by shamanic and pagan cultures to ponder deeply religious and philosophical subjects related to their tribe or society, to achieve a form of enlightenment, to unravel unknown facts and realms of the human mind and subconscious, and also as an aphrodisiac during rituals or orgies. There are several references in Greek mythology to a powerful drug that eliminated anguish and sorrow. Herodotus wrote about early ceremonial practices by the Scythians, thought to have occurred from the 5th to 2nd century BCE or 2,500 to 2,200 years ago.” ref

“In addition, according to Herodotus, the Dacians and Scythians had a tradition where a fire was made in an enclosed space and cannabis seeds were burned and the resulting smoke ingested. In ancient Germanic paganism, cannabis was possibly associated with the Norse love goddess, Freya. Linguistics offers further evidence of prehistoric use of cannabis by Germanic peoples: The word hemp derives from Old English hænep, from Proto-Germanic *hanapiz. While *hanapiz has an unknown origin, some scholars believe it is a unreconstructed loanword of Scythian origin. The Greek word κάνναβις, which that cannabis derives from, is also thought to be a loanword of the same Scythian origin. While a loanword, *hanapiz was borrowed early enough to be affected by Grimm’s Law, by which Proto-Indo-European initial *k- becomes *h- in Germanic. The shift of *k→h indicates it was a loanword into the Germanic parent language at a time depth no later than the separation of Common Germanic from Proto-Indo-European, about 500 BCE or around 2,500 years ago.” ref

“People may have smoked marijuana in rituals 2,500 years ago in western China. Cannabis may have been altering minds at an ancient high-altitude cemetery, researchers say. Mourners gathered at a cemetery in what’s now western China around 2,500 years ago to inhale fumes of burning cannabis plants that wafted from small wooden containers. High levels of the psychoactive compound THC in those ignited plants, also known as marijuana, would have induced altered states of consciousness. Evidence of this practice comes from Jirzankal Cemetery in Central Asia’s Pamir Mountains, says a team led by archaeologist Yimin Yang of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Chemical residues on wooden burners unearthed in tombs there provide some of the oldest evidence to date of smoking or inhaling cannabis fumes, the researchers report online June 12 in Science Advances.” ref

“Rituals aimed at communicating with the dead or a spirit world likely included cannabis smoking, the team speculates. Cannabis remains of comparable age have been found in several other Central Asian tombs, including a site in Russia’s Altai Mountains located about 3,000 kilometers northwest of the Pamir Mountains. But the discoveries at Jirzankal Cemetery offer an unprecedented look at how cannabis was initially used as a mind-altering substance, the researchers say. East Asians grew cannabis starting at least 6,000 years ago, but only to consume the plants’ oily seeds and make clothing and rope out of cannabis fibers. Early cultivated cannabis varieties in East Asia and elsewhere, like most wild forms of the plant, contained low levels of THC and other mind-altering compounds.” ref

“Some of the earliest evidence for people smoking marijuana comes from the Greek historian Herodotus, who wrote of cannabis smoking roughly 2,500 years ago on the Central Asian steppes, about 2,000 kilometers west of the Pamir Mountains. But a determination of exactly when and where high-THC cannabis plants first developed and which people first smoked cannabis has long eluded scientists. Archaeological finds indicate that many burial practices had spread across Central and East Asia by around 2,500 years ago. So cannabis smoking at graveside ceremonies was likely part of that process, says archaeologist Michael Frachetti of Washington University in St. Louis, who did not participate in the new study. “At that time, the early Silk Road connected populations from Beijing to Venice,” he says.” ref

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“People have been smoking pot to get high for at least 2,500 years. Chinese archaeologists found signs of that when they studied the char on a set of wooden bowls from an ancient cemetery in western China. The findings are some of the earliest evidence of cannabis used as a drug.” ref

“Historical Chinese medical texts (c. 200 CE) through contemporary twentieth century Chinese medical literature discuss individual terms for ma, including mafen (麻蕡), mahua (麻花), and mabo (麻勃), referring to specific parts of the male and female flowers of a cannabis plant with differing cannabinoid ratios. Beginning around the 4th century, Taoist texts mentioned using cannabis in censers.” ref

“Needham cited the (ca. 570 CE) Taoist encyclopedia Wushang Biyao 無上秘要 (“Supreme Secret Essentials”) that cannabis was added into ritual incense-burners, and suggested the ancient Taoists experimented systematically with “hallucinogenic smokes”. Joseph Needham connected myths about Magu, “the Hemp Damsel”, with early Daoist religious usages of cannabis, pointing out that Magu was goddess of Shandong’s sacred Mount Tai, where cannabis “was supposed to be gathered on the seventh day of the seventh month, a day of séance banquets in the Taoist communities.” ref

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Neolithic_cultures_of_China

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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1. Kebaran culture 23,022-16,522 Years Ago, 2. Kortik Tepe 12,422-11,722 Years Ago, 3. Jerf el-Ahmar 11,222 -10,722 Years Ago, 4. Gobekli Tepe 11,152-9,392 Years Ago, 5. Tell Al-‘abrUbaid and Uruk Periods, 6. Nevali Cori 10,422 -10,122 Years Ago, 7. Catal Hoyuk 9,522-7,722 Years Ago

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“Jiahu was the site of a Neolithic settlement based in the central plain of ancient China, near the Yellow River. Settled around 7000 BCE, the site was later flooded and abandoned around 5700 BCE. Jiahu symbols, possibly an early proto-writing.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiahu

“The Jiahu symbols consist of 16 distinct markings on prehistoric artifacts found in Jiahu, a neolithic Peiligang culture site found in Henan, China, and excavated in 1989. The Jiahu symbols are dated to around 6000 BCE.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiahu_symbols

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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

“Six of seven individuals whose remains have been recovered from the cave have been DNA tested. Originally, three of the specimens were thought to be adult males, two were thought to be adult females, one was thought to be a sub-adult of about 12-13 years of age, and one was thought to be a juvenile of about 6-7 years of age based on the skeletal morphology of the remains. Results of genetic analysis of the sub-adult individual have not yet been published. However, two specimens, NEO236 (Skull B, DevilsGate2) and NEO235 (Skull G), who had been presumed to be adult males according to a forensic morphological assessment of their remains, were discovered through genetic analysis to actually be females. The juvenile specimen also has been determined to be female through genetic analysis. Three of the specimens (including the only adult male plus NEO235/Skull G and another adult female, labeled as Skull Е, DevilsGate1, or NEO240, who has been genetically determined to be a first-degree relative of NEO235/Skull G) have been assigned to mtDNA haplogroup D4m; a previous genetic analysis of one of these adult female specimens determined her mtDNA haplogroup to be D4. Another three specimens (including the juvenile female, the DevilsGate2 specimen, and another adult female; both the juvenile female and the DevilsGate2 specimen have been determined to be first-degree relatives of the other adult female, and the juvenile female and the DevilsGate2 specimen also have been determined to be second-degree relatives of each other) have been assigned to haplogroup D4; a previous genetic analysis of the DevilsGate2 specimen determined her mtDNA haplogroup to be M. The only specimen from the cave who has been confirmed to be male through genetic analysis has been assigned to Y-DNAhaplogroup C2b-F6273/Y6704/Y6708, equivalent to C2b-L1373, the northern (Central Asian, Siberian, and indigenous American) branch of haplogroup C2-M217.” ref

“The haplogroup C-M217 is now found at high frequencies among Central Asian peoples, indigenous Siberians, and some Native peoples of North America. Haplogroup C-M217 is the modal haplogroup among Mongolians and most indigenous populations of the Russian Far East, such as the Buryats, Northern Tungusic peoples, Nivkhs, Koryaks, and Itelmens. The subclade C-P39 is common among males of the indigenous North American peoples whose languages belong to the Na-Dené phylum. C2b1a1a P39 Canada,USA(Found in several indigenous peoples of North America, including some Na-Dené-,Algonquian-, orSiouan-speaking populations).” ref

“Males carrying C-M130 are believed to have migrated to the Americas some 6,000-8,000 years ago, and was carried by Na-Dené-speaking peoples into the northwest Pacific coast of North America. The distribution of Haplogroup C-M130 is generally limited to populations of Siberia, parts of East Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. Haplogroup C2 (M217) – the most numerous and widely dispersed C lineage – was once believed to have originated in Central Asia, spread from there into Northern Asia and the Americas while other theory it originated from East Asia. C-M217 stretches longitudinally from Central Europe and Turkey, to the Wayuu people of Colombia and Venezuela, and latitudinally from the Athabaskan peoples of Alaska to Vietnam to the Malay Archipelago. The highest frequencies of Haplogroup C-M217 are found among the populations of Mongolia and Far East Russia, where it is the modal haplogroup. Haplogroup C-M217 is the only variety of Haplogroup C-M130 to be found among Native Americans, among whom it reaches its highest frequency in Na-Dené populations.” ref

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

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“Males carrying C-M130 are believed to have migrated to the Americas some 6,000-8,000 years ago, and was carried by Na-Dené-speaking peoples into the northwest Pacific coast of North America.” ref 

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Based on the seeming evidence, I speculate that around 14,000 years ago, it could be possible Siberian Shamanism (along with dogs and a bird carving, different but yet possibly related to the bird carvings in Siberia dating from 24,000 to 15,000 years ago) was transferred to China, after “N” DNA reached Siberia bringing them pottery. Bird sculptures through ethnographic comparison at 24,000–15,000 years old Mal’ta with objects used by Siberian shamans, suggest a fully developed shamanism.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“These ideas are my speculations from the evidence.”

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

Sky Father/Sky God?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“These ideas are my speculations from the evidence.”

“1 central Eurasian Neolithic individual from Tajikistan (around 8,000 years ago) and approximately 8,200 years ago Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov group from Karelia in western Russia formed by 19 genomes affinity to Villabruna ancestry than all the other Eastern Hunter-Gatherer groups” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05726-0

Here are Damien’s thoughts on the evolution of paganism:

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

Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite & their slaves: LINK

Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to (Kings and the Rise of the State): LINK

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

Arcane Capitalism: Primitive socialism, Primitive capital, Private ownership, Means of production, Market capitalism, Class discrimination, and Petite bourgeoisie (smaller capitalists)

Arcane = complicated and therefore understood or known by only a few people

To Damien, societies start with primitive anarchism and socialism at least 100,000 years ago and are seen in animist-only thinking that is now largely limited to southern Africa today. Then they lose systematic anarchism possibly by 50,000 to 40,000 years ago but keeps socialism/primitive communism with the emergence of totemism largely limited to Europe and then spreading out from there. And to Damien, arcane/primitive capitalism emerges at or around 7,000 to 5,000 years ago in central Europe especially southern Germany or surrounding areas (Czecho-Slovakia and Austria), and then spread out from there.

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

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Maps showing the distribution of ancient sites in ACA and the Eurasian Steppe during different millennial increments over the past 10,000 years; a. Representative sites in other regions of Eurasia are also shown. (a) 10,000-8000 years ago (red) and 8000-6000 years ago (yellow), (b) 6000-5000 years ago, (c) 5000-4000 years ago, and (d) 4000-3000 years ago. The black dots represent the ancient sites with West Asian cultural elements, specifically wheat, barley, sheep/goat, and cattle. The white dots represent the ancient sites with East Asian cultural elements, including foxtail and broomcorn millet. The red lines represent prominent historical routes of the Silk Roads and the green shaded area represents the steppe ecoregion.” ref

Megadrought and cultural exchange along the proto-silk road

“Abstract: Arid Central Asia, with its diverse landscapes of high mountains, oases, and deserts, hosted the central routes of the Silk Roads that linked trade centers from East Asia to the eastern Mediterranean. Ecological pockets and ecoclines in Arid Central Asia are largely determined by local precipitation. However, little research has gone into the effects of hydroclimatic changes on trans-Eurasian cultural exchange. Here, we reconstruct precipitation changes in Arid Central Asia, covering the mid-late Holocene with a U-Th dated, ~3 a resolution, multi-proxy time series of replicated stalagmites from the southeastern Fergana Valley, Kyrgyzstan. Our data reveal a 640-a megadrought between 5820 and 5180 years ago, which likely impacted cultural development in Arid Central Asia and impeded the expansion of cultural traits along oasis routes. Instead, it may have diverted the earliest transcontinental exchange along the Eurasian steppe during the 5th millennium years ago. With gradually increasing precipitation after the megadrought, settlement of peoples in the oases and river valleys may have facilitated the opening of the oasis routes, “prehistoric Silk Roads”, of trans-Eurasian exchange. By the 4th millennium years ago, this process may have reshaped cultures across the two continents, laying the foundation for the organized Silk Roads.” ref

“Early agricultural populations in East and West Asia followed distinct trajectories of cultural development, leading to differing languages, socio-political systems, rituals, culinary traditions, cultivation practices, and domestication pathways for crops and animals. Many scholars have noted the existence of a cultural barrier that roughly followed the mountains and deserts of Arid Central Asia. Differences are visible in the types of crops and the cultivation practices used on either side of this divide. Trans-Eurasian exchange led to the gradual dispersal of cultural traits across Eurasia, starting several millennia before the formation of organized and taxed commercial trade. Archeological studies indicate that wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and cattle (West Asian cultural traits) spread to East Asia during the late fifth and fourth millennium BP. Likewise, broomcorn and foxtail millet evolved under cultivation in what is now northern China and dispersed to West Asia during the fourth millennium years ago. Some scholars argue that the early trans-Eurasian exchange crossed the Eurasian Steppe from Europe to Asia, a model often referred to as the steppe highway.” ref

“However, increasingly more archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, and isotopic data suggest that the main passage for the transcontinental exchange followed the rich river valleys and alluvial slopes of the mountains to the beaded oasis passage, a continual route of communication for more than 4,000 years ago, designating the pre-Silk Roads. This spatial–temporal transformation significantly influenced the development of cultures across Europe and Asia, yet the underlying mechanisms that drove or constrained population expansions remain unclear. Extreme climate events, especially megadroughts lasting for decades or centuries, are thought to be a natural forcings that can contribute to the collapse of ancient imperial systems. Shifts in surface water have been implemented in the abandonment of many major urban centers in Arid Central Asia, such as those along the peripheries of the Bukhara Oasis in Uzbekistan or across the northern edge of the Kopet Dag Mountains during the third millennium years ago.” ref

“However, whether extreme climate events in Arid Central Asia played an important role in prehistoric demographic shifts and the trans-Eurasian exchange remains unexplored, due to a dearth of high-resolution climate records with accurate chronologies covering the middle to late Holocene in this region. Existing paleo-climate records reveal Holocene climate trends in eastern Arid Central Asia. These records have issues with dating uncertainty, temporal resolution, and proxy interpretation. To address these uncertainties, we have produced a climate record from two stalagmites collected from Talisman Cave in Kyrgyzstan. This high-resolution (~3 a), precisely 230 Th dated (dating errors are ~6‰) record allows us to correlate regional climate changes with the archaeological record, and test potential cause-effect hypotheses.” ref

Show 3 “Middle Neolithic” China: Ritual, Religion, Elites, and Language

Use time 8:24 to 10:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz4EQ0iYDI4&t=413s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Neolithic_cultures_of_China

“The Hemudu culture was one of the earliest cultures to cultivate rice. Recent excavations at the Hemudu period site of Tianluoshan has demonstrated rice was undergoing evolutionary changes recognized as domestication. Most of the artifacts discovered at Hemudu consist of animal bones, exemplified by hoes made of shoulder bones used for cultivating rice. The culture also produced lacquer wood. A red lacquer wood bowl at the Zhejiang Museum is dated to 4000-5000 BC. It is believed to be the earliest such object in the world. The culture produced a thick, porous pottery. This distinctive pottery was typically black and made with charcoal powder. Plant and geometric designs were commonly painted onto the pottery; the pottery was sometimes also cord-marked. The culture also produced carved jade ornaments, carved ivory artifacts, and small clay figurines.” ref

“The early Hemudu period is considered the maternal clan phase. Descent is thought to have been matrilineal and the social status of children and women is comparatively high. In the later periods, they gradually shifted into patrilineal clans. During that period, the social status of men rose, and descent was passed through the male line. Hemudu’s inhabitants worshiped a sun spirit as well as a fertility spirit. They also enacted shamanistic rituals to the sun and believed in bird totems. A belief in an afterlife and ghosts is thought to have been widespread as well. People were buried with their heads facing east or northeast and most had no burial objects. Infants were buried in urn-casket style burials, while children and adults received earth-level burials. They did not have a definite communal burial ground, for the most part, but a clan communal burial ground has been found from the later period. Two groups in separate parts of this burial ground are thought to be two intermarrying clans. There were noticeably more burial goods in this communal burial ground.” ref

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To Damien, paganism starts around 12,00 years ago in Turkey/Anatolia in Western Asia. The odd thing is most of the world’s religious myths/fables start or commonly relate to “Siberia” like “Lake Baikal/Golden Mountains of Altai” region and “North China like Chertovy Vorota Cave (Devil’s Gate Cave) area and the “Amur Region” at about 8,000/7,000 years ago and they were transferred to the middle east and East Europe/Balkans/Ukraine/Russia.”

The river Amur (Heilong Jiang)

“The Amur (Russian), or Heilong Jiang (Chinese: “Black Dragon River“), is the world’s tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Manchuria/Northeastern China.” ref

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Ancient Northeast Asian

“In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient Northeast Asian (ANA), also known as Amur ancestry, is the name given to an ancestral component that represents the lineage of the hunter-gatherer people of the 7th-4th millennia before present, in far-eastern Siberia, Mongolia, and the Baikal regions. They are inferred to have diverged from Ancient East Asians about 24,000 years ago, and are represented by several ancient human specimens found in archaeological excavations east of the Altai Mountains. They are a sub-group of the Ancient Northern East Asians (ANEA). Genetically, ANA ancestry peaks among modern Tungusic, Mongolic, and Nivkh-speaking populations of Northeast Asia. ANA ancestry (represented by the Tungusic-speaking Ulchi people) overall forms the main ancestry of the early and contemporary speakers of Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages, which supports their spread from Northeast Asia westwards. An earlier wave into Siberia can be associated with “Neo-Siberians” (represented by Uralic-speaking Nganasans), which may be associated with the spread of Yukaghir and Uralic languages, and the partial displacement of Paleo-Siberians.” ref

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“Massive ancient shell middens, some over 16,000 m2, dot the Cagayan Valley in the #Philippines. Built-up between 7,000-2,000-years-ago, they document interactions between Indigenous hunter-gatherers and immigrant #Neolithic farmers.” ref

Preceramic riverside hunter-gatherers and the arrival of Neolithic farmers in northern Luzon

“Abstract: The most westerly Pacific island chain, running from Taiwan southwards through the Philippines, has long been central in debates about the origins and early migrations of Austronesian-speaking peoples from the Asian mainland into the islands of Southeast Asia and Oceania. Focusing on the Cagayan Valley of northern Luzon in the Philippines, the authors combine new and published radiocarbon dates to underpin a revised culture-historical synthesis. The results speak to the initial contacts and long-term relationships between Indigenous hunter-gatherers and immigrant Neolithic farmers, and the question of how the early speakers of Malayo-Polynesian languages spread into and through the Philippines.” ref

“Located 125km off the south-eastern coast of China, the island of Taiwan was host to the earliest Neolithic cultures that existed offshore from the southern Chinese mainland. The Dabenkeng Culture, which marked their initial arrival, commenced AROUND 5,500–5,000 years ago. Taiwan was also the most likely immediate archaeological source for the Neolithic settlement of the northern Philippines more than 4000 years ago. Recent research on ancient DNA from northern Luzon, the Mariana Islands, and the south-western Pacific suggests that the modern Austronesian-speaking populations of Island Southeast Asia and Oceania (beyond New Guinea and Island Melanesia) acquired much of their genetic heritage through ancient migration from southern China, via Taiwan, and through the Philippines.” ref

“These observations mean that Luzon, the first large landmass to be reached by Neolithic migrants heading south from Taiwan, must have played a significant role in the development of the ancestral languages and cultures of the Austronesian-speaking peoples of recent ethnographic times and through to the present. In terms of linguistics, for example, the Austronesian language family is divided into two major phylogenetic divisions: one includes the Indigenous (non-Sinitic) Formosan languages of Taiwan, while the other includes the Malayo-Polynesian languages of all other regions of the Austronesian world, from Madagascar to Rapanui (Easter Island), as well as the Philippines. Taiwan is also the source of Proto-Austronesian, the earliest proto-language that can be reconstructed through a comparison of historically recorded and living Austronesian languages. The proto-language for the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup is thought to have developed somewhere within the northern Philippines, including Luzon and the Batanes Islands, or perhaps in eastern Taiwan.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Postglacial genomes from foragers across Northern Eurasia reveal prehistoric

mobility associated with the spread of the Uralic and Yeniseian languages

Abstract

“The North Eurasian forest and forest-steppe zones have sustained millennia of sociocultural connections among northern peoples. We present genome-wide ancient DNA data for 181 individuals from this region spanning the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age. We find that Early to Mid-Holocene hunter-gatherer populations from across the southern forest and forest-steppes of Northern Eurasia can be characterized by a continuous gradient of ancestry that remained stable for millennia, ranging from fully West Eurasian in the Baltic region to fully East Asian in the Transbaikal region. In contrast, cotemporaneous groups in far Northeast Siberia were genetically distinct, retaining high levels of continuity from a population that was the primary source of ancestry for Native Americans. By the mid-Holocene, admixture between this early Northeastern Siberian population and groups from Inland East Asia and the Amur River Basin produced two distinctive populations in eastern Siberia that played an important role in the genetic formation of later people. Ancestry from the first population, Cis-Baikal Late Neolithic-Bronze Age (Cisbaikal_LNBA), is found substantially only among Yeniseian-speaking groups and those known to have admixed with them. Ancestry from the second, Yakutian Late Neolithic-Bronze Age (Yakutia_LNBA), is strongly associated with present-day Uralic speakers. We show how Yakutia_LNBA ancestry spread from an east Siberian origin ~4.5kya, along with subclades of Y-chromosome haplogroup N occurring at high frequencies among present-day Uralic speakers, into Western and Central Siberia in communities associated with Seima-Turbino metallurgy: a suite of advanced bronze casting techniques that spread explosively across an enormous region of Northern Eurasia ~4.0kya. However, the ancestry of the 16 Seima-Turbino-period individuals–the first reported from sites with this metallurgy–was otherwise extraordinarily diverse, with partial descent from Indo-Iranian-speaking pastoralists and multiple hunter-gatherer populations from widely separated regions of Eurasia. Our results provide support for theories suggesting that early Uralic speakers at the beginning of their westward dispersal where involved in the expansion of Seima-Turbino metallurgical traditions, and suggests that both cultural transmission and migration were important in the spread of Seima-Turbino material culture.” ref

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

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“Haplogroup N1 (N1a, N1c) was found in ancient bones of Liao civilization (at least by 6,200 BCE or around 8,200 years ago):

• Niuheliang (Hongshan Culture, 6500–5000 years ago) 66.7%
• Halahaigou (Xiaoheyan Culture, 5000–4200 years ago) 100.0%
• Dadianzi (Lower Xiajiadian culture, 4200–3600 years ago) 60.0%” ref

“N1a1a (M178) is seen at 60% among Finns and approximately 40% among Latvians, Lithuanians & 35% among Estonians. N1a2b (P43) estimated to be approximately 4,000 to 5,500 years old, is seen at low to moderate frequency among speakers of some other Uralic languages. Haplogroup N-P43 forms two distinctive subclusters of STR haplotypes, Asian and European, the latter mostly distributed among Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples and related populations. N has also been found in many samples of Neolithic human remains exhumed from Liao civilization in northeastern China, and in the circum-Baikal area of southern Siberia. It is suggested that yDNA N, reached southern Siberia from 12-14 kya. From there it reached southern Europe 8-10kya.” ref

“N1a1a1a1a1a-CTS2929/VL29 Found with high frequency among Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, northwestern Russians, Swedish Saami, Karelians, Nenetses, Finns, and Maris, moderate frequency among other Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Poles, and low frequency among Komis, Mordva, Tatars, Chuvashes, Dolgans, Vepsa, Selkups, Karanogays, and Bashkirs.” ref

“N1a1a1a1a1a1a1-L1025/B215 Highest frequency among Lithuanians, significant in Latvians and Estonians and lesser frequency in Belorussians, Ukrainians, South-West Russians, and Poles. With exception of Estonians, L1025 has highest share among N-M231 clades in previously mentioned populations. Also observed in Finland and Sweden, with sporadic instances in Norway, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, the Azores, Czech Republic, and Slovakia.” ref

“N1a1a1a1a2-Z1936,CTS10082 Found with high frequency among Finns, Vepsa, Karelians, Swedish Saami, northwestern Russians, Bashkirs, and Volga Tatars, moderate frequency among other Russians, Komis, Nenetses, Ob-Ugrians, Dolgans, and Siberian Tatars, and low frequency among Mordva, Nganasans, Chuvashes, Estonians, Latvians, Ukrainians, and Karanogays.” ref

“Haplogroup N1c was known as N3. N1c represents the western extent of haplogroup N, which is found all over the Far East (China, Korea, Japan), Mongolia, and Siberia, especially among Uralic speakers of northern Siberia. Haplogroup N1 reaches a maximum frequency of approximately 95% in the Nenets (40% N1c and 57% N1b) and Nganassans (all N1b), two Uralic tribes of central-northern Siberia, and 90% among the Yakuts (all N1c), a Turkic people who live mainly in the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic in central-eastern Siberia. N1c is found chiefly in north-eastern Europe, particularly in Finland (61%), Lapland (53%), Estonia (34%), Latvia (38%), Lithuania (42%), and northern Russia (30%), and to a lower extent also in central Russia (15%), Belarus (10%), eastern Ukraine (9%), Sweden (7%), Poland (4%) and Turkey (4%). N1c is also prominent among the Uralic-speaking ethnicities of the Volga-Ural region, including the Udmurts (67%), Komi (51%), Mari (50%), and Mordvins (20%), but also among their Turkic neighbors like the Chuvashs (28%), Volga Tatars (21%) and Bashkirs (17%), as well as the Nogais (9%) of southern Russia.” ref

“Haplogroup N is a descendant of East Asian macro-haplogroup NO. It is believed to have originated in Indochina or southern China approximately 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. Haplogroup N1* and N1c were both found at high frequency (26 out of 70 samples, or 37%) in Neolithic and Bronze Age remains (4500-700 BCE) from the West Liao River valley in Northeast China (Manchuria) by Yinqiu Cui et al. (2013). Among the Neolithic samples, haplogroup N1 made up two-thirds of the samples from the Hongshan culture (4700-2900 BCE) and all the samples from the Xiaoheyan culture (3000-2200 BCE), hinting that N1 people played a major role in the diffusion of the Neolithic lifestyle around Northeast China, and probably also to Mongolia and Siberia.” ref

“Ye Zhang et al. 2016 found 100% of Y-DNA N out of 17 samples from the Xueshan culture (Jiangjialiang site) dating from 3600–2900 BCE, and among those 41% belonged to N1c1-Tat. It is therefore extremely likely that the N1c1 subclade found in Europe today has its roots in the Chinese Neolithic. It would have progressively spread across Siberia until north-eastern Europe, possibly reaching the Volga-Ural region around 5500 to 4500 BCE with the Kama culture (5300-3300 BCE), and the eastern Baltic with the Comb Ceramic culture (4200-2000 BCE), the presumed ancestral culture of Proto-Finnic and pre-Baltic people. There is little evidence of agriculture or domesticated animals in Siberia during the Neolithic, but pottery was widely used. In that regard, it was the opposite development from the Near East, which first developed agriculture then only pottery from circa 5500 BCE, perhaps through contact with East Asians via Siberia or Central Asia.” ref

• “N1c1a (M178): found in Siberia (Khakass-Daurs)
• N1c1a1 (L708): found in Siberia (Anayins)
• N1c1a1a (P298): found in Siberia (Yakuts)
• N1c1a1a1 (L392, L1026): Finno-Ugric branch; found throughout north-east Europe
• N1c1a1a1a (CTS2929/VL29): Baltic-Finnic branch
• N1c1a1a1a1 (L550): West Finnic branch; found around the Baltic Sea and in places settled by the Vikings
• N1c1a1a1a1a (L1025)
• N1c1a1a1a1a1 (M2783): found especially in Balto-Slavic countries, with a peak in Lithuania and Latvia
• N1c1a1a1a1a2 (Y4706): found mostly in Finland and Scandinavia
• N1c1a1a1a2 (CTS9976): East Finnic branch; found among the Chudes (Karelia, Estonia)
• N1c1a1a1a2a (L1022)
• N1c1a1a1a2a1 (Z1936): Finno-Permic branch; found in the Volga-Ural region and among the Karelians and Savonians
• N1c1a1a1a2a1a (Z1925): found in Finland, Lapland, Scandinavia, the Volga-Ural and the Altai
• N1c1a1a1a2a1a1 (Z1933)
• N1c1a1a1a2a1a1a (Z1927): found among the Karelians
• N1c1a1a1a2a1a1b (CTS8565): found among the Savonians” ref

“Today, the sharp western boundary for the distribution of hgs C, D and Z lies in the VUB, where they display intermediate frequencies: C (0.3–11.8%), Z (0.2–0.9%), and D (0.6–12%). Sub-hgs Z1 and D5 are also present in modern-day Saami, with highest cumulated frequencies (15.9%) in the Saami of Finland, the easternmost part of the Saami geographical distribution. A precise date for the arrival of these ‘Central/East Siberian’ lineages in NEE is difficult to estimate, although the presence of ‘Central/East Siberian’ lineages in the 3,500 year-old aBOO site indicates that an eastern genetic influence pre-dates historical westward expansions from Central/East Siberia of, e.g., the Huns and the Mongols (∼400–1,500 CE). We present here direct genetic evidence for a prehistoric gene-flow from Siberia. On the basis of modern-day genetic data, hg Z1 was proposed to have been introduced into populations of the VUB and Saami by migrations from Siberia via the southern Urals to the Pechora and Vychegda basins (northwest Urals), associated with the appearance of the Kama culture ∼8,000 years ago.” ref

“D5’6 (16189) is mainly found in East Asia and Southeast Asia, especially in China, Korea, and Japan. It does not appear to have participated in the migration to the Americas, and frequencies in Central, North, and South Asia are generally lower, although the D5a2a2 subclade is prevalent (57/423 = 13.48%) among the Yakuts, a Turkic-speaking group that migrated to Siberia in historical times under the pressure of the Mongol expansion.” ref

“mt-DNA D5a3 – Tibet, Korea, Japan (time to most recent common ancestor 11,100 years ago )

• D5a3a – China, Tibet, Finland
  • D5a3a1 – China, Uyghur, Ukraine
    • D5a3a1a – Finland, Norway (Saami), Russia (Veliky Novgorod, etc.), and Mansi, a Ugric indigenous people living in Russia.” ref

Mansi people

“The Mansi are an Ugric indigenous people living in Khanty–Mansia, an autonomous okrug within Tyumen Oblast in Russia. In Khanty–Mansia, the Khanty and Mansi languages have co-official status with Russian. The Mansi language is one of the postulated Ugric languages of the Uralic family. The Mansi people were formerly known as the Voguls. The Mansi are one of the closest linguistic relatives of modern Hungarians. The Mansi share many similarities with the Khanty people and together they are called Ob-Ugric peoples. Their languages are closely related but also clearly distinct from each other. Weapons used by the Mansi were advanced for the period and included longbows, arrows, spears, and the use of iron helmets and chain mail. In a 2018 study, Mansi samples showed variation in the amounts of West and East Eurasian admixtures. Some of them clustered with the Khanty, while outlier samples had additional West Eurasian admixture, making them closer to Uralic-speakers from Volga-Ural region.” ref

“A notable part of the traditional Mansi religion is the bear cult. A bear celebration is held in connection with the bear hunt (a similar concept to the Finnish peijaiset); it lasts for several days and involves songs, dances and plays. Mansi folklore also includes mythical and heroic stories and fate songs, which are biographical poems. An example of the traditional material culture of Ob-Ugric peoples is ornamenting leather clothing and birchbark objects with mosaics. According to a 2019 study, in addition to having a high level of East Eurasian-like ancestry, the Mansi have also West Eurasian admixture. Their admixture can be modeled to be about 60 % Bronze Age Baikal Lake-like and 40% Srubnaya-like, or about 54% Nganasan-like and about 38% Srubnaya-like, with additional Ancient North Eurasian ANE-related admixture.” ref

“Bear worship (also known as the bear cult or arctolatry) is the religious practice of the worshipping of bears found in many North Eurasian ethnic religions such as among the Sami people in Scandinavia, Nivkh people in the Sakhalin Island and the lower Amur River of the Russian Far East and Manchuria/Northeastern China, and Ainu people in the area of the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula, and Khabarovsk Krai, since before the arrival of the Yamato Japanese and Russians.” ref, ref, ref, ref

“Likewise, Bear worship is seen in the Basques, Germanic peoples, Slavs, and Finns. There are also a number of deities from Celtic Gaul and Britain associated with the bear, and the Dacians, Thracians, and Getians were noted to worship bears and annually celebrate the bear dance festival. The bear is featured on many totems throughout northern cultures that carve them. In an article in Enzyklopädie des Märchens, American folklorist Donald J. Ward noted that a story about a bear mating with a human woman, and producing a male heir, functions as an ancestor myth to peoples of the northern hemisphere, namely, from North America, Japan, China, Siberia and Northern Europe.” ref

Kama Culture (5300-3300 BCE or around 7,300 to 5,300 years ago)

“The Kama culture (also known as Volga-Kama or Khutorskoye from finds near the Khutorskoye settlement) is an Eastern European Subneolithic archaeological culture from the 6th-4th millennium BCE. The area covers the Kama, Vyatka, and the Ik–Belaya watersheds (Perm and Kirov regions, Udmurtia, Tatarstan, and Bashkortostan). In its development the Kama culture passed through three stages: early (sites: Mokino, Ust-Bukorok, Ziarat, Ust-Shizhma), middle (sites: Khutorskaya Kryazhskaya, Lebedynska), and late (sites: Lyovshino, Chernashka). The culture was formed in the early Neolithic on a local Mesolithic substrate under the influence of southern steppe populations. The prehistoric phase according to archaeologists emerged around 2,000 BCE. During this stage, the culture existed in the area that began in the Ufa River (in modern Bashkortostan) through the entire Kama drainage area to the upper Pechora River (Komimu). In the southern regions the influence of the nearby forest-steppe cultures of the Middle Volga can be observed during the whole period of existence. In the developed Neolithic a population of Trans-Ural origin penetrates in the upper and middle Kama. In this period there are formed local variants: Verkhnekamsk, Ikska-Belsky, and Nizhnekamsk. At the end of the Neolithic the lower Kama falls under the influence of the Early Eneolithic Samara culture.” ref

“Linguist Asko Parpola (2022) associates the Kama culture and the Elshanka culture with the early Proto-Uralic language, which would later expand eastwards and westwards with the Seima-Turbino material culture. Uralic languages would later be transmitted by language shift from groups of hunters and fishers participating in the spread of the Seima-Turbino culture towards Siberia and back to Northeastern Europe. The pottery is thick-walled, egg-shaped, both round- and pointed-bottomed. The stone and bone inventory of the pottery culture demonstrated a Mesolithic character. It is heavily ornamented with comb stamp designs, vertical and horizontal zigzags, sloping rows, braids, triangles, banded comb meshes. Kama culture is noted for its metal work and handicrafts. The instruments for work include scrapers, sharpeners, knives, leaf-shaped and semi-rhombic arrowheads, chisels and adzes, weights.” ref

“The definition of the Kama culture remains a subject of debate. Initially, it was determined by O.H. Bader on the territory of the Middle Kama, where he distinguished two phases: Borovoye (Borovoy Lake I) and Khutorskoye. A.Kh. Khalikov united the finds with Pitted and Combed Ware of the Lower and Middle Kama into one Volga-Kama culture. I.V. Kalinina, based on the study of ceramics came to the conclusion that there are two distinct cultures: Volga-Kama pitted pottery and Kama combed pottery. A.A. Vibornov identified three stages of development in the Kama culture, and V.P. Denisov and L.A. Nagovitchin joined the Kama Neolithic finds with combed ceramics into a single Khutorskoye culture, synchronous with the Poluden culture in the Ural Mountains. Its comb decorated pottery is similar to that of the Upper Volga culture. The Kama culture is also culturally close and genetically related to the Volosovo culture. There are scholars who also believe that the culture is related to the Dnieper-Donetsk.” ref

Comb Ceramic culture (4200-2000 BCE or around 6,200 to 4,000 years ago)

“The Comb Ceramic culture or Pit-Comb Ware culture, often abbreviated as CCC or PCW, was a northeast European culture characterised by its Pit–Comb Ware. It existed from around 4200 to 2000 BCE. The bearers of the Comb Ceramic culture are thought to have still mostly followed the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer (Eastern Hunter-Gatherer) lifestyle, with traces of early agriculture. The distribution of the artifacts found includes Finnmark (Norway) in the north, the Kalix River (Sweden), the Gulf of Bothnia (Finland) in the west, and the Vistula River (Poland) in the south. It would include the Narva culture of Estonia and the Sperrings culture in Finland, among others. They are thought to have been essentially hunter-gatherers, though e.g. the Narva culture in Estonia shows some evidence of agriculture. Some of this region was absorbed by the later Corded Ware horizon.” ref

“The Pit–Comb Ware culture is one of the few exceptions to the rule that pottery and farming coexist in Europe. In the Near East farming appeared before pottery, then when farming spread into Europe from the Near East, pottery-making came with it. However, in Asia, where the oldest pottery has been found, pottery was made long before farming. It appears that the Comb Ceramic Culture reflects influences from Siberia and distant China. However, calibrated radiocarbon dates for the comb-ware fragments found (e.g., in the Karelian isthmus), give a total interval of 5600 – 2300 BCE or around 7,600 to 4,300 years ago. The settlements were located at sea shores or beside lakes and the economy was based on hunting, fishing and the gathering of plants. In Finland, it was a maritime culture which became more and more specialized in hunting seals. The dominant dwelling was probably a teepee of about 30 square meters where some 15 people could live. Also rectangular houses made of timber become popular in Finland from 4000 BC cal. Graves were dug at the settlements and the dead were covered with red ochre. The typical Comb Ceramic age shows an extensive use of objects made of flint and amber as grave offerings.” ref

“In earlier times, it was often suggested that the spread of the Comb Ware people was correlated with the diffusion of the Uralic languages, and thus an early Uralic language would have been spoken throughout this culture. It was also suggested that bearers of this culture likely spoke Finno-Ugric languages. Another view is that the Comb Ware people may have spoken Palaeo-European languages, as some toponyms and hydronyms also indicate a non-Uralic, non-Indo-European language at work in some areas. In addition, modern scholars have located the Proto-Uralic homeland east of the Volga, if not even beyond the Urals. The great westward dispersal of the Uralic languages is suggested to have happened long after the demise of the Comb Ceramic culture, perhaps in the 1st millennium BCE. The culture was characterized by small figurines of burnt clay and animal heads made of stone. The animal heads usually depict moose and bears and were derived from the art of the Mesolithic. There were also many rock paintings. There are sources noting that the typical comb ceramic pottery had a sense of luxury and that its makers knew how to wear precious amber pendants.” ref

Pre-Finno-Ugric substrate

“Pre-Finno-Ugric substrate refers to substratum loanwords from unidentified non-Indo-European and non-Uralic languages that are found in various Finno-Ugric languages, most notably Sami. The presence of Pre-Finno-Ugric substrate in Sami languages was demonstrated by Ante Aikio. Janne Saarikivi points out that similar substrate words are present in Finnic languages as well, but in much smaller numbers. The number of substrate words in Sámi likely exceeds one thousand words. Borrowing to Saami from Paleo-Laplandic probably still took place after the completion of the Great Saami Vowel Shift. Paleo-Laplandic likely became extinct about 1500 years ago. The Nganasan language also has many substrate words from unknown extinct languages in the Taimyr peninsula.” ref

“There are irregularities in Sami substrate words which suggest they might have been borrowed from distinct, but related languages. In the west, the substrate languages probably had an s-type sibilant which corresponds to an š-type sibilant in the east. As we only have fragments of Lakelandic Sami which were preserved in Finnish placenames and dialectal vocabulary, the features of the Paleo-Lakelandic substrate in Lakelandic Sami cannot be studied. Many placenames in Finland come from Sami words of unknown origin which are likely substrate words, such as jokuu from Proto-Sami *čuokōs ‘track, way’. The Sami substrate in Finnish dialects also reveals that Lakelandic Sami languages had a high number of words with an obscure origin, likely deriving from old languages of the region.” ref

“According to Aikio, the speakers of the Proto-Samic language arrived in Lapland around 650 BCE or around 2,650 years ago and fully assimilated the local Paleo-European populations by the middle of 1st millennium CE. In his opinion, the detailed reconstruction of these languages is impossible. The languages of more eastern post-Swiderian cultures might have influenced Finno-Ugric languages as well. According to Peter Schrijver, some of these substrate languages probably had many geminated consonants. A lexical comparison with the hypothetical Pre-Germanic substratum yields no results. There are also some examples of possible substrate words in Finno-Volgaic languages that differ from the Pre-Sami substrate, i.e. Proto-Finno-Volgaic *täštä “star”, or *kümmin “ten”. Some words in Finno-Volgaic languages contain rare consonant clusters, which suggests loanwords from unknown languages. Finnish words such as jauho (Eng. flour), lehmä (cow), tähti (star), tammi (oak) and ihminen (human) could be substrate words.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“The Uralic languages form a language family of 38 languages spoken natively by approximately 25 million people, predominantly in Europe (over 99% of the family’s speakers) and northern Asia (less than 1%). The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (which alone accounts for nearly 60% of speakers), Finnish, and Estonian. Other significant languages with fewer speakers are Erzya, Moksha, Mari, Udmurt, Sami, Komi, and Vepsian, all of which are spoken in northern regions of Scandinavia and the Russian Federation.” ref

A computational phylogenetic study by Honkola, et al. (2013) classifies the Uralic languages as follows. Estimated divergence dates from Honkola, et al. (2013) are also given.

Uralic (5300 years ago)

• Samoyedic
• Finno-Ugric (3900 years ago)
  • Ugric (3300 years ago)
    • Hungarian
    • Ob-Ugric (1900 years ago)
      • Khanty
      • Mansi
  • Finno-Permic (3700 years ago)
    • Permian
      • Udmurt
      • Komi
    • Finno-Volgaic
      • Mari (3200 years ago)
      • (core branch)
        • Erzya (2900 years ago) (Mordvinic)
        • Finno-Saami
          • Sami (800 years ago)
          • Finnic (1200 years ago)” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“The Yangshao culture was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the middle reaches of the Yellow River in China from 5000 to 3000 BCE or around 7,000 to 5,000 years ago. Recent research indicates a common origin of the Sino-Tibetan languages with the Cishan, Yangshao and/or the Majiayao cultures. 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 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. Pottery style emerging from the Yangshao culture spread westward to the Majiayao culture, and then further to Xinjiang and Central Asia. 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.” 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. 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

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“Over the course of those six millennia leading up to the Xia Dynasty, Neolithic communities became more diverse and complex. For instance, for the period 5000 – 3000 BCE, archaeologists have identified at least eight major regional Neolithic cultures located along rivers and coasts. They did so by examining pottery styles and village settlement patterns. One example is Yangshao culture, which was concentrated along the middle reaches of the Yellow River. Over one thousand sites left behind by millet-farming village communities have been discovered. Jiangzhai (c. 4000 BCE), for instance, was a moated village settlement that occupied roughly thirteen acres. It was composed of related lineages and tribal in organization. During the third millennium BCE, Yangshao culture was gradually supplanted by Longshan culture (c. 3000 – 1900 BCE), which emerged further to the east, along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. Archaeologists excavated a site near the town after which Longshan was named, they found evidence for a culture that had laid the foundations for the kingdoms that emerged in the second millennium BCE, including the ruins of numerous walled towns with cemeteries outside. Their rammed-earth walls protected urban areas with public buildings, roads, and drainage systems. The cemetery’s arrangement suggests that people living in the towns were buried alongside clan members, but also that some members were wealthier and more powerful: while most graves had nothing but a skeleton, others contained numerous artifacts, such as pottery and jade.” ref

“Based on this evidence, archaeologists have concluded that, during the third millennium BCE, population grew and some of it shifted from villages to walled towns. These walled towns developed into political and economic centers exercising control over and serving as protection for surrounding communities. Individuals with more elaborate graves were likely political and religious leaders, and served as chieftains. Hence, numerous competing chiefdoms emerged, providing the foundation for more powerful kingdoms to follow. Ancient Chinese histories identify the first major kingdom as the Xia Dynasty (c. 1900 – 1600 BCE). However, these were written many centuries after the kingdom about which they speak and, lacking written evidence from the dynasty itself, specialists have been unable to definitively establish its location. Nevertheless, most agree that the Xia capital was located along the Yellow River at Erlitou [are-lee-toe]. At its peak of activity from 1900 – 1600 BCE, this town looks like something more complex than a chiefdom. Erlitou included a central, walled palace complex, workshops for the production of bronze and pottery, and elite burials containing bronze weapons and jade, suggesting a socially stratified, Bronze Age civilization and kingdom. That is why many historians identify it as the capital of the Xia Dynasty.” ref

“With the Shang Dynasty (1600 – 1046 BCE), we formally step into China’s historical period. A Chinese scholar came across mysterious bones that were being ground up for use as medicine. He immediately recognized that the Chinese characters inscribed on them were very ancient. Subsequently, the origin of these bones was traced to fields in Anyang [anneyawng], China where, excavations were carried out. Similar to the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization, a lost civilization was revealed on the North China Plain, the one difference being that traditional histories of a later time had documented this one. The Shang Dynasty capital (was Anyang) and boundaries. The Shang centered in the North China Plain, along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. The other labels indicate names given by the Shang rulers to tribal peoples surrounding the kingdom. The findings were substantial. A diverse array of settlements with a royal capital at the center covered nearly thirty square kilometers. Archaeologists have identified 53 pounded earth foundations as the floors of royal palace-temples and the ruins in their vicinity as residential areas for elites and commoners; sacrificial pits; and workshops for the production of bronze, pottery, and stone. Also, a royal cemetery with eight large tombs and dozens of smaller ones lies to the northwest. The larger graves were roughly half the size of a football field, each accessible through four ramps whose orientation to the cardinal directions gives them the appearance of crosses. Deep down at the bottom of each tomb’s central shaft, wooden chambers were built to house the dead bodies of Shang kings. Shockingly to us, dozens of human skeletons were placed above and below these, presumably as servants to accompany rulers in the afterlife (view reconstruction of a Xia Dynasty palace at Erlitou.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Lake Baikal and Myths of Creation: Primordial waters, Supernatural Creatures of water, and the Mounds of creation

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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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

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“Suggested early migration route of early Austronesians into and out of Taiwan based on ancient and modern mtDNA data. This hypothesis assumes the Sino-Austronesian grouping, a minority view among linguists. (Ko et al., 2014)” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_peoples

“Possible language family homelands and the spread of rice into Southeast Asia (5,500–2,500 years ago). The approximate coastlines during the early Holocene are shown in lighter blue.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_peoples

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“The red arrows migrations of millet in the Neolithic, bringing Koreanic and Tungusic languages to the indicated regions. The green arrows mark the integration of rice in the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age, bringing the Japonic language over Korea to Japan.” https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Integration-of-linguistic-agricultural-and-genetic-expansions-in-Northeast-Asia-Amur_fig15_356186326

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“A Dynamic 6,000-Year Genetic History of Eurasia’s Eastern Steppe.” ref

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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, 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”. 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.” ref

“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.” ref

“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. 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. 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.” ref

“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 the 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 serves 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

“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 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. The Mesoamerican world tree connects the planes of the underworld and the sky with that of the terrestrial realm.” ref 

“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.” 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

“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

“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

Show 4 “Late Neolithic and Bronze Age” China: Ritual, Religion, Elites, Language, and Empires

Use time 10:50 to 35:54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz4EQ0iYDI4&t=413s

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Neolithic_cultures_of_China

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33:00 time on the video: The Rise of Early Chinese Civilization ~ Dr. Min Li https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz4EQ0iYDI4&t=413s

(Believed possible “sacred mountain” honoring rituals).

Afanasievo culture (early PIE: Proto-Indo-European)

“Archaeology traces the spread of artifacts, habitations, and burial sites presumed to be created by speakers of Proto-Indo-European in several stages: from the hypothesized locations of the Proto-Indo-European homeland, into their later locations of Western Europe, Central, South, and Eastern Asia.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_migrations

Banpo (Yangshao Neolithic Site): In Focus

ref, ref, ref

“By applying Bayesian methods to infer a dated phylogeny of the Transeurasian languages. The results indicate a time-depth of 9,181 years ago (5595–12793 95% highest probability density (95% HPD)) for the Proto-Transeurasian root of the family; 6,811 years ago (4404–10166 95% HPD) for Proto-Altaic, the unity of Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages; 4,491 years ago (2599–6373 95% HPD) for Mongolo-Tungusic; and 5,458 years ago (3335–8024 95% HPD) for Japano-Koreanic. In contrast to previously proposed homelands, which range from the Altai to the Yellow River to the Greater Khingan Mountains to the Amur basin, we find support for a Transeurasian origin in the West Liao River region in the Early Neolithic. After a primary break-up of the family in the Neolithic, further dispersals took place in the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age. Although Neolithic Northeast Asia was characterized by widespread plant cultivation, cereal farming expanded from several centers of domestication, the most important of which for Transeurasian was the West Liao basin, where cultivation of broomcorn millet started around 9000 years ago.” ref

ref

Cishan culture (6500–5000 BCE) and Yangshao culture (5000 to 3000 BCE)

“Red oval is the late Cishan and the early Yangshao cultures. After applying the linguistic comparative method to the database of comparative linguistic data developed by Laurent Sagart in 2019 to identify sound correspondences and establish cognates, phylogenetic methods are used to infer relationships among these languages and estimate the age of their origin and homeland.” ref

“The Cishan culture (6500–5000 BCE) was a Neolithic culture in northern China, on the eastern foothills of the Taihang Mountains. The Cishan culture was based on the farming of broomcorn millet, the cultivation of which on one site has been dated back 10,000 years. The people at Cishan also began to cultivate foxtail millet around 8700 years ago. However, these early dates have been questioned by some archaeologists due to sampling issues and lack of systematic surveying. Over 500 subterranean storage pits were discovered at Cishan. These pits were used to store millet. The largest pits were 5 meters deep and capable of storing up to 1,000 kg (2,205 lb) of millet. Common artifacts from the Cishan culture include stone grinders, stone sickles, and tripod pottery. The sickle blades feature fairly uniform serrations, which made the harvesting of grain easier. Cord markings, used as decorations on the pottery, was more common compared to neighboring cultures. Also, the Cishan potters created a broader variety of pottery forms such as basins, pot supports, serving stands, and drinking cups. Since the culture shared many similarities with its southern neighbor, the Peiligang culture, both cultures were sometimes previously referred to together as the Cishan-Peiligang culture or Peiligang-Cishan culture. The Cishan culture also shared several similarities with its eastern neighbor, the Beixin culture. However, the contemporary consensus among archaeologists is that the Cishan people were members of a distinct culture that shared many characteristics with its neighbors. This culture has been linked to the origin of the Sino-Tibetan language family.” ref

ref

“Sino-Tibetan languages are a family of more than 400 languages, hypothesis associates the family with the Neolithic Yangshao culture (7000–5000 years ago) of the Yellow River basin, with an expansion driven by millet agriculture.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Tibetan_languages

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“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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“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

ref

“Distribution of Transeurasian languages in the past and in the present. a, Geographical distribution of the 98 Transeurasian language varieties included in this study. Contemporary languages are represented by colored surfaces, and historical varieties by red dots. b, Reconstructed locations of Transeurasian ancestral languages spoken during the Neolithic (red) and the Bronze Age and later (green).” ref

ref

“Main migratory and trade movements in Eurasia since the Neolithic. Mongoloid Xiongnu people established their first empire in the Northern regions of Mongolia between 209 BCE and 93 CE to migrate thereafter to Central Europe, where they mingled.” ref

ref

Indo-European language dispersals

“The second migration, 3300–2800 bc or later, of the Afanasievo-type immigrants into the western Altai Mountains.” ref

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“The Afanasievo culture of south Siberia, occupying the Minusinsk Basin and the Altai Mountains during the Eneolithic era (also called the Chalcolithic or Copper Age), c. 3300 to 2500 BCE or around 5,300-4,500 years ago. Afanasevan population was descended from people who migrated c. 3700–3300 BCE across the Eurasian Steppe from the pre-Yamnaya Repin culture of the Don–Volga region.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afanasievo_culture

“A map with marked archaeological sites from Afanasievo and Andronovo cultures show that they were genetically related to Indo-European language dispersals.” ref

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

“Tocharian may have been plausibly introduced to the Dzungarian Basin by Afanasievo migrants during the Early Bronze Age.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04052-7

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Overview of key Eurasian geographic regions, features, and archaeological sites of the Xinjiang Bronze Age

“Early Bronze Age Dzungarian individuals exhibit a predominantly Afanasievo ancestry with an additional local contribution, and the Early–Middle Bronze Age Tarim individuals contain only a local ancestry.”  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04052-7

“Transeurasian languages. The abbreviations for the languages can be found in the article. Martine Robbeets, Remco Bouckaert (2018).” ref

ref

“The Longshan (or Lung-shan) culture, also sometimes referred to as the Black Pottery Culture, was a late Neolithic culture in the middle and lower Yellow River valley areas of northern China from about 3,000 to 1,900 BCE or around 5,000 to 3,900 years ago. It decreased in most areas around 2000 BCE until the central area evolved into the Bronze Age Erlitou culture. The Longshan culture has been linked to the early Sinitic (of the Sino-Tibetan languages). Remains have been found in Shaanxi and southern Henan of scapulae of cattle, pigs, sheep, and deer that were heated as a form of divination. Evidence of human sacrifice becomes more common in Shaanxi and the Central Plain in the late Longshan period.” ref

“Oracle bones are pieces of ox scapula and turtle plastron, which were used for pyromancy – a form of divination – in ancient China, mainly during the late Shang dynasty. The Shang dynasty dates from 1,600 to 1,045 BCE or around 3,600 to 3,045 years ago. The Anyang site has yielded the earliest known body of Chinese writing, using an early form of Chinese characters, mostly divinations inscribed on oracle bones – turtle shells, ox scapulae, or other bones.” ref

Show 5 “Bronze Age and Ancient China” Ritual, Religion, Elites, Language, and Empires

“Map of the world in 2000 BCE or around 4,000 years ago. Red outline indicates areas of bronze working, c. 2000 BCE.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age 

Bronze Age China 

“The Bronze Age in China began around 2000 BCE, and the earliest excavated ritual bronze vessels date to around 1600 BCE. Found in tombs, these vessels were made for use in rites performed on an ancestral altar or cast specifically for burial with the dead. Only Chinese kings and high-ranking nobility could afford such expensive and labor-intensive artifacts, which required a knowledge of mining, smelting, metallurgy, and casting to execute. From Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BCE) records comprised of some 200,000 inscriptions on bone and turtle shells, we know that Chinese ancestors were propitiated with elaborate rites, feasts, and sacrifices. If ancestors were displeased with the activities of their descendants or the rituals offered to them, they might fail to act on their progeny’s behalf, or even cause their descendants harm. This could come in the form of poor harvests, drought, or famine. The Chinese believed in a complex world of spirits, which comprised a multitude of nature deities, royal ancestors, and others who controlled important earthly phenomena such as weather, harvests, births, deaths, and military campaigns.” https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/features/asian-islamic/chinese-bronze-vessels.php

Bronze age Asia

Agropastoralism

“For many decades scholars made superficial reference to Central Asia as the “pastoral realm” or alternatively, the “nomadic world”, in what researchers have come to call the “Central Asian void”: a 5,000 year span that was neglected in studies of the origins of agriculture. Foothill regions and glacial melt streams supported Bronze Age agropastoralists who developed complex east–west trade routes between Central Asia and China that introduced wheat and barley to China and spread millet across Central Asia.” ref 

 Seima-Turbino phenomenon

“The Altai Mountains in what is now southern Russia and central Mongolia have been identified as the point of origin of a cultural enigma termed the Seima-Turbino Phenomenon. It is conjectured that changes in climate in this region around 2000 BCE and the ensuing ecological, economic, and political changes triggered a rapid and massive migration westward into northeast Europe, eastward into China, and southward into Vietnam and Thailand across a frontier of some 4,000 miles. This migration took place in just five to six generations and led to peoples from Finland in the west to Thailand in the east employing the same metalworking technology and, in some areas, horse breeding and riding. It is further conjectured that the same migrations spread the Uralic group of languages across Europe and Asia: some 39 languages of this group are still extant, including Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. However, recent genetic testings of sites in south Siberia and Kazakhstan (Andronovo horizon) would rather support a spreading of the bronze technology via Indo-European migrations eastwards, as this technology was well known for quite a while in western regions.” ref

“In China, the earliest bronze artifacts have been found in the Majiayao culture site (between 3100 and 2700 BCE). The term “Bronze Age” has been transferred to the archaeology of China from that of Western Eurasia, and there is no consensus or universally used convention delimiting the “Bronze Age” in the context of Chinese prehistory. By convention, the “Early Bronze Age” in China is sometimes taken as equivalent to the “Shang dynasty” period (16th to 11th centuries BCE), and the “Later Bronze Age” as equivalent to the “Zhou dynasty” period (11th to 3rd centuries BC, from the 5th century, also dubbed “Iron Age“), although there is an argument to be made that the “Bronze Age” proper never ended in China, as there is no recognizable transition to an “Iron Age”. Significantly, together with the jade art that precedes it, bronze was seen as a “fine” material for ritual art when compared with iron or stone.” ref

“Bronze metallurgy in China originated in what is referred to as the Erlitou (Wade–Giles: Erh-li-t’ou) period, which some historians argue places it within the range of dates controlled by the Shang dynasty. Others believe the Erlitou sites belong to the preceding Xia (Wade–Giles: Hsia) dynasty. The U.S. National Gallery of Art defines the Chinese Bronze Age as the “period between about 2000 BCE and 771 BCE”, a period that begins with the Erlitou culture and ends abruptly with the disintegration of Western Zhou rule.” ref

“There is reason to believe that bronze work developed inside China separately from outside influence. However, the discovery of Europoid mummies in Xinjiang has caused some scholars such as Johan Gunnar Andersson, Jan Romgard, and An Zhimin to suggest a possible route of transmission from the West eastwards. According to An Zhimin, “It can be imagined that initially bronze and iron technology took its rise in West Asia, first influenced the Xinjiang region, and then reached the Yellow River valley, providing external impetus for the rise of the Shang and Zhou civilizations.” According to Jan Romgard, “bronze and iron tools seems to have traveled from west to east as well as the use of wheeled wagons and the domestication of the horse.” There are also possible links to Seima-Turbino culture, “a transcultural complex across northern Eurasia,” the Eurasian steppe, and the Urals. However, the oldest bronze objects found in China so far were discovered at the Majiayao site in Gansu rather than at Xinjiang.” ref

“The Shang dynasty (also known as the Yin dynasty) of the Yellow River Valley rose to power after the Xia dynasty around 1600 BC. While some direct information about the Shang dynasty comes from Shang-era inscriptions on bronze artifacts, most comes from oracle bones—turtle shells, cattle scapulae, or other bones—which bear glyphs that form the first significant corpus of recorded Chinese characters.” ref

“The production of Erlitou in Henan represents the earliest large-scale metallurgy industry in the Central Plains of China. The influence of the Saima-Turbino metalworking tradition from the north is supported by a series of recent discoveries in China of many unique perforated spearheads with downward hooks and small loops on the same or opposite side of the socket, which could be associated with the Seima-Turbino visual vocabulary of southern Siberia. The metallurgical centers of northwestern China, especially Qijia in Gansu and Kexingzhuang culture in Shaanxi, played an intermediary role in this process.” ref

“Iron has been found from the Zhou dynasty, but its use was minimal. Chinese literature dating to the 6th century BCE attests knowledge of iron smelting, yet bronze continues to occupy the seat of significance in the archaeological and historical record for some time after this. Historian W.C. White argues that iron did not supplant bronze “at any period before the end of the Zhou dynasty (256 BCE)” and that bronze vessels make up the majority of metal vessels through the Later Han period, or to 221 BCE.” ref

“The Chinese bronze artifacts generally are either utilitarian, like spear points or adze heads, or “ritual bronzes”, which are more elaborate versions in precious materials of everyday vessels, as well as tools and weapons. Examples are the numerous large sacrificial tripods known as dings in Chinese; there are many other distinct shapes. Surviving identified Chinese ritual bronzes tend to be highly decorated, often with the taotie motif, which involves highly stylized animal faces. These appear in three main motif types: those of demons, of symbolic animals, and abstract symbols. Many large bronzes also bear cast inscriptions that are the great bulk of the surviving body of early Chinese writing and have helped historians and archaeologists piece together the history of China, especially during the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE).” ref

“The bronzes of the Western Zhou dynasty document large portions of history not found in the extant texts that were often composed by persons of varying rank and possibly even social class. Further, the medium of cast bronze lends the record they preserve a permanence not enjoyed by manuscripts. These inscriptions can commonly be subdivided into four parts: a reference to the date and place, the naming of the event commemorated, the list of gifts given to the artisan in exchange for the bronze, and a dedication. The relative points of reference these vessels provide have enabled historians to place most of the vessels within a certain time frame of the Western Zhou period, allowing them to trace the evolution of the vessels and the events they record.” ref 

“In Ban Chiang, Thailand, (Southeast Asia) bronze artifacts have been discovered dating to 2100 BCE. However, according to the radiocarbon dating on the human and pig bones in Ban Chiang, some scholars propose that the initial Bronze Age in Ban Chiang was in late 2nd millennium. In Nyaunggan, Burma, bronze tools have been excavated along with ceramics and stone artifacts. Dating is still currently broad (3500–500 BCE). Ban Non Wat, excavated by Charles Higham, was a rich site with over 640 graves excavated that gleaned many complex bronze items that may have had social value connected to them.” ref

“Ban Chiang, however, is the most thoroughly documented site while having the clearest evidence of metallurgy when it comes to Southeast Asia. With a rough date range of late 3rd millennium BCE to the first millennium CE, this site alone has various artifacts such as burial pottery (dating from 2100 to 1700 BCE), fragments of Bronze, copper-base bangles, and much more. What’s interesting about this site, however, is not just the old age of the artifacts but that this technology suggested on-site casting from the very beginning. The on-site casting supports the theory that Bronze was first introduced in Southeast Asia as fully developed which therefore shows that Bronze was innovated from a different country. Some scholars believe that the copper-based metallurgy was disseminated from northwest and central China via south and southwest areas such as Guangdong province and Yunnan province and finally into southeast Asia around 1000 BCE. Archaeology also suggests that Bronze Age metallurgy may not have been as significant a catalyst in social stratification and warfare in Southeast Asia as in other regions, social distribution shifting away from chiefdom-states to a heterarchical network. Data analyses of sites such as Ban Lum Khao, Ban Na Di, Non-Nok Tha, Khok Phanom Di, and Nong Nor have consistently led researchers to conclude that there was no entrenched hierarchy.” ref

“The beginning of the Bronze Age on the peninsula is around 1000–800 BCE. Initially centered around Liaoning and southern Manchuria, Korean Bronze Age culture exhibits unique typology and styles, especially in ritual objects. The Mumun pottery period is named after the Korean name for undecorated or plain cooking and storage vessels that form a large part of the pottery assemblage over the entire length of the period, but especially 850–550 BCE. The Mumun period is known for the origins of intensive agriculture and complex societies in both the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago.” ref

“The Middle Mumun pottery period culture of the southern Korean Peninsula gradually adopted bronze production (c. 700–600? BCE) after a period when Liaoning-style bronze daggers and other bronze artifacts were exchanged as far as the interior part of the Southern Peninsula (c. 900–700 BCE). The bronze daggers lent prestige and authority to the personages who wielded and were buried with them in high-status megalithic burials at south-coastal centers such as the Igeum-dong site. Bronze was an important element in ceremonies and as for mortuary offerings until 100 BCE. Dating back to the Neolithic Age, the first bronze drum, called the Dong Son drum, were uncovered in and around the Red River Delta regions of Northern Vietnam and Southern China. These relate to the Dong Son culture of Vietnam.” ref

“Archaeological research in Northern Vietnam indicates an increase in rates of infectious disease following the advent of metallurgy; skeletal fragments in sites dating to the early and mid-Bronze Age evidence a greater proportion of lesions than in sites of earlier periods. There are a few possible implications of this. One is the increased contact with bacterial and/or fungal pathogens due to increased population density and land clearing/cultivation. The other one is decreased levels of immunocompetence in the Metal age due to changes in the diet caused by agriculture. The last is that there may have been an emergence of infectious disease in the Da But the period that evolved into a more virulent form in the metal period.” ref

“The Japanese archipelago saw the introduction of bronze during the beginning of the Early Yayoi period (≈300 BCE), which saw the introduction of metalworking and agricultural practices brought in by settlers arriving from the continent. Bronze and iron smelting techniques spread to the Japanese archipelago through contact with other ancient East Asian civilizations, particularly immigration and trade from ancient Korean peninsula and ancient mainland China. Iron was mainly used for agricultural and other tools, whereas ritual and ceremonial artifacts were mainly made of bronze.” ref

I speculate that the Seima-Turbino culture artifacts of male figures may represent a sky god such as Tian/Tengri/*Dyḗus, and thus to me, could represent a similar shared deity that was then added and applied differently to different cultures hiding their related ancient connections of shared mythology.

ref, ref

“Tiān (天) is one of the oldest Chinese terms for heaven and a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion. During the Shang dynasty (17th―11th century BCE), the Chinese referred to their supreme god as Shàngdì (上帝, “Lord on High”) or Dì (帝, “Lord”). During the following Zhou dynasty, Tiān became synonymous with this figure. Before the 20th century, worship of Tiān was an orthodox state religion of China. In Taoism and Confucianism, Tiān (the celestial aspect of the cosmos, often translated as “Heaven“) is mentioned in relationship to its complementary aspect of Dì (地, often translated as “Earth“). They are thought to maintain the two poles of the Three Realms (三界) of reality, with the middle realm occupied by Humanity (人, rén), and the lower world occupied by demons (魔, mó) and “ghosts”, the damned, (鬼, guǐ). Tiān was variously thought as a “supreme power reigning over lesser gods and human beings” that brought “order and calm…or catastrophe and punishment”, a god, destiny, an “impersonal” natural force that controlled various events, a holy world or afterlife containing other worlds or afterlives, or one or more of these.” ref

“The modern Chinese character 天 and early seal script both combine dà 大 “great; large” and yī 一 “one”, but some of the original characters in Shāng oracle bone script and Zhōu bronzeware script anthropomorphically portray a large head on a great person. The ancient oracle and bronze ideograms for dà 大 depict a stick figure person with arms stretched out denoting “great; large”. The oracle and bronze characters for tiān 天 emphasize the cranium of this “great (person)”, either with a square or round head, or head marked with one or two lines. Schuessler notes the bronze graphs for tiān, showing a person with a round head, resemble those for dīng 丁 “4th Celestial stem“, and suggests “The anthropomorphic graph may or may not indicate that the original meaning was ‘deity’, rather than ‘sky’.” Two variant Chinese characters for tiān 天 “heaven” are 二人 (written with 二 er “two” and 人 ren “human”) and the Daoist coinage 靝 (with 青 qīng “blue” and 氣 “qì“, i.e., “blue sky”).” ref

“The Modern Standard Chinese pronunciation of 天 “sky, heaven; heavenly deity, god” is tiān [tʰi̯ɛn˥] in level first tone. The character is read as Cantonese tin1; Taiwanese thiN1 or thian1; Vietnamese thiên; Korean cheon or ch’ŏn (천); and Japanese ten in On’yomi (borrowed Chinese reading) and ama- (bound), ame (free), or sora in Kun’yomi (native Japanese reading). Tiān 天 reconstructions in Middle Chinese (c. 6th–10th centuries CE) include t’ien, t’iɛn, tʰɛn > tʰian, and then. Reconstructions in Old Chinese (c. 6th–3rd centuries BCE) include *t’ien, *t’en, *hlin, *thîn, and *l̥ˤin. In some cases, the heavens in Shinto were thought to be a hierarchy of multiple, sphere-like realms that contained kami such as fox spirits. Myths about the kami were told “of their doings on Earth and in heaven.” Heaven was thought to be a clean and orderly place for nature gods in Shinto.” ref

“Kami (Japanese: 神, [kaꜜmi]) are the deities, divinities, spirits, mythological, spiritual, or natural phenomena, or holy powers that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, beings and the qualities that these beings express, and/or the spirits of venerated dead people. Many kami are considered the ancient ancestors of entire clans (some ancestors became kami upon their death if they were able to embody the values and virtues of kami in life). Traditionally, great leaders like the Emperor could be or became kami. Although deity is the common interpretation of kami, some Shinto scholars argue that such a translation can cause a misunderstanding of the term. Some etymological suggestions are: Kami may, at its root, simply mean spirit, or an aspect of spirituality. It is written with the kanji 神, Sino-Japanese reading shin or jin. In Chinese, the character means deity. And, in the Ainu language, the word kamuy refers to an animistic concept very similar to Japanese kami. The matter of the words’ origins is still a subject of debate; but it is generally suggested that the word kami was derived from Ainu word kamuy.” ref

“A kamuy (Ainu: カムィ; Japanese: カムイ, romanized: kamui) is a spiritual or divine being in Ainu mythology, a term denoting a supernatural entity composed of or possessing spiritual energy. The Ainu people have many myths about the kamuy, passed down through oral traditions and rituals. The stories of the kamuy were portrayed in chants and performances, which were often performed during sacred rituals. In concept, kamuy are similar to the Japanese kami but this translation misses some of the nuances of the term (the missionary John Batchelor assumed that the Japanese term was of Ainu origin). The usage of the term is very extensive and contextual among the Ainu, and can refer to something regarded as especially positive as well as something regarded as especially strong. Kamuy can refer to spiritual beings, including animals, plants, the weather, and even human tools. Guardian angels are called Ituren-Kamui. Kamuy are numerous; some are delineated and named, such as Kamuy Fuchi, the hearth goddess, while others are not.” ref

“Kamuy often have very specific associations, for instance, there is a kamuy of the undertow. Batchelor compares the word with the Greek term daimon. Personified deities of Ainu mythology often have the term kamuy applied as part of their names. Though kamuy yukar is considered to be one of the oldest genres of Ainu oral performance, anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney supposed that there are more than 20 types of genres. Originally, it seems kamuy yukar was performed solely for religious purposes by the women who took on the role of shamans. The shamans became possessed and recanted the chants, possibly explaining why kamuy yukar is performed with a first-person narrative. As time passed, kamuy yukar became less of a sacred ritual, serving as entertainment and as a way to pass down traditions and cultural stories.” ref

“For the etymology of tiān, Schuessler links it with the Mongolian word tengri “sky, heaven, heavenly deity” or the Tibeto-Burman words taleŋ (Adi) and tǎ-lyaŋ (Lepcha), both meaning “sky”. He also suggests a likely connection between Chinese tiān 天, diān 巔 “summit, mountaintop”, and diān 顛 “summit, top of the head, forehead”, which have cognates such as Zemeic Naga tiŋ “sky”. However, other reconstructions of 天’s OC pronunciation *qʰl’iːn or *l̥ˤi[n] reconstructed a voiceless lateral onset, either a cluster or a single consonant, respectively. Baxter & Sagart pointed to attested dialectal differences in Eastern Han Chinese, the use of 天 as a phonetic component in phono-semantic compound Chinese characters, and the choice of 天 to transcribe foreign syllables, all of which prompted them to conclude that, around 200 CE, 天’s onset had two pronunciations: coronal *tʰ & dorsal *x, both of which likely originated from an earlier voiceless lateral *l̥ˤ.” ref

“Tiān is one of the components in hundreds of Chinese compounds. Some significant ones include:

• Tiānmìng (天命 “Mandate of Heaven“) “divine mandate, God’s will; fate, destiny; one’s lifespan”
• Tiānwèn (simplified Chinese: 天问; traditional Chinese: 天問; pinyin: Tiānwèn), the Heavenly Questions section of the Chǔ Cí.
• Tiānzĭ (天子 “Son of Heaven“), an honorific designation for the “Emperor; Chinese sovereign” (Tiānzǐ accounts for 28 of the 140 tiān occurrences in the Shī Jīng above.)
• Tiānxià (天下, lit. “all under heaven“) “the world, earth; China”
• Tiāndì (天地, lit “heaven and earth”) “the world; the universe.”
• Xíngtiān (刑天) An early mythological hero who fought against Heaven, despite being decapitated.
• Tiānfáng (天房, lit. “House of Heaven”) A Chinese name for the Kaaba, from Bayt Allah (Arabic: بَيْت ٱللَّٰه, lit. ‘House of God’).” ref

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“The Seima-Turbino culture has inspired conjectures that the same migrations spread the Uralic languages across Europe and Asia. The existence of Uralic Samoyedic and Ob-Ugrian groups like the Nenets, Mansi, and Khanty, anchor the Uralic languages in Asia. Notable is the similarity between the range of haplogroup N3a3’6, especially in the western part of Eurasia and the distribution of the Seima-Turbino trans-cultural phenomenon during the interval of 4,200–3,700 years ago. Carriers of N3a1-B211, the early branch of N3a, could have migrated to the eastern fringes of Europe by the same Seima-Turbino groups. However, earlier migrations cannot be ruled out either; a study of ancient DNA revealed a 7,500 year-old influx from Siberia to northeast Europe. Another subclade of Y haplogroup N, N1a2b-P43 (TMRCA 4,700 years ago 95% CI 3,800 ⟷ 5,600 years ago), reaches some of its highest frequencies among the Uralic-speaking Nenets, Nganasan, Khanty, and Mansi peoples in western Siberia. Haplogroup N1a2b-P43 is also often observed among the members of many Uralic- or Turkic-speaking ethnic minorities of European Russia, but it is very rare among the Baltic Finnic and Samic peoples of Northern Europe. Estimated to be approximately 4,700 years old, N1b spread north and westwards from its original locus in Southern Siberia, exactly as Seima-Turbino migration did.” ref

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Tengrism is an ethnic Turkic, Yeniseian, and Mongolic religion originating in the Eurasian steppes based on shamanism and animism. Tengri is the all-encompassing God of Heaven.

Tengri

“Tengri (Old Turkic: 𐰚𐰇𐰚:𐱅𐰭𐰼𐰃, romanized: Kök Teŋri/Teŋiri, lit. ‘Blue Heaven’; Old Uyghur:  tängri; Middle Turkic: تآنغرِ; Ottoman Turkish: تڭری; Kyrgyz: Теңир; Kazakh: Тәңір; Turkish: Tanrı; Azerbaijani: Tanrı; Bulgarian: Тангра; Proto-Turkic *teŋri / *taŋrɨ; Mongolian script: ᠲᠩᠷᠢ, T’ngri; Modern Mongolian: Тэнгэр, Tenger; Uyghur: تەڭرى tengri ) is the all-encompassing God of Heaven in the traditional Turkic, Yeniseian, Mongolic and various other nomadic Altaic religious beliefs. Tengri is not considered a deity in the usual sense, but a personification of the universe. However, some qualities associated with Tengri as the judge and source of life, and being eternal and supreme, led European and Muslim writers to identify Tengri as a deity of Turkic and Mongolian people. According to Mongolian belief, Tengri’s will (jayayan) may break its own usual laws and intervene by sending a chosen person to earth. It is also one of the terms used for the primary chief deity of the early Turkic and Mongolic peoples. Worship surrounding Tengri is called Tengrism. The core beings in Tengrism are the Sky Father (Tenger Etseg) and the Earth Mother (Umay Ana). It involves shamanism, animism, totemism, and ancestor worship.” ref

“The oldest form of the name is recorded in Chinese annals from the 4th century BCE, describing the beliefs of the Xiongnu. It takes the form 撑犁/Cheng-li, which is hypothesized to be a Chinese transcription of Tängri. (The Proto-Turkic form of the word has been reconstructed as *Teŋri or *Taŋrɨ.) Alternatively, a reconstructed Altaic etymology from *T`aŋgiri (“oath” or “god”) would emphasize the god’s divinity rather than his domain over the sky. It is generally assumed the term tengri originally meant “sky”. Andrey Kononov suggested that the term is formed by the words tän (morning) and injir (evening) into tänri, referring to the sky as whole. The Turkic form, Tengri, is attested in the 8th century Orkhon inscriptions as the Old Turkic form 𐱅𐰭𐰼𐰃‎ Teŋri. In modern Turkish, the derived word “Tanrı” is used as the generic word for “god”, or for the Abrahamic God, and is used today by Turkish people to refer to any god. The supreme deity of the traditional religion of the Chuvash is Tură. Other reflexes of the name in modern languages include Mongolian: Тэнгэр (“sky”), Bulgarian: Тангра, Azerbaijani: Tanrı.” ref

“Earlier, the Chinese word for “sky” 天 (Mandarin: tiān < Old Chinese *thīn or *thîn) has been suggested to be related to Tengri, possibly a loan into Chinese from a prehistoric Central Asian language. However, this proposal is unlikely in light of recent reconstructions of the Old Chinese pronunciation of the character “天”, such as *qʰl’iːn (Zhengzhang) or *l̥ˤi[n] (Baxter-Sagart), which propose for 天 a voiceless lateral onset, either a cluster or single consonant, respectively. Baxter & Sagart (2014:113-114) pointed to attested dialectal differences in Eastern Han Chinese, the use of 天 as a phonetic component in phono-semantic compound Chinese characters, and the choice of 天 to transcribe foreign syllables, all of which prompted them to conclude that, around 200 CE, 天’s onset had two pronunciations: coronal *tʰ & dorsal *x, both of which likely originated from an earlier voiceless lateral *l̥ˤ. Linguist Stefan Georg has proposed that the Turkic word ultimately originates as a loanword from Proto-Yeniseian *tɨŋgɨr- “high”. Amy Chua renders the name as “[T]he Eternal Blue Sky”, likely because of the connotations of the name’s usage.” ref

“Tengri was the national god of the Göktürks, described as the “god of the Turks” (Türük Tängrisi). The Göktürk khans based their power on a mandate from Tengri. These rulers were generally accepted as the sons of Tengri who represented him on Earth. They wore titles such as tengrikut, kutluġ or kutalmysh, based on the belief that they attained kut, some sort of heavenly and spiritual force granted to these rulers by Tengri. Prior to foreign influences, the Turkic conception of tengri was regarded as the heaven or the will controlling heaven, probably some sort of force. Out of this, the concept of a personal being developed. First, when Turkic people took over other religions, the term tengri became the name of a (personal) god or “higher being”. Tengri was the chief deity worshipped by the ruling class of the Central Asian steppe peoples in 6th to 9th centuries (Turkic peoples, Mongols, and Hungarians). It lost its importance when the Uighuric kagans proclaimed Manichaeism the state religion in the 8th century. The worship of Tengri was brought into Eastern Europe by the Huns and early Bulgars. Tengri is considered to be the chief god who created all things. In addition to this celestial god, they also had minor divinities (Alps) that served the purposes of Tengri. As Gök Tanrı, he was the father of the sun (Koyash) and moon (Ay Tanrı) and also Umay, Erlik, and sometimes Ülgen.” ref

“Tengri was the main god of the Turkic pantheon, controlling the celestial sphere. Tengri is considered to be similar to the Indo-European sky god, *Dyeus, and the structure of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion is closer to that of the early Turks than to the religion of any people of Near Eastern or Mediterranean antiquity. In Christian Turkish usage Tengri is used for the father of Jesus, who is referred to as “Tengri Oghli” (Son of God) and “Mshikha Tengri” (Messiah God). Tengri is also compared to Allah and Khuda. Apart from foreign religious influences, as far as known today, the original Turkish concept of Tengri was that of “heaven” or a spirit ruling in heaven. This spirit was probably imagined as some sort of force, corresponding to “mana” in modern ethnology. In one Turkic myth, Tengri is a pure, white goose that flies constantly over an endless expanse of water, which represents time. Beneath this water, Ak Ana (“White Mother”) calls out to him saying “Create”. To overcome his loneliness, Tengri creates Er Kishi, who is not as pure or as white as Tengri and together they set up the world. Er Kishi becomes a demonic character and strives to mislead people and draw them into its darkness. Tengri assumes the name Tengri Ülgen and withdraws into Heaven from which he tries to provide people with guidance through sacred animals that he sends among them. The Ak Tengris occupy the fifth level of Heaven. Shaman priests who want to reach Tengri Ülgen never get further than this level, where they convey their wishes to the divine guides. Returns to earth or to the human level take place in a goose-shaped vessel.” ref

Tengrism

Tengrism (also known as Tengriism, Tengerism, or Tengrianism) is an ethnic Turkic, Yeniseian, Mongolic religion originating in the Eurasian steppes based on shamanism and animism. It generally involves the titular sky god Tengri, who is not considered a deity in the usual sense, but a personification of the universe. According to some scholars, adherents of Tengrism view the purpose of life, to be in harmony with the universe. It was the prevailing religion of the Tujue, Xianbei, Bulgars, Xiongnu, Huns, and possibly the Hungarians, as well as the state religion of several medieval states: the First Turkic Khaganate, the Western Turkic Khaganate, the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, Old Great Bulgaria, the First Bulgarian Empire, Volga Bulgaria, Khazaria, and the Mongol Empire. In the Irk Bitig, a ninth century manuscript on divination, Tengri is mentioned as Türük Tängrisi (God of Turks). According to many academics, Tengrism was, and to some extent still is, a predominantly polytheistic religion based on shamanistic concept of animism, and was first influenced by monotheism during the imperial period, especially by the 12th–13th centuries. Abdulkadir Inan argues that Yakut and Altai shamanism are not entirely equal to the ancient Turkic religion.” ref

“The term also describes several contemporary Turkic and Mongolic native religious movements and teachings. All modern adherents of “political” Tengrism are monotheists. Tengrism has been advocated for in intellectual circles of the Turkic nations of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan with Kazakhstan) and the Russian federation (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan) since the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the 1990s. Still practiced, it is undergoing an organized revival in Buryatia, Sakha (Yakutia), Khakassia, Tuva, and other Turkic nations in Siberia. Altaian Burkhanism and Chuvash Vattisen Yaly are contemporary movements similar to Tengrism. The term tengri can either refer to the sky deity or refer also to other deities (compare this with the concept of Kami). Tengrism includes the worship of the tngri (gods), with Tenger Etseg ( – also Gök Tengri; Sky father, Blue sky). While other deities, such as Ülgen or Kaira, are personified gods, Tengri is an “abstract phenomenon”. In the Mongolian folk religion, Genghis Khan is considered one of the embodiments, if not the main embodiment, of Tengri’s will. Stefan Georg proposed that the Turkic Tengri ultimately originates as a loanword from Proto-Yeniseian *tɨŋgɨr- “high”. Mongolia is sometimes poetically called the “Land of Eternal Blue Sky” (Mönkh Khökh Tengeriin Oron) by its inhabitants. According to some scholars, the name of the important deity Dangun (also Tangol) (God of the Mountains) of the Korean folk religion is related to the Siberian Tengri (“Heaven”), while the bear is a symbol of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major).” ref

“According to Jean-Paul Roux, the monotheistic concept evolved later out of a polytheistic system and was not the original form of Tengrism. The monotheistic concept helped to legitimate the rule of the dynasty: “As there is only one God in Heaven, there can only be one ruler on the earth …”. Others point out that Tengri itself was never an Absolute, but only one of many gods of the upper world, the sky deity, of polytheistic shamanism, later known as Tengrism. Tengrism differs from contemporary Siberian shamanism in that it was a more organized religion. Additionally the polities practicing it were not small bands of hunter-gatherers like the Paleosiberians, but a continuous succession of pastoral, semi-sedentarized khanates and empires from the Xiongnu Empire (founded 209 BCE) to the Mongol Empire (13th century). In Mongolia it survives as a synthesis with Tibetan Buddhism while surviving in purer forms around Lake Khovsgol and Lake Baikal. Unlike Siberian shamanism, which has no written tradition, Tengrism can be identified from Turkic and Mongolic historical texts like the Orkhon inscriptions, Secret History of the Mongols, and Altan Tobchi.” ref

“However, these texts are more historically oriented and are not strictly religious texts like the scriptures and sutras of sedentary civilizations, which have elaborate doctrines and religious stories. On a scale of complexity, Tengrism lies somewhere between the Proto-Indo-European religion (a pre-state form of pastoral shamanism on the western steppe) and its later form the Vedic religion. The chief god Tengri (“Heaven”) is considered strikingly similar to the Indo-European sky god *Dyḗus and the East Asian Tian (Chinese: “Sky; Heaven”). The structure of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion is actually closer to that of the early Turks than to the religion of any people of neolithic European, Near Eastern, or Mediterranean antiquity. The term “shamanism” was first applied by Western anthropologists as outside observers of the ancient religion of the Turkic and Mongolic peoples, as well as those of the neighboring Tungusic and Samoyedic-speaking peoples. Upon observing more religious traditions across the world, some Western anthropologists began to also use the term in a very broad sense. The term was used to describe unrelated magico-religious practices found within the ethnic religions of other parts of Asia, Africa, Australasia, and even completely unrelated parts of the Americas, as they believed these practices to be similar to one another.” ref

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Erlitou culture of Ancient China

“The Erlitou culture was an early Bronze Age urban society and archaeological culture that existed in the Yellow River valley from approximately 1900 to 1500 BCE or around 3,900 to 3,500 years ago. (A 2007 study of radiocarbon dating proposed a narrower date range of 1750 to 1530 BCE) The culture was named after the site discovered at Erlitou in Yanshi, Henan. It was widely spread throughout Henan and Shanxi and later appeared in Shaanxi and Hubei. Most archaeologists consider Erlitou the first state-level society in China. Chinese archaeologists generally identify the Erlitou culture as the site of the Xia dynasty, but there is no firm evidence, such as writing, to substantiate such a linkage, as the earliest evidence of Chinese writing dates to the late Shang dynasty. The Erlitou culture may have evolved from the matrix of the Longshan culture (3000 – c. 1900 BCE). Originally centered around Henan and Shanxi provinces, the culture spread to Shaanxi and Hubei provinces. After the rise of the Erligang culture, the site at Erlitou diminished in size but remained inhabited.” ref

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Xia dynasty

“The Xia dynasty from 2070 to 1600 BCE or around 4,070 to 3,600 years ago is the first dynasty in traditional Chinese historiography. In traditional historiography, the Xia was later succeeded by the Shang dynasty. M-DNA from Yinxu graves showed similarities with modern northern Han Chinese.” ref, ref

“According to tradition, the Xia dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great, after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors, gave the throne to him. There are no contemporaneous records of the Xia, who are not mentioned in the oldest Chinese texts, since the earliest oracle bone inscriptions date from the late Shang period (13th century BCE). The earliest mentions occur in the oldest chapters of the Book of Documents, which report speeches from the early Western Zhou period and are accepted by most scholars as dating from that time. The speeches justify the Zhou conquest of the Shang as the passing of the Mandate of Heaven and liken it to the succession of the Xia by the Shang. That political philosophy was promoted by the Confucian school in the Eastern Zhou period. The succession of dynasties was incorporated into the Bamboo Annals and the Records of the Grand Historian and became the official position of imperial historiography and ideology. Some scholars consider the Xia dynasty legendary or at least unsubstantiated, but others identify it with the archaeological Erlitou culture.” ref

“According to the traditional chronology, based upon calculations by Liu Xin, the Xia ruled between 2205 and 1766 BCE. According to the chronology based on the “current text” Bamboo Annals, it ruled between 1989 and 1558 BCE. Comparing the same text with dates of five-planet conjunctions, David Pankenier, supported by David Nivison, proposed dates of 1953 and 1555 BCE. The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project, commissioned by the Chinese government in 1996, concluded that the Xia existed between 2070 and 1600 BCE. The Xia dynasty was described in classic texts such as the Classic of History (Shujing), the Bamboo Annals, and the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) by Sima Qian. According to tradition, the resident Huaxia were the ancestral people of the Han Chinese. Traditional histories trace the development of the Xia to the mythical Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. According to ancient Chinese texts, before the Xia dynasty was established, battles were frequent between Yellow Emperor‘s tribe and Chi You‘s tribe. The Records of the Grand Historian and the Classic of Rites say that Yu the Great, the founder of the Xia dynasty, was the grandson of Zhuanxu, who was the grandson of the Yellow Emperor. But there are also other records, like Ban Gu‘s, that say Yu’s father is a fifth generation descendant of Zhuanxu. Other sources such as Shan Hai Jing mention Yu’s father Gun was the son of Luoming, who was the son of Huangdi. Sima Qian traced the origin of the dynastic Xia to the name of a fief granted to Yu, who would use it as his own surname and his state’s name.” ref

“Gun, the father of Yu the Great, is the earliest recorded member of the Xia clan. When the Yellow River flooded, many tribes united together to control and stop the flooding. Gun was appointed by Emperor Yao to stop the flooding. He ordered the construction of large blockades (levees) to block the path of the water. The attempts of Gun to stop the flooding lasted for nine years, but ultimately failed because the floods strengthened. After nine years, Yao had already given his throne to Shun. Gun was ordered to be imprisoned for life by Shun at Yushan (Chinese: 羽山; pinyin: Yǔshān, Feather Mountain), a mountain located between modern Donghai County in Jiangsu Province and Linshu County in Shandong Province. Yu was highly trusted by Shun, so Shun appointed him to finish his father’s work, which was to stop the flooding. Yu’s method was different from his father’s: he organized people from different tribes and ordered them to help him build canals in all the major rivers that were flooding and leading the water out to the sea. Yu was dedicated to his work. The populace praised his perseverance and were inspired, so much so that other tribes joined in the work. Legend says that in the 13 years, it took him to successfully complete the work to stop the floods, he never went back to his home village to stop and rest, even though he passed by his house three times.” ref

“Yu’s success in stopping the flooding increased agricultural production (since the floods were destructive). The Xia tribe’s power increased and Yu became the leader of the surrounding tribes. Soon afterwards Shun sent Yu to lead an army to suppress the Sanmiao tribe, which continuously abused the border tribes. After defeating them, he exiled them south to the Han River area. This victory strengthened the Xia tribe’s power even more. As Shun aged, he thought of a successor and relinquished the throne to Yu, whom he deemed worthy. Yu’s succession marks the start of the Xia dynasty. As Yu neared death he passed the throne to his son, Qi, instead of passing it to the most capable candidate, thus setting the precedent for dynastic rule or the Hereditary System. The Xia dynasty began a period of family or clan control. It is believed that Zhenxun (modern Gongyi) and Yangcheng (modern Gaocheng) were two of the capitals of the dynasty. Jie, the last king, was said to be immoral, lascivious, and tyrannical. He was overthrown by Tang, the first king of the Shang dynasty. Tang is said to have given the small state of Qi as a fief to the remnants of the Xia ruling family. This practice was referred to as “the two crownings and the three respects”. Zengzi was a descendant of the Xia dynasty Kings through Shao Kang. The Kings of the State of Yue claimed descent from the Xia dynasty Kings through Shao Kang.” ref

“The time gap between the supposed time of the Xia and the first written references to it have meant that the historicity of the Xia dynasty itself and the traditional narrative of its history are at best uncertain. The Skeptical School of early Chinese history, started by Gu Jiegang in the 1920s, was the first group of scholars within China to systematically question the traditional story of its early history. By critically examining the development of the narrative of early Chinese history throughout history, Gu concluded “the later the time, the longer the legendary period of earlier history… early Chinese history is a tale told and retold for generations, during which new elements were added to the front end”. Some historians have suggested that the Zhou rulers invented the Xia as a pretext, to justify their conquest of the Shang, by noting that just as the Shang had supplanted the Xia, they had supplanted the Shang. The existence of the Xia remains unproven, despite efforts by Chinese archaeologists to link them with the Bronze Age Erlitou culture.” ref

“Among other points, Gu and other historians note certain parallels between the traditional narrative of Xia history and Shang history that would suggest probable Zhou-era fabrication or at least embellishment of Xia history. Yun Kuen Lee’s criticism of nationalist sentiment in developing an explanation of the Three Dynasties chronology focuses on the dichotomy of evidence provided by archaeological versus historical research, in particular, the claim that the archaeological Erlitou culture is also the historical Xia dynasty. “How to fuse the archaeological dates with historical dates is a challenge to all chronological studies of early civilization.” In The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art, and Cosmos in Early China, Sarah Allan noted that many aspects of the Xia are simply the opposite of traits held to be emblematic of the Shang. The implied dualism of the Shang myth system, Allan argues, is that while the Shang represents the suns, sky, birds, east, and life, the Xia represents the moons, watery underworld, dragons, west, and death. Allan argues that this mythical Xia was re-interpreted by the Zhou as a ruling dynasty replaced by the Shang, a parallel with their own replacement of the Shang.” ref

“Other scholars also argue that Shang political class’s remnants still existed during the early Zhou dynasty, Zhou rulers could not simply justify their succession to pacify Shang remnants if it was entirely fabricated since the Shang remnants, who remembered prior histories, would not believe it in the first place. For example, the Classic of Poetry preserves the “Eulogies of Shang” (商頌 Shāng sòng) which represents the powerful State of Song, whose rulers were the direct descendants of Shang dynasty. Among those eulogies, the eulogy Chang Fa (長發) celebrated victories by the “Martial King” Tang of Shang against Wei (韋), Gu (顧), Kunwu (昆吾), and Jie of Xia. During the later Song dynasty (960–1279 AD), an ancient bronze artifact, “Shu Yi Zhong” (叔夷鐘), was unearthed with an inscription describing how the founder of the Shang dynasty, Tang, overthrew the Xia dynasty.” ref

“The owner of this artifact, Shu Yi, a high officer of the Qi Kingdom during the Spring and Autumn period (c. 600 BCE), was actually a direct descendant of the Song rulers, which means he himself was a descendant of Shang people. This bronze artifact was used to memorialize his Shang ancestors. The inscription contradicts the hypothesis that the Zhou dynasty manufactured the existence of the Xia dynasty. Although the Shang oracle bone inscriptions contain no mention of the Xia, some scholars have suggested that the polities they mention might be remnants of the Xia. Guo Moruo suggested that an enemy state called Tufang state of the Fang states mentioned in many inscriptions might be identified with the Xia. The historian Shen Changyun pointed to four inscriptions mentioning Qǐ (杞), the same name as the state of Qǐ, which according to traditional accounts was established by the defeated royal house of Xia. The following table lists the rulers of Xia according to Sima Qian‘s Shiji. Unlike Sima’s list of Shang dynasty kings, which is closely matched by inscriptions on oracle bones from late in that period, records of Xia rulers have not yet been found in archaeological excavations of contemporary sites, or records on later Shang dynasty oracle bones.” ref

Xia Dynasty Archaeological Discoveries?

“Archaeologists have uncovered urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs that point to the possible existence of the Xia dynasty at locations cited in ancient Chinese historical texts. There exists a debate as to whether or not the Erlitou culture was the site of the Xia dynasty, largely centering on whether archeological evidence of urban habitation across the region before the Shang dynasty should be taken as corroboration of the traditional account of a Xia, or expected regardless of the historicity of the Xia due to the trajectory of population growth and agricultural development in the fertile regions of eastern China from the neolithic through early history. Radiocarbon dating places the Erlitou sites at c. 2100 to 1800 BC, providing physical evidence of the existence of a state contemporaneous with and possibly equivalent to the Xia dynasty as described in later classical Chinese historical works. In 1959, a site located in the city of Yanshi was excavated containing large palaces that some archaeologists have claimed to be the capital of the Xia dynasty. Through the 1960s and 1970s, archaeologists have uncovered urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs in the same locations cited in ancient Chinese historical texts regarding Xia; in 2011, Chinese archaeologists uncovered the remains of an imperial sized palace—dated to about 1700 BCE—at Erlitou in Henan, further fueling the discussions about the existence of the dynasty. At a minimum, the era traditionally denoted as the Xia dynasty marked a period of urbanization and agricultural development bridging the late Neolithic cultures and the urban civilization of the Shang dynasty.” ref

“Archaeological evidence of a large outburst flood at Jishi Gorge that destroyed the Lajia site on the upper reaches of the Yellow River has been dated to about 1920 BCE. This date is shortly before the rise of the Erlitou culture in the middle Yellow River valley and the Yueshi culture in Shandong, following the decline of the Longshan culture in the North China Plain. The authors suggest that this flood may have been the basis for the later myth of Yu the Great, and contributed to the cultural transition into the Erlitou period. They further argue that the timing is further evidence for the identification of the Xia with the Erlitou culture. However, no evidence of contemporaneous widespread flooding in the North China Plain has yet been found. The only musical instruments dated to the Xia dynasty are two qing, two small bells (one earthenware, one bronze) and a xun. Due to this extreme scarcity of surviving instruments and the general uncertainty surrounding most of the Xia, creating a musical narrative of the period is impractical.” ref

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Ancient DNA Reveals That the Genetic Structure of the Northern Han Chinese Was Shaped Prior to 3,000 Years Ago

“The Han Chinese are the largest ethnic group in the world and have a current population of a staggering 1.3 billion individuals. According to historical documents, the generally accepted view is that the Han Chinese can trace their origins to the Huaxia ethnic group, which formed during the Shang and Zhou dynasties (21st–8th centuries BCE) in the Central Plain region of China. During the Han Dynasty (260 BCE-220 CE), the Huaxia ethnic group developed into a tribe known as the Han Chinese.” ref

“Abstract: The Han Chinese are the largest ethnic group in the world, and their origins, development, and expansion are complex. Many genetic studies have shown that Han Chinese can be divided into two distinct groups: northern Han Chinese and southern Han Chinese. The genetic history of the southern Han Chinese has been well studied. However, the genetic history of the northern Han Chinese is still obscure. In order to gain insight into the genetic history of the northern Han Chinese, 89 human remains were sampled from the Hengbei site which is located in the Central Plain and dates back to a key transitional period during the rise of the Han Chinese (approximately 3,000 years ago). We used 64 authentic mtDNA data obtained in this study, 27 Y chromosome SNP data profiles from previously studied Hengbei samples, and genetic datasets of the current Chinese populations and two ancient northern Chinese populations to analyze the relationship between the ancient people of Hengbei and present-day northern Han Chinese. We used a wide range of population genetic analyses, including principal component analyses, shared mtDNA haplotype analyses, and geographic mapping of maternal genetic distances. The results show that the ancient people of Hengbei bore a strong genetic resemblance to present-day northern Han Chinese and were genetically distinct from other present-day Chinese populations and two ancient populations. These findings suggest that the genetic structure of northern Han Chinese was already shaped 3,000 years ago in the Central Plain area.” ref

“A study of mitochondrial DNA (inherited in the maternal line) from Yinxu graves showed similarity with modern northern Han Chinese, but significant differences from southern Han Chinese. Yinxu is the site of one of the ancient and major historical capitals of China. It is the source of the archeological discovery of oracle bones and oracle bone script, which resulted in the identification of the earliest known Chinese writing. The archeological remnants (or ruins) known as Yinxu represent the ancient city of Yin, the last capital of China‘s Shang dynasty which existed through eight generations for 255 years, and through the reign of 12 kings. Among surviving ancient Chinese historical documents, Yin is described as the final capital of the Shang dynasty. There is some disagreement, though, as to when the move to Yin took place.” ref

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“Tarim mummies A 2021 genetic study on the Tarim mummies found that they were primarily descended from a population represented by the Afontova Gora 3 specimen (AG3), genetically displaying “high affinity” with it. The genetic profile of the Afontova Gora 3 individual represented about 72% of the ancestry of the Tarim mummies, while the remaining 28% of their ancestry was derived from a population represented by the Baikal EBA (Early Bronze Age Baikal populations).” ref

 “The “Xiaohe Mummy”, exhibited in Xinjiang Museum, is one of the oldest Tarim mummies, dating more than 3,800 years ago. Another mummy from the same place is the “Princess of Xiaohe. A genomic study published in 2021 found that these early mummies (dating from 2,135 to 1,623 BCE) had high levels of Ancient North Eurasian ancestry (ANE, about 72%), with smaller admixture from Ancient Northeast Asians (ANA, about 28%), but no detectable Western Steppe-related ancestry.” ref

“Afontova Gora is a Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic Siberian complex of archaeological sites located on the left bank of the Yenisei River near the city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Afontova Gora has cultural and genetic links to the people from Mal’ta-Buret’. The human fossils discovered at Afontova Gora, a male and a girl dated to 17,000~15,000 years ago. In a 2016 study, researchers determined that Afontova Gora 2, Afontova Gora 3, and Mal’ta 1 (Mal’ta boy) shared common descent and were clustered together in a Mal’ta cluster. Genetically, Afontova Gora 3 is not closer to Afontova Gora 2 when compared to Mal’ta 1. When compared to Mal’ta 1, the Afontova Gora 3 lineage apparently contributed more to modern humans and is genetically closer to Native Americans.” ref

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“Approximate location of the Ancient North Eurasians, with contemporary cultures c. 24,000~16,000 years ago.” ref

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“The mutation for blond hair is thought to have originated among the Afontova Gora population of the Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) cline of south-central Siberia. Phenotypic analysis shows that Afontova Gora 3 carries the derived rs12821256 allele associated with, and likely causal for, blond hair color, making Afontova Gora 3 the earliest individual known to carry this derived allele. The allele was found in three later members of the largely ANE-derived Eastern Hunter-Gatherers populations from Samara, Motala, and Ukraine c. 10,000 years ago, suggesting that it originated in the Ancient North Eurasian population before spreading to western Eurasia. The hundreds of millions of copies of this mutated alelle (a single-nucleotide polymorphism) are at the root of the classic European blond hair mutation, as massive population migrations from the Eurasian steppe, by a people who had substantial Ancient North Eurasian ancestry, entered continental Europe.” ref

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“Approximate territories controlled by the various dynasties and states throughout the history of China” ref

Show 6 “Ancient China” Ritual, Religion, Elites, Language, Slavery, Eunuchs, and Empires

Use time 35:54 to 1:06:25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz4EQ0iYDI4&t=413s

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Slavery in China

“Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labor. Slavery typically involves compulsory work with the slave’s location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavement is the placement of a person into slavery. Many historical cases of enslavement occurred as a result of breaking the law, becoming indebted, suffering a military defeat, or exploitation for cheaper labor; other forms of slavery were instituted along demographic lines such as race or sex. Slaves may be kept in bondage for life, or for a fixed period of time after which they would be granted freedom. Although slavery is usually involuntary and involves coercion, there are also cases where people voluntarily enter into slavery to pay a debt or earn money due to poverty. In the course of human history, slavery was a typical feature of civilization, and was legal in most societies, but it is now outlawed in most countries of the world, except as a punishment for a crime.” ref

“In chattel slavery, the slave is legally rendered the personal property (chattel) of the slave owner. In economics, the term de facto slavery describes the conditions of unfree labor and forced labor that most slaves endure. As a social institution, chattel slavery classes slaves as chattels (personal property) owned by the enslaver; like livestock, they can be bought and sold at will. Chattel slavery was practiced in places such as the Roman Empire and classical Greece, where it was considered a keystone of society. Chattel slavery reached its modern extreme in the Americas during European colonization. Forced labor, or unfree labor, is sometimes used to describe an individual who is forced to work against their own will, under threat of violence or other punishment, but the generic term “unfree labor” is also used to describe chattel slavery, as well as any other situation in which a person is obliged to work against their own will, and a person’s ability to work productively is under the complete control of another person. This may also include institutions not commonly classified as slavery, such as serfdom, conscription, and penal labor.” ref

“Slaves have been owned privately by individuals but have also been under state ownership. Slavery predates written records and has existed in many cultures. Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations because it requires economic surpluses and a substantial population density. Thus, although it has existed among unusually resource-rich hunter-gatherers, such as the American Indian peoples of the salmon-rich rivers of the Pacific Northwest coast, slavery became widespread only with the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution about 11,000 years ago. Slavery was practiced in almost every ancient civilization. Such institutions included debt bondage, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the enslavement of slaves’ offspring.” ref

“Slavery existed in ancient China as early as the Shang dynasty. Slavery was employed largely by governments as a means of maintaining a public labor force. Many Han Chinese were enslaved in the process of the Mongol invasion of China proper. According to Japanese historians Sugiyama Masaaki (杉山正明) and Funada Yoshiyuki (舩田善之), Mongolian slaves were owned by Han Chinese during the Yuan dynasty. Slavery has taken various forms throughout China’s history. It was reportedly abolished as a legally recognized institution, including in a 1909 law fully enacted in 1910, although the practice continued until at least 1949. The Tang dynasty purchased Western slaves from the Radhanite Jews. Tang Chinese soldiers and pirates enslaved Koreans, Turks, Persians, Indonesians, and people from Inner Mongolia, central Asia, and northern India. The greatest source of slaves came from southern tribes, including Thais and aboriginals from the southern provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Guizhou. Malays, Khmers, Indians, and “black-skinned” peoples (who were either Austronesian Negritos of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, or Africans, or both) were also purchased as slaves in the Tang dynasty. In the 17th century Qing Dynasty, there was a hereditarily servile people called Booi Aha (Manchu: booi niyalma; Chinese transliteration: 包衣阿哈), which is a Manchu word literally translated as “household person” and sometimes rendered as “nucai.” ref

“The Manchu was establishing a close personal and paternalist relationship between masters and their slaves, as Nurhachi said, “The Master should love the slaves and eat the same food as him”. However, booi aha “did not correspond exactly to the Chinese category of “bond-servant slave” (Chinese:奴僕); instead, it was a relationship of personal dependency on a master which in theory guaranteed close personal relationships and equal treatment, even though many western scholars would directly translate “booi” as “bond-servant” (some of the “booi” even had their own servant). Chinese Muslim (Tungans) Sufis who were charged with practicing xiejiao (heterodox religion), were punished by exile to Xinjiang and being sold as a slave to other Muslims, such as the Sufi begs. Han Chinese who committed crimes such as those dealing with opium became slaves to the begs, this practice was administered by Qing law. Most Chinese in Altishahr were exile slaves to Turkestani Begs. While free Chinese merchants generally did not engage in relationships with East Turkestani women, some of the Chinese slaves belonging to begs, along with Green Standard soldiers, Bannermen, and Manchus, engaged in affairs with the East Turkestani women that were serious in nature.” ref

“In Chinese society, slaves were grouped under a category of people known as the jianmin, which means “base” or “mean”. Direct equivalents of chattel slavery did not exist in ancient China. During the Shang dynasty and Zhou dynasty, slaves generally consisted of war captives or criminals, although peasants lived in a similar condition of perpetual servitude and were unable to leave their land or own it. Some people deliberately became slaves to escape imperial taxation, but they were still considered to be higher in status than traditional slaves, and inhabited a position somewhere between a slave and a commoner.” ref

“From the Qin dynasty to Tang dynasty, slavery expanded beyond criminals and war captives. The Qin used large scale slave labor for public works such as land reclamation, road construction, and canal building. Slavery declined during the economic boom of the Song dynasty in the 12th century. Advances in fertilizer, hydraulic, and agricultural technologies allowed the plantation of commercial crops such as medical herbs, mulberry, and cotton. The small land to population ratio enticed slaves to run away and seek better employment. During the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty and Manchu-led Qing dynasty, slavery of Chinese increased. These Chinese slaves to Mongols or Manchus were called bondsmen and became personal retainers of their imperial overlords. Some attained high positions and led other Chinese slaves. In the 19th century, due to concerted efforts to end the African slave trade, large numbers of Chinese laborers known as coolies were exported to replace slave labor. They were transported in cargo ships with conditions and practices nearly identical to the former African slave trade. Visitors to late 19th century China found little difference between the poor free and the slaves, both of which were treated as hired laborers.” ref

“A handful of emperors and officials throughout Chinese history have made efforts to limit or outlaw slavery. None were successful. In 100 BCE, the Confucian scholar Dong Zhongshu advised Emperor Wu of Han to limit the amount of land and slaves that people could own. In 9 CE, Wang Mang ordered the nationalization of large estates and their redistribution to farmers. Part of his reform was changing the institution of slavery so that they would become tax payers, since some impoverished farmers sold themselves or their children into slavery. In the 13th century CE, the jurist Ma Duanlin promulgated a policy limiting the number of slaves owned by officials and commoners to 30. In the 14th century, the Hongwu Emperor ordered an end to all slavery, but in practice, slavery continued without heed to his commands. In the 18th century, the Yongzheng Emperor made similar attempts to abolish slavery. In 1909, the Qing officially abolished slavery, but due to internal turmoil and its demise, the institution persisted until 1949 when the People’s Republic of China was founded.” ref

“The Shang dynasty engaged in frequent raids of surrounding states, obtaining captives who would be killed in ritual sacrifices. Scholars disagree as to whether these victims were also used as a source of slave labor. The Warring States period (475–221 BCE) saw a decline in slavery from previous centuries, although it was still widespread during the period. Since the introduction of private ownership of land in the state of Lu in 594 BCE, which brought a system of taxation on private land, and saw the emergence of a system of landlords and peasants, the system of slavery began to later decline over the following centuries, as other states followed suit. The Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE) confiscated property and enslaved families as punishment. Large numbers of slaves were used by the Qin government to construct large-scale infrastructure projects, including road building, canal construction, and land reclamation. Slave labor was quite extensive during this period.” ref 

“Beginning with the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), one of Emperor Gao‘s first acts was to manumit agricultural workers enslaved during the Warring States period, although domestic servants retained their status. The Han dynasty promulgated laws to limit the possession of slaves: each king or duke was allowed a maximum of 200 slaves, an imperial princess was allowed a maximum of 100 slaves, other officials were limited to 30 slaves each. Men punished with castration during the Han dynasty were also used as slave labor. Deriving from earlier Legalist laws, the Han dynasty set in place rules penalizing criminals doing three years of hard labor or sentenced to castration by having their families seized and kept as property by the government. In the year CE 9, the Emperor Wang Mang (r. 9–23 CE) usurped the Chinese throne and, to deprive landowning families of their power, instituted a series of sweeping reforms, including the abolition of slavery and radical land reform. Slavery was reinstated in AD 12 before his assassination in CE 23.” ref

Eunuchs in China

“A eunuch is a castrated man. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2nd millennium BCE or around 4,000 years ago. Over the millennia since, they have performed a wide variety of functions in many different cultures: courtiers or equivalent domestics, for espionage or clandestine operations, castrato singers, concubines or sexual partners, religious specialists, soldiers, royal guards, government officials, and guardians of women or harem servants. Eunuchs would usually be servants or slaves who had been castrated to make them less threatening servants of a royal court where physical access to the ruler could wield great influence. Castration has had a social function in history. In China, castration included the removal of the penis and the testicles (emasculation). A knife removed both organs at the same time.” ref, ref

“Eunuchs have existed in China since about 146 CE, during the reign of Emperor Huan of Han, and were common as civil servants by the Qing dynasty. From ancient times to the Sui dynasty, castration was a traditional punishment (one of the Five Punishments) and a means of gaining employment in the imperial service. Some eunuchs, such as the Ming dynasty official Zheng He, gained power that superseded that of the Grand Secretaries. Self-castration was not uncommon, although it was not always performed thoroughly and was later banned. Eunuchs were employed as high-ranking civil servants because they could not have children, so they were not tempted to seize power and begin a dynasty. They were also used to guard the Emperors wives and concubines. In addition, many in the palace considered eunuchs more reliable than scholar-officials. Finally, as a symbolic assignment of divine authority in the palace system, a constellation of stars was designated as the emperor’s; west of the constellation, four stars were known as his “eunuchs.” ref