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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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This is my thoughts/speculations on the origins of Totemism

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

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

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Did Pleistocene Africans use the spearthrower‐and‐dart?

“Well, evidence grows apace for ever-more ancient bow-and-arrow use. List of age estimates, locations, and current evidence bundles for the use of either arrows or darts by/before 30,000 years ago, the list may not be exhaustive, but we suggest that it broadly summarizes current knowledge (MSA = middle stone age).” ref

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“In terms of mitochondrial haplogroups, the mt-MRCA is situated at the divergence of macro-haplogroup L into L0 and L1–6. As of 2013, estimates on the age of this split ranged at around 155,000 years ago, consistent with a date later than the speciation of Homo sapiens but earlier than the recent out-of-Africa dispersal.” ref

“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. There is evidence that modern humans had reached China around 80,000 years ago. Practically all of these early waves seem to have gone extinct or retreated back, and present-day humans outside Africa descend mainly from a single expansion out 70,000–50,000 years ago. 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

“Haplogroup L3 is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup. The clade has played a pivotal role in the early dispersal of anatomically modern humans. It is strongly associated with the out-of-Africa migration of modern humans of about 70–50,000 years ago. It is inherited by all modern non-African populations, as well as by some populations in Africa. Haplogroup L3 arose close to 70,000 years ago, near the time of the recent out-of-Africa event. This dispersal originated in East Africa and expanded to West Asia, and further to South and Southeast Asia in the course of a few millennia, and some research suggests that L3 participated in this migration out of Africa. L3 is also common amongst African Americans and Afro-Brazilians. A 2007 estimate for the age of L3 suggested a range of 104–84,000 years ago. More recent analyses, including Soares et al. (2012) arrive at a more recent date, of roughly 70–60,000 years ago. Soares et al. also suggest that L3 most likely expanded from East Africa into Eurasia sometime around 65–55,000 years ago years ago as part of the recent out-of-Africa event, as well as from East Africa into Central Africa from 60 to 35,000 years ago. In 2016, Soares et al. again suggested that haplogroup L3 emerged in East Africa, leading to the Out-of-Africa migration, around 70–60,000 years ago.” ref

“Haplogroups L6 and L4 form sister clades of L3 which arose in East Africa at roughly the same time but which did not participate in the out-of-Africa migration. The ancestral clade L3’4’6 has been estimated at 110 kya, and the L3’4 clade at 95 kya. The possibility of an origin of L3 in Asia was also proposed by Cabrera et al. (2018) based on the similar coalescence dates of L3 and its Eurasian-distributed M and N derivative clades (ca. 70 kya), the distant location in Southeast Asia of the oldest known subclades of M and N, and the comparable age of the paternal haplogroup DE. According to this hypothesis, after an initial out-of-Africa migration of bearers of pre-L3 (L3’4*) around 125 kya, there would have been a back-migration of females carrying L3 from Eurasia to East Africa sometime after 70 kya. The hypothesis suggests that this back-migration is aligned with bearers of paternal haplogroup E, which it also proposes to have originated in Eurasia. These new Eurasian lineages are then suggested to have largely replaced the old autochthonous male and female North-East African lineages.” ref

“According to other research, though earlier migrations out of Africa of anatomically modern humans occurred, current Eurasian populations descend instead from a later migration from Africa dated between about 65,000 and 50,000 years ago (associated with the migration out of L3). Vai et al. (2019) suggest, from a newly discovered old and deeply-rooted branch of maternal haplogroup N found in early Neolithic North African remains, that haplogroup L3 originated in East Africa between 70,000 and 60,000 years ago, and both spread within Africa and left Africa as part of the Out-of-Africa migration, with haplogroup N diverging from it soon after (between 65,000 and 50,000 years ago) either in Arabia or possibly North Africa, and haplogroup M originating in the Middle East around the same time as “N.” A study by Lipson et al. (2019) analyzing remains from the Cameroonian site of Shum Laka found them to be more similar to modern-day Pygmy peoples than to West Africans, and suggests that several other groups (including the ancestors of West Africans, East Africans, and the ancestors of non-Africans) commonly derived from a human population originating in East Africa between about 80,000-60,000 years ago, which they suggest was also the source and origin zone of haplogroup L3 around 70,000 years ago.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Our origins originate from Southern African (NOT THE FIRST ANCESTORS EVER AS THAT WOULD BE NORTH AFRICA AROUND 300,000 YEARS AGO TO EAST AFRICA AROUND 200,000 YEARS AGO OR SO BUT RATHER OUR LAST MAIN COMMON ANCESTORS AROUND 100,000 YEARS AGO), with a population divergence around 120,000 to 110,000 years ago and this is after the two other main areas of North and East Africa either migrated south or largely went extinct around 100,000 years ago. This is the most recent glacial era that consisted of a larger pattern of glacial and interglacial periods beginning around 115,000 which may have influenced both the migrating south and possibly could connect to some of the influences relating to the extinctions as well. Moreover, as these Ancient Southern African peoples developed over time, they also expanded out from there to populate the globe, and the DNA of us all points to a southern African origin. Furthermore, it seems as they expanded back out, they either replaced the other populations in central and east Africa that may have been left or absorbed any remaining individuals. ref

Southern African Middle Stone Age sites:

(Ap) Apollo 11; (BAM) Bambata; (BBC) Blombos Cave; (BC) Border Cave; (BGB)Boegoeberg; (BPA) Boomplaas; (BRS) Bushman Rock Shelter; (BUN) Bundu Farm; (CF)Cufema Reach; (CK) Canteen Kopje; (COH) Cave of Hearths; (CSB) Cape St Blaize; (DK)Die Kelders Cave 1; (DRS) Diepkloof Rock Shelter; (EBC) Elands Bay Cave; (FL) Florisbad; (≠GI) ≠Gi; (HP) Howiesons Poort; (HRS) Hollow Rock Shelter; (KD) Klipdrift; (KKH) Klein Kliphuis; (KH) Khami; (KK) Kudu Koppie; (KP) Kathu Pan; (KRM) Klasies River Main Site; (L) Langebaan; (MBA) Mumbwa Caves; (MC) Mwulu’s Cave; (MEL)Melikane; (MON) Montagu Cave; (NBC) Nelson Bay Cave; (NG) Ngalue; (NT) Ntloana Tšoana; (OBP) Olieboomspoort; (PC) Peers Cave; (POC) Pockenbank; (PL) Plover’s Lake; (POM) Pomongwe; (PP) Pinnacle Point; (RCC) Rose Cottage Cave; (RED) Redcliff; (RHC) Rhino Cave; (SCV) Seacow Valley; (SFT) Soutfontein; (SEH) Sehonghong; (SIB)Sibudu Cave; (SPZ) Spitzkloof Rock Shelter; (SS) Sunnyside 1; (STB) Strathalan Cave B; (STK) Sterkfontein; (TR) Twin Rivers; (UMH) Umhlatuzana; (VR) Varsche Rivier 003; (WPS) White Paintings Shelter; (WK) Wonderkrater; (WW) Wonderwerk; (YFT)Ysterfontein 1; (ZOM) Zombepata Cave. 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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“Possible migration routes taken by ancient humans starting from Africa (purple arrows) people characterized by mtDNA haplogroups l1–3 spread out and gave rise to 3 lineages: European (green arrows) with haplogroups H, I, J, U and X, Central Asian (pink arrows) with haplogroups N and M giving rise to A–D and South Asian where N and M gave rise to P and Q.” ref

“Haplogroup M is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup. Possible time of origin 50,000-65,000 years ago. An enormous haplogroup spanning all the continents, the macro-haplogroup M, like its sibling the macro-haplogroup N, is a descendant of the haplogroup L3. All mtDNA haplogroups considered native outside of Africa are descendants of either haplogroup M or its sibling haplogroup N. Haplogroup M is relatively young, having a younger most recent common ancestor date than some subclades of haplogroup N such as haplogroup R.” ref

“There is a debate concerning the geographical origins of Haplogroup M and its sibling haplogroup N. Both lineages are thought to have been the main surviving lineages involved in the out of Africa migration (or migrations) because all indigenous lineages found outside Africa belong to haplogroup M or haplogroup N. Scientists are unsure whether the mutations that define haplogroups M and N occurred in Africa before the exit from Africa or in Asia after the exit from Africa. Determining the origins of haplogroup M is further complicated by an early back-migration (from Asia to Africa) of bearers of M1.” ref

“Its date of origin in absolute terms is only known with great uncertainty, as reconstruction has yielded different (but overlapping) ranges for the age of M in South Asia and East Asia. The same authors give an estimate for t of L3 as 71.6+15.0 −14.5 kya, later (2011) narrowed to the somewhat younger 65±5 kya. Thus, haplogroup M would have emerged around 10,000 or at most 20,000 years after L3, around or somewhat after the recent out-of-Africa migration event. M was present in the ancient population which later gave rise to both M1 in Africa, and M more generally found in Eurasia. The presence of M1 in Africa is the result of a back-migration from Asia which occurred sometime after the Out of Africa migration.” ref

“The highest frequencies worldwide of macrohaplogroup M are observed in Asia, specifically in Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, Korea, and Nepal where frequencies range from 60 to 80%. The total frequency of M subclades is even higher in some populations of Siberia or the Americas, but these small populations tend to exhibit strong genetic drift effects, and often their geographical neighbors exhibit very different frequencies. Deep time depth >50,000 years of western, central, southern, and eastern Indian haplogroups M2, M38, M54, M58, M33, M6, M61, M62, and the distribution of macrohaplogroup M, do not rule out the possibility of macrohaplogroup M arising in Indian population. With the exception of the African specific M1, India has several M lineages that emerged directly from the root of haplogroup M. Only two subclades of haplogroup M, M1 and M23, are found in Africa, whereas numerous subclades are found outside Africa.” ref

“A number of studies have proposed that the ancestors of modern haplogroup M dispersed from Africa through the southern route across the Horn of Africa along the coastal regions of Asia onwards to New Guinea and Australia. These studies suggested that the migrations of haplogroups M and N occurred separately with haplogroup N heading northwards from East Africa to the Levant. However, the results of numerous recent studies indicate that there was only one migration out of Africa and that haplogroups M and N were part of the same migration. This is based on the analysis of a number of relict populations along the proposed beachcombing route from Africa to Australia, all of which possessed both haplogroups N and M.” ref

“A 2008 study by Abu-Amero et al., suggests that the Arabian Peninsula may have been the main route out of Africa. However, as the region lacks of autochthonous clades of haplogroups M and N the authors suggest that the area has been a more recent receptor of human migrations than an ancient demographic expansion center along the southern coastal route as proposed under the single migration Out-of-Africa scenario of the African origin hypothesis. M is the most common mtDNA haplogroup in Asia, super-haplogroup M is distributed all over Asia, where it represents 60% of all maternal lineages.” ref

“All Andamanese belong to Haplogroup M. It peaks in the Malaysian aboriginal Negrito tribes at almost 100% but with mtDNA M21a representing Semang; 84% in Mendriq people, Batek people 48%, (almost all belong to the specific Malaysian Negrito haplogroup M21a, this subclade also found in the Orang Asli 21%, Thais 7.8% and Malay 4.6%). It also peaks very high in Japan and Tibet, where it represents on average about 70% of the maternal lineages (160/216 = 74% Tibet, 205/282 = 73% Tōkai, 231/326 = 71% Okinawa, 148/211 = 70% Japanese, 50/72 = 69% Tibet, 150/217 = 69% Hokkaidō, 24/35 = 69% Zhongdian Tibetan, 175/256 = 68% northern Kyūshū, 38/56 = 68% Qinghai Tibetan, 16/24 = 67% Diqing Tibetan, 66/100 = 66% Miyazaki, 33/51 = 65% Ainu, 214/336 = 64% Tōhoku, 75/118 = 64% Tokyo (JPT)) and is ubiquitous in India and South Korea, where it has approximately 60% frequency. Among Chinese people both inside and outside of China, haplogroup M accounts for approximately 50% of all mtDNA on average, but the frequency varies from approximately 40% in Hans from Hunan and Fujian in southern China to approximately 60% in Shenyang, Liaoning in northeastern China.” ref

Carriers of human mitochondrial DNA macrohaplogroup M colonized India from southeastern Asia

“From a mtDNA dominant perspective, the exit from Africa of modern humans to colonize Eurasia occurred once, around 60 kya, following a southern coastal route across Arabia and India to reach Australia short after. These pioneers carried with them the currently dominant Eurasian lineages M and N. Based also on mtDNA phylogenetic and phylogeographic grounds, some authors have proposed the coeval existence of a northern route across the Levant that brought mtDNA macrohaplogroup N to Australia. To contrast both hypothesis, here we reanalyzed the phylogeography and respective ages of mtDNA haplogroups belonging to macrohaplogroup M in different regions of Eurasia and Australasia.” ref

“The macrohaplogroup M has a historical implantation in West Eurasia, including the Arabian Peninsula. Founder ages of M lineages in India are significantly younger than those in East Asia, Southeast Asia and Near Oceania. Moreover, there is a significant positive correlation between the age of the M haplogroups and its longitudinal geographical distribution. These results point to a colonization of the Indian subcontinent by modern humans carrying M lineages from the east instead the west side. The existence of a northern route, previously proposed for the mtDNA macrohaplogroup N, is confirmed here for the macrohaplogroup M. Both mtDNA macrolineages seem to have differentiated in South East Asia from ancestral L3 lineages. Taking this genetic evidence and those reported by other disciplines we have constructed a new and more conciliatory model to explain the history of modern humans out of Africa.” ref

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“The expansion of early modern humans from Africa through the Levant where the Levantine Aurignacian stage. Proto-Aurignacian and Early Aurignacian stages around 47/43,000 and 37,000 years ago. Aurignacian proper lasted from about 37,000 to 33,000 years ago.” ref

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Neandertal–Modern Human Interbreeding

“Ancient DNA from, Neandertal and modern humans, and comparative morphological analyses of them, reveal a complex history of interbreeding between these lineages and the introgression of Neandertal genes into modern human genomes.” ref

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“The presence of modern humans at the extreme northwestern tip of Europe by around 42,000–43,000 years ago.” ref 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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

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Reimagining the History of Human Migration With a 65,000-Year-Old Find 

“They were typical humans. They hunted and gathered. They ground nuts, plants, and seeds, and built hearths. They also worked the oldest-known ground-edge axes and used the oldest-known reflective pigment. They lived, surprisingly, 65,000 years ago in Australia, which pushes back the earliest-known settlement of Down Under by 15,000 years.” ref

“Madjedbebe (formerly known as Malakunanja II) is a sandstone rock shelter in Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory of Australia, possibly the oldest site of human habitation in Australia. It is located about 50 kilometers (31 mi) from the coast. It is part of the lands traditionally inhabited by the Mirarr, an Aboriginal Australian clan of the Gaagudju people, of the Gunwinyguan language group. Although it is surrounded by the World Heritage Listed Kakadu National Park, Madjedbebe itself is located within the Jabiluka Mineral Leasehold.” 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

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“Map of main sites where classical Neandertal fossils were found.” ref

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“Material excavated from the Bacho Kiro cave in Bulgaria revealed that anatomically modern humans had lived there between 44,000 to 47,000 years ago: the earliest known migrants into Europe. Bacho Kiro contains evidence of occupancy by both Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans. Neanderthal fossils (black skulls), Châtelperronian artifacts (grey circles), and proto-Aurignacian artifacts (white squares).” ref  

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art 

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The “Mask” of La Roche-Cotard, France, found at layer 7c within the Mousterian level dating to around 75,600 years ago. This is a flint object with a striking likeness to a human face may be one of the best examples of art by Neanderthal man ever found ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Was it Just Us, at Origin of Modern Mind 75,000 Years Ago?

It doesn’t look so, thus we need to rethink our ideas about the evolving mind of the Neanderthal skulls (right) are elongated from front to back like a football. Modern human adult has a basketball-like shape skulls (left) and Modern human infants also have somewhat elongated skulls, but by the time they reach adulthood, their heads have rounded out into a basketball-like shape. Analyzing Neanderthal DNA in Europeans identifies two Neanderthal gene variants linked to the head shape and also influence brain organization, in evolution acting on the brain might have reshaped the skull. Therefore, the Neanderthal DNA had a direct effect on brain shape and, presumably, brain function in humans today but infants start life with elongated skulls, somewhat like Neanderthals. ref

Evidence shows that Neanderthals had a complex culture although they did not behave in the same ways as the early modern humans who lived at the same time. Neanderthal dead were often buried, although there is no conclusive evidence for full ritualistic behavior, though at some sites, objects have been uncovered that may represent grave goods. ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Did Neanderthals Help Inspire Totemism? Because there is Art Dating to Around 65,000 Years Ago in Spain?

“Prehistoric cave paintings in Spain show Neanderthals were artists. Red ochre pigment discovered on stalagmites in the Caves of Ardales, near Malaga in southern Spain, were created by Neanderthals about 65,000 years ago, making them possibly the first artists on earth, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal. Modern humans were not inhabiting Europe at the time the cave images were made.” ref

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“The Châtelperronian is a proposed industry of the Upper Palaeolithic, the existence of which is debated. It represents both the only Upper Palaeolithic industry made by Neanderthals and the earliest Upper Palaeolithic industry in central and southwestern France, as well as in northern Spain. It derives its name from Châtelperron, the French village closest to the type site, the cave La Grotte des Fées. The Châtelperronian lasted from c. 45,000 to c. 40,000 years ago, and was preceded by the Mousterian industry. The industry produced denticulate stone tools, and a distinctive flint knife with a single cutting edge and a blunt, curved back. The use of ivory at Châtelperronian sites appears to be more frequent than that of the later Aurignacian, while antler tools have not been found. It is followed by the Aurignacian industry. Scholars who question its existence claim that it is an archaeological mix of Mousterian and Aurignacian layers. The Châtelperronian industry may relate to the origins of the very similar Gravettian culture. French archaeologists have traditionally classified both cultures together under the name Périgordian, Early Perigordian being equivalent to the Châtelperronian and all the other phases corresponding to the Gravettian, though this scheme is not often used by Anglophone authors.” ref

 “The Châtelperronian culture, mostly found in southern France, is contemporaneous to the period of time when both Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens coexisted in Europe, and thus at first it was attributed to the latter, but the discovery of a full skeleton from the former changed its attribution to Homo neanderthalensis. Some academics prefer to call it late Mousterian, and there is a debate on whether to consider it either a proper or a transitional industry, since chronologically it belongs to middle Paleolithic but it shows characteristics of upper Paleolithic industries. Upper Paleolithic (c. 40,000 – 11,500 years ago) starts with the Aurignacian culture, which is mostly found in northern Iberia (current Asturias, Cantabria, Basque Country and Catalonia) in the beginning, and is the work of Homo sapiens. It later expands throughout all of the Iberian peninsula and is followed by the Gravettian. In Cantabria most Gravettian remains are found mixed with Aurignacian technology, thus it is considered “intrusive”, in contrast with the Mediterranean area, where it probably means a real colonization. The first indications of modern human colonization of the interior and the west of the peninsula are found only in this cultural phase.” ref

“Châtelperronian sites in central France and Spain date back to the Upper Paleolithic period, or some 40,000 years to 50,000 years ago, around the time that anatomically modern humans began to displace Neanderthals in Western Europe.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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The so-called “transitional industries” are a key for understanding the replacement process of Neanderthals by modern humans in western Eurasia at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago. While in Europe the older Mousterian industry of the Middle Paleolithic can be clearly attributed to Neanderthals and the later Upper Paleolithic assemblages to modern humans, the nature of the makers of the transitional Châtelperronian (CP) industry has long been disputed. ref, ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Neanderthal ritual or religious practice at around 50,000 years old burial in Sima de las Palomas in Murcia, Southeast Spain of a female covered with rocks interred with a cut-off panther paw, suggesting that Neanderthals—much like today’s bear hunters—ceremoniously cut-off panther paws and kept them as totemistic trophies. This 50,000-year-old Neanderthal burial ground actually includes the remains of at least three individuals intentionally buried, with each Neanderthal’s arms folded such that the hands were close to the head. Remains of other Neanderthals have been found in this position, suggesting that it held meaning. The remains of six to seven other Neanderthals, including one baby and two juveniles, have also been excavated at the site. The tallest individual appears to have been an adult who stood around 5 feet 1 inch tall. ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Cave Bear Hunting by Neanderthals 50,000 years ago

50,000 years ago, at least, Neanderthals were hunting the “now-extinct” and ferocious cave bears (weighing 1,300 lbs, twice that of grizzlies), seen in Neanderthals’ bite marks spotted on cave bear bones. Furthermore, the remains belonged to a total of 50 cave bears that lived 50,000 to 43,000 years ago. Bands of Neanderthals would regularly ambush sleeping bears (belonging to male and female adults, cubs, and fetuses) as they awoke from their annual targets for their pelts, meat, and living quarters. Among the fossil, remains are penis bones, showing that Neanderthals did hunt the seeming hardest to kill, the adult male cave bear. Cave bears may have spent more time in caves than the brown bear, which uses caves only for hibernation. ref, ref, ref

800 specimens were collected throughout western Eurasia and dated between 80,000 and 20,000 years ago. The team documented incidents of skull trauma, perceived sex and age at death, degree of skeleton preservation, and geographical location of each sample. Based on 836 cranial elements analyzed from 204 individuals, researchers found no differences in injury rates between Neanderthals and contemporaneous humans, Gizmodo reported. ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“Mammoth bone dwellings are a very an early type of housing constructed by Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers mainly in central Europe.” ref

“Mammoth Bone Dwellings range from around 44,000 to 14,000 years ago, likely expressions of Cultist Culture and maybe some “Totemism” socio-religious-symbolic meanings. These ritual structures seem to have begun with Neandertals (who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago) and then continued with Modern Human Hunter Gather groups like the Gravettian (around 33,000 to 21,000 years ago) and connected Epi-gravettian (around 21,000 to 10,000 years ago) cultures.” ref, ref

“A number of examples of symbolic thought and Palaeolithic art have been inconclusively attributed to Neanderthals, namely possible ornaments made from bird claws and feathers or shells, collections of unusual objects including crystals and fossils, engravings, music production (possibly indicated by the Divje Babe flute), and Spanish cave paintings contentiously dated to before 65,000 years ago. Some claims of religious beliefs have been made. Neanderthals were likely capable of speech, possibly articulate, although the complexity of their language is not known.” ref

“Gravettian and Epigravettian mammoth bone dwellings range from: Pavlovian (Early Gravettian of Moravia), Gagarino and Pouchkari (Gravettian of Eastern Europe), Kostienki 11/1a (Zamiatnine culture), and Mezinian.” ref

“Gravettian culture thrived on their ability to hunt animals. They utilized a variety of tools and hunting strategies. Compared to the theorized hunting techniques of Neanderthals and earlier human groups, Gravettian hunting culture appears much more mobile and complex. They lived in caves or semi-subterranean or rounded dwellings which were typically arranged in small “villages”. Gravettians are thought to have been innovative in the development of tools such as blunted-back knives, tanged arrowheads, and boomerangs. Other innovations include the use of woven nets and oil lamps made of stone. Blades and bladelets were used to make decorations and bone tools from animal remains. Gravettian culture extends across a large geographic region, as far as Estremadura in Portugal. but is relatively homogeneous until about 27,000 years ago. They developed burial rites, which included simple, purpose-built offerings and/or personal ornaments owned by the deceased, placed within the grave or tomb. Surviving Gravettian art includes numerous cave paintings and small, portable Venus figurines made from clay or ivory, as well as jewelry objects. The fertility deities mostly date from the early period; there are over 100 known surviving examples. They conform to a very specific physical type, with large breasts, broad hips, and prominent posteriors. The statuettes tend to lack facial details, and their limbs are often broken off. During the post-glacial period, evidence of the culture began to disappear from northern Europe but was continued in areas around the Mediterranean.” ref

“The 44,000-year-old site from Molodova in eastern Ukraine was a Neanderthal “Mousterian Culture” Mammoth Bone Dwelling with possible “Totemism” connections due to how some of the bones used to build the ritual structure home had decorative carvings and added pigments. It was an incredible 26 foot wide circular building believed to be earliest bone built cultural structure and where they lived for extended periods of time.” ref, ref

“The 44,000-year-old Neanderthal bone structure near Molodova was constructed with 116 large deliberately selected mammoth bones including skulls, jaws, tusks and leg. Inside there was at least 25 fire pits and from the artifacts found Neanderthals made many decorated carvings in addition to the symbolic adding of ochre pigments to the bones.” ref, ref

“The painting in red on the front of the mammoth skull may represent the flames and sparks of a fire and as bones were found burned in fire pits, so there could be a ritualistic representation connection, which I think it is. It could be a prehistoric “drum” consisting of a mammoth skull, which may relate to a change from totemism to shamanism and was set at the entrance as well as contained a painted pattern of red ocher dots and lines. The top of this skull bears depressions where it seems to have been beaten by “drumsticks,” the animal’s long bones that were found to bear corresponding damage on their ends. It is possible that the building may have served some ritual or communal function at which the mammoth bone rhythms were beaten out, although many Ukrainian huts of similar size seem to have been ordinary living places.”  ref, ref, ref

“Even more telling of its ritualistic relevance is that it was found at the entrance to one of the mammoth hunter’s huts, which could also hold a vaginal/womb reference, and as there was also an oddly placed signal tusk pointing in and hugging the head sticking upright out of the ground almost as if it represents a phallus entering the vaginal/womb thus fertility hunting cult suggestions as well as maybe fire worship.” ref, ref

“Inside the Mezherich building, there were some remarkable finds: amber ornaments and fossil shells, transported an estimated 218 to 310 miles from their source, and the remains of one of the earliest percussion instruments ever found. The middle Dnepr basin is the origin of amber is well known near Kiev where it was collected throughout the Upper Palaeolithic. Amber objects have been used as pieces of small adornment in the Upper Palaeolithic sites of the Dnepr basin: Gontsy, Dobra-nichivka, Mejiriche, Semenivka 2, Ioudinovo, Chulatovo 2, Mezine, Osokorivka (level 2), and Kaistrova balka 2.” ref, ref

“A spectacular prehistoric art is visible in the dwellings of the Mezinian, in the grouping in the outer wall of jaws and long bones showing a geometric pattern of lines, chevrons, and zigzags, which are also figured in the painted bones of the dwellings and in the mobile art of the statuettes, tools and various artifacts, confirming they are the manifestation of a socio-symbolic system of the Mezinian culture.” ref

“A mammoth bone dwelling holds a common form of a circular or oval structure with walls made of stacked large mammoth bones often modified to allow them to be lashed together or implanted into the soil. Within the interior is typically found a central fire pits or several scattered fire pits. External fire pits, butchering areas, and flint workshops are often found in association with the hut: scholars call these combinations Mammoth Bone Settlements (MBS).” ref

“The mammoth bone dwellings are not random. They seem to express a pattern, thus this may demonstrate cultural/religious transfer inclinations and consistency in tradition over thousands of years. Similarly, they are composed of several hundred bones and tusks arranged in rough circles with a diameter of 20 to 33 feet. Even more interesting is that the first Neanderthal mammoth bone dwelling at 44,000-year-old was also in the range at 26 feet, thus it too is consistent with all the rest seeming to hit that they share some deep possible connection.” ref

“A Mysterious 25,000-Year-Old Structure Built of the Bones of 60 Mammoths. The purpose of such an elaborate structure remains a big open question. “Clearly a lot of time and effort went into building this structure so it was obviously important to the people that made it for some reason,” says Alexander Pryor, an archaeologist at the University of Exeter (U.K.). He is the lead author of a new study published this week in the journal Antiquity describing the find at Kostenki, a place where many important Paleolithic sites lie clustered around the Don River. The ancient builders did leave some clues. Fires once burned within the structure and food scraps, including vegetables, remain. Several pits containing mammoth bones lie just outside of the bone circle and may suggest food storage. “You obviously get a lot of meat from a mammoth,” Pryor said, “so the idea that there were food processing and food storage activities going on at the site is something that we want to investigate more.” However the mammoths got here, their presence was crucial to the humans living in the area. Lioudmila Lakovleva of the French National Centre for Scientific Research notes that “the complete settlement shows several mammoth bone dwellings, walls, enclosure, pits, working areas, hearths, dumping areas and butchering areas,” she says.” ref

“To some, though, the grandeur of the structure suggests more than practical significance. “People have also speculated a lot about a likely ritual element to this and it’s really hard to say what that might have been,” Pryor adds. “Ritual is embedded in human lives in all sorts of ways. The fact they might have designed a structure of this type as part of both their ritual and their sustenance activities is very reasonable.” The site stands out most obviously for its scale. “The size of the structure makes it exceptional among its kind, and building it would have been time-consuming,” says Marjolein Bosch, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Cambridge. “This implies that it was meant to last, perhaps as a landmark, a meeting place, a place of ceremonial importance, or a place to return to when the conditions grew so harsh that shelter was needed,” Bosch was not involved with the new research on this “ truly exceptional find” but has personally visited the site. Indeed, the structure’s sheer size makes it an unlikely everyday home. “I cannot possibly imagine how they would have roofed over this structure,” Pryor said. The smaller mammoth houses feature more definite cooking hearths, and they contain the remains of reindeer, horse and fox, which suggests the people in them were living on whatever they could find in the area. The new mammoth bone structure lacks evidence of other animal remains. “It’s almost exclusively woolly mammoth remains and that is one of the interesting things about it,” Pryor said. “With no other animal bones, this doesn’t look much like a dwelling where people lived for a while,” Shipman added.” ref

“Intriguingly, the new structure is the first of its kind to yield evidence that its occupants burnt wood inside and not just bone. “It’s the first time anyone’s found large pieces of charcoal inside one of these structures. So it does show that trees were in the environment,” Pryor said. Tree ring widths in the charcoal are narrow, suggesting the trees probably struggled to survive in that landscape. Previous studies suggested that even on the Ice Age’s arid steppes, coniferous trees would have endured in forests stretching along riversides like those close to Kostenki—a draw for people looking to survive. Still, if people weren’t living in the structure, then why did they make fires? “Fire in the past can be seen as a tool much the same as chipped stone implements and worked bones are,” Bosch says. Fires provided heat and light, barbecued and roasted food, dried meat for storage, and processed glues for stone-tipped tools. “Here, the fires were lit inside a structure and its use as a light source seems intuitive,” she says. “If the authors are correct in their assumption of its use as a place for food storage, it may also have been used to dry meat.” There may be ways to test these ideas. Finding drops of fat on the floor, for example, could show that meat was dried over the flames.” ref

“There must be something about the topography of the site that makes it a place where, over and over, herds of mammoths are coming through and can be killed or will be killed naturally, like at a river crossing,” says Penn State’s Pat Shipman. “I can imagine no way [these] people could possibly kill 60 mammoths at a time, because proboscideans (the order of mammals to which both mammoths and living elephants belong) are smart and catch on if members of their herd are being killed, even with modern automatic weapons.” Further studies of the mammoth bones will yield more clues about their source. Some were arranged in the same order and position as they were in the skeleton. “This means that the bones were brought to the site as body part which some soft tissue (skin, muscle, and tendons) still attached,” Bosch said. “Therefore, they must have been transported before carnivores had the chance to eat and clean the bones. This implies that the builders had early access to the mammoth remains.” Shipman adds: “I want to know if the bones have been processed or transported or if we are looking at whole skeletons or carcasses piled up for future use. Moving a dead mammoth cannot have been easy even if it was largely de-fleshed.” ref

“Such bone houses have been found in considerable numbers, often clustered together in little “villages” of four or five houses in the fertile valleys of the Ukraine and the same method of construction has appeared as far west as Kracow, in Poland, with three rings of mammoth bones exactly similar to those in Russia and dating to about 20 000 years ago.” ref 

“Relatively all of the mammoth bone-dwelling sites date to the Upper Paleolithic period (Gravettian or Epi-Gravettian), with the sole exception of Molodova 1, which dates to the Middle Stone Age and is associated with Neanderthals.” ref

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Modern Humans From the Levant Made Three Attempts to Settle in Europe, Study Shows

“The evidence of strikingly similar tools in France and the Mediterranean in three distinct periods, attesting to three distinct waves of early sapiens migrations from the Levant to Europe: The image shows the technical traditions of each of the three migrations. 1) 54,000 years ago 2) 45,000 years ago 3) around 42,000 years ago.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art 

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• Chatelperroian culture
• Aurignacian culture

Châtelperronian Culture

“The Châtelperronian is a proposed industry of the Upper Palaeolithic, the existence of which is debated. It represents both the only Upper Palaeolithic industry made by Neanderthals and the earliest Upper Palaeolithic industry in Central and Southwestern France, as well as in Northern Spain. It derives its name from Châtelperron, Allier, France (the closest commune to the type site, the cave La Grotte des Fées). It is preceded by the Mousterian industry, and lasted from c. 45,000 to c. 40,000 years ago. The industry produced denticulate stone tools, and a distinctive flint knife with a single cutting edge and a blunt, curved back. The use of ivory at Châtelperronian sites appears to be more frequent than that of the later Aurignacian, while antler tools have not been found. It is followed by the Aurignacian industry. Scholars who question its existence claim that it is an archaeological mix of Mousterian and Aurignacian layers. The Châtelperronian industry may relate to the origins of the very similar Gravettian culture. French archaeologists have traditionally classified both cultures together under the name Périgordian, Early Perigordian being equivalent to the Châtelperronian and all the other phases corresponding to the Gravettian, though this scheme is not often used by Anglophone authors.” ref

Aurignacian Culture

“Key Issues/Current Debates: Variants of the Aurignacian Across Time and Space… Today, the Aurignacian is separated into many variants that are thought to be temporally or spatially meaningful. The first is the Protoaurignacian (i.e., Proto-Aurignacian, Fumanian) characterized by the production of large (c. 30–45 mm), straight bladelets (subtype

Dufour) from prismatic and pyramidal cores seen by some as the oldest phase of the Aurignacian. In southwest France, northern Italy, and Spain, when found together, the ProtoAurignacian is always superimposed by the Classic (Early)

Aurignacian where bladelets are generally produced from carinated cores. This production method resulted in smaller bladelets (c. 15–20 mm) with characteristic “twisted” profiles that were often retouched into Dufour bladelets (subtype Roc du Combe). However further east, where the ProtoAurignacian is less known, Classic Aurignacian assemblages often

directly follow the Middle Paleolithic and so-called transitional industries and are associated with radiocarbon dates as old as the first occurrence of the ProtoAurignacian in the Mediterranean thus making it difficult to simply consider the two assemblages as successive stages of the same cultural unit. It is also thought by some that the Classic Aurignacian later grew into the Late (Evolved) Aurignacian that is defined as having a larger, more varied tool kit including (backed) micro-

blades. However, such assemblages often share many cultural traits associated with the Gravettian, possibly relating to mechanical admixture, or suggesting that they represent a distinct cultural phenomenon.” ref

“The Aurignacian is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with European early modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the Levant, where the Emiran period and the Ahmarian period form the first periods of the Upper Paleolithic, corresponding to the first stages of the expansion of Homo sapiens out of Africa. They then migrated to Europe and created the first European culture of modern humans, the Aurignacian. An Early Aurignacian or Proto-Aurignacian stage is dated between about 43,000 and 37,000 years ago. The Aurignacian proper lasts from about 37,000 to 33,000 years ago. A Late Aurignacian phase transitional with the Gravettian dates to about 33,000 to 26,000 years ago. The type site is the Cave of Aurignac, Haute-Garonne, south-west France. The main preceding period is the Mousterian of the Neanderthals.” ref

“One of the oldest examples of figurative art, the Venus of Hohle Fels, comes from the Aurignacian or Proto-Gravettian and is dated to between 40,000 and 35,000 years ago (though now earlier figurative art may be known, see Lubang Jeriji Saléh). It was discovered in September 2008 in a cave at Schelklingen in Baden-Württemberg in western Germany. The German Lion-man figure is given a similar date range. The Bacho Kiro site in Bulgaria is one of the earliest known Aurignacian burials. A “Levantine Aurignacian” culture is known from the Levant, with a type of blade technology very similar to the European Aurignacian, following chronologically the Emiran and Early Ahmarian in the same area of the Near East, and also closely related to them. The Levantine Aurignacian may have preceded European Aurignacian, but there is a possibility that the Levantine Aurignacian was rather the result of reverse influence from the European Aurignacian: this remains unsettled.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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In Kostënki 17, Russia, there were numerous pendants recovered and at least one, seen above, was dated to 43,000 years ago, which was made from fossil belemite rostrum. The artifacts include a group of more than 40 pendants made from fox canines teeth. In addition, there were pendants made from stone and fossils as well. Along with shell beads from the lower layers of Kostënki 14 and the Kostënki 17 pendants are the earliest good evidence for personal adornment anywhere in Eastern Europe. The occupations at Kostenki include several Late Early Upper Paleolithic levels, dated between 42,000 to 30,000 calibrated years ago (cal BP). Kostenki, the Aurignacian sequence was considered the oldest component associated with modern humans at archaeological sites in Europe, underlain by Mousterian-like deposits representing Neanderthals. Kostenki 14, also known as Markina Gora, is the main site at Kostenki, and it has been found to contain genetic evidence concerning the migration of early modern humans from Africa into Eurasia. ref, ref 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“The Adorant from the Geißenklösterle cave is a 35,000-to-40,000-year-old section of mammoth ivory with a depiction of a human figure, found in the Geißenklösterle cave in the Swabian Jura near Blaubeuren, Germany. The front face has a human figure of uncertain sex in relief, with raised arms and outstretched legs, but no hands. The posture is usually interpreted as an expression of worship, which is why in German the figure is called an “adorant”, a word meaning “worshipper”. It has been claimed that a belt and sword can be seen, although these are probably natural features of the ivory. On the plate’s reverse are rows of small notches. The piece is 38 mm (1.50 in) tall, 14 mm (0.55 in) wide, and 4.5 mm (0.18 in) thick. Traces of manganese and ochre can be found on it by microscope analysis. It is somewhat like the Lion-Human of Hohlenstein-Stadel ivory statue also found in Germany.” ref

“The Löwenmensch figurine, also called the Lion-Human of Hohlenstein-Stadel, is a prehistoric ivory sculpture discovered in Hohlenstein-Stadel, a German cave. The German name, Löwenmensch, meaning “lion-person” or “lion-human”, is used most frequently because it was discovered and is exhibited in Germany. Determined by carbon dating of the layer in which it was found to be between 35,000 and 40,000 years old, it is one of the oldest-known examples of an artistic representation and the oldest confirmed statue ever discovered. Its age associates it with the archaeological Aurignacian culture of the Upper Paleolithic. An example of zoomorphic art, the Lion-Human was carved out of mammoth ivory, using a flint stone knife. Seven parallel, transverse, carved gouges are on the left arm.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Was the 34,000 years ago Lunar Calendar art around the Time Shift From Totemism to Early Shamanism?

“The Oldest Lunar Calendars and Earliest Constellations have been identified in cave art found in France and Germany. The astronomer-priests of these late Upper Paleolithic Cultures understood mathematical sets, and the interplay between the moon annual cycle, ecliptic, solstice and seasonal changes on earth. The archaeological record’s earliest data that speaks to human awareness of the stars and ‘heavens’ dates to the Aurignacian Culture of Europe, around 34,000 years ago. Between 1964 and the early 1990s, Alexander Marshack published breakthrough research that documented the mathematical and astronomical knowledge in the Late Upper Paleolithic Cultures of Europe. Marshack deciphered sets of marks carved into animal bones, and occasionally on the walls of caves, as records of the lunar cycle. These marks are sets of crescents or lines. Artisans carefully controlled line thickness so that a correlation with lunar phases would be as easy as possible to perceive. Sets of marks were often laid out in a serpentine pattern that suggests a snake deity or streams and rivers. Many of these lunar calendars were made on small pieces of stone, bone or antler so that they could be easily carried. These small, portable, lightweight lunar calendars were easily carried on extended journeys such as long hunting trips and seasonal migrations.” ref

“Hunting the largest animals was arduous, and might require hunters to follow herds of horses, bison, mammoth or ibex for many weeks. (Other big animals such as the auroch, cave bear and cave lion were well known but rarely hunted for food because they had a special status in the mythic realm. The Auroch is very important to the search for earliest constellations.) The phases of the moon depicted in these sets of marks are inexact. Precision was impossible unless all nights were perfectly clear which is an unrealistic expectation. The arithmetic counting skill implied by these small lunar calendars is obvious. The recognition that there are phases of the moon and seasons of the year that can be counted – that should be counted because they are important – is profound. “All animal activities are time factored, simply because time passes, the future is forever arriving. The reality of time factoring is objective physics and does not depend upon human awareness or consciousness. Until Marshack’s work, many archeologists believed the sets of marks he chose to study were nothing but the aimless doodles of bored toolmakers. What Marshack uncovered is the intuitive discovery of mathematical sets and the application of those sets to the construction of a calendar.” Bone is the preferred medium because it allows for easy transport and a long calendar lifetime. Mankind’s earliest astronomy brought the clan into the multi-dimensional universe of the gods. Objects used in the most potent rituals had the highest contextual, cultural value and were treated with great reverence.” ref

“Regarding the Aurignacian, between 43,000 and 35,000 years ago, the archaeological record from habitations is relatively poor in the Ardèche (Abri des Pécheurs, Grotte du Figuier) while appearing more abundant in the Languedoc (La Salpétrière, La Balauzière, Esquicho-Grapaou, La Laouza etc.). The same applies to the sites of the early phases of the Gravettian. During climatic fluctuations, and unlike the deep caves such as Chauvet, the porch and shelter fills seem to have better recorded the cold episodes than the humid phases. To date, 20 decorated caves are indexed in the gorges of the Ardèche and nearby; in other words as far as the valley of the Gardon (Baume-Latrone). This group includes several important caves (Ebbou, Oulen, Émilie etc.) which are not precisely dated and were judged to be of secondary importance until the discovery of the Chauvet Cave.” ref

“A 10,000-year-old engraved stone could be a lunar calendar. The rare pebble — found high up in the mountains near Rome, Italy, the hammer-stone was found on top of Monte Alta in the Alban Hills.  It’s believed that our early ancestors would’ve used the stone to keep track of the moon’s cycles. Notches were engraved “as if they were being used to count, calculate or store the record of some kind of information. And these notches — which total either 27 or 28 — suggest the stone’s engraver used the pebble to track lunar cycles.” ref

“Archaeologists excavating in Scotland found a series of huge pits were dug by Mesolithic people to track the cycle of the Moon. They found a series of twelve huge, specially shaped pits designed to mimic the various phases of the Moon. The holes aligned perfectly on the midwinter solstice to help the hunter-gathers of Mesolithic Britain keep precise track of the passage of the seasons and the lunar cycle. The holes were dug in the shapes of various phases of the moon. “Waxing, waning, crescents, and gibbous, they’re all there and arranged in a 50-meter-long (164-foot) arc. The one representing the full moon is large and circular, approximately two meters (roughly seven feet) across, and placed right in the center. And this arc is arranged perfectly with a notch in the landscape where the sun would have risen on the day of the midwinter solstice about 10,000 years ago. Placing their calendar in the landscape the way they did would have let the people who built it to recalibrate the lunar months every winter to bring their lunar calendar in line with the solar year. This means that any effort to keep track of the seasons using the moon alone will slowly drift ever further from true. An observer needs to know when to add or subtract an extra month to make good the time or hit the reset button and start counting again.” ref

“A moon-shaped calendar was found in Smederevska Palanka, Serbia that dates back 8,000 years, and is made from a wild boar’s tusk engraved with markings to denote a lunar cycle. Farmers may have used the device to plan when to plant crops. It is made from the tusk of a wild boar and is marked with engravings thought to denote a lunar cycle of 28 days, as well as the four phases of the moon.” ref

“A lunisolar calendar was found at Warren Field in Scotland and has been dated to c. 8000 BCE, during the Mesolithic period. Some scholars argue for lunar calendars still earlier—Rappenglück in the marks on a c. 17,000-year-old cave painting at Lascaux and Marshack in the marks on a c. 27,000-year-old bone baton—but their findings remain controversial. Scholars have argued that ancient hunters conducted regular astronomical observations of the Moon back in the Upper Palaeolithic. Samuel L. Macey dates the earliest uses of the Moon as a time-measuring device back to 28,000–30,000 years ago.” ref

“A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon‘s phases (synodic months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based only directly on the solar year. The most commonly used calendar, the Gregorian calendar, is a solar calendar system that originally evolved out of a lunar calendar system. A purely lunar calendar is also distinguished from a lunisolar calendar, whose lunar months are brought into alignment with the solar year through some process of intercalation. The details of when months begin varies from calendar to calendar, with some using new, full, or crescent moons and others employing detailed calculations.” ref

“Since each lunation is approximately 29+¹⁄₂ days, it is common for the months of a lunar calendar to alternate between 29 and 30 days. Since the period of 12 such lunations, a lunar year, is 354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, 34 seconds (354.36707 days), purely lunar calendars are 11 to 12 days shorter than the solar year. In purely lunar calendars, which do not make use of intercalation, like the Islamic calendar, the lunar months cycle through all the seasons of a solar year over the course of a 33–34 lunar-year cycle.” ref

“Although the Gregorian calendar is in common and legal use in most countries, traditional lunar and lunisolar calendars continue to be used throughout the world to determine religious festivals and national holidays. Such holidays include Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew calendar); Easter (the Computus); the Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Mongolian New Year (Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Mongolian calendars, respectively); the Nepali New Year (Nepali calendar); the Mid-Autumn Festival and Chuseok (Chinese and Korean calendars); Loi Krathong (Thai calendar); Sunuwar calendar; Vesak/Buddha’s Birthday (Buddhist calendar); Diwali (Hindu calendars); Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha (Islamic calendar).” ref

“The Japanese Calendar formerly used both the lunar and lunisolar calendar before it was replaced by the Gregorian Calendar during the Meiji government in 1872. Holidays such as the Japanese New Year were simply transposed on top as opposed to being calculated like other countries that use the lunisolar and Gregorian calendars together, for example, the Japanese New Year now falls on January 1, creating a month delay as opposed to other East Asian Countries. See customary issues in modern Japan.” ref

“Most calendars referred to as “lunar” calendars are in fact lunisolar calendars. Their months are based on observations of the lunar cycle, with intercalation being used to bring them into general agreement with the solar year. The solar “civic calendar” that was used in ancient Egypt showed traces of its origin in the earlier lunar calendar, which continued to be used alongside it for religious and agricultural purposes. Present-day lunisolar calendars include the Chinese, Vietnamese, Hindu, and Thai calendars.” ref

“Synodic months are 29 or 30 days in length, making a lunar year of 12 months about 11 to 12 days shorter than a solar year. Some lunar calendars do not use intercalation, for example, the lunar Hijri calendar used by most Muslims. For those that do, such as the Hebrew calendar, and Buddhist Calendars in Myanmar, the most common form of intercalation is to add an additional month every second or third year. Some lunisolar calendars are also calibrated by annual natural events which are affected by lunar cycles as well as the solar cycle. An example of this is the lunar calendar of the Banks Islands, which includes three months in which the edible palolo worms mass on the beaches. These events occur at the last quarter of the lunar month, as the reproductive cycle of the palolos is synchronized with the moon.” ref

“Lunar and lunisolar calendars differ as to which day is the first day of the month. In some lunisolar calendars, such as the Chinese calendar, the first day of a month is the day when an astronomical new moon occurs in a particular time zone. In others, such as some Hindu calendars, each month begins on the day after the full moon. Others are based on the first sighting of the lunar crescent, such as the lunar Hijri calendar (and, historically, the Hebrew calendar).” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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I think the addition of dots could reference stars, like the sun in the day and stars and moon at night or other celestial bodies.

Cave art dated to at least 40,800 years old, was discovered in the Cave of El Castillo, “the cave of castles”, in the Cantabria region of Spain. The El Castillo cave contains a large red stippled disk in the Panel de las Manos dated to more than  40,800 years old and is consistent with the tradition of cave painting originating in the Proto-Aurignacian. Modern humans are believed to have also been in the area at the time, arriving about 41,500 years ago. Habitation roughly involves 55 000 to 45 000 years ago there was occupation by Neanderthals. From then 45,000 to 35,000 years ago is a transition period, the first phase of occupation by modern man during the upper Palaeolithic. And it is believed that Aurignacian involves at least three phases of occupation, clearly evident from 35,000 to 30,000 when it turns to Gravettian which seems to involve two phases of occupation from around 30,000 to 25,000 years ago. Followed by Magdalenian, with two phases of occupation dated to around 20,000 to 15,000 years ago. ref, ref 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Ritual Pointillism, to me, references stars/ancestor worship in Aurignacian culture totemism, which I think relates to the Neanderthal Châtelperronian culture totemism. There was 16 engraved and otherwise modified limestone blocks, created 38,000 years ago, pointillist techniques: small dots to create the illusion of a larger image. ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Around 37,500 to 32,500 years old Aurignacian bison skull from Régismont-le-Haut (Hérault). Possibility symbolic or ritualized item and certainly a major animal for them, as shown by the ornamentation of certain caves (for example, the Aurignacian of Chauvet Cave in France. The trophy-head belongs to a male individual. The many depictions of bison in Palaeolithic art back up, the symbolic interpretation as possible. ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Chauvet cave

“The Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave in the Ardèche department of southeastern France is a cave that contains some of the best-preserved figurative cave paintings in the world, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d’Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the river Ardèche, in the Gorges de l’Ardèche. The dates have been a matter of dispute but a study published in 2012 supports placing the art in the Aurignacian period, approximately 32,000–30,000 years ago. A study published in 2016 using additional 88 radiocarbon dates showed two periods of habitation, one from 37,000 to 33,500 years ago and the second from 31,000 to 28,000 years ago, with most of the black drawings dating to the earlier period.” ref

“Hundreds of animal paintings have been cataloged, depicting at least 13 different species, including some rarely or never found in other ice age paintings. Rather than depicting only the familiar herbivores that predominate in Paleolithic cave art, i.e. horses, aurochs, mammoths, etc., the walls of the Chauvet Cave feature many predatory animals, e.g., cave lions, leopards, bears, and cave hyenas. There are also paintings of rhinoceroses. Typical of most cave art, there are no paintings of complete human figures, although there is one partial “Venus” figure composed of what appears to be a vulva attached to an incomplete pair of legs. Above the Venus, and in contact with it, is a bison head, which has led some to describe the composite drawing as a Minotaur. There are a few panels of red ochre hand prints and hand stencils made by blowing pigment over hands pressed against the cave surface. Abstract markings—lines and dots—are found throughout the cave. There are also two unidentifiable images that have a vaguely butterfly or avian shape to them. This combination of subjects has led some students of prehistoric art and cultures to believe that there was a ritual, shamanic, or magical aspect to these paintings.” ref

“One drawing, later overlaid with a sketch of a deer, is reminiscent of a volcano spewing lava, similar to the regional volcanoes that were active at the time. If confirmed, this would represent the earliest known drawing of a volcanic eruption. The artists who produced these paintings used techniques rarely found in other cave art. Many of the paintings appear to have been made only after the walls were scraped clear of debris and concretions, leaving a smoother and noticeably lighter area upon which the artists worked. Similarly, a three-dimensional quality and the suggestion of movement are achieved by incising or etching around the outlines of certain figures. The art is also exceptional for its time for including “scenes”, e.g., animals interacting with each other; a pair of woolly rhinoceroses, for example, are seen butting horns in an apparent contest for territory or mating rights.” ref

Aurignacian burials (around 37,000-30,000 years ago) belong to the early phase of this period in Europe. Examples have been excavated at Cave of Cavillon, Liguria – a burial wearing a cap of netted whelk shells with a border of deer’s teeth, red ochre around the face, and a bone awl at the side. ref

Aurignacian in the Zagros region dates back to about 35,500 years ago at Yafteh Cave, Lorestan, Iran. ref 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Aurignacian Culture

Gravettian Culture

Magdalenian Culture

Kebaran culture

U6 related Culture Haplogroup U6 (Back migration to Africa of U6: 30,000 years ago) 

Iberomaurusian Culture

Ust’-Ishim man

Basal Eurasian

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SignBase, a collection of geometric signs on mobile objects in the Paleolithic

“Maps for the presence/absence of particular sign types. Black triangles indicate archaeological sites where artifacts carrying geometric signs were found. Red triangles indicate the presence of a particular sign type.” ref

“Schematic drawings of sign types as identified for the Aurignacian: 1. Line (line); 2. Oblique line (obline); 3. Concentric lines (concenline); 4. Dashed line (dashline); 5. Radial line (radline); 6. Circumferential line (circumline); 7. Circumferential spiral (circumspiral); 8. Notch (notch); 9. Oblique notch (obnotch); 10. Radial notch (radnotch); 11. Circumferential notch (circumnotch); 12. Dot (dot); 13. Cupule (cupule); 14. Cross (cross); 15. Rhombus (rhombus); 16. Hashtag (hashtag); 17. Grid (grid); 18. Hatching (hatching); 19. Zigzag (zigzag); 20. Zigzag-row (zigzagrow); 21. Rectangle (rectangle); 22. Maccaroni (maccaroni); 23. V-Sign (v); 24. Pin to the left side (pinleft); 25. Pin to the right side (pinright); 26. Star (star); 27. Vulva-Sign (vulva); 28. Paw-Sign (paw). Not shown in the table: anthropomorph, zoomorph, other.” ref

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“Examples of some Aurignacian (ca. 43,000 to 30,000 years ago) mobile objects registered in SignBase and the identified sign types (not in scale).” ref

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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“Modern Humans With Bows and Arrows Invaded France 54,000 Years Ago. But they didn’t stay long. New finds in southern France indicate a protracted struggle: Neanderthals and humans replacing one another, more than once.” ref

“Map Mandrin Cave, Malataverne (Drôme), eastern side of the Rhône Valley (France).” ref

“Mandrin Cave in France held the presence of modern humans has been dated to between 56,800 and 51,700 years ago, about 10,000 years before previously accepted dates for the colonization of Europe by modern humans.” ref

“A fossilized molar from a modern human child dating back 54,000 YEARS is uncovered in a French cave — and is the earliest known evidence of our species in western Europe. Previously, the oldest proven examples of modern human settlements in Europe were dated back to 45,000–43,000 years ago — 10,000 years earlier.” ref

“Neanderthal to Modern Human Transition 45,000 to 25,000 years ago. But was the transition from Neanderthal to modern humans delayed by the presence of the Neanderthals?” ref 

An early Aurignacian arrival in southwestern Europe

“26 radiocarbon dates, including 17 new ones, show that replacement at Bajondillo took place in the millennia centering on ~45,000–43,000 years ago—well before the onset of Heinrich event 4 (~40,200–38,300 years ago).” ref  

“Neronian and the historical structure of cultural shifts from Middle to Upper Palaeolithic in Mediterranean France. The end of the Middle Palaeolithic period can be considered a key moment in history, and profound changes in traditional Palaeolithic societies.” ref 

“Our analyses of the stone artifacts from Ksar Akil show a similarly aged sediment layer with tiny points of the same size and made in the same technical traditions as those of Mandrin. This similarity strongly suggested that the Neronian artifacts were made not by Neanderthals, but rather by a group of modern human explorers who entered the region much earlier than we had expected.” ref

Prehistory of France 

“The earliest indication of Upper Palaeolithic early modern human (formerly referred to as Cro-Magnon) migration into France, and indeed in the whole of Europe, is a series of modern human teeth with Neronian industry stone tools found at Grotte Mandrin Cave, Malataverne in France, dated in 2022 to between 56,800 and 51,700 years ago. The Neronian is one of the many industries associated with modern humans classed as transitional between the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. When they arrived in Europe, they brought with them sculpture, engraving, painting, body ornamentation, music and the painstaking decoration of utilitarian objects. Some of the oldest works of art in the world, such as the cave paintings at Lascaux in southern France, are datable to shortly after this migration.” ref

“European Palaeolithic cultures are divided into several chronological subgroups (the names are all based on French type sites, principally in the Dordogne region):

• Aurignacian (c. 38,000 – 23,000 years ago) – responsible for Venus figurines, cave paintings at the Chauvet Cave (continued during the Gravettian period).
• Périgordian (c. 35,000 – 20,000 years ago) – use of this term is being debated (the term implies that the following subperiods represent a continuous tradition).
• Châtelperronian(c. 39,000 – 29,000 years ago) – culture derived from the earlier, Neanderthal, Mousterian industry as it made use of Levallois cores and represents the period when Neanderthals and modern humans occupied Europe together.
• Gravettian(c. 28,000 – 22,000 years ago) – responsible for Venus figurines, cave paintings at the Cosquer Cave.” ref

“Ancient human migration into Europe was revealed via genome analysis from Bacho Kiro cave in Bulgaria. Genetic sequencing dating back 45,000 years shows intermixing with Neanderthals more common than previously thought. Genetic sequencing found the remains came from individuals who were more closely linked to present-day populations in east Asia and the Americas than populations in Europe. The remains were discovered last year in the Bacho Kiro cave in Bulgaria and were hailed at the time as evidence that humans lived alongside Neanderthals in Europe significantly earlier than once thought. Genetic analysis of the remains also revealed that modern humans in Europe at that time mixed more with Neanderthals than was previously assumed. All the Bacho Kiro cave individuals have Neanderthal ancestors five-seven generations before they lived, suggesting that the admixture [mixing] between these first humans in Europe and Neanderthals was common.” ref

“Previous evidence for early human-Neanderthal mixing in Europe came from a single individual called the Oase 1, dating back 40,000 years and found in Romania. Researchers made use of the fact that everyone who traces their ancestry back to the individuals that left Africa more than 50,000 years ago carries a bit of Neanderthal ancestry in their genomes. These Neanderthal traces appear in short blocks in modern human genomes, and increasingly longer ones further back in human history. In older individuals, such as the 45,000-year-old Ust’-Ishim man from Siberia, these blocks are much longer. The genome of the Zlaty kun woman has even longer blocks than those of the Ust’-Ishim man. This makes us confident that she lived at the same time, or even earlier. Despite dating from around the same period as the Bacho Kiro remains, the Zlaty kun skull does not share genetic links to either modern Asian or European populations.” ref 

Population dynamics and socio-spatial organization of the Aurignacian: Scalable quantitative demographic data for western and central Europe

“Demographic estimates are presented for the Aurignacian techno-complex (~42,000 to 33,000 y calBP) and discussed in the context of socio-spatial organization of hunter-gatherer populations. The results of the analytical approach applied estimate a mean of 1,500 persons (upper limit: 3,300; lower limit: 800) for western and central Europe. The temporal and spatial analysis indicates an increase of the population during the Aurignacian as well as marked regional differences in population size and density. Demographic increase and patterns of socio-spatial organization continued during the subsequent early Gravettian period. We introduce the concept of Core Areas and Extended Areas as informed analytical spatial scales, which are evaluated against additional chronological and archaeological data. Lithic raw material transport and personal ornaments serve as correlates for human mobility and connectedness in the interpretative framework of this study. Observed regional differences are set in relation with the new demographic data. Our large-scale approach on Aurignacian population dynamics in Europe suggests that past socio-spatial organizations followed socially inherent rules to establish and maintain a functioning social network of extremely low population densities. The data suggest that the network was fully established across Europe during the early phase of the Gravettian, when demographic as well as cultural developments peaked.” ref

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Prehistory of Germany

“The fossilized bones of Neanderthal around 40,000 years old from a limestone grotto in the Neander valley near Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia.” ref

“In a number of caves in Germany (including Vogelherd, Hohlenstein-Stadel, Geißenklösterle, and Hohle Fels), all just a few kilometers apart, some of the oldest signs of human artifacts were found. Best known are: a mammoth, a horse head, a water bird, and two statues of a lion man all of surprising quality and all more than 30,000 years old. The oldest known musical instruments have been found here, too: flutes made from the bones of swans and griffon vultures, some 35,000 years old, and in 2004 a flute carved from the tusk of a mammoth dating from the Ice Age, around 37,000 years ago, and the oldest representation of the human body, the Venus of Schelklingen.” ref

“The remains of Paleolithic early modern human occupation uncovered and documented in several caves in the Swabian Jura include various mammoth ivory sculptures that rank among the oldest uncontested works of art and several flutes, made of bird bone and mammoth ivory that are confirmed to be the oldest musical instruments ever found. The 40,000-year-old Löwenmensch figurine represents the oldest uncontested figurative work of art and the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels has been asserted as the oldest uncontested object of human figurative art ever discovered. These artifacts are attributed to the Aurignacian culture.” ref

Prehistory of Czechoslovakia

“Kůlna Cave in central Moravia, stone tools and the skeletal remains of a Neanderthal man were found at the same site in a 50,000-year-old layer. Human remains from 45,000 years ago were found in Koněprusy Caves in Zlatý kůň at Beroun District. Human remains from 30,000 years BCE were found in Mladeč caves mammoth tusks with complex engravings (again around 30,000 BCE) were found both in Pavlov and Předmostí at Přerov, making south Moravia one of the most important archeological areas in Europe. The archeological site in Předmostí at Přerov represents the largest accumulation of human remains of the Gravettian culture, known for creating so-called Venus figurines. One of such figurines is the famous Venus of Dolní Věstonice (29,000–25,000 BCE) found in Dolní Věstonice in south Moravia along with many other artifacts from that time. Another Venus figurine is the Venus of Petřkovice, found in what is today Ostrava. Remains of mammoth hunters from 22,000 BCE were also found in the aforementioned Kůlna Cave.” ref

Prehistory of Austria

“Upper Paleolithic remains are more numerous in Lower Austria. the Venus of Galgenberg was found near Stratzing and thought to be 32,000 years old. A double infant burial site was discovered at Krems-Wachtberg, dating from Gravettian culture (27,000 years old), the oldest burial ground found in Austria to date. And the nearby Venus of Willendorf (26,000 years old) found at Willendorf, near Krems an der Donau.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

People don’t commonly teach religious history, even that of their own claimed religion. No, rather they teach a limited “pro their religion” history of their religion from a religious perspective favorable to the religion of choice. 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Do you truly think “Religious Belief” is only a matter of some personal choice?

Do you not see how coercive one’s world of choice is limited to the obvious hereditary belief, in most religious choices available to the child of religious parents or caregivers? Religion is more commonly like a family, culture, society, etc. available belief that limits the belief choices of the child and that is when “Religious Belief” is not only a matter of some personal choice and when it becomes hereditary faith, not because of the quality of its alleged facts or proposed truths but because everyone else important to the child believes similarly so they do as well simply mimicking authority beliefs handed to them. Because children are raised in religion rather than being presented all possible choices but rather one limited dogmatic brand of “Religious Belief” where children only have a choice of following the belief as instructed, and then personally claim the faith hereditary belief seen in the confirming to the belief they have held themselves all their lives. This is obvious in statements asked and answered by children claiming a faith they barely understand but they do understand that their family believes “this or that” faith, so they feel obligated to believe it too. While I do agree that “Religious Belief” should only be a matter of some personal choice, it rarely is… End Hereditary Religion!

Opposition to Imposed Hereditary Religion

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey 

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

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We are like believing machines we vacuum up ideas, like Velcro sticks to almost everything. We accumulate beliefs that we allow to negatively influence our lives, often without realizing it. Our willingness must be to alter skewed beliefs that impend our balance or reason, which allows us to achieve new positive thinking and accurate outcomes.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Expressions of Atheistic Thinking:

• Around 2,600 years ago, Ajita Kesakambali, ancient Indian philosopher, who is the first known proponent of Indian materialism. ref
• Around 2,535 to 2,475 years ago, Heraclitus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor or modern Turkey. ref
• Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, according to The Story of Civilization book series certain African pygmy tribes have no identifiable gods, spirits, or religious beliefs or rituals, and even what burials accrue are without ceremony. ref
• Around 2,490 to 2,430 years ago, Empedocles, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. ref
• Around 2,460 to 2,370 years ago, Democritus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher considered to be the “father of modern science” possibly had some disbelief amounting to atheism. ref
• Around 2,399 years ago or so, Socrates, a famous Greek philosopher was tried for sinfulness by teaching doubt of state gods. ref
• Around 2,341 to 2,270 years ago, Epicurus, a Greek philosopher known for composing atheistic critics and famously stated, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?” ref

This last expression by Epicurus, seems to be an expression of Axiological Atheism. To understand and utilize value or actually possess “Value Conscious/Consciousness” to both give a strong moral “axiological” argument (the problem of evil) as well as use it to fortify humanism and positive ethical persuasion of human helping and care responsibilities. Because value-blindness gives rise to sociopathic/psychopathic evil.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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

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

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