Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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My Speculations are in Comparative Mythologies?

For instance, the mytheme of an ancient belief that is seemingly shared though changed and adapted, a fundamental generic unit of narrative structure seems to be shared a common relation with mountains/ancestors/gods or sacred animals with Sacred Mounds, Mountains, Kurgans, and Pyramids

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

Damien thinks the “Mound of Creation” mythology ((Axis Mundi) is a “myth” reason for mounds/pyramids. 

Think ancient Hunter-Gathers were unskilled and primitive? Well, think again, because they were downright amazing! CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO: Primitive Technology: Woven bark fiber

Damien thinks Egypt and Sumerian mounds are connected and evolved somewhat related but different. A similar situation happened, to me, in the Americas. North started in mounds that later evolved into something Pryamid like. This is matched by Mesoamerica. Mounds later evolved into Pryamids. In Peru, Pryamids and mounds may have been transferred together or mounds quickly evolved into Pryamids. 

I am rather sure about the Mound order but not sure about the order of the mythology as mounds can be set in time by archaeology. To me, mounds relate mainly to the “Mound of Creation,” primeval mound/hill/mountain (that emerges out of water) or the “Axis Mundi” thinking: cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, the center of the world, World tree, Sacred Mountain/World Mountain, etc. “(such as Mount Olympus in Greek mythology) or are related to famous events (like Mount Sinai in Judaism and descendant religions or Mount KailashMount Meru in Hinduism). In some cases, the sacred mountain is purely mythical, like the Hara Berezaiti in ZoroastrianismMount Kailash is believed to be the abode of the deities Shiva and Parvati, and is considered sacred in four religions: HinduismBonBuddhism, and JainismVolcanoes, such as Mount Etna in Italy, were also considered sacred; Mount Etna is believed to have been the home of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and the forge.” ref

I explain how all mounds shared similar myths and world views thus this is why so many seem similar. I explain how Ancient Egypt, Sumerians, and Hinduism all have something similar to a Mound of Creation, and what the Shell mounds/Kurgans/Dolmens/Earth Mounds/Pyramids relate. In Siberia/Americas it is more related to Earth Diver myths, but they also have animals build a Mound of Creation. Also, many Connect to the Axis mundi which can and often does relate to a world mountain/mound of creation.

Creation Myth

“A creation myth or cosmogonic myth is a type of cosmogony, a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term myth often refers to false or fanciful stories, members of cultures often ascribe varying degrees of truth to their creation myths. In the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths – metaphoricallysymbolicallyhistorically, or literally. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths – that is, they describe the ordering of the cosmos from a state of chaos or amorphousness.” ref

“Creation myths often share several features. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in nearly all known religious traditions. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either deities, human-like figures, or animals, who often speak and transform easily. They are often set in a dim and nonspecific past that historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore (‘at that time’). Creation myths address questions deeply meaningful to the society that shares them, revealing their central worldview and the framework for the self-identity of the culture and individual in a universal context. Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions; found throughout human culture, they are the most common form of myth.” ref

“Creation myth definitions from modern references:

  • A “symbolic narrative of the beginning of the world as understood in a particular tradition and community. Creation myths are of central importance for the valuation of the world, for the orientation of humans in the universe, and for the basic patterns of life and culture.”
  • “Creation myths tell us how things began. All cultures have creation myths; they are our primary myths, the first stage in what might be called the psychic life of the species. As cultures, we identify ourselves through the collective dreams we call creation myths, or cosmogonies. … Creation myths explain in metaphorical terms our sense of who we are in the context of the world, and in so doing they reveal our real priorities, as well as our real prejudices. Our images of creation say a great deal about who we are.”
  • A “philosophical and theological elaboration of the primal myth of creation within a religious community. The term myth here refers to the imaginative expression in narrative form of what is experienced or apprehended as basic reality … The term creation refers to the beginning of things, whether by the will and act of a transcendent being, by emanation from some ultimate source, or in any other way.” ref

“Religion professor Mircea Eliade defined the word myth in terms of creation:

Myth narrates a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial Time, the fabled time of the “beginnings.” In other words, myth tells how, through the deeds of Supernatural Beings, a reality came into existence, be it the whole of reality, the Cosmos, or only a fragment of reality – an island, a species of plant, a particular kind of human behavior, an institution.” ref

“Creation myths have been around since ancient history and have served important societal roles. Over 100 “distinct” ones have been discovered. All creation myths are in one sense etiological because they attempt to explain how the world formed and where humanity came from. Myths attempt to explain the unknown and sometimes teach a lesson. Ethnologists and anthropologists  who study origin myths say that in the modern context theologians try to discern humanity’s meaning from revealed truths and scientists investigate cosmology with the tools of empiricism and rationality, but creation myths define human reality in very different terms.” ref

“In the past, historians of religion and other students of myth thought of such stories as forms of primitive or early-stage science or religion and analyzed them in a literal or logical sense. Today, however, they are seen as symbolic narratives which must be understood in terms of their own cultural context. Charles Long writes: “The beings referred to in the myth – gods, animals, plants – are forms of power grasped existentially. The myths should not be understood as attempts to work out a rational explanation of deity.” ref

“While creation myths are not literal explications, they do serve to define an orientation of humanity in the world in terms of a birth story. They provide the basis of a worldview that reaffirms and guides how people relate to the natural world, to any assumed spiritual world, and to each other. A creation myth acts as a cornerstone for distinguishing primary reality from relative reality, the origin and nature of being from non-being. In this sense cosmogonic myths serve as a philosophy of life – but one expressed and conveyed through symbol rather than through systematic reason. And in this sense they go beyond etiological myths (which explain specific features in religious rites, natural phenomena, or cultural life). Creation myths also help to orient human beings in the world, giving them a sense of their place in the world and the regard that they must have for humans and nature.” ref

“Historian David Christian has summarised issues common to multiple creation myths:

How did everything begin? This is the first question faced by any creation myth and … answering it remains tricky. … Each beginning seems to presuppose an earlier beginning. … Instead of meeting a single starting point, we encounter an infinity of them, each of which poses the same problem. … There are no entirely satisfactory solutions to this dilemma. What we have to find is not a solution but some way of dealing with the mystery …. And we have to do so using words. The words we reach for, from God to gravity, are inadequate to the task. So we have to use language poetically or symbolically; and such language, whether used by a scientist, a poet, or a shaman, can easily be misunderstood.” ref

Mythologists have applied various schemes to classify creation myths found throughout human cultures. Eliade and his colleague Charles Long developed a classification based on some common motifs that reappear in stories the world over. The classification identifies five basic types:

Brahmā, the Hindu deva of creation, emerges from a lotus risen from the navel of Viṣņu, who lies with Lakshmi on the serpent Ananta Shesha.” ref

  • Creation ex nihilo in which the creation is through the thought, word, dream, or bodily secretions of a divine being.
  • Earth-diver creation in which a diver, usually a bird or amphibian sent by a creator, plunges to the seabed through a primordial ocean to bring up sand or mud which develops into a terrestrial world.
  • Emergence myths in which progenitors pass through a series of worlds and metamorphoses until reaching the present world.
  • Creation by the dismemberment of a primordial being.
  • Creation by the splitting or ordering of a primordial unity such as the cracking of a cosmic egg or a bringing order from chaos.” ref

Marta Weigle further developed and refined this typology to highlight nine themes, adding elements such as deus faber, a creation crafted by a deity, creation from the work of two creators working together or against each other, creation from sacrifice and creation from division/conjugation, accretion/conjunction, or secretion.” ref

“An alternative system based on six recurring narrative themes was designed by Raymond Van Over:

  • Primeval abyss, an infinite expanse of waters or space
  • Originator deity which is awakened or an eternal entity within the abyss
  • Originator deity poised above the abyss
  • Cosmic egg or embryo
  • Originator deity creating life through sound or word
  • Life generating from the corpse or dismembered parts of an originator deity.” ref

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Flat Earth Mythology (a kind of square base for a mound/pyramid)?

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Ancient Cosmology Shaped Everyone’s Theology

Sacred Flat Earth, often with hills/mountains: “Mound of Creation” or “Axis Mundi.”

Cosmology in the ancient Near East (ANE) refers to the plurality of cosmological beliefs in the Ancient Near East, covering the period from the 4th millennium BCE to the formation of the Macedonian Empire by Alexander the Great in the second half of the 1st millennium BCE. These beliefs include the Mesopotamian cosmologies from BabyloniaSumer, and Akkad; the Levantine or West Semitic cosmologies from Ugarit and ancient Israel and Judah (the biblical cosmology); the Egyptian cosmology from Ancient Egypt; and the Anatolian cosmologies from the Hittites. This system of cosmology went on to have a profound influence on views in early Greek cosmology, later Jewish cosmologypatristic cosmology, and Islamic cosmology (including Quranic cosmology). Until the modern era, variations of ancient near eastern cosmology survived with Hellenistic cosmology as the main competing system. Ancient near eastern cosmology can be divided into its cosmography, the physical structure and features of the cosmos; and cosmogony, the creation myths that describe the origins of the cosmos in the texts and traditions of the ancient near eastern world. The cosmos and the gods were also related, as cosmic bodies like heaven, earth, the stars were believed to be and/or personified as gods, and the sizes of the gods were frequently described as being of cosmic proportions.” ref

Cosmography

“Ancient Near Eastern civilizations held to a fairly uniform conception of cosmography. This cosmography remained remarkably stable in the context of the expansiveness and longevity of the ancient Near East, but changes were also to occur. Widely held components of ancient near eastern cosmography included:

  • flat earth and a solid heaven (firmament), both of which are disk-shaped
  • a primordial cosmic ocean. When the firmament is created, it separates the cosmic ocean into two bodies of water:
    • the heavenly upper waters located on top of the firmament, which act as a source of rain
    • the lower waters that the earth is above and that the earth rests on; they act as the source of rivers, springs, and other earthly bodies of water
  • the region above the upper waters, namely the abode of the gods
  • the netherworld, the furthest region in the direction downwards, below the lower waters.” ref

“Keyser, categorizing ancient near eastern cosmology as belonging to a larger and more cross-cultural set of cosmologies he describes as a “cradle cosmology,” offers a longer list of shared features. Some cosmographical features have been misattributed to Mesopotamian cosmologies, including the idea that ziggurats represented cosmic objects reaching up to heaven or the idea of a dome- or vault-shaped (as opposed to a flat) firmament. Another controversy concerns if the ancient near eastern cosmography was purely observational or phenomenological. However, a number of lines of evidence, including descriptions from the cosmological texts themselves, presumptions of this cosmography in non-cosmological texts (like incantations), anthropological studies of contemporary primitive cosmologies, and cognitive expectations that humans construct mental models to explain observation, support that the ancient near eastern cosmography was not phenomenological.” ref

Cosmogony

“Ancient near eastern cosmogony also included a number of common features that are present in most if not all creation myths from the ancient near east. Widespread features included:

  • Creatio ex materia from a primordial state of chaos; that is, the organization of the world from pre-existing, unordered and unformed (hence chaotic) elements, represented by a primordial body of water
  • the presence of a divine creator
  • the Chaoskampf motif: a cosmic battle between the protagonist and a primordial sea monster
  • the separation of undifferentiated elements (to create heaven and earth)
  • the creation of mankind.” ref

“Lisman uses the broader category of “Beginnings” to encompass three separate though inter-related categories: the beginning of the cosmos (cosmogony), the beginning of the gods (theogony), and the beginning of humankind (anthropogeny). There is evidence that Mesopotamian creation myths reached as far as Pre-Islamic Arabia.” ref

Overview of the whole cosmos

“The Mesopotamian cosmos can be imagined along a vertical axis, with parallel planes of existence layered above each other. The uppermost plane of existence was heaven, being the residence of the god of the sky Anu. Immediately below heaven was the atmosphere. The atmosphere extended from the bottom of heaven (or the lowermost firmament) to the ground. This region was inhabited by Enlil, who was also the king of the gods in Sumerian mythology. The cosmic ocean below the ground was the next plane of existence, and this was the domain of the sibling deities Enki and Ninhursag. The lowest plane of existence was the underworld. Other deities inhabited these planes of existence even if they did not reign over them, such as the sun and moon gods. In later Babylonian accounts, the god Marduk alone ascends to the top rank of the pantheon and rules over all domains of the cosmos. The three-tiered cosmos (sky-earth-underworld) is found in Egyptian artwork on coffin lids and burial chambers.” ref

“A variety of terms or phrases were used to refer to the cosmos as a whole, acting as rough equivalents to contemporary terms like “cosmos” or “universe”. This included phrases like “heaven and earth” or “heaven and underworld”. Terms like “all” or “totality” similarly connoted the entire universe. These motifs are found in temple hymns and royal inscriptions located in temples. The temples symbolized cosmic structures that reached heaven at their height and the underworld at their depths/foundations. Surviving evidence does not specify the exact physical bounds of the cosmos or what lies beyond the region described in the texts.” ref

Three Heavens and Earths

“In Mesopotamian cosmology, heaven and earth both had a tripartite structure: a Lower Heaven/Earth, a Middle Heaven/Earth, and an Upper Heaven/Earth. The Upper Earth was where humans existed. Middle Earth, corresponding to the Abzu (primeval underworldly ocean), was the residence of the god Enki. Lower Earth, the Mesopotamian underworld, was where the 600 Anunnaki gods lived, associated with the land of the dead ruled by Nergal. As for the heavens: the highest level was populated by 300 Igigi (great gods), the middle heaven belonged to the Igigi and also contained Marduk’s throne, and the lower heaven was where the stars and constellations were inscribed into. The extent of the Babylonian universe therefore corresponded to a total of six layers spanning across heaven and Earth. Notions of the plurality of heaven and earth are no later than the 2nd millennium BC and may be elaborations of earlier and simpler cosmographies.” ref

“One text (KAR 307) describes the cosmos in the following manner, with each of the three floors of heaven being made of a different type of stone:

30 “The Upper Heavens are Luludānītu stone. They belong to Anu. He (i.e. Marduk) settled the 300 Igigū (gods) inside. 31 The Middle Heavens are Saggilmud stone. They belong to the Igīgū (gods). Bēl (i.e. Marduk) sat on the high throne within, 32 the lapis lazuli sanctuary. And made a lamp? of electrum shine inside (it). 33 The Lower Heavens are jasper. They belong to the stars. He drew the constellations of the gods on them. 34 In the … …. of the Upper Earth, he lay down the spirits of mankind. 35 [In the …] of the Middle earth, he settled Ea, his father. 36 […..] . He did not let the rebellion be forgotten. 37 [In the … of the Lowe]r earth, he shut inside 600 Anunnaki. 38 […….] … […. in]side jasper.” ref

“Another text (AO 8196) offers a slightly different arrangement, with the Igigi in the upper heaven instead of the middle heaven, and with Bel placed in the middle heaven. Both agree on the placement of the stars in the lower heaven. Exodus 24:9–10 identifies the floor of heaven as being like sapphire, which may correspond to the blue lapis lazuli floor in KAR 307, chosen potentially for its correspondence to the visible color of the sky. One hypothesis holds that the belief that the firmament is made of stone (or a metal, such as iron in Egyptian texts) arises from the observation that meteorites, which are composed of this substance, fall from the firmament.” ref

Seven heavens and earths

“Some texts describe seven heavens and seven earths, but within the Mesopotamian context, this is likely to refer to a totality of the cosmos with some sort of magical or numerological significance, as opposed to a description of the structural number of heavens and Earth. Israelite texts do not mention the notion of seven heavens or earths.” ref

Unity of the cosmos

“Mythical bonds, akin to ropes or cables, played the role of cohesively holding the entire world and all its layers of heaven and Earth together. These are sometimes called the “bonds of heaven and earth”. They can be referred to with terminology like durmāhu (typically referring to a strong rope made of reeds), markaṣu (referring to a rope or cable, of a boat, for example), or ṣerretu (lead-rope passed through an animals nose). A deity can hold these ropes as a symbol of their authority, such as the goddess Ishtar “who holds the connecting link of all heaven and earth (or netherworld)”. This motif extended to descriptions of great cities like Babylon which was called the “bond of [all] the lands,” or Nippur which was “bond of heaven and earth,” and some temples as well.” ref

Center of the cosmos

“The idea of a center to the cosmos played a role in elevating the status of whichever place was chosen as the cosmic center and in reflecting beliefs of the finite and closed nature of the cosmos. Babylon was described as the center of the Babylonian cosmos. In parallel, Jerusalem became “the navel of the earth” (Ezekiel 38:12). The finite nature of the cosmos was also suggested to the ancients by the periodic and regular movements of the heavenly bodies in the visible vicinity of the Earth.” ref

Firmament: Firmament

“The firmament was believed to be a solid boundary above the Earth, separating it from the upper or celestial waters. In the Book of Genesis, it is called the raqia. In ancient Egyptian texts, and from texts across the Near East generally, the firmament was described as having special doors or gateways on the eastern and western horizons to allow for the passage of heavenly bodies during their daily journeys. These were known as the windows of heaven or the gates of heaven. Canaanite text describe Baal as exerting his control over the world by controlling the passage of rainwater through the heavenly windows in the firmament. In Egyptian texts particularly, these gates also served as conduits between the earthly and heavenly realms for which righteous people could ascend. The gateways could be blocked by gates to prevent entry by the deceased as well. As such, funerary texts included prayers enlisting the help of the gods to enable the safe ascent of the dead. Ascent to the celestial realm could also be done by a celestial ladder made by the gods. Multiple stories exist in Mesopotamian texts whereby certain figures ascend to the celestial realm and are given the secrets of the gods.” ref

“Four different Egyptian models of the firmament and/or the heavenly realm are known. One model was that it was the shape of a bird: the firmament above represented the underside of a flying falcon, with the sun and moon representing its eyes, and its flapping causing the wind that humans experience. The second was a cow, as per the Book of the Heavenly Cow. The cosmos is a giant celestial cow represented by the goddess Nut or Hathor. The cow consumed the sun in the evening and rebirthed it in the next morning. The third is a celestial woman, also represented by Nut. The heavenly bodies would travel across her body from east to west. The midriff of Nut was supported by Shu (the air god) and Geb (the earth god) lay outstretched between the arms and feet of Nut. Nut consumes the celestial bodies from the west and gives birth to them again in the following morning. The stars are inscribed across the belly of Nut and one needs to identify with one of them, or a constellation, in order to join them after death. The fourth model was a flat (or slightly convex) celestial plane which, depending on the text, was thought to be supported in various ways: by pillars, staves, scepters, or mountains at the extreme ends of the Earth. The four supports give rise to the motif of the “four corners of the world.” ref

EarthFlat Earth, Topography of the earth

“The ancient near eastern earth was a single-continent disk resting on a body of water sometimes compared to a raft. An aerial view of the cosmography of the earth is pictorially elucidated by the Babylonian Map of the World. Here, the city Babylon is near the Earth’s center and it is on the Euphrates river. Other kingdoms and cities surround it. The north is covered by an enormous mountain range, akin to a wall. This mountain range was traversed in some hero myths, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh where Gilgamesh travels past it to an area only accessible by gods and other great heroes. The furthest and most remote parts of the earth were believed to be inhabited by fantastic creatures. In the Babylonian Map, the world continent is surrounded by a bitter salt-water Ocean (called marratu, or “salt-sea”) akin to Oceanus described by the poetry of Homer and Hesiod in early Greek cosmology, as well as the statement in the Bilingual Creation of the World by Marduk that Marduk created the first dry land surrounded by a cosmic sea. Egyptian cosmology appears to have also shared this view, as one of the words used for sea, shen-wer, means “great encircler”. World-encircling oceans are also found in the Fara tablet VAT 12772 from the 3rd millennium BC and the Myth of Etana.” ref

Four corners of the earth (Four Mountains)

“A common honorific that many kings and rulers ascribed to themselves was that they were the rulers of the four quarters (or corners) of the Earth. For example, Hammurabi (ca. 1810–1750 BCE or around 3,810 to 3,750 years ago) received the title of “King of Sumer and Akkad, King of the Four Quarters of the World”. Monarchs of the Assyrian empire, like Ashurbanipal, also took on this title. (Although the title implies a square or rectangular shape, in this case, it is taken to refer to the four quadrants of a circle, which is joined at the world’s center.) Likewise, the ‘four corners’ motif would also appear in some biblical texts, such as Isaiah 11:12.” ref

Cosmic mountain

Further information: Sacred mountainsMashuAxis mundi, and World tree

“According to iconographic and literary evidence, the cosmic mountain, known as Mashu in the Epic of Gilgamesh, was thought to be located at or extend to both the westernmost and easternmost points of the earth, where the sun could rise and set respectively. As such, the model may be called a bi-polar model of diurnal solar movement. The gates for the rising and setting of the sun were also located at Mashu. Some accounts have Mashu as a tree growing at the center of the earth with roots descending into the underworld and a peak reaching to heaven. The cosmic mountain is also found in Egyptian cosmology, as Pyramid Text 1040c says that the mountain ranges on the eastern and western sides of the Nile act as the “two supports of the sky.” In the Baal Cycle, two cosmic mountains exist at the horizon acting as the point through which the sun rises from and sets into the underworld (Mot). The tradition of the twin cosmic mountains may also lie behind Zechariah 6:1.” ref

Heavenly bodies

Sun

“The sun god (represented by the god Utu in Sumerian texts or Shamash in Akkadian texts) rises in the day and passes over the earth. Then, the sun god falls beneath the earth in the night and comes to a resting point. This resting point is sometimes localized to a designated structure, such as the chamber within a house in the Old Babylonian Prayer to the Gods of the Night. To complete the cycle, the sun comes out in the next morning. Likewise, the moon was thought to rest in the same facility when it was not visible. A similar system was maintained in Egyptian cosmology, where the sun travelled beneath the surface of the earth through the underworld (known among ancient Egyptians as Duat) to rise from the same eastern location each day. These images result from anthropomorphizing the sun and other astral bodies also conceived as gods. For the sun to exit beneath the earth, it had to cross the solid firmament: this was thought possible by the existence of opening ways or corridors in the firmament (variously illustrated as doors, windows or gates) that could temporarily open and close to allow astral bodies to pass across them. The firmament was conceived as a gateway, with the entry/exit point as the gates; other opening and closing mechanisms were also imagined in the firmament like bolts, bars, latches, and keys. During the sun’s movement beneath the earth, into the netherworld, the sun would cease to flare. This enabled the netherworld to remain dark. But when it rose, it would flare up and again emit light.” ref

“This model of the course of the sun had an inconsistency that later models evolved to address. The issue was to understand how, if the sun came to a resting point beneath the earth, could it also travel beneath the earth the same distance under it that it was observed to cross during the day above it such that it would rise periodically from the east. One solution that some texts arrived at was to reject the idea that the sun had a resting point. Instead, it remained unceasing in its course. Overall, the sun god’s activities in night according to Sumerian and Akkadian texts proceeds according to a regular and systematic series of events: (1) The western door of heaven opens (2) The sun passes through the door into the interior of heaven (3) Light falls below the western horizon (4) The sun engages in certain activities in the netherworld like judging the dead (5) The sun enters a house, called the White House (6) The sun god eats the evening meal (7) The sun god sleeps in the chamber agrun (8) The sun emerges from the chamber (9) The eastern door opens and the sun passes through as it rises. In many ancient near eastern cultures, the underworld had a prominent place in descriptions of the sun journey, where the sun would carry out various roles including judgement related to the dead.” ref

“In legend, many hero journeys followed the daily course of the sun god. These have been attributed to GilgameshOdysseus, the ArgonautsHeracles and, in later periods, Alexander the Great. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh reaches the cosmic mountain Mashu, which is either two mountains or a single twin-peaked mountain. Mashu acts as the sun-gate, from where the sun and sets in its path to and from the netherworld. In some texts, the mountain is called the mountain of sunrise and sunset. According to the Epic:

The name of the mountain was Mashu. When [he] arrived at Mount Mashu, which daily guards the rising [of the sun,] – their tops [abut] the fabric of the heavens, their bases reach down to Hades – there were scorpion-men guarding its gate, whose terror was dread and glance was death, whose radiance was terrifying, enveloping the uplands – at both sunrise and sunset they guard the sun…” ref

“Other texts describing the relationship between the sun and the cosmic mountain reads:

O Shamash, when you come forth from the great mountain, When you come forth from the great mountain, the mountain of the deep, When you come forth from the holy hill where destinies are ordained, When you [come forth] from the back of heaven to the junction point of heaven and earth… A number of additional texts share descriptions like these.” ref

Moon

“Mesopotamians believed the moon to be a manifestation of the moon god, known as Nanna in Sumerian texts or Sîn in Akkadian texts, a high god of the pantheon, subject to cultic devotion, and father of the sun god Shamash and the Venus god Inanna. The path of the moon in the night sky and its lunar phases were also of interest. At first, Mesopotamia had no common calendar, but around 2000 BCE, the semi-lunar calendar of the Sumerian center of Nippur became increasingly prevalent. Hence, the moon god was responsible for ordering perceivable time. The lunar calendar was divided into twelve months of thirty days each. New months were marked by the appearance of the moon after a phase of invisibility.” ref

“The Enuma Elish creation myth describes Marduk as arranging the paths of the stars and then spends considerable space on Marduk’s ordering of the moon:

12 He made Nannaru (=the moon-god) appear (and) entrusted the night to him. 13 He assigned him as the jewel of the night to determine the days. 14 Month by month without cease, he marked (him) with a crown: 15 “At the beginning of the month, while rising over the land, 16 you shine with horns to reveal six days. 17 On the seventh day, (your) disc shall be halved. 18 On the fifteenth day, in the middle of each month, you shall stand in opposition. 19 As soon as Šamaš (= the sun-god) sees you on the horizon, 20 reach properly your full measure and form yourself back. 21 At the day of disappearance, approach the path of Šamaš. 22 [… 3]0. day you shall stand in conjunction. You shall be equal to Šamaš.” ref

“The ideal course of the moon was thought to form one month every thirty days. However, the precise lunar month is 29.53 days, leading to variations that made the lunar month counted as 29 or 30 days in practice. The mismatch between the predictions and reality of the course of the moon gave rise to the idea that the moon could act according to its expected course as a good omen or deviate from it as a bad omen. In the 2nd millennium BCE, Mesopotamian scholars composed the Enūma Anu Enlil, a collection of at least seventy tablets concerned with omens. The first fourteen (1–14) relate to the appearance of the moon, and the next eight (15–22) deal with lunar eclipses. The moon was also assigned other functions, such as providing illumination during the night, and already in this period, had a known influence on the tides. During the day when the moon was not visible, it was thought that the moon descended beneath the flat disk of the earth and, like the sun, underwent a voyage through the underworld. The cosmic voyage and motion of the moon also allowed it to exert influence over the world; this belief naturally allowed for the practice of divination to arise.” ref

Stars and planets

Further information: Classical planet

“Mesopotamian cosmology would differ from the practice of astronomy in terms of terminology: for astronomers, the word “firmament” was not used but instead “sky” to describe the domain in which the heavenly affairs were visible. The stars were located on the firmament. The earliest texts attribute to Anu, Enlil, and Enki (Ea) the ordering of perceivable time by creating and ordering the courses of the stars. Later, according to the Enuma Elish, the stars were arranged by Marduk into constellations representing the images of the gods. The year was fixed by organizing the year into twelve months, and by assigning (the rising of) three stars to each of the twelve months. The moon and zenith were also created. Other phenomena introduced by Marduk included the lunar phases and lunar scheme, the precise paths that the stars would take as they rose and set, the stations of the planets, and more.” ref

“Another account of the creation of the heavenly bodies is offered in the Babyloniaca of Berossus, where Bel (Marduk) creates stars, sun, moon, and the five (known) planets; the planets here do not help guide the calendar (a lack of concern for the planets also shared in the Book of the Courses of the Heavenly Luminaries, a subsection of 1 Enoch). Concern for the establishment of the calendar by the creation of heavenly bodies as visible signs is shared in at least seven other Mesopotamian texts. A Sumerian inscription of Kudur-Mabuk, for example, reads “The reliable god, who interchanges day and night, who establishes the month, and keeps the year intact.” Another example is to be found in the Exaltation of Inanna. The word “star” (mul in Sumerian; kakkabu in Akkadian) was inclusive to all celestial bodies, stars, constellations, and planets. A more specific term for planets existed however (udu.idim in Sumerian; bibbu in Akkadian, literally “wild sheep”) to distinguish them from other stars (of which they were a subcategory): unlike the stars thought to be fixed into their location, the planets were observed to move.” ref

“By the 3rd millennium BCE, the planet Venus was identified as the astral form of the goddess Inanna (or Ishtar), and motifs such as the morning and evening star were applied to her. Jupiter became Marduk (hence the name “Marduk Star”, also called Nibiru), Mercury was the “jumping one” (in reference to its comparatively fast motion and low visibility) associated with the gods Ninurta and Nabu, and Mars was the god of pestilence Nergal and thought to portend evil and death. Saturn was also sinister. The most obvious characteristic of the stars were their luminosity and their study for the purposes of divination, solving calendrical calculations, and predictions of the appearances of planets, led to the discovery of their periodic motion. From 600 BC onwards, the relative periodicity between them began to be studied.” ref

Upper waters

Main article: Cosmic ocean

“Above the firmament was a large, cosmic body of water which may be referred to as the cosmic ocean or celestial waters. In the Tablet of Shamash, the throne of the sun god Shamash is depicted as resting above the cosmic ocean. The waters are above the solid firmament that covers the sky. In the Enuma Elish, the upper waters represented the waters of Tiamat, contained by Tiamat’s stretched out skin. Canaanite mythology in the Baal Cycle describes the supreme god Baal as enthroned above the freshwater ocean. Egyptian texts depict the sun god sailing across these upper waters. Some also convey that this body of water is the heavenly equivalent of the Nile River.” ref

Lower waters

Main articles: Abzu and Nu

“Both Babylonian and Israelite texts describe one of the divisions of the cosmos as the underworldly ocean. In Babylonian texts, this is coincided with the region/god Abzu. In Sumerian mythology, this realm was created by Enki. It was also where Enki lived and ruled over. Due to the connection with Enki, the lower waters were associated with wisdom and incantational secret knowledge. In Egyptian mythology, the personification of this subterranean body of water was instead Nu. The notion of a cosmic body of water below the Earth was inferred from the realization that much water used for irrigation came from under the ground, from springs, and that springs were not limited to any one part of the world. Therefore, a cosmic body of water acting as a common source for the water coming out of all these springs was conceived.” ref

Underworld

Main articles: Ancient Mesopotamian underworld and Egyptian underworld

“The Underworld/Netherworld (kur or erṣetu in Sumerian) is the lowest region in the direction downwards, below even Abzu (the primeval ocean/lower waters). It is geographically parallel with the plane of human existence, but was so low that both demons and gods could not descend to it. One of its names was “Earth of No Return”. It was, however, inhabited by beings such as ghosts, demons, and local gods. The land was depicted as dark and distant: this is because it was the opposite of the human world and so did not have light, water, fields, and so forth. According to KAR 307, line 37, Bel cast 600 Annunaki into the underworld. They were locked away there, unable to escape, analogous to the enemies of Zeus who were confined to the underworld (Tartarus) after their rebellion during the Titanomachy. During and after the Kassite period, Annunaki were largely depicted as underworld deities; a hymn to Nergal praises him as the “Controller of the underworld, Supervisor of the 600”. In Canaanite religion, the underworld was personified as the god Mot. In Egyptian mythology, the underworld was known as Duat and was ruled by Osiris, the god of the afterlife. It was also the region where the sun (manifested by the god Ra) made its journey from west (where it sets) to the east (from where it would rise again the next morning).” ref

Origins of the cosmos

“The world was thought to be created ex materia. That is, out of pre-existing, and unformed, eternal matter. This is in contrast to the later notion of creation ex nihilo, which asserts that all the matter of the universe was created out of nothing. The primeval substance had always existed, was unformed, divine, and was envisioned as an immense, cosmic, chaotic mass of water or ocean (a representation that still existed in the time of Ovid). In the Mesopotamian theogonic process, the gods would be ultimately generated from this primeval matter, although a distinct process is found in the Hebrew Bible where God is initially distinct from the primeval matter. For the cosmos and the gods to ultimately emerge from this formless cosmic ocean, the idea emerged that it had to be separated into distinct parts and therefore be formed or organized. This event can be imagined of as the beginning of time. Furthermore, the process of the creation of the cosmos is coincident or equivalent to the beginning of the creation of new gods.” ref

“In the 3rd millennium BCE, the goddess Nammu was the one and singular representation of the original cosmic ocean in Mesopotamian cosmology. From the 2nd millennium BCE onwards, this cosmic ocean came to be represented by two gods, Tiamat and Abzu who would be separated from each other to mark the cosmic beginning. The Ugaritic god Yam from the Baal Cycle may also represent the primeval ocean. Sumerian and Akkadian sources understand the matter of the primordial universe out of which the cosmos emerges in different ways. Sumerian thought distinguished between the inanimate matter that the cosmos was made of and the animate and living matter that permeated the gods and went on to be transmitted to humans. In Akkadian sources, the cosmos is originally alive and animate, but the deaths of Abzu (male deity of the fresh waters) and Tiamat (female sea goddess) give rise to inanimate matter, and all inanimate matter is derived from the dead remains of these deities.” ref

Origins of the gods

“The core Mesopotamian myth to explain the gods’ origins begins with the primeval ocean, personified by Nammu, containing Father Sky and Mother Earth within her. In the god-list TCL XV 10, Nammu is called ‘the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth’. The conception of Nammu as mother of Sky-Earth is first attested in the Ur III period (early 2nd millennium BCE), though it may go back to an earlier Akkadian era. Earlier in the 3rd millennium BCE, Sky and Earth were the starting point with little apparent question about their own origins. The representation of Sky as male and Earth as female may come from the analogy between the generative power of the male sperm and the rain that comes from the sky, which respectively fertilize the female to give rise to newborn life or the Earth to give rise to vegetation. In the desert-dweller milieu, life depended on pastureland.” ref

“Sky and Earth are in a union. Because they are the opposite sex, they inevitably reproduce and their offspring are successive pairs or generations of gods known as the Enki-Ninki deities. The name comes from Enki and Ninki (“Lord and Lady Earth”) being the first pair in all versions of the story. The only other consistent feature is that Enlil and Ninlil are the last pair. In each pair, one member is male (indicated by the En- prefix) and the other is female (indicated by the Nin- prefix). The birth of Enlil results in the separation of heaven and earth as well as the division of the primordial ocean into the upper and lower waters. Sky, now Anu, can mate with other deities after being separated from Earth: he mates with his mother Nammu to give birth to Enki (different from the earlier Enki) who takes dominion over the lower waters. The siblings Enlil and Ninlil mate to give birth to Nanna (also known as Sin), the moon god, and Ninurta, the warrior god. Nanna fathers Utu (known as Shamash in Akkadian texts), the sun god, and Inanna (Venus). By this point, the main features of the cosmos had been created/born. A variation of this myth existed in Egyptian cosmology. Here, the primordial ocean is given by the god Nu. The creation act neither takes its materials from Nu, unlike in Mesopotamian cosmology, nor is Nu eliminated by the creation act.” ref

Separation of heaven and earth

“3rd millennium BCE texts speak of the cosmic marriage or union of Heaven and Earth. Only one towards the end of this era, the Song of the hoe, mentions their separation. By contrast, 2nd millennium texts entirely shift in focus to their separation. The tradition spread into Sumerian, Akkadian, Phoenician, Egyptian, and early Greek mythology. The cause of the separation involves either the agency of Enlil or takes place as a spontaneous act. One recovered Hittite text states that there was a time when they “severed the heaven from the earth with a cleaver”, and an Egyptian text refers to “when the sky was separated from the earth” (Pyramid Text 1208c). OIP 99 113 ii and 136 iii says Enlil separated Earth from Sky and separated Sky from Earth. Enkig and Ninmah 1–2 also says Sky and Earth were separated in the beginning. The introduction of Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld says that heaven is carried off from the earth by the sky god Anu to become the possession of the wind god Enlil. Several other sources also present this idea.” ref

“There are two strands of Mesopotamian creation myths regarding the original separation of the heavens and earth. The first, older one, is evinced from texts in the Sumerian language from the 3rd millennium BC and the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. In these sources, the heavens and Earth are separated from an original solid mass. In the younger tradition from Akkadian texts, such as the Enuma Elish, the separation occurs from an original water mass. The former usually has the leading gods of the Sumerian pantheon, the King of Heaven Anu and the King of Earth Enlil, separating the mass over a time-frame of “long days and nights”, similar to the total timeframe of the Genesis creation narrative (six days and nights). The Sumerian texts do not mention the creation of the cosmic waters, but it may be surmised that water was one of the primordial elements.” ref

Stretching out the heavens

“The idiom of the heavens and earth being stretched out plays both a cultic and cosmic role in the Hebrew Bible where it appears repeatedly in the Book of Isaiah (40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13, 16), with related expressions in the Book of Job (26:7) and the Psalms (104:2). One example reads “The one who stretched out the heavens like a curtain / And who spread them out like a tent to dwell in” (Is 40:22). The idiom is used in these texts to identify the creative element of Yahweh‘s activities and the expansion of the heavens signifies its vastness, acting as Yahweh’s celestial shrine. In Psalmic tradition, the “stretching” of the heavens is analogous to the stretching out of a tent. The Hebrew verb for the “stretching” of the heavens is also the regular verb for “pitching” a tent. The heavens, in other words, may be depicted as a cosmic tent (a motif found in many ancient cultures). This finds architectural analogy in descriptions of the tabernacle, which is itself a heavenly archetype, over which a tent is supposed to have been spread. The phrase is frequently followed by an expression that God sits enthroned above and ruling the world, paralleling descriptions of God being seated in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle where he is stated to exercise rule over Israel. Biblical references to stretching the heavens typically occur in conjunction with statements that God made or laid the foundations of the earth.” ref

“Similar expressions may be found elsewhere in the ancient near east. A text from the 2nd millennium BC, the Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi, says “Wherever the earth is laid, and the heavens are stretched out”, though the text does not identify the creator of the cosmos. The Enuma Elish also describes the phenomena, in IV.137–140:

137 He split her into two like a dried fish: 138 One half of her he set up and stretched out as the heavens. 139 He stretched the skin and appointed a watch. 140 With the instruction not to let her waters escape. In this text, Marduk takes the body of Tiamat, who he has killed, and stretches out Tiamat’s skin to create the firmamental heavens which, in turn, comes to play the role of preventing the cosmic waters above the firmament from escaping and being unleashed onto the earth. Whereas the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible states that Yahweh stretched heaven like a curtain in Psalm 104:2, the equivalent passage in the Septuagint instead uses the analogy of stretching out like “skin”, which could represent a relic of Babylonian cosmology from the Enuma Elish. Nevertheless, the Hebrew Bible never identifies the material out of which the firmament was stretched. Numerous theories about what the firmament was made of sprung up across ancient cultures.” ref

Origins of humanity

“Many stories emerged to explain the creation of humanity and the birth of civilization. Earlier Sumerian language texts from the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC can be divided into two traditions: those from the cities of Nippur or Eridu. The Nippur tradition asserts that Heaven (An) and Earth (Ki) were coupled in a cosmic marriage. After they are separated by Enlil, Ki receives semen from An and gives rise to the gods, animals, and man. The Eridu tradition says that Enki, the offspring of An and Namma (in this tradition, the freshwater goddess) is the one who creates everything. Periodical relations between Enki and Ninhursaga (in this tradition, the personification of Earth) gives rise to vegetation. With the help of Namma, Enki creates man from clay. A famous work of the Eridu tradition is Eridu Genesis.” ref

“A minority tradition in Sumerian texts, distinct from Nippur and Eridu traditions, is known from KAR 4, where the blood of a slaughtered deity is used to create humanity for the purpose of making them build temples for the gods. Later Akkadian language tradition can be divided into various minor cosmogonies, cosmogonies of significant texts like Enuma Elish and Epic of Atrahasis, and finally the Dynasty of Dunnum placed in its own category. In the Atrahasis Epic, the Anunnaki gods force the Igigi gods to do their labor. However, the Igigi became fed up with this work and rebel. To solve the problem, Enlil and Mami create humanity by mixing the blood of gods with clay, who in the stead of the Igigi are assigned the gods’ work. In the Enuma Elish, divine blood alone is used to make man.” ref

Main texts

“The Hebrew Bible, especially in the Genesis creation narrative, undergirds known beliefs about biblical cosmology in ancient Israel and Judah. From Mesopotamia, cosmological evidence has fragmentarily survived in cuneiform literature especially in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages, like the Enuma Elish. Cosmogonic information has been sourced from Enki-Ninki god lists. Cosmogonic prologues preface texts falling in the genre of the Sumerian and Akkadian disputation poems, as well as individual works like the Song of the hoeGilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld, and Lugalbanda I. Evidence is also available in Ugaritic (Ritual Theogony of the Gracious Gods) and Hittite (Song of Emergence) sources. Egyptian papyri and inscriptions, like the Memphite Theology, and later works such as the Babyloniaca of Berossus, offer additional evidence. A less abundant source are pictorial/iconographic representations, especially the Babylonian Map of the World. Limitations of these types of texts (papyri, cuneiform, etc) is that the majority are administrative and economic in their nature, saying little about cosmology. Detailed descriptions are unknown before the first millennium BCE. As such, reconstructions from that time depend on gleaning information from surviving creation myths and etiologies.” ref

Enuma Elish

“The Enuma Elish is the most famous Mesopotamian creation story and was widely known in among learned circles across Mesopotamia, influencing both art and ritual. It is also the only complete cosmogony, whereas others must be reconstructed from disparate sources. The story was, in many ways, an original work, and as such is not a general representative of ancient near eastern or even Babylonian cosmology as a whole, and its survival as the most complete creation account appears to be a product of it having been composed in the milieu of Babylonian literature that happened to survive and get discovered in the present day. On the other hand, recent evidence suggests that after its composition, it played an important role in Babylonian scribal education. The story is preserved foremost in seven clay tablets discovered from the Library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. The creation myth seeks to describes how the god Marduk created the world from the body of the sea monster Tiamat after defeating her in battle, after which Marduk ascends to the top of the heavenly pantheon. The Enuma Elish is one of a broader set of near eastern traditions describing the cosmic battle between the storm and sea gods, but only Israelite cosmogonies share with it the act of creation that follows the storm gods victory.” ref

“The following is a synopsis of the account. The primordial universe is alive and animate, made of Abzu, commonly identified as a male deity of the fresh waters, and Tiamat, the female sea goddess of salt waters. The waters mingle to create the next generations of deities. However, the younger gods are noisy and this noise eventually incenses Abzu so much that he tries to kill them. In trying to do so, however, he is killed by Ea (Akkadian equivalent of the Sumerian Enki). This eventually leads to a battle between Tiamat and the son of Ea, Marduk. Marduk kills Tiamat and fashions the cosmos, including the heavens and Earth, from Tiamat’s corpse. Tiamat’s breasts are used to make the mountains and Tiamat’s eyes are used to open the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Parts of the watery body were used to create parts of the world including its wind, rain, mist, and rivers. Marduk forms the heavenly bodies including the sun, moon, and stars to produce periodic astral activity that is the basis for the calendar, before finally setting up the cosmic capital at Babylon. Marduk attains universal kingship and the Tablet of Destinies. Tiamat’s helper Kingu is also slain, and his life force is used to animate the first human beings.” ref

“The Enuma Elish is in continuity with other texts like the Myth of Anzû, the Labbu Myth, and KAR 6. In both the Enuma Elish and the Myth of Anzu, a dragon (Anzu or Tiamat) steals the Tablet of Destinies from Enlil, the chief god and in response, the chief god looks for someone to slay the dragon. Then, in both stories, a champion among the gods is chosen to fight the dragon (Ninurta or Marduk) after two or three others before them reject the offer to fight. The champion wins, after which he is acclaimed and given many names. The Enuma Elish may have also drawn from the myth of the Ninurta and the dragon Kur. The dragon is formerly responsible for holding up the primordial waters. Upon being killed, the waters begin to rise; this problem is solved by Ninurta heaping stones upon them until the waters are held back. One of the most significant differences between the Enuma Elish and earlier creation myths is in its exaltation of Marduk as the highest god. In prior myths, Ea was the chief god and creator of mankind.” ref

Genesis creation narrative

Main article: Genesis creation narrative

“The Genesis creation narrative, composed perhaps in the 7th or 6th century BC, spans Gen 1:1–2:3 and covers a one-week (seven-day) period. In each of the first three days there is an act of division: day one divides the darkness from light, day two the “waters above” from the “waters below”, and day three the sea from the land. In each of the next three days, these divisions are populated: day four populates the darkness and light with “greater light” (Sun), “lesser light” (Moon), and stars; day five populates seas and skies with fish and fowl; and finally land-based creatures and mankind populate the land. According to Victor Hamilton, most scholars agree that the choice of “greater light” and “lesser light”, rather than the more explicit “Sun” and “Moon”, is anti-mythological rhetoric intended to contradict widespread contemporary beliefs that the Sun and the Moon were deities themselves. In 1895, Hermann Gunkel related this narrative to the Enuma Elish via an etymological relationship between Tiamat and təhôm (“the deep” or “the abyss”) and a sharing of the Chaoskampf motif. Today, another view rejects these connections and groups the Genesis creation narrative with other West Semitic cosmologies like those of Ugarit.” ref

More biblical cosmogonies

“Other prominent biblical cosmogonies include Psalm 74:12–17; Psalm 89:6–13; and Job 26:7–13, with a variety of additional briefer passages expounding on subsections of these lengthier passages (like Isaiah 51:9–10). Like traditions from Babylon, Egypt, Anatolia, Canaan, and the Levant, these cosmogonies describe a cosmic battle (on the part of Yahweh in the biblical versions) with a sea god (named LeviathanRahab) but only with Babylonian versions like the Enuma Elish is the victory against the sea god followed by an act of creation. The seemingly well-known cosmogony proceeded as follows: Yahweh fights and subdues the sea god while portrayed as holding a weapon and fighting with meteorological forces; the Sea that previously covered the earth is forced to make way for dry land and parts of it are confined behind the seashore, in the clouds, and into storehouses below the earth; Mount Zaphon is established and a temple for Yahweh is erected; finally, Yahweh is enthroned above all the gods.” ref

“An alternative cosmogony appears in the doxologies of Amos (4:13; 5:8; 9:5–6). Instead of the earth being already covered by a primal sea, the earth is originally in a dry state, and only later is the sea stretched over it. No cosmic battle takes place. The winds and mountains, which elsewhere primordially exist, in this account are both created. Like some passages in Deutero-Isaiah, these doxologies appear to present a view of creation ex-nihilo. These cosmogonies are relatively mythologized compared to the Genesis cosmogony. In addition, the Genesis cosmogony differs by describing the separation of the upper and lower waters by the creation of a firmament, whereas here, they are typically assembled into clouds. The closest cosmogony to Genesis is the one in Psalm 104.” ref

Babyloniaca of Berossus

Main article: Babyloniaca (Berossus)

“The first book of the Babyloniaca of the Babylonian priest Berossus, composed in the third century BC, offers a variant (or, perhaps, an interpretation) of the cosmogony of the Enuma Elish. This work is not extant but survives in later quotations and abridgements. Berossus’ account begins with a primeval ocean. Unlike in the Enuma Elish, where sea monsters are generated for combat with other gods, in Berossus’ account, they emerge by spontaneous generation and are described in a different manner to the 11 monsters of the Enuma Elish, as it expands beyond the purely mythical creatures of that account in a potential case of influence from Greek zoology. The fragments of Berossus by Syncellus and the Armenian of how he described his cosmogony are as follows:

Syncellus: There was a time, he says, when everything was [darkness and] water and that in it fabulous beings with peculiar forms came to life. For men with two wings were born and some with four wings and two faces, having one body and two heads, male and female, and double genitalia, male and female … [a list of monstrous beings follows]. Over all these a woman ruled named Omorka. This means in Chaldaean Thalatth, in Greek, it is translated as ‘Sea’ (Thalassa) … When everything was arranged in this way, Belos rose up and split the woman in two. Of one half of her he made earth, of the other half sky; and he destroyed all creatures in her … For when everything was moist, and creatures had come into being in it, this god took off his own head and the other gods mixed the blood that flowed out with earth and formed men.” ref

“For this reason, they are intelligent and share in divine wisdom. Belos, whom they translate as Zeus, cut the darkness in half and separated earth and sky from each other, and ordered the universe. The creatures could not endure the power of the light and were destroyed. When Belos saw the land empty and barren, he ordered one of the gods to cut off his own head and to mix the blood that flowed out with earth and to form men and wild animals that were capable of enduring the air. Belos also completed the stars, the sun, the moon, and the five planets. Alexander Polyhistor says that Berossus asserts these things in his first book. Syncellus: They say that in the beginning, all was water, which was called Sea (Thalassa). Bel made this one by assigning a place to each, and he surrounded Babylon with a wall.” ref

“Armenian: All, he said, was from the start water, which was called Sea. And Bel placed limits on them (the waters) and assigned a place to each, allocated their lands, and fortified Babylon with an enclosing wall. The conclusion of the account states that Belus then created the stars, sun, moon, and five planets. The account of Berossus agrees largely with the Enuma Elish, such as its reference to the splitting of the woman whose halves are used to create heaven and earth, but also contain a number of differences, such as the statement about allegorical exegesis, the self-decapitation of Belus in order to create humans, and the statement that it is the divine blood which has made humans intelligent. Some debate has ensued about which elements of these may or may not go back to the original account of Berossus. Some of the information Berossus got for his account of the creation myth may have come from the Enuma Elish and the Babylonian Dynastic Chronicle.” ref

Other cosmogonies

“Additional minor texts also present varying cosmogonical details. The Bilingual Creation of the World by Marduk describes the construction of Earth as a raft over the cosmic waters by Marduk. An Akkadian text called The Worm describes a series of creation events: first Heaven creates Earth, Earth creates the Rivers, and eventually, the worm is created at the end of the series and it goes to live in the root of the tooth that is removed during surgery.” ref

Influence

“Copies from the Sippar Library indicate the Enuma Elish was copied into Seleucid times. One Hellenistic-era Babylonian priest, Berossus, wrote a Greek text about Mesopotamian traditions called the Babyloniaca (History of Babylon). The text survives mainly in fragments, especially by quotations in Eusebius in the fourth-century. The first book contains an account of Babylonian cosmology and, though concise, contains a number of echoes of the Enuma Elish. The creation account of Berossus is attributed to the divine messenger Oannes in the period after the global flood and is derivative of the Enuma Elish but also has significant variants to it. Babylonian cosmology also received treatments by the lost works of Alexander Polyhistor and Abydenus. The last known evidence for reception of the Enuma Elish is in the writings of Damascius (462–538), who had a well-informed source. As such, some learned circles in late antiquity continued to know the Enuma Elish. Echoes of Mesopotamian cosmology continue into the 11th century.” ref

Early Greek cosmology: Early Greek cosmology

Early Greek cosmology was closely related to the broader domain of ancient Near Eastern cosmology, reflected 8th century BC works like the Theogony of Hesiod and the works of Homer, and prior to the emergence of an independent and systematic Hellenistic system of cosmology that was represented by figures such as Aristotle and the astronomer Ptolemy, starting with the Ionian School of philosophy at the city of Miletus from the 6th to 4th centuries BC. In early Greek cosmology, the Earth was conceived of as being flat, encircled by a cosmic ocean known as Oceanus, and that heaven was a solid firmament held above the Earth by pillars. Many believe that a Hurro-Hittite work from the 13th century BCE, the Song of Emergence (CTH 344), was directly used by Hesiod on the basis of extensive similarities between their accounts. The notion of heaven and earth originally being in unity followed by their separation continues to be attested in later Greek cosmological texts, such as in the descriptions of Orphic cosmology according to the Wise Melanippe of Euripides in the 5th century BC and the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes in the 3rd century BCE, as well as in other and still later Greek accounts, such as the writings of Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BCE.” ref

Zoroastrian cosmologyZoroastrian cosmology

“The earliest Zoroastrian sources describe a tripartite sky, with an upper heaven where the sun exists, a middle heaven where the moon exists, and a lower heaven where the stars exist and are fixed. Significant work has been done on comparing this cosmography to ones present in Mesopotamian, Greek, and Indian parallels. In light of evidence which has emerged in recent decades, the present view is that this idea entered into Zoroastrian thought through Mesopotamian channels of influence. Another influence is that the name that one of the planets took on in Middle Persian literatureKēwān (for Saturn), was derived from the Akkadian language.” ref

Jewish cosmologyJewish cosmology

“Mesopotamian cosmology, especially as it manifested in the biblical Genesis creation narrative, exerted continued substantial influence on Jewish cosmology, especially as it is described in the rabbinic literature. Not all influence appears to have been mediated through the Bible. The dome-shaped firmament was described in Hebrew as a kippah, which has been related to its Akkadian cognate kippatšamê, though the latter only refers to flat objects. The Jewish belief in the seven heavens, as it is absent from the Hebrew Bible, has often been interpreted as being taken from early interactions with Mesopotamian cosmologies.” ref

Christian cosmologyHexaemeron

“Christian texts were familiar with ancient Near Eastern cosmology insofar as it had shaped the Genesis creation narrative. A genre of literature emerged among Jews and Christians dedicated to the composition of texts commenting precisely on this narrative to understand the cosmos and its origins: these works are called Hexaemeron. The first extant example is the De opificio mundi (“On the Creation of the World”) by the first-century Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria. Philo preferred an allegorical form of exegesis, in line with that of the School of Alexandria, and so was partial to a Hellenistic cosmology as opposed to an ancient near eastern one. In the late fourth century, the Hexaemeral genre was revived and popularized by the Hexaemeron of Basil of Caesarea, who composed his Hexaemeron in 378, which subsequently inspired numerous works including among Basil’s own contemporaries. Basil was much more literal in his interpretation than Philo, closer instead to the exegesis of the School of Antioch. Christian authors would heavily dispute the correct degree of literal or allegorical exegesis in future writings. Among Syrian authors, Jacob of Serugh was the first to produce his own Hexaemeron in the early sixth century, and he was followed later by Jacob of Edessa‘s Hexaemeron in the first years of the eighth century. The most literal approach was that of the Christian Topography by Cosmas Indicopleustes, which presented a cosmography very similar to the traditional Mesopotamian one, but in turn, John Philoponus wrote a harsh rebuttal to Cosmas in his own De opificio mundi. Syrian Christian texts also shared topographical features like the cosmic ocean surrounding the earth.” ref

“Cosmographies were described in works other than those of the Hexaemeral genre. For example, in the genre of novels, the Alexander Romance would portray a mythologized picture of the journeys and conquests of Alexander the Great, ultimately inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh. The influence is evident in the texts cosmography, as Alexander reaches an outer ocean circumscribing the Earth which cannot be passed. Both in the Alexander Romance, and in later texts like the Syriac Alexander Legend (Neshana), Alexander journeys to the ends of the Earth which is surrounded by an ocean. Unlike in the story of Gilgamesh, however, this ocean is an unpassable boundary that marks the extent to which Alexander can go. The Neshana also aligns with a Mesopotamian cosmography in its description of the path of the sun: as the sun sets in the west, it passes through a gateway in the firmament, cycles to the other side of the earth, and rises in the east in its passage through another celestial gateway. Alexander, like Gilgamesh, follows the path of the sun during his journey. These elements of Alexander’s journey are also described as part of the journey of Dhu al-Qarnayn in the Quran. Gilgamesh’s journey takes him to a great cosmic mountain Mashu; likewise, Alexander reaches a cosmic mountain known as Musas. The cosmography depicted in this text greatly resembles that outlined by the Babylonian Map of the World.” ref

Quranic cosmologyQuranic cosmology

“The Quran conceives of the primary elements of the ancient near eastern cosmography, such as the division of the cosmos into the heavens and the Earth, a solid firmament, upper waters, a flat Earth, and seven heavens. As with rabbinic cosmology, however, these elements were not directly transmitted from ancient near eastern civilization. Instead, work in the field of Quranic studies has identified the primary historical context for the reception of these ideas to have been in the Christian and Jewish cosmologies of late antiquity. This conception of the cosmos was carried on into the traditionalist cosmologies that were held in the caliphate, though with a few nuances that appear to have emerged.” ref

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The Babylonian Universe Newly Interpreted

Few studies in ancient cosmology can more entertain or instruct the investigator of to-day than a careful comparison of the seven diagrams published as correct pictures of the Babylonian universe in the works named below. No two of the seven agree. Moreover, the first represents the Zodiac as at a vast distance above the sphere of the fixed stars, a proceeding which at the start disarranges all ordinary astronomic ideas. Equally unpicturable in my imagination is the seventh of the series, the world sketched by Radau. Again and again have I tried to construct it in thought, but every time have failed. Even Jensen in his great work gives us for “the place of the Convocation of the Gods” (Du-azag), only a pitch-dark cavern in the thin crust of his sea-filled hemispherical earth, and has no place for Hades but another cavern located in the same thin crust and oddly enough far above the cave of the gods. Surely there is a call for new attempts to think the thoughts of these ancient Semites after them.” ref

“The circulation of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans would be very simple, and straightforward if it were not for the planet’s shape and rotation. That revolutionary idea that the Earth was essentially a rotating sphere did not appear until the sixteenth century CE. Earlier ideas had been that the Earth was flat surrounded by a dome or spheres that held the Sun, Moon, the known planets, and stars. Later it was more generally recognized that the Earth was a globe, surrounded by those spheres. The origins of many of these ideas are lost in the depths of time, but here are some of the highlights.” ref

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THE SEARCH FOR EGYPT’S MOUND OF CREATION

“Sokar-Osiris is a mummy inside a stepped primeval mound, symbolizing the womb of creation. Here, he is associated with the deceased achieving rebirth in the Duat-underworld under the light of the midnight sun. Above the mound we see a huge snake, a protector of the dead king when in this realm, as well as the pharaoh as Osiris greeted by the god Horus.” ref

Book of the Dead chapter 149

“The composition designated ‘chapter 149’ by Lepsius, from its position in the Ptolemaic Period papyrus of Iufankh, presents a numbered series of fourteen ‘mounds’ in the underworld. Each mound is addressed with reference to its inhabitants or landscape, and the encounter is used to empower the deceased: in this way, each potential obstacle to new life is converted into empowerment of the deceased. Most of the fourteen parts of chapter 149 occur for the first time in the Eighteenth Dynasty, and are only known from this chapter; some parts recur as separate compositions in the Book of the Dead, some already occur in the Middle Kingdom (about 2025-1700 BCE) among the funerary compositions written on the sides of coffins (the ‘Coffin Texts’), and one section echoing one of the compositions inscribed on the walls within the Old Kingdom (about 2686-2181 BCE) pyramids (‘Pyramid Texts’).” ref

“O this mound of the West, where one lives on cakes and fine vegetables, Unwind your headcloths at my approach, just as for the Eldest God among you. May he bind my bones and make my limbs firm. Bring me Ihy, lord of hearts, to have my bones built, to establish the Great Crown of Atum. Make firm my head for me, O Nehebkau, fill and make firm the balance. Rule over the gods, Min, the builder. O this mound of spirits, on which there is no sailing, which bears the spirits, while the flame is an engulfing fire. O gods who are in that mound of spirits, your faces downwards, sacred in your mounds, pure in your bindings. This is what you are commanded to do for me by Osiris for eternity. I am the great one of the Red Crown at the fore of the spirits, who brings the Two Lands and all their people to life, by the flame of its mouth, who rescues Ra from Aapep. O he who dominates the secret mound, O this tall and mighty mountain that is in the underworld on which sky and earth alight, measuring 300 rods in length and 10 rods in width, with a serpent on it called Shooter of Two Knives,
measuring 70 cubits in its circuit, living on cutting down spirits and damned in the underworld. I stand in your stronghold, so that the sailing may be smooth, for I have seen the way past you. I am the united one, I am the male: cover your head.
I am well: I am the great in power, my eyes are given to me, and I am transfigured. What is this, going on its belly, your strength at your mountain? Look at me, I have gone against you; your strength is with me. I am the one who raises strength. I have come and taken the earth gods for Ra. I have rested in the evening, at the circling of this sky. You are in your chains. This is the order for you from the beginnings.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

To me, Animism starts in Southern Africa, then to West Europe, and becomes Totemism. Another split goes near the Russia and Siberia border becoming Shamanism, which heads into Central Europe meeting up with Totemism, which also had moved there, mixing the two which then heads to Lake Baikal in Siberia. From there this Shamanism-Totemism heads to Turkey where it becomes Paganism.

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.” refref

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

“Ancient people in Africa, invented boats, probably before 100,000 years ago. Around 60,000 years ago, African explorers left Africa and settled in India and Australia. Soon, they reached West Asia, Central Asia, Europe, and China. A little later, they got to the Americas. The Africans who stayed behind in Africa – most of the people alive at that time – kept right on inventing things. Around 50,000 years ago, they began to make fish-hooks. By around 35,000 years ago, African people were using tally sticks to keep track of numbers.” ref

Animism (simplified to me as a belief in a perceived spirit world) passably by at least 100,000 years ago “the primal stage of early religion” To me, Animistic Somethingism: You just feel/think there has to be something supernatural/spirit-world or feel/think things are supernatural/spirit-filled.

Totemism (simplified to me, as a belief that these perceived spirits could be managed or related with by created physical expressions) passably by at least 50,000 years ago “progressed stage of early religion” A totem is a representational spirit being, a sacred object, or symbol of a group of people, clan, or tribe.

Shamanism (simplified to me as a belief that some special person can commune with these perceived spirits on the behalf of others by way of rituals) passably by at least 30,000 years ago Shamanism is an otherworld connection belief thought to heal the sick, communicate with spirits/deities, and escort souls of the dead.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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The genetic prehistory of humans in Asia, based on research using sequence data from humans who lived in Asia as early as 45,000 years ago. Genetic studies comparing present-day Australasians and Asians show that they likely derived from a single dispersal out of Africa, rapidly differentiating into three main lineages: one that persists partially in South Asia, one that is primarily found today in Australasia, and one that is widely represented across Siberia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Studies of ancient DNA from human remains in Asia dating from as far back as 45,000 years have greatly increased our understanding of the population dynamics leading to the current Asian populations.” ref

Ust’-Ishim manY-DNA haplogroupK2 and mt-DNA haplogroupR*

Tianyuan man: Y-DNA haplogroup K2b and mt-DNA haplogroup B

Yana Rhinoceros Horn SiteY-DNA haplogroup P1 and mt-DNA haplogroup U

Sungir/Gravettian burials: Y-DNA haplogroup C1 and mt-DNA haplogroups U8c & U2

Ancient North Eurasians: Y-chromosome haplogroups P and its subclades R and Q and mt-DNA haplogroups U and R

Mal’ta–Buret’ culture: basalY-DNA haplogroup R* and mt-DNA haplogroup U

MA-1 is the only known example of basal Y-DNA R* (R-M207*) – that is, the only member of haplogroup R* that did not belong to haplogroups R1R2 or secondary subclades of these. The mitochondrial DNA of MA-1 belonged to an unresolved subclade of haplogroup U.” ref

“ANE ancestry has spread throughout Eurasia and the Americas in various migrations since the Upper Paleolithic, and more than half of the world’s population today derives between 5 and 42% of their genomes from the Ancient North Eurasians. Significant ANE ancestry can be found in Native Americans, as well as in EuropeSouth AsiaCentral Asia, and Siberia. It has been suggested that their mythology may have featured narratives shared by both Indo-European and some Native American cultures, such as the existence of a metaphysical world tree and a fable in which a dog guards the path to the afterlife.” ref

 Afontova Gora cultureY-DNA haplogroup R and mt-DNA haplogroup R1b

“The bodies of two individuals, known as Afontova Gora 2 (AG2) and Afontova Gora 3 (AG3) were discovered within the complex (the name Afontova Gora 1 refers to the remains of a candid).” ref

Afontova Gora 2 “human remains”

“The human fossil remains of Afontova Gora 2 were discovered in the 1920s at Afontova Gora II and stored at the Hermitage Museum. The remains are dated to around 17,000 years ago (16,930-16,490 years ago). In 2009, researchers visited the Hermitage Museum and extracted DNA from the humerus of Afontova Gora 2. Despite significant contamination, researchers succeeded in extracting low coverage genomes. DNA analysis confirmed that the individual was male. The individual showed close genetic affinities to Mal’ta 1 (Mal’ta boy). Afontova Gora 2 also showed greater genetic affinity for the Karitiana people than for the Han Chinese. Around 1.9-2.7% of the genome was Neanderthal in origin.” ref

Afontova Gora 3 “human remains”

“In 2014, more human fossil remains were discovered at Afontova Gora II during salvage excavation before the construction of a new bridge over the Yenesei River. The remains belonged to two different females: the atlas of an adult female and the mandible and five lower teeth of a teenage girl (Afontova Gora 3), estimated to be around 14–15 years old. Initially, the new findings were presumed to be roughly contemporaneous with Afontova Gora 2. In 2017, direct AMS dating revealed that Afontova Gora 3 is dated to around 16,090 cal BCE. The mandible of Afontova Gora 3 was described as being gracile. Researchers analyzing the dental morphology of Afontova Gora 3 concluded that the teeth showed distinct characteristics with most similarities to another fossil (the Listvenka child) from the Altai-Sayan region and were neither western nor eastern. Afontova Gora 3 and Listvenka showed distinct dental characteristics that were also different from other Siberian fossils, including those from Mal’ta.” ref

“DNA was extracted from one of the teeth of Afontova Gora 3 and analyzed. Compared to Afontova Gora 2, researchers were able to obtain higher coverage genomes from Afontova Gora 3. DNA analysis confirmed that the individual was female. mtDNA analysis revealed that Afontova Gora 3 belonged to the mitochondrial Haplogroup R1b. Around 2.9-3.7% of the genome was Neanderthal in origin. 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

 

Afontova Gora 3 with Blond hair?

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

The genetic proximity of Afontova Gora 3 with the 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 Baikal EBA (Early Bronze Age Baikal populations). The Tarim mummies are thus one of the rare Holocene populations who derive most of their ancestry from the Ancient North Eurasians (ANE, specifically the Mal’ta and Afontova Gora populations), despite their distance in time (around 14,000 years). More than any other ancient populations, they can be considered as “the best representatives” of the Ancient North Eurasians.” ref

32,000-21,000 years ago, Yana Culture, at the Yana Woolly Rhinoceros Horn Site in Siberia, with genetic proximity to Ancient North Eurasian populations (Mal’taAfontova Gora), but also Ust-Ishim, Sunghir, and to a lesser extent Tianyuan, as well as similarities with the Clovis culture

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“Haplogroup U is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup (mtDNA). The clade arose from haplogroup R, likely during the early Upper Paleolithic. Its various subclades (labeled U1–U9, diverging over the course of the Upper Paleolithic) are found widely distributed across Northern and Eastern EuropeCentralWestern, and South Asia, as well as North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Canary Islands. Basal U was found in the 26,000-year-old remains of Ancient North EurasianMal’ta boy (MA1). The age of U5 is estimated at between 25,000 and 35,000 years old, roughly corresponding to the Gravettian culture. and is the DNA associated with the seeming first Gravettian shaman burial seen in the Pavlovian culture, around Dolní Věstonice in southern Moravia. One of the Dolní Věstonice burials, located near the huts, revealed a human female skeleton aged to 40+ years old, ritualistically placed beneath a pair of mammoth scapulae, one leaning against the other. Surprisingly, the left side of the skull was disfigured in the same manner as the aforementioned carved ivory figure, indicating that the figure was an intentional depiction of this specific individual. The bones and the earth surrounding the body contained traces of red ocher, a flint spearhead had been placed near the skull, and one hand held the body of a fox. This evidence suggests that this was the burial site of a shaman. This is the oldest site not only of ceramic figurines and artistic portraiture, but also of evidence of female shamans.” refrefrefref

“Approximately 11% of Europeans (10% of European-Americans) have some variant of haplogroup U5. U5 was the predominant mtDNA of mesolithic Western Hunter Gatherers (WHG). U5 has been found in human remains dating from the Mesolithic in England, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, France, and Spain. Neolithic skeletons (~7,000 years old) that were excavated from the Avellaner cave in Catalonia, northeastern Spain included a specimen carrying haplogroup U5. Haplogroup U5 and its subclades U5a and U5b today form the highest population concentrations in the far north, among SamiFinns, and Estonians. However, it is spread widely at lower levels throughout Europe. This distribution, and the age of the haplogroup, indicate individuals belonging to this clade were part of the initial expansion tracking the retreat of ice sheets from Europe around 10,000 years ago. The modern Basques and Cantabrians possess almost exclusively U5b lineages (U5b1f, U5b1c1, U5b2).” ref

6 Ice Age Humans (30,000 Years Ago)

Abstract: Starting about 35,000 years ago, humans seem to have made a great leap forward culturally. The authors argue that this wasn’t because of genetic changes that caused the human brain to have increased capacity. It was because some groups culturally evolved the “social tools” that allowed them to maintain connections and share information over long distances. The groups with the most effective social tools managed to stay connected and to survive, and their descendants inherited this culture of connectedness. It’s likely that forming greater connectedness and more complex culture was necessary in order to survive the periods of high climate variability that were a feature of the last ice age.” ref

“Archaeologists usually describe two regional variants: the western Gravettian, known mainly from cave sites in France, Spain, and Britain, and the eastern Gravettian in Central Europe and Russia. The eastern Gravettians, which include the Pavlovian culture, were specialized mammoth hunters, whose remains are usually found not in caves but in open air sites. Gravettian culture thrived on their ability to hunt animals. They utilized a variety of tools and hunting strategies. Compared to 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.” ref

“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 begins to disappear from northern Europe but was continued in areas around the Mediterranean. The Mal’ta Culture (c. 24,000 years ago) in Siberia is often considered as belonging to the Gravettian, due to its similar characteristics, particularly its Venus figurines, but any hypothetical connection would have to be cultural and not genetic: a 2016 genomic study showed that the Mal’ta people have no genetic connections with the people of the European Gravettian culture (the Vestonice Cluster).” ref

“Fu et al. (2016) examined the remains of fourteen Gravettians. The eight males included three samples of Y-chromosomal haplogroup CT, one of I, one IJK, one BT, one C1a2, and one sample of F. Of the fourteen samples of mtDNA, there were thirteen samples of U and one sample of M. The majority of the sample of U belonged to the U5 and U2. Teschler et al. (2020) examined the remains of one adult male and two twin boys from a Gravettian site in Austria. All belonged to haplogroup Y-Haplogroup I. and all had the same mtDNA, U5. According to Scorrano et al. (2022), “the genome of an early European individual from Kostenki 14, dated to around 37,000 years ago, demonstrated that the ancestral European gene pool was already established by that time.” ref

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Here are Damien’s thoughts/speculations on where he believes 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.

“The Pavlovian is an Upper Paleolithic culture, a variant of the Gravettian, that existed in the region of Moravia, northern Austria, and southern Poland around 29,000–25,000 years ago. Its name is derived from the village of Pavlov, in the Pavlov Hills, next to Dolní Věstonice in southern Moravia. The culture used sophisticated stone age technology to survive in the tundra on the fringe of the ice sheets around the Last Glacial Maximum. Excavation has yielded flint implements, polished and drilled stone artifacts, bone spearheads, needles, digging tools, flutes, bone ornaments, drilled animal teeth, and seashells. Art or religious finds are bone carvings and figurines of humans and animals made of mammoth tusk, stone, and fired clay.” ref

“One of the burials, located near the huts, revealed a human female skeleton aged to 40+ years old, ritualistically placed beneath a pair of mammoth scapulae, one leaning against the other. Surprisingly, the left side of the skull was disfigured in the same manner as the aforementioned carved ivory figure, indicating that the figure was an intentional depiction of this specific individual. The bones and the earth surrounding the body contained traces of red ocher, a flint spearhead had been placed near the skull, and one hand held the body of a fox. This evidence suggests that this was the burial site of a shaman. This is the oldest site not only of ceramic figurines and artistic portraiture, but also of evidence of female shamans.” ref

“A burial of an approximately forty-year-old woman was found at Dolní Věstonice in an elaborate burial setting. Various items found with the woman have had a profound impact on the interpretation of the social hierarchy of the people at the site, as well as indicating an increased lifespan for these inhabitants. The remains were covered in red ochre, a compound known to have religious significance, indicating that this woman’s burial was ceremonial in nature. Also, the inclusion of a mammoth scapula and a fox are indicative of a high-status burial.” ref

“In the Upper Paleolithic, anatomically modern humans began living longer, often reaching middle age, by today’s standards. Rachel Caspari argues in “Human Origins: the Evolution of Grandparents,” that life expectancy increased during the Upper Paleolithic in Europe (Caspari 2011). She also describes why elderly people were highly influential in society. Grandparents assisted in childcare, perpetuated cultural transmission, and contributed to the increased complexity of stone tools (Caspari 2011). The woman found at Dolní Věstonice was old enough to have been a grandparent. Although human lifespans were increasing, elderly individuals in Upper Paleolithic societies were still relatively rare. Because of this, it is possible that the woman was attributed with great importance and wisdom, and revered because of her age. Because of her advanced age, it is also possible she had a decreased ability to care for herself, instead relying on her family group to care for her, which indicates strong social connections.” ref

“Furthermore, a female figurine was found at the site and is believed to be associated with the aged woman, because of remarkably similar facial characteristics. The woman was found to have deformities on the left side of her face. The special importance accorded with her burial, in addition to her facial deformity, makes it possible that she was a shaman in this time period, where it was “not uncommon that people with disabilities, either mental or physical, are thought to have unusual supernatural powers” (Pringle 2010).” ref

“In 1981, Patricia Rice studied a multitude of female clay figurines found at Dolní Věstonice, believed to represent fertility in this society. She challenged this assumption by analyzing all the figurines and found that, “it is womanhood, rather than motherhood that is symbolically recognized or honored” (Rice 1981: 402). This interpretation challenged the widely held assumption that all prehistoric female figurines were created to honor fertility. The fact is that we have no idea why these figurines proliferated nor of their purpose or usage.” ref

“Haplogroup U5 is estimated to be about 30,000 years old, and it is primarily found today in people with European ancestry. Both the current geographic distribution of U5 and testing of ancient human remains indicate that the ancestor of U5  expanded into Europe before 31,000 years ago. A 2013 study by Fu et al. found two U5 individuals at the Dolni Vestonice burial site in the Czech Republic that has been dated to 31,155 years ago.  A third person from the same burial was identified as haplogroup U8. The Dolni Vestonice samples have only two of the five mutations ( C16192T and C16270T) that are found in the present day U5 population. This indicates that the U5-(C16192T and C16270T) mtDNA sequence is ancestral to the present day U5 population that includes the additional three mutations T3197C, G9477A and T13617C.” ref

“Haplogroup U5 is thought to have evolved in the western steppe region and then entered Europe around 30,000 to 55,000 years ago. Results support previous hypotheses that haplogroup U5 mtDNAs expanded throughout Northern, Southern, and Central Europe with more recent expansions into Western Europe and Africa. The results further allow us to explain how U5 mtDNAs are now found with high frequency in Northern Europe, as well as delineate the origins of the specific U5 subhaplogroups found in that part of Europe.” ref 

“Haplogroup U5 is found throughout Europe with an average frequency ranging from 5% to 12% in most regions. U5a is most common in north-east Europe and U5b in northern Spain. Nearly half of all Sami and one fifth of Finnish maternal lineages belong to U5. Other high frequencies are observed among the Mordovians (16%), the Chuvash (14.5%) and the Tatars (10.5%) in the Volga-Ural region of Russia, the Estonians (13%), the Lithuanians (11.5%) and the Latvians in the Baltic, the Dargins (13.5%), Avars (13%) and the Chechens (10%) in the Northeast Caucasus, the Basques (12%), the Cantabrians (11%) and the Catalans (10%) in northern Spain, the Bretons (10.5%) in France, the Sardinians (10%) in Italy, the Slovaks (11%), the Croatians (10.5%), the Poles (10%), the Czechs (10%), the Ukrainians (10%) and the Slavic Russians (10%). Overall, U5 is generally found in population with high percentages of Y-haplogroups I1I2, and R1a, three lineages already found in Mesolithic Europeans. The highest percentages are observed in populations associated predominantly with Y-haplogroup N1c1 (the Finns and the Sami), although N1c1 is originally an East Asian lineage that spread over Siberia and Northeast Europe and assimilated indigenous U5 maternal lineages.” ref

“The age of haplogroup U5 is uncertain at present. It could have arisen as recently as 35,000 years ago, or as early was 50,000 years ago. U5 appear to have been a major maternal lineage among the Paleolithic European hunter-gatherers, and even the dominant lineage during the European Mesolithic. In two papers published two months apart, Posth et al. 2016 and Fu et al. 2016 reported the results of over 70 complete human mitochondrial genomes ranging from 45,000 to 7,000 years ago. The oldest U5 samples all dated from the Gravettian culture (c. 32,000 to 22,000 years ago), while the older Aurignacian samples belonged to mt-haplogroups M, N, R*, and U2. Among the 16 Gravettian samples that yielded reliable results, six belonged to U5 – the others belonging mostly to U2, as well as isolated samples of M, U*, and U8c. Two Italian Epigravettian samples, one from the Paglicci Cave in Apulia (18,500 years ago), and another one from Villabruna in Veneto (14,000 years ago), belonged to U5b2b, as did two slightly more recent Epipaleolithic samples from the Rhône valley in France. U5b1 samples were found in Epipalaeolithic Germany, Switzerland (U5b1h in the Grotte du Bichon), and France. More 80% of the numerous Mesolithic European mtDNA tested to date belonged to various subclades of U5. Overall, it appears that U5 arrived in Europe with the Gravettian tool makers, and that it particularly prospered from the end of the glacial period (from 11,700 years ago) until the arrival of Neolithic farmers from the Near East (between 8,500 and 6,000 years ago).” ref

“Carriers of haplogroup U5 were part of the Gravettian culture, which experienced the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 26,000 to 19,000 years ago). During this particularly harsh period, Gravettian people would have retreated into refugia in southern Europe, from which they would have re-expanded to colonise the northern half of the continent during the Late Glacial and postglacial periods. For reasons that are yet unknown, haplogroup U5 seems to have resisted better to the LGM to other Paleolithic haplogroups like U*, U2 and U8. Mitochondrial DNA being essential for energy production, it could be that the mutations selected in early U5 subclades (U5a1, U5a2, U5b1, U5b2) conferred an advantage for survival during the coldest millennia of the LGM, which had for effect to prune less energy efficient mtDNA lineages.” ref

“It is likely that U5a and U5b lineages already existed prior to the LGM and they were geographically scattered to some extent around Europe before the growing ice sheet forced people into the refugia. Nonetheless, founder effects among the populations of each LGM refugium would have amplified the regional division between U5b and U5a. U5b would have been found at a much higher frequency in the Franco-Cantabrian region. We can deduce this from the fact that modern Western Europeans have considerably more U5b than U5a, but also because the modern Basques and Cantabrians possess almost exclusively U5b lineages. What’s more, all the Mesolithic U5 samples from Iberia whose subclade could be identified belonged to U5b.” ref

“Conversely, only U5a lineages have been found so far in Mesolithic Russia (U5a1) and Sweden (U5a1 and U5a2), which points at an eastern origin of this subclade. Mesolithic samples from Poland, Germany and Italy yielded both U5a and U5b subclades. German samples included U5a2a, U5a2c3, U5b2 and U5b2a2. The same observations are valid for the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods too, with U5a1 being found in Russia and Ukraine, U5b in France (Cardium Pottery and Megalithic), U5b2 in Portugal. U5b1b1 arose approximately 10,000 years ago, over two millennia after the end of the Last Glaciation, when the Neolithic Revolution was already under way in the Near East. Despite this relatively young age, U5b1b1 is found scattered across all Europe and well beyond its boundaries. The Saami, who live in the far European North and have 48% of U5 and 42% of V lineages, belong exclusively to the U5b1b1 subclade. Amazingly, the Berbers of Northwest Africa also possess that U5b1b1 subclade and haplogroup V.” ref

“Probably occupied from as much as around 38,900–32,630 years ago. It had previously been dated at a lower date as low as around 23,000-19,000 years ago which changed.” ref

Sungar “Gravettian culture” (Russia) and related Dolni Vestonice Pavlovian/Gravettian culture (Czech Republic).

The Gravettian culture (Europe) shared ritual ideas and The Ancient North Eurasian culture (Asia) 24,000 years ago

Sungar (Russia), found posable evidence of shamanistic Gravettian culture burials and that seem to match the latter indigenous American shamanistic burials in Alaska at the Tanana River site with around 11,500 years old duel infant burial very similar shamanistic grave offerings like decorated stone weapons. To further a clear connection is the Bluefish Cave (Yukon Territory Canada) that held bones with cut marks which is possibly as old as 24,000 to 19,650 years ago and the youngest are around 12,000 years old seem to offer strong support for the “Beringian hypothesis” human population dispersed to North and South America. ref

To me, is seems Siberian is the general origin of native Americans at least by around 11,000 years ago, by the land bridge “Beringia” from Asia by way of Siberia in Russia over to Alaska in the Americas, which the Paleoindians had crossover on, finally flooded over by rising sea levels and was submerged. Siberia has a large variety of climate, vegetation, and landscape. Siberia’s Prehistory demonstrates several distinct cultures sometimes transferring ideas, other times not, and some split from earlier cultures creating new ones often in illation, mainly starting with hunter-gatherer nomadism. During glaciation around 115,000 to 15,000 years ago, the Siberia tundra extended south and an ice sheet covered area of Russia around the Ural Mountains that while some of the oldest mountains are more like large hills, and the area to the east of the lower Yenisei River basin, which in the general area of central and southern Siberia. ref

Some of the first nomadic peoples entered Siberia about 50,000 years ago. Ancient nomadic tribes such as the Ket people and the Yugh people a separate but similar group lived along its banks. Shamanism among Kets shares characteristics with those of Turkic and Mongolic peoples thus not at all homogeneous in expression though neither is shamanism in Siberia in general. As for shamanism among Kets had several types of Ket shamans and shared characteristics with those of Turkic and Mongolic peoples. The Yana River sites, in Siberia, demonstrate that modern human populations had reached Western Beringia by 32,000 years ago then engaging in an early dispersal possibly by 24,000 years ago. ref

SHAMANISM IN RUSSIA AND MONGOLIA

“Shamanism is still practiced in Russia, particularly in the Lake Baikal area of southern Siberia near the Mongolian border and in the middle Volga regions. The word Shamanism comes from Siberia. And believed shamanistic powers are passed on from generation to generation or by spontaneous vocation during an initiation ceremony that usually involves some kind of ecstatic death, rebirth, vision or experience. Though a for some shaman cultures a distinction is made between hereditary ones and those who have become shaman after suffering a serious illness. A shamanist is a one person cult-authority, spirit medium, soul-traveler, meteorologist, physician, philosopher, and ideologist.” ref

“Shaman have traditionally been important religious figures and healers among many Siberian peoples and commonly connect to and revolved around hunting and family/ancestor cults. The word “shaman” comes to us from the Tungus language via Russian. In Siberia, shamans have traditionally been called upon to heal the sick, solve problems, protect groups from hostile spirts, make predictions and mediate between the spiritual world and human world and guide dead souls to the afterlife.” ref

“After death it was believed that the breath soul left through the nostrils.
Many groups make wooden images of dolls of the deceased and for a period of time, they are treated like the real person. A wide variety of goods may be placed in the graves of the deceased, depending on the group. These generally include things the deceased needs in the next life. Often totems are broken or defaced in some way to “kill” them so they don’t assist the dead in returning. Some groups placed the dead in graves others on the ground covering them with something, while other groups placed the dead on a special platform on the trees.” ref

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

“Shaman cults tend to revolve around animals, natural objects, heroes and clan leaders have also been central to the lives of many of Siberia’s indigenous people. Many groups have strong beliefs in spirits, in realms of the sky and earth and follow cults associated with animals, especially the Raven. Things like illness and other misfortunes were attributed to spirits. Many Arctic people believe that each person has two souls: (1) a shadow soul that may leave the body during sleep or unconsciousness and take the form of a bee or a butterfly, and (2) a “breath” soul that provides life to humans and animals. Many groups believe the life forces lies within the bones, blood, and vital organs. For this reason the bones of the dead are treated with great reverence so a new life can be regenerated from them.” ref

“The Khanty (an indigenous people calling themselves Khanti, Khande, Kantek, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as “Yugra” in Russia) shamans who believe the forest is inhabited by invisible people and spirits of animals, forest, rivers and natural landmarks. The most important spirits belong to the sun, moon, and bear. Khanty shaman work as intermediaries between the living worlds and the spiritual world. The invisible people are like gremlins or trolls. They are blamed for missing puppies, strange events and unexplained behavior.” ref

Why This Paleolithic Burial Site Is So Strange (and So Important)

“In addition to beads and ochre, carefully manufactured mammoth ivory spears, ivory disks, and pierced cervid antlers were found with the skeletons. And this is not supersizing because by approximately 40,000 years ago, narrow stone blades and tools made of bone, ivory, and antler appeared, along with simple wood instruments. Yet these extravagant burials are only part of the reason why  Sungir stands out as the site is characterized by a much greater diversity of mortuary behaviors than archaeologists previously thought. ” ref, ref

“Sungir – Sunghir is a site that held multiple burials of least 10 individuals  and specifically two of the most extraordinary Upper Paleolithic burials known: one of an adult male “Sungir-1” and another of two children “Sungir-2 and  Sungir-3. The  two children  originally thought to be a boy and girl,are now thought to be two boys interred head-to-head. All remains were covered in ochre and were accompanied by rich grave goods including ivory beads and spears, armbands, and carvings, as well as arctic fox canines. Adjacent to  Sungir-2  was the femoral diaphysis (main or midsection (shaft) of a long bone) of an adult “Sungir 4″ that had been polished, hollowed out, and filled with red ochre. The site also yielded other less complete human remains, some of uncertain stratigraphic provenance [Sunghir 5 to 9. Radiocarbon analyses place the age of  Sungir-1 to  Sungir 4 date between 33,600-34,600 years ago. The homogeneity in morphological traits (e.g., metopism) among the remains, as well as signs of possible congenital pathologies in SIII, have been interpreted as evidence of inbreeding. Other Upper Paleolithic individuals with reported congenital or degenerative pathologies (e.g., at Barma Grande and Dolní Věstonice) reinforce the view that Upper Paleolithic groups were small and susceptible to inbreeding, possibly as extensive as what has been reported for the Altai Neandertal. However, genomic data available for some of those individuals were of insufficient coverage to infer population sizes or inbreeding levels.” ref, ref

Picture: link 

“There where at least three different forms of burials were practiced at Sunghir. While an adult femur shaft was found in the grave with the two youngsters, another femur bone was discovered isolated near the graves, with indications that the body had been abandoned on the surface without receiving any formal treatment. A cranium, was found with artifacts just above the adult’s lavish grave. This cranium represents only one part of the skeleton, it appears to have been deposited there in the context of a funerary ritual.” ref

“Sungir may thus be considered as the earliest modern human burial site in Europe with evidence of a social structure that would not have solely depended on people’s acquired status. And as can be indicative to a general shamanism thinking about body difference being special, both the juvenile and the adolescent appear to have suffered from physical abnormalities and likely their disabilities would have been visible to others. Their difference may have been part of the reason they were given an extravagant burial.” ref

“Analyses of mtDNA genomes from Sungir1 to Sungir 4 put them in haplogroup U, consistent with West Eurasian and Siberian Paleolithic and Mesolithic genomes. Sungir1 belongs to haplogroup U8c; the sequences for the three individuals from the double burial ( Sungir 2 to Sungir 4) are identical and belong to haplogroup U2, which is closely related to the Upper Paleolithic Kostenki 12 and Kostenki 14 individuals. Phylogenetic analyses of the Y chromosome sequences place all  Sungir individuals in an early divergent lineage of haplogroup C1a2. Y chromosome haplogroup C1, which is rare among contemporary Eurasians, has been found in other early European individuals, including the ~36,000-year-old Kostenki 14.” ref

“Haplogroup C1a2 (also known as Haplogroup C-V20): which has been discovered in the remains of Palaeolithic people in Czech Republic (30,000 years ago), Belgium (35,000 years ago), and the Sunghir archaeological site near Vladimir, Russia. Regarding more recent prehistory, Haplogroup C-V20 has been found in the remains of a male (died ca. 7,000 years ago) associated with a late group of the Alföld Linear Pottery culture at Kompolt-Kigyósér, Hungary whose mtDNA belonged to haplogroup J1c1, the remains of a male (died ca. 7,000 years ago) associated with the LBK Culture at Apc-Berekalja (I.), Hungary whose mtDNA belonged to haplogroup K1a3a3, and the remains of a male (died ca. 7,000 years ago) associated with Mesolithic culture at La Braña-Arintero, León, Spain whose mtDNA belonged to haplogroup U5b2c1. Haplogroup C-V20 Y-DNA also has been found in a small number of modern Europeans, Algerian Berbers,[6]Armenians, and Nepalis. It includes many Y-DNA samples associated with the oldest currently known population of anatomically modern humans in Europe (Cro-Magnons), and it is considered to be a carrier of the Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian culture that began 40,000 years ago.” ref

“There is significant Totamistic-Shamanism activity from Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic, with triple burial three teenagers to larger males DV 13 and DV 14 side by side flanking a smaller handicap male DV 15 in the middle position of the burial, a single older woman shaman burial with a carved portrait, and a Venus of Dolní Věstonice, 27,000 and 25,000 years ago. The Dna of three inhabitants of Dolni Vestonice, lived 31,155 years ago and to have mitochondrial haplogroup U, and one inhabitant mitochondrial haplogroup U8.” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Early Gravettian – The Pavlovian

“As the most important component of the Early Gravettian in Danubian Europe, the Pavlovian (30 – 25 ky) occupies a central location within the Lower Austrian – Moravian – South Polish geomorphological corridor (fig. 2a). Both the Pavlovian settlement archaeology and the resource analysis suggest a discontinuity compared to the previous Early Upper Paleolithic settlement strategies: the typical formation of the large open-air settlements in an axial manner, in lower altitudes and along the rivers; the long-distance transport of lithic raw materials; the intensive exploitation of mammoths supplemented by a variety of small animals; and, finally, aspects of ritual and style.” ref

“The art production at this stage of the Gravettian is remarkably complex, and includes carvings and engravings, soft stone carvings, and especially the ceramic plastic production. A majority of the human skeletal remains are equally dated to this period (Predmostí, Dolní Vestonice – Pavlov, Krems). Some of the ritual burials are covered by ochre, and some are covered by mammoth shoulderblades. It should be underlined, however, that they are poorly equipped by additive artifacts (if any, so just a few pierced decorative objects. The earliest Pavlovian occupation is best documented at Willendorf II, layer 5 (around and after 30 ky BP), Krems, and Dolní Vestonice II (a complex occupation horizons dated to 27 ky). The industry is dominated by burins, backed implements, and endscrapers, where burins are about the twice as numerous as endscrapers. The number of microliths, and especially geometric microliths, is usually low. A variety of pointed blades (including the Jerzmanowice-type points) and pointed microblades (including the Krems or Font Yves points) occur as well.” ref

31,000-25,000 Dolni Vestonice,  Czech Republic Totemistic-Shamanism

“A remarkable cluster of Pavlovian radiocarbon dates is recorded during the following two millennia, between 27,000 – 25,000 years ago. These dates were received from Willendorf II (layers 6-8), Aggsbach, Krems, Grub/Kranawetberg, Dolní Vestonice – Pavlov, Milovice (settlement), Borsice, Jarosov (settlement), Spytihnev, and Predmostí (the main occupation layer). An increase of microliths, including the geometric microliths (lunates, triangles, trapezes), is typical at this stage, especially within the Dolní Vestonice – Pavlov area. A variety of pointed blades and micro blades continue to occur, but the typical leaf-points are absent at this stage. A few of the 14 C datings from sites like Dolní Vestonice, Milovice, and Jarosov are later than 25,000 years ago; so, for example, the mammoth bone deposits at Milovice and Jarosov are dated later than the related settlements. If these dates are correct, they would suggest a prolongation of occupation at these sites after the Pavlovian.” ref

“The most typical example of another type of Early Gravettian, non-Pavlovian site, is Bodrogkeresztúr-Henye in eastern Hungary. The site provided two dates, 28,700 and 26,300 years ago that place it chronologically to the Early Gravettian. Contrary to the Pavlovian sites, however, the fauna is dominated by horse and elk, and the lithic industry, dominated by burins, retouched blades, endscrapers, and sidescrapers, lacks the typical microliths. In addition, there are differences of a rather functional nature. Nemsová, a workshop site with an Early Gravettian date in western Slovakia, is located near an important raw material source: the radiolarite. Two smaller cave sites, Slaninova Cave and Dzeravá skala Cave, yielded early Gravettian dates in association with fragments of the typical ivory points with circular sections. This may be an evidence for periodical visits of Gravettian hunters in the karstic regions.” ref

31,000-25,000 years old Dolni Vestonice, Czech Republic Totemistic-Shamanism

31,000 – 30,000 Years Ago – Dolni Vestonice (Czech Republic) an Odd Triple Shamanistic Burial

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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24,000 years old sacred burial of a Siberian Mal’ta boy. This shamanistic grave connects to around 30% of all modern Native American ancestry. ref 

24,000 Years Old Sacred Burial of a Siberian Mal’ta Boy

“The Mal’ta–Buret’ culture is an archaeological culture of the Upper Paleolithic (around 24,000 to 15,000 years ago) on the upper Angara River in the area west of Lake Baikal in the Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, Russian Federation. The type sites are named for the villages of Mal’ta, Usolsky District and Buret’, Bokhansky District (both in Irkutsk Oblast).” ref

“The “Mal’ta Cluster” is composed of three individuals from the Glacial Maximum 24,000-17,000 years ago from the Lake Baikal region of Siberia.” ref

 

People reached Lake Baikal Siberia around 25,000 years ago. They (to Damien) were likely Animistic Shamanists who were also heavily totemistic as well. Being animistic thinkers they likely viewed amazing things in nature as a part of or related to something supernatural/spiritual (not just natural as explained by science): spirit-filled, a sprit-being relates to or with it, it is a sprit-being, it is a supernatural/spiritual creature, or it is a great spirit/tutelary deity/goddess-god. From there comes mythology and faith in things not seen but are believed to somehow relate or interact with this “real world” we know exists.

Both areas of Lake Baikal, one on the west side with Ancient North Eurasian culture and one on the east side with Ancient Northern East Asian culture (later to become: Ancient Northeast Asian culture) areas are the connected areas that (to Damien) are the origin ancestry religion area for many mythologies and religious ideas of the world by means of a few main migrations and many smaller ones leading to a distribution of religious ideas that even though are vast in distance are commonly related to and centering on Lake Baikal and its surrounding areas like the Amur region and Altai Mountains region.

To an Animistic Thinker: “Things are not just as they seem, they may have a spirit, or spirit energy relates to them”
 
To a Totemistic Thinker: “Things are not just as they seem, they may have a spirit, or spirit energy relates to them; they may have religio-cultural importance.”

“Lakes are often mysterious bodies of water, especially if they are very deep or surrounded by mountains. No wonder legends and mysteries thrive about them, including monsters that supposedly lurk in their bottomless depths.” ref

People may have first seen the Shaman Rock with the natural brown rock formation resembling a dragon between 30,000 to 25,000 years ago.

Shaman Rock, on Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal, Siberia, with a natural rock image that resembles a dragon. And is one of the “Nine Holy Sites of Asia.”

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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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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.

Seeming Connections: Totem poles, Ceremonial poles, Spirit poles, Sacred poles, Deity poles, Deities with poles, Pole star, Axis Mundi, Sacred trees, World tree, Maypole, Sun Dance with poles, etc.

“Migration from Siberia behind the formation of Göbeklitepe: Expert states. People who migrated from Siberia formed the Göbeklitepe, and those in Göbeklitepe migrated in five other ways to spread to the world, said experts about the 12,000-year-old Neolithic archaeological site in the southwestern province of Şanlıurfa.“ The upper paleolithic migrations between Siberia and the Near East is a process that has been confirmed by material culture documents,” he said.” ref

“Semih Güneri, a retired professor from Caucasia and Central Asia Archaeology Research Center of Dokuz Eylül University, and his colleague, Professor Ekaterine Lipnina, presented the Siberia-Göbeklitepe hypothesis they have developed in recent years at the congress held in Istanbul between June 11 and 13. There was a migration that started from Siberia 30,000 years ago and spread to all of Asia and then to Eastern and Northern Europe, Güneri said at the international congress.” ref

“The relationship of Göbeklitepe high culture with the carriers of Siberian microblade stone tool technology is no longer a secret,” he said while emphasizing that the most important branch of the migrations extended to the Near East. “The results of the genetic analyzes of Iraq’s Zagros region confirm the traces of the Siberian/North Asian indigenous people, who arrived at Zagros via the Central Asian mountainous corridor and met with the Göbeklitepe culture via Northern Iraq,” he added.” ref

“Emphasizing that the stone tool technology was transported approximately 7,000 kilometers from east to west, he said, “It is not clear whether this technology is transmitted directly to long distances by people speaking the Turkish language at the earliest, or it travels this long-distance through using way stations.” According to the archaeological documents, it is known that the Siberian people had reached the Zagros region, he said. “There seems to be a relationship between Siberian hunter-gatherers and native Zagros hunter-gatherers,” Güneri said, adding that the results of genetic studies show that Siberian people reached as far as the Zagros.” ref

“There were three waves of migration of Turkish tribes from the Southern Siberia to Europe,” said Osman Karatay, a professor from Ege University. He added that most of the groups in the third wave, which took place between 2600-2400 BCE, assimilated and entered the Germanic tribes and that there was a genetic kinship between their tribes and the Turks. The professor also pointed out that there are indications that there is a technology and tool transfer from Siberia to the Göbeklitepe region and that it is not known whether people came, and if any, whether they were Turkish.” ref

“Around 12,000 years ago, there would be no ‘Turks’ as we know it today. However, there may have been tribes that we could call our ‘common ancestors,’” he added. “Talking about 30,000 years ago, it is impossible to identify and classify nations in today’s terms,” said Murat Öztürk, associate professor from İnönü University. He also said that it is not possible to determine who came to where during the migrations that were accepted to have been made thousands of years ago from Siberia. On the other hand, Mehmet Özdoğan, an academic from Istanbul University, has an idea of where “the people of Göbeklitepe migrated to.” ref

“According to Özdoğan, “the people of Göbeklitepe turned into farmers, and they could not stand the pressure of the overwhelming clergy and started to migrate to five ways.” “Migrations take place primarily in groups. One of the five routes extends to the Caucasus, another from Iran to Central Asia, the Mediterranean coast to Spain, Thrace and [the northwestern province of] Kırklareli to Europe and England, and one route is to Istanbul via [Istanbul’s neighboring province of] Sakarya and stops,” Özdoğan said. In a very short time after the migration of farmers in Göbeklitepe, 300 settlements were established only around northern Greece, Bulgaria, and Thrace. “Those who remained in Göbeklitepe pulled the trigger of Mesopotamian civilization in the following periods, and those who migrated to Mesopotamia started irrigated agriculture before the Sumerians,” he said.” ref

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Haplogroup migrations related to the Ancient North Eurasians: I added stuff to this map to help explain. 

People reached Lake Baikal Siberia around 25,000 years ago. They (to Damien) were likely Animistic Shamanists who were also heavily totemistic as well. Being animistic thinkers they likely viewed amazing things in nature as a part of or related to something supernatural/spiritual (not just natural as explained by science): spirit-filled, a sprit-being relates to or with it, it is a sprit-being, it is a supernatural/spiritual creature, or it is a great spirit/tutelary deity/goddess-god. From there comes mythology and faith in things not seen but are believed to somehow relate or interact with this “real world” we know exists.

Both areas of Lake Baikal, one on the west side with Ancient North Eurasian culture and one on the east side with Ancient Northern East Asian culture (later to become: Ancient Northeast Asian culture) areas are the connected areas that (to Damien) are the origin ancestry religion area for many mythologies and religious ideas of the world by means of a few main migrations and many smaller ones leading to a distribution of religious ideas that even though are vast in distance are commonly related to and centering on Lake Baikal and its surrounding areas like the Amur region and Altai Mountains region. 

To an Animistic Thinker: “Things are not just as they seem, they may have a spirit, or spirit energy relates to them” 

To a Totemistic Thinker: “Things are not just as they seem, they may have a spirit, or spirit energy relates to them; they may have religio-cultural importance.” 

“Ancient North Eurasian population had Haplogroups R, P, U, and Q DNA types: defined by maternal West-Eurasian ancestry components (such as mtDNA haplogroup U) and paternal East-Eurasian ancestry components (such as yDNA haplogroup P1 (R*/Q*).” ref 

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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This art above explains my thinking from my life of investigation

I am an anarchist (Social anarchism, Left-wing anarchism, or Socialist anarchism) trying to explain prehistory as I see it after studying it on my own starting 2006. Anarchists are for truth and believe in teaching the plain truth; misinformation is against this, and we would and should fight misinformation and disinformation.

I see anarchism as a social justice issue not limited to some political issue or monetary persuasion. People own themselves, have self/human rights, and deserve freedoms. All humanity is owed respect for its dignity; we are all born equal in dignity and human rights, and no plot of dirt we currently reside on changes this.

I fully enjoy the value (axiology) of archaeology (empirical evidence from fact or artifacts at a site) is knowledge (epistemology) of the past, adding to our anthropology (evidence from cultures both the present and past) intellectual (rational) assumptions of the likely reality of actual events from time past.

I am an Axiological Atheist, Philosopher & Autodidact Pre-Historical Writer/Researcher, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Anarcho Humanist, LGBTQI, Race, & Class equality. I am not an academic, I am a revolutionary sharing education and reason to inspire more deep thinking. I do value and appreciate Academics, Archaeologists, Anthropologists, and Historians as they provide us with great knowledge, informing us about our shared humanity.

I am a servant leader, as I serve the people, not myself, not my ego, and not some desire for money, but rather a caring teacher’s heart to help all I can with all I am. From such thoughtfulness may we all see the need for humanism and secularism, respecting all as helpful servant leaders assisting others as often as we can to navigate truth and the beauty of reality.

‘Reality’ ie. real/external world things, facts/evidence such as that confirmed by science, or events taken as a whole documented understanding of what occurred/is likely to have occurred; the accurate state of affairs. “Reason” is not from a mind devoid of “unreason” but rather demonstrates the potential ability to overcome bad thinking. An honest mind, enjoys just correction. Nothing is a justified true belief without valid or reliable reason and evidence; just as everything believed must be open to question, leaving nothing above challenge.

I don’t believe in gods or ghosts, and nor souls either. I don’t believe in heavens or hells, nor any supernatural anything. I don’t believe in Aliens, Bigfoot, nor Atlantis. I strive to follow reason and be a rationalist. Reason is my only master and may we all master reason. Thinking can be random, but reason is organized and sound in its Thinking. Right thinking is reason, right reason is logic, and right logic can be used in math and other scientific methods. I don’t see religious terms Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, or Paganism as primitive but original or core elements that are different parts of world views and their supernatural/non-natural beliefs or thinking.

I am inspired by philosophy, enlightened by archaeology, and grounded by science that religion claims, on the whole, along with their magical gods, are but dogmatic propaganda, myths, and lies. To me, religions can be summed up as conspiracy theories about reality, a reality mind you is only natural and devoid of magic anything. And to me, when people talk as if Atlantis is anything real, I stop taking them seriously. Like asking about the reality of Superman or Batman just because they seem to involve metropolitan cities in their stores. Or if Mother Goose actually lived in a shoe? You got to be kidding.

We are made great in our many acts of kindness, because we rise by helping each other.

NE = Proto-North Eurasian/Ancient North Eurasian/Mal’ta–Buret’ culture/Mal’ta Boy “MA-1” 24,000 years old burial

A = Proto-Afroasiatic/Afroasiatic

Y= Proto-Yeniseian/Yeniseian

S = Samara culture

ST = Proto-Sino-Tibetan/Sino-Tibetan

T = Proto-Transeurasian/Altaic

C = Proto-Northwest Caucasus language/Northwest Caucasian/Languages of the Caucasus

I = Proto-Indo-European/Indo-European

IB = Iberomaurusian Culture/Capsian culture

Natufian culture (15,000–11,500 years ago, SyriaLebanonJordan, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Negev desert)

Proto-Uralic/Uralic languages

Nganasan people/Nganasan language

Na-Dene languages/Dené–YeniseianDené–Caucasian

Tlingit language

Proto-Semitic/Semitic languages

Sumerian language

Proto-Basque/Basque language

24,000 years ago, Proto-North Eurasian Language (Ancient North Eurasian) migrations?

My thoughts:

Proto-North Eurasian Language (Ancient North Eurasian) With related Y-DNA R1a, R1b, R2a, and Q Haplogroups.

R1b 22,0000-15,000 years ago in the Middle east creates Proto-Afroasiatic languages moving into Africa around 15,000-10,000 years ago connecting with the Iberomaurusian Culture/Taforalt near the coasts of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.

R2a 10,000 years ago in Iran brings/creates Proto-Indo-European language and also a possibility is R1a in Russia around 9,000 years ago may have had a version of Proto-Indo-European language.

Around 14,000-10,000 years ago??? Proto-North Eurasian Language goes to the Yellow River basin (eventually relating with the Yangshao culture) in China creates Proto-Sino-Tibetan language.

Proto-Sino-Tibetan language then moves to the West Liao River valley (eventually relating with the Hongshan culture) in China creating Proto-Transeurasian (Altaic) language around 9,000 years ago.

N Haplogroups 9,000 years ago with Proto-Transeurasian language possibly moves north to Lake Baikal. Then after living with Proto-North Eurasian Language 24,000-9,000 years ago?/Pre-Proto-Yeniseian language 9,000-7,000 years ago Q Haplogroups (eventually relating with the Ket language and the Ket people) until around 5,500 years ago, then N Haplogroups move north to the Taymyr Peninsula in North Siberia (Nganasan homeland) brings/creates the Proto-Uralic language.

Q Haplogroups with Proto-Yeniseian language /Proto-Na-Dene language likely emerge 8,000/7,000 years ago or so and migrates to the Middle East (either following R2a to Iraq or R1a to Russia (Samara culture) then south to Iraq creates the Sumerian language. It may have also created the Proto-Caucasian languages along the way. And Q Haplogroups with Proto-Yeniseian language to a migration to North America that relates to Na-Dené (and maybe including Haida) languages, of which the first branch was Proto-Tlingit language 5,000 years ago, in the Pacific Northwest.

Sino-Tibetan language then moves more east in China to the Hemudu culture pre-Austronesian culture, next moved to Taiwan creating the Proto-Austronesian language around 6,000-5,500 years ago.

R1b comes to Russia from the Middle East around 7,500 years ago, bringing a version of Proto-Indo-European languages to the (Samara culture), then Q Y-DNA with Proto-Yeniseian language moves south from the (Samara culture) and may have been the language that created the Proto-Caucasian language. And R1b from the (Samara culture) becomes the 4,200 years or so R1b associated with the Basques and Basque language it was taken with R1b, but language similarities with the Proto-Caucasian language implies language ties to Proto-Yeniseian language.

24,000 Years Old Proto-North Eurasian Language (Ancient North Eurasian) migrations? Became: Proto-Afroasiatic, Proto-Sino-Tibetan, Proto-Transeurasian, Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Yeniseian, Proto-Na-Dene, Proto-Caucasian, Sumerian, Proto-Austronesian, and the Basque language

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 AmericansEuropeansCentral AsiansSouth 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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Ancient North Eurasian

A 2016 study found that the global maximum of Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) ancestry occurs in modern-day KetsMansiNative Americans, and Selkups. ANE ancestry has spread throughout Eurasia and the Americas in various migrations since the Upper Paleolithic, and more than half of the world’s population today derives between 5 and 42% of their genomes from the Ancient North Eurasians. Significant ANE ancestry can be found in Native Americans, as well as in regions of northern EuropeSouth AsiaCentral Asia, and Siberia. It has been suggested that their mythology may have featured narratives shared by both Indo-European and some Native American cultures, such as the existence of a metaphysical world tree and a fable in which a dog guards the path to the afterlife.” ref

Ancient Northern East Asian/ later became Ancient Northeast Asian
Ancient Paleo-Siberian
Mal’ta–Buret’ culture (Mal’ta boy MA-1)

The Kolyma Shaitans: Legends and Reality (I only use just a small part)

“A unique “shaitan” burial was discovered on the bank of Omuk-Kuel Lake in the Middle-Kolyma ulus in Yakutia. According to the legends, buried in it are mummified remains of a shaman woman who died during a devastating smallpox epidemics in the 18th c. In an attempt to overcome the deadly disease, the shaman’s relatives used her remains as an emeget fetish. The author believes that these legends reflect the real events of those far-away years. The Arabic word “shaitan” came to the Russian language from Turkic languages. According to Islamic tradition, a shaitan is a genie, an evil spirit, a demon. During Russian colonization and Christianization of Siberia, all sacred things used by the aborigines as fetishes, patron spirits of the family, and the tribe, grew to be called “shaitans.” There are various facts, dating to the 18th and 19th cc., confirming that this word also referred to the mummified remains of outstanding shamans.” ref

“In the 1740s, a member of the Second Kamchatka Expedition Yakov Lindenau wrote, “Meat is scratched off the [shaman’s] bones and the bones are put together to form a skeleton, which is dressed in human’s clothes and worshipped as a deity. The Yukagirs place such dressed bones…in their yurts, their number can sometimes reach 10 or 15. If somebody commits even a minor sacrilege with respect to these bones, he stirs up rancor on the part of the Yukagirs… While traveling and hunting, the Yukagirs carry these bones in their sledges, and moreover, in their best sledges pulled by their best deer. When the Yukagirs are going to undertake something really important, they tell fortune using these skeletons: lift a skeleton up, and if it seems light, it means that their enterprise will have a favorable outcome. The Yukagirs call these skeletons stariks (old men), endow them with their best furs, and sit them on beds covered with deer hides, in a circle, as though they are alive.” (Lindenau, 1983, p. 155)” ref

“In the late 19th c., a famous explorer of aboriginal culture V. I. Jochelson noted the changes that occurred in the ritual in the last century and a half. So, the Yukagirs divided among themselves the shaman’s meat dried in the sun and then put it in separate tents. The dead bodies of killed dogs were left there as well. “After that,” V. I. Jochelson writes, “they would divide the shaman’s bones, dry them and wrap in clothes. The skull was an object of worshipping. It was put on top of a trunk (body) cut out of wood. A caftan and two hats – a winter and a summer one – were sewn for the idol. The caftan was all embroidered. On the skull, a special mask was put, with holes for the eyes and the mouth… The figure was placed in the front corner of the home. Before a meal, a piece of food was thrown into the fire and the idol was held above it. This feeding of the idol… was committed before each meal.” (V. I. Jochelson, 2005, pp. 236—237)” ref

“The idol was kept by the children of the dead shaman. One of them was inducted into the shamanism mysteries while his father was still alive. The idol was carried in a wooden box. Sometimes, in line with the air burial ritual, the box was erected on poles or trees, and the idol was taken out only before hunting or a long journey so that the outcome of the enterprise planned could be predicted. With time, the Yukagirs began using wooden idols as charms. V. I. Jochelson notes that by the late 19th c. the Yukagirs had developed a skeptical attitude towards idols and referred to them as “shaitans.” In this way, under the influence of Christianity, the worshipped ancestor’s spirit turned into its opposite – an evil spirit, a devil, a Satan.” ref

Ancestral Native AmericanAncient Beringian

14,000-year-old Ust-Kyakhta-3 (UKY) individual found near Lake Baikal

Amur River Region

Chertovy Vorota Cave/Devil’s Gate Cave

Afanasievo culture

Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex

32,000-21,000 years ago Yana Culture, at the Yana Woolly Rhinoceros Horn Site in Siberia, with genetic proximity to Ancient North Eurasian populations (Mal’ta and Afontova Gora), but also Ust-Ishim, Sunghir, and to a lesser extent Tianyuan, as well as similarities with the Clovis culture

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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

Religion ideas moved both directly by movements or migrations of people as well as by trade or transfer not related to migration. I see actual movements or migrations having more influence on the similar religion beliefs, to me. But both were involved in how religions evolved.

My thoughts on Mound origins, in seeming Shell Mounds, and likely religious beliefs in Primordial Waters, Earth Diver Myths, and Mound of Creation, centering on Siberia: Golden Mountains of Altai and Lake Baikal areas

Letchworth-Love Mounds site photo by Shayna Marie AtHope

“Damien, “shell mounds” are trash, how can you think they relate with mounds like pyramids?”

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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

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

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

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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The earliest centers of pottery origin in the Russian Far East and Siberia: Review of chronology for the oldest Neolithic cultures

“Abstract: The earliest pottery from the Russian Far East, Osipovka and Gromatukha cultural complexes, was radiocarbon-dated to c. 13,300-12,300 years ago. In Siberia, the earliest pottery is known from the Ust-Karenga complex, dated to c. 11,200-10,800 years ago. The Osipovka and Gromatukha complexes belong to the Initial Neolithic, and they are contemporaneous with the earliest Neolithic cultures in southern China and Japan. In spite of the very early emergence of pottery in the Russian Far East, there is no evidence of agriculture at the beginning of the Neolithic, and subsistence remains based on hunting and fishing, including anadromous salmonids in the Amur River and its tributaries.” ref

The earliest Neolithic complex in Siberia: the Ust-Karenga 12 site and its significance for the Neolithisation process in Eurasia

“Abstract: The discovery of Neolithic (i.e. pottery-containing) components at the Ust-Karenga 12 site in northern Transbaikal brought to light new data on the appearance of pottery in Siberia. Excavations and geoarchaeological studies identified the pottery complex in layer 7, 14C-dated to c. 12,180–10,750 years ago (charcoal dates) and c. 11,070–10,600 years ago (pottery organics dates). The pottery is thin and plant fibre-tempered; vessels are round-bottomed and with a comb-pattern design. Ust-Karenga 12 thus preserves by far the earliest Neolithic assemblage in Siberia, and is only slightly younger than the Initial Neolithic complexes of the Amur River basin, Russian Far East (c. 13,300–12,400 years ago).” ref

I think the “kurgan Origin” is found in “Stratified Ritual Mounds”
“From the later seventh-millennium cal BCE, in west Siberia, a new site type emerged in this period, the large, stratified mound (Russian kholm), with examples reaching 50m in diameter and up to 6m in height. These Mounds are characterized by unusual features such as groups of human skulls, clay figurines, bone and antler, hearths, and post-row structures, and are interpreted as ritual or sacrificial sites.”  ref
“A kurgan is a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses. Some scepter graves could have been covered with a tumulus, placing the first kurgans as early as the 5th millennium BCE in Eastern Europe. Within the burial chamber at the heart of the kurgan, elite individuals were buried with grave goods and sacrificial offerings, sometimes including horses and chariots. These structures are of the earlier Neolithic period from the 4th to the 3rd millenniums BCE.” ref

I think the “kurgan Origin” is found in “Stratified Ritual Mounds”

“From the later seventh-millennium cal BCE, in west Siberia, a new site type emerged in this period, the large, stratified mound (Russian kholm), with examples reaching 50m in diameter and up to 6m in height. These Mounds are characterized by unusual features such as groups of human skulls, clay figurines, bone and antler, hearths, and post-row structures, and are interpreted as ritual or sacrificial sites.” ref

“A kurgan is a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses. Some scepter graves could have been covered with a tumulus, placing the first kurgans as early as the 5th millennium BCE in Eastern Europe. Within the burial chamber at the heart of the kurgan, elite individuals were buried with grave goods and sacrificial offerings, sometimes including horses and chariots. These structures are of the earlier Neolithic period from the 4th to the 3rd millenniums BCE.” ref

Ritual Mound Migrations: Kurgans, Dolmens, and later Pyramids likely all trace back to Siberia, helping show how Yeniseian languages, may have influenced Proto-Indo-European languages

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Early Russian Pottery in Cisbaikal Kitoi culture 7,500 years ago, Samara culture 7,000 years ago, and Yamnaya culture 5,600–4,600 years ago, as well as Proto-Indo-European emergence

“The area east of Lake Baikal in Siberia is one of the few regions in Eurasia where pottery was already used during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. Such early pottery complexes were identified in Ust’-Karenga XII, Studenoye 1, Ust’-Menza 1, and Ust’-Khyakhta 3, dated at about 12-000-11,000 years ago. While around 20,000 years ago East Asian hunter-gatherers were already making ceramic pots. (It seems to Damien) that ceramics spread continually from the earliest centers in China, then Japan, and next the Russian Far East, lastly towards the west, all the way to Europe. ref 

Early Russian Pottery in Cisbaikal Kitoi culture 7,500 years ago, Samara culture 7,000 years ago, and Yamnaya culture 5,600–4,600 years ago, as well as Proto-Indo-European emergence

The Mytheme of Ancient North Eurasian Sacred-Dog belief and similar motifs are found in Indo-European, Native American, and Siberian comparative mythology

FOLKLORE PARALLELS BETWEEN SIBERIA AND SOUTH ASIA AND THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE EURASIAN STEPPES*

“According to the myth about the origin of man recorded among the people of Eastern Europe and Siberia, the creator set a dog to guard the half-made human figures, but the antagonist bribed the guard and spoiled the creation, making humans vulnerable to disease. The creator told the dog to become the servant of man. Texts recorded in India (mostly among the Munda-speaking groups), the Dards of the Hindu Kush and the Abkhasians, though partly similar to the Northern Eurasian ones, do not share some important details: the antagonist is a horse, it tried to destroy man but a dog drove it away. In the Mongolian (more precisely, the Oirat) version, a cow acts instead of a horse, but in other respects, this variant is similar to the Abkhasian ones. Negative associations related to the horse are rather widespread
in Europe and Central Asia. Stories about the creation of man recorded in northern and southern Eurasia stemmed from the anthropogenic myth that was known to the Indo-Europeans of the Bronze Age. South Asia and the European–Siberian zone also share other tales, in particular the Earth-diver myth. Their analysis opens possibilities for reconstructing the early mythology of the inhabitants of the Eurasian steppe.” ref

Comparative Mythology

Since the term ‘Ancient North Eurasian’ refers to a genetic bridge of connected mating networks, scholars of comparative mythology have argued that they probably shared myths and beliefs that could be reconstructed via the comparison of stories attested within cultures that were not in contact for millennia and stretched from the Pontic–Caspian steppe to the American continent. The mytheme of the dog guarding the Otherworld possibly stems from an older Ancient North Eurasian belief, as suggested by similar motifs found in Indo-European, Native American and Siberian mythology. In Siouan, Algonquian, Iroquoian, and in Central and South American beliefs, a fierce guard dog was located in the Milky Way, perceived as the path of souls in the afterlife, and getting past it was a test.” ref

“The Siberian Chukchi and Tungus believed in a guardian-of-the-afterlife dog and a spirit dog that would absorb the dead man’s soul and act as a guide in the afterlife. In Indo-European myths, the figure of the dog is embodied by Cerberus, Sarvarā, and Garmr. In Zoroastrianism, two four-eyed dogs guard the bridge to the afterlife called Chinvat Bridge. Anthony and Brown note that it might be one of the oldest mythemes recoverable through comparative mythology.” ref

“A second canid-related series of beliefs, myths and rituals connected dogs with healing rather than death. For instance, Ancient Near Eastern and TurkicKipchaq myths are prone to associate dogs with healing and generally categorised dogs as impure. A similar myth-pattern is assumed for the Eneolithic site of Botai in Kazakhstan, dated to 3500 BC, which might represent the dog as absorber of illness and guardian of the household against disease and evil. In Mesopotamia, the goddess Nintinugga, associated with healing, was accompanied or symbolized by dogs. Similar absorbent-puppy healing and sacrifice rituals were practiced in Greece and Italy, among the Hittites, again possibly influenced by Near Eastern traditions.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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7,000-year-old Leopard (Or Dog?)  Temples of Uvda basin in southern Israel

“7,000-year-old Leopard Temple of Uvda, in the Uvda basin in the desert of southern Israel. Uvda (Hebrew: עובדה) is the name of a region in the southern Negev desert, directly north of Eilat. The name derives from the Hebrew word uvda (meaning fact). The Uvda Valley is known for the 7000-year-old Leopard Temple archaeological site. They also began to worship something, perhaps the sun, perhaps their own ancestors, and intriguingly, perhaps the local scourge, the wild leopard.” refref

 “Uvda Valley Site 6, “stone drawings” of 15 leopards and one oryx, next to an open-air sanctuary, a vertical view (small stones indicate reconstruction).” ref

Jebel Ḥashem al-Taref, eastern Sinai, three examples of “stone drawings” built next to pairs of open-air sanctuaries: (a) Excavated; (b,c) Unexcavated, dark stones—vertically set, light stones—fallen. Radiometric dates available to date from open sanctuaries are of the 6th and 5th millennia BCE. Nevertheless, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B flint items were also found in some of them (8th–7th millennia BCE), while other finds indicate continuation through the third millennium BCE, even the early second (Middle Bronze Age).” ref

All open sanctuaries were built next to ancient roads (Figure 21c and Figure 27), while clusters of sanctuaries were built next to road junctions, for example, a cluster of 33 open sanctuaries near Jebel Ḥashem al-Taref in Sinai, 35 km west of Eilat; 4 pairs of sanctuaries at Ramat Saharonim; and 28 sanctuaries near Har Tzuriʻaz, in the southern Negev. Some sanctuaries were built in burial sites, also located next to ancient roads and road junctions.” ref

“Like the maṣṣeboth, the numbers of recorded open sanctuaries allow identification of ten different types and repetitive patterns (Figure 28) that enable analysis of characteristics’ frequencies. Commonly, they are found as singles, but also in pairs and triads. The most common type of pairs consists of the two dominant individual types. One is rectangular, on average ca. 20 × 10 m, with an elongated cell at its back, ca. 1 m wide and 60–80 cm high, usually built of vertically set large stones and filled in with even, medium-sized stones (Figure 28, Figure 29, and Figure 31).” ref
If excavated, a small vase-shaped installation may be found inside (Figure 29) or a group of small maṣṣeboth (Figure 29). The second type is smaller, usually closer to a square, with no elongated cell, but with a circular cell in the center (Figure 30). If excavated, a maṣṣebah may be found in the circle (Figure 30). To date, 26 pairs of sanctuaries, consisting of these two dominant types, are known, from six different sites. All these pairs follow the same pattern: the smaller sanctuary is built on the viewer’s right side, and is slightly set back (Figure 31 and Figure 32).” ref
“Since the pattern of this type of sanctuaries pair is consistent, it must bear some underlying concept. First, their arrangement is paralleled by the left–right order of sizes of the dominant pairs of maṣṣeboth (Figure 14a, Figure 17a and Figure 31) and by the way that most pairs of deities, kings, and nobles were presented in ancient art (Figure 17 and Figure 31). This may mean that the left-side, larger sanctuary (in the beholder’s view) housed a male god, while the right-side, smaller sanctuary housed a goddess. Like in the dominant pairs of maṣṣeboth, in the eyes of the deities within the sanctuaries, the goddess is positioned on the god’s left. The set-back position of the smaller sanctuary recalls artistic presentations of some pairs of kings and nobles, mainly from Egypt, e.g., Menkaure and Khemerernebty, the king and queen of Egypt in the mid-third millennium BCE (Figure 31).” ref

“This is also the female’s position in the drawing of a couple from Kuntilat ʻAjrud (Figure 17), slightly behind the male, presented as standing on a higher-like level, and her right leg is hidden behind the male’s left leg. Many open sanctuaries are circular, (Figure 21Figure 28, and Figure 33). Most of them are 6–18 m in diameter, but tiny circular sanctuaries are also known, ca. 3 m in diameter (Figure 33), as well as large circular cult enclosures up to 70 m in diameter (Figure 33b). Stone alignments are attached to most of the circular sanctuaries, mainly in the form of “ladders,” which are chains of square cells made of a single line of stones or of small flagstones set vertically into the ground (Figure 34 and  Figure 36). Their length ranges from a few meters to 78 m, and they present one of the combination of lines and circles.” ref

Anubis

Anubis, also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian (Coptic: ⲁⲛⲟⲩⲡ, romanized: Anoup), is the god of funerary rites, protector of graves, and guide to the underworld, in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depicted as a canine or a man with a canine headLike many ancient Egyptian deities, Anubis assumed different roles in various contexts. Depicted as a protector of graves as early as the First Dynasty (c. 3100 – c. 2890 BCE), Anubis was also an embalmer. By the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BCE) he was replaced by Osiris in his role as lord of the underworld. One of his prominent roles was as a god who ushered souls into the afterlife. He attended the weighing scale during the “Weighing of the Heart”, in which it was determined whether a soul would be allowed to enter the realm of the dead.” ref

“Anubis is one of the most frequently depicted and mentioned gods in the Egyptian pantheon; however, no relevant myth involved him. Anubis was depicted in black, a color that symbolized regeneration, life, the soil of the Nile River, and the discoloration of the corpse after embalming. Anubis is associated with his brother Wepwawet, another Egyptian god portrayed with a dog’s head or in canine form, but with grey or white fur. Historians assume that the two figures were eventually combined. Anubis’ female counterpart is Anput. His daughter is the serpent goddess Kebechet.” ref

“Anubis” is a Greek rendering of this god’s Egyptian name. Before the Greeks arrived in Egypt, around the 7th century BC, the god was known as Anpu or Inpu. The root of the name in ancient Egyptian language means “a royal child.” Inpu has a root to “inp”, which means “to decay.” The god was also known as “First of the Westerners,” “Lord of the Sacred Land,” “He Who is Upon his Sacred Mountain,” “Ruler of the Nine Bows,” “The Dog who Swallows Millions,” “Master of Secrets,” “He Who is in the Place of Embalming,” and “Foremost of the Divine Booth.” The positions that he had were also reflected in the titles he held such as “He Who Is upon His Mountain,” “Lord of the Sacred Land,” “Foremost of the Westerners,” and “He Who Is in the Place of Embalming.” ref

In Egypt’s Early Dynastic period (c. 3100 – c. 2686 BCE), Anubis was portrayed in full animal form, with a “jackal” head and body. A jackal god, probably Anubis, is depicted in stone inscriptions from the reigns of Hor-Aha, Djer, and other pharaohs of the First Dynasty. Since Predynastic Egypt, when the dead were buried in shallow graves, jackals had been strongly associated with cemeteries because they were scavengers which uncovered human bodies and ate their flesh. In the spirit of “fighting like with like,” a jackal was chosen to protect the dead, because “a common problem (and cause of concern) must have been the digging up of bodies, shortly after burial, by jackals and other wild dogs which lived on the margins of the cultivation.” ref

“In the Old Kingdom, Anubis was the most important god of the dead. He was replaced in that role by Osiris during the Middle Kingdom (2000–1700 BCE). In the Roman era, which started in 30 BCE, tomb paintings depict him holding the hand of deceased persons to guide them to Osiris. The parentage of Anubis varied between myths, times and sources. In early mythology, he was portrayed as a son of Ra. In the Coffin Texts, which were written in the First Intermediate Period (c. 2181–2055 BCE), Anubis is the son of either the cow goddess Hesat or the cat-headed Bastet. Another tradition depicted him as the son of Ra and Nephthys.” ref

“The Greek Plutarch (c. 40–120 AD) reported a tradition that Anubis was the illegitimate son of Nephthys and Osiris, but that he was adopted by Osiris’s wife Isis:

For when Isis found out that Osiris loved her sister and had relations with her in mistaking her sister for herself, and when she saw a proof of it in the form of a garland of clover that he had left to Nephthys – she was looking for a baby, because Nephthys abandoned it at once after it had been born for fear of Set; and when Isis found the baby helped by the dogs which with great difficulties lead her there, she raised him and he became her guard and ally by the name of Anubis.” ref

George Hart sees this story as an “attempt to incorporate the independent deity Anubis into the Osirian pantheon.” An Egyptian papyrus from the Roman period (30–380 CE) simply called Anubis the “son of Isis.” In Nubia, Anubis was seen as the husband of his mother Nephthys. In the Ptolemaic period (350–30 BCE), when Egypt became a Hellenistic kingdom ruled by Greek pharaohs, Anubis was merged with the Greek god Hermes, becoming Hermanubis. The two gods were considered similar because they both guided souls to the afterlife.” ref

“The center of this cult was in uten-ha/Sa-ka/ Cynopolis, a place whose Greek name means “city of dogs.” In Book XI of The Golden Ass by Apuleius, there is evidence that the worship of this god was continued in Rome through at least the 2nd century. Indeed, Hermanubis also appears in the alchemical and hermetical literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Although the Greeks and Romans typically scorned Egyptian animal-headed gods as bizarre and primitive (Anubis was mockingly called “Barker” by the Greeks), Anubis was sometimes associated with Sirius in the heavens and Cerberus and Hades in the underworld.  In his dialogues, Plato often has Socrates utter oaths “by the dog” (Greek: kai me ton kuna), “by the dog of Egypt”, and “by the dog, the god of the Egyptians”, both for emphasis and to appeal to Anubis as an arbiter of truth in the underworld.” ref

Anubis Roles

Embalmer

As jmy-wt (Imiut or the Imiut fetish) “He who is in the place of embalming“, Anubis was associated with mummification. He was also called ḫnty zḥ-nṯr “He who presides over the god’s booth”, in which “booth” could refer either to the place where embalming was carried out or the pharaoh’s burial chamber. In the Osiris myth, Anubis helped Isis to embalm Osiris. Indeed, when the Osiris myth emerged, it was said that after Osiris had been killed by Set, Osiris’s organs were given to Anubis as a gift. With this connection, Anubis became the patron god of embalmers; during the rites of mummification, illustrations from the Book of the Dead often show a wolf-mask-wearing priest supporting the upright mummy.” ref

Protector of tombs

Anubis was a protector of graves and cemeteries. Several epithets attached to his name in Egyptian texts and inscriptions referred to that role. Khenty-Amentiu, which means “foremost of the westerners” and was also the name of a different canine funerary god, alluded to his protecting function because the dead were usually buried on the west bank of the Nile. He took other names in connection with his funerary role, such as tpy-ḏw.f (Tepy-djuef) “He who is upon his mountain” (i.e. keeping guard over tombs from above) and nb-t3-ḏsr (Neb-ta-djeser) “Lord of the sacred land”, which designates him as a god of the desert necropolis.” ref

“The Jumilhac papyrus recounts another tale where Anubis protected the body of Osiris from Set. Set attempted to attack the body of Osiris by transforming himself into a leopard. Anubis stopped and subdued Set, however, and he branded Set’s skin with a hot iron rod. Anubis then flayed Set and wore his skin as a warning against evil-doers who would desecrate the tombs of the dead. Priests who attended to the dead wore leopard skin in order to commemorate Anubis’ victory over Set. The legend of Anubis branding the hide of Set in leopard form was used to explain how the leopard got its spots. Most ancient tombs had prayers to Anubis carved on them.” ref

Guide of Dead Souls

“By the late pharaonic era (664–332 BCE), Anubis was often depicted as guiding individuals across the threshold from the world of the living to the afterlife. Though a similar role was sometimes performed by the cow-headed Hathor, Anubis was more commonly chosen to fulfill that function. Greek writers from the Roman period of Egyptian history designated that role as that of “psychopomp“, a Greek term meaning “guide of souls” that they used to refer to their own god Hermes, who also played that role in Greek religion. Funerary art from that period represents Anubis guiding either men or women dressed in Greek clothes into the presence of Osiris, who by then had long replaced Anubis as ruler of the underworld.” ref

Weigher of hearts

One of the roles of Anubis was as the “Guardian of the Scales.” The critical scene depicting the weighing of the heart, in the Book of the Dead, shows Anubis performing a measurement that determined whether the person was worthy of entering the realm of the dead (the underworld, known as Duat). By weighing the heart of a deceased person against ma’at, who was often represented as an ostrich feather, Anubis dictated the fate of souls. Souls heavier than a feather would be devoured by Ammit, and souls lighter than a feather would ascend to a heavenly existence.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Proto-Indo-European mythology

Sumerian religion/ Mesopotamian mythology

Egyptian mythology

Greek mythology

Hindu mythology

Buddhist mythology

Hell and Underworld mythologies, commonly inhabited by torturous demons and the souls of dead sent to suffer, from Proto-Indo-European, Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, Hinduism, and Buddhism 

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“The new study appears to align with the spread of Indo-European languages and was closely tied to the diffusion of agriculture from Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) around 8,000 to 9,500 years ago.” ref

World’s oldest known fort was constructed by hunter-gatherers 8,000 years ago in Siberia

The fact that this Stone Age fort was built by hunter-gatherers is transforming our understanding of ancient human societies. Hunter-gatherers built the oldest known fort in the world about 8,000 years ago in Siberia, a new study finds. Archaeologists have long associated fortresses with permanent agricultural settlements. However, this cluster of fortified structures reveals that prehistoric groups were constructing protective edifices much earlier than originally thought.” ref

“These hunter-gatherers “defy conventional stereotypes that depict such societies as basic and nomadic, unveiling their capacity to construct intricate structures,” study co-author Tanja Schreiber, an archaeologist at Free University of Berlin, told Live Science in an email. Located along the Amnya River in western Siberia, remains of the Amnya fort include roughly 20 pit-house depressions scattered across the site, which is divided into two sections: Amnya I and Amnya II. Radiocarbon dating confirmed that the settlement was first inhabited during the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, according to the study. When constructed, each pit house would have been protected by earthen walls and wooden palisades — two construction elements that suggest “advanced agricultural and defensive capabilities” by the inhabitants, the archaeologists said in a statement.” ref

“One of the Amnya fort’s most astonishing aspects is the discovery that approximately 8,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers in the Siberian Taiga built intricate defense structures,” Schreiber said. “This challenges traditional assumptions that monumental constructions were solely the work of agricultural communities.” It’s unknown what triggered the need for these fortified structures in the first place, but the strategic location overlooking the river would have not only been an ideal lookout point for potential threats but also allowed hunter-gatherers to keep tabs on their fishing and hunting grounds, the researchers noted.” ref

Samara culture

The Samara culture was an Eneolithic (Copper Age) culture that flourished around the turn of the 5th millennium BCE, at the Samara Bend of the Volga River (modern Russia). The Samara culture is regarded as related to contemporaneous or subsequent prehistoric cultures of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, such as the KhvalynskRepin, and Yamna (or Yamnaya) cultures.” ref

“Genetic analyses of a male buried at Lebyazhinka, radiocarbon dated to 5640-5555 BCE, found that he belonged to a population often referred to as “Samara hunter-gatherers”, a group closely associated with Eastern Hunter-Gatherers. The male sample carried Y-haplogroup R1b1a1a and mitochondrial haplogroup U5a1d.” ref

“Pottery consists mainly of egg-shaped beakers with pronounced rims. They were not able to stand on a flat surface, suggesting that some method of supporting or carrying must have been in use, perhaps basketry or slings, for which the rims would have been a useful point of support. The carrier slung the pots over the shoulder or onto an animal. The decoration consists of circumferential motifs: lines, bands, zig-zags, or wavy lines, incised, stabbed, or impressed with a comb. These patterns are best understood when seen from the top. They appear then to be a solar motif, with the mouth of the pot as the sun. Later developments of this theme show that in fact the sun is being represented.” ref

“The culture is characterized by the remains of animal sacrifice, which occur over most of the sites. There is no indisputable evidence of riding, but there were horse burials, the earliest in the Old World. Typically the head and hooves of cattle, sheep, and horses are placed in shallow bowls over the human grave, smothered with ochre. Some have seen the beginning of the horse sacrifice in these remains, but this interpretation has not been more definitely substantiated. We know that the Indo-Europeans sacrificed both animals and people, like many other cultures.” ref

“The graves found are shallow pits for single individuals, but two or three individuals might be placed there. Some of the graves are covered with a stone cairn or a low earthen mound, the very first predecessor of the kurgan. The later, fully developed kurgan was a hill on which the deceased chief might ascend to the sky god, but whether these early mounds had that significance is doubtful.” ref

“Grave offerings included ornaments depicting horses. The graves also had an overburden of horse remains; it cannot yet be determined decisively if these horses were domesticated and ridden or not, but they were certainly used as a meat-animal. Most controversial are bone plaques of horses or double oxen heads, which were pierced. The graves yield well-made daggers of flint and bone, placed at the arm or head of the deceased, one in the grave of a small boy. Weapons in the graves of children are common later. Other weapons are bone spearheads and flint arrowheads. Other carved bone figurines and pendants were found in the graves.” ref

Yamnaya culture

“The Yamnaya culture or the Yamna culture, also known as the Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, was a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers (the Pontic–Caspian steppe), dating to 3300–2600 BCE or around 5,300 to 4,600 years ago. It was discovered by Vasily Gorodtsov following his archaeological excavations near the Donets River in 1901–1903. Its name derives from its characteristic burial tradition: Я́мная (romanization: yamnaya) is a Russian adjective that means ‘related to pits (yama)’, as these people used to bury their dead in tumuli (kurgans) containing simple pit chambers.” ref

“The Yamnaya economy was based upon animal husbandry, fishing, and foraging, and the manufacture of ceramics, tools, and weapons. The people of the Yamnaya culture lived primarily as nomads, with a chiefdom system and wheeled carts and wagons that allowed them to manage large herds. They are also closely connected to Final Neolithic cultures, which later spread throughout Europe and Central Asia, especially the Corded Ware people and the Bell Beaker culture, as well as the peoples of the Sintashta, Andronovo, and Srubnaya cultures.” ref

“Back migration from Corded Ware also contributed to Sintashta and Andronovo. In these groups, several aspects of the Yamnaya culture are present. Yamnaya material culture was very similar to the Afanasevo culture of South Siberia, and the populations of both cultures are genetically indistinguishable. This suggests that the Afanasevo culture may have originated from the migration of Yamnaya groups to the Altai region or, alternatively, that both cultures developed from an earlier shared cultural source.” ref

“Genetic studies have suggested that the people of the Yamnaya culture can be modelled as a genetic admixture between a population related to Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers (EHG) and people related to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus (CHG) in roughly equal proportions, an ancestral component which is often named “Steppe ancestry”, with additional admixture from Anatolian, Levantine, or Early European farmers. Genetic studies also indicate that populations associated with the Corded Ware, Bell Beaker, Sintashta, and Andronovo cultures derived large parts of their ancestry from the Yamnaya or a closely related population.” ref

“The origin of the Yamnaya culture continues to be debated, with proposals for its origins pointing to both the Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog cultures. The Khvalynsk culture (4700–3800 BCE) (middle Volga) and the Don-based Repin culture (c. 3950–3300 BCE) in the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe, and the closely related Sredny Stog culture (c. 4500–3500 BCE) in the western Pontic-Caspian steppe, preceded the Yamnaya culture (3300–2500 BCE). The Yamnaya culture was succeeded in its western range by the Catacomb culture (2800–2200 BCE); in the east, by the Poltavka culture (2700–2100 BCE) at the middle Volga. These two cultures were followed by the Srubnaya culture (18th–12th century BCE).” ref

“Further efforts to pinpoint the location came from Anthony (2007), who suggested that the Yamnaya culture (3300–2600 BCE) originated in the DonVolga area at c. 3400 BCE, preceded by the middle Volga-based Khvalynsk culture and the Don-based Repin culture (c. 3950–3300 BCE), arguing that late pottery from these two cultures can barely be distinguished from early Yamnaya pottery. Earlier continuity from eneolithic but largely hunter-gatherer Samara culture and influences from the more agricultural Dnieper–Donets II are apparent.” ref

He argues that the early Yamnaya horizon spread quickly across the Pontic–Caspian steppes between c. 3400 and 3200 BCE:

The spread of the Yamnaya horizon was the material expression of the spread of late Proto-Indo-European across the Pontic–Caspian steppes.
[…] The Yamnaya horizon is the visible archaeological expression of a social adjustment to high mobility – the invention of the political infrastructure to manage larger herds from mobile homes based in the steppes.” ref

“Alternatively, Parpola (2015) relates both the Corded ware culture and the Yamnaya culture to the late Trypillia (Tripolye) culture. He hypothesizes that “the Tripolye culture was taken over by PIE speakers by c. 4000 BCE,” and that in its final phase the Trypillian culture expanded to the steppes, morphing into various regional cultures which fused with the late Sredny Stog (Serednii Stih) pastoralist cultures, which, he suggests, gave rise to the Yamnaya culture. Dmytro Telegin viewed Sredny Stog and Yamna as one cultural continuum and considered Sredny Stog to be the genetic foundation of the Yamna.” ref

“The Yamnaya culture was nomadic or semi-nomadic, with some agriculture practiced near rivers, and a few fortified sites, the largest of which is Mikhaylivka. Characteristic for the culture are the burials in pit graves under kurgans (tumuli), often accompanied by animal offerings. Some graves contain large anthropomorphic stelae, with carved human heads, arms, hands, belts, and weapons. The dead bodies were placed in a supine position with bent knees and covered in ochre. Some kurgans contained “stratified sequences of graves.” ref

“Kurgan burials may have been rare, and were perhaps reserved for special adults, who were predominantly, but not necessarily, male. Status and gender are marked by grave goods and position, and in some areas, elite individuals are buried with complete wooden wagons. Grave goods are more common in eastern Yamnaya burials, which are also characterized by a higher proportion of male burials and more male-centred rituals than western areas.” ref

“The Yamnaya culture had and used two-wheeled carts and four-wheeled wagons, which are thought to have been oxen-drawn at this time, and there is evidence that they rode horses. For instance, several Yamnaya skeletons exhibit specific characteristics in their bone morphology that may have been caused by long-term horseriding. Metallurgists and other craftsmen are given a special status in Yamnaya society, and metal objects are sometimes found in large quantities in elite graves.” ref

“New metalworking technologies and weapon designs are used. Stable isotope ratios of Yamna individuals from the Dnipro Valley suggest the Yamnaya diet was terrestrial protein based with insignificant contribution from freshwater or aquatic resources. Anthony speculates that the Yamnaya ate meat, milk, yogurt, cheese, and soups made from seeds and wild vegetables, and probably consumed mead.” ref

“Mallory and Adams suggest that Yamnaya society may have had a tripartite structure of three differentiated social classes, although the evidence available does not demonstrate the existence of specific classes such as priests, warriors, and farmers.” ref

“According to Jones et al. (2015) and Haak et al. (2015), autosomal tests indicate that the Yamnaya people were the result of a genetic admixture between two different hunter-gatherer populations: distinctive “Eastern Hunter-Gatherers” (EHG), from Eastern Europe, with high affinity to the Mal’ta–Buret’ culture or other, closely related people from Siberia and a population of “Caucasus hunter-gatherers” (CHG) who probably arrived from the Caucasus or Iran. Each of those two populations contributed about half the Yamnaya DNA. This admixture is referred to in archaeogenetics as Western Steppe Herder (WSH) ancestry.” ref

“Admixture between EHGs and CHGs is believed to have occurred on the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe starting around 5,000 BCE, while admixture with Early European Farmers (EEF) happened in the southern parts of the Pontic-Caspian steppe sometime later. More recent genetic studies have found that the Yamnaya were a mixture of EHGs, CHGs, and to a lesser degree Anatolian farmers and Levantine farmers, but not EEFs from Europe due to lack of WHG DNA in the Yamnaya. This occurred in two distinct admixture events from West Asia into the Pontic-Caspian steppe.” ref

Haplogroup R1b, specifically the Z2103 subclade of R1b-L23, is the most common Y-DNA haplogroup found among the Yamnaya specimens. This haplogroup is rare in Western Europe and mainly exists in Southeastern Europe today. Additionally, a minority are found to belong to haplogroup I2. They are found to belong to a wider variety of West Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups, including U, T, and haplogroups associated with Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers and Early European Farmers. A small but significant number of Yamnaya kurgan specimens from Northern Ukraine carried the East Asian mtDNA haplogroup C4.” ref

“In 2014, a study discovered a new mtDNA subclade C1f from the remains of 3 people found in north-western Russia and dated to 7,500 years ago. The subclades C1b, C1c, C1d, and C4c are found in the first people of the Americas. C1a is found only in Asia.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

“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

refrefrefrefrefref, refrefrefrefrefrefrefrefrefref

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

List of Periods and Events in Climate History

* “12,800–11,500 years ago Younger Dryas sudden cold and dry period in Northern Hemisphere ref

The Younger Dryas (YD) was a period in Earth’s geologic history that occurred circa 12,900 to 11,700 years ago. The two earlier geologic periods where this flower was abundant in Europe are the Oldest Dryas (approx. 18,500-14,000 years ago) and Older Dryas (~14,050–13,900 years ago), respectively. Younger Dryas ended when the entire globe had warmed consistently, which marks the beginning of the current Holocene epoch. The Younger Dryas was globally synchronous or very nearly so. However, the magnitude of the drop in global mean surface temperature was modest; the Younger Dryas was not a global relapse into peak glacial conditions. A decline in evidence for Natufian hunter-gatherer permanent settlements in the Levant, suggesting a reversion to a more mobile way of life.” ref 

“Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) denotes the first stage of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, in early Levantine and Anatolian Neolithic culture, dating to c. 12,000 – c. 10,800 years ago, that is, 10,000–8800 BCE. Archaeological remains are located in the Levantine and Upper Mesopotamian regions of the Fertile Crescent. Granaries were positioned in places between other buildings early on c. 11,500 years ago; however, beginning around 10,500 years ago, they were moved inside houses, and by 9,500 years ago, storage occurred in special rooms. This change might reflect changing systems of ownership and property as granaries shifted from communal use and ownership to becoming under the control of households or individuals.” ref

“As of 2013 Gesher, modern Israel, became the earliest known of all known Neolithic sites (PPNA), with a calibrated Carbon 14 date of 10,459 BCE or 12,459 years ago, analysis suggesting that it may have been the starting point of a Neolithic Revolution. A contemporary site is Mureybet in modern SyriaWith more sites becoming known, archaeologists have defined a number of regional variants of Pre-Pottery Neolithic A:

  • Mureybetian in the Northern Levant, defined by the finds from Mureybet IIIA, IIIB, typical: Helwan points, sickle-blades with base amenagée or short stem and terminal retouch. Other sites include Sheyk Hasan and Jerf el Ahmar.
  • Sites in “Upper Mesopotamia” include Çayönü and Göbekli Tepe, with the latter possibly being the oldest ritual complex yet discovered.” ref

“11,500 years ago, agricultural development.”

“While humans started gathering grains at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers only began planting them around 11,500 years ago in the Fertile Crescent. Sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle were domesticated around 10,000 years ago. Sheep were domesticated in Mesopotamia between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago. Rice was domesticated in China between 11,500 years ago. Sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle were domesticated by around 10,000 years ago.” ref

“Agriculture is defined with varying scopes, in its broadest sense using natural resources to “produce commodities which maintain life, including food, fiber, forest products, horticultural crops, and their related services.” Thus defined, it includes arable farming, horticulture, animal husbandry, and forestry, but horticulture and forestry are, in practice, often excluded. It may also be broadly decomposed into plant agriculture, which concerns the cultivation of useful plants, and animal agriculture, the production of agricultural animals.” ref

Slavery and power are connected, and predate written records and have existed in many cultures. Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations because it requires economic surpluses and a substantial population density. 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.” ref

Mace heads and the rise of power: archaeological evidence available so far has revealed that the earliest mace heads first appeared in the Near East about 10,000 years ago. along with the early development and spread of agriculture. After that, mace heads began to spread throughout the ancient world: southward to the Ancient Egypt Kingdom in North Africa, northwest to Europe, and then to the Eurasian steppe of central Asia and Siberia. Eventually, this movement gradually arrived in the Northwestern region of China. The earliest mace head examples come from the Near East during the PPNA period. An early example is the stone mace head from the site of Hallan Cemi in Turkey, dated to 9500–8500 BCE or 11,500 to 10,500 years ago. Another contemporary example is the stone mace-head from Körtik Tepe, also a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site in Turkey. In Mesopotamia, the earliest mace-heads can also be traced back to around this time, or equivalent to the PPN period (8300–6000 BCE or 10,300 to 8,000 years ago). They are mostly ball-shaped or pear-shaped.” ref

“Human violence is rooted in the rivalry that stems from imitation and archaeologists working at the Neolithic sites of Çatalhöyük and Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. At both sites there is evidence of religious practices that center on wild animals, often large and dangerous in form. Is it possible that these wild animals were ritually killed in the ways suggested by Girardian theorists? Were violence and the sacred intimately entwined, and were these the processes that made possible and even stimulated the origins of farming in the ancient Near East? Offering a perspective from Göbekli Tepe and related sites, our team contributed a paper (by Lee Clare, Oliver Dietrich, Julia Gresky, Jens Notroff, Joris Peters, Nadja Pöllath) on “Ritual Practices and Conflict Mitigation at Early Neolithic Körtik Tepe and Göbekli Tepe, Upper Mesopotamia” (pp. 96-128):

“The cognitive principles of the social brain have remained unaltered since their appearance in anatomically modern humans in Africa some 200,000 years ago. However, by the Early Holocene these capacities, were being challenged by the outcomes of newly emerging lifeways , commonly referred to as ‘Neolithic’. Growing levels of sedentism and new and expanding social networks, were prompting a unique series of behavioural and cultural responses. In recent years, research at the early Neolithic (PPNA) occupation site of Körtik Tepe has provided evidence for heightened levels of interpersonal violence and homicide; yet, at the same time, there are no indications in the present archaeological record for between-group fighting (‘warfare’). In this study, we investigate whether this scenario, at a time when we might expect to see a rise in inter community frictions in the wake of adjusting subsistence strategies and socio-political boundaries, can be at least partially explained by René Girard’s mimetic theory. To this end we consult the pictorial repertoire from the contemporaneous and extraordinary site of Göbekli Tepe.” ref

“From 10,000 years ago Holocene glacial retreat, the present Holocene or Postglacial period begins.” ref

* “9,500–5,900 years ago Neolithic Subpluvial/African humid period in North Africa, wet period.” ref

The African humid period (AHP; also known by other names) is a climate period in Africa during the late Pleistocene and Holocene geologic epochs, when northern Africa was wetter than today. The covering of much of the Sahara desert by grasses, trees and lakes was caused by changes in the Earth’s axial tilt; changes in vegetation and dust in the Sahara which strengthened the African monsoon; and increased greenhouse gases. During the preceding Last Glacial Maximum, the Sahara contained extensive dune fields and was mostly uninhabited.” ref

Rivers and lakes such as Lake Chad formed or expanded, glaciers grew on Mount Kilimanjaro, and the Sahara retreated. Two major dry fluctuations occurred; during the Younger Dryas and the short 8.2 kiloyear event. The African humid period ended 6,000–5,000 years ago during the Piora Oscillation cold period. While some evidence points to an end 5,500 years ago, in the Sahel, Arabia and East Africa, the end of the period appears to have taken place in several steps, such as the 4.2-kiloyear event.” ref

“The AHP led to a widespread settlement of the Sahara and the Arabian Deserts and had a profound effect on African cultures, such as the birth of the Ancient Egyptian civilization. People in the Sahara lived as hunter-gatherers, and there was an influx of domesticated cattle, goats, and sheep. When the period ended, humans gradually abandoned the desert in favor of regions with more secure water supplies, such as the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia, where they gave rise to early complex societies.” ref

Neolithic culture and technology were established in the Near East by 7000 BCE or 9,000 years ago. and there is increasing evidence, throughout the millennium, of its spread or introduction to Europe and the Far East. In most of the world, however, including north and western Europe, people still lived in scattered Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer communities. The Mehrgarh chalcolithic civilization began around 7000 BCE. The world population is believed to have been stable and slowly increasing. It has been estimated that there were perhaps ten million people worldwide at the end of this millennium, growing to forty million by 5000 BCE or 7,000 years ago and 100 million by 1600 BCE or 3,600 years ago, an average growth rate of 0.027% p.a. from the beginning of the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age.” ref

* 8.2 ka event (increased rise of elite power)

In climatology, the 8.2-kiloyear event was a sudden decrease in global temperatures that occurred approximately 8,200 years before the present, or c. 6,200 BCE, and which lasted for the next two to four centuries. It defines the start of the Northgrippian age in the Holocene epoch. The cooling was significantly less pronounced than during the Younger Dryas cold period that preceded the beginning of the Holocene. During the event, atmospheric methane concentration decreased by 80 ppb, an emission reduction of 15%, by cooling and drying at a hemispheric scale.” ref

The world’s oldest-known promontory fort: Amnya and the acceleration of hunter-gatherer diversity in Siberia 8,000 years ago. The subarctic boreal landscapes of the Siberian taiga may seem remote, but it is here, 8000 years ago, that hunter-gatherers built fortified settlements, many centuries before comparable enclosures first appeared in Europe (Figure). The building of fortifications by forager groups has been observed sporadically elsewhere around the world in various—mainly coastal—regions from later prehistory onwards, but the very early onset of this phenomenon in inland western Siberia is unparalleled. This phenomenon, largely unknown to international researchers, can contribute to the critical re-appraisal of narratives of linear pathways to social change increasingly explored in both scientific and popular debates.” ref

“Pit-house settlements with enclosures consisting of banks, ditches and/or palisades appear on promontories and other topographical peaks across the West Siberian Plain from the end of the seventh-millennium cal BCE onwards. These complex settlements are part of a broader set of socio-economic and technological innovations and transformations in western Siberia and thus demarcate a phase of accelerated social change that is only partially understood. Here, we present new results from the key site of Amnya, part of our ongoing systematic programme of research.” ref

“By contextualizing new chronological data and structural evidence of the architectural features and layout of this complex, we put forward various scenarios that might explain the sudden and unprecedented emergence of diversified hunter-gatherer life worlds in the west Siberian taiga 8000 years ago. By diversification, we refer to the societal background of increased heterogeneity, as expressed through new material practices such as pottery production and monumentality at the end of the seventh millennium BCE.” ref

“In mobile societies, fortification can be a strategy to pre-empt the unpredictable behavior of others, such as raiding. Reliable (seasonal) resource abundance and opportunities for mass harvesting can trigger increased territoriality and ownership among hunter-gatherer groups. Permanent sites, for example, the formal cemeteries of the Late Mesolithic increasingly recognized across northern Eurasia, have been linked to such territorial claims.” ref

“Ostensibly defensive architecture, as the long-term construction of space, can likewise have parallel functions, serving as landmarks in collective memory and identity. As manifestations of social inequality, fortifications can also be related to (heritable) property rights, labor obligations, and the restriction of access to resources. Increasing political differentiation is not necessarily accompanied by greater wealth inequality, however, and defensive architecture can also be coordinated without a centralized authority.” ref

* 7.2 ka event (rise of paternal clan wars)

“The 7,200 years ago event is well represented in 58 paleoclimatic records from the global. Varying climatic responses are evidenced in different regions during 7,600–7,000 years ago.” ref

Some 5,000 to 7,000 years ago, the diversity of Y chromosomes plummeted. A new analysis suggests clan warfare may have been the cause. For example, one recent study found a huge drop in Y chromosome diversity five-to-seven thousand years ago. At the same time, mitochondrial DNA diversity continued to grow, implying a possible crash in the male population, with 17 women to every man. “Essentially, we’re saying the clans fighting one another are built around having the same Y chromosome.” Eventually, Y chromosome diversity bounced back, as smaller clan structures were replaced by large, genetically diverse cities and societies—a cultural innovation that we, too, inherited.” ref

*5,900 ka event

5.9 kiloyear event dry and cold.

“The 4th millennium BC spanned the years 4000 to 3000 BCE. Some of the major changes in human culture during this time included the beginning of the Bronze Age and the invention of writing, which played a major role in starting recorded history. The city states of Sumer and the kingdom of Egypt were established and grew to prominence. Agriculture spread widely across EurasiaWorld population growth relaxed after the burst that came about from the Neolithic Revolution. World population was largely stable in this time at roughly 50 million, growing at an average of 0.027% per year.” ref

“4100–3100 BCE or 6,100 to 5,100 years ago– the Uruk period, with emerging Sumerian hegemony during the Uruk Expansion and development of Proto-cuneiform writing; base-60 mathematics, astronomy and astrology, civil law, complex hydrology, the sailboat, potter’s wheeland wheel; the Chalcolithic proceeds into the Early Bronze Age. 35002340 BC – Sumerwheeled cartspotter’s wheel, White Temple ziggurat, bronze tools and weapons.” ref

“4000–3000 BCE – Naqada culture on the Nile. The first hieroglyphs appear thus far around 3500 BCE as found on labels in a ruler’s tomb at Abydos. Predynastic pharaohs TiuTheshHsekiuWaznerRoSerketNarmer. 35003400 BC – Jar with boat designs, from Hierakonpolis (today in the Brooklyn Museum) is created. 3150 BC – Predynastic period ended in Ancient Egypt.” ref 

“As the grasslands of the Sahara began drying after 3900 BCE or 5,900 years ago, herders spread into the Nile Valley and into eastern Africa (Eburan 5Elmenteitan). The desiccation of the Sahara and the associated neolithisation of West Africa is also cited as a possible cause for the dispersal of the Niger-Congo linguistic phylum. Sub-Saharan Africa remains in the Paleolithic period, except for the earliest neolithization of the Sahel following the desiccation of the Sahara in c. 3500 BC.” ref

“5,500 years ago, is the end of the African humid period, Neolithic Subpluvial in North Africa, expands Sahara Desert.” ref

*5,200 ka event (rise of rulers)

The 5.2 ka event has been identified globally as a period of abrupt climate change. 5,200 years ago, the event was caused by prolonged positive North Atlantic Oscillation conditions. This event forms part of a broader period of re-organisation in the Earth’s ocean-atmosphere circulation system between 6,000 and 5,000 years ago. The abrupt termination of the African humid period c. 5.5 ka, following a weakening of the African monsoonal system, was rapid, occurring within several decades to centuries, and provides a striking example of a non-linear response to gradual insolation forcing. A trend towards drier conditions in South America, as recorded in the Cariaco Basin marine sediments, also began c. 5,400 years ago, consistent with numerous other low-latitude records which show a similar drying trend at this time.” ref

“3,200–2,900 BCE or 5,200 to 4,900 years ago, Piora Oscillation, cold, perhaps not global. Wetter in Europe, drier elsewhere, linked to the domestication of the horse in Central Asia.” ref

3150 BCE – Predynastic period ended in Ancient EgyptEarly Dynastic (Archaic) period started (according to French Egyptologist Nicolas Grimal). The period includes the 1st and 2nd Dynasties. c. 3100 BCE or 5,100 years ago – Narmer Palette.” ref

3138 BC Ljubljana Marshes Wheel is a wooden wheel that was found in the Ljubljana Marsh in Slovenia. Radiocarbon dating showed that it is approximately 5,150 years old, which makes it the oldest wooden wheel yet discovered.  3100 BC – The earliest phase of the Stonehenge monument (a circular earth bank and ditch).” ref

” 3100 BCE?: The Anu Ziggurat and White Temple are built in Uruk. 3100 BCE?: The first temple of Tarxien is in use by the Neolithic inhabitants of Malta. 3100 BCE: Oldest adobe building in the Americas was built in Peru. 3100 BCE – Invention of writing in Mesopotamia and Egypt.” ref

* 4.2 ka event

4.2-kiloyear event dry, lasted most of the 22nd century BC, linked to the end of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, and the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, various archaeological cultures in Persia and China.” ref

Starting around 2200 BCE, it most likely lasted the entire 22nd century BC. It has been hypothesized to have caused the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, and the Liangzhu culture in the lower Yangtze River area. The drought may also have initiated the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation, with some of its population moving southeastward to follow the movement of their desired habitat, as well as the migration of Indo-European-speaking people into India. Some scientists disagree with that conclusion, citing evidence that the event was not a global drought and did not happen in a clear timeline. In the Persian Gulf region, there was a sudden change in settlement pattern, style of pottery, and tombs. The 22nd century BCE drought marks the end of the Umm Al Nar culture and the change to the Wadi Suq culture. A study of fossil corals in Oman provides evidence that prolonged winter shamal seasons, around 4200 years ago, led to the salinization of the irrigated field, which made a dramatic decrease in crop production trigger a widespread famine and eventually the collapse of the ancient Akkadian Empire. In the 2nd millennium BCE, widespread aridification occurred in the Eurasian steppes and in South Asia. On the steppes, the vegetation changed, driving “higher mobility and transition to the nomadic cattle breeding.” ref

“In c. 2150 BCE, Egypt was hit by a series of exceptionally low Nile floods that may have influenced the collapse of the centralised government of the Old Kingdom after a famine. The Akkadian Empire in 2300 BCE was the second civilization to subsume independent societies into a single state (the first being ancient Egypt in around 3100 BCE). It has been claimed that the collapse of the state was influenced by a wide-ranging, centuries-long drought. Archaeological evidence documents widespread abandonment of the agricultural plains of northern Mesopotamia and dramatic influxes of refugees into southern Mesopotamia, around 2170 BCE, which may have weakened the Akkadian state. A 180-km-long wall, the “Repeller of the Amorites“, was built across central Mesopotamia to stem nomadic incursions to the south. Around 2150 BC, the Gutian people, who originally inhabited the Zagros Mountains, defeated the demoralized Akkadian army, took Akkad and destroyed it around 2115 BCE or 4,115 years ago. Widespread agricultural change in the Near East is visible at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. Resettlement of the northern plains by smaller sedentary populations occurred near 1900 BCE, three centuries after the collapse.” ref

“Urban centers of the Indus Valley Civilisation were abandoned and replaced by disparate local cultures because of the same climate change that affected the neighboring regions to the west. As of 2016, many scholars believed that drought and a decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia caused the collapse of the Indus civilization. The drought may have caused the collapse of Neolithic cultures around Central China in the late 3rd millennium BCE. In the Yishu River Basin (a river basin that consists of the Yi River (沂河) of Shandong and Shu River), the flourishing Longshan culture was affected by a cooling that severely reduced rice output and led to a substantial decrease in population and to fewer archaeological sites. In about 2000 BC, Longshan was displaced by the Yueshi culture, which had fewer and less-sophisticated artifacts of ceramic and bronze. The Liangzhu civilization in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River also declined during the same period. The 4.2 ka event is also believed to have helped collapse the Dawenkou culture.” ref

* 3.2 ka event

“1200 to 750 BCE or 3,200 to 2,750 years ago, Late Bronze Age collapse associated with environmental change.” ref

“The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BCE associated with environmental change, mass migration, and the destruction of cities. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near East, in particular Egypt, eastern Libya, the Balkans, the Aegean, Anatolia, and, to a lesser degree, the Caucasus. It was sudden, violent, and culturally disruptive for many Bronze Age civilizations, and it brought a sharp economic decline to regional powers, notably ushering in the Greek Dark Ages.” ref

“The palace economy of Mycenaean Greece, the Aegean region, and Anatolia that characterized the Late Bronze Age disintegrated, transforming into the small isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages, which lasted from around 1100 to the beginning of the better-known Archaic age around 750 BCE. The Hittite Empire of Anatolia and the Levant collapsed, while states such as the Middle Assyrian Empire in Mesopotamia and the New Kingdom of Egypt survived in weakened forms. Other cultures, such as the Phoenicians enjoyed increased autonomy and power with the waning military presence of Egypt and Assyria in West Asia.” ref

“The half-century between c. 1200 and 1150 BCE saw the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Kassites in Babylonia, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and the Levant, and the New Kingdom of Egypt, as well as the destruction of Ugarit and the Amorite states in the Levant, the fragmentation of the Luwian states of western Anatolia, and a period of chaos in Canaan. The deterioration of these governments interrupted trade routes and led to severely reduced literacy in much of this area.” ref

“Only a few powerful states survived the Bronze Age collapse, particularly Assyria (albeit temporarily weakened), the New Kingdom of Egypt (also weakened), the Phoenician city-states and Elam. Even among these comparative survivors, success was mixed. By the end of the 12th century BCE, Elam waned after its defeat by Nebuchadnezzar I, who briefly revived Babylonian fortunes before suffering a series of defeats by the Assyrians. After the death of Ashur-bel-kala in 1056 BC, Assyria declined for a century. Its empire shrank significantly by 1020 BC, apparently leaving it in control only of the areas in its immediate vicinity, although its heartland remained well-defended. By the time of Wenamun, Phoenicia had regained independence from Egypt.” ref

* Iron Age Cold Epoch

The Iron Age Cold Epoch (also referred to as Iron Age climate pessimum or Iron Age neoglaciation) was a period of unusually cold climate in the North Atlantic region, lasting from about 900 to about 300 BCE or about 2,900 to 2,300 years ago, with an especially cold wave in 450 BCE during the expansion of ancient Greece. It was followed by the Roman Warm Period (250 BCE – 400 CE). Gill Plunkett and Graeme T. Swindles of Queen’s University Belfast used volcanic ash layers and radiocarbon dating to constrain the start of Iron Age climate deterioration in Ireland to 750 BCE.” ref

“By the 1st millennium BCE or 3,000 to 2,000 years ago, World population roughly doubled over the course of the millennium, from about 100 million to about 200–250 million. The Neo-Assyrian Empire dominates the Near East in the early centuries of the millennium, supplanted by the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century. Ancient Egypt is in decline, and falls to the Achaemenids in 525 BCE. In Greece, Classical Antiquity begins with the colonization of Magna Graecia and peaks with the conquest of the Achaemenids and the subsequent flourishing of Hellenistic civilization (4th to 2nd centuries).” ref

“The Roman Republic supplants the Etruscans and then the Carthaginians (5th to 3rd centuries). The close of the millennium sees the rise of the Roman Empire. The early Celtic culture dominate Central Europe while Northern Europe is in the Pre-Roman Iron Age. In East Africa, the Nubian Empire and Aksum arise. The Olmec civilization declines, and the Maya and Zapotec civilizations emerge in Mesoamerica. The Chavín culture flourishes in Peru.” ref

“The first millennium BCE is the formative period of the classical world religions, with the development of early Judaism and Zoroastrianism in the Near East, and Vedic religion and VedantaJainism, and Buddhism in India. Early literature develops in GreekLatinHebrewSanskritTamil, and Chinese.” ref

World population more than doubled over the course of the millennium, from about an estimated 50–100 million to an estimated 170–300 million. Close to 90% of the world’s population at the end of the first millennium BCE lived in the Iron Age civilizations of the Old World (Roman Empire, Parthian EmpireGraecoIndo-Scythian and Hindu kingdoms, Han China). The population of the Americas was below 20 million, concentrated in Mesoamerica (Epi-Olmec culture); that of Sub-Saharan Africa was likely below 10 million. The population of Oceania was likely less than one million people.” ref

* Little Ice Age

The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The period has been conventionally defined as extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries, but some experts prefer an alternative timespan from about 1300 to about 1850.” ref

“In contrast, a climate reconstruction based on glacial length shows no great variation from 1600 to 1850 but a strong retreat thereafter. Therefore, any of several dates ranging over 400 years may indicate the beginning of the Little Ice Age:

  • 1250 for when Atlantic pack ice began to grow, a cold period that was possibly triggered or enhanced by the massive eruption of the Samalas volcano in 1257 and the associated volcanic winter.
  • 1275 to 1300 for when the radiocarbon dating of plants shows that they were killed by glaciation
  • 1300 for when warm summers stopped being dependable in Northern Europe
  • 1315 for when rains and the Great Famine of 1315–1317 occurred
  • 1560 to 1630 for when the worldwide glacial expansion, known as the Grindelwald Fluctuation, began
  • 1650, not the start of the Little Ice Age, but the start of the coldest years midway through, i.e., the First Climatic Minimum” ref

“The Little Ice Age ended in the latter half of the 19th century or in the early 20th century. The 6th report of the IPCC describes the coldest period in the last millennium as:

“…a multi-centennial period of relatively low temperature beginning around the 15th century, with GMST averaging –0.03 [–0.30 to 0.06] °C between 1450 and 1850 relative to 1850–1900.” ref

12,000 years of climate changes that coincided/influenced culture impacts: periods and events in climate history; affecting seeming changes in places, people movements/behaviors, and culture persuasions

“Israeli Archaeologists Find Earliest Evidence of War in Southern Levant. Industrial production of aerodynamically efficient slingstones almost 8,000 years ago in what is today’s Israel wasn’t done to hunt animals. Almost 8,000 years ago, people in the Galilee and Sharon plain were preparing for war. This postulation is based on the mass production of shaped slingstones at four sites in Israel, starting in the Late Pottery Neolithic – though who they were attacking, or defending against, and why the production of these stone bullets ceased after about a thousand years is anybody’s guess. The current thinking is they were fighting against other local peoples, not invading hordes. That would come later.” ref

“The collections, most recently found at ‘En Esur and ‘En Tzippori but also at two other sites, are the earliest evidence of “formal” slingstones in the southern Levant, say Gil Haklay, Enno Bron, Dr. Dina Shalem, Dr. Ianir Milevski and Nimrod Getzov, archaeologists associated with the Israel Antiquities Authority, reporting in the journal ‘Atiqot. The slingstones were shaped to be biconical, meaning they were bullet-shaped if bullets had two tipped ends. Put otherwise, they look like very big olives, or eggs if there is something wrong with your bird. That double-cone shape is more aerodynamically efficient than just round stones, the archaeologists explain.” ref

These weren’t the first slingstones in the world, just the earliest found in the southern Levant. Based on the archaeological evidence, the technique of shaping such projectiles emerged in Mesopotamia, spread to western Anatolia in today’s Turkey, from there to the Northern Levant and then to the southern Levant, Haklay explains to Haaretz by phone. Prehistoric contact between these regions has long been established, including through the discovery of obsidian from Turkey in Israel – including in a settlement by Jerusalem from 9,000 years ago.” ref

“In the southern Levant we find it with the Wadi Rabah culture from about 7,800 to 7,600 years ago, and it peaks 7,200 years ago. In the northern Levant we see the slingstones centuries before that – they look the same but they were made of clay,” Haklay says. Not burned ceramic clay but sun-dried clay, he adds. It was in the southern Levant that the stone slingstones appear. “Slingstones used pretty much everywhere in different periods were found throughout prehistory,” Haklay says. “People apparently reached the same solution independently because it’s the optimal way.” ref

“The Levantine biconical projectiles were quite uniform, averaging just over 5 centimeters (2 inches) in length and 60 grams (2 ounces) in weight. Made of local dolomite or limestone rock, or basalt, they are similar in shape to recognized slingstones from later times around the world. “Similar slingstones have been found at other sites in the country, mainly from the Hula Valley and the Galilee in the north to the northern Sharon, but this is the first time they have been found in excavations in such large concentrations,” the team said in a statement. This postulated evidence of warfare at ‘En Esur in the plain and ‘En Tzippori in the Lower Galilee is the earliest known in the whole of the southern Levant and certainly modern Israel, though not the world. The earliest known war zone is in Sudan and dates to about 13,000 years ago.” ref

“The biconical slingstones produced in the southern Levant starting about 7,800 years ago would remain in use for about a thousand years. Then such items abruptly disappeared from the archaeological record, the team says. The legend of David and Goliath from the Iron Age, and giant “flint spheroids” weighing a quarter-kilo apiece found in biblical Lachish, are all well and good. However, respectable “formalized” slingstones would only reappear in the local archaeological record in the Hellenistic period, the authors explain. Come the Late Roman period, the technique would be perfected by the manufacture of “whistling” slingstones, carved to shriek as they traveled, the better to unnerve the enemy. But we digress. Does that mean the locals stopped lobbing stones at one another? It does not.” ref

“The legend of David and Goliath from the Iron Age, and giant “flint spheroids” weighing a quarter-kilo apiece found in biblical Lachish, are all well and good. However, respectable “formalized” slingstones would only reappear in the local archaeological record in the Hellenistic period, the authors explain. Come the Late Roman period, the technique would be perfected by the manufacture of “whistling” slingstones, carved to shriek as they traveled, the better to unnerve the enemy. But we digress. The study discusses 424 slingstones found at ‘En Esur and ‘En Tzippori from the Late Neolithic-Early Chalcolithic. The logical inference of the amounts and circumstances support the thesis that these were weaponry, and the uniformity of the product suggests systematic production: formalization, standardization, and investment in the manufacture, the team explains.” ref

“Of the 424 slingstones, most were complete, some were chinked. The sheer effort invested in the industrial production of slingstones with smoothed surfaces suggests a communal effort to produce ammunition, the archaeologists posit – a transition from individual to large-scale production. Note they are not saying these two sites were the only places where such bullets were discovered from the period. Two other major collections of slingstones from the same period have also been found in the region, and smaller numbers of the shaped stones have been found throughout central and northern Israel. ‘En Esur seems to be the southern “border” of the region in which slingshots were systematically used. But for what?” ref

7,000 to 5,000 years ago because of violence genetics dropped to 1 man for every 17 women

An abrupt population bottleneck specific to human males has been inferred across several Old World (Africa, Europe, Asia) populations 5000–7000 years ago. Previous studies also show trauma marks present on skulls clearly indicate the fighters used axes, clubs, and arrows to kill each other. Scientists from Stanford used mathematical models and computer simulations, in which men fought and died – allowing them to test their theory on the ‘Neolithic Y-chromosome bottleneck’. According to genetic patterns, researchers found the decline was only noticed in men – particularly on the Y chromosome, which is passed on from father to son. The war was so severe that it caused the male population to plummet to extremely low levels, reaching an astonishing one-twentieth of its original level. This results in the loss of Y chromosomes as they slowly deteriorate over time and eventually may get wiped out from the genome.” ref

“Once upon a time, 4,000 to 8,000 years after humanity invented agriculture, something very strange happened to human reproduction. Across the globe, for every 17 women who were reproducing, passing on genes that are still around today—only one man did the same. Another member of the research team, a biological anthropologist, hypothesizes that somehow, only a few men accumulated lots of wealth and power, leaving nothing for others. These men could then pass their wealth on to their sons, perpetuating this pattern of elitist reproductive success. Then, as more thousands of years passed, the numbers of men reproducing, compared to women, rose again. In more recent history, as a global average, about four or five women reproduced for every one man.” ref

“Violence in the ancient Middle East spiked with the formation of states and empires, battered skulls reveal.” ref

“The Mandate of Heaven (Chinese天命pinyinTiānmìngWade–GilesT’ien-minglit. ‘Heaven’s command’) is a Chinese political ideology that was used in ancient and imperial China to legitimize the rule of the King or Emperor of China. According to this doctrine, heaven (天, Tian) bestows its mandate on a virtuous ruler. This ruler, the Son of Heaven, was the supreme universal monarch, who ruled Tianxia (天下; “all under heaven”, the world). If a ruler was overthrown, this was interpreted as an indication that the ruler was unworthy and had lost the mandate. The Chinese concept of the legitimacy of rulers is similar to Western culture’s Divine right of kings.” ref

“In European Christianity, the divine right of kingsdivine right, or God’s mandation, is a political and religious doctrine of political legitimacy of a monarchy. It is also known as the divine-right theory of kingship. Divine right has been a key element of the self-legitimisation of many absolute monarchies, connected with their authority and right to rule. Historically, many notions of rights have been authoritarian and hierarchical, with different people granted different rights and some having more rights than others. For instance, the right of a father to receive respect from his son did not indicate a right for the son to receive a return from that respect. Analogously, the divine right of kings, which permitted absolute power over subjects, provided few rights for the subjects themselves. The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified Roman emperors and some members of their families with the “divinely sanctioned” authority (auctoritas) of the Roman State. The official offer of cultus to a living emperor acknowledged his office and rule as divinely approved and constitutional: his Principate should therefore demonstrate pious respect for traditional Republican deities and mores. Many of the rites, practices, and status distinctions that characterized the cult to emperors were perpetuated in the theology and politics of the Christianised Empire. The earliest references to kingship in Israel proclaim that “14 “When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ 15 you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.” ref

Related concepts in other religions to the divine-right theory of kingship:

Swing of the Mace: the rise of Elite, Forced Authority, and Inequality begin to Emerge 8,500 years ago?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref

“Mace-heads were symbols of power and were held by people with status.” ref

R1b-v88

Dnieper–Donets culture

Mace (bludgeon)

“The Dnieper–Donets culture complex (DDCC) (ca. 5th—4th millennium BCE) was a Mesolithic and later Neolithic culture which flourished north of the Black Sea ca. 5000-4200 BCE or 7,000 to 6,200 years ago. It has many parallels with the Samara culture, and was succeeded by the Sredny Stog culture. Striking similarities with the Khvalynsk culture have also been detected. The Dnieper–Donets culture was originally a hunter-gatherer culture. David Anthony (2007: 155) dated the beginning of the Dnieper–Donets culture as roughly between 5800/5200 BCE or 7,800/7,200 to 6,200 years ago. It quickly expanded in all directions, eventually absorbing all other local Neolithic groups. According to David W. Anthony, the Indo-European languages were initially spoken by EHGs living in Eastern Europe, such as the Dnieper-Donets people. The precise role of the culture and its language to the derivation of the Pontic-Caspian cultures, such as Sredny Stog and Yamnaya culture, is open to debate, but the display of recurrent traits points to longstanding mutual contacts or to underlying genetic relations.” ref

“The physical remains recovered from graves of the Dnieper–Donets culture have been classified as “Proto-Europoid“. The Dnieper–Donets culture produced no female figurines. By 5200 BCE or 7,200 years ago the Dnieper–Donets culture II followed, which ended between 4400/4200 BCE. From around 5200 BCE, the Dnieper-Donets people began keeping cattlesheep, and goats. Other domestic animals kept included pigshorses, and dogs. During the following centuries, domestic animals from the Dnieper further and further east towards the VolgaUral steppes, where they appeared ca. 4700-4600 BCE. Some scholars suggest that from about 4200 BCE, the Dnieper–Donets culture adopted agriculture.” ref

Certain Dnieper-Donets burials are accompanied with copper, crystal or porphyry ornaments, shell beads, bird-stone tubes, polished stone maces or ornamental plaques made of boar’s tusk. The items, along with the presence of animal bones and sophisticated burial methods, appear to have been a symbol of power. Certain deceased children were buried with such items, which indicates that wealth was inherited in Dnieper-Donets society. Very similar boar-tusk plaques and copper ornaments have been found at contemporary graves of the Samara culture in the middle Volga area. Maces of a different type than those of Dnieper-Donets have also been found. The wide adoption of such a status symbol attests to the existence of the institute of power in the Dnieper–Donets culture complex.” ref 

“The first archaeogenetic analysis involving the Dnieper–Donets culture complex individuals from the Mykilske (Nikols’skoye in Russian) and Yasynuvatka (Yasinovatka) cemeteries held the haplogroups of west Eurasian (H, U3, U5a1a) and east Eurasian (C, C4a) descent have been identified. The authors linked the appearance of east Eurasian haplogroups with potential influence from the northern Lake Baikal area.” ref

“Four identified cultures starting around 5300 BCE or 7,300 years ago, were the Dnieper-Donets, the Narva (eastern Baltic), the Ertebølle (Denmark and northern Germany), and the Swifterbant (Low Countries). They were linked by a common pottery style that had spread westward from Asia: starting in south China, then the Lake Baikal area of Siberia, then west to Europe and is sometimes called “ceramic Mesolithic“, distinguishable by a point or knob base and flared rims.” refrefrefref

The Baikal area, has a long history of human habitation. Some 160 km northwest of the lake, remains of a young human male known as MA-1 or “Mal’ta Boy” are indications of local habitation by the Mal’ta–Buret’ culture ca. 24,000 years old (who I think were involved in Shamanism and may have by their descendants or those with related DNA spread shamanism all over).” ref

Siberian cultural identity is closely connected with the mythology and ancient religion of the indigenous peoples of Siberia – shamanism, whose rituals, images, symbols, and motifs are often manifested in the clients’ dreams.” ref

“The earliest Indigenous peoples of Siberia were hunter-gatherers distantly related to modern Europeans, and diverged from a shared ancestral population around 38kya before populating Siberia. In Siberia, they received geneflow from an East-Eurasian population, most closely related to the 40kya old Tianyuan man (c. 22-50%), representing a deep sister lineage of contemporary East Asian people, giving rise to a distinct Siberian lineage known as Ancient North Eurasian (such as the Mal’ta–Buret’ culture), populations carrying Ancient North Eurasian-related ancestry were probably widely distributed across northeast Eurasia.” ref

“Ceremonial maces originated in the Ancient Near East, where they were used as symbols of rank and authority across the region during the late Stone AgeBronze Age, and early Iron Age.” ref 

“The archaeological evidence available so far has revealed that the earliest mace-heads first appeared in the Near East about 10,000 BP. along with the early development and spread of agriculture. After that maceheads began to spread throughout the ancient world: southward to Ancient Egypt Kingdom in North Africa, and northwest to Europe and then to the Eurasian steppe of central Asia and Siberia. Eventually, this movement gradually arrived at the Northwestern region of China. In China, mace-heads were found only in Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai and Western Shaanxi in Northwestern Chine. In fact, the morphology of these objects is quite similar to those found outside China. The author assumes that maces, as they bear special and symbolic functions, are not the original or indigenous cultural trait of Chinese civilization. Instead, they are more likely to be exotic goods coming from out-side. The author argues the reasons can be summarized as follow: first, mace-heads in the Near East significantly predate all counterparts in China. Second, the amounts of mace-heads found in China are relatively limited. Third, mace-head discoveries in China are concentrated only in the northwestern area, a pattern explicitly indicating the Western origin of this type of artifacts.” ref

12,420-11,270 years ago Stone mace-head from Körtik Tepe 12,420-11,270 years ago ref, ref 

11,520–10,520 years ago Stone mace heads – Two Hallan Cemi Turkey ref 

10,320–8,020 years ago “in Mesopotamia, the earliest mace-heads can also be traced back to around this time, or equivalent to the PPN period (8300–6000 BCE). They are mostly ball-shaped or pear-shaped. Besides boulder and bronze materials, mace-heads were also made by chalcedony or glass, suggesting that they were in fact items of prestige goods. Some of the boulder mace-heads were carved with cuneiforms or figures and animal embossments on their surface.” ref “Mesopotamia occupies the area of present-day Iraq, and parts of Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Kuwait.” ref 

9,020-8,020 years ago Calcite mace head Syria ref 

8,520-7,720 years ago “Catal Hoyuk (starting more equalitarian, total occupation 9,120-7,720 years ago) signs of inequality begin to emerge. Skulls with depressed fractures in the head, dozens with similar wounds, all showing a consistent pattern of injury to the top back of the skull, but all of them were healed, not fatal injuries, perhaps to control members of the group, and/or to abduct outsiders as wives or slaves.” ref 

“The skulls with this characteristic were found primarily in later levels of the site, when more independence and differentiation between households started to emerge. Speculations are that, with these inequalities potentially created new tensions among the community’s members, non-fatal violence may have been a means to keep everyone in check and prevent or diffuse full-fledged conflicts. “The head wounds, in a way, confirm the idea of a controlled society.” ref

8,020-7,020 years ago Can Hasan a copper mace-head ref, ref

“The mace head does not show any trace of having been used. That could indicate that it wasn’t so much a working weapon but a cult object or a status symbol.” ref

7,220 years ago – Mersin, seaport, south-central Turkey, a planned and constructed fortress, steep mound crowned by a defensive wall, slit windows, and entered protected by flanking towers, containing evidence of military.” ref

6,520-4,920 years ago “stone macehead from a prehistoric site in northeastern Iran. Furthermore, the prehistoric pottery from this area, has close affinities with ceramic materials from Central Asia rather than with contemporary sites in Iran, meaning that in this period its inhabitants were likely culturally linked to their neighbors to the east. Indeed, a very similar stone mace head was excavated at Anau in Turkmenistan in 1904. Nishapur’s location on what later became known as the Great Khorasan Road suggests that it was part of the trade network that facilitated the import of precious stones such as lapis lazuli, carnelian, and turquoise from Central Asia to Mesopotamia.” ref 

6,420-5,520 years ago “Earliest mace-heads from the Levant can also be traced back to around the PPN period. ref

“The archaeological evidence available so far has revealed that the earliest mace-heads first appeared in the Near East about or before 10,000 years ago. along with the early development and spread of agriculture. After that mace-heads began to spread throughout the ancient world: southward to the Ancient Egypt Kingdom in North Africa, and northwest to Europe, and then to the Eurasian steppe of Central Asia and Siberia. Eventually, this movement gradually arrived at the Northwestern region of China. In China, mace-heads were found only in Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, and Western Shaanxi in Northwestern Chine. In fact, the morphology of these objects is quite similar to those found outside China. The author assumes that maces, as they bear special and symbolic functions, are not the original or indigenous cultural trait of Chinese civilization. Instead, they are more likely to be exotic goods coming from outside. The author argues the reasons can be summarized as follow: first, mace-heads in the Near East significantly predate all counterparts in China. Second, the amounts of mace-heads found in China are relatively limited. Third, mace-head discoveries in China are concentrated only in the northwestern area, a pattern explicitly indicating the Western origin of this type of artifacts.” ref

The Chalcolithic Period (Copper Age)

“The transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic phase of cultural evolution is thought to have taken place gradually in the late 7th millennium BCE. At most sites where its progress can be traced, no perceptible break occurs in the continuity of occupation, and there is little reason to assume any major ethnographic upheaval. Archaeologically, the most conspicuous innovation is the decoration of pottery with colored paint, a widespread development in western Anatolia. Late periods at Hacılar were characterized by the production of some of the most competently and attractively decorated pottery in prehistoric Anatolia, and in the subsequent middle phase of the Chalcolithic Period, polychrome wares were produced in south-central Anatolia and Cilicia. Village architecture of this period is undistinguished but provides evidence for the necessity of communal defense, which was accomplished by means of a circuit wall or—as in Hacılar—a continuous wall formed by the outside rear walls of contiguous houses. At Hacılar and Can Hasan, the heavy ground-floor chambers of these houses had no doorways and were evidently entered by ladders from a more fragile upper story. Improvements in architecture at this period, however, can be seen at Mersin, where one of its later phases is represented by a neatly planned and constructed fortress. The steeply revetted slope of the mound was crowned by a continuous defensive wall, pierced by slit windows, and entered through a gateway protected by flanking towers. Inside, there was formally arranged accommodation for the garrison and other evidence of military discipline as conceived in 5200 BCE.” ref 

Metallurgy was beginning to be understood, and copper was used for pins and simple implements. But there are occasional glimpses of a greater sophistication: a copper mace-head from Can Hasan, more developed tools and the first occurrence of silver at Beycesultan, and a stamp-seal in tin bronze at Mersin. Little is known about the late phase of the Chalcolithic Period; soundings into strata below settlements of the Early Bronze Age, which the period anticipates, indicate that in western and central Anatolia this late phase introduced simpler rectangular houses and dark burnished pottery with simple incised, jabbed, polished, or white-painted decoration.” ref 

Ghassulian

Ghassulian refers to a culture and an archaeological stage dating to the Middle and Late Chalcolithic Period in the Southern Levant (c. 4400 – c. 3500 BCE or 6,420-5,520 years ago). Its type-site, Teleilat Ghassul (Teleilat el-Ghassul, Tulaylat al-Ghassul), is located in the eastern Jordan Valley near the northern edge of the Dead Sea, in modern Jordan. The Ghassulian stage was characterized by small hamlet settlements of mixed farming peoples, who had immigrated from the north and settled in the southern Levant – today’s Jordan, Israel, and Palestine. People of the Beersheba Culture (a Ghassulian subculture) lived in underground dwellings – a unique phenomenon in the archaeological history of the region – or in houses that were trapezoid-shaped and built of mud-brick.” ref 

“Those were often built partially underground (on top of collapsed underground dwellings) and were covered with remarkable polychrome wall paintings. Their pottery was highly elaborate, including footed bowls and horn-shaped drinking goblets, indicating the cultivation of wine. Several samples display the use of sculptural decoration or of a reserved slip (a clay and water coating partially wiped away while still wet). The Ghassulians were a Chalcolithic culture as they used stone tools but also smelted copper. Funerary customs show evidence that they buried their dead in stone dolmens and also practiced secondary burial.” ref

“Settlements belonging to the Ghassulian culture have been identified at numerous other sites in what is today southern Israel, especially in the region of Beersheba, where elaborate underground dwellings have been excavated. The Ghassulian culture correlates closely with the Amratian of Egypt and also seems to have affinities (e.g., the distinctive churns, or “bird vases”) with early Minoan culture in Crete.” ref 

It should be understood that the mace-head is more than a weapon. It is a unique object that has a ritual role symbolizing one’s authority and prestige. In Dorak, near the Marmara Coast, two magnificent tombs have been unearthed, and one was the final resting place of a local king. A mace mounted with a wooden handle was placed in his arms. The other tomb was a joint burial for a king and his queen. In this case, too, a mace with
a wooden handle was placed above each individual’s arm. The two tombs clearly reflected elite status as they were stacked with luxurious burial articles and date to 4,553–4,539 years ago. ref

The End of Old Europe and the Rise of the Steppe

“By 4300–4200 BCE Old Europe was at its peak. The Varna cemetery in eastern Bulgaria had the most ostentatious funerals in the world, richer than anything of the same age in the Near East. Among the 281 graves at Varna, 61 (22%) contained more than three thousand golden objects together weighing 6 kg (13.2 lb). Two thousand of these were found in just four graves (1, 4, 36, and 43). Grave 43, an adult male, had golden beads, armrings, and rings totaling 1,516 grams (3.37 lb), including a copper ax-adze with a gold-sheathed handle. Golden ornaments have also been found in tell settlements in the lower Danube valley, at Gumelniţa, Vidra, and at Hotnitsa (a 310-gm cache of golden ornaments). A few men in these communities played prominent social roles as chiefs or clan leaders, symbolized by the public display of shining gold ornaments and cast copper weapons.” ref 

“Thousands of settlements with broadly similar ceramics, houses, and female figurines were occupied between about 4500 and 4100 BCE in eastern Bulgaria (Varna), the upland plains of Balkan Thrace (KaranovoVI), the upper part of the Lower Danube valley in western Bulgaria, and Romania (Krivodol-Sălcuta), and the broad riverine plains of the lower Danube valley (Gumelniţa). Beautifully painted ceramic vessels, some almost 1 m tall and fired at temperatures of over 800˚C, lined the walls of their two-storied houses. Conventions in ceramic design and ritual were shared over large regions. The crafts of metallurgy, ceramics, and even flint working became so refined that they must have required master craft specialists who were patronized and supported by chiefs. In spite of this, power was not obviously centralized in any one village. Perhaps, as John Chapman observed, it was a time when the restricted resources (gold, copper, Spondylus shell) were not critical, and the critical resources (land, timber, labor, marriage partners) were not seriously restricted. This could have prevented any one region or town from dominating others.” ref 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Proto-Indo-Europeans: Western Steppe Herders

“The Proto-Indo-Europeans are a hypothetical prehistoric population of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the ancestor of the Indo-European languages according to linguistic reconstruction. Knowledge of them comes chiefly from that linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics. The Proto-Indo-Europeans likely lived during the late Neolithic, or roughly the 4th millennium BCE. Mainstream scholarship places them in the Pontic–Caspian steppe zone in Eastern Europe (present-day Ukraine and southern Russia).” ref

“Some archaeologists would extend the time depth of PIE to the middle Neolithic (5500 to 4500 BCE or 7,522-6,522 years ago) or even the early Neolithic (7500 to 5500 BCE or 9,522-7,522 years ago), and suggest alternative location hypotheses. By the early second millennium BCE, descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans had reached far and wide across Eurasia, including Anatolia (Hittites), the Aegean (the linguistic ancestors of Mycenaean Greece), the north of Europe (Corded Ware culture), the edges of Central Asia (Yamnaya culture), and southern Siberia (Afanasievo culture).” ref

“While ‘Proto-Indo-Europeans’ is used in scholarship to designate the group of speakers associated with the reconstructed proto-language and culture, the term ‘Indo-Europeans’ may refer to any historical people that speak an Indo-European language. In the words of philologist Martin L. West, “If there was an Indo-European language, it follows that there was a people who spoke it: not a people in the sense of a nation, for they may never have formed a political unity, and not a people in any racial sense, for they may have been as genetically mixed as any modern population defined by language.” ref

Using linguistic reconstruction from old Indo-European languages such as Latin and Sanskrit, hypothetical features of the Proto-Indo-European language are deduced. Assuming that these linguistic features reflect the culture and environment of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the following cultural and environmental traits are widely proposed:

“A 2016 phylogenetic analysis of Indo-European folktales found that one tale, The Smith and the Devil, could be confidently reconstructed to the Proto-Indo-European period. This story, found in contemporary Indo-European folktales from Scandinavia to India, describes a blacksmith who offers his soul to a malevolent being (commonly a devil in modern versions of the tale) in exchange for the ability to weld any kind of materials together. The blacksmith then uses his new ability to stick the devil to an immovable object (often a tree), thus avoiding his end of the bargain. According to the authors, the reconstruction of this folktale to PIE implies that the Proto-Indo-Europeans had metallurgy, which in turn “suggests a plausible context for the cultural evolution of a tale about a cunning smith who attains a superhuman level of mastery over his craft.” ref

“Researchers have made many attempts to identify particular prehistoric cultures with the Proto-Indo-European-speaking peoples, but all such theories remain speculative. The scholars of the 19th century who first tackled the question of the Indo-Europeans’ original homeland (also called Urheimat, from German), had essentially only linguistic evidence. They attempted a rough localization by reconstructing the names of plants and animals (importantly the beech and the salmon) as well as the culture and technology (a Bronze Age culture centered on animal husbandry and having domesticated the horse).” ref

“The scholarly opinions became basically divided between a European hypothesis, positing migration from Europe to Asia, and an Asian hypothesis, holding that the migration took place in the opposite direction. In the early 20th century, the question became associated with the expansion of a supposed “Aryan race“, a now-discredited theory promoted during the expansion of European empires and the rise of “scientific racism“. The question remains contentious within some flavors of ethnic nationalism (see also Indigenous Aryans).” ref

“A series of major advances occurred in the 1970s due to the convergence of several factors. First, the radiocarbon dating method (invented in 1949) had become sufficiently inexpensive to be applied on a mass scale. Through dendrochronology (tree-ring dating), pre-historians could calibrate radiocarbon dates to a much higher degree of accuracy. And finally, before the 1970s, parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia had been off-limits to Western scholars, while non-Western archaeologists did not have access to publications in Western peer-reviewed journals.” ref

“The pioneering work of Marija Gimbutas, assisted by Colin Renfrew, at least partly addressed this problem by organizing expeditions and arranging for more academic collaboration between Western and non-Western scholars. The Kurgan hypothesis, as of 2017 the most widely held theory, depends on linguistic and archaeological evidence, but is not universally accepted. It suggests PIE origin in the Pontic–Caspian steppe during the Chalcolithic. A minority of scholars prefer the Anatolian hypothesis, suggesting an origin in Anatolia during the Neolithic. Other theories (Armenian hypothesis, Out of India theory, Paleolithic Continuity Theory, Balkan hypothesis) have only marginal scholarly support.” ref

“In regard to terminology, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the term Aryan was used to refer to the Proto-Indo-Europeans and their descendants. However, Aryan more properly applies to the Indo-Iranians, the Indo-European branch that settled parts of the Middle East and South Asia, as only Indic and Iranian languages explicitly affirm the term as a self-designation referring to the entirety of their people, whereas the same Proto-Indo-European root (*aryo-) is the basis for Greek and Germanic word forms which seem only to denote the ruling elite of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) society.” ref

“In fact, the most accessible evidence available confirms only the existence of a common, but vague, socio-cultural designation of “nobility” associated with PIE society, such that Greek socio-cultural lexicon and Germanic proper names derived from this root remain insufficient to determine whether the concept was limited to the designation of an exclusive, socio-political elite, or whether it could possibly have been applied in the most inclusive sense to an inherent and ancestral “noble” quality which allegedly characterized all ethnic members of PIE society. Only the latter could have served as a true and universal self-designation for the Proto-Indo-European people.” ref

“By the early twentieth century, this term had come to be widely used in a racist context referring to a hypothesized white, blonde, and blue-eyed “master race” (Herrenrasse), culminating with the pogroms of the Nazis in Europe. Subsequently, the term Aryan as a general term for Indo-Europeans has been largely abandoned by scholars (though the term Indo-Aryan is still used to refer to the branch that settled in Southern Asia).” ref

Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses and Indo-European migrations

“According to some archaeologists, PIE speakers cannot be assumed to have been a single, identifiable people or tribe, but were a group of loosely related populations ancestral to the later, still partially prehistoric, Bronze Age Indo-Europeans. This view is held especially by those archaeologists who posit an original homeland of vast extent and immense time depth. However, this view is not shared by linguists, as proto-languages, like all languages before modern transport and communication, occupied small geographical areas over a limited time span, and were spoken by a set of close-knit communities—a tribe in the broad sense. Researchers have put forward a great variety of proposed locations for the first speakers of Proto-Indo-European. Few of these hypotheses have survived scrutiny by academic specialists in Indo-European studies sufficiently well to be included in modern academic debate.” ref

Dnieper–Donets culture

The Dnieper–Donets culture complex (DDCC) (ca. 5th—4th millennium BCE) was a Mesolithic and later Neolithic culture which flourished north of the Black Sea ca. 5000-4200 BCE. It has many parallels with the Samara culture, and was succeeded by the Sredny Stog culture. The Dnieper–Donets culture complex was defined by the Soviet archaeologist Dmytro Telehin (Dmitriy Telegin) on proposition of another archaeologist Valentyn Danylenko in 1956. At that time Dmytro Telehin worked at the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1952 – 1990). David Anthony (2007: 155) dated the beginning of the Dnieper–Donets culture I roughly between 5800/5200 BCE. It quickly expanded in all directions, eventually absorbing all other local Neolithic groups. By 5200 BCE the Dnieper–Donets culture II followed, which ended between 4400/4200 BCE. Note that the unsourced entry in the Ukrainian graphic contradicts both Telegin’s and Anthony’s chronology and geography.” ref

The Dnieper–Donets culture was distributed in the steppe and forest-steppe areas north of the Black Sea. Throughout its existence, rapid population growth and an expansion towards the steppe is noticeable. There are parallels with the contemporaneous Samara culture to the north. Striking similarities with the Khvalynsk culture and the Sredny Stog culture have also been detected. A much larger horizon from the upper Vistula to the lower half of Dnieper to the mid-to-lower Volga has therefore been drawn. Influences from the DDCC and the Sredny Stog culture on the Funnelbeaker culture have been suggested. An origin of the Funnelbeaker culture from the Dnieper–Donets culture has been suggested, but this is very controversial. The Dnieper–Donets culture was contemporary with the Bug–Dniester culture. It is clearly distinct from the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture.” ref

“The physical remains recovered from graves of the Dnieper–Donets culture have been classified as “Proto-Europoid“. They have predominantly characterized as large and more massive features than the gracile Mediterranean peoples of the Balkan Neolithic. Males averaged 172 cm in height, which is much taller than contemporary Neolithic populations. Its rugged physical traits are thought to have genetically influenced later Indo-European peoples. Physical anthropologists have pointed out similarities in the physical type of the Dnieper-Donets people with the Mesolithic peoples of Northern Europe. The peoples of the neighboring Sredny Stog culture, which eventually succeeded the Dnieper–Donets culture, were of a more gracile appearance.” ref

“First archaeogenetic analysis involving DDCC individuals was published by Nikitin et al. in 2012. The authors reported mtDNA haplogroups of two individuals from the Mykilske (Nikols’skoye in Russian) and Yasynuvatka (Yasinovatka) DDCC cemeteries. Haplogroups of west Eurasian (H, U3, U5a1a) and east Eurasian (C, C4a) descent have been identified. The authors linked the appearance of east Eurasian haplogroups with potential influence from northern Lake Baikal area. Mathieson et al. (2018) analyzed 32 individuals from three Eneolithic cemeteries at Deriivka, Vilnyanka and Vovnigi, which Anthony (2019a) ascribed to the Dnieper–Donets culture. These individuals belonged exclusively to the paternal haplogroups R and I (mostly R1b and I2), and almost exclusively to the maternal haplogroup U (mostly U5, U4, and U2). This suggests that the Dnieper-Donets people were “distinct, locally derived population” of mostly of Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) descent, with Western Hunter-Gatherer (WHG) admixture.” ref

“The WHG admixture appears to have increased in the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic. Unlike the Yamnaya culture, whose genetic cluster is known as Western Steppe Herder (WSH), in the Dnieper–Donets culture no Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer (CHG) or Early European Farmer (EEF) ancestry has been detected. At the same time, several Eneolithic individuals from the Deriivka I cemetery carried Anatolian Neolithic Farmer (ANF) – derived as well as WSH ancestry. At the Vilnyanka cemetery, all the males belong to the paternal haplogroup I, which is common among WHGs. David W. Anthony suggests that this influx of WHG ancestry might be the result of EEFs pushing WHGs out of their territories to the east, where WHG males might have mated with EHG females. Dnieper-Donets males and Yamnaya males carry the same paternal haplogroups (R1b and I2a), suggesting that the CHG and EEF admixture among the Yamnaya came through EHG and WHG males mixing with EEF and CHG females. According to Anthony, this suggests that the Indo-European languages were initially spoken by EHGs living in Eastern Europe.” ref

The Dnieper–Donets culture was succeeded by the Sredny Stog culture, its eastern neighbor, with whom it co-existed for a time before being finally absorbed. The Dnieper–Donets culture and the Sredny Stog culture were in turn succeeded by the Yamnaya culture. The Mikhaylovka culture, the Novodanilovka group, and the Kemi Oba culture displays evidence of continuity from the Dnieper–Donets culture.” ref

5th—4th millennium BCE Dnieper–Donets culture and East Eurasian lineages (of C haplogroup, like C4a related to Tungusic peoples of Siberia) in ancient mtDNA from the North Pontic Region

The Dnieper–Donets culture between 7,800/7,200 to 6,400/6,200 years ago, steppe and forest-steppe areas north of the Black Sea

Proto-Indo-European (PIE), ancestor of Indo-European languages: DNA, Society, Language, and Mythology

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Kurgan Hypothesis

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

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

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

I surmise the first proto-king originates in the Balkans Varna culture’s Bulgarian cemetery dating to around 6,500 years old. Moreover, while 65 out of the 320 burials held 3100 gold objects but only five burials: 1, 4, 36, 41, and 43 comprise over 80% of the gold found. Yet of these five burials only grave 43 shown here contained an actual skeletal while the others are symbolic faces. These metaphorical burial faces, to me, both represent the clay head around 6,500 years old, found submerged in Varna Lake from the Hamangia Culture, of which I think could relate to the emergence of the first male gods.

“The oldest gold treasure in the world, belonging to the Varna culture, was discovered in the Varna Necropolis and dates to 6,600-6,200 years ago. Varna is the third-largest city in Bulgaria and the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. Situated strategically in the Gulf of Varna, the city has been a major economic, social and cultural center for almost three millennia. Varna, historically known as Odessos (Ancient Greek: Ὀδησσός), grew from a Thracian seaside settlement to a major seaport on the Black Sea.” refref

“The Varna culture belongs to the later Neolithic of northeastern Bulgaria, is contemporary and closely related with Gumelnița in southern Romania, often considered as local variants. It is characterized by polychrome pottery and rich cemeteries, the most famous of which are Varna Necropolis, the eponymous site, and the Durankulak complex, which comprises the largest prehistoric cemetery in southeastern Europe.” ref 

“The culture had sophisticated religious beliefs about afterlife and developed hierarchical status differences: it constitutes the oldest known burial evidence of an elite male. The end of the fifth millennium BC is the time that Marija Gimbutas, founder of the Kurgan hypothesis claims the transition to male dominance began in Europe. The high status male was buried with remarkable amounts of gold, held a war axe or mace and wore a gold penis sheath. The bull-shaped gold platelets perhaps also venerated virility, instinctive force, and warfare. Gimbutas holds that the artifacts were made largely by local craftspeople.” ref

Burials at Varna have some of the world’s oldest gold jewelry. There are crouched and extended inhumations. Some graves do not contain a skeleton, but grave gifts (cenotaphs). The symbolic (empty) graves are the richest in gold artifacts. Around 3000 gold artifacts were found, with a weight of approximately 6 kilograms. Grave 43 contained more gold than has been found in the entire rest of the world for that epoch. Three symbolic graves contained masks of unfired clay. The weight and the number of gold finds in the Varna cemetery exceeds by several times the combined weight and number of all of the gold artifacts found in all excavated sites of the same millenium, 5000-4000 BC, from all over the world, including Mesopotamia and Egypt”.” ref

“Varna Culture Decline: The discontinuity of the Varna, Karanovo, Vinča and Lengyel cultures in their main territories and the large scale population shifts to the north and northwest are indirect evidence of a catastrophe of such proportions that cannot be explained by possible climatic change, desertification, or epidemics. Direct evidence of the incursion of horse-ridingwarriors is found, not only in single burials of males under barrows, but in the emergence of a whole complex of Indo-European cultural traits.” ref

Copper Age migrations likely motivated to escape war/violence and climate caused problems brought waves of migration from Turkey and Iran as well as ideas or possibly people as well from the Balkans to north Israel as well small parts of Jordan around 6,500–5,800 years ago.

6,500–5,800 years ago in Israel Late Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Period in the Southern Levant Seems to Express Northern Levant Migrations, Cultural and Religious Transfer

“The Funnel Beaker Culture – “First Farmers of Scandinavia” around 6,200-4,650 years ago marks the arrival of Megalithic structures in Scandinavia from western Europe. At graves, the people sacrificed ceramic vessels that contained food along with amber jewelry and flint-axes. Flint-axes and vessels were also deposed in streams and lakes near the farmlands, and virtually all Sweden’s 10,000 flint axes that have been found from this culture were probably sacrificed in water. Ancient DNA and the peopling of the British Isles – pattern and process of the Neolithic transition 6000 years ago.” ref

The first human-caused climate change, dramatically changed how nature works, such as the way plant and animal communities were structured on Earth around 6,000 years ago. 

The first human migrations spread the first plague is believed to have contributed to the plunge of Europe’s settlements around. As well as the close contact between humans and animals and the accumulation of food, likely led to poorer sanitary conditions and an increased risk of pathogen around 6,000-5,000 years ago. 

The first passage tomb thought to lead to the afterlife from Ireland, close to when people first began farming in the region that seems to mark a transition towards a time when religion played a greater role in people’s lives 5,800-5,500 years ago.

The first birth of the State, the rise of Hierarchy, and the fall of Women’s status 5,500-5,000 years ago. And more than 5,000 years ago a nomadic group of shepherds rode out of the steppes of eastern Europe to conquer the rest of the continent. The group, today is known as the  Yamna or  Kurgan/Pit Grave culture, brought with them an innovative new technology, wheeled carts, which enabled them to quickly occupy new lands.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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My art and when as well as who may have brought in the new elitism and compulsory authority to the Americas.

C-M217 Na-Dene and Yeniseian Languages and Religion relatedness from Asia connecting to the Americas

“For the Tlingit (branch of the Na-Dené language family), hereditary slavery was practiced extensively until it was outlawed by the United States. Wealth and economic power are important indicators of rank. Scientists suggest that the main ancestor of the Ainu and of the Tlingit can be traced back to Paleolithic groups in Southern Siberia.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Wearing Labrets involved high status and was seen in the Northwest Coast 5,000 years ago.

Labrets? “a sign of power/status”

“A labret is a form of body piercing. Taken literally, it is any type of adornment that is attached to the lip (labrum). However, the term usually refers to a piercing that is below the bottom lip, above the chin. The labret was a traditional piercing among the American Northwest Coast Indians, where it was related to status:

“access to labrets. After 3,000 years ago, a divergence in labret wear in north and south coasts. In the north from 1500 – 3500 years ago, more labrets worn by males. After 1500 years ago, labrets worn by females. In the south, between 2000 – 3500 years ago, worn by males and females, but from 2000 years ago on, labrets generally disappear and are replaced by cranial deformation by free males and females of whatever class (e.g. elite or commoner). So, for 4,000 years on the northwest coast, it was important to distinguish certain individuals in a very direct manner; either by cranial deformation or by labret wear. Gender and geographical region may also be identified by these methods.” ref

“When a mask was being made to represent someone of high status, that mask would likewise have a labret. The wearing of labrets was widely observed among Tlingit women of high status at the time of European and American arrivals in Southeast Alaska. The Russian term for the Tlingit, Koloshi, derived from an Alutiiq word for labret. Based on analysis of the history and social context of the labret (lip plug) on the Northwest Coast of British Columbia over the last 5,000 years, Marina LaSalle asserts that “while simple correlations of the labret with ‘status’ and ‘gender’ are not wrong, nonetheless they betray the complexity of body ornamentation which, though manifested materially, is highly contextual” and that “the labret is a symbol and expression of social identity that continues to hold significant meaning for the descendants of this heritage.” ref 

“Labrets were used as personal adornments that were applied by piercing either the lips or the cheeks. They may date as early as 10,700 years ago at the Ushki I site in the Kamchatka Peninsula in Siberia. The archaeological record suggests they “may have been” independently invented in six locations around the world at the southern Kamchatka Peninsula, Iran, the Balkans, Sudan in Africa, southwestern Mexico and in Ecuador. The long distant movement of labrets between cultures around these regions indicates a wide ranging cultural interaction that may be the result of trade and marriage alliances.” ref

“In some parts of the world, people cut holes in their lips for the insertion of plugs or buttons. To such ornaments the name labret is frequently given”——1926, Clark Wissler, “The Relation Of Nature To Man In Aboriginal America,” p. 61. “The labret, among American aborigines, is well known to be a plug, stud or variously-shaped button, made from various materials, which is inserted at or about the age of puberty through a hole or holes pierced in the thinner portions of the face about the mouth.”——–1884, W. H. Dall, “On Masks, Labrets, And Certain Aboriginal Customs, With An Inquiry Into The Bearing Of Their Geographical Distribution,” Third Annual Report Of The Bureau Of Ethnology To The Secretary Of The Smithsonian Institution, pp. 77-78.” ref

“They (labrets) are worn in some tribes by women only, in others by men only, in still others by both sexes, in which case the style of the labret is different for each sex.”—-1884, W. H. Dall, “On Masks, Labrets, And Certain Aboriginal Customs, With An Inquiry Into The Bearing Of Their Geographical Distribution,” Third Annual Report Of The Bureau Of Ethnology To The Secretary Of The Smithsonian Institution, p. 78. “The first descriptions by Europeans (in 1741) of the use by Alaskan peoples of tattoo and labrets refer to the Aleuts and Pacific Eskimos.”—-1988, Joy Gritton, “Labrets And Tattooing In Native Alaska,” Marks Of Civilization, p. 181.” ref

“Labrets (in Alaska) could be made of a variety of materials: stone (quartz, agate, jadite, serpentine or slate), graphite, glass, bone, wood or ivory.”—-1988, Joy Gritton, “Labrets And Tattooing In Native Alaska,” Marks Of Civilization, p. 186. “The decline of these two permanent modes of adornment (labrets & tattooing) has generally been attributed to intense efforts on the part of Christian missionaries to eradicate aspects of dress, grooming, and ritual they found offensive.”—-1988, Joy Gritton, “Labrets And Tattooing In Native Alaska,” Marks Of Civilization, p. 181.” ref

“The world distribution of labrets is very limited. From my observations independent development of labrets seems to be a rare occurrence. Labrets originate and disperse from a maximum of six localities in the world.”—-1989, Grant Keddie, “Symbolism And Context: The World History Of The Labret And Cultural Diffusion On The Pacific Rim,” p. 7. “I refer to the use of labrets, which for brevity may be called labretifery.”———1884, W. H. Dall, “On Masks, Labrets, And Certain Aboriginal Customs, With An Inquiry Into The Bearing Of Their Geographical Distribution,” Third Annual Report Of The Bureau Of Ethnology To The Secretary Of The Smithsonian Institution, p. 77.” ref

Their use in the southern Kamchatka Peninsula in Siberia likely relates/connects to their use in the Americas, to me.

“At the southern Kamchatka Peninsula in Siberia where Dikov suggests a date of 10,700 years ago, for labrets he discovered in level VI on the Ushki I site.  Labrets are believed to have spread to the eastern north Pacific sometime after 5500 years ago. Some of the earliest labrets in North America were found just south of Vancouver on Pender Island. They date to at least 5100 years ago. This labret was collected in western Alaska but it’s also similar to labrets that have been found on the southern coast of British Columbia that date to between 5000 and 2000 years ago. This labret is made of coal. It measures 7/8 of an inch (2.3 cm) wide.” ref

Pacific NW coast mask and labrets Haida people, Haida Gwaii, Canada, 19th century

“From a selection of crafted wood, bone, and pottery lip-plugs or ‘labrets’ (from the Latin labrum meaning ‘lip’ or ‘edge’). Are things like a realistic mask, which was carved before 1868 and depicts the wife of the artist, shows how a labret would be worn in the lower lip. Labrets thought to have been worn exclusively by women of the Northwest Coast including those of the Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian peoples. Usually inserted into an incision below the lower lip, the labret was a distinctive personal ornament, and highly visible mark of noble status and political influence as well as beauty. However, labrets were not without their problems, resulting in difficulties in eating and drinking, as well as occasional periodontal disease and tooth loss, so for this and other reasons modern Haida women no longer wear them.” ref

“Labrets were the subject of much fascination, discussion and speculation among 18th- and 19th-century explorers, traders, missionaries and ethnographers. Many sources say the lip was pierced on the occasion of the girl’s first menstruation and a small ornament inserted. This was one of several events that accompanied a girl’s puberty ritual including isolation away from the main group and the prohibition of certain foods. The size of the adult labret was associated with how many children the woman had as well as the hierarchical status of her kin group. For example, the red-coloured pottery lip-plug shown here was worn by a woman who had had several children. The most elite women wore the largest labrets, sometimes made of expensive materials such as copper or abalone shell. Haida society is based on a matrilineal system of descent and is divided into two main groups, Eagle and Raven. All Haida men or women are expected to marry a member of the opposite group. Since the mouth, as the locus of speech, was considered a powerful place on a woman’s body, a woman could through her words either mediate or agitate relations between clans of each group.” ref

“The earliest evidence of facial piercing and body modification in Africa has been discovered in the skeletal remains of a man who lived 12,000 years ago. By analyzing his teeth, researchers were able to identify abrasions from an object that had been rubbing against them – indicating that the man’s chin and cheeks had been gauged with jewelry. Finding such examples, as well as other forms of body modification, is tough because the soft tissue that was pierced has often worn away or been regarded beyond recognition. Most cultural piercings tend to take place on surface areas like skin, more serious forms embedded in the muscle that have long since perished on discovering the remains.” ref

“A study published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology told of the work, led by John C. Willman from the University of Coimbra in Portugal, that saw scientists given access to the skeletal remains of Olduvai Hominid 1 (OH1). It once belonged to a young man who lived towards the end of the Late Pleistocene period, some 20,000 to 12,000 years ago. The skeleton was recovered from Tanzania, with evidence suggesting he had been purposefully buried. Initial research suggested that his teeth has been deliberately filed down in a body modification process known as ablation. This was a common occurrence, where teeth were purposefully removed with the intention of identifying an individual as being part of a group. However, the fresh research suggests the teeth’s wearing away was more likely a case of a lip or chin piercing, so say Mr Willman and his team of researchers.” ref

“This, they say, is hugely significant, as it revises our understanding of the culture and practices of our early ancestors. Mr Willman said: “Our review of the literature shows no evidence for facial piercings in Africa prior to about 10,000 years ago, in individuals from archaeological sites in Sudan.” Ablation, he noted, was common in Africa between 20,000 and 12,000 years ago. What’re, the example of Olduvai Hominid 1’s body modification nestles among a sea of ablation, revealing that the hithero undiscovered practice was likely more common than has ever been considered.” ref

“Similar to body modification jewelry worn in the present day, Olduvai Hominid 1 might have worn large discs at least an inch wide. The jewelry may have been carved out of wood that decomposed over time, or the discs may have been removed on his burial. It is not known when and why the practice of facial modification through gauges and jewelry began. Such present-day modifications are largely done as a symbol of expressing an individuals identity to showing they belong to a specific group, with scientists suggesting this may well be the case for our ancestors.” ref

Ancient Alaskan Labrets: jewelry that spoke louder than words

“Labrets, ornamental lip plugs worn through a perforation in the lower lip or cheek, are a frequent find in coastal Alaskan archaeological sites.  From prehistoric times, members of Aleut, Eskimo, and Indian hunter-gatherer tribes wore them for personal adornment, to reflect social affiliation, and to broadcast hereditary rank.  Because they were made of durable materials—wood, bone, stone—many have been preserved through the ages, providing important clues to frontier scientists about life in ancient coastal Alaska.  (See the video Jewelry Alutiiq Style.)” ref

“According to archaeologist Amy Steffian, who collects and interprets artifacts for the Alutiiq Museum on Kodiak Island, “In many traditions, labrets were used to broadcast messages. They indicated territorial boundaries and social rank.  They helped tribes quickly predict how things would go when they encountered others.  They helped maintain group cohesion at a time when warfare was common among hunter-gatherers who traveled long distances by boat, and  found themselves competing for food, raw materials, and even spouses with their neighbors.” ref

“A good deal of Steffian’s work has focused on prehistoric Gulf of Alaska societies from the Kodiak Archipelago, the northern-most region of the Pacific Ocean, where maritime foragers have lived for the past 7,500 years.  Ethnicity, regional affiliation, family ties, gender, age, grade, ownership, rank, and religious beliefs are some of the social categories that are stylistically symbolized by traditional labrets, as noted in a study she co-authored with colleague Patrick Saltonstall. Labret piercing took place in childhood, with labret holes periodically stretched over an individual’s life to accommodate larger ornaments. Plugs were inserted below the lower lip or at the corners of the mouth at either birth or puberty. The initial incision was usually quite small and fit with a slender object to prevent closure.  The variation was tremendous: inlays, incised designs, and attachments were common additions to the basic labret forms.” ref

“With the widespread arrival in Alaska of foreign explorers, merchants and missionaries in the 18th century, labrets rapidly disappeared.  During the Russian period such piercings were signs of rank, and those individuals were singled out as hostages.  Westerners also found labrets a horrifying facial disfigurement, and along with changes in society, the use of such ornaments was quickly abandoned. Interestingly, the purpose and stylistic variety found in this traditional jewelry carry on today, as demonstrated by current fashions.  Tattoos, eye-popping hair dyes and piercings are popular ways for youth of today to broadcast their identity not just to puzzled parents but to the world.  Modern-day labrets’ function hasn’t changed; they demonstrate membership in a like-minded group, express personal identity, and differentiate the wearers from other groups.” ref

Older than Expected: The Prehistoric Piercings of Turkey

Evidence suggests piercings were used as a sign of adulthood in Neolithic Türkiye

 “The little ornaments dating back as late as 10,000 BC were made from limestone, obsidian, flint, serpentine, chlorite, and copper. Of these ornaments, 85 were found in situ in burial contexts. This means archaeologists could determine precisely where the ornaments lay in life, for example, next to the left and right ear lobes or just in front of the mandible.” ref

Neolithic Chic: Body Piercing Fashion from the Arctic Around 5,000 Years Ago

“Ancient items of jewellery found by archeologists on Taymyr peninsula are stone labrets which were inserted into the face below the bottom lip. The discovery was made during the summer 2016 archeological season at a location some 600 kilometers above the Arctic Circle. The site in the far north of Krasnoyarsk region is believed to date as far back as three or four millennium BCE. Labrets are a kind of jewelry, which can be made of shell, bone, or stone, and is inserted into the lip as an ornament in some cultures.” ref

“The discovery was made by archeologists from Krasnoyarsk Geoarkheologia, and spokesman Danil Lysenko said: ‘We found these labrets at the Neolithic site Bolshaya II, which is located on the bank of Novaya River, a tributary of the Katanga River. ‘They were just lying on the ground, along with stone arrowheads. In some places here, the wind blows away the upper layer of tundra and the sand, so the ancient items are there, just on the ground, uncovered. ‘Judging by the stone arrowheads, the site can be preliminarily dated as being from the fourth to the third millennium BCE.’ Archeologists say these facial decorations – two were found this summer in the Arctic – were common among the ancestors of the western Eskimos, Aleuts, the North American Indians. It is believed they were worn by men as well as women.” ref

Evidence for Labret Use in Prehistory

“Abstract: Bull Int Assoc Paleodont. 2020;14(1):1-23. Abstract Aims. Compared to occlusal dental wear, labial/buccal abrasion is seldom documented in prehistoric groups. This type of wear occurs in some ethnographic-present and living populations and leaves telltale facets on non-occlusal vestibular surfaces associated with labrets. Methods and materials. For detailed macroscopic, microscopic (binocular and SEM), and thin-sectioned analysis, we focused on the early Neolithic site of Mehrgarh in Pakistan, where labial/buccal wear is found in mostly older adult males. We studied 215 teeth from ten individuals from the site. From the literature and some personal observations, we review evidence from the Czech early Upper Paleolithic and many later sites in the Old and New Worlds. Results. For Mehrgarh, macroscopic observations revealed numerous teeth with labial and buccal facets that affected nearly every Frayer etal. NO-FEE OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL indexed in Scopus tooth class. Binocular and scanning electron microscopy and one thin-sectioned tooth provided detailed information about the wear characteristics on the facets.” ref

“Comparisons. The most striking parallels to wear at Mehrgarh come from recent Inuit and Northwest Coast Native Americans where labret use was frequent in males and females. Vestibular wear occurs in various specimens from the early Upper Paleolithic to modern patients. Unlike Mehrgarh and earlier prehistoric groups, in many cases, Native American teeth are associated with the actual labrets in the graves. Conclusion. Occlusal wear or attrition caused by dental/oral manipulations where the teeth were used as tools differs, based on the resultant facets left on the teeth and micro-wear features. In prehistoric Europe, labret use extends back, at least, to the early Upper Paleolithic. As in recent humans, the use of labrets in prehistoric groups likely represents personal adornment tied to concepts of beauty and/or achieved/acquired status.” ref

“The practice of inserting lip and cheek plugs is an under-reported area in dental anthropology.  In part, this is because most dental anthropologists have focused on occlusal tooth wear and internal dental structure, but also because researchers tend to ignore or not look for vestibular wear on anterior and posterior teeth.  In the samples we reviewed, these lesions represent well-defined, sometimes deep facets on the labial and buccal surfaces, which must have taken some time to develop during the lives of the affected individuals. A few studies have documented this type of non-occlusal wear in recent populations, and the pattern seems to extend into the deep past.  Wear on the labial/buccal faces was first described more than 100 years ago, which was attributed to abrasive tooth powders and excessive brushing, factors irrelevant to our work.” ref

“For the fossil record, Matiegka first noted buccal wear in some early Upper Paleolithic remains from the Czech early Gravettian site of Předmostí. Others have described similar wear for numerous early Upper Paleolithic specimens from Central Europe. Here, we focus on evidence for labret use in the Pakistani site of Mehrgarh (~9000-5000 years ago) and extend this evidence for labret use to a wide variety of fossil populations ranging from hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists. Similar evidence continues into ethno-historic and contemporary groups and, in some cases, provides ethnographic-present explanations for examples in prehistoric samples. These appear to be nonfunctional body decorations and serve as markers of beauty and status, just as perceived in extant groups. Evidence for lip and cheek plugs merits future surveys of other populations for documentation.” ref

Evidence for labrets in prehistory: South Asia

“Our initial interest in labrets stems from the dental remains of some individuals from the early Neolithic period at Mehrgarh in Baluchistan, Pakistan.  This site is an extensive, deeply stratified prehistoric village and cemetery. Located at the foot of the Hindu Kush on the east bank of the Bolan River in the northwestern extension of the Kacchi Plain, it is in a strategic area at the southwest access to the Bolan Pass, Figure 1a. Initial excavations began in 1974 by a French Archaeological Mission in Pakistan (with the collaboration of the Pakistani Department of Archaeology) when erosion exposed a deep stratigraphic sequence.  Eleven subsequent field seasons (1977-1985 and 1997-2000) uncovered a large graveyard with skeletons dated as far back as 9000-5000 years ago.  Our focus here is on the earliest Neolithic, named MR3, dated to 9000-7800 years ago. Burial grounds for this period extend over 12 hectares, and the absence of breaks in the sequence suggests these Neolithic individuals were buried during a ~1500-year time span, Figure 1b. Dental anthropology at Mehrgarh has been widely reported by Lukacs and colleagues, documenting dental size, pathology, fluorosis, trauma, and activity-induced patterns of dental abrasion in the skeletal collection deriving from the 1977-1985 field. More recently, tooth drilling as a form of prehistoric dentistry was reported on nine individuals.” ref

Other areas in Middle and South Asia and the Near East

“One of the problems we have in attributing, especially the labial/buccal facets, to labret use is that no labrets have been found in the archaeological collections from Mehrgarh. However, as documented in the ethnographic-present samples discussed below, labrets were sometimes made of wood or other perishable materials, which may have been the case at Mehrgarh. As far as the Near East, Middle, and South Asia are concerned, there is some evidence for labrets in other contexts, which is reflected in different materials. Bocquentin et al. report on two Natufian central incisors with extensive labial flattening of the incisor faces. SEM analysis revealed numerous, parallel vertical striations running up the abraded facets, which are flat, not concave like found in labret wear.  Although the potentiality of wearing a lip plug was considered, Bocquentin et al. argued the wear was more likely caused by some kind of repetitive action from a tool.” ref

“The earliest and most convincing material evidence for the use of lip plugs comes from the Deh Luran plains of south-western  Iran, specifically from the site of Ali Kosh, where in a graveyard dated to the early  6th millennium BCE one individual was buried with a bitumen plug found in place on the lower jaw, with corresponding wear marks on teeth. Objects possibly identified as labrets or lip plugs, but only on morphological grounds, have been reported with variable degrees of plausibility from the early 6th millennium BCE Neolithic site of Tol-e Nurabad and from the early-mid 6th millennium BCE site of Tall-e Mushki in the Marv Dasht plateau, both from south-western Iran and again from other southern Iranian sites in Fars. Labrets have also been identified from mid-late 6th millennium BCE site of Sabi Abyad in Syria, in sites of the Kuwaiti coast of the Persian Gulf.  In these and other cases of morphological identification, there is little chance of distinguishing labrets exclusively from tokens used in quite different ways. Statements by Pollock and Bernbeck concerning finds from Mondjukli Tepe, Turkmenistan express doubts about labrets. Similar questions for Tol-e Nurabad are reviewed in length in.” ref

“In the Near Eastern societies of the late 6th-5th millennium BCE and in the so-called sphere of the Ubaid period, objects interpreted as labrets (or as possibly ear spools) become quite common based identifications at the sites of ‘Oueili, Tell Abada, Tepe Gawra, Ra’s al-Amiya, Choga Sefid. Actually, these objects, whatever their ancient function, are considered “significant and easily recognized markers of Ubaid personal identity”. Afterward, the use of labrets expanded geographically with the Ubaid culture and remained in use through the beginning of the 4th millennium BCE (for example, at Choga Mish in Susiana, Iran. After about 3500 BCE or around 5,500 years ago, the ornaments seem to have disappeared at the onset of the Uruk period. The iconographic evidence of the use of labrets in the Near Eastern and Middle Asian regions is quite limited. A terracotta head of a human figurine found at Choga Mish (Khuzistan, Iran), dates back to the early 5th millennium BCE.  A round plug is clearly represented as a button-like relief, protruding from the lower lip. The small balafré (scarred men) statues, reportedly from southwestern Iran, but most likely coming from the Oxus region in northern Afghanistan are much later, tentatively dated to the late 3rd millennium BCE.” ref

“These still mysterious images (none were found in a scientific excavation) appear to have pierced upper and lower lips in the region of the central incisors. Yet, no figurine or statue of the same description has been found at Mehrgarh. Moreover, no other statues or carved heads from the Oxus region have lip piercings. Vidale suspects that the holes represent openings for the insertion of piercing plugs. In such a case, the lip holes should be considered as archaic or exotic representations. Except for these, in the Near Eastern and Middle Asian regions, there are no depictions of presumable lip plugs in statues.” ref

Evidence for labrets in prehistory: Europe

“Vanhaeren and d’Errico report the presence of an Aurignacian, ivory labret from Spy Belgium. No lip plugs, but similar buccal lesions to those at Mehrgarh have been documented for various Gravettian sites in Central Europe. Matiegka, Vlček, and Drozdová reviewed the evidence for buccal facets from Předmostí, Pavlov, and Dolní Vestonice involving mandibular and maxillary teeth. All these authors attributed the buccal wear to carrying stones in the mouth to ward off thirst. Trefný and Hillson made a similar argument, although Hillson maintained that “the cheeks might, for example, have been used to hold an implement or in the processing of a food or material”. To produce this kind of buccal wear, the stones or activity must have had sustained use and targeted in just a small area of the mouth. Willman opposed these arguments, suggesting lip and cheek plugs were more likely. We agree, and labret usage can better account for the buccal tooth wear in the Czech Gravettian, although, like Mehrgarh, no labrets have been found in any of these sites.” ref

“There are a series of pendants and other small objects at Dolní Vestonice, but these have never been considered as lip or cheek plugs. Labial/buccal lesions have not been documented in the European Mesolithic or Neolithic, but they also have not been systematically studied. Aubry et al. found no cases of this type of wear in a small sample from the French Chalcolithic, but they focused on abstractions, which are clearly different from labial/buccal abrasive wear. In a Bronze Age burial in southeastern Great Britain, Sheridan et al. describe wooden cheek plugs associated with a cremated burial of a young male, but due to burial practices, human remains were very fragmentary. Likely, there are more cases in prehistoric Europe awaiting description.” ref 

Evidence for labrets in prehistoric Africa, East Asia, and Australia

“Compared to Europe, labrets are infrequently reported for prehistoric dentitions from Africa and East Asia, despite the fact they occur in several native people in Africa and Asia. For Africa, the earliest example comes from Olduvai hominid 1, a Tanzanian specimen probably from the Late Pleistocene/Later Stone Age based on associated microlithic tools. It shows extensive lingual erosions on its anterior teeth, which resemble the effect of wearing a labret. Parsche identified the facets as ‘lingual,’ but from our direct observation of OH1 the facets are clearly labial. This identification is confirmed by Willman et al. Originally, these facets were interpreted to be the result of sandstone filing and later as the result of fiber processing. Both of these explanations have been rejected by Willman et al. They found labial flattening on a maxillary canine and buccal flattening on other mandibular and maxillary posterior teeth. Based on microscopic work, they concluded all these flattened surfaces were due to labret abrasion.  Later Mesolithic examples come from central Sudan, where lip plugs are found, dating to ~8000 – 7500 years ago.” ref 

“Honegger also documents lip plugs in early Neolithic graves of northern Sudan (6605-6960 years ago), but did not describe dental evidence. Labrets were found in Neolithic graves in Mali, Sudan, and Chad. Keddie notes that labrets are found in central Sudan, and their popularity spreads with population movements and along trade lines. The most stunning example of labret use in Africa comes from Jebel Moya in southern Sudan. Here, Addison documented 28,000 labrets in the large cemetery. The cemetery comprises members of a pastoral group associated with the Meroitic state and is dated between 200 BCE and 400 CE. Addison claims that labrets were almost as common as potsherds. Unfortunately, much of this skeletal material was destroyed in flooding at Oxford, and most of the artifacts appear to be missing.  However, MacDonald documented a few of the dentitions, which show labial wear on the anterior teeth. According to her survey, “47% of all the females examined had direct evidence for the wearing of labrets in the form of labial wear facets”. Besides labrets, it is probable some of these items were used in ear piercings, as they greatly vary in size and shape. Elsewhere Santoni et al. describe evidence of the use of labial lip plug in a mandible dating to the 14th Century from the Cameroon.” ref

“These are different from the others observed here in that the facets are confined to the mesial aspects of the canines and barely extend to the canine crowns. They seem to relate to a flat lip plug, but these were not found in the grave, and the attribution is not clear.  There is some prehistoric evidence for the Near East where Bocquentin et al. report on two Natufian central incisors with extensive labial flattening of the incisor faces. SEM analysis revealed numerous, parallel vertical striations running up the abraded facets, which are flat, not concave like found in the labret wear described above. Although the potentiality of wearing a lip plug was considered, Bocquentin et al. argued the wear was more likely caused by some kind of repetitive action. Lip plugs and associated tooth wear are infrequent in the prehistory of northeast Asia. There are no documented cases of prehistoric or recent labret use in native Australians.” ref

Labrets in prehistory and the ethnographic-present in the Americas

Prehistoric evidence for labret use

“Various authors have mentioned or described actual labrets and, sometimes, dental evidence for labret use in late prehistoric groups in North, Central, and South America. Among the Aztecs and Incas, labrets served as status markers and were made from a variety of materials, from leather to lead.  Pollard, describing their use in pre-Hispanic Tarascan (Aztec) groups, notes that “[m]ale members of the elite wore gold ear and lip plugs to signal their status, and at death were buried with these status markers.” Otis Charlton records that lip plugs were sometimes made of chert and obsidian among the Aztecs of Otumba. Further south in Peru, Cordy-Collins documents lip plugs from her study of pottery vessels. These depicted only females and, given the absence of lip plugs in early Moche periods, Cordy-Collins maintains these females are from outside the Moche area. Very few studies have described dental complications from these marks. An exception is the study by Torres-Rouff who reports an edentulous individual, associated with a labret. She argues anterior tooth loss in this male likely was caused by labret use, given that a large labret was found in the tomb.  She describes a second case from prehistoric Chile, 400-900 years ago. This male was buried with two small, quartz labrets, which were found in place. Both canines preserved large labial wear facets, extending from the crown to each tooth’s root.” ref

“These facets correspond closely to the position where the labrets were found in the skeletal remains. Torres-Rouff reports that ‘evidence for male use of labret is pervasive in prehistoric Chile.”  Reviewing evidence from the El Torín graveyard (2200 – 1000 years ago), she records polishing of the labial faces of incisors and canines, gingival recession in four males, and in all four cases, ante mortem tooth loss. Much farther north, the use of labrets is well documented by various authors for prehistoric Inuit, Athabascan, and Northwest Coast groups. Rorabaugh and Shantry report multiple types of large and small labrets in Salish archaeological deposits from 30+ sites dating from 3200 – 1000 years ago. There are some cases of dental involvement, but mostly, the labrets are isolated from skeletal material. Rorabaugh and Shantry maintain that males and females wore labrets and that they served as “credibility enhancing displays,” marking the special status of the wearer.” ref

“Labret use in the ethnographic-present Using reports by explorers, Hrdlička documented Inuits from Kodiak Island, Alaska, wearing labrets made from a variety of stone, bone, and ivory. A more recent study by Ray writes that “[m]en of the entire area [Bering Strait Eskimos] wore labrets, and it is interesting that many wore extremely large ones made of trade beads or jade, probably as a status symbol, since these huge things must have been very uncomfortable”.  Pedersen published an extensive survey of 802 Inuits and found evidence of buccal wear (“abnutzungsfacetten”) in 4.5% of the skulls in collections at the Smithsonian Institution (Washington D.C.), the American Museum of Natural History (New York City) and the Anthropologicum Laboratorium (Copenhagen).” ref

“He also published various lip and cheek labrets and a large labret in a burial affecting four mandibular teeth. These produced buccal abrasions similar to those seen in Mehrgarh and the other prehistoric samples. Labret use among the western Inuits was common and spread all the way to the Aleutian Islands, but was not circumpolar since labrets are not seen in the Inuit eastern range. They also did not extend far northwest into eastern Siberia, but as documented by Keddie labrets are found in the Kamchatka Peninsula natives and in far northern Japan. Cybulski analyzed skeletal material from recent Northwest Coast groups and found evidence of labret use in mandibles of adult males and females. He records a burial preserving a large labret associated with mandibular teeth and documented a frequency of 16% of adult individuals with labrets, all involving anterior teeth.” ref

“For Northwest Coast groups, La Salle records a wide variety of labret raw materials including “antler, basalt, bone, shell, coal, horn, ivory, quartz, quartzite, sandstone, siltstone, slate, soapstone, steatite, clay, limestone, mudstone, serpentine, talc, wood, and copper.” She also reviews ethno-historic sources for Northwest Coast groups and found that: “The older the woman the larger is the ornament, and young girls have only a needle in the lower lip, the married women alone have the right to the bowls”. Dall describes the labret, worn by all women but slaves, as a symbol of vigor, fortitude, and mature development, of sexual freedom, of maturity only, and, of power, privileges, and respect. Moss found evidence for lip and cheek labrets in Catlin’s portraits of Native Americans, which he contended generally signified a higher status of the wearer in both males and females.” ref

The Dentalium Labrets Of The Tlingit

“There’s a legend among the Tlingit that starts by saying, “No one knows where the story of Raven begins, so everyone starts from where they know and goes on from there.” According to the story, Raven was a god-like figure with an abalone shell labret, and he (or sometimes she) made the world. Not the whole universe, mind you, but this particular world. So he had a world, and he needed a light for it. Raven knew a guy, out there in the universe, who had a light, so he went and got that guy’s daughter pregnant. The child that was born cried all the time, and Raven and his new family gave the child all the stars in the sky, the sun and the moon, all the earth it could walk on, the sea to fish in, and a lot of friends. And that’s where the world, and the people in it came from.” ref

“Among the Tlingit, Whose name means “People of the Tides,” that story, the story of how Raven created the world, is as much property as the land you might live on, or the laptop you’re reading this on. Stories, names, dances, and songs were all owned by clans. You might be given a name to pay back a debt, or, if the person who owes you was particularly hard to collect from, you might steal a dance or a song instead. According to one of their other legends, they met a group of people, not Tlingit but “people with whom you could trade” and they were called Athapaskan people. Nomads who’d been robbed and had other troubles along the way. Mighty hunters though, and very knowledgeable about things like dancing and fashion.” ref

“The Athapaskans sported some amazing tattoo work, and some great jewelry. One of their habits, the wearing of nose rings and nose pins and labrets made from slate and abalone, caught on with the Tlingit, and became a tradition practiced over the centuries. They could pierce and stretch their septums with dentalium shells, or porcupine or bird’s quills. The earliest settlements made things like labrets from slate. Later they made ornaments like copper rings and disks. It wasn’t simply a matter of fashion sense either. It’s interesting that the Tlingit legends describe Athapaskans as “People with whom you could trade”, because with the scarcity of food and goods in the northern tundra, people you could trade with were one of their most important assets. War for goods, food, spouses, and among some people (including the Tlingit, at least until the 1860s) slaves was common. A harsh winter could divide clans, and set people against each other.” ref

“But how… Could you know if the people you saw in the distance were friends or foes? If they would kill you or trade with you? The answer is by looking at their jewelry. The way labrets and other jewelry was worn could indicate tribal boundaries, social status, whether you were open to trading or looking for a fight. They were a sign of who you were within your society, what society you belonged to, and how high caste or low caste you might be. People could tell everything about you just by looking at your face. Stem from earlier indigenous peoples that scientists now call “Paleo Hunter Gatherers”, and archeological digs have turned up the same kinds of jewelry that traditional northern indigenous people were still wearing when Edward S. Curtis (see the pics on the right) came through to photograph them in the early 1900s.” ref

“It’s a tradition, just like stories about Raven, that spans clans and cultures across the northern Pacific coast, up into Alaska and across the Yukon Territory, and it goes back a long ways. Digs done in Alaska have found evidence of people, like the paleo hunter-gatherers, dating to 8000 BCE, when a land bridge still connected Siberia and Alaska. When according to legend, the first people who spoke Athapaskan crossed over and met the Tlingit, and they traded things like abalone shells for food and learned about dances and jewelry. And with them came Raven.” ref

“When Raven began journeying between the clans, from the Tlingit and Athapaskan peoples to the Kwakuitl and Inuit, he (and she, because Raven could also be a woman) had many adventures, married men and women, birds and fish and whales. That’s when Raven, as both man and woman, wore an abalone shell labret, and this became popular among the highest caste of people among the Tlingit and Athapaskans. Eventually, it was said that only the highest caste people, chiefs and children of chiefs, knew the whole story of Raven, because they were the only people who had time to learn it. But even then, no one ever knew the beginning, and no one ever will.” ref

Things that are similar in several Indigenous groups in the Pacific Northwest area

1. “Marine/riverine orientation and adapted technology
2. Sedentary life in villages
3. Highly developed woodworking technology
4. High population density
5. Strict social stratification, including slavery
6. No intercommunity organization or political offices” ref

The Evolution of the Pacific Northwest Coast: Abundance, Prosperity & Complexity (VIEDO)

“The Northwest Coast Native Americans can indeed be considered an example of a chiefdom-level society. This social organization in the Pacific Northwest was characterized by a complex hierarchical system where power was concentrated within the leadership of clans. These clans were made up of families recognizing a common ancestor, often symbolized by important regional animals like ravens or whales. The leadership held not only political power but often combined aspects of economic, religious, and sometimes military dominance. Stratification was a notable characteristic, with individual, family, clan, and town rankings. The practice of ‘potlatch’ was central to this society, reinforcing the status and hierarchy among members and other clans through ceremonial gift-giving and feasts.” ref

“The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are composed of many nations and tribal affiliations, each with distinctive cultural and political identities. They share certain beliefs, traditions and practices, such as the centrality of salmon as a resource and spiritual symbol, and many cultivation and subsistence practices. The term Northwest Coast or North West Coast is used in anthropology to refer to the groups of Indigenous people residing along the coast of what is now called British Columbia, Washington State, parts of Alaska, Oregon, and Northern California. The term Pacific Northwest is largely used in the American context. At one point, the region had the highest population density of a region inhabited by Indigenous peoples in Canada.” ref

“The Pacific Northwest Coast at one time had the most densely populated areas of indigenous people ever recorded in Canada. The land and waters provided rich natural resources through cedar and salmon, and highly structured cultures developed from relatively dense populations. Within the Pacific Northwest, many different nations developed, each with their own distinct history, culture, and society. Some cultures in this region were very similar and shared certain elements, such as the importance of salmon to their cultures, while others differed. Prior to contact, and for a brief time after colonization, some of these groups regularly conducted war against each other through raids and attacks. Through warfare they gathered captives for slavery.” ref

“The Tlingit are a matrilineal society. They developed a complex hunter-gatherer culture in the temperate rainforest of the Alaska Panhandle and adjoining inland areas of present-day British Columbia. The Haida people (/ˈhdə/ HY-də) are well-known as skilled artisans of wood, metal, and design. They have also shown much perseverance and resolve in the area of forest conservation. The vast forests of cedar and spruce where the Haida make their home are on pre-glacial land, which is believed to be almost 14,000 years old. The Haida were widely known for their art and architecture, both of which focused on the creative embellishment of wood. They decorated utilitarian objects with depictions of supernatural and other beings in a highly conventionalized style.” ref

“Haida communities located in Prince of Wales Island, Alaska and Haida Gwaii, British Columbia (previously referred to as the Queen Charlotte Islands) also share a common border with other Indigenous peoples, such as the Tlingit and the Tsimshian. The Haida were also famous for their long-distance raiding and slaving, going often to California for trading. The Tsimshian (/ˈsɪmʃiən/ SIM-shee-ən), translated as “People Inside the Skeena River,” are indigenous people who live around Terrace and Prince Rupert on the North Coast of British Columbia, and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. There are about 10,000 Tsimshian, of whom about 1,300 live in Alaska.” ref

“Succession in Tsimshian society is matrilineal, and one’s place in society was determined by one’s clan or phratry (defined as four equal parts). Four main Tsimshian clans form the basic phratry. The Laxsgiik (Eagle Clan) and Ganhada (Raven Clan) form one half. Gispwudwada (Killer Whale Clan) and Laxgibuu (Wolf Clan) form the other half. Prior to European contact, marriage in Tsimshian society could not take place within a half-group, for example between a Wolf and a Killer Whale. It was considered to be incest even if there was no blood relationship. Marriages were only arranged between people from clans in different halves: for example, between a Killer Whale and a Raven or Eagle.” ref

“The area referred to as the Northwest Coast has a very long history of human occupation, exceptional linguistic diversity, population density and cultural and ceremonial development. Noted by anthropologists for its complexity, there is emerging research that the economies of these people were more complex and intensive than was previously assumed. Coast Salish peoples’ had complex land management practices linked to ecosystem health and resilience. Forest gardens on Canada’s northwest coast included crabapple, hazelnut, cranberry, wild plum, and wild cherry species. Many groups have First Generation Stories – family stories that tell of the origin of the group, and often of humans themselves arising in specific locations along the coast.” ref

Stratification and social structure in the Pacific Northwest

“The Northwest Coast was the outstanding exception to the anthropological truism that hunting and gathering cultures—or, in this case, fishing and gathering cultures—are characterized by simple technologies, sparse possessions, and small egalitarian bands. In this region, food was plentiful; less work was required to meet the subsistence needs of the population than in farming societies of comparable size, and, as with agricultural societies, the food surpluses of the Northwest encouraged the development of social stratification. The region’s traditional cultures typically had a ruling elite that controlled use rights to corporately held or communal property, with a “house society” form of social organization. The best analogues for such cultures are generally agreed to be the medieval societies of Europe, China, and Japan, with their so-called noble houses.” ref

“In house societies, the key social and productive unit was a flexible group of a few dozen to 100 or more people who considered themselves to be related (sometimes only distantly), who were coresident in houses or estates for at least part of the year, and who held common title to important resources; in the Northwest, those resources included sites for fishing, berry picking, hunting, and habitation. House groups also held a variety of less-tangible privileges, including the exclusive use of particular names, songs, dances, and, especially in the north, totemic representations or crests.” ref

“Within a house group, each member had a social rank that was valued according to the individual’s degree of relatedness to a founding ancestor. Although social stratification in Northwest Coast communities is frequently described as including three divisions—chiefly elites, commoners, and slaves or war captives—each person in fact had a particular hereditary status that placed him within the group as though he occupied one step on a long staircase of statuses, with the eldest of the senior line on the highest step and the most remotely related at the bottom. Strictly speaking, each person was in a class by himself.” ref

“The highest in rank invariably held a special title that in each language was translated into English as “chief”; this person administered the group’s properties. Usually a man or the widow of a past chief, this leader determined many of the patterns of daily life—when to move to the salmon-fishing station, when to build weirs and traps, when to make the first catch, when and where to perform the rite propitiating the first salmon of the season, which other groups should be invited to feasts, and so on. A chief had many prerogatives and sumptuary privileges and in turn was expected to administer efficiently and to tend to the social and ritual affairs that ensured the general welfare and prestige of the group.” ref

“Notionally, those of high rank had vast authoritarian powers. However, within the group, all mature persons other than slaves could voice their opinions on group affairs, for a house group’s property was held in common. Most leaders refrained from abusing other members of the house and community—not only were they kin, but the chief also needed their cooperation to accomplish even the most basic tasks. For example, many strong arms and sturdy backs were needed to obtain, assemble, and position the heavy materials required to build or repair a house, to construct fish weirs and traps, and to launch and paddle the chief’s huge dugout canoe. Many singers, dancers, and attendants were necessary to stage important ceremonies properly, and many bold warriors were needed to defend the group against foes. Leaders were also aware that there was enough flexibility in the social structure that those of low rank could abandon an abusive situation and move in with kindred elsewhere.” ref

Slaves, however, had few or no rights of participation in house group decisions. They usually had been captured in childhood and taken or traded so far from their original homes that they had little hope of finding their way back. They were chattels who might be treated well or ill, traded off, slain, married, or freed at their owner’s whim; a typical house group owned at least one slave but rarely more than a dozen. Their duties generally included boring, repetitious, and messy work such as stocking the house with firewood and water. In some groups, slaves could achieve better social standing by displaying an unusual talent, such as luck in gambling, which made them eligible for marriage to a person of higher status.” ref 

 “In many cases, insignia or other devices were used to signal personal status. Chiefly, people often wore robes of sea otter fur, as otter pelt were quite valuable in the fur trade; the quality and level of decoration on clothing marked other statuses as well. Head flattening was considered a beautifying process from the northern Kwakiutl region to the central Oregon coast, as well as among some of the neighboring Plateau Indians. This painless, gradual procedure involved binding a newborn child’s head to a cradle board in such a way as to produce a long subconical form, a strong slope from the eyebrows back, or a distinctive wedge shape in which the back of the skull was flattened. In the Northwest Coast culture area, head flattening was practiced only on relatively high-status infants, although the capture and enslavement of children from neighboring tribes that also undertook this modification meant that a shapely head was no guarantee of an individual’s current status. See also body modifications and mutilations.” ref

“The status of each member of a house group was hereditary but was not automatically assumed at birth. Such things had to be formally and publicly announced at a potlatch, an event sponsored by each group north of the Columbia River. The term comes from the trade jargon used throughout the region and means “to give.” A potlatch always involved the invitation of another house (or houses), whose members were received with great formality as guests and witnesses of the event. Potlatches were used to mark a wide variety of transitions, including marriages, the building of a house, chiefly funerals, and the bestowal of adult names, noble titles, crests, and ceremonial rights.” ref

“Having witnessed the proceedings, the guests were given gifts and served prodigious amounts of food with the expectation that what was left uneaten would be taken home. The social statuses of the guests were recognized and reified through the potlatch, for gifts were distributed in rank order, and the more splendid gifts were given to the guests of the highest status. Whether hosting or acting as guests at a potlatch, all members of a house usually participated in the proceedings, a process that served to strengthen their identification with the group.” ref

“Although potlatches shared some fundamental characteristics across cultures, there were also regional variations. In the northern province, for example, a major potlatch was part of the cycle of mortuary observances after the death of a chief, at which his heir formally assumed chiefly status; in the Wakashan and Salish regions, a chief gave a potlatch before his own demise in order to bestow office on his successor.” ref

“Some early anthropologists argued that the potlatch was an economic enterprise in which the giver expected to recover a profit on the goods he had distributed when, in turn, his guests became potlatch hosts. However, this was an impossibility because only a few guests of the highest rank would ever stage such affairs and invite their former hosts; those of intermediate and low rank could not afford to do so, yet the value of the gifts bestowed on them was considerable. Indeed, before the fur trade made great quantities of manufactured goods available, potlatches were few, whereas feasts, though also formal but not occasions for bestowing titles and gifts, were very frequent.” ref  

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The hidden history of “Hand Talk” A North American lingua franca.

“Centuries before we had American Sign Language, Native sign languages, broadly known as “Hand Talk,” were thriving across North America. Hand Talk would be influential in the formation of American Sign Language, but it has largely been written out of history. One of these Hand Talk variations, Plains Indian Sign Language, was used so widely across the Great Plains that it became a lingua franca — a universal language used by both d/Deaf and hearing people to communicate among tribes that didn’t share a common spoken language.” ref

“At one point, tens of thousands of Indigenous people used Plains Indian Sign Language, or PISL, for everything from trade to hunting, conflict, storytelling, and rituals. But by the late 1800s, the federal government began to implement a policy that would change the course of Indigenous history forever: a boarding school program designed to forcibly assimilate Indigenous children into white American culture — a dark history that we’re still learning more about to this day.” ref

“Because of a forced “English-only” policy, the boarding school era is one of the main reasons the country lost so many Native signers — along with the eventual dominance of ASL in schools for the d/Deaf. Today, there are just a handful of fluent PISL signers left in the US. In the piece above, we hear from two of these signers, Melanie McKay-Cody and Lanny Real Bird, who have dedicated their lives to studying and revitalizing the language. They show us PISL in action and help us explore how this ancient language holds centuries of Indigenous history. This video is part of our award-winning series, Missing Chapter, now in its third season. You can watch more Missing Chapter episodes in this playlist.” ref

Native American Hand Talkers Fight to Keep Sign Language Alive

“In early September 1930, the Blackfeet Nation of Montana hosted a historic Indian Sign Language Grand Council, gathering leaders of a dozen North American Nations and language groups. The three-day council held was organized by Hugh L. Scott, a 77-year-old U.S. Army General who had spent a good portion of his career in the American West, where he observed and learned what users called Hand Talk, and what is today more broadly known as Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL). With $5,000 in federal funding, Scott filmed the proceedings and hoped to produce a film dictionary of more than 1,300 signs. He died before he could finish the project.” ref

“Scott’s films disappeared into the National Archives. Recently rediscovered, they are an important resource for those looking to revitalize PISL. Among them is Ron Garritson, who identifies himself as being of Choctaw and European heritage. He was raised in Billings, Montana, near the Crow Nation. “I learned how to speak Crow to a degree, and I was really interested in the sign language,” he said. “I saw it being used by the Elders, and I thought it was a beautiful form of communication. And so I started asking questions.” Garritson studied Scott’s films, along with works by other ethnographers and now has a vocabulary of about 1,700 signs. He conducts workshops and classes across Montana, in an effort to preserve and spread sign language and native history.” ref

Lingua franca

“Prior to contact with Europeans, North American Native peoples were not a unified culture, but hundreds of different cultures and tribes, each with its own political organization, belief system and language. When speakers of one language met those of another, whether in trade, councils or conflict, they communicated in the lingua franca of Hand Talk. Scholars dispute exactly when, in their 30,000-year history in North America, tribes developed sign language. It was observed among Florida tribes by 16th Century Spanish colonizers.” ref

“Coronado, as he documented in his journals in 1540, was in Texas and met the Comanche,” said Garritson. “He documented that the Comanches made themselves so well-understood with the use of sign talk that there was almost no need for an interpreter. It was that easy to use and easy to understand.” While each tribe had its own dialect, tribes were able to communicate easily. Though universal in North America, Hand Talk was more prominent among the nomadic Plains Nations.” ref

“There were fewer linguistic groups east of the Mississippi River,” said Garritson. “They were mostly woodland tribes, living in permanent villages and were familiar with each other’s languages. They still used sign language to an extent, but not like it was used out here.” Hand Talk was also the first language of deaf Natives. By the late 1800s, tens of thousands of Native Americans still used Hand Talk. That changed when the federal government instituted a policy designed to “civilize” tribal people.” ref

“Children were removed from their families and sent to government-run boarding schools, where they were forbidden to speak their own languages or practice their own spiritual beliefs. Native Deaf children were sent to deaf residential schools, where they were taught to use American Sign Language (ASL). Research has shown that Hand Talk is still being used by a small number of deaf and hearing descendants of the Plains Indian cultures.” ref

“Hand Talk is endangered and dying quickly,” said Melanie McKay-Cody, who identifies herself as Cherokee Deaf and is an expert in anthropological linguistics. McKay-Cody is the first deaf researcher to specialize in North American Hand Talk and today works with tribes to help them preserve their signed languages. She is pushing for PISL to be incorporated into mainstream education of the deaf.” ref

“Easier than hollering”

“Lanny Real Bird, who is Crow, Arikara and Hidatsa, grew up in a household where PISL was used. “My grandmother had hearing loss,” he said. “I’d see my father signing with her in the Plains Indian Sign Language. I picked up basic sign language, enough to say, ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ ‘I’m hungry.” As a boy, he played with a young relative who was deaf, who helped expand his signing vocabulary.” ref

“Real Bird, a former instructor at Montana’s Little Big Horn College, has worked for 20 years helping tribes preserve their languages, both spoken and signed, and has developed a 400 to 600-sign PISL course, which he teaches at community schools and workshops across the Plains states. “Right now we’re probably at the basic communications phase,” he said. “So in order to expand, we have to go to another level, from listening to understanding to rudimentary communicating to fluency and literacy.” ref

“Real Bird said it took nearly a decade to convince school systems to incorporate PISL into general language instruction. “Later this month, students of the of the Crow Reservation’s Wyola Elementary School will be showcased at the annual Montana Indian Education Conference,” he said. There, they will demonstrate their Crow language skills, both spoken and signed.” ref

Mound Builders

Many pre-Columbian cultures in North America were collectively termed “Mound Builders“, but the term has no formal meaning. It does not refer to specific people or archaeological culture but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks that indigenous peoples erected for an extended period of more than 5,000 years. The “Mound Builder” cultures span the period of roughly 3500 BCE (the construction of Watson Brake) to the 16th century CE, including the Archaic period (Horr’s Island), Woodland period (Caloosahatchee, Adena, and Hopewell cultures), and Mississippian period. Geographically, the cultures were present in the region of the Great Lakes, the Ohio River Valley, Florida, and the Mississippi River Valley and its tributary waters.” ref

“The first mound building was an early marker of political and social complexity among the cultures in the Eastern United States. Watson Brake in Louisiana, constructed about 3500 BCE during the Middle Archaic period, is the oldest known and dated mound complex in North America. It is one of 11 mound complexes from this period found in the Lower Mississippi Valley. These cultures generally had developed hierarchical societies that had an elite. These commanded hundreds or even thousands of workers to dig up tons of earth with the hand tools available, move the soil long distances, and finally, workers to create the shape with layers of soil as directed by the builders. However early mounds found in Louisiana preceded such cultures and were products of hunter-gatherer cultures.” ref

“Radiocarbon dating has established the age of the earliest Archaic mound complex in southeastern Louisiana. One of the two Monte Sano Site mounds, excavated in 1967 before being destroyed for new construction at Baton Rouge, was dated at 6220 BP (plus or minus 140 years). Researchers at the time thought that such hunter-gatherer societies were not organizationally capable of this type of construction. It has since been dated as about 6500 BP or 4500 BCE, although not all agree.” ref

Watson Brake is located in the floodplain of the Ouachita River near Monroe in northern Louisiana. Securely dated to about 5,400 years ago (around 3500 BCE), in the Middle Archaic period, it consists of a formation of 11 mounds from 3 feet (0.91 m) to 25 feet (7.6 m) tall, connected by ridges to form an oval nearly 900 feet (270 m) across. In the Americas, the building of complex earthwork mounds started at an early date, well before the pyramids of Egypt were constructed. Watson Brake was being constructed nearly 2,000 years before the better-known Poverty Point, and the building continued for 500 years. Middle Archaic mound construction seems to have ceased about 2800 BCE. Scholars have not ascertained the reason, but it may have been because of changes in river patterns or other environmental factors.” ref

“With the 1990s dating of Watson Brake and similar complexes, scholars established that pre-agricultural, pre-ceramic American societies could organize to accomplish complex construction during extended periods, invalidating scholars’ traditional ideas of Archaic society. Watson Brake was built by a hunter-gatherer society, the people of which occupied this area only on a seasonal basis. Successive generations organized to build the complex mounds over 500 years. Their food consisted mostly of fish and deer, as well as available plants.” ref

“Poverty Point, built about 1500 BCE in what is now Louisiana, is a prominent example of Late Archaic mound-builder construction (around 2500 BCE – 1000 BCE). It is a striking complex of more than 1 square mile (2.6 km2), where six earthwork crescent ridges were built in concentric arrangement, interrupted by radial aisles. Three mounds are also part of the main complex, and evidence of residences extends for about 3 miles (4.8 km) along the bank of Bayou Macon. It is the major site among 100 associated with the Poverty Point culture and is one of the best-known early examples of earthwork monumental architecture. Unlike the localized societies during the Middle Archaic, this culture showed evidence of a wide trading network outside its area, which is one of its distinguishing characteristics.” ref

Horr’s Island, Florida, now a gated community next to Marco Island, was excavated by Michael Russo in 1980. He found an Archaic Indian village site. Mound A was a burial mound that dated to 3400 BCE, making it the oldest known burial mound in North America.” ref

“From about 800 CE, the mound-building cultures were dominated by the Mississippian culture, a large archaeological horizon, whose youngest descendants, the Plaquemine culture and the Fort Ancient culture, were still active at the time of European contact in the 16th century. One tribe of the Fort Ancient culture has been identified as the Mosopelea, presumably of southeast Ohio, who spoke an Ohio Valley Siouan language. The bearers of the Plaquemine culture were presumably speakers of the Natchez language isolate. The first written description of these cultures were made by members of Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto‘s expedition, between 1540 and 1542.” ref

“The namesake cultural trait of the Mound Builders was the building of mounds and other earthworks. These burial and ceremonial structures were typically flat-topped pyramids or platform mounds, flat-topped or rounded cones, elongated ridges, and sometimes a variety of other forms. They were generally built as part of complex villages. The early earthworks built in Louisiana around 3500 BCE are the only ones known to have been built by a hunter-gatherer culture, rather than a more settled culture based on agricultural surpluses.” ref

“The best-known flat-topped pyramidal structure is Monks Mound at Cahokia, near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. This community was the center of the Mississippian culture. This mound appears to have been the main ceremonial and residential mound for the religious and political leaders; it is more than 100 feet (30 m) tall and is the largest pre-Columbian earthwork north of Mexico. This site had numerous mounds, some with conical or ridge tops, as well as palisaded stockades protecting the large settlement and elite quarter. At its maximum about 1150 CE, Cahokia was an urban settlement with 20,000–30,000 people. This population was not exceeded by North American European settlements until after 1800.” ref

“Some effigy mounds were constructed in the shapes or outlines of culturally significant animals. The most famous effigy mound, Serpent Mound in southern Ohio, ranges from 1 foot (0.30 m) to just over 3 feet (0.91 m) tall, 20 feet (6.1 m) wide, more than 1,330 feet (410 m) long, and shaped as an undulating serpent.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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California-Peruvian connection

“The Cell study also revealed a surprising connection between ancient people living in California’s Channel Islands and the southern Peruvian Andes at least 4,200 years ago. It appears that these two geographically distant groups have a shared ancestry, the researchers found. It’s unlikely that people living in the Channel Islands actually traveled south to Peru, the researchers said. Rather, it’s possible that these groups’ ancestors sallied forth thousands of years earlier, with some ending up in the Channel Islands and others in South America. But those genes didn’t become common in Peru until much later, around 4,200 years ago, when the population may have exploded, the researchers said. It could be that this ancestry arrived in South America thousands of years before and we simply don’t have earlier individuals showing it,” study co-lead researcher Nathan Nakatsuka, a research assistant in the Reich lab at Harvard Medical School, said in the statement. “There is archaeological evidence that the population in the Central Andes area greatly expanded after around 5,000 years ago. Spreads of particular subgroups during these events may be why we detect this ancestry afterward.” ref