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Wild Cereal Consumption in Iran around 80,000 to 30,000 years ago, then spread out from there, going west to Italy and Syria by at least 30,000 years ago. As well as south to Egypt at least 30,000 years ago. Next, Egypt is believed to have migrated to Israel around 23,000 years ago. Then, Israel is believed to have migrated to North Africa 15,000 years ago.
I understand that facts, or our understanding of them, can and often do or may change to some extent. I am open to updating my thoughts based on what the facts express. If the facts update offering a different understanding, I follow the facts and change my thinking as needed.
Eating carbs and Processing starchy Foods in Israel started way before Modern Hunans?
“Early humans ate carbs and processed food 780,000 years ago, a northern Israel site shows. Analysis of basalt tools from the Hula Valley shows that Stone Age humans gathered, extracted, and crushed starches from acorns, cereals, legumes, and aquatic plants.” ref
DNA from mouth bacteria suggests human ancestors ate diets rich in starchy plants by 600,000 years ago
“The finding suggests our ancestors had adapted to eating lots of starch by at least 600,000 years ago—about the same time as they needed more sugars to fuel a big expansion of their brains. The work suggests that the ancestors of both humans and Neanderthals were cooking a lot of starchy foods at least 600,000 years ago. And they had already adapted to eating more starchy plants long before the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago.” ref
“Oral bacteria stuck to the teeth of a Neanderthal who lived 100,000 years ago at Pešturina Cave in Serbia, which produced the oldest oral microbiome genome reconstructed to date, with an abundant enzyme, which frees sugars from starchy foods. The communities of bacteria in the mouths of preagricultural humans and Neanderthals strongly resembled each other. In particular, humans and Neanderthals harbored an unusual group of Streptococcus bacteria in their mouths.” ref
“The presence of the strep bacteria that consume sugar on the teeth of Neanderthals and ancient modern humans, but not chimps, shows they were eating more starchy foods, the researchers conclude. Finding the streptococci on the teeth of both ancient humans and Neanderthals also suggests they inherited these microbes from their common ancestor, who lived more than 600,000 years ago. Although earlier studies found evidence that Neanderthals ate grasses and tubers and cooked barley, the new study indicates they ate so much starch that it dramatically altered the composition of their oral microbiomes.” ref
“The Middle Paleolithic period (roughly 130,000 to 80,000 years ago) shows both Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens lived in the Levant (modern-day Israel), indicating potential interaction and shared dietary habits. Evidence suggests that both groups in this region were opportunistic foragers, consuming a wide variety of similar foods, including large and small animals and plant materials. Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in the region not only coexisted but also shared aspects of daily life, technology, and burial customs. Stone tool technologies (such as Mousterian tools) and cultural practices used to secure and process food were often indistinguishable between the two groups. These findings underscore the complexity of their interactions and hint at a more intertwined relationship than previously assumed.” ref, ref
“The oldest direct evidence of modern humans eating starch dates back to around 120,000 years ago at the Klasies River Cave in South Africa. Researchers discovered charred remains of roots and tubers in small, ancient hearths, indicating that early humans (or their direct predecessors) were cooking and consuming carbohydrates long before the dawn of agriculture. Small hearths were used for cooking food, such as starchy roots and tubers, from the earliest levels at around 120,000 years ago to 65,000 years ago. Despite changes in hunting strategies and stone tool technologies, they were still cooking roots and tubers, a culinary practice that may have aided their migrations.” ref, ref
“Similar starch-adapted studies indicate that by 100,000 years ago, both Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens had already adapted to a high-starch diet. The findings suggest such foods became important in the human diet well before the introduction of farming and even before the evolution of modern humans. Farming in Africa only started in the last 10,000 years of human existence.” ref, ref
“Neandertals both cooked and likely pounded starchy plants, consuming a diverse, sophisticated diet as early as 100,000 years ago. Evidence from dental plaque reveals gelled starch granules, confirming they boiled or cooked grains and tubers, while their teeth contained streptococci adapted for breaking down starch. The researchers found remnants of date palms, seeds, and legumes – which include peas and beans – on the teeth of three Neanderthals uncovered in caves, one at the Shanidar cave in Iraq, 46,000 years old, and another two from the Cave of Spy in Belgium, 36,000 years old. Among the scraps of food embedded in the plaque on the Neanderthals’ teeth were particles of starch from barley and water lilies that showed tell-tale signs of having been cooked.” ref, ref
I have been guessing, from the available evidence, for years, that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens shared culture/burial/religion and that it likely happened between 120,000 and 100,000 years ago.
As seen in my 2016 blog post, Did Neanderthals teach us “Primal Religion (Pre-Animism/Animism? “)” 120,000 Years Ago?
Now new research states, “First burials: evidence of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens sharing culture 110,000 years ago.“
“A recent discovery in Tinshemet Cave, central Israel, is changing the way we look at early human interactions. Archaeologists have found human burials from the Middle Paleolithic period, and they revealed that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens not only lived in the same region but also shared aspects of daily life, technology, and funerary practices. The findings, published in Nature Human Behavior, challenge previous assumptions and show that human connections played a key role in cultural and technological evolution.” ref
“The south Levantine mid-Middle Palaeolithic (mid-MP; ~130,000–80,000 years ago) is remarkable for its exceptional evidence of human morphological variability, with contemporaneous fossils of Homo sapiens and Neanderthal-like hominins. Yet, it remains unclear whether these hominins adhered to discrete behavioral sets or whether regional-scale intergroup interactions could have homogenized mid-MP behavior. Here, researchers report on our discoveries at Tinshemet Cave, Israel. The site yielded articulated Homo remains in association with rich assemblages of ochre, fauna, and stone tools dated to ~100,000 years ago. Viewed from the perspective of other key regional sites of this period, our findings indicate consolidation of a uniform behavioral set in the Levantine mid-MP, consisting of similar lithic technology, increased reliance on large-game hunting, and a range of socially elaborated behaviors, comprising intentional human burial and the use of ochre in burial contexts. Researchers suggest that the development of this behavioral uniformity is due to intensified inter-population interactions and admixture between Homo groups ~130,000–80,000 years ago.” ref
Archaeologists May Have Discovered the World’s Oldest Burial Ground
“The 100,000-year-old site contains the remains of both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. What could be the world’s oldest human burial site—discovered in a cave in central Israel—shows that funerary ritual has been alive and well for at least 100,000 years. The Tinshemet Cave, which has been an active archaeological site for nearly a decade, has revealed at least five sets of Homo sapiens and Neanderthal-like hominin remains—all buried in the same ritualistic fashion and surrounded by more than 500 grave goods. In a study published this spring in Nature Human Behavior, the authors called the discovery “remarkable for its exceptional evidence of human morphological variability, with contemporaneous fossils of Homo sapiens and Neanderthal-like hominis.” ref
“The south Levantine mid-Middle Palaeolithic (mid-MP; ~130,000–80,000 years ago is remarkable for its exceptional evidence of human morphological variability, with contemporaneous fossils of Homo sapiens and Neanderthal-like hominins. Yet, it remains unclear whether these hominins adhered to discrete behavioral sets or whether regional-scale intergroup interactions could have homogenized behavior. Here we report on our discoveries at Tinshemet Cave, Israel. The site yielded articulated Homo remains in association with rich assemblages of ochre, fauna, and stone tools dated to ~100,000 years ago. Viewed from the perspective of other key regional sites of this period, our findings indicate consolidation of a uniform behavioral set in the Levantine mid-Middle Palaeolithic, consisting of similar lithic technology, an increased reliance on large-game hunting, and a range of socially elaborated behaviors, comprising intentional human burial and the use of ochre in burial contexts. We suggest that the development of this behavioral uniformity is due to intensified inter-population interactions and admixture between Homo groups ~130,000–80,000 years ago.” ref
Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup LO had north migrations from southern Africa, leading to East Africa L3 and out of Africa. Haplogroup L3 is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA female) haplogroup that originated in East Africa approximately 70,000 years ago and is the ancestral lineage for all non-African populations today.
“In human genetics, the Mitochondrial Eve *LO to L3 or often just L3* (more technically known as the Mitochondrial-Most Recent Common Ancestor) is the matrilineal (female) DNA haplogroup L3, which is the most recent common ancestor of all living humans who left Africa.” ref
Human Migrations and DNA
It all started in North Africa 300,000 years ago, then people migrated to West Africa, and then humanity split; some went down to southern Africa, Botswana, and some went to East Africa. The male Y-DNA related to all humans out of Africa, where the line that went from West to East Africa, and they were met from the female line mt-DNA from southern Africa as they migrated up to East Africa. Then it is that mix that is related to all humans who left Africa (Out of Africa is about the recent African origin of modern humans. Generally placed at around 60,000 years ago based on genetics, but an earlier migration out of the continent may have occurred as early as 125,000 years ago).
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.
“The Aurignacian is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with Early European modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago in most areas and lasting until about 17,000 years ago in Ukraine in the form of the Epi-Aurignacian. The Aurignacians are part of the wave of anatomically modern humans thought to have spread from Africa through the Near East into Paleolithic Europe, and became known as European early modern humans. Anatomically modern humans include fossils of the Ahmarian, Bohunician, Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian cultures, extending throughout the Last Glacial Maximum, covering the period of roughly 48,000 to 15,000 years ago. The genetics of the Aurignacians male Y-DNA haplogroups involving C1a, C1b, and K2a; as well as female mt-DNA haplogroups involving M, N, R, and U.” ref
“Aurignacian-era Homo sapiens (approx. 40,000–25,000 years ago) actively consumed starchy plants to diversify their diet beyond animal protein, utilizing tools to grind wild roots, tubers, and seeds. Evidence from Europe suggests they processed these starchy foods—likely involving heating to improve digestibility—enabling successful adaptation to diverse environments.
Possible time of origin of Y-DNA BT is 150,000-145,000 years ago, and the Possible time of origin of B Y-DNA is 100,000 years ago. “B” Y-DNA was the ancestral haplogroup of not only modern Pygmies like the Baka and Mbuti, but also the Hadzabe from Tanzania, and the Khoisan people in East Africa.
“Basal BT* has not been documented in any living individuals or ancient remains. No definite examples of BT (xCF, DE) – i.e. members of BT outside the only two known branches of CT, namely haplogroups CF and DE – have been identified. In some cases, because testing is undertaken only for geographically and historically likely haplogroups, the data required to identify a precise subclade has not been collected and/or recorded. For instance, research published in 2013, regarding a sample of more than 2,000 men from different parts of Africa, included 7.5% belonging to haplogroup BT (xDE, K). These approximately 150 individuals may have included, for example: B*, unknown primary branches of haplogroups B, BT, CT or CF; haplogroup C, and/or; F (xK) (i.e. haplogroup F* plus its subclades G, H and IJ, but specifically excluding the broader haplogroup K and its subclades, such as haplogroups K*, LT, K2b*, MS, NO, P, Q and R).” ref
“Haplogroup CT is a human Y chromosome haplogroup. CT has two basal branches, CF and DE. DE is divided into a predominantly Asia-distributed haplogroup D-CTS3946 and a predominantly Africa-distributed haplogroup E-M96, while CF is divided into an East Asian, Native American, and Oceanian haplogroup C-M130 and haplogroup F-M89, which dominates most non-African populations. In keeping with the concept of “Y-chromosomal Adam” given to the patrilineal ancestor of all living humans, CT-M168 has therefore also been referred to in popularized accounts as being the lineage of “Eurasian Adam” or “Out of Africa Adam”; because, along with many African Y-lineages, all non-African Y-lineages descend from it.” ref
“Haplogroup DE is a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. One of the first Out of Africa migrations occurred over 100,000 years ago. Humans spread rapidly along the coast of Asia and reached Australia by around 65,000–50,000 years ago, it has suggested that these first settlers of Australia may represent an older wave before the more significant out of Africa migration and Europe was populated by an early offshoot which settled the Near East and Europe less than 55,000 years ago. A single coastal dispersal, with an early offshoot into Europe. An immediate subclade, haplogroup D (also known as D-CTS3946), is mainly found in East Asia, parts of Central Asia, and the Andaman Islands, but also sporadically in West Africa and West Asia. The other immediate subclade, haplogroup E, is common in Africa, and to a lesser extent, the Middle East and southern Europe.” ref, ref
“CT” Y-DNA is present in all modern human male lineages except A and B in Africa. The vast majority of living individuals carrying F-M89 belong to subclades of GHIJK. Y-DNA haplogroup LT is an old lineage widely distributed at low concentrations. It was established approximately 30,000-40,000 years ago, probably in South Asia or West Asia. L-M20 originated in the Eurasian K-M9 clan that migrated eastwards from the Middle East, and later southwards from the Pamir Knot into present-day Pakistan and India (India 7,500).” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
I received this message, and it inspired this blog post:
“Hello Damien, I’m a Spanish follower of yours. I discovered your artistic work online some time ago, and recently, I found you on “X.” First of all, I want to thank you for your amazing work and art; they have helped me a lot in understanding humanity’s past. I would like to ask you a question I’ve had for a while, and I believe you are the right person to help me solve it. Here’s the thing: I don’t understand the origin of the WHG and its relationship with Cro-Magnon. Is the WHG the evolution of Cro-Magnon? What Y-haplogroup did Cro-Magnon have? If they are not related, what is the origin of the WHG? Thank you very much in advance. Keep up the great work; you’re doing an excellent job! Greetings from the other side of the Atlantic!” – Commemtor
My response, Well, I don’t use the term “Cromagdon.” It is an outdated language from when people were not sure all humanity came from Africa or had bigoted ideas that Europeans came from Europe, not Africa. Cro-Magnons, now stated as “European early modern humans,” were the first early modern humans (Homo sapiens) to settle in Europe. I mainly use the “cultures,” such as the “Aurignacian culture,” an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with early European modern humans lasting from around 45,000 to 25,000 years ago. Or the “Gravettian culture,” an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with early European modern humans lasting from around 35,000 to 20,000 years ago.
They were an early movement of mainly Haplogroup C male DNA. Aurignacian samples are the paternal male haplogroups C1a, C1b, and K2a and female mt-DNA haplogroup M, N, R, and U. It is much more involved, and I will get to it all. The Aurignacian people with male Haplogroup C came from the Middle East through Turkey and the Balkans into France and Germany from 50,000 to 40,000 years ago. Then, a different branch and different culture, now called Gravettian culture, came from the Middle East into Siberia, then turned into East Europe and then Germany 30,000 to 25,000 years ago, male Haplogroup C but different from the Aurignacian culture branch. This was all before Western Hunter-Gatherers, who had yet a different culture and somewhat different DNA.
Western hunter-gatherers (also known as West European hunter-gatherers) date to around 15,000~5,000 years ago and are a distinct ancestral component of modern Europeans. Before them was yet another culture of Europe, Magdalenian refers to a prehistoric European cultural period and toolmaking industry that lasted from around 17,000 to 12,000 years ago. The three samples of Y-DNA included two samples of haplogroup I and one sample of HIJK. All samples of mtDNA belonged to U, including five samples of U8b and one sample of U5b. Western hunter-gatherers came in a different wave of migrations.
WHG-associated remains belonged primarily to the human Y-chromosome haplogroups I-M170 with a lower frequency of C-F3393 (specifically the clade C-V20/C1a2), which has been found commonly among earlier Paleolithic European remains such as Kostenki-14 and Sungir. Kostenki is in Russia, somewhat near the Caucasus Mountains. Sungir is in Russia, somewhat near Moscow. So, migrations from Eastern Europe have DNA similar to that of Aurignacian culture.
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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 man: Y-DNA haplogroupK2 and mt-DNA haplogroupR*
Tianyuan man: Y-DNA haplogroup K2b and mt-DNA haplogroup B
Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site: Y-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 R1, R2 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 Europe, South Asia, Central 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
“Maps indicating the location of ancient DNA samples from Asia and the patterns of genetic differentiation in Asia in the Early Upper Paleolithic. (A) Location of ancient individuals from Asia and Australasia who have been sequenced to date. Symbols refer to the age of individuals sequenced from that archaeological site, with the key found at the bottom. Red symbols date to 50,000–10,000 years ago (Upper Paleolithic), purple and blue symbols are younger than 10,000 years. (B) Differentiation after dispersal out of Africa in the Early Upper Paleolithic (45,000–20,000 years ago), with labeled lineages or ancestries in yellow next to the associated branch. The tree diagram shows divergence patterns and is not meant to depict migration routes from the branches or geographic origins of ancestral populations from the internal nodes. The branches predominantly associated with present-day Asian populations include the Ancient Ancestral South Indian (AASI) lineage, Australasian (AA) lineage, and East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) lineage. White labels refer to specific archaeological sites dating to the Early Upper Paleolithic.” ref
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Wild Cereal Consumption in Iran around 80,000 to 30,000 years ago, then spread out from there, going west to Italy and Syria by at least 30,000 years ago. As well as south to Egypt at least 30,000 years ago. Next, Egypt is believed to have migrated to Israel around 23,000 years ago. Then, Israel is believed to have migrated to North Africa 15,000 years ago.
“African archaeological assemblages attest to the use of grinding-stone tools to grind red ochre for hundreds of millennia. Grinding-stones may have even been used in the processing of wild cereal grains such as sorghum as early as ca. 100,000 years ago.” ref
“Grinding stone dates to 68,700 years old and comes from Madjedbebe rock shelter in northern Arnhem Land, Australia. 563 grinding stones were collected from at the Madjedbebe rock shelter and 104 grinding stones were analyzed during the study. 60,300 years old grinding stone comes from Nauwalabila in the Northern Territory. Grinding stones at Cuddie Springs are estimated at 30,000 years. Fragments of these grinding stones have been found in the sediment layer that dates between 30,000 and 19,000 years old.” ref
“A number of Upper Paleolithic sites also yielded grindstones, some of which may have served for grinding plant tissue, whereas others were used for grinding ochre and ritual uses or expressions. Researchers report on starch grains recovered on grinding stones from three Mid-Upper Paleolithic (Gravettian “Europe” or Gorodtsovian “28,000–32,000 years ago, Kostenki in Russia”) sites across Europe: Bilancino II in Italy, Kostenki 16 in Russia, and Pavlov VI in the Czech Republic.” ref
Prehistoric Egypt 40,000 years ago to The First Dynasty 5,150 years ago
Nazlet Khater Culture (50,000 to 30,000 years ago?)
“Nazlet Khater Skeleton, Upper Paleolithic, around 35,000 years ago. This specimen is the only complete modern human skeleton from the earliest Late Stone Age in Africa. Nazlet Khater is an archeological site located in Upper Egypt that has yielded evidence of early human culture and anatomically modern specimens dating to approximately thirty to fifty thousand years ago. Excavations at the Nazlet Khater 2 site (Boulder Hill) yielded the remains of two human skeletons. One of the skulls was that of a male subadult. The cranium was generally modern in form, but with a very wide face, and it evinced some archaic traits in the temple and mandible areas. Below the skull, the skeleton was robust, but otherwise, anatomically modern. Morphological analysis of the Nazlet Khater mandible indicates that the specimen was distinct from the examined Late Pleistocene and Holocene North African specimens.” ref, ref
“Researchers found a strong Stone Age Sub-Saharan affinities in the 33,000 year old skeleton from Nazlet Khater, Upper Egypt as the authors noted “The morphometric affinities of the 33,000 year old skeleton from Nazlet Khater, Upper Egypt are examined using multivariate statistical procedures. The results indicate a strong association between some of the sub-Saharan Middle Stone Age (MSA) specimens, and the Nazlet Khater mandible , which are different from modern sub saharan africans. Furthermore, the results suggest that variability between African populations during the Neolithic and Protohistoric periods was more pronounced than the range of variability observed among recent African and Levantine populations.” ref
“The Nazlet Khater 2 skeleton possesses two plesiomorphic features in its mandible, which are not found among coeval, anatomically modern, humans. This suggests that the ancestors of the specimen may have interbred with neighboring late archaic humans. At Nazlet Khater 4 to the southeast, Upper Paleolithic axes, blades, burins, end scrapers, and denticulates were also excavated. The site has been radiocarbon dated to between 30,360 and 35,100 years ago. The similarities between NK2 and Upper Paleolithic European samples may indicate a close relationship between this Nile Valley specimen and European Upper Paleolithic modern humans.” ref
The Upper Paleolithic Human Remains of Nazlet Khater 2 (Egypt) and Past Modern Human Diversity
“Abstract: The Nazlet Khater 2 skeleton was discovered in 1980 during the excavations of the Belgian Middle Egypt Prehistoric Project in the Nile Valley (Egypt). Its association with the early Upper Paleolithic chert mining site of Nazlet Khater 4 (NK 4) (whose exploitation period ranged from 35 to 40 ka) makes it the oldest almost complete Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 modern human skeleton in northern Africa. The Nazlet Khater 2 (NK 2) remains belong to a young adult male. It is well preserved with the exception of the distal part of the legs and the foot. Comparative analyses of the specimen underline the complex morphology of modern humans from this time period. NK 2 exhibits several retained archaic features, notably on the face and the mandible. The inner ear structures display morphological characteristics that stand on the edge of extant human variation. The postcranial remains have strong muscular insertions and are adapted to high biomechanical strength. Furthermore, NK 2 has vertebral and membral lesions. These postcranial characteristics might be related to intensive mining activities. The study of this specimen provides an opportunity to increase our understanding of past modern human diversity during this time period (MIS 3) for which very rare human remains are known.” ref
Morphology and affinities of the Nazlet Khater man
“The fragmentary Nazlet Khater skeleton, from the upper-Palaeolithic period of Egypt, belongs to a subadult male individual. The ramus mandibulae and squama temporalis display archaic characters; otherwise, the whole anatomical structure of the skeleton is modern. The leptodolichomorphy of the skull is like that found on the Capsian skeletons; the strong alveolar prognathism and several small anatomical features are similar to the skeletons of Djebel Sahaba and Wadi Halfa.” ref
AI Overview: Earth Mother goddesses are ancient, universal deities representing the fertility of the soil, directly linking nature’s abundance to human survival through agriculture.
“An Earth god or Earth goddess is a deification of the Earth associated with a figure with chthonic or terrestrial attributes. There are many different Earth gods and goddesses in many different cultures and mythology. However, Earth is usually portrayed as a goddess. Earth goddesses are often associated with the chthonic deities of the underworld.” ref
“Earth Mother, in ancient and modern nonliterate religions, an eternally fruitful source of everything. Unlike the variety of female fertility deities called mother goddesses (q.v.), the Earth Mother is not a specific source of vitality who must periodically undergo sexual intercourse. She is simply the mother; there is nothing separate from her. All things come from her, return to her, and are her. The most archaic form of the Earth Mother transcends all specificity and sexuality. She simply produces everything, inexhaustibly, from herself. She may manifest herself in any form. In other mythological systems she becomes a more limited figure. She becomes the feminine Earth, consort of the masculine sky; she is fertilized by the sky in the beginning and brings forth terrestrial creation. Even more limited reflections of the Earth Mother occur in those agricultural traditions in which she is simply the Earth and its fertility.” ref
High Gods and a Divine Couple (universal mommy and daddy)?
I think high gods started with a divine couple, a sky god (sky father) “Day sky, often the Sun” and a sky goddess (sky mother) “Night sky, often the Noon” around 11,000 years ago or older, associated with pre-pastoralism animal management, early herding, and proto-pastoralism, of big-horned goats, big-horned sheep, both domesticated around 11,000 years ago, and cattle domesticated around 10,000 years ago or a little older, especially so with cattle, the last three. Then, as farming and agriculture grew and the domestication of grains emerged a little after 10,000 to 9,000 years ago, and along came a new Earth goddess (Earth Mother), who then commonly took the place of the older sky goddess (sky mother) as the wife or consort to the sky god (sky father). This younger divine couple, a sky god (sky father) and Earth goddess (Earth Mother), becomes the norm the world over. Spread largely with the spread of farming and agriculture to me.
“High God, in anthropology and the history of religion, a type of supreme deity found among many nonliterate peoples of North and South America, Africa, northern Asia, and Australia. The adjective high is primarily a locative term: a High God is conceived as being utterly transcendent, removed from the world that he created. A High God is high in the sense that he lives in or is identified with the sky—hence, the alternative name. Among North American Indians and Central and South Africans, thunder is thought to be the voice of the High God. In Siberia, the sun and moon are considered the High God’s eyes. He is connected with food and heaven among American Indians. Some scholars consider the conception of the High God to be very old, preceding the creation of particular pantheons; some see the High God as secondary, both in importance and in chronology. Though the pattern varies from person to person, the High God is usually conceived as masculine or sexless. He is thought to be the sole creator of heaven and earth. Although he is omnipotent and omniscient, he is thought to have withdrawn from his creation and therefore to be inaccessible to prayer or sacrifice. Generally, no graphic images of him exist, nor does he receive cult worship or appear in the mythology. If he is invoked, it is only in times of extreme distress, but there is no guarantee that he will hear or respond. His name is often revealed only to initiates, and to speak his name aloud is thought to invite disaster or death; his most frequent title is Father. In some traditions, he is conceived to be a transcendent principle of divine order; in others, he is pictured as senile or impotent and replaced by a set of more active and involved deities; and in still other traditions, he has become so remote that he is all but forgotten.” ref
“Dheghom (Proto-Indo-European: *dʰéǵʰōm or *dʰǵʰōm; lit. ‘earth’), or *Pl̥th₂éwih₂ (PIE: *pl̥th₂éwih₂, lit. the ‘Broad One’), is the reconstructed name of the Earth-goddess in the Proto-Indo-European mythology. The Mother Earth (*Dʰéǵʰōm Méh₂tēr) is generally portrayed as the vast (*pl̥th₂éwih₂) and dark (*dʰengwo-) abode of mortals, the one who bears all things and creatures. She is often paired with Dyēus, the daylight sky and seat of the never-dying and heavenly gods, in a relationship of contrast and union, since the fructifying rains of Dyēus might bring nourishment and prosperity to local communities through formulaic invocations. Dheghom is thus commonly associated in Indo-European traditions with fertility, growth, and death, and is conceived as the origin and final dwelling of human beings. The Earth-goddess was widely celebrated with the title of ‘mother’ (*méh₂tēr), and often paired with *Dyḗus ph2tḗr, the ‘sky-father’. ” ref
“In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept in polytheistic religions of a sky god who is addressed as a “father”, often the father of a pantheon and is often either a reigning or former King of the Gods. The concept of “sky father” may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an “earth mother.” ref
“One of the most ancient concepts in religion is that of the divine couple. In Sumeria, the divine couple appears as part of perhaps the earliest notion of the Trinity. God the Father was symbolized as the Sun, his consort was symbolized alternately as either the Moon or the Earth, and the king was viewed as their offspring: the Son of the Sun, a living representative (or emanation) of God on Earth. In many traditions, the gods and goddesses who comprise the divine couple are not seen as being separate or distinct entities, but rather as differing aspects of one another, or even emanations of one another. In this, we see traces of an even more ancient tradition, God as the primordial androgyne. Such a notion has been part of many theologies, although the idea has largely been forgotten or (perhaps) ignored.” ref
“There are two types of world parent myths, both describing a separation or splitting of a primeval entity, the world parent or parents. One form describes the primeval state as an eternal union of two parents, and the creation takes place when the two are pulled apart. The two parents are commonly identified as Sky (usually male) and Earth (usually female), who were so tightly bound to each other in the primeval state that no offspring could emerge. These myths often depict creation as the result of a sexual union and serve as a genealogical record of the deities born from it.” ref
I believe that the birth of the Earth Mother, which may have occurred sometime before 10,000 years ago, or after it sometime at least by 8,000 years ago to likely 9,000 years ago from the Sky Woman/Mistress of Animals, took place at Nevalı Çori (8400-8100 BCE or approximately 10,000 years ago), in Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey. This new Earth Mother/Mistress of Animals goddess is later seen at Çatal Höyük (7,100-5,700 BCE or 9,100 to 7,700 years ago), sitting figurines, and to me, the standing figurines are likely related to the sky. Later, after 6/5,000 years ago, even sky deities may be depicted as sitting and sitting in a chair/stool in general, after this time seems to be associated with elites and deities. These ideas seem to spread in the movement ways of Haplogroup E, west to Central Turkey as seen at seen at Çatal Höyük, on next to west Turkey, then Europe/Balkans/Ukraine, as seen at the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture, It moved south to Israel and Egypt/North Africa, as well as Sodi Arabia and the Horn of Africa. These ideas seem to spread East to Iran, then Pakistan/India, as seen in the Indus Valley civilization.
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B remains from the Levant were found to have carried haplogroup E (~14%). Nevalı Çori has E Haplogroup (E1b1b1b2a1) and the late PPNB site of Ba’ja (E1b1b1b2a1) in the Southern Levant.
Growing reliance on animal and plant domestication in the Near East and beyond during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) (the ninth to eighth millennium BC) has often been associated with a “revolutionary” social transformation from mobility toward more sedentary lifestyles. We are able to yield nuanced insights into the process of the Neolithization in the Near East based on a bioarchaeological approach integrating isotopic and archaeogenetic analyses on the bone remains recovered from Nevalı Çori, a site occupied from the early PPNB in Turkey, where some of the earliest evidence of animal and plant domestication emerged, and from Ba’ja, a typical late PPNB site in Jordan. In addition, we present the archaeological sequence of Nevalı Çori together with newly generated radiocarbon dates. Our results are based on analyses conducted on 28 human and 29 animal individuals from the site of Nevalı Çori. Results indicate mobility and connection with the contemporaneous surrounding sites during the earlier PPNB, prior to an apparent decline in this mobility at a time of growing reliance on domesticates. Genome-wide data from six human individuals from Nevalı Çori and Ba’ja demonstrate a diverse gene pool at Nevalı Çori that supports connectedness within the Fertile Crescent during the earlier phases of Neolithization and evidence of consanguineous union in the PPNB Ba’ja and the Iron Age Nevalı Çori.” ref, ref
“Humans living in wood huts were growing grain with pesky proto-weeds 11,000 years earlier than thought, international team of scientists finds. Evidence of cereal cultivation has been discovered at a 23,000-year-old site in the Galilee, doubling the age of the first attempts at farming.” ref
“Israeli archaeologists have unearthed evidence of early small-scale agricultural cultivation at Ohalo II, a 23,000-year-old hunter-gatherers’ sedentary camp on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Excavations at the site exposed six brush hut dwellings, a human grave, copious and well-preserved remains of both animal and plant foods, beads from the Mediterranean Sea, as well as evidence of flint tool manufacture and use.” ref
“The Kebaran culture (23,000–12,500 years ago) in the Levant was a mobile hunter-gatherer culture that initiated the widespread gathering of wild cereals, legumes, and nuts. They processed these plants using early grinding stones and pounded roasted seeds/acorns. Their diet included pistachios, almonds, and various wild legumes, prepared using hearths.” ref, ref
“The Kebaran is preceded by the final phase of the Upper Paleolithic Levantine Aurignacian (also known as the Athlitian or Antelian) and followed by the proto-agrarian Natufian culture of the Epipalaeolithic. The microliths of this culture period differ greatly from the Aurignacian artifacts. The Kebaran is also characterised by the earliest intensive collection of wild cereals, known due to the uncovering of grain grinding tools. It was the first step towards the Neolithic Revolution. A Stone Age stone mortar and pestle, Kebaran culture, dates to around 22,000-18,000 years ago.” ref
Kebaran Culture
“The Kebaran culture, also known as the ‘Early Near East Epipalaeolithic‘, is an archaeological culture of the Eastern Mediterranean dating to c. 23,000 to 15,000 years ago. Its type site is Kebara Cave, south of Haifa. The Kebaran was produced by a highly mobile nomadic population, composed of hunters and gatherers in the Levant and Sinai areas who used microlithic tools. The Kebaran is preceded by the final phase of the Upper Paleolithic Levantine Aurignacian (also known as the Athlitian or Antelian) and followed by the proto-agrarian Natufian culture of the Epipalaeolithic. The appearance of the Kebaran culture, of microlithic type, implies a significant rupture in the cultural continuity of the Levantine Upper Paleolithic. The Kebaran culture, with its use of microliths, is associated with the use of the bow and arrow and the domestication of the dog. The Kebaran is also characterised by the earliest collection of wild cereals, known due to the uncovering of grain grinding tools. It was the first step towards the Neolithic Revolution. The Kebaran people are believed to have practiced dispersal to upland environments in the summer, and aggregation in caves and rock shelters near lowland lakes in the winter. This diversity of environments may be the reason for the variety of tools found in their kits.” ref
“Evidence for symbolic behavior of Late Pleistocene foragers in the Levant has been found in engraved limestone plaquettes from the Epipaleolithic open-air site Ein Qashish South in the Jezreel Valley, Israel. The engravings were uncovered in Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran deposits (ca. 23,000 and ca. 16,500 years ago), and include the image of a bird, the first figurative representation known so far from a pre-Natufian Epipaleolithic site in the region, together with geometric motifs such as chevrons, cross-hatchings, and ladders. Some of the engravings closely resemble roughly contemporary European finds, and may be interpreted as “systems of notations” or “artificial memory systems” related to the timing of seasonal resources and related important events for nomadic groups. Similar looking signs and patterns are well known from the context of the local Natufia, a final Epipaleolithic period when sedentary or semi-sedentary foragers started practicing agriculture.” ref
“The engravings found in Ein Qashish South involve symbolic conceptualization. They suggest that the figurative and non-figurative images comprise a coherent assemblage of symbols that might have been applied in order to store, share and transmit information related to the social activities and the subsistence of mobile bands. They also suggest a level of social complexity in pre-Natufian foragers in the Levant. The apparent similarity in graphics throughout the Late Pleistocene world and the mode of their application support the possibility that symbolic behavior has a common and much earlier origin. Situated in the Terminal Pleistocene, the Kebaran is classified as an Epipalaeolithic society. They are generally thought to have been ancestral to the later Natufian culture that occupied much of the same range, who advanced the use of wild grains, building on the Kebaran traits to acquire some symptoms of permanent settlements, agriculture, and hints of civilization. In the prehistoric site of Ein Gev, the skeleton of a 30-40-year-old woman associated with the Kebaran was discovered. The morphological characteristics assigned the individual to a Proto-Mediterranean population, being very similar to the Natufians.” ref
“The type site is Kebara Cave south of Haifa. The Kebaran was characterized by small, geometric microliths. The people were thought to lack the specialized grinders and pounders in later Near Eastern cultures. The Kebaran is preceded by the Athlitian phase of the Levantine Aurignacian and followed by the proto-agrarian Natufian culture of the Epipalaeolithic. The Kebaran culture, with its use of microliths, is also associated with the use of the bow and arrow and the domestication of the dog. The Kebaran is also characterised by the earliest collecting and processing of wild cereals, known due to the excavation of grain-grinding tools. This was the first step towards the Neolithic Revolution. Evidence for symbolic behavior of Late Pleistocene foragers in the Levant has been found in engraved limestone plaquettes from the Epipalaeolithic open-air site Ein Qashish South in the Jezreel Valley of the Northern District of Israel. The engravings were uncovered in Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran deposits (ca. 23,000 and ca. 16,500 BP), and include the image of a bird, the first figurative representation known so far from a pre-Natufian Epipalaeolithic site, together with geometric motifs such as chevrons, cross-hatchings, and ladders. Some of the engravings closely resemble roughly contemporary European finds and may be interpreted as “systems of notations” or “artificial memory systems” related to the timing of seasonal resources and related important events for nomadic groups. Similar-looking signs and patterns are well known from the context of the local Natufian, a final Epipalaeolithic period when sedentary or semi-sedentary foragers started practicing agriculture.” ref
“Wheat, barley, rye, and oats were gathered and eaten in the Fertile Crescent during the early Neolithic. Cereal grains 19,000 years old have been found at the Ohalo II site in Israel, with charred remnants of wild wheat and barley.” ref
“By 18,000 years ago, the climate and environment had changed, and a transition period had started. The hunter-gatherers of the Aurignacian would have had to modify their way of living and their pattern of settlement to adapt to the changing conditions.” ref
“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
12,000 years ago, a shaman woman was buried at Çemka Höyük in Turkey, similar to others, like the 12,000 shaman woman burial in Israel as well as the phenomenon of Shamanism and the feminine
A “shaman” burial from the PPNA settlement of Çemka Höyük, Upper Tigris Basin, Turkiye
“Abstract: Knowledge of the burial customs of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) in the Near East is increasing. Particularly, lately a large number of burials and skeletal remains have been unearthed in the Upper Tigris Basin, thanks to a number of new excavation projects in recent years. The newly revealed findings indicate that PPNA burial customs varied considerably in the region from site to site. However, the 10th millennium BCE burial ÇH 2019/05 at Çemka Höyük shows as well that there are also different burial practices with in settlements. ÇH 2019/05 belongs to a female individual, accompanied by animal skeletal elements, who appears to may have been a shaman or at least had been buried by someone practicing ways associated with what we understand nowadays as animism or shamanism. Hence, the burial may represent one of the earliest known examples of its kind in an Anatolian Neolithic context.” ref
“Human remains from Near Eastern Neolithic sites show regional and chronological differences in sepulchral organization. However, few Near Eastern sites have provided information on burial customs for the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A. For example, if one does not take into account the human remains unearthed at sites set up in the Upper Tigris Valley, excavated in previous years, there are few humans remains in the Near East as a whole for the PPNA. Human remains from Körtik Tepe, Hasankeyf Höyük, Gre Fılla, Demirköy, Çayönü, Gusir Höyük, Boncuklu Tarla, and Çemka Höyük provide important information for the burial customs of the Upper Tigris region, and also those of the Near East.” ref
“At these sites, primary burials are in the majority, and skulls taken from Demirköy and Boncuklu Tarla are rarely found. Skeletons with traces of paint are characteristic at Körtik Tepe and Hasankeyf Höyük. At the same time, the absence of human remains at the Hallan Çemi site shows that there are differences within the same region. In contrast, human remains are rare in northern Syria. There are a few human skeletons in Tell Qaramel, Jerf el Ahmar, Dja’de, and Mureybet. In eastern Jezirah, the site of Nemrik 9 has yielded a number of humans remains related to primary and multiple burials and human remains related to secondary burials at Qermez Dere.” ref
“However, the practice of skull removal (isolated skulls and skull-less skeletons) and isolated human bones are found in a variety of architectural contexts; in or outside houses, in community buildings, etc, in the Middle Euphrates Valley, at Göbekli Tepe; in Northern Syria at Dja’de, Tell Abr 3 and Jerf el-Ahmar; Mureybet, Tell Qaramel; in Iraqi Jezirah at Nemrik 9 and Qermez Dere, as well as in the southern Levant. Indeed, funerary gestures are varied during the 10th millennium throughout the northern Near East. Above all, human remains are found in great quantities at some sites such as Körtik Tepe, and at some others, they are rarely found or not found at all. We also notice different modes of burial such as primary, secondary, skull-less skeletons or removed skulls.” ref
“In this regard, a cattle skull and a number of cattle bones, together with the remains of a small ruminant, a partridge bone, a canid bone, and a marten bone, associated with a PPNA burial in Çemka Höyük — dating to the end of the 10th millennium BCE — provide new insights into animal-human relationships at the dawn of the Neolithic in the Upper Tigris Valley. The finds and animal remain associated with the human burial context raise questions about the relationship between PPNA burial customs and the use of especially cattle skulls, and adds new data to the discussion on human-cattle relationship in the early Neolithic of Northern Mesopotamia. The Çemka Höyük settlement on the western flank of the Tigris River in Upper Mesopotamia (Mardin province, Turkey), with information on the Late Epipaleolithic and Early Neolithic periods, defined as the Proto-Neolithic. Despite the short-term nature of the excavations, the settlement provides new data about these eras in the region; in particular, the settlement is significant in terms of the Late Epipaleolithic–Neolithic transition as well as of architectural finds belonging to both periods. The rise of permanent settlements and domestic architecture is a focus of examination.” ref
Female Goddesses, to me, originated as sky deities (water) around 12,000/11,000 years ago (Iran, Turkey, upper Mesopotamia, and below the Caucasus), likely connected to the Herding cult paganism, and then evolved into Earth goddesses around 8,000 years ago, likely connected to the Farming cult paganism as seen in Central Turkey, such as at Catal Hoyuk.
“Ancient genomes from Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük from Central Anatolia, representing early (Aceramic) and late (Ceramic) Neolithic, respectively. A total of 22 genomes from Aşıklı (n=8) and Çatalhöyük (n=14), and combined these with published genomes from other Anatolian Neolithic sites (Boncuklu, Barcın, and Tepecik-Çiftlik). Genetic relationships among Anatolian Neolithic groups at both the individual-level and population-level found a strong genetic affinity between Aceramic Aşıklı and Boncuklu, supporting the notion that these early Neolithic populations from Central Anatolia may have been part of the same gene pool. Likewise, an observed genetic affinity between Çatalhöyük and other Anatolian Ceramic Neolithic populations (Barcın and Tepecik-Çiftlik). In addition, there is higher within-population genetic diversity in the Anatolian Ceramic Neolithic populations (Çatalhöyük, Barcın, and Tepecik-Çiftlik) compared to those of Aceramic Neolithic (Boncuklu and Aşıklı). Furthermore, our findings, based on a larger sample size, supported the notion of possible gene flow from the Levant and Iran to Anatolia during the transition from the Aceramic to the Ceramic Neolithic period, approximately 7,500 BCE, or around 9,500 years ago. Next, we studied genetic kinship among individuals co-buried within the same structures within Aceramic and Ceramic Neolithic settlements from both Central and Northwest Anatolia, to understand social structures of Neolithic societies in the earlier and later periods of Neolithic life in Anatolia. In the two Aceramic Neolithic societies from Central Anatolia, Aşıklı and Boncuklu, we identified close genetic kin-relationships (e.g., first-degree) among co-burials at a high frequency, while the frequency of genetically close relatives was lower among co-buried individuals in Çatalhöyük and Barcın, which represent Ceramic Neolithic societies from Central and Northwest Anatolia, respectively. Our findings supported the notion that genetic kinship patterns among co-buried individuals, who could represent households, might have changed over time during the transition from Aceramic to Ceramic Neolithic in Anatolia.” ref
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“Hunting Cult” (Cosmic Hunt) becomes “Herding Cult” Paganism
“Herding societies are nearly always that of a true hierarchical chiefdom rather than of an egalitarian society. Horticulture mixed with the domestication of animals seems to have predominated until even the least cultivable zones were filled. Sometimes, a complete symbiosis between a tribe/clan of herders and an adjacent tribe/clan of horticulturalists occurs to the point that they resemble a single society composed of two specialized castes, the herders occupying the superior position. Fully committed pastoralists manifest a considerable degree of cultural uniformity in economics, social organization, political order, and even in religion. Full pastoralism, with its powerful equestrian warriors, seems to have developed around 1500 to 1000 BCE, or around 3,500 to 3,000 years ago, in Inner Asia. Herders are likely to raid settled villages and frequently raid other herders as well.” ref
“To the extent that pastoral nomadic societies achieve wealth and success in herding and in war, they tend to solidify and extend their chiefdom structure. They also add to their religious organization a hierarchical principle, together with the content known as ancestor worship. Much of the mythology by which a primitive people explains itself and its customs comes in this way to have an ingredient familiar to readers of the Old Testament. Sometimes the significance of herding leads not only to the glorification of herds and herding, but even to a religious taboo against planting. Taboos, such as a belief that plowing and planting may defile the earth spirit. Or herders, in time of need, may engage in horticulture, but it is considered degrading to toil in farming, whereas herding is a very prideful occupation.” ref
Cult, herding, and ‘pilgrimage’
1. Körtiktepe (12,000 years ago) link & link
2. Göbekli Tepe (11,500 years ago) link
3. Balıklıgöl statue “Urfa man” (11,000 years ago) link
4. Karahan Tepe (11,000 years ago) link
5. Sayburç (11,000 years ago) link
6. Nevalı Çori (10,400) link & link
7. Tell Fekheriye (11,000 years ago) link
Ganj Dareh link
Goat, Sheep, and Cattle Domestication link & link
Cosmic Hunt link
Master of Animals link
Domestication and early agriculture in the Meditrranean Basin: Origins, diffusion, and impact
“The past decade has witnessed a quantum leap in our understanding of the origins, diffusion, and impact of early agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin. In large measure these advances are attributable to new methods for documenting domestication in plants and animals. The initial steps toward plant and animal domestication in the Eastern Mediterranean can now be pushed back to the 12th millennium years ago. Evidence for herd management and crop cultivation appears at least 1,000 years earlier than the morphological changes traditionally used to document domestication. Different species seem to have been domesticated in different parts of the Fertile Crescent, with genetic analyses detecting multiple domestic lineages for each species. Recent evidence suggests that the expansion of domesticates and agricultural economies across the Mediterranean was accomplished by several waves of seafaring colonists who established coastal farming enclaves around the Mediterranean Basin. This process also involved the adoption of domesticates and domestic technologies by indigenous populations and the local domestication of some endemic species. Human environmental impacts are seen in the complete replacement of endemic island faunas by imported mainland fauna and in today’s anthropogenic, but threatened, Mediterranean landscapes where sustainable agricultural practices have helped maintain high biodiversity since the Neolithic.” ref
“The transition from foraging and hunting; to farming and herding is a significant threshold in human history. Domesticates and the agricultural economies based on them are associated with radical restructuring of human societies, worldwide alterations in biodiversity, and significant changes in the Earth’s landforms and its atmosphere. Given the momentous outcomes of this transition it comes as little surprise that the origin and spread of domesticates and the emergence of agriculture remain topics of enduring interest to both the scholarly community and the general public. The past decade has seen remarkable analytical advances in documenting domestication (1), particularly in tracking the domestication of four major Near Eastern livestock species (sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs) and their subsequent dispersal throughout the Mediterranean Basin. New morphometric methods are tracking changes in human prey strategies that mark the transition from hunting to herding.” ref
“Genetic analyses bring fresh insights into initial livestock domestication and their dispersal. Small-sample atomic mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating provides refined chronological frameworks for these developments. These recent analytical advances, in turn, have produced an explosion of new information that is calling into question prevailing hypotheses about the origin and early spread of animal domesticates and the Neolithic lifeways of which they were a part. Here, the researcher brings together these different sources of information to consider the origins, diffusion, and impacts of domesticates and agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin, outlining our current understanding of these developments and highlighting promising areas for future study.” ref
“Archaeological assemblages from Iraq and Iran has identified the clear signature of a managed herd of goats (harvesting of young males and prolonged survivorship of females) at the site of Ganj Dareh in highland Iran. Directly dated to 9,900 years ago, the goats from this site show no evidence of size reduction or any other domestication-induced morphological change. Smaller body size and changes in the size and shape of horns [a morphological change clearly linked to domestication] appear 500–1,000 years later than this demographic shift, when managed animals were moved from the natural habitat of wild goats and introduced into hotter and more arid lowland Iran. These follow-on morphological changes likely reflect responses to new selective pressures, plus the now more limited opportunities for introgression between managed and wild animals or the restocking of herds with wild animals.” ref
“Clear-cut morphological responses to domestication (i.e., changes in horns in bovids and tooth size in pigs) are not evident in these four livestock species until ca. 9,500–9,000 years ago. As is the case with animal domestication in the Near East, the leading edge of plant domestication in the region is now recognized as an extended process. Evidence from multiple locations points to a prolonged period of human manipulation of morphologically wild, but possibly cultivated, plants, which, in certain species, resulted in the development of morphologically altered domesticated crops. This period of intensified plant management dates at least as far back as ca. 12,000 years ago, with morphological markers of crop domestication (i.e., nonshattering seed heads in cereals) not well established until ca. 10,500 years ago. Agricultural economies reliant on a mix of domesticated crops and livestock apparently do not fully crystallize in the region until ca. 9,500–9,000 years ago.” ref
“The bezoar ibex (Capra aegagrus aegagrus) is a wild goat subspecies that is native to the montane forested areas in the Caucasus and the Zagros Mountains.” ref
Traces of goat domestication in the Zagros Mountains
“Using a different criterion, that of when herds first show signs of human management, Dr. Zeder finds that goats and sheep were first domesticated about 11,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought, with pigs and cattle following shortly afterwards. The map, from her article in the August 11 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows the regions and dates where the four species were first domesticated. Other dates, color-coded as to species, show where domesticated animals first appear elsewhere in the Fertile Crescent. The earlier dates mean that animals were domesticated at much the same time as crop plants, and bear on the issue of how this ensemble of new agricultural species – the farming package known as the Neolithic revolution – spread from the Near East to Europe.” ref
“Researchers report early evidence of goat domestication in Iran’s Zagros Mountains. The initial domestication of several species, including goats, occurred in the Fertile Crescent during the Aceramic Neolithic Period, around 9600-7500 BCE. However, the regional centers of such domestication remain unclear. Kevin G. Daly, Melinda Zeder, Daniel Bradley, and colleagues combined ancient genome sequencing and archaeozoological evidence from two sites in the central Zagros Mountains to trace the domestication of the goat (Capra aegagrus hircus) from the wild bezoar goat (Capra aegagrus). The two sites, Ganj Dareh and Tepe Abdul Hosein, are located in present-day western Iran, and radiocarbon dating indicates that the sites were occupied between 8200 and 7600 BCE. The authors sequenced DNA from bone samples and compared the sequences with modern and ancient goat genomes. The results suggest that initial goat herds were genetically distinct from hunted wild goats and do not show evidence of a severe genetic bottleneck, morphological divergence, or apparent changes in appearance until 7000 BCE. Bone analysis from this transitionary period revealed a selective culling of young male goats consistent with animal husbandry–a finding bolstered by the presence of greater diversity of mitochondrial lineages compared with Y-chromosome lineages. According to the authors, goats from these sites in the Zagros Mountains are likely genetically basal to other domestic goats and may represent the earliest known examples of goat herding.” ref
Körtik Tepe
“Körtiktepe or Körtik Tepe is the oldest known Neolithic archaeological site in Turkey. Together with Tell Mureybet and Tell Abu Hureyra in northern Syria, Körtiktepe is one of the only three securely dated Younger Dryas sedentary sites in Upper Mesopotamia. The habitation of the site began in the first half of the 11th millennium BCE, approximately 10700 BCE (12,700 years ago), and persisted with consistent density until approximately 10400 BCE. Analyses of human tooth enamel indicate that the inhabitants of the Younger Dryas occupations at Körtiktepe were born and grew up in or near the site. Although a potential minor flooding event transpired during the transition from the Younger Dryas to the Early Holocene, the site endured without evident abandonment, at least not for a prolonged interval. Occupation continued and thrived during the Early Holocene. The architectural tradition of constructing round plans established around 10400 BCE and continued without any fundamental alterations until the eventual desertion of the site. The site reached its peak in terms of occupation density around 9300 BCE. Subsequently, it experienced an unexplained abandonment, possibly attributed to natural disturbances such as flooding induced by the Holocene climate changes. Incised bone pendants and stone vessels with art somewhat similar to Iran with curved horned animals that may represent wild Goat or Sheep.” ref
The Ibex as an Iconographic Symbol in the Ancient Near East
“The study of pottery design on hundreds of extant examples from the ancient Near East reveals the early popularity of one particular animal—the ibex. The treatment that this animal received on pottery from a wide number of Near Eastern sites, over a span of a thousand years, gives a clear picture of its reverential status, as well as providing us with possible clues toward a cosmology for the people of the ancient Near East. A brief review of the ibex’s appearance on Palaeolithic bone carvings demonstrates the longevity of this animal’s role as a cultural symbol, and, finally, the ibex’s demise in the fourth millennium B.C. marks a turning point in the cultural life of Near Eastern society.” ref
“Almost 90 percent of Iran’s rock art consists of the ibex motif. The ibex for the prehistoric inhabitants of what is now known as Iran appears to have received the same apotheosis as the eland for the San in what is now known as South Africa. Rock art is one of the oldest legacies of humankind. One could argue that rock art is the basis of a writing system, conveying cultural messages, beliefs and myths. The ibex would have been a source of meat and secondary products such as horn and hide. Archaeological evidence shows that it was hunted in Iran from the Middle Paleolithic period onwards, at the Warwasi and Yāfte Cave (38,000-29,000 BCE) sites where it was the dominant species represented. Studies of horn cores from the early Neolithic sites of Tappe ʿAli Koš and Tappe Sabz indicate that ibex were being hunted in the late 8th and 7th millennia BCE. The ibex motif went on to be incorporated into decorative friezes on painted pottery in pre-Islamic Iran. The elegantly stylized ibex appears as a decorative motif on Chalcolithic pottery – in Luristan at Čeḡā Sabz, Se Gābi and Tappe Giān – with long, curving horns and a characteristic beard. Long-horned caprids, many of whom may be ibex, appear on pre-Islamic stamp and cylinder seals all over Iran. An ibex-headed figure – possibly a human wearing the horns of an ibex – appears in the guise of the ‘master of animals’ on stamp seal impressions from Susa dating to ca. 4000 B.C.E. Middle Elamite, Neo-Assyrian, provincial Neo-Assyrian, and Neo-Elamite cylinder seals from Čeḡā Sabz and Sorḵ Dom-e Lori in Luristan illustrate hunters with bow and arrow shooting leaping caprids. The symbolic and/or religious significance of the ibex in pre-Islamic Iran is unclear, although some argue that it was integral to a pre-Islamic creation narrative. According to the Zoroastrian – ‘Zarathusti’ in Persian – cosmogony, ‘Mashya and Mashyana’, or ‘mašyā and mašyānē’, were the first man and woman whose procreation gave rise to the human race. According to Mohammad Naserifard [pictured], it was the ibex that was chosen as the symbol of divine assistance. With the ibex carvings in the rock art sites of ancient Persia, this may have represented an over-riding belief in, and request for, the provision of water, the guarantee of fertility and birth, and a Divine – ‘hu’ – blessing and protection.” ref
The Mountain Goat; Symbol of Rain In Iranian Pottery
“The designs drawn by the Iranians, especially drawings of Iran’s national animal, the mountain goat, have been infused with the spirit of simplicity and precision. These designs are unique in all of Asia. The prehistoric man lived in constant fear and anxiety. He feared the satanic force, and needed a stimulant to help him defend himself from this wicked force. That is the reason why he resorted to talismans, charms, and totems to the point of worshipping them. Studying prehistoric man’s creations, helps us discover his interest in exhibiting what they considered as the manifestations of the gods that they worshipped. For example, drawings of the sun, and the animals related to the sun, such as the eagle, lion, cow, deer, and the mountain goat, can be seen on pottery dating back to the 4th millennium BCE People wore necklaces with pendants of mountain goats, especially among Cassy tribes in Lorestan. These people needed a defender because they believed that, since time immemorial, hurricanes, floods, wild animals, etc. had threatened man, his home, livestock, and crops. Because they wanted to be safe, they began worshipping the gods and goddesses, or objects and animals which they presumed the gods and goddesses liked. Sometimes only one of the animal’s limbs or organs was drawn on pottery. For example, in the pottery made during the period between 3,000 to 4,000 BCE, there are drawings of the horns of cows, deer, and mountain goats, or the wings and claws of birds, together with geometrical designs. Each ancient tribe considered the mountain goat to be the symbol of one of the natural, beneficial elements. For example, in Lorestan, it symbolized the sun. Sometimes it symbolized the rain because in ancient times the moon was related to the rain, and the sun was related to the heat and dryness. There was also a relationship between the mountain goat’s twisted horns and the crescent – shaped moon.” ref
“That is why it was believed that the mountain goat’s twisted horns could bring about rainfall. In ancient Susa and Elam, the mountain goat was the symbol of prosperity and the god of vegetation. In Mesopotamia, the mountain goat symbolized the “Great god’s” bestial nature (The Great god appeared in the role of the god of plants, holding a tee branch in his hand, while the mountain goat ate its leaves). Prehistoric men had an astonishing skill in making pottery. They made the best types of pottery by hand, and by using the potter’s wheel. In these artifacts, they have demonstrated all aspects of their lives, such as their religion, mores and art. By studying these creations, we come to know the relationship between different civilizations. These ancient people, had great skill in depicting horned animals. Maybe the transformation of gods into different drawings of animals, is one of the reasons why animals were considered sacred, and why they became an interesting topic for the works of ancient artists and potters. Most of the prehistoric pottery were first designed with geometrical and decorative designs. Drawings of animals became common after some time, and after that, geometric shapes became widespread once again. This transformation is seen in most of the prehistoric Persian civilizations. The mountain goat motif emerges in different historical periods. In excavations of many hills, archeologists have discovered vessels bearing the same motif. Here, we shall refer to some of these instances: The Sialk Hill Civilization, in Kashan, lasted from the fifth millennium to the first millennium BCE The hill has six ancient layers, each layer containing distinct types of pottery and other artifacts. Flowers and trees such as the sunflower, and the ‘Tree of Life’ (The Sacred Tree), drawn in between the goat’s horns, are very interesting. The sunflower symbolized the sun, and was considered to be sacred.” ref
Rain Bull
“Capturing the Rain Animal: an important mythological and symbolic aspect of the rock art of the San in the Drakensberg Mountains in southern Africa. With more than 500,000 rock art sites, Africa is the world’s greatest repository of ancient rock art. Of Africa’s many rock art traditions, the San – or Bushman – rock art of the Drakensberg Mountains in southern Africa is one of the finest. Some of its images have details only the width of a hair, and its delicately shaded colours fade seamlessly from white through pink to dark red. For decades, researchers believed that San rock paintings were simply a record of daily life or a primitive form of hunting magic. But by linking specific San beliefs to recurrent features in the art, researchers such as Patricia Vinnicombe and David Lewis-Williams managed to crack the fundamental codes underlying San rock art, revealing a complex and sophisticated form of symbolic art. One aspect of this is capturing the rain animal.” ref
Rain-making was one of the San shamans’ most important tasks. The southern San thought of the rain as an animal. A male rain-animal, or rain-bull, was associated with the frightening thunderstorm that bellowed, stirred up the dust, and sometimes killed people with its lightning. The female rain animal was associated with soft, soaking rains. For the San, rain was life. When it fell, tubers that had lain hidden beneath the parched land sprang up, and the veld was renewed. Then antelopes were attracted to the new grass and bushes. Columns of falling rain were called the rain’s legs, while wisps of cloud were known as the rain’s hair; mist was said to be rain’s breath. When the San did a rain dance, they would go into a trance to capture one of these animals. In their trance, they would kill it, and its blood and milk became the rain.” ref
“Mehet-Weret or Mehturt (Ancient Egyptian: mḥt-wrt) is an ancient Egyptian deity of the sky in ancient Egyptian religion. Her name means “Great Flood”. She was mentioned in the Pyramid Texts. In ancient Egyptian creation myths, she gives birth to the sun at the beginning of time. In spell 17 of the Book of the Dead, the god Ra is born from her buttocks. In art, she is portrayed as a cow with a sun disk between her horns. She is associated with the goddesses Neith, Hathor, and Isis, all of whom have similar characteristics, and like them, she could be called the “Eye of Ra”. In some instances, she is simply an epithet for those goddesses. Her own titles included ‘mound’ and ‘island’ (mound of creation). Geraldine Pinch suggests that Mehet-Weret was also ‘probably’ the Milky Way in the night sky, to correspond with her identification as the celestial waters travelled by the solar barque.” ref
Pastoralists’ indigenous religious practices: capturing the “rain-bull”
“Ritual Cemeteries—For Cows and Then Humans—Plot Pastoralist Expansion Across Africa. As early herders spread across northern and then eastern Africa, the communities erected monumental graves which may have served as social gathering points. Testing religious beliefs Pastoralists’ indigenous religious practices: found that appeasing spirits (82%), sacrifice (89%), divination (76%), and communal ceremonies (94%) were practiced in the study areas. These systems have highly contributed to personal reproduction (55%), farming practices (45%), conflict resolution (60%), forecasting events (48%), healing (60%), social cohesion (70%), and local governing (50%) among the pastoralists.” ref
Mesopotamian Gods and the Bull
“In Mesopotamia, gods were associated with the bull from at least the Early Dynastic Period until the Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean Period. This relationship took on many forms; the bull could serve as the god’s divine animal, the god could be likened to the bull, or he could actually take on the form of the beast. In this paper, the various gods identified with or related to the bull will be identified and studied in order to identify which specific types of gods were most commonly and especially associated with the bull. The relationships between the gods and the bull are evident in textual as well as iconographic sources, although fewer instances of this connection are found in iconography. Examples of the portrayal of the association between the various gods and the bull in texts and iconography can be compared and contrasted in order to reveal differences and similarities in these portrayals.” ref
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Sacred Cattle in Egyptian Mythology
“Bat is a cow goddess in Egyptian mythology who was depicted as a human face with cow ears and horns or as a woman. Other feminine bovine deities include Sekhat-Hor, Mehet-Weryt, Shedyt, Hathor, Hesat, and Celestial Cow “Sky goddess” Nut. Their masculine counterparts include Apis, Mnevis, Buchis, Sema-wer, Ageb-wer. Cattle are prominent in some religions and mythologies. As such, numerous people throughout the world have at one point in time honored bulls as sacred. In the Sumerian religion, Marduk is the “bull of Utu”. In Hinduism, Shiva’s steed is Nandi, the Bull. The sacred bull survives in the constellation Taurus. The bull, whether lunar as in Mesopotamia or solar as in India, is the subject of various other cultural and religious incarnations.” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Sumerian religion, Marduk is the “Bull of Utu”
“Taurus (Latin, ‘Bull‘) is one of the constellations of the zodiac and is located in the northern celestial hemisphere. Taurus is a large and prominent constellation in the Northern Hemisphere‘s winter sky. It is one of the oldest constellations, dating back to the Early Bronze Age at least, when it marked the location of the Sun during the spring equinox. Its importance to the agricultural calendar influenced various bull figures in the mythologies of Ancient Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Its old astronomical symbol is (♉︎), which resembles a bull’s head. We cannot recreate a specific context for the bull skulls with horns (bucrania) preserved in an 8th millennium BCE sanctuary at Çatalhöyük in Central Anatolia. The sacred bull of the Hattians, whose elaborate standards were found at Alaca Höyük alongside those of the sacred stag, survived in Hurrian and Hittite mythology as Seri and Hurri (“Day” and “Night”), the bulls who carried the weather god Teshub on their backs or in his chariot and grazed on the ruins of cities.” ref
“The identification of the constellation of Taurus with a bull is very old, certainly dating to the Chalcolithic, and perhaps even to the Upper Paleolithic. Michael Rappenglück of the University of Munich believes that Taurus is represented in a cave painting at the Hall of the Bulls in the caves at Lascaux (dated to roughly 15,000 BCE), which he believes is accompanied by a depiction of the Pleiades. The name “seven sisters” has been used for the Pleiades in the languages of many cultures, including indigenous groups of Australia, North America and Siberia. This suggests that the name may have a common ancient origin. Taurus marked the point of vernal (spring) equinox in the Chalcolithic and the Early Bronze Age, from about 4000 to 1700 BCE, after which it moved into the neighboring constellation Aries. The Pleiades were closest to the Sun at vernal equinox around the 23rd century BCE. In Babylonian astronomy, the constellation was listed in the MUL.APIN as GU4.AN.NA, “The Bull of Heaven“. Although it has been claimed that “when the Babylonians first set up their zodiac, the vernal equinox lay in Taurus,” there is a claim that the MUL.APIN tablets indicate that the vernal equinox was marked by the Babylonian constellation known as “the hired man” (the modern Aries).” ref
“In the Old Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, the goddess Ishtar sends Taurus, the Bull of Heaven, to kill Gilgamesh for spurning her advances. Enkidu tears off the bull’s hind part and hurls the quarters into the sky where they become the stars we know as Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Some locate Gilgamesh as the neighboring constellation of Orion, facing Taurus as if in combat, while others identify him with the sun whose rising on the equinox vanquishes the constellation. In early Mesopotamian art, the Bull of Heaven was closely associated with Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare. One of the oldest depictions shows the bull standing before the goddess’ standard; since it has 3 stars depicted on its back (the cuneiform sign for “star-constellation”), there is good reason to regard this as the constellation later known as Taurus. The same iconic representation of the Heavenly Bull was depicted in the Dendera zodiac, an Egyptian bas-relief carving in a ceiling that depicted the celestial hemisphere using a planisphere. In these ancient cultures, the orientation of the horns was portrayed as upward or backward. This differed from the later Greek depiction where the horns pointed forward. To the Egyptians, the constellation Taurus was a sacred bull that was associated with the renewal of life in spring. When the spring equinox entered Taurus, the constellation would become covered by the Sun in the western sky as spring began. This “sacrifice” led to the renewal of the land. To the early Hebrews, Taurus was the first constellation in their zodiac and consequently it was represented by the first letter in their alphabet, Aleph.” ref
“In Greek mythology, Taurus was identified with Zeus, who assumed the form of a magnificent white bull to abduct Europa, a legendary Phoenician princess. In illustrations of Greek mythology, only the front portion of this constellation is depicted; this was sometimes explained as Taurus being partly submerged as he carried Europa out to sea. A second Greek myth portrays Taurus as Io, a mistress of Zeus. To hide his lover from his wife Hera, Zeus changed Io into the form of a heifer. Greek mythographer Acusilaus marks the bull Taurus as the same that formed the myth of the Cretan Bull, one of The Twelve Labors of Heracles. Taurus became an important object of worship among the Druids. Their Tauric religious festival was held while the Sun passed through the constellation. Among the arctic people known as the Inuit, the constellation is called Sakiattiat and the Hyades is Nanurjuk, with the latter representing the spirit of the polar bear. Aldebaran represents the bear, with the remainder of the stars in the Hyades being dogs that are holding the beast at bay.” ref
“In Buddhism, legends hold that Gautama Buddha was born when the full moon was in Vaisakha, or Taurus. Buddha’s birthday is celebrated with the Wesak Festival, or Vesākha, which occurs on the first or second full moon when the Sun is in Taurus. In 1990, due to the precession of the equinoxes, the position of the Sun on the first day of summer (June 21) crossed the IAU boundary of Gemini into Taurus. The Sun will slowly move through Taurus at a rate of 1° east every 72 years until approximately 2600, at which point it will be in Aries on the first day of summer.” ref
“The Sumerian guardian deity called lamassu was depicted as hybrids with bodies of either winged bulls or lions and heads of human males. The motif of a winged animal with a human head is common to the Near East, first recorded in Ebla around 3000 BCE. The first distinct lamassu motif appeared in Assyria during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser II as a symbol of power. “The human-headed winged bulls protective genies called shedu or lamassu, … were placed as guardians at certain gates or doorways of the city and the palace. Symbols combining man, bull, and bird, they offered protection against enemies.” ref
“The bull was also associated with the storm and rain god Adad, Hadad or Iškur. The bull was his symbolic animal. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt while wearing a bull-horned headdress. Hadad was equated with the Greek god Zeus; the Roman god Jupiter, as Jupiter Dolichenus; the Indo-European Nasite Hittite storm-god Teshub; the Egyptian god Amun. When Enki distributed the destinies, he made Iškur inspector of the cosmos. In one litany, Iškur is proclaimed again and again as “great radiant bull, your name is heaven” and also called son of Anu, lord of Karkara; twin-brother of Enki, lord of abundance, lord who rides the storm, lion of heaven.” ref
“The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh depicts the horrors of the rage-fueled deployment of the Bull of Heaven by Ishtar and its slaughter by Gilgamesh and Enkidu as an act of defiance that seals their fates:
Ishtar opened her mouth and said again, “My father, give me the Bull of Heaven to destroy Gilgamesh. Fill Gilgamesh, I say, with arrogance to his destruction; but if you refuse to give me the Bull of Heaven I will break in the doors of hell and smash the bolts; there will be a confusion of people, those above with those from the lower depths. I shall bring up the dead to eat food like the living; and the hosts of the dead will outnumber the living.” Anu said to great Ishtar, “If I do what you desire there will be seven years of drought throughout Uruk when corn will be seedless husks. Have you saved grain enough for the people and grass for the cattle?” Ishtar replied “I have saved grain for the people, grass for the cattle.”…When Anu heard what Ishtar had said he gave her the Bull of Heaven to lead by the halter down to Uruk. When they reached the gates of Uruk the Bull of Heaven went to the river; with his first snort cracks opened in the earth and a hundred young men fell down to death.” ref
“With his second snort cracks opened and two hundred fell down to death. With his third snort cracks opened, Enkidu doubled over but instantly recovered, he dodged aside and leapt onto the Bull and seized it by the horns. The Bull of Heaven foamed in his face, it brushed him with the thick of its tail. Enkidu cried to Gilgamesh, “My friend we boasted that we would leave enduring names behind us. Now thrust your sword between the nape and the horns.” So Gilgamesh followed the Bull, he seized the thick of its tail, he thrust the sword between the nape and the horns and slew the Bull. When they had killed the Bull of Heaven they cut out its heart and gave it to Shamash, and the brothers rested.” ref
“In Ancient Egypt multiple sacred bulls were worshiped. A long succession of ritually perfect bulls were identified by the god’s priests, housed in the temple for their lifetime, then embalmed and buried. The mother-cows of these animals were also revered, and buried in separate locations.
- In the Memphite region, the Apis was seen as the embodiment of Ptah and later of Osiris. Some of the Apis bulls were buried in large sarcophagi in the underground vaults of the Serapeum of Saqqara, which was rediscovered by Auguste Mariette in 1851.
- Mnevis of Heliopolis was the embodiment of Atum–Ra.
- Buchis of Hermonthis was linked with the gods Ra and Montu. The catacombs for these bulls are now known as the Bucheum. Multiple Buchis mummies were found in situ during excavations in the 1930s. Some of their sarcophagi are similar to those in the Serapeum, others are polylithic (made from multiple stones).” ref
“Ka, in Egyptian, is both a religious concept of life-force/power and the word for bull. Andrew Gordon, an Egyptologist, and Calvin Schwabe, a veterinarian, argue that the origin of the ankh is related to two other signs of uncertain origin that often appear alongside it: the was-sceptre, representing “power” or “dominion”, and the djed pillar, representing “stability”. According to this hypothesis, the form of each sign is drawn from a part of the anatomy of a bull, like some other hieroglyphic signs that are known to be based on body parts of animals. In Egyptian belief semen was connected with life and, to some extent, with “power” or “dominion”, and some texts indicate the Egyptians believed semen originated in the bones. Therefore, Calvin and Schwabe suggest the signs are based on parts of the bull’s anatomy through which semen was thought to pass: the ankh is a thoracic vertebra, the djed is the sacrum and lumbar vertebrae, and the was is the dried penis of the bull.” ref
“In Cyprus, bull masks made from real skulls were worn in rites. Bull-masked terracotta figurines and Neolithic bull-horned stone altars have been found in Cyprus. Bulls were a central theme in the Minoan civilization, with bull heads and bull horns used as symbols in the Knossos palace. Minoan frescos and ceramics depict bull-leaping, in which participants of both sexes vaulted over bulls by grasping their horns.” ref
“The Iranian language texts and traditions of Zoroastrianism have several different mythological bovine creatures. One of these is Gavaevodata, which is the Avestan name of a hermaphroditic “uniquely created (-aevo.data) cow (gav-)”, one of Ahura Mazda‘s six primordial material creations that becomes the mythological progenitor of all beneficent animal life. Another Zoroastrian mythological bovine is Hadhayans, a gigantic bull so large that it could straddle the mountains and seas that divide the seven regions of the earth, and on whose back men could travel from one region to another.” ref
“In medieval times, Hadhayans also came to be known as Srīsōk (Avestan *Thrisaok, “three burning places”), which derives from a legend in which three “Great Fires” were collected on the creature’s back. Yet another mythological bovine is that of the unnamed creature in the Cow’s Lament, an allegorical hymn attributed to Zoroaster himself, in which the soul of a bovine (geush urvan) despairs over her lack of protection from an adequate herdsman. In the allegory, the cow represents humanity’s lack of moral guidance, but in later Zoroastrianism, Geush Urvan became a yazata representing cattle. The 14th day of the month is named after her and is under her protection.” ref
“Bulls appear on seals from the Indus Valley civilisation. In The Rig Veda, the earliest collection of Vedic hymns (c. 1500-1000 BCE), Indra is often praised as a Bull (Vṛṣabha – vrsa (he) plus bha (being) or as uksan, a bull aged five to nine years, which is still growing or just reached its full growth). The bull is an icon of power and virile strength in Aryan literature and other Indo-European traditions. Vrsha means “to shower or to spray”, in this context Indra showers strength and virility. Vṛṣabha is also an astrological sign in Indian horoscope systems, corresponding to Taurus.” ref
“The storm god Rudra is called a bull as are the Maruts or storm deities referred to as bulls under the command of Indra, thus Indra is called “bull with bulls.” The following excerpts from The Rig Veda demonstrate these attributes:
“As a bull I call to you, the bull with the thunderbolt, with various aids, O Indra, bull with bulls, greatest killer of Vrtra.” — Atri and the Last Sun” ref
“He the mighty bull who with his seven reins let loose the seven rivers to flow, who with his thunderbolt in his hand hurled down Ruhina as he was climbing up to the sky, he my people is Indra.” — Who is Indra?
“I send praise to the high bull, tawny and white. I bow low to the radiant one. We praise the dreaded name of Rudra.” — Rudra, father of the Maruts” ref.
“Nandi later appears in the Puranas as the primary vahana (mount) and the principal gana (follower) of Shiva. Nandi figures depicted as a seated bull are present at Shiva temples throughout the world. Kao (bull), a supernatural divine bull, appears in ancient Meitei mythology and folklore of Ancient Manipur (Kangleipak). In the legend of the Khamba Thoibi epic, Nongban Kongyamba, a nobleman of ancient Moirang realm, pretended to be an oracle and falsely prophesied that the people of Moirang would lead to miserable lives, if the powerful Kao (bull) roaming freely in the Khuman kingdom, wasn’t offered to the god Thangjing (Old Manipuri: Thangching), the presiding deity of Moirang. Orphan Khuman prince Khamba was chosen to capture the bull, as he was known for his valor and faithfulness.” ref
“Since to capture the bull without killing it was not an easy task, Khamba’s motherly sister Khamnu disclosed to Khamba the secrets of the bull, by means of which the animal could be captured. Bull figurines are common finds on archaeological sites across the Levant; two examples are the 16th century BCE (Middle Bronze Age) bull calf from Ashkelon, and the 12th century BCE (Iron Age I) bull found at the so-called Bull Site in Samaria on the West Bank. Both Baʿal and El were associated with the bull in Ugaritic texts, as it symbolized both strength and fertility.” ref
Exodus 32:4 reads “He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt’.” ref
Nehemiah 9:18 reads “even when they made an idol shaped like a calf and said, ‘This is your god who brought you out of Egypt!’ They committed terrible blasphemies.” ref
“Calf-idols are referred to later in the Tanakh, such as in the Book of Hosea, which would seem accurate as they were a fixture of near-eastern cultures. Solomon‘s “Molten Sea” basin stood on twelve brazen bulls. Young bulls were set as frontier markers at Dan and Bethel, the frontiers of the Kingdom of Israel. Much later, in Abrahamic religions, the bull motif became a bull demon or the “horned devil” in contrast and conflict to earlier traditions. The bull is familiar in Judeo-Christian cultures from the Biblical episode wherein an idol of the golden calf (Hebrew: עֵגֶּל הַזָהָב) is made by Aaron and worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula (Book of Exodus). The text of the Hebrew Bible can be understood to refer to the idol as representing a separate god, or as representing Yahweh himself, perhaps through an association or religious syncretism with Egyptian or Levantine bull gods, rather than a new deity in itself.” ref
“Among the Twelve Olympians, Hera‘s epithet Bo-opis is usually translated “ox-eyed” Hera, but the term could just as well apply if the goddess had the head of a cow, and thus the epithet reveals the presence of an earlier, though not necessarily more primitive, iconic view. (Heinrich Schlieman, 1976) Classical Greeks never otherwise referred to Hera simply as the cow, though her priestess Io was so literally a heifer that she was stung by a gadfly, and it was in the form of a heifer that Zeus coupled with her. Zeus took over the earlier roles, and, in the form of a bull that came forth from the sea, abducted the high-born Phoenician Europa and brought her, significantly, to Crete.” ref
“Dionysus was another god of resurrection who was strongly linked to the bull. In a worship hymn from Olympia, at a festival for Hera, Dionysus is also invited to come as a bull, “with bull-foot raging.” “Quite frequently he is portrayed with bull horns, and in Kyzikos he has a tauromorphic image,” Walter Burkert relates, and refers also to an archaic myth in which Dionysus is slaughtered as a bull calf and impiously eaten by the Titans.” ref
“For the Greeks, the bull was strongly linked to the Cretan Bull: Theseus of Athens had to capture the ancient sacred bull of Marathon (the “Marathonian bull”) before he faced the Minotaur (Greek for “Bull of Minos”), who the Greeks imagined as a man with the head of a bull at the center of the labyrinth. Minotaur was fabled to be born of the Queen and a bull, bringing the king to build the labyrinth to hide his family’s shame. Living in solitude made the boy wild and ferocious, unable to be tamed or beaten. Yet Walter Burkert‘s constant warning is, “It is hazardous to project Greek tradition directly into the Bronze Age.” Only one Minoan image of a bull-headed man has been found, a tiny Minoan sealstone currently held in the Archaeological Museum of Chania.” ref
“In the Classical period of Greece, the bull and other animals identified with deities were separated as their agalma, a kind of heraldic show-piece that concretely signified their numinous presence. The religious practices of the Roman Empire of the 2nd to 4th centuries included the taurobolium, in which a bull was sacrificed for the well-being of the people and the state. Around the mid-2nd century, the practice became identified with the worship of Magna Mater, but was not previously associated only with that cult (cultus). Public taurobolia, enlisting the benevolence of Magna Mater on behalf of the emperor, became common in Italy and Gaul, Hispania and Africa. The last public taurobolium for which there is an inscription was carried out at Mactar in Numidia at the close of the 3rd century. It was performed in honor of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian.” ref
“Another Roman mystery cult in which a sacrificial bull played a role was that of the 1st–4th century Mithraic Mysteries. In the so-called “tauroctony” artwork of that cult (cultus), and which appears in all its temples, the god Mithras is seen to slay a sacrificial bull. Although there has been a great deal of speculation on the subject, the myth (i.e. the “mystery”, the understanding of which was the basis of the cult) that the scene was intended to represent remains unknown. Because the scene is accompanied by a great number of astrological allusions, the bull is generally assumed to represent the constellation of Taurus. The basic elements of the tauroctony scene were originally associated with Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. Macrobius lists the bull as an animal sacred to the god Neto/Neito, possibly being sacrifices to the deity.” ref
“Tarvos Trigaranus (the “bull with three cranes”) is pictured on ancient Gaulish reliefs alongside images of gods, such as in the cathedrals at Trier and at Notre Dame de Paris. In Irish mythology, the Donn Cuailnge and the Finnbhennach are prized bulls that play a central role in the epic Táin Bó Cúailnge (“The Cattle Raid of Cooley”). Early medieval Irish texts also mention the tarbfeis (bull feast), a shamanistic ritual in which a bull would be sacrificed and a seer would sleep in the bull’s hide to have a vision of the future king. Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century CE, describes a religious ceremony in Gaul in which white-clad druids climbed a sacred oak, cut down the mistletoe growing on it, sacrificed two white bulls and used the mistletoe to cure infertility.” ref
“The druids—that is what they call their magicians—hold nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and a tree on which it is growing, provided it is Valonia oak. … Mistletoe is rare and when found it is gathered with great ceremony, and particularly on the sixth day of the moon….Hailing the moon in a native word that means ‘healing all things,’ they prepare a ritual sacrifice and banquet beneath a tree and bring up two white bulls, whose horns are bound for the first time on this occasion. A priest arrayed in white vestments climbs the tree and, with a golden sickle, cuts down the mistletoe, which is caught in a white cloak. Then finally they kill the victims, praying to a god to render his gift propitious to those on whom he has bestowed it. They believe that mistletoe given in drink will impart fertility to any animal that is barren and that it is an antidote to all poisons. Bull sacrifices at the time of the Lughnasa festival were recorded as late as the 18th century at Cois Fharraige in Ireland (where they were offered to Crom Dubh) and at Loch Maree in Scotland (where they were offered to Saint Máel Ruba).” ref
Cattle in religion and mythology
There are varying beliefs about cattle in societies and religions.
“Cattle are considered sacred in the Indian religions of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, as well as in some Chinese folk religion and in African paganism. Cattle played other major roles in many religions, including those of ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Israel, and ancient Rome. In some regions, especially most states of India, the slaughter of cattle is prohibited and their meat (beef) may be taboo.” ref
“In ancient Egyptian religion, bulls symbolized strength and male sexuality and were linked with aggressive deities such as Montu and virile deities such as Min. Some Egyptian cities kept sacred bulls that were said to be incarnations of divine powers, including the Mnevis bull, Buchis bull, and the Apis bull, which was regarded as a manifestation of the god Ptah and was the most important sacred animal in Egypt. Cows were connected with fertility and motherhood. One of several ancient Egyptian creation myths said that a cow goddess, Mehet-Weret, who represented the primeval waters that existed before creation, gave birth to the sun at the beginning of time. The sky was sometimes envisioned as a goddess in the form of a cow, and several goddesses, including Hathor, Nut, and Neith, were equated with this celestial cow. The Egyptians did not regard cattle as uniformly positive. Wild bulls, regarded as symbols of the forces of chaos, could be hunted and ritually killed.” ref
“As cattle were a central part of the pastoralist economy of Ancient Nubia, Africa, they also played a prominent role in their culture and mythology, as evidenced by their inclusion in burials and rock art. Starting in the Neolithic period, cattle skulls, also known as bucrania, were often placed alongside human burials. Bucrania were a status symbol, and they were used frequently in adult male burials, occasionally in adult female burials, and rarely in child burials. In cemeteries at Kerma, there is a strong correlation between the number of bucrania and the quantity and lavishness of other grave goods. Dozens if not hundreds of cattle were often slaughtered as tribute for the burial of one individual; 400 bucrania were found at one tumulus alone at Kerma. The use of cattle skulls rather than those of sheep or goats reveals the importance of cattle in their pastoral economy, as well as the cultural associations of cattle with wealth, prosperity, and passage into the afterlife. Sometimes complete cattle were buried alongside their owner, symbolic of their relationship continuing into the afterlife.” ref
“Beginning in the third millennium BCE, cattle became the most popular motif in Nubian rock art. The bodies are usually depicted in profile, while the horns are facing forward. The length and shape of the horns and the pattern on the hide varied widely. Human silhouettes are often drawn alongside the cattle, symbolic of the important symbiotic relationship between cattle and humans. For pastoralists, drawing cattle may have also been a way to ensure the health of their herd. The role of cattle in Nubian mythology is more covert than in Egypt to the north, where several gods are often depicted as cattle; however, the significance of cattle in Nubian culture is evident in burial practices, understandings of the afterlife, and rock art.” ref
“Hinduism specifically considers the zebu (Bos indicus) to be sacred. Respect for the lives of animals including cattle, diet in Hinduism and vegetarianism in India are based on the Hindu ethics. The Hindu ethics are driven by the core concept of Ahimsa, i.e. non-violence towards all beings, as mentioned in the Chandogya Upanishad (~ 800 BCE). By mid 1st millennium BCE, all three major religions – Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism – were championing non-violence as an ethical value, and something that impacted one’s rebirth. By about 200 CE, food and feasting on animal slaughter were widely considered as a form of violence against life forms, and became a religious and social taboo. India, which has 79.80% Hindu population as of (2011 census), had the lowest rate of meat consumption in the world according to the 2007 UN FAO statistics, and India has more vegetarians than the rest of the world put together.” ref
“According to Ludwig Alsdorf, “Indian vegetarianism is unequivocally based on ahimsa (non-violence)” as evidenced by ancient smritis and other ancient texts of Hinduism.” He adds that the endearment and respect for cattle in Hinduism is more than a commitment to vegetarianism and has become integral to its theology. The respect for cattle is widespread but not universal. Animal sacrifices have been rare among the Hindus outside a few eastern states. To the majority of modern Indians, states Alsdorf, respect for cattle and disrespect for slaughter is a part of their ethos, and there is “no ahimsa without renunciation of meat consumption”. The cow in Hindu society is traditionally identified as a caretaker and a maternal figure, and Hindu society honors the cow as a symbol of unselfish giving, selfless sacrifice, gentleness, and tolerance.” ref
“Several scholars explain the veneration for cows among Hindus in economic terms, including the importance of dairy in the diet, the use of cow dung as fuel and fertilizer, and the importance that cattle have historically played in agriculture. Ancient texts such as Rig Veda, Puranas highlight the importance of cattle. The scope, extent, and status of cows throughout ancient India is a subject of debate. Cattle, including cows, were neither inviolable nor as revered in ancient times as they were later. A Gryhasutra recommends that beef be eaten by the mourners after a funeral ceremony as a ritual rite of passage. In contrast, the Vedic literature is contradictory, with some suggesting ritual slaughter and meat consumption, while others suggesting a taboo on meat eating. Many ancient and medieval Hindu texts debate the rationale for a voluntary stop to cow slaughter and the pursuit of vegetarianism as a part of a general abstention from violence against others and all killing of animals.” ref
“The interdiction of the meat of the bounteous cow as food was regarded as the first step to total vegetarianism. Dairy cows are called aghnya “that which may not be slaughtered” in the Rigveda. Yaska, the early commentator of the Rigveda, gives nine names for cow, the first being “aghnya”. The literature relating to cow veneration became common in 1st millennium CE, and by about 1000 CE vegetarianism, along with a taboo against beef, became a well accepted mainstream Hindu tradition. This practice was inspired by the beliefs in Hinduism that a soul is present in all living beings, life in all its forms is interconnected, and non-violence towards all creatures is the highest ethical value. The god Krishna and his Yadava kinsmen are associated with cows, adding to its endearment.” ref
“The cow veneration in ancient India during the Vedic era, the religious texts written during this period called for non-violence towards all bipeds and quadrupeds, and often equated killing of a cow with the killing of a human being specifically a Brahmin. The hymn 8.3.25 of the Hindu scripture Atharvaveda (~1200–1500 BCE) condemns all killings of men, cattle, and horses, and prays to god Agni to punish those who kill.” ref
“In the Puranas, which are part of the Hindu texts, the earth-goddess Prithvi was in the form of a cow, successively milked of beneficent substances for the benefit of humans, by deities starting with the first sovereign: Prithu milked the cow to generate crops for humans to end a famine. Kamadhenu, the miraculous “cow of plenty” and the “mother of cows” in certain versions of the Hindu mythology, is believed to represent the generic sacred cow, regarded as the source of all prosperity. In the 19th century, a form of Kamadhenu was depicted in poster-art that depicted all major gods and goddesses in it. Govatsa Dwadashi, which marks the first day of Diwali celebrations, is the main festival connected to the veneration and worship of cows as chief source of livelihood and religious sanctity in India, wherein the symbolism of motherhood is most apparent with the sacred cows Kamadhenu and her daughter Nandini.” ref
“Jainism is against violence to all living beings, including cattle. According to the Jaina sutras, humans must avoid all killing and slaughter because all living beings are fond of life, they suffer, they feel pain, they like to live, and long to live. All beings should help each other live and prosper, according to Jainism, not kill and slaughter each other. In the Jain religious tradition, neither monks nor laypersons should cause others or allow others to work in a slaughterhouse. Jains believe that vegetarian sources can provide adequate nutrition, without creating suffering for animals such as cattle. According to some Jain scholars, slaughtering cattle increases ecological burden from human food demands since the production of meat entails intensified grain demands, and reducing cattle slaughter by 50 percent would free up enough land and ecological resources to solve all malnutrition and hunger worldwide. The Jain community leaders, states Christopher Chapple, has actively campaigned to stop all forms of animal slaughter including cattle.” ref
“The texts of Buddhism state ahimsa to be one of five ethical precepts, which requires a practicing Buddhist to “refrain from killing living beings”. Slaughtering cow has been a taboo, with some texts suggesting that taking care of a cow is a means of taking care of “all living beings”. Cattle are seen in some Buddhist sects as a form of reborn human beings in the endless rebirth cycles in samsara, protecting animal life and being kind to cattle and other animals is good karma. Not only do some, mainly Mahayana, Buddhist texts state that killing or eating meat is wrong, it urges Buddhist laypersons to not operate slaughterhouses, nor trade in meat. Indian Buddhist texts encourage a plant-based diet.” ref
“According to Saddhatissa, in the Brahmanadhammika Sutta, the Buddha “describes the ideal mode of life of Brahmins in the Golden Age” before him as follows: Like mother (they thought), father, brother or any other kind of kin, cows are our kin most excellent from whom come many remedies. Givers of good and strength, of good complexion and the happiness of health, having seen the truth of this cattle, they never killed. Those Brahmins, then by Dharma, did what should be done, not what should not, and so aware they graceful were, well-built, fair-skinned, of high renown. While in the world, this lore was found, these people happily prospered. — Buddha, Brahmanadhammika Sutta 13.24, Sutta Nipāta” ref
“Saving animals from slaughter for meat, is believed in Buddhism to be a way to acquire merit for better rebirth. According to Richard Gombrich, there has been a gap between Buddhist precepts and practice. Vegetarianism is admired, states Gombrich, but often it is not practiced. Nevertheless, adds Gombrich, there is a general belief among Theravada Buddhists that eating beef is worse than other meat and the ownership of cattle slaughterhouses by Buddhists is relatively rare. Meat eating remains controversial within Buddhism, with most Theravada sects allowing it, reflecting early Buddhist practice, and most Mahayana sects forbidding it. Early suttas indicate that the Buddha himself ate meat and was clear that no rule should be introduced to forbid meat eating to monks. The consumption, however, appears to have been limited to pork, chicken and fish and may well have excluded cattle.” ref
“The term geush urva means “the spirit of the cow” and is interpreted as the soul of the earth. In the Ahunavaiti Gatha, Zoroaster accuses some of his co-religionists of abusing the cow while Ahura Mazda tells him to protect them. After fleeing to India, many Zoroastrians stopped eating beef out of respect for Hindus living there. The lands of Zoroaster and the Vedic priests were those of cattle breeders. The 9th chapter of the Vendidad of the Avesta expounds the purificatory power of cow urine. It is declared to be a panacea for all bodily and moral evils and features prominently in the 9-night purification ritual Barashnûm.” ref
“According to the Bible, the Israelites worshipped a cult image of a golden calf when the prophet Moses went up to Mount Sinai. Moses considered this a great sin against God. As a result of their abstention from the act, the Levite tribe attained a priestly role. A cult of golden calves appears later during the rule of Jeroboam. According to the Hebrew Bible, an unblemished red cow was an important part of ancient Jewish rituals. The cow was sacrificed and burned in a precise ritual, and the ashes were added to water used in the ritual purification of a person who had come in to contact with a human corpse. The ritual is described in the Book of Numbers in Chapter 19, verses 1–14.” ref
“Observant Jews study this passage every year as part of the weekly Torah portion called Chukat. A contemporary Jewish organization called the Temple Institute is trying to revive this ancient religious observance. Traditional Judaism considers beef kosher and permissible as food, as long as the cow is slaughtered in a religious ritual called shechita, and the meat is not served in a meal that includes any dairy foods. Some Jews committed to Jewish vegetarianism believe that Jews should refrain from slaughtering animals altogether and have condemned widespread cruelty towards cattle on factory farms. The red heifer or red cow is a particular kind of cow brought to priests for sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible. Jews and some Christian fundamentalists believe that once a red heifer is born they will be able to rebuild the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.” ref
“Oxen are one of the animals sacrificed by Greek Orthodox believers in some villages of Greece. It is especially associated with the feast of Saint Charalambos. This practice of kourbania has been repeatedly criticized by church authorities. The ox is the symbol of Luke the Evangelist. Among the Visigoths, the oxen pulling the wagon with the corpse of Saint Emilian lead to the correct burial site (San Millán de la Cogolla, La Rioja). In Greek mythology, the Cattle of Helios pastured on the island of Thrinacia, which is believed to be modern Sicily. Helios, the sun god, is said to have had seven herds of oxen and seven flocks of sheep, each numbering fifty head. A hecatomb was a sacrifice to the gods Apollo, Athena, and Hera, of 100 cattle (hekaton = one hundred).” ref
“The Greek gods also transformed themselves or others into cattle as a form of deception or punishment, such as in the myths of Io and Europa. In the myth of Pasiphaë, she falls in love with a bull as punishment by Poseidon. She gives birth to the Minotaur, a human-bull hybrid. In the ancient Anatolian civilization Hatti, the storm god was closely linked to a bull. Tarvos Trigaranus (the “bull with three cranes”) is pictured on ancient Gaulish reliefs alongside images of gods. There is evidence that ancient Celtic peoples sacrificed animals, which were almost always cattle or other livestock. Early medieval Irish texts mention the tarbfeis (bull feast), a shamanistic ritual in which a bull would be sacrificed and a seer would sleep in the bull’s hide to have a vision of the future king.” ref
“Cattle appear often in Irish mythology. The Glas Gaibhnenn is a mythical prized cow that could produce plentiful supplies of milk, while Donn Cuailnge and Finnbhennach are prized bulls that play a central role in the epic Táin Bó Cúailnge (“The Cattle Raid of Cooley”). The mythical lady Flidais, the main figure in the Táin Bó Flidhais, owns a herd of magical cattle.The name of the goddess of the River Boyne, Bóinn, comes from Archaic Irish *Bóu-vinda meaning the “bright or white cow”; while the name of the Corcu Loígde means “tribe of the calf goddess”. In Norse mythology, the primeval cow Auðumbla suckled Ymir, the ancestor of the frost giants, and licked Búri, Odin‘s grandfather and ancestor of the gods, out of the ice.” ref
“A beef taboo in ancient China was historically a dietary restriction, particularly among the Han Chinese, as oxen and buffalo (bovines) are useful in farming and are respected. During the Zhou dynasty, they were not often eaten, even by emperors. Some emperors banned killing cows. Beef is not recommended in Chinese medicine, as it is considered a hot food and is thought to disrupt the body’s internal balance. In written sources (including anecdotes and Daoist liturgical texts), this taboo first appeared in the 9th to 12th centuries (Tang–Song transition, with the advent of pork meat.)” ref
“By the 16th to 17th centuries, the beef taboo had become well accepted in the framework of Chinese morality and was found in morality books (善書), with several books dedicated exclusively to this taboo. The beef taboo came from a Chinese perspective that relates the respect for animal life and vegetarianism (ideas shared by Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism, and state protection for draught animals.) In Chinese society, only ethnic and religious groups not fully assimilated (such as the Muslim Huis and the Miao) and foreigners consumed this meat. This taboo, among Han Chinese, led Chinese Muslims to create a niche for themselves as butchers who specialized in slaughtering oxen and buffalo. Occasionally, some cows seen weeping before slaughter are often released to temples nearby.” ref
“Islam allows the slaughter of cows and consumption of beef, as long as the cow is slaughtered in a religious ritual called dhabīḥah or zabiha similar to the Jewish shechita. Although slaughter of cattle plays a role in a major Muslim holiday, Eid al-Adha, many rulers of the Mughal Empire had imposed a ban on the slaughter of cows owing to the large Hindu and Jain populations living under their rule. The second and longest surah of the Quran is named Al-Baqara (“The Cow”). Out of the 286 verses of the surah, 7 mention cows (Al Baqarah 67–73). The name of the surah derives from this passage in which Moses orders his people to sacrifice a cow in order to resurrect a man murdered by an unknown person. Per the passage, the “Children of Israel” quibbled over what kind of cow was meant when the sacrifice was ordered.” ref
“While addressing to children of Israel, it was said:
And when We did appoint for Moses forty nights (of solitude), and then ye chose the calf, when he had gone from you, and were wrong-doers. Then, even after that, We pardoned you in order that ye might give thanks. And when We gave unto Moses the Scripture and the criterion (of right and wrong), that ye might be led aright. And when Moses said unto his people: O my people! Ye have wronged yourselves by your choosing of the calf (for worship) so turn in penitence to your Creator, and kill (the guilty) yourselves. That will be best for you with your Creator, and He will relent toward you. Lo! He is the Relenting, the Merciful. (Al-Quran 2:51–54)” ref
“And when Moses said unto his people: Lo! God commandeth you that ye sacrifice a cow, they said: Dost thou make game of us ? He answered: God forbid that I should be among the foolish! They said: Pray for us unto thy Lord that He make clear to us what (cow) she is. (Moses) answered: Lo! He saith, Verily she is a cow neither with calf nor immature; (she is) between the two conditions; so do that which ye are commanded. They said: Pray for us unto thy Lord that He make clear to us of what colour she is. (Moses) answered: Lo! He saith: Verily she is a yellow cow. Bright is her colour, gladdening beholders. They said: Pray for us unto thy Lord that He make clear to us what (cow) she is. Lo! cows are much alike to us; and Lo! if God wills, we may be led aright. (Moses) answered: Lo! He saith: Verily she is a cow unyoked; she plougheth not the soil nor watereth the tilth; whole and without mark. They said: Now thou bringest the truth. So they sacrificed her, though almost they did not. And (remember) when ye slew a man and disagreed concerning it, and God brought forth that which ye were hiding. And We said: Smite him with some of it. Thus God bringeth the dead to life and showeth you His portents so that ye may understand. (Al-Quran 2:67–73)” ref
“Classical Sunni and Shia commentators recount several variants of this tale. Per some of the commentators, though any cow would have been acceptable, but after they “created hardships for themselves” and the cow was finally specified, it was necessary to obtain it at any cost. Historically, there was a beef taboo in ancient Japan, as a means of protecting the livestock population and due to Buddhist influence. Meat-eating had long been taboo in Japan, beginning with a decree in 675 that banned the consumption of cattle, horses, dogs, monkeys, and chickens, influenced by the Buddhist prohibition of killing. In 1612, the shōgun declared a decree that specifically banned the killing of cattle.” ref
“This official prohibition was in place until 1872, when it was officially proclaimed that Emperor Meiji consumed beef and mutton, which transformed the country’s dietary considerations as a means of modernizing the country, particularly with regard to consumption of beef. With contact from Europeans, beef increasingly became popular, even though it had previously been considered barbaric. Several shrines and temples are decorated with cow figurines, which are believed to cure illnesses when stroked.” ref
Herding societies
“The best known and purest pastoral nomads are found in the enormous arid belt from Morocco to Manchuria, passing through North Africa, Arabia, Iran, Turkistan, Tibet, and Mongolia. They include people as diverse as the Arabized North Africans and the Mongol hordes. Other less specialized and successful pastoralists include the Siberian reindeer herders, cattle herders of the grasslands of north-central Africa, and the Khoekhoe and Herero of southern Africa.” ref, ref
Evidence for the early dispersal of domestic sheep into Central Asia
“Archaeological and biomolecular evidence from Obishir V in southern Kyrgyzstan, establishing the presence of domesticated sheep by ca. 6,000 BCE. Zooarchaeological and collagen peptide mass fingerprinting show exploitation of Ovis and Capra, while cementum analysis of intact teeth implicates possible pastoral slaughter during the fall season. Most significantly, ancient DNA reveals these directly dated specimens as the domestic O. aries, within the genetic diversity of domesticated sheep lineages. Together, these results provide the earliest evidence for the use of livestock in the mountains of the Ferghana Valley, predating previous evidence by 3,000 years and suggesting that domestic animal economies reached the mountains of interior Central Asia far earlier than previously recognized.” ref, ref
The Pastoralist Challenge to Agriculturalism
Herders move a lot, often even long distances, to feed their flocks/herds, different than farmers who are more fixed to the land and may only occasionally travel long distances on average. An agraculturaist will still hunt and fish to some extent or another, both for needs and likely for hunting rituals that linger on. An agraculturer, even if they have herd animals, will for a good portion of their lives stay close to them in their farming towns. It is thus obvious why the start of paganism, approximately 12,000 years ago to 8,000 to 7,000 years ago, would have had a significant influence from the herding cult and hunting cult. The why is reasonable, herders spread all over, so an emphasis would also be on the herding and hunting cults over agraculture cults, even if they spread something from them all.
“Nomadic pastoralists often adopt a semi-settled way of life called transhumance, which involves an annual migration between winter and summer pastures, ascending to higher elevations for summer pasture and descending into the valleys for winter pasture. Thus, they may be considered to exemplify a transitional way of life between pure nomadism and settled life. But this is not the only difference between horse nomads and foragers. One important feature of life that distinguishes nomadic pastoralists from nomadic foragers is that the economy of the former is based on domesticated animals (generally, the horse) while that of the latter involves following herds of non-domesticated animals (generally, reindeer). The nomadic pastoralist exercises a far greater control over the landscape in which he makes his life, and a much greater control over the animals upon which he is dependent. It is in this sense that the nomadic pastoralists deserve to be called a civilization, because the relationship between these peoples and their horses was as central to their way of life as the relationship between settled peoples and their crops — only it was a different relationship of dependence.” ref
Agraculture, as the so-called Neolithic Revolution, is a child of Animal herding, not grains!
A Young Date for the Agraculture Religion themes and young wheat domestication, thus a young neolithic revolution of grains is well after the domestication of animals by a few thousand years, showing us it was animal herding, not grains and farming that gave birth to an early neolithic revolution in changing lifeways, as well as neolithic religion that lead to the birth of gods and paganism religion.
“Wheat proto-domestication began approximately 12,000 years ago, and it is considered a milestone in the development of human civilization; however, determining the initiation point of this domestication in the Fertile Crescent or elsewhere is a matter of controversy. The discovery of charred hexaploid wheat grains in Çatalhöyük crucially questioned the relation with primitive or contemporary wheat forms. Ancient DNA from 8400-Year-Old Çatalhöyük Wheat: Implications for the Origin of Neolithic Agriculture. Although the Fertile Crescent is renowned as the center of wheat domestication, archaeological studies have shown the crucial involvement of Çatalhöyük in this process. Ancient DNA of charred wheat grains from Çatalhöyük and other Turkish archaeological sites and the comparison of these wheat grains with contemporary wheat species, including T. monococcum, T. dicoccum, T. dicoccoides, T. durum, and T. aestivum at HMW glutenin protein loci. These ancient samples represent the oldest wheat sample sequenced to date and the first ancient wheat sample from the Middle East. Remarkably, the sequence analysis of the short DNA fragments preserved in seeds that are approximately 8400 years old showed that the Çatalhöyük wheat stock contained hexaploid wheat, which is similar to contemporary hexaploid wheat species, including both naked (T. aestivum) and hulled (T. spelta) wheat. This suggests an early transitory state of hexaploid wheat agriculture from the Fertile Crescent towards Europe, spanning present-day Turkey. The high genetic similarity of Karacadağ wild samples to cultivated einkorn from Kastamonu confirmed Karacadağ Mountain in Turkey as the location of einkorn domestication. Two subspecies of wild einkorn are distributed in the western (including the Balkans) and eastern Turkey (including southern Anatolia and the Fertile Crescent), respectively. The western wheat form, sp. aegilopoides is supposed to be distant from the cultivated einkorn, while the eastern wheat form sp. thoudar is genetically found to be the progenitor of cultivated einkorn. The wild einkorn sample from western Turkey (Balıkesir), was distant from the clusters of polyploids and diploids, while the cultivated einkorn (T. monococcum) clustered with the wild einkorn samples from Karacadağ and Şanlıurfa.” ref
“It has been well established that einkorn and emmer wheat were first domesticated in the Karacadag region of Diyarbakir in Turkey, which is a part of the Fertile Crescent. After domestication, the subpopulations of emmer wheat diverged following two paths: the southern subpopulation (in Jericho) and the eastern/southeastern subpopulations (through Armenia/Syria, and Iraq/Iran). Evidence suggests that at least in the expansion of the hexaploid wheat cultivation, Çatalhöyük is the center of interest with its crucial position in the development of agriculture and civilization in the western world. We can speculate that hexaploid wheat cultivation had been started in Çatalhöyük before the estimated time for wheat cultivation. The ancient wheat from Çatalhöyük represents the oldest wheat DNA recovered from charred seeds to date, and this work provides new DNA-based evidence regarding the species development and wheat evolution. According to the DNA sequence analysis of the 8400-year-old wheat samples, our data provide the first molecular evidence for the expansion of hexaploid wheat cultivation. Our study determined the presence of hexaploid wheat dating back to the seventh millennium BCE on the Çatalhöyük site in central Turkey that is located outside the Fertile Crescent, ancient DNA sequences from a later date (2000 BCE) from East Anatolia (İmamoğlu Höyük) were found to be predominantly similar to modern naked wheat.” ref
“Plant-related tasks, and the use of living space, at the household level, in Neolithic Çatalhöyük through spatial analyses of phytoliths and starch grains recovered from two house floors. Results have revealed plant-related tasks, such as crop processing, the use of plant-based crafts, and the management and culinary use of wild resources, which were previously unrepresented in the archaeobotanical assemblage. These distinctive uses of vegetal resources in domestic spaces identified through microbotanical remains have shed light on new complex aspects of household social organisation in one of the earliest farming communities in Western Asia.” ref
“Çatalhöyük was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500-5600 BCE, or 9,500 to 7,600 years ago, and flourished around 7000 BCE, 9,000 years ago. The bottom layer of buildings can be dated as early as 7100 BCE or 9,100 years ago, while the top layer of the later West Mound is from 5600 BCE or 7,600 years ago. Çatalhöyük was composed entirely of domestic buildings with no obvious public buildings. While some of the larger rooms have rather ornate murals, the purpose of others remains unclear.” ref
“As a part of ritual life, the people of Çatalhöyük buried their dead within the village. Human remains have been found in pits beneath the floors and especially beneath hearths, the platforms within the main rooms, and beds. Bodies were tightly flexed before burial and were often placed in baskets or wound and wrapped in reed mats. Disarticulated bones in some graves suggest that bodies may have been exposed in the open air for a time before the bones were gathered and buried. In some cases, graves were disturbed, and the individual’s head was removed from the skeleton. These heads may have been used in rituals, as some were found in other areas of the community. In a woman’s grave, spinning whorls (Weaving items) were recovered, and in a man’s grave, stone axes (such as a Mace head) were recovered.” ref, ref
Körtik Tepe: Pastoralists, Nomads, and Foragers?
“At Körtiktepe, the production of decorated symbolic items—including painted bone plaquettes—began during the Younger Dryas occupations, from the 11th millennium BCE or 13,000 to 12,000 years ago. The use of masculine animal imageries on cultural items, bone and stone plaquettes with hybrid-creatures, and decorated stone vessels in the burial contexts became extensive at the site from the very early phases of the Holocene occupations. Some of these characteristic symbols and cultural items (e.g., stone plaquettes with a hybrid-animal image, bone plaquettes with a supernatural scorpion image) only appeared in subsequent PPN sites (e.g., Gusir Höyük, Hasankeyf Höyük) during the later/final occupational period at Körtiktepe. Yet, at these PPN sites, such cultural items were encountered in a very limited number. Besides of its importance in the evolution of early Neolithic symbolism and production activities, the subsistence and settlement history of Körtiktepe also offers new scope to understand the Epipalaeolithic-Neolithic transition in southeast Anatolia, in particular the Upper Tigris Basin.” ref
“The making of string and cordage goes back a long way to the Palaeolithic period, first applied to bind various items and tools (e.g., harpoons) and to make objects such as nets, knotted as well as knotless. Some forms of twining and wrapping are net-like as well and may have developed as variations of simple netting, in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms (such as flat fabrics or bags). Earliest Evidence for Textile Technologies: at Çatalhöyük, there were remains of textiles, cordage, and basketry; woven textiles found in Çatalhöyük (6700–6500 BCE or around 8,700 to 8,500 years ago). Firm evidence of weaving has been attested in the first half of the 7th millennium BCE, or 9,000 to 8,000 years ago. Imprints of woven textiles on lumps of clay and wall plaster have been found at Jarmo and El Kowm 2, Telul eth-Thalatat, Tell Kashkashok, Tell el-’Oueili, and Tell es-Sawwan, all dated between 7000 and 6000 BCE. Preserved remains of tabby-woven textiles have been recovered from Çatalhöyük, Ulucak Höyük phase Vb (6400–6000 BCE), and Ilıpınar level X (6000 BCE or 8,000 years ago). A recent claim of early textile imprints from the PPNA site Körtik Tepe is not unequivocally documented. An impression in clay from Jerf el-Ahmar in Syria, dated 9500–8700 BCE, has been claimed as evidence for weaving, but the scale and imprints of straight grass stripes on an unpublished photo show that it is coiled basketry. As we have seen, the woven textiles from Çatalhöyük are dated 6700–6500 BCE. Currently, this makes them the earliest preserved woven textiles. The occurrence of spindle whorls, which, like evidence for looms in the form of loom weights, have been dated to the second half of the 7th millennium, at the site of Ulucak Höyük in central-west Anatolia: Turkey, similar to the ones found in Nahal Hemar in the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea. The earliest attestations of spindle whorls are in Syria and Mesopotamia about the same time, at the end of the 7th millennium BCE, or 9,000 to 8,000 years ago. Loom weights found in levels Va (6200-6000 BCE and IVb 5900-5800 BCE) at Ulucak Höyük are as yet the earliest evidence of the warp-weighted loom, which could have been used either for twining or for woven textiles. Several finds dated to the 5th and 4th millennia BCE or 7,000 to 6,000 and 6,000 to 5,000 years ago have been used as evidence for early looms. An early 4th-millennium BCE dish found at Badari, Egypt, shows a horizontal ground loom with four corner pegs, two warp beams, and three bars across the warp that are interpreted as shed, heddle, and beater. A cylinder seal from Susa, also dated to the 4th millennium, shows a similar item, although without crossing bars.” ref
“Some skulls were plastered and painted with ochre to recreate faces at Çatalhöyük, a custom more characteristic of Neolithic sites in Syria and Neolithic Jericho than at sites closer by. Vivid hunting and other ritual murals and figurines are found throughout the settlement on interior and exterior walls. Distinctive clay figurines of women, notably the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük, have been found in the upper levels of the site. Although no identifiable temples have been found, the graves, murals, and figurines suggest that the people of Çatalhöyük had a religion rich in symbols. Rooms with concentrations of these items may have been shrines or public meeting areas. Predominant images include men with erect phalluses, hunting scenes, red images of the now extinct aurochs (wild cattle) and stags, and vultures swooping down on headless figures. Relief figures are carved on walls, such as of lionesses facing one another. Heads of animals, especially of cattle, were mounted on walls. A feature of Çatalhöyük is its female figurines. Mellaart, the original excavator, argued that these carefully made figurines, carved and molded from marble, blue and brown limestone, schist, calcite, basalt, alabaster, and clay, represented a female deity. Although a male deity existed as well, “statues of a female deity far outnumber those of the male deity, who moreover, does not appear to be represented at all after Level VI.” ref
“To date, eighteen levels have been identified. These figurines were found primarily in areas Mellaart believed to be shrines. The stately goddess seated on a throne flanked by two lionesses was found in a grain bin, which Mellaart suggests might have been a means of ensuring the harvest or protecting the food supply. They found one similar figurine, but the vast majority did not imitate the Mother Goddess style. There are full breasts on which the hands rest, and the stomach is extended in the central part. There is a hole in the top for the head, which is missing. As one turns the figurine around, one notices that the arms are very thin, and then on the back of the figurine, one sees a depiction of either a skeleton or the bones of a very thin and depleted human. The ribs and vertebrae are clear, as are the scapulae and the main pelvic bones. The figurine can be interpreted in a number of ways – as a woman turning into an ancestor, as a woman associated with death, or as death and life conjoined. It is possible that the lines around the body represent wrapping rather than ribs. Perhaps the importance of female imagery was related to some special role of the female in relation to death as much as to the roles of mother and nurturer. If one’s social status was of high importance in Çatalhöyük, the body and head were separated after death. The number of female and male skulls found during the excavations is almost equal; there is very little evidence of a mother goddess and very little evidence of some sort of female-based matriarchy.” ref
“Plastered skulls were one of the most prominent phenomena in Southwest Asia during the Neolithic period. These cult objects, observed in Anatolia and the Levant, are of particular importance since they were produced from the remains of people who lived during that time. Plastered skulls at Çatal Höyük at 7500-5600 BCE, Central Anatolia, and from Neolithic Tepecik-Çiftlik at 7500-5800 BCE, also from Central Anatolia (Türkiye/Turkey).” ref, ref, ref
“Cut marks related to the preparation phase and the presence of restoration phases of the plastering processes, for plastered skulls, and aids to understanding of the process of these ritualistic objects, with a focus on how these cult objects were produced. At Tepecik-Çiftlik, plastered skulls belong to young male and female adults and a child. The production and retention of such performative objects were generally influenced by various socio-(religion/spiritual)-cultural motivations. Research on mortuary practices has focused on rituals observed in Neolithic populations and their interrelationships, regional similarities and differences, as well as the ritualistic objects and spaces used as mediators. In this context, the position of plastered skulls as unique ritual elements in Anatolia and the Levant in the literature is significant. This importance is related, on the one hand, to the fact that the plastered skulls are direct skeletal remains of the people who lived at that time and, on the other hand, to the fact that they were transformed into performative agents through which various conceptualizations were developed, in a way that can be considered as an element of collective memory that was re-embodied through production. Plastered skulls found at Jericho in Palestine’s West Bank, were also found in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic settlements at ‘Ain Ghazal, Abu Suwwan, Kfar HaHoresh, Yiftahel, Tell Ramad, Beisamoun, Tell Aswad. Within Anatolia, plastered skulls have been found at Köşk Höyük, Tepecik-Çiftlik, and Çatalhöyük. Plastered skulls are among Neolithic human populations’ most ‘interesting’ mortuary practices. These types of finds, which have been considered reflective of ancestor cults, ancestral worship, and as relics (and/or heirlooms), have been discussed in most publications within the context of traces of shared cultural values in various regions and various dimensions of cultural interaction.” ref, ref
“One of these skulls belongs to a child, and the remainder to adult males and females. The plastered skulls may have been laid on or wrapped in mats and exposed either singly or in groups on a plaster surface inside the house. Among thirteen of these skulls, the mouths, noses, eyes, and ears were depicted with clay and painted with red ochre, while the remaining six were untreated. Two headless skeletons were also found in situ underneath the floor inside the house. One of these skeletons belongs to a child aged approximately 15–16 years old, and the other belongs to an adult female. The modeled human skulls were encountered in the second and third cultural levels of the Late Neolithic period, indicating that this characteristic mortuary practice lasted for quite a long time and likely disappeared by the Chalcolithic at Köşk Höyük.” ref
“Slingstones, almost 8,000 years ago in what is today’s Israel, weren’t used to hunt animals; instead, they show some of the Earliest Evidence of War in the Southern Levant.” ref
“Neolithic culture and technology were established in the Near East by 7000 BCE or 9,000 years ago and there is increasing evidence through 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 and 100 million by 1600 BCE, an average growth rate of 0.027% p.a. from the beginning of the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age.” ref
“Neolithic culture and technology had spread from the Near East and into Eastern Europe by 6000 BCE. Its development in the Far East grew apace, and there is increasing evidence through the millennium of its presence in prehistoric Egypt and the Far East. In much of the world, however, including Northern and Western Europe, people still lived in scattered Palaeolithic/Mesolithic hunter-gatherer communities. The world population is believed to have increased sharply, possibly quadrupling, as a result of the Neolithic Revolution. It has been estimated that there were perhaps forty million people worldwide at the end of this millennium, growing to 100 million by the Middle Bronze Age c. 1600 BCE.” ref
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“The manufacture and use of labret-like artefacts in South-west Asia begins in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA, c. 10,000–8800 BCE or 12,000 to 10,800 years ago) and continues through the Chalcolithic (c. 6000–3000 BCE 8,000 to 5,000 years ago).” ref
“Granaries were initially positioned in areas between other buildings, approximately 11,500 years ago. However, around 10,500 years ago, they were relocated inside houses, and by 9,500 years ago, storage had shifted to specialized rooms. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic was characterized by a contact and genetic continuum network between Anatolian hunter-gatherers, Natufians, and Iranian hunter-gatherers, primarily along two clines. The PPN-associated ancestry, Mesopotamian, represented by the two Nemrik 9 specimens (PPNA) from present-day Iraq as well as the Mardin specimen from present-day Turkey, formed by the admixture of those three sources, and was positioned close to a central position between them, pointing to nearly equal amounts of derived ancestry components. These Mesopotamian samples displayed relatively close affinities to the Aknashen Neolithic remains in Armenia and to a Neolithic sample from Azerbaijan, as well as to those from Iraq (Bestansur and Shandiar). The PPN-associated ancestry in Anatolia and the Levant was primarily positioned along a cline between Anatolian hunter-gatherer and Natufian sources, with variable amounts of gene flow, but generally closer to Anatolian sources. PPN-associated ancestry in Cyprus (PPNB) is closely related to Anatolian remains. During this time, pottery was not yet in use in the Middle East, but for around 10,000-year-old pottery found in several genetically related sites in Central Turkey, first at Boncuklu Höyük (8300 BCE), then at Aşıklı Höyük (8,200 BCE), and finally at Çatal Höyük (7500 BCE).” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
“It is believed that the first pottery in Africa was made by the people in Nubia, which is now modern-day Sudan, around 8000 BCE. One of the earliest examples of African pottery was found in central Africa, dating back to around 9,000 BCE.” ref
“Archaeologists have defined a number of regional variants of Pre-Pottery Neolithic A:
- (Aswadian) in the Damascus Basin, defined by finds from Tell Aswad IA; typical: bipolar cores, big sickle blades, Aswad points. The PPNB horizon was moved back at this site, to around 10,700 years ago.
- 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 10700 BCE Körtik Tepe, Çayönü (8,630 BCE), and Göbekli Tepe (9500 BCE), with the latter possibly being the oldest ritual complex yet discovered.
- Sites in central Anatolia that include the ‘mother city’ Çatalhöyük and the smaller, but older site, rivaling even Jericho in age, Aşıklı Höyük, or even older, Boncuklu Höyük.
- Sultanian in the Jordan River valley and southern Levant, with the type site of Jericho. Other sites include Netiv HaGdud, El-Khiam, Hatoula, and Nahal Oren.” ref
“Agricultural and husbandry practices originated 10,000 years ago in a region of the Near East known as the Fertile Crescent. According to the archaeological record as well as genetics, this phenomenon, known as the “Neolithic”, rapidly expanded from the Middle East. PPNB individuals had ancestry from the Levantine Epipaleolithic, Anatolian Neolithic, Iranian Neolithic, and Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers. The PPNB in general exhibited strong evidence of gene flow from populations related to Anatolia compared to the earlier Natufian hunter-gatherers. PPN individuals from Ain Ghazal, further to the north in Jordan, had a stronger genetic affinity with Anatolia than the PPN of Ba’ja, although not significantly so. The Levant Neolithic samples from PPNB to PPNC were a mix of a component related to Natufians, and another lineage related to Anatolian farmers from Barcin and Mentese. In another study of PPNB, the Levant was modeled as having 60.5% Israel Natufian Epipaleolithic-related ancestry and 39.5% Turkey Barcin Neolithic ancestry. Later, geneticists discovered that the ancient DNA of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Mesopotamia and Anatolia showed that these populations were formed through admixture of pre-Neolithic sources related to Anatolian, Caucasus, and Levantine hunter-gatherers. DNA analysis has also confirmed ancestral ties between the Pre-Pottery Neolithic culture bearers and the makers of the Epipaleolithic Iberomaurusian culture of North Africa, the Mesolithic Natufian culture of the Levant, the Savanna Pastoral Neolithic culture of East Africa, the Early Neolithic Cardium culture of Morocco, and the Ancient Egyptian culture of the Nile Valley, with fossils associated with these early cultures all sharing a common genomic West Eurasian/Near-Eastern component. Mesolithic Natufians cluster the closest with modern Saudi Arabians, Desert Bedouins, and Yemenis. The Natufians were also close to, and ancestral to, the ancient Levant PPNB/C and the later Levantine Bronze Age samples. From the Neolithic period onwards, the area’s location at the center of three trade routes linking three continents made it a meeting place for religious and cultural influences from Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. Coastal route, the Via Maris, connecting Gaza and the coast of Philistia north to Joppa and Megiddo, travelling north through Byblos to Phoenicia, and Anatolia. Hill route through the Negev, Kadesh Barnea, to Hebron and Jerusalem, and then north to Samaria, Shechem, Shiloh, Beth Shean and Hazor, and thence to Kadesh and Damascus. The Kings Highway, north from Eilat, east of the Jordan through Amman to Damascus, and connected to the “frankincense road” north from Yemen and South Arabia.” ref, ref
Gods, like religions in general, are cultural products. To me, high gods, like “Sky Father” (Sun or Blue Sky usually, or Storm deities on the deity’s “dark side” like Yin and Yang) or “Sky Mother” (Moon or Stars) myths beliefs are at 39% when tested, in hunter-gatherers the world over.
Around 10,000 years ago, ideas went into Africa. Around 10,000 to 9,000 years ago, these ideas from the Middle East were in Siberia then moved to China and to the Americas by around 9,000 years ago. Religious ideas also left the Middle East from 9,000 to 8,000 years ago to Europe. Around 8,000 years ago, new ideas got to Ukraine but didn’t spread far. From 8,000 to 7,000 years ago, ideas again entered Africa with evolved beliefs from the Middle East. By 7,000 years ago, evolved deities from the Middle East moved again to Europe and Ukraine. And 7,000 years ago, the Siberian sun god of the sky, with a warrior culture, armed forts, and pre-kurgans, moved from Siberia to Ukraine and then returned to the Middle East around 6,000 years ago, influencing the Sumerian religious ideas. 6,000 to 5,000 years ago, these new Siberian influenced ideas from the Middle East were also in Africa. Then new evolved ideas moved back out of from Ukraine to the East by 5,500 to 5,000 years ago to Siberia, then China, and the Americas. Ideas from Ukraine went into Europe as well. Then, 5,000 to 4,000 years ago, the new ideas, now somewhat evolved again, from Siberia headed back to Europe, and so did ideas from the Middle East. ETC. This is just a rough outline to grasp some of the details, as I feel I understand them. There is a bit more, but this gives a good idea of how complicated it was.
Epipalaeolithic Near East
“The Epipalaeolithic Near East designates the Epipalaeolithic (“Final Old Stone Age”) in the prehistory of the Near East. It is the period after the Upper Palaeolithic and before the Neolithic, between approximately 25,000 and 11,500 years ago. The people of the Epipalaeolithic were nomadic hunter-gatherers who generally lived in small, seasonal camps rather than permanent villages. They made sophisticated stone tools using microliths—small, finely-produced blades that were hafted in wooden implements. These are the primary artifacts by which archaeologists recognise and classify Epipalaeolithic sites. The period is subdivided into Early (c. 25,000–19,000 years ago), Middle (19,000–15,000 years ago), and Late (15,000–11,500 years ago) phases. In the Mediterranean Levant, the Early Epipalaeolithic is characterised by the Kebaran culture, the Middle Epipalaeolithic by the Geometric Kebaran culture, and the Late Epipalaeolithic by the Natufian culture. In Mesopotamia, the Zagros, and the Iranian plateau, the entire period is associated with the Zarzian culture. The Epipalaeolithic of Anatolia is relatively poorly documented but displays cultural similarities to both the Levantine Epipalaeolithic and Aegean Mesolithic. With a few exceptions that resemble the Geometric Kebaran, the Arabian Peninsula is thought to have been largely uninhabitable during this period.” ref
“The Early Epipalaeolithic, also known as the Kebaran culture, lasted from 20,000 to 12,150 years ago. It followed the Levantine Aurignacian, formerly called the “Antelian period”, throughout the Levant. By the end of the Levantine Aurignacian, gradual changes occurred in stone industries. By 18,000 years ago, the climate and environment had changed and a transition period had started. The type site is Kebara Cave south of Haifa. The Kebaran was characterized by small, geometric microliths. The people were thought to lack the specialized grinders and pounders in later Near Eastern cultures. The Kebaran is preceded by the Athlitian phase of the Levantine Aurignacian and followed by the proto-agrarian Natufian culture of the Epipalaeolithic.” ref
“The appearance of the[Kebaran culture, of microlithic type, implies a significant rupture in the cultural continuity of the local Upper Paleolithic. The Kebaran culture, with its use of microliths, is also associated with the use of the bow and arrow and the domestication of the dog. The Kebaran is also characterised by the earliest collecting and processing of wild cereals, known due to the excavation of grain-grinding tools. This was the first step towards the Neolithic Revolution. The Kebaran people are believed to have migrated seasonally, dispersing to upland environments in the summer, and gathering in caves and rock shelters near lowland lakes in the winter. This diversity of environments may be the reason for the variety of tools in their toolkits. The Kebaran is generally considered ancestral to the later Natufian culture, which occupied much of the same range.” ref
“The earliest evidence for the use of composite cereal harvesting tools are the glossed flint blades that have been found at the site of Ohalo II, a 23,000-year-old fisher-hunter-gatherers’ camp on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Northern Israel. The Ohalo site is dated at the junction of the Upper Paleolithic and the Early Epipalaeolithic, and has been attributed to both periods. The wear traces on the tools indicate that these were used for harvesting near-ripe, semi-green wild cereals, shortly before grains ripen enough to disperse naturally. The study shows that the tools were not used intensively, and they reflect two harvesting modes: flint knives held by hand and inserts hafted into a handle. The finds reveal the existence of cereal harvesting techniques and tools some 8000 years before the Natufian and 12,000 years before the establishment of sedentary farming communities in the Near East during the Neolithic Revolution. Furthermore, the new finds accord well with evidence for the earliest ever cereal cultivation at the site, and for the use of stone-made grinding implements.” ref
“Evidence for symbolic behavior of Late Pleistocene foragers in the Levant has been found in engraved limestone plaquettes from the Epipalaeolithic open-air site Ein Qashish South in the Jezreel Valley of the Northern District of Israel. The engravings were uncovered in Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran deposits (ca. 23,000 and ca. 16,500 BP), and include the image of a bird, the first figurative representation known so far from a pre-Natufian Epipalaeolithic site, together with geometric motifs such as chevrons, cross-hatchings, and ladders. Some of the engravings closely resemble roughly contemporary European finds and may be interpreted as “systems of notations” or “artificial memory systems” related to the timing of seasonal resources and related important events for nomadic groups. Similar-looking signs and patterns are well known from the context of the local Natufian, a final Epipalaeolithic period when sedentary or semi-sedentary foragers started practicing agriculture.” ref
“The Late Epipalaeolithic is also called the Natufian culture. This period is characterized by the early rise of agriculture, which later emerged more fully in the Neolithic period. Radiocarbon dating places the Natufian culture between 12,500 and 9500 BCE, just before the end of the Pleistocene. This period is characterised by the beginning of agriculture. The Natufian culture is commonly split into two subperiods: Early Natufian (12,500–10,800 BCE) (Christopher Delage gives c. 13,000–11,500 years ago uncalibrated, equivalent to c. 13,700–11,500 BCE) and Late Natufian (10,800–9500 BCE). The Late Natufian most likely occurred in tandem with the Younger Dryas. The following period is often called the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and includes the Khiamian culture (9700 to 8600 BCE).” ref
“The Epipalaeolithic is best understood when discussing the southern Levant, as the period is well documented due to good preservation at the sites, at least of animal remains. The most prevalent animal food sources in the Levant during this period were: deer, gazelle, and ibex of various species, and smaller animals including birds, lizards, foxes, tortoises, and hares. Less common were aurochs, wild equids, wild boar, wild cattle, and hartebeest. At Neve David near Haifa, 15 mammal species were found, and two reptile species. Despite then being very close to the coast, the rather small number of seashells found (7 genera) and the piercing of many, suggests these may have been collected as ornaments rather than food. However, the period seems to be marked by an increase in plant foods and a decrease in meat-eating. Over 40 plant species have been found by analysing one site in the Jordan Valley, and some grains were processed and baked. Stones with evidence of grinding have been found. These were most likely the main food sources throughout the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, which introduced the widespread agricultural growing of crops.” ref
Karaca Dağ mountain: “Cradle of Agriculture”
“Evidence from DNA fingerprinting suggests einkorn was first domesticated near Karaca Dağ in southeast Turkey. And the origin of wild emmer has been suggested, without universal agreement, to also likely be the Karaca Dağ mountain region of southeastern Turkey. Thus, the cradle of agriculture could be placed in southeastern Turkey, 10,000 years ago.” ref
“Ritual Practices and Conflict Mitigation at Early Neolithic Körtik Tepe and Göbekli Tepe. Violence with the Sacred in the Ancient Near East and Girardian Conversations at Çatalhöyük”
“The mimetic theory of René Girard, for whom 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?” ref
“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
Alcohol and Rituals: The Rise of Early Paganism?
“Raqefet Cave, 13,000-year-old beer used for ritual feasting. Kortik Tepe, stone cups have produced evidence of tartaric acid, suggesting wine might have been part of burial rituals. Two trough-like limestone vessels from Göbekli Tepe also indicate that beer was used for ritual feasting.” ref, ref, ref, ref
“Map of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites in southwest Asia with archaeobotanical remains included in the database. Black symbols indicate sites for which sample-level data were available; white symbols indicate sites for which sample-level data were unavailable. Central Anatolian sites—1: Hacılar, 2: Erbaba, 3: Çatalhöyük, 4: Can Hasan III, 5: Aşikli Höyük, 6: Cypriot sites, 7: Mylouthkia, 8: Ais Yiorkis, 9: Kastros, Hayonim Cave, 10: Yiftahel, 11: Nahal Oren, 12: Kebara Cave, 13: Atlit-Yam, 14: Gilgal, 15: Netiv Hagdud, 16: Jericho, 17: Nahal Hemar, 18: Wadi Faynan 16, 19: Shkarat Msaied, 20: Beidha, 21: Ayn Abu Nukhayla, 22: Tell Ramad, 23: Gesher Benot Yaaqov, 24: Ohalo II, 25: Gesher, 26: Wadi al-Hammeh, 27: Iraq ed-Dubb, 28: Ain Ghazal, 29: Wadi el-Jilat 13, 30: Wadi el-Jilat 6 & 7, 31: Zahrat adh-Dhra 2, 32: el-Hemmeh, 33: Wadi Fidan A, 34: Wadi Fidan C, 35: Basta I, 36: Tell Ghoraifé, 37: Tell Aswad, 38: Dhuweilla, 39: Azraq 31, 40: Tell Ain el-Kerkh, 41: Tell Ras Shamra, 42: Tell Qaramel, 43: Tell Abr, 44: Dj’ade, 45: Halula, 46: Jerf el Ahmar, 47: Mureybet, 48: Abu Hureyra, 49: Douara Cave, 50: Cafer Höyük, 51: Gritille, 52: Nevali Çori, 53: Göbekli Tepe, 54: Tell Sabi Abyad II, 55: El Kowm I & II, 56: Çayönü, 57: Tell Bouqras, 58: Hallan Çemi, 59: Demirkoy, 60: Kortik Tepe, 61: Tell Maghzaliyeh, 62: Qermez Dere, 63: Yarym Tepe, 64: Nemrik 9, 65: Mlefaat, 66: Jarmo, 67: Chogha Golan, 68: Sheikh-e Abad, 69: Chia Sabz, 70: Tepe Ali Kosh, 71: Ganj Dareh Tepe, 72: Tepe Abdul Hosein, and 73: Chogha Bonut.” ref
Körtik Tepe
“Körtiktepe or Körtik Tepe is the oldest known Neolithic archaeological site in Turkey. Together with Tell Mureybet and Tell Abu Hureyra in northern Syria, Körtiktepe is one of the only three securely dated Younger Dryas sedentary sites in Upper Mesopotamia. The habitation of the site began in the first half of the 11th millennium BCE, approximately 10700 BCE (12,700 years ago), and persisted with consistent density until approximately 10400 BCE. Strontium and oxygen isotope analyses of human tooth enamel indicate that the inhabitants of the Younger Dryas occupations at Körtiktepe were born and grew up in or near the site. Although a potential minor flooding event transpired during the transition from the Younger Dryas to the Early Holocene, the site endured without evident abandonment, at least not for a prolonged interval. Occupation continued and thrived during the Early Holocene. The architectural tradition of constructing round plans established around 10400 BCE and continued without any fundamental alterations until the eventual desertion of the site. The site reached its peak in terms of occupation density around 9300 BCE. Subsequently, it experienced an unexplained abandonment, possibly attributed to natural disturbances such as flooding induced by the Holocene climate changes.” ref
Tell Qaramel
“Tell Qaramel in Aleppo Governorate, Syria, 25 km north of Aleppo in the Queiq river basin. The settlement has several circular stone towers dating back to the period between 10,650-9,650 BCE or 12, 650 to 11,650 years ago, making them the oldest such structures in the world. Evidence of settlement at the site from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period through to the Hellenistic period. The pre-pottery Neolithic phase however is associated with a wider area of about 3.5 hectares, extending to the south and south-west of the tell and covered by up to 2.5 m of later deposits through the Bronze Age and Iron Age. Before the excavations began, it was assumed that permanent sedentary settlements would occur only in combination with the first farming of cereals, and the first domestication and keeping of animals such as sheep and goats, marking the start of the Neolithic period, part of a transition between the proto-Neolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A cultures. However the remains of the structures uncovered at Tell Qaramel appear to be older than this, giving the first evidence of permanent stone-built settlement. The site is roughly contemporary to that of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey.” ref
“The excavators find an unbroken development (in contrast to e.g. in Jericho in the southern Levant) so are skeptical about the common division in “Pre-Pottery Neolithic A” and “Pre-Pottery Neolithic B” phases, instead preferring “Early Aceramic Neolithic” for the proto-neolithic and PPNA, and “Late Aceramic Neolithic” for PPNB and PPNC. The very early dates at Tell Qaramel appear too old as compared to dating of similar cultural phases at other sites. Particularly striking are the remains of a succession of five round stone structures which the excavators recognise as the remains of towers. The lower, oldest one was about 6 m in diameter and appears to have had some communal function, having an elevated hearth at the center with two benches centered on it. The fourth phase was most massive, at about 7.5m in diameter with stone walls of about 2.25 m thick; it had no internal structure. It was damaged by fire and rebuilt, and may have been a defensive structure. The earliest phase has been carbon-dated to between the eleventh millennium and 9670 BC. This dating makes the structure roughly two millennia older than the stone tower found at Jericho, which was previously believed to be the oldest known tower structure in the world.” ref
“Among the ornaments found was a rather large (52×40×26 mm) polished copper nugget from Horizon 2 – one of the earliest finds of metal in an archeological site. As malachite (copper carbonate) has been excavated too in Tell Qaramel, the copper nugget may have been collected from the (as yet unidentified) malachite source. An attempt had been made to drill a hole through the copper like with other stone beads, but technology was not yet sufficiently advanced to process metal. Remains of 34 individuals, from 23 graves, from the PPNA H3 period have been excavated, all adults: this may indicate that burial practice for infants and children was different, at another (as yet undiscovered) location or treated with less regard. Most bodies had their head removed, either by cutting shortly after death (as indicated by cut marks, and having the 1st vertebra remain with the skull), or after decay (leaving the vertebrae and lower mandible with the skeleton). This indicates a head cult, as is also attested in other pre-pottery Neolithic sites (notably Jericho, Tell Aswad, and Cayonu). While in some skulls teeth showed wear and caries, which is typical for a diet with carbohydrates from grain, others were in good condition, which may indicate a pre-Neolithic diet. Based on radiocarbon dating of 57 samples the skeleton date to 11,770–10,660 years ago.” ref
Mureybet
“Mureybet located on the west bank of the Euphrates in Raqqa Governorate, northern Syria. The site was excavated between 1964 and 1974 and has since disappeared under the rising waters of Lake Assad. Mureybet was occupied between 10,200 and 8000 BCE or 12,200 to 10,000 years ago and is the eponymous type site for the Mureybetian culture, a subdivision of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA). In its early stages, Mureybet was a small village occupied by hunter-gatherers. Hunting was important and crops were first gathered and later cultivated, but they remained wild. During its final stages, domesticated animals were also present at the site. When Mureybet became occupied around 10,200 BCE, climate was slightly colder and more humid than today, an effect of the onset of the Younger Dryas climate change event. Annual precipitation increased slightly from 230 millimetres (9.1 in) during the Natufian to 280 millimetres (11 in) during the Mureybetian occupation phases. The vegetation consisted of an open forest steppe with species like terebinths, almonds and wild cereals.” ref
“The excavations have revealed four occupation phases I–IV, ranging from the Natufian up to the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) and dating to 10,200–8000 BCE, based on AMS radiocarbon dates. Phase IA (10,200–9700 BCE) represents the Natufian occupation of Mureybet. It is characterized by hearths and cooking pits, but no dwelling structures have been identified. Among the crops that were harvested, and possibly even locally cultivated, were barley and rye. Very few sickle blades and querns were found. The inhabitants of Mureybet hunted gazelle and equids and fishing was also important. They had dogs, evidence for which is indirect at Mureybet but bones of which have been identified at nearby and contemporary Tell Abu Hureyra. Phases IB, IIA and IIB (9700–9300 BCE) make up the Khiamian, a poorly understood and sometimes disputed sub-phase straddling the transition from the Natufian to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA). Mureybet is the only site where Khiamian deposits are associated with architectural remains. The oldest of these remains date to phase IB and consist of a round semi-subterranean structure with a diameter of 6 metres (20 ft).” ref
“In the subsequent phases, slightly smaller round houses built at ground level also appeared, at least some of which were used simultaneously. The walls were built from compacted earth, sometimes reinforced with stones. Hearths and cooking pits were located outside the buildings. Harvested crops included barley, rye and Polygonum. Sickle blades and grinding stones are more common and show more use-wear, indicating that cereals became a more important component in the diet. The fauna at Mureybet changed significantly during phase IIB. Gazelle makes up 70% of the assemblage and small animals decrease in importance, although fish remained important. Toward the end of the Khiamian, equid hunting gained importance at the expense of gazelle. Phases IIIA and IIIB (9300–8600 BCE) represent the Mureybetian, a subphase of the PPNA that was named after Mureybet and is found in the area of the Middle Euphrates. Architecture diversified, with rectangular, multi-cellular buildings appearing next to the round buildings that were already known from the previous phases. Walls were built from cigar-shaped stones that were created by percussion and that were covered with earth.” ref
“Semi-subterranean structures also continued to be used and they are compared to similar structures found at nearby and contemporary Jerf el Ahmar, where the structures are interpreted as special buildings with a communal function. Many rooms in the rectangular structures were so small that they could only have served for storage. Hearths and cooking pits lined with stones continued to be located in the outdoor areas. The wild varieties of barley, rye and einkorn were consumed in phase III. Different lines of evidence suggest that these cereals were cultivated rather than gathered. Hunting of equids and aurochs was more important than of gazelle, while fish remains were rare in phase III contexts. Based on use-wear analysis, it could also be established that animal hides were processed at the site using bone and stone tools. The earliest known writing for record keeping evolved from a system of counting using small clay tokens. The earliest use of small clay tokens for counting were found in phase III. It coincided with a period of explosive rapid growth of the use of cereals in the Near East.” ref
“The last occupation phases, IVA (8600–8200 BCE) and IVB (8200–8000 BCE) date to the Early and Middle PPNB, respectively. No architecture has been encountered in phase IVA. No domesticated cereals were found, but this may be an effect of very small archaeobotanical sample that was retrieved from these phases. Hunting focused on equids, followed by aurochs. It could not be determined whether any domesticated animals were exploited in Mureybet. Mud-built walls of rectangular structures were uncovered in phase IVB. Domesticated sheep and goat were exploited in this period, and domesticated cattle may also have been present. The excavation of Mureybet has produced an abundance of lithic material. During all periods, flint was the main raw material from which tools were made. It was procured from local sources. Obsidian was much less common. Natufian tools include points, burins, scrapers, borers and herminettes, a kind of tool that was primarily used for woodwork.” ref
“Flint arrowheads appeared in the Khiamian period. Other stone tools included burins, end-scrapers and borers. Mureybetian stone tools included Mureybet arrowheads, scrapers and burins, while borers were much less common. During the PPNB phase, Byblos arrowheads replaced the Mureybetian types, and other technological improvements were also introduced. Apart from the lithics, other artefact categories were also present in Mureybet in smaller quantities. Personal ornaments in the Natufian period consisted of pierced shells and small stone and shell discs. Only a few bone tools were found. During the Khiamian, bone was used for needles, awls and axe sheaths. Beads were made from stone, freshwater shells and bone. Among the three figurines from this phase was one with clear anthropomorphic characteristics. The Mureybetian bone tool assemblage closely resembled its Khiamian predecessor. The presence of baskets at Mureybet has been inferred from use-wear analysis on flint and bone tools. Other artifact categories include limestone vessels, stone querns, beads, pendants, including one from ivory and eight anthropomorphic figurines made from limestone and baked earth. Seven of these figurines could be identified as women.” ref
The collection of wild plant foods
“The emergence of agriculture in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) of southwest Asia marked a major change in human subsistence strategies, with a shift from communities based on the gathering of wild plants to those reliant primarily on the cultivation of eight founder crops (einkorn, emmer, barley, lentil, pea, chickpea, bitter vetch and flax). It is widely accepted that a broad spectrum of plant foods was exploited by late Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers and that there was a narrowing of this spectrum with the advent of domesticated crops and the emergence of agriculture. The rise and fall of a broad spectrum of food resources has been linked to notions of optimal foraging theory whereby, in the face of resource depletion due to population increase and/or environmental change, foragers increasingly exploited lower ranked resources which subsequently declined in importance with the advent of higher ranking resources such as domesticated plants and animals. Following this view, it has been argued that a broad range of small-seeded grasses contributed to the forager diet in the Upper Palaeolithic but that their contribution declined in comparison with that of wild cereals until the PPNA (early PPN), after which their significance was negligible. They see the flourishing of a broad range of plant foods in the Upper Palaeolithic as indicating a temporary switch to low-ranked foods due to pressure on food resources. There are several reasons, however, why the exploitation of a broad spectrum of foods might persist, including buffering against the risk of food shortages or a reluctance to abandon culturally preferred wild foods.” ref
“An alternative view is that, rather than reflecting an increased use of lower ranked taxa, the exploitation of a broad spectrum of foods was an opportunistic response to plentiful and diverse resource availability, which facilitated more permanent settlement, and included managed or domesticated plants alongside collected wild foods. There is some support for this view. Using a different quantification method, it is suggested that the use of small-seeded grasses did not fall sharply after the Epipalaeolithic period in the eastern Fertile Crescent, but rather that these grasses or other nongrass species continued to form a significant component of the diet throughout the PPNA, suggesting an opportunistic approach to the collection of wild plant foods. Though contradictory, the arguments are based on the assumption that the plant remains present on early sites were primarily collected as food. However, it has long been acknowledged that the recognition of wild plants as foods is problematic. First, there are other means by which seeds from wild plants may have inadvertently arrived on archaeological sites, including their unintentional collection together with wild food plants or with woody material, their arrival on site as weeds of crops, or their inclusion in animal dung. Secondly, even when it can be established that a plant was deliberately brought onto site, there are numerous reasons other than its use as food why it may have been collected, e.g. as building material, bedding or fuel. The aims of this paper are therefore (1) to distinguish the suite of wild plants for which there is strong evidence that they were (a) deliberately collected and (b) were intended to be used as food by pre-agricultural or early agricultural communities, and (2) to re-evaluate the evidence for the exploitation of a broad spectrum of wild plant foods, and the extent to which this changed during the development of early agriculture.” ref
Distinguishing wild plant foods from plants collected for other uses?
“Even when a case can be made for the deliberate collec-tion of wild plants, it cannot be assumed that they were collected for food. This must be inferred from the plant’s characteristics (e.g., whether edible, palatable, or nutritious), ethnographic evidence, and depositional context, such as association with evidence of food preparation or consumption. Here we define wild food plants as those consumed as staples, nutritional supplements or flavour-ings, and gives the recorded uses for food or other purposes of all the wild taxa listed as poten-tial candidates for deliberate collection. The purpose is to assist in distinguishing taxa that are likely to have been collected as food from those more likely to have been collected for other purposes, rather than to differenti-ate between different types of non-food use.” ref
“Several fruit and nut taxa (Pista-cia, Ficus, Prunus/Amygdalus, Celtis, Lycium), which may well have been collected as food. The seeds of many of the other wild taxa are also edible, including Poaceae, Fabaceae, Brassicaceae, Cyperaceae, Atriplex and Polygonum/Rumex. Plants collected for their seed have a good chance of being preserved archaeologically, especially if the seeds are parched during processing, as is common for Polygonum. The leaves and shoots of several of these taxa are also known ethnographically to be eaten as greens, as are the leaves and shoots of other taxa whose seed is not normally eaten (e.g. Lactuca, Juncus, Malva sylvestris and Suaeda). The tubers of Bolboschoenus maritimus, and other Cyperaceae species such as Cyperus esculentus, are another potential source of food.” ref
“These tubers are fully formed at about the time when plants are in seed, and seeds may be deposited at settlements if, for example, the above-ground parts were gathered during the uprooting of below-ground organs. Some of the plants can also be used for their oil or as flavouring, (e.g. Brassicaceae and Capparis). As well as food, there is a variety of other ethnographically attested plant uses. For example, many plants have been used for their medicinal properties, and those for which their seeds are utilised in this way include Atriplex, Descurainia sophia, and Ziziphora. Reeds and rushes are commonly collected for use as matting, bedding or in con-struction but, as has been noted, they are often used before they come into seed. Plants could also be used for dyeing (e.g. Arnebia decumbens) or decorative purposes (e.g. Crucianella, Heli-anthemum and M. sylvestris), and there is one instance of Helianthemum seeds stored in a pot within a shrine (at Çatal-höyük) for an unknown, but presumably socially significant, reason.” ref
“Although the taxa listed as potential food plants have met our criteria for deliberate collection in at least one context, it does not necessarily follow that they arrived on site as foods wherever they were found. There are also incidental routes by which potential food plants may have reached a site, such as when fruits or seeds were collected unintentionally with crops, foraged from wild species, or obtained from woody material or animal dung. For example, some mixed samples are extensive, and it is tempting to conclude that these represent the remains of plant food processing, mainly when they derive from hearths or other areas of burning. A closer examination of the botanical composition of such samples, however, suggests an alternative interpretation.” ref
“Many of these large, mixed samples are from Neolithic middens at Çatalhöyük, and the plant remains in these deposits are thought to derive partly from discarded house-hold refuse and partly from in situ burning. A comparison of the charred plant remains in sam-ples from one of these middens shows that both fire-spots and midden deposits exhibit a similar range of botanical compositions, suggesting that the plant remains derive from the same source. Many of the dominant taxa in these samples grow in saline habitats (Aeluropus, B. maritimus) or marshy areas (rushes), and others have small or hard-coated seeds (small-seeded legumes), Chenopodiaceae, Brassicaceae, Helianthemum (ledifolium) that survive passage through the ruminant digestive system. These, and several less dominant small-seeded taxa (Sporobolus (saline habitats), Chenopodium cheno-podioides, Juncus (marshy areas), Alopecurus, Artemisia annua), are suggestive of grazing habitats, and the burning of dung fuel has been suggested as a major contributor of the plant remains found in these deposits. The Çatalhöyük samples are not unique in this respect; for example, Epipalaeolithic samples from Abu Hureyra, including a large mixed sample, which plots with the large Çatalhöyük midden samples, are also composed of taxa consistent with derivation from dung.” ref
“So, even taxa that were sometimes brought to site as foods could, at other times and places, have arrived on site by other routes. These include taxa likely to survive ruminant digestion (e.g. Cyperaceae—especially B. maritimus—Jun-cus, Atriplex, Polygonum, Rumex, and small-seeded legumes) that are as likely to have been deposited in dung fuel as col-lected for food, especially with the development of animal management. Other plants, including some of the same taxa, may also have been collected for purposes other than food, such as for building materials (Cyperaceae, especially B. maritimus and Juncus) or dye plants (Arnebia decumbens). The use of these taxa as food cannot therefore be universally inferred.” ref
“The chronological and geographical distribution of deliberately collected wild food plants. Reserchers compared the wild plant foods recognised in pre-domes-tication periods with those following the advent of domes-ticated crops in order to evaluate the evidence for a narrow-ing of the wild plant food spectrum during the transition to agriculture. For samples dated to the PPNA or earlier, and so before the emergence of domesticated crops, several taxa were identified that best meet our criteria for recognition as wild plant foods, based on their composition and known use as food. These include wild grasses (Poaceae, especially Avena sterilis and Hordeum bulbosum/murinum), fruits and nuts (Prunus/Amygdalus, Pistacia and Ficus), members of the Brassicaceae (espe-cially Brassica/Sinapis) and other herbaceous species (B. maritimus, Lactuca, and Polygonum/Rumex species), of which Lactuca and Rumex are primarily eaten as greens and are less likely to be represented by their seeds. Of these, only Avena sterilis, Prunus/Amygdalus, Brassica/Sinapis, B. maritimus and Polygonum came from a sample with a DC score of ≥ 0.7 and so from the area of the “abundance-purity” plot associated with storage contexts. B. maritimus and Polygonum/Rumex may also have been deposited on some occasions as a result of the burning of dung, whether from wild or managed animals. Though it has been argued that the collection of dung from wild animals is unlikely, ethnographic evidence and counter-arguments have been presented to support the collection wild animal dung as a source of fuel.” ref
“Using the same criteria, a greater number of wild taxa were recognised as potentially collected in later PPN periods (Early PPNB to PPNC), after the emergence of domesti-cated crops. These include Descurainia (sophia), Capsella and Sisymbrium species (and perhaps other members of the Brassicaceae), fruits and nuts (Ficus, Pistacia and Celtis (tournefortii)), wild grasses (including Taeniatherum caput-medusae, Poa, Aeluropus, Alopecurus, Crypsis, Agrostis, Bromus and Lolium species), wild legumes (Fabaceae), both large-seeded (Vicia/Lathyrus) and small-seeded (including Trigonella (astroites), Astragalus, and Melilotus species), and a wide range of other herbaceous species, including members of the Boraginaceae (Buglossoides arvensis, B. tenuiflora and Arnebia decumbens). Of these, only the Brassicaceae and Boraginaceae species, Ficus, Celtis, Taeniatherum caput-medusae, Poa, Lathyrus and the her-baceous species, Helianthemum, B. maritimus, Atriplex, Suaeda and Lycium came from a sample with a DC score of ≥ 0.7, suggestive of storage. The use of dung fuel is also well documented in this period, which may account for some of the occurrences of taxa such as Helianthemum, B. maritimus, Atriplex and Suaeda.” ref
“Few taxa were recognised as likely to have been delib-erately collected in more than one of the five geographical regions (central Anatolia, Cyprus, southern and northern Levant, and the eastern Fertile Crescent). Those that do occur widely tend to be taxonomically diverse groupings, such as small-seeded legumes, Brassicaceae and small-seeded grasses. The exceptions to this are B. maritimus, Polygonum and/or Rumex, which are found in multiple regions. Moreover, within each region it is unusual for a taxon to be recognised as deliber-ately collected at more than one or two sites. Indeed, only 12 wild taxa excluding crop progenitors were found at more 1 3than one site, and many of these are those likely to be over-represented due to preservation bias—such as Boraginaceae species, the nutlets of which are encased in a siliceous outer coat, or fruits represented by their robust waste product (fruit stones). Rather than indicating genuine regional patterns in plant use, this probably reflects the difficulty of finding reli-able evidence for deliberate collection.” ref
The broad spectrum of plant food collection?
“We have brought together the botanical composition of samples, their archaeological context, and the potential use of the taxa dominant in samples, to systematically recognise those wild plants for which a good case can be made for their deliberate collection as food. On this basis, relatively few of the wild taxa found at pre- and early agricultural sites can be confidently recognised as contributing to the human diet at one time or another during the PPN, though we acknowledge that this group represents the minimum number of wild taxa used as food. In addition, some foods, such as fruits and nuts, may be overlooked because they are usually represented by the waste by-products of consumption, such as seeds and shells, rather than by the product consumed.” ref
“We can now re-evaluate the spectrum of wild food plants at pre-agricultural and early agricultural sites. One of the largest groups of wild taxa represented on pre-agricultural (PPNA and earlier) sites is the grasses, and these are usually assumed to have been collected for food. Our evidence indicates, however, that of the 40–50 genera of grasses represented in southwest Asia, there is strong evidence for the deliberate collection of only ten genera, each of which may represent no more than one collected species. On the other hand, our evidence has provided support for the deliberate collection of some taxa that have previously been only tentatively suggested as plant foods on the grounds of their overall abundance or ethnographic use, for example, B. maritimus, Atriplex, and Polygonum.” ref
“To some extent, therefore, our results have called into question the exploitation of a wide range of plant species by pre-agricultural communities in southwest Asia in the period leading up to domestication. Moreover, comparing the evidence from pre-agricultural sites, for which few wild food plants have been confidently recognised, with that from later proto- and early agricultural sites (EPPNB to PPNC), there is evidence for the collection of a broader range of wild plant foods at the latter, though this may reflect the greater quantity of evidence and the more frequent occurrence of unambiguous storage contexts and cooking or other processing involving fire. For these reasons, while we do not interpret this contrast as indicating an increase in the diversity of wild plant foods collected at these later PPN sites, we have found no evidence for a narrowing of the plant food spectrum during the adoption of agriculture.
“Rather, our results, based on taxa for which there is reliable evidence of their deliberate collection as food, suggest little change in the variety of wild plant foods exploited between pre-agricultural and proto-/early agricultural periods, despite the availability of potentially higher-ranked domesticated crops in the later period. This implies a persistence in opportunistic foraging throughout the PPN, and, if it occurred in resource-rich environments and encouraged increased sedentism, would have provided ample opportunity for experimentation in new exploitation techniques, during which time the cultivation of a range of different species could be trialled.” ref
“An important consequence of this interpretation of the archaeobotanical evidence is that it does not require an explanation for the emergence of agriculture to be based on an externally-driven demographic or environmental “push” model, whereby foragers were forced to exploit lower ranked plant species (in response to resource depletion) that sub-sequently declined with the advent of domesticated crops. Instead, continued opportunistic foraging may have provided a context for the development of a mutualistic relation-ship between people and certain plants, with both taking advantage of favourable conditions, a diverse and plentiful resource base for people, and a rich anthropogenic environ-ment for plants—that is to the evolutionary benefit of both and led ultimately to crop domestication and a dependence on agriculture.” ref
“For the first time, the botanical composition of individual archaeobotanical samples from across southwest Asia has been systematically combined with their archaeological context, with the aim of establishing a robust link between archaeological evidence and its interpretation in terms of deliberate collection and use of plants as food. This has put the recognition of wild plant foods on a firm footing and has led to the recognition of a suite of wild plant taxa for which there is strong evidence for their exploitation as plant foods at pre-agricultural and early agricultural sites in southwest Asia. This has shown that relatively few of the wild taxa found at pre- and early agricultural sites can be confidently recognised as contributing to the human diet. The approach adopted here has led to a reevaluation of the evidence for the exploitation of a broad spectrum of wild plant foods at pre-agricultural sites, and its supposed narrowing during the early development of agriculture. This has implications for how we understand the processes leading to the domestication of crops, and points towards a mutualistic relationship between people and plants as a driving force during the development of agriculture.” ref
“Hunter-gatherers in the Fertile Crescent may have started harvesting einkorn as early as 30,000 years ago, according to archaeological evidence from Syria.” ref
“Wheat gathering, Hunter-gatherers in West Asia harvested wild wheats for thousands of years before they were domesticated, perhaps as early as 21,000 BCE or 23,000 years ago, but they formed a minor component of their diets.” ref
Wheat
“Wheat gathering, Hunter-gatherers in West Asia harvested wild wheats for thousands of years before they were domesticated, perhaps as early as 21,000 BCE, but they formed a minor component of their diets. In this phase of pre-domestication cultivation, early cultivars were spread around the region and slowly developed the traits that came to characterize their domesticated forms. Well-known wheat species and hybrids include the most widely grown common wheat (T. aestivum), spelt, durum, emmer, einkorn, and Khorasan or Kamut. Bread made from ground einkorn and the tubers of a form of club rush (Bolboschoenus glaucus) was made as early as 12,400 BCE. Wild einkorn was collected at sites such as Tell Abu Hureyra (c. 10,700–9000 BCE) and Mureybet (c. 9800–9300 BCE), The archaeological record suggests that wheat was first cultivated in the regions of the Fertile Crescent around 9600 BCE. Wild emmer was first cultivated in the southern Levant, as early as 9600 BCE. Genetic studies have found that, like einkorn, it was domesticated in southeastern Anatolia, but only once. But the earliest archaeological evidence for the domestic form comes after c. 8800 BCE in southern Turkey, at Çayönü, Cafer Höyük, and possibly Nevalı Çori. Genetic evidence indicates that it was domesticated in multiple places independently. The earliest secure archaeological evidence for domestic emmer comes from Çayönü, c. 8300–7600 BCE, where distinctive scars on the spikelets indicated that they came from a hulled domestic variety. Slightly earlier finds have been reported from Tell Aswad in Syria, c. 8500–8200 BCE, but these were identified using a less reliable method based on grain size. Einkorn and emmer are considered two of the founder crops cultivated by the first farming societies in Neolithic West Asia. Wheat was relatively uncommon for the first thousand years of the Neolithic (when barley predominated), but became a staple after around 8500 BCE. Domestic wheat was quickly spread to regions where its wild ancestors did not grow naturally. Emmer was introduced to Cyprus as early as 8600 BCE and einkorn c. 7500 BCE; emmer reached Greece by 6500 BCE, oldest hexaploid wheat has 6400–6200 BCE from Çatalhöyük. Egypt shortly after 6000 BCE, and Germany and Spain by 5000 BCE. “The early Egyptians were developers of bread and the use of the oven and developed baking into one of the first large-scale food production industries.” By 4000 BCE, wheat had reached the British Isles and Scandinavia. Wheat was also cultivated in India around 3500 BCE.” ref
Einkorn Wheat
“Einkorn wheat is one of the earliest cultivated forms of wheat, alongside emmer wheat (T. dicoccum). Hunter gatherers in the Fertile Crescent may have started harvesting einkorn as early as 30,000 years ago, according to archaeological evidence from Syria. Although gathered from the wild for thousands of years, einkorn wheat was first domesticated approximately 10,000 years ago in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) or B (PPNB) periods. Evidence from DNA fingerprinting suggests einkorn was first domesticated near Karaca Dağ in southeast Turkey, an area in which a number of PPNB farming villages have been found. One theory by Yuval Noah Harari suggests that the domestication of einkorn was linked to intensive agriculture to support the nearby Göbekli Tepe site. From the northern part of the Fertile Crescent, the cultivation of einkorn wheat spread to the Caucasus, the Balkans, and central Europe. Einkorn wheat was more commonly grown in cooler climates than emmer wheat, the other domesticated wheat. Cultivation of einkorn in the Middle East began to decline in favor of emmer wheat around 2000 BCE.” ref
Emmer Wheat
Along with einkorn, emmer was one of the first crops domesticated in the Near East. Wild emmer is native to the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, growing in the grass and woodland of hill country from modern-day Israel to Iran. The origin of wild emmer has been suggested, without universal agreement among scholars, to be the Karaca Dağ mountain region of southeastern Turkey. Emmer wheat has been found in archaeological excavations and ancient tombs. Emmer was collected from the wild and eaten by hunter-gatherers for thousands of years before its domestication. Grains of wild emmer discovered at Ohalo II had a radiocarbon dating of 17,000 BCE, and at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) site of Netiv Hagdud are 10,000–9,400 years old.” ref
“The location of the earliest site of emmer domestication is still unclear and under debate. Some of the earliest sites with possible indirect evidence for emmer domestication during the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B include Tell Aswad, Çayönü, Cafer Höyük, Aşıklı Höyük, Kissonerga-Mylouthkia [de], and Shillourokambos. Definitive evidence for the full domestication of emmer wheat is not found until the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (10,200 to 9,500 years ago), at sites such as Beidha, Tell Ghoraifé, Tell es-Sultan (Jericho), Abu Hureyra, Tell Halula, Tell Aswad, and Cafer Höyük. Emmer is found in a large number of Neolithic sites scattered around the Fertile Crescent. From its earliest days of cultivation, emmer was a more prominent crop than its cereal contemporaries and competitors, einkorn wheat and barley. Small quantities of emmer are present during Period 1 at Mehrgharh on the Indian subcontinent, showing that emmer was already cultivated there by 7000–5000 BCE.” ref
“In the Near East, in southern Mesopotamia in particular, cultivation of emmer wheat began to decline in the Early Bronze Age, from about 3000 BCE, and barley became the standard cereal crop. This has been related to increased salinization of irrigated alluvial soils, of which barley is more tolerant, although this study has been challenged. Emmer had a special place in ancient Egypt, where it was the main wheat cultivated in Pharaonic times, although cultivated einkorn wheat was grown in great abundance during the Third Dynasty, and large quantities of it were found preserved, along with cultivated emmer wheat and barleys, in the subterranean chambers beneath the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. The greater prevalence of emmer wheat in the diet of ancient Egypt may simply reflect a marked culinary or cultural preference, or may reflect growing conditions having changed after the Third Dynasty. Emmer and barley were the primary ingredients in ancient Egyptian bread and beer. Emmer wheat may be one of the five species of grain that have a special status in Judaism.” ref
More on Cereal Grains
“Barley, a major cereal grain was one of the first cultivated grains; consumption of wild barley, comes from the Epipaleolithic at Ohalo II at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, where grinding stones with traces of starch were found. The remains were dated to about 23,000 BCE. The earliest evidence for the domestication of barley, in the form of cultivars that cannot reproduce without human assistance, comes from Mesopotamia, specifically the Jarmo region of modern-day Iraq, around 9,000–7,000 BCE.it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BCE, giving it nonshattering spikelets and making it much easier to harvest.” ref
“Rye grain, Evidence uncovered at the Epipalaeolithic site of Tell Abu Hureyra in the Euphrates valley of northern Syria suggests that rye was among the first cereal crops to be systematically cultivated, around 13,000 years ago. Domesticated rye occurs in small quantities at a number of Neolithic sites in Asia Minor (Anatolia, now Turkey), such as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Can Hasan III near Çatalhöyük.” ref
“Oats, were cultivated for some thousands of years before they were domesticated. A granary from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, about 11,400 to 11,200 years ago in the Jordan Valley in the Middle East, contained a large number of wild oat grains.” ref
“Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum, genome BBAADD) is a young hexaploid species formed only 8,500–9,000 years ago through hybridization between a domesticated free-threshing tetraploid progenitor, genome BBAA, and Aegilops tauschii, the diploid donor of the D subgenome.” ref
“Common wheat (Triticum aestivum), also known as bread wheat, is a cultivated wheat species. About 95% of wheat produced worldwide is this species; it is the most widely planted of all crops by area (as of 2009) and the cereal with the highest monetary yield.” ref
“Wheat (Triticum spp.) is one of the founder crops that likely drove the Neolithic transition to sedentary agrarian societies in the Fertile Crescent more than 10,000 years ago.” ref
“Hexaploid wheat, primarily Triticum aestivum (bread wheat), is a major cultivated crop with a 42-chromosome genome derived from three ancestral genomes. It originated roughly 8,000–10,000 years ago via natural hybridization between cultivated tetraploid wheat and a diploid goat grass. It is characterized by high adaptability, yield, and specific bread-making qualities.” ref
“Well-known wheat species and hybrids include the most widely grown common wheat (T. aestivum), spelt, durum, emmer, einkorn, and Khorasan or Kamut. The archaeological record suggests that wheat was first cultivated in the regions of the Fertile Crescent around 9600 BCE or 11,600 years ago. Hunter-gatherers in West Asia harvested wild wheats for thousands of years before they were domesticated, perhaps as early as 21,000 BCE, but they formed a minor component of their diets. In this phase of pre-domestication cultivation, early cultivars were spread around the region and slowly developed the traits that came to characterize their domesticated forms. The oldest evidence for hexaploid wheat is through DNA analysis of wheat seeds from around 6400–6200 BCE at Çatalhöyük.” ref
“During 10,000 years of cultivation, numerous forms of wheat, many of them hybrids, have developed under a combination of artificial and natural selection. This diversity has led to much confusion in the naming of wheats. Genetic and morphological characteristics of wheat influence its classification; many common and botanical names of wheat are in current use.” ref
“Wild einkorn wheat (T. monococcum subsp. boeoticum) grows across Southwest Asia in open parkland and steppe environments. It comprises three distinct races, only one of which, native to Southeast Anatolia, was domesticated. The main feature that distinguishes domestic einkorn from wild is that its ears do not shatter without pressure, making it dependent on humans for dispersal and reproduction. It also tends to have wider grains. Wild einkorn was collected at sites such as Tell Abu Hureyra (c. 10,700–9000 BCE) and Mureybet (c. 9800–9300 BCE), but the earliest archaeological evidence for the domestic form comes after c. 8800 BCE in southern Turkey, at Çayönü, Cafer Höyük, and possibly Nevalı Çori. Genetic evidence indicates that it was domesticated in multiple places independently.” ref
Einkorn Wheat Domestication: “Although gathered from the wild for thousands of years, einkorn wheat was first domesticated approximately 10,000 years BP in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) or B (PPNB) periods. Evidence from DNA fingerprinting suggests einkorn was first domesticated near Karaca Dağ in southeast Turkey, an area in which a number of PPNB farming villages have been found. Yuval Noah Harari suggests that the domestication of einkorn was linked to intensive agriculture to support the nearby Göbekli Tepe site.” ref
“The first domesticated wheats, einkorn and emmer, were hulled like their wild ancestors, but with rachises that (while not entirely tough) did not disarticulate at maturity. During the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, at about 8000 BCE, free-threshing forms of wheat evolved, with light glumes and fully tough rachis. There are four wild species, all growing in rocky habitats in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East. All the other species are domesticated.” ref
“Wild emmer wheat (T. turgidum subsp. dicoccoides) is less widespread than einkorn, favouring the rocky basaltic and limestone soils found in the Hilly Flanks of the Fertile Crescent. It is more diverse, with domesticated varieties falling into two major groups: hulled or non-shattering, in which threshing separates the whole spikelet; and free-threshing, where the individual grains are separated. Both varieties probably existed in prehistory, but over time free-threshing cultivars became more common. Wild emmer was first cultivated in the southern Levant, as early as 9600 BCE. Genetic studies have found that, like einkorn, it was domesticated in southeastern Anatolia, but only once. The earliest secure archaeological evidence for domestic emmer comes from Çayönü, c. 8300–7600 BCE, where distinctive scars on the spikelets indicated that they came from a hulled domestic variety. Slightly earlier finds have been reported from Tell Aswad in Syria, c. 8500–8200 BCE, but these were identified using a less reliable method based on grain size.” ref
Emmer Wheat Domestication: “The location of the earliest site of emmer domestication is still unclear and under debate. Some of the earliest sites with possible indirect evidence for emmer domestication during the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B include Tell Aswad, Çayönü, Cafer Höyük, Aşıklı Höyük, Kissonerga-Mylouthkia [de] and Shillourokambos. Definitive evidence for the full domestication of emmer wheat is not found until the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (10,200 to 9,500 years ago), at sites such as Beidha, Tell Ghoraifé, Tell es-Sultan (Jericho), Abu Hureyra, Tell Halula, Tell Aswad and Cafer Höyük. Small quantities of emmer are present during Period 1 at Mehrgharh on the Indian subcontinent, showing that emmer was already cultivated there by 7000–5000 BCE around 9,000 to 7,000 years ago.” ref
“Wild lentils were gathered, by humans in the region, as early as the Upper Paleolithic, as attested by the Ohalo II (Israel, 23,000 years ago), Abu Hureyra (Syria, 13,400–11.350 years ago), and Mureybit (Syria, 11,800–11,300 years ago) sites. Outside SWA, L. nigricans was probably gathered in Franchthi Cave (Greece, 15,500–8750 years ago) and Grotta dell’Uzzo (Sicily, 7650–6450 years ago). There is evidence for pre-domestication cultivation of orientalis during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA; 11,600–10,800 years ago), in the sites of Jerf el Ahmar (Syria, 11,000 years ago) and Netiv HaGdud (Jordan Valley, 11,000 years ago). In the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB; 10,800-8,500 years ago) sites in the southern Levant, lentil is the most widespread legume. At the site of Yiftah’el (Israel, 10,100–9,700 years ago), a hoard of more than 1 million carbonized lentils was recovered contaminated with weed seeds, suggesting that lentil was by then widely cultivated. During the PPNB, there was an increase in lentil size culminating in the fully domesticated crop.” ref
Lentil domestication: “Lentil’s cultivated gene pool emerged from a single sub-population of wild orientalis and genetic diversity in orientalis is not significantly different from the one occurring 10,000 years ago in Southwest Asia, but fail to pinpoint a precisely localized origin for said domestication.” ref
“Lentil was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East and then spread to Europe and North Africa and the Indo-Gangetic plain. The primary center of diversity for the domestic Vicia lens as well as its wild progenitor V. lens ssp. lamottei is considered to be the Middle East. The oldest known carbonized remains of lentil from Greece‘s Franchthi Cave are dated to 11,000 BCE. In archaeobotanical excavations carbonized remains of lentil seeds have been recovered from widely dispersed places such as Tell Ramad in Syria (6250–5950 BCE), Aceramic Beidha in Jordan, Hacilar in Turkey (5800–5000 BCE), Tepe Sabz (Ita. Tepe Sabz) in Iran (5500–5000 BCE) and Argissa-Magula Tessaly in Greece (6000–5000 BCE), among other places.” ref
“The earliest human consumption of wild peas was at least 23,000 years ago, and perhaps by our Neanderthal cousins as long ago as 46,000 years ago. The oldest possible evidence for people eating peas is that of starch grains founded embedded in the calculus (plaque) on Neanderthal teeth at Shanidar Cave and dated about 46,000 years ago. Those are tentative identifications to date: the starch grains are not necessarily those of P.” ref
“The wild pea is restricted to the Mediterranean Basin and the Near East. The earliest archaeological finds of peas date from about 10’000 BCE Near East and Central Asia. In Egypt, early finds date from c. 4800–4400 BCE in the Nile Delta area, and from c. 3800–3600 BCE in Upper Egypt. In northern Europe, specifically Fennoscandia, findings of pea data back to 4000 BCE. The pea was also present in Georgia in the 5th millennium BCE. Farther east, the finds are younger. Peas were present in Afghanistan c. 2000 BCE, in Harappan civilization around modern-day Pakistan and western- and northwestern India in 2250–1750 BCE. In the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE, this legume crop appears in the Ganges Basin and southern India.” ref
Pea domestication: “Research suggests that both P. sativum and P. fulvum were domesticated in the Near East about 11,000 years ago, likely from P humile (also known as Pisum sativum subsp. elatius), and P. abyssinian was developed from P. sativum independently in the Old Kingdom or Middle Kingdom Egypt about 4,000–5,000 years ago. The earliest evidence for the purposeful cultivation of peas is from the Near East at the site of Jerf el Ahmar, Syria about 9,300 calendar years BCE (11,300 years ago). Ahihud, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in Israel.” ref
“The wild ancestors of chickpeas are native to western Asia and domesticated types are most closely related to wild varieties found in southeastern Turkey. The earliest archeological evidence for human consumption of the legume date to between 8,000 and 10,000 BCE or around 10,000 to 13,000 years ago, from archaeological sites scattered across parts of Turkey and northern Syria.” ref
Chickpeas domestication: “Domesticated chickpeas have been found at several early archaeological sites, including the Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites of Dja’de (11,000-10,300 years ago or about 9,000 to 8,300 BCE) in Syria, Tell el-Kerkh (ca. 8,000 BCE), Cayönü (7250-6750 BCE), Hacilar (ca 6700 BCE), and Akarçay Tepe (7280-8700 years ago) in Turkey; and Jericho (8350 to 7370 BCE) in the West Bank.” ref
“Archaeological sites in modern Syria, such as Tell El-Kerkh and Tell Abu Hureyra, have revealed remnant traces of peas, lentils, and fava beans, along with grain legumes including chickpeas, bitter vetch, and grass peas from the 8th millennium BCE. Samples from Tell El-Kerkh have been analyzed, revealing traces of both the cultivated C. arietinum and the wild C. reticulatum. Additional discoveries have been made at Çayönü in Turkey dating from between 7500 and 6800 BCE, and at Hacilar in Turkey that date from 5450 BCE.” ref
“While their wild ancestor has not been identified and their origin is unknown, charred legumes of a possible wild-type progenitor have been identified at the Natufian site of the el-Wad Terrace.” ref
“The presence of wild specimens in Mount Carmel, 14,000 years ago, supports that the wild variety grew nearby in the Lower Galilee where the first domestication was documented for Neolithic farmers 10,200 years ago. Here we report the discovery of the wild type progenitor of faba beans in the prehistoric (Natufian) site of el-Wad Terrace (EWT), Mount Carmel, Israel. The site was inhabited by sedentary hunter-gathers who exploited a wide range of wild animals and plants several millennia before domestication. Recent excavation at el-Wad Terrace recovered plant remains from the earliest phase of occupation, namely the Early Natufian (~15,000–13,500 years ago).” ref
“Carbonized domestic faba bean remains were discovered at three adjacent Neolithic sites in Israel‘s Lower Galilee (Yiftah’el, Ahi’hud and Nahal Zippori). Based on the radiocarbon dating of these remains, scientists now believe that the domestication of the crop may have begun as early as 8,250 BCE or around 10,250 years ago.” ref
(Barley) Hordeum vulgare, (Wheat) Triticum spp., (Lentil) Lens culinaris, (Pea) Pisum sativum, (Chickpea/Garbanzo Bean) Cicer arietinum, (Fava Bean/Broad Bean) Vicia faba – Near East 13,000–10,000 years ago
“Centers of plant domestication. Solid-shaded areas and hatched areas indicate regions of important seed-crop domestication and vegecultural crops, respectively. Accepted primary domestication centers are shown in black, and potentially important secondary domestication centers are shown in grey. Arrows indicate major trajectories of spread of agriculture and crops out of some centers. Areas are numbered, and examples of crop species and the year by which they were domesticated in each area are as follows: 1, eastern North America (Chenopodium berlandieri, Iva annua and Helianthus annuus, 4,500–4,000 years before present (yr bp)); 2, Mesoamerica (Cucurbita pepo, 10,000 years ago; Zea mays, 9,000–7,000 years ago); 2a, northern lowland neotropics (Cucurbita moschata, Ipomoea batatas, Phaseolus vulgaris, tree crops, 9,000–8,000 years ago); 3, central mid-altitude Andes (Chenopodium quinoa, Amaranthus caudatus, 5,000 years ago); 3a, north and central Andes, mid-altitude and high altitude (Solanum tuberosum, Oxalis tuberosa, Chenopodium pallidicaule, 8,000 years ago); 3b, lowland southern Amazonia (Manihot esculenta, Arachis hypogaea, 8,000 years ago); 3c, Ecuador and northwest Peru (Phaseolus lunatus, Canavalia plagiosperma, Cucurbita ecuadorensis, 10,000 years ago; the question mark indicates that there is some question of the independence of crop origins of this centre from 3, 3a and 3b); 4, West African sub-Sahara (Pennisetum glaucum, 4,500 years ago); 4a, West African savanna and woodlands (Vigna unguiculata, 3,700 years ago; Digitaria exilis, Oryza glaberrima, <3,000 years ago); 4b, West African rainforests (Dioscorea rotundata, Elaeis guineensis, poorly documented); 5, east Sudanic Africa (Sorghum bicolor, >4,000 years ago?); 6, East African uplands (Eragrostis tef, Eleusine coracana, 4,000 years ago?) and lowland vegeculture (Dioscorea cayenensis, Ensete ventricosum, poorly documented); 7, Near East (Hordeum vulgare, Triticum spp., Lens culinaris, Pisum sativum, Cicer arietinum, Vicia faba, 13,000–10,000 years ago); 7a, eastern fertile crescent (additional Hordeum vulgare and, 9,000 years ago, also goats); 8a, Gujarat, India (Panicum sumatrense, Vigna mungo, 5,000 years ago?); 8b, Upper Indus (Panicum sumatrense, Vigna radiata, Vigna aconitifolia, 5,000 years ago); 8c, Ganges (Oryza sativa subsp. indica, 8,500–4,500 years ago); 8d, southern India (Brachiaria ramosa, Vigna radiata, Macrotyloma uniflorum, 5,000–4,000 years ago); 9, eastern Himalayas and Yunnan uplands (Fagopyrum esculentum, 5,000 years ago?); 10, northern China (Setaria italica, Panicum miliaceum, 8,000 years ago; Glycine max, 4,500 years ago?); 11, southern Hokkaido, Japan (Echinochloa crusgalli, 4,500 years ago); 12, Yangtze, China (Oryza sativa subsp. japonica, 9,000–6,000 years ago); 12a, southern China (Colocasia, Coix lachryma-jobi, poorly documented, 4,500 years ago?); 13, New Guinea and Wallacea (Colocasia esculenta, Dioscorea esculenta, Musa acuminata, 7,000 years ago).” ref
But is Atlantis real?
No. Atlantis (an allegory: “fake story” interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning) can’t be found any more than one can locate the Jolly Green Giant that is said to watch over frozen vegetables. Lol
May Reason Set You Free
There are a lot of truly great things said by anarchists in history, and also some deeply vile things, too, from not supporting Women’s rights to Anti-Semitism. There are those who also reject those supporting women’s rights as well as fight anti-Semitism. This is why I push reason as my only master, not anarchist thinking, though anarchism, to me, should see all humans everywhere as equal in dignity and rights.
We—Cory and Damien—are following the greatness that can be found in anarchist thinking.
As an Anarchist Educator, Damien strives to teach the plain truth. Damien does not support violence as my method to change. Rather, I choose education that builds Enlightenment and Empowerment. I champion Dignity and Equality. We rise by helping each other. What is the price of a tear? What is the cost of a smile? How can we see clearly when others pay the cost of our indifference and fear? We should help people in need. Why is that so hard for some people? Rich Ghouls must End. Damien wants “billionaires” to stop being a thing. Tax then into equality. To Damien, there is no debate, Capitalism is unethical. Moreover, as an Anarchist Educator, Damien knows violence is not the way to inspire lasting positive change. But we are not limited to violence, we have education, one of the most lasting and powerful ways to improve the world. We empower the world by championing Truth and its supporters.
Anarchism and Education
“Various alternatives to education and their problems have been proposed by anarchists which have gone from alternative education systems and environments, self-education, advocacy of youth and children rights, and freethought activism.” ref
“Historical accounts of anarchist educational experiments to explore how their pedagogical practices, organization, and content constituted a radical alternative to mainstream forms of educational provision in different historical periods.” ref
“The Ferrer school was an early 20th century libertarian school inspired by the anarchist pedagogy of Francisco Ferrer. He was a proponent of rationalist, secular education that emphasized reason, dignity, self-reliance, and scientific observation. The Ferrer movement’s philosophy had two distinct tendencies: non-didactic freedom from dogma and the more didactic fostering of counter-hegemonic beliefs. Towards non-didactic freedom from dogma, and fulfilled the child-centered tradition.” ref
Teach Real History: all our lives depend on it.
Damien sees lies about history as crimes against humanity. And we all must help humanity by addressing “any and all” who make harmful lies about history.
Dylan Violette (CopperViolette) (in Maine) and Damien Marie AtHope (in Texas) seek to learn more about the indigenous peoples of the Americas (First Nations/Native Americans) where they both live.
Native Americans in Maine are: collectively known as the Wabanaki or “People of the Dawnland.” Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians (Maliseet/Wolastoqiyik), Miꞌkmaq Nation (concentrated in Northern Maine, specifically Aroostook County), Passamaquoddy Tribe (with communities at Motahkomikuk/Indian Township and Sipayik/Pleasant Point), and Penobscot Nation (headquartered on Indian Island).
Native Americans in Texas: More than 30 organizations claim to represent historic tribes within Texas; however, these groups are unrecognized, meaning they do not meet the minimum criteria of federally recognized tribes and are not state-recognized tribes. There are three federally recognized tribes in Texas, each with their own reservation:
- Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas: Located near Livingston in the Big Thicket area, the reservation is the oldest in Texas.
- Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas: Based in Eagle Pass, the tribe maintains strong cultural ties and resides on a reservation along the Rio Grande on the U.S.-Mexico border.
- Ysleta del Sur Pueblo (Tigua): Located in El Paso, this is one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in Texas, established in 1682.
Before European settlement, numerous tribes lived across the varied Texas landscape, developing distinct cultures
Southeastern & East Texas: The Caddo built large, permanent villages and elaborate ceremonial mounds, developing extensive trade networks. Other groups included the Atakapa and Wichita peoples.
Gulf Coast: Tribes like the Karankawa and Coahuiltecans were semi-nomadic, adapting to the coastal environment through fishing, hunting, and gathering.
Plains (North & West Texas): The powerful, horse-mounted Comanche and Kiowa dominated a vast territory known as the Comanchería, hunting bison and conducting trade and raids. The Apache, including the Lipan and Mescalero groups, were also prominent in West and Central Texas before being pushed out by the Comanche and later by Anglo settlers.
West Texas: The Jumano people lived along rivers and practiced farming and extensive trading before eventually joining Apache groups.
Damien and Dylan live around a 33 hr. drive apart.
Dylan Violette (CopperViolette) (in Maine) is close to the Mi’kmaq. He passes by their reservation whenever he heads south (the nearest city is that way; He is almost in the middle of nowhere).
Damien Marie AtHope (in Texas) lives in Corpus Christi, which is in the Gulf Coast Tribes area, like the Karankawa and Coahuiltecans. (I was living in Florida, but moved to Texas)
My favorite “Graham Hancock” Quote?
“In what archaeologists have studied, yes, we can say there is NO Evidence of an advanced civilization.” – (Time 1:27) Joe Rogan Experience #2136 – Graham Hancock & Flint Dibble
People don’t commonly teach religious history, even that of their own claimed religion. No, rather they teach a limited “pro their religion” history of their religion from a religious perspective favorable to the religion of choice.
Do you truly think “Religious Belief” is only a matter of some personal choice?
Do you not see how coercive one’s world of choice is limited to the obvious hereditary belief, in most religious choices available to the child of religious parents or caregivers? Religion is more commonly like a family, culture, society, etc. available belief that limits the belief choices of the child and that is when “Religious Belief” is not only a matter of some personal choice and when it becomes hereditary faith, not because of the quality of its alleged facts or proposed truths but because everyone else important to the child believes similarly so they do as well simply mimicking authority beliefs handed to them. Because children are raised in religion rather than being presented all possible choices but rather one limited dogmatic brand of “Religious Belief” where children only have a choice of following the belief as instructed, and then personally claim the faith hereditary belief seen in the confirming to the belief they have held themselves all their lives. This is obvious in statements asked and answered by children claiming a faith they barely understand but they do understand that their family believes “this or that” faith, so they feel obligated to believe it too. While I do agree that “Religious Belief” should only be a matter of some personal choice, it rarely is… End Hereditary Religion!
Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey
“How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.” ref
We are like believing machines; we vacuum up ideas, like Velcro sticks to almost everything. We accumulate beliefs that we allow to negatively influence our lives, often without realizing it. Our willingness must be to alter skewed beliefs that impede our balance or reason, which allows us to achieve new positive thinking and accurate outcomes.
My thoughts on Religion Evolution with external links for more info:
- (Pre-Animism Africa mainly, but also Europe, and Asia at least 300,000 years ago), (Pre-Animism – Oxford Dictionaries)
- (Animism Africa around 100,000 years ago), (Animism – Britannica.com)
- (Totemism Europe around 50,000 years ago), (Totemism – Anthropology)
- (Shamanism Siberia around 30,000 years ago), (Shamanism – Britannica.com)
- (Paganism Turkey around 12,000 years ago), (Paganism – BBC Religion)
- (Progressed Organized Religion “Institutional Religion” Egypt around 5,000 years ago), (Ancient Egyptian Religion – Britannica.com)
- (CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS after 4,000 years ago) (Origin of Major Religions – Sacred Texts)
- (Early Atheistic Doubting at least by 2,600 years ago) (History of Atheism – Wikipedia)
“Religion is an Evolved Product” and Yes, Religion is Like Fear Given Wings…
Atheists talk about gods and religions for the same reason doctors talk about cancer, they are looking for a cure, or a firefighter talks about fires because they burn people and they care to stop them. We atheists too often feel a need to help the victims of mental slavery, held in the bondage that is the false beliefs of gods and the conspiracy theories of reality found in religions.
Understanding Religion Evolution:
- Pre-Animism (at least 300,000 years ago)
- Animism (Africa: 100,000 years ago)
- Totemism (Europe: 50,000 years ago)
- Shamanism (Siberia: 30,000 years ago)
- Paganism (Turkey: 12,000 years ago)
- Progressed organized religion (Egypt: 5,000 years ago), (Egypt, the First Dynasty 5,150 years ago)
- CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago)
- Early Atheistic Doubting (at least by 2,600 years ago)
“An Archaeological/Anthropological Understanding of Religion Evolution”
It seems ancient peoples had to survived amazing threats in a “dangerous universe (by superstition perceived as good and evil),” and human “immorality or imperfection of the soul” which was thought to affect the still living, leading to ancestor worship. This ancestor worship presumably led to the belief in supernatural beings, and then some of these were turned into the belief in gods. This feeble myth called gods were just a human conceived “made from nothing into something over and over, changing, again and again, taking on more as they evolve, all the while they are thought to be special,” but it is just supernatural animistic spirit-belief perceived as sacred.
Quick Evolution of Religion?
Pre-Animism (at least 300,000 years ago) pre-religion is a beginning that evolves into later Animism. So, Religion as we think of it, to me, all starts in a general way with Animism (Africa: 100,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in supernatural powers/spirits), then this is physically expressed in or with Totemism (Europe: 50,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in mythical relationship with powers/spirits through a totem item), which then enlists a full-time specific person to do this worship and believed interacting Shamanism (Siberia/Russia: 30,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in access and influence with spirits through ritual), and then there is the further employment of myths and gods added to all the above giving you Paganism (Turkey: 12,000 years ago) (often a lot more nature-based than most current top world religions, thus hinting to their close link to more ancient religious thinking it stems from). My hypothesis is expressed with an explanation of the building of a theatrical house (modern religions development). Progressed organized religion (Egypt: 5,000 years ago) with CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago).
Historically, in large city-state societies (such as Egypt or Iraq) starting around 5,000 years ago culminated to make religion something kind of new, a sociocultural-governmental-religious monarchy, where all or at least many of the people of such large city-state societies seem familiar with and committed to the existence of “religion” as the integrated life identity package of control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine, but this juggernaut integrated religion identity package of Dogmatic-Propaganda certainly did not exist or if developed to an extent it was highly limited in most smaller prehistoric societies as they seem to lack most of the strong control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine (magical beliefs could be at times be added or removed). Many people just want to see developed religious dynamics everywhere even if it is not. Instead, all that is found is largely fragments until the domestication of religion.
Religions, as we think of them today, are a new fad, even if they go back to around 6,000 years in the timeline of human existence, this amounts to almost nothing when seen in the long slow evolution of religion at least around 70,000 years ago with one of the oldest ritual worship. Stone Snake of South Africa: “first human worship” 70,000 years ago. This message of how religion and gods among them are clearly a man-made thing that was developed slowly as it was invented and then implemented peace by peace discrediting them all. Which seems to be a simple point some are just not grasping how devastating to any claims of truth when we can see the lie clearly in the archeological sites.
I wish people fought as hard for the actual values as they fight for the group/clan names political or otherwise they think support values. Every amount spent on war is theft to children in need of food or the homeless kept from shelter.
Here are several of my blog posts on history:
- To Find Truth You Must First Look
- (Magdalenian/Iberomaurusian) Connections to the First Paganists of the early Neolithic Near East Dating from around 17,000 to 12,000 Years Ago
- Natufians: an Ancient People at the Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Life
- Possible Clan Leader/Special “MALE” Ancestor Totem Poles At Least 13,500 years ago?
- Jewish People with DNA at least 13,200 years old, Judaism, and the Origins of Some of its Ideas
- Baltic Reindeer Hunters: Swiderian, Lyngby, Ahrensburgian, and Krasnosillya cultures 12,020 to 11,020 years ago are evidence of powerful migratory waves during the last 13,000 years and a genetic link to Saami and the Finno-Ugric peoples.
- The Rise of Inequality: patriarchy and state hierarchy inequality
- Fertile Crescent 12,500 – 9,500 Years Ago: fertility and death cult belief system?
- 12,400 – 11,700 Years Ago – Kortik Tepe (Turkey) Pre/early-Agriculture Cultic Ritualism
- Ritualistic Bird Symbolism at Gobekli Tepe and its “Ancestor Cult”
- Male-Homosexual (female-like) / Trans-woman (female) Seated Figurine from Gobekli Tepe
- Could a 12,000-year-old Bull Geoglyph at Göbekli Tepe relate to older Bull and Female Art 25,000 years ago and Later Goddess and the Bull cults like Catal Huyuk?
- Sedentism and the Creation of goddesses around 12,000 years ago as well as male gods after 7,000 years ago.
- Alcohol, where Agriculture and Religion Become one? Such as Gobekli Tepe’s Ritualistic use of Grain as Food and Ritual Drink
- Neolithic Ritual Sites with T-Pillars and other Cultic Pillars
- Paganism: Goddesses around 12,000 years ago then Male Gods after 7,000 years ago
- First Patriarchy: Split of Women’s Status around 12,000 years ago & First Hierarchy: fall of Women’s Status around 5,000 years ago.
- Natufians: an Ancient People at the Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Life
- J DNA and the Spread of Agricultural Religion (paganism)
- Paganism: an approximately 12,000-year-old belief system
- Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism)
- Shaman burial in Israel 12,000 years ago and the Shamanism Phenomena
- Need to Mythicized: gods and goddesses
- 12,000 – 7,000 Years Ago – Paleo-Indian Culture (The Americas)
- 12,000 – 2,000 Years Ago – Indigenous-Scandinavians (Nordic)
- Norse did not wear helmets with horns?
- Pre-Pottery Neolithic Skull Cult around 11,500 to 8,400 Years Ago?
- 10,400 – 10,100 Years Ago, in Turkey the Nevail Cori Religious Settlement
- 9,000-6,500 Years Old Submerged Pre-Pottery/Pottery Neolithic Ritual Settlements off Israel’s Coast
- Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city” around 9,500 to 7,700 years ago (Turkey)
- Cultic Hunting at Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city”
- Special Items and Art as well as Special Elite Burials at Catal Huyuk
- New Rituals and Violence with the appearance of Pottery and People?
- Haplogroup N and its related Uralic Languages and Cultures
- Ainu people, Sámi people, Native Americans, the Ancient North Eurasians, and Paganistic-Shamanism with Totemism
- Ideas, Technology and People from Turkey, Europe, to China and Back again 9,000 to 5,000 years ago?
- First Pottery of Europe and the Related Cultures
- 9,000 years old Neolithic Artifacts Judean Desert and Hills Israel
- 9,000-7,000 years-old Sex and Death Rituals: Cult Sites in Israel, Jordan, and the Sinai
- 9,000-8500 year old Horned Female shaman Bad Dürrenberg Germany
- Neolithic Jewelry and the Spread of Farming in Europe Emerging out of West Turkey
- 8,600-year-old Tortoise Shells in Neolithic graves in central China have Early Writing and Shamanism
- Swing of the Mace: the rise of Elite, Forced Authority, and Inequality begin to Emerge 8,500 years ago?
- Migrations and Changing Europeans Beginning around 8,000 Years Ago
- My “Steppe-Anatolian-Kurgan hypothesis” 8,000/7,000 years ago
- Around 8,000-year-old Shared Idea of the Mistress of Animals, “Ritual” Motif
- Pre-Columbian Red-Paint (red ochre) Maritime Archaic Culture 8,000-3,000 years ago
- 7,522-6,522 years ago Linear Pottery culture which I think relates to Arcane Capitalism’s origins
- Arcane Capitalism: Primitive socialism, Primitive capital, Private ownership, Means of production, Market capitalism, Class discrimination, and Petite bourgeoisie (smaller capitalists)
- 7,500-4,750 years old Ritualistic Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine
- Roots of a changing early society 7,200-6,700 years ago Jordan and Israel
- Agriculture religion (Paganism) with farming reached Britain between about 7,000 to 6,500 or so years ago and seemingly expressed in things like Western Europe’s Long Barrows
- My Thoughts on Possible Migrations of “R” DNA and Proto-Indo-European?
- “Millet” Spreading from China 7,022 years ago to Europe and related Language may have Spread with it leading to Proto-Indo-European
- Proto-Indo-European (PIE), ancestor of Indo-European languages: DNA, Society, Language, and Mythology
- The Dnieper–Donets culture and Asian varieties of Millet from China to the Black Sea region of Europe by 7,022 years ago
- Kurgan 6,000 years ago/dolmens 7,000 years ago: funeral, ritual, and other?
- 7,020 to 6,020-year-old Proto-Indo-European Homeland of Urheimat or proposed home of their Language and Religion
- Ancient Megaliths: Kurgan, Ziggurat, Pyramid, Menhir, Trilithon, Dolman, Kromlech, and Kromlech of Trilithons
- The Mytheme of Ancient North Eurasian Sacred-Dog belief and similar motifs are found in Indo-European, Native American, and Siberian comparative mythology
- Elite Power Accumulation: Ancient Trade, Tokens, Writing, Wealth, Merchants, and Priest-Kings
- Sacred Mounds, Mountains, Kurgans, and Pyramids may hold deep connections?
- Between 7,000-5,000 Years ago, rise of unequal hierarchy elite, leading to a “birth of the State” or worship of power, strong new sexism, oppression of non-elites, and the fall of Women’s equal status
- Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite & their slaves
- Hell and Underworld mythologies starting maybe as far back as 7,000 to 5,000 years ago with the Proto-Indo-Europeans?
- The First Expression of the Male God around 7,000 years ago?
- White (light complexion skin) Bigotry and Sexism started 7,000 years ago?
- Around 7,000-year-old Shared Idea of the Divine Bird (Tutelary and/or Trickster spirit/deity), “Ritual” Motif
- Nekhbet an Ancient Egyptian Vulture Goddess and Tutelary Deity
- 6,720 to 4,920 years old Ritualistic Hongshan Culture of Inner Mongolia with 5,000-year-old Pyramid Mounds and Temples
- First proto-king in the Balkans, Varna culture around 6,500 years ago?
- 6,500–5,800 years ago in Israel Late Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Period in the Southern Levant Seems to Express Northern Levant Migrations, Cultural and Religious Transfer
- KING OF BEASTS: Master of Animals “Ritual” Motif, around 6,000 years old or older…
- Around 6000-year-old Shared Idea of the Solid Wheel & the Spoked Wheel-Shaped Ritual Motif
- “The Ghassulian Star,” a mysterious 6,000-year-old mural from Jordan; a Proto-Star of Ishtar, Star of Inanna or Star of Venus?
- Religious/Ritual Ideas, including goddesses and gods as well as ritual mounds or pyramids from Northeastern Asia at least 6,000 years old, seemingly filtering to Iran, Iraq, the Mediterranean, Europe, Egypt, and the Americas?
- Maykop (5,720–5,020 years ago) Caucasus region Bronze Age culture-related to Copper Age farmers from the south, influenced by the Ubaid period and Leyla-Tepe culture, as well as influencing the Kura-Araxes culture
- 5-600-year-old Tomb, Mummy, and First Bearded Male Figurine in a Grave
- Kura-Araxes Cultural 5,520 to 4,470 years old DNA traces to the Canaanites, Arabs, and Jews
- Minoan/Cretan (Keftiu) Civilization and Religion around 5,520 to 3,120 years ago
- Evolution Of Science at least by 5,500 years ago
- 5,500 Years old birth of the State, the rise of Hierarchy, and the fall of Women’s status
- “Jiroft culture” 5,100 – 4,200 years ago and the History of Iran
- Stonehenge: Paganistic Burial and Astrological Ritual Complex, England (5,100-3,600 years ago)
- Around 5,000-year-old Shared Idea of the “Tree of Life” Ritual Motif
- Complex rituals for elite, seen from China to Egypt, at least by 5,000 years ago
- Around 5,000 years ago: “Birth of the State” where Religion gets Military Power and Influence
- The Center of the World “Axis Mundi” and/or “Sacred Mountains” Mythology Could Relate to the Altai Mountains, Heart of the Steppe
- Progressed organized religion starts, an approximately 5,000-year-old belief system
- China’s Civilization between 5,000-3,000 years ago, was a time of war and class struggle, violent transition from free clans to a Slave or Elite society
- Origin of Logics is Naturalistic Observation at least by around 5,000 years ago.
- Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State)
- Ziggurats (multi-platform temples: 4,900 years old) to Pyramids (multi-platform tombs: 4,700 years old)
- Did a 4,520–4,420-year-old Volcano In Turkey Inspire the Bible God?
- Finland’s Horned Shaman and Pre-Horned-God at least 4,500 years ago?
- 4,000-year-Old Dolmens in Israel: A Connected Dolmen Religious Phenomenon?
- Creation myths: From chaos, Ex nihilo, Earth-diver, Emergence, World egg, and World parent
- Bronze Age “Ritual” connections of the Bell Beaker culture with the Corded Ware/Single Grave culture, which were related to the Yamnaya culture and Proto-Indo-European Languages/Religions
- Low Gods (Earth/ Tutelary deity), High Gods (Sky/Supreme deity), and Moralistic Gods (Deity enforcement/divine order)
- The exchange of people, ideas, and material-culture including, to me, the new god (Sky Father) and goddess (Earth Mother) religion between the Cucuteni-Trypillians and others which is then spread far and wide
- Koryaks: Indigenous People of the Russian Far East and Big Raven myths also found in Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and other Indigenous People of North America
- 42 Principles Of Maat (Egyptian Goddess of the justice) around 4,400 years ago, 2000 Years Before Ten Commandments
- “Happy Easter” Well Happy Eostre/Ishter
- 4,320-3,820 years old “Shimao” (North China) site with Totemistic-Shamanistic Paganism and a Stepped Pyramid
- 4,250 to 3,400 Year old Stonehenge from Russia: Arkaim?
- 4,100-year-old beaker with medicinal & flowering plants in a grave of a woman in Scotland
- Early European Farmer ancestry, Kelif el Boroud people with the Cardial Ware culture, and the Bell Beaker culture Paganists too, spread into North Africa, then to the Canary Islands off West Africa
- Flood Accounts: Gilgamesh epic (4,100 years ago) Noah in Genesis (2,600 years ago)
- Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)
- When was the beginning: TIMELINE OF CURRENT RELIGIONS, which start around 4,000 years ago.
- Early Religions Thought to Express Proto-Monotheistic Systems around 4,000 years ago
- Kultepe? An archaeological site with a 4,000 years old women’s rights document.
- Single God Religions (Monotheism) = “Man-o-theism” started around 4,000 years ago with the Great Sky Spirit/God Tiān (天)?
- Confucianism’s Tiān (Shangdi god 4,000 years old): Supernaturalism, Pantheism or Theism?
- Yes, Your Male God is Ridiculous
- Mythology, a Lunar Deity is a Goddess or God of the Moon
- Sacred Land, Hills, and Mountains: Sami Mythology (Paganistic Shamanism)
- Horse Worship/Sacrifice: mythical union of Ruling Elite/Kingship and the Horse
- The Amorite/Amurru people’s God Amurru “Lord of the Steppe”, relates to the Origins of the Bible God?
- Bronze Age Exotic Trade Routes Spread Quite Far as well as Spread Religious Ideas with Them
- Sami and the Northern Indigenous Peoples Landscape, Language, and its Connection to Religion
- Prototype of Ancient Analemmatic Sundials around 3,900-3,150 years ago and a Possible Solar Connection to gods?
- Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)
- The Weakening of Ancient Trade and the Strengthening of Religions around 3000 years ago?
- Are you aware that there are religions that worship women gods, explain now religion tears women down?
- Animistic, Totemistic, and Paganistic Superstition Origins of bible god and the bible’s Religion.
- Myths and Folklore: “Trickster gods and goddesses”
- Jews, Judaism, and the Origins of Some of its Ideas
- An Old Branch of Religion Still Giving Fruit: Sacred Trees
- Dating the BIBLE: naming names and telling times (written less than 3,000 years ago, provable to 2,200 years ago)
- Did a Volcano Inspire the bible god?
- Dené–Yeniseian language, Old Copper Complex, and Pre-Columbian Mound Builders?
- No “dinosaurs and humans didn’t exist together just because some think they are in the bible itself”
- Sacred Shit and Sacred Animals?
- Everyone Killed in the Bible Flood? “Nephilim” (giants)?
- Hey, Damien dude, I have a question for you regarding “the bible” Exodus.
- Archaeology Disproves the Bible
- Bible Battle, Just More, Bible Babble
- The Jericho Conquest lie?
- Canaanites and Israelites?
- Accurate Account on how did Christianity Began?
- Let’s talk about Christianity.
- So the 10 commandments isn’t anything to go by either right?
- Misinformed christian
- Debunking Jesus?
- Paulism vs Jesus
- Ok, you seem confused so let’s talk about Buddhism.
- Unacknowledged Buddhism: Gods, Savior, Demons, Rebirth, Heavens, Hells, and Terrorism
- His Foolishness The Dalai Lama
- Yin and Yang is sexist with an ORIGIN around 2,300 years ago?
- I Believe Archaeology, not Myths & Why Not, as the Religious Myths Already Violate Reason!
- Archaeological, Scientific, & Philosophic evidence shows the god myth is man-made nonsense.
- Aquatic Ape Theory/Hypothesis? As Always, Just Pseudoscience.
- Ancient Aliens Conspiracy Theorists are Pseudohistorians
- The Pseudohistoric and Pseudoscientific claims about “Bakoni Ruins” of South Africa
- Why do people think Religion is much more than supernaturalism and superstitionism?
- Religion is an Evolved Product
- Was the Value of Ancient Women Different?
- 1000 to 1100 CE, human sacrifice Cahokia Mounds a pre-Columbian Native American site
- Feminist atheists as far back as the 1800s?
- Promoting Religion as Real is Mentally Harmful to a Flourishing Humanity
- Screw All Religions and Their Toxic lies, they are all fraud
- Forget Religions’ Unfounded Myths, I Have Substantiated “Archaeology Facts.”
- Religion Dispersal throughout the World
- I Hate Religion Just as I Hate all Pseudoscience
- Exposing Scientology, Eckankar, Wicca and Other Nonsense?
- Main deity or religious belief systems
- Quit Trying to Invent Your God From the Scraps of Science.
- Archaeological, Scientific, & Philosophic evidence shows the god myth is man-made nonsense.
- Ancient Alien Conspiracy Theorists: Misunderstanding, Rhetoric, Misinformation, Fabrications, and Lies
- Misinformation, Distortion, and Pseudoscience in Talking with a Christian Creationist
- Judging the Lack of Goodness in Gods, Even the Norse God Odin
- Challenging the Belief in God-like Aliens and Gods in General
- A Challenge to Christian use of Torture Devices?
- Yes, Hinduism is a Religion
- Trump is One of the Most Reactionary Forces of Far-right Christian Extremism
- Was the Bull Head a Symbol of God? Yes!
- Primate Death Rituals
- Christian – “God and Christianity are objectively true”
- Australopithecus afarensis Death Ritual?
- You Claim Global Warming is a Hoax?
- Doubter of Science and Defamer of Atheists?
- I think that sounds like the Bible?
- History of the Antifa (“anti-fascist”) Movements
- Indianapolis Anti-Blasphemy Laws #Free Soheil Rally
- Damien, you repeat the golden rule in so many forms then you say religion is dogmatic?
- Science is a Trustable Methodology whereas Faith is not Trustable at all!
- Was I ever a believer, before I was an atheist?
- Atheists rise in reason
- Mistrust of science?
- Open to Talking About the Definition of ‘God’? But first, we address Faith.
- ‘United Monarchy’ full of splendor and power – Saul, David, and Solomon? Most likely not.
- Is there EXODUS ARCHAEOLOGY? The short answer is “no.”
- Lacking Proof of Bigfoots, Unicorns, and Gods is Just a Lack of Research?
- Religion and Politics: Faith Beliefs vs. Rational Thinking
- Hammer of Truth that lying pig RELIGION: challenged by an archaeologist
- “The Hammer of Truth” -ontology question- What do You Mean by That?
- Navigation of a bad argument: Ad Hominem vs. Attack
- Why is it Often Claimed that Gods have a Gender?
- Why are basically all monotheistic religions ones that have a male god?
- Shifting through the Claims in support of Faith
- Dear Mr. AtHope, The 20th Century is an Indictment of Secularism and a Failed Atheist Century
- An Understanding of the Worldwide Statistics and Dynamics of Terrorist Incidents and Suicide Attacks
- Intoxication and Evolution? Addressing and Assessing the “Stoned Ape” or “Drunken Monkey” Theories as Catalysts in Human Evolution
- Sacred Menstrual cloth? Inanna’s knot, Isis knot, and maybe Ma’at’s feather?
- Damien, why don’t the Hebrews accept the bible stories?
- Dealing with a Troll and Arguing Over Word Meaning
- Knowledge without Belief? Justified beliefs or disbeliefs worthy of Knowledge?
- Afrocentrism and African Religions
- Crecganford @crecganford offers history & stories of the people, places, gods, & culture
- Empiricism-Denier?
I am not an academic. I am a revolutionary that teaches in public, in places like social media, and in the streets. I am not a leader by some title given but from my commanding leadership style of simply to start teaching everywhere to everyone, all manner of positive education.
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.
Not all “Religions” or “Religious Persuasions” have a god(s) but
All can be said to believe in some imaginary beings or imaginary things like spirits, afterlives, etc.
Paganism 12,000-4,000 years old
12,000-7,000 years old: related to (Pre-Capitalism)
7,000-5,000 years old: related to (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!
5,000 years old: related to (Kings and the Rise of the State)
4,000 years old: related to (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)
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Low Gods “Earth” or Tutelary deity and High Gods “Sky” or Supreme deity
“An Earth goddess is a deification of the Earth. Earth goddesses are often associated with the “chthonic” deities of the underworld. Ki and Ninhursag are Mesopotamian earth goddesses. In Greek mythology, the Earth is personified as Gaia, corresponding to Roman Terra, Indic Prithvi/Bhūmi, etc. traced to an “Earth Mother” complementary to the “Sky Father” in Proto-Indo-European religion. Egyptian mythology exceptionally has a sky goddess and an Earth god.” ref
“A mother goddess is a goddess who represents or is a personification of nature, motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction or who embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother. In some religious traditions or movements, Heavenly Mother (also referred to as Mother in Heaven or Sky Mother) is the wife or feminine counterpart of the Sky father or God the Father.” ref
“Any masculine sky god is often also king of the gods, taking the position of patriarch within a pantheon. Such king gods are collectively categorized as “sky father” deities, with a polarity between sky and earth often being expressed by pairing a “sky father” god with an “earth mother” goddess (pairings of a sky mother with an earth father are less frequent). A main sky goddess is often the queen of the gods and may be an air/sky goddess in her own right, though she usually has other functions as well with “sky” not being her main. In antiquity, several sky goddesses in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Near East were called Queen of Heaven. Neopagans often apply it with impunity to sky goddesses from other regions who were never associated with the term historically. The sky often has important religious significance. Many religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, have deities associated with the sky.” ref
“In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept in polytheistic religions of a sky god who is addressed as a “father”, often the father of a pantheon and is often either a reigning or former King of the Gods. The concept of “sky father” may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an “earth mother“. “Sky Father” is a direct translation of the Vedic Dyaus Pita, etymologically descended from the same Proto-Indo-European deity name as the Greek Zeûs Pater and Roman Jupiter and Germanic Týr, Tir or Tiwaz, all of which are reflexes of the same Proto-Indo-European deity’s name, *Dyēus Ph₂tḗr. While there are numerous parallels adduced from outside of Indo-European mythology, there are exceptions (e.g. In Egyptian mythology, Nut is the sky mother and Geb is the earth father).” ref
Tutelary deity
“A tutelary (also tutelar) is a deity or spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of “tutelary” expresses the concept of safety and thus of guardianship. In late Greek and Roman religion, one type of tutelary deity, the genius, functions as the personal deity or daimon of an individual from birth to death. Another form of personal tutelary spirit is the familiar spirit of European folklore.” ref
“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Korean shamanism, jangseung and sotdae were placed at the edge of villages to frighten off demons. They were also worshiped as deities. Seonangshin is the patron deity of the village in Korean tradition and was believed to embody the Seonangdang. In Philippine animism, Diwata or Lambana are deities or spirits that inhabit sacred places like mountains and mounds and serve as guardians. Such as: Maria Makiling is the deity who guards Mt. Makiling and Maria Cacao and Maria Sinukuan. In Shinto, the spirits, or kami, which give life to human bodies come from nature and return to it after death. Ancestors are therefore themselves tutelaries to be worshiped. And similarly, Native American beliefs such as Tonás, tutelary animal spirit among the Zapotec and Totems, familial or clan spirits among the Ojibwe, can be animals.” ref
“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Austronesian beliefs such as: Atua (gods and spirits of the Polynesian peoples such as the Māori or the Hawaiians), Hanitu (Bunun of Taiwan‘s term for spirit), Hyang (Kawi, Sundanese, Javanese, and Balinese Supreme Being, in ancient Java and Bali mythology and this spiritual entity, can be either divine or ancestral), Kaitiaki (New Zealand Māori term used for the concept of guardianship, for the sky, the sea, and the land), Kawas (mythology) (divided into 6 groups: gods, ancestors, souls of the living, spirits of living things, spirits of lifeless objects, and ghosts), Tiki (Māori mythology, Tiki is the first man created by either Tūmatauenga or Tāne and represents deified ancestors found in most Polynesian cultures). ” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Mesopotamian Tutelary Deities can be seen as ones related to City-States
“Historical city-states included Sumerian cities such as Uruk and Ur; Ancient Egyptian city-states, such as Thebes and Memphis; the Phoenician cities (such as Tyre and Sidon); the five Philistine city-states; the Berber city-states of the Garamantes; the city-states of ancient Greece (the poleis such as Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth); the Roman Republic (which grew from a city-state into a vast empire); the Italian city-states from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, such as Florence, Siena, Ferrara, Milan (which as they grew in power began to dominate neighboring cities) and Genoa and Venice, which became powerful thalassocracies; the Mayan and other cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (including cities such as Chichen Itza, Tikal, Copán and Monte Albán); the central Asian cities along the Silk Road; the city-states of the Swahili coast; Ragusa; states of the medieval Russian lands such as Novgorod and Pskov; and many others.” ref
“The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BCE; also known as Protoliterate period) of Mesopotamia, named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and the Sumerian civilization. City-States like Uruk and others had a patron tutelary City Deity along with a Priest-King.” ref
“Chinese folk religion, both past, and present, includes myriad tutelary deities. Exceptional individuals, highly cultivated sages, and prominent ancestors can be deified and honored after death. Lord Guan is the patron of military personnel and police, while Mazu is the patron of fishermen and sailors. Such as Tu Di Gong (Earth Deity) is the tutelary deity of a locality, and each individual locality has its own Earth Deity and Cheng Huang Gong (City God) is the guardian deity of an individual city, worshipped by local officials and locals since imperial times.” ref
“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Hinduism, personal tutelary deities are known as ishta-devata, while family tutelary deities are known as Kuladevata. Gramadevata are guardian deities of villages. Devas can also be seen as tutelary. Shiva is the patron of yogis and renunciants. City goddesses include: Mumbadevi (Mumbai), Sachchika (Osian); Kuladevis include: Ambika (Porwad), and Mahalakshmi. In NorthEast India Meitei mythology and religion (Sanamahism) of Manipur, there are various types of tutelary deities, among which Lam Lais are the most predominant ones. Tibetan Buddhism has Yidam as a tutelary deity. Dakini is the patron of those who seek knowledge.” ref
“A tutelary (also tutelar) The Greeks also thought deities guarded specific places: for instance, Athena was the patron goddess of the city of Athens. Socrates spoke of hearing the voice of his personal spirit or daimonion:
You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me … . This sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician.” ref
“Tutelary deities who guard and preserve a place or a person are fundamental to ancient Roman religion. The tutelary deity of a man was his Genius, that of a woman her Juno. In the Imperial era, the Genius of the Emperor was a focus of Imperial cult. An emperor might also adopt a major deity as his personal patron or tutelary, as Augustus did Apollo. Precedents for claiming the personal protection of a deity were established in the Republican era, when for instance the Roman dictator Sulla advertised the goddess Victory as his tutelary by holding public games (ludi) in her honor.” ref
“Each town or city had one or more tutelary deities, whose protection was considered particularly vital in time of war and siege. Rome itself was protected by a goddess whose name was to be kept ritually secret on pain of death (for a supposed case, see Quintus Valerius Soranus). The Capitoline Triad of Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva were also tutelaries of Rome. The Italic towns had their own tutelary deities. Juno often had this function, as at the Latin town of Lanuvium and the Etruscan city of Veii, and was often housed in an especially grand temple on the arx (citadel) or other prominent or central location. The tutelary deity of Praeneste was Fortuna, whose oracle was renowned.” ref
“The Roman ritual of evocatio was premised on the belief that a town could be made vulnerable to military defeat if the power of its tutelary deity were diverted outside the city, perhaps by the offer of superior cult at Rome. The depiction of some goddesses such as the Magna Mater (Great Mother, or Cybele) as “tower-crowned” represents their capacity to preserve the city. A town in the provinces might adopt a deity from within the Roman religious sphere to serve as its guardian, or syncretize its own tutelary with such; for instance, a community within the civitas of the Remi in Gaul adopted Apollo as its tutelary, and at the capital of the Remi (present-day Rheims), the tutelary was Mars Camulus.” ref
Household deity (a kind of or related to a Tutelary deity)
“A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in paganism as well as in folklore across many parts of the world. Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity – typically a goddess – often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, such as the ancient Greek Hestia.” ref
“The second type of household deities are those that are not one singular deity, but a type, or species of animistic deity, who usually have lesser powers than major deities. This type was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the Lares of ancient Roman religion, the Gashin of Korean shamanism, and Cofgodas of Anglo-Saxon paganism. These survived Christianisation as fairy-like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish Brownie and Slavic Domovoy.” ref
“Household deities were usually worshipped not in temples but in the home, where they would be represented by small idols (such as the teraphim of the Bible, often translated as “household gods” in Genesis 31:19 for example), amulets, paintings, or reliefs. They could also be found on domestic objects, such as cosmetic articles in the case of Tawaret. The more prosperous houses might have a small shrine to the household god(s); the lararium served this purpose in the case of the Romans. The gods would be treated as members of the family and invited to join in meals, or be given offerings of food and drink.” ref
“In many religions, both ancient and modern, a god would preside over the home. Certain species, or types, of household deities, existed. An example of this was the Roman Lares. Many European cultures retained house spirits into the modern period. Some examples of these include:
- Brownie (Scotland and England) or Hob (England) / Kobold (Germany) / Goblin / Hobgoblin
- Domovoy (Slavic)
- Nisse (Norwegian or Danish) / Tomte (Swedish) / Tonttu (Finnish)
- Húsvættir (Norse)” ref
“Although the cosmic status of household deities was not as lofty as that of the Twelve Olympians or the Aesir, they were also jealous of their dignity and also had to be appeased with shrines and offerings, however humble. Because of their immediacy they had arguably more influence on the day-to-day affairs of men than the remote gods did. Vestiges of their worship persisted long after Christianity and other major religions extirpated nearly every trace of the major pagan pantheons. Elements of the practice can be seen even today, with Christian accretions, where statues to various saints (such as St. Francis) protect gardens and grottos. Even the gargoyles found on older churches, could be viewed as guardians partitioning a sacred space.” ref
“For centuries, Christianity fought a mop-up war against these lingering minor pagan deities, but they proved tenacious. For example, Martin Luther‘s Tischreden have numerous – quite serious – references to dealing with kobolds. Eventually, rationalism and the Industrial Revolution threatened to erase most of these minor deities, until the advent of romantic nationalism rehabilitated them and embellished them into objects of literary curiosity in the 19th century. Since the 20th century this literature has been mined for characters for role-playing games, video games, and other fantasy personae, not infrequently invested with invented traits and hierarchies somewhat different from their mythological and folkloric roots.” ref
“In contradistinction to both Herbert Spencer and Edward Burnett Tylor, who defended theories of animistic origins of ancestor worship, Émile Durkheim saw its origin in totemism. In reality, this distinction is somewhat academic, since totemism may be regarded as a particularized manifestation of animism, and something of a synthesis of the two positions was attempted by Sigmund Freud. In Freud’s Totem and Taboo, both totem and taboo are outward expressions or manifestations of the same psychological tendency, a concept which is complementary to, or which rather reconciles, the apparent conflict. Freud preferred to emphasize the psychoanalytic implications of the reification of metaphysical forces, but with particular emphasis on its familial nature. This emphasis underscores, rather than weakens, the ancestral component.” ref
“William Edward Hearn, a noted classicist, and jurist, traced the origin of domestic deities from the earliest stages as an expression of animism, a belief system thought to have existed also in the neolithic, and the forerunner of Indo-European religion. In his analysis of the Indo-European household, in Chapter II “The House Spirit”, Section 1, he states:
The belief which guided the conduct of our forefathers was … the spirit rule of dead ancestors.” ref
“In Section 2 he proceeds to elaborate:
It is thus certain that the worship of deceased ancestors is a vera causa, and not a mere hypothesis. …
In the other European nations, the Slavs, the Teutons, and the Kelts, the House Spirit appears with no less distinctness. … [T]he existence of that worship does not admit of doubt. … The House Spirits had a multitude of other names which it is needless here to enumerate, but all of which are more or less expressive of their friendly relations with man. … In [England] … [h]e is the Brownie. … In Scotland this same Brownie is well known. He is usually described as attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house, and performing similar household tasks. His favorite gratification was milk and honey.” ref
ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
“These ideas are my speculations from the evidence.”
I am still researching the “god‘s origins” all over the world. So, you know, it is very complicated, but I am smart and willing to look, DEEP, if necessary, which going very deep does seem to be needed here, when trying to actually understand the evolution of gods and goddesses. I am sure of a few things and less sure of others, but even in stuff I am not fully grasping I still am slowly figuring it out, to explain it to others. But as I research more, I am understanding things a little better, though I am still working on understanding it all or something close and thus always figuring out more.
Sky Father/Sky God?
“Egyptian: (Nut) Sky Mother and (Geb) Earth Father” (Egypt is different but similar)
Turkic/Mongolic: (Tengri/Tenger Etseg) Sky Father and (Eje/Gazar Eej) Earth Mother *Transeurasian*
Hawaiian: (Wākea) Sky Father and (Papahānaumoku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*
New Zealand/ Māori: (Ranginui) Sky Father and (Papatūānuku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*
Proto-Indo-European: (Dyḗus/Dyḗus ph₂tḗr) Sky Father and (Dʰéǵʰōm/Pleth₂wih₁) Earth Mother
Indo-Aryan: (Dyaus Pita) Sky Father and (Prithvi Mata) Earth Mother *Indo-European*
Italic: (Jupiter) Sky Father and (Juno) Sky Mother *Indo-European*
Etruscan: (Tinia) Sky Father and (Uni) Sky Mother *Tyrsenian/Italy Pre–Indo-European*
Hellenic/Greek: (Zeus) Sky Father and (Hera) Sky Mother who started as an “Earth Goddess” *Indo-European*
Nordic: (Dagr) Sky Father and (Nótt) Sky Mother *Indo-European*
Slavic: (Perun) Sky Father and (Mokosh) Earth Mother *Indo-European*
Illyrian: (Deipaturos) Sky Father and (Messapic Damatura’s “earth-mother” maybe) Earth Mother *Indo-European*
Albanian: (Zojz) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*
Baltic: (Perkūnas) Sky Father and (Saulė) Sky Mother *Indo-European*
Germanic: (Týr) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*
Colombian-Muisca: (Bochica) Sky Father and (Huythaca) Sky Mother *Chibchan*
Aztec: (Quetzalcoatl) Sky Father and (Xochiquetzal) Sky Mother *Uto-Aztecan*
Incan: (Viracocha) Sky Father and (Mama Runtucaya) Sky Mother *Quechuan*
China: (Tian/Shangdi) Sky Father and (Dì) Earth Mother *Sino-Tibetan*
Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian: (An/Anu) Sky Father and (Ki) Earth Mother
Finnish: (Ukko) Sky Father and (Akka) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*
Sami: (Horagalles) Sky Father and (Ravdna) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*
Puebloan-Zuni: (Ápoyan Ta’chu) Sky Father and (Áwitelin Tsíta) Earth Mother
Puebloan-Hopi: (Tawa) Sky Father and (Kokyangwuti/Spider Woman/Grandmother) Earth Mother *Uto-Aztecan*
Puebloan-Navajo: (Tsohanoai) Sky Father and (Estsanatlehi) Earth Mother *Na-Dene*
ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Hinduism around 3,700 to 3,500 years old. ref
Judaism around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (The first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew” dated to around 3,000 years ago Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley. And many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed around 2,500) ref, ref
Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)
“Judaism is an Abrahamic, its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Some scholars argue that modern Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, by the late 6th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions.” ref
“Yahwism is the name given by modern scholars to the religion of ancient Israel, essentially polytheistic, with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Heading the pantheon was Yahweh, the national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with his consort, the goddess Asherah; below them were second-tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot, and Astarte, all of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees, and a third and fourth tier of minor divine beings, including the mal’ak, the messengers of the higher gods, who in later times became the angels of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yahweh, however, was not the ‘original’ god of Israel “Isra-El”; it is El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon, whose name forms the basis of the name “Israel”, and none of the Old Testament patriarchs, the tribes of Israel, the Judges, or the earliest monarchs, have a Yahwistic theophoric name (i.e., one incorporating the name of Yahweh).” ref
“El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “god” or “deity“, or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ‘ila, represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-, meaning “god”. Specific deities known as ‘El or ‘Il include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period. ʼĒl is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, ʼĒl played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean “ʼĒl the King” but ʾil hd as “the god Hadad“. The Semitic root ʾlh (Arabic ʾilāh, Aramaic ʾAlāh, ʾElāh, Hebrew ʾelōah) may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning “gods” is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm “powers”. In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for “god” by biblical commentators. However the documentary hypothesis for the Old Testament (corresponds to the Jewish Torah) developed originally in the 1870s, identifies these that different authors – the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and the Priestly source – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. Inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis.” ref
Jainism around 2,599 – 2,527 years old. ref
Confucianism around 2,600 – 2,551 years old. ref
Buddhism around 2,563/2,480 – 2,483/2,400 years old. ref
Christianity around 2,o00 years old. ref
Shinto around 1,305 years old. ref
Islam around 1407–1385 years old. ref
Knowledge to Ponder:
Stars/Astrology:
- Possibly, around 30,000 years ago (in simpler form) to 6,000 years ago, Stars/Astrology are connected to Ancestors, Spirit Animals, and Deities.
- The star also seems to be a possible proto-star for Star of Ishtar, Star of Inanna, or Star of Venus.
- Around 7,000 to 6,000 years ago, Star Constellations/Astrology have connections to the “Kurgan phenomenon” of below-ground “mound” stone/wood burial structures and “Dolmen phenomenon” of above-ground stone burial structures.
- Around 6,500–5,800 years ago, The Northern Levant migrations into Jordon and Israel in the Southern Levant brought new cultural and religious transfer from Turkey and Iran.
- “The Ghassulian Star,” a mysterious 6,000-year-old mural from Jordan may have connections to the European paganstic kurgan/dolmens phenomenon.
“Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindus, Chinese, and the Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Islamicate world and eventually Central and Western Europe. Contemporary Western astrology is often associated with systems of horoscopes that purport to explain aspects of a person’s personality and predict significant events in their lives based on the positions of celestial objects; the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems.” ref
Around 5,500 years ago, Science evolves, The first evidence of science was 5,500 years ago and was demonstrated by a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world. ref
Around 5,000 years ago, Origin of Logics is a Naturalistic Observation (principles of valid reasoning, inference, & demonstration) ref
Around 4,150 to 4,000 years ago: The earliest surviving versions of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, which was originally titled “He who Saw the Deep” (Sha naqba īmuru) or “Surpassing All Other Kings” (Shūtur eli sharrī) were written. ref
Hinduism:
- 3,700 years ago or so, the oldest of the Hindu Vedas (scriptures), the Rig Veda was composed.
- 3,500 years ago or so, the Vedic Age began in India after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Judaism:
- around 3,000 years ago, the first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew”
- around 2,500 years ago, many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed
Myths: The bible inspired religion is not just one religion or one myth but a grouping of several religions and myths
- Around 3,450 or 3,250 years ago, according to legend, is the traditionally accepted period in which the Israelite lawgiver, Moses, provided the Ten Commandments.
- Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, a collection of ancient religious writings by the Israelites based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament is the first part of Christianity’s bible.
- Around 2,400 years ago, the most accepted hypothesis is that the canon was formed in stages, first the Pentateuch (Torah).
- Around 2,140 to 2,116 years ago, the Prophets was written during the Hasmonean dynasty, and finally the remaining books.
- Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections:
- The first five books or Pentateuch (Torah).
- The proposed history books telling the history of the Israelites from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon.
- The poetic and proposed “Wisdom books” dealing, in various forms, with questions of good and evil in the world.
- The books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God:
- Henotheism:
- Exodus 20:23 “You shall not make other gods besides Me (not saying there are no other gods just not to worship them); gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves.”
- Polytheism:
- Judges 10:6 “Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the sons of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; thus they forsook the LORD and did not serve Him.”
- 1 Corinthians 8:5 “For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords.”
- Monotheism:
- Isaiah 43:10 “You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.
Around 2,570 to 2,270 Years Ago, there is a confirmation of atheistic doubting as well as atheistic thinking, mainly by Greek philosophers. However, doubting gods is likely as old as the invention of gods and should destroy the thinking that belief in god(s) is the “default belief”. The Greek word is apistos (a “not” and pistos “faithful,”), thus not faithful or faithless because one is unpersuaded and unconvinced by a god(s) claim. Short Definition: unbelieving, unbeliever, or unbelief.
Expressions of Atheistic Thinking:
- Around 2,600 years ago, Ajita Kesakambali, ancient Indian philosopher, who is the first known proponent of Indian materialism. ref
- Around 2,535 to 2,475 years ago, Heraclitus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor or modern Turkey. ref
- Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, according to The Story of Civilization book series certain African pygmy tribes have no identifiable gods, spirits, or religious beliefs or rituals, and even what burials accrue are without ceremony. ref
- Around 2,490 to 2,430 years ago, Empedocles, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. ref
- Around 2,460 to 2,370 years ago, Democritus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher considered to be the “father of modern science” possibly had some disbelief amounting to atheism. ref
- Around 2,399 years ago or so, Socrates, a famous Greek philosopher was tried for sinfulness by teaching doubt of state gods. ref
- Around 2,341 to 2,270 years ago, Epicurus, a Greek philosopher known for composing atheistic critics and famously stated, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?” ref
This last expression by Epicurus, seems to be an expression of Axiological Atheism. To understand and utilize value or actually possess “Value Conscious/Consciousness” to both give a strong moral “axiological” argument (the problem of evil) as well as use it to fortify humanism and positive ethical persuasion of human helping and care responsibilities. Because value-blindness gives rise to sociopathic/psychopathic evil.
“Theists, there has to be a god, as something can not come from nothing.”
Well, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something. This does not tell us what the something that may have been involved with something coming from nothing. A supposed first cause, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something is not an open invitation to claim it as known, neither is it justified to call or label such an unknown as anything, especially an unsubstantiated magical thinking belief born of mythology and religious storytelling.
Dylan Violette (CopperViolette)
Psychology Minor and Philosophy Student who’s interested in archaeology, history, and astronomy.
Current Research Interests: The Archaic Era in North America; Long-Distance Trading Across the Americas; Eurasian Prehistory. Current Research Focus: The Eastern Archaic and the Megalithic Builders (10,000 – 1,177 B.C.E.).
Dylan Violette and I decided to blog jointly and will start doing videos together as well. Cory has had to step away from our joint endeavors we did for years, as he has issues he needs to focus on, and my friend Dylan is willing to step in and help me continue making thoughtful videos together.
Our Joint Academia Articles:
While hallucinogens are associated with shamanism, it is alcohol that is associated with paganism.
The Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries Shows in the prehistory series:
Show two: Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show tree: Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show four: Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show five: Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show six: Emergence of hierarchy, sexism, slavery, and the new male god dominance: Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!
Prehistory: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” the division of labor, power, rights, and recourses: VIDEO
Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism): VIDEO
Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves: VIEDO
Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State): VIEDO
Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism): VIEDO
I do not hate simply because I challenge and expose myths or lies any more than others being thought of as loving simply because of the protection and hiding from challenge their favored myths or lies.
The truth is best championed in the sunlight of challenge.
An archaeologist once said to me “Damien religion and culture are very different”
My response, So are you saying that was always that way, such as would you say Native Americans’ cultures are separate from their religions? And do you think it always was the way you believe?
I had said that religion was a cultural product. That is still how I see it and there are other archaeologists that think close to me as well. Gods too are the myths of cultures that did not understand science or the world around them, seeing magic/supernatural everywhere.
I personally think there is a goddess and not enough evidence to support a male god at Çatalhöyük but if there was both a male and female god and goddess then I know the kind of gods they were like Proto-Indo-European mythology.
This series idea was addressed in, Anarchist Teaching as Free Public Education or Free Education in the Public: VIDEO
Our 12 video series: Organized Oppression: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of power (9,000-4,000 years ago), is adapted from: The Complete and Concise History of the Sumerians and Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia (7000-2000 BC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szFjxmY7jQA by “History with Cy“
Show #1: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Samarra, Halaf, Ubaid)
Show #2: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power
Show #3: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Uruk and the First Cities)
Show #4: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (First Kings)
Show #5: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Early Dynastic Period)
Show #6: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power
Show #7: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Sargon and Akkadian Rule)
Show #9: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Gudea of Lagash and Utu-hegal)
Show #12: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Aftermath and Legacy of Sumer)
The “Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries”
Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ Atheist Leftist @Skepticallefty & I (Damien Marie AtHope) @AthopeMarie (my YouTube & related blog) are working jointly in atheist, antitheist, antireligionist, antifascist, anarchist, socialist, and humanist endeavors in our videos together, generally, every other Saturday.
Why Does Power Bring Responsibility?
Think, how often is it the powerless that start wars, oppress others, or commit genocide? So, I guess the question is to us all, to ask, how can power not carry responsibility in a humanity concept? I know I see the deep ethical responsibility that if there is power their must be a humanistic responsibility of ethical and empathic stewardship of that power. Will I be brave enough to be kind? Will I possess enough courage to be compassionate? Will my valor reach its height of empathy? I as everyone, earns our justified respect by our actions, that are good, ethical, just, protecting, and kind. Do I have enough self-respect to put my love for humanity’s flushing, over being brought down by some of its bad actors? May we all be the ones doing good actions in the world, to help human flourishing.
I create the world I want to live in, striving for flourishing. Which is not a place but a positive potential involvement and promotion; a life of humanist goal precision. To master oneself, also means mastering positive prosocial behaviors needed for human flourishing. I may have lost a god myth as an atheist, but I am happy to tell you, my friend, it is exactly because of that, leaving the mental terrorizer, god belief, that I truly regained my connected ethical as well as kind humanity.
Cory and I will talk about prehistory and theism, addressing the relevance to atheism, anarchism, and socialism.
At the same time as the rise of the male god, 7,000 years ago, there was also the very time there was the rise of violence, war, and clans to kingdoms, then empires, then states. It is all connected back to 7,000 years ago, and it moved across the world.
Cory Johnston: https://damienmarieathope.com/2021/04/cory-johnston-mind-of-a-skeptical-leftist/?v=32aec8db952d
The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist (YouTube)
Cory Johnston: Mind of a Skeptical Leftist @Skepticallefty
The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist By Cory Johnston: “Promoting critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics by covering current events and talking to a variety of people. Cory Johnston has been thoughtfully talking to people and attempting to promote critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics.” http://anchor.fm/skepticalleft
Cory needs our support. We rise by helping each other.
Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ @Skepticallefty Evidence-based atheist leftist (he/him) Producer, host, and co-host of 4 podcasts @skeptarchy @skpoliticspod and @AthopeMarie
Damien Marie AtHope (“At Hope”) Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist. Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Poet, Philosopher, Advocate, Activist, Psychology, and Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Historian.
Damien is interested in: Freedom, Liberty, Justice, Equality, Ethics, Humanism, Science, Atheism, Antiteism, Antireligionism, Ignosticism, Left-Libertarianism, Anarchism, Socialism, Mutualism, Axiology, Metaphysics, LGBTQI, Philosophy, Advocacy, Activism, Mental Health, Psychology, Archaeology, Social Work, Sexual Rights, Marriage Rights, Woman’s Rights, Gender Rights, Child Rights, Secular Rights, Race Equality, Ageism/Disability Equality, Etc. And a far-leftist, “Anarcho-Humanist.”
I am not a good fit in the atheist movement that is mostly pro-capitalist, I am anti-capitalist. Mostly pro-skeptic, I am a rationalist not valuing skepticism. Mostly pro-agnostic, I am anti-agnostic. Mostly limited to anti-Abrahamic religions, I am an anti-religionist.
Around 10,000 years ago, ideas went into Africa. Around 10,000 to 9,000 years ago, these ideas from the Middle East were in Siberia then moved to China and to the Americas by around 9,000 years ago. Religious ideas also left the Middle East from 9,000 to 8,000 years ago to Europe. Around 8,000 years ago, new ideas got to Ukraine but didn’t spread far. From 8,000 to 7,000 years ago, ideas again entered Africa with evolved beliefs from the Middle East. By 7,000 years ago, evolved deities from the Middle East moved again to Europe and Ukraine. And 7,000 years ago, the Siberian sun god of the sky, with a warrior culture, armed forts, and pre-kurgans, moved from Siberia to Ukraine and then returned to the Middle East around 6,000 years ago, influencing the Sumerian religious ideas. 6,000 to 5,000 years ago, these new Siberian influenced ideas from the Middle East were also in Africa. Then new evolved ideas moved back out of from Ukraine to the East by 5,500 to 5,000 years ago to Siberia, then China, and the Americas. Ideas from Ukraine went into Europe as well. Then, 5,000 to 4,000 years ago, the new ideas, now somewhat evolved again, from Siberia headed back to Europe, and so did ideas from the Middle East. ETC. This is just a rough outline to grasp some of the details, as I feel I understand them. There is a bit more, but this gives a good idea of how complicated it was.
I think the person, snakes, and two birds seen at Körtik Tepe is the oldest known Neolithic archaeological site in Turkey, more than 12,000 years old, were likely related to the Orion constellation as a shamanic figure holding a snake, referencing the use of the Milky Way to communicate with the gods and ancestors, as well as soul travel via the Milky Way. The big snake to me would reference the Milky Way itself and the two birds, either the star Venus and the moon, or some aspect of the sun, and the moon, but the sun aspect was likely not the noon sun by itself, as I see that as gaining prominence at a later date. And I think the other figures, also related to the Orion constellation, either as a deity or a deity of the stars, put Orion there. I assume, as seen at Tell Fekheriye, Syria, 11,000 to 9,000 years old, involving two standing figures on “step stools of power” that by 11,000 years ago were at least two sky deities, such as something similar to both a sky father and a sky mother deity, at this time, related to the stars, or planets (also seen as stars or star-like). But we must remember that planets were seen as star-related in mythology.
Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):
Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist, Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Jeweler, Poet, “autodidact” Philosopher, schooled in Psychology, and “autodidact” Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Pre-Historian (Knowledgeable in the range of: 1 million to 5,000/4,000 years ago). I am an anarchist socialist politically. Reasons for or Types of Atheism
My Website, My Blog, & Short-writing or Quotes, My YouTube, Twitter: @AthopeMarie, and My Email: damien.marie.athope@gmail.com