home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Gold Medal Software 2
/
Gold Medal Software Volume 2 (Gold Medal) (1994).iso
/
misc
/
origin1.arj
/
ORIGINSH.TXT
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1993-09-28
|
15KB
|
311 lines
THE ORIGINS OF MYTHOLOGY
IN THE
UPPER PALEOLITHIC CULTURES OF EURASIA
c Bennett Blumenberg 1993
Bennett Blumenberg
Reality Software
PO Box 105
Waldoboro, ME 04572
09/28/93 02:02 PM
origins.doc
Table of Contents
The Origins of Mythology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Overview of the Upper Pleistocene . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Cultural Chronology of the Upper Pleistocene . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Lunar Calendars . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Seasonal Faunal Imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Earliest Mythic Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The Bear Cult . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Cosmic Serpent and Mythic Horse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
The North German Reindeer Ritual . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
The Upper Paleolithic Shaman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
The Primary Deity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
The Goddess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
The God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Burial Rituals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Asvamedha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 27
Continuity into the Mesolithic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
In Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
THE ORIGINS OF MYTHOLOGY
How early does mythic perception begin? How early can
mythic perception begin? From the late Homo erectus site of
Becov in Czechoslovakia c. 250,000 B.C. has come a quartzite
rubbing stone and a striated piece of ochre lying on a floor
with a spread of red ochre powder. Yet, ochre can be used to
tan hides, staunch insect bites and treat stomach wounds and
so may have no metaphorical significance (Marshak 1991: 381,
Blanc (1961). Others have seen evidence for ritual cannabalism
in the nature (which is interpreted as deliberate) of damage
around the foraman magnum at the base of skulls in both Homo
erectus individuals from Peking and archaic Homo sapiens in
continental Europe c.250,000 years ago and also in
Neanderthals from the site of Monte Circeo in Italy. Debate
over what such skull damage actually implies has gone on for
nearly a century with no resolution. Some Neanderthal tribes
did bury their dead, and at Shanidar in Iraq this was done
with flowers (Soleki 1971). It is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that Homo sapiens neanderthalensis had a conscious
conception of an afterlife and deliberately designed burial
rituals to facilitate the passing from this `world' to another
realm. But the details of narrative and rites will forever
elude us because the Neanderthals did not create any pictorial
art or iconographic vocabulary. A good introduction to the
problem of the ultimate origns of religion may be found in
Pfeiffer (1982)
Many researchers have noted the occurence of mythic
iconography in the cave art and sculpture of the European
Upper Paleolithic.1 See Cambell (1988), Gimbutas (1991) and
Jelínek (1975) for recent examples of such discussions.
However these books provide little in the way of
interpretation and analysis beyond noting similarites with the
mytho-poetics of the Neolithic and later times. They infer
meaning for the Upper Paleolithic by the process of backward
extrapolation. Such a process is filled with pitfalls because
it assumes a mind set in Upper Paleolithic cultures equivalent
to the later time period that is used as the base line for
backward extrapolation. Neolithic mythologies were lived out
within the context of the agricultural revolution, permanent
settlements that practiced agriculture and animal husbandry as
primary food production activities. Furthermore by the
seventh millenium B.C., several such settlements in the Near
East had attained the stature of towns with stratified proto-
urban societies and populations of several thousand.
Activities in the Neolithic which bear little relationship to
the lifestyles of tribal hunter- gatherers in the Upper
Paleolithic include a minor role relegated to big game hunting
(and thereby the eclipse of the associated myth and rituals),
metallurgy, weaving, pottery and the concentration of wealth
and trading activities in such towns where a class structured
society may also be reliably inferred. If we take society to
be structured by mytho-poetics, then the myths and rituals of
the Neolithic might be assumed to be quite different in
philosophical content than those of the Upper Paleolithic,
whatever iconographic similarities may be catalogued by
archeologists. If backward extrapolation is unacceptable,
then the more conventional position that mythic narratives
`reflect' human created history and societal structures leads
to the same conclusion of an unavoidable philosophical-
religious gap between the Upper Paleolithic and later times.2
Surprsingly, research will reveal the gap to be much smaller
than imagined, in spite of the ecological and cultural
dissimilarites between the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic.
Neolithic myth has its origins in the Upper Paleolithic; it
did not manifest de novo. Important similarities must exist
but their discovery must be approached with caution. The form
of mythic narrative embodies an enormous amount of structure
generated by the specifics of social structure, food
procurement strategies, local ecology and the history of a
people. Upon the objective skeleton of universal archetypes
is built layer upon layer from group specific narrative and
ritual that allows the initiated access to sacred time. Only
when undertaking such journeys, can human beings expand their
potential and tap the resources of supranatural dimensions.
One researcher stands out has having chosen to
tackle Upper Paleolithic symbolism on its own terms.
Alexander Marshak (1991) did not bring Neolithic or Classical
narrative to his analysis, although when his methods yielded
similarites they were noted. His conclusions are based
primarily upon what the imagery itself yields when scrutinzied
in isolation without reliance upon the metaphors and
narratives provided by cultures that had writing, and indulged
in intellectual philosophy. Some of his insights are, in
retrospect, not unusual. Others would have been difficult to
imagine before his research was published.
OVERVIEW OF THE UPPER PLEISTOCENE
The term `Pleistocene' refers to a geological era while
the appellation `Paleolithic' designates a culture in which
stone tools predominate. The last ice age was a succession of
glacial retreats and advances punctuated by brief warm periods
known as interglacials. Professional geologists call this
period the Würm glaciation. It began perhaps 125,000 years
ago and ended in most regions by 10,000 B.C. At times of
maximum glacial advance, it produced some of the coldest
temperatures the northern hemisphere has ever endured. During
the first two thirds of the Upper Pleistocene, the
Neanderthals evolved and dominated human populations of
Europe, the Near East and North Africa. They are formally
given subspecies status by paleoanthropologists - Homo sapiens
neanderthalensis. They were of stocky body build, with facial
features that we would not deem attractive today: brow ridges;
big, forward thrusting noses, and large, elongated skulls.
Neanderthals were not primitive or stupid, contrary to the
popular portrayals of only a few years years ago. Much of
their body shape can be explained as an adaptation to living
both in caves and the outdoors in an arctic environment.
Eskimos also show a stocky body build with short arms and legs
compared to other races. The average brain size of
Neanderthals was actually a bit larger than our own! They
were big game hunters, utilized fire to stay warm, made many
types of stone tools and wore skin clothing. There is a
controversy as to whether or not their vocal anatomy could
support the complex vocalizations necessary for spoken
language. However, it is difficult to imagine how the
complexity of their material culture could be taught and
passed on without verbalization. Of their more abstract
thinking we know next to nothing; the recreations in popular
novels and films are based on speculation and surmise, not
archeological evidence. However, it clear that they buried
their dead and, and in at least one locality, did so with
flowers (Leakey 1981; Soleki 1971; Wolpoff 1980).
About 30,000 years ago, Europe saw a rapid intrusion of a
taller, more slender people whose skull anatomy was identical
to our own. They are termed full modern humankind: Homo
sapiens sapiens. Their geographic origin is still not clear,
although most theories suggest the Near East and/or North
Africa. The earliest racial variants of our own species,
which are designated archaic Homo sapiens, evolved in sub-
Saharan Africa at least 250,000 years ago. We have no idea of
the skin color of either Neanderthals or modern H. sapiens
because no fossilized skin has been found, which would be the
only source of direct evidence. It is generally surmised that
both subspecies would have been light skinned in Europe
because that maximizes the amount of vitamin D that can be
synthesized in a climate with reduced intensity of sunlight.
Obviously, modern man evolved dark skinned races in the
tropics, perhaps to minimize the danger of second or third
degree sunburn. The culture that Homo sapiens sapiens brought
into Europe (or quickly evolved once there) exhibits a
complexity heretofore unseen in tools, clothing, habitation
and art. This complexity is adaptive because many more
solutions may be brought to bear upon the problems of survival
in a harsh climate. These first totally modern humans also
created the first art which articulated a variety in form and
imagery of amazing complexity as will be explored in this
document. The inference seems unavoidable that the brain of
H. sapiens sapiens, even though slighty smaller than that of
the Neanderthals, was reorganized and rewired by evolution
(mutations) in a manner that promoted the creation of new,
highly complex behaviors (Blumenberg 1983). There is little
evidence for conflict with the Neanderthals and in that sense,
Jean Auel's novel Clan of the Cave Bear and the film based on
her novel, are accurate. The Neanderthals disappeared in a few
thousand years, perhaps due to a combination of intermarriage
and quiet cultural extinction.
CULTURAL CHRONOLOGY OF THE UPPER PLEISTOCENE
Marshak (1991: 96-97) presents a good chart which
summarizes the progression of cultures throughout the latter
part of the Upper Pleistocene which this diagram is based upon.
The Aurignacian began c.30,000 B.C. and the Final Magdalenian
ended in all regions by c. 11,000 B.C. Within this span of the
Upper Paleolithic, the timing of each culture is variable.
For example, the Gravettian mammoth hunters did not appear in
each culture region at the same
time.
UPPER PALEOLITHIC CULTURE
CULTURE REGION
East Central Franco- Mediterranean
Cantabrian
Soviet Union Czechoslovakia France Eastern Spain
Germany Northwest Spain Italy
CULTURAL PROGRESSION
Aurignacian Aurignacian Aurignacian (France) Aurignacian
to to Perigordian (nw Sp) to
East Gravettian East Gravettian Solutrean Perigordian(It)
(Gr)
to (`Pavlovian'-Czech)
to to to
Magdalenian Magdalenian Solutrean (e.Sp)
to Epi-Gravettian (It)
Hamburgian (Gr)
to to to
Ahrensburg (Gr)
Levant Magdalenian (e.Sp)
Romellian (It)
ARE YOU INTRIGUED? ARE YOU INTERESTED? IF SO REGISTER AND
RECEIVE THE COMPLETE REPORT (32 pp.) ABOUT MARSHAK'S RESEARCH AND
ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ORIGIN OF MYTHOLOGY! See register.txt!