Professional Documents
Culture Documents
IN THE
UPPER PALEOLITHIC CULTURES
OF EURASIA
Bennett Blumenberg
ANCIENT HISTORY and RELIGION TIMELINE PROJECT
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10/13/2006 6:02 PM
1
Table of Contents
Lunar Calendars . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Goddess . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Burial Rituals . . . . . . . . . 38
Asvamedha . . . . . . . . . . .. 40
In Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . 47
References . . . . . . . . . . . 50
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2
The Origins of Mythology
1The major cultural regions of this period in Europe are the Mediterranean (eastern
Spain, Italy), Franco-Cantabrian (France - particularly the cave-rich Dordogne area,
northwest Spain), Central Europe Czechoslovakia, Germany) and eastern Russia.
3
practiced agriculture and an animal husbandry that followed upon the
domestication of several species. Furthermore by the seventh millennium
B.C., several 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 towns where a class
structured society may 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
2
Upper Paleolithic and later times.
2 Cutting across differences and regardless of which societies are being compared, are
the archetypes. As defined by Jung (1991), archetypes are those timeless, immortal
images of fundamental psychic processes that continually re-appear in cultures of the
most outwardly diverse taxonomies. Important cross cultural similarities in archetypes
have been thoroughly investigated. This observation does not contradict the differences
presumed to characterize the myths of the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic because
mythic narrative is not populated solely by archetypes. Much mythic content reflects
the history, ecology and specific traditions of the ‘people’ This content is layered upon a
foundation that is formed from the continual re-emergence of universal archetypes. A
complex diversity in narrative and genealogy is thereby anchored to cross cultural,
universal ‘truths’.
4
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 similarities to such data, they were noted. His
conclusions are based primarily upon what the imagery itself yields when
scrutinized 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.
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5
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).
6
that the brain of H. sapiens sapiens, even though slightly 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 rapidly in most localities within in a few
thousand years after H. sapiens sapiens entered their territory, perhaps
due to a combination of intermarriage and quiet cultural extinction. There
seems to be no fossil evidence for Neanderthals after 22,000 B.C, most
populations had disappeared as such a few thousand years earlier.
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7
UPPER PALEOLITHIC CULTURE
CULTURE REGION
CULTURAL PROGRESSION
⇓
⇓ Ahrensburg (Gr) ⇓ Levant Magdalenian (Sp)
Romellian (It)
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8
Lunar Calendars
3 See particularly the illustrations of those from the Aurignacian sites of Abri Lartet
(France) and the Abri Blanchard (France) (Marshak 1991: Fig. 11-14; 1-10).
9
doubt. All animal activities are time factored, simply because time
passes, the future is forever arriving. The reality of time factoring is
objective physics and does not depend upon human awareness or
consciousness. Until Marshak’s work, many archeologists believed the
sets of marks he chose to study were nothing but the aimless doodles of
bored toolmakers. What Marshak (1991: 90) has uncovered is the
intuitive discovery of mathematical sets and the application of those sets
to the construction of a calendar. That these lunar calendars have
meaning is unavoidable. Bone is the preferred medium because it allows
for easy transport and preservation of the calendars for future
contemplation. Later study is further ensured if the calendar is inscribed
upon an object of utilitarian or ritual value. Indeed, many lunar calendars
are found on such objects confirming this decision as deliberate in order
to maximizing their long term survival.
4 Proton decay in the nucleus of the atom will occur regardless of whether or not we are
around to study it. If the tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to witness, it
has, nonetheless, fallen. Etc.
10
this complexity. However, nine other lunar notations of this sort have
been found on bones from various late Magdalenian sites in France.
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11
than 100 miles from the seacoast. Are these animals a mythic image
unrelated to those ‘real’ seals swimming off the coast and their use as
food? Is the baton, which is a sacred and to be passed between tribes for
trade or ritual reasons contain mythic or nonmythic images? The same
baton also contains two serpents, one male (with a visible penis) and the
other female. Is this a depiction of the divine brother-sister pair who
create the universe as cosmic snakes? Or are they just a pair of common
grass snakes? An adult male salmon with a morphology typical of
spawning time (hook on lower jaw) is also engraved on this baton as are
‘sketches’ of ibex, flowers and seedlings. And, there is no lunar calendar
present. Overall, the imagery on this baton is that of the renewal of food
resources in the spring, an important documentation of critical local
resources that respond to the seasons and their own migration cycles.
The hole in the baton most likely served for attachment to a belt with a
leather thong (Marshak 1991: 169-172).
12
13
resting on one side and a stiff-legged fawn on the other. A bone found
at the late Upper Paleolithic site of Paglicci (Italy) shows a snake stealing
14
eggs from a bird’s nest. None of these examples is accompanied by a
lunar calendar but several others are. From the final Magdalenian of
France, an ivory plaque from La Vache shows a molting bison and is
accompanied by a lunar notation which indicates the two months of the
15
spring-early summer molt. Marshak’s examination of almost every
collection of Paleolithic art revealed many late summer images of bison,
ibex and stag in rut and seasonal images of bison and musk ox molting.
Images were also carved of bull bison butting and, in one instance, two
mammoths doing likewise. Bears and cave lions are almost never
depicted, perhaps because their ferocity when stalked made them
unusually dangerous to hunt. They were, as a result, rare dietary
16
items. They had great importance, however, as totemic and clan
symbols and guardians of the cave. The evidence for a Bear Ritual
incorporated into an initiation process for young men will be discussed
below. Cave lions would be important because they function as ‘spotters’
for human hunters because as large predators, they follow herds of
game.
14 Ibid: Fig. 77. Detailed analysis revealed that the nest was engraved over the duck
and that later the snake image was added (Marshak 1991: 184).
13
Paleolithic hunter-gathers are sensing, intuitively, that the endless
renewal of life in the spring is often accompanied by the reappearance of
snakes and that the shedding of a snake’s skin is a prelude to the
emergence of a reinvigorated, energized reptile. The curved horns of
male sheep and antelopes signal male virility, which was further
17
emphasized symbolically during the rutting season. If such thoughts
were possible for late Paleolithic humans, then symbolism and simple
metaphor, in the sense of one to one correspondences, are in evidence
and are being consciously employed. Furthermore, such thinking reveals
the intuitive discovery of an area of symbolic mathematics called
‘mapping’, although there is obviously no conscious intellectual,
formularization here. These cognitive creations are the essential first
step on a path that leads to the anthropomorphism of natural phenomena
and complex mytho-poetic narratives which detail the lives and
adventures of the gods. The discussion below will establish the very high
probability that people of this era could think and reflect in this manner.
A metaphysical context was part of their conscious deliberation and it
appears to have structured many artistic creations.
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14
A bone from the Upper Magdalenian site of Les Eyzies (France)
contains fascinating images done in a ‘quick sketch’ style. To the right of
what may be alder trees, nine humans carrying either sticks or spears
19
approach a bison. Are they a hunting party or participants in a ritual?
Is a mimed sacrifice hinted at (Marshak 1991: 206)? The trees are bare
so late autumn or very late winter is the probable season.
19Ibid: Fig. 94 & 95. The symbolism of the alder tree is ancient and is explained in
detail in Graves (1960: 169-173). My mention of this reference in no way implies that
such metaphor was in operation among the people who engraved this scene.
15
Marshak (1991: 218) sees here “the integrated beginnings of arithmetic,
astronomy, writing, abstracted symbolism and notation.” Such a
conclusion seems unwarranted. There is no arithmetic here; set theory
yes but little evidence of arithmetic operations. Writing, even in an
embryonic form, is not present and there may be no abstracted
symbolism. Astronomical knowledge, however, is certainly in evidence.
What is impressive is the integration of a time scale (lunar calendar) with
moments of significance; “images appear as signs above their associated
sets of marks” (Marshak 1991: Fig. 104). Conceptually, this baton is the
ancestor of Greco-Roman calendars, the Scandinavian rune clock, the
English Clogg Almanac, the Siberian (Yamut) calendar and the record
sticks of American Indians (Marshak 1991: 218).
More mysterious are several paintings from the well known caves in
the French Dordogne at Lascaux which depict animals accompanied by
quickly sketched plant forms, some of which are attached to their bodies.
Most researchers quickly identify them as spears but I agree with
Marshak that they do not look like spears or phalluses; they are curved
23
and branched. I also agree with Marshak’s heavy criticism of those who
see sexual connotations in nearly every symbol in these caves.
16
At the Middle Magdalenian site of Labastide in the French Pyrenees
comes an engraved stone depicting a fish with renewed belly (to indicate
pregnancy) below which is a snake. Several sets of darts were drawn
over the animals. There are three sets of arcs along the edge of the
25
stone. Marshak notes that snakes are almost never depicted killed with
darts in Paleolithic art. Are we looking at the precursors of the Fish and
Snake Goddess (cf Gimbutas 1989)?
Marshak does not speculate in this manner but he does ask the
question: “Were the animals renewed to be ‘rekilled’ in a series of rites or
ceremonies?” (Marshak 1991: 230). Rituals involving the ‘symbolic’
hunting of animals could be performed several ways. 1) The ritual artifact
could be a small, portable bone, stone, slate or baton which was carried
about, consulted and marked whenever necessary. 2) Caves were entered
because the ritual objects were the nontransportable cave paintings and
their location determined the site of the rituals. Many animals in cave art
show spears or darts over the body that were added to the image at
various times. Some also show duplication (renewal) of body parts added
over time. Cave rites would be physically difficult to perform and time
consuming because many chambers containing the art are well back from
the mouth and difficult to enter. Furthermore we must mention the
likelihood that caves were consciously selected as sites for the most
important rituals (and their associated pictorial art) because they were
seen to be the womb of the Goddess as Earth Mother. Cave art was likely
reserved for only the most important ceremonies (Marshak 1991: 231).
17
233, italics mine). The abstraction of the specific to the generalized, the
creation of categories, is the first all important step in conceptualizing a
philosophy or metaphysics which rests upon a recognition of suprahuman
forces that can be at least partially understood. In later times, these
classes will become anthropomorphized as attributes of all-embracing
deities, an evolutionary process that culminates in the Classical Cultures
of Europe and Asia.
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18
baton of deer antler was found that shows the head of a bear spouting
28
blood in which are embedded spears (darts). Forward of the head are
the eyes and beak of a water bird, as if to indicate their arrival in late
spring at the same time as bears come down into river valleys to feed on
salmon and thereby expose themselves to be caught for the spring bear
ritual.
19
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30 There is a possibility that the horse was domesticated in the Middle Paleolithic (!) in
at least one Neanderthal locality and in the Upper Paleolithic in the Dordogne region of
France. The evidence has to do with a controversial analysis of the wear on fossil horse
teeth and details of engraved horse images (Bahn 1976, 1978, 1980; Cook 1980;
Littauer and Bahn 1980). If true, a question of considerable magnitude is raised. How
and why was this knowledge lost for several thousand years only to be rediscovered
anew by the Kurgan Culture of southwest Russian in the fifth millennium B.C.? We can
sidestep the debate because the direct evidence for the primacy of the horse in Upper
Paleolithic myth does not rely upon the possibility of its domestication. The unique
contribution of the Indo-Europeans to horse mythology seems to be extreme
chauvinism.
20
asvamedha, the Indo-European horse ritual, which is best known from
ancient India, that conferred sovereignty upon the king. Does the rite
have origins in the Paleolithic? Does this particular process by which
divine power is transferred to the human ruler originate in the mytho-
poetics of the Upper Paleolithic? Such a hypothesis is not as far fetched as
it might seem at first glance. The Bear Cults that survived into the 19th
century in the French Pyrenees, and into the 20th century with the Ainu
of Japan, are extraordinary survivals derived from Paleolithic times.
21
never carry the potency of opposite sex power transference, is avoided.
It is not necessary to domesticate the horse, in the usual sense of
inducing enough docility for the animal to be ridden or used a draft
animal, in order to calm a mare enough to participate in the investiture of
leadership ritual. Bears were caged and calmed for long periods until the
day of ritual when they would be deliberately aroused. The controversial
evidence for the domestication of the horse in the Upper Paleolithic need
not be accepted for some form of horse ritual to exist that transformed a
human chieftain into a semi-divine being by transferring power from the
Goddess to her appointed consort on earth via the most powerful of
sexual/fertility metaphors. There is virtually no evidence in Upper
Paleolithic art for the anthropomorphization of the horse deity. When
deities revealed themselves in animal form, conceptualization and
imagery remained embedded in the animal morphology and ecological
phenomena of the natural world. However, the Goddess also revealed
herself directly in human form as will be discussed later.
22
regenerative symbol and is therefore a metaphor for those snakes who
31
live in chambers underground.
A small stone has been found at Les Trois Fréres which shows an
32
engraved salmon within which is the head of a mare or colt. Is this
evidence of a primal Fish Goddess (manifestation of the Goddess as Life
Giver) giving rise to the Mare Goddess? A Fish Goddess could impregnate
a Horse Goddess , or mate with a Horse God, and bring forth the Cosmic
Serpent which will then lay the Cosmic Egg from which springs the
universe. (The Cosmic Serpent may be male, female or androgynous.) Or,
is this image merely a natural history record of spring when fish are
returning and mares are giving birth? I have no doubt that this
speculation will strike many readers as verging on the outrageous.
However, as you will read below, the direct iconographic evidence for
mythic statements of equal complexity in the European Upper Paleolithic
is not hard to find.
23
are an antelope and bison head associated with a schematic serpent,
wavy tri-lines and sets of linear dots. Another knife shows a horse with a
triple arc on its body, a tri-line suggesting water, sets of dots and other
signs difficult to interpret. An overview of the elements comprising such
images makes it almost impossible not to ascribe some metaphorical
significance to the composition. To not do so, would require one to
ignore all but the easily identified animals which are rendered in a
naturalistic style.
24
owner is that the animals are not drawn in the ‘quick sketch’ style so
common with engraved compositions but are executed in a finely
articulated, naturalistic approach. When a calendar is present, it might
serve as either a reminder when certain rituals are to be performed or as
a record of those acted out in the recent past; the former function seems
most probable.
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25
The Upper Paleolithic Shaman
Three examples from Les Trois Fréres are males with exposed
genitals. One wears antlers and a tail; the other two wear bison masks.
37
All are in a dance-like pose. The depiction of ithyphallic men is a
generalized symbol for fertility comparable to the pregnant woman.
The site of Mas d‘Azil (near the French Pyrenees) has yielded a
bone disc which has an image on one face of a masked dancer who is
oppoised to the paw of a bear with an associated horse image. On the
39
other face is a naked dancer with a stick on its shoulder baiting a bear.
This figure is ithyphallic and has a dog-like or bear-like face suggesting a
mask or spirit guardian/clan totem.
26
From the Late Magdalenian site of La Vache in the foothills of the
French Pyrenees comes a thin bone fragment which Marshak (1991: 275)
believes is the remains of a ritual object; it shows no signs of wear. It is
too narrow to have ‘faces’ and is engraved all around the surface. Six
hunched over horned figures with bird heads follow a stallion which has a
40
spear in its stomach and blood spurting from its nose. One figure is
ithyphallic. Quite noticeable are the two styles of engraving in this
composition; the presumed human figures are done in ‘quick sketch’, the
stallion in a careful naturalistic manner. Are the figures hunched over
because they assumed a reverential attitude? A crude pentagon above
them might be the sun or moon. Under the horse’s tail is a bear image
facing front. Other later additions include a fish and a wounded (?)
auroch under the horse’s head. Three angles at the right might be water
symbolism.
27
realistically drawn, the shaman is quickly done in a stylized manner. “The
position of the shaman’s hand points between the horns of the bison, who
apparently turns his head to gaze upon his wound, a wound of such
finality as to be his death. Could it be that the shaman - notably the only
human figure in the whole cave - has gone to contact the soul of the
bison in his death-moment, to learn from this animal the mystery of
death and rebirth? Is this an image of a shaman in a trance who during
his ‘soul journey’ battled a mythological bison? Is the figure not a flesh
and blood shaman of the tribe but a mythological ancestor - a Dreamtime
ancestor - killing a mythological bison? (cf. Marshak 1991: 278). Human
men with bird masks (‘bird heads’) are found in several Upper Paleolithic
42
compositions. Are they shamans dedicated to the Bird Goddess? To
the left of these figures is a two horned rhinoceros moving to the left. The
dung of the rhinoceros [which is to the left of the shaman] directly facing
the bird [on the shaman’s staff ] is given such prominence as to suggest
that, even in the act of apparently passing out of the life cycle, the dung
still contains the seeds of fruit or grain that will begin a new cycle”
(Baring and Cashford 1991: 37).
28
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29
of these times had no understanding of the reproductive function of sex
false? In these figurines we have a form that is totally concentrated upon
the depiction of male and female fertility within a single body.44 A series
of eight small beads from this same site belong to this category for they
are in the form of large pendulous breasts attached to a phallic-like
45
neck. The marks on their surfaces have not been deciphered.
44 I would like to thank my wife Leslie for calling attention to the likelihood that the
earliest conception of the primal deity in tribal societies could have been androgynous,
in part because the social structures of most tribal societies are neither overtly
patriarchal nor matriarchal.
48 Ibid: Fig. 185. Marshak fails to recognize this figurine as another example of a vulva
at the base of a phallic-like torso.
30
the ‘origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind (cf
Jaynes, 1976). That search encompasses an enormous range of
possibilities, from those that require no training or special knowledge and
thus open to anyone (such as sexual intercourse - ‘making love’ or the
taking of easily obtainable drugs) to experiences so difficult to obtain they
49
are accessible only to the most advanced spiritual adepts.
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The Goddess
49 The nostalgia of present-day intellectual Unicameral Minds, for the state of psychic
unity that is believed to be possessed by the ‘noble savage’, is a thread of philosophy
with a history more than two millennia deep. Few of these fantasies are accompanied by
the sober realization that the Unicameral Mind is forever conscious, and has acquired an
extraordinary creative process that depends upon a dialogue with the ‘analog I’ (Jaynes
1976). The price we pay as Unicameral Minds is severe loneliness and alienation from
ourselves, others and the gods. The prize we gain is a much greater understanding of
the ‘world’. The challenge is not to attempt a retreat to the now unobtainable earlier
state of the Bicameral Mind, or to become immobilized by our alienation, but to integrate
our understanding, loneliness, fears and loves within our creativity. A serious measure
of happiness is then possible.
31
long-range image? The possibilities are large” (Marshak 1991: 283).
Such are the metaphors which can be manipulated by the artist. Where
lies the reality of the complete myth is a different matter and a problem
not amenable to the usual sort of analysis. Marshak is repeatedly
befuddled when attempting to confront this interpretative challenge but in
all fairness, we must remember that he is a laboratory archeologist and
not a mythographer or historian of religion.
Female imagery from the Upper Paleolithic falls into several rather
distinct categories. Rather uncommon are realistic depictions of full
breasted and possibly pregnant figures as seen in the broken mammoth
50
ivory torso from Aurignacian site of Brassempouy (France) . A
naturalistic torso of a young pregnant woman carved in hematite has
51
been found in the East Gravettian site of Petrkovice (Moravia). A famous
and tiny (2”) mammoth ivory head of a young woman was found at Dolní
Vêstonice that exhibits superb realism with details of hair style and
52
features that suggest a portrait. There appears to have been a
sculptural tradition of naturalism which may have been devoid of
metaphor or mythic context and intentionally produced naturalistic
portraits.
32
of stomachs and there is a double angle sign on its rump. Marshak
(1991: 328) sees fourteen separate rituals or years represented here. It
is interesting to note that both these horses and their associated ‘P’ signs
are in small chambers with difficult access suggesting a very private
ritual, perhaps reserved for only a few very advanced adults who may
have comprised one small group.
33
shoulders. This same figure also wears collar, elbow and wrist bracelets
60
of twined material and is both fat and pregnant. The so-called ‘Venus’
figurines made by the Gravettian hunters of the Russian plain also show
personal decoration of twined cord. A Gravettian mammoth ivory figurine
from Avdeevo in the Ukraine wears a head band, body band, arm bands,
61
bracelets and possibly cap all made of twined perishable material.
63 Additional research has revealed that these Moravian Goddess figurines and many
thousands of others that usually depict animals are made of nothing more than loess,
wind deposited silt and water. They are deliberately only partially fired so as to render
them highly likely to shatter when put in a fire. Soffer, et. al. (1993) conclude that these
figurines were deliberately exploded as one act in an important ritual.
34
From the late Magdalenian site of Fontalés (France) comes a foot
long limestone slab with two quickly engraved female figures. One has a
circle within her abdomen. Also present at this site are the head of a
stag, a second and possible stag head and bird (?goose) head, each
65
associated with sets of complex linear marks. Is this one figure with an
egg inside the rendition of a pregnant woman or the Goddess nurturing
the Cosmic Egg? A similar composition is seen on a stone slab from the
66
late Magdalenian sites of Lalinde and La Gare de Couze both in France.
Such impressionistic images are found over a wide area from the
Dordogne of France to Germany north of the Alps. From the Final
Magdalenian site of Hohlenstein in Bavaria comes a stone slab with 11
67
such female figures.
From the late French Magdalenian site of Abri Mège in the Dordogne
comes another ‘one of a kind’ female image. Engraved upon a bone point
is a figure that is nearly impossible to describe. This figure, which
Marshak (1991: 315) calls “the abstracted goddess”, had a tiny head,
fiddle-shaped body, squared shoulders, and double oval vulva. What is
especially striking, however, is the presence of meanders or serpentine
35
forms and chevrons on the body, a circumstance which immediately calls
to mind fundamental symbols of the Goddess in Neolithic times
(Gimbutas 1989). Meanders and serpentine forms symbolize the waters
of life, the goddess’s life giving fluids (moisture, rain) and the cosmic
serpent of eternally renewing life. This figure appears to establish that
these symbols of the Goddess have their origin in the last Upper
Paleolithic hunter-gatherer cultures of the Dordogne region of France!
For all his distaste for cross cultural comparisons and backward
extrapolation from the Neolithic, Marshak (1991: 314-315) cannot resist
the compelling message in this image. “Could it be that the origins of the
time-factored, multi-storied agricultural ‘mother goddess’ appear in the
Upper Paleolithic, thousands of years before agriculture? Could the time
factored lore and rites of the ‘goddess’ be one of the cognitive, intellectual
threads leading to and preparing the way for agriculture? Could these
decorated images from Mezin represent this broad general aspect of the
female myth [emphasis mine]?” Yes, of course, and Marshak should be
proud, for it was his research, conducted persistently and alone for more
than two decades that has established such origins for an early,
important female deity.
36
orders is acknowledged” (Baring and Cashford 1991: 6). She was
originally painted in red ochre and there is a ‘Y’ mark on her thigh. “The
phases of the moon were the same for Old Stone Age man as they are for
us; so also were the processes of the womb. It may therefore be that the
initial observations that gave birth in the mind of man to a mythology of
one mystery informing earthly and celestial things was the recognition of
an accord between the two ‘time-factored’ orders: the celestial order of
the waxing moon and the earthly order of the womb” (Campbell 1988:
68). Then again, perhaps not because the scientific facts of human
development during pregnancy are not believed to have been understood
at this time. Indeed perhaps they were only first understood by a handful
of brilliant physicians in ancient Egypt.
Nearby are reliefs of animals and the broken figure of a man who
looks as if he is about to hurl a lance. Does this scene depict the
Mistress of the Animals surrounded by her flock and overseeing the hunt?
“... then it is possible ... that the ‘goddess’ with the horn is a forerunner
of later Neolithic, agricultural variants. She was the goddess who was
called the ‘Mistress of the Animals’, had a lunar mythology, and had
associated with her signs, symbols, and attributes, including the lunar
crescent, the crescent horns of the bull, the fish, the angle-signs of water,
the vulva, the naked breasts, the plant, flower, bird, tree and snake. This
later goddess was associated in story with a consort or mate who was
also part of the seasonal and calendric mythology, a hunter of bull and
lion, stag and ibex, as well as of mythical animals whether in the
labyrinth, the depths or in the sky. In the story, this hunter was often
the ‘sun’ to the goddess’ ‘moon’” (Marshak 1991: 336). A Mistress of the
Animals could contain the Goddess as Life Giver, particularly if depicted
with full breasts, possibly pregnant, and associated with the cosmic
waters of life, the life renewing serpent, fish, bull, plants and flowers.
Her most favored animals become her epiphanies, her manifestations in
the ‘world’: bull, horse, stag and ibex. Ceremonies would be structured
on a timetable provided by the only possible reliable and understandable
69
reference calendar - the moon. Some ceremonies would be conducted
in a ‘womb’, the most inaccessible chambers of the deep inner recesses of
caves. Other rituals would be outside under the sky with arms raised.
Food giving and life giving would also be celebrated by ceremonial
hunting and sacrifice. Initiation would include combat with her
69 The women of Siberian tribal peoples keep a lunar calendar to track pregnancy which
is 10 lunar months. The Yurok Indians of California also had a 10 month lunar calendar
to track pregnancy. They dropped a stick into a basket each day. A ‘month’ stick went
into a second basket until a count of 10 was reached. Apparently, they could predict
births to within a day (Marshak 1991: 337, footnote 19).
37
epiphanies, for then the Goddess’s power and strength would flow into
the young men as they passed the test for adulthood. The Bear Cult
discussed above is a prime example of mytho-poetics structuring a ritual.
We must remember that the Bear Cult need not be considered simply a
test for masculine of strength and courage but could also have provided
the ritual context during which the Bear Goddess transferred some of her
power to those worthy of receiving it.
WWWWWWWW
The God
I
n the early 1990s, the earliest therianthropic figure known to
history was an extraordinary lion-headed human executed with
great sophistication and advanced technique that cames from the
70
Aurignacian Period at Hohlenstein, Germany, c.30,000 B.C. This same
site produced a stylized, graceful ivory sculpture of a horse. The
aesthetic sophistication and metaphoric complexity of the imagery was
married to the highest level of professional craftsmanship and the result
is breathtaking; it serves to denote a fully developed style at 30,000 B.C.!
Where are its precursors and how did it develop? Such depth of creativity
and sophisticated sculptural technique does not emerge de novo; there
must be a chain of development that stretches back in time. The concept
of a major male deity appears to be as ancient as the Goddess herself
contrary to the usual analysis of such matters, although his depiction
(manifestation) is very rare.
WWWWWWWW
38
Burial Rituals
39
WWWWWWWW
Asvamedha
73 Ibid: 189.
40
in the Upper Paleolithic.) Does this fragment of reindeer bone come from
the only late Upper Paleolithic locality that had such myths and therefore
practiced the ritual suggested? Or, is the explanation much more prosaic
in that the juxtaposition of the woman and bull bison is merely fortuitous?
There are incomplete portions of two rectangles to the left of the ritual
scene which suggest pens or cages for animals. If any of these proposed
variations upon the scenario is true, male thunder-sky gods are not the
sole invention of the Indo-Europeans who first appeared in the 5th
millennium B.C. This possibility is very important for it would challenge a
large body of theory and analysis that places the origin of such deities,
and the male dominated, aggressive, war-like societies they dominated,
squarely in the Neolithic of southwest Russia. Imagine male deities co-
equal in status with a supreme Goddess, their combined mytho-poetics
structuring a society in which the power between the sexes was more or
less equal.
74 Ibid: 191.
75Ibid: Fig. 192. Marshak (1991) repeatedly calls such forms ‘harpoons’ but then
wonders if these objects might be plants.
41
Also hinting at ritual are the hand prints which from Aurignacian
times onwards occur on cave walls, often with joints missing, suggesting
injury incurred during an initiation rite during in which finger joints were
amputated such as was common with native Australians.
A bone fragment from the Late Magdalenian site of Le Morin
(France) shows two hands with fingers upward and the hands open as in
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adoration. Above the hands are inverted ‘V’s which might symbolize
water or rain. Are we looking at a ritual invoking rain from the heavens?
A tiny figurine carved in reindeer antler found at the Middle Magdalenian
site of Laugerie Basse depicts a figure with arms raised in supplication or
77
adoration.
42
long, linear, liquid stream issues from the engraved vent” (Marshak 1991:
332).
43
WWWWWWWW
The Mesolithic preceded the Neolithic and in some regions lasted for
several thousand years. It was the transitional period to the Neolithic.
For all but the tribes in far northern latitudes where the herds of big game
44
continued, the Mesolithic was lived out in a more benign climate than the
severe cold of the late Upper Paleolithic. Big game hunting was
opportunistic rather than systematic and a much great diversity of food
resources were exploited. The Neolithic is defined by the presence of
agriculture.
45
bog at Resen in Jutland (Denmark). The first characteristic that strikes
an observer is that this tiny bear is obviously cute! It is covered with a
geometric patterning of nets, ladders, and zigzags which are all basic
83
elements of Goddess iconography (Gimbutas 1989). Marshak’s (1991:
354) analysis determined that the pattern on the right side of the muzzle
was made months or years after that on the left. Furthermore, 15
different patterns made by 15 different tools are present on this bear. It
was clearly intended to be kept, handled and used over time, most likely
at special ritual events.
46
The predominant early Mesolithic Culture of the Near East is the
86
Natufian Culture of Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt c.8500 B.C. A
Natufian necklace composed of pendants in the form of two breasts is
strikingly similar to those found at the East Gravettian site of Dolní
Vêstonice (Czechoslovakia) and at the megalithic site of Aveyron in
87
France. At the headwaters of the Nile is the Mesolithic site of Ishango
which also dates to c.8500 B.C. An engraved bone found here contains
sets of marks which are a lunar calendar. Ishango seems to mark the
southern boundary of the geographical region encompassed by these
88
mythic constructs.
WWWWWWWW
In Conclusion
86 As one of the primary locus for early agriculture, there was barely any Mesolithic
Period at all in this region.
47
unexpected perhaps is the single lion-headed figure found at the
Aurignacian site of Hohlenstein in Germany from which two conclusions
can be derived. 1) At powerful male deity existed in the Upper Paleolithic
alongside the Goddess, although his appearance and cult ritual were
uncommon by comparison. 2) The usual interpretations of the evolution
of style and technique throughout the more than 20,000 years of the
Upper Paleolithic may be wrong. Crudity of image, stylization and ‘quick
sketch' may not indicate poor artistic skills or an early primitive technique
but were likely deliberate choices on the part of the artist who worked
within a context of stylistic ‘rules’. These conventions served ritual
objectives and mandated that much imagery be executed in a fluid
dynamic style so as to emphasize the emotional, dynamic, passion-filled,
psychic content of mythic elements. Such attributes can be too easily
hidden when great technique creates a naturalistic masterpiece whose
realism awes the observer. In ritual, there are no observers.
48
Certain localities seem to have concentrated the sacred, if we can
place statistical confidence in the concentration of mythic imagery found
at these places. The caves at Lascaux have long been pointed out as such
a ‘power center’. Those at Les Trois Frères (France) and Dolní Vêstonice
(Moravia) seem also to have been such localities. This circumstance
generates important questions. Why was humankind's first explosion of
mytho-poetic iconography and imagery so concentrated in the Upper
Paleolithic of Eurasia? Fully modern Homo sapiens had occupied all the
continents (except Antarctica of course) at the time of the European
Upper Paleolithic, yet only in Eurasia have we found this deepest and
most complex development of mythic imagery that is so striking. An ice
age environmental hypothesis is weak because East Asia was subjected to
both glacial advances and retreats. Is the concentration of mythic
metaphor in Eurasia merely due to 1) favorable preservation conditions
that existed in the local ecology and caves; and 2) the intensity of
archeological research in the region which springs from a Western
European intellectual tradition? Yet, could not ritual objects of equal
complexity be made in other environments from highly perishable
materials? Comparably complex, mytho-poetics may have existed
throughout South and East Asia and the New World but was articulated in
89
‘soft’ media and is therefore not accessible as archeological evidence.
Or the ritual ‘dance’ to transcendental planes may have not have utilized
any art at all; see the artricle in this series about the Matse (Blumenberg
1994, 1996, 2006).
89 Navaho sand paintings and kachina dolls immediately come to mind, as do the
mandalas constructed for important Tibetan Buddhist ceremonies which are often made
of sand; also the mythic paintings executed on bark by the Australian Aborigines.
49
myths, correspondingly complex narratives and rites. Rare exceptional
individuals (i.e.brains), or perhaps almost all adults (cf Matse) contacted
the gods and created the underlying philosophy necessary to structure
major components and ritual activities of society.
WWWWWWWW
References
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Bahn, P.G. 1978. “The ‘unacceptable’ face of the West European Upper
Paleolithic.” Antiquity LII: 183-192.
50
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Blanc, A. 1961. “Some evidence for the ideologies of early man.” In S.L.
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