Just last week, Richard Dawkins debated Cardinal George Pell in another installment of the interminable debates which convince atheists that atheism is best and theists that theism is best. Pell, on par for the theist course, argued that atheism leads to bad things like Hitler and the Nazis. Dawkins responded by observing that Hitler wasn’t an atheist.

This exchange, unenlightening though it was, at least generated useful commentary by an historian familiar with the debates about Nazis and religion. He notes that scholars are of three schools of thought: (1) the Nazis were neo-pagans, (2) Naziism was a political religion, or (3) Nazis were peculiar Christians. Based on everything I’ve read over the years, all three descriptions seem to be correct — they aren’t mutually exclusive. Hitler himself admired the Catholic Church and used it as a model for his own movement.

One thing is clear: Hitler wasn’t an atheist and almost no Nazis were. However idiosyncratic, Hitler clearly had creationist ideas:

Hitler argued for a critical review of the Bible, to discover what sections met an “Aryan” spirit. In these same notes, he took a “biogenetic” history as the main biblical emphasis, arguing that original sin was solely racial degeneration – sin against the blood. He also argued in favour of the notion of a creator, a deity whose work was nature and natural laws, conflating God and nature to the extent that they became one and the same thing. This again came back to race, and meant that he argued in Mein Kampf that one could not avoid the “commands” of “eternal nature” or the “Almighty Creator”: “in that I defend myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”

For theists this sort of thing is best ignored, as is the fact that 99% of Germans were avowed Christians during the Nazi era. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this debate is its relationship to evolution. Aside from mistakenly believing that Nazis were atheists, most theists assume that the Nazis were Darwinian evolutionists. They weren’t.

As Coel Hellier documents in this superb post, Nazi racial ideology was religious, creationist, and opposed to evolution. After an extensive examination of Nazi ideas, Hellier concludes:

The main ideas of Darwinism are that natural selection, operating over lengthy time periods, can cause species to transform into other species, and that all modern mammals descend from a common ancestor. Both of these notions the Nazis explicitly rejected, finding them abhorrent, materialistic notions that would strip man of his soul and of his special status. The Nazis preferred, as do many other religious people, to see man as God’s special creation. It was seeing, in particular, the Aryan race as “God’s handiwork” that led the Nazis to consider it sinful to allow the destruction of the Aryan race by allowing racial inter-marriage, and hence the necessity for removing the possibility by finding a “final solution” to the “Jewish problem.”

Thus nothing in Nazi ideology derives from Darwinism. The few aspects in common were pre-Darwinian; the ideas that originated with Darwin were anathema to and rejected by the Nazis. The widespread blaming of Darwinism as an inspiration for Nazi crimes has no support in historical evidence and instead derives purely from a desire on the part of the religious to smear Darwinism.

The labeling of the Nazis as “atheistic” is similarly motivated and is also the exact opposite of what the evidence says. The Nazi ideology was theistic and religious and an offshoot of Christianity, merging Christianity with Nazi racial theory. It is true that the Nazified Christianity was opposed to more mainstream Christian views, and thus that the Nazis wanted radical reform of the Christian religion, but in no sense was it “atheistic.”

It would be splendid if, before the next debate, the theist representative would read Hellier’s piece and leave the Hitler-Nazi-atheist canard out of it.

Because Mithraism came to prominence during those centuries when Christianity was in its formative period, comparisons between the two are inevitable. While some claim that Christianity borrowed heavily from Mithraism or was modeled on it, this seems unlikely and arguments to this effect are more polemic than history. The Roman elites devoted to Mithras were quite different from the provincials devoted to Christ, and these differences are reflected in the two religions.

If there is any correspondence between the two, it is one of changing sensibility. To the extent early Christianity was pacifist and loving, it held little appeal for Roman soldiers and aristocrats who valued strength and virility. With its primary icon being the sun god Mithras (who is usually portrayed as slaying a wild bull) and its primary ritual being a communal feast among “brothers,” the cult was well suited to those whose business was war.

Mithras Slaying the Bull

While Constantine’s 4th century A.D. conversion gave Christianity a substantial boost, Roman elites were skeptical and slow to follow. The subsequent adoption of Christianity as the official religion of empire had many consequences, one of which was that it had to serve the interests of empire. Because one of those interests is war, I suspect that at least some of the martial elements of Mithraism were incorporated into Christianity. The mature (and militarized) fruits of this incorporation appeared several centuries later, during the Crusades. The rituals of the Knights Templar and other Christian military orders bear a striking resemblance to the Mithraic rituals so favored by Roman legionnaires.

Whatever the connections, the origins of Mithraism remain (appropriately enough) a mystery. In the late 1800s, the philologist Franz Cumont inaugurated a Mithras origins debate that continues to this day. In “The Mysteries of Mithras: A New Account of Their Genesis,” Roger Beck convincingly argues for an origin in the eastern border province of Commagene. The Kingdom of Commagene was in the right place at the right time and when it was incorporated into the Roman Empire, Commagenian elites would have carried the cult to Rome.

Although the Mithras cult was not present in Rome during the late republic or early empire (circa 49 BCE), several cults worshiped bulls and sacrificed them during rituals. There is a great scene from the HBO/BBC miniseries “Rome” that depicts one such sacrifice in gory detail:

Bull worship and sacrifice is undoubtedly much older and may go back several thousands of years to late Neolithic hunter-gatherers and probably was present in the earliest Neolithic communities such as Catal Hoyuk. The Mithraic adoption of bull symbolism was in all likelihood an homage of sorts to the distant past.

Reference:

Beck, R. (1998). The Mysteries of Mithras: A New Account of Their Genesis The Journal of Roman Studies, 88 DOI: 10.2307/300807

In 1964 the sociologist Robert Bellah did just this in his classic paper, Religious Evolution. Taking as his premise Eric Voegelin’s idea that cultural history describes an arc that moves from “compact” to “differentiated” symbol systems over time, Bellah posits five stages in the history of religions: (1) Primitive, (2) Archaic, (3) Historic, (4) Early Modern, and (5) Modern. The kinds of religions that Bellah associates with each of these stages deserves a post of its own, but for our purposes the important points are that “Primitive” is shamanic, “Archaic” is diffuse cult polytheism, and “Historic-Modern” is textual and systematized. Most religions today are of the latter variety.

Despite cursory appearances, Bellah’s typology is neither progressive nor normative. As Bellah is at pains to emphasize, his is not a unilinear evolutionary model:

Of course the scheme itself is not intended as an adequate description of historical reality. Particular lines of religious development cannot simply be forced into the terms of the scheme. In reality there may be compromise formations involving elements from two stages which I have for theoretical reasons discriminated; earlier stages may, as I have already suggested, strikingly foreshadow later developments; and more developed may regress to less developed stages.

And of course no stage is ever completely abandoned; all earlier stages continue to coexist with and often within later ones. So what I shall present is not intended as a procrustean bed into which the facts of history are to be forced but a theoretical construction against which historical facts may be illuminated.

Because history is continuous and no stage is ever completely abandoned — each is incorporated into subsequent stages, we can find elements or traces of “Primitive” (i.e., earliest) religions in “Modern” (contemporary) religions. In concrete terms, this means that “modern” religions such as Christianity and Islam contain within them ideas and concepts characteristic of “primitive” religions, otherwise known as shamanisms. Shamanic beliefs and practices constitute the earliest forms of supernaturalism and prefigure all modern religions.

I was recently reminded of Bellah’s typology while reading about Sami shamanism and Phoenician polytheism. The Sami are (or were) hunter-gatherers living in the boreal forest areas of northern Scandinavia and Russia. They were known to the Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote about them in 98 AD. At some point, the reindeer hunting Sami domesticated the animal and many became pastoralists. They interacted extensively with the Vikings, and were subjected to aggressive Christian colonizing beginning in the 1500s. Although their traditional ways of life had largely been destroyed by the late nineteenth century, there are numerous accounts of Sami beliefs and practices. In Bellah’s scheme, these would be characterized as “Primitive” or shamanic.

The Phoenicians were a trading and seafaring people who occupied the coastal areas of present day Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and North Africa (Carthage). Organized into city-states which at times were in alliance and others in conflict, the Phoenicians dominated much of the Mediterranean from 1200 to 500 BC. Carthage persisted until 146 BC, when it was destroyed by the Romans in the final Punic War. Although it is unclear whether Phoenicians considered themselves to be a distinct ethnic group, they spoke a common language and developed the first phonetic alphabet. They interacted extensively with all Mediterranean peoples, prominently including the Greeks. In Bellah’s scheme, their religion would be characterized as Archaic (cult polytheism).

In “Varro Muorra: The Landscape Significance of Sami Sacred Wooden Objects and Sacrificial Altars,” Ingela Bergman and colleagues provide an introduction to the Sami, who believed that all things — animals and landscapes in particular — were imbued with spirits or spiritual power. Although the authors characterize this as “animism,” it is actually a kind of pantheism coupled with beliefs in a variety of major and minor spirits. This is precisely the sort of thing we would expect to find among people who are nomadic hunter-gatherers, and is in fact characteristic of such peoples across time and space.

What is unusual, however, about Sami supernaturalism is their intensive use of varro muorra, a concept that exclusively denotes sacred wooden objects. These objects included scaffolds that functioned as offering platforms and carvings that represented or contained spirits. While other hunter-gatherers are known for using wooden scaffolds (usually for mortuary purposes) and wooden objects (in medicine bundles), widespread and intensive usage of these items is uncommon in shamanic practice. It certainly makes one wonder whether earlier contact with Norse pagans and later interaction with Scandinavian Christians influenced Sami ritualism. It also demonstrates Bellah’s observation that a particular religion may be “compromise formations involving elements from two stages,” which in this instance would be Primitive (shamanism) and Archaic (cult ritualism).

Another example of mixed element religious practice comes from “Phoenician Cult Stones,” an article published by Eugene Stockton in 1974. Before surveying the many instances of Phoenician temples and cult stones proper, Stockton observes that sacred rocks belong to a “primitive substratum” of religion; indeed, unusually shaped rocks have long been a part of sacred shamanic landscapes and forager medicine bundles. Such rocks were often considered to be the residing place of ancient spirits. More recently but still before Phoenician times, incipient and early agriculturalists erected megalithic structures for ritual purposes. This appears to be a vestigial practice carried over from shamanic formations.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the Phoenicians (and the Greeks) venerated stones, often erecting them in temples and other ritual spaces. Once in place and properly dedicated, the stones could either harbor deities or represent them. This is a practice with a deep history, one that manifests itself even in “Modern” religions. One need look no further than the ritual foci of Islam — the sacred Black Stone, embedded in the holy granite cube known as the Kaaba — to see this is the case. Indeed, the Black Stone most likely pre-dates Islam and was revered by nomadic Arabian pagans.

Where does all this leave us? First, it shows that Bellah’s stages are a useful heuristic for illuminating unsuspected or unnoticed connections between seemingly disparate religions. Second, it demonstrates that religious history is multilinear and diffusion works in two directions: from the “Primitive” to the “Modern” and vice versa. Finally, it attests to the fact that no religion is sui generis: all have a history and none stands alone.

References:

Bellah, R. (1964). Religious Evolution American Sociological Review, 29 (3) DOI: 10.2307/2091480

Bergman, I., Ostlund, L., Zackrisson, O., & Liedgren, L. (2008). Varro Muorra: The Landscape Significance of Sami Sacred Wooden Objects and Sacrificial Altars Ethnohistory, 55 (1), 1-28 DOI: 10.1215/00141801-2007-044

Stockton, Eugene D. (1974). Phoenician Cult Stones Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology, 2.3, 1-27

Perhaps the most famous Norwegian black metalist is Gaahl, the front man for the band Gorgoroth.  I normally would be uninterested in anything having to do with metal, an insipid and banal musical genre that appeals mainly to people hopelessly adrift in a sea of nihilistic anger.  But I caught a snippet of an interview with Gaahl the other night and must say there is something intense, gripping, and fascinating about this guy.  You can sense it just by looking at a still photo:

While many metalists in Norway and elsewhere consider themselves to be Satanists (yawn), Gaahl is not one of them — he appears to be a serious practitioner of Norse shamanism, which is not the same as Norse paganism.  Norse shamanism is an earlier form of supernaturalism than Norse paganism.  The former is associated with ancient hunter-gatherers in Norway, and over time it was incorporated into the richly developed myths (Odin, Thor, Beowulf, etc.) and supernaturalism of the Neolithic farmers who settled in Norway.  These farmers, of course, came to be known as the Vikings.

You can get a vague sense for Norse shamanism by watching “True Norwegian Black Metal,” a thirty minute documentary and interview with Gaahl that took place over several days at his home in an isolated, beautiful, and eerie valley.  I don’t think I have ever seen a “set” (i.e., Espedal, Norway) more appropriate for the subject matter of a film.  At a minimum, you should watch the last few minutes — the interviewer asks the “wrong kinds of questions” (i.e., obviously does not understand Gaahl or what he is saying) and is given a chilling non-verbal response.

Aside from some of the things which Gaahl has to say (and not say), which are interesting in their own right and bring Nietzsche to mind, the film is worth watching simply for the jaw dropping scenery.  Watch it and you will quickly come to appreciate what it is about the raw Scandinavian landscape that gave rise to the various forms of Norse paganism and Viking culture.

Life in such a setting obviously was harsh, brutal, and unforgiving — all qualities that are refracted through the many lenses of ancient Norse beliefs.  One gets the sense that even today, Christianity sits rather uncomfortably on top of something unruly in the Norwegian psyche.  The Scandinavian countries were, after all, the last pagan holdouts in what eventually became a Christian Europe.  It is a good thing Norway is an oil rich petro-state; otherwise, Norwegians might be marauding through Europe in search of spoils.

As the Toronto Sun reports, it took the commission four years to investigate the Druids and reach a decision:

The 21-page final report released by the commission states, “The Board members concluded that The Druid Network is established for exclusively charitable purposes for the advancement of religion for the public benefit.”

“The Charity Commission now has a much greater understanding of Pagan, animist and polytheist religions, so other groups form these minority religions — provided they meet the financial and public benefit criteria for registration as charities — should find registering a much shorter process than the pioneering one we have been through,” said Emma Restall Orr, founder of The Druid Network, a website devoted to the religion, in a statement.

Although there are many news reports on the British government’s recognition, few say much about what Druidism or Druidry actually is — most simply call it animism or neo-paganism and associate it with nature worship.  The BBC’s comments are representative:

Druidry’s followers are not restricted to one god or creator, but worship the spirit they believe inhabits the earth and forces of nature such as thunder.  Druids also worship the spirits of places, such as mountains and rivers, with rituals focused particularly on the turning of the seasons.

Although Druids contend they are simply reclaiming the supernatural beliefs and practices of their ancient Celtic/Gallic ancestors — those who built Stonehenge and other megalithic structures throughout Northern and Western Europe –  it is hard to know whether this is indeed the case.  The Druidic Celts did not, after all, leave any writings from which the issue can be judged and our knowledge of their beliefs comes primarily from Roman sources and secondarily from archaeology.  One thing is certain — modern Druids do not practice human sacrifice as did the early Druids.

While the British government’s decision seems eminently reasonable and the US government already recognizes Druidry as a religion, not everyone is happy about it.  The UK Daily Mail’s Melanie Phillips is apoplectic and spouts the sort of drivel one expects from those who believe in universal and exclusivist forms of monotheism:

Will someone please tell me this is all a joke. Until now, Druids have been regarded indulgently as a curious remnant of Britain’s ancient past, a bunch of eccentrics who annually dress up in strange robes at Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice. However, according to the Charity Commission, they are to be recognised as a religion and, as a result, afforded charitable status, with the tax exemptions and other advantages that follow.

Some might shrug this off. After all, the Druids don’t do any harm to anyone. What skin is it off anyone else’s nose how they are categorised? Well, it actually matters rather a lot.

Elevating them to the same status as Christianity is but the latest example of how the bedrock creed of this country is being undermined. More than that, it is an attack upon the very concept of religion itself.

This is because Druidry is simply not a religion. Now, it’s true that religion is notoriously difficult to define. But true religions surely rest on an established structure of traditions, beliefs, literature and laws. Above all, they share a belief in a supernatural deity (or more than one) that governs the universe.

By these standards, Druidry is surely not a religion but a cult — a group defined merely by ritual practices but which stands outside mainstream religion.

Horror of horrors — a double attack on Anglican Christianity and the very concept of religion!  Phillips would do herself an immense favor (and sound less foolish) if she did some reading in the history of supernaturalism and religions.

Deities of the kind she considers characteristic of “true” religion do not appear in that history until after the Neolithic Revolution, or some 6,500 years ago in Mesopotamia and Egypt.  It surely is no coincidence that the elites of the earliest city-states — ruled by divine kings — were the first to conceive of all powerful, anthropomorphic deities that govern the universe.  As it is heaven (macrocosm), so it shall be on earth (microcosm).

And while many simply regard Nietzsche as an atheist, Young does not view Nietzsche as a non-believer, radical individualist, or immoralist, but as a nineteenth-century religious reformer belonging to a German Volkish tradition of conservative communitarianism.

Concerning religion, Young’s fundamental argument is that although Nietzsche rejects the Christian God, he is not “anti-religious.” Rather, Nietzsche is a religious thinker precisely because he adopts Schopenhauer’s analysis of religion as an intellectual construction that addresses the existential problems of pain and death, and gives authority to community-creating ethos.

Nietzsche views Dionysian pantheism as a solution to the problems of pain and death, and argues for the flourishing of a new “festival,” based on a humanity-affirming religion modeled on that of the ancient Greeks.

Although I have difficulty agreeing with this interpretati0n, it is provocative and the book looks interesting.  Typological treatments of Nietzsche’s thought — those which hone in on a single idea such as “truth” and trace it through the entire corpus of his work, often pay large conceptual dividends.  At least one dissertation has been written which uses the famous opening lines from Beyond Good and Evil — “Supposing truth is a woman.  What then?” — in precisely this way.

This was a turbulent time in Europe, as northern pagan tribes were marauding throughout Europe and fending off the advances of Christian armies from the south.  This sentence caught my eye and imagination: “The pagan king was guarded by fanatic warriors wearing animal costumes — so-called ‘berserkers‘.“  If you have ever seen a Molly Hatchet album cover, you know what I mean:

While Schulz frames the conflict largely in terms of trade, the Norse pagans fought a five centuries long battle against advancing Christianity.  The Frankish Emperor Charlemagne was just one of several Christian rulers to the south who wanted to convert the Vikings, but only after taking their land, valuables, and women.

All this brings to mind the History Channel’s Clash of the Gods episode on “Thor and the Fall of Paganism,” which I happened to watch last night. It was rather entertaining and somewhat informative.  I laughed when one scholar commented that Norse Scandinavian tribes were “pagan” but that Greeks and Romans were not.  He based this distinction, which is utterly false, on the supposed fact that Norse paganism was a religion of “country folk.”

The Romans were justly known as wise administrators of conquered provinces, allowing native peoples to continue worshiping their own gods, while the Roman administrators and garrisons would build temples for Roman deities.  This pagan tolerance often had syncretic effects so that over time the result would be something like what was found near Le Mans: a temple complex where Gallic-Celtic deities were worshiped alongside Roman gods and goddesses.  It is highly likely that locals adopted some Roman beliefs and practices while the occupying Romans adopted some local beliefs and practices.  Indeed, this is what the archaeologists have found:

“Given the size of the site, hundreds of pilgrims, possibly thousands, would have come here to honour the gods,” said Guillier. “They probably held other mass events here too.”

[The archaeologists] uncovered a marvelous selection of objects placed as offerings. They include Gallic, Celtic and Roman silver coins, bronze and silver-plated bronze fibulae (broaches), some jewelery including a gold ring with a green quartz representing a deity, as well as bronze keys, pottery and knives. They also found a dagger, sledgehammers and hammers, possibly offerings from soldiers and ironmongers, who held high-risk occupations requiring more divine protection than others.

But what gods were worshipped there? No statues or inscriptions have been found as clues, and the Gallic pantheon was as plentiful as the Roman one.

It appears that all kinds of deities were worshiped at the site, including one god — Mars Mullo — who had his own temple and was a synthesis of the Roman god Mars and the Celtic-Gallic god Mullo.  The offerings of Roman soldiers, including daggers and hammers, were mostly likely made to Mithras, the imported Persian deity and mystery cult (often symbolized by a bull) that was Latinized and a long-time favorite of the Legions.

Unfortunately, archaeologists will not be able to work at this site for long, as the area is slated for urban development.  It is a shame that this massive and informative complex will be subject to salvage operations only.

There is one lesson we can learn from this highly civilized and cosmopolitan “pagan” site right now: religious beliefs need not be exclusive and tolerance can be a virtue.  This is an especially poignant point at a time when 60 million Americans schizophrenically believe their president is a closet Muslim and political discourse is dominated by fear mongering.

In the first, reported by Sean Coughlan of the BBC, archaeologists have discovered the oldest house in Britain.  Dated at 8,500 BCE (10,500 years ago for those who are counting), this is a spectacular and highly informative find.  At this time, the ice age had just ended and Britain was still attached to mainland Europe; there was no agriculture — everyone was hunting and gathering.  Foragers are of course nearly always associated with nomadic lifeways, which can make them hard to detect and often renders them archaeologically invisible.

Finding a home-base or house occupied by hunter-gatherers is therefore unusual, and it may tell us something about the transition from foraging to agriculture.  Alternatively, it could indicate that the area was especially rich in resources, at least on a seasonal basis, and this resulted in the construction of more permanent dwellings.

Either way, this is good stuff and several items have been found that speak to ritual activities over a long period of time:

The Star Carr site, inhabited after the last ice age, is believed to have been in use for between 200 and 500 years.  It has been the subject of extensive research and excavation since its discovery in the 1940s – and has yielded items such as the paddle of a boat, arrow tips and masks made from red deer skulls.  There are also antler head-dresses, which could have been used in rituals.

If we were talking simply about nomadic hunter-gatherers, we would usually associate them with shamanist beliefs and activities; in this case however, the semi-sedentary lifestyle may have led to a more elaborate cosmology and ritualism.  The masks made from red deer skulls certainly suggest this and remind one of the sedentary, complex hunter-gatherers (such as the Kwakiutl) who occupied America’s Northwest coast.  As for the antler head-dresses, these were commonly worn by shamans in many parts of the world, including Siberia and the Americas.

In the second study, reported by Kate Ravilious for National Geographic, stone-age celts or axes have repeatedly been found in Viking graves or barrows.

These are Iron Age graves that date from 800 to 1050 CE, but the flint celts — which the archaeologists call “thunderstones” — are much older.  This indicates that Vikings were aware of Stone Age artifacts and collected them.  These stones were curated and transported over long distances, which suggests they were highly valued and symbolically important.

The archaeologists studying these grave goods (which sometimes include smaller flint pebbles that were unworked and could not be used either as tools or for fire starting) characterize the finds with some rather curious language:

Long dismissed as accidental additions to Viking graves, prehistoric “thunderstones” — fist-size stone tools resembling the Norse god Thor’s hammerhead — were actually purposely placed as good-luck talismans, archaeologists say.  “It shows that these stones had very special significance and suggests that these people were highly superstitious.”

The prehistoric stones’ “special significance” to Vikings may have derived from legends of Thor, the Norse thunder god said to create lightning with his battle hammer, Mjöllnir.  “Thor’s mission was to protect gods and people against evil and chaos,” he said in a statement. “It was therefore believed that Thor’s rocks protected houses and people.”

Now the new grave survey suggests the rocks were believed to protect souls too, the archaeologists say.  Similar discoveries in United Kingdom graves suggest that Vikings weren’t the only ancient Europeans who saw millennia-old tools as accoutrements for the afterlife.  “I suspect that these people were not so very different from us, and they would have had superstitious folk beliefs.”

There is a weird double standard at work here.  I fail to understand why the archaeologists would refer to these ritually charged grave goods as “good luck talismans” and the Vikings as “superstitious” people who harbored mere “folk beliefs.”

As is well known, the Vikings were supernaturalists with a richly developed pantheon of gods and religious stories known as “myths.”  I have always disliked the term “myth” because it is normative and suggests these were mere stories told for entertainment or learning.  In fact, what we popularly call “myths” constitute the religious beliefs of others.  The same is true of the normative term “pagan,” which was used by Jews and Christians to describe and denigrate the religious beliefs of everyone who did not believe in their particular God.

Norse “mythology” was a full-blown supernatural belief system that constituted what we today call religion.  The Vikings were not “pagan” but believers in the supernatural power of Thor and other deities.

To see how this double standard works, let us suppose that archaeologists working in the Levant reported on the burials and grave goods of early Christians and these goods included ritual items such as crosses.  We would not say the crosses were “talismans” or these people were “superstitious.”  Nor would we characterize the ideas surrounding these symbols as “folk beliefs” or the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection as a mere “legend.”

We would say the crosses were ritual objects buried with people whose religion was Christianity.  We should characterize these thunderstones and the Vikings’ beliefs in the same way.

All this aside, these kinds of burials — clearly deliberate and including symbolic grave goods — amount to something like an archaeological gold standard for identifying mortuary practices connected to belief in spirits and souls.  This is an important issue for the Middle and Upper Paleolithic burials that many interpret as a sign of proto-religious beliefs.

My sense of astonishment received reinforcement while reading Maev Kennedy’s recent Guardian article “Was Marden Henge the Builder’s Yard for Stonehenge?“  It appears that archaeologists are finally searching the areas surrounding Stonehenge and looking for more than just monumental features:

Marden in Wiltshire has been puzzling archaeologists for centuries. It is set almost exactly half way between two of the most famous and tourist-choked sites in Britain, Stonehenge and Avebury, but it is far larger than either.

This is the first excavation since Geoffrey Wainwright, former chief archaeologist at English Heritage, explored one small corner of the site in 1969. What stunned the archaeologists when they started work three weeks ago was just how much is left.

Once your eye is in you can see it: the sweep of the ditches, the belt of trees hiding some of the earth bank, which still rises to three metres in some places, the stain in the grass marking the lost barrow and its massive surrounding moat, and the wholly unexpected discovery – the second, smaller henge, so close to the modern houses that the roots of two trees at the foot of a back garden are actually growing into its bank.

The neolithic buildings were not where others have looked for them, on the level in the centre of the henges, but on top of the bank.

“We’ve all been looking in the wrong place,” Leary said, “there will have to be a major rethink about other henges. And it’s actually almost terrifying how close to the surface the finds were – there’s also going to have to be a major review of our management plans for other sites.”

Given these recent discoveries and new ways of asking questions or forming hypotheses, we can look forward in coming decades to much more information about Stonehenge, all of which will contribute to our understanding of why Stonehenge was built and how it was used.  The fact that so much of the area around Stonehenge remains unexplored and unexcavated is great news for current and prospective archaeology graduate students in Britain.

My favorite observation regarding the new finds is quintessentially English: “We’re gobsmacked really,” said site director Jim Leary.  Towards the end of the article, Leary adds this poignant observation:  “A completely artificial division has been made in the past between domestic and religious, recreation and ritual.  We’re going to have to rethink all that. It’s not one thing or the other, it’s everything mixed in together.”

He is quite right about this; the categories of secular/religious are modern and non-natural.