Genealogy of Religion

Exploring the Origins, History and Future of Religion

Entries Tagged as 'Ritual'

Beheading the “Snake God” at Rhino Cave

July 10th, 2011 · 12 Comments · Archaeology, Ritual

Indiana Jones would have loved it: 65,000 years ago, stone age hunters in Africa gathered at night in a hidden cave to worship the giant rock snake that seemed to move in the flickering firelight and hissingly promised fertility so long as the rituals were performed. They came to this place every year when the [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags:··················

Community & Kinship at Catalhoyuk

July 2nd, 2011 · 6 Comments · Archaeology, Ecology, Neolithic, Ritual

Strange things are afoot at Catalhoyuk (7400-5600 BCE), one of the earliest and most important Neolithic (i.e., sedentary and agricultural) sites known to archaeology. As I noted in Bones, Burials and Ancestors, mortuary practices at Catalhoyuk were unusual and often involved secondary burial in the floors of homes.

The assumption has always been that these were [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags:·················

Twisted Saga of “World’s Oldest Ritual”

June 30th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Archaeology, Methodology, Ritual, Shamanism

In 2006, University of Oslo archaeologist Sheila Coulson gave an open lecture about her work at a small cave in the Tsodilo Hills of northern Botswana. Although her lecture focused on Middle Stone Age tools recovered from the cave and an unusual rock formation that looked to her like a snake or python, she also [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags:·····················

World’s Oldest Temple & Rorschach Rock

June 27th, 2011 · 5 Comments · Archaeology, Methodology, Ritual

“It has long been recognized that any interpretation of prehistoric religious behavior should be based on concrete archaeological evidence. Yet evidence for Paleolithic belief systems is extremely scanty, and that which does exist is usually enigmatic — or as [Mircea] Eliade has expressed it, semantically opaque” (Freeman & Echegaray 1981).
Three lines of evidence are typically [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags:······················

Weiners and War Chiefs

June 10th, 2011 · No Comments · Hunter-Gatherers, Ritual

By most accounts, Anthony Weiner thinks highly of himself. Filled with bravado, Weiner considers himself to be a political warrior. Regaling one 17 year old girl with stories about congressional battles, he likened himself to Superman: “I came back strong. Large. In charge. Tights and cape shit.” Weiner even took cape-less photos of his pecs [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags:······················

Crazy Corn Children & Ritual Form

June 8th, 2011 · 8 Comments · Cognition, Ecology, Economy, Ritual

In 1977, Stephen King published his short story “Children of the Corn” in Penthouse. Seven years later, movie audiences across the nation were horrified by the ritual doings of small town Nebraska kids who worshiped something malevolent in the corn.
It surely was no coincidence that later in the year, Nebraska experienced a sharp drop in [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags:·······························

Foreign Ideas & Moral Indigestion

June 6th, 2011 · 22 Comments · Cognition, Emotions, Morality, Ritual

Imagine you are dining at a friend’s home. Your host is excited because she has prepared a special dish for you. When dinner is finally served, you are surprised to see a whole egg on your plate and when you open the egg, you are even more surprised to see this:
That’s balut, a dish of [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags:·······················

Decoding Frazer’s “Golden Bough”

June 4th, 2011 · 2 Comments · History, Magic, Ritual

Few books in the history of anthropology are better known (but never read) than James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. First published in 1890 (2 volumes), Frazer published a second edition in 1900 (3 volumes), and a rolling third edition between 1911 and 1915 which ballooned to 12 volumes.

Though [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags:·················

Religious Evolution: Sami Sticks & Phoenician Stones

May 28th, 2011 · No Comments · Classifications, Cultural Evolution, History, Hunter-Gatherers, Pagans, Ritual, Shamanism

Unlike living organisms, cultural formations do not “evolve.” Evolution, sensu stricto, is a biological process and not a cultural one. Despite this fact, some scholars have fruitfully deployed evolutionary ideas — as analogy and metaphor — to analyze cultural history.
In 1964 the sociologist Robert Bellah did just this in his classic paper, Religious Evolution. Taking [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags:···································

Bones, Burials and Ancestors

May 25th, 2011 · 3 Comments · Archaeology, Hunter-Gatherers, Neolithic, Power, Ritual

Death is big business. This past year, Americans spent $15 billion on funeral related expenses. Americans are not outliers when it comes to death spending; funeral related expenditures around the world are estimated to be at least this much and probably more. Strangely, the ratio of death spending does not diminish in poorer countries. In [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags:·······························