The 11,000 year old archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey is undoubtedly one of the most important in the world. German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt began the ongoing excavations at Göbekli in 1994. Besides being a huge undertaking (less than 5% of the site has been uncovered), the finds — and claims associated with [...]
Tags:agriculture·earliest religion·Edward Banning·farming·foraging·Garden of Eden·Gobekli Tepe·Klaus Schmidt·megalithic·Neolithic Revolution·Neolithic transition·oldest church·pilgrimage center·ritual site·So Fair a House·temples·Turkey
As regular readers of the blog know, there are profound differences in supernatural beliefs and practices before and after the Neolithic transition. This cleavage is so substantial that I do not use the term “religion” to describe pre-Neolithic or Paleolithic beliefs and practices. Instead, I use the word “supernaturalism” to indicate that Paleolithic peoples were [...]
Tags:agriculture·domestication·farming·foraging·gathering·hunting·Neolithic Revolution·Neolithicization·nomadic·Paleolithic·sedentary·shamanic
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 [...]
Tags:agriculture·arousal·Aztecs·Children of the Corn·crucifixion·Daily Mass·doctrinal·Engels·episodic·Gatlin·Harvey Whitehouse·HRAF·imagistic·intensity·Linda Hamilton·Marx·memory·modes of religiosity·morphospace·Nebraska·neolithic·pagan·political economy·Quentin Atkinson·ritual form·Salah·Sarah Connor·scythe·semantic·Stephen King·Sun Dance·vision quest
By my reading of history, the turning (or tipping) point for humanity was the domestication of plants and animals, otherwise known as the Neolithic Revolution. Before this occurred — at different places in the world at different times, beginning approximately 12,000 years ago and largely the dominant mode of production by 5,000 years ago — [...]
Tags:agriculture·civilization·demography·disease·domestication of plants and animals·environmental destruction·foragers·hunter-gatherers·Lakota·Marshall Sahlins·Native Americans·Neolithic Revolution·Original Affluent Society·Paleoterrific·Pandora's Seed·Paul Rincon·population explosion·sedentism·sickness·specialization·Spencer Wells·Stone Age Economics·stratification·surplus
