If you have ever suffered through an episode of “Ancient Aliens” on the History Channel, you might believe that every megalithic structure in the world was constructed by extraterrestrials:
Apparently inspired by the show, one credulous soul posted this question over at Answers.com: “Can scientists prove that Stonehenge was not built by ancient astronauts?” The pithy [...]
Tags:ancestors·ancient aliens·ancient astronauts·archaeoastronomy·Aubrey Holes·Benjamin Ray·Bronze Age·chieftains·cycles·Durkheim·elites·form·function·Giorgio Tsoukalos·lunar·megalithic·megaliths·neolithic·power·ritual·sarsen stones·solar·Solstice·Stonehenge·Wessex·Woodhenge
Are capitalism and Christianity compatible? This is the bizarre question asked by Mario Gómez-Zimmerman in “The Capitalist Structures of Hinduism.” His belief is that this compatibility (which seems self-evident to me) will somehow be strengthened if he can show that other religions are also compatible with capitalism.
This is a zinger of a non-sequitur which would [...]
Tags:Ayn Rand·capitalism·caste·Christianity·classical Hinduism·elites·Hinduism·India·inequality·legitimation·Mario Gomez-Zimmerman·Neolithic transition·political economy·power·stratification·Varna·Vedic
Historians have long known that the shelf life of complex societies throughout human history has been rather limited. Archaeologists are aware of this also. But how to explain it?
In a recent (open access) paper, “Cycling in the Complexity of Early Societies,” Sergey Gavrilets and colleagues mathematically modeled early complex societies using a number of variables [...]
Tags:chiefs·collective action problems·competition·complex societies·control mechanisms·cycling·David Anderson·domination·earliest religions·early societies·elites·emergence·group conflict·legitimation·Mesoamerica·Mesopotamia·Neolithic Revolution·Peter Turchin·power·priests·Robert Carneiro·rulers·Sergey Gavrilets·shamanic·shamanisms·stratification·succession mechanisms·warfare
The story is familiar and follows a similar trajectory wherever people have made the transition from foraging to agriculture: surpluses enable social stratification that is legitimized as part of the ritual order. Elites claim the cosmological sanction of the supernatural.
In a recent study of mortuary practices at Chaco Canyon that appears in PNAS, Stephen Plog [...]
Tags:Amerindians·Anasazi·ancestors·Carrie Heitman·Chaco Canyon·cosmology·elites·grave goods·In the Hands of the Great Spirit·Jake Page·mortuary practices·Pueblos·ritual order·Southwestern archaeology·Stephen Plog·stratification·surplus·theocracies·theocracy
As you can see from Texas A&M’s anthropology aggregating site (which is one of my favorite places on the net), at least a dozen stories have appeared in the past week about new archaeological finds near Stonehenge. Using ground penetrating radar and other non-invasive technology, archaeologists have discovered another henge — which was wooden, approximately [...]
Tags:Aztecs·Babylon·barrows·burial grounds·chieftains·city-states·cosmology·Druids·Egypt·elites·empires·ground penetrating radar·materialism·Mayans·megalithic·megalithic architecture·megalithic structures·pagan·pyramids·royal family·Stonehenge·Sumeria·symbolism·temples·unilineal evolution·Woodhenge·ziggurats
This is the question asked by Philip Goldberg in a recent article in which he boldly answers yes: “Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws. The same can be said for Buddhism, which derives from the same Vedic roots.”
Setting aside for a [...]
Tags:ahistorical·Buddhism·C.W. Huntington·critique·eastern religions·elites·empiricism·enlightenment·essentializing·Gregory Schopen·Hinduism·intellectuals·Jonathan Z. Smith·Philip Goldberg·reconstructed Buddhism·Religion and Other Products of Empire·Richard Horsley·Robert Sharf·science·social construction·The Zen of Japanese Nationalism·Vedic·Western consumption·Zen Buddhism
In a recent report at Discovery News, Zahra Hirji discusses some exciting Aztec archaeological finds:
Aztec archaeologists can almost taste the jack pot. None of the empire’s royal burial sites have ever been found, but researchers participating in the Templo Mayor excavation project in downtown Mexico City think an emperor’s tomb is just around the corner.
In [...]
Tags:Aztec·Aztec deities·Aztec gods·caste·earth goddess·elites·emperor·Hindu·honor killings·India·mystification·power·royalty·social stratification·spiritual order·Tlaltecuhtli
