A person of many astute observations, one of Robert Bellah’s most astute is his refrain (when talking about the history of religions) that “nothing is ever lost.” By this I take Bellah to mean that at any given point in time, an existing religion will contain elements from earlier religions. There is continuity in religious [...]
Tags:aleatory·augurs·auspices·axial·bone dice·chance·control·divination·El Juyo·explanation·fortune·Gonzalez Echegaray·Magdalenian·magic·neolithic·omens·oracles·Paleolithic·prediction·prophecy·prophets·randomness·Robert Bellah·scapulimancy·superstition
“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 [...]
Tags:Cantabria·cave·dualism·El Juyo·El Juyo face·figurine·J. Gonzalez Echegaray·L.G. Freeman·Magdalenian·mask·methodology·Mircea Eliade·mobiliary·Orc·overinterpretation·Paleolithic·parietal·parsimony·ritual·Rorschach·sanctuary·Spain·temple
A recent article by Bello and colleagues, published in PLoS One (open access), has generated much attention in the press and blogosphere. The authors report on the earliest directly dated human skull caps, which were excavated from Gough’s Cave in England and are 14,000 years old. Although we cannot determine the precise use of these [...]
Tags:cannibalism·Chris Stringer·Ed Hardy·Gough's Cave·human calvaria·Magdalenian·post-mortem processing·R. Shane Tubbs·ritual·Silvia Bello·Simon Parfitt·skull bowl·skull cap·skull cup·Tibetan monk
Over at Seed, Holly Capelo provides a helpful survey of the various ways in which the famous Upper Paleolithic cave paintings — found primarily in France and Spain — have been interpreted over the last several decades. The occasion for her survey, which strangely omits mention of David Lewis-Williams’ contention that the paintings were the [...]
Tags:altered states of consciousness·archaeoastronomy·aurochs·bovids·bull mythology·cave paintings·cyclical time·David Lewis-Williams·entoptic images·Hall of Bulls·Holly Capelo·Lascaux·linear time·lunar time·Magdalenian·Michael Rappengluck·Occams razor·paleolithic graffiti·parsimony·seasonal hunting·star time·Taurus constellation·time-keeping system·Upper Paleolithic
