In 1994 Klaus Schmidt discovered Göbekli Tepe and in 1995 he began the ongoing excavations. In 1998 Schmidt published his first site report. To date, Schmidt has published close to 20 articles or reports (about half of which are in German) and others working with Schmidt have published more. For this Schmidt deserves considerable praise. [...]
Tags:Edward Banning·Emile Durkheim·Gobekli Tepe·Gordon Childe·Jacques Cauvin·Klaus Schmidt·Neolithic Revolution·Neolithicization·profane·sacred
Göbekli Tepe has received more press coverage in recent years than perhaps any other archaeological site, including Stonehenge. Some of this coverage is due to the simple fact that Göbekli is the oldest megalithic site in the world. For this reason alone, it deserves our attention. It seems, however, that much of this attention has [...]
Tags:Catalhoyuk·cathedral·earliest religion·first religion·Garden of Eden·Gobekli Tepe·Gordon Childe·Ian Hodder·Klaus Schmidt·megaliths·Neolithic Revolution·Neolithicization·paradise·ritual center·shrine·Stonehenge·temple·Turkey
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 less than a month, we will be able to lay our hands on Robert Bellah’s much anticipated Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age.
It will be the latest in a string of books over the last decade which purport to explain the origins and development of what we today call [...]
Tags:axial age·brain evolution·group size·Hegel·Kant·metaphysical idealism·Neolithic Revolution·Nietzsche·Religion in Human Evolution·Robert Bellah·Robin Dunbar·Templeton Foundation
Over at Spiegel, Markus Becker and Frank Patalong have posted an interview with Richard Dawkins, whose latest book — The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution — has just been published in German and given an awful title: “The Creation Lie: Why Darwin is Right.” Two things come immediately to mind.
First, it is [...]
Tags:biological evolution·cultural evolution·Darwin·Dean Hamer·Frank Patalong·group level selection·Markus Becker·meme·memetics·Neolithic Revolution·Richard Dawkins·Ronald Numbers·The Ancestor's Tale·The Creation Lie·The Creationists·The God Gene·The Greatest Show on Earth·The Selfish Gene·theory of mind
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
In the September issue of Discover, Kathleen McAuliffe has written a superb article on the shrinking human brain. Razib commented on it yesterday:
For several millions years up to ~200,000 years ago there was a study increase in hominin cranial capacities. I say hominin because it seems that this increase was evident in all branches of [...]
Tags:aggression·brain evolution·brain size decrease·Christopher Stringer·cranial capacity·David Geary·Discover·doctrinal·domestication·encephalization quotient·extended cognition·extended mind·Harvey Whitehouse·imagistic·intelligence·John Hawks·Kathleen McAuliffe·Merlin Donald·modes of religiosity·Neolithic Revolution·Razib·Richard Wrangham·The Incredible Shrinking Brain
The British government has, after a lengthy vetting process, recognized Druidism or Druidry as a religion and granted it charitable status. The commissioners in charge of such decisions apparently had a hard time getting their collective heads around the idea that not all religions are monotheistic, textual, dogmatic, priestly, hierarchical, institutionalized, or systematic.
As the Toronto [...]
Tags:Anglican·animism·animist·anthropomorphic deities·Celtic·Charity Commission·city-states·deism·divine kings·Druidism·Druidry·Druids·Gallic·Great Britain·human sacrifice·megalithic structures·Melanie Phillips·nature worship·neo-pagan·Neolithic Revolution·pagan·polytheism·Stonehenge·United Kingdom
Over at the Guardian, the archaeologist Caroline Wickham-Jones has written an enigmatic article asking “What Can We Learn from Our Hunter-Gatherer Ancestors.” While I think there is a great deal to be learned from our foraging ancestors, the existential and ontological lessons I have in mind are quite different from those Wickham-Jones proposes.
She begins by [...]
Tags:Caroline Wickham-Jones·farming·foraging·Levant·Malthus·Marshall Sahlins·megafauna extinction·Natufian·Neolithic Revolution·non-sustainability·Paleoterrific·sustainability·The Original Affluent Society·What Can We Learn from Our Hunter-Gatherer Ancestors·world population
