9,000 Year Old Decorated Skulls

[oldarchystudent]

When I read the article what occured to me was how did the people back that long ago even have the time to decorate dead bodies? I thought given the time frame just the basics of living were all consuming for them. Like I said, I have never studied this in depth, just curious and interested. The more I read about what is found the further back it seems that humans had a much more developed belief system, whatever it may have been, and more skills than they have been given credit for in the past.

"Kind of puts a hit on the idea of looking at the neolithic as isolated groups developing on their own, though. "

Didn't these groups usually consist of 25 to 100 people?
Donna

Studies on hunter gatherer groups show that they actually have more leisure time than you or I do. Also, as they turned to sedentism and began to get proficient at farming, they were able to produce a surplus of food that could support specialists, including a priest class.

[Minimalist]

Hunter/gatherer groups were usually quite small....20-30 people. Agriculture tends to result in population growth.

[Minimalist]

including a priest class.

And that was the beginning of the end of happiness!

[Donna]

And that was the beginning of the end of happiness!

Probably means the rules just got tighter. Before the priests showed up you know there was someone in charge threating the Lord of Thunder was going to get them if they didn't fall into line.

I would really like to know just what the point was with decorating the skulls. Were they appeasing their God or just making themselves feel better about the departed?
Donna

[Minimalist]

Why does religion do anything? There is rarely a logical reason for it. These were pre-literate societies so you are not going to get any insight into their minds from their own writings.

[oldarchystudent]

Why does religion do anything? There is rarely a logical reason for it. These were pre-literate societies so you are not going to get any insight into their minds from their own writings.

It's an attempt to explain the world for non-scientific societies, it's a security belief that there's a greater power looking after you, and it's also a convenient scapegoat to blame an evil god for your misfortunes. Lot's of basic psychological reasons for wanting a religion, and that fact that we see evidence of it so far back indicates it's a strong drive. The Neanderthals apparently set flowers around the bodies of the dead which may well indicate some thoughts about an after life. The only insights we can get is from the remains of the cultures, and trying to draw parallels with similar cultures still around today (ethnoarchaeology).

Jim

[Minimalist]

It's an attempt to explain the world for non-scientific societies,

Agreed. Still, the actual rituals can be fairly bizarre so the question about decorating skulls is certainly valid.

I've seen military medals placed in coffins. Who knows what they'll make of those in 10,000 years?

[oldarchystudent]

If they know our language and have the right reference, no problem. If on the other hand, modern writing looks like Minoan Linear A does to us, they will probably have the same conversation as we are about the heads.

[stan]

These were pre-literate societies so you are not going to get any insight into their minds from their own writings.

That's why anthropologists study contemporary or historical cultures with similar practices....
ethnoarchaeology, OAS calls it.

Also, following on the idea of diffusion, it's possible that said contemporary and historical cultures inherited the practices from those ancient
neolothic ones.

[oldarchystudent]

Agreed. Still, the actual rituals can be fairly bizarre so the question about decorating skulls is certainly valid.

I was thinking about this some more, and the ritual probably made perfect sense at the time. We have plenty of rituals in our world, many non religious in nature. Graduation, parades on national holidays, shaking hands here and bowing in Japan. It would all look pretty strange to an uneducated outsider, which is what we are when we pick up something like the skulls and say "I wonder why they did this?"

[Minimalist]

These were pre-literate societies so you are not going to get any insight into their minds from their own writings.

That's why anthropologists study contemporary or historical cultures with similar practices....
ethnoarchaeology, OAS calls it.

Also, following on the idea of diffusion, it's possible that said contemporary and historical cultures inherited the practices from those ancient
neolothic ones.

That's an assumption though, Stan. Similar societies at similar stages of development, yada, yada, yada.

It's logical but some societies grow up to practice burial and some grow up to practice cremation.

[oldarchystudent]

That's an assumption though, Stan. Similar societies at similar stages of development, yada, yada, yada.

It actually works quite well when you figure that similar societies will solve similar problems in similar ways if they have roughly the same resources to work with.

If you read any of Joseph Campbell's books on comparative mythologies you have to notice how similar all the beliefs of the world are, how they tried to answer the same questions. The only thing that really changes is how they ritualized the practices and the context in which they told the stories. At the root of it they are all pretty similar.

[Minimalist]

The devil is in the details....as it usually is.

[stan]

That's an assumption though, Stan. Similar societies at similar stages of development, yada, yada, yada.

I don't think its accurate to dismiss it as a something off-the wall. or
"Yada,yada,yada," as you say, Bob.

There are literal (genetic, geographic) connections between the ancient socities and the contemporary ones, as well as philosophical ones.

[Minimalist]

The most glaring fallacy between studying modern primitives and ancient ones is that we simply cannot study modern primitives without changing them. Just the knowledge of our existence introduces a variable that the ancients did not endure.

It's the old, "the solution to a problem changes the problem" axiom.