In search of the Palaeo shaman

[Minimalist]

It will be very difficult to find absolute proof of the palaeo shaman from an archaeological point of view

We have a similar problem with evidence of ancient sea travel yet it seems as if the vast majority accept the existence of stone age boats.

The complaint has been raised, and I am guilty of this myself, that anthropology and archaeology have far too quick a tendency to take anything they can not instantly categorize into a neat little box as "ritualistic." Personally, with emphasis on the "personally", I can't see where modern primitives are all that wrapped up in ritual. To be sure it exists but they are far too busy trying to eat and I can't help but wonder if that was not true of the ancients as well.

Religion, for better or worse, has always been some portion of human existence. There is no denying that. In agricultural societies it seems that the "temples" or palaces were the only things built of sufficiently solid materials to survive the passage of time which may well account for the apparent over saturation of "religious" structures. The priests and the kings lived in stone while the commons lived in mud huts. That what stratification of society means.

For myself, I'm not all that impressed with the argument that cave art of animals represents some kind of hunting magic. It could but then again it could just be a place where hunters recorded their prowess...sort of like a stone-age frat house. I doubt that the argument will ever be settled but it is a point of view.

I'll restate my earlier position: If you wish to discuss this issue, feel free. If you don't, ignore it. There are lots of threads in the forum which do not generate an enormous response for one reason or another. That's cool.

Every thread should not be hijacked, as Marduk would do with his Sumerians or Arch with his bible, but this was one clearly labelled and should have been easily avoided by anyone who wanted to avoid it.

Peace, brothers.

[Ishtar]

There are lots of threads in the forum which do not generate an enormous response for one reason or another. That's cool.

Thanks Min. And I too do not expect this to be one of the most popular threads that are constantly at the top of the board. That wasn't why I set it up.

As more and more palaeo artifacts are uncovered, we may find that some could have a shamanic flavour or application and in that case, this thread will give us a receptacle for those posts to go in so that we can discuss them. I also thought it might be useful to give some pointers as to what to look for, what a shamanic motif is likely to consist of, and most of those are contained in my first few posts.

So I see this more as a long running, but not very frequently used thread, like Neanderthal News for example.

Peace, brothers.

And sisters!

[Minimalist]

Thanks, Loretta!

[Manystones]

As more and more palaeo artifacts are uncovered, we may find that some could have a shamanic flavour or application and in that case, this thread will give us a receptacle for those posts to go in so that we can discuss them.

I am still waiting for you to post the first palaeo artifact that you believe or interpret to have a 'shamanic flavour'.

[Ishtar]

Thanks, Loretta!

Bloody brilliant, Min!

[Manystones]

and waiting......

[Sam Salmon]

.....One of them even asked me how much longer I'm going to put up with the Grumpy Old Mens' Club....

and waiting......

[Ishtar]

I'm not going to be bullied by you guys, so give it up.

[Manystones]

Ishtar,

it's a forum not a boxing ring... what are you frightened off - making a fool of yourself

And anyway, to remind you, you said that you wouldn't reply to me anymore (principally because you can't and have failed to respond to any of my questions or challenges) although you did make out it was because i had twisted your words where in fact all I did was put the focus on the terminology you are using.

[john]

Ishtar,

it's a forum not a boxing ring... what are you frightened off - making a fool of yourself

And anyway, to remind you, you said that you wouldn't reply to me anymore (principally because you can't and have failed to respond to any of my questions or challenges) although you did make out it was because i had twisted your words where in fact all I did was put the focus on the terminology you are using.

OK, gang -

Let's start off with a couple easy ones.

The Willendorf "Venus" and

The painted cave known as "Chauvet"

Neither example demonstrates any "practical" use,

Such as those demonstrated by a club or a handaxe,

Or a length of twisted fibre.

They do, however, demonstrate

In my opinion, a pretty highly developed

Level of cognition.

To what end?

Enquiring minds wish to know..........



Have at.


hoka hey


john

[Ishtar]

John! Finally, we have a home to call our own!

You put the kettle on, and I'll light the fire!

Halle-bloody-looya!

[Ishtar]

Let’s get this old chestnut out of the way as it illustrates a wider point that we can build on.

This Upper Palaeolithic figure appears on a ceiling chamber of what some believe to be a Palaeolithic hunter’s initiation cave called Les Trois Freres (Three Brothers) in southern France.



Here’s a clearer drawing of it:




From the drawing, we can see that he has what looks like the ears and horns of a stag, the eyes of some say an owl (but I'm not sure), the bearded face of an old man, the tail of a wolf, the paws of a bear and his legs, which could be human, are dancing.

In any case, we have a mix of animal and human features in one figure.

He is known as the sorcerer, and some believe that he is a prototype for Kernunnos, forest god of the later Celts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorcerer_(cave_art)

The Sorcerer is one name for an enigmatic cave painting found in a cavern known as 'The Sanctuary' at Trois-Frères, Ariège, France. It appears to depict a man dressed as a stag (or, alternatively, a half-human, half-stag). Its date is approximately 13,000 BCE.

Whether a drawing of a god, a shaman, a priest or something else the dancing figure of the "Sorcerer" is a therianthrope, a symbolic blending of human and animal forms that can be found in many cultures. Therianthropes commonly blend the human form with animals that are directly important to local culture, for example as food. Thus, the image is commonly interpreted as a shaman performing a ritual to ensure good hunting; however, this interpretation cannot be proven, nor can the image's possible connections with the much later "Horned God" of Celtic regions.

Some believe that further animals may be discerned within the image: the hands have been described as bear-like, and the face that of a bird[citation needed]. What is agreed on is that the legs and arms are human, as are the genitalia, and there are parallels with other ancient images in which human limbs are attached to an animal, usually a bison, to create a bipedal figure.

I wanted to start off with this figure as I believe that he illustrates the shamanic motif of shape-shifting.

Many of the turn of the 20th century shamans interviewed by Eliade's anthropologists claimed to be able to shape-shift at will, in altered reality. We also see this motif in most mythologies.

For instance, Lleu (the hero of the Welsh Mabinogian) shape-shifts from man to eagle, the Celtic hero Taleisin shape shifts through many animal incarnations to reach his final form, and the Irish hero Cuchulainn starts off life as what sounds like an insect.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lars/rel375.html
Taliesin had been Gwion Bach disguised as a grain of wheat (Ford, 164, 173) and Sétanta, later known as Cúchulainn, had been a vague, tiny creature in a drink, possibly the soul of the god Lug (Kinsella, 23). Both Taliesin and Cúchulainn had extraordinary abilities extending to the supernatural, and Taliesin even described himself as having previously been Gwion Bach. Friuch and Rucht changed into maggots, very small creatures, and were consumed by cows while fighting each other in a battle of magic. They became reborn as the extraordinary bulls Finnebach Ai and Donn Cuailnge. They continued to escalate their combat by involving the tribes of Ireland, suggesting at least partial survival of their personalities.

So this illustrates another type of artefact to look out for, the human changing into an animal, or several animals one after another.

[Ishtar]

Shamans also report being able to shape-shift into birds, when they are in altered reality:

Eliade says:

“Ability to turn into a bird is the common property of all kinds of shamanism, not only the Turko-Mongol but also the Arctic, American, Indian and Oceanian....”

The figure seeming to lay to the left on this tableau is termed the Bird Man of Lascaux, because of his bird head. He appears in these cave paintings in southern France which are dated to 17,000 BC.




But what is just as interesting is down on the left of the picture. There is a bird on a stick, which is also thought to be a common, archaic shamanic symbol:

Eliade again:

The bird perched on a stick is a frequent symbol in shamanic circles. It is found, for example, on the tombs of the Yakut shamans. A Hungarian taltos [shaman] has stick or post before his hut and perched on the stick was a bird. ....The bird perched on the stick is already found in the celebrated relief at Lascaux in which Horst Kirchner has seen a representation of a shamanic trance. However this may be, it is certain that the motif “bird perched on a post” is extremely archaic.

[Manystones]

Here's a clearer picture of the so-called sorcerer of Les Trois Freres.



Breuil seems to have used a little artistic licence in his sketch.



Here's a quote from Hodgson again, this time from Seeing the Unseen, Cambridge Archaeological Journal:

The theory presented here is based upon empirical data concerning perception. Although deriving from a modern population sample this will still have been relevant to early modern humans because of a common perceptual-neurophysiological inheritance. Indeed, it is because perceptual correlates can be investigated from this perspective that we can rely on such investigations with greater assurance than those based upon more unreliable comparisons. For example, the shamanic explanation, although alluding to neurophysiological components, fails to explain many of the perceptual observations obtaining, such as the predominance of depleted outlines throughout the period concerned. Moreover, a shamanic account is also predicated on cultural factors (Lewis-Williams 1991, 159) that would instead predict a considerable change in emphasis, both in subject matter and style during the Upper Palaeolithic — but this does not seem to have been the case to any substantial degree. Interestingly, the depleted typical-outline animals constitutes, as a single unit, by far the commonest mode of representation throughout (Halverson 1992b, 224). Notwithstanding some changes in the way various animal parts were represented, the main variations resided in the amount of detail employed or the kind of animal represented (Clottes 1996). Pertinently, humans are, by and large, rare and poorly drawn, ‘scenes’ for the most part non-existent, and therianthropes (for which there are alternative explanations to shamanism e.g. Guthrie 1984) are exceptional. According to a shamanistic interpretation, one would expect to find each of these components in some abundance, as in the San rock paintings of southern Africa.

Conclusion

Palaeolithic artists seem to have been employing abbreviated graphic lines to prime for: a) the most efficient and rapid means of identifying animals through salient outline-features; b) perceptual closure when confronted with occluded contours on hunting forays; c) recoverable complementary contours suggestive of 3D form; d) sharper recognition skills for various fauna by a reduction of contours. These criteria will have been achieved through an extended preoccupation with both the activity of drawing and seeing depictions at regular intervals at various sites. Accordingly, through this covert training procedure Palaeolithic people would have been increasing the speed, accuracy and certainty of recognizing fauna that could not otherwise have been achieved.

[Ishtar]

Manystones, why do you think anyone here will be the least bit interested in anything you have to say after the way you discredited yourself yesterday?

Not only did you behave like a viscious-minded bully, but you also tried to misrepresent me by falsifying one of my quotes - and your reason for doing so, when I challenged you, was pure, unadulterated mendacity.

You have no integrity here, Manystones.....in the meantime, we will be going with the widely accepted definition from Wikipedia which, although it may not be perfect, it certainly more reliable than you and your so-called neutral scientists.