Archaeologica.org

Hi all -

If we can jump back to Gobekli Tepe mentioned earlier in the thread, I want to interject a question related to the current discussion (a couple pages back).

It has been suggested that religion was the catalyst for the dawn of the neolithic revolution. After looking at the published images of the Gobekli Tepe site, I'm not seeing a religious connection. The images look fairly benign, free of any religious overtones.

The majority of the carvings are animals (undomesticated) from the region of the time which implies more of a hunting reference than a religion. There are no anthro-zoological images that I've seen. I did see one image of a woman giving birth but it was a crude line drawing, almost like graffiti. It appeared out of place.

There are images of vultures that are used symbolically in more recent religions....but these megaliths also have images of other birds.

Is there anything with the structures that would characterize it as a place of religion? Perhaps a more trained eye could advise.

It is something that has been discussed here before, I/O. It seems that there is a tendency among scholars to use religion or ritual as a default position for anything that does not present another obvious explanation. I suspect that part of this is that the public demands answers...even if they are wrong or at least premature.

It would be refreshing to hear them say "we don't know, yet" but perhaps that is asking too much?

Minimalist wrote:It is something that has been discussed here before, I/O. It seems that there is a tendency among scholars to use religion or ritual as a default position for anything that does not present another obvious explanation. I suspect that part of this is that the public demands answers...even if they are wrong or at least premature.

It would be refreshing to hear them say "we don't know, yet" but perhaps that is asking too much?

YES! Tell that to Mr Bednarik.

Interested Onlooker wrote: It has been suggested that religion was the catalyst for the dawn of the neolithic revolution. After looking at the published images of the Gobekli Tepe site, I'm not seeing a religious connection. The images look fairly benign, free of any religious overtones.

I/O the birds at Gobekli Tepe are thought to be cranes … and so you might find this extract interesting from Inside the Neolithic Mind, based on the flight of the shaman:

Seeing from above as a means of flight may be a special type of supernatural vision….At Nevali Cori, a piece of sculpture seems to combine human and avian features, while another has a human head, but the shape of a bird. One of the pillars has a carving of a bird that seems to be perched on the head. Elsewhere, on a pillar, two birds face one another. Moreover, a vulture-like bird was sculpted in the round. At Catalhoyuk, there is a wall painting of two cranes facing one another with heads raised.

It’s interesting to compare this with the bird imagery at Alan Day’s site in Ohio: http://www.daysknob.com/

A bird facing forward on top of the head, often suggesting shaman headgear.

One or more birds or quasi-human faces emerging from the mouth, an apparent theme of regeneration, like the figure-emerging-egg-like and figure-from-the-belly imagery also shown below. Sometimes there is a succession of figures, each emerging from the one preceding it.

A bird or Bird Spirit emerging from the posterior in the manner of an egg, when the figure appears in full-length bird form.

The head of a bird or Bird Spirit emerging beneath the primary figure (when in full length form), as if from the belly.

These are classic shamanic motifs and so from this we can see that they occur in places as geographic and culturally distant as Turkey and North America. Birds are very common ‘power animals’. Power animals appear to the shaman when he first begins to journey, and they become one of their closest spirit guides. As part of the initiation during the journey, the power animal will often swallow the shaman, and the shaman will pass through the body of the animal or bird and then exit through its posterior or belly.

Eggs are also common shamanic motifs – the symbolism being obvious.

And snakes are also as common as birds in shamanic iconography.

Both birds and snakes are present at Gobekli Tepe.

Going back to the Inside the Neolithic Mind:

Recent excavations at this site [Catalhoyuk] has added to the number of bird bones that James Melhart found. Among these was the left wing of a crane. … By studying cut marks on the crane wing, Nerissa Russell and Kevin McGowan were able to conclude that the wing was not waste from normal butchery. Probably, they argue, the wing was part of ritual costume used in dances that may have mimicked cranes’ dances; these ‘animal rituals’ involved breeding pairs and also whole groups. ….Harald Hauptmann suggests that birds may have represented ‘the soul of a human or a connection between this world and the beyond.’