Archaeologica.org

Beagle wrote:We do not know for sure when the first shaman appeared, but it was in the Paleolithic, as a hunter/gatherer.

how do we know this Beags?

Beagle wrote:The shaman was probably an elder member of the group, and was known primarily as a Healer. Through a long process of trial and error, over generations, the shaman knew that there was medicinal power in many plants. He found that some plants would cure scurvy, and others would fight infection. He learned to make poultices and potions for various ailments. Within his limited understanding, it appeared that he could drive out evil spirits. This is truly the beginning of herbal medicine.

Isn't it more likely that this information was shared over generations and was not the exclusive domain of any one person?

And if everyone was indeed a shaman, then the definition ceases to have any meaning.

Manystones wrote:

Beagle wrote:We do not know for sure when the first shaman appeared, but it was in the Paleolithic, as a hunter/gatherer.

how do we know this Beags?

Beagle wrote:The shaman was probably an elder member of the group, and was known primarily as a Healer. Through a long process of trial and error, over generations, the shaman knew that there was medicinal power in many plants. He found that some plants would cure scurvy, and others would fight infection. He learned to make poultices and potions for various ailments. Within his limited understanding, it appeared that he could drive out evil spirits. This is truly the beginning of herbal medicine.

And I agree that much of the Shaman's knowledge would be shared by everyone in the group.

While I'm posting (as I don't wish to become part of the discussion), it's important to understand when their was

Isn't it more likely that this information was shared over generations and was not the exclusive domain of any one person?

And if everyone was indeed a shaman, then the definition ceases to have any meaning.

Here's one quote Richard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic

Additional scientific research of Paleolithic society has also revealed that the earliest known Paleolithic shaman (c. 30,000 BP) was female.[91] Jared Diamond suggests that the status of women declined with the adoption of agriculture because women in farming societies typically have more pregnancies and are expected to do more demanding work then women in hunter-gatherer societies.[92

I agree that much of the knowledge the shaman had was shared by the group. Many lay people are familiar with many medical techniques today.

While I'm posting (as I don't wish to become part of this discussion), I think it's important to understand when the shaman was not.

When a culture/civilization reaches a certain level of sophistication, the role of the shaman is splintered into various sciences and religion. When that happens there is not a shaman. The Vedas tell us that there was medicine, architecture, engineering, astronomy, mathematics,metallurgy, animal husbandry, and many other sciences. With that level of civilization, there was no shaman.

Isn't it more likely that this information was shared over generations and was not the exclusive domain of any one person?

That's actually a very good question, Rich. Let's forget the Clan of the Cave Bear image for the moment and deal with realities.

The most likely model for a shamanistic line is for each shaman to take an apprentice from the group and train him in the arts of the craft. If you identify two apprentices then, upon the death of the shaman, you have a power struggle because these were after all, people just like us ( Expect cries of outrage from the 'Neaderthal's were shaggy brutes', crowd). But if you identify one and he is subsequently killed then you are screwed. An even worse case would be for the shaman to die before completing the training of the next generation. Given that life was short and dirty this just does not seem to be an efficient method of transmitting knowledge. To easy to break the chain.

Of course, if EVERYBODY has a certain knowledge of these issues it makes the survival dependent on the group rather than on the individual(s). While more effective, it does lead to the inevitable result that the shaman is not all that special in the group.

Ish?

Minimalist wrote:To easy to break the chain.

Exactly. We might for instance consider the approach that would have been taken to trying potential food types, which may subsequently have helped reveal other properties...

Thanks Beagle, I followed that link and managed to grab this from a review of the book The Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine, Barbara Tedlock, Bantam, 2005.

The earliest known shamanic burial, she points out, was that of a woman of the Upper Paleolithic (30,000 years ago), whose dwelling included a potter's kiln in which she crafted thousands of tiny heads, feet, hands, and other talismans for healing.

So, it seems this is far from proven because yet again, there is an assumption that we can successfully guess the purpose or meaning of the 'talismen'. From the conclusion that the purpose was for healing apparently it's just another small leap of faith that this indicates "shamanism".

Perhaps it would be helpful for "someone" to explain what qualities or traits identify a shaman from a non-shaman?

Manystones wrote:it's just another small leap of faith that this indicates "shamanism".

Lots of "leaps of faith" as the interpreter interprets according to a world-view. For example, the little swirls in Rock Art that some claim, are Shaman altered states, archaeoastronomers have interpreted as representative of stars, planets and the sun.

Manystones wrote:Perhaps it would be helpful for "someone" to explain what qualities or traits identify a shaman from a non-shaman?

I am not certain, but I would think you could say, Shaman do not post on the web; do not write books; do not advertise their services in the classifieds, back of magazines or on websites; and they probably don't sell their services.

woodrabbit wrote:Boats I get, have been meaning to ask John about his Original/original Hematite reference, at least on the forum, but....Televison?!

Woodrabbit -

Either there was Multiple Simutaneous Independent Invention of the Use of Hematite as a Symbolic Material Worldwide, starting maybe half a million years ago.

or

There Was Boats.

This leaves to the side Out Of Africa, and all the other

Recent shit which pretends to

The Origin of Man, as pertains to

Das Klub's salaries, benefits, tenure

And comfort levels.


hoka hey


john

Or, Hancock's Remote Common Ancestor?

Beagle wrote:
Here's one quote Richard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic

Additional scientific research of Paleolithic society has also revealed that the earliest known Paleolithic shaman (c. 30,000 BP) was female.[91] Jared Diamond suggests that the status of women declined with the adoption of agriculture because women in farming societies typically have more pregnancies and are expected to do more demanding work then women in hunter-gatherer societies.[92

I agree that much of the knowledge the shaman had was shared by the group. Many lay people are familiar with many medical techniques today.

Thanks for findng that quote, Beags. That's very useful.

While I'm posting (as I don't wish to become part of this discussion), I think it's important to understand when the shaman was not.

When a culture/civilization reaches a certain level of sophistication, the role of the shaman is splintered into various sciences and religion. When that happens there is not a shaman. The Vedas tell us that there was medicine, architecture, engineering, astronomy, mathematics,metallurgy, animal husbandry, and many other sciences. With that level of civilization, there was no shaman.

Beags, that is just your opinion which, of course, you're entitled to. But the kind of a society that the shaman is in has absolutely no bearing on whether they are a shaman or not.

The definition of a shaman is someone who travels across the three worlds (the same three worlds that are well known to us from mythology) in order to bring back healing, information and guidance to their tribe or community.

This is what shamans have always done. It's very clear that that is what they are doing in the Rig-veda, and it's very clear that that's what the Amazonian shamans are doing today.

There is only one difference. Today the shaman does not have a tribe to bring back the healing and guidance to. He brings it back to individuals.

So your definition that shamanism ends with a sophisticated society is purely your opinion and I'd like to know....based on what? It's not most people's opinion, and now we even have a Harvard academic paper supporting the view that the Rig-vedics were shamans.

Minimalist wrote:
The most likely model for a shamanistic line is for each shaman to take an apprentice from the group and train him in the arts of the craft. If you identify two apprentices then, upon the death of the shaman, you have a power struggle because these were after all, people just like us ...
....While more effective, it does lead to the inevitable result that the shaman is not all that special in the group.

Ish?

Yes, nice theory Min. But it's not how it worked.

If you read (if I had a pound for everytime I said this, I'd be a millionnaire by now) Mircae Eliade's Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy you'd find reports by anthropologists of shamans worldwide that go into great detail about how a shaman is selected (or was, back in the late 1800s and early 1900s).

Every single culture - from Australia to America, from Siberia to Lapland, from India to Tibet, from Indonesia to Norway - says the same thing. They say that the spirits select the apprentice shaman.

Potential shamans are usually identified from an early age because they are not like everyone else. They can tend to be reclusive, to have strange dreams ... basically, they're misfits.

But again, according to Eliade, every culture says that when the apprentice shaman is being trained, he goes through a dismemberment. This is not, obviously, an actual dismemberment (although some of the Neolithic graves are like art installations honouring this process) but is carried out by the spirits in the altered reality and so is painless.

This dismemberment is at the heart of the death and rebirth (resurrection) myth that eventually ended up a story about a Jewish carpenter who was crucified and rose again. It's a metaphor for the neophyte shaman dying to this world and being reborn as a shaman, a man or woman of power who is guided by the spirits.

But basically, the spirits choose who they are going to train and who they are going to dismember to become shamans.

It is no different today.

john wrote:

woodrabbit wrote:Boats I get, have been meaning to ask John about his Original/original Hematite reference, at least on the forum, but....Televison?!

Woodrabbit -

Either there was Multiple Simutaneous Independent Invention of the Use of Hematite as a Symbolic Material Worldwide, starting maybe half a million years ago, by both H. n and H. h

or

There Was Boats, and Cognition.

This leaves to the side Out Of Africa, and all the other

Recent shit which pretends to

The Origin of Man, as pertains to

Das Klub's salaries, benefits, tenure

And comfort levels.


hoka hey


john

And, by the way,

I regard both Science and Religion, both

Using Politics as a vehicle, as

Very recent examples of sectarian violence

Focused on control of people and resources,

Rather than real knowledge.

Both vehemently deny

Their parent knowledge -

The Shamanic -

As a matter of course.

It is not in the interest

Of the military/industrial hegemony,

Let alone the various God Squads presently

Fighting for control of land, resources, and people

With NO regard

For balance, or harmonious living,

To recognize the Shamanic

As the precursor to what we

Presently accept as our

"Awareness."


Caveat.


j

Forum Monk wrote:

Manystones wrote:Perhaps it would be helpful for "someone" to explain what qualities or traits identify a shaman from a non-shaman?

I am not certain, but I would think you could say, Shaman do not post on the web; do not write books; do not advertise their services in the classifieds, back of magazines or on websites; and they probably don't sell their services.

So ... you mean they have to live in remote caves as hermits, never talk to anyone, remain totally ignorant of what's going on in the world and never let anyone know they are there to help them ....sounds like they'd be a lot of use, don't you think?

Seeing as shamans have never lived in the way you suggest, FM, and have always been a part of the society they served, why should it be any different today?

Manystones wrote:
Perhaps it would be helpful for "someone" to explain what qualities or traits identify a shaman from a non-shaman?

Unfortunately, the traits that separate the shaman and the non-shaman are not going to be found in a grave.

What makes him different is that he is able to travel across different worlds or dimensions to bring back healing or guidance for his community/tribe.

The only way we can trace shamanic activity is through art - mythology, poetry, paintings, architecture - but this will always be subject to interpretation and thus never be proven scientifically.

Ishtar wrote:

Manystones wrote:
Perhaps it would be helpful for "someone" to explain what qualities or traits identify a shaman from a non-shaman?

Unfortunately, the traits that separate the shaman and the non-shaman are not going to be found in a grave.

What makes him different is that he is able to travel across different worlds or dimensions to bring back healing or guidance for his community/tribe.

The only way we can trace shamanic activity is through art - mythology, poetry, paintings, architecture - but this will always be subject to interpretation and thus never be proven scientifically.

Ishtar -

C'mon.........I thought that the skeletal evidence of cloven hooves and the tail would be a dead giveaway.


john