Prehistoric shamanism

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Hand negative from the French Cantabrian cave of Pech Merle , France
Representation of a Siberian shaman (late 17th century)

Prehistoric shamanism is a term for a scientific thesis that is used as prehistoric shamanism in English-language literature when a connection with a certain shamanism concept is postulated on the basis of archaeological artifacts that are reminiscent of recent phenomena of shamanism . Shamanism subsumes various phenomena “between religion and healing ritual ” that are observed among the spiritual specialists of traditional societies known as shamans . The term is not used in German-speaking literature.

The main indicators for shamanistic phenomena in the Paleolithic are burials, rock and cave paintings , idols and certain special features of the tool inventories - such as devices that were certainly not intended for practical use due to their size, shape, fragility and delicate workmanship, but presumably of ritual significance should have had. Corresponding artifacts also exist for shamanism in the Neolithic .

When three millennia old rock art with anthropomorphic depictions was discovered in the so-called “ classic Siberian shamanism ” and wearing a kind of crown of antlers (as it is there to this day), Russian researchers assumed that until recently they were still “original” living cultures must have continuously given shamans since the Neolithic. However, other researchers said these representations were younger and pointed to the potential influence of Buddhism . However, there are other rock art zones on earth - such as the Aborigines of Australia, the San South Africa of the Californian Indians, and archaeological finds assigned to the Scythians - which some researchers see in connection with prehistoric shamanism.

In this context, the terms Palaeolithic and Neolithic are associated with traditional economic forms that are still predominant today - that is, hunting and gathering or agriculture . Some groups of pygmies, Damara and San, isolated peoples of South and Southeast Asia as well as New Guinea and some isolated peoples of Amazonia live to our days as hunters and gatherers; and non-industrialized planting and horticulture are still widespread worldwide - especially in the so-called developing countries .

Although many of the found objects are evidently reminiscent of shamanic rituals, completely different interpretations are possible in principle. It is undisputed that early humans expressed religious ideas artistically, but what exactly they are in each case will always remain a mystery due to the fragmentary evidence and lack of context information. Even the most recent, widely acclaimed, and well-respected conclusions by South African archaeologist David Lewis-Williams and French archaeologist Jean Clottes remain speculative and unprovable in many ways.

Temporal delimitations

Stone Age chronological table (figures millennia before today or before Christ; regionally different)
Geological history Human history
Holocene (12–0) Later Stone Age (50-0) Chalcolithic (5200-4500 BC), Neolithic (6000-4000 BC), Mesolithic (8500-6000 BC), Epipalaeolithic
Pleistocene Young Pleistocene (126–12) Paleolithic (2600-12)
Middle Stone Age (130-50)

Upper Paleolithic (40–12)
Middle Paleolithic (300 / 200–40)

Middle Pleistocene (781–126) Early Stone Age (2600–130)
Old Pleistocene (1806–781) Early Paleolithic (2600–300 / 200)
Gelasium (2588–1806)

Paleolithic

A history or time model of the 19th century that has since been modified, according to which contemporary “primitive” cultures are to be equated with prehistoric, e.g. Stone Age, cultures, led to the initially undifferentiated assumption that shamanic practices were already widespread in similar or even identical forms in the earliest past as you can still see them today. In the meantime, however, this cultural and historical situation is no longer seen as directly transferable or even identical. It is only considered likely that religious phenomena existed in prehistory that can be regarded as the origin of today's ethnic religions , but whose developments were influenced by numerous transference phenomena and syncretisms from other religions. Archaeological finds can make this plausible at best; Ultimately, this thesis cannot be proven.

However, recent research assumes that the places of the Upper Palaeolithic adorned with pictures were cult places of the community, which were often used for millennia - as places of sacrifice in some cases until the recent past. This applies above all to the area of ​​the animistic religions of Siberia, which are also referred to as "classical shamanism". The basis for this is André Leroi-Gourhan's statement on (above all) Paleolithic art and its importance: “We can, without overwhelming the material, use the entirety of figurative art of the Paleolithic as an expression of ideas about the natural and supernatural order (which in the Stone Age thinking could only form a unit) of the living world. ”However, he rejects the terms shamanism and totemism for the prehistoric religions. He speaks of the "ethnologically motivated over-interpretation" of relatively less meaningful archaeological finds. His (also hypothetical) assumption is based instead on a highly complex mythological system of predominantly sexually stressed antagonisms with a complementary character. Müller also doubts the significance of the South, South-West and North African rock art for the meaning of shamans and shamanism. Jean Clottes, on the other hand, advocates the interpretation of prehistoric shamanism . On the other hand, David Lewis-Williams - as already shown above - in his detailed study "The Mind in the Cave" (2002) with numerous individual examples points to a close analogy between the Upper Paleolithic depictions, especially the Franco-Cantabrian cave art, and recent rock art by hunter-gatherers. Ethnic groups, which he traces back to similar intellectual and economic-social conditions of this way of life. He postulates a comparable “state of consciousness” (see also: Cognitive archeology today ) . In some of the motifs shown, such as nosebleeds, people clapping or mixed animals and humans, he sees typical characteristics of trance states. However, critics doubt that this explanation applies to all rock art. The use of hallucinogens has a long tradition, especially among the Siberian shamans, and is even considered possible as early as the Upper Paleolithic. Lewis-Williams also states that the people of the Upper Palaeolithic must have known altered states of consciousness (in whatever way these were brought about), because he writes: “Hunter-gatherer shamanism is fundamentally posited on a range of institutionalized altered states of consciousness . ”Michel Lorblanchet, on the other hand, points out that the manganese oxide, which is often used in rock paintings, triggers a hallucinogenic effect when it is put into the mouth as colored mud, as was the case with the Aborigines, and blown onto the rock face.

Possible metaphysical basic ideas of a paleolithic shamanism

Aboriginal hand positive in the Blue Mountains (Australia)
  • Animism: According to several authors, cave and rock art mainly represents mythograms (according to André Leroi-Gourhan and Mircea Eliade ), which reflect certain mythical ideas. At least European cave art, for example in the Franco-Cantabrian area, was with relative certainty part of cult sites. Various indications point to this, for example the location in dark, inaccessible cave areas that were never inhabited, the long use, the sometimes overpainted image program and its interpretation as hunting magic and initiation room, which are for example the depiction of arrows and spears or hunting animals provided with bullet holes, the symbolism of which is interpreted as an image-animal transmission mechanism.
  • Hunting magic : This idea wasintroduced into the discussionby Henri Breuil at the time and later adopted, in part modified, by other researchers. Since numerous animal pictures also show signs of arrows and spear hits or are often even depicted with them or as dead animals and with markings for the deadliest hit point (e.g. the bison in the cave of Niaux ), they are sometimes also used as "teaching aids" rated and less as symbolic targets for a later hunt. In this context, Breuil has also speculated about a potential fertility spell. However, Hultkrantz states: “Shamanism and all forms of hunting magic emerged as almost inevitable developments. Not in the sense of a cultural determinism , but as an evolution from certain conditions that ultimately only allow a limited number of possibilities. In his opinion, shamanism and hunting magic represented a natural - not the only - step in a world in which food deposits were and are one of the main factors of natural selection. ”Nowadays, hunting magic isscientifically rejectedas an interpretation of religious and cultic practice of the Paleolithic .
  • Sexuality : Hultkrantz: “One of the salient characteristics of hunting magic has to do with sexuality and sexual behavior. The hunt often shows traits of a relationship with sexual undertones between the hunter and the animal. In the context of the hunt, the “masculinity” of the hunter should prevail over his “female” prey. Sometimes the hunt is seen as a regulative for the formalized exchange of food for sex in society. “Ithyphallic representations like the one in the Lascaux cave point in the same direction ( see below ). Initiation, too, belongs at least in part, and also to this day, as numerous religious initiation rites of the modern age show, in this ultimately sexually determined area. In the Neolithic , this factor was then probably given a new meaning, as it was associated with the cyclical growth and decay, i.e. with the maternal quality of the fertility of the soil, and thus also with the subterranean world, death. Adolf Ellegard Jensen's concept of the dema deity draws directly from this context.
  • Initiation : Apossibility emphasizedespecially by André Leroi-Gourhan and favored today, which sees cave art as a reflection of Paleolithic society. In the caves, the mystical darkness of the picture sequences, illuminated only by torches, symbolized the boundaries that the cave walls must have drawn between this world and the hereafter in the imagination of the people of that time.
  • Totemism : Émile Durkheim looked for the origin of religions in it. Bears in particular seem to have played a totemic role in the Upper Paleolithic, assuggested bythe finds in the Chauvet Grotto and in other caves or the bear sculpture from Montespan. But cervids are also common, and the antlers of recent Siberian shamans point in this direction.
  • Metaphysical symbolism : According to Lewis-Williams, the rare positive and very numerous negative handprints that can be found in numerous caves worldwide are to be regarded as the closest possible contact with the spirit world behind the cave walls and thus probably also as one of the oldest evidence of an archetypal religious metaphor . They were created either by applying paint to the palm of the hand, whereby he understood the cave wall as a membrane on this side and the other side; or by blowing paint dust on the hand pressed close to the rock face, according to its interpretation through the breath as the most perceptible essence of the human being, who thereby projected himself into the rock and his representations and thus became one with his otherworldly substrate. They are thus among the first clear signs of Homo symbolicus , who is transforming into Homo religiosus , a development which, with the experience of the sacred, marks the spiritual stage of Homo sapiens sapiens that still exists today , especially since all the dates of such hand negatives go to the earliest period of the Franco-Cantabrian Refer to rock paintings and these representations were obviously no longer understood by later inhabitants of the caves, as they destroyed or painted over them as apparently dangerous magic.

Circumstantial evidence

It is here only to the Upper Palaeolithic (Engl. "Upper Paleolithic"), because the evidence from the period before 30,000 BP are too weak to withstand critical examination, For the Upper Paleolithic with the appearance of the mature Homo sapiens sapiens, the yes is defined by the now spectacularly developing religious art, but this does not apply, because the evidence here is numerous and the scope for interpretation, although there is, relatively small and apart from contemporary historical tendencies in science informative. In any case, other authors such as Jean Clottes see the Upper Paleolithic finds as a strong indication of a shamanism that existed at the time. However, the most important problem areas and objections are briefly listed here in advance :

  1. Many animal-human hybrid representations, such as the Franco-Cantabrian cave art, are interpreted as shamans and the depicted animals as a representation of the transcendent sphere. This can certainly point to beginnings of shamanic ideas within the animal-related reality of the paleolithic. However, this is not mandatory.
  2. The same applies to depictions of animals with a second contour of the head, whereby only one eye is shown in each contour, which is interpreted as an indication of a soul or an alter-ego existence , without, however, allowing interpretation beyond a magical scenario.
  3. The theriomorphic beings of Upper Palaeolithic art, which are interpreted as shamans, can also be interpreted quite differently, namely as mythical heroes, ancestors or leaders of the animal and human world, such as the master of animals . Capturing them in pictures could have belonged to magical rituals and the associated subsistence expectations of a form of religion, for example in the sense of hunting magic .
  4. Some authors (e.g. Reichholf) derive the animal-human dual beings in the cave paintings from the hunters' camouflage using animal skins, although this was the original function and the shamans only used the disguise ritually later, after it was used have proven effective in hunting.
  5. Erotic interpreted signs and representations can be interpreted similarly as fertility magic, as it occurs to this day in numerous ethnic religions without a shamanic background.
  6. Mainly didactic interpretations are also conceivable. The numerous arrows that mark the vital parts of the prey in cave pictures point in this direction, perhaps in connection with hunting magic.

Rock paintings and cave paintings

They are probably the most important source of the interpretation of "shamanism" and best provide information about the possible religious ideas of those people who are already part of the modern type of Homo sapiens sapiens (in Europe Cro-Magnon man and the man from Combe Capelle ). They exist practically all over the world, around 300 sites are known in Europe alone, the oldest from around 30,000 BP ( Grotte Chauvet ), the youngest to the present day (including Aborigines and San ). (Total source below) Of particular interest are the depictions of hybrid beings or people with masks as well as masks alone, which various authors assess as evidence of a shamanism that existed at the time. Handprints and idols are also important in this context, as well as the possible representation of totem animals and animals with arrow tracks, e.g. B. Les Trois Frères . The fact that many of these images are located deep in dark caves (only the front parts at the entrance were inhabited), areas that were often very difficult to reach and that were sometimes up to two kilometers from the entrance, is a further indication of this that these were cult places in which hunting magic acts, initiations and other cultic ceremonies took place. In the opinion of psychologists and anthropologists, the sometimes claustrophobic fear of caves, which are innate in humans, manifest in different strengths, may have been of importance, which created a mystical atmosphere and the overcoming of which could have played a role during initiations. The fact that the paintings were often very artistically executed, i.e. by experts, is also important. The cave walls seem to have been understood as a kind of border between this world and the other. This religious meaning is particularly striking in the Franco-Cantabrian cave art, and Leroi-Gourhan even speaks of mythograms .

  • Franco-Cantabrian art: In it, over 90% of the known paintings can be found in caves and under the abysses of Western Europe. There are some magically altered animal images and a few depictions of shamans / wizards, all of which come from the Magdalenian . They are the only Paleolithic evidence of this region that may have been associated with magical practices carried out underground.
    • Mythical animals: They can be found in the caves of Lascaux ("Unicorn"), Pech-Merle , LeTuc-d'Audoubert (Ariège), Le Gabillou and others.
    • Images called "shamans": These theriocephalic depictions are unclear whether they are anthropo-zoomorphic hybrid beings or mask wearers . Such hybrid beings or mask wearers are typical of some contemporary shamanic cultures. There is a painted monstrous mask in the cave of Altamira . But also in Asia Minor there are early Neolithic in Göbekli Tepe theriocephalic representations that could be interpreted as mask-wearing shamans. According to Campbell, masks are signs of masked gods as complex ceremonial components, especially in planter societies, and are therefore at the center of the ritual, and their wearers not only represent the god, they are god. Masks play a special role in Africa (although most authors do not consider them shamanistic) to this day at initiation and in connection with secret societies, whose dignitaries appear in public with masks, which can be very different depending on the occasion and locally.
      Some examples:
  1. A famous depiction from the Lascaux Cave shows a bird's head on a pole, a bison and a man with an obvious ithyphallus tilted. According to the interpretation of some archaeologists, it is a shamanic séance , the "image composition of a shamanic evocation of spirits with an auxiliary spirit (pole bird), shaman (man) and sacrificial animal (bison bull)". For Henri Breuil, this depiction was the starting point for his thesis on hunting magic.
  2. In the cave of Les Trois Frères (Ariège) there is a representation called the "magician".
  3. Three dancing people dressed in animal skins - shamans? - in the cave of Teyat (Dordogne).
  4. Fontanet: Black man with bison.
  5. A human figure with a bison head and a long tail in the cave of Le Gabillou (Dordogne).
  6. Human figure with bird head and bear legs .: Altamira Cave .
  7. Spanish Levant: Fighting anthropozoomorphic figures.
  • Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia:
  1. Anthropozoomorphic beings, Tamgali, Kazakhstan.
  2. "Shaman with a soul boat", Ob region, 2nd millennium BC Chr.
  3. Drum face, Amur area, 4th / 3rd centuries Millennium BC Chr.
  4. Figure with crown of rays, Altai, 2nd millennium BC Chr.
  5. Altai Mountains: numerous depictions reminiscent of shamans. Allocation to the Paleolithic.
  6. Oroktoj, Altai, 3./1. Millennium BC Chr.
  7. Man with a bear mask, Yakutia, 4th / 3rd centuries Millennium BC Chr.

Further images of this area, some from a later period to almost the present day, can be found in Hoppál.

  • South and East Asia:
  1. The chronological assignment of the Chinese rock carvings is disputed, they belong mainly to the Neolithic, see p. there.
  2. India: numerous rock art. Bimbethka (Vindhya Mountains): Mythical animal and human figures. Probably Mesolithic .
Fresco of the “Great Spirit” by Séfar, Tassili
  • Sahara : The representations there all come from the Holocene and are predominantly Neolithic except for the first, the so-called hunter / round head or wild animal period.
  1. Round head / hunter period: Great spirit and other hybrid beings, sometimes referred to as "Martians" because of their huge heads. Tassili , Algeria.
  2. Hunter period: mask wearer with a killed rhinoceros and man with a dog's head. Wadi Mathendous (Fezzan).
  3. Fresco by Séfar, Tassili: suction. "Gorilla" or "God of Séfar": A fantasy creature, plus further representations of magical beings.
  4. So-called. "Devil" from Azellouaz, Djanet, Algeria.
  5. Adorant of Djado (so-called "devil man")
  • Sub-Saharan Africa without South Africa : These are mostly highly schematic, sometimes also naturalistic depictions of pastoral peoples in Tanzania, Zimbabwe or Zambia. There is apparently no connection to the highly developed and diverse hunter-gatherer rock art of the San.
    There is also rock art in equatorial and western Africa, which has hardly been explored and often shows connections to neighboring regions, but also goes back to prehistoric times.
  • South Africa and Namibia : In the Transvaal and in the extreme south of Africa there are naturalistic depictions of herds of sheep and cattle, which are also remote from the art of the San.
    Art of the San : There is an enormous collection of rock carvings that refer exclusively to the hunter-gatherer way of life of this people (> 30,000 depictions in Namibia), predominantly from the period 3000 to 4000 BP ( Before Present . The abbreviation v It makes sense to use it only from the Neolithic. The reference year is 1950.). The oldest images are in the so-called Apollo 11 cave and are around 27,000 years old. Without exception, they come from the hunter-gatherer ancestors of the San. Two thirds of the paintings are depictions of humans (they are almost completely absent from the engravings), including mythical creatures such as the great ear snake and hybrid creatures interpreted as shamans, such as the polychrome depiction of a human figure with an antelope's head, the bleeds from the nose and thus possibly indicates a state of the journey to the hereafter or a representation from the Drakensberg . But there are also purely anthropomorphic representations that could be interpreted as shamans: for example the dancing magicians from Cullen's Wood, Barkly East, South Africa. Hand negatives are common. Spiritual specialists were held in high regard by the San, and based on their authority they called meetings, asked for rain and for the favor of the spirits believed to be incarnated in eland and other animals. The rites required for this and the physical expression of trance were possibly recorded by their ancestors in imagery.
  • Other regions (selection): Here, too, the dating problem often arises, and an assignment to the Paleolithic or Neolithic is only possible via the content.
  1. North America: The numerous rock carvings there were probably primarily used for hunting magic. They are therefore presumably mainly assigned to the Upper Paleolithic phase, even if, where this economic form was practiced, they could more likely belong to the early Neolithic (see Neolithic). Especially in the southwest there are some fantastic representations that are associated with shamanism, for example in the Cueva de la Serpente and the Sierra of San Francisco with the snake paintings there (both equipped with horns or antlers). There are also anthropozoomorphic representations and representations of people with clear attributes of today's medicine men.
  2. South America: The rock art there are extremely heterogeneous in style. Mostly animals are depicted, often strongly stylized to geometrical. Shamanic representations have not yet been proven.
  3. Australia: The rock carvings are relatively easy to date and almost all of them can be assigned to the Paleolithic period. Hand negatives are common, as are demon representations ( quinkas ), but also representations of good spirits ( wondjinas ), plus ancestral figures up to five meters high in the context of the founding myths of the individual tribes. People are preferred. The main discovery areas for caves and abrises are Arnhem Land in Northern Australia, Dampier (Western Australia) and Southeast Australia. Locations include: Laura, York, Cannon Hill etc. The traditions of depicting mythical figures (including female ones) of the dream time , especially in the so-called X-ray style , as also occurs in the rock art of Scandinavia, in the line ceramics and China, especially Neolithic, are sufficient the Aborigines to modern times.
  4. Jordan, Tuleilat Ghassul: Procession of mask-bearers or hybrids.

Handprints and abstracts

  • Handprints : For their meaning, see above under xxxx “Possible basic metaphysical ideas of Paleolithic shamanism”. They exist in the Upper Paleolithic and analogous cultural stages in rock painting practically worldwide, and they seem, like the depictions with raised arms (“adorant posture”) to have served to demonstrate one's own presence in the presence of the religious as an “expression of self- opening towards a divine transcendence ”.
  • Other engravings such as points and lines: cf. table in. The mostly geometric symbols, which are also documented worldwide in rock paintings, may contain sexual symbolism according to Leroi-Gourhan, while Lewis-Williams thinks it is conceivable that these are entoptic representations of a certain change State of consciousness acts as they occur in the hallucinations of ritual shamanic ecstasy . Vialou, on the other hand, thinks it is conceivable that these are emblems of tribes, as they also appear in more recent rock art. They are also interpreted as mythograms (e.g. by Leroi-Gourhan, Vialou and Ries).

Sculptures, engravings and idols

Mostly on softer material such as horn or bone, but also on stone.

  1. The statuette of the lion man from the Hohlenstein barn in the Lone Valley , Aurignacien .
  2. A dancer with a bear's head in the Mas d'Azil cave station (Ariège). (The Azilien is named after the place.)
  3. Venus figurines : They appear more and more in Gravettia 29,000 years ago. It is understood to mean the naturalistic to abstract representation of naked women with exaggerated gender characteristics (e.g. vulva, breasts, signs of pregnancy). They are common as standardized figures from the Atlantic to Eastern Siberia, z. B. in Malta and Kostjenki (both formerly USSR) as well as Dolní Věstonice (formerly CSSR) or Laussel, France (engraving). The best known is the Venus von Willendorf . Their meaning is controversial. Whether they represent a religious content is questionable. Since their number far exceeds that of the male figures, it is partly assumed in research that women could have assumed a socially dominant position in the period of the Upper Paleolithic. Whether there is a connection to any prehistoric shamanism, for example in the sense of a fertility cult or erotic content, cannot be proven. According to the prevailing opinion, such cults only gained importance in the Neolithic ( Magna Mater ).
  4. Fetishism was widespread in this context and is guaranteed for historical China by taboos, reports and legends. Amulets , mostly provided with bores (teeth, shells, snails) are found in abundance in the Upper Paleolithic, but their interpretation, religious, status symbols or just jewelry, is uncertain and possibly above all a sign of social differentiation.

Burials

The first burial finds date from the Middle Paleolithic . Burials allow conclusions to be drawn about religious ideas (i.e. ideas about the hereafter, ancestor worship, etc.), as well as about the status of the buried person. Shamans were apparently buried standing up from time to time, as the finds in Oleni Ostrov in Karelia suggest. The place and form of the burial are just as important as grave goods that are found very early on, mostly jewelry or amulets, sometimes sculptures. The red ocher used in burials in the Upper Palaeolithic is sometimes ascribed a certain magical-symbolic (blood, life) meaning, although the hygienic effects of ocher may have been decisive here, which were then given a secondary religious meaning. As traces on bones attest, it seems that there was manipulation of the corpse or bones relatively early in the Middle Paleolithic. There were only a few individual burials in graves, some in a crouched position (embryonic position), some lying down; most of the dead, however, seem to have only been covered and left lying. Sometimes the face is oriented towards the west, towards the setting sun (e.g. Ofnet caves ). Double and group burials occur several times, as well as head burials and skull deposits, in which skull bone injuries could indicate ritual use (ritual killings?). There were no cremations during this period.
All of this suggests that people felt connected to the dead, occasionally even burying them at the hearth and treating them with total respect. Whether evidence of animistic ideas can be derived from this is controversial and is denied by Müller-Karpe, for example. However, he also states that this attitude was an expression of a feeling that there could be an afterward without any explicit conceptions of the hereafter being demonstrable. However, certain patterns of mental processing of the environment and its central questions such as natural phenomena, birth, sexuality and death can be derived from all this. Above all, however, it is the emergence of visual art in the Upper Paleolithic that indicates a massive intensification of consciousness, the archaeologically tangible evidence of intellectual and cultural creation presupposes new forms of thought that inevitably have developed on a higher conceptual, personal and organizational level than this in the earlier phases of the Paleolithic and anthropogenesis was the case. Whether it is shamanism, animism or both must ultimately remain open.

The significance of the cranial burials and cranial dumping, as they possibly already occur in the Old Paleolithic (very uncertain: Zhoukoudien , 350,000 BP), in the Middle Paleolithic ( Moustérien ) on Monte Circeo and in the Upper Paleolithic in the cave of Mas d'Azil ( Magdalenian ), is relevant highly controversial for shamanic customs (such as skull cult). The often carefully arranged animal bone deposits that were also found, such as the postulated bear cult, which Leroi-Gourhan judged very critically, could, however, have had a Jagagic background, since, according to ethnographic records , the bones of the hunted game were known to the "lord of the animals" in historical times. returned.

Tool inventories

Some tools have clearly been so perfected in terms of design, especially with the inclusion of stone color, grain, etc., that, due to the increased manufacturing effort, it suggests their primarily ritual use or a special social context; and some tools are simply too large to be used effectively in the hunt. (For the particularly spectacular case of the hand ax, see Movius line ). The huge hand axes of the Murzuk Desert in southern Libya are particularly impressive . Other tools, especially blade tips, are sometimes so fragile and thin that they could not be used properly either. A similar cultic significance is suspected above all in the Neolithic and later also for double axes (moon and bull horn symbolism), e.g. B. a warrior status for grave goods .

Neolithic

Basically, the assignment of artefacts to certain religions, as they began to take place in the Neolithic parallel to the increasing social stratification of the population, is becoming more and more problematic.

Main religious tendencies and metaphysical worldviews

The following religious world and human images are postulated in connection with the social and economic-political dynamics triggered by the rural economy in the Neolithic:

  • Fertility cults , almost always among farmers, for example among band ceramists . There is also an ancestral cult , sometimes a mother cult.
  1. Mother cult of the Magna Mater and mystery cults such as in Malta and generally in the Mediterranean area.
  2. Agricultural myths: myth of the dying god , mana and the dema deity
  3. Chthonic cults: They are a link between the two previous types and are now relocating the realm of the dead into the depths of the earth, which is also the source of fertility and thus rebirth. Mystery cults were particularly typical here, they now expand the ancestral cult that was assumed to be palaeolithic and include initiation rites etc., with some ecstatic rites probably continuing.
  • Celestial cults , especially among cattle nomads. The sun, moon and stars or constellations are now gaining in importance and are later deified. But they are also important for farmers, as they signal the sowing times or, in river valley cultures like Egypt, flood times. In megalithic monuments such as Stonehenge or Carnac , an astronomical function is probably combined with a religious-priestly function.
  • Animalism , totemism and fetishism . As paleolithic relics, totems in particular are often preserved and may develop (highly controversial) into idols and animalistic symbols of gods in what are now stationary sanctuaries. Transitional forms can be found in the ancient Egyptian world of gods. (see above)
  • An essential characteristic of numerous Neolithic cults, however, is the emergence of systematized religions . In the context of the development towards early states, they are of great importance that can hardly be overestimated.

Shamanic elements gradually lose their importance and / or receive new contextual references. Ries calls this the step of Homo religiosus "from hierophany (a term coined by Eliad) to theophany ".

Circumstantial evidence

Rock art

  1. Scandinavia: The region was not settled until after the end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago. The rock paintings, almost only engravings, are therefore primarily Meso- to Neolithic. They exist from the west coast of Norway to Karelia. There are numerous representations that are interpreted shamanically and magically.
  2. Sahara:
    1. Cattle period: hunter with animal mask.
    2. Round head period: Aouanreth, Algeria: magician with mask and white woman.
  3. Siberia: Rock carvings can be found all over Siberia. They go back to the Neolithic of the 2nd and 1st millennium BC. BC back. They evidently form a certain ethnically tangible continuity to the current forms of shamanism, because the last such images were created only two to three centuries ago. The rock paintings there can be divided into five types: 1. (dancing) figure with bird's head, 2. human figures with phallic signs, 3. human figures with horns, 4. masks with horns, 5. shaman with drum.
  4. Asia Minor: The rock carvings of the Latmos Mountains in western Turkey date from the Neolithic. Particularly noteworthy here are stylized representations of so-called "horned gods", which are also interpreted as magicians and shamans wearing horns or horn masks. It is noticeable that these representations appear in the early Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe in the same region as T-pillars and are reminiscent of the Upper Paleolithic times, for example as a representation of the goat demon. There are also masks here.
  5. China: There are numerous, mostly stylized, anthropo-, zoomorphic and anthropozoomorphic mask representations, especially in remote mountain regions such as Inner Mongolia (Yinshan and Helanshan Mountains). The earliest in Linanyungang and Hua'an are about 5000 years old and date from the Neolithic, but are also considered to be representations of the spiritual world of the prehistoric hunters of the first peoples living there. The numerous depictions of animals also point in this direction. Ocher burials (18,000 BP, possibly already Peking man ), shaman's graves are proven, the ancestor cult developed early.
  6. North and South America: The delimitation of Paleolithic / Neolithic is very problematic here and a Neolithic is, although there were early peasant cultures, especially in the area of ​​the great rivers and California, nowhere as in the Old World with all relevant factors fully developed or even those Paleo / Neolithic assignment of possible shamanic contents. In addition, the opinion in research is inconsistent here, and Haberland certainly speaks of a Neolithic, which, however, was regionally different, for example in the Hopewell culture , which was initially regarded as a pure hunter-gatherer culture. It is correspondingly difficult to ascribe the already difficult to date rock paintings, such as the portrayal of the person (medicine man?) In The Maze, Utah. Some representations interpreted as shamanic are known, including handprints, including:
    1. North America: Widespread in the southwest (Baja California and Mexico) also with handprints, spirals, etc .: Picture cave of Baja California., Cueva de la Serpiente and Sierra of San Francisco with many (approx. 60) theriocephalous and mixed snakes, similar in the rocks of Sonora (Mexico). Whether these finds, also mentioned in the Paleolithic section, are purely Neolithic or rather belong to a transitional or mixed phase is disputed, as is the influence of the Central American civilizations beginning with the Olmecs . Activities of spiritual specialists such as flight, transformation into an animal, underwater travel, healing magic, hunting magic etc. are often depicted.
    2. South America: Researched very differently from region to region. Numerous hand depictions in Patagonia and the Andes, for example . Rock carving caves are found mainly in Brazil, some in the central Andes and Patagonia. Here, too, the Paleo or Neolithic classification is questionable, especially since there is hardly any shamanic iconography.

Burials

In the Neolithic there was an increasing development away from the simple grave of the palaeolithic, and burials now always reflect differentiated cultural-religious ideas within the framework of stratifying societies, especially from the 5th millennium BC. In Europe. This also applies similarly to non-European cultures, for example in the Middle East, China or India. Older ideas of the afterlife, of ancestors, souls, good or bad spirits, etc., are at least partially preserved in a new guise.

Sculptures, cabaret

Particularly relevant here are the Venus figurines , which, however, no longer belong in the spiritual area of ​​any shamanism theses ( see above ), but rather are signs of an increased mother-cultural development, especially in the Mediterranean region, as it was particularly impressive in Malta . Attributions with shamanic references are problematic, even for early Neolithic sites such as Çatalhöyük or Jericho . Some authors make such references in the sculptural representations in Göbekli Tepe with its still strongly hunting culture. Also Lepenski Vir in Serbia with his sculptures have shamanic backgrounds could have because the culture local also has a strong hunter-gatherer component had.

See also

literature

  • Emmanuel Anati: rock art. Cradle of art and the spirit . U. Bär Verlag, Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-905137-33-X
  • Jean Clottes, Jean Courtin: Cosquer cave near Marseille. A picture cave sunk in the sea. Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Sigmaringen 1995, ISBN 3-7995-9001-3
  • Jean Clottes, David Lewis-Williams: Les chamanes de la préhistoire. Texts intégral, polémiques et réponses. Éditions du Seuil 1996, La maison des roches 2001, Paris, ISBN 978-2-7578-0408-7
  • Dietrich Evers: Rock paintings - messages from the past. Urania Verlag, Leipzig 1991, ISBN 3-332-00482-4
  • Mihály Hoppál : The Shaman's Book. Europe and Asia. Econ Ullstein List, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-550-07557-X
  • Thomas, Nicolas et al. Caroline Humphrey: Introduction. In: Thomas, Nicolas and Caroline Humphrey (Eds.), Shamanism, History and the State . University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1996.
  • André Leroi-Gourhan : The religions of prehistory. Paleolithic. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-518-11073-X OA 1964
  • David Lewis-Williams: The Mind in the Cave. Consciousness and the Origins of Art . Thames & Hudson Ltd., London 2004, ISBN 0-500-28465-2
  • Klaus E. Müller : Shamanism. Healers, spirits, rituals. 3rd edition, Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-41872-4
  • Julien Ries: Origin of Religions. Pattloch Verlag, Augsburg 1993, ISBN 3-629-00078-9

Web links

Commons : Shamanism  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ Research “prehistoric shamanism” , Google Books on June 7, 2015.
  2. ^ William F. Romain: Shamans of the Lost World: A Cognitive Approach to the Prehistoric Religion of the Ohio Hopewell. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham (USA) 2009, ISBN 978-0-7591-1905-5 . Pp. 3, 7, 17-18.
  3. ↑ Karl R. Wernhart: Ethnic Religions - Universal Elements of the Religious. Topos, Kevelaer 2004, ISBN 3-7867-8545-7 . P. 139.
  4. ^ Roger N. Walsh in Gerhard Mayer: Shamanism in Germany. Concepts - Practices - Experiences. Vol. 2 of border crossings. Contribution to scientific research into extraordinary experiences and phenomena. Ergon, Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-89913-306-4 , p. 14.
  5. ↑ Research “Prehistoric Shamanism” , Google Books on June 8, 2015.
  6. ↑ Vialou, pp. 398-402.
  7. ↑ Lewis-Williams, pp. 136-162.
  8. ↑ a b Lewis-Williams, pp. 163-179.
  9. ↑ Hoppál, pp. 48–51.
  10. ↑ Hoppál, pp. 44 ff., 48 ff.
  11. ↑ Prehistoric rock art as a source of religious history ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Michael Sturm-Berger , 1996 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sturm-berger.de
  12. ^ Linden Museum for Regional and Ethnology: Yearbook of the Linden Museum Stuttgart, Tribus. No. 52, 2003, Stuttgart. P. 261.
  13. ↑ Disenchanted cave painters . In: Wissenschaft.de, July 20, 2004, accessed June 8, 2015.
  14. ↑ Hoppál, p. 46 f.
  15. ↑ a b Hoppál, p. 42.
  16. ↑ Leroi-Gourhan, p. 209.
  17. ↑ Leroi-Gourhan: Religions of Prehistory, pp. 163–169.
  18. ↑ a b Müller, p. 29.
  19. ↑ Clottes: Les chamanes, pp. 89 ff.
  20. ↑ Lewis-Williams, pp. 132-135.
  21. ↑ Hoppál, pp. 42, 49.
  22. ↑ Lewis-Williams, pp. 133 f.
  23. ↑ Lorblanchet, pp. 261-263.
  24. ↑ Ries, p. 42.
  25. ↑ a b Ries, p. 46 ff.
  26. ^ Cunliffe, p. 85.
  27. ↑ See Anati, color plate 12.
  28. ↑ Hultkrantz, p. 122.
  29. ↑ S. Forty: Myths of the Stone Age. The religious worldview of early humans. 2009, p. 47
  30. ↑ Hultkrantz, p. 124, cited above. according to: SE Isaacsson: Transformations often Eternity. On Man and Cosmos in Emberá Thought. Univ. of Gothenburg.
  31. ↑ Jensen: Mythos und Kult, pp. 131–141.
  32. ↑ Ries, p. 43 ff.
  33. ^ Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, Paris 1922.
  34. ↑ Chauvet, pp. 22 f., 43, 51.
  35. ↑ Vialou, p. 320.
  36. ↑ Haymon: Antler Crowns of Siberian Shamans, box, pp. 70–81.
  37. ↑ map cf. Clottes: Cosquer, p. 66.
  38. ↑ Lewis-Williams, pp. 216-220.
  39. ↑ Ries, p. 39 ff.
  40. ↑ Ries, pp. 122, 143, 153-156.
  41. ↑ Clottes: Cosquer, pp. 166 f., 173 f.
  42. ↑ Leroi-Gourhan: Religions of Prehistory, p. 158.
  43. ↑ Leroi-Gourhan: Religions of Prehistory, p. 158 ff.
  44. ↑ In: Les chamanes de la préhistoire.
  45. ↑ Fiedler et al., P. 335.
  46. ↑ Reichholf, pp. 65–67.
  47. ↑ See Anati, pp. 13-19.
  48. ↑ ZB Vialou, p. 288
  49. ^ Hoffmann, Lexicon of the Stone Age.
  50. ↑ Lewis-Williams, p. 12.
  51. ↑ Hoffmann, p. 176 ff.
  52. ↑ Ries, pp. 38-42; Eliade: History of Religious Ideas, pp. 27–37.
  53. ↑ Cunliffe, p. 86 ff.
  54. ↑ Vialou, p. 318.
  55. ↑ Vialou, p. 324.
  56. ↑ Hoppál, pp. 45–47, 111 f.
  57. ↑ Vialou, p. 174
  58. ^ Schmidt: They built the first temples, p. 216 f.
  59. ↑ In: Mythologie der Urvölker, pp. 35 ff, 260 ff.
  60. ↑ Herold, pp. 9, 11.
  61. ↑ Vialou, pp. 318, 322.
  62. ↑ E.g. Kirchner: An archaeological contribution to the prehistory of shamanism. But: Müller-Karpe: Paleolithic, p. 253.
  63. ^ Cave of Les Trois Frères (English WP)
  64. ↑ a b Anati, p. 203.
  65. ↑ Vialou, p. 301.
  66. ↑ Anati, p. 183.
  67. ↑ Anati, p. 204.
  68. ↑ Anati, pp. 31, 220.
  69. ↑ Hoppál, p. 43.
  70. ↑ a b Hoppál, p. 45.
  71. ↑ Vialou, p. 396.
  72. ↑ Hoppál, p. 46.
  73. ↑ Hoppál, pp. 42–47.
  74. ↑ Vilaou, pp. 328, 396 f.
  75. ↑ Anati, Pl. 25, 26.
  76. ↑ Striedter: rock paintings of the Sahara, p. 48 f.
  77. ↑ Vialou, p. 14, 304 f.
  78. ^ All three: Hugot: Ten thousand years Sahara, pp. 104-109.
  79. ↑ Vialou, p. 392 ff.
  80. ^ Richter, p. 201.
  81. ^ Lewis-Williams, plate 9.
  82. ↑ Ries, p. 42 f.
  83. ↑ Vialou, pp. 69 ff., 75, 288 f., 290 f.
  84. ↑ Vialou, p. 393 f.
  85. ↑ a b Chen Zhao Fu, p. 170.
  86. ↑ Anati, plate 28.
  87. ↑ Vialou, p. 310.
  88. ↑ Vilaou, pp. 60–64, 253 ff., 312 ff., 401 f.
  89. ↑ Anati, p. 209.
  90. ↑ See Anati, Pl. 1–6 meant, pp. 201 f., 222; Hugot, p. 109; Vialou, pp. 270, 284 ff.
  91. ↑ Müller-Karpe: Paleolithic, p. 255 f.
  92. ↑ Vialou, pp. 359, 361.
  93. ↑ Leroi-Gourhan: Religions of Prehistory. Pp. 104-107.
  94. ↑ Lewis-Williams, pp. 207 f.
  95. ↑ Vialou, p. 337 f.
  96. ↑ Leroi-Gourhan: Religions of Prehistory, pp. 130–151.
  97. ↑ Müller-Karpe: Beginnings of Art, p. 75, Vialou, p. 262 f.
  98. ↑ Vialou, p. 38 f.
  99. ↑ Vilaou, pp. 50 ff., 99 ff.
  100. ↑ Hoffmann, p. 389; Vialou, p. 246 ff.
  101. ↑ Müller-Karpe: Paleolithic, p. 251.
  102. ^ Müller-Karpe: Paleolithic Age, pp. 242, 250.
  103. ↑ Hoffmann, p. 48ff; Müller-Karpe: Paleolithic, pp. 234–242; Leroi-Gourhan: Religions of Prehistory, pp. 44–74.
  104. ^ Cunliffe, p. 144.
  105. ↑ Müller-Karpe: Paleolithic, p. 238.
  106. ↑ Hoffmann, p. 287; Müller-Karpe: Paleolithic, p. 235; Ries, p. 30 ff.
  107. ↑ Müller-Karpe: Paleolithic, p. 233, 240 f .; Leroi-Gourhan: Religions of Prehistory, pp. 16–43.
  108. ↑ Paleolithic, p. 236.
  109. ↑ Müller-Karpe: Fundamentals of early human history, vol. 1, p. 28 ff.
  110. ↑ Müller-Karpe: Fundamentals of early human history, p. 32 f.
  111. ↑ Hoffmann, p. 328 f.
  112. ↑ Müller-Karpe: Palaeolithic, p. 233 f., Tokarev, p. 22 ff .; Leroi-Gourhan: Religions of Prehistory, p. 16 ff., Leroi-Gourhan: Religions of Prehistory, pp. 49–56; on the other hand Ries, p. 30 ff.
  113. ↑ Leroi-Gourhan: Religions of Prehistory, pp. 37–43.
  114. ↑ Leroi-Gourhan: Religions of Prehistory, p. 28 ff.
  115. ↑ See Kuckenberg, p. 48 ff .; Lewis-Williams, pp. 75, 254.
  116. ↑ Hoffmann, p. 20; Cunliffe, pp. 194, 219
  117. ↑ See: Röder et al .: Göttinnendämmerung; Ries, p. 66 ff.
  118. ↑ See on this; Jensen: Myth and cult among primitive peoples; Ries, pp. 62-65.
  119. ↑ Ries, p. 134.
  120. ^ Weber, p. 250.
  121. ↑ Ries, pp. 68-73, 146-151.
  122. ↑ Helck / Otto, p. 313 f.
  123. ↑ Herzog, pp. 73 ff .; Ries, pp. 87-114; Weber, pp. 285-314.
  124. ↑ Ries, p. 156.
  125. ↑ Cf. Evers, pp. 33, 41 f., 50, 53 (X-ray style), 58, 80 etc.
  126. ↑ Striedter, plate 126.
  127. ↑ Vialou, p. 293.
  128. ↑ Hoppál, pp. 44–48.
  129. ↑ Peschlow-Bindokat, page 64, 75 miles.
  130. ↑ Schmidt, p. 216 f.
  131. ↑ Chen Zhao Fu, pp. 153 ff., 160, 168 ff.
  132. ↑ Lei Congyun, pp. 68-75; Chen Li: The Ancestor Cult in Ancient China, pp. 36–44
  133. ↑ Müller-Karpe, Grundzüge, Vol. 1, p. 89 f.
  134. ↑ Haberland, pp. 195 ff.
  135. ↑ Haberland, p. 197 ff.
  136. ↑ Hultkrantz, p. 80.
  137. ↑ Vialou, pp. 402-405.
  138. ↑ Anati, Pl. 24, 27.
  139. ↑ Vialou, p. 406.
  140. ↑ Lewis Williams, p. 174 ff.
  141. ↑ Vialou, pp. 406-409.
  142. ↑ Overview: Hoffmann p. 50 f; Ries, pp. 54-57.
  143. ↑ Schmidt, pp. 216-220.
  144. ^ Overview: Müller-Karpe: Grundzüge, pp. 91–101, 191–236.