7,000 years older than Stonehenge

[tazmic]

Could it be that when writing became a necessity due to the record keeping of argriculture, creation via words (John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word...") took dominance from creation of the womb, and the mysteries of the matriarchy lost their power? Or did control of the surplus food become a matter of conflict beyond the abilities of the women to handle? Or did early marshalled armies of men fed by these surpluses destroy the priestesses of the old ways to install their own gods?

You could replace the 'Or's with 'And's in that.

Btw, "creation via words took dominance from creation of the womb, and the mysteries of the matriarchy lost their power" felt like a missing jigsaw piece to me , as I'd felt that 'The Word' was the primary technological invention (see my sig.) Did you just think that up?

[barracuda]

Not really, I gleaned it from reading some Erich Fromm.

[tazmic]

Not really, I gleaned it from reading some Erich Fromm.

Damn... So, do I pretend I never read Fromm, or admit that I have? Which is worse??

Or did control of the surplus food become a matter of conflict beyond the abilities of the women to handle?

"Fromm argued that a “matricentric” psychic structure was more conducive to socialism than the patricentric structure which had predominated in capitalism." - http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/conten ... 855&db=all

Hmmm.

[Laodicean]

Fascinating.

I'll just add that, although these books are works of fiction, they are a fantastic read. Very well researched and imaginative...

Check out The Earth's Children series by Jean M. Auel - if you haven't already.

[barracuda]

Damn... So, do I pretend I never read Fromm, or admit that I have? Which is worse??

C'mon now, a little Frankfurt School never hurt anybody.

[tazmic]

I suppose I could settle for dissin' the Frankfurt School instead...

(I meant, if I'd read Fromm, I ought to have been a bit more clued up and less surprised by your take)

[SanDiegoBuffGuy]

Bruce Dazzling, It could be a self-eating snake as you theorize, or a symbolic vagina.

[MacCruiskeen]

Bruce Dazzling, It could be a self-eating snake as you theorize, or a symbolic vagina.

Looks much more vaginal than snakey to me, though I have to admit that vagina is sometimes in the eye of the beholder.

By the way, if we're talking matriarchy, patriarchy, sexuality, hierarchy and the historical roots of violence, then Wilhelm Reich is your man, rather than Erich Fromm. Fromm is not without his qualities and his achievements, of course, but he was also a terrible ripper-off and waterer-down of Reich's most essential insights.

[crikkett]

Does DeMeo give any clue as to why the authoritarian patriarchal response was necessary, or if it were inevitable, or indeed, related to sedentary agriculture??

Interesting question. Could it be that when writing became a necessity due to the record keeping of argriculture, creation via words (John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word...") took dominance from creation of the womb, and the mysteries of the matriarchy lost their power? Or did control of the surplus food become a matter of conflict beyond the abilities of the women to handle? Or did early marshalled armies of men fed by these surpluses destroy the priestesses of the old ways to install their own gods?

While I agree with the assumption that in human evolution, Patriarchy didn't always exist, I'm not convinced that Matriarchy existed before Patriarchy. I must not understand the concept of Matriarchy (in that the modern examples I've learned of seem identical to Patriarchy).

[slomo]

This is a little off topic, but it fits better in this thread than any of the others currently on the main page. Here is a quote from Ran Prieur about a week ago:

...a mind-blowing reddit comment on mythical oil:

In the future, even if there isn't a collapse, there will be no crude oil from the ground. Records will exist of it, but future people will have no material example of the substance our society runs on. Crude oil might be seen as a mythical, magical substance, something made up.

Corollary: what non-renewable resources might precursor civilizations have used up that we'll never know about? What "mythical" materials actually existed but don't anymore?

This is a thought that has occurred to me before as well.

In addition, Ran has another more recent link to Dmitry Orlov, in particular this article. Orlov argues that we might think about transitioning to world where there are no high-energy resources left to sustain production of certain tools, by creating durable tools with the resources we have left, and passing them on as heirlooms to future generations. What Orlov does not talk about, however, is the resulting social stratification between the heirs of such tools and those who, for whatever reason, have become disinherited and divorced from all past.

Now, again, the corollary: what technologies have been passed down to certain families, about which the rest of us would know little about?

This question seems to touch on numerous RI themes.

[jingofever]

...a mind-blowing reddit comment on mythical oil:

In the future, even if there isn't a collapse, there will be no crude oil from the ground. Records will exist of it, but future people will have no material example of the substance our society runs on. Crude oil might be seen as a mythical, magical substance, something made up.

Corollary: what non-renewable resources might precursor civilizations have used up that we'll never know about? What "mythical" materials actually existed but don't anymore?

There is a point where pumping becomes too expensive (at least until technology improves) and so they leave oil in the ground. As for that corollary, one example which was renewable (and maybe still is, with some nifty engineering) and which we do know about: mammoths. You can say that they powered prehistoric human society. Later there were aurochs, also gone.

[barracuda]

^^Okay, that's pretty funny - peak megafauna.

[Iroquois]

Does DeMeo give any clue as to why the authoritarian patriarchal response was necessary, or if it were inevitable, or indeed, related to sedentary agriculture??

Do not underestimate the power of symbolism in guiding human culture. The Earth, the land if not Nature itself, is widely associated with the Great Mother, the gestalt feminine.

Think of planting a seed in the Earth as insemination. Think of the destruction of forests and other aspects of major agricultural manipulation of the environment as acts of domination of the Earth

As a culture engages in these practices the relationship between man and woman within that culture will tend to mirror the relationship between it and Nature.

In case you haven't already read it, I strongly recommend Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.

[aimdrained]

So take a group of humans that are thought to have been quasi-nomadic hunter-gather types with an assumed egalitarian social structure and then you flash forward a few years and then BOOM!...agriculture, cities, rigidly hierarchical social structures, complex economies of non-agricultural specialization, and the strangest and darkest thing of it all in human sacrifice.

The above thoughts seem to be the generally held view of how humanity moved from hunter-gatherer tribes to the civilization builders we are today. But does this transition not strike anybody as odd?

There just seems to be something deeply weird about what happened to humanity in a relatively short period of time.
I suppose one could look at many modern day religions as having their origins in reactions to this traumatic shift. Perhaps we still deal with the trauma of the agricultural revolution everyday.

But seriously...what happened to cause that deep and rapid shift?

[barracuda]

Remarkable technology in evidence in Turkey almost ten thousand years ago:

Oldest obsidian bracelet reveals amazing craftsmen's skills in the eighth millennium BC


The obsidian bracelet from Aşıklı Höyük. a. Shape and dimensions, b. Symmetry of the object. Credit: Obsidian Use Project Archives. This image is available from the CNRS photo library, phototheque@cnrs-bellevue.fr

Researchers from the Institut Français d'Etudes Anatoliennes in Istanbul and the Laboratoire de Tribologie et de Dynamiques des Systèmes have analyzed the oldest obsidian bracelet ever identified, discovered in the 1990s at the site of Aşıklı Höyük, Turkey. Using high-tech methods developed by LTDS to study the bracelet's surface and its micro-topographic features, the researchers have revealed the astounding technical expertise of craftsmen in the eighth millennium BC. Their skills were highly sophisticated for this period in late prehistory, and on a par with today's polishing techniques. This work is published in the December 2011 issue of Journal of Archaeological Science, and sheds new light on Neolithic societies, which remain highly mysterious.

Dated to 7500 BC, the obsidian bracelet studied by the researchers is unique. It is the earliest evidence of obsidian working, which only reached its peak in the seventh and sixth millennia BC with the production of all kinds of ornamental objects, including mirrors and vessels. It has a complex shape and a remarkable central annular ridge, and is 10 cm in diameter and 3.3 cm wide. Discovered in 1995 at the exceptional site of Asıklı Höyük in Turkey and displayed ever since at the Aksaray Archeological Museum, the ring was studied in 2009, after Mihriban Özbasaran, Professor at the University of Istanbul's Department of Prehistory, resumed excavations.


Digital reconstruction of the bracelet proposed by Mohamed Ben Tkaya (LTDS). Credit: Obsidian Use Project Archives. This image is available from the CNRS photo library, phototheque@cnrs-bellevue.fr

Laurence Astruc, a CNRS researcher and her colleagues analyzed the bracelet using extremely powerful computer technologies developed by LTDS researchers Hassan Zahouani (ENISE) and Roberto Vargiolu (ECL). Developed for industry in order to characterize the 'orange peel effect' on painted car bodywork, these methods, known as multi-scale tribological analysis, have been adapted for the study of micro-topographic features on archeological artefacts. They seek to identify every single operation performed on the surface of these objects.

This process has revealed that the bracelet was made using highly specialized manufacturing techniques. The analyses carried out showed that the bracelet was almost perfectly regular. The symmetry of the central annular ridge is extremely precise, to the nearest degree and nearest hundred micrometers. This suggests that the artisans of the time used models to control its shape when it was being made. The surface finish of the bracelet (which is very regular, resembling a mirror) required the use of complex polishing techniques capable of obtaining a nanometer-scale surface quality worthy of today's telescope lenses.

Led by Laurence Astruc, the work was carried out in collaboration with the University of Istanbul and was funded by France's National Research Agency as part of the 'Obsidian: Practical Techniques and Uses in Anatolia' program (ANR 08-Blanc-0318). In the program, the Asıklı Höyük bracelet is the first object to have been studied among some sixty other polished obsidian artefacts.

In collaboration with the University of Manchester and the British Museum, Laurence Astruc's team is now analyzing ornamental objects found at the Halaf sites of Domuztepe in Eastern Central Anatolia and Arpachiyyah in Iraq.
More information: Astruc L., et al., Multi-scale tribological analysis of the technique of manufacture of an obsidian bracelet from Aşıklı Höyük (Aceramic Neolithic, Central Anatolia), Journal of Archaeological Science 38 (2011): 3415-3424.

The excavation at Aşıklı Höyük.