Stone Age Religion At Goebekli Tepe Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of Stone Age Religion At Goebekli Tepe book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.
Stone Age Religion at Goebekli Tepe by Karl W. Luckert Pdf
The excavation of Gobekli Tepe has revealed the hitherto unknown religion of the Neolithic Revolution." This book offers an archaeological starter basis for interpreting that ancient religion. Other fresh perspectives affect our understanding of civilization, human sacrifice, cannibalism, warfare, and imperialism. Fresh contextual perspectives are presented on ancient Egypt and Greece, on Abraham, the Scapegoat question, as well as on the teaching strategies of Confucius in China-all these are remotely linked to Gobekli Tepe. The author is a former student of Mircea Eliade (University of Chicago) and the family resemblance in his orientation shows. His earlier innovations in the History of Religions field include: (1) a historical interpretation of Navajo hunter mythology; (2) recording the nine-night Navajo Coyoteway Ceremonial in 1974, which had been declared extinct in 1910; (3) identification of the Serpent as primary deity of ancient Middle American Civilization, thereby rejecting the primacy of the Jaguar totem; (4) identifying Neo-Platonism as a bridge leading from ancient Egyptian theology at Heliopolis to orthodox Christian theology.
Stone Age Religion at Goebekli Tepe by Karl W. Luckert Pdf
Excavation of Goebekli Tepe has revealed the hitherto unknown religion of the "Neolithic Revolution." Almost twelve millennia ago the cult was established, at the northern end of the Fertile Crescent, by priests who were hunter-shamans, miners of flint and weapon-makers. Progress in weapon manufacture resulted in overhunting, a temporary surplus of meat, too many human hunters, and a decline in prey animal populations. Shortages of prey animals elicited a priestly cult that specialized in the regeneration of life. Priestly minds rationalized taking control of plants and animals and thereby encouraged domestication--which led to "hyper-domestication," or, what evolved as our history of civilization and our history of religions.
When one thinks of the world's first cities, Sumer, Memphis, and Babylon are some of the first to come to mind, or if the focus then shifts to India, then Harappa and Mohenjo-daro will likely come up. But archaeologists recently uncovered a site thousands of years older than any of those, marking one of the oldest settled sites in the world. The Neolithic period came before the Bronze Age and is generally regarded as the final subdivision of the Stone Age. During this time, communities domesticated plants and certain animals but still relied on hunting and gathering to a considerable extent, and beginning sometime around 7000 BCE, handmade pottery was developed, along with more advanced stone axes that enabled people to clear vast forests. Thanks to tools like that, the sizes of these Neolithic communities ranged from thousands to as few as a hundred, and they spread across the world with a variety of cultures and languages. One aspect these cultures had in common was that they relied on similar tools made of stone, wood, and bone. Despite the fact some Neolithic communities grew to considerable sizes, they're typically not considered when people think of the first ancient civilizations or the first major cities, so when German archaeologists discovered the archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey in the 1990s, it created an academic firestorm that is still raging. Far from being just another settlement, Göbekli Tepe has been described as the world's first temple and perhaps one of the locations where human civilization began. Subsequent archaeological work at Göbekli Tepe has revealed that the site was a spiritual center for the local population during a time when humans were undergoing a transition as hunter-gatherers in the Paleolithic Period to a more sedentary lifestyle in the Neolithic Period, more than 10,000 years ago. Further research in the disciplines of anthropology, religion, and history indicate that the activity at Göbekli Tepe subsequently set the tone for elements of Neolithic and Bronze Age religion and ideology in the Near East, especially in Anatolia (roughly equivalent with modern Turkey). Although many elements of Göbekli Tepe's history remain an enigma, and probably will in the future due to the nature of the source material, the relatively recent work at the site has helped historians speculate about how Near Eastern people lived in the Mesolithic Period, how those lifestyles evolved, and how they contributed to the history of the era.
Religion, History, and Place in the Origin of Settled Life by Ian Hodder Pdf
This volume explores the role of religion and ritual in the origin of settled life in the Middle East, focusing on the repetitive construction of houses or cult buildings in the same place. Prominent archaeologists, anthropologists, and scholars of religion working at several of the region’s most important sites—such as Çatalhöyük, Göbekli Tepe, Körtik Tepe, and Aşıklı Höyük—contend that religious factors significantly affected the timing and stability of settled economic structures. Contributors argue that the long-term social relationships characteristic of delayed-return agricultural systems must be based on historical ties to place and to ancestors. They define different forms of history-making, including nondiscursive routinized practices as well as commemorative memorialization. They consider the timing in the Neolithic of an emerging concern with history-making in place in relation to the adoption of farming and settled life in regional sequences. They explore whether such correlations indicate the causal processes in which history-making, ritual practices, agricultural intensification, population increase, and social competition all played a role. Religion, History, and Place in the Origin of Settled Life takes a major step forward in understanding the adoption of farming and a settled way of life in the Middle East by foregrounding the roles of history-making and religious ritual. This work is relevant to students and scholars of Near Eastern archaeology, as well as those interested in the origins of agriculture and social complexity or the social role of religion in the past. Contributors: Kurt W. Alt, Mark R. Anspach, Marion Benz, Lee Clare, Anna Belfer-Cohen, Morris Cohen, Oliver Dietrich, Güneş Duru, Yilmaz S. Erdal, Nigel Goring-Morris, Ian Hodder, Rosemary A. Joyce, Nicola Lercari, Wendy Matthews, Jens Notroff, Vecihi Özkaya, Feridun S. Şahin, F. Leron Shults, Devrim Sönmez, Christina Tsoraki, Wesley Wildman
The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion by Timothy Insoll Pdf
The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion provides a comprehensive overview by period and region of the relevant archaeological material in relation to theory, methodology, definition, and practice. Although, as the title indicates, the focus is upon archaeological investigations of ritual and religion, by necessity ideas and evidence from other disciplines are also included, among them anthropology, ethnography, religious studies, and history. The Handbook covers a global span - Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, and the Americas - and reaches from the earliest prehistory (the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic) to modern times. In addition, chapters focus upon relevant themes, ranging from landscape to death, from taboo to water, from gender to rites of passage, from ritual to fasting and feasting. Written by over sixty specialists, renowned in their respective fields, the Handbook presents the very best in current scholarship, and will serve both as a comprehensive introduction to its subject and as a stimulus to further research.
Religion at Work in a Neolithic Society by Ian Hodder Pdf
A unique collaboration between archaeologists and a range of specialists in ritual and religion, looking at the role of religion in early human societies.
The World's Most Famous Megaliths by Charles River Pdf
Despite the fact some Neolithic communities grew to considerable sizes, they're typically not considered when people think of the first ancient civilizations or the first major cities, so when German archaeologists discovered the archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey in the 1990s, it created an academic firestorm that is still raging. Far from being just another settlement, Göbekli Tepe has been described as the world's first temple and perhaps one of the locations where human civilization began. Subsequent archaeological work at Göbekli Tepe has revealed that the site was a spiritual center for the local population during a time when humans were undergoing a transition as hunter-gatherers in the Paleolithic Period to a more sedentary lifestyle in the Neolithic Period, more than 10,000 years ago. Further research in the disciplines of anthropology, religion, and history indicate that the activity at Göbekli Tepe subsequently set the tone for elements of Neolithic and Bronze Age religion and ideology in the Near East, especially in Anatolia (roughly equivalent with modern Turkey). Although many elements of Göbekli Tepe's history remain an enigma, and probably will in the future due to the nature of the source material, the relatively recent work at the site has helped historians speculate about how Near Eastern people lived in the Mesolithic Period, how those lifestyles evolved, and how they contributed to the history of the era. Of all the places in Europe that people might think would show traces of the early Bronze Age, the island of Malta is undoubtedly an unlikely location. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, almost equidistant between Europe and North Africa, Malta is known for its mild temperatures, friendly people, and nice beaches, but the small archipelago nation has a very long and unique history, having played a role in the rise and fall of several different empires. Crusader knights once made Malta their home and before them the Apostle Paul visited, bringing what was at the time the new religion of Christianity to the Maltese people. Before that, Malta was contested by the Carthaginians and Romans who viewed it as a vital logistical outpost in the middle of the Mediterranean. But Malta's history goes back even much further, which can be witnessed by the numerous Neolithic and Bronze Age era megaliths that dot the island of Malta proper as well as the island of Gozo to the north. Naturally, when European archaeologists began unearthing the megaliths of Malta in the 19th century, they did not know what to think, which led to a plethora of theories, many of them quite fantastic. At least 23 of these temples were uncovered, and speculation over who built them and why remained well into the 20th century. Despite its placid, changeless appearance, Stonehenge has been a place of political, ideological and religious struggle for centuries. From the vigorous debates of 19th century theorists to the all-night dance parties of the 1980s, the history and legacy of Stonehenge is as much about the desires and fears of the people of modern Britain as it is about the ancients. Stonehenge has belonged to all of Britain's people since its construction began roughly 5,000 years ago, and they have all added to its unfolding story. Of course, Stonehenge has long fascinated the rest of the world too, as people continue to try to understand every aspect of the site and the underlying purpose of it. This involves an understanding of why Stonehenge is located where it is, what the materials consist of, and what archaeology has uncovered about the people who built it. On top of that, Stonehenge is a center of mythology and folklore that has evolved over time, establishing the foundation for a unique spiritual belief system that both celebrates Stonehenge as a "living temple" and challenges the official guardians of the place.
In the Neolithic Near East, the Anatolian landmass of modern day Turkey functioned as an over reaching land bridge, connecting the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa to one another. The larger geographical landscape of today's Middle East was surrounded by the five major seas of antiquity. The Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Caspian Sea. The rivers of Tigris and Euphrates ran across the hills, mountain ranges and plains, and volcanic fields of the Armenian highlands provided invaluable obsidian rocks, suitable for making sharp, razor-edged stone tools. As the late Klaus Schmidt once put it, the slopes of the Taurus mountains were a hunter’s dream, and a prime piece of paradise coming true. In this region, humans and the environment were brought so close to one another, and plants and animals appeared so abundant, that the early hunter gatherers scattered across the land for the first time adopted primary storage and conservation methods. The strategies which gave way to the rise of agriculture and domestication of animals in the course of the coming millennia. Göbekli Tepe was at the heart of this cultural and economic transition. Here, the Neolithic Revolution was begun.
In his Timaeus and Critias dialogues, Plato wrote of two ancient civilizations that flourished more than 9,000 years before his time. Socrates accepted the account as true, and modern archaeological techniques may yet prove him right. In Plato, Prehistorian, Mary Settegast takes us from the cave paintings of Lascaux to the shrines of Çatalhöyük, demonstrating correspondences both to Plato's tale and to the mystery religions of antiquity. She then traces the mid-seventh millennium impulse that revitalized the spiritual life of Çatalhöyük and spread agriculture from Iran to the Greek Peninsula --at precisely the time given by Aristotle for the legendary Persian prophet Zarathustra, for whom the cultivation of the earth was a religious imperative. This new edition of Mary Settegast's ground-breaking synthesis of classical and archaeological scholarship features an appendix by Alistair Coombs on the recent excavations at Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey, which have upended the conventional view of the rise of civilization.
Invocation is the imagination of a deity and the subsequent identification with this imagined image of the deity. This procedure is one of the basics of magic, because through such an identification one's own possibilities of perception and action become many times greater. This technique goes back to the late Paleolithic Age, when hunters identified themselves with a panther in order to obtain the strength and speed of a panther during their hunt. Later, the grain god was invoked in the Neolithic period, and then the One God was invoked in kingship. The effectiveness of the technique of invocation, of course, like all magical phenomena, cannot be proven by words, but at least described in such a way that you may try this technique yourself. As with almost all things, patience and practice are beneficial, but there are also some methods, such as dream travel, that make the whole thing much easier and more effective.
An Ethology of Religion and Art by Bryan Rennie Pdf
Drawing from sources including the ethology of art and the cognitive science of religion this book proposes an improved understanding of both art and religion as behaviors developed in the process of human evolution. Looking at both art and religion as closely related, but not identical, behaviors a more coherent definition of religion can be formed that avoids pitfalls such as the Eurocentric characterization of religion as belief or the dismissal of the category as nothing more than false belief or the product of scholarly invention. The book integrates highly relevant insights from the ethology and anthropology of art, particularly the identification of "the special" by Ellen Dissanayake and art as agency by Alfred Gell, with insights from, among others, Ann Taves, who similarly identified "specialness" as characteristic of religion. It integrates these insights into a useful and accurate understanding and explanation of the relationship of art and religion and of religion as a human behavior. This in turn is used to suggest how art can contribute to the development and maintenance of religions. The innovative combination of art, science, and religion in this book makes it a vital resource for scholars of Religion and the Arts, Aesthetics, Religious Studies, Religion and Science and Religious Anthropology.
Author : D. Bruce Dickson Publisher : University of Arizona Press Page : 273 pages File Size : 48,8 Mb Release : 1992-07 Category : Social Science ISBN : 9780816513369
Hunter-gatherers of the Upper Paleolithic period of the late Pleistocene epoch in western Europe left a legacy of cave paintings and material remains that have long fascinated modern man. This book draws on theories derived from cultural anthropology and cognitive archaeology to propose a reconstruction of the religious life of those people based on the patterning and provenience of their artifacts. Based on the premises that all members of Homo sapiens sapiens share basically similar psychological processes and capabilities and that human culture is patterned, the author uses ethnographic analogy, inference from material patterns, and formal analysis to find in prehistoric imagery clues to the cosmology that lay behind them. The resulting book is an intriguing speculation on the nature of paleolithic religion, offering scholars a valuable synthesis of anthropological, archaeological, and sociological research, and general readers an accessible account of how our forebears may have regarded the unknown. "A well-written and intellectually rigorous introduction. If you are curious about prehistory, you will enjoy it." —Wilson Library Bulletin "Most interesting to those scholars interested in seeking materialist foundations or ecological explanations for religious practices." —American Antiquity "A well-written and concise account of what has recently been achieved by the investigations of spiritual life of the Earth's most ancient human communities." —Archiv Orientalni (Czechoslovakia)
