About two weeks ago CNN.com reported that further examples of prehistoric ancient sculpture had been unearthed. As the article expounded upon the theoretical reasons the ancient human or proto-human tribes might have carved these figures—in this case, a sea bird, a half-man-half-lion, and so on—I was struck by a question.
Why do archaeo-anthropologists and their ilk assign high-minded reasons to the carving of these figurines (also including figures like them, such as the various earth-mother figures)? Very often, the explanations given revolve around a life of austere spiritualism, a worship of the power of the animal-spirit or god-spirit, an attempt to capture the form and power of the prey in order to bring luck to the hunt, a symbol of fertility, and so on. Today we’re likely to snicker at the exaggerated figures of the earth-goddess fertility figures as if we’re expected to ignore the blatant sexuality. But did the ancients ignore it?
Didn’t the prehistoric proto-human tribes ever bother with erotica? Toys? Teaching tools? Are some scientists merely overeager to prove that humans of the era were capable of abstract reasoning and spiritualism?
well, by looking at the motivations of more modern hunter/gatherer groups we do find similar reasons for art as what is proscribed for ancient humans. the idea of art for arts sake is a very western/modern concept.
also, hunter/gatherers tend to not spend time with things like toys. they wory about hunting (which is a very precarious undertaking), childbirth (also rather important) and other things that are vital to the survival of the group.
I do however think that you get the mistaken impression of austere spiritualism. in my readings I find that to be far from the truth. its just that the spiritual is an eceryday facet of life.
Years ago, David Macaulay wrote a book entitled *Motel of the Mysteries *, which described an archeological expedition in the far future, excavating a twentieth century cheap motel room.
The parody is hilarious, including such things as the exquisite porcelain altar in the small sanctuary just off the main room, along with ceremonial objects such as the ankh-shaped scepter (with the plasticus bristles, and the papyrus cover with its mystical inscription: “Sanitized for your protection”.
Present-day researchers are probably about as accurate.
True, to a point. We will never know exactly the reasons that some things were done the way they were. However, there are certain thing that we can know and others that we can make reasonable assumptions about.
During a period of human history when pretty much your entire life revolved around obtaining food and the like, there was almost no chance for specialists (especially artists) to come into being as everybody would have been involved in the hunting and the gathering. Therefore, when art from those periods are discovered it is a reasonable thing to assume that there was a ritualistic component to the object. IOW, the object was to help with the hunt, on some level, rather than it being art for the sake of art. Is that the truth? Until there is a time machine, we won’t know for sure, but it is a reasonable explanation.
For many religions (Christianity being one of the few exceptions), the erotic is important spiritually. Prehistoric people’s religion is just as likely to have featured erotic spirituality as some religions known today, like Tantric Hinduism. Even Islam and Judaism include concepts of sacred sex (although those las two don’t make images, so future archaeologists will not be digging up many Islamic or Jewish figurines).
The art found in the prehistoric Indus Valley Civilization (Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa) exhibits many close resemblances to historically known practices of Tantric Yoga, and also includes many explicitly erotic carvings, so it is not at all farfetched to identify similar connections in other prehistoric art.
Possibly—but why does that invalidate teaching tools? If you had a model of an enemy predator, for instance, you could tell your sons, “Okay, when you brace with your spear, don’t get it stuck here or here because this guy has bloody huge shoulder blades. You want to get it right here in the lungs or maybe here in the heart so you kill it faster and so you don’t get your face chewed off. Got it?” This kind of demonstration would seem very valuable, were there an absence of sophisticated language.
Also, since we haven’t been purely subsistence farmers in the West for many centuries, at what point do we say, “This is where we invented pornography.” It’s a bit difficult to get a complete grasp of the idea today, when 70% of the Internet is nothing but sexual fantasy, but it had to be invented somewhere. I’m not sure all of those nude Greek statues were just for the artistic merit, for instance.
Anyway. Just seems that history has been sterilized somehow, I dunno.
It has been speculated that the assorted “venus” figurines found through the years were in fact prehistoric porn.
Which has led me to wonder what future archaeologists will think when they dig up about a zillion non-biodegradable plastic Barbie dolls in a millenium or two…
Some years ago, there was an experiment run where a number of people lived in a replica of a pre-Roman British villiage, following, as near as they could reconstruct, the lifestyle of the period.
According to the article in National Geographic, the researchers who were observing the results noted a small pit formed just inside the door of the houses. Similar pits had been noted in excavations of actual villiages, and were thought to have some religious significance.
So, when these pits showed up, the researchers asked the participants what they were for. The villiagers replied that these where where the chickens took their dust baths.
Typically, archaeologists tend to assign anything they can’t figure out the utility of to a religious or ceremonal role. Another name for this is “parochialism”.
I’m also thinking that “primitive” would be the word I’d use to describe the majority of art in the typical American household:
Abstract watercolor on notebook paper, abstract crayon on brown paper shopping bag… I’d definitely class these as “primitive”, but then I’d also say that any recognizable adult female in these is almost certainly a maternal figure. Animals in these drawings probably highlight how modern man valued domestic animals.
How do the archaeologists know that the sculptures were made by representative members of the culture? If someone found my sketchbook, they’d probably hypothesize that mankind had become a space-faring race capable of interstellar travel in the late 1990s.
May I suggest that the distinction (almost opposition) between “high-minded spiritual” and “erotica / porn” is probably an artifact of the current period?
I suspect there have been more religions enshrining fecundity and sexuality than condemning it as something apart from the spiritual. If not more then at least as many.
Firstly these weren’t proto-human. They were as human as you are.
That aside, it’s a safe bet that they did bother with toys and erotica. We can deduce this by looking at extant or recent HG cultures. There are extensive artworks in Southern Africa, the exact location escapes my memory, showing all the hunting figures with comically huge erections. It may not be erotica, but the line between erotica and spiritualism is sure getting thin. Various toys are also used by all HG cultures, although in many cases the toys consist of models, often fully functional, of adult tools and weapons.
Again, there was no absence of sophisticated language. These were modern humans and there language was as sophisticated as any that has ever existed.
That aside it still doesn’t make much sense. If people were hunting these animals then they already had the ideal model and teaching tool: the carcass of a recently deceased animal. No one I going to suggest children start hunting an animal without ever having seen one killed, so we can assume the kids followed the men on the hunt. They would have had access to any number of very realistic models to learn from.
Actually, I have come across a serious work suggesting that primitive “venus” figures were, indeed, erotica. I wish I’d picked the book up, now, because I can’t recall th author. The idea struck me as eminently reasonabe at the time, and I see no need to change that opinion.
I don’t think so. I mean, sex and erotica can be spiritual, but they’re not always. Take a look at the Romans, for example. Sex was apparently part of some Roman religions and belief structures, and some Roman religious groups had ritualistic sex.
At the same time, there’s also a lot of evidence that a lot of Roman sex was for fun. We have evidence that there was a lot of non-religious prostitution in Rome, there are surviving works saying that it’s more “proper” to have sex with your slaves, there’s a hell of a lot of surving Roman porn that’s not religious in nature, we have evidence that sexual terms were used as insults, we see Cato the Elder railing against growing acceptance of homosexuality, we see a lot of Imperial sex scandals, etc.
All of this evidence adds up to suggest that a lot of the time, for the Romans, sex was just sex…that people had sex for fun.
And if you look at pretty much every other historical society we have evidence of, you see the same thing, even if those societies also have a view of sex being a spiritual or religious rite.
Because of the tools available, it took a lot of time and effort to do. Our present-day researchers assume that it must have been important for some reason beyond regular daily concerns. Go try yourself sometime: get something like architectural-grade limestone (one of the softer durable stones available) and try to beat one rock into a shape and polish it with other rocks–it won’t be a quick and easy job.
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The renowned, late paleonthologist Bjorn Kurten thought that many Ice Age paintings, at least, were pure pornography. One of his books (I don’t remember which) shows some of these paintings and they sure look like assorted female anatomy closeups. Of course, others have dismissed Kurten’s view as pure fantasy.
The renowned, late paleonthologist Bjorn Kurten thought that many Ice Age paintings, at least, are pure pornography. One of his books (I don’t remember which) shows some of these paintings and they sure look like assorted female anatomy closeups. Of course, others have dismissed Kurten’s view as pure fantasy.
A cluster of seven dots is taken to represent the Pleides. A band along the side is said to be a tool to predict the extents of the seasonal setting sun–it looks to me to be about eighty degrees of the circumference, and in Berlin, the setting sun does set about 40 degrees north of west in the summer and 40 degrees south of west in the winter. Both seem resonable then. A webpage, The Telltale Oars, adds the detail that feathering along a curved strip is supposed to represent the oars of the ship of the sun god.
It looks too crude to be a useful tool. I’d imagine it is more representational–there are stars between the tines of the crescent moon, so it can’t be a map in any sense. Perhaps the fuzzy band is the borealis. It’s eclipse predictive power is said to depend upon the idea that when a crescent moon appears next to the Pleides, a lunar eclipse will occur seven days later–but a moon seven days before a lunar eclipse is almost a half moon, whereas the moon represented is a much thinner crescent.