Lands of the Shamans: Archaeology, Cosmology and Landscape

289 Pages·2018·32.545 MB·English

by  Dragos Gheorghiu (editor), George Nash (editor), Herman Bender (editor), Emilia Pasztor (editor)

Lands of the Shamans
Archaeology, Cosmology and Landscape
Edited by
Dragoş Gheorghiu, George Nash,
Herman Bender and Emília Pásztor
Oxford & Philadelphia
Published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by
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Back cover image: The deer panel, located on the ‘elbow’ of the Ocreza River. (Photo by D. Gheorghiu)
Contents
Contributors .............................................................................................................................v
Introduction: Towards a Landscape for Shamans ............................................................vi
The Editors
1. The Horse as a Shamanic Landscape Device: The Distribution
of Equus on Upper Palaeolithic Open-Air Rock Art Sites
of the Iberian Peninsula .................................................................................................1
George Nash and Sara Garcês
2. Göbekli Tepe – A Shamanic Landscape ......................................................................21
Dragoş Gheorghiu
3. Caves and the Sacral Landscape: A Case Study on the Neolithic
and Early Aeneolithic Periods in South-east Central Europe ................................46
Vladimír Peša
4. As Above, So Below: St Melangell and the Celestial Journey .................................89
Caroline Malim
5. Songs of the Shamans? Acoustical Studies in European Prehistory ...................111
Chris Scarre
6. Sights and Sounds of Selected Sacred and Shamanic Landscapes ......................123
Paul Devereux
7. Bronze Age Deposits in the Carpathian Basin – Markers for
Spirit-Animated Landscape? The Role of Structured Deposition in
Understanding the Worldview of Bronze Age Europe ..........................................144
Emília Pásztor
8. Landscape Transformation and Continuity in Shamanic Rock Art
of Northern Asia ..........................................................................................................168
Ekaterina Devlet
iv Contents
9. Shamans’ Landscapes: note sur la psychologie du shaman
pre et protohistorique plus particulierement en Eurasie .....................................191
Michel Louis Séfériadès
10. The Mystery of the Bird-Nester: The Shaman Which Lévi-Strauss
Did Not Recognise ........................................................................................................206
Enrico Comba
11. Bear Myths and Traditions: The Moon and Mounds in North America ............226
Herman Bender
1 2. To Re-Enact Is to Remember: Envisioning a Shamanic Research Protocol
in Archaeology .............................................................................................................258
Apela Colorado and Ryan Hurd
Contributors
HERMAN BENDER RYAN HURD
Hanwakan Center for Archeoastronomy, Worldwide Indigenous Science Network, USA
Cosmology and Cultural Landscape Studies, Inc.
USA CAROLINE MALIM
SLR Consulting Limited, Hermes House, Oxon
APELA COLORADO Business Park, Shrewsbury, UK
Worldwide Indigenous Science Network, USA
GEORGE NASH
ENRICO COMBA Department of Archaeology and Anthropology of
Università degli Studi di Torino, Dipartimento di University of Bristol, UK
Culture, Politica e Società, Turin, Italy
EMÍLIA PÁSZTOR
PAUL DEVEREUX Türr István Museum, Baja, Hungary
(i)Royal College of Art; (ii)Time & Mind journal,
UK VLADIMÍR PEŠA
Regional Museum and Gallery at Česká Lípa,
EKATERINA DEVLET Czech Republic
Institute of Archaeology Russian Academy of
Sciences, Centre of Paleoart Studies, Moscow, CHRIS SCARRE
Russia Department of Archaeology, Durham University,
UK
SARA GARCÊS
Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro University, UTAD, MICHEL LOUIS SÉFÉRIADÈS
Quinta de Prados, 5000-801 Vila Real, Portugal; Anthropologue et archéologue honoraire au
Earth and Memory Institute (ITM), Quaternary Centre National de la Recherche Scientifi que
and Prehistory Group of the Geosciences Centre (CNRS), Paris, France
(u. ID73 – FCT). FCT Scholarship (SFRH/
BD/69625/2010), Portugal
DRAGOŞ GHEORGHIU
Doctoral School, National University of Arts,
Bucharest, Romania;
Earth and Memory Institute (ITM), Quaternary
and Prehistory Group of the Geosciences Centre
(u. ID73 – FCT), Portugal
Introduction: Towards a Landscape for Shamans
The Editors
Setting the Scene
Over the past 20 years, shamanism has become an emerging topic in archaeology –
see Price (2001); David Lewis-Williams (2002), Guba & Szevereny (2007), Mannermaa
(2008), Pásztor (2011), Reymann (2015), Gheorghiu et al. (2017), Rozwadowski (2017).
It has begun to emerge that shamanism can take on many guises; from the potential
shamanism of the very ancient world of our Palaeolithic ancestors to the Neoshamanic
practices of the Counterculture of the late 20th century (Lewis-Williams 2002;
Nash 2017). The various strands recognised within this subject clearly shows that
shamanism, like other subjects, relies on many mechanisms in order to survive and
fl ourish; one of these is landscape. As far as we the authors are concerned, this edited
volume is the fi rst of its kind to associate shamanism with landscape as clearly, the
two interact.1
If we accept shamanism (or a belief-system best described with a shamanistic world
view, see Winkelman 2004) was already a generic phenomenon in the prehistoric times,
then we should be able to use shamanism as an ethnographic analogy in order to
analyse certain archaeological artefacts. Reconstructing a belief-system with the help
of archaeological artefacts is often diffi cult and rarely straightforward (see Gheorghiu
et al. 2017). However, we cannot overlook the possibility of shamanism being used,
regardless the sceptics, as a possible analogy during the research of prehistoric beliefs.
The most characteristic element of shamanic ritual is the way special individuals
would enter into an altered state of consciousness (ASC). There can be many
explanations behind this, even physiological, as confi rmed through anthropological
research. Thanks to this even one of the richest graves from the Mesolithic period,
discovered in 1930 in Bad Dürrenberg, Germany was considered to belong to a shaman.
Anatomical changes to the female skull intimated frequent shifts into transient state.
Introduction vii
Based on fragmentary archaeological evidence and documentary ethnographic
accounts, shamans often used hallucinogen substances to reach altered states of
consciousness. Trace elements of opium poppy have been found among archaeological
artefacts on the eastern and southern slopes of the Jura Mountain from almost every
period (Merlin 2003); here, the landscape plays a signifi cant role in the shamanistic
beliefs.
Many scientists trace back the origin of shamanism to later prehistory. However,
as far back as the 1950s, Russian scientists have claimed that Siberian shamanism,
in fact, originates from a much earlier period and can be regarded as an ideological
background for the analysis of rock art (Okladnikov & Martinov 1972); sentiments
that were later supported by Lewis-Williams and Dowson (1988, 1990), Clottes and
Lewis-Williams (1998) and Whitley (1998). The eminent Russian prehistoric historian
Okladnikov considered the origin of shamanism to date to the Neolithic, around
3000–4000 BCE (Okladnyikov 1972). Bronze Age craftsmanship among the Western-
Siberian Obi-Ugrians, dating between the 8th century BCE and 17th century CE,
supports the concept of belief-systems being infl uenced by ASC. Many archaeologists
working within this geographical area regard the fi gurines found at the Achmylovo
site (on the Upper-Volga and dating back to between 8th and 6th century BCE) as
devices used in shamanistic practices (Schwerin von Krosigk 1992). They believe that
recovered artefacts such as amulets, jewellery and other items of dwelling adornment
would have assisted in warding away evil spirits within the house; a practice that is
recorded within both the anthropological and ethnographic records (Fedorova 2001;
Patrushev 2000). Interestingly, the geographical range of these amulets is replicated
in the present day, suggesting that the ancient practices are still in use.
If the term shaman represents a special perception of the world, then shamans are
‘creators of interaction between this world and the other world through the ecstatic
role-taking technique’ (Siikala 1978, 28–30). This defi nition suggests that we are
not witnessing a world of chaos rather more a world of order whereby the shaman
would have had control of the community; but at the same time, would have been
the direct device between the community and spirit world. The spirit world would
have been comprised of things us mortals cannot and should not see. In prehistoric
times until relatively recent times, sections of landscape would have been ritualised
and strictly taboo. This is witnessed in the way prehistoric ritualised monuments,
burial or landscape markers are concentrated in clusters and are located away from
settlements. The organisation of space – sacred and profane occurs in all areas of the
world and one considered the segregation of these spaces as being a fundamental
human trait that evokes social and political control in hierarchies (e.g. using landscape
to segregate class and gender).
Onto Landscape
The Land of the Shamans presents a landscape narrative that involves all the ingredients
for shamanistic practices such as underworlds, over (or upper) worlds and the scapes
viii The Editors
between and above. This (collective) cosmos is at the same time both physical and
metaphysical. The physicality of the rock surface not only creates a platform for
rock art but also absorbs sounds from when the art was created and performed. On
a more subtle observation, the rock surface also creates shadows that are dominated
by the ambiance of light. In a similar vein, buried hoards are physical in form yet
at the same time are hidden below the ground with only its owner knowing its
whereabouts. Such interplay between physical and metaphysical space could have
been the source for trance and ASC; thus artifi cial light such as fi re and sounds such
as chanting and dancing in, say, darkness, under the nightly sky, within the dreary
vaults of megalithic structures or the underworld voids of the cave could have been
points of reference for shamanic performance (as evidenced in the archaeological
record – see Peša, this volume).
This book intends to provide the reader with a novel account of how landscape
is viewed through the eyes and mindset of the shaman. Clearly, this is not a simple
narrative that involve male shamans delving into a landscape; far more complex
patterns of interplay between people and community and their landscape is going
on; however, the archaeological evidence is somewhat fragmentary.
Current archaeological approaches to shamanism are restricted to experiments
and ethnographic analogies that restrict the complexity of the empirical nature of
shamanism (Winkelman 1989, 161). The editors are aware that we cannot clearly
demonstrate archaeologically a relationship between the essence of shamanism and
ASC and landscape (see Eliade 1951; Winkelman 1989; 2006, 91; Wautischer 1998,
163–190). We are content with the notion that some traits of the landscape could have
assisted in producing some psychological states of ritualised stress and disorientation;
the most obvious of spaces being the cave or rock shelter (e.g. Peša; Séfériadès, this
volume). One should also consider how elements of diverse landscapes guided and
helped the shamans during their vision quest, examples of which are found all over
the modern world.
To understand the connection between shamanism and landscape, ethnographic
studies have played a significant role in creating a meaningful contribution.
Indigenous cultures worldwide suggest that ‘nature and culture are part of the same
socio- cosmic fi eld’ (Viveiros de Castro 2005, 148). And:
‘All shamanism […] are particularly linked to what we defi ne as sacred landscapes
both in the human and physical as well as in the other-than- human world. The
physical and non- physical landscapes in shamanism are deeply interrelated and
interconnected, and constitute an inseparable unity. This is the reason why these
territories are not just landscapes but “sacred landscapes” ’ (Fotiou et al. 2017, 7)
Here, Fotiou intimates that ‘shamans are the main actors in shaping and preserving
them [landscapes]’.
Sacred places in the landscape are socially and culturally constructed; these scapes
are unordered, unmade and uncontrollable (Zola 2017, 193). Sacred landscapes could also
Introduction ix
be metaphysical, formed by the vibration of sounds, smell, taste – a sensory cacophony of
emotions, many of which are intangible in terms of physical evidence. There is however,
tangible evidence in the form of, for example, shaman drums which are adorned with
maps or diagrammed landscapes portraying all manner of social and ritual life.
As we will see throughout this book, sacred natural space such as mountains,
plateaus and ravines involve many diff erent world views; what one landscape means
to one may not have the same meaning to another – no two mindsets are the same
(Children & Nash 1997). To the shaman, scape can mean a number of things – below and
above and the troposphere; a time continuum can also feature, creating a multiphased
and multifaceted entity. The aptly-named sky-dome viewed in non-western tribal terms
as a huge bowl or cauldron covers the troposphere – our earth and is the barrier
between us and the upper world. Above the sky-dome, the skyscape is the realm where
celestial phenomena exist. At the same time the underworld forms a mysterious,
sometimes dangerous scape where cave entrances or springs issuing forth from the
earth are the gateways to this realm where the shaman can experience ASC. The
cave entrance and probably the cave itself form a luminal space. According to Levi-
Struassian theory (1963), the cave acts as a pivotal contradiction to binary or polar
oppositions between the living and the dead (e.g. light: dark, life: death, warm: cold
etc.). Similarly, buried hoards also form part of the underworld, sometimes hiding
special and magical objects though these objects may have been buried for a variety of
reasons (Bradley 1998). Rituals for celestial beings were performed along the riverside
for example, but also in elevated places, such as mountains. Therefore, structured
deposition could have been also off ered to the spirits of diff erent shamanistic worlds
other than to supernatural beings of the underworld.
In terms of archaeology, a shamanic landscape can reveal itself as a series of
palimpsests that overlap the natural forms; therefore, we recognise skyscapes (e.g.
Malim; Bender), soundscapes (e.g. Devereux, Scarre), zoomorphic-scapes (e.g. Nash and
Garcês, Gheorghiu, Comba), subterranean-scapes, such as caves (Peša) and springs and
subterranean water courses which emit their richness from inner earth (e.g. Bender;
Peša), or those produced by hidden deposits (e.g. Pásztor). Besides identifying various
shamanistic landscapes, this volume also explains the psychology of the shaman’s
environment (e.g. Séfériadès), and the sacredness of the land (e.g. Pásztor).
All these types of shamanistic landscape described are not isolated or separated, but
co-exist and interconnect; for example the association with Palaeolithic rock art and
various landscape forms (e.g. Nash and Garcês), the quarried stone that constructs the
Early Pre-pottery Neolithic monument of Göbekli Tepe (e.g. Gheorghiu), or prehistoric
imagery associated with soundscapes (e.g. Devereux; Devlet; Scarre). In addition, we
must consider more subtle and fragmentary pieces of evidence such as the Neolithic
and Bronze Age deposits that are hidden below the surface of the land – i.e. the realm
of the underworld (e.g. Séfériadès; Pásztor). The upper or over-world is represented
by the terrestrial realm, the scape that is in control of us mortals (e.g. Malim; Bender).
It is here that we mortals, through an intermediary, would revere animals and animal