Belief in the Past: The Proceedings of the 2002 Manchester Conference on Archaeology and Religion 9781841715759, 9781407326238

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 7.
Chapter 8.
Chapter 9.
Chapter 10.
Chapter 11.
Chapter 12.

Citation preview

BAR S1212 2004  INSOLL (Ed.)  BELIEF IN THE PAST

Belief in the Past The Proceedings of the 2002 Manchester Conference on Archaeology and Religion

Edited by

Timothy Insoll

BAR International Series 1212 B A R

2004

Published in 2016 by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR International Series 1212 Belief in the Past © The editor and contributors severally and the Publisher 2004 The authors' moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher.

ISBN 9781841715759 paperback ISBN 9781407326238 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781841715759 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd. British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 1974 to publish the BAR Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR group. This volume was originally published by Archaeopress in conjunction with British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd / Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series principal publisher, in 2004. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing, 2016.

BAR PUBLISHING BAR titles are available from: BAR Publishing 122 Banbury Rd, Oxford, OX2 7BP, UK E MAIL [email protected] P HONE +44 (0)1865 310431 F AX +44 (0)1865 316916 www.barpublishing.com

Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... ii Chapter 1. Are Archaeologists Afraid of Gods? Some Thoughts on Archaeology and Religion Timothy Insoll ............................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2. Mission Impossible? The Archaeology of Norse Religion Anders Andrén ........................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 3. Cognitive and Cultural Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion: A Socio-Communicative Approach to the Archaeology of the Mesaran Tholos Tombs Craig S. Bardsley ..................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 4. Performing Religion: Practitioners and Cult Places in Minoan Crete Ina Berg .................................................................................................................... 27 Chapter 5. The Sweet Track, Somerset: A Place Mediating Culture and Spirituality? Clive Jonathon Bond ................................................................................................ 37 Chapter 6. Neurophenomenology: A Worthwhile Research Direction for the Archaeological Study of Religion? Tim Clack ................................................................................................................. 51 Chapter 7. Towards an Archaeology of Ethiopian Monasticism: Contexts and Themes Niall Finneran and Tania Tribe .................................................................................. 63 Chapter 8. Smelting Iron. Caste and its Symbolism in South-Western Ethiopia Gunnar Haaland, Randi Haaland, and Data Dea ..................................................... 75 Chapter 9. India’s ‘Temple City’: Shrines or Monuments? N. James .................................................................................................................. 87 Chapter 10. From Ruin to Restoration: The Modern History of Sanchi Nayanjot Lahiri ......................................................................................................... 99 Chapter 11. Kings and Cremations – Royal Funerals and Sacrifices in Nepal Terje Oestigaard ..................................................................................................... 115 Chapter 12. Christianity and the Conversion Period Landscape of South-West Britain Sam Turner ............................................................................................................. 125

i

Acknowledgements The papers in this volume, excluding the introduction, and Chapter 6, result from a conference held at Ashburne Hall, The University of Manchester, between the 2nd – 4th September 2002. The editor would like to thank Elizabeth Healey, Warden, and Mike Swirles, Manager, of Ashburne Hall, as well as all their staff, for helping make the conference so successful. Furthermore, thanks are also extended to Sarah Croucher who acted as Conference Assistant, and Rachel and Freya Insoll for helping in setting up and ensuring the smooth-running of the event. David Davison at BAR is also thanked for agreeing to arrange preparation of the camera-ready copy. Finally, the work of all the referees who commented on drafts of papers prior to publication must also be acknowledged, as must the contribution of the session chairs, Robin Coningham, Julian Thomas, Nayanjot Lahiri, and Colin Richards.

ii

T. Insoll: Are Archaeologists Afraid of Gods? Some Thoughts on Archaeology and Religion

Chapter 1.

ARE ARCHAEOLOGISTS AFRAID OF GODS? SOME THOUGHTS ON ARCHAEOLOGY AND RELIGION Timothy INSOLL School of Art History and Archaeology, University of Manchester

Introduction

connotations as it can be suggested that the very term “religion” which we use to describe practices, actions, rituals, beliefs, and material culture could in reality be of only limited utility, and in fact inappropriate to much of the material we as archaeologists consider. This is because it immediately sets up an explicit dichotomization between what is “religious” and what is not, when such simple divisions might not actually exist. It raises the question, which will be returned to again later, as to where does secular life end and religious life begin? Is religion as a concept really only the result of a desire to classify what is in effect an unclassifiable and indivisible facet of life for much of the world’s population today and in the past? One could, if one was so inclined, perhaps suggest that ‘religion’ has been created as a “discursive formation” along the lines of those described by Foucault (1985); it has been tidied up and placed in its ‘correct’ place, and thus defined along with ‘medicine’ or ‘law’ or ‘economics’ (Insoll forthcoming).

Recently finishing a book, “Archaeology, Ritual, Religion” (Insoll in press), led to a consideration of the subject which is the title of this paper, and the overall impression gained is that the relationship between archaeology and religion is predominantly one of neglect. Previous studies of archaeology and religion have tended to be very general (Renfrew 1994), concerned with a single religion, Christianity or Islam for example (Frend 1996, Insoll 1999a), elements thereof (Rodwell 1989), world religions alone (Insoll 2001), or have appeared as conference proceedings with their usual eclectic focus (see for example Insoll 1999b, Garwood et al 1991, Carmichael et al 1994, Goldsmith et al 1992). Part of the problem, it can be suggested, lies with the term ‘religion’ itself. Archaeologists appear frightened of using it as a descriptive device, and hence recourse is made to ‘ritual’, the archaeologists’ favourite catch all category for “odd” or otherwise not understood behaviour. ‘Religion’ as a term appears little understood, but besides the definitional conundrum which it generates – when is archaeological material ‘religious’ as opposed to ‘ritual’ in nature – it can be further suggested that the frequent absence of religion in archaeological interpretation is also perhaps a reflection of the archaeologists worldview themselves; often largely a secular one. Hence in turn this might be projected onto the past, even if inappropriate.

This ‘tidying’ up has resulted in a plethora of definitions of religion being proposed. These range from simple ones such as that provided by Edward Tylor that religion is composed of, “the belief in spiritual beings” (1958:8) through to much more complex ones. An example of the latter is provided by Byrne (1988:7) that, “a religion is an institution with a complex of theoretical, practical, sociological and experiential dimensions, which is distinguished by characteristic objects (gods or sacred things), goals (salvation or ultimate good) and functions (giving an overall meaning to life or providing the identity or cohesion of a social group)”.

This paper seeks to briefly explore some of these issues both with reference to the problems of categorisation and definition which exist. It should be noted that the ideas contained in this paper are further explored in greater detail in Insoll (in press).

So what then is religion? In many respects it is indefinable being concerned with thoughts, beliefs, actions, and material and how these are weighted will vary; but in general terms, the simpler the definition, the better. Yet the important point to make is that regardless of all the complexities of definition which have been attempted – we have to recognise that religion also includes the intangible, the irrational, and the indefinable.

Religion or Ritual? Religion The origins of the term “religion” can, according to Bowie (2000:22), be derived from the Latin translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek and attributed to Saint Jerome in ca. the late fourth century CE. Whilst Saliba (1976) argues that it is an explicitly Christian term which is only widely used from the Reformation. This in itself has important

Religions As religion has been the subject of debate so have its supposed types. These are usually divided into two main classificatory groups; being world religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc.) and traditional/primal religions 1

The Proceedings of the Manchester Conference on Archaeology and Religion

(African religions, Australian Aboriginal religions etc.). The features of world religions are defined by Bowie (2000:26) as –

Yet perhaps one of the most contentious of religious terms which is used is ‘shaman’ and its collective term ‘shamanism’. Criticisms of the process of shamanic ‘creation’, but more so of the subsequent application of ill-thought out shamanic definitions, are various (see for example Kehoe 2000, Bahn 2001, Helvenston and Bahn 2002). Archaeological investigations of shamanism are polarised, and this extends into definition as well. Price (2001:4) describes the process by which the term ‘shaman’ came into popular usage; how the Tungus word Sâman became known to the outside world after a dissident Russian Orthodox priest entered Siberia in the mid-seventeenth century. However ‘shamanism’ as a “notion of a collective pattern of belief” (ibid) began after Christian missions started targeting Siberia and sought to create a pagan ‘other’ which they could Christianize (and see Kehoe 2000:101). Hence it would appear that here we have the same sort of definitional problem as that already described – the inappropriate creation of a religious ‘identity’ where such an ascription might not actually be relevant.

1) Based on written scriptures. 2) Has a notion of salvation, often from outside. 3) Universal, or potentially universal. 4) Can subsume or supplant primal religions. 5) Often forms a separate sphere of activity. Whereas those of traditional/primal religions are defined as (Bowie ibid) – 1) Oral, or if literate, lacks written/formal scriptures and creeds. 2) “This worldly”. 3) Confined to single language or ethnic group. 4) Form basis from which world religions have developed.

These examples of the mis-labelling of religions would appear to be a reflection of the classificatory conundrum which Needham (1975:365) would refer to as the presumption of the existence of monothetic classes of social facts when in reality their point of reference is polythetic. As already noted, much of the material we deal with crosses categories and as such is analogous with Foucault’s (1970:160) notion of “intermediate productions”, with his apt examples being “the flying squirrel between the bird and the quadruped, the monkey between the quadruped and man”. The classification of religions can serve as Geertz (1968:24) notes, “toward denaturing our material, toward substituting cliché for description and assumption for analysis”.

5) Religious and social life are inseparable. Although we need to separate our religious forms, and the terms ‘world’ and ‘traditional’ have been used by this author (Insoll 2001), largely for a lack of viable alternatives (and a lack of space to consider possible alternatives), rigid categories of identification criteria such as those just given are dubious (see Shaw 1990 for critique). Some apply, others do not, and Bowie’s point that such “categorizations are not without utility, or they would not have survived so long” (2000:26) can also be disagreed with; though it should also be noted that Bowie points out their limitations in indicating that they are “at best intellectual constructs rather than descriptions of reality” (ibid).

Archaeology offers an ideal way of reassessing categorization (Insoll forthcoming), and a way of cracking the preoccupation with religious classification and categories might be to consider what Barnes (1997:13) describes as Wittgenstein’s theory of “family resemblances” (1953), which has been in turn translated into the methodology of “polythetic classification” (Needham 1975). Although it is inadvisable to make the mistake of promoting this as a panacea for understanding the complex character of religions; its utility lies within looking for overlapping similarities/resemblances rather than “monotypic” (Barnes 1997:13) features.

People think they need classificatory categories (Foucault 1970, 1977), but it could also be argued that people have also been lazy and hence such classificatory categories have survived for so long. Moreover, this obsession of categorization denies what Barnes (1997:11) aptly defines as “bi-religiosity”. We need within our archaeology of religions to explore more fully the notions of syncretism and religious dualism, of multiple elements comfortably coexisting, and in so doing defying neat categories. Queer archaeology (Dowson 2000) can be extended into the domain of the archaeological study of religions if it helps us to acknowledge complexity and the “other”. The prevailing desire for classification can in fact be wholly inappropriate. Where do the boundaries of Islam cease and those of African traditional religions begin for instance? (see Insoll 2003).

Ritual Is ritual any easier to define? A term, as noted, frequently preferred as a descriptive device over religion by archaeologists. Ritual is both action and mental activity combined, and can be both sacred and secular, but as Zeusse (1987:405) notes, “although it would seem to be a simple matter to define ritual, few terms in the study of religion have been explained and applied in more confusing ways”. Ritual might seem straightforward, especially in the way it has been interpreted by archaeologists, but in fact it is not (Bell 1992, 1997), as Brück (1999:314) argues, archaeologists may “feel they know what ritual is but, on closer inspection, the picture becomes rather less clear”.

Totemism provides another example of a similarly misused term of non ‘World’ religious application. This, according to Levi-Strauss (1991:24), has frequently been hastily used, and is a label which does not do justice to “the extreme complexity and heterogeneous character of beliefs and customs” (ibid) contained therein. Furthermore, ‘animism’ too, is commonly also wrongly defined and applied – privileged as an actual religion when in reality it might, and often does refer to an element within a larger system. 2

T. Insoll: Are Archaeologists Afraid of Gods? Some Thoughts on Archaeology and Religion

The Archaeology of Religion

The complexities of ritual can be acknowledged as involving more than just inexplicable material, the category often ascribed as “ritual” by archaeologists. The “material manoeuvres” (Durkheim 2001:314) which archaeologists might and do frequently consider ritual to solely be the residue of, “are merely the external envelope concealing mental operations” (Ibid). Peel back the surface of ritual, and it can be seen to be embedded within, and inseparable from, all the other diverse facets which comprise religion.

Having considered the problems of definition the question could be posed, what then is the archaeology of religion? In the view of this author it can be conceived of as the superstructure into which all other aspects of life can be placed – it is not necessarily a stand-alone category. For it is now recognised as important that many elements of life can be structured by religion, and can be archaeologically recognisable as such, above and beyond the usually considered domains of sacred sites and burial (see for example Hubert 1994, Insoll 1999a). This is not in the sense of some form of idealistic religious “totality” as might be generated by Mircea Eliade, for example, the mythical total religious immersion of all people in all time juxtaposed against the predominantly secular historical “time that kills” (Horia 1969:387-8), but rather, by way of contemporary analogy, how all aspects of Islamic material culture can be structured by religion (Insoll 1999a).

In reality ritual is not simple. What is required is a more complex understanding of what ritual is by archaeologists. Bell (1997), for example, defines various elements which can form part of ritual. These include – Formalism: The formality of activities. Traditionalism: “The attempt to make a set of activities appear to be identical to or thoroughly consistent with older cultural precedents” (ibid:145). Invariance: “A disciplined set of actions marked by precise repetition and physical control” (ibid:150).

The possibility exists that religious beliefs/thoughts can structure all activity, regardless of the social system being considered. We as archaeologists at least have to recognise that this possibility exists. The point has been made that the absence of religion in much archaeological interpretation is in all probability more a reflection of the archaeologists’ viewpoint rather than past realities, allied with the fashions to which archaeology as a discipline, like anything else, is influenced by. In this respect, plainly, for a long time religion was (and is) unfashionable in the parts of western society from which many archaeologists derive. This can but effect archaeological interpretation but is not unique to archaeology alone. With reference to anthropology, Evans-Pritchard (1965:100) made the point that (in the early 1960s) “religion has ceased to occupy men’s minds in the way it did at the end of the last, and at the beginning of this, century” – a generalisation which an anthropologist is unlikely to make today.

Rule-Governance: Self explanatory. Yet to recognise the subtleties and complexities of ritual will require definition on a case by case basis, ritual can be both odd and routine, it can be undertaken within the prism of the “focusing lens” (Smith 1980:114) or elsewhere, it is both the context and the act which are crucial in understanding ritual. However ritual should not be thought of as equating in terms of parity with religion. It is an element thereof but often it is treated as the descriptor for religion itself in archaeological parlance. Ritual is an element of the wider whole and its archaeological recovery should be a reflection of this, rather than a means to an end in itself. “A religious world is an inhabited place” as Paden (1994:57) notes, not a dehumanised set of ritual actions as it is sometimes presented by archaeologists. No ritual stands by itself – it sits within “thick” context, even if we cannot necessarily retrieve this context, we should acknowledge its former existence. Concentrating upon ritual alone might give us, to adapt a point of Gerholm’s (1988:199-200) “beautiful structures”, but it does not provide the embedded overview.

Post-Processualism and the Archaeology of Religions If we take one brief example (see Insoll in press for others); that of post-processual approaches to the archaeological study of religion we can see how, and potentially begin to suggest why, such an absence of serious consideration of religion exists.

Hence in using ‘ritual’ as the primary label for describing ‘religion’ it would seem that archaeologists are frequently doing their material a disservice; using an element to describe the whole. But this reticence is partly understandable. We do not want to create, for example, prehistoric religions complete with panoplies of priests, shrines, and organised systems of belief along modern lines, as was frequently the case. Older archaeological research considering ‘prehistoric religion’ frequently reflects such a process, and often this was completed by drawing simple analogies from ethnographic material and then directly transferring this onto the past. Eliade, for example, calls for an understanding of Homo Religiosus to be obtained, in part, through analogy with “primitive societies” (1959:165), so that “studying the rural societies of Europe provides some basis for understanding the religious world of the Neolithic cultivators” (Ibid:164).

From the personal perspective of this author a post-processual philosophy, a “contextual archaeology” (Hodder 1992:15), or “interpretive archaeology” (Thomas 2000) provides the most useful framework for approaching the complexities of the past, allowing as it does for multiple interpretations, individual agency (see for example Dobres and Robb 2000), the active role of material culture, the recognition of past complexity, the use of complex ethnographic analogy, and the realisation that the role of the interpreter is not a neutral one (see Hodder 1982, 1992). However, the positive and inspiring aspects of post-processualism pertain to its general 3

Trowelling Belief, The Proceedings of the Manchester Conference on Archaeology and Religion

philosophy rather than to its approach to religion in particular, and here it is fair to say that post-processual scholarship has largely neglected religion, even if it is guilty, as Brück (1999:325) has noted, of stressing the “symbolic aspects of human action” at the “expense of the practical”. Ian Hodder, for instance, within the otherwise inspiring “The Present Past” includes a brief chapter on ritual and though he rightly notes that (1982:159), “the process of compartmentalisation of archaeology has pushed off ritual”, he serves partly to ensure that this dichotomy survives by emphasising the use of the term “ritual” throughout rather than that of “religion”, of which ritual usually forms an element, as we have seen. But at least Hodder considers some of the complexities inherent in the label “ritual” even if religion is not explicitly considered.

a discourse mediating past and present in a two-way affair, but Shanks and Tilley’s construct of the past with its absence of religion within their posited theoretical construct is, to draw upon their definitions once more, really only a reflection of their own “modernist sense of self-identity acting in and on the world” (Shanks and Tilley 1992:251). Ritual might be considered, but religion is subsumed within ideology which is in turn wrongly defined as “an aspect of relations of inequality” (ibid:130). This is not a position which is agreed with here for it is a conveniently simplistic categorisation of religion under a Marxist framework, and one which can be further undermined. For example, ideology is also described as serving “in the reproduction rather than the transformation of the social order” (Shanks and Tilley 1992:130). This is incorrect, the acceptance or imposition of one religious tradition upon another is not necessarily merely “reproducing” social order, it can fundamentally alter it, literally “transform” it in many ways, as evident with the wave of jihads which swept parts of Western and Central Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the effects of which are, furthermore, archaeologically recognisable (Insoll 2003). For something couched within a post-processual framework it is remarkable how this perspective upon ideology removes individual agency, through somehow suggesting that everyone en masse is hoodwinked or deluded by the false ideology which is religion. Similar criticisms of Shanks and Tilley’s approaches to temporality have also been made (Dietler and Herbich 1993:249), where it has been noted that besides denying the “non-western or pre-capitalist the capacity for abstract thought”, the complexity of temporality is also ignored.

It could be asked if the avoidance of using the term ‘religion’ within post-processual approaches is perhaps in part due to the fact that it is seen as too broad a label, ascribing some sort of similarity in phenomena which allows for no diversity within. Thus again Hodder in considering the “Domestication of Europe” emphasises the “symbolic and apparently irrational” (1992:241, and see Hodder 1990) explosion of evidence which occurs, even though some of it might more plausibly be described as “religious”. The ritual and symbolic dimensions of material culture are placed within a primarily symbolic framework where, for example, we see the various skulls and boar tusks found set in walls and into clay protuberances at the Neolithic site (ca.6400 – 5600 BCE) of Catalhöyük in the Konya region of central Turkey (see below) interpreted as functioning to incorporate the dangers of the wild “within a domestic symbolism” (Hodder 1992:254).

The absence of religion within post-processual approaches is a recurrent theme. Julian Thomas (1996), for example, has considered in detail the notion of “Being” with reference to the work of Martin Heidegger, and rightly indicates that “human existence is thoroughly embedded in the world” (ibid:17). However, “being” as it is presented is primarily a secular entity, which anthropological material indicates to be a far from universal concept. Among the Yoruba, for instance, Thomas’s premise about “being” is shown to be correct, “the body is the mind” (Drewal and Mason 1997:333), and it is embedded in the world, but this is also a “being” immersed and inseparable from religion as well. It is also apparent that the notion of soul can be locked into that of “being” as well within certain religious frameworks (Peters 2000:383), this is something which has as yet to be fully engaged with by archaeologists, and once again we are returned to that irreducible, indefinable element, which can also form a part of being – mind, body, and soul combined. But this is not to say, in Bell’s words (1997:182) that “religion defines the nature of human beings, humanness defines the nature of religion”.

This might be so, but equally, it could be suggested that such an approach does not really engage with the aspect of the intangible, the numinous element of belief which extends beyond a functional conceptual framework. Yet equally Hodder (1990:11) is completely right in stating that “the full range of the complex of meanings is lost to us”. This perhaps is the crux of the issue in isolating why religion is avoided in post-processualism in favour of ritual. Precisely for the reason that ritual is concerned, to a greater extent, with action in relation to material things, whereas religion is much more complex and to say what it is, and more importantly what it means, is much more difficult. The use of the term religion has, it can be further suggested, perhaps been conceptually tainted within post-processual contexts by the sorts of generalising approaches to “Prehistoric religion” previously described. Nonetheless the absence of religion within post-processual discourse is a glaring omission within a theoretical approach otherwise concerned with recovering the maximum amount of information on all aspects of the past – the “thick description” of contextual archaeology (Hodder 1992:245).

As noted, the absence of religion within post-processualism is probably more a reflection of the practitioners of postprocessualism themselves rather than any limitations in the evidence they discuss. Homo Seculariosus just might not deem religion important and hence it is omitted from their archaeological vocabulary and interpretation. Within a post-

Equally, if we as “archaeologists wander the winding and seemingly endless corridors of post-processual archaeology” as defined by Shanks and Tilley (1992:7) we find a similar absence of religion. Archaeologists may well be involved in 4

T. Insoll: Are Archaeologists Afraid of Gods? Some Thoughts on Archaeology and Religion

Overcoming Fear? Revitalizing Religion in Archaeological Interpretation

processual framework recognition of self and its possible biases upon archaeological interpretation, i.e. the context of the observer are, rightly, defined as important, being the “autobiographic experience” (Shanks and Tilley 1992:251) which brings into existence archaeological experience. Hodder (1990:19), for example, discusses some of the background which moulded his writing of “The Domestication of Europe” discussed previously; “From Camus’s The Outsider, to the Vietnam war and the events of soixante-huit, from socialism to yuppiedom, from modernism to post-modernism, the issues of structure in relation to change, society in relation to the individual and of science and economy in relation to culture were often at the fore”.

The archaeology of religion is complex, and put simply, the material implications of the archaeology of religion are profound and can encompass all dimensions of material culture. If religion cannot be seen as the structuring principle for the lives of past communities the question can be posed as to what proof is required? Perhaps eighty percent of the world’s population live life today where religion provides the overarching framework for other aspects of life, at least as outwardly manifest, yet our conceptions of past religiosity, or rather the lack thereof are defined by the remaining twenty percent. The more we look, the more we can see religion as a critical element in many areas of life above and beyond those usually considered – technology, diet, refuse patterning, housing – all can be influenced by religion, they are today, why not in the past? Religion can be of primary importance in structuring life into which secular concerns are fitted, the reverse of the often posited framework.

Hodder here isolates modernity as a factor in his autobiographical experience. As with the Enlightenment, the concept of modernity is also of great relevance within an evaluation of archaeology and religion for it too has functioned as a philosophical limiting device in how many archaeologists conceive religion. It is characterised by what Thomas (2000:14) describes as “metanarratives” such as, “the rise of the West, the emancipation of the human spirit, universal progress, the development of economies, (and) the growth of democracy”. This would, inevitably, have an impact upon archaeological interpretations of religion for it involves in essence, “the reification and radical separation of culture, nature, mind, body, society, individuals and artefacts” (Thomas 1996:29). Religion was thus further abstracted from daily life.

We need to approach religion as a possible component underlying all material culture use and meaning – not only as a term applied to “ritual objects”. We need to recognise the potentially embedded nature of religion as a key building block, if not sometimes the key building block of identity. For as has been stressed such an approach allows religion to be seen as part of a holistic package possibly structuring all aspects of life, with “religious” material culture being seen as a very ambiguous category which is very difficult to define. Do we exclude material which might have been used while people entertained religious thoughts? - But the underlying intention of which we can ever reconstruct? Or do we only include a pre-determined checklist of materials “definitely” religious in intent?

Modernity might rightly be critiqued for its intellectual legacy regarding archaeology and religion, but equally postmodernity offers no solutions either. Post modernism is defined by Gerholm (1988:194) as “a fragmented cultural universe combining elements from various cultural systems”, and is characterised according to Johnson (1999:162) by “incredulity toward metanarratives” (and see Lyotard 1984). In general terms the relationship between archaeology and post-modernity has been undefined, for as Whitley (1998:23) describes, “it is not yet certain where they will go, beyond an aesthetic and intellectual celebration of multiculturalism”. Hodder (1999:149) is equally uncertain, describing the postmodern world as containing “a collapse of perspective, a lack of fixed point except that lack”. Not really a viable starting point for approaching the archaeology of religions either.

This, however, is not framed from a perspective of religious idealism, but is merely a reflection of the fact that we also need to critically reflect on the questions we ask of the past, as well as the possible answers themselves. If the question of the influence of religion on past communities is not considered then many of the other questions we frame will be incomplete, predicated as they are upon the unrepresentative experience of a minor part of the worlds population. To adapt the words of Paul Ricoeur (1985:13), we have to “confront the modern interpreter’s horizon”. Within the context of the proceedings of the Manchester Conference on Archaeology and Religion this might be an incidence of preaching to the converted; but it still remains true that serious consideration of religion by archaeologists; both theoretically and methodologically - remains to be completed. It is one of the final frontiers of archaeological research, and the papers within this volume help in addressing this lacuna.

But to return to post-processual approaches and religion, perhaps then, many western archaeologists are from the pool of what Eliade (1978:12) has defined as “the agnostic and atheistic masses of scientifically educated Europeans”. Whereas from the perspective of this author religion(s) are essential, having come from a background of being immersed within them, yet simultaneously studies such as this one are also grounded in different world circumstances to those of even a decade ago, as today religion has (rightly or wrongly defined) become much more of an issue on the world stage than it was previously. Archaeology is again mirroring, as it inevitably will, wider trends (as discussed earlier).

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INSOLL, T. In Press. Archaeology, Ritual, Religion. London: Routledge. INSOLL, T. Forthcoming. Archaeology. The Conceptual Challenge.

DOBRES, M-A., and ROBB, J. 2000. Agency in Archaeology. London: Routledge.

KEHOE, A. 2000. Shamans and Religion. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press.

DOWSON, T. 2000. Why Queer Archaeology? An Introduction. World Archaeology 32: 161-5.

LEVI-STRAUSS, C. 1991 (1962). Totemism. London: Merlin Press. LYOTARD, J.F. 1984. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

DREWAL, H.J. and MASON, J. 1997. Ogun and Body/Mind Potentiality: Yoruba Scarification and Painting Traditions in Africa and the Americas. (In), Barnes, S. (ed.), Africa’s Ogun. Old World and New. pp.332-52. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

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DURKHEIM, E. 2001. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ELIADE, M. 1959. The Sacred and the Profane. San Diego: Harcourt. ELIADE, M. 1978. Cultural Fashions and History of Religions. (In), Eliade, M., Occultism, Witchcraft and Cultural Fashions. pp. 1-17. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. EVANS-PRITCHARD, E.E. 1965. Theories of Primitive Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. FOUCAULT, M. 1970 (2002). The Order of Things. London: Routledge. FOUCAULT, M. 1977. Power/Knowledge. London: The Harvester Press. FOUCAULT, M. 1985. The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Tavistock.

SALIBA, J.A. 1976. “Homo Religiosus” in Mircea Eliade. Leiden: Brill.

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THOMAS, J. 1996. Time, Culture and Identity. London: Routledge. THOMAS, J. (ed.). 2000. Interpretive Archaeology. A Reader. London: Leicester University Press.

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A. Andrén: Mission Impossible? The Archaeology of Norse Religion

Chapter 2.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE? THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF NORSE RELIGION Anders ANDRÉN Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University

Introduction: The Archaeological Challenge

explained or interpreted with reference to Irish, Roman, Greek or Sanskrit texts (for instance, Dumézil 1939, 1958, 1973). A paradox in modern scholarship on Norse religion is that it basically has been defined from the mythological narratives in the Icelandic literature, although these texts were not a “Holy Scripture” in a Jewish, Christian or Islamic sense. Actually, at the time of the conversion, Norse religion was instead labelled as forn si бðr, i.e. as “old custom” or “old way of living”. Thus, late paganism was not equated with mythology, but rather viewed more broadly as a special kind of practice, including religious practice.

Norse religion is usually regarded as one of the best known pre-Christian religions in Europe. Due to the rich Icelandic literature from the 13th century, above all the poetic Edda and Snorri’s Edda, a mythological world inhabited by humans, heroes, and supernatural powers is still in some sense accessible for a modern reader (Clover & Lindow 1985). In combination with place-names, references in Latin and Arabic sources and later folklore, the Icelandic literature has been used to reconstruct a distinct pagan religion for Northern Europe, especially Scandinavia and Iceland.

To challenge the traditional definitions and views of Norse religion and to challenge the subordinate role of material culture in the study of Norse religion, a group of archaeologists and historians of religion has started a large interdisciplinary project at the university of Lund. The project, which is funded by The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, consists of 15 members and a network of some 40 scholars with similar interests (Raudvere et al. 2001; Jennbert et al. 2002; Andrén et al. in press).

Modern scholarship on Norse religion started in 1835, when the German philologist Jakob Grimm (1785–1863) published his Deutsche Mythologie, which was later also translated into English. Ever since, Norse religion has above all been studied by philologists, historians of literature, and historians of religion. Most of the detailed studies and all the major surveys have been written by scholars from these disciplines. Classical surveys of Norse mythology and religion are by de Vries (1956–57), Turville-Petre (1964), and Dumézil (1973), whereas quite a few new handbooks and surveys have been published in the last decade (Simek 1993; Clunies Ross 1994, 1998; Steinsland & Meulengracht Sørensen 1994; DuBois 1999; Schjødt 1999; Lindow 2001 and Näsström 2001). Material culture, and consequently archaeology, has played a minor and secondary role in the study of Norse religion. Mostly objects have been used as illustrations of elements already known from the written sources.

The main aim of this project is to redefine Norse religion, moving away from mythology and mythological structure towards religious practice and ritual history. We are trying to reinterpret the “old custom”, with the help of material culture as well as texts (cf. Andrén 1998). With inspiration from ritual theory (Smith 1987; Bell 1992) and post-colonial theory (Said 1978, 1993; Spivak 1987; Young 1990; Bhabha 1994; cf. Asad 1993), including concepts such as “hybridisation” and “creolisation”, we are now beginning to challenge the traditional perspectives. Instead of a coherent, archaic and original paganism, it is possible to start to see Norse religion as a fluid and vague religious tradition. It includes significant variations in space and social contexts as well as important changes through time, due to recurring interactions with other parts of the regions today called Europe and Western Asia. Thus, Norse religion becomes a tradition without any clear common origin and without any clear ending. Actually, religious changes during the Middle Ages as well as the learned tradition and the modern reception of paganism can be viewed as a kind of continuous hybridisation since the Conversion.

Most scholars are and have been aware that the Icelandic literature was written in a Christian context, but it has been disputed to what extent the texts reflect a genuine pagan tradition. From a source-critical point of view, several historians regard the texts as Christian interpretations of preChristian religion, or as a kind of “fantasy paganism” (Olsen 1966; Düwel 1985; Krag 1991; Janson 1998), while many historians of religion underline common non-Christian traits for many elements in the texts (de Vries 1956–57; Dumézil 1973; Schjødt 1999). Regardless of perspectives, however, Norse religion has to a large extent been interpreted as a coherent, archaic and “original” religious tradition on the periphery of Europe. Another recurring idea is that Norse paganism is an expression of a common Indo-European heritage, and consequently many obscure elements can be

There is no place in this context to give a full account of the project. Instead, in this paper some examples of the projects work will be given, which can in turn illuminate some of the perspectives adopted and results achieved. 7

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Christianity versus Norse Religion

drinking, because the meaning of Norse words for “sacrifice” derived from a semantic field with these associations (Green 1998; Sundqvist 1998; Näsström 2002). Other concepts and personal names instead pointed out persons, above all men, with special responsibility to consecrate or to guard and protect what was consecrated. This probably meant consecrated space, since at least one of the concepts referred to the delimitation of protected space (Sundqvist 1998). Finally, some men and women were specialised in upholding knowledge, especially mythological knowledge, or obtaining hidden knowledge about the future. This category included persons with special abilities to speak, to see, to write, and to interpret. It included, among others, the “wand-bearers”, who б considered by some practised the much-debated sei?r; scholars as a Norse version of the circumpolar practice of shamanism (Strömbäck 1935; Hedeager 1997; DuBois 1999; Price 2001, 2002; Raudvere 2002; Solli 2002).

Not only did Christianity succeed Norse religion, but many concepts in religious studies also derive from Christian traditions, such as “religion”, “ritual” and “myth” (cf. Asad 1993). Therefore, it is of empirical as well as methodological interest to try to juxtapose medieval Christianity and late Norse religion. Several interesting aspects regarding late paganism can be gained from such a comparison (cf. Blomkvist 2002). Norse religion has been characterised as “polytheistic”, due to the many gods and goddesses that appear in Icelandic texts and in place-names, for instance, Odin, Thor, Njordr, Freyr and Freyja. However, Norse paganism is maybe better labelled as “multi-focused”. There was no divine hierarchy similar to the Christian God. Instead the mythological world was inhabited by gods and goddesses, as well as other “extrahuman” powers, such as giants, elves, dwarfs, and different groups of female deities of fate (dísir, norns, valkyries). Many of the gods and goddesses also had ritual functions, and at least the elves and dísir (Simek 1993), and probably the giants were connected with rituals (cf. Steinsland 1986).

The multi-focused feature of Norse religion was thus expressed in mythology as well as in ritual practice. Late paganism was in many senses different from medieval Christianity, with its hierarchy, exclusiveness and centralised organisation. Where Christianity had a clear distinction between sacred and profane, Norse religion in general had no similar dichotomy. Due to its multi-focused character, Norse religion was much more embedded in social practice than Christianity, and consequently late paganism in Scandinavia is much more difficult to detect or uncover as a specific religious domain.

Another aspect of the multi-focused character of Norse religion is the location of rituals. Contrary to the uni-focal but multi-functional Christian churches, pagan rituals seem to have been located in many different types of sites. Icelandic sources as well as Scandinavian place-names, Christian prohibitions against pagan rituals, and archaeology point out many distinct spatial contexts. Rituals could take place inside large halls and in small specific “cult buildings”, but also outside buildings and settlements in arable land and grassland, by trees, large stones, rocks, lakes, rivers and bogs (cf. Andrén 2002). This multi-focused ritual landscape corresponded well with mythological notions of the spatial destiny of the dead. Instead of one death realm, the dead were supposed to dwell in several different places, depending on the circumstances of their death (cf. Näsström 2001:207 ff.). The fallen went to Valhalla or Folkvangr, the drowned went to the realm of Ran, and those who died of illness or old age went to Hel. There are also some obscure hints to paradisiacal regions beyond death, called Ymisland, Glæsisvellir and Ódáinsakr. Some dead people were supposed to live on in their graves or in “holy mountains”, whereas a few were thought of as reincarnated. Besides, those who had died an “unnatural” death or had been mistreated in their lives could return as draugr, to haunt the living (Simek 1993).

Between Unity and Diversity From a post-colonial perspective one might ask whether there existed a common Norse religion at all. The answer to this question is both yes and no. On the one hand, the pantheon of gods and goddesses was pan-Scandinavian, or even panGermanic. Divinities like Odin, Thor, Tyr, Freyr and Freyja were known in the whole of Northern Europe, and they occur in theophoric place-names in a distinct Scandinavian region (de Vries 1956–57; Vikstrand 2001). In the same way, some of the motifs in the Icelandic narratives are known from images in other parts of Scandinavia or Scandinavian settlements in Northern Europe. Above all, images on some Swedish picture-stones and rune-stones have parallels in the Icelandic literature (Andrén 1993, 2000). In the Viking Age a distinct Scandinavian region was also delimited by the use of runes and rune-stones (Sawyer 2000) as well as by the use of ship symbolism in burials, for instance, boat-graves and stone ships (Müller-Wille 1970; Andrén 1993; CrumlinPedersen & Munch Tye 1995). This Scandinavian region was clearly distinguished on a general level from that of the Saamis, i.e. the hunters, fishermen and reindeer-nomads in Northern Scandinavia, speaking different dialects of a nonIndo-European language (Bäckman & Hultkrantz 1985; Ahlbäck 1987; Rydving 1993, Zachrisson 1997). There were, however, important interactions between Scandinavians and Saamis (DuBois 1999; Price 2002).

The number of different religious specialists also expresses the multi-focused character of Norse religion. There was no corps of professional ritual specialists like the Christian priesthood. Instead written references as well as some concepts and personal names indicate religious specialists of both sexes combined with different fields of religious expressions, above all sacrifice, sanctity and knowledge (Sundqvist 1998). Sacrifices were carried out by political and religious leaders as well as by ordinary people in common households (Sundqvist 2002; Steinsland & Vogt 1981). Norse sacrifices seem to have included slaughter, eating and

On the other hand, there were clear regional differences in Norse religious practice. According to some recent studies 8

A. Andrén: Mission Impossible? The Archaeology of Norse Religion

on burial customs in the Viking Age (Burström 1991; Hansson 1999; Svanberg 1999; Artelius 2000), there were specific variations of burial rites in different regions (Figure 1). These differences applied to all aspects of the rites, i.e. the treatment of the body (inhumation versus cremation), objects placed in the grave (none or many), accompanying animals (none or many), the invisible part of the grave (wooden coffin, wooden chamber, boat, carriage, stone cist, urn, hole with ash etc.) and the visible part of the grave (no

visible marker or barrow, cairn and stone-settings in different shapes). Most burials were constructed according to these regionally based rites, and only a small proportion of the graves had a more pan-Scandinavian character. Above all, aristocratic expressions like the boat-graves (Müller-Wille 1970; Andrén 1993; Caver 1998; Sørensen 2001) had a wider distribution in Scandinavia, as well as in other parts of Northern Europe.

B

A

Figure 1. Examples of different burial customs in the Viking Age (AD 800-1000) in southern Scandinavia. A) Burial ground with barrows at Bäck Norregård, Hamneda parish in Finnveden. B) Burial ground with barrows, tricorns and erected stones placed in different geometrical forms at Hjortberga church in Blekinge. Apart from the external layout of the graves that are shown in the figure, the other elements of the burials also differ. The two burial grounds are typical for their regions, and situated only about 120 km from each other (after Svanberg 2003, fig.78 and 123). 9

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The character of Norse religion was thus ambiguous, with both unifying and diversifying elements. Some of the important gods and goddesses as well as some of the central myths were well known in Scandinavia as a whole, whereas ritual practice varied widely between different regions. However, since late Norse paganism was defined as the “old custom” or the “old way of living”, the regional and social diversity of religious practice must be emphasised.

how the sun was placed on a chariot and pulled by two horses. However, in the early 13th century AD the motif was reduced to a small detail in the creation myth. Another motif of much more recent date was Thor’s hammer (Figure 3). In the Icelandic narratives, it played a significant role in Thor’s recurring fights with the giants. As a material expression, Thor’s hammer is well known as pendant of iron, bronze or silver, worn around the neck (Staecker 1999b). A few images of the hammer also exist. However, as a material expression, Thor’s hammer cannot be traced before the 9th century AD. Despite its importance in the narratives, Thor’s hammer had only a history of some 400 years as a material expression. The hammer can probably be regarded as a conceptualisation of the “old custom”, in a reaction against Christianity and its cross.

A Question of Time Although the project challenges many of the traditional perspectives on Norse religion, and emphasises the role of material culture, use is still made of the Icelandic narratives. However, an attempt is made to compare the narratives more systematically with material culture. One aspect which becomes more clear from these comparisons is that motifs and narrative elements in the texts may derive from very different periods.

Other motifs in the Icelandic narratives had other temporal origins. Thus, it is quite clear that different elements in the Icelandic literature can be related to very different depths of time. When the narratives and the mythology in the Icelandic literature are analysed, they are usually regarded as coherent structures, because they must have been meaningful for the different authors of the texts (Clover & Lindow 1985, Lindow et al. 1986, Clunies Ross 1994, 1998). However, very old motifs like the sun pulled by a horse show that the elements in the Icelandic texts were not contemporary and that the narrative and the mythology did not represent a coherent universe in a long-term perspective. Rather, the varied depths of time for the motifs indicate that they had been part of very different contexts through time. This means that the meanings and functions of the narrative elements must have changed

An old motif is the sun pulled by a horse over the heavens. This motif is materially expressed in the famous sun chariot from Trundholm dated as far back as about 1500–1400 BC (Figure 2). Fragments of two contemporary finds are known, and the motif can also be traced on rock-carvings and engravings on bronze razors from the Bronze Age (Kaul 1998). The material expressions of the sun drawn by a horse indicate that this idea had a central mythological and ritual role in Bronze Age Scandinavia. This motif was still known 2700 years later, since Snorri Sturluson in his Edda mentioned

Figure 2. The sun-chariot from Trundholm, on Zealand in Denmark, dated to the 15th century BC (after Aner & Kersten 1976). The chariot has been interpreted as an image of the sun pulled by a horse. The sun disc is gilded on one side (the “day side”) but not gilded on the other (the “night side”), which fits with the idea that the sun was pulled from left to right over heaven during the day, and returned from right to left via the underworld during the night. 10

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Figure 3. Different types of pendants interpreted as Thor’s hammers. They have been dated to the 9th–11th centuries AD (After Staecker 1999b:92).

between different historical contexts; a good example being the sun pulled by a horse. The Icelandic literature will always remain important in Norse scholarship, but due to the different historical background of the motifs in the Icelandic narratives the texts cannot be used as ultimate interpretive references, when Norse religion is studied in long-term perspectives.

Another period of profound change was the late Roman Iron Age and the Migration Period (200–550 AD), which is more closely studied in the project. The Roman and Byzantine world had a deep impact on Scandinavia, although it was situated outside the empire (Hedeager 1978; Lund Hansen 1987). It is maintained here that the impact was so profound that the famous Scandinavian “Viking culture” is unthinkable without Roman “influences” in the preceding centuries. A good example of the changes occurring during the Roman Iron Age is the creation of the runes. The runic alphabet was a writing system constructed around 200 AD, probably in Southern Scandinavia (Odenstedt 1990; Williams 1997). It was fundamentally based on the Latin letters and their sound values, but the order of the runes, the conceptual name of each rune and the function of the early runic writing were different from the Roman writing tradition. Thus, the runes were a Scandinavian incorporation of a Roman model or a kind of “Romanisation without Romans”. Other similar local interpretations of Roman culture were paved roads, regulated villages, large permanent central places, houses with huge stone foundations, inhumations and finds of probable war booty (Hvass 1988; Näsman 1994; Cassel 1998; Fallgren 1998; Larsson 2001b, Storgaard 2001; Hårdh & Larsson 2002).

Hybridisation The regional and social variations in ritual practice as well as the varied chronological background of the motifs in the Icelandic narratives underline the importance of religious changes. Competition between contemporary variations and incorporation and reinterpretation of “foreign” features were potential sources for change. Such changes can best be described in terms of “hybridisation” or “creolisation”. Several important changes in Norse religion can be traced through time, in relation to rituals as well as world-views and myths. However, these changes were not constant but seem to have taken place during specific constitutive periods, when the interactions with the surrounding world were especially intense. One period was the Early Bronze Age (1700–1200 BC), when several different types of objects, images and symbols from the eastern Mediterranean were introduced in Scandinavia. These Mediterranean elements have been discussed for a long time (for instance, Almgren 1927), and have in recent years attracted new attention (Randsborg 1993; Larsson 1997; Jensen 2000; Kristiansen 2001). However, the practical and social context of these Bronze Age interactions is disputed.

With respect to Norse religion, several other aspects of the Roman impact can be traced. One aspect is the creation of divine effigies with distinct attributes. Before Roman influences, divine images in Scandinavia seem to have been restricted to simple wooden figures without any clear traits (Müller-Wille 1999; van der Sanden & Capelle 2001). With imperial contacts, a Roman iconography of gods and goddesses on coins was introduced into Scandinavia (Fagerlie 1967; 11

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Lind 1981, 1988). A few small statuettes of Roman divinities also found their way to Scandinavia, and they were deposited in bogs and lakes just like the former wooden figures, and in contrast to other Roman imports that were usually deposited in graves (Serra 1996; cf. Lund Hansen 1987). Due to the introduction of images of Roman gods and goddesses, a specific Norse divine iconography was created in the 5th and 6th centuries (Figure 4). It is from this period that we find the earliest images of identifiable Norse gods, with attributes that are known from the much later Icelandic narratives (survey in Gaimster 1998; cf. Axboe et al. 1985–89).

paving, deposits of animal bones, and deposits of destroyed weapons. Just south-west of the building, an “eyebrow” of a helmet of a Sutton Hoo type was also found. Several of these artefacts have parallels with objects in descriptions from the 13th century of Icelandic rituals. The sagas have usually been dismissed on source-critical grounds (Olsen 1966, Düwel 1985), but the excavation at Uppåkra shows that the sagas actually seem to echo pagan practices. The introduction of rituals inside houses and the construction of specific ritual houses must have been due to interactions with the late Roman world, where the same kind of ritual relocation took place (Figure 5). Greek and Roman temples were traditionally only abodes of the gods and goddesses, whereas rituals took place in the open air, at altars by the temples. In contrast to these temples, the Jewish synagogue, the Mithras temple and the Christian church all represented a profound ritual innovation, because rituals basically took place inside these types of buildings (White 1990). The Christianisation of the Roman and Byzantine empires in the 4th and 5th centuries meant that rituals more generally moved from sites in the open air to the interior of buildings. The contemporary changes in Scandinavia show how closely ritual location in Norse religion followed these changes in the Mediterranean world, although Scandinavia was not converted to Christianity at that time. The conversion of Scandinavia represents another period of profound change. We may reckon with Christian influences on Norse religion as early as the 5th century, but it was not until the 8th and 9th centuries that Christianity began to be established in Scandinavia, partly with the help of Christian missionaries (Sawyer et al. 1987; Müller-Wille 1997; Nilsson 1997; Staecker 1999a; Gräslund 2001; Lager 2002). For instance, Christian congregations are mentioned in towns such as Hedeby and Birka in the 820s. The different parts of Scandinavia were officially converted from the middle of the 10th century until about 1100, which means that Norse religion and Christianity coexisted as practised religions for at least 200 years.

Figure 4. A gold bracteate from Trollhättan, in Västergötland, Sweden. The image has been interpreted as the god Tyr putting his hand in the Fenris wolf. The bracteate is dated to the 5th or early 6th centuries AD (after Axboe et al. 1985–89, nr 190).

Another aspect of the late Roman impact is the relocation of some rituals. The traditional sites for rituals in Scandinavia were bogs and lakes (for instance, Näsman 1994; Stjernquist 1997; Carlie 1998; Müller-Wille 1999). Outdoor rituals and probably some wetland deposits continued until the conversion (Hedeager 1999, Andrén 2002), but a major change took place in the 5th and 6th centuries when rituals more generally began to take place inside buildings (Fabech 1991). Traces of rituals have been found in large halls as well as in small specific ritual houses (fig. 5, cf. Callmer & Rosengren 1997; Hultgård 1997; Nielsen 1997).

After the conversion, pre-Christian world-views, narratives and poetic expressions were partly reinterpreted and remodelled in Christian settings for several centuries. The Norse gods and goddesses did not disappear but their character and function were redefined. The clergy regarded them as demons, whereas historical writers, such as Snorri, put them in a euhemeristic context, viewing them as former rulers that had eventually been worshipped as divinities. In a similar way, the pre-Christian heroes continued to be known and depicted, even in churches, but they were reinterpreted as guardians of the Church against evil forces (Danbolt 1989; Nordanskog in press). This means that Icelandic literature, which is our main source for Norse religion, was in itself a product of this highly hybridised culture.

So far, the oldest example is a specific ritual building, found in the “central place” of Uppåkra in Skåne (Larsson 2001a; 2002). The house was probably constructed in the 4th century, and rebuilt several times until about 800 AD. It was a small building (13 x 6.5 m) with two pairs of large roof-bearing posts, deep wall trenches, three entrances and a hearth in the middle. Inside the house, a glass bowl, a large gilded and decorated bronze cup, a knocker (an iron ring), bundles of nails and about 60 gold foils with human figures were found. The house was located on a terrace, and surrounded by stone

With these few examples of hybridisation, from the Early Bronze Age, the Roman Iron Age–Migration Period and the time before and after the conversion, I wanted to illuminate how fluid and open the Norse religious tradition was. It changed through time, due to competition between local 12

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Figure 5. A reconstruction of a ritual house at Borg in Östergötland, Sweden. The building and the deposits in front of it have been dated to the 9th and 10th centuries AD (after Nielsen 1997:388).

traditions and due to incorporations and reinterpretations in interactions with the surrounding world. In a sense, this hybridisation continued long after the conversion, and can still be found in the learned scholarship on Norse religion as well as in the modern reception of the pagan Scandinavian heritage.

practice was highly diversified as regards social and regional divisions. Thus, since Norse religion was defined as the “old custom” or the “old way of living” the very notion of a coherent religious tradition can be questioned from a perspective of religious practice. Only the pantheon, the central myths and some aristocratic rituals can be regarded as pan-Scandinavian. In a long-term perspective Norse religion changed radically. Due to interactions with the Mediterranean world and with circumpolar cultures, new elements were incorporated through Scandinavian reinterpretations. Especially, it was the Roman world which had a profound impact on rituals and religious expressions. The Christian mission and conversion meant further changes in the Norse tradition. Actually, the Icelandic narratives in themselves were results of clear hybridisation. Methodologically this is a paradox, since the Icelandic literature is the main source for Norse paganism.

Conclusion In concluding it is necessary to underline the elusive character of Norse religion. In contrast to Christianity, late paganism was not a clearly defined religious domain; instead it was to a large extent embedded in social practice. A distinct boundary was only partially upheld between sacred and profane. Ritual 13

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After many decades of little activity, research on Norse religion is today very extensive and widely spread. Therefore, the interdisciplinary project on Norse religion at the University of Lund has no aim to present “final” results about that religious tradition. However, it is hoped that this work may contribute to alternative views and perceptions of Norse religion. Instead of mythological structure and mythological narrative, this project is underlining world-views, ritual practice and ritual history, in their social and regional contexts. Instead of a common Indo-European origin the focus is upon recurring hybridisation from at least the early Bronze Age until the conversion. And finally, instead of seeing the conversion as a definite end of the Norse religion we regard the modern scholarship on and the reception of Norse religion as a continuous and still ongoing hybridisation.

BLOMKVIST, T. 2002. Från ritualiserad tradition till institutionaliserad religion. Strategier för maktlegitimering på Gotland under järnålder och medeltid. Uppsala: Department of Theology. BURSTRÖM, M. 1991. Arkeologisk samhällsavgränsning: En studie av vikingatida samhällsterritorier i Smålands inland. Stockholm: Stockholm Studies in Archaeology 9. CALLMER, J. & ROSENGREN, E. (eds.). 1997. “…gick Grendel att söka det höga huset…”: Arkeologiska källor till aristokratiska miljöer i Skandinavien under yngre järnålder. Slöingeprojektet 1. Halmstad: Hallands Länsmuseums skriftserie 9 & Gothenburg: Gotarc C Arkeologiska skrifter 17. CARLIE, A. 1998. Käringsjön: A Fertility Sacrificial Site from the Late Roman Iron Age in South West Sweden. Current Swedish Archaeology 6:17–37. CARVER, M. 1998. Sutton Hoo: Burial Ground of Kings? London: British Museum Press. CASSEL, K. 1998. Från grav till gård: Romersk järnålder på Gotland. Stockholm: Stockholm Studies in Archaeology 16.

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Chapter 3.

COGNITIVE AND CULTURAL EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVES ON RELIGION: A SOCIO-COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH TO THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE MESARAN THOLOS TOMBS Craig S. BARDSLEY Department of Archaeology, University of Reading

Introduction

It may appear to some to be inherently reductionist to attempt to consider as complex a human cultural practice as religion with reference to biological evolution, but this approach is growing in popularity, as illustrated by the number of recent books on the subject (Boyer 1994, Boyer 2001, Guthrie 1993, Hinde 1999, McCauley and Lawson 2002, Wilson 2002). Archaeologists cannot only use these theories to examine past religions, but also may have an important contribution to make to their development, especially in terms of striking a balance between cognitive universals and particular cultural developments. The approach outlined below does not reduce the variability of cultural behaviour to biological universals, but rather employs evolutionary principles to better understand that variability.

In The Archaeology of Cult, Colin Renfrew wrote that, ‘the essence of any religion is some framework of beliefs’ (Renfrew 1985: 12). Such a statement may seem obvious, and underlies many archaeological approaches to the subject. However, it also generates considerable problems for archaeologists examining prehistoric religion, for it suggests that in order to understand the role of religion in society it is necessary to understand the nature of particular religious beliefs. Without textual evidence, it is impossible to access those beliefs directly or reliably. Such beliefs can only be materially represented symbolically, and symbols are only arbitrarily related to their referents. However, as will be discussed below, alternatives do exist. Furthermore, just as anthropologists have become aware that in most cases it is impossible to disentangle religion from other aspects of human culture, archaeologists cannot separate the study of religion from the examination of other socio-cultural phenomena and processes. The challenge is to develop theoretical perspectives that can provide an integrated approach to the various economic, social and religious processes involved in cultural evolution.

The Evolution of Social Intelligence In recent years, researchers in the field of evolutionary psychology and a number of related disciplines have been investigating the extent to which modern human cultural behaviour may be understood in terms of the biological evolutionary pressures which shaped the human mind (e.g. Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby 1992, Hirschfeld and Gelman 1994). While archaeologists have contributed to this research program in terms of reconstructing the evolutionary history of the human species (e.g. Mithen 1996), there has been little consideration as to whether these ideas can provide insight into the interpretation of evidence from later prehistoric, or even historic societies. An unwillingness to adopt the crosscultural principles of evolutionary psychology is in some senses justified, as many aspects of the research program have been rightly criticised (e.g. Rose and Rose 2000). However, these problems should not necessarily justify a complete rejection of the consideration that biological evolutionary factors may exert some influence on universal aspects of human cognition and behaviour.

The aim of this paper is to introduce an alternative approach that is derived from studies of the evolved cognition of the human species. It draws upon theories of how the human species evolved the capacity to develop a tremendous diversity of observed cultural behaviour, including religious behaviour. These theories are found to intersect neatly with other anthropological theories of the social aspects of religion and ritual. The insights provided by such considerations can be developed into a cross-cultural framework for examining evidence of religion in the archaeological record and understanding its role in processes of cultural evolution. This is achieved through focusing on the role of material cultural in social communication, particularly in the context of religious ritual. For this reason this new framework is referred to as a socio-communicative approach. Space prohibits a comprehensive presentation of the evidence to support this approach. Instead this paper is an attempt to summarize several of the most significant points of the theory, and illustrate the way in which it may influence archaeological methodologies through reference to one data set: the preand proto-palatial tholos tombs of the Mesara in Crete.

In particular, some of the most robust theories stemming from an evolutionary approach to cognition are theories of social intelligence. These concepts emerge from an effort to explain the evolution of the human propensity for altruistic behaviour. While ‘selfish genes’ may account for altruistic behaviour among close kin (Hamilton 1964), human altruism extends 17

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well beyond this, to include unrelated individuals. This extensive altruistic behaviour can only be adaptive if it is reciprocated, but in such cases it can be highly advantageous. While the cooperative behaviour generated by reciprocal altruism can provide an adaptive advantage to groups who practice it over those whose members act purely selfishly, the question is how such behaviour can become evolutionarily stable. In a group of co-operators, individuals who take advantage of others’ altruism but contribute no energy to the cooperative effort themselves, i.e. cheats, will out-compete those who tend towards cooperative behaviour. Consequently, the tendency towards altruistic behaviour would be selected against in a population.

process, not a biological evolutionary one. The simple answer to this problem is to abstractly argue that ‘culture’ is responsible for this process. The next section puts forth the argument that a much more precise explanation is possible. This explanation returns us to the topic of religion, and establishes a basis for the application of the sociocommunicative approach to the archaeological record of religious practices.

Universal Aspects of Religious Agents Another important aspect of human social cognition is what has been termed Theory of Mind (see Carruthers and Smith 1996 for an overview). Theory of mind refers to the cognitive capacity to view other individuals as intentional agents like ourselves. Although the evidence is not fully conclusive, it appears this ability is unique to the human species (Dunbar 2000, Premack 1988). The capacity for theory of mind is crucial for human social decision-making. The determination of whether or not to cooperate with other individuals depends on modelling their minds, in other words, attempting to determine what information they possess and what their intentions are. The information that informs these decisions is referred to as strategic information (Boyer 2000: 203-205). Whether or not information is strategic depends on whether, in a given situation, it is perceived to have an impact on decision-making with respect to social cooperation. In general, our theory of mind anticipates that the other individuals we interact with, like ourselves, possess different levels of strategic information. However, the human mind also possesses considerable flexibility: while it is simpler to process information in terms of our evolved capacities, it is also possible to cross over between these capacities or explicitly violate some of their principles. This ability has been termed ‘cognitive fluidity’ (Mithen 1996, see also Boyer 1990, Sperber 1985, and Sperber 1994; among others, for a fuller discussion of the relationship between evolved cognition and cultural transmission). In particular, an agent which tacitly conforms to our evolved expectations about the nature of intentional agents, but specifically violates some of those expectations, may be particularly salient, readily held in the mind, and thus more likely to be culturally transmitted (Boyer 1994).

Game theory has demonstrated that this problem can be resolved if mechanisms exist for the detection and punishment of cheats (Axelrod and Hamilton 1981, Trivers 1971). Such mechanisms can result in the evolutionary stability of reciprocal altruism. Consequently, it has been argued that the evolution of human intelligence has been largely driven by the need to develop increasing capacities for social intelligence (Byrne and Whiten 1988, Humphrey 1976). Experimental evidence has supported the theory that humans are particularly good at processing social information, particularly in terms of detecting potential cheats (Cosmides 1989, Cosmides and Tooby 1992). Recently, cross-cultural studies have suggested that these cognitive abilities are indeed universal (Sugiyama 2002). While a model of social intelligence based on a universal tendency to detect and punish cheaters is supported by experimental evidence, and can be used to explain some cultural behaviours, such as the popularity of gossip (Barkow 1992), the social behaviour of biologically modern humans is far more complex. A host of cultural factors such as ideologies, religious beliefs and notions of ethnic identity and class, among others, also influence human social decision-making. Instead of simply acknowledging that these factors exist, and assuming that they supersede any evolutionary factors, we are now in a position to consider how the capacity for these complex cognitive processes may have developed. We can consider the problems of the social intelligence model from another perspective. If social cooperation is made possible by a cognitive capacity to detect and punish cheaters, it follows that the scale of possible social cooperation is determined by the robustness of this cognitive capacity. Evidence for this has been provided by the observation that there is a close correlation between neocortex ratio (the ratio of the volume of the neocortex to the volume of the rest of the brain) and group size in primates (Dunbar 1992). This correlation predicts that the size of human groups to be around 150 individuals (Dunbar 1993). This number does seem to correspond to the size of a number of different types of operative groups in human societies, ranging from military units to academic sub-disciplines (Dunbar 1993, Dunbar 1998). However, these groups are embedded within much wider ranging social institutions. In general, there seems to be no actual limit on the scale of human cooperative behaviour, and increasing that scale is a historical and social

From these insights, Pascal Boyer has suggested that religious entities may be defined as full-access strategic agents: ‘(imagined) agents who we presume to have access to any piece of information that is strategic’ (Boyer 2000: 207). Leaving aside for the moment the question of how a belief in the existence of such agents could become established among a group of individuals, a belief in this type of religious agent would have a profound effect on the nature of social cognition. If an individual believed that such an agent existed, and that it possessed the ability to punish non-cooperative behaviour, then that individual would be much more likely to behave in a cooperative manner: even if defection went unnoticed by others, it would be observed by the religious agent. There need not be direct evidence that such punishment occurs, it could, for example, involve suffering in an afterlife. 18

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Inexplicable misfortune, such as disease, could also be attributed to the punishment of a religious agent.

of a religious agent. Beliefs may be accepted because they appeal to other evolved psychological propensities (Hinde 1999), or they may have a more specific cultural resonance. In some situations, particular aspects of religion may evolve because they have more direct adaptive consequences, as in the case of some food taboos or beliefs concerning cleanliness whose actual consequence is to reduce the likelihood of disease (e.g. Reynolds and Tanner 1995).

The point is that the existence of a belief in this type of religious agent transforms the nature of the issue of social cooperation from a cognitive problem to a communicative one. By communicating a belief in a religious agent, an individual is communicating a willingness to engage in fully cooperative behaviour with the rest of the community of believers. Social decision-making is no longer dependent on the assessment of a complex array of strategic information, but can be based simply on whether or not others share a belief in the same religious agent. Even if a particular individual had doubts concerning the existence of such an agent, in most cases they would be unwise to communicate these doubts to the rest of the community. To do so would be to reveal that they could not be trusted to behave in a fully cooperative manner, and would likely result in exclusion from the cooperative group. Therefore, the subjective beliefs held within an individual’s mind are not as central as the communication of apparent beliefs between individuals.

It is important to also point out that the description of a religious entity is a cognitive one, and not necessarily a culturally explicit one. In some religious traditions the central focus of belief may be described as an abstract force, as in the typical anthropological example of ‘mana,’ or as a group, such as ‘the ancestors.’ What matters however, is the manner in which individuals implicitly reason about such entities, not what they explicitly state. Further consideration of these cross-cultural issues is beyond the scope of this paper, but could form the subject of substantial future research. For the moment, we will focus attention on one of the most common, and arguably most effective, forms of socio-communicative practice: communal ritual.

The Cultural Evolution of Religious Beliefs and Practices

The Universal Ritual Form

In theory, the suggestions of the previous section imply that when existence of a religious agent is posited, the scale of a cooperative social group is no longer constrained by individual cognitive capacities to process strategic information, but is now constrained by the effectiveness with which the group communicates a belief in a religious agent among its members. This communication is achieved through particular cultural practices. The communicative effectiveness of these practices directly impacts the efficiency of social cooperation and, consequently, the cohesion of the social group. Therefore, we can expect these cultural practices to be shaped by an evolutionary dynamic. The generation of particular cultural ideas and practices, like the generation of individual variation in biological evolution, may be considered as an essentially random process. Those social groups in which particular practices emerge that generate more effective social communication are more likely to remain cohesive, and are more likely to transmit those practices to subsequent generations. Those with less effective practices would be more likely to fission, and their members may join more cohesive groups or lose out in competition for resources.

It is not enough for an individual simply to be told once that a religious agent exists for them to accept such a belief and have it guide their future actions. After all there is, by definition, no direct evidence for the existence of such agents. Likewise, simply stating that one holds such a belief is not sufficient to convince others that one really does. Religious ritual can provide a means of achieving both, but to do so, it must exhibit certain formal properties. Roy Rappaport has exhaustively set out these properties in Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Rappaport 1999). According to Rappaport, ritual consists of the transmission of two principal types of message: the canonical and the selfreferential. Canonical messages consist of symbolic messages that represent ‘the general, enduring, or even eternal aspects of universal orders’ (Rappaport 1999: 53, emphasis in original). The point is that individuals participating in the ritual do not encode these messages. Rather, they are determined by the liturgical order of a particular religious system. This liturgical order consists of a hierarchy of beliefs. At the top of this hierarchy is what Rappaport refers to as Ultimate Sacred Postulates. A thorough definition of this term is outside the scope of this paper (for discussion and examples see Rappaport 1999: 277-81), but these Ultimate Sacred Postulates are understood to refer to the explicit or implicit expression of the core unfalsifiable concepts of a religious system. Under the current framework, we may offer a more precise definition. Ultimate Sacred Postulates refer to the existence and character of full-access strategic agents.

One advantage of this cultural evolutionary perspective is that it resolves some of the long-standing definitional problems that have confronted cross-cultural studies of religion. While considerable commonalities have often been observed among the religious beliefs and practices of different cultures, it has been difficult to demonstrate that any of these are sufficiently universal to be definitive. Under the current framework, we can understand that these beliefs and practices frequently evolve because they either directly increase the likelihood of socially cooperative behaviour, or they increase the likelihood that individuals will believe in the existence

Beneath these in the liturgical order are what Rappaport labels cosmological axioms. These refer to ‘assumptions concerning 19

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the fundamental structure of the universe or, to put it differently…refer to the paradigmatic relationships in accordance with which the cosmos is constructed’ (Rappaport 1999: 264). These concepts lie beneath Ultimate Sacred Postulates because they are slightly more variable, and may change in response to historical or environmental changes, without such changes necessarily forcing a questioning of the authority of the core beliefs. For example, the heliocentric model of the universe, the geologic age of the earth and the theory of evolution by natural selection all contradicted the contemporary cosmological axioms of Christianity. Nevertheless, over time many Christians have accepted these theories without considering that such acceptance contradicts their core beliefs.

1955: 102 cited in Rappaport 1999: 54). Because there is a causal relationship between an index and what it is representing, these signs are difficult if not impossible to fake. For example, the liturgical order of the Maring of New Guinea specifies that pigs must be sacrificed to the ancestors, but the precise number of pigs sacrificed is encoded by the ritual participants and is causally related to the overall size of the groups pig herd. They cannot sacrifice more pigs than they have or can spare and still maintain a viable herd. Indexical self-referential messages facilitate the exchange of reliable strategic information and therefore may promote a more cohesive social environment. In some situations, these practices may result in a highly competitive display that may prove to be ultimately detrimental, as in the typical anthropological example of the potlatch. Such a situation is unlikely to persist over time. This is precisely the sort of dynamic which archaeology, with its access to time depth, is well situated to examine.

Below these in the hierarchy are more specific rules, which stem from the cosmological axioms and govern, among other things, relations among individuals that, as Rappaport puts it, ‘transform cosmology into conduct’ (1999: 266). These rules structure behaviour, but are even more flexible than cosmological axioms. There is a fourth level to the hierarchy, but this is better considered in an examination of the second type of ritual message.

The Emergence of Social Roles and Social Institutions

The point is that cosmological axioms and rules of conduct derive their authority from the core belief in the existence of a religious agent. But from where do the core beliefs derive their authority? The answer, according to Rappaport, is essentially a performative one. Core beliefs derive their authority from their absolute invariance within the liturgical order. They are presented in ritual as changeless and without question, and occur with great frequency in a ritual system. The importance of high frequency for the expression of core beliefs can also be argued from a cognitive perspective. The nature of human episodic memory stipulates that ritual procedures performed with great frequency are far less likely to generate spontaneous reflection on their meaning (Whitehouse 2001). In essence, the enunciations of core beliefs concerning the nature of religious agents are repeated to the point where they become a behavioural habit.

Before addressing the archaeological implications of this socio-communicative approach to religious ritual, one further entailment of the theory needs to be considered. While the social significance of religious ritual has been observed by anthropologists since Durkheim, it is also obvious that common religious practice is not the only basis for a cohesive society, otherwise we would not be able to explain, for example, contemporary Western secular society. This can be accounted for by considering the emergence of social roles and social institutions. Whenever an individual behaves according to a set of culturally defined rules of conduct, as opposed to according to their evolved capacities for social intelligence, they can be viewed as fulfilling a social role. Networks of individuals fulfilling these social roles may be viewed as comprising a social institution. In an analysis of these concepts, Runciman (2001) has suggested two mechanisms by which these institutions may emerge in society. The first mechanism is through coercion; the second is by establishing a mechanism whereby it is clear to all participants that a social institution brings about mutual benefit. But, as discussed above, ritual is also a powerful mechanism for imparting specific rules of conduct (for another anthropological perspective of the relationship between ritual and social roles see the concept of ‘office’ in Fortes 1962, among many others). Another way of looking at it is to view the sanctification of social roles by ritual as both psychologically coercive, because accepting them is linked to accepting the unquestionable liturgical order, and of apparent mutual benefit, in that the religious agent sanctifying them has full access to all strategic information, and therefore knows best what social organization is of greatest benefit to the population.

The conclusion to be drawn from this discussion is that the canonical messages within a ritual system (i.e. the totality of all the various rituals practiced by a society) possess a hierarchical structure in terms of the degree of formal invariance with which they are communicated. The greater the invariance of a particular ritual action, the more closely that action relates to the core beliefs concerning the existence of a religious agent. There is also a second type of ritual message, which Rappaport labels self-referential messages. Through these messages, ‘(ritual) participants transmit messages concerning their own current physical, psychic, or social states to themselves and to other participants’ (Rappaport 1999: 52). In other words, they transmit strategic information. The specification of the nature of the messages is the fourth level of the liturgical order mentioned above. Importantly, liturgical orders specify that self-referential messages must be transmitted indexically. An index, as defined by Peirce, is ‘a sign which refers to the Object it denotes by really being affected by that Object’ (Buchler

However, once such social roles and social institutions become established, there is a possibility that individuals 20

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occupying particular roles will act to perpetuate or expand those roles in a manner which is not directly related to the religious system. This is especially likely if the social roles occupied impart privileged access to wealth or power. Consequently, more secular social institutions may emerge. A detailed exploration of these processes is outside the scope of this paper. The crucial point is that it is religion, and religious ritual in particular, that provides the starting point from which such processes can develop. This is because the conception of a religious agent requires nothing more than evolved human cognitive capacities, but establishes the basis from which a tremendous variety of particular socio-cultural organizations may emerge.

The large number of known tombs, and the long time period over which they were used, provides a strong data set for examining patterns of formal invariance in their construction and use. Additionally, their monumental nature, and the presence of substantial grave goods, can be understood as transmitting indexical self-referential messages. However, there are also considerable problems. Many of the tombs were excavated in the early part of the 20 th century, and consequently the data is not published to modern standards. Also, due to the presence of substantial valuable grave contents, including gold in some cases, almost all the tombs have been subjected to some degree of looting. Consequently, quantitative assessments of the tombs’ various contents cannot be made and, at this point, our analysis must be mainly interpretive.

One final point should be made before examining the specific application of these principles. A socially cohesive society in no way implies some sort of egalitarian society, or one that is actually beneficial to all its individual members. Cohesion refers simply to an absence of overt or destabilizing social conflict. In complex hierarchical societies, it is almost certain there will be considerable inequalities, but as long as the ritual practices and social institutions of the culture lead the majority of individuals to accept those inequalities, and act within the existing structures, the society may be considered to be cohesive.

Patterns of Formal Invariance in Mesaran Tholos Tombs The term tholos tomb refers to a circular stone built structure used for communal burial. The current consensus is that the tholoi were fully vaulted in stone, although the issue has been debated over the years (Branigan 1993: 41-56, Watrous 1994: 711). The internal diameter of these burial chambers ranges from 13.1 m (Platanos C) to 3 m (Lebena Yerokambos IIa), and the walls are frequently over a meter thick. The burial chambers are accessible through a single small entrance, usually under a meter in both height and width. In some cases, large stone slabs for sealing off the entrance have been recovered. Of the forty-six tombs for which data is available, at least thirty-seven have entrances facing east (Branigan 1998:19). Furthermore, it appears that the site of the tholos tomb may have been selected with the intention of making sure that the entrance never faced the settlement directly. Although tombs are often placed in close proximity to the settlement, in no cases where the settlement location is known is the tholos tomb found to the west of it (ibid.).

The Archaeological Methodology of a SocioCommunicative Approach: Ritual and Society in the Earlier Bronze Age Mesara, Crete For this model to be useful to archaeological inquiry, it is necessary to specify how these theoretical propositions can be applied directly to the interpretation of the material record. To do this, I assume that people embed the same types of messages into material culture as they do in the performative acts that have been so far discussed. While an extensive ethnoarchaeological study would be desirable to validate this premise, in the current context I will attempt to support it by demonstrating the extent to which this assumption can make sense of one particular set of archaeological material: the pre-palatial tholos tombs of the Mesara region of Crete. Attempting to identify the social messages embedded within both the architecture of the tombs, and the material deposited within may provide insight into how social dynamics evolved over the period of time in which the tombs were in use.

In the EM I-II periods, burials were placed directly in the burial chamber. A typical burial likely included a small number of grave goods, although due to the communal nature of the burials it is difficult to establish any clear association between particular inhumations and artefacts. A wide variety of artefacts have been discovered, including gold and silver objects at some sites. By far the most common objects are ceramic cups, which number into the thousands at some sites. Jugs, bowls and jars are also common, and there appears to be a ratio of about three cups for each jug; from this, the existence of a ‘toasting’ ritual associated with burial has been inferred (Branigan 1993: 78). In the EM III/ MM IA period, there is a significant shift in burial practice at a number of the tholos tombs. Fifteen tombs have burials from this period made in larnakes (rectangular, coffin-like vessels), and pithos (large storage jar) burials are also present at many of these.

Beginning in the Early Minoan I (EM I) period (c. 3100 BC) people in south-central Crete began to bury their dead in communal tholos tombs. This practice continued, in some cases, until as late as the Middle Minoan II period (c. 1800 BC) with some tombs showing signs of use even into the Late Minoan. The tombs have been discovered and excavated in the Mesara plain and the Asterousia mountains to the south, along with a few outlying tombs in other parts of Crete. Over ninety possible tombs have been identified (Branigan 1993), and a number of these have been excavated. They are distributed in cemeteries containing between one and three tomb structures. It is generally assumed that each cemetery served a single habitation site.

After burial, the remains were occasionally subjected to further manipulation. Evidence for occasional fumigation of the tombs has been described (Branigan 1987). At three tombs, Platanos A, Koumasa E and Lebena IIa, it appears 21

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the tombs were wholly cleared, burnt, and a new surface was laid down. In most other cases however, evidence of burning is much more localized. At four tombs, skulls were found grouped together, but in most cases, the skulls are completely absent. Of the thousands of burials represented by the fifteen tholos tombs excavated by Xanthoudides, only eight skulls were identified (Xanthoudides 1924). At Ayia Kyriaki the bones appear to have been subjected to deliberate breakage and occasional chopping, but the extent of this practice is difficult to determine due to the fact that most published tholos excavations have included almost no information on the human remains (Blackman and Branigan 1982, Branigan 1987).

necessarily emerge as a response to different social environments, but develop according to a myriad of historical processes and may generate change in the social environment as often as they are changed by it. Phaistos may have imported its socio-communicative system from Knossos, enabling it to maintain a higher population, rather than establishing it independently in response to population growth. The formal invariance of the tholos burial structure, the relatively invariant eastern alignment, and the widespread evidence of a ritual involving cups and jugs suggest that proper treatment of the dead may have formed a central component of the religious system of the Early Minoan Mesara. Comparison with a contemporary example may serve to clarify this point. Islamic mosques are invariably aligned towards Mecca because praying towards Mecca constitutes one of the most invariant Islamic ritual practices. In a sense, praying five times a day towards Mecca, or at least believing that one should, is one of the things that defines an individual as a Muslim. Similarly, believing that when people died they must be buried communally in a circular tholos tomb accompanied by some form of drinking ritual may have been one of the things that defined the social identity for Mesaran peoples.

In addition to the main burial chamber, many tombs include a complex of small antechambers in front of the entrance. These antechambers display much more variation in their architectural plan than the burial chambers themselves. Human remains have been discovered in a number of these antechambers, in rooms that are fully enclosed. It is generally assumed that these remains were placed in the antechambers as a result of clearing the main chamber. In many cases, it appears that the antechambers were not part of the original construction, but were added at a later period. This is most clearly demonstrated at the site of Ayia Kyriaki, where antechambers were added in the EM II to an existing EM I tomb (Blackman and Branigan 1982), but may also be the case at a number of other sites (Branigan 1993: 63). At many sites, a large number of EM III conical cups have been recovered from rooms in the antechambers. Branigan has taken this to signify that the ‘toasting’ ritual had moved from the burial chamber to the antechambers.

Indeed, the tholos tombs have often been interpreted as evidence of ‘ancestor worship’ (e.g. Marinatos 1993). The aversion to placing the tomb entrance toward the settlement, and the presence of stone slabs to block the entrance may also be interpreted as signifying that the entities represented by the burial remains (i.e. the ancestors) were believed to hold considerable power. The removal of skulls, the possible ritual breaking of bones, and the periodic burning of parts of burial chambers or the fumigation of entire chambers may represent specific rituals attempting to access this power.

The third common architectural feature of the tholos tombs is a courtyard area (Branigan 1993: 127-9). In some cases, such as Platanos and Koumasa, these courtyards were paved and may have been as large as twenty meters across. A pebble surface within a boundary wall was discovered at Moni Odiyitria (Vasilakis 1990: 64-5), while at Ayia Kyriaki a surface of levelled and trampled soil was identified with the enclosure wall. Again, in many cases these courtyard areas were constructed at a later date than the tomb chamber itself.

The shift to burials in pithoi and larnakes has been interpreted as expressing a greater emphasis on individuality (Branigan 1993: 66). In the current context we may suggest that the introduction of greater variance in burial practices marks a decrease in the significance of the ancestors in the religious system, as the dead are no longer treated with the same level of formality across all sites. This shift correlates with the emergence of larger scale, regional social organization in Crete, which resulted in the establishment of the palaces. This larger scale society may have been incompatible with a belief system that placed ultimate authority in the ancestors of a particular community. If the socially relevant religious agents are understood to be the ancestors of particular kingroups, then this implicitly limits the scale of the cooperative social group to that individual lineage. The ancestors may have remained important, but could have become relegated to a status more akin to saints in deference to a more generally conceived religious agent that could be more easily thought to possess authority over an entire region of communities.

In interpreting these features, we may note that the most formally invariant aspect of the tholos tombs is the structure of the burial chamber itself. Notably, no other types of burial are known from this region in the Early Minoan period. The possible exception to this is the preliminary identification of a large Early Minoan cemetery serving Phaistos (Watrous et al. 1993: 224). The existence of different mortuary practices at Phaistos is readily explained by the current approach. It is generally accepted that the communities using tholos tombs would have been relatively small. Phaistos, on the other hand, may have had a population of several hundred in the Early Minoan periods. Consequently, its population would have encountered very different pressures on social cohesion, and would have needed to possess a different sociocommunicative system to maintain social stability, which may have been focused within the settlement of Phaistos itself, rather than its cemetery. It is important to point out that these differences in burial and other ritual practices do not

The alternative to this interpretation has been to argue that the tholos tombs also served as a focal point for the worship of a ‘fertility goddess’ (Branigan 1993). This interpretation is based on the significance of the snake goddess in later Minoan periods and the discovery at Koumasa of four female 22

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anthropomorphic vessels. These vessels have been related to five others found throughout Crete with some formal similarities (Warren 1973). The interpretation of their religious significance is based on two factors. First, one of the Koumasa vessels appears to have a snake wrapped across her shoulders, and this has been taken to signify a clear relationship to the later snake goddess. Second, the vessel discovered at Myrtos, in southeast Crete, was discovered in a room identified as a domestic shrine (Warren 1972: 20910). Under the current framework however, the evidence of these few finds is not nearly sufficient to suggest that whatever is signified by these vessels formed a central component of the religious system of the Early Minoan populations of the Mesara.

to accommodate these. The relative variance in the design of the antechambers therefore results from the fact that they were constructed in response to more localised concerns. The scale of the tholos tombs themselves would have communicated an index of the significance of a particular community that would be accurate only at the time of construction. However, the material culture found within the tombs also contains numerous indexical components. For example, the stone vases found in many tombs indicate that whoever placed them there had access to both the relatively scarce raw material and specialized craftspeople trained in their manufacture. This is also the case with the metalwork found in some tombs. Formal invariance can also indicate particular social relationships if the level of invariance is substantial enough to imply a direct relationship with a particular group or area. For example, Vasiliki ware was probably only manufactured in east Crete, therefore its occurrence in a particular tholos tomb indicates a relationship between whoever deposited it and that region. If not, then it at least indicates a relationship with a third party with the means to obtain such items. Similarly, the most numerous type of pottery found at the site of Ayia Kyriaki is Ayios Onouphrios ware which seems to have been manufactured in one or two sites in the region of the Mesara around Phaistos (Blackman and Branigan 1982). This suggests that indicating social relationships with this area was one of the most significant elements of ritual practice at the site of Ayia Kyriaki. Space prohibits a detailed consideration of all the various types of finds in the Mesara tholos tombs. However, a detailed analysis of the indexical content of those finds, and the variation in that content between sites has the potential to produce a much more detailed picture of the social dynamics in this area.

Evidence for Indexical Messages in the Mesaran Tholos Tombs The scale of the communities attached to each tholos cemetery would have been relatively small, and maintaining internal social cohesion would have been relatively easy. However, the maintenance of cohesive social relationships between communities would have been just as important. The climate of Crete makes drought a constant threat, but the effects of such droughts are often highly localized and can be alleviated by exchange over relatively short distances (Halstead 1981). When such a drought occurred, the survival of an individual group may well depend on possessing reciprocal social relationships with other communities, in order to obtain enough subsistence resources to survive. These relationships would be based on less frequent interactions, therefore, there would be fewer opportunities to exchange strategic information. It seems highly likely that communities would have developed some form of inter-communal ritual with a significant indexical content, through which self-referential messages could be transmitted between groups. This type of ritual practice would have evolved culturally; communities that participated in rituals that provided appropriate social information and strengthened inter-communal ties would have prospered more than those which did not. The less successful groups may have died out, fissioned, or chosen to adopt the practices of others, even if they did not fully comprehend why the other groups were more successful. This is certainly not to say that insurance against drought would have been the only purpose for such inter-communal rituals, the exchange of marriage partners or the creation of military alliances, among others, may also have been significant factors.

Conclusions To summarize, an understanding of the evolution of the human mind focuses our attention on the persistent problems of maintaining social cooperation that confront all human societies. Human cultures have evolved an extremely diverse set of practices, social organizations, and ideologies in order to address these problems. Yet within this diversity there are also numerous commonalities, such as the universal ritual form, that have emerged because they are effective. Much more empirical investigation, in terms of ethnographic observation, archaeological study, and possibly psychological experimentation is required to validate the sociocommunicative approach, and develop it into a robust theoretical framework. Despite the need for more in-depth analysis, it is clear that conceptualising material culture in terms of its formal and indexical properties may allow an integrated consideration of what may otherwise be viewed as disparate data types. While further development of the theory is outside the scope of this paper, it is evident from the brief case study outlined here that a socio-communicative perspective can shed new light on long standing archaeological questions. Rather than engaging in further

At the time of their construction, the monumental scale of the Mesaran tholos tombs would have served as an index of the community’s ability to mobilize labour. The largest tombs tend to be in those areas with the best agricultural land. The addition of antechambers and courtyards correlates with a steady increase in the density of settlements in the region. It can be inferred from this that as the number of groups around a particular community increased, the complexity of the rituals required in mediating relations with them also increased, and antechambers and courtyards were constructed 23

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antagonistic debates between biological and cultural perspectives, it is sincerely hoped that this paper has illustrated that a better integration of the study of human cognition and the examination of human culture may lead archaeology to a clearer understanding of the past.

DUNBAR, R. I. M. 1992. Neocortex Size as a Constraint on Group Size in Primates. Journal of Human Evolution 22:469-93. DUNBAR, R. I. M. 1993. Co-evolution of Neocortical Size, Group Size and Language in Humans. Behavioural and Brain Sciences 16:681-735. DUNBAR, R. I. M. 1998. The Social Brain Hypothesis. Evolutionary Anthropology 6:178-90. FORTES, M. 1962. Ritual and Office in Tribal Society. (In), Gluckman, M. (ed.), Essays on the Ritual of Social Relations. pp. 53-88. Manchester: The University Press.

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I. Berg: Performing Religion: Practitioners and Cult Places in Minoan Crete

Chapter 4.

PERFORMING RELIGION: PRACTITIONERS AND CULT PLACES IN MINOAN CRETE Ina BERG School of Art History and Archaeology, University of Manchester

Introduction

The wide variety of cult places, regional and pan-Cretan components, and changes in practices through time indicate that Minoan religion is a diverse and changing element, rather than a unified, homogenous, island-wide, theistic construct (Figure 1). The year 1988 saw the publication of Warren’s seminal paper on ‘Minoan religion as ritual action’, in which he drew attention to the central role of performance-related aspects in Minoan religion. Building on work by Matz and Nilsson, Warren defined ritual action as things done, things said or sung, and things displayed or envisioned in epiphany (1988: 13). His analysis of Minoan iconography established the existence of several different rituals: ecstatic dance rituals, baetilic rituals, robe rituals, flower rituals and processions. The importance of these rituals, so argued Warren, can only be understood in the context of achieving the epiphany of the deity, that is to “communicate with the divine or to induce the divinity to communicate with or affect the human or the material world” (1988: 13; for the wider context on ritual see Bell 1997). While it is questionable whether all rituals had the epiphany of the deity as their ultimate goal (and

Named after the mythical King Minos, the Minoan civilisation was ‘discovered’ in Crete by Arthur Evans at the beginning of the 20th century. The island was first inhabited in the Neolithic and small hamlets and villages remained the dominant feature until the end of the Early Bronze Age. From the Middle Minoan (MM) period onwards we can witness the emergence of a more complex society, culminating in the appearance of the first palaces in Greece in the Protopalatial period (c. 1950-1750 BC). A destruction of the palaces and subsequent rebuilding marks the beginning of the Neopalatial period (c. 1750-1490 BC). The palaces formed the centre of administration, storage, religion and trade until their destruction at the end of the Neopalatial period around ca. 1490 BC (according to the conventional chronology). In addition to the actual palaces, palatial control was also exerted through a system of villas (country-houses), and religious sites, such as caves and peak sanctuaries (hill-top shrines).

Figure 1. The distribution of major types of cult site in Crete (Dickinson 1994: fig. 8.2. Reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press). 27

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demonstrates Warren’s indebtedness to the neo-Tylorian view), Warren rightly emphasised the importance of the performance-related aspects of rituals. It was this particular aspect of Minoan religion which also interested Christine Morris and Alan Peatfield in their discussion of figurines from Cretan peak sanctuaries (Peatfield 2001; Morris 2001; Morris & Peatfield 2002). Usually the figurines uncovered at peak sanctuaries have been interpreted as those of worshippers, and consequently their gestures have been interpreted as those of worship, adoration and supplication (Figure 2). However, Morris and Peatfield were concerned that such a limited interpretation was borne out of our modern western religious understanding rather than those of Minoan times. Instead the authors suggested an alternative (and more active) model which regards the use of body posture and gesture as part of ritual behaviour (2002: 110). Drawing on

Felicitas Goodman’s work on body postures the authors suggest that the figurines may be a visual representation and commemoration of humans attempting to achieve or having achieved altered states of consciousness (ASC). In this scenario the body itself is regarded as a suitable vehicle into the ASC (as opposed to reliance on sounds/smells/artificial stimuli etc.) to experience the divine. The purpose, so argue the authors, was to achieve forms of epiphany of the deity. Accepting the importance of performance aspects of Minoan religion and the ability for worshippers themselves to induce trance and thus direct communication with supernatural beings, we need to consider the role of professionals, such as priests, or laymen in the performance (and possible spiritual guidance) of such rituals.

Religious Practitioners: Priests, Priest-healers or Shamans? Ever since Evans discovered the Minoan civilisation at the beginning of the 20th century priests and priestesses have been accepted as an established part of Minoan society. Images on seals, rings, sealings and frescoes show the distinct iconography of the profession and the role division between priests and priestesses. Priests (Figure 3a and b) can be identified on account of their long robes with diagonal bands, their special hairstyle (short fringe, long hair at the back). A beard is frequently shown and many carry a curved axe or a stone mace. Images of animal heads often accompany priests and it has been suggested that priests are intimately connected with animal sacrifices (Marinatos 1993:131). Priestesses (Figure 3c and d), on the other hand, are never depicted with animals and have consequently been linked to bloodless sacrifices and generally peaceful activities, such as the pouring of libations, taking part in processions, bringing flowers and performing dances. Priestesses have no standard iconography (they share their iconography - flounced skirt, open bodice - with female deities and elite women) and their identification depends on the context. The dresses are painted with images from the animal world or, more frequently, from nature (especially flowers) – emphasising the connection between priestesses and bloodless nature (Marinatos 1993: 141-145). There can be little doubt that a formalized priesthood existed in Crete during the Neopalatial period (conventionally dated to 1750-1490 BC). Klass asserts that it is typically state-level societies that employ full-time specialists who may perform elaborate processions and other rituals normally assumed incompatible with hunter-gatherer societies (1995: 66; Harris 1987: 282; James 1955). The reason we call these professionals ‘priests’ is because they are bound into a hierarchy and must follow certain instructions when conducting ceremonies. A priest, so argues Klass (1995: 66), is therefore subject to external authority – unlike other part-time practitioners. Their reliance on outside spiritual as well as secular authority becomes particularly noticeable when they are full-time specialists, unable to provide for themselves, and who, like

Figure 2. MMI-II figurine from the peak sanctuary of Petsophas (Reproduced by permission of Oxford, Ashmolean Museum; Inv. AE 990). 28

I. Berg: Performing Religion: Practitioners and Cult Places in Minoan Crete

Figure 3. a) Sacerdotal figure on seal (after Marinatos 1993: fig. 88b); b) Head of a priest and animal on a two-sided seal (after Marinatos 1993: fig. 90); c) Priestess (?) in flounced skirt carrying a garment and a double axe on seal (after Marinatos 1993: fig. 115); d) Small faience robe from temple repositories, Knossos (after Marinatos 1993: fig. 111).

craftsmen, need to be supported by the palaces. As we have ample archaeological evidence of craft specialists controlled by Minoan palaces it appears distinctly possible that also the priesthood was regulated and supported along those lines. If what we see are indeed ‘attached priests’, then Marinatos is possibly correct in envisaging recruits for the priesthood to come from the upper strata of Minoan society who were trained in this profession in the palaces or villas (1993: 145146; cf Beard 1990) – though this has to remain hypothetical on the basis of current evidence. If these priests were indeed supported by the palaces we may assume that they (exclusively?) served the palace inhabitants. This frequently observed pattern is, for example, visible in ancient Rome

where priests are recruited from the patricians and appear to cater for the higher strata of society. Non-professionals, on the other hand, appear to have looked after the needs of the less privileged strata of society (Beard 1990; Klass 1996; James 1955). Considering skeletal evidence of disease, injury and subsequent medical intervention as well as surgical instruments, Arnott has recently argued for the existence of ‘priest-healers’ (1999, 1996). ‘Priest-healer’ encompasses a wide spectrum of people, ranging from the palace-based, well-trained surgeon to the untrained magic healer, witch or shaman. Arnott regards the peak sanctuaries as centres of 29

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such healing cults as indicated by the presence of votive limbs (such as a woman with oedematous leg suffering from elephantiasis or liver cancer, a deformed hand representing leprosy or severe arthritis and a male head with a protruding thyroid gland from Traostalos [Chryssoulaki 2001: 62]) have been found in large quantities. Further evidence for a healing cult comes from an Egyptian papyrus (from ca. 1400 BC) which contains two incantations in the Minoan language for exorcising the ‘Asian sickness’ (Haider 2001; Arnott 1996: 266).

because they need to refer to an external authority (if trance occurs it is most likely that the priest will undergo possession alone while in other circumstances bystanders can join in the experience). Laymen and healers, on the other hand, have no outside authority and can communicate with the supernatural directly, frequently through dance, trance and possession rituals (Klass 1995: 81; James 1955). Minoan iconography has ample examples of images interpreted as depicting dance sequences (mostly several women) and trance rituals, as well as rituals involving dressing in specific robes. There even exist large stone-built circular platforms at Knossos which have been interpreted as dance floors (Warren 1987: 38). And, as mentioned above, Morris and Peatfield have argued that the figurines found at peak sanctuaries portray people while attempting to achieve an altered state of consciousness (2002).

In a recent paper Rehak (1999) has argued that the women depicted in the Theran frescoes had extensive medicinal knowledge of plants. Rehak specifically refers to the Vitamin A and B rich saffron which the women in Xeste 3 have been gathering and consuming (Figure 4). Other plants depicted in paintings, such as lilies, cystus, iris and myrtle, are also known for their medicinal properties. Rehak thus argues for a society in which women control, preserve and pass on (secret?) knowledge about health. As yet there is no evidence to connect men with such activities. Bearing in mind the flower depictions on the dresses of priestesses, it seems distinctly possible that it was primarily women who had access to medicinal knowledge and functioned as healers in Minoan society. I would envisage their sphere of activity and responsibility to include both palatial (possibly overlapping with the priestess profession) and non-palatial contexts. Thus, iconographic images indicate a work division between men and women with men in charge of animal sacrifices and women concerned with bloodless sacrifices and healing activities (cf. Starr Sered 1994). Circumstantial support for this argument is provided by the Theran frescoes where males are depicted with animals but never with plants; plants are the exclusive domain of women (Goodison & Morris 1998: 128).

If we accept the evidence of trance rituals in Minoan Crete and if we agree that peak sanctuaries may have functioned as places where healing cults and trance rituals took place, it appears likely, for reasons outlined above, that (palatial) priests were not involved in performing these rituals. This implies that we need to consider priest-healers or other nonprofessionals as guiding the worshippers on those occasions. Not only do we need to consider who performed those rituals but we also need to bear in mind who or what was the object of worship. As Marinatos and Peatfield have pointed out, there is a complete absence of cult images at peak sanctuaries (Marinatos 1993: 119; Peatfield 2001: 53). This lack of any evidence makes it difficult to believe in ritual involving personified deities. However, the fact that essential ingredients of every peak sanctuary are the mountain, rock fissures and niches (and deposition of figurines concentrated in these areas), forces us to consider a more inclusive understanding of sacred cosmology – one that goes beyond divine persons and recognises the sanctity of natural places and objects.

Scholars have argued that there is an apparent lack of trance and possession rituals in societies with full-time priests

Figure 4. Sketch of Crocus Gatherers and goddess on tripartite structure. Xeste 3, Akrotiri, Thera (after Marinatos 1993: fig. 213). 30

I. Berg: Performing Religion: Practitioners and Cult Places in Minoan Crete

Sacred Places and Sacred Nature

(1999: 71-73). This reciprocal, social relationship has been called animism. Animism is a way of understanding the ´weness´of the relationship between humans, animals and nature; it is a way of relating. Humans, animals and nature become animate through relating with each other in a constant process of shared creation (Ingold 2000: 113).

Images and artefacts of natural objects and animals are regularly found in Minoan Crete. Despite their abundance, scholars continue to support the idea that Minoan deities were in control of nature and animals. Studies are still heavily influenced by Arthur Evans’ Victorian view of Minoan religion as centred around a nurturing Mother Goddess with a young, male consort. Religion is hereby viewed in terms of western religious experience, in particular our belief in the existence of one or more supreme deities who are in control of nature (Peatfield 2000: 144). Nature itself can provide a setting for and can function as an instrument to the epiphany of a deity but is rarely seen as divine itself. However, anthropologists have long recognised that conceptions of nature are socially constructed and that therefore our modern dualism should not be projected back onto the past (Descola 1996: 82). Without wanting to deny the existence of personified deities, I wish to explore a more encompassing, nature-inclusive cosmology which acknowledges the possibility of a divine status for places, materials and animals.

Because animistic relations connect plants, animals and humans, this does not imply that their co-existence is without power-struggle and stresses. Palsson (1996) has distinguished between three kinds of human-environment relations: orientalism (predation), paternalism (protection) and communalism (reciprocity) (see also Descola 1996). Predation denotes a relationship in which humans are masters over nature and exploit its resources. Humans are also in control in a paternalistic relationship but here their intention is to protect nature. Communalism describes a state in which humans neither control nor protect nature but coexist. All three types of relationships can be found among societies broadly classified as animistic, although Palsson argues that predation and paternalism may be found more regularly among agriculturalists (1996, see also Descola 1996: 95). However, we have to recognise that orientalism and communalism are only extreme poles of a varied and changing spectrum, with most societies occupying various points along the range – such as the Cree where we can find expressions of communion as well as domination (Brightman in Palsson 1996: 77). Whichever form of interaction is favoured, it appears that “the relationships between humans and their land are modelled on the social bonds among distant relatives characterised by respect and formality” (Palsson 1996: 71; emphasis in original).

Since Evans’ book on the Mycenaean tree and pillar cult, scholars have accepted that nature has played an important part in Minoan religion. The most vocal proponents of such a view are Goodison and Morris (Goodison 1989; Goodison and Morris 1998). The two authors have argued that not all images can be explained with reference to personified deities but frequently depict rituals focusing on “the natural world: sun, animals and plants” (Goodison & Morris 1998: 120). Nature is hereby regarded as a vehicle for the epiphany of a deity and may embody the divine, but is not regarded as divine in itself – a view exemplified by Coldstream’s words in his inaugural lecture at Bedford College, London, in 1977: “a Minoan Goddess may dwell in a tree, a pillar, or in a shapeless lump of stone” (quoted in Goodison 1989: 10).

The concept of animism has been primarily explored in relation to hunter-gatherers because those who “hunt and gather for a subsistence generally have an extremely close and intimate knowledge of the landscape and its plants and animal inhabitants, on whose continuity and regeneration their life depends” (Ingold 2000: 111), and much has been said about the relationship between hunter and wild animal prey as a dialogue between two equals in the same world; however, I do not see hunter-gatherer life as substantially different from prehistoric agriculturalists. While not relying on hunting and gathering to supply the majority of their subsistence needs, they frequently continued to supplement their diet of cultivated cereals, pulses and domesticated animals with hunted animals and gathered plants. Naturally, one would assume that the relationship agriculturalists have with their domesticated plants and animals is slightly different, it could nevertheless be explained within the framework of, for example, paternalistic animism. Indeed, Vitebsky (1993) has provided an example of a sedentary cultural group, the Sora, whose beliefs can be classified under the heading of totemism/animism.

Anthropological research has long recognised that many religions are cosmotheistic: “[T]hey believe that all natural parts of the world have a human-like life force. In such a belief system, plants, animals, rocks, etc. are conscious and wilful; they must be treated with proper respect.” (Carmichael et al. 1994: 6) Fieldwork by anthropologists primarily among huntergatherers has led to a replacement of the old nature-society dichotomy by a monist one. Descola and Hviding, for example, have argued that the Achuar Jivaro of the Upper Amazon and the indigenous inhabitants of the Marovo Lagoon in the Solomon islands “do not see organisms and non-living components of their environment as constituting a distinct realm of nature separated from human society” (Descola & Palsson 1996: 7). These cultures do not perceive plants, animals and human as separate categories. All form part of the social domain and are interacting constantly with each other. Bird-David explains that the Ojibwa and Nayaka, by interacting with animals and winds, perceive them as subcategories of an all-encompassing category of ´person´

Evidence of a special relationship with nature can easily be found in Minoan Crete. Examples encompass the whole Bronze Age. For a better (non-exhaustive) overview I have subdivided the next section into several (not exclusive) headings: a) baetyls, b) caves, stalagmites and stalactites, c) water, d) mountain, rock and stone, and e) animals. 31

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Baetyls

‘weeping wall’, remembering…their dead” (La Rosa 2001: 223). By MMII, the baetyls have lost their funerary connotation and are then used as a vehicle for epiphany as paralleled in the seal depictions (La Rosa 2001: 225). While interpretations are difficult to substantiate, the Ayia Triada examples nevertheless indicate the analytical potential inherent in baetyls: functions may have changed over time and they may symbolise past ancestors, divinities, or be divine in themselves as representations of mountains.

Baetyls are natural, rounded stones which are a common theme on gold rings and have also been identified in the archaeological record (Sanctuary at Phylakopi, area Rho at Vasiliki, Central Court at Mallia, outside the palace at Gournia, peak sanctuary at Traostalos). Illustrations on seals and frescoes suggest that these stones are found in the openair and may be near built structures (Warren 1988, 1990; La Rosa 2001). Frequently humans have sunk down in front of the stone or lie draped over them in a gesture that could be interpreted as that of prayer or adoration (Figure 5). In some instances baetyls are the subject of libations (Evely 1999: 62).

Caves, Stalagmites and Stalactites The number of caves with evidence for ritual is estimated to lie between 12 and 36. Caves are without doubt sacred sites in Minoan times. Frequently, caves are visible from the nearest palace or settlement and have provided evidence of offerings. The most prominent features of several caves are stalagmites/stalactites around which walls (temenoi) were erected as in the Cave of Eileithyia at Amnisos (Figure 6), and offerings have been found scattered around them (e.g. at Melidoni and Psychro; Warren 1987: 32; Tyree 2001). Bradley points out that some of these stalagmites and stalactites may resemble living beings. Some were manually enhanced, others were rubbed smooth or had fragments taken

Warren and others have interpreted the stone as a place for ritual activities whose aim was to gain communion with the deity through locating “the power of the divinity within the stone” (Warren 1988: 18). Thus the stones are regarded as a medium through which the divinity can manifest itself but they themselves do not carry divine status. However, recent excavations at Ayia Triada have revealed two well preserved baetyls of MMIA-II date only 2m apart from each other. Given their proximity to communal tombs in MMI, the excavators have interpreted these stones as “a sort of Minoan

Figure 5. Baetyl with figure lying draped over it. Serpentine seal 80/1129. Knossos, Stratigraphic Museum Site (after Warren 1990: fig. 140). 32

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Figure 6. The Cave of Eileithyia. Amnissos. Plan and section of the cave (after Rutkowski 1986: fig. 31).

away. Two caves – one dated to the Minoan period - have provided us with examples of Bronze Age rock art, including images of humans, wild animals, birds and fish (Burkert 1985: 24).

in locations where there was intervisibility between the settlement and the sanctuary (and possibly other sanctuaries), thus creating an intertwined ‘sacred landscape’ (cf. Shaw 1999). These sanctuaries appear to mark the realm of ‘wilderness’ as they are found beyond the limits of the settled land (Bradley 2000: 101). Initially, peak sanctuaries were bounded by and included natural features such as outcrops, natural terraces, fissure or rock formations (Bradley 2000: 101; Nowicki 2001: 32). Rural peak sanctuaries, i.e. those not directly linked to palaces (e.g. Traostalos), contained large numbers of unworked pebbles which had been gathered in nearby lowlands (Chryssoulaki 2001: 60). It is noticeable that the distribution of finds within the peak sanctuaries is limited to areas with natural features, e.g. fissures, rock clefts, niches, rock terraces. It appears that animal or human figurines were deposited in separate areas; the same is possibly also the case for male and female figurines (Bradley 2000:106).

Water (Springs, Rivers, the Sea, Shells) Pools in caves received many offerings (for example the subterranean lake inside the Psychro Cave had seal stones, bronze pins, knives, rings and figurines found in it), and the mountain shrine of Kato Syme (Lasithi mountains) was built near an abundant spring (Jones 1999). Shells have been found in tombs and a conch shell trumpet was part of the ritual paraparnalia at the sanctuary of the Phaistos palace, two shells were found at the Sanctuary at Phylakopi and one at Petras near Siteia (Goodison 1989: 36, 89). Shells have been found among the offerings at Juktas and at Traostalos (Chryssoulaki 2001: 63; Karetsou 1987: in Goodison). Ritual vases are sometimes made in the shape of a shell (Knossos and Zakros) (Goodison 1989: 89).

Caves, springs and mountains have often been marked as sacred sites. Inhabitants of northern Scandinavia linked sites together through a mythical narrative and in Greece, Pausanias singled out many springs, mountains, caves and trees as sacred sites (Bradley 2000: 5, 22; Carmichael et al 1994). In Minoan times, the location of peak sanctuaries and images of mountain tops in Theran frescoes appear to indicate the special significance of mountains (Morgan 1988: 31-33). Over time – possibly connected to the emergence of the palaces - these sacred places were altered through buildings. Springs and caves too received new structures, including altars and temenoi (Bradley 2000; Rutkowski 1986: 76). Such elaboration and formalisation creates a permanent fixture in the landscape, and is paralleled by the emergence of a formalised priesthood in the palaces.

Mountains, Rocks and Stones Early Minoan tholos tombs have preserved a great number of amulets made of a large variety of materials (bone, steatite, ivory, copper). The simplest amongst these are plain pebbles or smoothed and engraved stones, interpreted as amulets possessing magic qualities (Branigan 1970: 94). It is estimated that 25 ‘real’ peak sanctuaries existed. Peak sanctuaries do not necessarily lie at the top of a mountain but 33

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Figure 7. Early Minoan ‘amulets’ (after Branigan 1970: fig. 22).

Animals religious orientation which can perceive animals, stones, rivers, mountains, etc. as divine themselves, and not merely a dwelling place for a personified deity. Such a belief system can sit side by side with a belief in divine persons as has been demonstrated by Vitebsky with reference to the Sora (1993). However, there is frequently a need for intermediaries (witches, shamans, etc) between humans and nature whenever the human-environmental relationship is out of balance. These intermediaries, such as the priest-healers discussed above, can communicate directly between the two spheres through trance, dance, possession and music (cf. James 1955).

Amongst amulets from Early Minoan tholos tombs are animal figurines (Figure 7); the most common types include apes, pigs, cows, birds and hedgehogs. Branigan (1970: 94) has interpreted these amulets as talismans ensuring the well-being of the animal. The inclusion of apes and hedgehogs makes this interpretation less convincing. An alternative interpretation can be suggested through drawing upon the work of Ingold who discusses Inuit carvings of animals. He argues that the act of carving these animals – the holding in mind – is of greater importance than the final product. These ‘embodied thoughts’ act like ever-present memories - are fastened to the clothing and carried around (Ingold 2000: 126). Instead of prayer to a higher authority for well-being they are here regarded as a constant reminder of an ongoing reciprocal relationship between human and animal eventually finding their way into the tomb with the human.

There is no denying that personified deities were part of a Minoan religion. But the evidence presented here suggests that animal images and votives preceded those of humans/ divine persons and existed alongside deities during the Neopalatial period. The use of natural features, such as caves, mountain tops, pools for ritual activity and the occurrence of pebbles at peak sanctuaries and pebble amulets in tholos tombs hints at a religious belief that regards nature itself as divine.

That animals played a major part in Minoan life can be seen in early prism seals. Animals are the most frequent motif (70% animals: 30% humans) (Goodison 1989: 49).It appears that animal figurines deposited in sacred caves (especially among rocks and boulders) antedate those of humans, and are found from MMI-II onwards while human figurines only make their appearance in MMIII-LMI (Tyree 1974: 175). Animals include bull, pig, boar, ram, goat and bird. It should also be noted that traces of animal sacrifice have only been found in caves with animal figurines though not all caves with animal figurines have animal sacrifice (Tyree 1974).

Hence it is suggested here that we should recognise at least two distinct levels of Minoan religion: palatial and nonpalatial. Palace religion has been argued to rely on a formal priesthood and is most likely based at the palaces. Nonpalatial segments of Minoan society most likely relied on non-professionals such as healers, shamans or witches for their religious welfare who functioned as guides for those experiencing ritual activities.

Conclusions References

Conventional interpretations for each example given above highlight the importance of these places and materials as a medium for a person’s communion with a deity through locating the power of the divinity within the object or place (e.g. Warren 1988: 18; Rutkowski 1986: 47-72). Thus stones, stalagmites and animals are regarded as a medium through which the divinity can manifest itself but they themselves do not carry divine status. While this is a valid explanation for a religion based on personified deities, it becomes less convincing when allowing for a religion to be constituted of several aspects, including animistic features. Animism is one

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The Proceedings of the Manchester Conference on Archaeology and Religion WARREN, P. 1987. Crete: the Minoans and their Gods, in: Cunliffe, B. (ed.) Origins. The Roots of European Civilisation. pp. 30-41. London: BBC Books.

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36

C.J. Bond: The Sweet Track, Somerset: A Place Mediating Culture and Spirituality?

Chapter 5.

THE SWEET TRACK, SOMERSET: A PLACE MEDIATING CULTURE AND SPIRITUALITY? Clive Jonathon BOND College Research Centre for Archaeology and History, School of Social Sciences, King Alfred’s College, Winchester

Ideology, Cosmology and Introducing Spirituality

Introduction The earlier Neolithic wooden structure known as the Sweet Track was excavated in 1970 and quickly became known, with its suite of earlier radiocarbon dates, as the first trackway in the World (Raftery 1999: 172). This paper, whilst acknowledging the importance of the contribution of the unique wetland methodology employed in excavating this structure (Coles and Coles 1986), puts forward an alternative interpretation (contra Coles 1999: 166; Coles and Coles 1998: 15-16). Presented here is a reassessment of the significance of the landscape setting of the track and the artefact-based assemblage (Figure 1). This argument constitutes a reinterpretation of the Sweet Track and its cultural meaning, specifically the implications for understanding a sense of what may be termed an earlier Neolithic ‘spirituality’. For the first time a fuller understanding of the potential social landscape is stated, as inferred by the lithic industries recorded by field survey.

The initial point of departure is the entwined and often loosely defined themes of ideology and cosmos. Moreover, it is asserted, that past people’s perception of nature and culture were keyed into what is termed the supernatural and the spiritual (for example, Taçon 1999, 2002). Ethnographic accounts pertinent to this notion vary considerably. These range from the beliefs and practices of shamans among the Khanty of Western Siberia (Jordan 2001) through to the classic account of the Evenk, also in Siberia, and their use of wooden figures, named as spirits, guardians or ancestors in a shaman’s rite for preparing a tent site (Anisimov 1963). Whilst at the level of the landscape aboriginal communities in the Northern Territories of Australia have oral traditions that tell of ancestral beings and their ties to specific landscape features and the ‘Dreaming Tracks’ (Taçon 1999). This is illustrated by the cultural meaning and interpretation of rock art sites discussed by Taçon (1999, fig. 2.10). To return to a North-West European case study, Bradley’s discussion of the Saami of Finland considers a perception of places that were seen as sacred, worthy of sacrificial offerings and embedded in a cosmology central to the theme of the bear (2000, 5). Here perceptions of landscape, oral tradition (cf. Taçon 1999, 43-45; 2002, 131), what is deemed sacred, with set rites and material culture, combine to give an ethnographic account and a unique archaeology. Importantly, all three case studies could well be viewed as examples of people dealing with the supernatural and ‘spiritual’.

At the core of this paper is an exploration of what may be interpreted as the social construction of a humanized and encultured natural place. That is, the wooden structure was erected within the first part of the fourth millennium Cal BC (Coles et al. 1973: 264-265; Hillam et al. 1990: 216). The radiocarbon and dendro dates form part of the earliest suite of calibrated calendar dates in southern England for the conventional culture phase, the earlier Neolithic (Thomas 1999). Hence, there remains an important context for the interpretation of the Sweet Track, that is, the ongoing debate concerning the nature of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition (Thomas 1988, 1991, 1999).

Archaeologists have not used the term ‘spiritual’, despite the use of this term in oral tradition; for example, by the Khanty shaman and their involvement in different levels or ‘spiritual’ realms (Jordan 2001, 92). Instead, the term ‘sacred’ is frequently cited without further recourse to specific aspects that were imbued with ‘spiritual’ properties (Ashmore and Knapp 1999; Bradley 2000; Carmichael et al. 1994; David and Wilson 2002).

In recent years the perceived change in social complexity is argued to be beyond economics (Barker 1989). A central focus on ideology and cosmology, ways of perceiving and being in the world, and time (Gosden 1994; Whittle 1996), have come to the fore (Edmonds 1997; Pollard 1999). This paper is divided into four sections;

Reconstruction of the social landscape and meaning of the Sweet Track brings our concentration onto two areas; cognition/perception and ideology, the external expression of these deeply held mental structures. The work grounded in cognitive science will not be developed further here. Instead emphasis is drawn to what constitutes the symbolic -

• Ideology, cosmology and introducing spirituality • Wetland deposition in the Brue Valley during the earlier Neolithic • Walking the Sweet Track • Lithic scatters and the landscape context of the Sweet Track 37

The Proceedings of the Manchester Conference on Archaeology and Religion

A

B Cotswold Hills

B

Avon Avon Bristol Yeo Weston-super-Mare Bristol Channel

Axe Wedmore Brue Mendip Hills Quantock Hills Polden Hills

Brendon Hills

Vale of Pewsey

Salisbury Plain

Taunton Tone

Parrett

Black Down Hills 0

North Dorset Downs

10 Kilometres

North

Area C Relief 0-100m O.D.

C

Mark Wedmore

Edington Burtle Westhay island Burtle Bridge Track Godney Sweet Track Meare Shapwick Burtle Polden Hills

Shapwick village

0

2 Kilometres Contour >8m O.D.

Note: Burtle Bed sand islands tend to be