www.stonehenge-druids.org

Archaeologists and imagination

(Blog by Frank)

 

Imagination is a wonderful thing, and can help us a great deal in filling in gaps or to envisage possible scenarios. In general though, I don’t like the way that archaeologists direct their imaginations, and I’m not directing that at any one person, but at the whole school.

Take any scenario. There is some artefact or human remains. Evidence of a trauma causing death, and a location and an approximate time period, that’s all. There is insufficient evidence to conclude anything.

Logically, if we are to imagine likely scenarios, we should pick on two or three extremes as a minimum to set the boundaries of possibility before arriving at a favourite.

For example, in 1,000 years from now, after all records are lost, I excavate a churchyard. I know that the burials here relate to the 21st century, and the ruins of a church were found very close by. We know little about Christianity as no records remain, however in context it appears to have been a ‘cult of death’ because the places are littered with corpses, even within the foundations; stonework indicates that crucifixion of young men was popular, and stone heads of hideous mythical beasts, perhaps their primitive gods, were positioned on the walls adjoining the roof.

I then conclude that people must have gone there in a state of fear, and the dark rituals within may have been secret from the general population because these buildings always had four walls and high windows so nobody outside could look in. They also built in stone, a material still associated with death, when if they had built with wood this would have been a place of life. No grave goods are found with the burials, so it is probable that cult members did not believe in an afterlife. What a dark and barbaric time!!!

Given this contextual interpretation of these barbaric ancestors, which all of our colleagues believe and as our tutors at University taught, we’re predisposed to imagine that the body of a young man found buried with bullet wounds to the chest was clearly murdered in some ritual way.

Now I set my imagination free…he was a priest of the ‘death cult’, murdered as he fought for his place at the high altar.

Why is it that whenever archaeologists speculate about prehistory, the images painted are invariably dark?

Surely the evidence points elsewhere; for example, human nature is the same now as it was then. Most people are law abiding and good, occupied in farming or production of essential goods and services, and raising families. We have occasional wars, fights break out, we have punishments and we have prisons (but they had no prisons).

What evidence is there, upon finding fine objects thrown into a lake, to suppose that these were offered by a people in a state of constant fear of their gods, in order to appease them? Couldn’t these equally be gifts given gladly and joyfully to the realm of the Gods as thanks for a fine harvest or the birth of a child without loss of the mother?

I would argue that the evidence doesn’t point one way or the other, unless you include human nature into the equation, which generally seeks out beauty and a stable life where possible. You do not construct great temples involving many tribes and centuries of effort if your society is so barbarian and chaotic as is often suggested.

You could not.

If there was no just law common to these peoples, Stonehenge could not have been built. Laws need enforcement. A criminal is not a sacrifice. His death is not necessarily murder.

The presence of human remains at Stonehenge is no more significant of it being a ‘place of death’ than are bodies in a modern churchyard.

Modern Christians bury their dead believing that the soul lives on. A church is a place that celebrates the conquest over death by life.

The ancient Celts believed in a Summerland, then rebirth. In many stories from Wales, it is said that they celebrated a wake for the death of the loved one, which meant rebirth in a happier place, whilst a birth on earth was mourned for the soul of the child had entered a less comfortable realm. Why wouldn’t Neolithic people believe something similar?

The cairns and barrow burials all over England and Ireland bear a striking resemblance to the womb. They were left open and remains were cycled in and out. If winter solstice sunrise, with which many align, was the time of rebirth of the soul at the time when light (life) overcomes darkness (death), would it not make sense to place fragments of loved ones in there at that time to catch that transition at the optimum moment?

If your loved one died in June, there would be a need to de-flesh the corpse and store bones until the winter. The finding of bones with scrape marks could well be accounted for in this way. As could the variety of ways the dead bodies were treated before being interred, which would depend on the time of year and urgency.

Yet I have heard archaeologists speculate about cannibalism. Why? Evidence shows that societies practicing cannibalism are very rare anywhere in the world, as usually the elite who are doing the eating degenerate through a disease similar to CJD.

So folks, why always dark ritual and fearful gods?

 

If anyone has any comments on this or other ideas I would be very interested in reading them and maybe posting them up here.