Venus if you will...

Pictured above is the Venus of Willendorf.  This statue dating back about 25,000 years, was found in 1908 near Austria.  

Things to note about this figure:

• Clearly female, the features would be considered obese by today's standards
• This image has no face.  Instead a basket or braid pattern circles the head of the figure
• There is much dispute about the purpose or intent behind the statue itself
• This statue has no feet and was most likely created without them

The Paleolithic era is broken into two large pieces; Paleolithic and Neo-Paleolithic.  From the Latin for Stone - Age/part/era, the people of this oldest of time were simple compared to the technologies we use today.  There were some similarities, however, between our Paleolithic ancestors and modern man.  

Sex, for instance, is an action and an instinct that is as old as man himself.  The idea of procreation, reproduction, and survival of a lineage is an inherent force that drives humanity to proliferate.    

It is easy to apply the standards of modern society on a piece of art such as the Venus of Willendorf and make immediate assumptions that the figure is sexual in nature.  Modern man is used to seeing nakedness only at birth or during sex.  The Paleolithic people may have had less moral convictions concerning coverage of clothing.  

There is the possibility that the statue was spiritual in nature.  Some believe that the figure represents some iteration of the divine feminine.  Very little evidence of prehistoric belief systems exist today.  It is tempting to assume that the Venus of Willendorf is mystical, but it may be only a projection.  Without the proper evidence of worship or some other indication of intent or sustained devotion, it is impossible to know for certain what she continues to represent.

Another thought is less metaphysical and more emotional.  It is possible that this statues and others like it were created to send hunters away with a beautiful representation of themselves or their version of a perfect woman.  In this respect it could be Paleolithic pornography!

Today the Venus lives in the Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria.

In Search of Proof of Egaltarianism

I learned a word already and it's only been two weeks of University in the Autumn term.

Egalitarianism

e·gal·i·tar·i·an·ism

ēˌɡaləˈterēəˌnizəm/

noun

the doctrine that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.

In our World History class we have began to discuss the theories that the Paleolithic people may or may not have been Egalitarian societies, and what the proof may or may not be to support either side of this theory.

In support of the argument that humans may have been inherently equal at the advent of the sociological development of Homo-Sapiens, is the idea that without dogma or man-made philosophies, man and woman would have existed and cohabited in an equal way with shared chores, tasks, and responsibilites.

Because there is little evidence of society other than primitive art and artifacts, it becomes almost impossible to understand what the actual ideas were for humans and who was revered and in what capacity.

Fortunately, as science and technology progress, we are able to discover more about humanity through research and archaeology.

This article caught my eye recently:

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-09-genetic-proof-women-viking-warriors.html

First genetic proof that women were Viking warriors

September 8, 2017 by David Naylor

In the article, it illustrates that, although not Paleolithic perse, using DNA research a viking tomb from the 10th century in Sweden reveals that the viking buried carried two X chromosomes and no Y chromosome, thus making it a female.

This idea that a woman could be a viking and revered as such is in support of the idea that Paleolithic humans may have began and remained Egalitarian.

Although one could argue that because this research stems from a non-paleolithic era, one could conclude that it is unlikely that a society would have begun as matriarchal and patriarchal and modified itself to become egalitarian.  It is a reach to assume, but this exciting evidence provides a glimpse into the past when men and women were not so inequally divided by gender.

Who do you think you are?

My mother is very diligent about ancestry, DNA, family history - so I am a little spoiled in knowing most of my origins or at least what parts of who go where in a family tree.

Mother is British, dad is American but digging deeper than that, and beginning to think of the Paleolithic humans, I want to know more about where I come from and what percentages of which parts of where comprise who I am.

I ordered a DNA test!  From the results of mother's test I already know from where our matriarchal DNA originates, but I want to know more!

I want to know who I am molecularly.  I want to see myself as a framework of math and numbers and see if there's an explanation for the instincts I have.

World History is a Nesting Doll

Immediately after jumping into the textbook Ways of the World A Brief Global History (Third Edition) by Robert W. Strayer and Eric W. Nelson, I was given a delightful image of world history being related to a set of Russian Nesting Dolls.  The idea is that each event in World History encompasses all history before, and each event exists wholly within a reality that contains all events before.

For example, there have been at least five Massive "die offs" in the history of Earth.  The greatest of these is arguably the Permian Mass Extinction which occurred about 250 million years ago.  In this event, 96% of living species died.

Any subsequent events of this type would exist in a reality that contained the history of this extinction event.  The Permian Mass Extinction becomes a smaller doll that fits into a larger doll, which may eventually end up in an even larger doll.  

The use of the doll metaphor stands to minimize the grand scope of World History.  It's almost comical when considering that World History is sometimes considered "Big History".

Cosmic Calendar



Although this version of the Cosmic Calendar is different than the version offered in our text, the example remains relevant.  The history of the known universe is broken up into the course of a year in order to grasp the vastness and scope of the actions that have stood to form our physical reality now.

Some interesting things worth mentioning:

• The Milky Way galaxy was formed in March or April
• The first examples of life begin around September

Out of Africa

Human history primarily begins and is centralized around Africa.  Beginning 150,000 years ago, the earliest signs of civilization were marked changes to society that were activities and habits that are indicative of modern man.

Some of these traits included:

• Living in forests and deserts as opposed to the types of habitats previously inhabited by man
• Hunting and fishing
• Body ornamentation
• Planned burials

The earliest evidence of mans progress in this way comes from the Blombos Cave in South Africa.  Excavations in 2008 produced evidence of an ochre workshop that existed 100,000 years ago.  

A Map of Time

Once humans began displaying organized skills, they also began to seek warmer climates, better resources, and different landscapes.

This prompted human migration.  Below is a timeline of Human Migration:

250,000 - 200,000     Earliest Homo sapiens in Africa

  100,000 - 60,000     Beginnings of migration out of Africa

                  70,000     Human entry into Eastern Asia

    60,000 - 40,000     Human entry into Australia (first use of boats)

                  45,000     Human entry into Europe

                  30,000     Extinction of large mammals in Australia

    30,000 - 15,000     Human entry into the Americas

    30,000 - 17,000     Cave art in Europe

                  25,000     Extinction of Neanderthals

    16,000 - 10,000     End of last Ice Age (global warming)

    12,000 - 10,000     Earliest agricultural revolutions

                  11,000     Extinction of large mammals in North America

           After 8,000     First chiefdoms in Mesopotamia

        6,000 - 5,000     Beginning of domestication of corn in southern Mexico

        3,500 - 1,000     Austronesian migration to Pacific islands and Madagascar

           1,000 - 800     Human entry into New Zealand (last major region to receive human settlers)        

The Way of the Spirit

One marked advancement int humanity is the religious or spiritual dimension, primarily established in the Paleolithic era.  It is not possible to understand specifically how Paleolithic people approached the nonmaterial world, but one example can be found in the prevalence of Venus figurines and other symbols across Europe specifically.

It is thought that many gathering and hunting peoples likely developed a cyclical view of time which came directly from recurring patterns in nature.  For example, the sunrise and sunset; changing seasons; the phases of the moon.  This understanding of the cycle and the way of things showed a grasp of something bigger.

Three Big Eras

It is worth noting that human history can be categorized and watered down to three major eras.  

      Paleolithic Age

      Agricultural Revolution

      Industrial Revolution

Each of these time periods represent ages or eras that showed a marked differences in the approaches to technology, social habits and interactions within societies.  

Blog post the first

Paleolithic
Neolithic
Ancient
Classical
Modern
(Post-modern)