Faustian Dreams
02-08-2006, 04:06 AM
"Neolithic Society"
http://www.fhw.gr/chronos/01/en/nl/society/
The way Neolithic society was composed and functioned is difficult to reconstruct with certainty. Nevertheless, architecture, burial customs, economic activities, figurines and other classes of mobiliary finds from Aegean sites of the Neolithic have contributed to the existing knowledge we have of this society.
The first Neolithic communities lived in densely built settlements and numbered 50-300 individuals. During the Pre-Pottery, Early and Middle Neolithic, the basic unit of society was the clan or extended family that consisted of parents, children, grandparents and other close kinship. Its members lived in one or more neighbouring houses, that formed households sharing hearths and ovens situated in open spaces for common use, in between the houses. These households practised a mixed farming and stock-rearing economy. Production was shared and did not allow for economic differentiation and subsequently social stratification. The social roles in each community were defined on the basis of gender, age, kinship and participation in communal productive processes. Through the farming and stock-rearing economy the roles of both sexes were defined. Judging from the numerous female figurines, the role of the woman in Neolithic society seems to have been stressed, at least at a symbolical level. Existing data has not provided though clear evidence as to whether Neolithic society was matriarchal or patriarchal.
From the beginning of the Late Neolithic an increase in population has been observed, with subsequent changes in the number and the inner organization of settlements, as well as in economy. In architecture, large, rectangular, megaroid and apsidal buildings were used, capable of housing populous families. Hearths and ovens ceased to be commonly used and were constructed in the interior of houses. In economy there was specialization in production e.g. in pottery and jewellery of Spondylus sea-shell (Dimini), while at the same time cultural and commercial exchanges developed. This brought about changes in community composition, the main unit of which was by now the nuclear family. The first attempts at specialization in production, developing trade and exchanges had a clear impact on communal work and social relationsips which characterized previous periods. New conditions and values developing in Neolithic society were reflected in distinctive objects, owned only by a few members of the community during the Late Neolithic II and Final Neolithic. These objects were symbols of social prestige and consisted of: leaf-shaped arrow heads of Melian obsidian, jewellery of gold or silver (ring idol pendants, strips of gold), jewellery of Spondylus sea-shell and copper tools.
Finally, the attitude towards the dead members of the community, reflected in the burial customs of each period, is indicative of the character of Neolithic society.
"Indications of Political Organization"
http://www.fhw.gr/chronos/01/en/nl/politics/index.html
The nature of architecture, economy and society in the Neolithic Period does not provide reliable information from which some form of political organization at least before the Late Neolithic can be deduced.
During the early phases of the Neolithic, communities of at least 50-100 individuals were organized with the clan or extended family as the basic unit. A mixed farming and stock-rearing economy was practised and did not create any economic differentiation among the members of the community and subsequently any social stratification. The seals of the Early and the Middle Neolithic, which were initially regarded as symbols of ownership and authority after drawing a comparison with the seals of the Bronze Age, could not however have functioned as such in a farming community, and were probably used for the adornment of the body (tattoo).
From the Late Neolithic onwards, an increase in the number of settlements and differentiation in their architectural structure and form has been observed. The number of community members reached 100-300 individuals. The nuclear family was the social unit of the Neolithic community. The farming economy of the Late and Final Neolithic improved with the growth of exchange networks in the Aegean and the Balkans and specialization in production (pottery, jewellery of Spondylus sea-shell). These developments brought about changes in communal production and allowed new social values to develop. Examples of these were objects of social prestige, owned only by a few members of the settlement: leaf-shaped arrow heads of Melian obsidian, ring idol pendants, jewellery of gold and silver, jewellery of Spondylus sea-shell and copper tools.
The tendency to gather riches probably led from the Late Neolithic II, in particular however during the Final Neolithic, to the concentration of power in certain communities that may have played an important economic role in the wider area. Exchange networks of products (pottery, obsidian, metals), even if they were not particularly extensive, presupposes an organized participation of more communities. For this intra-settlement understanding some form of authority was essential in each settlement (intra-settlement organization), which was exercised by the oldest or ablest members of the communities and may have been passed on from one generation to the next. Ditches and stone enclosures that protected the settlements during the last Neolithic phases were communal works, which could only have been implemented with the co-ordination and the supervision of the ablest of the community.
"Neolithic Technology"
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/history/lecture28/lec28.html
Humans have been hunter-gatherers for 99% of the 2 million years our species has roamed the earth; only in the last 10,000 years have been people become agriculturists. The most sweeping technologies change for humans occurred in prehistory: the use of tools, the discovery of fire, and the invention of agriculture.
The beginnings of agriculture were foreshadowed by a tremendous amount of knowledge about plants and animals. For example, early humanity from the beginning depended upon botanicalknowledge for existence. They became familiar with literally hundreds of species. They knew how to clear or alter vegetation with fire, sow seed, plant tubers, and protect plants. They laid claim to individual trees and tracts of land, celebrated first-fruit ceremonies, prayed for rain, and petitioned for increased yield and abundant harvest. They spun fibers, wove cloth, made string, cord, baskets, canoes, shields, spears, bows and arrows, and a variety of household utensils. They painted pictures, carved masks, and ritual objects, recited poetry, played musical instruments, sang, chanted, performed dances and memorized legends. They harvested grass seeds, threshed, winnowed, and ground them into flour. They dug roots and tubers. They detoxified poisonous plants for food and extracted poisons to stun fish or kill game. They were familiar with a variety of drug and medicinal plants. They understood the life cycles of plants, knew the seasons of the year, and when and where the natural u were below the carrying capacity of the land, famine and starvation were rare.
"Ötzi the Iceman"
http://www.gla.ac.uk/ibls/DEEB/jd/otzi.htm
Ötzi, a normal member of European humanity
The name Iceman makes Ötzi sound like a character from science fiction. One of Dr Who's adversaries, perhaps? Along with the Austrians, I like to call him Ötzi and in so doing to emphasize his ordinariness and recognize our close affinity. The name comes from the Öztal Alps where he was found in a very well-preserved state melting out of the ice in September 1991 at some 10,400 feet (3,210m) above sea level. With the top of his head thawing out first, he lay very close to the border of Austria and Italy in the territory of the latter nation but only Italian since 1919. When he died some 5,300 years ago Ötzi was between 25 and 40 years old, about 5 feet 3 or 4 inches (160 cm) tall and well dressed in three layers of well-crafted skins and grass to face the rigours of being briefly in the zone of permanent snow and ice in the mountains. He had well-lined shoes, a belt from which to drape his loincloth and suspend his leggings, a jacket, a cape and a bearskin hat. His gear included a longbow and a quiver full of arrows, a hafted copper axe, a sheathed dagger, a wooden-framed backpack, two bark containers, one containing charcoal, and a belt pouch housing small useful items including flints, a retouching tool and fungus for tinder. He was inconspicuously tattooed with simple designs.
Ötzi's use of grass, bark and wood.
Ötzi wore a cape of grass and his shoes were packed with grass. Remains of no less than 17 different types of trees and shrubs have been recognised so far among Ötzi's gear. The bark used to make his containers was that of birch as the silvery white colour makes very obvious. His longbow was made of yew. Strangely, and without parallel, the handle of his axe was also of yew; ash would have been the expected wood. However, the handle of his small dagger was made of ash. His arrow shafts were made of Viburnum (Guelder Rose or Wayfaring Tree) and Cornus (Cornelian cherry or Dogwood). Both these woods were used to make the arrow shafts recovered from the grave of an Iron Age prince found at Hochdorf, Germany. Last century a peat cutter at Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, found a prehistoric flint arrow head with shaft attached; the shaft was Viburnum. Evidently, for a long spell of time over a large area of Europe arrow makers regarded Viburnum as very suitable. Lime made the body of Ötzi's retouching tool and lime bast was used for cords. His backpack frame was of larch and hazel. Leaves of Norway maple were used as insulating material for the embers he had carried in one of the containers which also contained leaves of juniper. For fuel he had used reticulate willow, green alder, Norway spruce, pine, elm and possibly amelanchier. A fruit of sloe was found with the corpse.
The Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts)
The scraps of mosses and the even smaller pieces of liverworts were all washed from Ötzi's clothing when it had been taken for conservation in 1991 to the Roman-Germanic Museum at Mainz. There are not less than 30 different Bryophytes. Just like other plants, a moss or a liverwort species has a more or less distinctive habitat, a definite altitudinal range and a precise geographical spread. Some species only grow at low altitudes in woodland and others only at high altitudes close to long lasting snow patches. Some species are restricted to limy rocks while others avoid such substrata and some only grow in very acid peat bogs. Therefore taking account of the many species found with Ötzi, there is potentially much information to be deduced about his environment, his provenance and way of life if he had in fact been using the mosses.
Where did Ötzi come from?
None of the very many scientists and archaeologists who are studying Ötzi thinks that he came from far off. What is at issue is did he come from north or south of the Ötzal Alps, that is to say Südtirol (Italy) or Nordtirol (Austria)? Among the 30 or so species, there are several mosses that are characteristic inhabitants of low to moderate altitudes in woodland. Especially crucial are Neckera complanata and Neckera crispa. They grow in Südtirol much nearer the death site than they do in Nordtirol and there is no reason to doubt that the present patterns would have been in any way so different in Ötzi's time as to spoil the argument. Ötzi came from the Südtirol and probably Vinschgau, only some 20km due south of the death site, where the Neckera species are locally abundant, often growing together on shady vertical rock faces.
Was Ötzi using the mosses?
Some of the remains of mosses and liverworts are so very small, a few millimetres or even just fractions of a millimetre, that it is plausible that they had been merely sticking to Ötzi's clothes, just as two barley grains had done. However, Neckera complanata occurs in one sample as a mass of tangled stems up to 5cm long. That species and Neckera crispa have highly detailed histories from archaeological sites of the Neolithic period onwards all over Europe. Assuming that Ötzi had gathered some of the mosses such as the Neckera species, what had he intended to do with them? Were they insulatory padding, hygienic wipes, medicinal or decorative? Last year, to my discomfiture, the press had a field day in grossly overemphasising the toilet paper hypothesis. There were headlines such as "Soft, strong and very old", "He moss be Italian", and "Iceman mystery wiped away"
Why did Ötzi die where he did?
Only when the work has been finished, and especially the botanical work being carried out with my Austrian colleagues, Sigmar Bortenschlager and Klaus Oeggl, will there be the best basis for understanding the circumstances of Ötzi's death. There are samples from the excavation of 1992 still to be worked on. Numerous fragments of Bryophytes extracted from these samples await my study. A plausible and simple hypothesis to explain Ötzi having reached such a high altitude was that he was shepherding his flock back to the Südtirol after having taken the animals to high level pastures in Nordtirol for the summer. Such a practice happens to this day in the Ötzal Alps.
http://www.fhw.gr/chronos/01/en/nl/society/
The way Neolithic society was composed and functioned is difficult to reconstruct with certainty. Nevertheless, architecture, burial customs, economic activities, figurines and other classes of mobiliary finds from Aegean sites of the Neolithic have contributed to the existing knowledge we have of this society.
The first Neolithic communities lived in densely built settlements and numbered 50-300 individuals. During the Pre-Pottery, Early and Middle Neolithic, the basic unit of society was the clan or extended family that consisted of parents, children, grandparents and other close kinship. Its members lived in one or more neighbouring houses, that formed households sharing hearths and ovens situated in open spaces for common use, in between the houses. These households practised a mixed farming and stock-rearing economy. Production was shared and did not allow for economic differentiation and subsequently social stratification. The social roles in each community were defined on the basis of gender, age, kinship and participation in communal productive processes. Through the farming and stock-rearing economy the roles of both sexes were defined. Judging from the numerous female figurines, the role of the woman in Neolithic society seems to have been stressed, at least at a symbolical level. Existing data has not provided though clear evidence as to whether Neolithic society was matriarchal or patriarchal.
From the beginning of the Late Neolithic an increase in population has been observed, with subsequent changes in the number and the inner organization of settlements, as well as in economy. In architecture, large, rectangular, megaroid and apsidal buildings were used, capable of housing populous families. Hearths and ovens ceased to be commonly used and were constructed in the interior of houses. In economy there was specialization in production e.g. in pottery and jewellery of Spondylus sea-shell (Dimini), while at the same time cultural and commercial exchanges developed. This brought about changes in community composition, the main unit of which was by now the nuclear family. The first attempts at specialization in production, developing trade and exchanges had a clear impact on communal work and social relationsips which characterized previous periods. New conditions and values developing in Neolithic society were reflected in distinctive objects, owned only by a few members of the community during the Late Neolithic II and Final Neolithic. These objects were symbols of social prestige and consisted of: leaf-shaped arrow heads of Melian obsidian, jewellery of gold or silver (ring idol pendants, strips of gold), jewellery of Spondylus sea-shell and copper tools.
Finally, the attitude towards the dead members of the community, reflected in the burial customs of each period, is indicative of the character of Neolithic society.
"Indications of Political Organization"
http://www.fhw.gr/chronos/01/en/nl/politics/index.html
The nature of architecture, economy and society in the Neolithic Period does not provide reliable information from which some form of political organization at least before the Late Neolithic can be deduced.
During the early phases of the Neolithic, communities of at least 50-100 individuals were organized with the clan or extended family as the basic unit. A mixed farming and stock-rearing economy was practised and did not create any economic differentiation among the members of the community and subsequently any social stratification. The seals of the Early and the Middle Neolithic, which were initially regarded as symbols of ownership and authority after drawing a comparison with the seals of the Bronze Age, could not however have functioned as such in a farming community, and were probably used for the adornment of the body (tattoo).
From the Late Neolithic onwards, an increase in the number of settlements and differentiation in their architectural structure and form has been observed. The number of community members reached 100-300 individuals. The nuclear family was the social unit of the Neolithic community. The farming economy of the Late and Final Neolithic improved with the growth of exchange networks in the Aegean and the Balkans and specialization in production (pottery, jewellery of Spondylus sea-shell). These developments brought about changes in communal production and allowed new social values to develop. Examples of these were objects of social prestige, owned only by a few members of the settlement: leaf-shaped arrow heads of Melian obsidian, ring idol pendants, jewellery of gold and silver, jewellery of Spondylus sea-shell and copper tools.
The tendency to gather riches probably led from the Late Neolithic II, in particular however during the Final Neolithic, to the concentration of power in certain communities that may have played an important economic role in the wider area. Exchange networks of products (pottery, obsidian, metals), even if they were not particularly extensive, presupposes an organized participation of more communities. For this intra-settlement understanding some form of authority was essential in each settlement (intra-settlement organization), which was exercised by the oldest or ablest members of the communities and may have been passed on from one generation to the next. Ditches and stone enclosures that protected the settlements during the last Neolithic phases were communal works, which could only have been implemented with the co-ordination and the supervision of the ablest of the community.
"Neolithic Technology"
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/history/lecture28/lec28.html
Humans have been hunter-gatherers for 99% of the 2 million years our species has roamed the earth; only in the last 10,000 years have been people become agriculturists. The most sweeping technologies change for humans occurred in prehistory: the use of tools, the discovery of fire, and the invention of agriculture.
The beginnings of agriculture were foreshadowed by a tremendous amount of knowledge about plants and animals. For example, early humanity from the beginning depended upon botanicalknowledge for existence. They became familiar with literally hundreds of species. They knew how to clear or alter vegetation with fire, sow seed, plant tubers, and protect plants. They laid claim to individual trees and tracts of land, celebrated first-fruit ceremonies, prayed for rain, and petitioned for increased yield and abundant harvest. They spun fibers, wove cloth, made string, cord, baskets, canoes, shields, spears, bows and arrows, and a variety of household utensils. They painted pictures, carved masks, and ritual objects, recited poetry, played musical instruments, sang, chanted, performed dances and memorized legends. They harvested grass seeds, threshed, winnowed, and ground them into flour. They dug roots and tubers. They detoxified poisonous plants for food and extracted poisons to stun fish or kill game. They were familiar with a variety of drug and medicinal plants. They understood the life cycles of plants, knew the seasons of the year, and when and where the natural u were below the carrying capacity of the land, famine and starvation were rare.
"Ötzi the Iceman"
http://www.gla.ac.uk/ibls/DEEB/jd/otzi.htm
Ötzi, a normal member of European humanity
The name Iceman makes Ötzi sound like a character from science fiction. One of Dr Who's adversaries, perhaps? Along with the Austrians, I like to call him Ötzi and in so doing to emphasize his ordinariness and recognize our close affinity. The name comes from the Öztal Alps where he was found in a very well-preserved state melting out of the ice in September 1991 at some 10,400 feet (3,210m) above sea level. With the top of his head thawing out first, he lay very close to the border of Austria and Italy in the territory of the latter nation but only Italian since 1919. When he died some 5,300 years ago Ötzi was between 25 and 40 years old, about 5 feet 3 or 4 inches (160 cm) tall and well dressed in three layers of well-crafted skins and grass to face the rigours of being briefly in the zone of permanent snow and ice in the mountains. He had well-lined shoes, a belt from which to drape his loincloth and suspend his leggings, a jacket, a cape and a bearskin hat. His gear included a longbow and a quiver full of arrows, a hafted copper axe, a sheathed dagger, a wooden-framed backpack, two bark containers, one containing charcoal, and a belt pouch housing small useful items including flints, a retouching tool and fungus for tinder. He was inconspicuously tattooed with simple designs.
Ötzi's use of grass, bark and wood.
Ötzi wore a cape of grass and his shoes were packed with grass. Remains of no less than 17 different types of trees and shrubs have been recognised so far among Ötzi's gear. The bark used to make his containers was that of birch as the silvery white colour makes very obvious. His longbow was made of yew. Strangely, and without parallel, the handle of his axe was also of yew; ash would have been the expected wood. However, the handle of his small dagger was made of ash. His arrow shafts were made of Viburnum (Guelder Rose or Wayfaring Tree) and Cornus (Cornelian cherry or Dogwood). Both these woods were used to make the arrow shafts recovered from the grave of an Iron Age prince found at Hochdorf, Germany. Last century a peat cutter at Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, found a prehistoric flint arrow head with shaft attached; the shaft was Viburnum. Evidently, for a long spell of time over a large area of Europe arrow makers regarded Viburnum as very suitable. Lime made the body of Ötzi's retouching tool and lime bast was used for cords. His backpack frame was of larch and hazel. Leaves of Norway maple were used as insulating material for the embers he had carried in one of the containers which also contained leaves of juniper. For fuel he had used reticulate willow, green alder, Norway spruce, pine, elm and possibly amelanchier. A fruit of sloe was found with the corpse.
The Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts)
The scraps of mosses and the even smaller pieces of liverworts were all washed from Ötzi's clothing when it had been taken for conservation in 1991 to the Roman-Germanic Museum at Mainz. There are not less than 30 different Bryophytes. Just like other plants, a moss or a liverwort species has a more or less distinctive habitat, a definite altitudinal range and a precise geographical spread. Some species only grow at low altitudes in woodland and others only at high altitudes close to long lasting snow patches. Some species are restricted to limy rocks while others avoid such substrata and some only grow in very acid peat bogs. Therefore taking account of the many species found with Ötzi, there is potentially much information to be deduced about his environment, his provenance and way of life if he had in fact been using the mosses.
Where did Ötzi come from?
None of the very many scientists and archaeologists who are studying Ötzi thinks that he came from far off. What is at issue is did he come from north or south of the Ötzal Alps, that is to say Südtirol (Italy) or Nordtirol (Austria)? Among the 30 or so species, there are several mosses that are characteristic inhabitants of low to moderate altitudes in woodland. Especially crucial are Neckera complanata and Neckera crispa. They grow in Südtirol much nearer the death site than they do in Nordtirol and there is no reason to doubt that the present patterns would have been in any way so different in Ötzi's time as to spoil the argument. Ötzi came from the Südtirol and probably Vinschgau, only some 20km due south of the death site, where the Neckera species are locally abundant, often growing together on shady vertical rock faces.
Was Ötzi using the mosses?
Some of the remains of mosses and liverworts are so very small, a few millimetres or even just fractions of a millimetre, that it is plausible that they had been merely sticking to Ötzi's clothes, just as two barley grains had done. However, Neckera complanata occurs in one sample as a mass of tangled stems up to 5cm long. That species and Neckera crispa have highly detailed histories from archaeological sites of the Neolithic period onwards all over Europe. Assuming that Ötzi had gathered some of the mosses such as the Neckera species, what had he intended to do with them? Were they insulatory padding, hygienic wipes, medicinal or decorative? Last year, to my discomfiture, the press had a field day in grossly overemphasising the toilet paper hypothesis. There were headlines such as "Soft, strong and very old", "He moss be Italian", and "Iceman mystery wiped away"
Why did Ötzi die where he did?
Only when the work has been finished, and especially the botanical work being carried out with my Austrian colleagues, Sigmar Bortenschlager and Klaus Oeggl, will there be the best basis for understanding the circumstances of Ötzi's death. There are samples from the excavation of 1992 still to be worked on. Numerous fragments of Bryophytes extracted from these samples await my study. A plausible and simple hypothesis to explain Ötzi having reached such a high altitude was that he was shepherding his flock back to the Südtirol after having taken the animals to high level pastures in Nordtirol for the summer. Such a practice happens to this day in the Ötzal Alps.