More evidence for David Graeber and David Wengrow's reading of the site.
Between Göbekli Tepe, Poverty Point, Cahokia, and other sites we have pretty good evidence of complex urban societies that did not rely on agriculture. And even in these few sites we have abundant evidence of diversity of social structures from radically egalitarian to hierarchical
The linear narrative of the evolution of human societies is dead
We have a good idea of when and where the crops were domesticated.
10kya on was a time of climate change. It is plausible that they were just so blessed in terms of food that they could waste their time creating new problems for themselves.
> Grg in all his evil has amassed 8000 wild wheat berries but I myself have only gathered 400. Is this fair? How about everyone provides 100 berries to the one that goes to beat him in the head for the common good?
"The Dawn of Everything"'s interpretation of this is that we only relied on (sedentary) agriculture when we were forced to because of climate change, overpopulation, or threat of violence from other local peoples, so there are several thousand years between evidence of capability and necessity.
What little I know of the disputes around Graeber suggest this is not going to end his isolation in the wider community of archeologists, economists, sociologists.
>The linear narrative of the evolution of human societies is dead
This is I guess one of the bigger problems with Graeber, like when he was attacking Silicon Valley he demonstrated he had absolutely no idea what he was arguing against.
Likewise, armchair reading of human social development has never appeared to be linear to me. Palace Economy > Crash > Temple Economy > Crash seems pretty damn standard. I was watching an old documentary on the socioeconomic development of Egypt and it looks like they discovered and rediscovered several important social and economic reforms, that were then lost and rediscovered by themselves and other societies over and over again.
The question is, was Graeber an idiot and just didn't know what he was talking about or was Graeber just another grifter like Hancock who relies on misrepresenting other peoples arguments for financial gain.
it's not at all about civilizations and/or empires collapsing and being reborn in different shapes or social and economic reforms being rediscovered, that already implies some highly sofisticated form of society, while places like Göbekli Tepe predates the pyramids by 5.000 years
"False start" refers specifically to races, or an effort that was not sincere or well thought out. "My jumping the gun" is also a race term, but also means coming to an incorrect conclusion based on insufficient evidence (when it's insufficiency is apparent).
"The new study points to a different process for much of the assemblage." "The match offers an explanation for why the fragments appear so widely scattered."
This is the language in use here. We are talking about bones that were buried 12 000 years ago, got chewed partially by rodents, crushed by earth pressure and moved around with the soil. So no indication that there was human sacrifice, but also no definite proof otherwise.
I always thought that 'ceremonial room' looked more like a sauna than a sacrificial pit. It reminded me of the Roman ruins at Bath more than anything else.
Always assumed those scattered bones were just, well, scattered. It's cool how a new understanding of burial practices provides such a neat explanation.
Seems like you'd quickly run out of floor and/or end up with a lot of bodies in one place. And are you chipping up your plaster floor every time someone dies? I'm pretty skeptical that this makes sense as a practice. Seems far more likely that a building was built over a forgotten grave.
We know of many, many cultures that have buried remains under house floors as ritual practice. Sometimes our "common sense" isn't a reliable guide to distant cultures.
Including many Christian churches. Though there it is limited to people of particular importance to the church, faith or public community because of the practical concerns mentioned above. A lot of churches are many centuries old, and having a couple bodies buried under the floor over that time seems not that uncommon (at least in Europe)
Estimating "common" is quite difficult, but given that there are pre-colonial aboriginal australian burial sites, we can estimate that it either can be traced to Africa or is sufficiently common to not be surprising. There is even evidence (not proof) of neanderthal burial rituals, fwiw.
I suspect it has to do with our advanced capacity for emotion. The death of a loved one is so difficult to bear, having their body sitting out in the open in a rotting state would be horrific. Burying serves the dual purpose of hiding their decomposition and keeping them close to the community.
Also, disposing of corpses means less diseases around. It's possible that communities that carelessly left the dead around unwittingly opted out of the genetic pool.
(Assuming you mean the obvious and immediate semantics of digging a hole and placing the corpse within it...)
It may be now, but there are many ways to provide corpse disposal without risking health. Sky and tree burials are clear evidence of other corpse disposal methods. I imagine cremation is pretty obvious to humans too.
Some people even exhume the bodies and perform rituals with it. I find this nauseous but it wouldn't be a thing if societies were being eliminated from its effects.
The point of naming it a "skull cult" is really just pointing out people found human remains to be important—something largely true today too, and hardly more romantic than our own understanding of burial.
the scattered bones being explained by erosion is more interesting than assuming they all came from an unusual burial ritual.
i also like the distinction between ordinary burials and the cases of deliberate skull treatment. it shows how complicated the burial practices at Göbeklitepe may have been.
And how is this going to help a team of crack scientists at The Smithsonian solve a modern day murder while also navigating the difficulties of having an intimate social life as a professional in DC?
Between Göbekli Tepe, Poverty Point, Cahokia, and other sites we have pretty good evidence of complex urban societies that did not rely on agriculture. And even in these few sites we have abundant evidence of diversity of social structures from radically egalitarian to hierarchical
The linear narrative of the evolution of human societies is dead
We have a good idea of when and where the crops were domesticated.
10kya on was a time of climate change. It is plausible that they were just so blessed in terms of food that they could waste their time creating new problems for themselves.
> Grg in all his evil has amassed 8000 wild wheat berries but I myself have only gathered 400. Is this fair? How about everyone provides 100 berries to the one that goes to beat him in the head for the common good?
I don't think anyone is saying they FOR SURE didn't cultivate a couple flowers and magic mushrooms.
If they were an agricultural society resembling anything like the ones we see later, there are several things you'd expect to find.
What little I know of the disputes around Graeber suggest this is not going to end his isolation in the wider community of archeologists, economists, sociologists.
This is I guess one of the bigger problems with Graeber, like when he was attacking Silicon Valley he demonstrated he had absolutely no idea what he was arguing against.
Likewise, armchair reading of human social development has never appeared to be linear to me. Palace Economy > Crash > Temple Economy > Crash seems pretty damn standard. I was watching an old documentary on the socioeconomic development of Egypt and it looks like they discovered and rediscovered several important social and economic reforms, that were then lost and rediscovered by themselves and other societies over and over again.
The question is, was Graeber an idiot and just didn't know what he was talking about or was Graeber just another grifter like Hancock who relies on misrepresenting other peoples arguments for financial gain.
hunter-gatherers → agriculture → permanent settlements → cities → states → civilization
the usual reasoning is
agriculture → surplus → settlement → religion/monumental architecture
it's not at all about civilizations and/or empires collapsing and being reborn in different shapes or social and economic reforms being rediscovered, that already implies some highly sofisticated form of society, while places like Göbekli Tepe predates the pyramids by 5.000 years
Where exactly did you see that proof?
"The new study points to a different process for much of the assemblage." "The match offers an explanation for why the fragments appear so widely scattered."
This is the language in use here. We are talking about bones that were buried 12 000 years ago, got chewed partially by rodents, crushed by earth pressure and moved around with the soil. So no indication that there was human sacrifice, but also no definite proof otherwise.
Burial is the standard way for very good practical reasons. Having somewhere to put a flower is also nice.
(Assuming you mean the obvious and immediate semantics of digging a hole and placing the corpse within it...)
It may be now, but there are many ways to provide corpse disposal without risking health. Sky and tree burials are clear evidence of other corpse disposal methods. I imagine cremation is pretty obvious to humans too.
Some people even exhume the bodies and perform rituals with it. I find this nauseous but it wouldn't be a thing if societies were being eliminated from its effects.
i also like the distinction between ordinary burials and the cases of deliberate skull treatment. it shows how complicated the burial practices at Göbeklitepe may have been.