Şamanizm ve Paleolitik Mağara Sanatı

Şamanizm ve şamanist transın mağara sanatıyla ne gibi bir ilgisi olabilir diye sorulduğunda aklıma, ilk olarak şamanizmin ve Paleolitik sanatın neler olarak tanımlanacağı geliyor. Açıkçası ikisine de burada kısaca bile olsa, değinmek benim sınırlarımı çok fazla aşıyor...

Tarihöncesi arkeolojisinde temel bilgi kaynaklarımızdan bir tanesi de, ilgilendiğimiz toplumlarla ilgili detaylar konusunda bize yardımcı olabilecek etnoloji ve sosyal antropoloji. Bugün hala tarihöncesindeki gibi yaşamakta olduğunu düşündüğümüz toplumlar incelenerek, bugün onlarda bulunan bazı özellikler anoloji yoluyla tarihöncesi topluluklar için de genellenebiliyor. Ancak tabi ki, bunun bazı sakıncaları var. Bunların en başında, günümüzde yaşayan topluluklarla tarihöncesindekilerini birbirine benzeterek genellemenin ne kadar sağlıklı olabileceği sorusu geliyor.

Üst Paleolitik mağara sanatının şamanist etkinlikler sonucu ortaya çıktığıyla ilgili yorumlar da, yine bu şekilde ve bence sağlıklılığı tartışılabilir yorumlarla ortaya çıktı. Şamanizm nedir, ne zamandır vardır, Paleolitik insanlara şamanist demek doğru mudur gibi soruların mutlaka araştırılması gerekir. Ben bunların çoğunlukla Paleolitik sanata günümüdeki düşünce yapısıyla bakılmasından dolayı ortaya çıkan sorular olduğu fikrindeyim. Kısacası, Paleolitik sanatın, neden yapıldığını asla tam olarak, bilimsel bir şekilde kanıtlanabilir bir şekilde asla ortaya koyamayacağımızı düşünüyorum. Bazı yerlerde bunun nedenleri ile ilgili ipuçları ortaya çıksa da, bunların da çoğunluğu doğru olacak genellemeler doğuramayacağını sanıyorum.

Elbette, bu tür konuların popülerleşmesi, insanlar tarafından anlaşılıp önemsenebilmesi için, bazı genellemeler yapıldığında, Paleolitik sanatın, bugün şamanizm olarak bildiğimiz olguyla yakınlığından bahsedilebilir. Ancak, bunu asla net olarak söyleyemeyeceğiz. Söylesek de bu bence gerçek anlamda bilimsel ilkelere uygun bir önerme olmayacak.

Paleolitik sanatın, bugünkü anlamıyla sanat kavramına uygun bir üretim olsun diye yapılmamış olduğu konusunda uzmanlar birleşiyor. Öyleyse, ortaya, bu "eserlerin" ortaya çıkmasında bir başka nedenin olduğunu düşünüyoruz. Tarihöncesi arkeologları arasında, Paleolitik sanatla ilgili düşüncelerin zaman içindeki değişimi de araştırmak için ilginç bir konudur. Dönemlere göre arkeologların sanata bakışı da değişmiştir.

Günümüzde Paleolitik insan ve dolayısıyla da onların sanatı hakkında ne kadar şey bildiğimizi düşündüğümüzde, bugün pek çok konu hakkında genelleme yapmaya hakkımız olmayacağını, ileride yapılacak küçücük bir keşifle bile bugün ortaya attığımız çok büyük teorilerin çöpe gidebileceğini söyleyebiliriz. O nedenle, belki ortaya büyük teoriler koymaya çalışmaktansa, bu insanların nasıl yaşamış olduğuyla ilgili daha fazla bilgi edinmekte yarar olacaktır diye düşünüyorum.

Şamanizm konusuyla tam olarak değil, ancak Paleolitik sanatla ilgili aşağıdaki yayınları tavsiye ederim:
Güven Arsebük'ün İnsan ve Evrim (1995) kitabında Homo sapiens'in anlatan bölümde kısaca bu konuya değiniliyor.
Steven Mithen'in Aklın Tarihöncesi (1999) kitabı da, önemli bir kaynak olarak bu konuya da değiniyor.
Mehmet Ateş'in Mitolojiler ve Semboller (2001) kitabı da ilginç olabilir.
İnsanın En Güzel Tarihi (2000) bu konudaki iyi kitaplardan bir tanesidir.
Paul Bahn, bu konuda dünyada en önemli otoritelerden bir tanesidir. Onun makalelerini tavsiye ederim.

Archaeology, Noah's flood and Sumerian mythology

As far as we know today, great flood is not a historical event. There are many people wondering about where is the Noah's ark... So if you make some speculations about it, you'll get the money from many foundations for your research.

Some people like that conduct marine research in Black Sea. They also say that they've found the evidence of flood. But within the archaeological or geological point of view, it is not possible to find evidences for it.

As many people recognized, there are many similarities between the Bible and Sumerian mythology. Similarities among the other religions' holly books are evident too. So we may say that christians, jewish and muslims can find the roots of their religions in the Sumerian mythology. They are all the same. Not only flood story, there are many other similarities too.

Did Australopithecus aferinsis walked bipedal?

Australopithecus afarensis, commonly known as "Lucy" is one of the most important hominid fossils. This fossil kind, has long arms, and small brain capacity like modern apes. But the most significant feature of them was their bipedal movement style. There are more than 300 individuals of this kind dated between 4 and 3 million years ago. They all have the same characteristic pelvis bone that proves bipedal walking. Also their footprints proved that they walked as modern homos.

Naming of fossils are very problematic. Because, Australopithecus took its name when it was first found. That means "monkey of the south". But the researchers did not know that this kind had the ability to walk on their two leg when they gave this name to them. If they recognized that feature, they would give "Homo erectus" to Afarensis, I believe. Because the Homo erectus has its name because of its recognized bipedal walking ability.

As far as I know, A. afarensis is one of our ancestors, I don't care what we call them. It's more important to understand them.

When and where did archaeology start?

Development of archaeology as a field of discipline, is a very long process. You can see some important dates of archaeological events here: http://archaeology-faq.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-did-archaeology-start-as-field-of.html

It goes back to 16th century. But for me, modern archaeology is much more than earlier "antiquities collection making". So, modern archaeology started at the end of the 19th century (1880-90s). At these times, many sites excavated and the aim of archaeological investigation changed. Before, people collected artifacts just for pleasure (or treasure !) but at the end of 19th century, people started to see archaeology as an answers to their questions about the past.

About this long process, we cannot say a certain country as a homeland of archaeology. It is the continent of Europe. But people in many countries individually developed ideas about archaeology. France is the home of Paleolithic archaeology, Germany is well known about old languages etc. Every European country had its own interests about archaeology. We must say, every country has its own archaeology tradition. So we cannot say a country as the origin of archaeology. But we can say western Europe is the origin.

Best archaeology books

There are many books about archaeology. It's a very diversified subject but I can still make some suggestions about prehistoric archaeology books:

Steven J. Mithen - The Prehistory of the Mind.

Richard G. Klein - The Dawn of Human Culture.

Robert Braidwood - Prehistoric Man (very old but still the best)...

You can also find some books about archaeology that I personally suggest... The page is unfortunately in Turkish but you still have the chance to get some names of authors.
http://paleoberkay.atspace.com/kitaplar.html

You can find some e-books about archaeology here:
http://zemin.terapad.com/index.cfm?fa=contentGeneric.jfzjngxqhnkeobru

Also you can find many books at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Archaeology-Books/lm/2NPS53QY3WE7I

This is the page of About.com's archaeology books:
http://archaeology.about.com/od/booksandbooklists/Archaeology_Book_Reviews.htm

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Is archaeology "grave robbing"?

Archaeology is not grave robbing. Since it does not care how expensive an artifact can be sold anymore, it won't be fair to describe archaeology as "grave robbing"...

Archaeologists excavate because they are in need of solving the historical problems. Every excavation shed light into a problem. So archaeologist does not excavate to find artifacts. Archaeologists excavate to find answers...

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Should government invest more into archaeology?

Governments should invest more into archaeology.

Also, some sponsorship possibilities must not be ignored. Private companies should be encouraged to sponsor archaeological researches.

In the beginning of this century, most of the countries invested into archaeology very much because they were in need of evidencing that their nation existed many times before. These days, many countries are not in need of finding a "national history". That's why, the money resources of archaeology being decreased. But we need archaeology and we must find some more money for it. If it is not the government, there should be another kinds of sources.

What do I need to become an archaeologist?

You need to be graduated from a university's archaeology section to become an archaeologist. It's just a job...

If you want to excavate or make some surveys; field research, in most countries you need a permission from the state. If you want to study some archaeological find in the museums, you also need a permission to enter the museum's "secret rooms".

Does archaeology prove the Bible?

Give me just a little piece of archaeology, I can prove you that the god exists and I can also prove you that the God doesn't exist too.

Archaeology can be taken as proves for anything. Eg.: In 1920 and 1930's with the "archaeological record" Marxist archaeologist Childe proved that primitive communal societies existed. And with the same material, another archaeologist who inspired Adolf Hitler, Cossina proved the existence of a "herrenvolk". They both used the same archaeological data.

How did archaeology start as a field of discipline?

It started nearly 500 years ago as an interest to the different kinds of objects.
1533- King Henry VIII, hired first "archaeologist" as antiquities clerk.
1612- First "archaeological" excavation at Rome by Howard.
1690- First Paleolithic artifact found in London. It was a biface.
1718- First NGO about history: Society of Antiquaries (London).
1738- Excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum.
1744- First excavations in northern Europe: Zealand tumulus in Denmark.
1759- British Museum founded.
1784- First excavations in north America: President Jefferson excavated Monticello.
1797- First correlation between Paleolithic stone tools and animal bones.
1799- Rosetta Stone discovered.
1817- First systematic exhibition: Thompsen arranged Danish museum according to his "three age system" which is still in use (Stone, Bronze and Iron ages).
1833- Stratigraphy rules by Lyell about geology.
1839- Discoveries of Mayan cities in central America.
1842- First systematic Paleolithic excavation: Abbeville.
1854- First ziggurat excavation at Mesopotamia: Ur.
1856- Neanderthal man identified.
1859- Darwin published Origin of Species.
1865- First appearance of word "Prehistory" by John Lubbock.
1879- Paleolithic paintings at Altamira Cave discovered.
1884-1908- Excavations by Schilemann (at Tiryns), Vesselovskii (at Maikop), Evans (at Knossos) and Vasic (at Vinca).
1921- Homo erectus fossils found.
1922- Grave of Tutankhamon opened by Carter.
1922- Sumerian civilization to be popularized
1924- Discoveries of first great civilizations in India.
1925- First published synthesis about prehistory by Gordon Childe: The Dawn of European Civilization.
1926- Leakey started researching in eastern Africa.
1948- Braidwood's Jarmo excavations make nature scientists and archaeologists work together.
1949- Radiocarbon (C-14) dating invented and used to date archaeological materials by Libby.
1952- First underwater excavations by Cousteau.
1959- Olduwai finds in Africa.
1974- Chinese terra cota army discovered.
1991- Ice man "Otzi" discovered in Alps.
1994- Chauvet Cave discovered.

Archaeology started as a research for roots of Middle age civilization in the Roman and Greek civilizations. It's the beginning of Classical Archaeology. European researchers started to search the holly places that are written in the Bible. This is the beginning of Near Eastern archaeology. With the Industrial Revolution, geology started to develop and it is the beginning of prehistoric archaeology. With the 20th century, every national state in Europe started to search their roots. So archaeology became more complicated and sponsored by the governments.
Source(s):

ArkeoAtlas 1 (2002): 28.

Archaeology and carbon dating? How can I become archaeologist and can I find job?

To become archaeologist, you need to study archaeology in the university (in USA anthropology).

Archaeologists study ancient cultures and it has some sub-sections like prehistory (before the invention of writing), protohistory (after invention of writing), classical archaeology (Greek and Roman civilisations) and middle age archaeology.

Main method for archaeologist is to excavate and then analyze the artifacts. If archaeologist finds a piece of wood or an organic material like this, he/she sends it to chemistry laboratory for carbon dating.

There are not very much job for the archaeologist. Usually they work in the universities and museums. If there are some, archaeologists can find job in consulting companies.

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What is everyday work for an archaeologist?

Normally, archaeologist excavates. In some private archaeology companies, there are two different kind of archaeologist: One in the field and one in front of the table.

In the universities, scholars excavate only in the summer when the universities are in the summer vacation. Then archaeologists come to the laboratories and start analyzing the materials. After this process archaeologist should write one or more articles to share his/her research results with the scientific society and the public.

One of the most important part of archaeologist's work is to read. Because, as a scientist archaeologists must keep their information up to date about other sites and new discoveries.

In a normal excavation, just one campaign lasted about a month, you can collect tons of things to analyze. There are different specializations among the archaeologists, such as lithic, pottery, metal atc. specialists, archaeozoologists and archaeobotanists. So everybody analyze the different material. One should collect everybody's work and put the things together in a publication.

So there are a lot of work to do, even you don't excavate everyday...

Dating techniques in archaeology

Archaeologists use relative and absolute dating techniques to find the age of an artifact.

Relative techniques include:
Cation Ratio
Cultural Affiliation
Fluorine Dating
Obsidian Hydration
Patination
Pollen Analysis
Rate of Accumulation
Seriation
Varve Analysis

Absolute techniques include:
Archaeomagnetism
Astronomical Dating
Dendrochronology
Electron Spin Resonance (ESR)
Fission Track
Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL)
Oxidizable Carbon Ratio (OCR)
Potassium- Argon Dating
Racemization
Thermoluminescence Dating
Uranium-Thorium Dating

See: http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/dating/

How did a concept in chemistry led to advances in archaeology?

Before the 1950s, archaeologists had no opportunity to think about absolout dates about the cultures they concerned. After W.F. Libby invented the C-14 dating, it all changed the archaeology (and also he got Nobel Prize for it). Because with this method, a trustable timescale added to archaeological data which had changed almost all theories.

Before the invention of that chemical method, all chronologies were relative. As archaeologists saw a piece of pottery (for example) more primitive than the other, they put that to an earlier era than the other. But with C-14 dating, it became possible to undenstand that it could be at the same age or even younger. Today more than 100 chemistry laboratories serving archaeologist with C-14 dating.

The C-14 is not the only chemical method that helps the archaeologist. It is the most important but there are many other chemistry methods in use today. For example, it is now possible to understand what some containers included before they have been burried under the soil, and also chemistry helps archaeologists and conservationist to protect and reconstruct their findings.

What type of scientist examines fossils and remains after the Archaeologist bring them in?

Fossils are usually the subject of paleontology. Archaeology does research about cultures of past humans. Paleoanthropology is a science that usually concerns with fossil humans...

So if you want to study animal fossils, go for paleontology...
... for human bones, paleoanthropology...
... for cultures, archaeology...

Archaeology is always buried, is the earth getting bigger?

There is always the same amount of material in the world. But it can be changed and moved. Eg. there will be always the same amount of water (even it's polluated or at the icesheets or oceans or clouds)...

Archaeological sites are usually burried because ancient people move earth on them. So that didn't change the amount, it just change the place...

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What is archaeology?

Archaeology is everything about the past. Today we have different kinds of scientific disciplines about our life. For example, economy, sociology, architecture, engineering, philosophy. Archaeology does the same job with all these, but just a little difference: its the past.

Main research method for the archaeologist ist excavation. We have a lot of fun when we excavate, and also it's physically very hard to excavate. In these days, archaeologists haven't got adventures like Indiana Jones. But there is still more to enjoy. For me, I like to see different parts of my country and I have this change with archaeology. I live in a big citiy, and go to a little village every summer for my job. Probably the best part of archaeology is travelling.

If you have some more questions about archaeology, maybe English pages of my website can help you. Go to my profile and see the address.

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How come archaeological finds are so far down? Roman ruins are often under 6ft of earth - why?

This is totally about the situation of the site. Usually archaeological sites are being buried with the later settlements. Usually these sites are founded in strategically good places, then people choose to settle down there many times through the history.

Burying is also a ritual for some societies. For example, some prehistoric people buried their houses and temples before they leave the settlement. This could be a kind of religious activity.

For Turkey, as an archaeologist living in Turkey, I would say, this is also same in Turkey too. As far as I understand you have seen one example about the depth of mosaics in Turkey. But there are many more sites which are deep under the soil too. This is totally according to the situation of the site again. If people choose to live there very long time, the depth of the soil increases. If people leaved and did not settle there again, the depth of the soil decreases.

Are humans animals or aliens?

According to Linnaeus classification of living world, human beings are among the vertebrates and we are in the group of primates where our neighbors are chimps, gorillas and orangutans. It's true! Genetic evidences show 99.6% of human and chimpanzee DNA are the same. Like the cat and the lion, we are relatives with the apes. But this DOESN'T mean that they are our ancestor. We are cousins...

For me, accepting that human beings are animals is not a hard thing because we live the same way: we eat with the mouth, we see with the eyes, we walk with the foot... etc. So where is the difference? We are the same.

Can carbon-14 be used for objects older than 50 million years?

No. Half-life of carbon-14 is nearly 500 years. For that reason its limit is just 50 thousand years. As far as I know, dating of 100 milion year old "something" is hard. Because you can always have some (maybe 1-3 milion years) uncertainity. For dating that object you can use potassium -argon, uranium-238, thermoluminesce and electron spin resonance.