Archaeology of shamanism

One of four known ancient Maya books, the Grolier Codex depicts different manifestations of Venus; the column of glyphs on the left of each panel records days in a 104-year Venus almanac. These plaster-coated bark-paper pages, carbon-dated to the 13th century, represent only half of the 20-page original. This article is an excerpt of pages 98-99 from the March 1990 National Geographic Magazine article "America's Ancient Skywatchers" by John B. Carlson with a numbered photographic arrangement of the Grolier Codex depicting the author's discovery that Codex pages 10 and 11 are actually two parts of the same "page 10".  Carlson clarifies the identities of Venus deities depicted in the Grolier Codex from a comparison of images from the Cacaxtla murals and links the images of the Grolier Codex with ancient Maya astronomically timed ritual warfare and sacrifice. (Grolier Codex photographs: Enrico Ferorelli; Mural photograph: Bob Sacha)

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.

In order to enter into a trance, shamans use different means. One of them is intoxication and hallucination with the help of drugs and toxins. The use of drugs in religious rituals was known in Scythian culture as it was described in the work of Herodotus, where- during the cleansing ceremonies- the Scythians sat in a small bath-tent, threw cannabis seeds on burning hot stones and inhaled the steam of this drug. After this procedure, they become elated and shout for joy. We find direct analogies to the steam bath-tent, with half-burned cannabis seeds in the Second Pazyryk burial mound in Altay, belonging to the Siberian Scythian. Another method of entering into a hallucinatory state would be the use of strong toxins, such as poisonous mushrooms – Amanita Muscaria. Some unique replicas of this mushroom, made from an animal bone, were found in burial mounds of the Khodzhaly-Kedabek culture in Azerbaijan and Timber-grave culture of Bashkortostan. Even though these cultures were using drugs and toxins it is difficult to establish if they practiced shamanism. In this paper the author offers a methodology for determining if shamanism was practiced in an archaeological culture. The methodology is based on the comparative (interdisciplinary) research of written sources, archaeology, ethnography and mythology. Different objects and ornaments from graves, construction materials, burial stratification and rituals are examined and compared with ethnographic materials and ancient historical sources.

The discovery of prehistoric cave paintings in the nineteenth century led to the shocking realisation that humans have been creating art for over 30,000 years. Episode two reveals how the very first pictures were created, and how images may have triggered the greatest change in human history.

To discover the first two dimensional paintings we need to look at the art created in caves such as Altamira, Chauvet and Lascaux; these were created roughly 35,000 years, the time Archeologists identify with a ‘creative explosion’.

The first of these cave paintings were discovered in Altemira by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, and his 8yr old daughter Maria, in 1879. The paintings they discovered on the walls of the caves were of animals such as aurochs, a long extinct relative of the bison. As these matched similar stone-age images he had seen, Sautuola concluded they were prehistoric. When the caves were opened to the public, however, they were considered a hoax, and unfortunately despite trying to clear his name, his discovery was not scientifically accepted until long after his death. Following this the caves of Lascaux and Chauvet came to light, and it is said that when Picasso saw images of the caves he declared “we have learned nothing”.

Today artists create images of every aspect of life, but back then the images were almost exclusively of animals,  in particular horses, bison and reindeer. The expert Henri Breuil believed the paintings to be linked to rituals that increased the chances of a successful hunt, however more recent archeology has shown that the animals depicted were not those eaten by the people of the time. In addition some of the paintings were in very hard to reach areas of the caves and featured dots and lines. However, it is easy to take a modern view such as this and miss the point completely, that being how did we learn to project our 3D world into 2D.

There are very similar paintings to be found in the Drakensburg Mountains of South Africa, however unlike their European cousins, these were not produced thousands of years ago, but much more recently. These images were produced by the San “bush men” and although they do not produce paintings like this today, Professor David Lewis Williams discovered papers from the late nineteenth century by a German settler that documented the life and rituals of the San people. It became clear to Williams that their religion was based around traveling in a trance state to a spirit world and that they documented in these pictures their experiences of the trance. Often these transitory states involved animals, and the animals depicted were normally large or powerful, such as the Eland, that were respected by the San people. Williams also noticed another similarity with their European counterparts, that of the dots and lines.

Research into altered states, such as the trances of the San people, show that on entering these states, visual disturbances similar to migraine aura that involved lines and dots occur. Furthermore, these images can also be produced through sensory deprivation, for example from being placed deep in a cave for a long time. Prehistoric people, it appears, had hallucinations , which took the form of things that were close to them, such as the horses, bison and aurochs. These hallucinations were remembered and prehistoric people then recreated them on the walls of their caves.

Returning to the European palaeolithic caves, it seems that 12,000 years ago people stopped painting. We don’t know why, but the discovery of Göbekli Tepe, in Southern Turkey may hold the answer.  When excavated the site revealed monolithic pillars built around 12,000 years ago, dated to just the time that the paintings in caves seem to stop. These stone pillars feature carvings of animals such as those in the caves. The effort in creating these stone pillars would have required considerable  labour and organisation, the workers for example, all needed feeding. Recent research has shown that modern wheat can be traced to wild wheat that grows within 20 miles of this site, which has lead scholars to speculate that this was the birthplace of agricultural farming and, in turn, complex society,'civilisation', itself.

The Grolier Codex is discussed in the context of the archaeoastronomy of the ancient Americas on pages 98-99 of the March 1990 National Geographic Magazine article "America's Ancient Skywatchers" by John B. Carlson. One of four known ancient Maya books, the Grolier Codex depicts different manifestations of the planet Venus; the column of glyphs on the left of each panel records days in a 104-year Venus almanac. These plaster-coated bark-paper pages, carbon-dated to the 13th century, represent only half of the 20-page original. A numbered photographic arrangement of the Grolier Codex depictes the author's discovery that Codex pages 10 and 11 are actually two parts of the same "page 10".  Carlson clarifies the identities of Venus deities depicted in the Grolier Codex from a comparison of images from the Cacaxtla murals and links the images of the Grolier Codex with ancient Maya astronomically timed ritual warfare and sacrifice. (Grolier Codex photographs: Enrico Ferorelli; Other photos: Bob Sacha)

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.

The Grolier Codex (Codice Maya de Mexico, CMM) is discussed in the context of the archaeoastronomy of the ancient Americas on pages 98-99 of the March 1990 National Geographic Magazine article "America's Ancient Skywatchers" by John B. Carlson. One of four known ancient Maya books, the Grolier Codex depicts different manifestations of the planet Venus; the column of glyphs on the left of each panel records days in a 104-year Venus almanac. These plaster-coated bark-paper pages, carbon-dated to the 13th century, represent only half of the 20-page original. A numbered photographic arrangement of the Grolier Codex depictes the author's discovery that Codex pages 10 and 11 are actually two parts of the same "page 10".  Carlson clarifies the identities of Venus deities depicted in the Grolier Codex from a comparison of images from the Cacaxtla murals and links the images of the Grolier Codex with ancient Maya astronomically timed ritual warfare and sacrifice. (Grolier Codex photographs: Enrico Ferorelli; Other photos: Bob Sacha)

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.

This thesis endeavours to lay the groundwork for a foundational understanding of the expression of shamanism in female burials in the Pre-Columbian Americas. By examining five mortuary characteristics in the context of female shaman burials, male shaman burials, and standard female burials from Pre-Columbian North, South, and Mesoamerica, this work has developed a methodology to discern patterns of similarity and difference between these burial types. These characteristics include age, pathology, burial position, burial setting, and grave goods. The utilization of this methodology in three case studies illustrate its effectiveness in discerning shamanic identity from burials and their defining features. Because the relationship between burial characteristics and the determination of shamanic identity is rarely fully articulated, another main aim of this work is to address how archaeologists differentiate shamanic burials from others. As is often required in the study of prehistoric or pre-Contact religion, ethnographic and historical accounts are used to supplement these contemporary Pre-Columbian comparisons and to build an interpretation of shamanic identity based solidly in fact and evidence. By weaving together comparisons between the mortuary characteristics of contemporary sacred and profane burials with relevant ethnographic and historical analogy, this thesis created an effective methodology for discerning the manifestations of female shamanism in mortuary contexts.

The last few years have witnessed an upsurge in literature on shamanic practices among native North Americans.  Archaeological studies have cited evidence of shamans in a variety of contexts dating from the Late Archaic to Contact, and detailed ethnographic and ethnohistoric research is continuing to provide middle range linking arguments for interpreting the residues of shamanic practices.  This paper provides a preliminary evaluation of the evidence for shamanic activities during the Middle to Late Archaic along the Green River, as well as suggestions for how this research can be augmented by future investigations.

By digging deep into our knowledge of the past, I present an archaeological and anthropological investigation: Understanding Religion Evolution: Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, Paganism, & Progressed Organized Religion The above picture is my art and I am going to explain some of its imagery. The Interconnectedness of Religious Thinking? " Religion is an Evolved Product " In a general way, it all starts with Animism (a theoretical belief in supernatural powers/spirits) and this is physically expressed in or with Totemism (a theoretical belief in a mythical relationship with powers/spirits through a totem item), which then enlists a full-time specific person to perform this worship and believed interaction as Shamanism (a theoretical belief in access and influence with spirits through rituals). In addition, there is the further employment of myths and gods added to all the above, which is Paganism and is often a lot more nature-based than most current top world religions, thus hinting to their close link to more ancient religious thinking from which it stems. My hypothesis is expressed with an explanation of the building of a theoretical house (modern religions development). It seems ancient peoples had to survived amazing threats in a " dangerous universe by superstition perceived as good and evil " , and human " immorality or imperfection of the soul " , which was thought to affect the still living and led to ancestor worship. Presumably, this ancestor worship led to the belief in supernatural beings, which some of these were turned into the belief in gods. This feeble myth called gods were just a human conceived idea that was " made from nothing into something over and over, changing again and again, taking on more as they evolve, and all the while, they are thought to be special. " However, it is just supernatural animistic spirit-belief perceived as sacred.

The interpretation of depictions in petroglyphs belonging to the Bronze Age in South Siberia as shamanic ones is debatable. Obviously, cultic attributes belonging to men were not removed from barrows 2 and 5 in Pazyryk. Their series can be compared with complexes (known to ethnologists) belonging to shamans of Iranian peoples. Such elements of practicing sequential shamanic rituals as divination, use of musical instruments, entering into a trance state, summoning patron spirits and their “feeding”, exorcism of evil spirits can be reconstructed. 

Keywords: Indo-Iranian shamanism, Pazyryk culture shamans, shamans images, South Siberia, material culture

People have had the moon’s number for a very long time. We figure the moon’s phases were counted by calendar priests in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia at least 5000 years ago, and the unwritten record of prehistoric megaliths and symbolic carvings on monumental stones
has prompted some to speculate the builders of Stonehenge in southern England and Newgrange in Ireland also numbered the moon’s days. In fact, the late Alexander Marshack identifi ed “time-factored
notations” from the upper paleolithic in fragments of antler and bone. In The Roots of Civilization (1972), he argued these sequences of marks indicate lunar talllies. In 1982, American anthropologist W. Breen
Murray reported a large petroglyph panel at Presa de la Mula, in northeast Mexico, and interpreted its 24-cell grid of 207 “tally” marks as a count of seven cycles of the moon. The age of the carvings is
unknown, but through style they are associated with nomadic Archaic hunters and could be hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. Murray also analyzed tine counts of antler petroglyphs in the same desert
basins of northern Mexico and found they routinely exceed the number encountered on real antlers. Lunar numbers—7, 14, 15, 28—are common, but Murray speculated the month counts could reference
more than the moon and have something to do with biological cycles of the game.

In this issue, naturalist Bernie Taylor returns to the Griffiffith  Observer and explores detailed connections between lunar counts among traditional peoples and animal behavior. He last appeared in the August, 2006, issue with his 2005 Boeing writing contest article “Are There Geese on Cygnus 3?” He has written two books and hundreds of articles. In Biological Time (2004), he examined the relationship between the rhythms of plants and animals and the cyclical performances of the sun and moon. His work has generated high interest at biological conferences. Fish and game biologists are using his hypotheses to study and manage natural resources. Mr. Taylor has also spotlighted and analyzed archaeological evidence that suggests our ancient and prehistoric ancestors also understood the world and managed their access to its resources in terms of time measured and marked by the sun and the moon.

How do we take indigenous animism seriously in the sense proposed by Viveiros de Castro? In this article, I pose this challenge to all the major theories of animism, stretching from Tylor and Durkheim, over Lévi-Strauss to Ingold. I then go on to draw a comparison between Žižek's depiction of the cynical milieu of advanced capitalism in which ideology as " false consciousness " has lost force and the Siberian Yukaghirs for whom ridiculing the spirits is integral to their game of hunting. Both know that, in their activity, they are following an illusion, but still they go along with it; both are ironically self-conscious about not taking the ruling ethos at face value. is makes me suggest an alternative: perhaps it is time for anthropology not to take indigenous animism too seriously.

Contents (chapters and authors):

The shamanic-ecstatic hypothesis for the Alpine rock art of Valcomonica, Umberto Sansoni.

Sensuous visions: Encountering the shamanistic rock art of the Bayan Jurek Mountains, Kazakhstan, Kenneth Lymer.

Depictions in Sami rock art of the Mother Earth figure, Inga-Maria Mulk.

Argimpasa - Scythia goddess, patroness of shamans, Zaur Hasanov.

The bear and the plough: Shamanism in the Neolithic, Giovanni Kezich.

From shamanic rituals to theatre and cultural industry: The state, shamanism and gender among the Kavalan (Taiwan), Pi-Chen Liu.

Mongolian shamanism envisaged, embodied, Eva Jane Neumann Fridman.

Women shamans and their portrayal in the Olonkho Sakha epic poems, Lia Zola.

The poetics of healing: Shamanic rituals in Central Nepal, Dagmar Eigner.

Inadvertent art. Icons, music and dance in Chepang (Nepal) and Semang-Negrito (Peninsular Malaysia) shamanism, Diana Riboli.

Artistic expressions of the visual language on Sami ritual drums, Hee Sook Lee-Niinioja.

The ritual art and paraphernalia of the Nepalese jhankris and Tamang bombo, Vesa Matteo Piludu.

Artists as shamans: Historical review and recent theoretical model, Denita Benyshek.

Perspectives on the arts of Parbati, Barbara Wilhelmi.

Shamanic artistry in a French Absurdist play, Daniel A. Kister.

The shamanic works of Minsalim Timergazeev and other artists of the First International Woodcarving Festival of Uvat, Carla Corradi Musi.

Norval Morrisseau - Shaman-Artist, Jurgen Werner Kremer.

The hand on the wall of the cave. Exploring connections between shamanism and the visual arts, Susan Michaelson.

Artist as shaman, Gilah Yelin Hirsch.


Edited by Elvira Eevr Djaltchinova-Malec. Published by Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary, Polish Institute of World Art Studies, Warsaw, and Tako Publishing House, Toruń, Poland.

This book can be ordered by mail:
Polish Institute of World Art Studies: biuro@world-art.pl
Tako Publishing House: tako@tako.biz.pl

Vollständige Veröffentlichung in halber Dateigröße. - Katalogmässige Erfassung und Deutung der angesagten Objekte. Linear- und bemaltkeramische Plastiken aus Niederösterreich. Es handelt sich dabei um eine Neuauflage des Buches "Neolithische Kultobjekte aus dem niederösterreichischen Manhartsbergbereich".  Mannus  - Bibliothek 19, Hückeswagen 1982 und des Aufsatzes "Steinzeitlicher Kult". Horner Schriften zur Ur- und Frühgeschichte 7/8, 1983 - 1984, Horn 1983, S. 7 - 42 (beide hier bei Academia als PDF eingestellt) und ergänzt durch die in der Zwischenzeit neu veröffentlichten Plastiken.
Zitat (Seite 74): "Die alteingeführte Bezeichnung "Idol" hat hinsichtlich ihrer Kürze sicherlich eine gewisse Berechtigung. Es muß nur von vorneherein klargestellt sein, dass damit keine spezielle Interpretation verbunden ist."

Da diese Veröffentlichung (die Seiten 23 bis 137 des im Jahre 1998 erschienenen Kataloges IDOLE) immer wieder falsch zitiert wird, sei darauf hingewiesen, dass diese die alleinige Arbeit des Verfassers dieser Zeilen (Hermann Maurer) ist und der fälschlicherweise immer wieder genannte Friedrich Berg in keinem Zusammenhang damit steht und nichts zum Text beigetragen hat.

The worship of nature/natural spirits might have been the fundamental belief system for some communities archaeological cultures) in the Carpathian Basin during the Bronze Age. One should be familiar with the body of beliefs, the ceremonies and rituals in order to understand and reconstruct the spiritual/religious experience of prehistoric peoples. As the archaeological finds cannot assure solid evidences of Bronze Age religion in the Carpathian Basin, not to mention the activities connected to it, one should study the contemporary nature worship and the ethnographical research to form some basic notions of possible ancient spiritualities.
Applying the experiences of a Mongolian study tour and the personal participation in a shaman’s ceremony among the Reindeer people and in addition the ethnographical investigation by internationally recognized Hungarian ethnographers, the author is going to analyze the available archaeological sources in order to make an attempt to reveal certain activities of Bronze Age ‘sorcerers/seers’ or mediators, especially in connection with sky lore.

By conducting a comparison of historical, archaeological, ethnographic (shamanism) and mythological data, the author reconstructs the major elements of the Cimmerian and Scythian religious rites. Diverse elements are examined: objects and ornaments from graves, burial stratification, construction materials and their location in the graves. The comparative research shows that the Cimmerians and Scythian had shamanic practices identical to those of the Siberian shamans.

Chapter Five Sun gods or shamans? Interpreting the'solar-headed'petroglyphs of Central Asia1 Andrzej Rozwadowski Introduction In recent years, the shamanistic context of rock art has become one of the most discussed topics not only among researchers working in this field, but ...

The purpose of this brief presentation is to introduce the theme of "shamanism" in the various perspectives. First of all, we will begin with a historical framework to trace its origins and to observe the successive evolutions and continuity with the origins.
Since in the therapy with the patients it is central for the shaman to enter into a hypnotic trance that allows him to get in touch with the spirit world, the second point that we will deepen will be the characteristic elements of the modified states of consciousness.
Among the shamanic actions for purposes that are no longer necessarily directed to the individual individual but to the community, we find those bellows and propitiatory ones for community needs. The last section will identify the traces of these ancient cults among the folds of the calendars traditions, in particular of the winter masks, of the "old Europe".

The cave of Lascaux (near Montignac. Dep. Dordogne, France) seems to be an important expression of the cosmovisions of Palaeolithic man, approximately 17,000 years ago. In two contributions for this journal I present a short overview about the main results of my research work concerning some striking rock picture panels in this grotto. Both articles are based on a special so-called “integral methodology”, which includes ways and results from several natural sciences and humanities, like archaeology, astronomy, ethnology, cartography, mythology, photogrammetry, scientific study of religion, semiotic and symbolism. In this first part some rock paintings in the “Hall of Bulk”, the “Axial Diverticle”, and the “Ship” arc studied in detail The scientific analysis indicates that the rock pictures among other things show seasonality and are related to certain celestial phenomena. In one case a composition of paintings in the “Axial Diverticle” points to the representation of the course of the moon related to important time of the animals seasons. In a second case the representation of au aueroclis with a cluster of six spots floating above his back, to be found in the “Hall of Bulb”, may illustrate the Pleiades in a constellation, which is similar to the well-known Bull of our today*» sky. It is suggested that the people of Lascaux noticed a special star phase of this open cluster - the heliacal setting around the autumnal equinox - an fixed this special time in the year by a rock painting on the walls. This scientific result is further substantiated by traditions referring to the Pleiades, which are handed down by ancient people throughout the world.

The hypothesis of ancient Chinese shamanism popularized by K. C. Chang in the 1980s has long been one of the central problems in the study of Chinese archaeology. By examining the structures that constitute Chang's shamanic framework, this article argues that the problem centers around two major issues. The first is that Chang follows a tradition in Chinese academic historiography of using late historical texts to interpret Neolithic and Bronze Age materials. The second is that, in order to explore the dynamics of the formation of Chinese civilization, he employs Western theories in his construction of the history of shamanism. This article discusses the problems associated with using textual materials for interpretations of archaeological finds. It also discusses " substratum theory, " the way in which it influenced Chang's understanding of shamanic civilization, and the manner in which Western anthropological theory was incorporated into Chang's historiographical model. Accordingly, the author concludes that this shamanism problem in Chinese archaeology actually stems from a mixture of the Chinese historiographical tradition and Western anthropological theories, which together make Chang's writing develop a meta-narrative that leads directly to two characteristics: generalization and polymorphism.

This book discusses both ancient and modern shamanism, demonstrating its longevity and spatial distribution, and is divided into eleven thought-provoking chapters that are organised into three sections: mind-body, nature, and culture. It discusses the clear associations with this sometimes little-understood ritualised practice, and asks
what shamanism is and if tangible evidence can be extracted from a largely fragmentary archaeological record. The book offers a novel portrayal of the material culture of shamanism by collating carefully selected studies by specialists from three different continents, promoting a series of new perspectives on this idiosyncratic and sometimes intangible phenomenon.

Bird symbolism also occurs in most Bronze Age cultures of the Carpathian Basin. Bird shaped rattles, statuettes and a variety of miniature clay objects may be seen as the reflection of religious beliefs. The twenty bird depictions found at the site of Füzesabony exceed the number of similar depictions found on any other Bronze Age site. The seventeen intact and fragmented askoi together with the three bird shaped rattles were probably used during various rituals. The bronze products of the workshops in the Danube–Tisza region were ornamented with similar patterns – also birds among them - used by the bronzesmiths of Northern and Central Europe, signalling the shared elements of a belief system.
May they testify closer relation to animism rather than Proto-Indo-European beliefs? Bird-shaped bronze pendants are quite common in Hungarian Bronze Age hoards such as Nagyhangos, Rozvágy, Zsadány-Orosi puszta, etc. The bird and the sun are essential symbols of the Central European and therefore the Carpathian Basin Late Bronze Age Urnfield cultures’ beliefs. The well-known Serbian Dupljaja carts are driven by figures with bird masks and one cart is drawn by three water birds (possible swans). Although these figures are argued to represent the female sun, they may equally be considered as shamanesses who are flying up to the Upperworld.
The chapter aims at critical assessing the arguments on Bronze Age bird symbolism.

The original 1982 manuscript presented both at the 44th International Congress of Americanists, Manchester, England in 1982 and the American Astronomical Society in Boston, January 1983.  This research article is the only scholarly study that provides an independent proof that the Codice Maya de Mexico, (CMM) formerly known as the Grolier Codex, must be a genuine pre-Columbian codex – because it contains key iconographic and other data that could not have been known to a potential fabricator in the mid-1960s when the Codex was found.  One of four known ancient Maya books, the Grolier Codex depicts different manifestations of the planet Venus; the column of glyphs on the left of each panel records days in a 104-year Venus almanac. These plaster-coated bark-paper pages, carbon-dated to the 13th century, represent only half of the 20-page original. The author also demonstrates his discovery that the previously labeled pages 10 and 11 of the Codex are actually two parts of the same page "10".

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Grolier Codex.

The history of shamanism in pre-contact South and Mesoamerica follows a diverse, ranging pathway, much like the Amazon and Orinoco snake their way through the physical landscape of those regions.  Indeed, even determining the boundaries of who is a shaman and what activities connote shamanism is a difficult scholarly task.  It has been noted that the term shaman "has come to mean many things to many people."  Many scholars "are using shamanism to provide predictable, easy, and ultimately inadequate answers to what are often very complex questions about the relationship of ... religion, medicine, and politics in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica."  Shamans bring to light the spirits of the past; they use their skills to open the doorway between worlds, obtaining assistance from more powerful forces.  Calling forth the sacred, by use of festivals or at ritual locations, shamans "render primordial beings present again but in less absolute guise.

Mortuary remains within an archaeological context can illuminate the social and political aspects not only of the individual(s) buried, but also of the living who interred them. Although this is so, a consensus has not been reached in regard to the following questions: how can we determine the social identity of the living that interred the dead? What are the implications of the living-dead interaction, and how do mortuary practices alter social memory in order to fit political needs? This thesis constitutes an initial attempt to answer these questions while examining pre-internment mortuary practices, and associated ideologies regarding the afterlife based on data collected during the 2015 field season by members of the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológica Panquilma (PIAP), under the direction of Dr. Enrique Lopéz-Hurtado, of the Instituto de Estudios de Peruanos Programa de Investigación. This project is centered at the Late Intermediate Period (LIP) to Late Horizon (LH) secondary Ychsma site of Panquilma in the mid-Valley of the Lurín River Valley, Central Coast of Peru.

This research aims to determine the time period and significance of a puzzling structure that was excavated at the cemetery’s margin at Panquilma in order to determine the building’s potential role in ancestral veneration practices of the lesser-elites. Upon first glance this structure appeared to have a layout of a household structure but was located near the cemetery, far from the residential center of the site. A wide array and substantial quantities of exotic and/or ritual items such as sheet metal fragments, colorful bird feathers, orpiment, and manuports, as well as Spondylus sp. and Nectandra sp. beads were discovered within this building suggesting non-mundane or non-domestic usages. Was this structure used in the preparation and care of the funerary bundles? Did it house an important figure (e.g., a shaman) in both their life and death? Or did it serve as a workshop for preparing ritual items? In an effort to ascertain the significance of this structure, this thesis examines the aforementioned remains as well as its relative location and the results from portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) analyses of some of the excavated artifacts in order to provide a deeper understanding of mortuary practices at Panquilma and thus the Ychsma’s concept of and interaction with the dead on the Central Coast of Peru.

The exact function of this structure cannot be concretely stated, but the diverse lines of evidence present appear to favor the first hypothesis in which this structure functioned as a funerary preparation area, but principally for elite and/or ritually significant bundle(s). This was ascertained due to the numerous exotic and/or ritual artifacts found associated within this Inkaic structure that likely served a ritualistic function in regard to water and agricultural fertility as well as serving as indirect evidence for elite ancestral veneration practices.

Nearly all societies are known to engage in practices that lead to altered states of consciousness. However, the methods, functions, and cultural context vary widely between societies. We summarize what we know of this variation from cross-cultural research.

Paul Devereux (24th Feb, 2009) – Shamanic landscapes. The Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness Salon, The Institute of Ecotechnics, October Gallery, Bloomsbury, London. (Host and compère)

Did the ancient American Indian soul leave its mark on the land? In this profusely illustrated presentation, Paul Devereux will argue that it did by exploring a range of sacred geographies scattered through the Americas. From the Nazca lines to many other "lines", from the spirit paths of the Kogi Indians to the giant ground drawings of California and Arizona, to the vision quest places of the old shamans, to the strange "place where God sits" in Canada. And more. A unique travelogue that traces an interior journey.

Harrod Hiscock Supplementary Table S4. Key zoomorphs in Siberian/East Asian myth and shamanism by population group 2021. 
Supplementary Table S5. Siberian/East Asian zoomorphic species by creation myth & shamanic animals 2021. 
Supplementary Table S6. Summary zoomorphic symbolism North America paleoart predictions based on Siberian/East Asian creation myths and shamanic spirit-animals 2021.

Erstmalige Zusammenfassung der bekannt gewordenen linearbandkeramischen Plastiken aus Niederösterreich und Überblick über die diesbezüglichen Nachweise der Lengyelkultur des Waldviertels.

Die zweite - durch Neufunde ergänzte - Auflage erschien im Jahre 1998:

Hermann Maurer, Archäologische Zeugnisse religiöser Vorstellungen und Praktiken der frühen und mittleren Jungsteinzeit in Niederösterreich. Katalog IDOLE, Kunst und Kult im Waldviertel vor 7000 Jahren. Horn 1998, S. 23 - 137. Diese Veröffentlichung ist auch hier bei Academia eingestellt.

Darstellung des Forschungsstandes in Niederösterreich für den Zeitraum vom Paläolithikum bis zum späten Neolithikum. Geringfügig (betreffend einer Lengyelgefäßform) ergänzter Zweitdruck eines Vortragstextes, der im Jahre 1982 veröffentlicht wurde.
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Kritische Bemerkungen zur  Interpretation dieser Objektgruppen.  Zitat (Seite 8):
"Wir wissen kaum etwas über den Ablauf solcher Kulthandlungen und ebensowenig über die Vielschichtigkeit und Vielfalt. Die auf uns gekommenen Quellen werden möglicherweise, auch wenn sie sich sehr ähneln, also zu einem Typus gehören, ganz konträren Praktiken gedient haben. Ein einziges Kultgerät kann sicherlich verschiedene Bedeutungsinhalte umschließen."
Zitat (Seite 34): "Die alteingeführte Bezeichnung "Idol" hat hinsichtlich ihrer Kürze sicherlich eine gewisse Berechtigung. Es muß nur von vorneherein klargestellt sein, daß damit keine spezielle Interpretation verbunden ist (Anmerkung 30)."