We bury the dead because neolithics "fall" asleep - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Rome, Greece, Egypt & other ancient history (c 4000 BCE - 476 CE) and pre-history.
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#13793895
I just finished a book called "Inside The Neolithic Mind." And one of the things that struck me is the way in which organized religion evolved from cave drawings.

See, in the beginning of text and drawings, artists would usually describe either food-related adventures, or physiological/neurological sensations.

The most interesting neurological sensations were those "changing of states of conscience" like when you fall asleep, pass out, stay hungry for a long time, or take certain kinds of hallucinatory substances.

In all cases, the cave drawings would describe the same process of sensations: visuals of tiny points... turning into wavy lines... a feeling of falling... a long tunnel... a beam of light." They would see the beam of light as they woke up or regained consciousness.

Over time, these drawings/texts were misinterpreted or worshiped. And these misinterpretations/worshippings lead us to the present day's religions. We bury people underground because we feel like we fall when we go to sleep.

Amazing that no one noticed this link before. It demonstrates the impossibility of our sacred texts of being literally true.
#13793914
I thought that was because dead people tend to start to smell after a while if they are not buried or burnt.

These are rational reasons for why it would seem like it would be done.

But the social reality was that people - since Neolithic times - have been forced to live according to texts, and not by what is instinctively rational (according to the authors).

Neolithic times were the beginnings of text.

The authors say that these texts are what really drove civilizations on. It wasn't any rational attempt at living in an ideal way that made societies change. It was their texts.

The authors say (and they admit it's controversial) that the reason Abrahamic texts recommend burial is not because of hygiene. It's because the earliest texts talked about falling and going through tunnels as a means to an alternate realm of consciousness.

The Text-holding Elites want to make sure we were all on the right road, according to the latest knowledge (text knowledge).
#13794184
QatzelOk wrote:We bury people underground because we feel like we fall when we go to sleep.

I'm unfamilar with the text you're referring to so you might be able to answer this: why were they buried? Surely if all that was required was a simulated fall, chucking the body off a cliff or similar would be as good if not better? Burial suggests a need to contain the body.
#13794233
ceremonial burial was the beginning of religion, yes. It has more to do with the loss of a member of your group/someone you love, though. The whole idea of closure. There are certain doubts, questions and conversations that flow naturally from that situation, as well as answers (or cop-outs, if you choose to see it that way) such as "going back to the earth" and such. Whoever ran the burial grounds (predecessors of priests) and those that began making tombstones (which, if you think about it, is a monument to whoever's buried there), the stonemasons who would eventually become the force behind sedentary life (they figured out how to erect structures). Those were 2 major forces behind the rise of civilization.

whoever wrote that book pulled everything out of their rump. Besides, everything is speculation when it comes to 20k years ago... But if there's one thing you can be sure about, it's that they didn't have texts because they didn't have paper. as for drawings... why would someone worship a drawing they dont understand?

Have you ever visited a modern art museum? :P
#13885237
whoever wrote that book pulled everything out of their rump.
yep

Before and well into the Neolithic people did sky-burials and burnings(?). The change was not uniform and to this day some people - even we burn our dead, but a few still do sky-burials (feed body to vultures). Neolithic drawings aren't the first form of religion, its art and it went along with storytelling which is probably far more ancient than Lascaux.

For 50,000 years European people have been burying their dead, many finds (the only ones I've read about) include a little stick shelter instead of being covered in dirt, the bodies - as in sky-burial - were often exposed to scavengers - apparently deliberately so, and red minerals put on the head and pelvis. But it seems fair to say that burial was symbolic of something.

If you're looking for something that smacks of religion you might look at Venus figures which are to be found even in the early stone age (though late in that period). My opinion about those and early "ceremonial rods" is that they were sexual in nature and there is a natural evolution between those, through deities like Hermes, to modern porn, prostitution and sex-devices. Such is the first instances of "religion" - pictures of women and stone dildos.

On topic, there are practical and spiritual reasons to dispose of dead bodies, the separation of these methods was probably not present until "text" technology has improved significantly. There was probably no difference in their minds - you did what you had to with whatever reverence and respect you could muster.
#13885808
The author explains that all spiritual texts have been misinterpreted and become ideologies.

I don't see any details in the above post that prove that incorrect.
#13885851
I'm not trying to debunk a book I haven't read. But it sounds stupid the way you put it. Just like scientists trying to grapple with symbolism. As if the answer must be singular and exclusive. I think we are conscious in as much as we are dealing with contradictions, a better answer would be illogical. An even better answer would be completely off subject. Like this; we started burying our dead because the dead looked cold and there weren't any vultures around to warm them up in their bellies. Or: The real question is what do you want from others when you're dead? Or: You see now what happens when you cry wolf constantly don't you? Or : What's fun to draw if you (having no example) can't draw? (A:spirals and handprints) Or: Why would they have them "fall" 6 feet further? (A: It's the difference between worms and predators, depends on how close you live to the body).
#13885983
For 50,000 years European people have been burying their dead

And yet, Euros have only lived stationary, sedentary lives for about 10,000.

When Euros were still hunting/gathering, you could just abandon your dead.

Burying them might have had other purposes then (hiding the scent to avoid scaring animals, etc.)

But as a ceremonial ideology, burying was made sacred by texts about falling. The first sedentary ceremonial burials took place right under the floor of the home. You can imagine how impractical this was.
#13885992
But as a ceremonial ideology, burying was made sacred by texts about falling.
That's about as meaningful as saying burial is about down, or burial is about soil. Or maybe its about death or maybe its about attachment or maybe it didn't mean anything at all to most of them, or meant different things over time or between tribes. Honestly are you such a lunatic that all semiotics looks like villainy?
#13888578
Suska, there are many ways of dealing with death and hygiene.

Burying was the technology that emerged because of our texts, not because of some kind of logic.

Logically, burying rotting bodies take up a lot of land and can result in disease and soil contamination.

Text-based superstitions are what traditionally determine what we do as a society: the "logic" of these rites is scotch-taped on after the fact. By elites.
#13888858
mnementh wrote:If you don't bury your dead they are going to be eaten by wild animals.

That the author couldn't fathom this obvious explanation only goes to show how much disconnected we have become from nature.

You could be right.

But the disconnect from nature affects us all. All of our logic has been flawed by synthetic thought.

Misunderstood words.
#13888890
Foucault would be proud of your skills of deconstruction. You're as ridiculous as OMH. You're a swarm of deconstructors. Anything you don't like you take apart like a mad infant. And you find this meaningful. If you took a squirrel apart I can imagine you would find it to be like a revelation - SO THIS IS WHAT A SQUIRREL IS! A mess of blood and bone - LISTEN TO THE TRUTH PEOPLE OF EARTH - QATZ HAS DISCOVERED THAT NOTHING HOLDS TOGETHER ONCE YOU HAVE TAKEN IT APART!
#13890386
Suska wrote:Foucault would be proud of your skills of deconstruction. You're as ridiculous as OMH. You're a swarm of deconstructors. Anything you don't like you take apart like a mad infant. And you find this meaningful. If you took a squirrel apart I can imagine you would find it to be like a revelation - SO THIS IS WHAT A SQUIRREL IS! A mess of blood and bone - LISTEN TO THE TRUTH PEOPLE OF EARTH - QATZ HAS DISCOVERED THAT NOTHING HOLDS TOGETHER ONCE YOU HAVE TAKEN IT APART!

I love this rant, but it still remains that text has given humanity more misunderstandings than it has given humanity understandings.

The stupidity that results from a thread-post like this one is usually much greater than the enlightenment that occurs.

Present company excluded, of course. :D
#13890494
As far as I'm concerned 'text' is all story, and beyond that misunderstanding, but that doesn't mean I want to eliminate it. It can be improved by making it funner and harder to criticize, but it can't be debunked without ruining it and that doesn't mean it was wrong. The fault of it is not that its make-believe the fault is as ever in people who lose sight of a real criteria for right and wrong in the present and sensible qualities of the moment.
#13920762
QatzelOk wrote:I just finished a book called "Inside The Neolithic Mind." And one of the things that struck me is the way in which organized religion evolved from cave drawings.

See, in the beginning of text and drawings, artists would usually describe either food-related adventures, or physiological/neurological sensations.

The most interesting neurological sensations were those "changing of states of conscience" like when you fall asleep, pass out, stay hungry for a long time, or take certain kinds of hallucinatory substances.

In all cases, the cave drawings would describe the same process of sensations: visuals of tiny points... turning into wavy lines... a feeling of falling... a long tunnel... a beam of light." They would see the beam of light as they woke up or regained consciousness.

Over time, these drawings/texts were misinterpreted or worshiped. And these misinterpretations/worshippings lead us to the present day's religions. We bury people underground because we feel like we fall when we go to sleep.

Amazing that no one noticed this link before. It demonstrates the impossibility of our sacred texts of being literally true.
huge leaps of logic in all that...we have no idea what was being conveyed in prehistoric cave painting, we shouldn't conclude they saw the world as we see it...

early burials, even animals bury dead things to hide it from other scavengers...humans burying their dead would have a similar benefit, having cave bears, lions, hyenas poking around the campsite wasn't welcomed...
#13920934
There are (at least) two dimensions to all human actions - a practical dimension and a symbolic dimension. There are indeed very good practical reasons why dead bodies should be disposed of. How they are disposed of and the meanings which are associated with that disposal, however, belong to the symbolic dimension of human thought and action, and this symbolic dimension can and should be deconstructed. Why bury the bodies rather than, say, burn them or expose them on hilltops? Why put flowers on the grave, or cover the body in red ochre? There are no practical reasons for these actions; they are purely semiotic.
#13921028
Potemkin wrote:There are (at least) two dimensions to all human actions - a practical dimension and a symbolic dimension. There are indeed very good practical reasons why dead bodies should be disposed of. How they are disposed of and the meanings which are associated with that disposal, however, belong to the symbolic dimension of human thought and action, and this symbolic dimension can and should be deconstructed. Why bury the bodies rather than, say, burn them or expose them on hilltops? Why put flowers on the grave, or cover the body in red ochre? There are no practical reasons for these actions; they are purely semiotic.
who said they weren't exposed or burnt? you're making assumptions we can not know...it's possible they were cannibalized as well...flowers obviously can mask odors from the dead, red ochre had medicinal uses, again with both you are projecting your cultural biases on someone else...earlier archeological claims of ritual burials (flowers and ochre) have been brought into question...

it's obvious that ritual burials became part of culture but at what point in time and how did it begin...
#13921514
Potemkin wrote:There are no practical reasons for these actions; they are purely semiotic.

But the author goes further by suggesting that it's semiotic, yes... but it's also stupidity.

The first burials were under the floor of the family dwelling with horrendous consequences.

The author suggests that MIS-interpretations of previous generations' texts is what caused religion and ideology. The subtext is that religion is based on misunderstandings of written texts. That leads to a notion that Religion is stupidity-based - simulacra and social reproduction. And if this is so, perhaps society and civilization are stupidity-based as well.

Rousseau and Foucault might both agree with me here.

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