Did G.R.R. Martin Spark a Neolithic Revolution 11,000 Years ago? The Shigir Idol

 The Shigir Idol

Many in-depth comparisons have been made between G.R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" and "The War of the Roses," even by Martin himself. A bit lesser known are the parallels with Norse mythology, but a near comprehensive analogy has been created by Dorian the Historian at gameofthronesandnorsemythology.blogspot.com.
Esquire also pointed out some of the main similarities:

http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a28159/game-of-thrones-norse-mythology/


It is also evident that Martin has drawn inspiration from Greek Mythology, Arthurian Legend, and many other historic and folkloric sources.

What I haven't seen much of, on the other hand, are discussions about the similarities between the series and the end of the Pleistocene Epoch, some 10,000 years ago. This was a time of intense climate change when many "Ice Age" animals and peoples went extinct, when wars were fought and cultures fell that modern man knows very little about.

In the opening of "Suppressed Transmition: the Second Broadcast," a book in the  G.U.R.P.S. game-world, the setting of a quickly coming Ice Age is proposed. It claims that at the last glacial maximum, virtually the entire northern hemisphere went from forest to ice and tundra in less that 100 years. It suggests that this scenario could be sped up a bit for drama in an RPG campaign.

The essay suggests religious struggles, with a political faction bringing on an Ice Age using powerful magic...in order to stop the spread of religion.

The only deity mentioned in the article is the Norse god "Hoder," as an example of an ice god. Norse/ ASoIaF theorist have long noted the similarities between the name of this Norse god and the name of the gentle giant "Hodr" in Martin's series.
Martin is an avid G.U.R.P.S. player. Either one drew inspiration from the other, or the authors of the G.U.R.P.S. book and Martin were independently inspired by the Norse "Ragnarok" and its similarities with the end of the last "Ice Age." After all, these similarities inspire many like-minded people (such as myself). "Suppressed Transmition: the Second Broadcast"  is copyright 2000, but the articles originally appeared in Pyramid magazine
But Suppressed Transmitions is a book created to inspire artists and writers, so whether one begat the other is irrelevant.  Let us instead consider the Ice Age setting for the purposes of Prehistoric Literary Criticism.
There are continent-sized places on Earth that don't really have much of a change of season, such as the Yunnan-Ghizou plateau and large parts of Australia and Africa- it's just autumn there all year round. Some researchers have suggested that at certain times during our recent prehistory, it may have been this way nearly the world over.
Best-selling author Herbie Brennan has compiled evidence in several of his non-fiction books tha during a period prior to 10,600 years ago, there was no real change of seasons. A planetary impact 10,600 years ago ended this period of climate stability. This falls perfectly in line with the more well-known and peer-reviewed Clovis Impact Theory, whose adherents have not yet fully considered the effects of their North American Impact on the rest of the planet.

Whether these somewhat controversial ideas turn out to be realities is irrelevant when considering how theories influence fiction.
Prehistoric Literary Criticism supposes that many "fantasy" worlds have been built as an excercise of the human mind to "fill the gaps" of prehistory and answer the burning questions that mainstream science seems loath to address or sometimes even to acknowledge.

Martin's Maesters might think that their Winters are a cycle, and might therefore call "Ice-Ages" seasons, but they can't predict those cycles. This is very similar to our own interpretation of the past few Glacial Maximums- modern scientists still debate what the various causes of  these Glacial Maximums were, and whether or not they were cyclical.
Comparisons can also be drawn between the depiction of Climate Change in Martin's World, the modern real world, and our own world during relatively brief but intensely cold periods between 11,000 B.C., 8,600 B.C., and 3,500 B.C.
The G.U.R.P.S. book suggests, "Perhaps a winter God like Hoder, or a circle of sorcerous frost giants, casts a powerful spell to bring about the Ice Age specifically to stop the spread of monotheism."
Yes... or maybe some religious zealot just believes that someone has summoned a god to make it cold, and therefore wages a brutal war in response?
The only monotheism in Game of Thrones is the religion of Melisandre and Thoros. The parallels between R'hollor and Zoroastrian are many, and have been noted by numerous fan theorists, but this brings me to my next point.
Though early  Zoroastrianism may seem primitive and 'pagan" to modern sensibilities, it has also been considered as a huge impetus for the advancement of civilization at the end of the Neolithic period of Asia and the Middle East. Some have seen it as the origin of all of the world's monotheistic religions, even (if more tentatively) the fire religion of the Cherokee Native Americans.
The idea of the Christian church "covering up" evidence of the older "heathen" religions has been documented by historians, explored by various fantasy authors, and compared to Martin's "Faith of the Seven" in contrast to his "Gods of the First Men."
However, I think Martin is actually touching on an earlier period of "idol burning" and religious "cover-ups."
This is a subject much explored by the visionary theorist Stan Gooch, who was a neanderthal hybrid when Neanderthal hybrids weren't cool. He proposed that the religion of the Neanderthals and archaic humans, and by extension most hunter communities of the Neolithic, was based on the number "thriteen" with the Moon as the chief diety of a divine pantheon. The religion of the agriculturalists who subdued this religion, on the other hand, was based on the number "seven" and considered the Sun to be the supreme god.
As a prehistoric fiction author, the fact that Martin is also aware of this has proven to be a vexing problem.
Almost every time I want to use historic evidences of the 'Seven vs. Thirteen" motif in my depiction of the real world  circa 10,600 years ago...I find that Martin has already borrowed that instance for his fantasy world!
To bring this point home, I present the Shigir Idol.
It is the most ancient wooden sculpture in the world, and possibly man's oldest surviving monument. Originally standing two stories high, the idol was originally discovered in the Ural Mountains, submerged in a peat bog, but it didn't reach national attention until 2015 when scientists re-dated it to 11,000 years. It depicts a god with seven faces along with pictographs and "tally marks" that may be the earliest examples of "proto-writing" anywhere. Multiple faces are characteristic for the Slavic god of fire, “Ogni,” as well as the Vedic god “Agni.”  The worship of the Vedic gods was supplanted by Zoroastrianism in many places during the Neolithic period of Asia.

So here are my questions:
*Did Martin know about the Shigir idol before it made headlines in 2015, or did he reconstruct a Neolithic proto-religion based on the known religions that branched out from it in historic times?
*Or was he being influenced by the Universal Mind and/or Rupert Sheldrake's Morphic Field?
*Has Martin done DMT at a Dead concert and obtained information about our past from the Machine Elves?
*Did a time traveler go back to ancient Russia and leave a copy of Game of Thrones, therefore sparking a Neolithic religion?
*Will the researchers trying to decipher the Shigir idol uncover the text to "Winds of Winter" before it's even been published?
*And perhaps more importantly, should my Neolithic Slavs worship a seven-faced god or will they say I've copied Martin rather than actual history?

Joe Lyon Layden is a prehistoric fiction author and primitive musician. To receive a free copy of this entire novella "The Man from Parkho Khatune Bears Favor," as well as three free songs and monthly updates, freebies, and discounts on Joe's ongoing work, please sign up for the newsletter below.

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Did G.R.R. Martin Spark a Neolithic Revolution 11,000 Years ago? The Shigir Idol

Real Temple of Set? 70,000 year old Ritual Chamber with Life-like Snake Sculpture!

Forskningsmagasin fra Universitetet i Oslo


Forskningsartikkel


World's oldest ritual discovered. Worshipped the python 70,000 years ago


SACRIFIED TO THE PYTHON:


The world's oldest ritual ceremonies are twice as old as previously thought. More than 70,000 years ago in a small cave in Botswana, humans sacrificed spearheads to the python. Photo: Sheila Coulson


A new archaeological find in Botswana shows that our ancestors in Africa engaged in ritual practice 70,000 years ago X 30,000 years earlier than the oldest finds in Europe. This sensational discovery strengthens AfricaXs
position as the cradle of modern man.


Tekst: Yngve Vogt. Translated by Alan Louis Belardinelli


A startling archaeological discovery this summer changes our understanding of human history. While, up until now, scholars have largely held that manXs first rituals were carried out over 40, 000 years ago in Europe, it now appears that they were wrong about both the time and place.


Associate Professor Sheila Coulson, from the University of Oslo, can now show that modern humans, Homo sapiens, have performed advanced rituals in Africa for 70,000 years. She has, in other words, discovered mankindXs oldest known ritual.


The archaeologist from the Department of Archaeology, Conservation, and
Historical Studies, made the surprising discovery while she was studying the origin of the Sanpeople in cooperation with the University of Tromsø,
Norway, and the University of Botswana. A group of the San live in the sparsely inhabited area of north-western Botswana known as Ngamiland.


Coulson made the discovery while searching for artifacts from the Middle
Stone Age in the only hills present for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. This group of small peaks within the Kalahari Desert is known as the Tsodilo Hills and is famous for having the largest concentration of rock paintings in the world. The more than 3,500 paintings, some more than 1,500
years old, constitute an important piece of our cultural heritage and are the reason that Tsodilo is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


RITUAL CEREMONIES: People from the area held the ritual in a little cave in
Tsodila Hills in Botswana. Foto: Sheila Coulson.


The Tsodilo Hills are still a sacred place for the San, who call them the XMountains of the GodsX and the XRock that WhispersX. San guides who lead archaeologists to the hills must first check with their deity to ascertain whether they are welcome there.


The python is one of the SanXs most important animals. According to their
creation myth, mankind descended from the python and the ancient, arid streambeds around the hills are said to have been created by the python as it circled the hills in its ceaseless search for water.


The python cave


Sheila CoulsonXs find shows that people from the area had a specific ritual
location associated with the python. The ritual was held in a little cave on the northern side of the Tsodilo Hills. The cave itself is so secluded and
access to it is so difficult that it was not even discovered by archaeologists until the 1990s. The first archaeologists at the site noticed two paintings on one side of the cave and a rock with a large number of
indentations in it on the other side.


When Coulson entered the cave this summer with her three masterXs students,
it struck them that the mysterious rock resembled the head of a huge python. On the six meter long by two meter tall rock, they found three-to-four hundred indentations that could only have been man-made.


XYou could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real
python. The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance
of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake wasactually moving.X said Sheila Coulson to the University of OsloXs research magazine Apollon.


They found no evidence that work had recently been done on the rock. In fact, much of the rockXs surface was extensively eroded.


When they saw the many indentations in the rock, the archaeologists wondered about more than when the work had been done. They also began thinking about what the cave had been used for and how long people had been going there. With these questions in mind, they decided to dig a test pit directly in
front of the python stone.


At the bottom of the pit, they found many stones that had been used to make theindentations. Together with these tools, some of which were more than 70,000 years old, they found a piece of the wall that had fallen off during
the work.


RARE QUALITY: The spearheads were particularly beatiful and were brought from hundreds of kilometers away. Photo: Sheila Coulson.


Sacrificed Spearheads


In the course of their excavation, they found more than 13,000 artifacts.
All of the objects were spearheads and articles that could be connected with ritualuse, as well as tools used in carving the stone. They found nothing else.


As if that were not enough, the stones that the spearheads were made from are not from the Tsodilo region but must have been brought from hundreds of
kilometers away.


The spearheads are better crafted and more colourful than other spearheads from thesame time and area. Surprisingly enough, it was only the red
spearheads that had been burned.


XStone age people took these colourful spearheads, brought them to the cave, and finished carving them there. Only the red spearheads were burned. It was a ritual destruction of artifacts. There was no sign of normal habitation. No ordinary tools were found at the site. Our find means that humans were more organised and had the capacity for abstract thinking at a much earlier point in history than we have previously assumed. All of the indications suggest that Tsodilo has been known to mankind for almost 100,000 years as a
very special place in the pre-historic landscape.X says Sheila Coulson.


MAN-MADE: On this six meters long by two meter high stone, which resembles a python,researchers found 300-400 indentations that must have been made by humans. Photo: Sheila Coulson.


The Shaman's chamber


Sheila Coulson also noticed a secret chamber behind the python stone. Some areas ofthe entrance to this small chamber were worn smooth, indicating that many people had passed through it over the years.


XThe shaman, who is still a very important person in San culture, could have kept himself hidden in that secret chamber. He would have had a good view of the inside of the cave while remaining hidden himself. When he spoke from his hiding place, it could have seemed as if the voice came from the snake itself. The shaman would have been able to control everything. It was perfect.X The shaman could also have XdisappearedX from the chamber by crawling out onto the hillside through a small shaft.


While large cave and wall paintings are numerous throughout the Tsodilo Hills, there are only two small paintings in this cave: an elephant and a giraffe. These images were rendered, surprisingly, exactly where water runs down the wall.


Sheila Coulson thinks that an explanation for this might come from San mythology.


In one San story, the python falls into a body of water and cannot get out by itself. The python is pulled from the water by a giraffe. The elephant, with its long trunk, is often used as a metaphor for the python.


XIn the cave, we find only the San peopleXs three most important animals: the python, the elephant, and the giraffe. That is unusual. This would appear to be a very special place. They did not burn the spearheads by chance. They brought them from hundreds of kilometers away and intentionally burnedthem. So many pieces of the puzzle fit together here. It has to
represent a ritual.X concludes Sheila Coulson.


A PERFECT FIT: At the bottom of their excavation, Sheila Coulson found this tool that was used to scrape out some of the intentattions on the python stone. Photo: Sheila Coulson.


Dating the find


One is compelled to wonder why no one has made this discovery before. In fact, Sheila Coulson is one of the few archaeologists studying the Middle
Stone Age in Africa. The Middle Stone Age spans the period from 250,000 until 40,000 years ago, yet very few human traces have been found from that
period.


Archaeologists who are interested in Africa Xespecially East AfricaX have most often concentrated on the many extremely old finds that can tell us more about human history from the Early Stone Age, which lasted from about
two million until 250, 000 years ago.


Stone tools are a signature of the past. A way to differentiate between the two periods is to study how the tools were made.


It was a major archaeological find five years ago that made it possible for Sheila Coulson to date the finds in this little cave in Botswana. Up until the turn of the century, archaeologists believed that human civilisation developed in Europe after our ancestors migrated from Africa. This theory was crushed by Archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood when he published his find of traces from a Middle Stone Age dwelling in the Blombos Cave in
Southern Cape, South Africa.


XThat was the first solid archaeological evidence to demonstrate that early Homo sapiens were thinking abstractly and behaving like modern people long before it was thought to be possible. It became clear that Africa was not just the place that people became physically modern, but that many culturally modern practices were present in Africa long before they appeared
in Europe.X


Since the publication of the find at Blombos, archaeologists from other parts of the world have come forward with similar evidence to confirm the earlier development of culturally modern practices. XThe finds at Tsodilo fit this patternX, Sheila Coulson says.


But in contrast to the finds in Blombos and other areas of the world that show that people were already modern 70,000 years ago, the cave in Botswana has never been used as a dwelling. For over 70,000 years, people came to this cave for the sole purpose of performing rituals, and nothing else.


Of international importance


Torfinn Xrmen, a zoologist who lectures on human evolutionary history at the University of Oslo, says that this is the biggest archaeological discovery in a long time.

Sheila Coulson's discovery is going to garner attention the world over. This
is the oldest ritual site that we know of and it was in use before physically modern man left AfricaX, Xrmen points out. He explains that the San, who are also referred to as Bushmen, belong to the most ancient race of humans. The San, together with the Khoi (or Khoikhoi), separated from the rest of the worlds people about 70,000 years ago. Today they are commonly refered to as the Khoi-San people. The Khoi and the San are quite similar and were displaced by both the Europeans and the Bantu before and during colonization.


Some researchers believe that modern man descended from the San. What is certain is that the San are a very old people and that they have a very deep connection to this area of Botswana. The Tsodilo Hills are the San peopleXs most sacred place; theyhave had a connection to it for thousands and thousands of yearsX, says Torfinn Xrmen.


[Publisert 30.11.2006 ]
Sacrifice to the Python

Real Temple of Set? 70,000 year old Ritual Chamber with Life-like Snake Sculpture!