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Changing medialities. Symbols of Neolithic corporate identities
Abstract
Sedentism not only challenged the economic system of hunter-gatherers, but above all the social and ideological framework of their lives. Larger groups, increasing social differentiation and the potential for accumulating material possessions may have led to a decrease in trust and an increase in alienation, fear and of aggression. Both processes can be counteracted by adjusting ideological and ethical concepts. One option of a society adapting to such stress is to strengthen corporate identities by an increased demonstration and standardization of symbolic praxis, including (communal) architecture
as symbols in space, rituals as symbols in action, and systems of recurring signs, with an implied shared symbolic meaning.
The aim of this introductory contribution to the ideological and intangible ideas of corporate identities is to discuss if and how we can track shifts in ideological frameworks from the Epipaleolithic to the
Early Neolithic in the Near East. It is suggested that an integrative approach combining anthropological, archaeological and neurobiological research with studies of mediality may be capable of reconstructing the social impact of symbolic systems. Instead of creating a uniform picture of a monolithic symbolic system, we focus on tensions and contradictions of symbolic actions and representations with daily praxis. The observed shift in mediality probably aimed at creating strong social networks with present
and bygone generations to counteract fissional tendencies in ever lager communities. However, the increased display of corporate identities seems to be a transitional phenomenon. When living in permanent
settlements had become customary, monumental and ubiquitous symbolic representations almost vanished.
... In the three collective burials of Areas C and D, individualism was annihilated and individuals (if they have been conceived at all as this) were merged into groups of dead. The contrast between collective and single burials might parallel the development observed in the central and southern Levant from a group-oriented ideal to the veneration of single adult individuals [4,43,[116][117]. However, it is not only in the ritual sphere that increasing segregation is observed. ...
... Evidence for doctrinal canonized symbolism is lacking in the southern Levant which is in strong contrast to Northern Mesopotamia [19,37,53,117]. In daily practice things were repeatedly done in the same manner. For example, sandstone rings that were produced en masse at Ba'ja followed a general idea and had a standardized chaîne opératoire, despite some variation in size and style. ...
In 2016, an extraordinary burial of a young adult individual was discovered at the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (LPPNB, 7,500–6,900 BCE) settlement of Baʻja in southern Jordan. This burial has exceptional grave goods and an elaborate grave construction. It suggests discussing anew reconstructions of early Neolithic social structures. In this article, we will summarize former theories on the emergence of leadership and hierarchies and present a multivariate model according to which anthropological and archaeological data of the burial will be analyzed. In conclusion, we surmise that early Neolithic hierarchization in southern Jordan was based on corporate pathways to power rather than self-interested aggrandizers. However, some aspects of the burial point to regional exchange networks of prestige goods, a trait considered characteristic of network based leadership. In line with anthropological and sociological research, we argue that pathways to power should be considered as relational processes that can be understood only when comparing traits of the outstanding person to her/his social environment.
... In this chapter, we will begin by providing a brief overview of our methodology. For a more comprehensive description, interested readers are referred to earlier publications Benz 2017aBenz , 2017b However, despite the remarkable emergence of novel media practices, perhaps the earliest instance of medial convergence ever observed (cf. Bracker 2018), systematic analyses of this phenomenon have long been absent. ...
... This development reaches a climax during the Middle and Late PPNB. Death and the dead remained an essential part of LPPNB life and transgenerational exchange, of cognition and values, and thus are central for understanding the LPPNB social constitutions (Benz 2010(Benz , 2012(Benz , 2017Gebel 2010Gebel , 2017. 7 5. ...
... Few things are as visually compelling and impactful as the act of marking, dressing, and adorning oneself when it comes to asserting ideas, identities, or positions [5,8,9]. However, expressing individual identity contradicts the definition of the individual as an "active subject establishing dialectical relations with its social and natural environment" [10] (p. 137), and as a social self with shared experiences, memories, and stories [11]. ...
In 2018, a well-constructed cist-type grave was discovered at Ba`ja, a Neolithic village (7,400–6,800 BCE) in Southern Jordan. Underneath multiple grave layers, an 8-year-old child was buried in a fetal position. Over 2,500 beads were found on the chest and neck, along with a double perforated stone pendant and a delicately engraved mother-of-pearl ring discovered among the concentration of beads. The first was found behind the neck, and the second on the chest. The meticulous documentation of the bead distribution indicated that the assemblage was a composite ornament that had gradually collapsed, partly due to the burying position. Our aim was to challenge time degradation and to reimagine the initial composition in order to best explore the significance of this symbolic category of material culture, not as mere group of beads, but as an ornamental creation with further aesthetic, artisanal and socioeconomic implications. The reconstruction results exceeded our expectations as it revealed an imposing multi-row necklace of complex structure and attractive design. Through multiple lines of evidence, we suggest that the necklace was created at Ba`ja, although significant parts of beads were made from exotic shells and stones, including fossil amber, an unprecedented material never attested before for this period. The retrieval of such an ornament from life and its attribution to a young dead child highlights the significant social status of this individual. Beyond the symbolic functions related to identity, the necklace is believed to have played a key role in performing the inhumation rituals, understood as a public event gathering families, relatives, and people from other villages. In this sense, the necklace is not seen as belonging completely to the realm of death but rather to the world of the living, materializing a collective memory and shared moments of emotions and social cohesion.
... This development reaches a climax during the Middle and Late PPNB. Death and the dead remained an essential part of LPPNB life and transgenerational exchange, of cognition and values, and thus are central for understanding the LPPNB social constitutions (Benz 2010(Benz , 2012(Benz , 2017Gebel 2010Gebel , 2017. 7 5. ...
This contribution advocates for a holistic understanding of prehistoric sepulchral evidence and proposes an epistemically
grounded transdisciplinarity for the thanatological approaches proposed here. These approaches have been inferred
from the diversified evidence of the intra- and extramural burials and burial contexts of Basta and Ba`ja (Late and Final
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of southern Jordan, second half of the 8th millennium BC), representing the LPPNB Transjordanian
Megasite Phenomenon. Based on this empirical evidence and the emic perspectives of the Household and Death in
Ba`ja project, five sets of theses are presented for the socio-neurobiological, ethological, and ontological factors ruling
the complex system of the LPPNB deathlore, including its rituality and symbolism. Following this, the theoretical and
metatheoretical elements and frameworks of a future LPPNB thanatology are explained through examples from the
two sites.
Interdisciplinary teams investigating the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Fertile Crescent in the 1950s through 1970s considered the region a primary center of initial domestication and agricultural emergence. Political events then shifted the focus of archaeological investigation on agricultural origins to the Western Fertile Crescent. Decades of subsequent research appeared to indicate that the west was the earliest and most important center of agricultural origins in Southwest Asia, with the Eastern Fertile Crescent portrayed as a backwater that lagged behind transformative innovations from the west. The resumption of investigations in the east in the early 2000s, coupled with new scientific methods for documenting agricultural emergence, has reestablished the region as a heartland of domestication of both crop and livestock species. Part One of this two-part paper traced the history of this work from the 1950s through the early 2000s. Part Two presents a synthesis of recent work in the east, evaluating the continued relevance of early work in light of modern explanatory models for agricultural origins.
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Among the artefacts of fundamental importance in the context of symbolism and iconography during the Neo-lithization process in northern Mesopotamia, there is much research about, and publication relating to, human figurines or statues, animal figurines or statues, figured stone objects, stone vessels, bone plaques, wall decoration (paint, relief, or incision) and stone pillars. While among these various research topics bone plaques have been noticeably less studied than other classes of small finds, they are gradually gaining importance. From the figurative and typological perspective, these objects carry importance for their visual characteristics and their regional variety, but it is notable that their typological differences and functions are still not well understood. This study opens a new debate about the techno-typological characteristics, regional distribution, and modes of use of these objects starting from a group of bone plaques recovered from burial contexts during the excavations of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic settlement of Boncuklu Tarla in southeast Turkey. Portable symbolic artefacts are found to show significant overlaps between materials, iconography and use as well as regional identities and temporal continuities in techniques and decoration.
The monumental stone structures of the Arabian Peninsula have been notoriously difficult to date. Due to their visibility in the landscape, they have suffered from extensive robbing and later reuse, which has compromised dating methodologies. In particular, our understanding of when the elaborate “pendants” (also known as “tailed cairns” or “tailed tower tombs”) of north-west Arabia were first constructed has remained incomplete. Recent work undertaken by the Aerial Archaeology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – Khaybar project provides some of the first radiometric dates for the pendants of Saudi Arabia. These structures can now be dated as far back as the third millennium BCE, revealing for the first time a hitherto undocumented, large-scale, monumental funerary landscape dating to the Early Bronze Age. These radiocarbon dates bring the advent of the pendant building tradition in line with funerary developments across the wider Arabian Peninsula, and may mark a profound reconfiguring of the wider Harrat Khaybar landscape during the third millennium BCE.
Vast in scale and densely inhabited, Late Neolithic Near Eastern megasites have been variously considered in relation to urbanity. Often viewed as failed experiments on the path to proper urbanism or proto-urban sites, these settlements reveal few signs of hierarchical social stratification despite their large size; as such, they represent a challenge for the understanding of early processes of community formation and social integration. Drawing upon a wide range of data and using socio-material network analysis as a methodological tool, this paper explores the way the late Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük was organized internally and specifically the way individual houses were embedded in the wider social fabric of the site. This study sheds light on the nature of the networks of social engagement and affiliation that emerge in the Holocene within large early agricultural communities and the way such networks were manifested.
CRUCITTI Pierangelo & CICUZZA Daniele. 2001. Scorpions of Anatolia: ecological patterns. In: Scorpions 2001. In Memoriam Gary A. Polis (V. Fet & P. A. Selden eds.): 225-234.
In recent years, the extent to which contemporary societies are secular has come under scrutiny. At the same time, many countries have increasingly large non-affiliate, ‘subjectively secular’ populations, and actively non-religious cultural movements such as the New Atheism and the Sunday Assembly have come to prominence. Making sense of secularity and irreligion, and the relationship between them, has therefore emerged as a crucial task for those seeking to understand contemporary societies and the nature of ‘modern’ life. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in southeast England, this book develops a new vocabulary, theory, and methodology for thinking about the secular. It distinguishes between separate and incommensurable aspects of so-called secularity as insubstantial and substantial. Recognizing the cultural forms that present themselves as non-religious—as distinct from secularity as the irrelevance or religious and religious-like cultural forms—opens up new, more egalitarian, and more theoretically coherent ways of thinking about people who are ‘not religious’ alongside those who are traditionally religious or alternatively spiritual. Identifying the non-religious in this way not only gives rise to new research questions and theoretical possibilities about how non-religious people sense and perform their difference from religious others, but allows us to reimagine the secular itself, in new and productive ways.
