=
×

Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

Head To Head
Log In
Register
The Modern Antiquarian Forum »
Ritual
Log In to post a reply
234 messages
Topic View: Flat | Threaded
BuckyE
468 posts

Re: Ritual
Jan 15, 2006, 09:59
> >To me life in Western Europe is full of ritual activity and pretty devoid of spirituality. Can this be applied to the past? probably not, I think ethnological studies of none western (capitalist) societies are possibly our best chance at trying to understand Britain 5000 years ago.

>I totally agree with this. There's certainly caveats about it not being simple, but they're kind of obvious. To me the main point is that when we're looking at prehistory, there are huge, inevitable, unresolvable gaps in our image of life then. Some people cut loose and fill the gaps with wishful thinking, some hold tight and refuse to commit to anything that can't be scientifically verified. (Of course most people sit somewhere between these poles on the continuum somewhere...)

A pretty good example of an attempt to scientifically apply ethnology to archaeology is David Lewis-Williams' "The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art."
In reply to:
Re: Ritual (gyrus)		 Replies:
Re: Ritual (gyrus)
Topic Outline:
The Modern Antiquarian Forum Index