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gorseddphungus

185 posts

Social cohesion

Mar 26, 2006, 16:27

Of course. I also don't believe that stone circles were necessary for people to *know* about the time of year. It is far too easy to know the time of the year by crossing out days in a homemade calendar. Once you know exactly where you are, the rest is only a question of ticking off days. (In fact, the reason why people like Thom partly failed was that he viewed megalithic remains from a far too rationalist-bound point of view.

BUT lunar and solar observations were crucial for *validating* the whole process in the same way that rural festivals have done until recently. The solar observations are long gone, but the essential place of the Sun and the Moon in ancient religion, myth and tradition is still there. There was no need for the sun to appear from behind a certain rock or gap, or to shine into the ancestors' chambers at a certain time of the year in order to 'find out' what day it was or when it was right to sow the seeds. But no-one in their right mind would dare do it before the divinity acquiesced for fear of the consequences. Not so much lest the sun not come back from its lowest position in the horizon (though I am convinced many people DID actually believe that in the same way that people nowadays still believe in statues of virgins crying and the like) but for fear of being ostracised within the tight constraints of social tradition-bound cohesion. It is far too easy to dismiss this kind of ridiculous thinking from our XXIst century cynical point of view but not so hard in anthropology - only 50 years ago, christian priests were still struggling to eradicate what they called 'superstitious' traditional beliefs in many parts of Europe. I cannot dare imagine what it must have been like 5000 years ago. Today, we perform totally inane actions like sowing seeds with clinical precision and yet, in rural Europe, the first seeds you sowed in spring were done only in a certain way and following certain rituals. For instance, can't quite remember the details (and Frazer compiled plenty of this in his book) but I recently heard about some Bulgarian peasants still acting in this way (now relegated to festivals), you know the like - a girl representing the maiden, the seeds sowed ONLY on a certain day of the year, etc. Imagine this in a small village accompanied by the enormous paraphernalia of stones and wood to dramatize the festival. In the same way, stone circles may have been crucial IF they acted as catalytic suckers for gathering communities which gave social intensity to such a seemingly trivial occasion as the passing of the days.

Whether a priesthood was actually necessary, it depends. It seems to me that the whole thing with yearly festivals was easy to do by the community alone. Even in today's rural festivals the population does virtually everything as they have always done, with the 'detached' but obligatory participation of the christian priest. Although I would agree that certain things were always only in the hands of a priest-like minority, like megalithic art within chambers as opposed to megalithic art outside or the rites performed today at the back of the church and those in front of the masses.

In reply to:
Re: calendars (PeterH)

Replies:
Re: Social cohesion (nigelswift)

Topic Outline:

leap years – tuesday, Mar 24, 2006, 23:34


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