Idols at Perdiogoes (Valera and Evangelista x2)

After a long wait, Valera and Evangelista's paper is openly available (linked at bottom).  I'll move back and forth between the paper and other things...

So quick background.  In the Atlantic Neolithic and beyond, you see certain iconography emphasizing power eyebrows and 'seeing' eyes in various expressions.  In some rock art you may have big eyes and eyebrows on a stick figure.  Some megalithic tombs have looking eyes and eyebrows scrawled on the rock.  These 'seeing' characters seem to be very widely distributed in the ancient world, from the Northern Pontic, the Middle East to Southern Europe.

A Weridly Western idol out of Figure 2

There is deep Western Eurasian superstition of the 'evil eye' in the circum-Mediterranean zone which remains strong today.  When the historical period begins in the Middle East, anthropomorphic talismans or amulets with inlaid blue eyes or owl imagery are being used to protect the living and the dead from very bad things.  I would be comfortable with the assumption that the Southern Iberian idol tradition is one distinct variation of this wider and enduring superstition found throughout the Mediterranean and South Asia.

In Southern Iberia certain types of anthropomorphic ivories become increasingly naturalistic and male in the middle of the third millennium (this paper).  Many have lines across the face interpreted by Valera and Evangelista to be facial tattoos, although in some rock art depictions they look like cat whiskers or stylized facial hair IMO.  [See also]

I think a very satisfying case can be made that these lines represent the markings of an owl's face, The eyes of the owl do look 'soul penetrating' and the plumage around and below the eyes do look like many of these representations.  Like cornos, owl figures were commonly used in Roman Italy to combat the evil eye, and oddly enough, in non-Iberian Romance languages the 'streiga' (strix) is the word for the shape-shifting witch.* 

A Common Scops Owl (the 'Boar Owl' in the Basque language) (Brian Scott)

The most populous owls of the ancient Mediterranean world might have been the Common Scops Owl (I believe literally called a boar owl in Basque maybe for its 'tusks'), which has a high flute hoot, and the Screech Owl that sounds like an old woman (or witch) screaming in the night. [example]  (I got to experience this in the form of a heart attack while sleeping in the woods one night)

Back to the paper:

Not to be confused by the title of this blog, these idols are largely a continuation of a long Neolithic religious tradition that is slowly maturing.  The very natural figures are included with the cremated collective remains of some people of Perdigoes and then at some point, and to a degree that I don't really understand, individual burials and beaker artifacts are sometimes present, mostly in the damaged upper layers or in certain quarters of the site.

Now having read the paper, one of the more interesting points is the apparent uniformity in the observant, male figures, and it seems the arms are closely held about the waist and carefully holding something that is not well defined, perhaps a club as tentatively described in the paper.  I've tried to guess at other possibilities to what the figure is holding, and my best guess is either a torch or an ornamented 'hueso largo', as illustrated in Maju's site linked above.

Cutout of Figure 5

What I find especially interesting is that this period of artistic achievement and naturalism is followed by what Valera previously described as the almost 'iconoclastic' tendency of those that followed.  Few material things made by Beakers could be described as naturalistic art.  Those exceedingly few images that could pass (Swiss menhirs, a Millares sun bowl, or the Folkton Drums, for example), are more likely localized deviations due to cross-culture influence.  Really, I cannot think of any denominator of even a single thing in the Beaker sphere that isn't rigidly schematic, geometric or skewmorphic in its expression.  That alone, seems to be its denominator.

A previous post on work of Valera describes the cultural change that begins in this Late Neolithic period in this area and quickly accelerating into the Bronze Age [here].
 

You can see in Figure 4 below that these figures aren't just some random guy carved in ivory.  There is a specific pose where the individual is engaged in a specific action that people who lived at this time would recognize.  The hair is strange, it's a very long stylized hair that runs down the back.

Anthropomorphic Figurines at Perdigões Enclosure: Naturalism, Body Proportion and Canonical Posture as Forms of Ideological Language

ANTÓNIO CARLOS VALERA AND LUCY SHAW EVANGELISTA (2014)
NIA- Archaeological Research Unit – Era Arqueologia, Portugal

This paper focusses on a set of anthropomorphic figurines. It suggests that realistic human proportion
and canonical body posture were pursued in the carving of these objects as a means of expressing ideology, in a context of diversified forms of manipulation of bodies in funerary practices. It is argued that, against a background of predominantly schematic art, the more realistic and canonical anthropomorphic representation of the human body was used to communicate a set of ideological statements in a more controlled and immediate way, in a period of ontological and cosmological transition.

European Journal of Archaeology 17 (2) 2014, 286–300 [Link] 

* Also horse-shoes in later times, and boar's tusks in earlier times.  By the way, if you dig a little deeper into Iberian plaque idols, phalanx idols, and the various types, clearly some are owls and this is probably true for the oculado images as well.

The reason a screech owl would be associated with a shape-shifter should seem pretty obvious.  It doesn't sound a little like a woman screaming, it sounds A LOT like a woman screaming.  A Neolithic  person may have heard an old woman scream, then see the screech owl fly overhead.  A WITCH!

Interviews of Barry Cunnliffe on "Steppe, Desert, Ocean"

Most of you are already familiar with 2015's "Steppe, Desert, Ocean". Here's some interviews Barry Cunnliffe gave several months ago on big concepts from his book:

Lara Cassidy and Dan Bradley on the Rathlin Burials

For St. Patrick's day, several news outlets republished highlights of the Cassidy et al, 2015 findings which I wrote about three months ago [here].  Via New York Daily News, Irish Central, Razib Khan

Irelander with Tripartite Food Vessel (via New York Daily News)

Three Irish men were buried under a Pub [cymbal shot]  But seriously, three Irish men were buried under a pub.  Here's an interesting video interview starting with Lara Cassidy and leading to Dan Bradley.  It's embedded from the NY Post story:

Everything from Britain and Ireland first passes through the lens of Celtic identity, or at least the 19th Century's formulation.  The Rathlin burials demonstrate that the modern Irish genome was effectively established by the Early Bronze Age (something I had predicted for much of Europe) and gives a little fodder for Koch and Cunnliffe's theory of "Celtic from the West".  The latters propose a MBA Atlantic network leading to the formation of Celtic, but I don't believe they define from 'what', eg. more basal IE dialects or something else.

Another paper should be out this year that will challenge Koch and Cunnliffe on the details, but argue something similar; essentially that historic Celtic lacks a center of gravity specific to the Urnfield to La Tene circulation and was rather widely dispersed among Continental and Atlantic Bronze Age trading villages, or something to that effect.

With regard to the Beaker phenomenon and language (assuming its common language never changed), I'd be careful to avoid making that shoe fit.  There probably was a semi-intelligible, pan-European linguistic affinity among far flung Beaker settlements but it may be more something like 1) not European at all, or 2) something ancestral to the entire Centum branch.


Ref:

Cassidy et al (2015) "Neolithic and Bronze Age Migration to Ireland and Establishment of the Insular Atlantic Genome"

Beaker folk (Video with Andrew Sherratt)

Andrew Sherratt was a leading British archaeologists that contributed a number of prominent theories, notably the concept of a 'secondary products revolution'.

This is a good video with re-enactment.  Don't get to wrapped up in periodization or terms.  It's an older video that predates newer discoveries and archeo-metrics, particularly the DNA of the last two years, but the larger concepts are still on track.

Short Cist at Kilkeddan Farm, Argyll (McLaren et al, 2016)

This is a short cist burial in Western Scotland dating to around 2,100 B.C., maybe slightly older.  It probably contained a young man buried with a brown-reddish tripartite food vessel and a knife.
It's a very short paper. [here]

 

The food vessel has accidental barley corn impressions from the time it was made.  As you can see in the picture below the bowl was tilted and the liquid content settled and evaporated in the corner of the bowl.

 

 

This grave was probably re-opened in prehistory.  The fragmentary bones were also piled in a corner and the archaeologists have good reason to believe that the remains were moved to make room for another burial that didn't happen.  The edges of the stones were sealed with orange-colored clay so that the cist might have formed a sort of container.

 

 

 

As a side note.  Another paper will be coming out soon apparently showing evidence of excarnation on some EBA remains in Britain...

"Important evidence of both excarnation and possible re-burial of previously buried human remains was recognised by the partially articulated state of a number of the burials (Lelong in press)."

 

This excarnation fetish by the archaeological world is a little weird IMHO.  There's zero evidence for excarnation in the EBA that stands to scrutiny and it just doesn't seem to fit circumstances, mindset or intent of EBA burials.  But anyhow I look forward to seeing...

I suppose I what's so interesting about this burial is how directly tied to Ireland it is.  Comment by Allison Sheridan in the paper..

A Short Cist Burial at Kilkeddan Farm, Campbeltown, Argyll & Bute

Dawn McLaren and Donald Wilson (2016) [Link]

Summary

AOC Archaeology Group undertook the excavation of a previously unknown

Bronze Age cist, located in a field close to Kilkeddan Farm, Argyll & Bute,

during September 2005 under the Historic Scotland call-off contract for human

remains. The cist was found to contain poorly surviving unburnt human skeletal

remains along with a finely decorated tripartite Food Vessel and a flint knife. The

incomplete and fragmentary condition of the skeleton suggests that the human

remains were disarticulated at the time of deposition. Radiocarbon dates obtained

from the human bone and associated charcoal confirms an early Bronze Age date

for the burial.

Food Vessel categories and description "Prehistoric Pottery" by Alex Gibson [here]