Buried with an aurochs and, among other animals, canid and marten bones - the fascinating case of a 12,000 y/o early #Neolithic burial reported from #ÇemkaHöyük in Türkiye's 🇹🇷 Upper Tigris Basin - interpreted as possible #shaman burial:
https://www.newsweek.com/prehistoric-skeleton-female-shaman-lived-12000-years-ago-archaeology-1931648 via Newsweek
Original study:
E. Kodaş et al., A "shaman" burial from the PPNA settlement of Çemka Höyük, Upper Tigris Basin, Turkiye, L'Anthropologie in press (corrected proof 9 July 2024). 🔐
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003552124000645
Which adds nicely to the few other rather similar #ShamanBurials known, like e.g. the #Natufian one from #HilazonTachtit in a small cave in northern Israel, about the same age:
Or one from #Skateholm in southern Sweden, about 7,000 years ago:
And of course the one which made headlines again recently, the 9,000 y/o burial of a #shamaness from #BadDürrenberg, Germany:
… bit surprised about (yet) lacking hints at larger birds involved - cranes would be fitting that image:
Fun fact footnote:
The #BadDürrenberg "shaman" was buried with a very special #crane bones as well - a hollow one serving as container for #microliths (tiny precise stone blades), put in & taken out through a small opening.
Last but not least: Regarding "#Shamanism at Early Neolithic #GöbekliTepe" (and even a bit beyond) I'd highly recommend @oliverdietrich's recent paper (Praehist. Zeitschr. 99(1), 2024 🔐) for a much closer look and more detailed discussion:
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/pz-2023-2033/html
The term shamanism is widely used in archaeology to describe early belief systems. Sometimes, this has taken the form of a one-size-fits-all-explanation, without a discussion of the concept or the cultural contexts it was applied to. Recently, the Early Neolithic (9600–7000 BCE) of southwestern Asia has become a focal point of this discussion. Sites like Nevalı Çori, Göbekli Tepe, Jerf el Ahmar, Körtik Tepe, Tell Abr’3, Tell Qaramel, Wadi Faynan 16, Karahantepe and Sayburç have produced rich evidence, mostly of an iconographical nature, that seems to offer direct insights into early belief systems. The current contribution uses one of the best researched sites, Göbekli Tepe, as a case study to develop criteria for the identification of shamanism in the archaeological record.
Jens Notroff
