Philosophical paradigms of fertility cult interpretations: philosophical perspectives on seasonal goddesses.
This paper was presented at the First International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean, at the University of Malta, 2 to 5 September, 1985. Published in Archaeology and Fertility Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean, pp. 31 - 41 (ed.) Anthony Bonnano, B.R. Gruner, Amsterdam, 1986
This socio-biological explanation for data in Mediterranean archaeology is possibly the first attempt to apply explanations from sociobiology (or population biology) to archaeology. It dates back to the conference at which it was first presented in 1985; and as referenced above was published in 1986.
In his book Archaeological Theory: an introduction(1999) prof. Matthew Johnson's says that there are few sociobiological explanations in archaeology. The earliest ones which he knows of are the ones which occur in Falk's 1997 book.
(A fragment of the paper appears in Google Booksat: http://books.google.co.za/books?id=uuKfXsvfr2YC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=%22z...
The Google Books version only has pp.31-34; pp. 35-41 are missing.)
Summary
Is there a general explanation of the existence and function of fertility cult behaviour and artefacts? Is there an explanation of the symbols, semantics and metaphysics associated with fertility cults? This paper suggests affirmative answers. The DATA to be explained consists of the goddess figurines and other artefacts; together with associated retrodicted fertility cult behaviours and associated semantics.
Man as a gene replicator is subject to the genetic imperative. His primary concern at all times must be replication. He can replicate both his genes and ideas or cultural messages. In gene replication he has a 50% (copying fidelity) investment in the resultant chromosome. But cultural messages and ideas are subject to copying errors. Fertility cult objects and behaviours can now be explained as follows. Man the replicator encourages (and the ruling elites exploit) fertility cults which exist to optimise or maximize population relative to survival conditions. The objective is to stress seasonal behaviour required for birth causation. Animals are subject to copying errors in the transmission of cultural messages. Any message can be miscopied. The divergent semantics and symbolism can be explained as copying errors. Friedrich using the concept of "liminality" cites lists of opposing semantic markers, such as; asceticism/strong sexuality; verbal purity/obscenity; foolishness/wisdom; nakedness/special costumes; as features of seasonal goddesses. These and other basic semantic features can be referred to local variation and explained as copying errors.
The design variation in figuries from Baluchistan, The Indus valley, Northern Iraq to the Aegean and Malta can be explained as copying errors. The variation is irrelevant since the function of the figurine is to call attention to and accentuate the demands of the genetic imperative in creating an evolutionarily stable strategy. Alternative hypotheses of fertility cult behaviour and semantics are found wanting. The religious explanation refers to primitive religion and man's need for the numinous dimension. This misses the point. A secular explanation claims that myth-making animals are preferred in the survival process. Man the ideology-creating creature uses unifying aspects of fertility rituals for social and political ends. This partly succeeds but misunderstands the workings of the gene replicational mechanism as explained in this paper.
abstract
:
Why did fertility cults exist? What function did they have, if any? What are we to make of fertility cult figurines and artifacts? Can the differences in figurine design be explained? Is there a single unifying explanation of the fertility cult data? In this paper I propose answers to all of these questions and give a general explanation of the existence and function of fertility cults.
THE DATA
The data to be explained consists of the goddess figurines and other artifacts; together with associated retrodicted fertility cult behaviours, and associated semantics.
One may remain skeptical of the “mother-goddess” hypotheses such as is explicated in the works of Marija Gimbutas (1974) and in E. O. James’s The cult of the Mother Goddess (1959) but take James’s careful record of the vast geographical dispersion of fertility cult figurines and artifacts as a good guide to part of what I am calling the data. The diffusion of the fertility cult artifacts took place on a vast geographical and historical scale. The data encompasses the sculptured venuses from the Gravettian culture of the Upper Palaeolithic era to the emblems and inscriptions of Western Asia, the Indus Valley, the Aegean and Crete between the 5th and 3rd mellinnia B.C James thinks that with the rise of agriculture and domestication of animals the figure of the goddess was refined and sharpened: from unmarried mother – personifying divine principle in maternity- to association with the young god as son or consort. There was a dual aspect of seasonal drama in which both male and female played roles.
Palaeolithic cultures
The figurines are make of bone and ivory, - pendulous breasts, broad hips, round buttocks, and corpulency implying pregnancy. Examples have been found at Kostienki, Gagarino, amd at Malta, near Lake Baikal in Siberia. By contrast there is the Willendorf venus near Vienna, which is slim abd grotesque. At Cogul, twelve miles from Lerida in Catalonia, the record consusts of nine narrow-waisted women with long pendulous breasts, clad in caps and bell-shaped skirts which reach to the knees, with no facial features, who are shown in association with a small naked make figure. The male figure may have been added later.
Neolithic cultures
According to James, in the transition from food-gathering to food production, the female principle continued to dominate rituals which had grown up around the (mysterious) process of birth and generation. Worth noting are the arpachiyah figurines in Northen Iraq, within 16 kilometres of Trigris and the ancient city of Nineveh, at the Chalcolithic mount Tell Arpachiyah. These headless venus-type clay statuettes date from before 4000 B.C. They have pendulous breasts, prominent navels, slender waists and highly developed buttocks. Most are in an squatting posture suggestive of childbirth; some have the appearance of pregnancy. According of James these were precursors of later Eastern Medittarranean figures, associated with the double axe and the dove, bull’s head and serpent, as in Crete and the Aegean. James claims there is a link between Palaeolothic and later Chalcolithic and Bronze Age evidence of the cult in Crete and the Aegean. Dr. Mallowan says that: “fertility worship connected with a “mother-goddess” cult must indeed be one of the oldest and longest surviving religions of the ancient world” (Mallowan 1935:87). And James thinks that: “Once the maternal principle had been personified it was either as a single goddess, the Great Mother, with different functions and symbols, or as a number of independent and separate deities exercising several roles in the process of birth/generation/fertility” (James 1959:24).
It is worth calling attention to the Iron Age Israelite occupation level at Tell Beit Mirsim in South Palestine, near the Canaanite city, Kirjathsepher. James speaks of an exaggerated protrusion of the vulva region in an attempt to suggest the descent of the head of an infant at the moment of birth.
There is no trace of relevant data from th north-east of early Iran and Turkestan. The fertility cult appears to have flourished in the south and south-west. Figures from the Elamite period (2800 BC) show one splayed hand on the stomach and one on the breasts, an example of which may be found in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Prior to the third millennium BC, in the mountain villages of Baluchistan, farming communities similar to clearly Iranian settlements were established. Numerous clay figurines have been found in the Zhob Valley and identical terracotta figurines have also been discovered at Dabar Kot, Periano Ghundai, Sur Jangal and Mogul Ghundai.
In the Indus Valley figurines dating from 2500 to 1500 BC at Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, and Chanhu-daro have been found. One female figure has a projection from the top of the head; this could represent horns or doves which are important emblem in the goddess cult.
So much for the figurines and artifacts, and some of the historical retrodicted hypotheses to make sense of this part of the data. I shall refer to the “semantic” part of the data in section © below after I have introduced some of my explanatory structures.
THEORY
a) Explanation of the Existence and Function of Fertility Cults
To explain the existence and function of fertility cults I shall posit a gene replicational hypotheses. The ineluctable genetic imperative requires that replication must be the primary concern of the gene replicators at all times. Call this the main sentence. This is the reason for being. Fertility cult behaviours played a part in the optimization of maximization of the population relative to a set of survival conditions. They were part of the gene’s strategy for survival, often under very unfavourable conditions. Two cases immediately present them,selves.
(i)
Replication is particularly to be stressed when survival is in question. An insufficient number of births at one time may result in an inadequate food store at another time. On the underpopulation view we must assume that the replicators think they require more hands as food gatherers, hunters, or defenders in pre-agricultural cultures, with the additional requirement of more farmers in agricultural communities. Since fertility rituals contributed (or were supposed to contribute), in the longer term, to more food gatherers, hunters, defenders or farmers, the ruling elites established and supported fertility cults. In hunter-gatherer communities a sufficient supply of food and optimum number of offspring would be necessary conditions for survival. Since only one child can be carried easily by each mother, it is necessary to practice self-regulatory contraception; and to secure a trade off between procreation and procuring food. The initial conditions, data and universal generalization are fairly explicit here.
(ii)
Even at times of massive overpopulation fertility cults could continue to flourish as in (i) for a variety of reasons. The gene replication hypothesis may be true in a society when that society is not conscious of its truth.
There is evidence to show that the Trojan wars were caused by overpopulation and that from the 8th century BC many city states were overpopulated. Do we therefore conclude that the functionalist explanation in (i) above must fail? Either (a) under-population was false for each tribe or whole city but true for each mating couple. For example, in India today the majority recognises over-population, yet each couple has just as many children as their parents had; - over-population can be true for all India but not for them; or (b) under-population is generally false. This latter conclusion could show the selfish gene theory to be true. Replication aided by fertility cults continues but no one knows why this should be so in a time of over-population. When communities become settled the advantages of cooperation in food production and defence show the need for enlarged social groupings. Under such conditions natural selection favours individual who reproduce at maximum, as opposed To optimum rates. The political leaders would see advantages in institutionalizing fertility practices.
In either the under-population or over-population case the main sentence could be true for the reasons given above. The ruling elites may also make explicit ideological use of a set of false beliefs to further social ends. This can be a rational activity. For example those religions which make abortion taboo and are closes linked to state power can maximize birthings for reasons of their own even in times of gross over-population. (I shall not go into the class of cases dealing with self-deception or false consciousness here for lack of time. They are obviously linked to actions based on false beliefs).
Maynard Smith first introduced the idea of an ‘evolutionarily stable strategy’ (ESS) which is put to such good use in Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene (1978:74). A “strategy” is a “preprogrammed behavioural policy” An example, given by Dawkins, is: “attack the opponent; if he flees pursue him; if he retaliates run away”. The strategy need to be conscious (p. 74). Am ESS is theoretically defined as a strategy which, if most members of a population adopt it, cannot be bettered by an alternative strategy.
The essential implication is that the best strategy for any individual will depend on what strategies are adopted by all the other individuals in the group. As the group consists of individuals each of whom is trying to maximize his own success, the only permanent strategy will be one which cannot be bested by any anarchic individual.
Using game theory one can compute whether a particular group of animals is in ESS or not. Imagine a population of hawks and doves. Hawks by definition fight hard and unrestrainedly, and retreat only when badly injured. Doves merely threaten. What happens when a hawk meets a dove? If a hawk fights a dove, the dove flees. If a hawk fights a hawk, one dies or is seriously injured. If a dove fights a dove they only posture and there is no damage. Suppose you cannot tell in advance which is a hawk or dove; and you allot 50 = 50 win; 0 = lose; -100=seriously injured; -10=waste of time over a long contest. Is the hawk or the dove in an ESS?
‘Suppose we have a population consisting entirely of doves. Whenever they fight nobody gets hurt. The contests consist of prolonged ritual tournaments, staring matches perhaps, which end only when one rival backs down. The winner then scores 50 points for gaining the resource in dispute, but he pays a penalty of –10 for wasting time over a long staring match, so scores 40 in all. The loser also is penalized –10 points for wasting time. On average, any individual dove can expect to win half his contests and lose half. Therefore his average pay-off per contest is the average of +40 and –10, which is +15. Therefore, every individual dove in a population of doves seems to be doing quite nicely.
But now suppose a mutuant hawk arises in the population. Since the only hawk around, every fight he has in against a dove. Hawks always beat doves, so he scores +50 every fight, and this is his average pay-off. He enjoys an enourmous advantage over the doves, whose net pay-off is only +15. Hawk genes will rapidly spread through the population as a result. But now each hawk can no longer count on every rival he meets being a dove. To take an extreme example, if the hawk gene spread so successfully that the entire population came to consist of hawks, all fights would now be hawk fights. Things are now very different. When hawk meets hawk, one of them is seriously injured. Scoring –100, while the winner scores +50. Each hawk in a population of hawks can expect to win half his fights and lose half his fights. His average expected pay-off per fight is therefore half-way between +50 and –100, which is –25. Now consider a single dove in a population of hawks. To be sure, he loses all his fights, but on the other hand he never gets hurt. His average pay-off is 0 in a population of hawks, whereas the average pay-ff for a hawk in a population of hawks is –25. Dove genes will therefore tend to spread through the population” (Dawkins 1978:76).
If one does the arithmetic the stable ratio is 5/12 doves to 7/12 hawks. At this ratio the average pay-off for hawks is equal to the average dove pay-off. So the answer to the question asked about the ESS is that in this hypothetical example at the hawk-dove ratio of 7:5 both doves and hawks are in an ESS.
Fertility cults contributed to the evolutionary stable strategy of tribes within palaeolithic and neolithic cultures. It is advantageous for human replicators to establish and encourage fertility cult behaviours, since these behaviours will directly affect the optimization and miximization of a population relative to a set of survival conditions. The ruling elites could control and exploit fertility cult practices for political and social advantage.
The basis explanation of fertility cults as expressed above is that they contributed to the ESS to those communities which practiced them. They were used as a seasonal reminder of the obligations the gene replicators had to their genes; and of the need to optimize birthings relative to survival conditions. In the periods considered in the data section there was no better survival strategy available. And as we have seen above the same strategy was applied at the level of the local group in times to both over and under population.
b) Explaining the differences of figurine design
Sculptured figurines of the fertility gods and goddesses seem to exhibit more differences in shape, size and design than similarities. I shall argue that the differences are not significant. Variation in design does not matter since the function of the figurine is to call attention to the requirements of the genetic imperative in creating a stable replicational strategy. Then why do different designs proliferate? I find the study, made by P.F Jenkins, of how mistakes are made in the learning of bird call by the young of the saddleback family of birds in islands of New Zealand, very instructive. We can generalize from these cases to copying errors whenever messages or idea are transmitted.
This is how Dawkins (1978: 203-204) describes the study.
“On the island where he worked there was a total repertoire of about nine distinct songs. Any given male sang only one or a few of these songs. The males could be classified into dialect groups. Foe example, one group of eight males with neighbouring territories sang a particular song called the CC song. Other dialect groups sang different songs. Sometimes the members of a dialect group shared more than one distinct song. By comparing the songs of fathers and sons, Jenkins showed that song patterns were not inherited genetically. Each young male was likely to adopt songs from his territiral neighbours by imitation, in an analogous way to human language. During most to the time Jenkins was there, there was a fixed number of songs on the island, a kind of ‘song pool’ from which each young male drew his own small repertoire. But occasionally Jenkins was previledged to witness the invention’ of a new song, which occurred by a mistake in the imitation of an old one. He writes: ‘New song forms have been shown to arise variously by change of pitch of a note, repetition of a note, the elision of notes and the combination of parts of other existing songs…The appearance of the new form was an abrupt event and the product was quite stable over a period of years. Further, in a number of cases the variant was transmitted accurately in its new form to young recruits so that a recognizably coherent group of like singers developed.’ Jenkins refers to the origins of new songs as “cultural mutations’.”
The different designs of fertility cult figurines can similarly be described as cultural mutations due to copying errors. There may be a local story to tell, relative to the time of the design, which would explain why the sculptor thought a particular feature should be emphasized but that story would not be significant in the context of the function of fertility cults as explained in (a) above.
c) Explaining the associated symbolism, semantics and metaphysics
The symbolism and semantics associated with fertility cult practices varies with changing geography or time. The literature and associated scolarship is relatively large. What is clear is that the literature tends to lack plausible explanations that are general and apply to many cases.
In his The Meaning of Aphrodite, Paul Friedrich (1978) argues that Aphrodite is quite properly a liminal figure. The application of the Friedrich/Turner concept of "liminality" to fertility cult gods/goddesses by Friedrich suggests that a set of opposite or contradictory properties inhere i the true description of Aphrodite. The very proprerties which distinguish "liminal" characters can apply to fertility goddesses. These are:
1. Transition "crossover" between social or metaphysical grids or frames; 2. Operatingsuccessfully between such cultural (universal?) oppositions such as nature vs culture; 3. Asceticism or strong sexulity; 4. Verbal purity or excessive profanity and obscenity; 5. Silence or verbal efflorescence and brilliance; 6. Foolishness and silliness or great wisdom, seer-craft, prescience; 7. Social homogeneity or absence of relative status; 8. Nakedness or special costumes (Friedrich 1978: 133)
It was N.K. Humphrey who suggested that we view ideas as living structures. He proposed calling ideas "memes", and said:
"Memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically. When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitixe my brain turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagationin just the way a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell - the meme "belief in life after death" is realized in the structure in the nervous system" (Dawkins 1978:206 ff)
For an idea or meme to survive it must have psychological or social appeal, and must be copied accurately. In the transmission of the semantic properties associated with seasonal gods/goddesses production of good copy is not important, - if the central idea, that of being a fertility cult figure identified with a social ritual - is copied. For it is this idea (meme) which results in behaviour, which ensures an evolutionary stable strategy.
Friedrich lists many properties of seasonal goddesses. They have or are clearly associated with all or some of the following:
1. Location - islands and mountain peaks; 2.Fruits and flowers; 3. Birds - heron / cuckoo/quail; 4. Goldenness; 5. Sun/moon/stars; 6. Water - aquatic birth; 7. Origin from Zeus -(descendant of the Proto-Indo-European sky god); 8. Kinship - parallel to nuclear and extended families of Homeric times; 9. Friendliness and intimacy - close to kinship; 10. Virginity - (Athena-sexless, sororal friend of heroes); 11. Attendant nymphs and maidens; 12. Beauty - (Aphrodite); 13. Intelligence; 14. Nature versus culture; 15. Abstract features, e.g. mobility; 16. Fertility; 17; War; 18. Subjectivity (Friedrich 1978:72ff.)
It is important that each fertility cult goddess has enough semantic properties to identify her as a seasonal fertility goddess. But if my basic reductive explanation in (a) above is correct; and if my explanation of the function of fertility cult behaviours is correct; then the significance of any one semantic property can be discounted. It would be enough if some properties identified the goddess as a fertility goddess. The same can be said of "liminality". "Liminality" sets the tone or colour of the goddess by alluding to the collection of symbolic opposites she embodies, and emphasising her marginality and highlighting the tension between destructiveness and the mother principle.
According to the liminality thesis fertility cult goddesses are synthesising symbols of powerful opposites. And liminality can be claimed to be true of a rage of seasonal goddesses. But the thesis itself is not an explanation of the existence and structure of the semantics and symbolism associated with fertility cult figurines. "Liminality" merely serves to give colour and tone to any explanation of the real function of the semantics and symbolism. Basic semantic features can be referred to local variation and can be explained as cultural mutations. These cultural mutations do not matter if we keep in mind our basic reductive gene-replicational explanation. For the reductive thesis has to be related to the data in a particular community or tribe by way of s functionalist explanation. At best liminality can give tone to the description of the goddesses, who are themselves embedded in fertility cult behaviours, and contribute to an ESS for that community or tribe.
d) Alternative views
Attempts at explaining fertility cult behaviour as primarily religios in nature must fail if the basic explanation is that given in (a) above. It might be possible to show that the idea of the mother goddess was central to that development, as is argued in James (1935) and Gimbutas (1974). But this would not detract from the basic, reductive, gene-replicational thesis outlined above. If this religious thesis were true, it would like the liminality thesis, add tone and colour to the explication of the function of the seasonal goddesses.
It could be argued that myth-makimg animals arecpreferrred in the survival process. Natural selection could favour individuals with a propensity for myth making. Myths, held to be true by a community, help to stem neurosis and to universalize the norms or whatever is held to be exemplary. Myths are models which serve to render the unknown comprehensible and to create order out of seeming chaos. It is the perception of the idea that the earth produces all vegetation and animals that gives rise to the 'emergence-from-bowels-of-the-earth' myth, which sees earth as ultimately in control of vital, magical processes. While it is true that man, the ideology-creating creature, uses the unifying aspects of fertility rituals for social and political ends, this by itself cannot explain the existence and function of fertility cult behaviour at a sufficiently basic level. The explanation which holds that fertility cults contributed to evolutionarily stable strategies of communities; and were a seasonal reminder of the obligations the gene replicators had to their genes to optimize birthings relative to survival conditions, is sufficiently basic to count as a general, universalizable explanation.
+ + +
I wish to thank Miss Jennifer Warren of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Philosophy for discussing the topic of this paper with me.
Summary
Is there a general explanation of the existence and function of fertility cult behaviour and artefacts? Is there an explanation of the symbols, semantics and metaphysics associated with fertility cults? This paper suggests affirmative answers. The DATA to be explained consists of the goddess figurines and other artefacts; together with associated retrodicted fertility cult behaviours and associated semantics.
Man as a gene replicator is subject to the genetic imperative. His primary concern at all times must be replication. He can replicate both his genes and ideas or cultural messages. In gene replication he has a 50% (copying fidelity) investment in the resultant chromosome. But cultural messages and ideas are subject to copying errors. Fertility cult objects and behaviours can now be explained as follows. Man the replicator encourages (and the ruling elites exploit) fertility cults which exist to optimise or maximize population relative to survival conditions. The objective is to stress seasonal behaviour required for birth causation. Animals are subject to copying errors in the transmission of cultural messages. Any message can be miscopied. The divergent semantics and symbolism can be explained as copying errors. Friedrich using the concept of "liminality" cites lists of opposing semantic markers, such as; asceticism/strong sexuality; verbal purity/obscenity; foolishness/wisdom; nakedness/special costumes; as features of seasonal goddesses. These and other basic semantic features can be referred to local variation and explained as copying errors.
The design variation in figuries from Baluchistan, The Indus valley, Northern Iraq to the Aegean and Malta can be explained as copying errors. The variation is irrelevant since the function of the figurine is to call attention to and accentuate the demands of the genetic imperative in creating an evolutionarily stable strategy. Alternative hypotheses of fertility cult behaviour and semantics are found wanting. The religious explanation refers to primitive religion and man's need for the numinous dimension. This misses the point. A secular explanation claims that myth-making animals are preferred in the survival process. Man the ideology-creating creature uses unifying aspects of fertility rituals for social and political ends. This partly succeeds but misunderstands the workings of the gene replicational mechanism as explained in this paper.
Bibliography
:
CHADWICK, J.
1976 - The Mycenaean World (Cambridge Univ. Press, New York)
DAWKINS, R.
1978 - The Selfish Gene (Granada, London)
ELIADE, M.
1960 - Myths, Dreams and Mysteries: The Encounter between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities (Harper and Row, New York)
FRIEDRICH, P.
1978 - The Meaning of Aphrodite (Univ. of Chicago, Chicago)
GIMBUTAS, M.
1974 - The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe 7,000-3,500 B.C. (Univ. of California Press, Los Angeles)
JAMES, E.O.
1959 - The Cult of the Mother-Goddess (Thames and Hudson, London)
KIRK, G.
1976 - The Nature of Great Myths (Praeger, New York)
MALLOWAN, E.L.
1935 - Iraq Vol. II (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford)
TURNER, V.
1967a -'Myths and Symbols' in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, pp.576-582 (MacMillan and the Free Press, New York)
1967b - The Forest of Symbols, (Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca)
1969 - The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Aldine, Chicago)
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This sociobiology / population biology explanation for data in Mediterranean archaeology goes back to The First International Conference on Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean, 2 to 5 September, 1985 at the University of Malta. It was published as a paper in Anthony Bonnano's anthology in 1986. It is possibly the first attempt to apply explanations from sociobiology or population biology to archaeology.
In his book Archaeological Theory: an introduction(1999) prof. Matthew Johnson's says that there are few sociobiological explanations in archaeology and mentions Falk's 1997 book which contains some.