The Serpent Mound

We really don’t know for sure what most ancient, pre-literate cultures used many of their monumental constructions for. We’re reasonably sure about things like the pyramids of Egypt and the temples of Greece, but these examples of architecture were constructed during periods in which there was writing, so their builders discussed the significance of monumental architecture in their life times.

But what of Stonehenge? Nabta Playa? The Nazca Lines in Peru? We can make some guesses -some very educated guesses- but we still cannot be as certain of the use and purpose of these sites as we can of those mentioned in the previous paragraph.

The same holds true for the Serpent Mound in Locus Grove, Ohio, which was constructed by local Native Americans at around 1000 CE. Nor do we truly know the purposes of other earthworks in the Ohio Valley -were they fortifications; were they mortuary; were they cult centers; or some combination of these? While not as old as many of the mounds built by the Hopewell and Adena cultures (1000 BCE to about 700 CE), the Serpent mound is, perhaps, one of the most famous and popular of the earthworks in the Ohio Valley -maybe even the United States.

Interpretations of the Serpent Mound

Modern inhabitants of the region first surveyed the Serpent Mound in 1846 and was initially recognized as a serpent that appeared to be swallowing or ejecting an egg from its mouth.

Several decades later, Francis Parry offered a new interpretation which was analogous to symbols found in Southwest Native American cultures. He suggested that the oval was a “Sun” sign and the coil at the tail the “wind” sign. The wavy body in the middle was interpreted by Parry to be the “aboriginal cloud form.”

And, just so we can all rest assured that the cloud of ignorance perpetrated by modern fundamentalist Christians is nothing new, let me mention another interpretation of the Serpent Mound. Reverend Landon West of Pleasant Hill, OH suggested that the mound represented man’s fall from grace in which “Satan beguiled and tempted Eve” to taste of the forbidden fruit. Clearly, Landon thought, this was created by the hand of God directly or, at least, through one of his nutters.

More recently, rational analysis has yielded to a more rational interpretation. By comparing the mound with the anatomy and striking habits of real snakes, researchers now see the oval portion at the head of the snake as its mouth and the triangular-shaped portion behind the head as the neck, which is
“puffed out” by inflation in certain species when agitated. Native American cultures were careful observers of nature, to the point that I would characterize them as “scientists” of a sort -they observed the habits and behaviors of animals and the universe, making predictions and assumptions that held true when hunting, or just determining the seasons. It’s very likely that the snake was a totem figure and venerated by the culture that built the mound in the same way it was venerated and respected by cultures around the world. If one is to create a mound to honor a snake, then the logical course of action is to show it in the position of action: striking!

Incidentally, the Serpent Mound is situated on a ridge that is on the edge of a massive crater, probably created about 300 million years ago when a small asteroid impacted the region. Its very doubtful that the Native Americans that constructed the mound had any clue of this, but it is interesting that the head and the tail both are situated near cliff-faces of the ridge (there’s an overlook at each end). Though completely unaware of the asteroid impact, the mound’s builders may have, indeed, been aware of other details of astronomical significance, namely the summer and winter solstices. This is consistent with the level of knowledge and technology of other mound-building societies of the world, suggesting a need to have an accurate method of tracking and celebrating the seasons for agricultural purposes.

Because of this, I rather liked the interpretations that include an egg being consumed or ejected by the snake, since most societies rightly view the egg as a symbol of fertility and fertility is necessary for agricultural societies.

I was at the Serpent Mound just a two weeks ago and I have to say that the nearest town, Locust Grove, is aptly named. There were thousands of cicadas, close cousin to the locust, in the trees buzzing in unison and, occasionally, dropping down on the heads of unassuming passersby. Here’s one such cicada. Colorful little buggers.

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Big Flower that Looks at Sun God

It’s been held that the sunflower was originally domesticated in eastern North America then introduced to Mexico -the sunflower is a major seed crop in the world when it comes to obtaining oils. But recent evidence suggests very strongly that it may have been the other way around.

Shells of sunflower seeds (called achenes) were found in a dry cave in Mexico (Cueva del Gallo) which dated to about 300 BCE. Cueva del Gallo was used in antiquity as a ritual center -caves were thought to be the passages the sun used to travel the underworld from the west only to rise again from the east, so this may hold some significance that sunflower seeds were found. As David Lentz, of the University of Cincinnati, writes in his paper at PNAS, Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) as a pre-Columbian domesticate in Mexico, “the modern O tomi word for sunflower, dä nukhä, trans lates to “big flower that looks at the sun god.”’

The cave presented a dessicated environment that preserved the shells in “pristine condition,” but the Cueva del Gallo shells weren’t the oldest found. That prize goes to a water-logged site at San Andrés where accelorator mass spectrometry dates sunflower remains to older than 2600 BCE! This puts the sunflower in Mexico as a probable domesticated crop far earlier than was previously believed. It was thought that the Spaniards brought the crop and that it was originally cultivated in North America. Now, the questions arise: did cultivation of the sunflower begin in one place then get introduced to another through trade. Corn made its debute in North America via trade from Mesoamerica northward -perhaps the same happened with the sunflower.

If your university library has access to all of PNAS or if you’re willing to pay the fee (or already subscribe) you can get the full paper by Lentz, et al, at this link. If not, here’s the abstract, also available at the same link:

Mexico has long been recognized as one of the world’s cradles of domestication with evidence for squash (Cucurbita pepo) cultivation appearing as early as 8,000 cal B.C. followed by many other plants, such as maize (Zea mays), peppers (Capsicum annuum), common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), and cotton (Gossypium hirsutum). We present archaeological, linguistic, ethnographic, and ethnohistoric data demonstrating that sunflower (Helianthus annuus) had entered the repertoire of Mexican domesticates by ca. 2600 cal B.C., that its cultivation was widespread in Mexico and extended as far south as El Salvador by the first millennium B.C., that it was well known to the Aztecs, and that it is still in use by traditional Mesoamerican cultures today. The sunflower’s association with indigenous solar religion and warfare in Mexico may have led to its suppression after the Spanish Conquest. The discovery of ancient sunflower in Mexico refines our knowledge of domesticated Mesoamerican plants and adds complexity to our understanding of cultural evolution.

Personally, I find research into early domestication of crops and animals to be fascinating. I’m convinced that much of early domestication is related to religious and cult activity, some of it perhaps even because of it. Sun gods, fertility godesses, and the deities that people in antiquity assigned to the natural world created an intricate system of beliefs and rituals as they sought to appease imagined gods in order to bring about favorable conditions for subsistance. Indeed, and according to Lentz, et al, demise of the sunflower until its reintroduction at a later date by the Spanish was probably due to the power it held as a symbol for ritual use in pagan religion. Spanish preists were notorious for obliterating native culture and religion as they sought to convert indigenous Mesoamericans to Catholism.

Religion and the Imagination – Cue a John Lennon Song

According to an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, the very process that John Lennon suggested we use to put religion and other human institutions out our minds might very well be the reason we have religion to begin with.

Imagination, says Maurice Bloch [New Scientist], is what sets humans apart from other animal species. Unlike even our closest relatives, chimpanzees, humans have the unique ability to imagine things that do not exist.

It seems like common sense when you think about it: art, theater, cinema, music, and language it self are each derived from the human imagination. The suggestion that religion is a product of human imagination isn’t necessarily a new one. Modern popularizers of the atheist movement have suggested as links to religion and imagination, though perhaps not as explicit as Bloch.

Daniel Dennett, in Breaking The Spell, tells us that language makes it possible for us to, “remind ourselves of things not currently present to our senses, to dwell on topics that would otherwise be elusive” as we consider our ancestors or other absent and dead people. This is what Bloch refers to as the “transcendental social,” comprised of a group with members one may have never met (clan members, ancestors, gods, deities, etc.).

Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, writes, “[c]onstructing models is something the human brain is very good at. When we are asleep it is called dreaming; when we are awake we call it imagination […]”

V.S. Rmachandran, a prominent neuroscientist, describes many ways in which the human brain uses imagination to cope with damage to cognitive abilities of the brain after traumas or injuries. He includes an entire chapter on a syndrome known as anasognosia in which patients who suffer from strokes or  brain injuries that result in paralysis of a limb construct elaborate and imaginative denials of their paralysis to the point that they actually believe an otherwise paralyzed arm is perfectly normal and sometimes even stronger than the non-paralyzed arm!

Perhaps the same neurological and cognitive functions that inspired the pages of Rama’s Phantoms in the Brain are related to the neural architecture Bloch believes was developed in humans some 40-50,000 years ago. This is the period of the Upper Palaeological Revolution in which lithic technologies and art “suddenly exploded in sophistication” and where funerary artifacts, rock and cave paintings begin, and stone tools take on new styles that allow for more advanced and diverse uses.

In my studies of the Neanderthal to human switch in Europe, where the dominant species of residence changed from Neanderthals to humans, I’ve often considered that it may have been the willingness of humans to believe and imagine which gave them a competitive edge over Neanderthals. If Neanderthals had a diminished capacity to utilize their imaginations, they would have been less likely to develop or adapt to changing climates or environments. They would have been less likely to migrate and spread out except to put space between rival clans or groups. Humans, on the other hand, are naturally curious and imagine every sort of possibility, giving rise to in-groups and out-groups and a natural drive to explore and migrate, perhaps seeking “the good life” in the next valley, and quickly adapting to conditions ranging from desert to arctic using their imaginaitions.

Given that humanity has had thousands of gods and religions in recorded history alone, it isn’t hard at all to imagine that they are each the result of, well, imagination.

Books mentioned:

Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. London: Bantam.

Dennett, D. C. (2006). Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. London: Viking.

Ramachandran, V., and Sandra Blakeslee, (1998). Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind. New York: Morrow

Man’s Best Friend

One of my most popular blog entries is actually an article I wrote on Anthropology.net called Man’s Best Friends: Part I – The Dog. I had always intended to do at least three parts to that post and things just got hectic and I was distracted from Part II, which would have been about The Horse.

I’ve recently started researching that next article (not sure if I’ll post it here or with Kambiz yet… hmm…), but I thought I share a post that has a painting that was inspired in part by my post. I don’t think I’ve ever written anything that has inspired someone’s art -to be fair, my part of the inspiration was probably minimal, but it’s still cool -and motivating- to think that I’ve  written something that may have inspired someone else’s artistic expression. Thanks for that, Max!

Go and visit Open Anthropology (just added to my blogroll) and the post Canis Homo and see the painting. I was tempted to at least thumbnail it here, but let the curiosity take you someplace new!