Religion from the time of the Ice Ages
work-in-progress
and soon to be updated and revised

Writers more interested in cultural development find that about 9000BC, "Patriarchy begins to displace matriarchy" .Some think that Plato placed Atlantis about now. Evidence arises also of the ancient settlers of Egypt coming from its west. Something else began to happen... perhaps something new?

Weiss et al for the time around 9000BC write: "Climate during the past 11,000 years was long believed to have been uneventful, but paleoclimatic records increasingly demonstrate climatic instability. Multidecadal-to multicentury-length droughts started abruptly, were unprecedented in the experience of the existing societies, and were highly disruptive to their agricultural foundations because social and technological innovations were not available to counter the rapidity, amplitude, and duration of changing climatic conditions.
See Harvey Weiss and Raymond S. Bradley, 'What Drives Societal Collapse?', Science, Jan. 26, 2001.

Weiss et al continue... for about 8000BC: "Our civilizations began to emerge right after the continental ice sheets melted about 10,000 years ago. Civilizations accumulate knowledge, so we now know a lot about what has been going on, what has made us what we are. We puzzle over oddities, such as the climate of Europe."
William H. Calvin, The Great Climate Flip-Flop, The Atlantic Monthly, January 1998, Volume 281, No. 1, pp. 47-64.

By about 8000BC was a warming period. We find (again, from wide reading) evidence of the human habitation of Northern Eurasia, of Britain becoming habitable, the appearance of "writing", the mining of obsidian.

About 7500BC-6000BC is noted something which probably deserves greater attention - as the present writer feels - than it has been given so far - the first noted settlement(s) of several large river mouths, at locations closer to the equator than not. Not only have people begun agriculture, they have ventured to utilise the resources provided by big-river deltas. Apart from fish as food supply, these resources include large expanses of water, and I suggest - the use of boats, even if only hollowed-out logs - dug-out canoes - as a means of water transport. And if so, the beginnings of a primitive maritime history. The beginnings of agriculture are one thing - the beginnings of maritime history are another... the beginnings of "international trade", perhaps best thought of for this timezone as: trade crossing cross-cultural borders?
The first date I find arising for the first-known use of a dug-out canoe is about Holland, about 6200BC. About 2500BC is one of the earliest available dates for a major maritime expedition: One of the first-known explorations by sea as a deliberate attempt to find new lands was when Egypt sent ships down the Red Sea to the mysterious Land of Punt, which was presumably the coast of Somalia.

In respect of speculation about "maritime history", A. M. T. Moore finds that: circa 6000BC: "These estimates [of changes in sea levels] may not correspond exactly with the Mediterranean rise in sea-level but as a recent study has shown that there was little tectonic movement along the Levant coastline during this period (Sanlaville Quoted on Page 318 in *15 Below) they probably give a rough indication of the rate of change. They suggest that the coastal plain was sufficiently open to facilitate communications along the Levant coast until about 7000 or even as late as 5000 BC, that is during the later Neolithic. Thereafter, although the level of the sea rose further and there were additional minor fluctuations (See Page 290 ibid), this had no significant effect upon the pattern of settlement. Movement along the coast became more difficult, particularly at the foot of the Mountains of Lebanon between Beirut and Tripoli.
From website: The Neolithic of the Levant A.M.T. Moore - Oxford University (1978)

Boats were made of wood, and wood does not last as stone does. Archaeological considerations of stone monuments, I suggest, have rather biased the questioning we can successfully make of pre-history. And at this point, other matters arise for fresh consideration. More refined customs of burial of the dead. The use of horses. We find at this point that some difficult questions arising for accurate dating of cultural developments - and for the discussion of various "religious matters".

By about 7000BC, we can find evidence of the burial of high-status people with items for their afterlife becoming more common. Evidently, the first regular milking of animals is about now, in the Sahara area. When we also find that...

The Sahara apparently underwent two distinct, major periods of desertification ... 6700BC - 5500BC and then 3800BC-3400BC,

Interestingly, by 6500BC, a "small fortress" had been built at Troy. Also, and indicating a braver or more confident maritime history, some Greek islands were settled by now. People were using moon calendars. For this period are claims about "population explosions". Then, apparently, by 6400BC came a "global cold snap". (This is the earliest date I have found for "a fortress", indicating that settled people feel they need protection from human enemies. A "fortress" will not only give shelter from armed assailants, it can also store food.)

Weiss et al find that by 6400BC: "The population and socio-economic complexity of these early agricultural settlements increased until about 6400BC, when a second postglacial climatic shock altered [their] developmental trajectory. Paleoclimatic evidence documents abrupt climatic change at this time... the last major climatic event related to the melting continental ice sheets that flooded the North Atlantic... In the Middle East, a 200-year drought forced the abandonment of agricultural settlements in the Levant and northern Mesopotamia. The subsequent return to moister conditions in Mesopotamia promoted settlement of the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial plain and delta, where breachable river levees and seasonal basins may have encouraged early southern Mesopotamian irrigation agriculture."
See Harvey Weiss and Raymond S. Bradley, 'What Drives Societal Collapse?', Science, Jan. 26, 2001.

For about 6000BC, we find information on... three sudden ice melts, volcanic activity, use of metallurgy and megalithic structures. As new technology, lead smelting has appeared in Anatolia. Were the first metal bits for horses' mouths made of lead?

About 5800BC is a date given for surprising geological disturbances. The seas about Norway and Britain rise. Seas rise globally. We find the formation of the English channel, and a loss of coastlines in that area. In 5700BC in Mesopotamia arise lists of the Antedeluvian Kings, which suggests lesser disturbance in the Tigris-Euphrates valleys for these millennia... However, for the period about 5500BC arise some writers' claims that the Black Sea broke and caused, perhaps, "the Flood of Noah". (A "new period" began about now in Japan.) Did the Black Sea "break" as a matter of ice-lakes also bursting, due to de-glaciations? It is hard to know.

Problems for the spread of human settlement patterns do seem indicated by the ancient history of present-day Hungary, or about the rivers Danube, Dnister and Dnipra, which empty into the Black Sea's north-western coasts. By about 5000BC, "Hungary is settled in the Danube River area". But, if agriculture began about 11,000BC, why does it take 6000 years for Hungary (presumably the plains of Hungary, near the Danube River) to be settled? The plains of Hungary are bounded to the north and the west by two mountain ranges - the Danube debouches into the Black Sea. When, we find, the Black Sea is scarcely mentioned at all by writers till about 5500BC, when it is said "to break" and to flood what can be called by now, Mesopotamia. (?) The areas east of the Dnister and Dnipra rivers is a traditional homeland - set mysteriously deep in time - for steppelanders with a nomadic lifestyle highly dependent on their animals' welfare. What does seem clear is that relatively well-organised nomadic lifestyles long pre-dated the rise of cities (as in Sumeria).

Problems arise of information handling. There seems to be no good explanation for why the area of Hungary area is not settled relatively early. Is it possible that this area was still partly-glaciated, still an "ice-age-zone". Contradictorily, we find, that by about 5000BC is an early date given by some new age writers for the appearance of the Sphinx in Egypt. Human world population about 5000BC is estimated at 5 million (has population dropped five million since the estimate of 10 million for about 11,000BC?). For this period, is evidence that the Sahara is still lush. Astronomical observations are made in Egypt. It is, evidently, an inter-glacial time.

This seems consistent with other wide reading, and some progress continues. By 4900BC we find the use of "early hieroglyphics" in Egypt, and the establishment of "a first capital" city of Egypt. Matters seem to be on the cusp of "Megalithic times".

It is possible to read that the erection of megalithic structures was spread by maritime contact. But can this explain the findings made in France, for about 4700BC, about a megalithic "astronomical observatory"?

By about 4500BC, evidence arises about cultivators of "the Danube River area, Hungary." (By 4300BC, report Australian researchers, Sydney, Australia, was "a tropical paradise".) Sea levels had changed. Also, there arises perhaps more evidence of other maritime activity, Neolithic farmers had moved into Britain - across the English Channel which geologically is of relatively recent origin, about 5800BC.)

Is it generally wetter by about 4200BC? By now, a dominant figure in Mesopotamian culture is Eridu - god of the waters. Arising in Mesopotamia (the Akkadians), between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, during the rule of Sargon of Akkad, arises the world's first united empire, which "linked the remote, rain-fed agricultural hinterlands of northern Mesopotamia with the complex city-states of the south." Sargon's empire extended from the Persian Gulf to the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers circa 4300BC-4200BC. "The Akkadians imperialised agricultural production and controlled long-distance trade."
See Geology, April 2000. Email to: editing@geosociety.org, or at Further scientific evidence is available at:
http://www.geosociety.org/ pubs/drpint/

But after about 100 years of prosperity, the Akkadian empire collapsed abruptly, near 4200BC. Resettlement was then conducted by "smaller, sedentary populations," to about 3900BC. (Evidence arises following archaeological investigations from an excavation site at Tell Leilan in northeast Syria. It is possible that (due to volcanic activity?) a major environmental change associated with the Akkadian collapse occurred about 4200BC? At Tell Leilan?

Tell Leilan was one of three major city-states in northeast Syria to be integrated into the Akkadian empire, as a provincial capital and primary provider of imperialised cereal production.
Weiss et al (1993) interpreted this soil sequence to reflect the sudden onset of more arid conditions, which may have contributed to the observed collapse. This soil micromorphological evidence, however, is inherently subjective and may reflect localized phenomena unrelated to larger scale regional aridification.

The Akkadian collapse has previously been attributed to human factors, including invaders and political disintegration (Yoffee and Cowgill, 1988).

Whether the Akkadians were an example of social collapse resulting from climatic degradation (Hodell et al, 1995; Sandweiss et al, 1999) or whether this collapse was related to external or internal social factors may be resolved by an independent record of Holocene paleoclimatic variations in Mesopotamia as preserved in a marine sediment core from the Gulf of Oman.

The Akkadian empire ruled Mesopotamia from the headwaters of the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers to the Persian Gulf during the late third millennium B.C. Archaeological evidence has shown that this highly developed civilization collapsed abruptly near 4170 ± 150 calendar yr B.P., perhaps related to a shift to more arid conditions.
Detailed paleoclimate records to test this assertion from Mesopotamia are rare, but changes in regional aridity are preserved in adjacent ocean basins. We document Holocene changes in regional aridity using mineralogic and geochemical analyses of a marine sediment core from the Gulf of Oman, which is directly downwind of Mesopotamian dust source areas and archaeological sites.
Results document a very abrupt increase in eolian dust and Mesopotamian aridity, accelerator mass spectrometer radiocarbon dated to 4025 ± 125 calendar year B.P., which persisted for ~300 yr. Radiogenic (Nd and Sr) isotope analyses confirm that the observed increase in mineral dust was derived from Mesopotamian source areas. Geochemical correlation of volcanic ash shards between the archaeological site and marine sediment record establishes a direct temporal link between Mesopotamian aridification and social collapse, implicating a sudden shift to more arid conditions as a key factor contributing to the collapse of the Akkadian empire.

(As noted above, by circa 11,500BC the region of the later Akkadian empire of Mesopotamia became abruptly more humid due to the well-documented intensification of the Indian monsoon. Humidity increased.)

Various results confirms previous studies documenting greatly increased Mesopotamian aridity and dust supply during the hyper arid last glacial maximum and Younger Dryas cold periods (Sirocko and Sarnthein, 1989; Sirocko et al, 1993).
fix See Geology, April 2000, 381, re mineralogic and geochemical data from Gulf of Oman core M5-422, documenting an abrupt onset of arid conditions in Mesopotamia which occurred near 4025 ± 150 B.P. This aridification event was evidently short-lived, lasting only a few centuries and may have been the result of largescale changes in ocean-atmosphere-vegetation boundary conditions (Claussen et al, 1999).

Other paleoclimate records from the Middle East have documented shifts to much more arid conditions commencing near 4000-4200BC. In Lake Van of eastern Turkey, situated at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, oxygen isotopic and other geochemical analyses of lake sediments were used to estimate that lake-level fell between 30 and 60 m beginning near 4190 B.P. (Lemcke and Sturm, 1997). Stable isotopic records of U/Th-dated cave deposits in Israel document a 20-30% decrease in precipitation between 4200 and 4000 B.P. (Bar-Matthews et al., 1997), and the Dead Sea level fell abruptly by ~100 m at this time (Frumkin, 1991).

Drier conditions are also recorded in the High Plateau of Yemen (Wilkinson, 1997), lake levels were anomalously low in subtropical North and East Africa (Gasse and Van Campo, 1994; Halfman and Johnson, 1988) as well as Morocco (Cheddadi et al., 1998).

Archaeological evidence and regional paleoclimate data collectively implicate abrupt climate change as having been a key factor that contributed to the demise of this sophisticated culture which had imperialised Mesopotamia.

Social signatures of the collapse varied geographically; settlements in the rainfed agricultural plains of northern Mesopotamia were dramatically reduced, while populations in the south swelled with the arrival of northern refugees. These dislocations were sufficient to destabilize the region and to fundamentally alter the social, political, and economic fabric of this once-unified culture.

Furthermore, these responses occurred despite the fact that the Akkadians had implemented sophisticated grain-storage and water-regulation technologies to buffer themselves against historical (inter-annual) variations in rainfall (Weiss et al, 1993)
See US journal, Geology, April 2000
H. Weiss, M. A. Courty, W. Wetterstrom, F. Senior, L. Guichard, R. Meadow, and A. Curnow, The Genesis and Collapse of Third Millennium North Mesopotamian Civilization, Science, v. 261, p. 995-1003., 1993.
N. Yoffee W. Cowgill, W., The Collapse of Ancient Mesopotamian States and Civilizations. Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 1988.
A. N. Al-Ghadban, "Holocene sediments in a shallow bay, southern coast of Kuwait, Arabian Gulf' Marine Geology, v. 92, 1990., pp. 237-254.
R. Cheddadi, H. F. Lamb, J. Guiot, J., and S. van der Kaars, Holocene climatic change in Morocco: A quantitative reconstruction from pollen data, Climate Dynamics, v. 14, 1998., pp. 883-890.
M. Claussen, C. Kubatzki, V. Brovkin, A. Ganopolski, P. Hoelzmann, and H. J. Pachur, 'Simulation of an abrupt change in Saharan vegetation in the mid-Holocene', Geophysical Research Letters, v. 26, 1999., pp. 2037-2030.
F. Gasse, E. Van Campo, E., 'Abrupt post-glacial climate events in west Asia and north Africa monsoon domains', Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 126, 1994., pp. 435-456.
J. D. Halfman, T. C. Johnson, T. C., 'High-resolution record of cyclic climatic change during the past 4 ka from Lake Turkana, Kenya', Geology, v. 16, 1988., pp. 496-500.
On the reconstruction of evidence on climate changes at Lake Van (Turkey), see preliminary results, in H. N. Dalfes, et al, (Eds.), Third millennium B.C. Climate Change and Old World collapse. Volume 49: Berlin, Springer, pp. 178-196
F. Sirocko, M. Sarnthein, H. Erlenkeuser, H., Lange, M. Arnold, M., and J. C. Duplessy, 'Centuryscale Events in Monsoonal Climate over the past 24,000 years, Nature, v. 364, 1993., pp. 322-324.

From 40000BC

By 4000BC, an indication of significant maritime activity, the Orkney Islands were inhabited. Boats were used regularly on the Mediterranean. West of Egypt lived a pastoral people, and irrigation was well-used in Mesopotamia. Circumcision was practised in Egypt and Greece. Also we find: the first appearance of Comet Hale-Bopp. There are also "baffling cultural expansion(s)". An early civilization has appeared on the Indus River of India, the pre-Harappans. And in Mesopotamia is the mysterious appearance of the Sumerians - mysterious because little is known, even today, of their origins. Their ethnic origin is unknown, little is known of their language, yet they used irrigation and built cities.

Between 4000BC-2000BC, the Sahara region became more desertified, and the people from its northern zones went east or south to Egypt, there to mingle with existing peoples. to build cities and found empires with high levels of civilization. (The first Negroes were probably fishermen of the Niger and Nile about 4000BC.)
Reader's Digest, The Last Two Million Years, p. 204.

According to a variety of religious traditions, about 3800BC was the tragic expulsion of "Adam and Eve" from the Garden of Eden - sent to practice agriculture, about the time that Uruk in Mesopotamia, with its temple, is said to be "first true city on earth". Soon would come the invention of the wheel in Sumeria.

By 3500BC came regular use of lapis lazuli - which is to say, a difference in trade. More desertification occurred of the Sahara. Sumeria by 3500BC had "a set of commercially-minded city-states" and the use of currency and a sexigesimal number system (365 days in a year) which implies consideration of the solar year. In both Sumeria and the Indus Valley was use of right-angled town planning. At about now, also comes perhaps the first news of a formal invasion, from Arabia, as some Semitic people invaded Mesopotamia. (By 3500BC also is flooding at Borneo, Indonesia; the first Neolithic farmers arrived to Denmark and some colonists moved to Britain.
Re 3500BC: Earth in Space, Vol. 9, No. 7, March 1997, pp.12-14 .© 1997 American Geophysical Union. Permission is hereby granted to journalists to use this material so long as credit is given, and to teachers to use this material in classrooms.

fix relevance here Following this period, temperate conditions persisted for about 3500 years--as shown by the expansion of the hornbeam deciduous tree (Carpinus betula) across Europe. Only after this period do pollen sequences suggest climate instability. The evidence suggests that the cold events recorded in various pollen sequences occurred much later than the disputed GRIP events, and they appear to have persisted for only hundreds of years rather than thousands. The timing (about 122 ka) and duration of the cold oscillation recorded after the hornbeam expansion observed in lake sediments from Northern Europe appears to correlate more convincingly with the intra-Eemian cold event seen in the marine record from the Ocean Drilling Program.

By 3500BC, the society of "urban Late Uruk" flourished in southern Mesopotamia, sustained by a system of high-yield cereal irrigation agriculture with efficient canal transport. Late Uruk "colony" settlements were founded across the dry-farming portions of the Near East, but these colonies and the expansion of Late Uruk society collapsed suddenly at about 3200BC-3000 B.C. Reportedly, archaeologists have puzzled over this collapse for the past 30 years. Now there are hints in the paleoclimatic record that it may also be related to a short (less than 200 year) but severe drought.
Harvey Weiss and Raymond S. Bradley, 'What Drives Societal Collapse?', Science, Jan. 26, 2001.

For the date 3500BC (approx), there is no cold event of similar magnitude in the Holocene record, but minor late Holocene 18O and 13C events are found in marine records, about 5500 calendar years ago during the early Subboreal chronozone. The Holocene and Intra-Eemian cold events are similar in that they both occur after the interglacial peak, and they signal the beginning of a trend towards colder conditions, which, thousands of years later, resulted in the beginning of a glacial period. However, no such clear oscillations have been reported in European Holocene pollen records.

By 3400BC, evidence arises of the further desertification of Sahara (possibly due to a shift in earth's orbit, or a tilt of axis (?)). A major flood swept at Ur, and Anatolia (a second note on an invasion) was invaded by a group of Indo-Europeans, the Luvians. Meanwhile the Phoenicians developed maritime trades.

Use of the horse was also further refined, and by 3250BC appeared the fearsome use of wheeled war chariots. Was there any connection here between the relatively recent appearance of instances of invasion, and the use of wheeled war chariots? Certainly, warlike charioteers could move with unprecedented speed on their victims engaged in settled agriculture.

By now, some writers feel that Sumerians were having a positive influence on Egyptians. A note for 3100BC indicates (with some influences/ideas from Sumer) the first unification of Upper and Lower Egypt at Thebes, due to Menes. (Some writers suspect Menes was a "pastoral king" from the south of Egypt.)

By 3000BC, the use of the wheel had appeared as far west as Holland and Denmark. The Egyptians began to write on a creator God, Ptah, while beliefs arose also in Osiris. There is further desertification of the Sahara. World population is now estimated at 100 million. In Ukraine is the "world's first map", drawn on a vessel made of silver. There is use of the traction plough in the Middle East. Sumer uses both lunar and solar calendars. But there are ominous signs also, preceded by the appearance of the war chariot. Sumer has inter-city warfare, and a more secular kingship emerges from priesthood. ( Is it possible that domestication of the horse is preceded by domestication of the reindeer? See items re horse-culture people.)

These ominous signs, of greater aggression used, or having to be used by city-dwellers, and a change in the philosophy of rulership, is accompanied by 2800BC by much use of stone for buildings and/or statuary. Is it possible that the reasons for such developments are linked, and accompanied by various changes in the religious thinking? For there are more refinements to come soon. By 2700BC, the first use is made of a stone-built tomb for a king. The origins appear also of a "science or art of medicine", seemingly independently, in China and Mesopotamia. To date, it has been rare for invaders to be identified, but we find that some horse-using Aryan nomads, from the steppes of the Caspian and Black seas, are on the move.

The steppe-lands to the north of the Caspian and Black seas are destined to become a highly sensitive set of regions by way of producing aggressive hordes of nomads who disturb, harrass, invade or otherwise both city-states, their wealth and resources, and their agricultural hinterlands. Something dismal can perhaps be said here for humanity as a species which can be woefully aggressive to its own members, but can anything be usefully asked about various peoples being provoked to aggression - and invasion, and resettlement - by climatic problems? The "Aryan nomads" noted above are the first-named of their steppe-lander kind, and as it happens, they appear after the first appearances of the war chariot. Research here is difficult, as horse-using steppe-landers leave few clues after them which can come long later to the attention of archaeologists.

Are the movements of these steppe-nomads significant by now? What of climate changes? About 2675 is one date given for the major flood of Mesopotamia which produced the Epic of Gilgamesh, on which the legend of the Flood of Noah in the Old Testament is sometimes said to be based. This timezone also produces notes on sea trade between Egypt and Lebanon, probably the most expensive form of sea trade (or sea contact) so far noticed. It may also be that a change in religious sensibility has occurred - provoked by any such climate changes which also set the Aryan steppe-landers moving? - for by 2600BC arises a so-far-novel note on the burial of a royal personage together with their entourage - which form of burial is a variety of human sacrifice. And so far, there has been no mention of human sacrifice at all. This article will shortly argue that human sacrifice represented a modification of religious thinking - though very little systematically-gathered information exists on human sacrifice as practiced anywhere in the world. Is this burial-of-royalty with-entourage an indication of a shift in outlook?

Ritual cannibalism and human sacrifice (the latter seen in a communal religious context), need to be seen as distinct. Records on either topic are very patchy, and available information seems to demonstrate little of any long-term usage or continuity (except with the horrific case of the Aztecs of Mexico). My impression is that in ancient times, either of cannibalism or human sacrifice were resorted to mostly at time of extreme social stress.

The earliest date surfacing is 800,000BC, in the case of "early Neandertals". A site reveals about 80 human bones and bone fragments from two adult females and four children, maybe eaten by other humans, as some bones had marks from sharp stone tools. Around the remains were bones from horses, deer, bison, rhino and possibly elephants. This is possibly the earliest known example of human cannibalism, found in Northern Spain in a cave at Atapuerca. It is possible the specimens were Homo antecessor, (Ancestor Man, who developed into Neanderthal). It is thought that possibly, "Ancestor Man" came from Africa one million years ago, to Europe, and that their fellows who stayed in Africa developed into Homo sapiens?
Reported in Sydney newspapers, 31 May, 1997. See a then-recent issue of journal, Science.

The next date seems to be 120,000-80,000BC: Bone fragments from this period of Neandertals from the Moula-Guercy cave site in France were reported in 1999 to show evidence of cannibalism.

About 73,000BC, as the great Wurm Ice Sheet disappeared, which period coincides with the demise of the Acheulian crafts, which were replaced by culture known as the Mousterian as used by Neanderthal, we find that almost 40 per cent of Neandertals died before puberty. Neandertals practiced murder and cannibalism.
Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 148.

By 2600BC, in a long leap of time, in Sumeria, appears the royal cemetery of Ur, where kings were buried with their retinue of relatives and servants, who apparently were mass-poisoned when their master died.
Date from: Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline. Balwyn, Melbourne, The Five Mile Press Pty. Ltd., 1992.

The next date appearing is 2500BC, respecting the Death pits of Ur, relating to a royal cemetery of Ur, dated circa 2500BC, and unknown till the 1920s, when discovered by Sir Leonard Wooley. The situation concerned human sacrifice conducted when Queen Shubad died. Skeletons were found of 68 women of the court, with gold or silver head-dresses. There had been a mass sacrifice of royal attendants. Also with Queen Shubad were soldiers armed with spears, and two ox-wagons with slain animals. There were no signs of violence, all involved had died voluntarily, maybe with the use of poison or narcotics.
See Reader's Digest, History of Man: The Last Two Million Years. Sydney, The Reader's Digest Association, 1973-1974., p. 53.

The custom of entombing a royal entourage was a special case of human sacrifice, and as compared with other instances of human sacrifice - usually the killing of well-born youngsters - it seems to have stemmed from an excessive respect for royalty.

The next date found is circa 1628BC, as indicated by an episode of a TV documentary series titled Ancient Apocalypse. (As screened on SBS TV (Australia) on 3 March 2002.) The date seems to be about the time of the volcanic explosion of Thera in the Mediterranean, which via tsunami (with waves up to 12 metres high?) had a destructive effect on Minoan Crete. The case of human sacrifice arising at this time seems to have been prompted by extreme stress experienced when nature went haywire.

The explosion of Thera meant the fall of the Minoan Empire. The Minoans are said to have had the first paved roads and first running water .A finding is one of "sheer savagery". .. Such as skeletons, the skulls of five children murdered near a royal palace, where a burned destruction-layer was also found. Also found were ritual vases decorated with sea-creature imagery, so there was evidently a unity of religious and maritime imagery. This marine style began after the tsunamis, representing a new awareness of power of the sea, and efforts being made to try to ward off other threats from the sea. The Minoans reinterpreted their natural world, while they had priest-kings who were deemed to be able to control nature itself.

Slice marks on these children's bones indicate meat was sliced off, and in some urns, bones were found, similarly, with the remains also of a large edible snail. The conjecture is that the snails and child-flesh were cooked at same time. A case of ritual cannibalism?

The Minoans on Crete were hit by three waves from the violence of nature - including tsunami. The explosion of Thera was perhaps the second-largest eruption on earth in the past 10,000 years, pitching volcanic ash into the sky, plus sulphurous gas and sulphur dioxides, which can help alter climate. Researchers found that about the time of the explosion of Thera, there is seen a cooling of 1-2 degrees Celsius in Europe and Asia. Summer became cool-wet, there were years of ruined harvests. Some cross-geographic proof arises from the bogs of Ireland with tree slices, showing tree-ring evidence for the past 7000 years. Researcher Mike Bailey had measured tree rings and noticed Irish oak trees growing well to 1628BC-1627BC - but there was no summer growth for 1627-1617BC - a tree's worst growth times. Was this extra wetness-coldness due to the eruption of Thera?

Other evidence arose from the ice sheets of Greenland, of sulphuric acid, and snow some 700 metres deep. Researchers find a layer of sulphuric acid with shards of volcanic ash - from Thera, it is believed.
There were environmental consequences of the eruption of Thera, and harvests failed.
The Minoans did have priest-kings who were deemed to be able to control nature itself - a view which changed after the eruption. A religious statue is found, distant from the priest-king's palace, at a shrine, indicating that Minoan society fell apart, with less belief in the priest-king. Minoan society became a vacuum into which mainland Greeks arrived. The explosion of Thera had a prolonged, three-pronged effect. Nature had betrayed the Minoans, so they turned away from their kings, took religion into their own hands, and, it seems, engaged in ritual cannibalism - to win back the favour of the gods?

Human sacrifice on Crete does seem to have continued, although the evidence is less scientific, more literary, if not "mythological", as we find from a dictionary. of Mythology, concerning the later period when the Greeks dominated Crete, closer to 1400BC. Greeks sent youngsters to Crete "to be sacrificed to the Minotaur", perhaps for purposes of ritual cannibalism? The youngsters anyway were to "feed the Minotaur". It was this cult, in the time of King Minos, that Theseus confronted when he faced the Minotaur in the Labyrinth of Crete. It is also said that the cult of Dionysius as practises by Greeks had some ritual sacrifice and ritual cannibalism.

The next available date also involves Greeks, about 1250BC (?), the time of the siege of Troy. Before the Greeks sailed for Troy, young Iphigenia was sacrificed by her father Agamemnon at Aulis as a prelude to the expedition against Troy. Wood also reports that there was human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism in the Bronze Age, as with at Knossos, where the remains have been found of two children aged eight and eleven, the age of Iphigenia, who seem to have been ritually killed and partially-eaten prior to some catastrophe. This Knossos find could be related to tales of cannibalism of children of Agamemnon's uncle, Thyestes, as well as tale regarding Iphigenia?
Michael Wood, In Search of the Trojan War. London, BBC, 1985.

By 2500BC is found at Ur in Mesopotamia, the first use of the soldier's helmet and the world's first-known uniformed army - just as the world's first-known major dam appears in Egypt. Were there any new appearances of climate problems circa 2500BC which accompanied an upscaling of the arts of water-retention - and better-organised aggression?

A website notes that re climate problems, the weather records from about 2500BC indicate that there occurred a lowering of temperature... that temperatures were lower than the Holocene thermal maximum. A general cooling, known as the Iron Age neoglaciation, occurred between 2,500 and 4,500 years ago. Perhaps, if a lowered temperature gave the Aryan steppe-landers problems of fodder provision for their animals, this set them aggressively on the move? As we know, Aryans would later invade India and cause modifications to Indian lifestyle which last to the present day - including ultra-respect for cattle.

By 2450BC, Egyptians engaged in further promotion of their sun-god, Ra, but do not seem to have been asserting themselves over other peoples. By about 2400BC, the Semitic king Sargon I of Akkad conquered the Sumerians and established an empire extending from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. This was indeed an upscaling of assertiveness, aggressive organization, ambition, and a desire for control. Was it prompted by climate problems?

There also seems to be a corollary here in religious thinking in Mesopotamia, since the world's "first-known poet" (circa 2300BC?) was a priestess in Sumeria - who composed the Hymn to Inanna, Inanna being Ishtar, a nature goddess. This hymn-writing priestess is taken to have been Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon I. The chief priests of Sumeria composed a hymn "praising God", The Exaltation of Inanna, "mankind's first-known poem". And in this case, the "first god" and the first-known priest-poet are both taken to be female. The god of prehistory was a woman, The Great Mother.

Rosalind Miles, The Women's History of the World. London, Michael Joseph, 1988.