00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome back to the rock art podcast episode 23 and we're talking about religion and the origins of religion and rock art and you're mentioning at the end of the last segment some of the artifacts associated with some art some rock art found you know, discussing shamanism and and religion and things like that. And how that's all often hunting related. You mentioned you know, no ah, no like so-called female artifacts relating to you know the processing of um of you know things that have been hunted and gathered basically but here's a question I Wonder if this interpretation is being upended a little bit. 00:21.74 Alan That's correct. Yes, yeah. 00:31.25 Alan Exactly exactly. 00:39.69 archpodnet Based on you know, there's been a lot of research put come out in the last few years and we read articles like this on the archeology show all the time where assumptions about the roles of male and female is is kind of a little more blurry than we than we usually than we expected in the past you know female are doing. 00:57.80 Alan Yes, and so that's that's that's that's the right right? right? That's so so that's the next thing I'm going to talk about um believe it or not the whole hubbub sort of around this a little bit. 00:58.41 archpodnet Certain things that we didn't expect them to do males are doing things. We didn't expect them to do. 01:08.11 archpodnet Um. 01:15.28 Alan That sort of drug drug me kicking and screaming into this center or this controversy revolved around. Ah the second largest class of figures that appear in the coso range and that's these decorated animal human figures and exclusively. 01:26.27 archpodnet Yeah. 01:32.89 Alan The archaeologistologist said they were all men and that these were shamans dressed in their you know ah coats they're they're colorful coats with fringe. So I said that's interesting. Um that never sat right with me now. 01:34.22 archpodnet Oh yeah. 01:50.57 Alan Fast forward to my reading and my understanding of some of the material from Siberia and from the Altai and they have a similar set believe it or not all the way over there of female figures. That have this fringe on them and have avian human qualities. So it's got that similar sort of tail feather avian animal bird look and again those avian figures. 02:19.13 archpodnet Ah. 02:24.46 Alan That are being depicted as the oldest figures this pre-shammonic realm that ah that our our colleague esther is telling us are also associated with ah fertility symbols. Reproductive Elements birthing menstruation. Um some other kinds of manifestations that show they're about that this particular cosmological nexus. 03:02.69 Alan Is about life and the creation of life and the renewal of life if you get my drift. It's a much more feminine or a much more mattrescentric ah kind of a flavor than it is. 03:09.24 archpodnet Okay. 03:21.12 Alan This androcentric or male-centered hunting element now. That being said, what's fascinating about it is as we've delved deeper and deeper and deeper into the coso material.. That's exactly what we're Finding. There's a huge class of females that have anatomically distinct distinctions that show they are sexually females. They have hair worlds which is ah an indication of from from the hopi of coming of age for females. 03:52.80 archpodnet Oh. 04:00.72 Alan Ah, at their first mensus and shows that they are available for reproduction. Also it shows these females menstruating and so there's actual blood coming from the genitals of these females that are these figures. 04:13.14 archpodnet Ah. 04:20.21 Alan Now on top of that this class of figures is huge. It's it's not just a ah tiny little part of the of the inventory of Koso Rockard it's the second largest class of figures. There's probably seven hundred to a thousand of these individual figures. And they're some of the largest figures that exist in the whole coso assemblage but they're old when I say they're old I mean they probably date to either the little lake or the. Early to Middle Newberry period we're talking about. Let's say um I don't know 4 to 6 or seven thousand years ago and and I'm I'm rather confident of those ages because we have. 05:08.22 archpodnet Oh. 05:13.60 Alan A means of dating them multiple means of dating them using portable Xrf using the depiction of of what they're associated with a particular class of projectile points these elco humboldts and and gypsum points that we know. 05:16.45 archpodnet Yeah. 05:30.80 Alan Are of this middle archaic age. They also show that they're underlying or superimposed by later figures that we know date to the introduction of the bow and arrow and really the fluorescence of these. Of the frequent ah expression of bigh horn sheep populated or centralized dominant bighorn sheep classic coso figures that become a part of this inventory and dominate the. Iconographic portraits. How's it. So it's ah it's ah it's a major shift and yeah and Dave Dave Whitley is well has has remarked on this. He he has told us that there is such such a change. There's ah, a shift to the male centered. 06:12.96 archpodnet Um, yeah, that's interesting. It's like I said we've been Oh yeah. 06:26.72 Alan From the female centered. Go ahead. 06:27.44 archpodnet Yeah, it's interesting like you said we've just seen so much research coming out about you know this like I said this blurring of the lines and that that being said, though, you know you see. 06:38.20 Alan Yes, yes. 06:44.17 archpodnet Religions today a lot of religions today, especially middle eastern religions where women are are flat out excluded from some of the ceremonies right? I mean we were actually just watching a travel show that was that was based around you know several middle eastern country countries and that were visited and I mean there were just there were men you know in the streets. 06:52.97 Alan Um, yes. 07:03.81 archpodnet Celebrating this one day and the women were up in the balconies watching and you know doing their part from up there. But the men were down and doing that doing their thing down there. So definitely is a sexual division of responsibility so to speak or participation in in a lot of religions and I Just wonder you know how did that develop when did that develop and was that. The same in the ancient world as it is you know in the in the in the history. 07:24.50 Alan Well one of the one of the one of the ah best preserved from Archaic sort of cosmological sacred narrative religious expressions we have is with the hopi and the hopi are um. Matrilineal Clans So The females there ah play a predominant and central political and Kinship role in that culture. So if that was some sort of an an example of an ancient. 07:42.47 archpodnet Um, yeah. 07:53.73 archpodnet Deep. 08:00.55 Alan Archetype of the sociopolitical or kinship organization of Pre-shimanic cultures that would be interesting and and so certainly you know things don't say the same. The only thing constant life is change so but. 08:07.73 archpodnet Here. 08:19.84 Alan That being said it it would be interesting and certainly telling and would be ah ah, almost ah, not a revolutionary but ah I would say ah a particularly important observation to then assess. What this earliest sort of stratum of if it is pre-shammonic. Um what that would mean and and if it was mattrecentric in having a a set of female deities rather than male deities or male predominance that would be interesting. 08:52.98 archpodnet And. 08:58.30 Alan Same thing goes for even the high cultures of Mexico though they were populated by both men and women. But there was a ah whole phenomenon of female deities that were some of the most prominent elements of their culture think of koad likway that was that. 09:12.31 archpodnet Um. 09:16.82 Alan But 5 10 ton statue that was found there at an under when there was digging up the subway in in Mexico City that was a moon goddess who had breasts and also was covered by snakes and in I was birthing a snake at the same time and and there was. 09:25.26 archpodnet Yeah. 09:36.74 Alan Associated with that Moon Goddess was many other female. Ah you know, elements or female gods and goddesses that filled out the repertoire of the aztec or Nahwa Culture. So. Obviously females were critically important to them as well in their cosmological inventory. 09:57.34 archpodnet Um. 10:05.48 Alan And ah and it's so but yeah, and this is something that I've I've never really intended to go there. It isn't something I have no I have no dog in this fight I Really don't um I tend to go where the where the data goes and and where the. 10:05.53 archpodnet Um, okay, well that sounds like a yeah. 10:16.98 archpodnet Yeah. 10:23.97 Alan Information sort of leads and and talking to ah an ethnographer colleague. He keeps probing me and asking me about this because he sees these other elements in the ethnographic record for other. Ah. Indigenous California indian cultures where he sees this division going on and this and there may be evidence for this shift in their kinship and sociopolitical organization. Go ahead. 10:53.82 archpodnet Um, ah. 10:57.93 archpodnet Okay, well no, that sounds like a good place to take a break and then wrap this topic up on the other side back in a minute.