Witchcraft: Prehistory to 400CE
THE BIRTH OF RITUAL prehistoric magick
Prehistoric magick and early religion
Early people learned to control the environment
by inventing tools and using fire. These skills gave them limited power but at the same time made them aware of just how vast the forces were that were out of humankindâs control. To understand such mysteries as the sunâs rising and setting, birth and death, and the daily struggle to hunt for food for survival, our earliest ancestors conceived of spirit forces that they could invoke to gain an advantage.
A belief in supernatural forces and a human desire to use them to gain some sway over the physical world has been a feature of societies ever since. As early as 95,000 years ago Neanderthals (a hominin species related to modern humans) carefully buried a small child in a cave in Iraq with a reverence that suggests belief in an afterlife. The leaving of pebbles that look anthropomorphic (with human characteristics) in caves, and the building, around 2500BCE , of stone circlesâsuch
as Stonehenge and Carnacâthat were aligned to the sunâs rising or setting at certain times of year, point to an increasingly sophisticated
and religious world view. With religion came magick.
âŹď¸ Carnac stones
Stretching out for more than
a mile in Brittany, northwest
France, are more than 3,000
stones, erected around 6,000
years ago, which are thought
to have had some religious
significance. Many of them
are aligned in such straight
rows that medieval local
people believed they were
a Roman army magically
turned to stone.
âŹď¸ The Jericho Skull
This skull from around 7500 BCE was
found in Jericho in the Jordan valley. It
was partially covered in plaster and the
eye sockets filled with shells to recreate
the deceasedâs features, possibly as part
of an ancestor cult.
Hunting was essential for the survival of early human communities. Societies that have relied on tracking and killing animals into modern times, such as the Inuit of Arctic Canada, view hunting as a sacred act as it takes the life of another being that they believe possesses a soul. Stone Age peoples may have thought similarly. From around 17,000 years ago they adorned barely accessible caves, such as Lascaux in France, with paintings of people hunting wild animals including stags, horses, bison, cattle, and bears. These paintings may have been connected with rituals to make hunting expeditions more successful or have been intended to appease the animalsâ spirits.
âŹď¸ Lascaux Cave Lascaux is a network of caves near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne in southwestern France. Over 600 parietal wall paintings cover the interior walls and ceilings of the cave.
Fertility, too, preoccupied early peoples, as without new life their tribe would die. Many figurines of women with exaggerated hips and breasts have been found in caves. The physical characteristics of these figures are thought to suggest that people were calling on a mother goddess to bless them with children. Some of the statuettes were portable (perhaps to be held in the hand), such as the âVenusâ figurinesâancient European sculptures believed to date from the Paleolithic era. One feature common to the Venus figures is the lack of facial detail, perhaps to give them universal appeal rather than resemblance to a specific individual.
âŹď¸ Venus Figurines, Europe
Perhaps more potent than hunting, fertility, or the earthâs mysteries was the fear of death. Formal burials have been found, dating from as early as 60,000 BCE, containing bones scattered with red ocher (suggestive of blood). Some burials also included flowers or necklaces to accompany the deceased into the next life. At Kebara Cave in Israel, Neanderthals buried several skeletons and skull bones, probably as a post-mortem rite. Early peoples, too, seem to have had a fear of dead spirits. At Goughâs Cave in Somerset, incisions on bones that are around 15,000 years old indicate that they engaged in ritual cannibalism. The aim of this may have been to acquire the powers of the dead or to prevent their spirits from inflicting damage on the living.
âŹď¸ Neanderthal skeleton, Kebara Cave, Israel
Prehistoric religion is thought to have been animisticâimbuing the natural world, including the landscape and the animals that inhabited it, with magickal or supernatural powers. Naturally distinctive geographical features, for example, a series of rock formations at Nyero in Uganda (possibly dating as far back as 12,000 years), became shrines. They were adorned with geometric paintings and visited by early peoples to make offerings to the spirits believed to be there. Animal-shaped carvings, often of human-animal hybrids, such as the 40,000-year-old âLion Manâ from a cave in southern Germany, were venerated, too. They were possibly a totemâa spirit animal with whom the tribe had a particular magical relationship.
âŹď¸ Nyero Rock Paintings, Kumi, Uganda
Maintaining good relations with the many spirits who inhabited the world was vital for early peoples. Ritual specialistsâoften referred to as shamansâemerged to communicate with the spirits and try to influence them. Shamans could seemingly transport themselves to the realms of the spirits through trances brought on by chanting, the rhythmic banging of drums, or by smoking or ingesting hallucinogenic herbs or other psychotropic substances. A headdress made of stag antlers found in the 11,000-year-old site of Star Carr in Yorkshire, may have been part of a shamanâs ritual attire, while rock art discovered in Siberia shows an âX-rayâ view of the interior skeleton of the subject. This view is thought to represent the suspended state between life and death that allowed the shaman to travel into the spirit world. Such beliefs persisted among indigenous peoples in Siberia into modern times. The earliest beliefs in magic may date back 100,000 years, but many have survived, in some form, until very recently.
âŹď¸ Star Carr headdress
âŹď¸ Lascaux shaman This cave painting shows a bison looming over a prostrate man next to a bird. One interpretation is that the figure depicted is a shaman and the bird is his spirit animal, traveling with him to the mystical realm while his body lies immobile in the physical one.
Amber, the fossilized resin of prehistoric pine trees, was treasured even in Neolithic times, and the ancient Greeks believed that it was the solidified rays of the Sun. With its distinctive color and translucency, it became highly prized. It is electrostatic (it gives off sparks when rubbed), which also gave it a reputation for warding off danger, and it came to be regarded as a healing stone. Amber is found mainly along the shores of the Baltic Sea, but despite its comparative rarity necklaces and pendants made from it are a common archaeological find.
âŹď¸ Fish-horse hybrid amber pendant, comes from 5th-century BCE Italy
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