Can similarities be found in the cults of prehistoric hunters and farmers? Analysis of ‘dance’ scenes of four beings of the Mesolithic from Alta, Finnmark, Norway, and of the beginning of the Eneolithic from Střelice, southwestern Moravia, Czech Republic

Abstract

The ways of life of hunters, fishers and gatherers (or herdsmen) are noticeably different from those of farmers. Surviving evidence of their cultures is very rare. It is very difficult to interpret and compare this subject matter, but external similarities can be observed. The depiction of human figures belongs to this group, especially female figures (also zoomorphic sculptures) in the Upper Palaeolithic within the Fertility cult (of hunters) and in the Neolithic the Field Fertility/Fruitfulness cult and Domestic Animals Fertility cult (of farmers) associated with the vernal equinox. The depiction of a woman and three men with their arms stretched upwards as in a dance move on a famous vase of Moravian – East-Austrian group, Phase MOG IIa (around 4525–4375 BC) of the Painted Pottery culture from Střelice in the Czech Republic is significant. This motif has been interpreted as an example of hieros gamos (i.e. a dialogue with space). On the convexity of the vessel are four animal heads with the horns of apparently goats, which are again located between these figures in a symbolic cross. Four zoomorphic statues of apparently goats are again on the neck. There is also an important Sun motif with rays to illuminate the whole scene. This vase has considerable similarity with a petroglyph of a circular dance, again obviously depicting a woman and three men holding hands, from Alta in the area above the Arctic Circle in northern Norway, one of the central ‘galleries’ of hunters (5 stages, the oldest being 5300 BC) on the very shores of the Norwegian Sea. The petroglyph with an analogous theme is located in the Vardenis mountains in Armenia. It can be assumed with a certain degree of probability that these depictions, which were undoubtedly important for their creators, could possibly also depict personified world parties, or four seasons and the like. It is possible to add that optimal weather was important both for the "extensive" economy of hunters in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, and for the intensive farming of farmers in the Neolithic. For these reasons, examples of depictions of important astral bodies, especially the Sun and its symbols from prehistory have also been given. It can be only assumed (with just a certain amount of probability) that they depict a story (rite or myth?) in the form of a ‘language of symbols’ (e.g. a restoration of ‘Mother Earth’).