Shamanic boats

[rich]

Hmmm - so far I found this :

8000 B.C. Nigeria. "Africa's oldest known boat" the Dufuna Canoe was discovered near the region of the River Yobe in Nigeria. The Canoe was discovered by a Fulani herdsman in May 1987, in Dufuna Village while digging a well. The canoe’s “almost black wood”, said to be African mahogany, as “entirely an organic material”. Various Radio-Carbon tests conducted in laboratories of reputable Universities in Europe and America indicate that the Canoe is over 8000 years old, thus making it the oldest in Africa and 3rd oldest in the World. Little is known of the period to which the boat belongs, in archaeological terms it is described as an early phase of the Later Stone Age, which began rather more than 12,000 years ago and ended with the appearance of pottery. The lab results redefined the pre-history of African water transport, ranking the Dufuna canoe as the world’s third oldest known dugout. Older than it are the dugouts from Pesse, Netherlands, and Noyen-sur-Seine, France. But evidence of an 8000-year-old tradition of boat building in Africa throws cold water on the assumption that maritime transport developed much later there in comparison with Europe.

from http://wysinger.homestead.com/badarians.html

Still looking for more.

[rich]

What I meant to say was those were the oldest real boats they've found so far that I could find.
Stone lasts longer than wood (usually). If boats can be found depicted in rock carvings or paintings - or representations of boats in Shamanic formats (either carvings or paintings), they could show an even earlier proof of boats.

[Ishtar]

Agreed... except then you have the not inconsiderable problem of verifying the dating. Rock art is notoriously difficult to date, as the paint (red ochre/hematite or whatever they're using) sometimes merges with the rock - so then what is painted on becomes indistinguishable from the date of the rock.

Another problem with dating rock paintings is that ancient man didn't see them as static pieces of recreational art, or a religious icon to be roped off like the altar in a church. This is how we see art today. We preserve it.

But we know from studying the later Catalhoyuk and Gobekli Tepe that Neolithic man's artistic creations - art or architecture - were a living part of the ritualistic way he lived the whole of his life - and not just on Sundays. (This is particularly evident with what we know of the Jomon/Ainu).

These were living pieces of art in that the very fact of creating them was their purpose. So long after, say, one of them drew a figure like the Bird Man, others would add their own input - for instance, in some of the caves at Lascaux, the original paintings are barely visible behind all the later scribblings and etchings over the top.

It's the same in India, at the famous Bhimbetka rock shelters. They have paintings there that they reckon are at leas 9,000 years old (and counting) - but they also have them for every date since then with modern day etchings all mixed in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhimbetka_rock_shelters

[rich]

I hear ya - but it's just a hope I guess. Who knows, maybe one of these years -

[Ishtar]

Here's an interesting article on the difficulties of dating rock art:

http://www.une.edu.au/archaeology/World ... dating.php

[kbs2244]

My favorite post when it comes to old boats.
No one seems to want to think about a bunch of dried grass as a boat.
But they seemed to work pretty well for a long time.

http://www.arcl.ed.ac.uk/a1/stoppress/stop608.htm

[john]

My favorite post when it comes to old boats.
No one seems to want to think about a bunch of dried grass as a boat.
But they seemed to work pretty well for a long time.

http://www.arcl.ed.ac.uk/a1/stoppress/stop608.htm

All -

I had a mentor when I was young, starting about age 5. His name was Raymond Alf - and you can find him on the internet.

Anyway, Ray was a biblical guy with a razor sharp scientific mind.

One of his favorite statements was

"Seek and ye shall find."

Whether, at the end, the boats are reed, skin on frame, planked, or even dugout

Is immaterial,

But interesting.

The salient point is that

There is no way in hell human culture from at least Heidelbergensis on

Did not

Expand on the two axes of 1.) geographic extension

And 2.) cognitive extension

Without the design, construction, and use of boats.

Boats were included in the vacation package.

Paleolithic Cruise Ships, to be exact.

My point here is that land based travel can in no way account

For the speed of worldwide dispersal of cultural elements such as hematite

Without boats.


The idea that whack bang we became modern in the last 50k years, or

That we invented watercraft starting in the early Neolithic

Is patently absurd.

Despite lack of physical evidence.

All of the old boats on the shorelines are covered with

A couple hundred meters of water.

So, yeah.,

I'll leave it to the hairsplitters of

Das Klub to prove

That I am irrevocably wrong.

"So it goes."

-Kurt Vonnegut_


hoka hey

john

[Ishtar]

These rock paintings in Norway are at least 5-6,000 years old. There are ordinary boats and elk boats plus some other ritual symbols (my bolding).

http://www.bespolka.com/bespolka%20web% ... -06-14.htm

These carvings belong to Phase I, are located 23.0 to 25.5 meters above present sea level and were made about 6,200 to 5,300 years ago. .....

We have all kinds of animals, humans, boats, tracks and hunting scenes. The reindeer fence is the oldest picture known in the world where fences are used for hunting or to confine reindeer.

Then onto Stop 4 .... We also have boats with humans fishing for halibut (on the hooks). This scene also includes the image of the boat that has been chosen as the logo for the museum.

The figures at Stop 6, Bergbukten IIIA, also belong to Phase II. Most of these images are of boats chiseled in outline, with an elk figurehead on their stem.

At Stop 7 ... The second platform has three boats, including a large boat with seven different human characters in it. There are also figures of animals and humans, including rare profile views...

Stop 11 continues with Phase I carvings and contains some of the most unusual figures, all jumbled up close to one another. It is is hard to pick our which ones to focus on. The groups of humans all seem to be doing strange activities or rituals. There is a group of nine that seem to be moving together. There is also this is a group of four holding some object (the guide book offers up the sun, the moon or maybe even an egg). One figure is of a squatting woman that may be giving birth [fertility symbol - Ish]

Stop 14 is the last on the trail and is also the youngest, with the carvings made about 2,600 to 2,000 years ago. The scene contains boats that are of a type previously only found much further south in Norway. ...

[john]

These rock paintings in Norway are at least 5-6,000 years old. There are ordinary boats and elk boats plus some other ritual symbols (my bolding).

http://www.bespolka.com/bespolka%20web% ... -06-14.htm

These carvings belong to Phase I, are located 23.0 to 25.5 meters above present sea level and were made about 6,200 to 5,300 years ago. .....

We have all kinds of animals, humans, boats, tracks and hunting scenes. The reindeer fence is the oldest picture known in the world where fences are used for hunting or to confine reindeer.

Then onto Stop 4 .... We also have boats with humans fishing for halibut (on the hooks). This scene also includes the image of the boat that has been chosen as the logo for the museum.

The figures at Stop 6, Bergbukten IIIA, also belong to Phase II. Most of these images are of boats chiseled in outline, with an elk figurehead on their stem.

At Stop 7 ... The second platform has three boats, including a large boat with seven different human characters in it. There are also figures of animals and humans, including rare profile views...

Stop 11 continues with Phase I carvings and contains some of the most unusual figures, all jumbled up close to one another. It is is hard to pick our which ones to focus on. The groups of humans all seem to be doing strange activities or rituals. There is a group of nine that seem to be moving together. There is also this is a group of four holding some object (the guide book offers up the sun, the moon or maybe even an egg). One figure is of a squatting woman that may be giving birth [fertility symbol - Ish]

Stop 14 is the last on the trail and is also the youngest, with the carvings made about 2,600 to 2,000 years ago. The scene contains boats that are of a type previously only found much further south in Norway. ...

Ishtar -

Just look up the Magdalenian harpoon points.

Focus is, in order to have an effective boat, you have to have a kit of effective gear.

Whether fresh or salt water.

Think out of the boat, out of the hull.

Out of the box.

What is the techne associated with gathering food from the sea?


Assume you are able to travel on water.

What is the associated kit?

There lies the truth.

Look up "harpoon" on the internet.

http://www.donsmaps.com/harpoon.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikigaq



hoka hey



john
http://www.ku.lt/leidykla/leidiniai/arc ... 2006/2.php

[john]

Oh -

And by the way.............

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKEuzxC4eGc


john

Didn't finish up my thought here.

Motorcycles and boats got a lot in common.............

j

[Ishtar]

Love the vid, John. Thanks!

I read your first link, but wasn't sure how to connect what's happening in this painting to harpoons, generally, let alone Magdelanian harpoons. The line is in the fish's mouth, so I assumed he swallowed some bait. However, if they have found Magdelanian harpoons, that's nearly as good as finding a Magdelanian boat, isn't it? The Magdelenians were not likely to have been spearing whales from the shoreline, were they?

On your second link, I really sat bolt upright over my breakfast:

Also known as Tikigaqmuit or Tikigaqmiut,[3] the Tikigaq people live close together for half the year in underground whale-bone igloos that are connected by tunnels. Their connections include the spirits of ancestors, the sun, the moon, and animal worship.

Tikigaq sustain myths about their homeland once being a great whale killed by a shaman's harpoon. Their year involves storytelling, rituals, dances, shamanic seances, puppet shows, divinations, spirit guests, encounters with animal souls, and lunar rites, culminating in the spring with the annual whale hunt.

So a functionalist would say about the Norwegian cave painting: "Of course, there's nothing shamanic about it. These people were just painting their daily lives, which fishing was an important part of."

But someone with an eye for the shamanic would say: "Yes, but it also depicts one of their most important shamanic rituals."

And who would be right? Well, both of them ... as ancient man didn't see any difference between what he did in his life and the sacred. He didn't just put his spiritual life in a box and get it out on Sundays. We see this attitude to life with the Ainu whose reverance for the sacred permeated every aspect of their lives, right down to how they disposed of their fish bones.

[Ishtar]

On second thoughts ....




That's a bloody big fish, isn't it .. so they're not likely to be catching it with a line and bait!

[kbs2244]

Didn’t both Triumph and Yamaha have triples in the 60’s

[john]

Didn’t both Triumph and Yamaha have triples in the 60’s

kbs2244 -

You wouldn't be thinking of this bad boy, would you?


http://www.motorcycleclassics.com/motor ... isfit.aspx

There are very few of them left,

For obvious reasons..................


hoka hey


john

[kbs2244]

No, I think these were the ones I was thinking of.
I couldn’t get one. I was a new father around then and MC’s were a real no no.

Yamaha
http://www.garella.com/rich/motosale.htm

Triumph
http://www.motorcyclemuseum.org/exhibit ... rident.asp