Stanford University Archaeology of Religious Ritual Articles Discussion Same instructions as the other one – I tried attaching all 8 but it says I’m over m

Stanford University Archaeology of Religious Ritual Articles Discussion Same instructions as the other one – I tried attaching all 8 but it says I’m over my upload limit. I’ll attach the other 3 after you accept. Thinking you could evaluate and tell me which ones you’d like? You’re doing me a big favor with this, so ready to compromise and collaborate. 6
The archaeology of religion
COLIN RENFREW
Any attempt to encompass the archaeology of mind must
inevitably consider the archaeological approach towards
religion. For if the archaeology of mind, as envisaged in
chapter 1, may be considered in terms of a series of functions
of the symbol, of various ways in which symbols may
operate, the role of symbols in coping with the unknown and
with the supernatural is surely one of the more significant
(see Renfrew and Bahn l 991: 358—63). But there is the
danger here that we may carry to the inquiry our own
culturally-encapsulated, and therefore perhaps stereotyped,
view of what religion is. Through our acquaintance, in the
first instance, with the great religions of the Book (Judaism,
Christianity, Islam), all of which proclaim a unitary deity, we
undoubtedly begin from a very special viewpoint. Even
some acquaintance with other great, contemporary faiths
such as the Buddhist, Hindu, Jain and Zoroastrian, serves in
some ways to reinforce the impression of coherently codified
(and thus literate), authoritative systems of belief, operating
often in an urban context. A preliminary knowledge of the
religious systems and the pantheons of Ancient Egypt,
Greece and Rome might, at first, reinforce this view of textbased, well-delineated and formalized structures of belief.
Clearly, however, the studies of cultural anthropologists
have much to tell us about the religious systems of non-urban
societies and of social groups operating on a basis of band or
tribal organisation, so that some of these preconceptions can
be counteracted and the effects of literacy discounted.
A more serious difficulty perhaps accompanies our very
conceptualization of ‘religion’ itself, as a distinguishable,
and in some senses separable, field of human activity. For we
shall soon note that, from the standpoint of the archaeologist,
religious activities are potentially open to observation only
when they might be identifiable as religions by an observer
at the time in question. Places set aside for religious
observances and objects used specifically for cult purposes
may, in favourable circumstances, be recognized as such.
Such identification is much less easy when the locus of
religious activity has a whole range of other functions, or
when the artefacts used there also have other, secular uses.
The problem of the ’embeddedness’ of cult activity within
the other activities of daily life is thus a very real one. And
just as economic anthropologists warn us that the economy
in simpler, non-state economies is often inextricably
embedded within the matrix of the social organization, so
might we anticipate that the same could apply to cult
observance. The very term ‘religion’, conceived as a
separate dimension or sub-system of the society, could thus
prove to be something of a misconception, even among those
communities where the supernatural plays a significant role
in shaping the thoughts and actions of its individuals.
These, however, are inescapable constraints: at least we
can try to be aware of them. We should therefore concede
that in many societies the religious life is more varied and
more widespread than we might realize, especially if it has
this quality of embeddedness.
In all attempts to investigate the early past there is the risk
that we first conceptualize, setting up a whole series of
categories of our own construction, and then order our data
(our observations bearing upon the past) in terms of such
categories. The past is then presented in these terms, and it is
easy to assume that our description is telling us about the
way the past was and the way it was ordered. In some cases,
however, all that we are seeing is a reflection and an
exemplification of our own a priori categories. Such
criticisms have, for instance, been made of the term
‘chiefdom’, much used for a while among evolutionary
anthropologists, and still useful among archaeologists. But it
has been pointed out, with some justice, that it can be a
cumbersome exercise to set up elaborate criteria by which a
chiefdom may be recognized, and then to spend much time
and effort arguing whether this culture or that society is to be
regarded as a chiefdom against the standard of those criteria.
The ultimate moral must be that such classifications are not
useful in themselves. Classifications are of value only if they
are put to some use once they are established. These
cautionary thoughts are perhaps easier to formulate than they
are to apply in practice, but right at the outset of our consideration of the archaeology of religion, it should be
acknowledged that the very use of the category ‘religion’
inevitably influences some aspects of the discussion.
Aspects of religion
Religion is not an easy term to define. But it clearly implies
some framework of beliefs. These cannot, however, be
47
48
The archaeology of religion
Colin Renfrew
restricted to general philosophic beliefs about the world or
about the way it works. They must relate to forces which are
not merely those of the everyday material world, but which
go beyond it and transcend it.
The Shorter Oxford Dictionary offers one convenient
definition (Onions 1973: 1978) for religion: ‘Action or
conduct indicating a belief in, or reverence for, and desire to
please, a divine ruling power … Recognition on the part of
man of some higher unseen power as having control of his
destiny and as being entitled to obedience, reverence and
worship.’ This convenient definition has many merits, but
not all its components may be of universal validity. For
instance, there are some oriental belief systems (such as that
following Confucius) which are generally recognized as
religious but which avoid specific divinities and where such
powers as are postulated are immanent, not readily to be
separated from other aspects of the world with which they
are to be associated.
To speak of the ‘supernatural’ in such a case might be
misleading if it were taken to imply a belief in spirits or
other separable entities. But the Shorter Oxford Dictionary
definition for ‘supernatural’ is perhaps a broadly acceptable
one (Onions 1973: 2193): ‘That is above nature; transcending
the power of the ordinary course of nature.’ Transcendence
does not necessarily imply separation.
These are important and basic points. Durkheim, for
instance (1965: 47) was able to define religion without
reference to the supernatural (although he could not avoid
the term ‘sacred’) ..Geertz (1966: 4) offers a definition which
indeed avoids the supernatural and the sacred, but which is
so lacking in focus that it could apply to secular ritual or even
to the system of values which is used to uphold a monetary
economy. Such a definition lacks any sense of what must
surely be a component of any religion: the individual
religious experience.
Religious experience
Central to the notion of religion is that of a personal
experience for the individual which seems to him or her not
only important, but of a larger significance. This is a feature
carefully discussed by Rudolf Otto (1917) in a work which
still makes valid points, where he laid emphasis on the sense
of the numinous which he viewed as central to religious
experience. It cannot be escaped that when we allow
ourselves to speak of the religions of early societies we are
making something of a cross-cultural assumption, namely
that there was indeed some variety of numinous experience
enjoyed by the members of those societies, some sense of
mystery and of external, non-human power. We do not need
to assert that such a power has any real existence – that is a
matter for the individual’s religious beliefs today. But to talk
of the archaeology of religion presupposes that religious
experience was available then as now. This is a point which
it would be very difficult to demonstrate, although such an
experience is certainly perfectly plausible as a motivating
force for some of the symbolic monuments which we may
observe from the past. But the existence of such an experience in the past seems to be an assumption which the studej11—-of early religion has to make: there is a uniformitarian
assumption there which needs to be recognized.
This is a question which I believe was largely avoided by
Durkheim, and then less subtly (and less successfully) by
Geertz, in the discussions cited above. Both avoided placing
such religious experience as a central feature of their
definition of religion, preferring instead to see religion rather
as a social phenomenon. But it seems to me that when we are
speaking of the belief systems of other people, while we do
not need, ourselves, to share or even to understand those
beliefs very well, we can scarcely avoid the view that they,
the participants in the culture, did indeed themselves believe
them. While other aspects of the diagram offered by
Rappaport (1971a, 1971b) may be open to discussion, the
place within it of religious experience seems appropriate.
Mystery and purpose in the human condition
Every religion, by definition, involves a system of beliefs
which offers answers to profound existential questions.
Indeed most religions provide, at the individual and at the
collective level, answers to those basic existential questions
posed so effectively by Paul Gaugin in the title to one of his
canvasses: ‘Where do we come from? Where are we? Where
are we going?’ Most religious systems offer a coherent view
of the nature of the present world, of the origins of the world
and of future human destiny. At a personal level also the
mysteries of birth, death and of what happens after death, are
resolved .
It should be noted here that the answers supplied by
religious belief systems to these questions, and in particular
those of origin, are often provided in mythological form. The
‘answer’ takes the form of a history, a kind of historical
narrative. But the personnages are not simply historical
people. They have a greater significance, indeed for the
community or culture in question a universal significance.
The answers to general questions are not general
propositions, as they have become for us in the aftermath of
the scientific revolution, following Descartes and Newton.
They are specific, narrative propositions, as Frankfort et al.
(1949) have so clearly shown. But they do serve to answer
the questions.
Most religions indicate also how we can take steps to
harmonize with the world, and often, through this process
how we, through our actions (or our prayers) can influence
the world in a manner favourable to our own aspirations.
Such concerns lead naturally to ethical concerns, towards
beliefs about how our actions should be governed. And
consequent upon a view of how we should regulate our own
actions comes the notion of social sanctions to ensure that
they do indeed conform with such precepts and, in some
cases, the notion of divine sanctions towards the same end.
Archaeological recovery of these belief systems may, in
most cases, be exceedingly difficult. But it is a principal
purpose of the present discussion to identify various aspects
inherent within most or all religions, which we can expect to
accompany those other aspects which may be more readily
identifiable in the archaeological record.
As we shall see below, iconographic representation is one
of the most promising routes towards the detail of some
belief systems. Interpretations may often be difficult but, in
some cases, we may be able to detect reference to what may
be recurrent (although not, of course, universal) themes
across cultures. One such theme, the passage of the ‘soul’
or ‘spirit’ after corporeal death, is familiar in Christian
iconography through depictions of the judgement day, of
which the celebrated ‘Last Judgement’ by Michelangelo is
one of the more recent. Analogous concepts may be found
in Mesoamerican depictions, and they are, of course, a
recurrent preoccupation in the mural decoration of Egyptian
RELIGIOUS
EXPERIENCE
supports
RELIGIOUS
DOCfRINES
&BELIEFS
RITUAL
SANCTIFIED
INJUNCTIONS
TO ACTION
SOOAL& ECOLOGICAL
PROCESSES
Fig. 6.1. Religion as interpreted by Rappaport: beliefs
direct ritual which induces religious experience. (After
Renfrew and Bahn 1991: 358.)
49
tombs and sarcophagi, as well as in papyrus texts of the Book
of the Dead.
The social aspect
Central to the notion of religion, although not well brought
out in the definition by Onions cited earlier, is the circumstance that it is a shared belief system. Religion in this sense
implies a community of believers: Durkheim (1965) speaks
of ‘beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral
community called a Church, all those who adhere to them’.
This view of religion as a social and cultural phenomenon is
naturally one which preoccupies the cultural anthropologist.
It is, of course, important to the archaeologist who, as noted
earlier, hopes to define actions, ritual actions, which were
carried out at specific places in special ways. The setting
apart of the place, and the special distinctive manner of the
actions, will always be important for the detection process,
the recognition process undertaken by the archaeologist. Of
course Durkheim intended the term ‘church ‘ purely in the
social sense, to indicate a community of persons. But the
term ‘church’ in our language, as in several others, implies
also a special place dedicated by those persons for special
activities, rituals, undertaken in relationship to the beliefs
shared by that community. These activities are, in most
religions, formalized. They are carefully prescribed and
accompanied also by proscriptions (things which must not be
done, forbidden words, taboos). As noted, they often take
place in special places, in the manner established by tradition
and by doctrine. They are also coherently time-structured:
they take place at special times of day, on special days of the
week and at special occasions in the year.
These generalizations are of crucial importance to the
archaeologist, although there has been very little broad,
theoretical discussion of them. For it is usually through the
investment of effort into the construction of special places
(whose remains may be preserved), through the use of
special equipment in rituals at those places (which may also
be preserved), in the development of iconic representations
for use in such places, and in some cases through the
depiction of such rituals, that we have our principal insights
into past religions. These matters are further discussed in the
next section.
Another important and very interesting social aspect of
most religions is that the belief system, as it relates to the
supernatural, is inevitably related in some ways to the social
reality of the culture. Karl Marx, one of the first thinkers to
deal seriously with the sociology of thought (Marx and
Engels 1977) saw the religious beliefs of a society as part of
the ideological superstructure which he viewed as arising
from the relations of production within a given social
formation. One does not need to follow all his assumptions
50
Colin Renfrew
to see that there is much in this idea. Whether man is made
in the image of God or vice versa, it is certainly the case that
the deities of many human societies have been conceived of
as anthropomorphic, although animal gods (theriomorphic)
are at least as common. The notion of a hierarchy of
divinities is one which comes more easily to a society which
is itself hierarchically structured, for instance to a state
society. It is difficult to imagine such a feature in an
egalitarian society organized at band level.
The functions and consequences of religion
Various thinkers have considered religious systems not from
the standpoint of the content of their belief structures nor
of their communal behaviour, but in terms of their consequences for society as a whole. Within the Marxist view, for
instance, with its emphasis upon class antagonisms, religion
is viewed as a means, developed by the elite, for the
manipulation of the masses. Within most state societies it is
indeed the case that the ruler (the ‘king’) has a special place
in relation to the leading religious specialist (the ‘chief
priest’) and in many state societies the two offices converge
(the ‘priest-king’), sometimes with the deity ruling through
this head of state (a theocracy), or at least inspiring and
sanctioning his actions (the ‘divine right’ of kings). Marxist
archaeologists have also applied such ideas to societies
generally regarded as essentially egalitarian, where, for
instance, the elders are seen as using religious beliefs to
ensure their own favoured and privileged position in relation
to younger members of society (Tilley 1984). A very
different view of religion is taken by anthropologists
working broadly in the ‘functionalist’ tradition of
Malinowski, for whom religious beliefs and rituals are
useful in governing and regulating various aspects of the
social system (e.g. Rappaport 1971a). The earlier ‘functionalist’ view saw religion as useful in ensuring the smooth
functioning of society by ensuring some considerable degree
of community of belief, some acceptance of the social
system and hence some general social solidarity among
members of the community. More recent work, notably by
Rappaport, would accord religious beliefs a further, more
active role, in bringing into play mechanisms of a broadly
homeostatic nature whose timing is governed by ritual.
A further, broadly evolutionary, perspective has been
proposed by Lachmann (1983) who contrasts the variability
in all human behaviour with that among species where quite
complicated social behaviour is genetically determined, for
instance among bees. In his perspective there are enormous
advantages in cultural evolution, precisely in the special
human ability to learn, and thus to change the whole
behaviour of society in the space of just a couple of
generations. But there are penalties too, in terms of lack of
The archaeology of religion
stability of behaviour and in the risk that valuable information, no longer stored in the genome, may become lost
between generations. It is here that the devices used by
religion for the very long-term storage of informa.tion may
be particularly useful. For, as Lachmann stresses, it is
through religion that ‘ancient wisdom’ is most effectively
stored and transmitted. Much of the repetition associated
with religious ritual may be regarded as ‘redundant’ in the
information theory sense, and secure transmission is thereby
more adequately assured. It is the case that the oral
transmission of religious knowledge has been shown to be
enormously effective. The Hymns of the Rigveda, recorded
in archaic Vedic Sanskrit, were preserved orally for many
centuries before being set down in writing about the fifth
century BC at a time when classical Sanskrit was already in
use. Much of their vocabulary was by that time not well
understood, but later scholarly study has shown the accuracy
of transmission to be remarkably high. This gives support to
Lachmann’s view that a coherent religious system, with its
high survival value, confers a selective advantage upon the
society which possesses it.
In general, the wider effects of religious beliefs have been
little considered by archaeologists. Yet clearly frameworks
of religious belief provided strong motivational contexts for
many aspects of the behaviour of ancient societies. This has
been well documented, for instance, for the case of the
ancient Maya (Schele and Miller 1986) and the role of sacred
concepts, both in the development of urbanism and in its
specific forms, has been emphasized by a number of authors,
including Wheatley (1971 ). For the traditional Marxist
historian these may be mere epiphenomena, where the
superstructure follows the economic infrastructure, but neoMarxist thinkers are inclined to give greater causal weight to
ideational factors. For the functionalist there is a similar
inclination t…
Purchase answer to see full
attachment