Origins of Agriculture

We’re aware that once upon a time our ancient ancestors lived day-to-day as nomadic hunters and gatherers. Then, roughly 10,000 years ago, in various locations around the globe, we ceased our wanderings, put down roots as rural agricultural-based settlements, and became civilized. Anthropologists cannot tell us why. Mythology does tell us why – the gift of agriculture was from the gods. What to those cultures were gods, we can interpret as ‘ancient astronauts’. 

One of the bigger mysteries in modern anthropology is the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to agricultural-based settlements. This is known as the “Agricultural Revolution”. There are as many ideas and theories for the independent and relatively sudden transition from hunter-gatherer to settlements dependent of farming, as there are anthropologists who have pondered the issue. There are proposals for external factors vs. internal (social, cultural, economic) factors; global conditions vs. local conditions; climate related vs. population related; or a combination of circumstances: maybe even just the “it’s time” factor. The issue is the transition all happening at roughly the same time – about 10,000 years ago, give or take, in Europe, Mesoamerica, the Andean cultures, Egypt, the Middle East, Asia, etc. especially in the Fertile Crescent, N.E. China and Central America. Only North America (with the exception of the eastern half of what would become the United States), Australia and the far northern regions, like Siberia, retained for the most part a nomadic lifestyle.

But the really anomalous thing is that ever since our ancestors came down out of the trees and started walking upright, for all those millions of years, until roughly 10,000 years ago, we were hunter-gatherers or nomads. Then all of a sudden, wham, we settle down and raise crops and become ‘civilized’ just about universally across the social, cultural and geographical board. No one really has solid evidence to explain why.

The only idea NOT given or advanced is in fact the very one which human culture’s themselves give – in their global mythologies. Agriculture (including the domestication of various species of wildlife – cattle, sheep, goats, horses, etc.) was a gift from their gods. Human mythologies presumably written down and/or orally passed from one human generation to the next human generation, gives no credit to humans for the transition. Humans rarely pass up an opportunity to pat themselves of the back, but this is an exception to that generality. 

Humans have certain basic needs: air, water, sleep, certain temperature range and food. We’re instant experts at breathing (air) and sleeping. We don’t need to seek out, grow or harvest these. We have some control over temperature, and water supplies are usually pretty constant – rivers, springs, lakes, ponds, etc. Food is the dicey item.

The hunter-gatherer method of finding food takes less effort than agricultural tilling-the-fields settlements, so why settlements and why the shift from hunter-gatherer to agriculture is relatively short time frames in diverse parts of the world. Well, what the gods want, the gods get. And if the gods give you a gift, by the gods you’d better make use of it!

These gods (a sampling) oversaw and gave the gift of agriculture to humans thus explaining our transition from hunter-gatherers to settlements and civilization.

* Ninurta was the god of agriculture in the ancient Near East who taught all about crop production.

* Kumarbi: The Hittites had Kumarbi, the father of the gods and a grain deity.

* Osiris (Ancient Egypt): Before being bumped off and dismembered by his brother Seth (Set), and reassembled and resurrected by his sister-wife Isis, and promoted to god of the underworld, he was the god of agriculture who taught men (and women) how to raise corn and vines. That’s why ancient Egyptians depicted him with green skin. 

* Ceres was the Roman goddess of grain and agricultural fertility (from which we get the term cereal).

* Demeter was the Greek goddess and counterpart to Ceres; she was the goddess of corn, crops and fruit groves as well as fertility of the fields who taught humans agriculture.

* Triptolemus, under the direction and guidance of Demeter, brought people the gift of wheat and who spread the benefits of agriculture around the world.

* Chaac was the Mayan god of rain, hence a patron of agriculture like maize and vegetables and hence fertility.

* Xipe Totec was the Aztec god of maize and vegetation.

* Viracocha was a top Inca god who walked among humans, and, among other subjects, instructed students on agriculture. Further, Viracocha fathered two deities, Inti and Mama Quilla, who in turn had an offspring Manco Capac, the first Inca ruler, who also taught agriculture to his human subjects. The odd thing about Viracocha, the highest god in the Inca pantheon, was that he was depicted as pale, bearded with Caucasian features and with green eyes. This is quite akin to the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl (Kakalcan to the Mayan and otherwise known throughout Mesoamerica under various aliases). They both, Viracocha and Quetzalcoatl departed their respective regions to head over and across the sea with an “I’ll be back” promise. That the Aztecs mistook the Spaniard Cortes for the return of Quetzalcoatl# speaks volumes about what Quetzalcoatl looked like – white, bearded, with Caucasian features. Alas, the enigma here is that there never was any cultural contact between Mesoamerica and the Incas, so why the similarity between Viracocha and Quetzalcoatl? Some New Agers view these white bearded deities of the Americas, who mysteriously vanish, as Jesus in the flesh. That aside, the important point is that Viracocha was a travelling professor of agriculture.

* Shennong: In Chinese mythology there’s Shennong, the farmer god who invented the plough and taught people how to farm.

* Inari was in Shinto Japanese mythology a rice and fertility god.

* Bulul was a Philippines rice god who looked over seeds and the harvest.

* Nummo or Nommo (hybrid creatures) of the African Dogon culture of Mali were teachers (from the star Sirius according to some) who taught farming to mankind.

Of course what our ancient ancestors viewed as supernatural gods and goddesses, we think of them today more akin to flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials (‘ancient astronauts’) who came to Earth long ago with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal humans of that era. The ‘gods’ would have conducted their worldwide agricultural tutorials at roughly the same time, say about 10,000 years ago. Being practical, they ignored regions impractical for low-tech sustainable agriculture like vast deserts, the tundra, tropical rain forests, etc.

Now the obvious question is why would the ‘gods’ want to give us the gift of agriculture in the first place? That can probably be summed up by the Biblical phrase “be fruitful and multiply”. In a hunter-gatherer society, babies are a burden. They contribute no labour, consume resources, and divert time and energy required for their care away from the daily survival tasks at hand. Since you have to carry your newborn brat around, being a nomadic troop, it hinders your hunting-gathering, so it is best to keep your brats well spaced – every four or five years apart minimum, so one brat can start to contribute a bit to the greater good before your next one pops out into the world.

But once in a settlement scenario, with a reliable food supply, you can start dropping your little bundles of joy nearly every year. There will be the establishment of a sort of child care centre or facility where one person, unable for health or elderly reasons to work the fields can look after all the little darlings, leaving mum free to toil away in the rice paddies or whatever. Though infant mortality will take its toll in either a hunter-gatherer society or in a settlement community, the more frequently bundles are dropped, the faster the population will increase; more workers to produce new and widen fields already under cultivation; build buildings, etc. And of importance too, once you take up a settlement way of life, then you have a need to defend that territory since a lot of sweat and toil went into staking out the community’s land claim and making it productive. A rapid population increase makes defending your turf easier.

But what’s in it for the ‘gods’? Two things - first mythologies around the world are full of references that the ‘gods’ created humans to do the hard work, just like the CEO and Board of Directors of a mining company hires the great unwashed to actually do the hard work – go down into the mines with picks and shovels, etc. while the CEO and company watches from on high: more population – more workers. That’s probably the real reason Adam and Eve got booted out of Eden and directed to start the daily grind and toil of farming (Genesis 3:23). It was probably all a setup from the get-go.

Secondly, what do ‘gods’ want? Well, to be worshiped. Do you get a greater buzz out of a hundred people bowing and scraping down and building small monuments to you, or a thousand or a million doing the same and building great big monuments to your glory? No dictator ever wants to appear in public and not have anyone turn out to render a worshiping salute. 

Having achieved their objective, well it’s on to the next inhabited planet for another challenge in civilizing the great unwashed.

And so, thanks to the ‘gods’, or ‘ancient astronauts’, most of us no longer have to wander the lands in search of our daily bread!

# In all fairness, not all scholars believe there actually was a connection.

Whodunit: What Killed Off Our Ancestors? Part Two

“Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?” was one of those top-notch mystery comedies from 1978. Who killed the ancestors of modern day humans isn’t quite so funny, but it’s still a top-notch mystery. I propose one rather unconventional answer, our creator ‘gods’, the extraterrestrials.

Modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved from other primates, most probably from chimpanzee stock in Africa when DNA relationships are analysed. We have a 98% compatibility with chimpanzee DNA. However, there was a long chain of in-betweens twixt chimpanzees and modern humans, the two key transitions being a bipedal gait (Australopithecus) and tool use (Homo). The interesting things are that while all the in-betweens have gone extinct, the ancestral primate stock didn’t; the transition to modern humans was so fast that it reeks of artificial selection, not natural. Are the in-between extinctions and the extremely rapid transition to modern humans linked? 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Conveniently enough each species of Australopithecus and Homo lasted long enough to give rise to the next species of Australopithecus or Homo before going ‘poof’. Now to paraphrase Ian Fleming’s James Bond adversary Goldfinger, ‘Once is happenstance; twice is coincidence; three times [or more] is enemy action’. Now one or two, even three in-betweens – those in-between ancient chimpanzees stock (roughly 8 to 6 million years ago) and modern man - that went the way of the dodo might be explainable. That EVERY such in-between species went ‘poof’ is begging for a natural explanation, an explanation that I find lacking.

Over an up to eight million year period, from initial evolution to eventual extinction, all those parental links in our ancestral chain and kissing cousin branches has had that eventual going kaput scenario happen to them. As far as any one of them is concerned, that cradle to grave history was over a fairly short timeframe as geological eras go. I mean many species exist for millions of years; some for tens of millions; even some for hundreds of millions.

Lots of species, say of ants, tuna, frogs, snakes, bears, felines, monkeys, etc. coexist, share common territory, yet of all the hominoid species, Australopithecus and Homo, there remains now just one. Only one currently exists as that lone species, that of course being Homo sapiens – how very odd. Why should modern humans, and modern humans alone, having this long chain of in-betweens leading up to us, yet which no longer exist, be the ‘last man standing’ as it were?

If any and all links in the chimp – modern human chain evolved naturally (the standard model), then you’d expect those adaptations that evolved in the first place to last a spell. The African continent (action city and ground zero for the most part) and African environment wasn’t fluctuating that drastically that no sooner had you evolved to fit in with that environment than it did a total flip-flop and rapidly somersaulted back and forth again and again causing endless extinctions (no species could survive for long under such circumstances) and new opportunities for our next generation of ancestors (soon to go extinct in turn). Alas, that doesn’t wash since other animal species made it continuously through that up to eight million year period, in that same environment, without a care in the world, including, other primates, like the chimpanzees, while apparently a dozen or so of their naturally evolved descendent species were in constant strife! That’s all the more puzzling because all of these links in the chain leading to Homo sapiens were “smarter than the average bear” and chimpanzee too. Even if Africa were a killing zone, how come the same scenarios played out in Asia and Europe too?

Clearly modern humans, responsible for what’s been termed the most recent mass extinction event (of modern flora and fauna), didn’t exterminate their ancestors since modern humans weren’t around for most of that transition period. All Australopithecus and most Homo species went extinct before modern humans came on the scene. Did the next generation in the line of descent kill off the previous generation, in a manner akin to speculation that modern humans exterminated their kissing cousins, the Neanderthals? 

Something’s fishy. In fact physical anthropology texts just note that hominoid species W, X, Y & Z have gone extinct since they are clearly nowhere to be found alive on Earth today, but they can only speculate as to why – they don’t know. They have not the foggiest clue why the Neanderthals don’t walk the Earth today, so they just guesstimate possibilities. 

Perhaps it’s time to scrap the standard model for an alternative and highly un-standard scenario. Might there be a third party behind things? The key is that while modern humans are but one species, there are many breeds.

Once upon a time, a very, very long time ago, an extraterrestrial intelligence, by design (they detected Earth’s bio-signatures like an oxygen atmosphere) or accident, discovered and arrived on Terra Firma, and for some reason(s) or other set up shop. Maybe it was for scientific purposes; maybe a good spot for R&R; maybe as an outpost or home away from home; maybe as a colony.

Now being a high-tech sort of culture (well they did get from there to here after all), and of a curious and scientific yet practical bent, thought it a grand long-term idea to get the native earthlings to serve them, in much the same way we get some animals to serve us – horses, camels or donkeys/mules for transport; seeing-eye dogs for the visually handicapped; guard dogs to, well guard things; canaries in the mines as an early warning system for toxic gases; cats to rid the farm of grain-eating mice; birds to eat the insects; and so on. Of course, in order to get animals to serve us, it not only helps to domesticate or quasi-domesticate them, but to artificially improve on their natural abilities or looks. And so guard dogs become larger and fiercer; horses for racing purposes are bread to become faster; and aesthetics aren’t overlooked either so we breed animals to look this way or that way just because it pleases us to do so; etc. And so many a domesticated animal now comes in breeds; just like humans come in breeds – see the connection? 

One trait we employ animals for is labour – oxen pull the plough, etc. Well, perhaps our extraterrestrials had the same thoughts way back then. But of course the basic stock with which they had to work with could always be improved, like humans breeding faster horses.

The most useful traits aliens would work on or with would be things like intelligence; dexterity; a free pair of appendages with which to manipulate objects; binocular vision; all useful things masters want in their slaves. You don’t employ horses or dogs or cats or even monkeys to plant and harvest cotton – you ‘employ’ Negroes back in the golden pre Civil War days of the Deep American South. Ditto the British Navy – you shanghaied the great unwashed to serve as your basic lowest-of-the-low seamen.

Alas, way back then, the best of the best on offer were the primates. To get them up to the required standard demanded by the aliens required a bit of not natural, but artificial selection. Call it bio-engineering; genetic engineering, the goal was to engineer a life form of greater use to them.

So you start with the original best prime stock available (chimpanzees) and artificially breed and manipulate and select and alter them until you arrive at the modified next or second generation. The original stock, in this case the chimps have served their prime purpose and are of no further use, but since they were already in existence and well adapted to their surroundings and natural environment, their stock continued on, as it does to this day.

The next or second (now slightly modified) generation in turn is artificially manipulated to produce the third generation. Once the second generation has served its purpose its cast adrift and left to fend for themselves but they are NOT well adapted to their surroundings and natural environment, and their stock did NOT continue on but whether quickly or slowly but surely, went extinct.

The third generation gives rise to the fourth generation and thus the third generation go kaput as well, an artificial creation unadapted to the natural world. And so on and so on it goes until you hit the Nth generations – Homo erectus (good, but not great) and modern humans (ideal). Homo sapiens finally possessed nearly all the required attributes the extraterrestrials required, intelligence, opposable digits, bipedal gait that freed up those digits, etc. Even so, the aliens had to give modern humans a boost – the sudden arrival of human culture; the sudden transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer to settler and city dweller.

Clearly Homo erectus and Homo sapiens were the two success stories, but did they migrate out of Africa or were they transported out to selected sites by their creators, the aliens. If the former, you might expect a clear-cut fossil trail outlining and along the migration routes, especially as undirected nomadic wanderings only make progress in terms of steady distances covered over many generations. Alas, the fossil trail that should clearly delineate migration routes just isn’t. The fossil sites are so few and far between that actual migration routes have to be inferred. Transport of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens to these sites would be just as compatible with the actual fossil evidence. The aliens, having achieved artificially selected/genetically engineered species that suited their needs would clearly transport them to where they could be put to good use.

One more clue to the reality of this scenario is the extremely wide and anomalous gap between modern humans and our now nearest chimpanzee ancestors when it comes to rather basic traits. In just eight million years: we’re ‘civilized’; they’re not. We’re bipedal; they’re not; we’re a ‘naked ape’; they’re a ‘hairy ape’ (as are the rest of the primates). We’re very high up in IQ; they’re not. We come in breeds (races); they don’t. We have a sense of, as well as a culture; they don’t. Those are gigantic differences, and all in eight million years, probably less. Eight million years is just 0.2 % of Earth’s geological time – actually slightly less than that. Those are BIG differences compressed into a tiny timeframe.

In other supporting ‘evidence’ I offer up the fact that in mythologies around the world, the ‘gods’ (i.e. – aliens) created humans, including, obviously, Biblical mythology.

The ‘gods’ in nearly all mythologies ultimately give the gifts of civilization or those required for civilization in the accepted use of the term. This also helps to explain the relative sudden transition of many peoples and cultures from a nomadic hunter-gatherer existence to fixed settlements and agriculture. Nearly every culture has a deity of agriculture who gave that skill to that culture.

Mythologies around the globe speak of and illustrate all manner of hybrid creatures, both animal-animal (like the dragon or griffin) and animal-human (like the centaur or sphinx). Such creatures, if real, are either extraterrestrial, or genetically engineered from terrestrial species.

In modern times we have both the animal mutilation and the UFO abduction phenomena, both linked with ongoing alien genetic manipulation of all things terrestrial and maybe extraterrestrial too.  

Now I know what some of you must be thinking – what about all those sightings of Bigfoot or Sasquatch, the Yeti and similar hairy hominoid bipeds of unknown origin? The answer for the here and now to that is when and if these reported beasties acquire the same sort of documentation as reality-based animals, like lions and elephants, then revision will be in order. Until then speculation remains just that, speculation.

Another objection would be if aliens needed domestic manual labour why not just construct and use robots! Ah, it’s not just labour and getting others to do the work. When you think of, for example, the Biblical creation, what does God want? A prime goal of God and all those other gods is being worshiped, sort of like what we expect and take pleasure from in our pets’ adoration or their ‘worshiping’ of us – even if it’s only Fido the dog wagging his tail when you come home, or Fluffy the cat purring and rubbing against your leg. There’s no gain or self-satisfaction in programming a machine to bow and scrape unto you.

In summary, that’s my scenario as to who killed off the great ancestors of modern humans and why. It wasn’t deliberate genocide on the part of the creators, just Mother Nature culling those species that weren’t suited to their natural environment. Why they weren’t suited is, again, because our ancestors were artificially created, so when cast adrift, well the rest as they say is history.

The Giant Cyclopes: Real or Mythological?

The concept of ‘ancient astronauts’ has been with us for a few decades now, even longer. Those visiting extraterrestrials have been associated with the polytheistic ‘gods’, even at times the monotheistic ‘God’ and His cast and crew (the angels, etc.). However, visions of the ‘gods’ don’t usually include the offbeat, like the mythological giants, and, for the purposes of this exercise, the Cyclopes. Are these one-eyed wonders, among other giants, imaginary, or alien?

One of the major themes of mythologies around the world relate to the concept of giants. It’s easy to extrapolate and super-size up the human body to giant proportions (Hollywood’s done that a few times in Grade-B sci-fi flicks), and there are many tall tales and fairy tales/folklore about giants like the American Paul Bunyan or the kiddie favourite “Jack and the Beanstalk”. However, while it’s easy to imagine human giants, however, it becomes obvious pretty quickly that these giants can’t be the case in reality without major anatomical alternations to the human physique.

Now let’s say the average human is six foot tall. The maximum height for a human male is a fraction under nine feet; for a human female a fraction over 8 feet according to the “Guinness Book of Records”, but humans much above 7 ½ feet are very rare indeed.  7 ½ feet and below isn’t really giant-sized, just very tall. A real giant say is at least double the human average – say 12 foot high – and that and more is not all that uncommon in the mythological literature and all cultures have tales of people of exceptional size. However, most of the mythological giants tend to be under twelve feet – like Goliath cited as being somewhere from a bit under seven feet to just under ten feet.

The main problem regarding human giants is, if you double the height, and associated width and breadth as well, you increase the body’s mass by a factor of eight. The person weighs eight times as much. However, the supporting structure, the cross-section (width and breadth) of the legs (muscle and bone) has only increased by a factor of four. So your legs are four times as thick, but they must support a weight eight times as great. If you triple the dimensions you have 27 times the mass, but only nine times the supporting area for that weight. A fourfold increase sees a massive increase in weight to 64 times normal; the supporting structure is however only 16 times greater. The ecological catchcry of ‘limits to growth’ takes on a new meaning here.

Thus, while human giants are grand Hollywood entertainment, films like “The Amazing Colossal Man” or “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” can’t be taken for anything more than that – pure (put your brain on the shelf for the duration) entertainment.

So there are limits to growth. If some of the giants of mythology can’t be human, and if they aren’t purely figments of the imagination, then they are probably extraterrestrials.

It doesn’t take too awfully long for giants to make their appearance on Earth according to the Bible.

Apparently way back towards the near beginning of all things, the Biblical ‘sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of men’ did their ‘be fruitful and multiply bit’.

Now what’s this ‘sons of God’ and ‘daughters of men’ bit? In Genesis 6:2 [New King James Version] we have: “that the sons of God saw the daughters of men; that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.”

According to the Old Testament [New King James Version], “There were giants [Nephilim] on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them.” (Genesis 6:4). However, since these giants are the products of the sons of God* (who must therefore also be gods) and human women, these giants must only be demigods.

Now the ‘sons of God’ couldn’t have been too giant-sized in their own right if they were to have their wicked way with the ‘daughters of men’, yet their giant-sized offspring were – well, giant-sized that is. Numbers 13:33 [New King James Version] states “There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” If humans were like grasshoppers in size relative to the giants (the offspring of the ‘sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of men’) then something’s screwy somewhere, unless either the ‘sons of God’ or their giant [Nephilim] offspring were shape-shifters. That something is screwy somewhere actually comes as no real surprise considering it’s the Bible – the most contradictory text ever written.

Those other ‘gods’, the polytheistic deities, also spent a lot of time screwing each other and us humans. The sexual exploits of the ‘gods’ (especially the Greek ‘gods’) would put modern swinging and swingers to shame. The ‘gods’ were really quite a randy lot and not just the male ‘gods’ but a fair few of the fairer sex ‘goddesses’ as well. We’re well acquainted with Eros (Cupid) and Aphrodite (Venus) as to their job descriptions.

For example, according to ancient Greek mythology, in the beginning there was the Earth Goddess Gaia and her son the Sky God Uranus who had a bit of a role in the hay together and produced not only the 12 Titans but also the Cyclopes trio of Arges (Bright), Brontes (Thunderer) and Steropes (Lightning-Maker). The Titans eventually went head-to-head with the Olympians (Zeus and company) for world (or at least Mediterranean) domination, but the Cyclopes, treated somewhat badly by daddy, all turned turncoats and helped Zeus defeat the Titans.

Now the Cyclopes were expert metal-smiths, and they fashioned the thunderbolts for Zeus, Poseidon’s trident, and Hades’ helmet of invisibility which played key roles in that epic war-in-heaven. The Cyclopes are said by the Roman epic poet Virgil to have been as tall as forest trees, so a height way more than 12 feet would not be out of order.

Now as gods in their own right (being the offspring of Gaia and Uranus), the Cyclopes are immortal (or quasi-immortal as nothing lives forever); but they, like most other quasi-immortal gods, well the various Cyclopes weren’t invincible or invulnerable. In fact the Greek god Apollo bumped off our trio in revenge for Zeus killing Apollo’s son with a thunderbolt that the Cyclopes had made for Zeus in the first place; Zeus then had to punish Apollo, but that’s another story.

Odysseus did some major damage to the Cyclops Polyphemus (a second generation Cyclops fathered by the God of the Sea, Poseidon) in Homer’s “The Odyssey”, thus incurring the wrath of the Sea God who made Odysseus’ life quite a miserable one for many years. 

So why not consider Polyphemus purely fictitious? Well, “The Odyssey” is the sequel and companion volume to “The Illiad”, and it was Heinrich Schliemann who had such faith in the historical accuracy of “The Illiad” that he used it has the historical text in which to find and uncover the apparent mythological or fictitious city of Troy. He did! So, if the “Illiad” isn’t pure storytelling; perhaps the “The Odyssey” isn’t either.

Now the Cyclopes are clearly too large to be based on the purely human anatomical plan. A real human the size of a forest tree would have to have leg bones made of metal or stone.

The one eye of the Cyclopes suggests something non-terrestrial. No terrestrial species has one eye, very rare mutations (called obviously enough ‘cyclopia’) aside.

The Cyclopes clearly possessed very advanced technology that enabled the Olympians to defeat the Titans.

Now more likely as not, the Cyclopes collectively were either an alien race in their own right and not literally the offspring of Gaia and Uranus, or the results of the ‘gods’ experiments in genetic engineering. The later makes the idea of a creation, of offspring, more understandable.

Now mother and son (Gaia and Uranus) weren’t quite through producing giants. They actually parented another trio of giants, the Hecatoncheires, who had 50 heads and 100 arms/hands each! Perhaps these giants were again really the end result of some more genetic tinkering on the part of the ‘gods’. Anyway, the Hecatoncheires were also treated badly by daddy, so they too ultimately joined forces with Zeus against the Titans. Daddy meantime came to a bad end having his private parts cut off, but again, that’s another story.

As to the liaison between the Earth Goddess Gaia (mother) and the Sky God Uranus (son), well if they were both really extraterrestrials, then you couldn’t expect their moral or ethical codes to mirror ours of necessity.

But the one-eyed creatures of mythology don’t start and stop with the first and second generation of the Cyclopes of Greek (or Roman) mythology. While there’s not room to make a detailed account of them all, there’s the legendary Norse/German half-human character of Hagen who in a few accounts is one-eyed. Hagen is today probably best known for his role in the downfall and slaying of Siegfried in Richard Wagner’s concluding opera of his epic Ring Cycle, “Gotterdammerung”.

Then there’s Balor of the Evil Eye, a god of death who was a king of the Fomorians, a race of giants in Irish mythology. Balor (or Balar or Bolar) had one eye in the middle of his forehead and you most certainly didn’t want him looking at you! Fortunately, he too came to a sticky end at the hand of his grandson.

There’s one other possible explanation for the Cyclops by the way that also involves the Cyclops being an alien. What if aliens who land here need some sort of environmental protection; a protective suit? If an ancient, primitive, unsophisticated in the ways of high-tech humans saw a ‘creature’ in what modern humans would call an astronaut suit, the kind humans hopped along on the Moon in; or the pressure suits jet fighter pilots wear; or say  a deep-sea diver’s suit, even a typical scuba outfit with mask, the outward appearance tends to be that of a one-eyed being – a Cyclops. 

In conclusion, when it comes to giants in general or the Cyclopes in particular, we have yet again a universal theme in mythology. When it comes to mythology, my basic premise is that anytime you have near universal themes between wildly dispersed in space and/or time cultures, ethnic groups, nationalities, whatever, then you sit up and take notice that something more than just human imagination is at work.

*So Jesus Christ had brothers, presumably older and far larger brothers! The Big Question however is who was God’s wife (or mistress) by which God fathered the ‘sons of God’, or does God reproduce asexually? Maybe there isn’t a Mrs. God or she’s kept well out of sight. God doesn’t seem to be an equal opportunity player. His offspring are all male (J.C. and the ‘sons of God’); so are his cast and crew (the angels) entirely male and he deals with males like Noah, Moses, Enoch, Abraham, etc. Even Adam came before Eve and those two only produced male offspring (which is another whole can of worms glossed over by the faithful). It would appear that the polytheistic gods are heads and shoulders above the monotheistic God when it comes to the status of women.

The Olmecs: An Enigma Wrapped In a Mystery: Part Two

When it comes to the ancient civilizations in the Americas, well the Amerindians like the Anasazi at Mesa Verde come to mind; even more so the Aztecs, the Incas, and the Mayans. But perhaps the most interesting of all, a culture that normally registers on the peripheral vision of our knowledge of all things Mesoamerican, is that of the Olmecs. Olmec society, civilization and culture is famous for several things: their mysterious origins and demise; their obsession with jade; their cult of the Were-Jaguar; and last, but not least, those monumental ‘African’ stone head carvings. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

OLMEC WRITINGS

The Olmecs left behind no written history that we can understand. Their glyphs carved into their stone monuments, sculptures, monoliths, etc. remain indecipherable. We need an Olmec equivalent of the Egyptian Rosetta Stone! Further, there are no parallels with the writings of later Mesoamerican cultures. We’re stuck between that rock and that hard place. So, alas and alack, there’s nothing comprehensible to tell us, for example, how they carved, transported and built their megalithic monuments/stone heads or why they did so.

OLMEC STONE HEADS

Olmec culture is probably most famous for all those nearly round-as-a-ball stone heads of the masculine gender that always tend to feature prominently whenever you read about the Olmecs. These were not small stone statues of the head only, but massive sculptures up to over three meters (over 10 feet) in height and weighing over 20 tons (though I’ve seen estimates of up to 50 tons for the largest of the large). Over 20 stone heads, or parts of heads, are now known; there’s probably more still buried within the jungle. Further, no two heads are clones. While they all appear similar, each is unique in its own way. Though bland today, in their heyday, they were apparently painted and brightly decorated.

These stone heads are made of basalt, a rather dense and hard volcanic rock. Not the easiest of material to carve. Further, the raw parent multi-ton basalt blocks had to be imported from the Tuxtlas Mountains – hauled over land and water presumably by human muscle power from roughly 37 miles to over 90 miles away, depending on what eventual site they had to go to, and they have been found at all four major Olmec politico-religious sites. It would have been no easy task muscling multi-ton stone blocks by hand through steamy, swampy tropical jungle, though nobody knows for absolute certain how those blocks got from source to site, since the Olmecs left behind no ‘how-to’ manuals. 

The immediate first, through to at least the tenth impression you get when viewing these Olmec stone heads is without question ‘African’. That of course doesn’t make the impression correct, but first impressions are lasting ones and usually have some sort of logical basis behind them.

Now the standard model of traditional Mesoamerican archaeology nixes any interaction between Central America and Africa before the birth of Christ (and for quite some considerable time thereafter too). Yet these heads still look ‘African’. There’s no getting around that.

Further, these Olmec stone heads have facial images that look nothing like the jade masks or heads of various carved figurines, etc. (see below).

Regardless, whose heads and faces are they? Are they portraits in stone of Olmec rulers? While that’s the generally accepted idea, no one really knows for absolute sure. And though many other cultures have carved, transported and erected massive statues, like the Easter Islanders and obviously the ancient Egyptians and Greco-Romans, they didn’t focus on exclusively chin-up statues. The Olmecs seem to be pretty unique in monumental head-only representations.

OLMECS’ JADE CULTURE

Some ancient civilizations are known for their works of stonemasonry or artifacts of silver and gold (or electrum – an amalgamation of both) or perhaps amber, textiles/weaving, metallurgy, pottery/ceramics, etc.  The Olmecs were a jade culture. However, they had to trade for jade over long distances, obtaining over time vast quantities which they then carved into all sorts of ornamentations, masks, small sculptures and figurines, etc. However, as noted above, carvings in jade of masks or facial features are not similar to those of the very large basaltic stone heads. That’s just yet another puzzle when it comes to figuring out what made the Olmec’s tick. 

When it comes to art works, the Olmecs were also known for their complex cave paintings.

OLMEC RELIGION: THE WERE-JAGUAR CULT

Like all societies, the Olmecs had their deities. Olmec gods tended to be a hybrid combination of human, avian, reptilian but most of all feline forms, especially the jaguar, in various and often bewildering combinations. Most prominent of these was the Were-Jaguar, often depicted as human babies with jaguar-like faces. Now that’s weird! Many Olmec images show humans (shamans presumably) shape-shifting into jaguars and vice versa. It was their ability to perform a transition from the natural world to the supernatural and back again. At least that’s the acceptable interpretation.

There’s no question that the jaguar was the major animal predator in Mesoamerica, and thus it’s not surprising that the jaguar featured prominently in pre-Columbian societies, and adoption of jaguar motifs by the ruling elite was probably used to reinforce or validate leadership. However, that alone hardly explains the Were-Jaguar cult and the possible origins of the cult have engaged scholars for over a half century. The issue has yet to be resolved.

Apart from the cult of the Were-Jaguar, Olmecs were the first to sculpture a ‘feathered serpent’, made a prominent cult deity figure in its own right as Quetzalcoatl by the Aztecs.

THE OLMECS: SUMMARY

*Where did they come from and where did they vanish to?

*Why did Mesoamerica’s ‘Mother’ culture apparently vanish into thin air, and very suddenly at that?

*Why so few Olmec bodies and no kitchen middens?

*Will we ever figure out their ‘writings’? That would surely shed much needed light on their society.

*That shape-shifting Were-Jaguar religious cult has no real further parallels in Mesoamerica. What was their philosophy behind the cult? 

*Most obviously, what were the ways and means of carving and transporting those massive ‘African’ stone heads? And why just heads from the chin up instead of fully fledged human statues like one finds in other ancient cultures?

*What’s the African connection, if indeed there is any African connection?

As I said, the Olmecs are indeed an enigma wrapped up in a mystery.

The Olmecs: An Enigma Wrapped In a Mystery: Part One

When it comes to the ancient civilizations in the Americas, well the Amerindians like the Anasazi at Mesa Verde come to mind; even more so the Aztecs, the Incas, and the Mayans. But perhaps the most interesting of all, a culture that normally registers on the peripheral vision of our knowledge of all things Mesoamerican, is that of the Olmecs. Olmec society, civilization and culture is famous for several things: their mysterious origins and demise; their obsession with jade; their cult of the Were-Jaguar; and last, but not least, those monumental ‘African’ stone head carvings. 

Once upon a time, some 3300 years or so before you were conceived of in anyone’s philosophy, a motley band of nomads that had many generations previously crossed over into North America from Asia at the height of the last Ice Age, found their way into what’s today known as the tropical lowlands of the eastern coastal region of Mexico. That motley band of nomads settled down and became the first great civilization of the New World – the Olmecs. They are classified by scholars as inhabiting the Middle Pre-Classic Period of the America’s ancient history. Early Pre-Classic refers to those prehistoric hunter-gatherers and the transition to those early and very small primitive agricultural settlements.

OLMEC BASICS

The Olmecs were the first of the great Mesoamerican civilizations, sometimes referred to as the Mother of all subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations.

They survived, even thrived from roughly 1200 BC to about 400 BC in the southern Gulf Coast area of Mexico, in an area now referred to as the states of Veracruz and Tabasco.

OLMEC POPULATION CENTRES

Though the Olmecs were primarily an agricultural society (we all have to eat), they did construct various high density metropolitan population centers, actually more ritual-based politico-religious centers, all with massive monuments including pyramids. The trilogy of those major centers were

*San Lorenzo (approximately 1200 – 900 BC). That site was eventually abandoned and they moved to La Venta, though there’s probably some degree of overlap between the two.

*La Venta (approximately 900 – 400 BC). This is the Olmec site best known and documented. It was actually on an island located within the Tonala River. The estimated population of La Venta has been estimated at some 18,000 individuals. Okay, so Mexico City it’s not, but that’s not a bad ‘city’ for the times.

*Tres Zapotes (approximately 900 BC). The 900 BC date is again a beginnings coinciding with the decline of San Lorenzo. There’s no termination date because other cultures inhabited the site after the Olmec civilization went the way of the dodo.

Sometimes there’s also a mention of Laguna de les Cerros as a major Olmec site.

These Olmec politico-religious sites were built under their rulers on a grand enough scale that one can draw parallels with ancient Egyptian monuments under their pharaohs. In other words, Olmec ‘cities’ were impressive for the times.

OLMEC PEOPLE

The Olmecs were named “The Olmecs” actually by the Aztecs as “People of the land of the rubber trees”. Though named by the Aztecs, the Aztecs didn’t appear on the horizon till some 1400 years later on down the track. So their “Olmecs” were as much an enigma wrapped up in a mystery to them as the Olmecs remain and are to us, as we shall see. 

The Olmecs did those normal everyday things you associate with nearly any ancient civilization – farm the land, build the buildings, engage in warfare, played ball games, practiced their religion with religious ceremonies that apparently included human sacrifices and bloodletting, in this case to their Jaguar-God and other deities.

All these activities were accomplished by the way without the wheel or any beasts of burden.

One question immediately springs to mind. Where did they come from? They certainly appeared very suddenly all wrapped up in a civilized box as a major culture. The next most obvious question is where did they disappear to since there’s no longer any ethnic group of people on Planet Earth we can call Olmecs? They disappeared from the scene just as quickly as they initially appeared. It appears as it they just melted away into surrounding areas, abandoning their ritual centres and settlements and way of life, losing all touch for all time with their unique identity. That said, it’s also obvious that these people’s culture certainly had a major influence on other Mesoamerican societies that followed like the Maya.

As to why the Olmec civilization collapsed, well the cause isn’t known, and scholars have speculated perhaps this and perhaps that and perhaps the next thing. Your guess at this stage is probably equally as valid. But whatever caused their demise, it happened very quickly.

OLMEC BODIES

Apart from just a very few human remains that have been found – just the bones from two, maybe three young individuals - if any major discoveries of bodies (skeletons, corpses or mummies), found in graves, tombs or cemeteries and connected with the Olmec civilization have been made, I’m unaware of them. There is on record a stone burial chamber, a sarcophagus and basalt tombs, but apparently no bodies. That alone is fairly anomalous when it comes down to putting a human face on an ancient culture – think of those Egyptian mummies, or those bog corpses oft discovered in northern Europe. Without skulls you can’t do forensic facial reconstructions to get an idea of what these people looked like. Without skeletons you’ve little idea of their average size and general state of health and fitness – what sorts of diseases and injuries might have been commonplace.

Also lacking are all those favourite remains that tell archaeologists so much about the life and times of a society – garbage dumps. There are no associated kitchen middens or refuse sites that have been located and excavated. 

To be continued…