The entire history of the megalith builders of Neolithic France's western Brittany region from the migration and rise of the first farmers to the demise of the culture. This feature length documentary shows how the famous megalithic monuments of Britain and Ireland, such as Stonehenge, derive from much earlier ones in Brittany. Who were the first farmers in France? Why did they start building the impressive megalithic chambered tombs or the enormous standing stones known as menhirs? This documentary looks at the world’s first tombs, some close to 7000 years old, and traces the development of the dolmens and other tombs from 5000 BC to 2700 BC. We also learn how the first farmers interacted with the Mesolithic Western Hunter Gatherers who were already there, and how they may have influenced this megalithic monument tradition. Learn how the exquisite jadeite axe heads of the Neolithic were symbols of power imported from the far away Alps. We visited the tombs of Gavrinis, Petit Mont, Table des Marchands, the Barrow tomb of Kercado and the truly ancient Saint-Michel tumulus among others. You will also learn about the 4 mile long alignments of Carnac and what they were made for. The adventure starts at the 9 maidens stones in Cornwall and ends on the stunning coasts of Morbihan in Brittany.
Petrequin, P. et al,.- The production and circulation of alpine jade axe-heads (2016)
Rivollat et al., 2015
Scarre, Chris, 'The Study of Neolithic Brittany', Landscapes of Neolithic Brittany (Oxford, 2011; online edn, Oxford Academic, 16 Mar. 2015)
Shennan, S. “The First Farmers of Europe” (2018)
Le Roux, C-T., 1999a. L’outillage de pierre polie en métadolérite ue type A. Les ateliers de Plussulien (Côtes-d”Armor): production et diffusion au Néolithique dans la France de l’ouest et au-delà. Rennes: Travaux du Laboratoire Anthropologie. Préhistoire et Quaternaire Armoricains
Le Roy et al.,Funerary behaviour of Neolithic necropolises and collective graves in France. Evidence from Gurgy «Les Noisats» (Middle Neolithic) and Passy/Veron «La Truie Pendue» (Late Neolithic) (2014)
Whittle, A., ‘Very Like a Whale’: Menhirs, Motifs and Myths in the Mesolithic–Neolithic Transition of Northwest Europe. 2000.
"In Search of the Earth-Mother of Anatolia"
A documentary which looks at the root of the Earth Mother goddess common to European pagan religions; call her Cybele, Rhea, Ceres, or whatever - she comes from Anatolia and spread out in various forms from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. One late form was Artemis of Ephesus, an Anatolian version of a Greek goddess who was then sent back to Europe in her new form. This film focuses mainly on the Lycians, who were an early Indo-European people in Anatolia who seem to have preserved more of the pre-Indo-European Anatolian religion and culture than most.
'Leto transforms the Lycian peasants to frogs' painting by Alex Cristi
Sources:
- Bryce. T., 'The Lycians in Literary and Epigraphic Sources' (1986)
- Ovid 'Metamorphoses', Melville. A. D. (trans) (Oxford, 1986)
People always ask me about Neolithic, pre-Indo-European European religion, and how much survived. I usually say that it is not possible to know much about the pre-literate Neolithic Europeans and hard to distinguish what elements of subsequent IE religion were carried on from before. However we can learn a lot by looking at Anatolia.
10,300 years ago, hunter gatherers in Anatolia started farming. This figure (above) of a seated Anatolian goddess dates to about 8000 years ago. 8,500 years ago Anatolians spread across Europe, replacing most of the people (Western Hunter-Gatherers) who were there before and bringing their agriculturally oriented religion which was heavily conscious of seasons and when to plant. To talk about pre-IE religion in Europe, is the same as talking about Near-Eastern religion since it all originates in Anatolia just as Neolithic Europeans did. Indo-Europeans invaded Anatolia and Europe over the 3rd millennium BC - the ones in Anatolia spoke languages (the Anatolian language family) ancestral to Hittite and Luwian. DNA shows that genetically, Anatolians were not altered much by the IE invasion, especially compared to Northern Europe. It is interesting therefore that their religion was so different to other Indo-European religions. For example, Hittite temples were built according to the same celestial principles as Stonehenge (aligned for solstices) and other Neolithic solar monuments.
Also worthy of note is the fact that some Anatolian peoples, such as Lycians, practiced matronymics, and a tradition of legitimacy and inheritance denoted by the maternal rather than paternal line. Lycian women were able to marry foreigners and have legitimate children but Lycian men, even aristocrats, could not. This is very unlike any other Indo-European culture and almost certainly derives from earlier customs of the Near-East!
Cybele
The goddess Cybele was Anatolian in origin; an earth mother credited with inventing agriculture. She is seems to be a pre-IE goddess and as her cult spread across the Mediterranean, she was associated and combined with other agricultural mother goddesses who were obviously derived from the same original Neolithic Anatolian figure. eg. Artemis of Ephesus was a regional cult in which the Greek hunter goddess was transformed into the Anatolian mother goddess. This cult was influential on the later cult of the Virgin Mary. The Roman goddess Ceres, whose name is cognate with cereal, was seen as equivalent to Greek Demeter (the Mother) - and her cult survived for awhile in Rome alongside the imported Anatolian cult of Cybele, who they called Magna Mater. The Romans also associated the Greek mother goddess Rhea (here seated much like Cybele or the prehistoric Anatolian goddess statue) with the Magna Mater.
Artemis of Ephesus
Ceres
Rhea
Just as there is more Anatolian farmer DNA in Southern than Northern Europe, we see more clear evidence of the endurance of the Neolithic agricultural mother goddess in the South, and most of all among the Anatolians living in the region where her cult originated. If you want to know what religion in pre-IE Britain or Europe might have been like, then take a look at the castrated transgender priests and orgiastic cults of Cybele or other Near-Eastern semi-matriarchal cults.
