[Article]: Cephalopod Fossils: Myths and Legends (by Phil)

Phil said:
It is, of course, easy to see any seemingly 'out-of-place' object as having ritual significance, but it is tempting to see these ammonites in such a context. Certainly our cave-dwelling ancestors thought they were worth keeping, so could possibly they have seen them in a religious vein?

This is a tricky issue and (while I'm still searhcing for the specific references) there are claims for Neadnerthal's having an understanding of aethetics due to various fossils and minerals in Middle Palaeolithic assemblages. Although (as far as I'm aware) none of the fossils are actually cephs (largly gastropods and bivalves)

I'm struggling to find the paper I was thinking of but there is a good general review here:

Chase, P.G. & Dibble, H.L. (1987) Middle Paleolithic symbolism: A review of the current evidence and interpretations. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. 6 (3). 263 - 96.

Its probably this (or one of his many other publications):

Marshack, A. (1988b) The Neanderthals and their human capacity for symbolic thought: Cognitive and problem-solving aspects of Mousterian symbol. In Bar-Yosef, O. (ed.) L’Homme Neanderthal. Vol 6. La Pensée. Etudes et Recherches Archéologiques de l’Université Liège 33. ERAUL, Liège. 57 - 92.

but be wary:

Bar-Yosef, O. (1988) Evidence for Middle Palaeolithic symbolic behaviour: A cautionary note. In Bar-Yosef, O. (ed.) L'Homme de Neanderthal. Vol 5. La Pensée. Etudes et Recherches Archéologiques de l’Université Liège 32. ERAUL, Liège. 11 - 16.

I did a quick search and found this:
Evolution - August 1996: The 1st Paleontologist was a Neanderthal

and both mineral and fossil collection may have oroginated earlier in the Lower Palaeolithic (with crinoids):

Goren-Inbar, N., Lewy, Z. & Kislev, M.E. (1991) Bead-like fossils from an Acheulian occupation site, Israel. Rock Art Research. 8. 133 - 6.

However, we should be cautious about reading too much into it. I doubt we can infer a religious element to the inclusion of the ammonites but it is certainly intriguing :wink:

Phil said:
This is extremely interesting and I wish I'd been aware of this when I wrote the 'Myths and Legends' article as I certainly would have included it.

Well if you want to reprise and expand your article on fossil cephs and mythology then it does sound like something the Fortean Times might be interested in - after all you have already been published on their pages :wink:

Emps
 
Many thanks for these links, Emperor.

I had no idea about the Neanderthal ‘collections’ and will certainly try to find out more, so thanks for the heads-up.

It’s unfortunate that the BBC report does not indicate how exactly the ammonites were found; whether they were scattered randomly around or associated in groups with specific burials. Some idea of distribution might give a clue to the purpose of the collections. Mind you, I’d imagine that as the humans were just 10,000 years old they would have little different to ourselves physically their mental abilities would have been the same, so there is no reason to suppose that the ammonites might have been gathered purely out of curiosity, as some of us still do!

It appears that D T Donovan (who has written many papers on fossil cephalopods) wrote a paper on the ammonites in 1968 called “The Ammonites and other fossils from Aveline's hole (Burrington Combe, Somerset)” in vol. 11 of the UBSS Proceedings. Doubtless this would be from a palaeontological perspective rather than an archaeological one, but might shed some light on the finds. It’d be great if someone could track the paper down for this site.

By the way Emperor as I know you do a great deal of moderating for the Fortean Times site, do you really think FT would be interested in a version of the Myths article? What sort of length do you think it would need to be? I might be very interested in writing one!

Cheers,

Phil
 
Phil :grad:

Great article. I like the fact that cephalopods have always held such great fascination for our species. Beats the hell outta my cephs in anime thread! :notworth:

So, my question is how similar do you think the modern-day nautilus is to the ammonite? The reason I ask is that I'm trying to consider something on ceph neurology again, and a good idea of the internals of the ancestral forms makes for an interesting comparison.

John
 
Fujisawas Sake said:
So, my question is how similar do you think the modern-day nautilus is to the ammonite? The reason I ask is that I'm trying to consider something on ceph neurology again, and a good idea of the internals of the ancestral forms makes for an interesting comparison.

Hi John,

I'm going to cop out a little on that answer for now due to lack of time, but if have a look at the 'Nautiloids' article and scroll down to the 'Ammonites' section, I listed quite a few differences there. I thought it would be better to refer you to that bit as opposed to myself typing it out all over again, hope you don't mind.

As far as I know I don't think anyone has tried doing comparative work on the neurology of fossil cephs and I'd imagine it would be almost impossible. As there has not been a single convincing soft bodied ammonite fossil found, I'd imagine reconstructing its internal organisation would be tantamount to educated guesswork.

If I find any interesting ammonite /nautilus comparison websites I'll drop you a line.

Phil
 
Phil: No worries - glad it helped. The earliest evidence for some kind of aesthetic appreciation goes back to the Australopithecines at Makapansgat who seem to have colleected a pebble with a 'human' ace on it - not very sophisticated but....... Also the fossils I mentioned were unmodified there is a famous nummulite fossil found at Tata which was cracked across the middle and someone (in the Middle Palaeolithic) incised a line at right angles across it. There is an interesting overview here:

www.originsnet.org/mindmp.html

The USBS report? I'd contact English Heritage in the area:

http://accessibility.english-heritage.org.uk/default.asp?WCI=Node&WCE=190

They might be abl to provide you with more information/reports and possibly send them to you.

I'll PM you about the FT matters.

Emps
 
Now, I'm not sure I understand this, but some of the more spiritually minded readers might know what is going on here. The Australian chap who wrote the report appears to be meditating upon ammonites on behalf of the Malaysian Armed Forces in some form of officer training programme.

No, I don't understand either.
 
Well, there are a whole lot of people in the world who meditate using the chakras. I believe the Kabbalah studies use them, and I'm not sure how many other spiritual disciplines do, but I think there are quite a few. Each chakra is at a specific point in the body, and the meditator starts at the lowest one and meditates on that, (which is usually associated with a specific color), and grdually works his way to the top. The article says there are nine, I have a book on meditation that says there are seven main ones, plus others. The use of crystals is supposed to help you focus on the chakra that matches the color of the crystal, at least that's how I understand it. I'd never heard about associating an ammonite with them before, but in a way it makes sense, because the chakras are supposed to be whirling discs of light energy, or something like that. I kind of like the idea of finding my inner ammonite! :earlyammo :smile:
 
UK readers might be interested to pop along to the a new exhibition called 'Fossil Folklore', This has just opened at the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum in Tring, Hertfordshire, and will run until 8 July. Ammonites will feature heavily, of course. You can read all about it here.
 
Hi Phil,

Fascinating link you posted about Nepalese ammonites, but I didn't catch the derivation of that word, saligram. Did I miss it? Great material.

Cheers,
Clem
 

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