Format: Paper presentations with discussion
Convenors:
Jan Turek, Centre for Theoretical Study, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
turekjan@hotmail.com
Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu, Manager, Archaeology at South African National Parks (SANParks), Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
ndukuyakhe@googlemail.com
Chung-Pin Hsieh, Dept of Anthropology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
twtiger0523@gmail.com
Petr Krištuf, Dept of Archaeology, Philosophical Faculty, University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic
pkristuf@gmail.com
The ritual monuments and natural sacred places symbolically structured landscapes throughout world prehistory. How did prehistoric communities perceive their monuments and did they respect and reuse the ritual sites of their ancestors? Did these places retain their sacral nature or were they simply transformed into areas of secular settlement and thus lost their original sacredness? Awareness of the ritual purpose of some monuments and natural shrines was passed down in oral tradition and shared by generations of people sharing common spiritual identity.
In this session we welcome papers that investigate the development and perception of ritual sites and landscapes by successive generations of prehistoric populations. Combining modern archaeological and scientific methods, it is possible to analyse and reconstruct how the monuments were created, reused and altered and, in some cases, destroyed, by later generations. How did human sacred activities form the landscapes and create long term palimpsests of ritual behaviour? How did people create sacred areas to bury and celebrate their ancestors, how did they divide the space for the living and the dead? We want to hear the stories of how the sacred places and monuments were created and how they were perceived by following generations. Archaeological evidence reveals that some places where people worshipped their gods and ancestral spirits continued to function as arenas of ritual and social interaction despite major changes in population history. In other cases, the evidence show that their original spiritual function was terminated. What can modern interdisciplinary research and methodology of landscape reconstruction tell us about human spirituality in relation to cultural spaces and natural environments?
Papers:
Neolithic Long Barrows and Continuity of Shared Spiritual Identities in the Prehistoric Landscape
Petr Kristuf, Dept of Archaeology, Philosophical Faculty, University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic
Jan Turek, Centre for Theoretical Study, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
The earliest manifestation of funerary monumentality in Central Europe is represented by long barrows from the 4th millennium BC. The latest discoveries from Dlouhé Dvory and Račiněves in Czech Republic suggest that it was the long barrows that initiated the tradition of shaping ritual landscapes. The long barrows are commonly interpreted as funerary/religious sites, perhaps erected as part of a system of ancestral cult. They can also be perceived as territorial markers delineating the areas controlled by different farming communities and perceived as landmarks of previous habitation enduring for millennia after their construction. They gained further importance as shrines shaping regional identity and artefactual memory in landscape. Even centuries and millennia later these sites were reused for sacrificial and funerary purposes.
Long barrows, the houses of ancestors that served as sanctuaries, endured in the landscape for thousands of years. In several cases, secondary burials associated with the sequence from Copper to Iron Ages (3rd to 1st millennium BC) have been recorded within long barrows and their surroundings. People returned to them, sharing stories of ancient ancestors. This created a collective memory of communities spanning millennia, forming the foundation for medieval and modern legends.
Maidams—The Burial Mounds of the Ahoms, India
Ritika Sahu, Cotton University, Guwahati, Assam, India
The burial mounds of the Ahoms, the ruling dynasty of Assam (13th to 19th Century AD), are one of their unique features. As a customary practice, maidams (burial mounds) were erected for the dead. As Ahom rule spread, many maidams were constructed in the areas they frequented. The Ahoms originally belonged to a branch of Tais, and subscribed to a non-Hindu religious cosmogony. Despite subsequently adopting Hindu customs and practices, they never altogether gave up their burial practices. Their burial practices have been found mentioned in different texts from time to time, yet very few attempts have been made to study them systematically. Combining textual traditions with archaeological investigations on the burial mounds at Charaideo, Assam, the author offers some preliminary observations on the maidams and what they represent. It is argued that they were not only mortuary practices, but also important markers of identity of the past, as well as in present times. This practice was a tradition that differentiated the Ahoms from other dynasties (and the laity) of that region. The study hopes to help interpret other similar customs/traditions which survive and are transformed over time, without ever dying out completely.
Megalithic Burials Found in Western Maharashtra
Anita Bajrang Agashe, Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, Pune, India
Burial monuments, which form a significant part of the megalithic culture that emerged after the Chalcolithic period, are found across various parts of the world. In India, these monuments are particularly prominent in regions such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Vidarbha in eastern Maharashtra. These structures offer important insights into the burial customs and cultural practices of ancient communities. In Nagpur district, single and circular burial monuments are still seen in large numbers, continuing to shed light on the region’s megalithic heritage. However, a notable discovery has been made in the Western Ghats of western Maharashtra, where menhir-type megaliths have been identified for the first time. These upright stones, which are typically associated with burial and ceremonial practices, are distinct from the more commonly found circular or cairn-type monuments in other parts of the country. The presence of these menhirs in the Sahyadri mountain plateau marks a significant addition to the megalithic traditions of India and suggests regional variations in burial practices. This paper aims to provide the preliminary documentation of these newly discovered menhir-type megaliths, highlighting their unique features, distribution, and potential cultural significance. By exploring these monuments, this study contributes to a broader understanding of megalithic practices in western Maharashtra and their role in shaping the region’s historical and cultural landscape.
Sacred Rock Art Sites and Continuation of Rituals in India
Dr Meenakshi Dubey-Pathak, Tagore National Scholar, National Museum of Mankind, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
The persistence of traditional ceremonies carried out by local tribals in rock art sites is still going on in the remote forest areas in India. Nowadays, except for Australia, such a persistence of ritual practices in anciently painted shelters has become exceptional in the world and even in India those rituals are fast disappearing. They are all the more important to provide us with much needed information on people’s motifs, desires and beliefs relating to a rock art that had been created by their ancestors and pertains now to them.
When ceremonies and rituals take place in or around painted sites and their surroundings long keep their spiritual value, three kinds of changes may occur with time: new traditional paintings may be added to the existing panels; when people from local tribes, often under the command of a local ‘priest or ‘shaman’, go to the sites to perform, various ritual. They will make offerings to the gods and they may touch the walls and add a few fingerprints or handprints without doing any great harm. The second type of change is having a sort of altar or sanctuary built for one of the Hindu divinities in one corner of the shelter. Other types of images, signs and script belonging to different religions, mostly to Hinduism or Buddhism, may cover and even replace the initial ones in the shelters. Finally, a modern temple may be built quite close, thus testifying to the power of the place, adding new traditional paintings. The rock art site is then dead. We shall see examples of these changes from the different states of the Indian subcontinent.
Cervid Representations in the Caves of Franco-Cantabria – ‘Peripheral’ Animals or Mediators Between Worlds?
Nataliia Mykhailova, Institute of Archaeology of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine
In the pictorial repertoire of the monumental and mobile art of the Franco-Cantabrian Upper Palaeolithic, the image of the deer played one of the most important roles. Leroi-Gourhan emphasised the ‘peripheral’ location of deer depictions relative to the bison and horse in Franco-Cantabrian caves. We assume that the ‘peripheral’ areas of the caves, in the binary coordinate system of ‘human-non-human’ served as the ‘border between worlds’. The symbolic significance of the deer image shows the location of its pictures at the entrances or in the most remote parts of the caves, the repeatability of the pictures, the emphasis on semantically significant parts (head and horns), paired pictures etc. These dates indicate the emergence of the primeval conception of the deer as totemic ancestor, protector of fertility and mediator between worlds. The development and spread of these archetypes through the territories of Europe and Asia indirectly confirms their existence in the art of the late Palaeolithic.
Indigenous People of Arunachal Pradesh—Their Spiritual Identities and Landscape
Bina Gandhi Deori, Deputy Director-Research, SAARC Cultural Centre, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Arunachal Pradesh, situated in the foothills of Himalayas is the northeastern most state of India. It is home to several hundred Indigenous people practising a belief system based on nature worship. These ethnic people have developed a close relationship with their environment, seeing the mountains, hills, streams, rivers, tress and forest not only as resources but as integral parts of the spiritual belief system. The Himalayan mountain peaks, rivers are often viewed as sacred abodes of the spiritual entities. The concept of sacred groves is not new to these Indigenous people. Be it Galo, Apatani, Aka or Nyishi, they have managed to preserve their ancient forests as part of their heritage and legacy. Therefore, it is interesting to note how these people are dealing with the contemporary challenges such as deforestation and commercial development in their region. There are several examples from Arunachal Pradesh, mostly community-led initiatives, that will be highlighted in this paper and examined how they embody the spirit of resilience and continue to navigate these contemporary challenges while remaining deeply connected to their spiritual identities written in their landscapes.
Sacred Silence and Buried Resistance: Spiritual Memory and the Landscape of Liuzhangli in Post-Authoritarian Taiwan
Chung-Pin Hsieh, Dept of Anthropology, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
This paper examines the burial landscape of Liuzhangli (六張犁) in Taipei, where victims of Taiwan’s White Terror—many of them students, intellectuals, and political dissidents—were buried in standardised, austere graves. Drawing on archaeologies of repression and remembrance, this study explores how the site’s stark simplicity reflects authoritarian attempts to discipline death and suppress memory. Yet, despite this enforced minimalism, Liuzhangli has emerged as a powerful site of memory in post-authoritarian Taiwan. Its austere materiality, rather than signalling forgetting, paradoxically intensifies collective remembrance and ethical reflection. This paper invites archaeologists to reconsider prehistoric burial landscapes through the lens of modern historical cemeteries like Liuzhangli, suggesting that minimalist or constrained materiality can reflect deliberate, socially and politically charged choices about how death, memory, and spiritual identity are materially expressed.
The Use and Reuse of Rock Art Sites: Insights From Eastern and Southern Africa
Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu, Manager: Archaeology at South African National Parks (SANParks), Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Rock art is one of the most notable heritage resources that is found all around the world. There have been many contests over time regarding what was or is the meaning behind making rock art, and such deliberations continue to this day. The commonly accepted interpretation is that rock art served a religious purpose. One of the features of rock art is the act of superimpositioning. To some, this may have been a destructive exercise that threatened the authenticity of rock art. However, to the authors of rock art, this was a vital act to continuously maintain the spiritual potency of rock art. The reality, however, is that there has been greater emphasis placed by heritage authorities on the physicality of rock art, promoting what I call fossilisation. Such approach is contradictory to the cultural practices of managing the spiritual potency of rock art sites, an aspect that is still of interest to the descendants of those who made rock art and those who have attached the same spiritual significance even though they are not descendants. This attitude of heritage authorities, which criminalises spiritual practices at rock art sites, has challenged the ongoing use of rock art by communities in Eastern and southern Africa. Such actions are forcing the termination of spiritual acts that are still of significance to various societies. This is an argument supported by scholars who speak of rock art in past tense because those who made it are extinct, meaning their images can be fossilised for future generations.