From Black Land to Fifth Sun

My choice in the category Indigenous Cultures for the 2021 NONFICTION READER CHALLENGE focuses on different cultures in prehistory.

The title refers to the area covered in the book, from Central America to the Near East. “Black Land” is what the ancient Egyptians called their homeland, referring to the effect of the Nile on the surrounding land. “The World of the Fifth Sun” is the land of the Aztecs, referring to their creation myth. Interestingly, though, this is not the way the book is organized. Both chapters referring to these two areas are at the end of the book, instead of beginning with Black Land and ending with Fifth Sun. In fact, I couldn’t figure out why the chapters were organized as they were – they are not arranged by location, by time, or by topic.

The subtitle is The Science of Sacred Sites, and this is what attracted me to this book. I have an amateur interest in Archeology and Anthropology, and I have often wondered how archeologists determine that a figurine from prehistory was a sacred object or that a space was considered sacred. In the introduction, the author, Brian Fagan, explains what he intends to write about: the “archeology of mind”; also referred to as the “archeology of the intangible.”

In the first chapter (titled The Archaeology of the Intangible), Fagan asks, “How can archaeologists use science to recover symbolic worlds of the past, and the mythic and ritual settings that defined them? How can we bridge the gap between the tangible and intangible, to move from the material to the spiritual?”

And further in this chapter: “Some of the best intellects in archaeology today are grappling with a scientific methodology for studying human consciousness, especially religion and belief. Such a methodology is critical, but there is a fine line between rigorous science and what archaeologists Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus call “a kind of bungee jump into the Land of Fantasy” (1993, 261). The emerging “archaeology of mind” is a marriage of cultural systems theory, settlement archaeology, environmental reconstruction, contextual archaeology, and the decipherment of written records.”

Unfortunately, he never really answers this question. I still don’t know how science is used to “bridge the gap between the tangible and intangible.” He often writes, “the evidence shows,” but never explains what this evidence is or how it shows what he concludes. He also often uses hedging words such as apparently and perhaps, which doesn’t seem based on science.

Each chapter focuses on a different archeological site or area or types of archeological remains. For example, cave paintings, Avebury, Stonehenge, Phylakopi, Çatalhöyük, ancestor worship, goddess figurines, etc. The information about the sites and what was found in them is extremely interesting and described in both a professional and a personal way. For example, his description of how he felt when he first saw rock art of the San people:

“My first sighting of African rock art was in late afternoon. The Matopo Hills in western Zimbabwe (figure 3.1) shimmered in the soft, yellow winter light. Great weathered granite domes and vast boulders nestled in dense woodlands. I climbed high on a rounded peak where a deep overhang cast a cool shadow on a smooth-walled concavity in a rock, and when I looked up, I could see painted red giraffes with their elongated bodies outlined in white. Groups of San hunters, drawn with sticklike precision, prepared for the hunt below them. The intricate frieze ran for several meters; a wild maze of reds, oranges, browns, whites, and yellows that included animals, humans, and a multitude of dots, oval lines, and symbols. As the sun went down, the paintings stood out clearer on the light-colored wall. Defying immediate interpretations and understanding, I nevertheless stood enthralled, caught up in the colors, lines, and images.”

However, as with each of the archeological sites he writes about, he does not reveal the “science” or why it is considered “sacred.” Most of the chapter about the San describes present-day practices, rather than prehistory. While he writes that one way to “bridge the chasm between the material and intangible with only art, artifacts, architecture, and food remains to guide us” is to “look for any surviving past cultural customs in present-day rural folklore,” he also writes elsewhere in the book that it is a mistake to assume that a group’s present-day practices are evidence of such practices in prehistory. So how does he make his choices?

The book was published in 1998, and there have likely been many advances in archeology since then. Fagan often writes that certain ‘methodologies’ and ‘approaches are ‘fairly new’ and are ‘being worked on,’ so it would be a good idea for an updated edition now to incorporate more recent information. In a new edition, it would also be a good idea to include photographs, rather than the crude and basic drawings or reproductions in this edition. In many cases it is difficult to see the “evidence” in a painting or sculpture because the picture is so poor. However, a useful part of this book is the extra resources at the end for further reading in each of the areas covered.

In conclusion, I enjoyed learning about a wide variety of prehistorical sites and cultures throughout the world, but wish that Fagan had answered his own question about how archeologists make their assumptions based on science rather than speculation.