(PDF) The Neolithic dualist scheme

Documenta Praehistorica XLIX (2022) The Neolithic dualist scheme Cédric Bodet Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, Kötekli, TR<

[email protected]

ABSTRACT – The monumental twin steles compositions in Neolithic symbolism. played a fundamental role for prehistoric logy (mythology, totemism, etc.) is mer/winter etc.) taking root in the mic subgroups. It is this dualism that tonomous agricultural lineages could nence in the Neolithic. KEY WORDS – Neolithic symbolism; exogamy; farmer IZVLE∞EK – Monumentalna kamnita nih kompozicij neolitske simbolike. v prazgodovinskih dru∫bah. Etnografi gija, totemizem itd.) strukturirana je/zima itd.), ki temelji na sistemu lizem naj bi poosebljala kamnita dvoj≠ka. lahko razlo∫imo, zakaj je bil ta brez≠asni KLJU∞NE BESEDE – simbolika v neolitiku; ideologija; prvi poljedelci Introduction The Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe in Northern Me- sopotamia has raised much interest, but the most relevant questions have mostly remained unans- wered. One reason is that the field of prehistory alone is rather ill-adjusted to properly address mat- ters of ideology. The ethnology of comparable ex- tant societies offers an alternative means of explo- ration (Forest 1992.28–31; Yakar 2005.111–112), as it can reveal the concepts conveyed through the symbolism. The present discussion concentrates on the most imposing feature of the Southwest Asian Neolithic 2 is presented elsewhere (Bodet 2021; forthcoming). The current paper concentrates on the likely mean- ing enclosed in these isomorphic symbols, or rather, on the ideology and the social structure they reflect. Ethnoarchaeological analogy presents various prob- lems (David, Kramer 2001.51–54), but the symbol in question here appears remarkably central to both archaeological and ethnographic societies. If the analogy proves appropriate enough, the analysis may somehow make the archaeological data ‘speak’ (Gould 1978.250), thereby unlocking some of the meaning enclosed in the symbolism (Wilson 2020.6). Fig. 1. Ground plan of Göbekli Tepe. GT_Gesamtplan_2014 and Jens Notroff. © Deutsches Archäologisches 1 Little noticed, the female figure in Çatalhöyük nificant) parallel lines are recurrent in sentation. (Henderson 1964.154), in particular predators, snakes, birds (probably with a psy- chopomp function), bucrania, anthropomorphic statues or smaller side-steles. The order- ing and redundancy of these symbolic compositions are doubtlessly not arbitrary and must correspond to a prede- fined logical system, convey- ing a particular message left to be deciphered (Stordeur 2003.32; Testart 1987a.171). This message carried by such structures, together with the Fig. 2. Distribution fact that nothing indicates that (see Bodet they supported anything (Jeu- nesse 2020), is, in passing, the reason why the word ‘stele’ is preferred here to that of ‘pillar’ generally used in the literature. In the same trend of thought, the term ‘temple’ is ill-fated to designate sures, as these ceremonies probably do not imply a ‘cult of deities’ (Testart 2006a), which when required for the ideological unification of large urban congregations during the much later Obeid/ Uruk horizons (Forest 1996a). Though rarely or too briefly (Voigt 2002.254) menti- oned (Roger Matthews 2003.37 is a significant ex- ception), the decipherment of this symbolic message was successfully initiated nearly three decades ago by Jean-Daniel Forest (1993), providing a solid foun- dation on which further elaboration ought now to proceed. Always placed in the centre, the twin composition is suspected to symbolize the highest sphere of Neoli- thic ideology. It is a simple symbol with which re- searchers are doomed to start with in order to pati- ently reconstruct the meaning it may hold in the so- cial structure (Durkheim 1937.42–45). One precon- dition is not to underestimate the capacity of early communities to express abstract themes through corresponding symbols. A symbol is a signifier standing for a signified. Re- peated over and over again in places dedicated to communal matters, the signified in question must indeed be very significant for the community. This element can only be described, for now, as a sym- bol of symmetry, but it makes sense within a system of thought (ideology) deriving from a correspond- 4 Australian Aborigines are the only living mirror of Pre-Mesolithic-type of societies. A coherent and all- encompassing theoretical reconstitution of their so- cial structure was achieved by Testart, as stable and lengthy as the Palaeolithic period itself, as it is known from archaeology at least. But the ultimate reason why Aborigines are of interest to us here is that, together with Neolithic societies, they clearly appear to hold dualism as a keystone of their ideo- logical construction and that only a living society can reveal its meaning. A word of warning, however. This is not simply about making “connection between two entirely different societies on the basis that they use sym- metrical symbols in their ideology”, as one revie- wer of an earlier version of this paper suspected. There could be a slight chance that isomorphism may relate to something utterly different in the two societies although as dualism and exogamy are ex- tremely widespread (near universal) in the ethno- graphic record, there is a much higher chance that the Neolithic isomorphism is a delayed expression of the Palaeolithic dualism. Moreover, the modern understanding of dualism, “two irreducible, hetero- geneous principles” (Britannica.com) must be here understood as being thoroughly complementary in their opposition, which is what we will try to report. Ethnographers have been struck by the extreme at- tention given to kinship by all traditional societies, and in particular to one critical point (Spencer, Gil- len 1899; Frazer 1910; Howitt 1905): such societies are always divided into several subgroups, at least two, exchanging sexual mates every generation for the sake of procreation. This ‘artificial’ social divi- sion is at the root of exogamy (‘marrying outside’), an absolutely fundamental principle from which later social and kinship systems evolved (Freud 2010[1913].39–53, 255–256; Lévi-Strauss 1967.80– 97; Testart 1985; 1988). One direct consequence of this law is that, as Robert S. Walker et al. (2011.1) say, “arranged marriages [necessarily among rel- atives] are inferred to go back at least to first mo- dern human migrations out of Africa”. The archaeological data offers monumental evi- dence to support the idea that this arrangement per- petuated at least until the Neolithic. It is certainly biased and erroneous to designate a society by what it does not have (bows and arrows). What Palaeolithic-type societies do have, and even more so than later hunter-gatherers, are relations of by James Mellaart (1967.48, note 27–28), Ian Hod- der or Forest (Matthews 2003.46) for Neolithic ones. Dualism is also the principle behind the famous Yin (female/earth/moon/water) and Yang (male/sky/ sun/fire) of the Chinese tradition (Granet 1929. 225). A similar symbolic partition of fundamental opposite elements is still present today, for exam- ple, in the arrangement of the Berber house in north- ern Africa (Bourdieu 1980). The philosopher Vol- kert Haas likewise refers to the concept of separa- tion of the ‘undifferentiated’ cosmos times into two sets of opposite but mutually inter- dependent elements, in particular above-heaven- male and below-earth-female (Becker et al. 2012. 30). This widespread differentiation is personified in the antithetic heroes, twins or brothers/sisters in many founding myths all over the world (Girard 1972.247–248). Among Australian Aborigines, this binary interdepen- dence becomes a ubiquitous principle encompassing inorganic elements like mountains, water holes, or meteorological events (storms, rainbows). The en- tire world is thus systematically divided into sepa- rated but interdependent halves, a reflection of the society itself, as ideology generally does (Testart 1985.467–489). Dualism thus does not appear as a cultural but as a structural element deeply wired in the constitution of (all?) early human societies. Barnard (pers. com.) tells me that this dualist divi- sion of the society “is true for Aboriginal Australia, but not necessarily for hunter-gatherers in gener- al”. This is a crucial point because it shows the chro- nological and structural evolution from ‘primeval communists’, for which Australian Aborigines are the sole ethnographic representatives, towards ‘la- ter’ hunter-gatherers like the !Kung San, in which relations of production seem to have been altered by a certain spur of individualization (see below; Testart 1985.56–60; 1987b). This evolution would explain the distinction between the ‘socio-centric system’ and the ‘ego-centric system’ made by Alan Barnard (1978.77), as well as, the full “correlation between the system of kin categorization as a whole and the rules of marriage” (ibid. 75) that characterizes the Australians but is not found among the San. All this tends to show how ‘primeval com- munism’ could represent the genuine social back- ground, characterized by “a lack of ambiguity of categorization” (ibid.) and from which later devel- opments are likely to have derived. 2 In Marxian terminology, “the gathering 6 dreds of thousands of years: Forest (2006.126) thus states without hesitation that “in the case of the Pre-pottery Neolithic, the analogical basis to take into consideration is of course the ‘primeval com- munism’”. This implies that Neolithic people are like- ly to have possessed a cosmogony organized around some form of totemism, animism or shamanism (Le- wis-Williams 2002.132; Bischoff 2002.237; Yakar 2005.112). From there, it is difficult to support the idea that Neolithic people started to cultivate grains because they would have begun (why?) to conceive differ- ently (how?) their relation to deities (are there any?). This is where Jacques Cauvin’s (1997) famous mo- del is problematic, and why the chain of causal ef- fects may benefit if reversed (Testart 1998.27). The Palaeolithic ‘middle range’ The idea that the dualist ideology could be present in Neolithic symbolism as a continuum of a much older tradition would certainly gain some weight if found directly in the Palaeolithic period proper. As mentioned above, Leroi-Gourhan (1964) pointed out such reciprocal dichotomy in the Franco-Cantabrian cave paintings, Lascaux in particular. Horned ani- mals (placed on protruding parts of the cave wall) are supposed to represent a male abstraction (horns being an obvious phallomorphic symbol, see Han- sen 2017), while hornless animals (horses, in con- cave spaces) a female one, their interaction leading to fertility. These images are moreover painted in the very depth of caves, an obvious symbol of Mo- ther Earth’s vagina and womb, where not only hu- mans but all organic forms come to life. “The earth would have been considered the source of all life’s elements” writes Yak Yakar (2005.111–112), speci- fying that such “communal fertility-related rituals may have originated in the period before farm- ing became the principal subsistence economy”. Dimitrij Mleku∫ Vrhovnik (2021.3) further says that a cave is “a womb and a tomb at the same time”, which would fit well with the above-mentioned idea that life is conceived as taking place in an eternal cycle where death is its inevitable opposite (Gibson 2009[2010.23]). Jean-Loïc Le Quellec (2015.259–260) comes to the same conclusion after his comprehen- sive studies of ancient myths from around the world, where humans and animals emerge from a hole in the ground, making the underground at the same time the place where life originates and where the deceased return. The cave paintings thus seem to have put into action symbolically the “structuring principle (of) vitality (fecundity, life-force)” (Ver- in Africa or Marcel Mauss and Bronisław Malinowski in Me- lanesia recognized related practices of inter-clan exoga- my, cross-cousin marriage or ‘classificatory’ structures to describe the internal organi- zation of pre-state societies, an organization so different from their own Western ‘com- plex’ type of kinship (where marriage is practiced with the outside world, as opposed to closed-in and ‘elementary’, sy- Fig. 3. stems to use Lévi-Strauss ter- © Xavier métrique minology). This all-encompas- sing dualist classification appears as the principle according to which early human society coped with the distribution of sexual mates in order to ensure its own perpetuation. There is thus nothing surpris- ing in finding it all the way to the Neolithic, before the Agricultural Domestic system altered it profound- ly (infra). There seems to linger in Western thought an ethno- centric reflex to consider pre-state societies as un- familiar with elaborate forms of conceptualization (Asouzu 2007.192). The ethnography of hunter-ga- therer societies largely suggests the contrary (Bar- nard 2020). It is much beyond the scope of this pa- per to develop the Palaeolithic symbolic world, but it was essential to show that the Neolithic dualist system is a natural offspring of a much more ancient and complex ideological background (Verhoeven 2001.84). We are now ready to investigate more precisely what this ‘dualist scheme’ is all about. The ‘primeval communist’ social structure and its persistence in the Early Neolithic The relations of production According to the analysis that Testart (1985) pro- posed of at least certain genuine (i.e. matrilineal) Australian tribes (in the southeast, especially), the hunter is not supposed to eat the prey he has killed, but to give it away to the community. “For example, in south-west Victoria, the hunter is said to receive nothing, and his brothers are treated in the same way (Howitt 1904.765)” (Testart 1987b.296). This is the basic opposition this author makes between ‘primeval communists’ and later hunters who usual- ly distribute their prey according to a pattern which “leaves no doubt about the sharer’s close kinship ties” (Bird-David 2019.17–19). Indeed, “possession 8 as the dominant mode of production (Testart 1985. 115,169). The universality of this rule can be questioned for the early stages of humanity, but the general para- digm seems to be that sharing follows the division traced by the kinship pattern in the social body (Speth 2010.xiiiv). This could help shed light on specific archaeological traces. For example, food exchange can be inferred from such data in the PPNA sites of the Northern Levant, where harvested grains are assumed to have been stored in commu- nal buildings (Stordeur 2000.3; 2003.20; 2012), more or less symmetrically divided into two equal parts along the axis of the building (Stordeur et al. 2001.32–33, Fig. 5/1). Though this is nothing but the author’s speculation, it could be that this sym- metrical division of the village granary was made according to the kinship division within the com- munity for matters of exchange (each subgroup pro- ducing and storing for the other). This division goes much beyond economic matters. At Faynan, in the southern Levant, the communal buildings are cha- racterized by “general symmetry to the structure along an axis formed by a deep trough” (Mithen et al. 2011.354). Sometimes, such complementary division has been identified at the level of the entire site: “the small settlement at Qermez Dere had been laid out in two contrasting halves that per- formed complementary functions. Part way through its life, the village was re-formed, but once again in two complementary halves” (Watkins 2006.16). Leaving aside the case of Asıklı, which has a street dividing the village (Özbasaran et al. 2012. 140) but in less clearly symmetrical parts, Hodder (2012.304) identified such an arrangement at Çatal- höyük, with “a large dip or trough across the mid- dle, dividing it into two hills. The mound does seem to have developed in two halves (north and south). (…) In addition we have found some dif- ferences in the genetic make-up of the humans buried in the two halves”. Finally, in the late Neo- lithic (but in fact, contemporary with the local emer- gence of the farming system), Ulf-Dietrich Schoop (2005.49), concerning the “lines of parallel facing one another” in Hacılar and several other western Anatolian Late Neolithic sites, writes that “this brings to mind the social organization known in the ethnographic record as the ‘moiety system’, in which a community views itself consisting as two competitive 3 halves. I do not wish to elabo- 3 We will see that the division is, at this 4 I am thankful to Çiler Çilingiroglu (pers. cousins’ are the children of a brother and sister; because the social affiliation comes from either the father or the mother, cross-cousins necessarily be- long to a different ‘class’ and are expected to marry. This is just one straightforward example; there are many possible types of marital alliance, with many more subgroups but the founding exogamic princi- ple remains everywhere the same: the hunter does not ‘consume’ his sister but the sister of a hunter from the opposite moiety (hence the famous ‘ex- change of sisters’). Close-kin mating is often thought to have been pro- hibited to lessen biological complications coming from consanguine mating, but there is no genetic difference between a cross- (prescribed mate) and a parallel-cousin (proscribed). The key point is that healthy mate circulation in the long term implies not only separate groups (at least two), but reci- procity among them. It is obvious that this social di- vision is not prompted by emulation or rivalry but, quite on the contrary, by the welfare of the entire society. “A social benefit results from an exogamic marriage (…), the law of exogamy is omnipresent (…). It is the archetype of all other manifestations at the basis of reciprocity, it provides the funda- mental and immutable rule ensuring the existence of the group as group” (Lévi-Strauss 1967.551). Ex- change and the social classification permitting it thus appear again ultimately as modes of (re)pro- duction. The tight infrastructural correspondence be- tween the kinship system and the economy seems to strengthen the fundamental role played by reci- procity and dualism in the ideology (Lévi-Strauss 1967.48–170; Bloch 1983.9–10). As for the reflection of these principles in archaeo- logy, the internal subdivision of the PPNA commu- nities suspected above may be continuing in PPNB Çayönü, where the two large buildings just north of the Plaza could house the elder(s) of each moiety. Another contemporary hint is found in Nevalı Çori with “two groups of houses with different orienta- tion (…) that could have belonged to two groups of families with different lineage” (Yakar 2003.443), two groups expectedly related through permanent intermarriages. Whatever the case, all hunter-gather- er societies seem to know one form or another of kinship classification (Ghasarian 1996.31; Walker et al. 2011.1): there seems to be no viable reason not to expect a similar system of reciprocal mate ex- change among Neolithic communities. And this could be what the twin steles state out-loud. 10 nous symbolic program on the entire site, this bind- ing element must have been related to an isomor- phic, i.e. dualist conception, shared long before the construction of Göbekli Tepe. The Neolithic iconography could fit neatly with the totemic analogy, by supposing, like the excavators of Göbekli Tepe and other specialists (Peters, Schmidt 2004.209–212; Kornienko 2018.17–18), that the animals carved on the steles represented totems. However, for Forest (2006.134) this is pro- bably not the case, because these elements interfere with each other, being complementary or synony- mous, so as to convey a message, while totemism simply classifies in purely equal terms. Totemism and message/law indeed stand at different levels in the ideological structure, but are not at all incom- patible (Testart 1985.510). The numerous animals represented on the side steles could fall under Fo- rest’s warning (Bodet 2021), while the few ones on the central steles, absolutely alone, may be more in tune with a totemic classification. Though intrinsi- cally related in form and signification, we will see that side and central steles may hold a different symbolic value. The rich animal repertoire represented on the side steles is very similar to that deciphered by Forest (1993; 2003) at Çatalhöyük: bulls, predators, psy- chopomp birds, found to symbolize the society, death of the body and transportation of the soul, respectively. Göbekli also has many snakes, under- stood as lineages (Forest 2006). The same geomet- ric elements, thought to symbolize the two moieties or the sexual mates they exchange, are also found on both sites (and many others): parallel lines, zig- zags, triangles, and chevrons. The several side steles could then represent the subgroups the community is composed of, linked to each other by the circu- lar stone wall, forming a large matrimonial self-suf- ficient unit. The non-totemic (message-delivering) symbolic animals carved on them would suggest the endless (feminine) cycle of life (snakes) and death (birds, predators) in which these groups were in- volved (Bodet 2021). On the other hand, if the cen- tral parallel steles stand for the dualist subparts of the (masculine) society (product of the feminine principle), the isolated animals carved on them may indeed be totemic. For example, the reflecting foxes on the twin steles of enclosure B (Peters, Schmidt 2004.184) would represent the two inseparable but distinct subparts of the same totemic clan (see Ma- linowski 1926 for compatible ethnographic exam- ples). accumulated within the community on an innocent victim, but the ultimate goal remains to prevent the ‘divided’ community from the risk of becoming “un- differentiated”. Jungian psychology also notes the case of twin snakes in mythology. “These are the fa- mous Naga serpents of ancient India; and we find them in Greece as the entwined serpents on the end of the staff belonging to the god Hermes 5. An early Grecian herm is a stone pillar (…). On one side, are the intertwined serpents (in the act of se- xual union) and on the other an erect phallus: we can draw certain conclusions about the function of the herm as a symbol of fertility. (…) mes is (also) Trickster (…) the leader of souls to and from the underworld” (Henderson 1964.155). The two snakes appear as the dualist lineages whose union alone can engender society. The blood ideology Based on ethnographic data, Chris Knight et al. (1995.89,93–97) have proposed a Palaeolithic “sym- bolically structured sexual division of labour” where, notably, the recurrent use of red ochre would be utilized in menarchal rituals to symbolize fertility. This interpretation could fit well with Te- start’s (1985.345–475) reconstitution of the prime- val mind, according to which the female compen- sation for the masculine blood-soiled meat brought by the hunter is the feminine blood-soiled newborn child. The widespread presence of red paint on the floor of special buildings all through the Neolithic of south- western Asia (Gökce 2021) supports the idea that blood played a fundamental symbolic role. At Çayö- nü, actual traces of human (and animal) blood have been detected on a one-ton slab in the courtyard of the so-called ‘Skull-building’ (Özbek 2004.20). Given what is known about these societies, notably the classification according to generations, it seemed li- kely to Forest (1996b) that this blood was that of initiation rites. The blood of circumcision (symboli- zing the first hunt?), equivalent to that of the (first) menstruations (Doyle 2005.280; Knight et al. 1995. 95), can be understood as a separation between two crucial statuses: not simply synchronically between male and female (or between their respective moi- eties), but diachronically between consumers (chil- dren) and (re)producers (adults). Through its intimacy with both life and death, blood is thus considered by Testart to have played a syn- thetic role in the primeval communist ideology. A 5 This is the caeduces, still symbol of modern 12 The Neolithic dualistic symbolism Two parallel steles seem to be the symbol chosen by Neolithic people to represent the concept of exoga- my/dualism. Given the pervasive twin steles present in a large number of sites (Bodet forthcoming), it appears that early Neolithic communities felt the urge, maybe more than Palaeolithic ones, to recall and impose this principle. Is it possible to be more precise as to the message conveyed and to the cause of the monumentality given at this precise moment to an immemorial principle? The stele as a symbol of the lineage In the communal building of Nevalı Çori (devoted to reunions, given the bench running at the base of the surrounding wall), Alexis McBride (2013.54) pro- posed that the anthropomorphic steles inserted in the bench are ‘participants’ along with the real hu- mans seating there. This makes sense indeed, but the verticality of the stele must be meaningful. Ac- cording to several researchers, like Forest (1993.7), Tatiana V. Kornienko (2018.17) or Christian Jeunes- se (2020.54), the stele stands for a genealogical line of ancestors related over time, that is, a lineage, built up generation after generation. This interpre- tation is well supported by ethnographic observa- tions: in the American North-West coast, the “totem poles, house posts, memorial posts (…) record the household’s lineage” (Banning 2011.626). The end- less continuity in time of the lineage could be the reason why certain Neolithic steles are reused at the same location phase after phase (Watkins 1996), while others are buried or ritually broken. Seeing side steles as lineages implies that each cir- cle could represent a larger social group, like a tribe or clan, divided into a number of subsections, an idea already alluded to, in one way or another, by several authors (Belfer-Cohen, Goring-Morris 2002; Yakar 2013.438; Hodder 2020.50). Beyond the re- presentation of the cycle of life and death as suggest- ed above, the surrounding wall of the Göbekli Tepe enclosures could bind the lineages in an endless cir- cle of marital exchange, a stone materialization of a closed-in ‘generalized-type’ of kinship pattern 6 (Lé- vi-Strauss 1967), where lineage A gives a mate to lineage B, B to C… back to A (Bodet 2012). There would then be between four and twelve subsections for each tribe; interestingly, twelve is also the num- ber of subgroups chosen by Freud (2010[1915].51) 6 https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship/Alliance-theory interpretation of his work has also been The composition seems to be bluntly saying: a moi- ety is the mirror of its counterpart, and only the two together, as equal partners in the (marital) exchange, can engender the society altogether, which, in turn, can only exist divided into equal subparts intrinsi- cally bound to each other. But if twin steles sent an abstract sphere of symbolization with such majesty, it is exactly because this notion is not sim- ply an allegory: reciprocity must be conceived as a law governing social conduct. In other words, the full message conveyed by the twin composition ap- pears as such: ‘marital reciprocity must be respected for the sake of the whole society’. We will later see why this antediluvian rule took such a ‘monumental’ urgency in the Neolithic. The twin steles as a symbol of fertile regenera- tion Let us first complete our reflection on the striking fact that the most central place of the entire com- position at Göbekli Tepe (see also Jerf el-Ahmar) is the space left ‘religiously’ empty between the twin steles (Fig. 4). This vacant space must have been filled with meaning in the eyes of the audience. We saw that at Çatalhöyük two symbolic pillars nected by the limbs of a feminine figure giving birth to a bull (which is a good enough reason to see this representation as a metaphor and not as a realistic scene). Again, according to Forest (see English sum- maries in Bodet 2012.7 and 2021.149–151), this is not a woman, but the personification of the princi- ple of regeneration, engendering the society. On the same line of thought, the space between the twin steles at Göbekli can be understood as a threshold to life (a symbolic vulva?) and death (a symbolic ‘swallowing’ mouth), be- cause it is a representation of the va- gina dentalia, the ‘toothed vagina’, a widespread mythological female principle of both regeneration and destruction among traditional socie- ties (Forest 1993.22; Ross 2021). This invisible principle of the regene- ration of society and all life forms would then be put into action by the mutual interaction existing between the exogamic moieties represented by the two monoliths. This is a prac- tical illustration of Trevor Watkins’ (2006.21–22) statement that “archi- tecture is a specially powerful mode of external symbolic storage”. And these symbols convey a specific me- 14 where the drawing of babies and cradles on the sand or earth in springtime (when nature comes back to life) is believed to enhance fertility 7. The be- lief that the mere representation of symbols has a ‘magical’ active power is universal: it is the same when Christians hang a cross in their homes or Mus- lims a picture of the Mecca. This (and probably not a belief in a deity) would also explain why so many crude female figurines (representing the same alle- gory of fertility) were so common in domestic con- texts in the Levant or Central Anatolia (Cauvin 1997.46–49), as well as many hand-size T-shaped fi- gurines in the Urfa area (Hodder 2020). This same belief could finally explain why symbolic enclosures in sites like Göbekli Tepe, Nevalı Çori, Sefertepe, Ka- rahantepe (Moetz-Çelik 2012.699) and as far away as Çayönü, Qermez Dere (Upper/Middle Tigris ba- sin), Jerf el Ahmar (Middle Euphrates) and Beidha (Jordan), were carefully buried upon abandonment 8, arguably so as to preserve the active principle of fer- tility they enclosed. Epilogue: a likely cause for the monumentality This investigation must now be placed in its socio- economic context, thereby answering a last impor- tant question: why such monumentality, especially if, as discussed above, the displayed concept had been a basic one for tens of millennia? We must come back to the idea that in spite of its ‘universality’ (Malinowski 1926; Lévi-Strauss 1967. 3–29,49), the division of society into subgroups is not founded in nature, it is a social product; this im- plies that nothing can physically guarantee the re- spect of exogamy, and that its importance must be permanently reinforced in the community, in parti- cular to the newly initiated generations. In hunter-gatherer societies marriage is not left to the free-will of individuals; it is codified by tradition and contracted among more or less closely related individuals, like cross-cousins (Lévi-Strauss 1967; Walker et al. 2011; Barnard 1978; Ghasarian 1996. 147–174; Bird-David 2011). The distribution of se- xual mates is thus regulated so as to avoid a dange- rous anarchy for the entire community. Once set- tled, communities naturally continued this immemo- rial tradition of ‘prescriptive’ (or pre-arranged) mat- ing, every new generation being bound to stay with- in the village so as to comply with this systematic exchange. Coupled with the fact that settled life and 7 See ethnographical support for this idea 8 This could still hold true even if the burying The expected tense social context just referred to is crucial to understand the monumentality of the ste- les of Göbekli Tepe. In charge of maintaining the moral conduct of the society, the elders are con- stantly recalling, imposing and teaching the new (initiated) generations about the old traditions, in particular the reciprocal exchange of mates. They would have been particularly anxious and careful to avoid any disruption in the smooth circulation of women, and therefore, to counter, with the help of symbolism, the splitting of younger people from the larger kin-group. Indeed, the elders of each social subgroup, responsible for giving mates to the other subgroup(s), could not fulfil their duties if these younger individuals had left. From their point of view, such a fission would invariably lead to an out- break of the inextricable internal violence that is known to have scared these societies so much (Gi- rard 1972). The fear of the loss of reciprocal exchange and of the cohesion of the community is hypothesized to have pushed the elders to express the old rule of (exogamic) alliances with much force and promi- nence by ordering the erection of the monumental twin steles. It is in this sense that we propose to illu- strate Thomas Zimmerman’s (2020.14–15) intuition that the symbolic program of Göbekli Tepe reflects much more a Palaeolithic cultural collapse than the advent of a new one, the way Cauvin (1997.50–55) sees it. “It is doubtful that the supernatural order envisaged by earlier hunter-gatherers would have been entirely altered by new spiritual con- cepts”; (the Neolithic) “repertories of symbols (…) seem to have their origins in earlier periods” (Ya- kar 2005.111). “The establishment of such symbolic systems, or the externalisation and canonisation of symbols, is not the result of a cognitive process but rather the result of a basic need, the need to sustain a current life mode by coping with newly arising social and ideological challenges of fast growing social aggregates in the Upper Mesopotamian gras- slands”: this statement of Gebel (2013.40) applies very well to our views, provided that the “basic need” in question is first and foremost that of a su- stained marital alliance system. The monumental isomorphic steles understood as an enforcement of respect for the old reciprocal al- liance rule, can thus be seen as a form of propagan- da, erected in the face of the threat of being aban- doned at a time when Agricultural Domestic lineages 16 Period Economic structure Paleolithic communism Nomadic Hunter-gather Late Up. Pal. Meso-Epip. Hunter-gath. w\ bows\arrows PPNA (N. Mesop) Pre-dom. Agric. (Willcox) PPNB\PN (C. Anat) Domestic Agric. (Peters, Zeder) Chalco (Halaf) ‘Agricultural Do- mestic’ (Sahlins) Tab. 1. (Very) rough evolution of prehistoric pects of the hunter-gatherer social structure, first and foremost its economy. Testart has therein come to the conclusion that dualism generally represents a fundamental scheme determining the structural and ideological composition of pre-state communi- ties. It is suggested here that this dualistic ideology finds its most phenomenal transcription in the mo- numental central twin steles of Göbekli Tepe, at a time when it was in danger of being supplanted by the advent of a whole new social and ideological or- der, the Agricultural Domestic System, founded on autonomous (unrelated) agricultural lineages orga- nizing marital alliances (with bride-pri- ces) freely among themselves. As agri- culture diffuses towards the west, and is appropriated by local hunter-gather- ers, the same emphasis on dualism ap- pears, this time on a more modest scale but widespread in every domestic con- text, as in Çatalhöyük. This latter social system (lineages, autonomous in mari- tal terms) was destined, a few millennia later, to aggregate hierarchically into city-states on the pattern of the status differentiation between elder males and women/youngsters in the agricultural family itself (Forest 1996a; Meillassoux 1991). According to the dictionary, a scheme is “a large-scale systematic arrangement for attaining some particular object or putting a particular idea into effect” 9. For hunter-gatherers, the ‘arrangement’ is the reciprocal partition, and the ‘ob- ject put into effect’ the regeneration of the community. The symbolic reperto- ire of Göbekli Tepe and of a large num- 9 https://www.encyclopedia.com/science-and-technolo strictly equal relations of (re)production (compen- sating for low productive forces). The human consti- tution, physically weak but with a very high poten- tial for intra-specific communication, is such that the survival of the species is mostly dependent on the process of exchange between individuals. This per- petual need to distribute food and especially mates within the subgroups of the community and across generations required the adoption of a form of so- cial conduct based on pure reciprocity. Dualism ap- pears as the ideological result (and not the cause ex- nihilo) of this chain of causal factors. This is the reason why dualism should not be seen as a mere cultural tradition which, among others, would have been miraculously preserved until the Neolithic. It can be presumed to have been ‘socially selected’ in the Darwinian sense of the expression, that is, un- consciously over countless generations, for having provided humanity with the highest, maybe the only, probability of survival. Evaluation It should be noted here that Testart is suspected of having somehow distorted the ethnographical facts, although this is certainly due to the goal self: not that of describing specific communities, instead uncovering the purely theoretical structure that binds them all. He was thus able to reconstruct a coherent social system where every structure (pro- duction, reproduction, ideology) is absolutely in tune with all the others. The best clue to support the co- herence of this reconstitution is that everywhere so- cieties reproduced successfully the hunting-gather- ing way of life throughout the entire Palaeolithic pe- riod (one to two million years?). We saw how this success was achieved through the total annihilation of individual interests to the benefit of the whole, and that dualism has been identified as the Asouti E., Fuller D. Q. 2013. A contextual Approach to the emergence of Agriculture in Southwest Asia: reconstructing Early Neolithic Plant-Food production. Current pology 54(3): 299–331. https://doi.org/10.1086/670679 Asouzu I. I. 2007. Ibuanyidanda: New Complementary Ontology: Beyond World-Immanentism, Ethnocentric Reduction and Impositions. LIT Verlag. Zürich. Banning E. B. 2011. So fair a house: Göbekli identification of temples in the Neolithic of the Near East. Current Anthropology 52(5): 619–560. https://doi.org/10.1086/661207 18 Belfer-Cohen A., Goring-Morris A. N. 2002. Recent Deve- lopments in Near Eastern Neolithic Research. Paléorient 28(2): 143–148. Bellwood P. 2005. First farmers. The origin of agricul- tural societies. Blackwell. Victoria. Becker N., Dietrich O., Götzelt T., Köksal-Schmidt Ç., Not- roff J., and Schmidt K. 2012. Materialien zentralen Pfeilerpaare des Göbekli Tepe und weiterer Orte des obermesopotamischen Frühneolithikums. Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie (5): 14–43. Beckett J. 1967. Marriage, circumcision and avoidance among the Maljangaba of northwest New South Wales. Mankind 6: 456–464. Binford L. 1983. In pursuit of the past: Decoding the Archaeological Record. University of California Press. Berkley. Bird-David N. 2019. Where have all the kin gone? On hun- ter-gatherer sharing, kinship and scale. In Friesem (eds.), Towards a Broader View of Hunter-Ga- therer Sharing. McDonald Institute. Cambridge: 15–24. Bischoff D. 2002. Symbolic Worlds of Central east Anatolia in the Neolithic. In F. Gérard, L. Thissen (eds.), The Neolithic of Central Anatolia. Ege Yayınları. Istanbul: 237–244. Bloch M. 1983. Marxism and anthropology, a history of relationship. Oxford Univesity Press. Oxford Bodet C. 2012 Kinship patterns as a doorway to appre- hend the symbolic and social structure of Göbekli Tepe communities. Ethneo 3(2): 1–17. 2019a. Early Animal Production for Marital Trade: A Neolithic Bride-Price? In O. Dumankaya (ed.), duction and trade through the ages: from Prehistory to the Byzantine Period. Bilgin Kültür Sanat yayınları. Ankara: 95–122. 2019b. Why are there no Neolithic mega-sites in the Anatolian Euphrates basin? A socio-archaeological ap- proach to the marital structure of early farming socie- ties. Arkhaia Anatolika 2: 21–50. 2021. Deciphering Göbekli Tepe: The Hidden Potential of Archaeo-Ethnology. In I. Akkas, M. Karakoç (eds.), Etnoarcheology Research In Anatolia. From storic times to the present. Doruk. Istanbul: 147–165. Forthcoming. Twin Steles, Isomorphic symbolism the Neolithic Dualist Identity. TAG-III Turkey- proce- edings of the 2021 conference. Gebel H.-G. K. 2013. The territoriality of early neolithic symbols and ideocracy. Neo-Lithics 2(13): 39–41. Ghasarian C. 1996. Introduction à l’étude de la paren- té. Seuil. Paris. Gibson C. 2009. How to read symbols. A crash course in the meaning of symbols in art. London. Herbert Press. Giddens A. 1971. Capitalism and modern social an analysis of the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Girard R. 1972. La violence et le sacré. Hachette. Paris. Gökce N. 2021. Neolitik yasam biçiminin yayılımında kireç tabanlı yapılar sorunu. Unpublished MA thesis. Ege University. Izmir. Gould R. 1978. Beyond analogy in ethnoarchaeology. R. Gould (ed.), Explorations in ethnoarchaeology. Uni- versity of New Mexico Press. Albuquerque: 249–293. Granet M. 1929. La civilisation chinoise. La vie publi- que et la vie privée. La renaissance du livre. Paris. Haland E. J. 2017. Greek festivals, modern and ancient. A comparison of female and male values. Cambridge scholars publishing. Cambridge. Hansen S. 2017. Phallomorphic antler tools. lwing, T. Aliyev, B. Lyonnet, F. Guliyev, S. Hansen, and G. Mirtskhulava (eds.), The Kura projects, new research on the later Prehistory of the southern Caucasus. Dietrich Reimer Verlag. Berlin: 269–271. Henderson J. L. 1964. Ancient myths and modern man. In C. G. Jung (ed.), Man and his symbols. Dell. London: 95– 155. Hodder I. 2012. Çatalhöyük. A summary of recent work concerning architecture. In B. Sögüt (ed.), pan’a Armagan/Festschrift for Ahmet A. Tırpan. Ege · Yayınları. Istanbul: 303–314. 2020. From communal to segmentary: an alternative view of Neolithic ‘monuments’ in the Middle East. In A. B. Gebauer, L. Sorensen, A. Teather, and A. C. Valera (eds.), Monumentalising life in the Neolithic. Oxbow. Oxford: 49–51. Howitt A. W. 1904. The native tribes of Southeast Austra- lia. MacMillan. London. Ingold T. 1980. Hunters, patoralists and ranchers. Cam- bridge University Press. Cambridge. 20 Mauss M. 1924. Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés primitives. gique (1). Presses Universitaires de France, McBride A. 2013. Performance and participation: multi- sensual analysis of Near-Eastern Pre-Pottery tic Architecture. Paléorient 39(2): 47–67. Meillassoux C. 1991. Femmes, greniers et capitaux. L’Harmattan. Mellaart J. 1967. Çatal Höyük, a Neolithic Town in Ana- tolia. Thames & Hudson. London Mithen S. J., Finlayson B., Smith S., Jenkins E., Najjar M., and Maricevi≤ D. 2011. An 11 600 year-old communal structure from the Neolithic of southern Jordan. 85: 350–364. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00067806 Mleku∫ Vrhovnik D. 2021. Approaching weird: lysis and archaeology of caves. Accademia Letters 190: 1–5. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL190. Moetz F. K., Çelik B. 2012. T-Shaped Pillar Sites in the Landscape around Urfa. In R. Matthews, J. Curtis (eds.), Proceedings of the 7th International Congress on the Ar- chaeology of the Ancient Near East, vol. 1. Harrassowitz Verlag. Wiesbaden: 695–709. Morgan L. H. 1871. Systems of Consanguinity and Affi- nity of the Human Family. Smithsonian Institution. Wa- shington. Özbasaran M., Duru G., Kayacan N., Erdogu B., and Bui- tenhuis H. 2012. Asıklı (and) Musular the 8th millenni- um cal BC Satellite site of Asıklı. In M. len, P. Kuniholm (eds.), Neolithic in Turkey-Central Tur- key. New Excavations and New Research. Central Turkey. Archaeology and Art Publications. Istanbul: 135–180. · Özbek M. 2004. Çayönü’nde I nsan. Arkeoloji · Yayınları. Istanbul. Peters J., von den Driesch A., Pöllath N., and Schmidt K. 2005. Birds in the megalithic art of the Pre-Pottery Neo- lithic Göbekli Tepe, Southeast Turkey. In G. Grupe, J. Peters (eds.), Feathers, grit and symbolism: Birds and humans in the ancient Old and New World (ICAZ 5). Documenta archaeobiologiae 3. Verlag Marie Leidorf. Rah- den/Westf.: 223–234. Peters J., Schmidt K. 2004. Animals in the symbolic world of Pre-Pottery Neolithic Göbekli Tepe, Southeastern Tur- key: a preliminary assessment. Anthropozoologica 179–218. tions de la maison des sciences de l’homme. Université de Lille III. Lille. 1985. Le communisme primitif. I- Economie et idéo- logie. Maison des sciences et de l’homme. Paris. 1987a. Deux modelés du rapport entre l’homme et l’animal dans les systèmes de représentations. Rurales 107(8): 171–193. 1987b. Game sharing systems and kinship systems among hunter-gatherers. Man 22: 287–304. 1988. Some Major Problems in the Social Anthropolo- gy of Hunter-Gatherers. Current Anthropology 1–31. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10. 1086/203612?journalCode=ca 1998. Révolution, révélation ou évolution sociale. A pro- pos du livre de Jacques Cauvin: Naissance des divinités, Naissance de l’agriculture. Les nouvelles de l’archéo- logie 72: 25–29. 2006a. Des dons et des dieux. Errance. Paris. 2006b. Interprétation symbolique et interprétation re- ligieuse en archéologie. Exemple du taureau yük. Paléorient 32(2): 23–57. 2006c. Review of Magic practices and rituals Near Eastern Neolithic. Paléorient 32(1): 149–150. 2012. Avant l’histoire. L’évolution des sociétés huma- ines de Lascaux à Carnac. Gallimard. Paris. Verhoeven M. 2002. Ritual and ideology in the Pre-Pot- tery Neolithic B of the Levant and South east Cambridge Archaeological Journal 12(2): 233–258. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774302000124 2001. The birth of a concept and the origins lithic: a history of prehistoric farmers in the Near East. Paléorient 37(1): 75–87. Voigt M. 2002. Çatalhöyük in context: Ritual lithic Sites in Central and Eastern Turkey. In I. Kuijt (ed.), Life in Neolithic Farming Communities Social Organi- zation, Identity, and Differentiation. Kluwer. New York: 253–293. Walker R. S., Hill K. R., Flinn M. V., and 2011. Evolutionary History of Hunter-Gatherer Practices. PLoS ONE 6(4): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0019066 22 of Göbekli Tepe are one in a long series of isomorphic Seemingly tracing back to the Palaeolithic, symmetry likely societies. Ethnographers showed how hunter-gatherer ideo- often structured around a dualistic worldview (male/female; sum- kinship system through a division of the community into exoga- is argued to be embodied in the twin steles. The advent of au- explain why this timeless principle appears with such promi- kinship structure; hunter-gatherer ideology; incipient Neolitski dualizem dvoj≠ka na najdi∏≠u Göbekli Tepe predstavljata eno od izomorf- Simetrija je, domnevno ∫e vse od paleolitika, igrala klju≠no vlogo so pokazali, kako je lovsko-nabiralni∏ka ideologija (mitolo- na osnovi dualisti≠nega svetovnega nazora (mo∏ki/∫enska, polet- delitve dru∫be v eksogamne sorodstvene podskupine. Prav ta dua- S pomo≠jo pojava avtonomnih rodov poljedelcev morda princip tako pomemben v neolitiku. eksogamija; sorodstvena struktura; lovsko-nabiralni∏ka symbolic world, that is, the monumental pairs of twin steles standing in the centre of the PPNA stone enclosures (A to H) of Göbekli Tepe III (Fig. 1). How- ever, these must be conceived just as one particular case among the numerous contemporary isomorphic (architectural, geometric and iconographic) repre- sentations identified throughout (Fig. 2) the Neoli- thic period (Peters et al. 2005.31–32; Stordeur 2003): symmetric clay poles, parallel lines painted on floor, geometric figures on walls, antithetic or converging animals, twin figurines, couple of human skulls, symmetrical partition of communal buildings or of entire sites. A non-exhaustive list of such items DOI> 10.4312\dp.49.2 The Neolithic dualist scheme Problematic and methodology The fact that the Neolithic symbolic material posses- ses such a meaning is made explicit by the planned and recurrent arrangement in which its various ele- ments are invariably found. The symmetrical so- called ‘pillars’ systematically hold a central position in the communal buildings of a large number of spa- tially and chronologically separated sites in North- ern Mesopotamia, the Levant and all the way to Late Neolithic Central Anatolia1. Moreover, this element often appears in association with the same set of fi- gurative elements of strong symbolic connotation (central area truncated), by Klaus Schmidt Institut, Göbekli Tepe Projekt. gives birth by unifying two parallel pillars (Forest 1993.7), while (symbolically sig- wall paintings. Again, see Cédric Bodet (2021; forthcoming) for a more detailed pre- 3 Cédric Bodet of Neolithic sites with identified dualist symbolism (2021 forthcoming)). ing social context (Yakar 2005.111). Disconnected from this context, the symbol loses its meaning. This implies that in order to decipher this symmetrical these enclo- symbol, the social context first ought to be recon- structed, at least in broad strokes. only arises This social coherence is an indispensable basis to start with, but without an intermediary reference, without a Rosetta Stone infusing the structure with meaning, the decipherment will be left to hollow speculations (Schmandt-Besserat 2013.xxv). It hap- pens that, for the present concern, a reference exists. The latter is not a similar iconographic element but an abstract concept, and the correspondence appears too striking and the analogy too compatible not to be considered. Dualism as a prehistoric principle This investigation was originally inspired by Alain Te- start’s (1985) meticulous analysis of what he calls the ‘primeval communist’ societies. These are a pristine form of hunter-gatherers, prior to the advent of bows and arrows. This long Palaeolithic dawn of humani- ty appears, though with much caution, accessible through the abundant ethnographic documentation of Australian Aboriginal societies (Testart 1988.12). Any analogy led through the spectrum of a narrow technological comparison is doomed to failure, and absolutely no cultural comparison is attempted here; the social structure, because of its theoretical and universal nature, is the only element considered. ‘Uni- versal’ is here to be understood in the sense that every human community necessarily has an economy, a kinship system, rules, customs and an ideology: these are the main structures that concern us here. The Neolithic dualist scheme production entirely based on and shaped by an elabo- rate kinship system. In these small communities turn- ed inward, ‘elementary’ to use Claude Lévi-Strauss’ (1967) term or ‘universal’ to use Alan Barnard’s (1978.69–71; 2020.50–53), everyone is somehow related to everyone else, and this kinship or mari- tal relation dictates the modalities of their social in- teraction in every way. The way individuals respect, joke, avoid, command/obey, punish, teach/learn, give/receive, conduct ceremonials (initiation and fu- neral rites), and, most importantly, the way they marry, are thus prescribed primarily by the subgroup the people in interaction belong to (Malinowski 1926; Radcliffe-Brown 1952.90–104; Woodburn 1982; Ghasarian 1996.152–159,185–197; Walker et al. 2011.2; Bird-David 2019.15–16). “The fundamental feature in the organisation of (…) Australian tribes, is the division of the tribe into two exogamous inter-marrying groups. These two divisions may become further broken up, but even when more than two are now present we can still recognise their former existence” (Spencer, Gillen 1899.55). Even though odd numbers may also be found (as a result of historically induced dispari- ties), ‘primeval communist’ societies are often sep- arated into parallel subgroups or phratries: eight sub- sections, four sections, or, for the most genuine case, two moieties (halves) (Barnard 2020.52). Dualism is thus generally considered to be the most original and purest form of this form of social organization (Cook 2003.65; Freud 2010[2013].50–51; Testart 1978.15–22; 1985.478–479). But whatever the num- ber of subgroups, this plurality is necessarily reduc- ed in conceptual terms to the number two, because it is the number par excellence that embodies the concept of ‘differentiation’ (Girard 1972.87–92), making (equal) exchange possible. Dualism is much more than a marital arrangement. Organically articulated to the economic system, it re- flects on the symbolic sphere: totemism, mythology, rituals, etc. (Testart 1985.451–489). It finds in nature an obvious mode of expression, through fixed oppositions such as day (sun) and night (moon), winter (cold, wet) and summer (hot, dry), and, more particularly, males and females, the interdependence of which is naturally indispensable for the perpetu- ation of the cycle of life and death, oppositions them- selves seen through their own interdependence. This fecund sexual opposition was suspected by An- dré Leroi-Gourhan (1964.108), among others (Te- start 2006b.26), for Upper Palaeolithic societies, and 5 Cédric Bodet Among these later developments there is the Neo- lithic period. Right in the centre of the a priori my- sterious symbolic repertoire on display at Göbekli Tepe, there is a pair of huge parallel stone slabs standing majestically, seemingly conveying an abs- tract statement (Becker et al. 2012.14). They ap- pear as nothing but a material representation of this universal dualist scheme. This is the hypothesis that will presently be explored by trying to understand what this dualism is really about. in primeval It goes without saying that Australian Aborigines have absolutely nothing to do with Göbekli Tepe, it is just that they seem to share a similar social struc- ture, thus opening the door to a possible analogy, which now needs to be questioned. A major obsta- cle first ought to be removed: if the aspect and cen- trality of the ‘primeval communist’ principle and the Mesopotamian Neolithic symbol present a strik- ing similarity, these societies must be somehow struc- turally compatible for this analogy to function. stars The analogy Ideology is a central social organ in close interaction with the relations of production (Giddens 1971. 42), which implies that, for the analogy to be ac- ceptable, the mode of production of the societies in question ought to be comparable 2. From this point of view, primeval hunter-gatherers appear starkly different from Neolithic proto-farmers (Willcox, Stordeur 2012.112; Asouti, Fuller 2013.308). How- ever, a sociological rule needs to be considered here: if technical and economic changes can diffuse ra- pidly, their repercussions for ideology (and, subse- quently, for symbolism) are always very much de- layed. This fact has been well attested by anthropo- logists studying the appearance of agriculture. “Peo- ple can hold on to ideologies (mode of thought) re- flecting foraging for generations, even when their systems of production have undergone transition”; “relations of production among proto-agricultur- alists (…) tend to retain the structures of a hunter- gatherer habitus” (Barnard 2007.8,14, quoted by Asouti, Fuller 2013.300). An ideological structure should not be seen here as a conscious and planned construction, but, indeed, somehow like Pierre Bourdieu’s (1980) habitus, that is, continuously shaped by an everlasting accumu- lation of practice and experience. The ideology of the earliest farmers is thus likely to be largely inhe- rited from a Palaeolithic background, built over hun- of food (hunting included) is a form of economic production” (Ingold 1980.83). The Neolithic dualist scheme hoeven 2002.244), astonishingly resembling the ‘tao’ of the Chinese (Granet 1929.293). But if all forms of life are concerned, it is certainly the community that is primarily envisaged by the principle of fertility. The dualist principle seems to have been known by the Neanderthals as well (Fig. 3): the symbolic com- position found at the bottom of the Bruniquel cave (Jaubert et al. 2016) represents two piles of stalag- mites (another phallomorphic symbol) in one circle (a shape often connected with maternal womb and fertility, see Haland 2017.166), making the com- position strikingly similar to the circle surrounding the twin steles of Göbekli Tepe III (Figs. 2, 3). Since absolutely no cultural connection can be established between these cultures, such similarity can, here again, only make sense if dualism and exogamy are understood as extremely widespread principles among early humans (Freud 2010). Because the animal species painted in the Palaeoli- thic caves are represented as isolated groups, Testart (1985.276–290; 2012.254–267) sees them as totems. His analysis is based on the identification, mostly by James George Frazer (1910) and Alfred William Ho- witt (1905) (who were also Sigmund Freud’s main anthropological sources when he wrote his famous Totem and Taboo), of a strong correlation between totemism and exogamy. Totems are natural species (animals, sometimes plants) representing a specific social subgroup, as if the natural world, classified into species, was called in to naturally classify the community among separate groups. Both Leroi-Gour- han and Testart thus consider that Palaeolithic so- cieties likely knew some form of ‘classification’, in Lewis Henry Morgan’s (1871) use of the term (see also Radcliffe-Brown 1972.98–103; Bloch 1983.8– 13), so as to ensure the practice of exogamy. And we saw that every classification ultimately and theore- tically resumes as a two-fold division, that is, dualism. In the absence of writing, how are people to express what matters most to them, that is, the (male) soci- ety, the (female) engendering principle and exo- gamy, if not by using elements with readily identi- fiable characteristics, such as, respectively, the horn, the circle and isomorphic forms? It is remarkable how early anthropologists from all corners of the world like Morgan in North America, Marce Granet in China, Spencer and Gillen in Austra- lia, Marshall Sahlins in Oceania, Claude Meillassoux 7 Cédric Bodet A likely dualist composition in the Neanderthal cave of Bruniquel. MUTH – Get in Situ, Archéotransfert – SHS-3D, base photogram- 3D Pascal Mora Courtesy of J. Jaubert (Jaubert et al. 2016). of a kill in a hunting society confers not the right to its consumption but the privilege of performing its distribution” (Ingold 1980.158, citing Dowling 1968.505). Who, then, appropriates the prey among ‘primeval communists’? It is often individuals be- longing to the social group opposite to that of the hunter (Testart 1988.10). According to Morgan’s (1871) ‘classificatory system’, these groups are de- fined by filiation and generation, thus grouping all siblings in the same class (Radcliffe-Brown 1952). Because of exogamy, the opposite moiety is the one where the hunter finds his spouse. His prey may then go to his spouse’s parents. “Among the Ngatat- jara, the parents-in-law take first and the broth- ers last. (…) Among the Maljangaba of New South Wales, the tribe is divided into matrilineal moi- eties and a man gets very little meat from his ma- ternal kin because they belong to the same kinship group as he does. He receives much more from his father, since he is not maternal kin (Beckett I967. 459)” (Testart 1987b.296). There may be as many rules as there are societies, but it is significant that if the exchange of meat proceeds according to the kinship system among hunter-gatherers, it is in par- ticular the non-producers who generally appropriate the product among ‘primeval communists’. Generally speaking, the producer is never the consumer and the consumer never the producer (Testart 1987b. 294). Because the rule applies to every hunter, the latter eventually always gets his share, and, if the production is denied to the producer, it is, in the end, to the benefit of the society as a whole. Reciprocity as a rule of traditional economies is also well known in the ethnography of Melanesia (Malinowski 1926. 33; Mauss 1924) and elsewhere (Barnard 2020. 31), but it is in Australia that this form of exchange appears the most equalitarian. Comprehensive and equal internal cooperation has thus been identified The Neolithic dualist scheme rate on this, for at the present state of investiga- tion it would only be grasping at straws” 4. This pre- caution appears academically wise, but the straws grasped here are arguably nothing but the very root of prehistoric ideology. A slow change can be detected in the following PPNB period at Çayönü, with granaries attached to every house from the Grill Building phase onward indi- cating “that economic emphasis may have been shifted from community to family based produc- tion and consumption” (Yakar 2003.442). This re- organization indeed seems to reflect a slow trend to- wards an economic (and marital) autonomy of lin- eages, following a “segmentation and separation of balanced components arranged in relation to each other” (Hodder 2020.49–51), and possibly leading in late Neolithic Çatalhöyük to “the House as a his- torical and genealogical social unit” (Kuijt 2018. 584; infra) based on a line of ancestors. This late Neolithic fission into autonomous families apparent- ly emphasizes, by contrast, the closed-in reciprocal pattern that was arguably still strong in the earliest Neolithic. This economic evolution also seems supported by the genetics of wild food. The PPNA plant material, though anthropologically managed, is not morpho- logically domestic yet. The subsequent physical do- mestication, eventually including animals, implies that the originally loose farming mode of produc- tion is, relatively speaking, gaining in intensity dur- ing the PPNB (Zeder 2011.230; Willcox, Stordeur 2012.112; Asouti, Fuller 2013.329). This trend goes well with the idea of weak communal production (PPNA) gradually intensifying (PPNB) towards the specific interests of each lineage (PN), in particular for the constitution of bride-prices (herd animals), suspected elsewhere (Bodet 2019b) to have begun in these latter periods. This morphological evolution of resources emphasizes, by contrast again, the eco- nomically loose, reciprocal and equal form of food exchange expected to characterize the earliest Neoli- thic groups. houses The relations of reproduction Economic reciprocity appears to reflect marital pat- terns. Among hunter-gatherers “marriage prescrip- tions commonly involve real or classificatory cross- cousins and (…) exchange between two kin line- ages” (Walker et al. 2011.4). The parents of ‘cross- stage at least, not about competition at all, and in fact quite the contrary (infra). com.) for bringing this reference to my attention. 9 Cédric Bodet Totemism Some form of totemism seems rather common among hunter-gatherer communities, though its ab- sence among the San shows it is not universal (Te- start 2006c.149; Barnard 2020.46). It is neverthe- less thought by a number of specialists cited by Freud (2010.42, note 2), in particular Frazer (1910), to have been very widespread at an original stage which would correspond to ‘primeval communism’. There is, again, no a priori reason to exclude its pre- sence in the Neolithic, as strongly suggested by the twin stele arrangement. The totem consist of natu- ral species, usually an animal, considered to be the ancestor of a clan or tribe. Individuals maintain a very specific relationship with it, being strictly for- bidden to consume it, except once a year during the ritual known as ‘Intichiuma’, aimed at magically in- creasing the totemic resource for the opposite moi- ety to consume (Spencer, Gillen 1899.169). This is the symbolic projection of the rule of reciprocity re- viewed for production (the hunter not eating his prey but hunting it for the other moiety to consume) and for reproduction (individuals not marrying within their own subgroup, but ‘producing’ children to be ‘consumed’ by the opposite one). By way of animal species, totemism can be conceived as a sym- bolic representation of the dualistic kinship system ongoing in the community (Freud 2010.203–204, 255–256). Göbekli Tepe, sometimes seen as a place of inter- clanic reunions for very extended kinship groups (Schmidt 2001.52–53; Belfer-Cohen, Goring-Mor- ris 2002; Peters, Schmidt 2004.210–212), would fit well as a place where Intichiuma-type ceremonies were taking place. In fact, if contemporary levels are to be found, the high number of large early Neoli- thic sites, like Karahantepe, recovered within a ra- dius of about 20km all around Göbekli Tepe (see be- low), may have composed this population (Bodet 2019a). For Hans Georg K. Gebel (pers. com.), “the ideolo- gy of the early Göbekli Tepe Culture represents a symbolically sustained system needed to serve the integration of growing group numbers (…). Mu- tual understanding and conflict management of groups not knowing each other were reached by commonly accepted strong and binding ideologies and conventions. One may speak of ideocratic ter- ritories mediated through the fixed image pro- grams”. A common ideological background indeed certainly played an important binding role among all these communities, and, looking at the homoge- The Neolithic dualist scheme A look at a tightly interwoven subject – mythology – will allow a more comprehensive understanding of the dualistic nature of totemism. The mythology The species included in the totemic partition have a correspondence in the mythology. The main char- acters of the Australian Aboriginal myths of the Dream Time (Testart 1978; 1985.390–395), with a correspondence worldwide (Girard 1972), are gene- rally divided in two types: the violator and the coun- ter-violator. For anything to happen in the founding myths, the fundamental rule (exogamy) must be violated, which invariably entails a counter-violation. The widespread myth of the eagle (the hunter, the creator, the counter-violator) and the crow (the sca- venger, the trickster, the violator) illustrates this point. The crow steals the fire from the eagle (viola- tion), and, as he escapes, he drops the fire, allowing humans to capture it and cook food. The eagle aven- ges himself by causing a huge fire that threatens humans (counter-violation). Some variants of this myth are about stealing water (violation) and so permitting life but provoking floods when uncon- trolled (counter-violation). Myths thus explain the origin of the society as an interaction between two opposite but interdependent poles (Testart 1978.95, 118–125; 1985.384–387,432–444). Just like later religions, mythology aims in the end at securing the social order through ideology. Forest (1993.17–21; 2006.134) reads the elements in the iconography of Çatalhöyük as principles con- veying a message: life and death on a vertical line, two exogamic moieties on a horizontal one, all inter- secting in a cross pattern to permit the existence of the community, thus recalling its fundamental rule (exogamy). This message is essentially the same as the one present in myths. It is open to question whe- ther the animals in the iconography, strikingly simi- lar in Göbekli Tepe and Çayönü despite a wide chro- nological and spatial gaps, directly represent mythi- cal characters. But in the end it matters little, since they are likely to stand for the same opposition among interdependent elements (as an image, again, of the subgroups of the society). Just like in many myths of the primeval world, a dualistic oppo- sition can be suspected with a certain degree of con- fidence among the antithetic heroes of Neolithic my- thology, symbols of a fertile opposition. René Girard (1972.88–95) presents a somewhat dif- ferent interpretation of early myths and rituals, fo- cusing on sacrifice as catharsis, expelling the tensions 11 Cédric Bodet symbol of order and life when running in the closed system of the veins (=exogamic rule respected), blood represents chaos and death when running out of a disrupted vein system (=exogamic rule violat- ed). Just like for the mythical figures (divided into violators and counter-violators), for the natural spe- cies in totemism (divided among social subgroups) and for society (divided into parallel moieties), blood, the one and same blood, is artificially divided and separated into distinct but mutually interdepen- dent classes so as to promote their mutual interde- pendence and strengthen the unity of the whole. But Her- Synthesis: the dualist scheme Because the data mobilized here is not archaeologi- cal in nature, it is perhaps not superfluous at this point to synthesize what we have proposed. The kin- ship dual classification of the society is reflected in the economy and ideological structures, such as tote- mism, mythology and blood ideology. Beyond a me- chanical Marxist view that would present the social superstructure as invariably determined by the eco- nomic infrastructure, kinship thus appears to domi- nate the primeval communist relations of produc- tion, making the reproductive infrastructure the very root of dualism. Yet, as Alan Barnard (1978.78–79) writes, “Australian systems differ from other uni- versal systems in that Australian universality is not confined to kinship”, it is “closely connected with totemism and with other aspects of cosmol- ogy” (which) “divide the universe -nature and cul- ture alike- into named categories [which] repre- sent a concept of world order in which kinship is only a part”. It thus seems that what determines kin- ship and all other structures is, in fact, the exogamic principle which must be conceived as an overarch- ing pattern imposed on the entire social fabric. Op- posing sets of the natural world like male/female, sun/moon, winter/summer, water/fire, dry/wet or life/death are ‘given’ to humans, who use them as symbols to express and justify the only opposition on which they have a hold, the division of society itself into exogamic lineages or moieties. In other words, just as in later religious systems (Forest 1996a), the cosmos is mobilized to promote, through its own perpetual and fecund oppositions, the perpe- tuation of the fragile opposition between lineages or sub-clans in order for the society as a whole to re- produce. It is this all-encompassing exogamic divi- sion that is termed the ‘dualist scheme’ by Testart (1985.207–218, 477–515), and which, as we intend to show, was still very vivid in the Neolithic. medicine. The Neolithic dualist scheme to present a typical totemic society. The intercon- nected side steles would then stand, like a temenos wall, as a transition between the real world and the sphere of pure abstraction, which, we will now see, seems to take stage at the centre of the circle. The reciprocal relationship Central and side steles have the same monolithic structure and same morphology, the latter being simply smaller and less well executed. For the sym- bolic program in question, they are likely to be a re- lated signifier standing for a related signified, but on a different scale. If side steles may represent the actual lineages making up the community, the cen- tral twin steles would then represent two parallel lineages, but on a purely conceptual level. They seem to stand for an abstract idea, an allegory of the exo- gamic rule, the active (feminine) principle of ferti- lity. Parallel, isomorphic and face-to-face, the twin steles seem to express a bilateral relation of strong symmetry, where each subgroup is at the same time the donor and recipient of a (marital) transaction. Behind the exogamic rule (Forest 1996b.29), the composition seems to express the type of social re- lation that exogamy entails, one of pure reciprocity. As Lévi-Strauss (1967.97) puts it, the dualist prin- ciple is itself only a modality of the principle of rec- iprocity. This emphasis on the relation itself appears hindered precisely by the fact that the twin steles do not ge- nerally enter in relation with each other, just like parallel lines painted on floors (also recalling line- ages). The relation between the steles is suggested elsewhere: a low bench, a slight clay lip or a slab set on edge at Qermez Dere, Beidha, Çayönü (Skull Buil- ding), Musular and at late Göbekli Enclosure A (E PPNB) (Watkins 1996; Makarewicz, Finlayson 2018; Erim-Özdogan 2001.208; Özbasaran et al. 2012; Schmidt 2001.50 respectively). In the enclosures of Göbekli III, twin steles can be said to be connected by the ground, Mother Earth, of which we saw the importance for the concept of fertility. But there is more. The lack itself of any obvious connection be- tween the parallel steles implies exactly the con- trary: perpetually reflecting each other (as well as the – totemic? – decorations carved on them), one is nothing but the permanent counterpart of the other, each stele fundamentally dependent on the other to exist. The intrinsic relation between the two steles is conspicuous by its absence. – for an introduction in English to the work of Lévi-Strauss. An inspired proposed by Barnard (1978). 13 Cédric Bodet aning. The Neolithic twin steles seem to state: ‘the eternal cycle of life and death can only be put into action by the principle of pure reciprocity’. Such pre- historic capacity of abstraction can only be a surprise to ethnocentric prejudices. repre- McBride (2013.59) further suggests that the partic- ipants in a ritual or ceremony may have been asked to walk through the central steles at Göbekli Tepe. The idea deserves attention. This particular space, here putatively interpreted as the principle of rege- neration of both life and death, would indeed be the ideal place to have adolescents pass through dur- ing their initiation ceremony, initiation being con- ceived in many societies as the death of the child and rebirth as an adult (Weiss 1966.72; Henderson 1964.120–121; Forest 1996b.28). According to Max Weber (1920[1996.184]), initiated aristocrats in Chi- na or India call themselves ‘the twice-born’. The link between dualism, totemism and initiation is further supported by the fact that in order to become hun- ters, young Aborigines are systematically initiated by the opposite moiety. The same holds true for funer- als and Intichiuma ceremonies (Testart 1987b.299). are con- Regeneration may also be the main principle dis- played in the Franco-Cantabrian caves (also an ideal place for ceremonies of initiation). In that case, the cave paintings would ‘magically’ assist these princi- ples by being represented in the ‘womb of Mother Earth’ (Henderson 1964.146–153), the latter also being a recurrent theme in Carl Jung’s ‘collective un- conscious’. An analogy can also be made with the Turkish custom of Hıdırellez, still performed today, Fig. 4. Empty space between the twin steles of enclosure D. © Deu- tsches Archäologisches Institut, Göbekli Tepe Projekt. Picture No. GT10_AnlD_ 5807, by Nico Becker. Courtesy of the DAI. The Neolithic dualist scheme farming naturally lead to a strong demographic growth (Bellwood 2005.61–64), the consequence of this alliance system is that this growth is largely local. This age-old inward-looking ‘elementary-type’ (whether ‘restricted’ or ‘generalized’) of marital al- liance rule (i.e. among the subgroups of the tribe) is most likely the ultimate cause for the appearance of Late Neolithic mega-sites like Çatalhöyük, Halula, Ain Ghazal, Shu’eib or Basta (Forest 1993; Bodet 2019a; this probably goes also for Neolithic mega- sites elsewhere like the Trypillian sites). Thus, if at Göbekli the symbolic emphasis is monumentally placed on the community altogether, in the much la- ter Çatalhöyük horizon the same concern gradually shifts towards the intimacy of the (autonomous) li- neage itself, or “multiple single-family households”, to use Kuijt’s (2018.565,584) words. Such evolution did not go without problems. In farm- ing families the elder son traditionally inherits from his father not only the estate, land and animals, but also a decisional power over his younger brothers and sisters, especially in terms of alliances. This leads to a growing internal stress with younger individu- als searching to withdraw from the domination of their elders by splitting from the group, a situation well described in comparable ethnographic cases (Sahlins 1961.324–327; Meillassoux 1991.51–52, 122–124). For Çatalhöyük, Forest (1996b.5) devised a similar incongruous situation, all the more so that farming allows for (and is much more efficient with) small producing units (nuclear families) spread over the landscape, each family/farm on a separate piece of land. The resolution of this inextricable situation had to wait for the abandonment of the prescribed ‘elementary-type’ alliance system (among related in- dividuals). This is indeed what seems to have hap- pened nearly everywhere by 6500/6000 BCE at the latest, as suggested by the (gradual, then total) de- sertion of all mega-sites, followed by the establish- ment of gradually smaller farmsteads spread around, wherever land allowed for farming and herding. Huge Çatalhöyük East thus gives way to relatively smaller Çatalhöyük West (though this site still re- mains rather large); relatively small Musular, found- ed towards the end of large Asıklı, may represent an earlier (Late Neolithic), because eastern, example of the same process of site segmentation. This trend will continue throughout the early Chalcolithic, rea- ching its apex with the Halaf culture (Forest 1996a. 27–35). in the authors’ video (in Turkish): https://youtu.be/hTl3eG6wTqM of Göbekli Tepe was initiated by slope-sliding and inundation (Kinzel, Clare 2020. 33). 15 Cédric Bodet were gaining economic and marital autonomy. These ‘monumental’ fears were indeed justified as, in spite of all these efforts, elementary alliances will prove obsolete by the Chalcolithic. This necessarily implies that nuclear families (a married couple and children), breaking free from their larger family groups, proceeded to ‘complex’ types of marriages taking the form of ‘contracts’ (hence called ‘allian- ces’) among unrelated larger families, probably se- cured by material transactions like the bride-price (herd animals) (Bodet 2019b). In such a context, exogamy became reduced to the prohibition of in- cest (Ghasarian 1996; Forest 1996a) and dualism naturally lost its ground as a principle of alliance to- gether with its ideological relevance. In Gebel’s words (pers. com.), “dualist schemes may even become extinct in early productive environments when strong relational ordering principles help or suf- fice to organize lineages and the societies they are part of”. Synthesis: Dualism as a Neolithic scheme By shedding light on the archaeological data using ethnographic social structures, we have here attempt- ed to review how the Neolithic revolution transform- ed the Palaeolithic society into an Agricultural Do- mestic one. We were greatly helped in this task by the Neolithic symbolism on which social changes were invariably projected. This structural evolution is synthesized in Table 1 and Figure 5. world- We started our investigation on the premise that hunter-gatherer societies do not marry with outsi- ders and are, as a rule, divided into (at least two) subgroups (moieties or lineages) as a direct outcome of the universal rule of exogamy so as to secure the distribution of mates and reproduction of closed so- cieties: the hundreds of early societies reviewed in The Elementary Structures of Kinship by Lévi- Strauss (1967) as well as general handbooks (Gha- sarian 1996) or articles (Barnard 1971; Walker et al. 2011) on early kinship make this point clear. This seems to apply during much of the prehistoric peri- od, as symbolic representations in the depths of Mid- dle and Upper Palaeolithic caves seem to suggest. Throughout the Mesopotamian and Anatolian Neo- lithic, this tradition continues with an impressive se- ries of isomorphic representations, in particular twin steles. The message seemingly conveyed by this dua- list symbolism can be read as follows: ‘only the rec- iprocal (marital) relationship ongoing between the moieties (lineages) composing the society can allow for the society to reproduce safely’. Beyond the kin- ship pattern, reciprocity encompasses all other as- The Neolithic dualist scheme Social st. Relations of Dualist Compatible Kinship production symbolism Ethnog. Closed-in Primitive Neandertal Aust. Abori Moiety sys communism Bruniquel Spencer&Gill. Classificat. Egalitarian Franco- !Kung, Inuit Morgan (Woodburn) Cantabrian Barnard Lineage Communal Monumental Trobriand formation reciprocity Göbekli Malinowski Segment. Lineage Domestic Baruya lineage based Çatal Godelier ‘Complex’ Domestic Lineage-base Gouro (open) hierarchy Latmos Meillassoux social structures (a preliminary attempt). ber of sites up until Çatalhöyük could show that this scheme may apply all the way to incipient farmers. It is now possible to clarify a theoretical problema- tic raised above, and state that there is no coinci- dence in recognizing dualism in the ideology of so- cieties as geographically, chronologically and cultu- rally distinct as the Neanderthals, Australian Abori- gines, Magdalenians, Ancient Chinese, SW Asian Neo- lithic or early historical Mesopotamians. This conver- gence becomes structurally logical when the ideolo- gy of these societies is ultimately determined by Fig. 5. The Neolithic Dualist scheme seen as an evolution of so- cial structures (synthesizing graphic). Dualist and closed-in (‘elementary’) Palaeolithic societies confronted with growing autonomous Neolithic farming lineages trigger an ideological conservative reaction (monumental: Göbekli III, omnipresent: Çatalhöyük), but finally evolve towards open (‘complex’) Chalco- lithic Domestic lineages. gy/computers-and-electrical-engineering/computers-and-computing/scheme 17 Cédric Bodet of this remarkably stable social construction. But the ultimate illustration for the central position held by dualism in prehistory, and without which dualism would have never occurred to the author’s mind as a way to enlighten the Neolithic ideology, is the set of central monumental twin steles of Göbekli Tepe. Conclusion The following quote on the Australian Aboriginal so- cial and ideological structure seems appropriate to conclude this paper: “to affirm that appropriation is the fact of the community as a whole only, to af- firm that the latter is an inseparable totality, it was first necessary to break it into two, into two parts each closely dependent on the other. Each part was conceived from the start as part of the whole” (Te- start 1985.478). It is remarkable and fortunate that these lines were written about a decade before the excavation of Göbekli Tepe. Today, the twin steles stand as a monumental confirmation of Testart’s (1988) audacious intuition that Australian Aborigi- nes likely reflect an extended Palaeolithic ideologi- cal background. he set him- but ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am extremely grateful to Anna Belfer-Cohen and Alan Barnard for their patient reviews of early ver- sions of this paper and for their support. Jak Yakar, Barbara Helwing, Çiler Çiligiroglu and Hans-Georg Gebel all provided constructive criticisms that im- proved the manuscript. I would also like to thank The Deutsches Archaologisches Institut and Christian Jaubert for letting me reproduce their pictures. The ideas presented here are my own only but are in- debted to the insights of late Jean-Daniel Forest. This paper is dedicated to his memory. keystone ∴ References Barnard A. 1978. Universal systems of kin categorization. African Studies 37(1): 69–81. Anthro- 2007. From Mesolithic to Neolithic modes of thought. In A. Whittle, V. Cummings (eds.), Going Over. The Me- solithic-Neolithic Transition in North-West Europe. Proceedings of the British Academy 144. Oxford Uni- versity Press. Oxford: 5–19. DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197264140.001.0001 Tepe and the 2020. Hunters and Gatherers: What Can We Learn from Them. (Hearing Others’ Voices). Balestier Press. London, Singapore. The Neolithic dualist scheme Bourdieu P. 1980. Le sens pratique. Edition de minuit. Paris. Cauvin J. 1997. Naissance des divinités, Naissance de l’agriculture. Flammarion. Paris. Cook M. 2003. A Brief History of the Human Race. Gran- ta books. London. zur Deutung der David N., Kramer C. 2001. Ethnoarchaeology in action. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Dowling J. H. 1968. Individual ownership and the sharing of game in hunting societies. American anthropologist 70: 502–507. Doyle D. 2005. Ritual Male Circumcision: A Brief History. Journal of Royal Colledge of Physicians of Edinburgh 35: 279–285. Durkheim E. 1937. Les règles de la méthode sociologi- que. Presse Universitaire de France. Paris. N. Lavi, D. E. Erim-Özdogan A. 2011. Çayönü. In M. Özdogan, N. Basge- len, and P. Kuniholm (eds.), The Neolithic in Turkey, The Tigris Basin. Archaeology and art. Istanbul: 185–269. and South- Forest J.-D. 1992. L’archéologie et l’ethnologie ou la né- cessité de mélanger les genres. In Ethnoarchéologie: justi- fication, problèmes, limites, XIIe Rencontres d’archéo- logie et d’histoire d’Antibes. Éditions de Association pour la Promotion et la Diffusion des Connaissances Archéolo- giques. CNRS. Juan-les-Pins. Paris: 25–32. 1993. Çatal Höyük et son décor: pour le déchiffrement d’un code symbolique. Anatolia Antiqua 2: 1–42. 1996a. Mésopotamie, l’apparition de l’Etat. Editions Paris-Méditerranée. Paris. Pro- 1996b. Le PPNB de Çayönü et de Nevalı Çori: pour une approche archéo-ethnologique de la néolithisation du Proche-Orient. Anatolia Antiqua 4: 1–31. 2003. Çatal Höyük et son décor: pour le déchiffrement d’un code symbolique. In J. Guilaine (ed.), Arts et Sym- boles du Néolithique à la Protohistoire. Errance. Paris: 41–58. 2006. Le processus de néolithisation proche-oriental: pour une archéologie sans frontières. Syria 83: 125–138. the prehi- Frazer J. G. 1910. Totemism and exogamy. Macmillan. London. and Freud S. 2010 [1913]. Totem et Tabou. Points. Paris. 19 Cédric Bodet Jaubert J., Verheyden S., Genty D., + 16 authors, and San- tos F. 2016. Early Neanderthal constructions deep in Bru- niquel Cave in southwestern France. Nature 534: 111– 114. https://doi: 10.1038/nature18291 Jeunesse C. 2020. Elite houses or specialized buildings? In A. B. Gebauer, L. Sorensen, A. Teather, and A. C. Valera (eds.), Monumentalising life in the Neolithic. Oxbow. Oxford: 53–56. theory, Kinzel M., Clare L. 2020. Monumental compared to what? A Perspective from Göbekli Tepe. In A. B. Gebauer, L. So- rensen, A. Teathe, and A. C. Valera (eds.), Monumenta- lising life in the Neolithic. Oxbow. Oxford: 29–48. Knight C., Power C., and Watts I. 1995. The Human Sym- bolic Revolution: A Darwinian Account. Cambridge Ar- chaeological Journal 5(1): 75–114. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300001190 In Kornienko T. V. 2018. On the Interpretation of Stelae in the Cult Complexes of Northern Mesopotamia During the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Archaeology, Ethnology and An- thropology of Eurasia 46(4): 13–21. DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2018.46.4.013-021 Kuijt I. 2018. Material geographies of House Societies: Re- considering Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Cambridge Ar- chaeological Journal 28(4): 565–590. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774318000240 In B. Hel- Le Quellec J.-L. 2015. Peut-on retrouver les mythes préhi- storiques? L’exemple des récits anthropogoniques. Comp- tes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1: 235–266. Leroi-Gourhan A. 1964. Les religions de la préhistoire. Presses Universitaires de France, PUF. Paris. Lévi-Strauss C. 1967. Les structures élémentaires de la parenté. Mouton de Gruyter. Paris. Ahmet A. Tır- Lewis-Williams D. 2002. The mind in the cave. Conscious- ness and the Origins of Art. Thames & Hudson. London. Makarewicz C. A., Finlayson B. 2018. Constructing com- munity in the Neolithic of southern Jordan: Quotidian prac- tice in communal architecture. PLoS ONE 13(6): e0193712. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193712 Malinowski B. 1926. Crime and Custom in Savage So- ciety. Littlefield, Adam & Co. London. Matthews R. 2003. The Archaeology of Ancient Mesopo- tamia, Theories and approaches. Routledge. London. The Neolithic dualist scheme Radcliffe-Brown A. R. 1952. Structure and function in L’année Sociolo- primitive society. Cohen & West. London. PUF. Paris. Sahlins M. 1961. The Segmentary Lineage and Predatory Expansion. American Anthropologist 63: 322–345. Non-Domes- 1972. Stone Age economics. Aldine de Gruyter. New York. Paris. Schmandt-Besserat D. 2013. Preface and acknowledg- ments. In D. Schmandt-Besserat (ed.), Symbols at ‘Ain Ghazal – Ain Ghazal Excavation Reports 3. Bibliotheca neolithica Asiae meridionalis et occidentalis et Yarmouk University. Monograph of the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology, Yarmouk University. Ex Oriente. Berlin: xxv–xxvi. Antiquity Schmidt K. 2001. Göbekli Tepe, Southeastern Turkey. A preliminary report on the 1995–1999 excavations. Palé- orient 26(1): 45–54. psychoana- Schoop U.-D. 2005. The Late escape of the Neolithic from the Central Anatolian plain. In C. Lichter (ed.), How Did Farming Reach Europe? Anatolian-European relations from the second half of the 7th through the first half of the 6th millennium cal BC. Proceedings of the internatio- nal workshop, Istanbul, 20–22 May 2004. Byzas 2. Veröf- fentlichungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Istanbul. Istanbul: 41–58. Spencer B., Gillen F. J. 1899. The native tribes of Central Australia. Macmillan. London. Stordeur D. 2000. Jerf el Ahmar et l’émergence du Néoli- thique au Proche Orient. In J. Guilaine (ed.), Premiers paysans du monde. Errance. Paris: 33–60. Özdogan, N. Basge- 2003. Symbole et Imaginaire des premières cultures néolithiques du Proche Orient (Haute et Moyenne val- lée de l’Euphrate). In J. Guilaine (ed.), Arts et Symboles du Néolithique à la Protohistoire. Errance. Paris: 15–37. ve Sanat 2012. Les villages et l’organisation des groupes au Néo- lithique précéramique A. L’exemple de Jerf el-Ahmar, Syrie du nord. In J. L. Fenollos (ed.), Du village Néoli- thique à la ville Syro-Mésopotamienne. Bibliotheca eu- phratica 1. Universidad da Coruña & Sociedad Luso- Gallega de Estudios Mesopotámicos. Ferrol: 35–54. Stordeur D., Brenet M., Der Aprahamian G., and Roux J.- C. 2001. Les bâtiments communautaires de Jerf el-Ahmar et Mureybet horizon PPNA (Syrie). Paléorient 26(1): 29– 44. https://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_2000_ num_26_1_4696 39(1): Testart A. 1978. Des classifications dualistes en Austra- lie. Essai sur l’évolution de l’organisation sociale. Edi- 21 Cédric Bodet Watkins T. 1996. The origin of household in North Meso- potamia. In K. R. Veenhof (ed.), From houses to house- holds in ancient Mesopotamia. Papers Read at the 40th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Leiden, July 5–8, 1993. Uitgaven van het Nederlands Historisch-Archa- · eologisch Instituut te Istanbul: 78. Nederlands Historisch- Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul. Istanbul: 79–88. Etudes 2006. Architecture and the Symbolic Construction of New Worlds. In E. B. Banning, M. Chazan (eds.), Do- mesticating Space: Construction, Community, and Cosmology in the Late Prehistoric Near East. Studies in Early Near Eastern Production, Subsistence, and En- vironment 12. Ex Oriente. Berlin: 15–24. 29(1): Weber M. 1921. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, [1996. Socio- logie des religions]. Gallimard. Paris. Weiss C. 1966. Motives for Male Circumcision among Pre- literate and Literate Peoples. The Journal of Sex Research 2(2): 69–88. Willcox G., Stordeur D. 2012. Large-scale cereal process- ing before domestication during the tenth millennium cal. BC in northern Syria. Antiquity 86: 99–114. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00062487 à Çatal Hö- Wilson M. 2020. Symbols in art. Thames and Hudon. Lon- don. in the Yakar J. 2003. Defining social complexity in Anatolian communities of hunter-gatherer cultivators. In M. Özdo- gan, H. Hauptmann, and N. Basgelen (eds.), Köyden ken- te. Yakındoguda ilk yerlesimler 2/From Village to Cities. Early Villages in the Near East 2. Arkeoloji Sanat Yayın- · ları. Istanbul: 437–446. Anatolia. 2005. The language of symbols in prehistoric Anatolia. Documenta Praehistorica 32: 111–121. https://doi.org/10.4312/dp.32.7 of the Neo- Zeder M. A. 2011. The Origins of Agriculture in the Near East. Current Anthropology 52(4): 221–235. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/659307 at Early Neo- Zimmerman T. 2020. Ein Untergang im Morgenland? Gö- bekli Tepe als Fallstudie für die Vollendung und das Ver- löschen einer späteiszeitlichen Jäger- und Sammlerkultur. The Journal of the Oswald Spengler Society 3: 7–25. http://hdl.handle.net/11693/76053 Ellsworth R. M. Marriage