BS: Kalahari Python

Subject: BS: Kalahari Python
From: Tweed
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 08:43 AM

Saw this on the netscape news page and googled to the University of Oslo's magazine for more.

SACRIFIED TO THE PYTHON:
The world's oldest ritual ceremonies are twice as old as previously thought. More than 70,000 years ago in a small cave in Botswana, humans sacrificed spearheads to the python.

The Kalahari Python

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 09:26 AM

Thanks, Tweed. Fascinating!

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: Bee
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 10:04 AM

Fascinating! But surely this:

"The more than 3,500 paintings, some more than 1,500 years old, .."

is a typo - did they mean to say 15,000, I wonder?

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: Tweed
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 10:17 AM

Could be, it's a Norwegian/English translation. I see they spelled sacrificed as sacrified.

However, their English beats my Norwegian all to hell.

It's really interesting. The world has changed considerably since constrictors crawled through the Kalahari Jungles.

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: Tweed
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 10:31 AM

Aslo, I have found video of an actual Kalahari python in action!

The Mild Mannered Kalahari Python

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: SINSULL
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 11:02 AM

"For over 70,000 years, people came to this cave for the sole purpose of performing rituals, and nothing else."


Could this be right?
Wonder who was the last one to perform the ritual and why did they stop.

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: Tweed
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 11:11 AM

The streams and wells all ran dry??

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: Bee
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 11:13 AM

Some ancient Kalahari atheist found the shaman in situ in his little cave and spoiled all the fun by ratting him out.

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: MBSLynne
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 02:54 PM

I thought this was about Monty's sister

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 07:33 PM

I thought Mr Palin was wandering around the Kalahari again.

He tells a tale of being in Nepal and being recognised 'Monty Python! Monty Python!'

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 06:54 AM

"For over 70,000 years, people came to this cave for the sole purpose of performing rituals, and nothing else."

Really? How can they be so sure?

Never a picnic?
Never a bit of gossip?
Never any couple sneaking in for a secret rendez-vous?

Could the 'experts' perhaps be wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 07:28 AM

Aren't they 'social rituals' too, Topsie?

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: Tweed
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 05:48 PM

I googled Python Worship just now and found this.

Sacred Texts.com

I wonder if this python thing somehow became the serpent in genesis?

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 06:44 PM

... and of course a new momotheist based religion would just have to regard all other 'gods' as evil...

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 06:50 PM

er monotheist...

my eyes ain't what they used to be - they used to be my ears...

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 07:24 PM

Well, of course all this could be spot on. Or it could be complete bunkum. It's speculation, which is fine, but when it involves stuff like "for over 70,000 years, people came to this cave for the sole purpose of performing rituals, and nothing else" it claims to be more than speculation, and the claims go way beyond the evidence, as Topsie pointed out.

Just think of all the weird and varied stuff we get up to in the course of our lives, and then imagine a claim like that being made about some aspect of our own life by some imaginative paleontologist a few thousand year in the future, on that kind of evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: Bee
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 07:48 PM

We've just got a paleojournalist's article, though. If we were to hear from the actual paleontologists, we might hear a more cautious, nuanced and grounded analysis.

Back when I could access for free British Archaeology's back issue articles, I found wonderful stuff that never hit mainstream press, and definitely not the TV. Debunkings of the 'instant-ancient-religion' school of prehistory, interesting alternate views of the Willendorf Venus and her sisters, careful analyses of things like stomach contents of bob bodies (cereals, with a good smattering of ergot, if you're curious)...

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 01:44 PM

Surely "a paleojournalist" ought to be a Stone Age character with a bent for communication- the kind of bod who'd have gone in for painting stuff on the walls of caves.

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: Bee
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 02:04 PM

Aw, those cave painting guys were mostly braggarts: "I killed THIS MANY mammoths!" "And I chased this HUGE bear outta my cave!" and so on.

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 02:10 PM

"Look what those bloody vandals have done to that lovely cave wall..."

And you'd get unfortunate incidents when a cave bear would come home unexpectedly while the young hooligans were busy messing up the cave with their scribbles.

Subject: RE: BS: Kalahari Python
From: Bee
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 02:24 PM

Origin of the Goldilocks tale?