From: pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Worship of the Greek gods
Date: 7 Apr 92 20:56:46 GMT

In article <1992Apr5.151611.9064@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> pciszek@isis.cs.du.edu (Paul Ciszek) writes:
>Then what ever became of all those Neanderthals?  They managed to make it
>through earlier interglacials, but not the last one.  We know that these
>people made weapons and were always improving the technology; how can you
>be so sure that they never used them on anything but animals?  

Well, no one is sure, but there is not a lot of evidence of human warfare, there
are hardly any finds of broken human bones and weapons in a warfare or
man on man conflict situation. There were stone age cannibles and violent
peoples, in particular island peoples (perhaps population stress), but they
are the exception, not the rule as today.

>Some anthropoligists even claim that trade was taking place this early.

Trade was extensive between stone-agers. Salt was traded far inland as well 
as gems, medicinal plants and the type of stuff you see in flea markets
today (maybe a slight exageration). Still they did not have the concept
of possesions that we have today (at least in the western sense). Their 
lively hood was not dependent on these trinkets and if they lost them, 
they could always get more. Trade worked because people traded things of
no value to themselves for something that had no value to the people that
were giving it away.

>That and the fact that you could easily go hungry if the hunting or fishing
>didn't work out that year, and that your diet was actually quite limited
>(think about it; you could pretty much only eat what was available in your
>immediate area, during that time of year.  Fruit was probably unknown to
>many paleolithic people.) I think you have invented a modern "Garden of Eden" 
>myth to replace the Judeo-Christian one.

The stone age was no "Garden of Eden", there was life and death and infant
mortality and all the other opposites. Stone age people had a more varied diet 
than we do today, certainly more varied than neolithics. For example, the 
Native SF Bay Californians had easy access to salmon, trout, oysters, clams, 
whale, deer, abalone, seals, birds, elk, onions, berries, acorns, seaweed, 
tule reed, ... Food gathering required only an hour or so per day, most
of the time was spent with crafts or dancing. Of course they had to watch 
out for the big brown bear, (grizzley), who had the same varied diet.

>A thought experiment:  How would a bunch of guys who have just "discovered"
>warfare do against a bunch of other guys who have had it all along?

Clearly the final winner is the culture that has developed warfare to it's 
extreme, ie the European culture. China may have had a more "advanced" culture, 
but it was no match for European military technology.

>It (goddess of war) certainly did (make sense) to the Irish.  "Feeding the 
>crows of the Morrigu" was one way to earn Her favor. 

Warfare is an invention of men, (the masculine), and perhaps even defines
modern man. To turn a goddess, (typically the source of life), into a
goddess of war is obviously a male trick to subvert female power. When
you find a goddess of war, this is ussually an indication that the culture
was originally female centered and underwent a change to male centered
as warfare was introduced.