From: pciszek@isis.cs.du.edu (Paul Ciszek)
Subject: Re: Worship of the Greek gods
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Sun, 5 Apr 92 15:16:11 GMT

pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey) writes:

>Most paeolithic peoples, (100,000 to 12,000 yrs ago), did not know warfare. 

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?  

>To be fair, the population density was much lower and the climate was more 
>hospitable. Stone age peoples did not really have the concept of possesions,

I suggest you take a good look at some of the artifacts remaining from this
time; one of my favorites is a stylized woman's head carved out of ivory
26,000 years ago; you could probably pass it off as greek or etruscan work
if you hid in the right archeological dig somewhere.  I think this artist
owned some tools, and I suspect that somebody was kind of protective of this
carving as well, and kept it someplace safe such that it had lasted to this
day.  Archeologists have found caches of seashells hundreds of miles from
the nearest shore; I maintian that after lugging them all that distance,
those shells would have to be considered property, and perhaps even a form of
wealth.  Some anthropoligists even claim that trade was taking place this
early.

>the good of the state), did not make any sense. Stone age people actually had 
>it pretty good, except that an accident, (trauma), would probably kill you and 

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.

>Some people claim that the early Greek goddess cultures were free from warfare.
>(They probably had war, but were peacefull relative to the "barbarians")

By definition.  A barbarian is anyone who speaks a "baby-talk" language
instead of good honest Greek.

>The theory goes that the early Greeks were a female dominated society. Women

This has never been substatiated so far as I know.
Marija Gijumbutis (sp?) makes such claims, but her methods, such as listening
to what the trees tell her, are held in suspicion by other experts.
 
>by the sea and mountains, so there was less need to defend against marauders.
>But, eventually, the men got tired of worshiping all these women, and they
>discovered warfare, a power that few women have ever grasped. Through warfare

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?

>the goddess of war later on. If you think about, does "goddess" of war
>make any sense?

It certainly did to the Irish.  "Feeding the crows of the Morrigu" was one
way to earn Her favor.  (You feed Her crows by leaving lots of unburied
human corpses lying around, BTW.)

--
Paul Ciszek, pciszek@nyx.cs.du.edu | What's another word for "thesaurus"?
Newsgroups: alt.pagan