| I recall reviewing a book about that culture which came about due some fairly recent digs. It was a pretty large number of people and when they started to dig up the remains of that old kingdom they could find absolutly no weapons of any kind, not even for hunting animals. All they uncovered were farming tools so they must have been mainly a veggitarian culture. They found a lot of stone carvings of a big breasted woman and it is assumed she was ether their leader or an image of their Goddess. Dating processes revealed that those stone carvings of that Goddess were much older then stone carvings found at other places. Apparently they had large groves of trees that could produce food of different kinds. Apparently the women tended to the gardens and were good at climing trees to pick the furit and nuts, and knew about planting seeds to extend the farm.
The men apparently did the construction work to build the villages where people lived or to make the tools used for growing crops. Evidence of domestic animals were not discovered. And apparently the men were learning about carving stones (wood image would have decayed and so I don't think they found any of those). The carving of those stone images of the Goddess might have been the orgins of the master craftsmen who built things such as stonehenge or whatever The culture was somewhat advanced in its technology and creativeness - relative to that time and age.
It was suggested by Terrence McKenna that this peaceful culture went through a transfromation into our current one with the invention of hunting tools and with the killing of animals for food, along with the domestication of the horse which allowed people to journey faster to neighboring locations to conduct raids and tribal wars. (as hunting tools were re-tooled for military purposes).
I do not now recall the name of that book, which was written by a woman anthropologist. It is my opinon that this culture that did exist was what later books called the garden of eden or paradise.
Some of the findings of that dig were in that musem in Bagdad that was robbed during the war we are now into. No doubt there is more to uncover about our history which will have to be put on hold until after the wars in the middle east are over, and our researchers can again return to explore for more things in a peaceful environment. |