Melos obsidian might well have been transported as far as the Balkans in Neolithic times,
6
confirming its incredible importance throughout Europe. For the Swiderians too it would seem to have held a special place in their stone kit. One survey of exotic materials found at late Paleolithic sites in the Carpathians showed that out of twenty Swiderian centers examined,
all
contained items made of obsidian.
7
The only other contemporary Carpathian people that would seem to have taken a noticeable fancy to obsidian were the Swiderians’ neighbors in Hungary, the Epigravettians (i.e., late Gravettians), with a large number of items made from the volcanic glass being found in their settlement sites as well.
8
LETHAL WEAPON
The Swiderians used obsidian to create super-sharp tanged points, such as the one found at a site in Wolodz, Subcarpathia, Poland.
9
Being fashioned out of obsidian would have made these arrowheads among the most lethal weapons in the world. So sharp is obsidian that surgeons today use scalpel blades tipped with the black volcanic glass to make near-perfect incisions during operations.
Experts in Stone Age tool production often cite the story of Don Crabtree, one of the people responsible for the rebirth of stone knapping in the 1960s and 1970s.
10
He apparently insisted that during an operation surgeons use obsidian blades that he himself had made. Incredibly, obsidian slices through tissue with such efficiency that it enables healing to take place easily. Metal blades, in contrast, make micro-rips in body tissue that can take much longer to heal.
CROW-FLINT FIRE
It might not have been just the sharpness of obsidian that appealed to the Swiderians, or indeed their neighbors, the Epigravettians. We cannot say exactly how the peoples of the Upper Paleolithic viewed obsidian on a subtle level, but the fact that it was found on the slopes of volcanoes, some of which might still have been active, tells us that it could have been associated with the element of fire.
Indeed, Hungarians living in the Carpathian Basin would use obsidian—picked up at prehistoric settlement sites—to kindle fire. They referred to it as
varjúkova,
“crow-flint,”
11
as well as
isten nyila,
“thunder bolts” (or “godly arrowheads”),
12
associating it with the god of thunder and lightning. They even described obsidian as
lebkövek,
“meteorite-like stones,” in the belief that these shiny gray or black pieces of rock came from the sky.
13
OBSIDIAN RELIGION
In Mesoamerican tradition obsidian was said to be blood that had congealed and gone black. Both the Aztecs and Maya used obsidian to create sacrificial knives, as well as blades and implements for autosacrifice; that is, bloodletting through self-inflicted incisions.
Scottish folklorist Lewis Spence (1874–1955) wrote in
The Magic and Mysteries of Mexico
(1922) that the Mesoamerican fixation with obsidian—what he called the “obsidian religion”—emerged from an epoch of human history when prehistoric hunters used obsidian weapons to hunt deer:
The deer was slain by the obsidian weapon, which, therefore, came to be regarded as the magical weapon, that by which food was procured [by the prehistoric hunters of Mexico]. In the course of time it assumed a sacred significance, the hunting-gods themselves came to wield it, and it [obsidian] was thought of as coming from the stars or the heavens where the gods dwelt.
14
Even though Mexico lies thousands of miles away from the Carpathian Mountains, can we envisage the existence of similar beliefs in the magical potency of obsidian among the Upper Paleolithic peoples of Central and Eastern Europe? Did the Swiderians see obsidian as a magical weapon, linked integrally with their role as reindeer hunters?
THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOURCES
In all likelihood, the Swiderians’ fascination with obsidian could suggest they had some kind of control over its collection and distribution in the Carpathian Mountains, the “land of obsidian,” prior to any kind of forced migration to north and northeast Europe caused either by the Younger Dryas Boundary impact event, ca. 10,900 BC, or the thirteen-hundred-year mini ice age that followed it. Not only was obsidian to be found in the Caucasus Mountains, which the Swiderians reached as early as the eleventh millennium BC, but as we see next, it was the sources in and around the Armenian Highlands that become crucial to making the connection between the Swiderians and the power elite thought to be behind the construction of Göbekli Tepe.
23
THE BINGÖL MASTERS
I
n 2008 it was determined that obsidian tools found at Göbekli Tepe derive from three primary sources—one of them being Göllü Dağ in central Anatolia, where there are several major sources of obsidian, with the other two coming from locations near Bingöl Mountain.
1
This is a north-south aligned massif with twin peaks located some 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of the city of Erzurum in the Armenian Highlands of eastern Anatolia.
A separate survey completed in 2012 determined that another source of the raw material used to fashion many of the obsidian tools and blades found at Göbekli Tepe was Nemrut Dağ, an extinct volcano close to Lake Van, Turkey’s largest inland sea, which lies to the southeast of the Armenian Highlands.
2
This latest discovery has led to speculation that Göbekli Tepe might have been a cosmopolitan center, a kind of Neolithic Mecca or Jerusalem for people coming from central Anatolia, some 280 miles (450 kilometers) away, and from the Bingöl/Lake Van area, which lies around 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the northeast.
3
Supporting evidence for the cosmopolitan center theory includes the countless flint tools found scattered about Göbekli Tepe’s artificial mound, which are hardly likely to have been dropped by the builders. They are everywhere; you cannot help but tread on them. The sheer quantity suggests they are offerings left by visitors across an extended period of time.
Clearly, Göbekli Tepe
was
a center of pilgrimage. However, the presence here of obsidian tools from central Anatolia and the Bingöl/Lake Van area might well have other implications. As we have seen in Mexico, Central Europe, and Greece, obsidian was a prestige item, one endowed with great magical properties, including the ability to produce fire. Its presence at Göbekli Tepe tells us two things: first, that it might have been employed in rituals due to its special qualities, and, second, there must have been lines of communication between Göbekli Tepe and the obsidian sources in the Bingöl/Lake Van area. This connection with Bingöl Mountain in particular was most obviously through proto-Neolithic centers such as Hallan Çemi in the foothills of the eastern Taurus Mountains, which dates to ca. 10,250–9600 BC, and Çayönü, ca. 8650–7350 BC, both of which acted as clearinghouses for obsidian reaching southeast Anatolia from the Armenian Highlands.
THE EMERGENCE OF HALLAN ÇEMI
Hallan Çemi exhibited a level of cultural sophistication that easily matched anything going on in the Levant at this time. Although the people here were hunters and foragers, eating wild game (mostly sheep, goats, red deer, foxes, and turtles), they would appear to have domesticated the pig, the earliest evidence of this form of animal husbandry anywhere in the world.
The discovery of a substantial number of stone querns, used to grind seeds, has led some prehistorians to suggest that the inhabitants of Hallan Çemi were engaged in protoagriculture, or certainly the exploitation of wild cereals. However, very few cereal seeds have been found at the site, casting doubts on this theory. In fact, all the indications are that the main food here, in addition to game meat, consisted of wild lentils, bitter vetch (a type of pea), and nuts. These included pistachios and wild almonds, which had first to be roasted before consumption to remove their toxicity. Evidence of pistachio and almond consumption has also been found at Göbekli Tepe.
Excavators at Hallan Çemi worked frantically to explore the site from 1991 to 1994 in advance of its disappearance beneath the rising waters of the nearby Batman River, following the construction of a nearby dam. Before its final submergence they were able to uncover two semisubterranean, circular structures of great significance. Each one was around 20 feet (6 meters) in diameter, with walls faced with sandstone ashlars, as well as stone benches, plastered floors, and central hearths. Archaeologists found inside them a large number of prestige items, including pieces of copper ore and obsidian tools, along with evidence of food preparation, most likely for ceremonial feasts cooked on the hearths.
One of the structures contained a massive auroch’s skull, which had hung at its northern end, indicating that the building was almost certainly used for cultic purposes. The discovery of this bucranium supports the theory that the north was the preferred direction of orientation of proto-Neolithic cult buildings even before the construction of much more complex structures at both Göbekli Tepe and Çayönü.
Indeed, there is a good case for Hallan Çemi having some direct bearing on what came later at Göbekli Tepe, as does the basic design and carved art of other cult centers in the region, such as Jerf el-Ahmar in North Syria and Qermez Dere in the Jezirah Desert of northern Iraq (see chapter 1).
Hallan Çemi, where almost half the stone tools found were made of obsidian, is 75 miles (120 kilometers) south-southwest of Bingöl Mountain and just under 140 miles (225 kilometers) away from Göbekli Tepe. To date, Hallan Çemi is the closest known proto-Neolithic site to Bingöl, and the sheer amount of obsidian found here has prompted prehistorians to suggest that trade networks must have existed across the region. If so, then Hallan Çemi was very likely a main distribution center, the raw obsidian arriving here from workshops much closer to the mountain.
EUROPEAN TAKEOVER
These realizations take us into interesting territories, for if the trade in obsidian was indeed regulated by some kind of elite group, is it possible that Swiderian peoples entered eastern Anatolia from the north during the Younger Dryas period and assumed control of the regional obsidian trade, introducing new forms of tool manufacture, such as the pressure flaking technique? Curiously, this is the exact same time that the local culture, the Zarzian, vanish from the scene, having thrived in the region for as much as nine thousand years.
The Zarzians are a very compelling group. Not only were they the founders of Hallan Çemi, but evidence suggests they also domesticated dogs.
4
In addition to this, they were one of the first cultures in the Middle East to employ the use of bows and arrows, which they utilized to hunt red deer, onager (or wild ass), cattle, sheep, and wild goats. They kept on the move, living mainly in temporary campsites, and most important of all, they had access to major obsidian sources in the Armenian Highlands.
Obsidian from the Bingöl sources has been found at various Zarzian camps as far south as the Zagros Mountains, including the cave of Zarzi (the culture’s type site), near Sulaymaniah in Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Zawi Chemi Shanidar settlement site, which overlooks the Greater Zab River in northern Iraq. It was here during the 1950s that American archaeologists Ralph and Rose Solecki discovered the wings of seventeen large predatory birds, mostly vultures, along with the skulls of at least fifteen goats and wild sheep (see chapter 9). Although this ritual deposit is assigned to the proto-Neolithic community that occupied the site, chances are it represents a continuation of beliefs and practices that had been prevalent among the Zarzian peoples, whose legacy lived on among the proto-Neolithic populations of southeast Anatolia and northern Iraq. In other words, the Zarzians were most likely carriers of the tradition that included the utilization of the vulture in shamanic practices, something that later appears at cult centers such as Göbekli Tepe and Nevalı Çori. This is despite the fact that the Swiderians held specific knowledge regarding bird-and canine-related shamanism derived, at least in part, from both their suspected Solutrean background
and
their likely contact with the descendants of the Kostenki-Streletskaya culture of the Russian steppes and plain, whom they would have encountered on their journey to eastern Anatolia. Yet their beliefs and practices do not appear to have included the use of the vulture as a primary symbol of birth, death, and rebirth. That seems to have come from the Zarzian peoples, who occupied the region before their arrival.
As to their origin, British archaeologist James Mellaart felt that the Zarzians had started their journey on the Russian steppes, then moved gradually southward into the Caucasian Mountains and Armenian Highlands, before eventually reaching the Zagros Mountains of northern Iraq and northwest Iran.
5
Yet this was a migration that had started as early as 19,000 BC, as much as nine thousand years before the Swiderians would appear to have traveled exactly the same route to reach eastern Anatolia during the Younger Dryas period.
So did the Swiderian hunters overrun Zarzian camps, decimating the inhabitants? Certainly, there is compelling evidence that some kind of power struggle occurred around this time in the Zarzian territories of Gobustan in Azerbaijan, right where the eastern termination of the Caucasus Mountains meets the Caspian Sea.