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Cupmarks, stellar maps, and mankala board-games (6)
An archaeoastronomical and Africanist excursion into Palaeolithic
world-views

Wim van Binsbergen

with the astronomical collaboration of Jean-Pierre Lacroix
_________________________________________________________________

6. The present book's argument

In early 1998 I drafted a short note pointing out what I then thought
was the striking similarity between the pattern of the major stars in
the region of the sky extending from Hercules to Bootes, the pattern
of cupmarks on the Serso stone from Northern Italy, and the pattern of
cupmarks as found on the sepulchral block from the Moustérien (Middle
Palaeolithic, classic Neandertal) infant burial VI of the Grand Abri
of La Ferrassie, Miremont-de-Savignac, Dordogne, southwestern France.
In the latter site the decapitated body of a child was found in a
shallow pit grave, with nearer to the surface the jawless skull of a
child, the whole covered by a cupmarked limestone plate -- the oldest
evidence of cupmarks so far.

Fig. 7. Cupmarks on the Serso stone from Northern Italy

Fig. 8. A stellar configuration in the Bootes-Hercules region of the sky as
isomorphic with the Serso cupmark pattern, Approach I

Fig. 9. The pattern of the above stellar configuration, rotated, with
relative positions of stars with magnitude brighter than 3.5 represented as
circles in emulation of cupmarks

Fig. 10. Left: the cupmark pattern from Serso (green) superimposed upon the
pattern of the above stellar configuration (red). Right: The good fit is
accentuated when, in each configuration, we connect the focal points by
continuous lines

Fig. 11. The major stars in configuration B at present.

no

star

no

star

no

star

1
Alkaid      

10
Graffias    

19
Rasalhague

2
Alphecca    

11
kappa Oph   

20
Rastaban

3
Arcturus    

12
Kornephoros 

21
Seginus

4
Cebalrai    

13
mu Her      

22
Unukalhai

5
delta Boo   

14
Muphrid     

23
Vega

6
delta Her   

15
Nekkar      

24
Yed Posterior

7
Edasich     

16
Pherkad     

25
Yed Prior

8
epsilon Boo 

17
pi Her      

26
zeta Her

9
eta Dra     

18
Rasalgethi  

27
zeta Oph

Over the tens of thousands years, the relative
pattern of Configuration B is only mildly affected by proper motion,
as is demonstrated by Fig. 18, which shows the pattern at 30,000 BP:

Fig. 12. The stars of configuration B shown in the positions they occupied
30,000 BP

By early 1998 I only knew the sepulchral block
through the totally misleading rendering in Levy's otherwise priceless
book The gate of horn. Likewise, at the time my knowledge of the
mechanics of the heavens was limited to the calculation of planetary
positions with the aid of ephemerides -- all I needed to appreciate
the astrological background of Arabian geomantic divination and its
widespread derivates in Africa, European Renaissance scholarly
culture, the Indian Ocean region, and the New World. Virtually nothing
did I know at that time of equatorial co-ordinates, magnitude, proper
motion, altitudes of culmination, precession -- the very concepts
which (as I amply demonstrate in Chapter 2 below) were to lead from
that original draft to the present book.

Fig. 13. Plan of the Grand Abri at La Ferrassie

Fig. 14. Layout of burial VI at the Grand Abri, La Ferrassie[1]

Fig. 15. The La Ferrassie burial VI limestone sepulchral block as reproduced
by Levy[2]

This book's main argument is to demonstrate
that cupmark patterns executed on rocky surfaces in Upper and even
Middle Palaeolithic contexts may be considered stellar maps of
identifiable regions of the sky, the individual cupmarks representing
fixed stars and occasionally other celestial bodies (the Sun, the
Moon, the planets).

In search of a method I first develop (Chapter
2) Approach I (in terms of trans-constellation asterisms in the
Hercules-Bootes region of the sky). I present an attempt -- which I
consider convincing-- at revindication of Dalmeri's interpretation of
the undated cupmarked Serso stone, Northern Italy, as a stellar map.
Dalmeri's suggestion was Ursa Major, which I first propose to replace
by Bootes-Hercules, in which region of the sky a pattern of visible
stars is discernible, and has been discernible for tens of thousands
of years, which fits the Serso cupmark pattern fairly well. Meanwhile
this attempt at archaeoastronomical vincidation makes us aware of the
astronomical constraints (magnitude, proper motion, right ascension,
declination, altitude of culmination, precession) to which any
archaeoastronomical approach to Palaeolithic cupmarks is subjected.

After this encouraging attempt we proceed to certified
Palaeolithic cupmarked artefacts and their possible archaeo­
astronomical interpretation.

Fig. 16. Lorblanchet's rendering of the La Ferrassie sepulchral block,
three-dimensional view

Fig. 17. The sepulchral block as currently on display in the Musée National
de la Préhistorie, Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, Dordogne[3]

Fig. 18. Identification of the cupmarks on the La Ferrassie sepulchral block

block outline and relief features in blue; cupmarks in yellow:
identified by present author; arrow in black with question mark in
black: present author uncertain of identification; cupmarks in red:
identified by Lorblanchet 1999 but rejected by present author;
arrows in red with question mark in red: indicates cupmarks
identified by present author but not by Lorblanchet; cupmark in red
shading: Lorblanchet uncertain of identification, and rejected by
the present author

Reducing these considerations to a purely diagrammatic
form yields the following Figure:

Fig. 19. Schematic rendering of the identified cupmarks on the La Ferrassie
sepulchral block

My initial fascination, in 1998, was with the La Ferrassie
sepulchral block, but any attempt at an archaeoastronomical
interpretation of its cupmarks had to be situated against the debate
on Neandertals and the Human Revolution, and against the very
specialised accumulative scholarship concerning later Palaeolithic
symbolism, in the work of such scholars as Breuil, Peyrony,
Leroi-Gourhan, Laming-Emperaire, Brigitte and Gilles Delluc, Anati, to
mention only a few of the protagonists in a debate spanning the entire
twentieth century. Dominant approaches in this field have far from
stressed astronomical interpretations, and in order to create room for
the latter type of interpretation at all, I had to go over the
existing material and the attending literature. This task will take up
the central part of this book. In Chapter 3 I discuss, in the most
cursory and superficial manner, the general background: Neandertals,
the Out-of-Africa scenario, and the Human Revolution in Upper
Palaeolithic Europe. Chapter 4 introduces the La Ferrassie sepulchral
block as the oldest cupmarked stone attested so far, and seeks to
situate it in a comparative context. Meanwhile another major prop of
the argument manifests itself: the well-studied block La Ferrassie
XVI, which dates from the Aurignacien IV; it therefore is considerably
younger than the sepulchral block, and safely on modern man's side of
the Human Revolution of the Upper Palaeolithic -- if we may yet speak
of such a Human Revolution.

Fig. 20. The block La Ferrassie XVI (a) photograph[5]

Fig. 21. The block La Ferrassie XVI (b) identification of cupmarks

Fig. 22. The block La Ferrassie XVI (c) schematic rendering

One of the reasons to concentrate on block XVI is that it
can be situated very comfortably in the entire data set of engraved
Upper Palaeolithic limestone blocks from the Dordogne region, which
comprises some sixty such blocks and which was studied in great detail
and with considerable result by the Dellucs in the 1970s. I do not
merely reiterate the Dellucs' analysis but subject their data to a new
statistical analysis, with surprising results suggestive of historical
patterns of relationships and internal development.

Fig. 23. The Dellucs' analytic sketch of the graphic patterns on the block
La Ferrassie XVI[4]

Fig. 24. Dendrogram showing the results of cluster analysis performed on the
Dellucs' data set

Fig. 25. Clusters of Aurignacien engraved blocks from the Dellucs' data set,
and their typological and historical relationship

This paves the way for Chapter 6, which discusses Palaeolithic signs:
patterns and their interpretation. Here we discharge the obligation to
look at the existing, non-astronomical interpretations before
proceeding to an archaeoastronomical reading. Chapter 6 concentrates
on typology, formal structures, juxtapositions and combinations of
major categories of signs (cupmarks -- including `cupules en jeu'
which look like proto-mankala --, vulva signs, animal representations,
geometrical signs, and residual categories including somewhat doubtful
male signs) without entering in a discussion of change and chronology.
Chapter 7 subsequently, on this formal basis, seeks to identify some
of the historical dynamics of Upper Palaeolithic symbolism, partly on
the basis of the existing literature, and partly on the basis of my
new analysis of the Dellucs' corpus.

Fig. 26. Mankala-like Aurignacien cupmark patterns from the Abri
Blanchard.[6]

Fig. 27. The block Cellier VI, illustrating vulva signs in the Upper
Palaeolithic[7]

Fig. 28. Exuberant and life-like polychromatic animal representations as
typical of the Magdalénien

It is only at this point that we may be said to have
sacrificed sufficiently to existing scholarship, and take up the
archaeoastronomical line of argument. Meanwhile we have derived, from
the general palaeoanthropological argument, a number of principles
which will turn out to be essential in our subsequent archaeo­
astronomical reading. We have identified the abstract, logical
implications of the geometrical signs, and their suitability for
astronomical representations. More important, we have sketched a
chronological pattern according to which Palaeolithic symbolic
ensembles may be reworked at several very different points in time
under several, very different cultural assumptions, by rival human
groups having supplanted each other in the same habitat and in so far
as access to and use of the same engraved blocks is concerned. This
suggests that we may be allowed to disentangle, as belonging to a
different chronological phase, vulva signs and animal representations
from cupmark patterns and geometrical signs, and to concentrate our
archaeoastronomical reading of the latter signs while taking the vulva
signs and animal representations to constitute a later, different
phase of signification.

In Chapter 8 I do take up the archaeoastronomical
argument, demonstrating that at least the cupmarked pattern on the
Aurignacien block XVI may be plausibly interpreted as a stellar map.
For this I develop two further approaches in addition to the abortive
one of Chapter 2. Approach II seeks to interpret block XVI's cupmark
pattern in terms of the sky's very brightest stars, in so far as
clustering on Sirius; or, more in general and less specifically, of
the Milky Way as headed by Sirius. This leads to fairly plausible, if
also very general and unspecific results, apparently foreshadowing the
role which Sirius was to play in cosmological myth and ritual right up
to modern times. In Chapter 11, therefore, I explore, with special
reference to ancient Egypt and the contemporary Dogon people of West
Africa, what the argument based on Approach II might mean for our
understanding of the origin of mankala and its imagery, and for the
current para-scientific debate on the archaeoastronomical status of
Sirius.

Fig. 29. The clustering of several of today's brightest star in a section of
the sky centring on Sirius, and their proper motion over the past 35,000
years

no
star name       

no
star name       

no
star name

1
Adhara          

6
Beta Crux       

10
Pollux

2
Aldebaran       

7
Betelgeuse      

11
Procyon

3
Alpha 2 Centauri

8
Canopus         

12
Regulus

4
Arcturus        

9
Capella         

13
Rigel

5
Beta Centauri   

10
Pollux          

14
Sirius

From Fig. 29 we can extract the formal pattern produced by a set of
very bright stars centring on Sirius, 35,000 BP. Reduced to the same
rectangle as used in Fig. 9, this gives the following Fig. 30.

Fig. 30. The cluster of very brightest stars centring on Sirius, 35,000 BP.

Diameter and boldness of the circular symbols reflects relative
magnitudes as at 35,000 BP[8]

When we now superimpose the stellar pattern of Fig. 30
upon that of the cupmark pattern on the block La Ferrassie XIV as
rendered in Fig. 22, the result is the following Fig. 31:

Fig. 31. The pattern of brightest stars clustering on Sirius, 35,000 BP,
rotated and superimposed upon Fig. 22.

But despite the fact that it opens up these vistas on the
possible aftermath of a Sirius-centred Palaeolithic astronomy,
Approach II has inherent shortcomings (especially the vagueness and
wide celestial angle of its pattern) which make us search for yet
another, more convincing approach. Therefore I finally present -- in
great indebtedness to the self-taught archaeoastronomer Jean-Pierre
Lacroix -- Approach III, which hinges on the idea that block XVI's
cupmark pattern is a detailed and fairly precise stellar map, notably
of the region of the sky centring on Orion's Belt.

Fig. 32. The three adjacent marks below the centre of this Figure suggest
Orion's Belt on the block La Ferrassie XVI

Fig. 33. The block La Ferrassie XVI interpreted as a representation of the
sky around Orions Belt, 31,000 BP

Purple open and closed circles represent
cupmarks.Whereas the open purple circles each correspond with a
specific star in this section of the sky, the closed purple circles
represent cupmarks which do not have a material astronomical
equivalent in the form of a fixed star. Light-blue filled circles
represent stars, while narrow red lines connect a cupmark (shown in
position as on block XVI) with the corresponding star (shown in actual
position as in the sky at 31,000 BP, precession and proper motion
taken into account, as specified in Table 9); the green broken lines
h1-h4 are the roughly parallel grooves which appear on the La
Ferrassie stone itself, and which Peyrony and later writers including
Leroi-Gourhan have taken to represent extremities of animals; the
possible astronomical significance of these lines will be discussed
below.

The limited visibility of Orion's belt in La Ferrassie in the Upper
Palaeolithic suggests a more precise dating of block XVI, notably at
31,000 BP (Before Present), which is slightly more recent than the
available stratigraphic and C^^14 dating. After calculating (in terms
of equatorial co-ordinates, altitudes of culmination, and magnitudes,
of the fixed stars involved) the pattern of the heaven in the region
of Orion's Belt at the date indicated, Approach III turns out to yield
such an amazingly perfect fit between cupmark pattern and celestial
pattern, that there can be no doubt left that block XVI is in fact a
detailed and precise stellar map. That stellar map displays a number
of further remarkable features: cupmark-indicated objects which do by
their position not correspond with fixed stars at the time, and which
are situated at the horizon, and at the intersection points of the
meridian, ecliptic and celestial equator; these features are
suggestive of ecliptic-based astronomic events (movements of the Sun,
Moon and visible planets) which may yield clues as to the precise
astronomical event which triggered the making of this stellar map in
the first place. Moreover there are quasi-parallel lines which earlier
analysts have interpreted as a quadruped's extremities but which find
a rival explanation here in terms of a Palaeolithic stellar clock.

If the archaeoastronomical analysis of the Aurignacien
block XVI yields such promising results, what about our initial
central object, the Moustérien sepulchral block? This is the question
posed, and answered in detail, in Chapter 10. There I apply, one by
one, the Approaches I, II and III which have guided our
archaeoastronomical argument so far. Despite its success in
vindication of the archaeoastronomical reading of the Serso stone,
Approach I yet yields a negative result. The results for Approach II,
at the not impossible date of 35,000 BP, are somewhat more promising
but still fail to convince on several major counts. However, Approach
III (`a precise and detailed stellar map of the region of the sky
around Orion's Belt') once more yields an amazingly convincing fit,
for the date of 55,000 BP. This date moreover has the advantage of
being in line with common specialist estimates of the sepulchral
block's antiquity, confirming its Moustérien, Neandertal nature.
Identification of the block as a precise stellar map has the
implication that we are probably justified to interpreting the infant
burial which is topped by the sepulchral block, as the consequence of
human sacrifice at the occasion of a significant astronomical event.
However, in the absence of ecliptic-based planetary clues from the
sepulchral block's astronomical pattern, we are as yet unable to
pinpoint the exact nature of this astronomical event.

Fig. 34. Equatorial co-ordinates of selected stars for the astronomical
interpretation of the La Ferrassie sepulchral block, Approach III, 55,000
BP; the red arrow indicates Orion's Belt

Fig. 35. Equatorial co-ordinates of selected stars for the astronomical
interpretation of the La Ferrassie sepulchral block, Approach III, 55,000BP,
with the block's cupmark pattern superimposed

yellow = fixed star; brightest stars rendered larger; green =
certain cupmark; red = contested cupmark, with question marks and
arrows also in red; blue = other features of the block; red arrows;
lilac: suggested correspondences between stellar pattern and
cupmark pattern

The implications of the technical argument of this book,
if found tenable, will reach far beyond the discipline of archaeo­
astronomy.

What, in the current scholarly literature concerning the
Upper Palaeolithic, is often described as the Human Revolution in the
hands of early modern man, would seem to coincide with the production
(during the Aurignacien, which implied early modern man) of vulva
signs and animal representations, whereas cupmarks, some of which have
Moustérien and by implication Neandertal associations) might well date
from prior to that development. What becomes discernible here is some
kind of conceptual Primordial Sin, or Fall, in which the earlier
representation of the recurrent, unapproachably distant, ultimate
Otherness of the stars and of Death (the two connotations manifest in
the case of the sepulchral block as the oldest attested instance of
human signification), gives way to the representation of whatever is
nearby, tangible, full of life force, ready to be approached and to be
appropriated for the gratification of hunger and sexual desire:
animals and human female genitals. Although such a development no
doubt generated much mental and social energy, it represents a
movement towards the tangible, the material, the appropriative and the
manipulative conceptual and physical mastering of the natural and
human environment, which may well explain mankind's subsequent
history, but which only from a very specific and contentious viewpoint
could be considered an instance of progress.

The conceptual transition evoked here is massive, but at
the same time it is one which absolutely presupposes the full human
capabilities of the Neandertals. There has been a pendulum swing
movement of the appreciation of Neandertals' humanness ever since the
late 19th century. The virtual denial of their human capabilities by
Boule in the early 20th century was relaxed in the course of that
century, and reinforced again in the 1980s, to return to a reluctant
and reticent admission in the 1990s. Here the present book's argument,
however much written by a non-specialist in the field of
palaeoanthropology and however predictably defective, therefore, may
yet have a contribution to make. For it claims that man's oldest
attested sign representations were made by Neandertals, and
constituted more or less exact stellar maps.

Three important conclusions then present themselves:

o      In the first place, in the light of my argument the Human
Revolution would appear to have been a relative and not an absolute
step in conceptualisation -- it represented a shift in what was
already there, more than a beginning.

o      And in the second place, we are confronted with the image of
the Neandertal with an upward gaze turned to the stars, and engaging
in the first visual graphic representation not for survival-based
drives for food and sex, but in inquisitive amazement. As if the
origin of human graphic art, writing, representation, articulate
logic, lies in what can only be called the Neandertals'
proto-scientific stance. It is only later, with the advent of early
modern man and the explosion of Upper Paleolithic symbolism, that we
see the tangible, immediate gratification in terms of food and sex
invade this initial contemplation and representation of the resignedly
Other; and it is only in this process, presumably, that man becomes
more human by becoming less, not more, spiritual.

o      In the third place it appears as if we have to distinguish more
carefully between the demographic/ somatic, and the cultural,
developments of the later Paleolithic. This may lead to a new model of
intercontinental interactions in the later Palaeolithic. There are
indications of a rapid African and/ or Near Eastern demographic
east-west and north-south influx up to 40,000 BP, bringing early
modern man to southwestern Europe, where she would ultimately replace
the Neandertals. This movement did not coincide with the invention of
symbolism: findings of the last few decades have indicated that there
was symbolism on the African continent simultaneous with and prior to
the Upper Palaeolithic of the Franco-Cantabrian region; and meanwhile
the Neandertals resident in southwestern Europe have turned out to be
capable of making at least one stellar map, that of the La Ferrassie
Neandertal block.

Fig. 36. A specimen of figurative art from the Apollo 11 Cave, Namibia, c.
27,000 BC

Fig. 37. An enigmatic Palaeolithic engraved stone plaque from Angola

Janmart[9] describes this small plaque and its signs in the
following terms:  `A.--La pierre perforée. La perforation a été
faite avant la gravure, comme le prouvent certains traits du dessin
qui y penètrent. L'orifice a été fait par piquetage. Seule la
partie la plus étroite a été égalisée en y faisant tourner un
morceau de bois ou une pierre allongée.
La fig. 34 [ our Fig. 24 ] montre la nature des dessins, qui
semblent avoir été exécutés au moyen d'un eclat trenchant de roche
cure. J'y distingue: une figure humaine à couvre-chef empenné (1)
une vulve (2), une figure oblongue à allure géometrique (3), un
phallus (4) en partie creusé dans la plaque, un schéma d'homme
assis (5) à côté d'une personne de sexe non indiqué (le graveur
s'est amusé à creuser la partie du zig-zag qui touche à l
'orifice), un zig-zag multiple (6), dont les éléments ne sont pas
très rectilignes, figure que l'on interprète habituellement comme
un groupe de femmes assises, un petit ovale auquel sont accolées
des lignes droites (7), figure que j'interprète comme un homme
debout, un poing sur la hanche et, enfin, diverges lignes droites
et courbes s'intersectant pour créer des dessins divers.'

The north-west bound movement however does seem to have
coincided but with the shift from contemplative astronomical cupmarks
to appropriative and objectifying vulva signs and animal
representations. Is this shift another one of Africa's contributions
to global cultural history? And do we have to admit, once more (like
in my claim, in Global Bee Flight, of the emergence of Ancient
Egyptian civilisation from the interaction between Eastern
Mediterranean and sub-Saharan African elements), that this African
contribution did constitute a necessary contribution, but not a
sufficient condition, in the sense that towards this shift also
another major, non-Africa-based factor contributed: Europe-based
proto-scientific astronomy and its representative engravings?

These are momentous observations. But let us not forget
that they are mere hypotheses, which may only remotely apply if and
only if the specialists are prepared to accept my claim that the later
Palaeolithic cupmark patterns represent stellar maps.

And even if such specialist confirmation were forthcoming,
much further research is required before we can assess the extent to
which this original astronomical meaning has continued to adhere to
cupmarks throughout their long and many-sided career in prehistory and
history -- or alternatively can gauge the extent to which an original
astronomical meaning was transformed into, or replaced by, other
meanings and connotations. If the oldest cupmarks meant stars, this
does not necessarily mean that tens of thousands of years later, when
Neolithic mankala-like stone boards come into view, the cupmarks
constituting these boards still represent stars -- although I advance,
in Chapter 11, reasons why this may plausibly be said to be the case.

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_______________________

[1]              Cf. Capitan, L., & Peyrony, D., 1921, `Découverte
d'un sixième squelette moustérien à la Ferrassie, Dordogne', Revue
Anthropologique, 31: 382-88, p. 388. The text is literally
incorporated in: Peyrony, D., 1934, `La Ferrassie: Moustérien,
Périgordien, Aurignacien', Préhistoire, 3: 1-92, also published
separately, Paris: Larose, pp. 33f; Maringer, J., 1960, The gods of
prehistoric man, London: [ publisher ]; Engl. translation of first
German ed.; Dutch translation De godsdienst der praehistorie,
Roermond/ Maaseik: Romen, 1952; Lorblanchet, M., 1999, La naissance de
l'Art: Genèse de l'art préhistorique, Paris: Errance.

[2]
Levy, G.R., 1948, The gate of horn: A study of the religious
conceptions of the stone age, and their influence upon European
thought, London: Faber & Faber, p. 66.

[3]                Photograph by Mr. P. Jugie, graciously made
available by the Musée National de la Préhistoire, Les
Eyzies-de-Tayac, reproduced by permission from the Musée National de
la Préhistoire, which I hereby gratefully acknowledge.

[4]
Delluc, B., & Delluc, G., 1978, `Les manifestations graphiques
aurignaciennes sur support rocheux des environs des Eyzies
(Dordogne)', Gallia: Préhistoire: Fouilles et monuments archéologiques
en France métropolitaine, 21, 1: 213-438, p. 314, Fig. 61.

[5]                Photograph by Mr. P. Jugie, graciously made
available by the Musée National de la Préhistoire, Les
Eyzies-de-Tayac, reproduced by permission from the Musée National de
la Préhistoire, which I hereby gratefully acknowledge.

[6]
Source: Delluc & Delluc o.c., p. 259, Fig. 26. The blocks 1 and 2 have
been lost. Photograph, a sketch and a cross-section of block 3 appears
in Delluc & Delluc, o.c., Fig. 25, p. 257.

[7]              Delluc & Delluc, o.c., Figs. 79 and 80, pp. 353f.

[8]
Magnitudes have been subjected to a linear conversion normalised
towards Sirius:

M = (SQRT(1/e^m))/M', where

m = a star's normalised magnitude 35,000 BP, and

M' = magnitude of Sirius, 35,000 BP (cf. Table 2).

[9]              Janmart, J., 1946, `Les stations paléolithiques de
l'Angola Nord-Est', Diamang: Publicaçoes Culturais (Companhia de
Diamantes de Angola (Diamang)), no. 5, Museu de Dundo, Lisbon, pp.
11-65, p. 56f.

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