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Period: Paleolithic

Aug 02

The hero archetype and Lugh

Museum of Anatolian Civilizations Çatalhöyük Leopard reliefs all in 2019 01

At its core the “hero” is the figure who steps out of ordinary society, confronts chaos or a monster, and returns (or dies) having secured order for the group. In Jungian and comparative-myth terms it sits in the “warrior-champion” slot of the collective story-board; evolutionists would say it crystallises the survival value of decisive coalition leadership in small bands.

Jun 11

Guide: Spoil Heaps

Ochre mine in the Lion Cavern in Eswatini southern Africa - Credit - Jörg Linstädter

These are artificial hills made from the unwanted rock, shale and tailings that come up with coal, metal ore, stone or clay when it is being mined or quarried. Because extractive industry is both deep and long-lived, single collieries or pits can generate tens of millions of cubic metres of spoil; pushed out by locomotive, conveyor or tippler wagon and dumped in successive layers, the piles quickly become a distinctive landform.

Montlleó, Cerdanya, Pyrenees – Lithics Study

Montlleó sits at 1,144 m a.s.l. on a low knoll in the high, east–west Cerdanya valley of the eastern Pyrenees, a natural corridor between the Bay of Biscay and the Gulf of Lion. Excavated since 2000, the open-air site preserves a 23,000 – 17,000 cal BP occupation sequence that spans the harshest part of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) through early deglaciation. Because mountain ice in the Pyrenees retreated earlier than the global LGM, Montlleó shows that hunter-gatherers could exploit altitudes that were once thought permafrost-bound.

Ingleborough Hill – Yorkshire Dales

Ingleborough Hill, part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, is one of the famous “Three Peaks” in the area, alongside Whernside and Pen-y-ghent. It stands at 723 meters (2,372 feet) and has a rich geological and archaeological history.

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