Life in stone
Some places seem set to move at speed and with a cadence of innovation and even manipuation, and in late prehistory the specialisations that gathered behind the walls and earthworks of castros, conglomerates and hill forts will have favoured uptake of idea and issues of power.
The coast can favour dispersed communities of coastal fishermen and herdsmen with occasional surprise passage and trade: simple sails, oars and rudders; weights and nets; baskets for bivalves and fields of water to evaporate between brine and iodinated salt crystal. Even today, a low tide can be filled with gatherers using tools and gestures that are from a universal palate known in the distant ages of man.
Some places retain knowledge and habits from deeper time and the area around these flint faced Medieval slabs may be one of those.
An element of history that speaks about distant tradition is an element that might offer insight, so, although this may be an example of correlation (two distant and unrelated examples of using flint) we should at least look at the potential and implication for causation.
The current Cathedral dates from between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but a church/cathedral existed on the site from at least 633 with associated sarcophagi reaching back and witnessing visiting Iron Age Étrusques.
The above photographs were taken in a sombre wing of the Cathedral, which is on a site so strange that it perhaps asks to have had a deeper local/regional significance to seed its origins - for it is a Cathedral without a city, town ... or even village.
The coast of the French western Mediterranean sea can fade with salt marshland, or stutter with semi freshwater lakes known as Etang. Etang amass behind dunes and barrier chains of gravel spit, turning the seafront into a braided isthmus between styles of water and wave: flamingos preferring one side and seagulls the other.
The protected Etang will have allowed boating skills to present from an early age, and representatives from the Maguelone area must be expected to be one of the visiting parties to the Neolithic regattas around the monumental 'boat havens' of Fontvielle (see below).
No two seashores are alike as differences in grade of sand, stone, iodine, shell, algae, crab, and mollusc express themselves on the local. The seashore aside the slight rise of Maguelone is a resting and maturing zone for flat and oval polished stones. Naturally akin to the polished stones of the Neolithic, and perfect for necklace and amulet. The polished stones of this shore are similar to the river stones found aside the Mas D'Azil and the less frequent river stones of the Deba (both valued natural stones within Prehistory). I further cover this idea below, with the principle being that as the Mediterranean sea turns from north south to east west, it signs a beach that 'speaks' the polished language of Neolithic tools: that was the site of the Maguelone. The Maguelone is on a safe rise between all qualities of water, and asks to be a meeting place or shared ground for locals, 'littorals' and visitors who were making the detour for an amulet or to see the place where 'Mother Earth' generates a polished and shaped fecundity. A constant and ephemeral population talking, trading and teaching as they make knots, sharpen and stitch.
Neolithic stone tools were regularly polished evenly and without consideration of 'need' as there is no 'need' to polish the overhang of a stone axe, but it was done. Was a spirit of 'life' being found within the stone by polishing or knapping the flesh into flint and other adapted minerals? An opinion deeply held by spiritual leaders and enjoyed aside other functions and qualities by the general population? In the above slabs, are we seeing a last memory of this principle in the flint flesh faces of local religious leaders, as the church tries to marry its institution with the local?
If the above flint faces are 'saying' that the local clergy were on a par and spirit with the residual local spiritual leaders (now often referred to as pagan), then the act of making a face from the principle may suggest that the local belief system included spiritual leaders who professed access to the life force of stone and thus 'mother earth' - animisms.
Thinking that old ways disappear at speed is an intrusive apriorism - local differences tell their stories at their own speeds.
AJM 10.09.21
Life in stone
Some places seem set to move at speed and with a cadence of innovation and even manipuation, and in late prehistory the specialisations that gathered behind the walls and earthworks of castros, conglomerates and hill forts will have favoured uptake of idea and issues of power.
The coast can favour dispersed communities of coastal fishermen and herdsmen with occasional surprise passage and trade: simple sails, oars and rudders; weights and nets; baskets for bivalves and fields of water to evaporate between brine and iodinated salt crystal. Even today, a low tide can be filled with gatherers using tools and gestures that are from a universal palate known in the distant ages of man.
Some places retain knowledge and habits from deeper time and the area around these flint faced Medieval slabs may be one of those.
An element of history that speaks about distant tradition is an element that might offer insight, so, although this may be an example of correlation (two distant and unrelated examples of using flint) we should at least look at the potential and implication for causation.
The current Cathedral dates from between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but a church/cathedral existed on the site from at least 633 with associated sarcophagi reaching back and witnessing visiting Iron Age Étrusques.
The above photographs were taken in a sombre wing of the Cathedral, which is on a site so strange that it perhaps asks to have had a deeper local/regional significance to seed its origins - for it is a Cathedral without a city, town ... or even village.
The coast of the French western Mediterranean sea can fade with salt marshland, or stutter with semi freshwater lakes known as Etang. Etang amass behind dunes and barrier chains of gravel spit, turning the seafront into a braided isthmus between styles of water and wave: flamingos preferring one side and seagulls the other.
The protected Etang will have allowed boating skills to present from an early age, and representatives from the Maguelone area must be expected to be one of the visiting parties to the Neolithic regattas around the monumental 'boat havens' of Fontvielle (see below).
No two seashores are alike as differences in grade of sand, stone, iodine, shell, algae, crab, and mollusc express themselves on the local. The seashore aside the slight rise of Maguelone is a resting and maturing zone for flat and oval polished stones. Naturally akin to the polished stones of the Neolithic, and perfect for necklace and amulet. The polished stones of this shore are similar to the river stones found aside the Mas D'Azil and the less frequent river stones of the Deba (both valued natural stones within Prehistory). I further cover this idea below, with the principle being that as the Mediterranean sea turns from north south to east west, it signs a beach that 'speaks' the polished language of Neolithic tools: that was the site of the Maguelone. The Maguelone is on a safe rise between all qualities of water, and asks to be a meeting place or shared ground for locals, 'littorals' and visitors who were making the detour for an amulet or to see the place where 'Mother Earth' generates a polished and shaped fecundity. A constant and ephemeral population talking, trading and teaching as they make knots, sharpen and stitch.
Neolithic stone tools were regularly polished evenly and without consideration of 'need' as there is no 'need' to polish the overhang of a stone axe, but it was done. Was a spirit of 'life' being found within the stone by polishing or knapping the flesh into flint and other adapted minerals? An opinion deeply held by spiritual leaders and enjoyed aside other functions and qualities by the general population? In the above slabs, are we seeing a last memory of this principle in the flint flesh faces of local religious leaders, as the church tries to marry its institution with the local?
If the above flint faces are 'saying' that the local clergy were on a par and spirit with the residual local spiritual leaders (now often referred to as pagan), then the act of making a face from the principle may suggest that the local belief system included spiritual leaders who professed access to the life force of stone and thus 'mother earth' - animisms.
Thinking that old ways disappear at speed is an intrusive apriorism - local differences tell their stories at their own speeds.
AJM 10.09.21