Saharasia
Book: S A H A R A S I A. James DeMeo, Ph.D. Orgone Biophysical Research Lab, 2nd ed., 2005
URL = http://www.saharasia.com [1]
The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-repression, Warfare and Social Violence In the Deserts of the Old World. Evidence for a Worldwide, Climate-Linked Geographical Pattern in Human Behavior.
Abstract
"James DeMeo's Saharasia is the largest and most in-depth scholarly study on human behavior and social violence around the world which has ever been undertaken. The findings summarized in Prof. DeMeo's book cover the entire globe, from early prehistory into modern times, integrating on world-maps a full sweep of standard research data from the fields of archaeology and history, plus an in-depth cross-cultural review and mapping of data from over 1000 distinctly different human societies, from standard anthropological data bases. It employed standard cross-cultural correlation tables on over 60 different variables, plus geographical mapping and quadruple blind research procedures to insure objectivity, and all the basic starting assumptions are clearly elucidated in advance. The work also incorporates his own personal field research in the deserts of the Middle East and Southwestern USA. No great knowledge of maths or scientific methods is required to follow the logic and research to their conclusions, though the book is clearly written for scholars. An early period of generally peaceful social conditions is documented in prehistory, but with a major shift towards patriarchal-authoritarian and decidedly violent social conditions across the Saharasian region after a major climate-shift from wet grassland-forest conditions towards harsh desert conditions at c.5000-4000 BC. Major epochs of cultural diffusion are also presented on maps, showing how violent patriarchal authoritarian, sex-repressive and child-abusive behaviors were carried outward from their Saharasian origins to nearly every corner of the globe. It presents previously-unknown geographical patterns in dozens of different human behaviors, beliefs and social institutions representative of human violence and warlike aggression, such as slavery, castes, genital mutilations and a low women's status. The findings have been praised by many, published in scientific journals and magazines, cited repeatedly, but in largest measure have been willfully censored out of the discussion by most within the editorial power-circles of modern academics and mainstream journalism, which continues to embrace the flawed and disproven theories of "violent genes" or other "original sin" concepts. None of those theories, nor anything like them, can stand in the face of the new evidence presented in Prof. DeMeo's Saharasia." (http://www.orgonelab.org/saharasia.htm)
SCHOLAR'S ABSTRACT
"Global geographical patterns of repressive, painful, traumatic, and violent, armored, patrist behaviors and social institutions, which thwart maternal-infant and male-female bonds, were correlated and developed through a systematic analysis of anthropological data on 1170 subsistence-level cultures. When the behavior data were mapped, the hyperarid desert belt encompassing North Africa, the Near East, and Central Asia, which I call Saharasia, was found to possess the greatest areal extent of the most extreme patrist behaviors and social institutions on Earth. Regions farthest removed from Saharasia, in Oceania and the New World, were found to possess the most gentle, unarmored, matrist behaviors, which support and protect maternal-infant and male-female bonds. A systematic review of archaeological and historical materials suggests that patrism first developed in Saharasia after c.4000 BCE, the time of a major ecological transition from relatively wet grassland- forest conditions to arid desert conditions. Settlement and migration patterns of patrist peoples were traced, from their earliest homelands in Saharasia, to explain the later appearance of patrism in regions outside of Saharasia. Prior to the onset of dry conditions in Saharasia, evidence for matrism is widespread, but evidence for patrism is generally nonexistent. It is argued that matrism constitutes the earliest, original, and innate form of human behavior and social organization, while patrism, perpetuated by trauma-inducing social institutions, first developed among Homo Sapiens in Saharasia, under the pressures of severe desertification, famine, and forced migrations. The psychological insights of Wilhelm Reich provide an understanding of the mechanism by which patrist (armored, violent) behaviors become established and continue long after the initial trauma has passed." (http://www.orgonelab.org/saharasia.htm)
Discussion
James DeMeo:
(discussing new challenges that may invalidate his hypothesis)
"By 1999, I was alerted to new archaeological findings and books which claimed evidence for very ancient human violence, dating to well before c.4000 BCE. The book War Before Civilization4 by Lawrence Keeley, is perhaps the most representative and widely-quoted example of this new genre of books, which basically argue for the innate, genetic or human evolutionary causation of war and violence, in opposition to the environmental-social-emotional causation argued in my Saharasia. Keeley’s book laid down two basic arguments.
Argument One: Intertribal warfare of an extreme and ruthless quality, as well as social-familial violence, existed among so-called “primitive” cultures of the New World long before the arrival of European colonials. To this argument, I give a qualified agreement. In Saharasia, I cited some of the same evidence noted by Keeley, such as the butchery and despotism present among the Aztec, Inca, and Maya culture, long before the arrival of Columbus, Cortez or Pizarro. Likewise, the despotism and savagery of other “primitive” subsistence-level cultures in other world regions were detailed in Saharasia, well back into history and prior to any contacts with the sometimes equally despotic and savage Europeans. The findings on this point, in both my Saharasia and Keeley’s War Before Civilization defeated many widespread myths about the supposed uniformly “peaceful” nature of “primitive man”, “living in harmony with nature” — certainly, there are many well-documented cases of violence and organized warfare among isolated “primitive” tribal groups. This was never in question. However, unlike my Saharasia, these examples are too-often presented in such a manner as to mischaracterize all primitive cultures as carrying the seeds of violence. And so I do object to making any kind of widespread and global extrapolation of these signs of violence among some aboriginal cultures as “proof” of an assumed but unproven ubiquitous violence among all cultures, in all regions, at all times. Also, the authors pushing this line of argument almost always fail to take a genuine cross-cultural approach, and rarely openly address the various peaceful aboriginal societies as documented in various anthropological studies from the late 1800s and early 1900s, as detailed in my Saharasia. As a consequence, this first argument articulated by Keeley did not undermine or challenge my work in any manner. In fact, some of the archaeological evidence cited by Keeley and others for violence among ancient peoples of the New World — and which I did not know about or cite in the first printing of Saharasia — were located almost precisely in those regions where my World Behavior Map predicted such evidence might be found. More on this last point is given below. With confidence, I can therefore report, archaeological evidence on the question of “primitive violence” in more recent times, but prior to the epoch of European colonialism, provides excellent additional supporting evidence for my Saharasia discovery.
Argument Two: Archaeological evidence for warfare and massacres exist in some very old archaeological sites, as early as 12,000 BCE, well before my c.4000 BCE marker date. Keeley and other authors on the subject specifically mention ancient fortifications and graveyards filled with victims of violent deaths, well before c.4000 BCE. These archaeological reports superficially appear to provide a serious challenge to Saharasian theory, mainly because of the early dates. However, a close look at the original citations from the archaeologists who did the field work, and from those who are intimately familiar with the details, resolves the question in favor of the environmental-social-emotional causation implicit in Saharasian theory. In short, archaeological findings are often misquoted and misrepresented in more “popularized” accounts on “ancient violence”.
Conclusions
The information contained in the above sections can be organized both temporally and geographically, into four major regional categories of prehistorical violence:
1. As discussed in Saharasia, and revisited in this article, there are a scattering of sites across Anatolia and the Middle East which showed “fleeting glimpses” of social violence as early as c.5000 BCE, and possibly even earlier. These are timed with a temporary episode of drought and aridity coincidental to the abandonment of many villages and sites across the region. This early evidence for land-abandonment and probable massmigrations, with possible social violence appearing here and there, along with a few cases of infant cranial deformation, did not become epidemic, widespread or persistent in character. Drought appeared, followed by scattered and isolated signs of social disturbance. When wetter conditions reappeared in the region, settlements thrived once again under peaceful conditions.
2. A cluster of sites in southern Germany document violent conditions at several sites between c.5500-4000 BCE. These massacre sites, at Talheim, Schletz and Ofnet, may factually fall into the younger end of this range of dates, which would place them well within the time-line of events described in Saharasia, when Europe was transformed by invasions from Central Asia. If the older dates eventually prove to be correct, then they would appear to be somewhat anomalistic within the framework of Saharasian theory, but nevertheless also appear to have some relationship to the isolated, scattered and non-persisting signs of violence which spread across Anatolia and the Middle East — coincidental to a documented sub-phase of aridity and land-abandonment, as described in point #1, above. Whatever their dates, these massacre sites are not located in a formerly dryland region, and no obvious mechanism related to environmental pressures such as famine and starvation can be invoked to explain their “spontaneous” genesis of isolated violence. It appears certain, these sites are the consequence of cultural diffusion of warlike groups out of the neighboring drylands, either from Central Asia at c.4000 BCE, or more likely from Anatolia sometime before or around c.5500 BCE, following the migratory pathways for agricultural diffusion previously identified in Figure 5.63 The geographical clustering of the German sites does not support the assertion of any widespread or ubiquitous violence, but rather, the opposite, of isolated violence within a larger ocean of peaceful social conditions.
3. The violence in the Nile Valley at Jebel Sahaba, Wadi Kubbiyana and a few other sites at c.12,000 BCE does not fit within the original Saharasian chronology of drought and famine starting at c.4000 or even 5000 BCE, but nevertheless does occur during an earlier period of intense aridity, prior to the Neolithic Wet Phase of North Africa. As such, this very early violence in North Africa confirms the basic drought-famine mechanism for the genesis of violence as given in Saharasia. Whatever violence did exist at this very early time, however, was so scattered and isolated in its distribution, that it died out once the Neolithic Wet Phase developed. Once North Africa became wet and lush, supporting grasslands and trees with large herbivores, and numerous large rivers and lakes, evidence for human violence vanishes, only to reappear after c. 3500 BCE, when North Africa dries out again. In this latter case, the violent conditions persist, along with the harsh arid conditions, from c.3500 BCE all the way down into the modern era as a global phenomenon, to be recorded by ethnographers and anthropologists, and documented in Saharasia on the World Behavior Map.
4. In SE Australia, we have what appears to be an episode of “Saharasian”-type genesis of small-scale inter- group social violence — to include artificial infant cranial deformation, and generally non-lethal familial and tribal fights directed mostly at women — during an episode of unusually dry and possibly episodic famine conditions. The violence appeared during hyper-arid conditions starting at c.11,000 BCE, but died out and vanished by c.7000 BCE, after wetter conditions returned. This suggests the strong influence of desertification and aridity on social conditions, as detailed in Saharasia.
Figure 8 identifies these four locations or regions of confirmed archaeological evidence for anomalous violence in the pre-Saharasian period, before c.4000 BCE. After c.4000-3500 BCE, when all of Saharasia began declining into an intense and widespread aridity, the process of drought, famine, starvation and landabandonment intensified, forcing the mass migratory events described in Saharasia. Violence then irrupted again, this time as a response to a more widespread and persisting drought-famine situation which forced the abandonment of entire regions. We have detailed here, the arrival of the new famine-affected and violent Central Asian migrants across the region of the European causewayed enclosures. They wreaked havoc among peaceful villages and trading centers, and ushered in the epoch of the battle-axe, Kurgan warrior nomads, fortifications and warrior-kings, and were followed by subsequent waves of new immigrants who carried the seeds of violence in their desert-borne and desert-bred social institutions.
As argued in Saharasia, violence became anchored into human character structure, by virtue of the development of new social institutions for justifying and glorifying sadism and butchery, even when directed towards infants and children, and towards the opposite sex. The key for transmission of early famine-related violence outside of the dry regions is found in the development of new social institutions which re-create the violence generation after generation, irrespective of climate. The earliest episodes of human violence, specifically identified in the above four points, did not persist in such a manner, and this may be due to the fact that human social groups at these earlier dates had not yet developed either the size or the organizational complexity by which new social institutions could be readily preserved over the long term. One hypothesis which might explain the findings is, the conditions in Anatolia and the Middle-East generated some elements of social disturbance and violence within a small percentage of cultures, who then migrated into Southern Germany and committed massacres. A similar thing could have occurred in the region of the Nile, leading to the anomalous episode at Jebel Sahaba and Wadi Kubbiyana. At some point, these hypothesized violent cultural groups died off, or were assimilated into other peaceful cultures, or otherwise vanished. Peaceful social conditions then continued once rains and food supplies became abundant once again.
Much of the claims for violence in the archaeological record, described as “prehistoric” in the most general terms, really demands to be more critically reviewed and precisely reported in terms of both dates and locations. Human bones with cut-marks do not automatically constitute “evidence for cannibalism”, given the existence of funeral rituals where the bones of the dead are cleaned of their flesh. Hunting accidents — where an occasional projectile point is found in an isolated human skeleton — cannot, by themselves, stand as evidence for widespread social violence and warfare, especially where the injured individual shows signs of bone-healing and sympathetic burial. Abstracted rockart which claims to depict a person killed with numerous spears, but which requires a specialist to make the interpretation and to point out the details, falls down into the realm of ambiguous speculation at best. If the eye of an ordinary person cannot detect violence in the rock art scenes, it is likely that the violence existed only within the specialist’s imagination. And in some cases, it surely is possible that later generations of violent people might have drawn spears on top of older rock-art of human subjects, just as people today add graffiti to “dress up” existing pictures of people — where archaeological digs fail to show violence in skeletons and structures, evidence from rock art can only be suggestive, at best. And, the date for the first-settlement of a location should not be confused with the date for the first clear and unambiguous evidence for violence. A site can be occupied for hundreds or thousands of years before the first clear signs of violence appear.
I have shown here, the violence in early China, in the causewayed enclosures of Europe, in Neolithic Spanish rock art, and in massacres of New World cultures before Columbus, all fit well within the parameters given in Saharasia, and these examples provide additional compelling support for the overall Saharasian theory. This is especially so for the Americas, where most of the evidence for village-scale massacres fits within those regions identified on the World Behavior Map as clusters of armored patrism. The close geographical associations are, in fact, striking.
What is at issue is: how, where, and under what conditions does human social violence and warfare develop. Is it something that can occur anywhere, under any conditions, something which lurks below the surface of the human character just waiting to spring forth to wreak social havoc? Or does human violence conflict with and go against our basic biology, requiring only the most severe trauma to bring it forth; either trauma in the womb, in the crib, in the home and family, or the larger trauma of severe drought, land degradation, the disruption of food and water supplies, and the attendant famine and starvation conditions which follow?
All of these considerations were given focused discussion
in Saharasia, and so will not be repeated here —
but the issue is, to what extent has Saharasia’s ancient
historical components been challenged by these newer
archaeological findings? From the discussion in this
paper, I have shown that the larger Saharasian discovery
and theory are not so easily challenged, due to the
specificity of its construct — since the early violence
identified at the c.4000-3500 BCE marker date is connected
to the existence of severe drought, desertification,
social displacement and famine within human
populations, one can expect to find similar social responses
under similar environmental conditions, even if
those conditions occur earlier than c.4000 BCE. But
more to the point, archaeology simply does not support
the fantasy that ancient humans were just as warlike
and bloody as either the historical or contemporary
“civilizations”. On the contrary, the farther back one
goes in time, before the c.4000-3500 BCE marker date,
the more difficult it is to find clear and unambiguous
evidence for human violence, and what does exist is
observed to be regionally isolated and anomalous."
(http://www.orgonelab.org/SaharasiaNewUpdate.pdf)
More Information
- http://www.orgonelab.org/ResearchSummary1.htm
- new findings since first printing, http://www.orgonelab.org/SaharasiaNewUpdate.pdf
- emergence and diffusion of patrism, http://www.orgonelab.org/saharasia_en.htm
- reflections on patrism/matrism, in 2003, http://www.orgonelab.org/MatriarchyCongress2003.htm, with answer to different critique expressed during a matriarchy conference
Reviews
- http://www.ahpweb.org/pub/perspective/saharasia.html
- review by Steve Taylor, http://www.imprint.co.uk/jcs_9_8.html