Archaic Societies Research Articles

From Scapegoating to the Culture of Cruelty: (Mis)Managing Mimetic Desire and Violence in Late Modernity

Due to the ‘civilizing process’ (Elias), the overall level of violence is decreasing; yet its transforming patterns persist. The article aims at examining the contemporary structures and mechanisms responsible for violence control, while also exploring the newly emerging, naturalized patterns of cruelty. Firstly, René Girard’s mimetic theory is overviewed: while in archaic societies, mimetic crisis is controlled by sacrificial rites, modernization reconfigures this paradigm. Secondly, these transformations are mapped: mimetic desire is channelled into the market processes, while mimetic crisis is managed by the state monopolizing violence. Thirdly, the structural transformations of late modernity upsetting the fragile balance of state and market are analysed: secular scapegoating becomes part of the political toolset, while the private sphere is overwhelmed by undetectable new forms of hurting and self-harming. As a culture of cruelty is naturalized, mimetic crisis becomes a continuous threat, which generates a need for the functional equivalents of sacrificial violence control.

Symbol and Faith in Mircea Eliade

This article analyzes Mircea Eliade’s conception of the role of the symbol in the expression of faith. It points out that Eliade considers belief a constitutive structure of the human being, and that homo religious is par excellence a homo symbolicus. Approaching the nature of the symbol as a form of autonomous knowledge, and its structure, it highlights the specificity of symbolic thinking, which generates it. Focusing on the man of archaic societies, exemplary for the religious mentality, it develops the problem of the functions of symbols within traditional communities. It shows that on the basis of archetypal symbolic images, primitive man creates symbolic complexes through which he explains the world and pursues his integration into it—presenting some of the great religious symbolisms. Finally, it highlights Eliade’s position that symbols will never disappear because they are constitutive of the human being, like religious belief, to which they are inextricably linked.

Sacred Groves, the Brahmanical Hermit, and Some Remarks on ahiṃsā and Vegetarianism

The term sacred grove‘ is used to denote an area of vegetation that is afforded special protection on religious grounds. In India, where sacred groves are known by a wide repertoire of local names, such places may be found right from the Himalayas up to the far South. Sacred groves host veneration of natural phenomena or elements of landscape, but also ancestral, local, folk or tribal gods and Sanskritised deities; the use of their resources is strictly regulated. Research studies on sacred groves in India often consider them to be a legacy of archaic economic forms, possibly harking back to the stage of hunters-gatherers, and an expression of a religiosity dating back to a remote, non-Aryan, pre-Vedic antiquity. However, main sources for our knowledge of Indian antiquity, namely the literary sources, provide no direct record of voices of such archaic societies. Nonetheless, the same sources allow us to highlight some important aspects of the sacredness anciently ascribed to vegetation, forest, and specific places therein. The present paper proposes to focus on the Brahmanical hermit‘s distinct relationship with the forest and examine some aspects related to food.

Hierophany and Sport

A deeper understanding of sport cannot remain only in rational discourse that transforms reality into quantified data but must descend into philosophical areas that also accept the multiple figurativeness of symbols. By means of not literal but metaphorical truthfulness, sport can then be examined as a potential space of hierophany, that is, the manifestation of the sacred in the sphere of the profane. The paper argues in favor of the thesis that a more precise description of hierophany can highlight the difference between the presentation and representation of the sacred. While the physical activities that were part of the religious cult of archaic societies can be considered hierophanies in the mode of presentation (making present) of the sacred, no such direct parallel can be drawn for modern sport. Sport can be seen through the lens of implicit religion as a representation (an agency), not a presentation of the sacred.

Ülkemizde Spor Yönetiminin Gelişiminin İncelenmesi

The aim of this study is to examine the development of sports management in our country within the historical process. Sports management has a concept integrity that includes different disciplines in the conceptual process dimension. While sports have been developing intertwined with people's lives throughout human history, it has also served different purposes throughout its development. In archaic societies, while living life with defensive and offensive actions, these actions became the first forms of sports and served human self-protection. During the development process of human history, the actions of people who learned to make and use vehicles were directed to transportation and transportation. Later, as some people learned to employ other people, they increased their own free time. As a social being, a person has devoted this free time to a number of activities that are the products of his own creativity. These activities, on the other hand, have mostly been oriented towards entertainment. These amusements are the basis of the sports organizations that are actively held in our country today, as well as all over the world. Thus, in those periods, sports were used for having fun as a leisure activity. Cultural, political and socioeconomic processes have also decided in history which of the basic movements in man's struggle with nature will be performed from sports, which are competitor simulations. The same processes have transformed individual free time into mass free time, while also massing sports and making it one of the most engaged activities and professions today. Key Words: Sports, Sports Management, Development Process

VICTIM BLAMING IN LIGHT OF STRAWSON’S NATURALISTIC THEORY OF MORALITY

The relevance of the topic of this paper is due to the insufficient study of the influence of Strawson’s naturalistic theory of morality on modern jurisprudence and philosophy of law. This comprehensive paper explores Peter Strawson’s naturalistic theory of morality, delving into the phenomena of victim blaming and its ancient roots in mythological contexts. It begins by assessing Strawson’s fundamental works, “Freedom and Resentment” (1962) and “Social Morality and Individual Ideal” (1961), elucidating how human emotional attitudes and moral accountability underpin society’s moral fabric. The subject of the study is to analyze the ways of using moral argumentation and its boundaries in justifying the phenomena of victim blaming. The purpose of the work is to theoretically examine the connection of victim blaming within modern societal attitudes to ancient mythologies, revealing a profound enduring narrative thread. The novelty of the topic is due to the lack of studies in the educational and scientific literature on the specifics of the argumentation of victim blaming in modern legal philosophy, the need to rethink traditional ideas about the philosophical grounds of the criminal law, especially how the belief in divine will and a deity’s alignment with the perpetrator of violence, embedded within archaic societies, resonates within the victim blaming paradigm. By examining the concept of sacrifice in both well-known and obscure myths, the paper explains the purposeful nature of victimhood, and its societal implications. It further evaluates the philosophical and cultural dimensions of violence in archaic societies, deconstructing how violence was considered divine in such contexts. The intersection of victim blaming and moral responsibility is then examined, particularly how they influence societal attitudes and legal frameworks. The research methods characteristic of analytical jurisprudence, including those related to the use of methods of logical and linguistic analysis, as well as special legal methods (formal legal method of interpretation of regulatory prescriptions) were used. The paper concludes with a synthesis of these insights, reflecting on their implications for understanding Strawson’s naturalistic theory of morality. It offers significant conclusions about the complex relationships between morality, victim blaming, and societal norms, emphasizing the theory’s utility in comprehending the nature and impacts of victim blaming.

Bone tools for leather processing (blunt knives and curriers knives) in the funeral rite of the Post-Catacomb period as cultural and chronological indicators

In the paper, the burials of the Post-Catacomb period (2200–1800 cal BC), whose inventory included large bone tools for leather processing, are analysed. Most of them are represented in the Lola Culture circle (Ciscau-casia and the Volga-Urals), and only in few instances they have been found in the burials of the Babino Culture circle (the Lower Volga and the Lower Don regions). The mapping indicates that in the latter case we are dealing with the evidence of intercultural contacts between the representatives of the Lola and Babino traditions. The analysis of the materials shows that the tradition of using large tools for skin processing in the funeral rite deve-loped at the end of the Middle Bronze Age in Ciscaucasia within the Lola Culture circle. The Lola Culture was the main generator here. Its materials contain the largest number of such tools and their greatest variety. To such an extent, it is not represented within the materials of any other cultural formation of the Post-Catacomb period and in any of the cultures of the Late Bronze Age, where this tradition was inherited and rooted itself. It is noteworthy that in the Post-Catacomb burials, large leather-processing tools in most cases were present in the toolsets alongside other production implements, most often with stone tools. Besides, the functional relation between the bone and stone components of such toolsets is either not obvious or completely absent. It is possible that the interred with the attributes of different crafts might have been associated with the variants of the well-known Cult of Demiurge, well represented in archaic societies. The analysis of some features of the rite and combinations with other categories of the inventory in the burials of the Lola Culture circle shows that there is a correlation be-tween the types of the large leather-processing tools and particular specific features of the ritual practice. Thus, the tools made from the lower jaws and pelvic bones of large ungulate animals clearly correlate with the south-ward orientation of the skeletons in the burials. The leather-processing tools made from the ribs of the large ungu-late animals were seen predominantly in the burials with northward orientations. It is still difficult to say what lies behind such steady correlations, but it should be noted that in a reduced form they recur in the subsequent Late Bronze Age. The answer to the last question requires further expansion of the source base.

Placing the dead on the Green River: a consideration of Archaic burial on the Middle Green River of Kentucky

ABSTRACT I suggest that all or most of the tightly flexed human burials in Middle Green River Archaic sites represent secondary interments which had been exposed for variable periods of time, a modification of general opinion. Because of this, their delayed burial in the large, impressive mortuary sites of the Middle Green River like Chiggerville, Indian Knoll, and Carlston Annis reflect potentially variable, contingent, historical acts of placement of the dead which are not transparent. These acts concern how Archaic societies symbolically constructed and maintained themselves through the actions of individuals and burial parties by preparing, transporting, and placing the remains of their dead. How we approach them reflects as well on how we reconstruct Archaic “histories” and the overall “History” of the Green River Archaic.

Modernist Women’s Writing and the Gift of Literature

In Returning the Gift: Modernism and the Thought of Exchange, Rebecca Colesworthy shows how modernist women writers placed the concept of the gift at the center of their aesthetic projects and used it to interrogate the social possibilities of life under capitalist conditions. Countering widespread critical and theoretical tendencies to overlook women’s contributions to gift discourse and to essentialize generosity as an inherently “ feminine” gift, Colesworthy places literary studies and sociology in productive dialogue that achieves an effective balance between historicization and theoretical rigor. Throughout the book’s five chapters, she examines a diversity of texts, including novels, memoirs, and sociological treatises, with a particular focus on Marcel Mauss’s The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Jean Rhys’s After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie, Gertrude Stein’s Ida A Novel, and H.D.’s The Gift.

Who Needs Traditional Values? The Problem of Integrating Traditional Cultures into Modern Society

Introduction. The article analyzes the basic concepts of ethno-cultural discourse, and raises the problem of the uncertainty of the conceptual apparatus, on the basis of which the theory of intercultural interactions is built, which makes it difficult to introduce the results of research into practice. The authors propose to clarify the categories that are relevant specifically for Russia at the present time, in the context of the formation of the foundations of the state's cultural policy and the adoption of relevant legislative acts. The subject of the research is the system of categories underlying the theories of modernization and theories of cultural interactions.Methodology and sources. The analysis of the categorical apparatus of modern ethno-cultural policy is based on methodological principles that have developed in science in the process of a cultural-centric turn, which was laid down by the works of T. Parsons and P. Sorokin.Results and discussion. The paradigmatic nature and indefinite use of such categories as “traditional values” and “traditional cultures” creates conditions for speculation and does not allow building a balanced cultural policy. And the unreasonable desire to the conservation of archaic cultural patterns leads to serious contradictions in the goals and results of the implementation of cultural policy. It is concluded that in order to make effective political decisions, it is necessary to take into account the difference in the use of concepts in the social sciences and the humanities and in the political sphere. It is necessary to separate the so-called “traditional values” and archaic societies, understanding by the former the values traditional for a particular cultural system, regardless of the concept of progress. And under the second – archaic cultures (and societies, carriers of these cultures), one should understand cultures that were formed on the basis of primitive technology to ensure the viability of the population.Conclusion. In such a paradigm of cultural observation of observations of archaic cultures, one should build not only from the study of the intrinsic value of culture, but also from the disclosure of equal accessibility of humanitarian benefits (health protection, choice of occupation, accessibility of cultural achievements and education, etc.).

Трансформация духовно-нравственных исканий общества (от премодерна к постмодерну) и ее влияние на государственно-правовые институты

The article analyzes the dynamics of the development of spiritual and moral searches of society in historical retrospect, including identifying current trends and evaluating the transformation of religiosity in the current period under the influence of postmodern ideas. Correlations between changes in fundamental paradigms and changes in the ideological foundations of the functioning of state and legal institutions are revealed. It is determined that each of the four types of society — archaic, traditional, industrial and post-industrial (informational) — has its own specific forms of religiosity that determine the worldview and directly affect the social (state) system. Thus, the early forms of religious beliefs of an archaic society did not create prerequisites for the emergence of a social hierarchy, and, consequently, statehood (which is confirmed by the social practice of preserved archaic societies of our time). The archaic society is gradually replaced by the traditional one, hierarchy, social inequality, Patriarchy appear, political Genesis is carried out, and power is legitimized through religious institutions. It is in traditional societies that polytheism is replaced by monotheism, which promotes (and is used for this purpose as a state ideology) the strengthening of statehood. The state-legal institutions of traditional societies have no alternative but to be sacred. The main form of government of the state is monarchy (theocratic or clerical). The transition to modernity takes place under the slogan of desacralization and rationalization, in the ideological field this is manifested in the formation of “quasi-religions” or secular “religions”: Nazism, communism, liberalism (these ideologies replace God in the public consciousness, Absolute (Ultimate) reality — the ultimate reality, while preserving certain features of the religious: ritual, dogmas, symbolism, meaning-making, mythological, etc.). These ideologies determine the global transformation of the geopolitical picture of the world in the XIX—XX centuries. There is the overthrow of the monarchy (or the transition to parliamentary forms of monarchies), the collapse of empires, the establishment of the Republican form of government as the dominant one, with the choice of the appropriate ideology as the basis for state-legal construction. Spiritual search in modern societies was pushed out of public discourse into the area of personal choice. By the end of the XX — beginning of the XXI century, the West begins processes that can be described as the beginning of the transition from modern to postmodern. The transformation of society’s religiosity is characterized by contradictory trends — the emergence of «hyperreal religions» (parody religions, Internet religions, alternative (non-traditional) religious movements), a return to archaic beliefs (neo-paganism), and the activation of fundamentalism. In the context of globalization and legal integration, these processes directly affect other countries (paradigmally still at the stage of modernity and even pre-modernity), which causes civilizational conflicts and destabilizes international relations. Taking these trends into account, as well as understanding the paradigmatic heterogeneity of both the world as a whole and Russian society, is necessary in the implementation of law-making and management activities, domestic and foreign policy.
 Acknowledgments: The reported study was funded by RFBR, project number 20-011-31235 “Non-traditio­nal religiosity as a form of social activity in the postmo­dern era”.

Validity of the critical perspective of Marcel Mauss in his essay about the gift

Going to the work of Marcel Mauss today, from a critical perspective, gives us relevant criteria and notions, keys to face the evolution in the dynamics of old problems with a new look (Mauss, 1979). In his essay on the gift as the origin that governed exch ange in archaic societies. Incorporating the notions of reciprocity and integration, fundamental in the construction of the social bond. Currently, there is a crisis in democratic societies, where citizens demand reciprocity from governments and their institutions regarding the sovereignty that was given to them. The market has dismembered the social bonds, which today are reunited through the mobilizations. In them, the group expresses not being willing to continue giving as long as it is not returned. In short, the current citizen demand, seems to be reissued with a view to the origin, where the perspective of the gift that Mauss offers us, in the demand for a social morality of exchange, acquires full force. In this comment we will review the author and his work about the gift, as well as notions that emerge from it, considering that his perspective constitutes an input to critical theory, in the validity of his notions of analysis.

Реконструкция повседневной культуры средневекового общества в музейной экспозиции

The issue of representing the everyday culture of archaic societies in the museum exposition is quite relevant for modern museology. The culture of everyday life itself plays an important role in studying history of culture as well as the existence of society in different historical periods; therefore its museum interpretation requires particular emphasis. The author reflects on things, which distinguishes historical, long-defunct everyday live culture, artificially created in the exposition of the open-air museum, from the modern, original one, which is being saved by various ecomuseums. In addition, the article identifies three forms of expression of everyday culture, examines the possibilities of its reconstruction, relationship with each other and with the museum itself in the process of creating a general picture of medieval society’s life. Thus, the reconstruction of everyday culture appears to be a strictly historical phenomenon, which is impossible without theatricalization and other creative elements

RAISING FAIR INDIVIDUALS WHO CAN ENSURE ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE: THE CASE OF FARABI

Justice is one of the most discussed topics from archaic societies to the present day. Justice, is a superior principle that is needed at every stage of social life. Justice is also important for the employees of companies operating in the business world. The concept of organizational justice, which expresses the fair design of individuals' business relationships, is a reflection of this process. Although much significance is attached to this concept, there is no serious research on how to raise fair individuals who will internalize this in practical life and actually do it. In this study, it is aimed to contribute to the mentioned shortcoming. Opinions of the famous Islamic philosopher Farabi were taken as a basis. The most important factor in raising the fair individual is education. In education, the role of parents and teachers are very important. Vocational and character education must be together in this process.

Girard's Optimism

This article contains a discussion on René Girard’s understanding of the positive sides of imitation—despite the ambivalent nature of desire. Historically speaking, the discovery of the scapegoat mechanism made a great contribution towards limiting violence. The decomposition of the scapegoat mechanism, and its power to find non-violent alternatives, has paved the way for a culture with numerous opportunities. Even if humans constantly rival one another, one must understand and define the close relationship between competition, cooperation, and rivalry. To be able to see the positive sides of mimesis, one needs to have a robust understanding of human nature as competitive and, thereby, see friendship and competition as closely related. Learning and creativity can actually become optimal when there is a high degree of competition. Fierce competition today is allowed because of the taboo against violence. The decomposition of myth has destroyed archaic societies but, at the same time, created problems of an apocalyptic kind. Increasingly, cultures are now de- veloping without the shelter that sacrificial society previously provided. Positive human development, as is evident in the demystifying of violent myths and the increased concern for victims, cannot stem the power of global terror. Despite greater pessimism in his later works, Girard’s hope is that, through the model of Christ, people will finally learn to love their neighbours as themselves. A change of heart is to a certain degree capable to lead people towards the same kind of non-differentiated love as God.

On the Origins of the Anthropological Machine: Sacrificial Dispositif and Equality

This article takes a genealogical approach to the material origin of what Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has called the ‘anthropological machine’, analyzing the dispositif by which the ontological and axiological dualism between the ‘human’ and the ‘animal’ first took place in archaic societies. Using some key concepts of René Girard’s anthropology, it is possible to argue that this dualism is rooted in the violent practice of victimage sacrifice. In other words, I claim that the anthropological machine is originally performed by a sacrificial dispositif. Though in modern society the human/animal dichotomy is performed by other dispositifs, the trace of this origin remains in the form of what Gianfranco Mormino calls sacrificial survivals. An analysis of the survival of the violent parameter of equality demonstrates that making a conceptual shift to equality as equal vulnerability is the key to creating a break with the long-lasting effects of the sacrificial dispositif. Continental and feminist approaches to animal studies reflect deeply on vulnerability since it appears to be a promising dimension with which to ground human-animal relations in non-violent ways. If we link these attempts with the Girardian context, it is possible to understand their radical potential for creating socio-political change.

Межкультурная коммуникация в Карпато-Поднестровье эпохи раннего гальштата

The article considers some issues of intercultural communication in the between archaic societies of the Carpathian-Dniester region. Using the method of comparative-historical analysis the authors examine the nature and characteristics of affiliate networks, which served as the basis for intercultural communication in the Early Hallstatt period (XII-X centuries B.C.). One of the factors that determined the complexity and non-linearity of the processes of intercultural communication is location of the Carpathian-Dniester region at the crossroad of several “cultural worlds”. The authors stress that although archeological data confirm the presence of intercultural communication, it was not accompanied by the movement of actual material objects, ceramics itself, between the cultures. Accordingly, this requires a search for mechanisms that explain the processes of intercultural communications in the archaic societies of the Early Hallstatt period of Carpathian-Dniester region.

Shamanic Poetics

Abstract This essay examines the relationship between the biblical prophets and prophetic poetry in terms of the “shamanic complex.” First, a short characterization is given of the phenomenon of shamanism in archaic societies, shamanic techniques and alternate states of consciousness, as well as the social, cultural, and political role of shamanic figures. Second, the similarity between shamanism and biblical prophecy is considered. Third, the figure of First Isaiah as presented in the eponymous book in the Hebrew Bible is analyzed in terms of the shamanic complex and shamanic poetics as to aspects of his initiation as prophet and represented features of his actions as prophet.

The Southeastern Sindica Frontier: The Raevskoye Fortified Settlement

The expansion of the Bosporan Kingdom (the interior colonization of Bosporus) was caused by the need for commercial grain in the Greek markets of the Mediterranean. The steep rise in the Bosporan rulers’ incomes followed the annexation of Sindica—one of the most fertile lands of the Northern Pontic region, situated in the Lower Kuban basin. This study discusses the history of the vast chora of the Greek Gorhippia in the southeastern fringes of Sindica, focusing on findings from a Bosporan fort—the Raevskoye fortified settlement. We reconstruct the evolution of the anthropogenic landscape of the area over four centuries (Hellenistic and Early Roman period). The chronology is based on a collection of Bosporan coins from the fortified settlement. We analyze the factors due to which the habitation layers of the fortified settlement span a period from the Early Bronze Age to the High Middle Ages. We provide a new topography of the Early Iron Age aboriginal site, along with that of the fortified site existing during the three Bosporan stages. Special attention is paid to the fortification system, arranged in the Hellenistic period. Studies in recent decades have suggested that the fortifications were constructed according to the typical Bosporan technique of adobe-stone architecture. The fortified settlement evolved over a long period as an economic and political center of a large borderland zone between the Greek civilization and the archaic societies of the Caucasian piedmonta peculiar frontier of the classical era.

Violence in hunters, fishermen, and gatherers of the Chinchorro culture: Archaic societies of the Atacama Desert (10,000-4,000 cal yr BP).

This article addresses evidence of violence imbedded in both soft and hard tissues from early populations of hunters, fishermen, and gatherers, known as the Chinchorro culture, who lived between 10,000 and 4,000 cal yr BP, along the coast of the Atacama Desert, one of the driest environments on Earth. Our study is aimed to test two hypotheses (a) that interactions and violent behaviors increased through time as population density and social complexity augmented; and (b) that violence was more prevalent between local Chinchorro groups and groups from other inland locations. Two lines of data were analyzed: (1) bioarchaeology, through the quantification of physical traces of interpersonal violence in skeletons and mummies from a sample of 136 adult individuals and, (2) isotopic chemical analysis (strontium) of individuals with traces of trauma in order to determine their local or foreign origin. Violence among Chinchorro populations was ubiquitous and remained invariant over time, with a remarkable skew to male (about 25% above female across the complete sample). Moreover, the chemical signature of individuals with traces of violence was not of foreign origin. The violence exerted by the Chinchorro groups was not related to increased population size, nor social complexity and was mostly restricted to individuals coming from the same coastal habitat. That is, our data suggest that violence was constant across the Archaic period among the Chinchorro, implying that violent behavior was part of the sociocultural repertory of these populations, likely associated to mechanisms to resolve conflicts and social tensions.