Naissance des divinités, naissance de l'agriculture la révolution des symboles au néolithique

Göbekli Tepe – the Stone Age Sanctuaries. New results of ongoing excavations with a special focus on sculptures and high reliefs

“…Following the ideas of Trevor Watkins, to whom I am grateful for long discussions and much inspiration on this subject, we observe that Jacques Cauvin's suggestions were correct (Cauvin 1997): the factor that allowed the formation of large, permanent communities was the facility to use symbolic culture, a kind of pre-literate capacity for produ- cing and 'reading' symbolic material culture, that enabled communities to formulate their shared identities, and their cosmos (Watkins 2010a-b). There has been much progress in the investigation of the earliest signs of symbolic behaviours (from 100 000 years ago), followed by the earliest figural representations in European Upper Palaeolithic art from 30 000 years ago (Bosinski 1987).…”

Parures de coquillages du néolitique en Europe (vie-ve millénaires av. J.-C.)

“…La « révolution néolithique », comme l'a baptisée V. G. Childe au début du siècle dernier (Childe 1936), est en marche ; ici, comme ailleurs bien avant, au Proche-Orient (Cauvin 1994), en Égée (Perlès 2001 ;Guilaine, Briois, Vigne, 2011), dans les Balkans (Demoule, Lichardus-Itten, 2001 ; Lichardus-Itten, Demoule, Perniceva et al, 2002), la société passe d'une économie de prédation à une économie de production. Les villages de sédentaires fleurissent dans les plaines fertiles.…”

An alternate (and old-fashioned) view of Neolithisation in Greece

“…In the Near East, for instance, more than a millennium separates the first presence of domesticated plants from the full adoption of an agro-pastoral economy (Cauvin 1997), and the time gap since the first attempts at plant cultivation must be even longer (Gopher et al 2001).…”

“…The radiocarbon dates from the earliest Neolithic in Greece show that, chronologically speaking, the colonisation of Greece could be a late outcome of what Cauvin called the "great exodus" of the PPNB (Cauvin 1997). Indeed, the displacement of small groups of farmers took place first and foremost within the Near East itself.…”

“…Indeed, the displacement of small groups of farmers took place first and foremost within the Near East itself. These movements of colonisation were frequently accom- panied by radical transformations in material culture, even when no local influences could be invoked (Cauvin 1997). If the colonisation of Greece were part of the same process, similar transformations could then be expected.…”