Neanderthals - Seeing is Non-Existing

"Since Neanderthals evolved at higher latitudes, more of the Neanderthal brain would have been dedicated to vision and body control, leaving less brain to deal with other functions like social networking," 
(BBC Website)

It is a louring eventide of the late autumn. A Neanderthal man sits quietly, enjoying the sights before him. On the trunk of the nearby tree - its shadowy side showing a patchwork of grays and browns - tiny lichen cling, hunkered down against the oncoming winter.  Fawn-gray rabbits gambol, while the silvery-blue brook runs through the verdant grassy meadow. In the cerise of the setting sun, the wings of migrating geese can be seen, iridescent as they chase towards the South. Beyond the geese, the clouds, heavy with snow and tinged pink with the sun-set, can be seen to be shedding the first rays of sleet of the season...

*SMACK*

A Cro-Magnon, sneaking up with a club, could see only a dim outline. But it smelt of Neanderthal, and that was enough. Using his better social awareness, the Cro-Magnon has ensured his family can eat.

As he drags his prey off home, the Cro-Magnon wonders why the Neanderthal was sitting there in the dark.

Tweaking the nose of the little evil gods of SEO

Can I refer you to my new "404" page? If I don't, you will only find it by accident. And that would be a real waste, I reckon.

Young Keith has pointed out to me that I could equally refer you to the new "505" page. I wish I new what he was on about. It just looks to me like he's copied my "404" page.

Francis I

The Catholic Church has a new Pope. I wish him well, and pray God blesses him with wisdom, courage and compassion. We shall light a tea light for him.

Locking the Door before the Beaker Folk Bolt

I note with interest the Roman Catholic approach of locking all the cardinals into a place of worship until they come up with a resolution.

Simple, yet so effective. So I've applied the same theory to the Annual Volunteers Moot, based on the original Latin meaning of the word - "clave" meaning "key" and "con" meaning "to catch out a mug".

Basically, all the Beaker Folk have been shut into the Moot House with a list of jobs. Until I've got 4 Stewards, 6 Under-stewards, 12 Tea Light Bearers, 6 Pebble Monitors, a Sub-druid of the Wardrobe, 5 gardeners, 3 Trilithon Maintenance People, 2 Altar Alterers and 5 Coffee Makers, the door's staying locked.

If we don't get the names on the sheet by midnight, it will be time for the black smoke. Not up the chimney - just the smoke bomb I've wired up behind the Worship Focus. It should - ho-ho- focus their minds.

I'll Find my way Home

It was Young Keith who kindly fixed up my record player the other day. Oh, how the Beaker Folk have complained as the scratchy sounds of the Commodores have blasted out across the precincts of Husborne Crawley. I noticed that my brother had left a few records from his collection down in the Library, so a couple of hours of early AC/DC didn't go amiss. Although it did draw complaints from Drayton Parslow. He's asked me to pass on his comments, which I do agree with in non-metal-related circumstances. So can I assure you all that Hell is, indeed, a bad place to be.

But at least AC/DC had a clear theological position. Because in my quieter moments I've been reverting to some Jon and Vangelis. Vangelis, you may remember, is the chubby bloke who made Chariots of Fire. While Jon (Anderson) is the skinny bloke out of Yes. That's how you tell them apart.

Their music was kind of early-Enya. Lots of vaguely spiritual feelings evoked, while never being too specific. In many ways a lot like Beaker theology. Or the chorus "I want to be out of my depth in your love". Which has the advantage, almost unique in Christian musical culture, of being completely vague as to the object of the devotion. Basically, it's a song that depends on context to be meaningful at all, Still, I digress.

So what J&V (if I may be so informal) taught me was this. You can have a slightly-spiritual experience, a sense that all's right with the world and the stars are God's daisy-chain, without any moral or theological content whatsoever. You can conjure up far and mystic horizons, without saying what makes them mystic. You can behold with awe Stonehenge on a misty morning and gasp at the sheer something-ness behind it - not just its age, but its mystery. The way it speaks of fears and aspirations we cannot, for all of some researchers' mundanity, grasp.

And what it gives us is the Nameless. I can build the Beaker Folk on Nameless, because it inculcates all the "right", saleable religious emotions of wonder, numinousness, joy. Without the inconvenient feelings like guilt, unworthiness and fallibility which would require valuable pastoral time, or real moral effort, to address.

I try not to let people peer too deeply into their souls. They might not like what they find. And in like manner I try not to let them think too hard about what Stonehenge and its environs might represent. Because if it's Neolithic and Bronze Age people's encounters with the Nameless, that's only because I don't know what Name they gave the forces they believed they encountered. Whatever those forces were, they were believed to be powerful enough to drag sarsen stones across Marlborough Downs. That Nameless one was apparently worth long years working out precisely where the Sun's annual journey began and ended.

It's that Nameless wonder that keeps the theology light and the spirituality worry-free. But sometimes when the Beaker Folk say they think there must be more, do I take the chance and say - go on, put a Name to this? The trouble is, if they do that there are consequences - decisions to make. Instead of a floaty "now" there's an eternity hanging in the balance. And the Beaker person has to decide whether an abstract faith in something is enough - or whether they need to get more specific.

At this point I normally find it's best to put some Enya on. Even spirituality-lite has its depths. And it might keep them placid for a few more years.

Castles in the Air

On the subject of the King James Version, I note that its translation of John 14:2 is "In my Father's house are many mansions".

Nick Clegg is an atheist. Good news for him. If he were a believer, he'd have an expensive afterlife to look forward to, although Heaven would have a well-funded welfare state.

Tolerant Extremism

When you go through the list, the number of different churches that claim only they can get you to heaven, or that they are the unique only church, is quite high.

The Catholics have always had fairly exclusive claims. But even they seem prepared to believe that some of their more separated brothers and sisters are still saved, if baptized and rightly believing.

Whereas this bunch, for example, reckon that Benedict is a dangerous liberal for wishing a rabbi well. Actually, I think they used the words "raging apostate". To be fair, they've a downer on Protestants as well.

Then this group from Canada  seem to think every version of Christianity except their own is false. And they don't have a fellowship within a sensible distance of Husborne Crawley, which is a bit frightening for those of us who want to be saved. But at least they don't believe that you need to read the King James version...

.... whereas this King James Only group do. I think. They may well be a spoof, as I'm pretty sure I've seen spoofs just like this in the past. Or maybe that was Drayton Parslow's old blog.

So I've just picked three church groups that all believe the others are destined to a smoky eternity. I could have found dozens, or even hundreds, like it. But if I'm the sort of earnest person who wants to know they're saved, which could I choose? They all seem equally (im)plausible in their explanations as to why they're the only ones. They all argue their case from Scripture, or so they claim. But I'd have a two out of three chance of a severe case of infernal warming even if these were the only church groups going.

So I'm going to reflect on what they all seem to be missing in their invocation of textual technicalities, which is the love of God, expressed through the life, death and unexpected life again of Jesus Christ. I'm going to believe that God, being basically English at heart, is a believer in fair play and giving everyone a decent chance. I'm going to throw myself on the mercy of that loving God. And I'm not going to care what denomination I, or anyone I love, is a member of. And then I'm going to wish all denominations well, even the ones that denounce me for being a false prophet, wolf in druid's clothing, NRSV-reader or other abomination destined for perdition. Because I know Jesus loves me more than they do. And he couldn't understand a word of the King James Bible.

Nativity of John Aubrey

We were going to celebrate the Nativity of John Aubrey - Antiquary, Folklorist, Diarist, Gossip - by digging a circle of holes and then filling them in again.

But the ground's too hard. So Aubrey will just have to celebrate his own birthday.

At least if the weather's rotten on William Stukeley's birthday, we can celebrate by going to Stewkley.

Odds-on Pope

I'm disturbed to discover from Vicky Beeching that Ladbroke's are offering odds on the next Pope. Just seems wrong, somehow.

As someone raised on the tales of PG Wodehouse, it also raises visions of all the forms of cheating that can potentially go on in anything that involves betting. A nod from the Vatican stable boy that one of the Cardinals is off his feed could make all the difference.

And then there's the danger of John McCrirrick getting involved - maybe pointing out that a filly has never been known to win this particular event.

Thankfully the Cardinals are all locked away, and there wasn't much chance for any dodgy bookies to get them to bowl three wides in the second over, or deliberately get a yellow card for not speaking Latin or whatever.

But I'm left with two worrying images. One is of a disembodied Ray Winstone appearing, to tell the assembled, astounded cardinals that "it's all about the in-play." The other is of Chris Kamara, standing in St Peter's Square, looking in the wrong direction as that little bloke runs up behind him and steals his towel.

Religion and betting really shouldn't mix.

Celebration of nearly-Spring at the Spring

The Celebration of nearly-Spring at the Spring is cancelled.

Sprint's out of order. Too much ice. We're rescheduling to June, when we might have a chance.

Blooming global warming.

Secrets of the Stonehenge Skeletons

I was all agog for the big Stonehenge prog on C4 last night. I always love to guess what things we've known for ages will be presented in a portentuous voice as earth-shattering facts that "will turn our current understanding upside down." But first up, I presume that Prof Brian Cox wasn't available. I'm guessing if Prof Parker Pearson was in a 1980s pop group, it was probably Genesis? He constantly looked worried - as if aware of how thinly his research was being spread. He's probably a good archaeologist, whose sensible research got a bit - well, sexed-up, I guess.

So, I can't be bothered to summarise the programme. Instead let me approach this via the via negativa:

We already knew Stonehenge wasn't all built at once, in what would be the "present" arrangement if most of it hadn't fallen down. We knew the bluestones were erected first, in a wide circle, which was later dismantled  and rearranged within the sarsens. But then we've known this all for years.

We already knew that people were buried at Stonehenge. That's why there are neo-pagans protesting about the "ancestors" being removed for research.

We also already knew that the contents of the Aubrey holes were dug out by Col Hawley, and all the remains - including human remains - dumped in "graves". If anything, the programme was kind to Hawley's memory - he was a dutiful plodder who wasn't even the one who guessed about the Aubrey holes (that was his assistant did that), and just dug - relentlessly and largely pointlessly, destroying the archaeology - for years.

If you say evidence of Orcadians at Stonehenge shows a "pan-British" culture, while evidence of someone from the Alps at Stonehenge means an invasion, you don't know how far Orkney is from Salisbury. (Not as far as the Alps, but far enough). And you've recast the past in the shape of the modern political situation.

Stonehenge as cemetery, solar observatory or temple is not an either/or/or proposition. In the same way that an English medieval church is a burial place, aligned on the sunrise, and a place of worship.

A change of burial practice does not necessarily mean an invasion. Otherwise, archaeologists in 3,000 years will wonder what invasion caused 20th Century Britons to change from burial to cremation, and guess it may have been the "Tesco" culture that brought it about.

Men and women have been known to be part of the same religious communities - right up to the English Middle Ages. Hannington in Northamptonshire had a nice example, still reflected in the architecture of the church.

Mind you, barbecued pork ribs are nice. I'm glad we got that cleared up.

And, in passing, I've a suspicion that we're missing the whole point of Durrington Walls. It's clear now that the reason the Ancient British spent two months a year there, drinking, feasting and celebrating, was not that they broke off occasionally to put up Stonehenge. No. Clearly, taking advantage of the opening-up of communications routes, they got a bunch of Eastern Europeans to do that while they kept partying. The Amesbury Archer wasn't Swiss - he was a Slovak.