From Black Land to Fifth Sun: Science of Sacred Sites

The unearthing of cave paintings, stone circles, burial mounds, charnel houses, pyramids and the like poses fundamental questions about the relationships between extinct cultures and their perceived worlds. Archaeologist Fagan (The Rape of the Nile) attempts, with the aid of techniques like Accelerator Mass Spectrometry and Computer Automated Design mapping, to bridge the gap between the tangible and intangible, between the material and the spiritual lives of ancient peoples. Advocating the emerging science of the "archaeology of the mind," he suggests that he and his kind are like "Ahabs pursuing our great white whale" since "our limitations of thought, of understandings, of imagination" will prevent us from ever fully reconstructing from the available evidence the worldviews of long-defunct cultures. Nevertheless, his pilgrimageAfrom Lascaux to Zimbabwe; Jericho to Stonehenge; Knossos to the Pyramids of Giza; Chillicothe, Ohio, to Teothihuacan, MexicoAtakes us on an often gripping first-person tour of the world's past, and his excitement in surveying these areas for himself is almost palpable. But the real focus here is on the scienceAfrom debunking conjectures about Stonehenge to reanimating the ?atalh?y?k Goddess cultAand its invaluable contribution to painstaking reconstructions of the time frames and available materials of various eras. While the detail can be a little numbing, the seeming accuracy is refreshing, given the controversy that surrounds many of the more famous sites.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In Time Detectives (1994), archaeologist Fagan recounted the revolutionary effect of carbon-dating techniques on the practice of archaeology. Here he discusses the challenge of establishing a creditable methodology for creating an "archaeology of the mind." Fagan studies the silent and weathered remains of sacred sites to discern not only the nature of the rituals performed there but also the cosmologies that inspired them, believing that archaeologists can, and should, use the material to illuminate the spiritual. In highly instructive yet engagingly anecdotal accounts of his sojourns at major sacred sites, including the art-laced Cro-Magnon caves of France, the San paintings of southern Africa, the megaliths and stone circles of Europe, and the earthworks of North America, Fagan explains how the chemistry of pigments or food remains, the molecular structure of obsidian, or the dating of tree rings can be used to make ancient iconography and shamanistic practices come alive. Ultimately, his chronicling of the evolution of our interpretations of the significance of ancient sacred sites demonstrates how integral a role technology has played in both religion and science. Donna Seaman