Dancing at the Dawn of Agriculture

Chapter 5: Conclusions

chapter 5 Conclusions In this work I have discussed so far the available information on dancing activity in early village communities of the Near East and southeast Europe. This material has never previously been gathered together on such a scale. Part II will present the archaeological data, site by site, period by period, for the observations drawn in Part I. The dancing motif throws light on aspects of the forms of dancing practiced in the prehistoric Near East and southeast Europe. This adds a new dimension to the study of dance history, in the following ways: 1. The dances documented are mainly circle dances. In addition, row dances and couples dances are also recorded. 2. The direction of the dance is usually counter-clockwise. Some, though largely insufficient, evidence suggests that dances were performed in the other direction in mourning ceremonies. 3. The contact between the dancers was on several levels: dancing with no contact, hand-holding, shoulder to shoulder, and embracing. 4. The dance could be performed in the nude but also with elaborate dress, hair arrangements, head coverings, and other accessories. 5. The use of masks and fancy dress may suggest the incorporation of dramatic elements in the dance. 6. The dance is highly formalized: body movements, dress, and direction are all uniform, suggesting a cultic function. 7. Men and women usually danced separately; excluding Predynastic Egypt, rarely do we find mixed dancing. Egypt presents a totally different picture : male and female figures dance together in most of the depictions. 8. Dancing was performed in the open. Sometimes it took place in the vicinity of a building, perhaps a temple, or a tree. 9. Dancing seems to have been performed mainly at night. Since the dance motif portrays human interaction, it allows for some social reconstruction of the period. The motif shows human interaction in a cultic context. It thus portrays religion on a community level. It represents an egalitarian situation at a time of growing social stratification . Thus dance was, on one hand, a tool promoting bonding within protohistoric communities of the ancient Near East and, on the other hand, was used for screening the process of stratification. It seems that 100 The Dance Analysis the dance motif appears in the ancient Near East during a time of tribal social organization, according to Service’s terminology, and continued to be used during the period of chiefdom social organization (Fig. 3.1). Dancing was performed before and after this stage, but at this stage it became a central artistic motif. From the cognitive point of view, the following points were raised. Our analysis shows that there was a cognitive dimension to dance. The art is communo-centric; the community is depicting itself (depictions of mythical scenes are not yet known). The decorated vessels serve as a means of communication, stressing the importance of dance. Ancient villagers conceived of dance as the most significant cultic activity, whose essence as a religious experience was expressed by the circle of dancers. The uniformity of the figures in the circle gives ideological expression to the equality of the members of the community. Moreover, all the figures have the same role in the ceremony. Even if other people such as shamans or priests were present at the ceremony, they are not more important in cognitive terms. These elements appear, nevertheless, precisely in the period that witnessed an acceleration in the process of social stratification. A dichotomy arises between ideology and reality, since we have both the expression of equality and the development of social stratification. To sum up, the major strategies used by the early farmers of the Near East and southeast Europe from the eighth to the fourth millennia bc to promote the bonding of individuals into communities, and of individual households into villages, were public assemblies for religious ceremonies. These were probably calendrical rituals celebrated during the crucial points of the agricultural cycle. The archaeological evidence presented above is the pictorial expression of this activity and sheds light on it. The importance of these ceremonies is also borne out by ethnographic observations of pre-state communities, in which dance is indeed the most important component in religious ceremonies. Dancing together creates unity, provides education, and transmits cultural messages from one generation to the next. In the context of early agricultural systems, with the transition from ad hoc hunter-and-gatherer subsistence to “delayed-reward economy,” a cognitive revolution with regard to work investment and...