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A History of Witchcraft
Part 2 - The Paleolithic Period
(500,000 to 20,000 BC)
In the spring of 1994 paleontologists working in advance of open-pit coal mining operations in Southern Germany unearthed two wooden spears. Initial estimates dated the artifacts to about 10,000 BC but subsequent radiocarbon dating tests yielded the shocking age result of approximately 400,000 BC.1 Never had Early Paleolithic humans been thought capable of the craftsmanship needed to produce such weapons, and even more important, those ancient humans were not thought to possess the communications and social skills necessary to work in cohesive groups.2 These spears were obviously weighted and balanced as throwing weapons and implied that an organized hunting party had been at work.3
It is not too illogical to make the jump from an organized hunting party to a similarly organized social structure. We can then ask the questions; did the hunters apply for spiritual intervention to aid in a successful hunt, did they practice sympathetic magick, was there a significant ritual involved? Unfortunately we do not know the answers to these questions but obviously there was closeness to nature and a dependence on naturally available foods for day-to-day survival. Given that closeness and dependence it would be logical to imagine that some form of rite or ritual was practiced before our ancient ancestors started out to hunt game or collect the edible plants which meant life or death for the clan.
Do these inhabitants of 400,000 BC Europe represent our earliest tangible link to our Pagan past, to our practice of witchcraft and sympathetic magick? To some degree the answer may be yes. I believe it is plausible to surmise that the Craft we practice today is descended from these initial Pagan beliefs, such as they may have been. In that limited sense one can argue that a link could be established between modern day witchcraft and the beginning Pagan spiritual practices of Early Paleolithic Europe. Am I saying our rituals of today, our practice of witchcraft, is 400,000 years old? No, of course not. I am only saying it is logical to assume that our Pagan religious ancestry, our heritage, is that old. The base religion from which we originated, that in some form most likely recognized some deity of the hunt and some deity of gathered edible crops, that religion practiced by the original inhabitants of this world, is Pagan. It forms the very beginnings of what would eventually evolve into this thing we today call Wicca.
In 1924 the first of many baked clay figurines, dated to about 30,000 BC and later called the Black Venus of Dolni, was uncovered in the Czech Republic. Anthropologists understand these "Venus Figurines" to be representative of some form of female-centered ritual practiced by our Late Paleolithic ancestors. The figurines may have been part of a fertility ceremony or ritual in which women played the significant role.4
While the exact nature of the Venus Figurine rituals may never be known some clues may be extracted from another figurine known as "Beauty And The Beast" which was found near Grimaldi in the south of Italy and dated to approximately 26,000 BC.5 The figure represents two bodies joined back-to-back from the head to lower extremities. One is an unmistakable Venus Figurine while the other has the head of a reptile. A possible implication is that the female represented by the Venus Figurine is either part of, or in communication with, some other world creature. The female appears to be the magical priestess of the tribe and she may be involved in either travels or communication into the spirit world.6
So our ancestors of 30,000 BC manufactured female religious figures of both a fertility and spirit world nature. Since there has seldom been a male figurine discovered the implication is that fertility itself was worshipped in the person of the female or a female deity, and apparently at least some females of the group assumed a clan religious leadership role as communicators with the spirit world. Additionally, the cave paintings from various Stone Age grottos throughout Western Europe show quite detailed renditions of wild game being pursued by hunting parties. These paintings appear to have been early forms of sympathetic magick in that the desired outcome of a hunt may have been represented in order to draw the favors of a hunting deity. Our ancestors of 30,000 BC were Pagan in the most basic sense. Not Wiccan of course, but most assuredly Pagan.
Thus we may have a rather intangible link between our Craft of today and the remote Early Paleolithic of 400,000 BC. This link is admittedly more conjecture than hard fact, but it is logical to assume those very early humans did most likely engage in some form of ritual or nature magick as part of every-day clan or tribal life, a life apparently far more structured and organized than previously surmised. And we can more easily make the connection between the witchcraft of today and the Pagan past of our more recent ancestors of 30,000 BC. That link exists in the worship of our Goddess, the Lady of fertility, and it most assuredly connects today's witches to our Late Paleolithic ancestors who crafted the Venus Figurines.
Were those ancestors who walked this earth at the dawn of human history Wiccans? No, absolutely not, but they were Pagans and they were witches who apparently practiced sympathetic magick and worshipped fertility through female divinities. And is this not, after all, one of the many attributes or definitions of today's witchcraft, of our Craft of the Wise, of Wicca?
- Gary Cantrell
Endnotes
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Gary has authored two books: Out of the Broom Closet (1998) and Wicca for Solitaries and Small Covens, soon to be published by Llewellyn. A third work, The History of Witchcraft, is in preparation. Visit his website