Yes indeed Wandering Star. It's one of those fascinating moments when the thing you've been looking at and accepting on face value (and as programmed) suddenly transforms into the blindingly obvious (if my hypothesis is correct of course). From then on in you can never look at the same thing in the same way again, and you question how it was your brain/mind didn't recognize it before - it's that obvious.
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The more things change, the more they stay the same. - Jean-Baptiste Alphonse KarrCONTEXT 2: THE EMERGENCE OF SECRET SOCIETIES
This startling series of claims by the C’s has stuck with me ever since I first read the above many moons ago now. At the time I simply couldn’t place it into any known context – it seemed so bizarre to think of all those bowler hatted bank managers I had watched as a kid trapse into the masonic hall next to my home having nefarious antecedents going back 7,000 years to almost beyond the boundaries of known civilization. Having briefly toyed with being a mason myself (out of pure curiosity and before I knew any better!) I can tell you first hand that what goes on behind those closed doors is even more bizarre than you can imagine – and yes technically I can get still get myself killed for sharing this fact even though I haven’t been near the organisation in 18 years
If you think about what the C’s suggest, if true, it has remarkable implications because it’s clear that the establishment of the Freemasons in 5,633 BC (how precise, with that very interesting 33 at the end of the date), being but the latest step in a process of even greater antiquity; for how else could a group loftily called the Osirians, (likely an existing secret society based on the deeper knowledge of the Osiris myth), have the accumulated knowledge and purpose to establish the masons but that they themselves had been founded long before, especially when you consider that the C’s say that the 33rd degree of masonry, supposedly the most lofty and ‘secret’ of all known degrees, (setting aside for now the likelihood of there being further hidden degrees above this), was fully functional by 5,633 BC.
As I delved deeper and deeper into the mysteries surrounding the advent of the Göbekli Tepe centered outburst of activity in south-eastern Anatolia from circa 10,000 BC, and as I crossed referenced to other outcrops in places such as the Levant and in particular the area we know as Israel today, I began to see signs that what the mainstream saw as a benign activity had a much darker underbelly than hitherto realised. Among many such signs, burial practices involving very singular people and their skulls kept cropping up, especially in relation to caves in out of the way places. None of the explanations I read from scholars came close to explaining what I was seeing.
Then I came across the 1980s finds from at Nahal Hemar Cave in the Judean desert dating to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) period around the 8th millennium BC. I will likely come back to this site in more detail anon but for now let me introduce you to the series of carved stone - yes stone - masks that were found there:
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According to the archaeologists, the cave users were your average farmers from the agricultural villages in the woodland regions nearby.
Right….!
I have some professional knowledge of masks and their incredibly potent mesmeric power and I had been tracking with suspicion the increase in mask production from Göbekli Tepe onward, and I can assure you these terrors are not the product of simple farmers! Therefore, it was at this point that the C’s comment began to ring loudly in my head. Were the hints of deeply nefarious practices with very ancient roots that I kept stumbling on actually tell-tell signs of secret societies being about their business of shaping society as early as the PPN?
This was an idea I had certainly not come across in any of the academic literature to date; but so many symptoms seemed to point powerfully in that direction – the continual use of caves and special purpose buildings; uniquely directed highly symbolic architecture; symptoms of the emergence of bizarre rituals; masks and other signs of elite practices below the surface; surplus gathering; the use of feasting, alcohol and likely other substances… and of course the economic emergence of agriculture. The list went on and on.
So, just for the hell of it, I did an online search to see if anything in the literature would come up that would event hint that this was something scholars had also noted.
On my very first search, and much to my amazement I struck gold. Following certain hints in certain journals I fortuitously stumbled upon ‘THE POWER OF RITUAL: Secret Societies and Origins of Social Complexity’ by Bryan Hayden, Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia and Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser University as well as a member of the Royal Society of Canada.
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The title and cover alone was enough for me to immediately order a copy, (though my expectations at that time remained pretty low), for as with many highly specialised academic works it’s a pricey buy; but believe me it’s worth every cent spent ten times over.
Published in 2018 by Cambridge University Press (therefore as mainstream academia as you can get), this weighty tome of scholarly deduction is the closest thing to a game changing time bomb I’ve come across from the pen of an accomplished– if radical thinking – professional.
The summation of 25 years work, Hayden introduces his book with a clear statement of intent:
The rigorously notated and documented volume that follows is structured so as to present evidence as follows:
This post is not the place to give a complete overview and review of this complex and detailed work and it more than deserves a thread of its own (as well as a Mind Matters show).
- An opening statement chapter on the widespread nature of secret societies as well as the word ‘secret’ in the term secret society.
- A highly detailed systematic exploration of the ethnographic records as well as other scholar’s work in this field, from both the new world (American north west, south west, plains, eastern woodlands, and California / Mesoamerica) and the old world (Oceania, central and west Africa), all of which makes up the bulk of the 370 pages.
- An exploration of the implications for archaeology and then on to his final conclusions.
Among the many, many shocks and light bulb moments was the amazement that the study of ancient secret societies has such a long tradition in academic studies as well as in contemporary scholarly research. We see so many woo-woo works on the Masons and the Illuminati that one would think they were the only existing or historical secret societies on record as well as taking for granted that it is a fringe study untouched by scholarly rigour. Far from being true on both counts and there are over 20 pages of scholarly references past and present that close this overview by Hayden.
I will begin with a series of extensive quotes from his opening chapter ‘THE SECRET’. I have removed the many citations for clarity of reading – but be assured near every paragraph is littered with them. The first sequence below gives a thorough background to his thinking.
So immediately, we have some very important red flags:
As the book goes on, and no matter which culture he explores, one fundamental issue comes through time and time again – the manipulation and control by a small minority of the majority for access to and disproportionate ownership of surplus production and communal material wealth making capacity.
- The existence of secret societies stretching back into prehistoric cultures, including inside Neolithic caves, and that they occurred in many pre-civilised cultures irrespective of how those societies were ostensibly led.
- A missing link in understanding at a deeper level substantive cultural, spiritual, political and economic changes as they occur in the archaeological record that have hitherto been given fatuous or nebulous reasons for happening.
- The power to exert exceptional influence over the living through fear, manipulation and endearment with the ‘dark side’ for material and political gain.
- The ruthless use of any tactics they could to impress and intimidate, no matter how gruesome, including sexual abuse, murder, human sacrifice, child abuse and cannibalism.
- By becoming the most powerful organization in a society, they played a critical role in the foundation of complex political organization by linking ideologies and rituals to the acquisition of control.
- The means by which individuals augmented their power over both communities and whole regions via aggrandizer strategies for promoting aggrandizers’ own self-interests
- The use of architecture and the building of elaborate special structure facilities to create secure structural bases from which to wield power that cross-cut kinship and even community boundaries.
- Membership came at high cost, both materially, physically and psychologically for all those drawn into the circle (or square as we will see later on).
Sound at all familiar…? The tell-tell footsteps of psychopaths and schizoid personalities doing what they do best (an indeed Hayden does not hold back on his understanding in this area).
I also find it interesting that apparently the previously considerable anthropological attention given to secret societies effectively came to a sudden end in the 1940’s and has become a backwater for academics ever since. Most telling considering as he says that secret societies persisted on into modern industrial societies. And I thought we were the first conspiracy theorists!
Next, I quote from section on the importance of secret societies:
All summarized as:
For those who may have a raised eyebrow or two, this next section is pivotal to grasp:
- A relatively recent phenomenon in cultural evolution i.e. by recent, earliest roots in the Middle to Upper Paleolithic and only appearing alongside the emergence of complex hunter/gatherers and subsequent agricultural, tribal or chiefdom societies .
- The ability to embody the most elaborate traditions of a culture.
- A powerful driving forces for cultural change including major changes in prevailing ideologies and appear to have been relatively common.
- A supra-community level of organization, control, and power with a far wider demographic and economic base than otherwise might have existed.
- Supernatural justification used for concentrating surpluses in the hands of a few individuals and only occurring in areas capable of producing significant surpluses.
- The development of ‘religious’ centres originating with secret societies that eventually led on to the development of more complex, unified political power bases.
- Secret societies were the first institutionalized manifestation of ritual organizations linked to political power, and that this was, in fact, their explicit goal.
- They explain the long term fixation on caves and special structures as well as many other unusual features and developments in the archaeological record.
My next post will explore how Hayden classifies the various kinds of secret societies as well as how they coalesced and competed alongside each other.
It seems that by this time the stage was set. The poison was injected, ie. the psychopaths. The people were rudderless suffering from trauma and maybe amnesia with all the destruction changing their landscape. The psychopaths literally had a blank slate to work on and so the human experiment continued all for their own good of course.
CASE STUDIES
Europe and the Near East
The Middle Paleolithic
The stalagmitic circles far in the interior of Bruniquel Cave dated to 175,000 bp provide the best candidate for some sort of exclusive ritual group featuring sensory deprivation and probable altered states of consciousness or sacred ecstatic states in the Middle Paleolithic. The Grotte de Hortus provides another possible example. This is an obscure cave 200 meters above the valley floor where sets of panther third phalanges were probably part of a costume. The occurrence of an articulated bear foot may indicate a similar use of a bear skin. The excavated occupation floor at Hortus was at the bottom of a narrow rock fissure totally hidden from outside view and so small that only a few people could have participated in any activities. It is worth considering the possibility that the shelter may have been used as a storage location for ritual paraphernalia. The occupation also included human remains from at least twenty individuals, with an emphasis on skulls (together with skulls of Alpine ibexes) as well as evidence of cannibalism. Given the fauna present, the analysts felt certain that the cannibalism was not part of subsistence activities, but was for ritual purposes. All these features fit well with secret society characteristics. Use of other dark caves has been reported for this time period, including Arcy-sur- Cure, Cougnac, and Grotta della Barura; however, indications of ritual use are less explicit than at Bruniquel and Hortus. Eagle talons and feathers appear to also have been used by Neandertals as part of costumes or ornaments. These finds hint at some kind of ritual practices similar to secret society organizations, but by themselves are not conclusive.
The Upper Paleolithic
At least in some cases, groups in the Upper Paleolithic using painted caves must have been small and exclusive. There was also good evidence of seclusion-like contexts in caves where crude images occurred in places only suitable for viewing by one or two people. Following the initial suggestion that at least some of the most elaborately decorated Upper Paleolithic caves were used for secret society rituals, Suzanne Villeneuve undertook an analysis of the physical contexts of cave images in an attempt to determine the size and composition of the groups viewing the images. We also examined the likelihood that Upper Paleolithic groups developed relatively sophisticated astronomical systems and calendars. I argued that these developments are primarily understandable as features of secret societies in the Upper Paleolithic. In addition to these published results, a number of other factors indicate that secret societies were central features in Upper Paleolithic rituals, at least in the most prosperous and productive resource areas like the Dordogne and Pyrenees.
10.1 Right: The “Sorcerer” from Les Trois Frères Cave in France. Left: A sketch of an Elk Society dancer among the Ogalala Sioux on the American Plains. While such similarities may be convergences stemming from a common general belief framework, the detailed similarities strengthen the impression that the elaborate Upper Paleolithic cave paintings (including mythic animals) were products of secret societies.
The factors of relevance are:
- The occurrence of decorated caves in environmentally rich areas that supported high population densities and complex hunting and gathering societies with surpluses, wealth accumulations, pronounced socioeconomic differences, and sociopolitical competition typical of transegalitarian hunter/gatherers.
- Decorated caves seem to have been infrequently used, and not regularly used for events like tribal initiations that would have involved large numbers of people. In fact, Guthrie estimates that only one in a thousand individuals entered caves or left images. This seems exaggerated, but makes the point. Ethnographically, secret society initiations could take place at intervals of up to ten or more years, and new initiates slated for high-ranking positions were often given different training itineraries. The notion that caves were used for tribal initiations has been rejected by Pastoors et al. based on the demographics of footprints and by Clottes on the basis of episodic use, the very young age of some of the participants, and restricted access.
- Similarly, Clottes and Lewis-Williams, like Owens and Hayden and Villeneuve, have pointed out that some decorated spaces in caves were really only suitable for a small number of individuals, not large initiation groups.
- The common presence of children has been documented in the decorated caves based on footprints, handprints, and finger markings, the youngest so far identified being a two-year- old. Based on the same evidence, both males and females were present at rituals in the caves. This age and sex profile for those involved in cave rituals matches the age and sex profile documented for secret society initiates.
- Various authors point out the very restricted nature of access to deep caves and cave art, implying or stating that access was exclusive and somehow related to the acquisition or wielding of power in Upper Paleolithic societies. Other archaeologists remark that these caves were probably only accessed by privileged individuals, and that they were probably painted by high-status families. From a comparative perspective, Wason concluded that restricted access to ritual areas is generally indicative of socioeconomic inequalities in a society. These are also characteristics of secret societies.
- The cave iconography and portable sculptures indicate that elaborate animal costumes and masks were used in conjunction with cave rituals, the most notable examples being the “Sorcerer” image in Les Trois Frères (Fig. 10.1), and the figurines of lion-headed men from Hohlenstein-Stadel, Holhe Fels, and Vogelherd caves with scars on their upper arms reminiscent of scarification practices in many secret society initiations. In fact, an image of an Elk secret society ritualist from the Plains (Fig. 10.1) displays an uncanny resemblance to the Sorcerer from Les Trois Frères Cave in France. Clottes documents other therianthropic examples. These images may also represent imagined transformations of secret society members into animal forms.
- Cave and portable art does not focus on subsistence animals, but on power animals such as bison, aurochs, mammoths, felines, bears, rhinoceroses, as well as imaginary animals that are characteristic of secret society iconography. “Ghosts,” which were central to many secret society ideologies, were also represented.
- There is substantial evidence for the development of sophisticated astronomical knowledge associated with the use of decorated caves. Some similarities are quite remarkable, as with the selection of caves with solar solstice alignments for decoration and rituals by the Chumash ‘Antap members, and the alignment of many decorated Upper Paleolithic caves with solar solstice orientations, including Lascaux and Bernifal caves in. The Blanchard plaquette also appears to record surprisingly sophisticated lunar observations. As in American West Coast secret societies, astronomical knowledge probably served as a basis for the arcane, esoteric secrets of high- ranking secret society members in the Upper Paleolithic.
- Caves were ideal for generating altered states of consciousness, and some of the smaller caves like Pergouset and Combarelles II appear to have only been used for vision quests that may have been part of secret society initiations for some high-ranking individuals. Vision quests were often associated with high rank.
- Drum beaters, flutes, lithophones, bullroarers, and even two-reed types of pipes or trumpets have been recovered primarily from caves or burials. In fact, bone “flutes are commonly found inside the decorated caves”. These are all typical paraphernalia of secret societies used to represent spirit sounds, or at the very least they represent music which Morley links to ritual activities.
- A number of special burials occurred in the Upper Paleolithic that may have been interments of secret society leaders, including possible skull cults. The burials in Cussac Cave, at Brno, and other locations with elaborate grave goods provide marked contrasts with the vast majority of people who do not seem to have received burial treatment.
- As in the Middle Paleolithic, cannibalism was certainly present in these Upper Paleolithic areas and possibly involved human sacrifices, especially during the Magdalenian. Again, the predominant, if not exclusive, evidence for cannibalism comes from caves where bone flutes also occur in abundance. These aspects also make sense primarily in terms of secret society cults. Villa (has noted the presence of human remains with cut marks or modifications in at least fifteen Upper Paleolithic sites in France, as well as the nest of thirty-three crania at the Early Mesolithic site of Ofnet in Bavaria. In fact, Pettitt stated that 40 percent of the human remains from the Upper Paleolithic exhibit cut marks.
- The widespread similarity of art motifs and musical instruments from western to eastern Europe as well as the exchange of special materials over many hundreds of kilometers is characteristic of the regional scale and networks of most secret society organizations, resulting in interaction sphere material expressions.
- In some cases, such as Enlène and La Garma, there were good indications of feasting in the completely dark areas of caves and some of these feasting remains were associated with apparent ritual structures. Ethnographically, feasting in or near ritual spaces was a typical secret society activity.
- Another factor is the high degree of specialization and skill exhibited by the principal artists. This level of skill must have been economically supported and directed in some way, such as specialized training. The artistic elaboration of many ethnographic secret societies provides an important model for this development.
Given all these correspondences with the material patterns of secret societies documented in the preceding chapters, I think that the more elaborately painted caves of western Europe constitute some of the best candidates for pre-historic secret societies outside North America.
Using this perspective, I found it very instructive to visit Lascaux and Font-de-Gaume, two of the four caves in western Europe with exceptional Upper Paleolithic polychrome art. In my personal view, there are several remarkable similarities in the way the art was organized in these two caves. First, the main chamber that one initially encounters (Salle des Tauraux in Lascaux and the Carrefour in Font- de- Gaume) is large enough for more than a dozen people and had some of the most visible high quality art. The same was true of Les Trois Frères Cave near the Pyrenees, although the chamber was much deeper than the others.
Second, extending off the main entry chamber in both caves was a narrow corridor with a small alcove toward the back with spectacular art evidently painted by trained and skilled artists. Only one or at most two or three people at a time could view the art in these small alcoves. In Lascaux, the Diverticule Axial formed the corridor leading to the alcove, and the alcove was surrounded by the “falling horse” frieze and the Red Panel. In Font-de-Gaume, the corridor was the “Galerie Principale” and the alcove was the “Salle des Petits Bisons.” In both cases, the corridors were spectacularly painted. At Lascaux, this corridor was referred to as “prehistory’s Sistine Chapel”, a term that may be far more apt than originally suspected. In fact, I suggest that, in both cases, these corridors and their small alcoves were for the exclusive use of the highest ranking member(s) of the secret societies who went to the alcoves to commune with spirits, just as the Sistine Chapel was largely for the Pope’s exclusive use. A similar kind of main entry chamber together with a more private alcove with notable art for viewing by an individual or a very small group of ritualists has been proposed for Villars Cave by Villeneuve. This same spatial logic was expressed in the ritual use of a cave at Santa Eulaia (Guatemala), where the deepest parts were the most sacred and only accessed by the highest ranking ritualists. Similar patterns of spatial use occurred in Malekula where certain areas were exclusively used by chiefs and other areas were used for group dancing.
A third similarity in spatial organization involves what I would call “graffiti” art. In Lascaux, as well as in Bernifal where Suzanne Villeneuve and I recorded the contexts of the parietal art, there were specific areas (separated from the main chambers) where exceptionally high densities of engraved images occurred that were often superimposed and usually exhibited crude, small, even scribbled, execution, although some more refined images were also present (Fig. 10.2). Many of these images were evidently made, and viewed, while in a squatting position such as is generally used when resting or waiting in traditional societies. The engravings would have been best viewed by the glancing light of a single flame placed on the floor or held to the side rather than by torchlight held at eye level. On the basis of the distinctive locations, the high densities of images, the crudeness of most of the art, the expedient nature of its execution (using any random piece of flint, bone, wood, or perhaps even fingernails), and the lack of regard for previous images, it seemed clear to me that these images were not made by the same individuals who created the painted images, nor were they made for the same purposes, nor at the same exact time. However, since they were so locationally concentrated in relation to the high quality paintings, it seemed that they were used in conjunction with whatever was transpiring in the main chambers and/or the private alcoves. Remarkably, no one has drawn much attention to the possible ritual roles or ritual significance of these concentrated images. Indeed, no one has tried to make much sense of them in terms of the activities that they represent. They seem to have been relegated to the status of curios in the cave art world, probably because they do not fit the current models of Upper Paleolithic ritual and art and because there are so many random lines. At most, art analysts have concluded that the superposition of images indicates that it was the act of drawing rather than the image itself that was of importance.
10.2 Part of the dense panel of engravings in the Abside alcove of Lascaux Cave. Note the strong emphasis on scribbling, the overmarking of previous images, and the generally crude quality of most images. There is little indication of any advance preparation for making these images, which could have been scratched into the rock face with any sharp object at hand (Photo by N. Aujoulat, courtesy of the French Centre National de la Préhistoire)
To me, the concentrations of these engravings constituted graffiti made by individuals who were told to stay and wait in given locations, probably because they were not allowed to witness some things that transpired in the central chambers. Perhaps they were made by new initiates in seclusion areas or by actors in ritual dramas waiting to make appearances in the main chambers. I have recorded essentially identical graffiti on the inside doors of elevators at Simon Fraser University, made expediently with whatever was at hand by untrained and mostly unskilled individuals bored with the slow pace of the elevator (Fig. 10.3). These graffiti, like their prehistoric counterparts, were probably the products of frustration at having to wait for some event. Some scholars have viewed all cave art as graffiti and much of it probably was. Half of all images in Lascaux are engravings on the small wall of the Abside (Fig. 10.2), and in Villeneuve’s study, 75 percent of the images were small and of “poor” quality, with 66 percent most easily viewed from a squatting or crouching position. However, it would be a gross error to conclude that the major masterpieces were nothing but graffiti.
10.3 Graffiti on an elevator door at Simon Fraser University displaying many of the same characteristics as the densely engraved panels at Lascaux, Gargas, and Trois Frères in terms of expediently made scratches, scribbling, overmarking, and generally crude quality. These characteristics may be typical of activities by individuals who had to wait in enclosed areas for events to transpire (Photo by B. Hayden).
The locations of the proposed “waiting” areas in caves varied. In Bernifal, they occurred in narrow passages well before the main chamber deep inside the cave. In Lascaux, they occured in a small alcove, the “Abside,” off to the right of the Salle des Tauraux. Its two walls are scarcely 3 meters long each, yet the jumbled mass of engravings on those two walls astonishingly contained more than half of the 2,000 images in the entire cave. There are other similar examples in other caves. In Les Trois Frères, a similar jumbled mass of superimposed engravings occurred in a tight passage where one cannot stand upright. The passage is located behind the image of the “Sorcerer” which dominates the major decorated chamber deep inside the cave. Another example of concentrated superimposed engravings occurred at the back of Gargas Cave in a “small chamber” called the Camarin, similar in size to the Abside in Lascaux. The Camarin contains almost 71 percent of all the recognizable figures in Gargas, again similar to the situation in Lascaux’s Abside, and like the fi gures in the Abside, the images were mostly crude and mixed with abundant scribblings. In fact, Barrière, who documented these images, remarked that they “suggest in the strongest possible fashion ... black-board graffiti.” In addition, there were indications that the “Diverticule Final” in Font-de-Gaume may have been used in a similar fashion, since a number of engravings were recorded there; however, no careful studies have taken place since the earliest observations.
I suggest that all these locations of concentrated graffiti were probably waiting places for new initiates undergoing ritual seclusion or waiting to be brought into the main chambers for initiation.
This sequence is similar to that proposed by Lewis-Williams, but with a special focus on secret societies rather than shamans or other types of initiations. One unique feature at Font-de-Gaume is the remarkable decorated frieze of bison along a relatively narrow corridor leading to the central chamber. This appears as a procession of bison heading to the main chamber, and was undoubtedly meant to mimic the procession of ritualists (perhaps conceptually in bison form) entering from the outside, which members would view sequentially as they progressed inward.
The Near East
Although almost none of the archaeologists working in the Near East have interpreted their excavated materials in terms of secret societies (exceptionally, K. Wright has discussed male “sodalities”), there are a number of prime archaeological candidates for secret societies, beginning in the Late Epipaleolithic and continuing into the Neolithic and probably later periods.
The Late Epipaleolithic
One of the earliest indications of likely secret society existence comes from a quite small cave located high above a wadi floor and at some distance from any known settlement of the time. This is the Late Natufian site of Hilazon Tachtit, occupied c . 12,000 bp. The core Natufian sites in the region had rich resources, signifi cant sedentism, permanent architecture, and a wide array of prestige items exchanged in a regional network that belie important inequalities. Thus, they constitute a prime example of a complex, or transegalitarian, hunter/gatherer society that could produce surpluses. While there was evidence of occasional use of the Hilazon cave, perhaps by ritualists, the main feature of this cave is the burial of an older woman accompanied by the remains of a feast including at least fifty tortoise carapaces and parts of wild cattle and wild boar. Of further note were faunal remains of leopard, eagle, and marten – typical power animals – as well as an articulated human foot. Other indications of human sacrifice have been recovered from Natufian sites, and, as we have seen, ethnographic secret society members in other culture areas often either engaged in human sacrifice or used body parts from dead individuals for various purposes. Evidence for human sacrifice is even more compelling in the following Prepottery Neolithic A period to be discussed next.
However, the fundamental question that Hilazon raises is why one single person, or even several people, were buried in such a remote, isolated, difficult- to-access location with so much ceremony.The vast majority of Natufians were buried at the major habitation sites, often under house floors. Why was this person so different? There are few compelling answers to such a question. Perhaps she was a shaman as Grosman and Munro suggest. They also suggest that the burial was a communal event orchestrated to maintain or increase social integration of a community. In view of the small, remote, difficult-to-access location, this seems highly dubious. I think it far more likely that she was an important member of a secret society. Society members in other areas commonly went to considerable lengths to secretly bury their most powerful leaders to maintain the fiction that they still lived, or so that their remains would not be pilfered for power amulets. It might also be coincidental, but several secret societies used tortoise carapaces in their rituals, even lining areas with them for initiates to lie within. Turtle shells appear to have had strong symbolical roles in Mesopotamia. All of these factors seem to point to the burial of a powerful secret society member at Hilazon Tachtit.
Elsewhere, at Zawi Chemi Shanidar in Iran, Rose Solecki excavated a single structure (perhaps the only structure at the site), with abundant remains of raptor wings. These may have been used in secret society rituals in a structure dedicated to society use. At the penecontemporaneous site of Hallan Çemi in southeastern Turkey, Michael Rosenberg excavated two semi-subterranean ritual structures in the center of the site associated with exotic materials (obsidian, shells, and copper ores) and prestige artifacts (e.g., decorated stone cups/bowls, sculpted pestles, notched talley stones, maces). As with later ritual structures in the region, they had benches around the walls, support posts set into the walls, paved areas, a plastered very clean floor, and power animals (aurochs bucrania, deer antlers, and a carving of a snake). One structure seems to have had an aurochs skull and horns hanging from a pillar. The location and distinctive architectural features of these structures recall kiva structures from the Southwestern United States or the dance houses of California, especially in their hidden, subterranean aspects and their unusual architecture. Like these ethnographic examples, the structures at Hallan Çemi may have been used by secret societies. An Early Natufian structure at Al-Shubayqa-1 may also have been used for rituals since it had a paved floor, stone- lined hearths, and an essentially clean occupation surface.
