The importance of symbolism in understanding sacred history: A literature review on neolithic symbolism

Abstract

The Neolithic, a concept dating back to the earliest periods of humanity, stands before us as a process that is both mysterious and intriguing because it contains the traces of social history in a state of “flow”. The experience of the sacred is a form of orientation that is almost contemporaneous with the beginning of humanity and the development of societies. If we do not count the Natuf culture, located at the south-western end of the Fertile Crescent and dating to approximately 2,000 years before Göbekli Tepe, the many Neolithic excavation sites in the Upper Tigris and Euphrates Basin, including Göbekli Tepe, offer a unique insight into the historical adventures that humankind has gone through. Although the fact that the most basic indicators of the periods when writing and recorded information were not yet available are based on symbolic decipherment does not allow us to make clear and specific evaluations about the meaning world of Neolithic man, considering the fact that symbolism is a kind of social memory and cultural memory archive; it is possible to make some sci- entifically consistent inferences based on these data. In this study, based on the meaning and impor- tance of symbols in the history of humanity, the fact that symbols have a very important function in the meaning of sacredness has been taken as a starting point. In this context, the importance of the relationship between the sacred and symbolism in the Neolithic period, the oldest phase of humanity, is discussed and it is determined that an intense example of symbolism emerged in this period. The main purpose of the study is to make a breakdown of the existing literature on “Neolithic-Sacred and Symbol”. The key concepts identified within the framework of the research were scanned through YÖK National Thesis Center, JSTOR, Google Scholar, Dergipark, Beyazıt Library Catalog, National Bulk Catalog electronic systems. In addition, the electronic catalogs of Ibn Haldun University, Bilgi University, Istanbul University libraries were also consulted. A list of Turkish and English resources obtained from these searches was created and an interdisciplinary data set was reached to direct academic studies more efficiently by identifying the main areas of agglomeration and missing points in the relevant literature.