Some comments on archaeology and ritual.
Brian Boyd
Anna Belfer-Cohen
Gary Rollefson2005, Neo-Lithics
For the second time Neo-Lithics is publishing a thematic issue. The dialogue on The Early Neolithic Origin of Ritual Centers is a challenge in two directions. It suggests on the one hand that there were no ritual centers in the Near East before the Early Neolithic, and it also implies that the centralized Near Eastern ritual is rooted in the Early Neolithic. We are well aware what evidence is neglected by this formulation of the topic, both for the non-Neolithic periods as well as for the Neolithic itself. We took this risk for the sake of provoking a diversity of arguments. Therefore we organized a forum for as many different views as possible. We wish to thank all participants for their effort and commitment. We regret that we were unable to receive more contributions from colleagues specialized in the Chalcolithic, or from historians of religion. Nevertheless, we consider this dia-logue a starting point for further discussion of ritual centrality and of centrality vs. ritual practice. We may recall that until recently the topic was not appreciated much by many Near Eastern archaeologists. But evidence became overwhelming, and we had to redirect the debate from site-bound levels onto the Near Eastern research agenda. This includes a call to the Ancient Near Eastern research disciplines to extend their origin discussion of city and state-based ritual to the Neolithic periods.
