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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Neolithic nookie

21:03 / 29.07.02

Quite an interesting programme on in the UK just there about the likely sexual habits and attitudes of stone age peoples. The picture presented is one of sexual equality in the hunter-gatherer years, perhaps even autonomous packs of women doing fine on their own (shock horror). The tables seem to be turned with the onset of farming, larger settlements, civilisation and so on, with women taking on the role of oppressed, working and baby-making machines (while men just pissed about it seems), a role women have remained in until quite recently, I suppose. Such details are surmised from examination of the remains of neolithic settlements at places like Catalhoyuk in Turkey and Skara Brae in Orkney.
There was a recognition of the power of female sexuality, in the late stone age and early period of civilisation, and attempts by (patriarchal) society to suppress and control it.
Actually, I'm simplifying the program horrendously -there was a lot more stuff I probably didn't pick up. But still...

I just had the feeling that this wasn't really taking in the whole picture. Stuff I've read about Sumerian civilisation for instance (about 4000BC onwards) paints a picture of sexual equality, or at least the provision for things like divorce and legal rights for women.

Did any early historians or other knowledgeable bods see it and think it was a load of arse?
Does anyone have any interesting notions/theories about this kind of thing?

21:09 / 29.07.02

There was also some stuff about female-shaped stone sculptures found scattered around neolithic sites- goddess worship paraphernalia or early jazz mags, no-one seemed able to say.

Jack The Bodiless

11:13 / 30.07.02

I thought it was badly put together... as an exercise in providing theory about prehistoric culture based on relics and excavation, it would have been fine, and interesting. But every time the programme advanced a theory, it would spend some time saying "We can't possibly know, this is all speculation," and then set out to establish one particular theory as fact - after having said that wasn't possible...

That and the bizarre insistence on showing well-proportioned young actors playing neolithic men and women in various 'arty' states of undress, with no reasoning given whatsoever, kind of made it 'Daily Mail' documentary making, IMBrazenlyConcupiscentO.

12:20 / 30.07.02

I liked it but mostly because of what JtB's well-proportioned young actors playing neolithic men ... in various 'arty' states of undress.

The argument that the coming of agriculture was instrumental in the invention of marriage and the subsequent subjugation of women seemed entirely sound, perfectly cromulent even, but I don't know that they presented much in the way of evidence to support it.

There did seem to be a hell of a lot of conjecture being passed off as more research-based than it was and I wondered where all the societies we know to have been matriarchal and those where property was passed down matrilineally were in this accounting. But I did miss the end, so maybe they shoved all the archaeological data in the closing section.

Really looking forward to the one on Egyptian sexual life. That should be illuminating. A great pre Judaeo-Christian culture which is well documented and lots of literature remains. Queers throve! Hatshepsut and Cleopatra reigned as Pharaohs. Incest right, left and centre (eek). Masturbation and shagging elevated tpo the status of religious ritual.

Hope there are a few more well-proportioned young actors but looking more like swarthy North Africans than milk-fed Hoxton-dwelling model boys...

Morlock - groupie for hire

13:15 / 30.07.02

Quite enjoyed it, myself, though that probably says more about me than the program. Still, it managed to spark an original thought or two, which is always nice, even if it was mostly coming up with my own theories from the flimsy evidence provided and shouting at the telly when the experts said something else. Ah, bliss.

Ferinstance, the bit about the concept of a couple becoming more formalised when smallish tribey groups gathered together for a bit of a knees-up, where the size of the crowd got everybody so confused they didn't know who they were shagging, seems a touch ropey. Although I may have missed some of the evidence due to said shouting.
Would have thought that the gatherings encouraged the creation of a 'leader' as representative in any big talk that may have gone on. Said leader might then have become a more permanent concept, eventually leading to lines of succession which cannot exist without a fairly monogamous relationship if the leader was male. "Your father led us well, so now you take his place. He was your father, right?" "Erm, well..."

And yes, I'm well aware I'm using a few preselected facts to tapdance through this particular minefield, but damn it's fun.

I tried to find some more info on the triple burial, without mch success. Anybody find some?

15:25 / 30.07.02

Yeah, what's been said. It was fascinating, but terribly ropey. Token statements of agnosticism hand in hand with massive and unquestioned assumptions, and displays of 'evidence' that was interpreted in very different ways, usually ways which said more about ouselves than people then. And also this weird assumption that all the human groups which must have ranged over vast geographical space and a wide time-period will all have had a similar set of rules and regulations. Though nice to see the idea that patriarchy is not 'innate' ot the root of human social relations has filtered into popular culture at last.

18:48 / 30.07.02

17:30 / 01.08.02

Heh- this doesn't carry many of the hallmarks of a filmic gem, methinks, even with the '82 academy award for make-up.

17:42 / 01.08.02

Seen it.

Synopsis: Rae Dawn Chong, naked but for body paint, invents the blowjob.

Oh, and there's something about fire, too.

Old brown-eye is back

21:56 / 01.08.02

Same director as Name of the Rose, for what it's worth. Does Rae Dawn Chong break dance in it?

02:37 / 02.08.02

Oh, if only.

Jack The Bodiless

12:02 / 02.08.02

Zocher... "...masturbation and shagging elevated to the statusof religious ritual..."

Sounds like a Saturday night round here, my lad.

07:45 / 06.08.02

I wouldn't have dissed the first of the series had I known what crap lay ahead. Was really looking forward to an examination of the sex lives of the Ancient |eGYPTIANS, GIVEN

10:48 / 06.08.02

heheh- think your finger may have joggled on that reply button Zocher me lad- did something happen?

sounds like the 2nd part wasn't that good- I've still to watch it

10:48 / 06.08.02

Help please moderators - I think Zocher needs some assistance - either that or he's just apoplectic with rage!

11:09 / 06.08.02

ZoCher is currently gibbering, drooling and straining against his straitjacket, in the Greta Garbo Home for Wayward Boys and Girls.

Have no idea what happened with the post earlier but it obviously happened eight times! Have requested that moderators fix the thread I've grievously assaulted and am bending over my desk now, awaiting castigation. Thwack!

btw, I was extremely unimpressed with the Sex BC show on Ancient Egypt. For many reasons with I am not going to attempt to enumerate here, for fear of offending whatever imp caused my previous posting glitch.

12:17 / 06.08.02

Yeah I know what you mean ZoCher - they missed so many chances for gratuitous nudity. Damn amateurs.

14:33 / 06.08.02

Indeed they did, and I agree that overall, the piss was taken with that one, or at least with the voiceover. It might help if we separated what the profs said from the spectacularly unscientific narration though. And that stuff about virginity being unimportant was fascinating if not entirely convincing.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:07 / 17.08.02

Watched the Ancient Greece one on video. Utter shit. Factually inaccurate for one thing, which you'd think wouldn't be too hard to sort out. You've got a bunch of fucking classical academics kicking around for the interviews; surely it wouldn't kill you to ak one of them "by the way, when we describe Hippias and Hipparchus (though not by name) as "two men who had overthrown the Athenian democracy", are we making COMPLETE SHITFUCKERS OF OURSELVES?"

Selective quotation to advance a narrow and limited vision of marriage in 5th-Century Athens (the bit in the Thesmophoriazusae about women being shut up, but none of the bits in the Lysistrata about men desiring their wives, nothing from Xenophon's Oeconomicus about the domestic partnership of Ischomachus and his wife, no mention of the enormous amounts of evidence on pottery of these supposedly imprisoned women who are only allowed to meet once a year in a religious festival meeting at the local well....AAARGH)....

Who are these people? Why do they do this to us? It was like an hour-long adult version of Greek Fire, but shitter.