A mysterious cult that predates Stonehenge | Hacker News Reader

A mysterious cult that predates Stonehenge

bbc.com

124 pointsbryanrasmussen89 comments

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For perspective, here is a cult the Neanderthals were running 175,000 years ago:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2090183-neanderthals-bu...

By comparison, Stonehenge happened yesterday, and this other cult was the day before yesterday.

Your comparison is missing the day when the Neanderthals (purportedly) built these circles.

That looks like what a bunch of stupid kids might do in a cave today. Humans haven't changed.

I would estimate this one as more of a cult phenomenon, not the local mainstream Neanderthal culture.

After all, what do hominids do in caves, anyway?

They get away from the crowd and it could be an exclusive location where only the true "cave men" held their business meetings, smoked cigars, and stuff like that.

OTOH it could have just been teenagers trying to be rambunctious without getting caught. I doubt they were allowed to break off stalagmites just anywhere.

Either way a truly subterranean non-mainstream sub-culture intentionally differentiated by its members.

Those are just… stalagmites. There’s nothing to signify it was made by Neanderthals and that article mentions nothing about the structures.

Stalagmites, but not just stalagmites (my emphasis):

> In one chamber, 336 metres from the cave entrance, are enigmatic structures – including a ring 7 metres across – built from stalagmites snapped from the cave floor.

Predating modern humans:

> Natural limestone growths have begun to cover parts of the structure, so by dating these growths a team led by Jacques Jaubert at the University of Bordeaux could work out an approximate age for the stalagmite constructions.

> They are roughly 175,000 years old, which means they easily predate the arrival of modern humans in Europe. They were built at a time when Neanderthals were the only hominins in the region.

It looks like the limestone just dripped in a rough circle.

It is funny that they use Stonehenge as the metric for being old. I know it's the BBC...but still... Stonehenge is much younger than what they say this site in Saudi Arabia is and there are FAR older sites than either of these in that region of the world (Middle East).

>This is important because it is evidence of a highly organised, cultic society, much earlier than was previously thought – predating Islam in the region by 6,000 years.

Another weird comparison to the date of the origin of Islam. As if that was previously the oldest thing from that region.

The founding of Islam is quite an important date in Arabian archeology, because it was illegal to excavate pre-Islamic sites until the 1960s and even today there's less funding and support for these kinds of sites.

Really? Wasn't Tutankhamun;s unearthing from the early 1900s?

Tutankhamun was buried in Egypt, not Arabia. Egyptian archaeology is considered its own, separate specialty with a different history and different rules / norms.

Take this as the opinion of someone who isn't an Arabian archaeologist, but researchers working in the peninsula have long had to deal with the sensitive issue of pre-islamic sites. Getting access is still a bit difficult today (especially Yemen) and most of the leading researchers are careful to be politically well-connected and avoid stepping on too many toes.

Egypt was run as a french language, but british protectorate. It did not achieve full independence until after the suez crisis of 1956. It has a sizable coptic minority. (French because the egyptian rulers considered french modernising and much as Ataturk adopted western dress and alphabet, the Egyptians favoured french language to "modernise" their state)

Technically, Egypt was a secular state until 1980 when Islam became the official state religion.

Saudi Arabia was part of the Turkish Empire, until after WW1. The modern Saudi State, and islamic rules on Archeology did not apply across much of the earler 20th century, or was simply disregarded by western archeologists. Iraq, Iran, Syria and Jordan and Lebanon have extensive archeological sites which clearly pre-date the rise of Islam.

Some links to related papers on mustatils, the subject of the article.

[0](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/mu...)

[1](https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/mus...)

[2](https://www.archaeology.wiki/blog/2020/09/01/vast-stone-monu...)

EDIT:

I grabbed a few screenshots from Google Earth to show examples of rock structures found around Khaybar, Saudi Arabia. [3] It looks like the article is correct in that there are many ancient rock structures around Khaybar. I didn't find any of the ones from the articles above but it is apparent that the local people built these from rock that was within a few meters of the structure since you can easily see on many of them that the immediate vicinity is free of rock. The keyhole features are very common. Their orientations appear to be random.

[3](https://imgur.com/a/Qad9T7V)

Enjoy!

It drives me absolutey potty that there are no scale bars in the wide and aerial pictures. I have no idea if the rocks they're made of are centimetres or metres across, and can't judge the overall size at all!

Why is the implication a religious activity when bones are found? Was the idea of an abattoir considered?

In a few thousand years, if there are even remains from today's slauterhouses, will rival cults be discussed? The cult that only killed chickens and the cult that only killed cows?

The article says that heads and heads alone were found:

> They've uncovered large numbers of cattle, goat and wild gazelle skulls and horns in small chambers in the heads of the mustatil, but found no indication that these were kept for domestic use. Since no other animal's body parts were found, it led the team to deduce that these were sacrificial. It further suggested that the animals were sacrificed elsewhere.

Whatever it was, that doesn't sound like an abattoir.

That's sort of what I was describing, that the first guess regularly seems to be that something unknown today served a religious purpose then. Eight thousand years later we don't know why those bones are in a chamber.

What is said in the article is a non-sequitur, "Since no other animal's body parts were found, it led the team to deduce that these were sacrificial."

My first thought is that perhaps they chop the head off, butcher the animal, and all body parts containing meat would be removed and end up deposited somewhere else. The heads, presumably having no useful meat, get dumped near the abattoir.

But heads do have useful meat. You might have heard of smoked tongue? Or sheep's head soup?

Bones were valuable primitive tools but the skulls might have been used as representive forms of currency or wealth tokens such as the stones on Easter Island. Or tributes to the animals' sacrifice.

Good points.

There have been other huge bone boards found in Saudi Arabia and those have been attributed to multi generation bone dumping grounds by hyena.

I feel sorry for anyone who has to dig up our current civilization. Imagine digging up nuclear waste and hoping it is some grand sarcophagus or treasure. Worse yet all the landfills.

This place is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.

"Zahi Hawass quotes an example of a curse: 'Cursed be those who disturb the rest of a Pharaoh. They that shall break the seal of this tomb shall meet death by a disease that no doctor can diagnose.'" [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_pharaohs#Tomb_cur...

Good point, if those who will dig it out are anything like us, it will only instigate even more curiosity.

Most of the archeological sites we have are pretty much just ancient landfills.

Some sites are middens, but I wouldn't say most. Artifact scatters (discovered through survey) and residential sites (what we're typically looking for and may themselves contain middens) are probably the most common.

Imagine all the adult toys that would be dug up. Fertility cult or something.

theyd probably unironically think that there were anime fandom cults that worshiped small plastic toys

It's pretty easy for some people with the benefit of 8000 years of learning to look at something like this and call it a cult. That must be the default description archaeologists use to describe a society that left no clear records written in the archaeologist's native tongue or one that can easily help them understand the culture that lived during that time or that built those structures.

I originally read this article when it was posted to BBC news last week. I was not able to come to the same conclusion about this being some kind of cult. Cult to me has negative connotations. I would describe these people more charitably and probably more accurately as inhabitants who used local materials to construct buildings and structures intended to help them manage their local resources - food supplies, animals both wild and domesticated, protection from heat and cold, etc.

The mustatils themselves look like efficient pens for animals raised for consumption and the fact that there are so many scattered in such a large area, where we also see evidence of many people living together tells me that these mustatils were probably meat markets.

The existence of skulls of the goats, cattle, and gazelles just tells me what they had managed to capture, control, or domesticate. People have to eat.

Another thing really chaps my ass here as the author uses ridiculously irrelevant hyperbole to describe one of the mustatil in terms of the Eiffel Tower that make no sense to a deep thinker.

>Some of the mustatils weigh as much as 12,000 tonnes; more than the Eiffel Tower.

What? A mustatil is a collection of rocks. When you put enough rocks together you can end up with something that weighs a lot. Their dumbass statement makes it sound like building a structure out of individual rocks that collectively ended up weighing more than a large modern steel structure was a major accomplishment. I disagree. I think it was an ordinary response to the need to keep a good food supply close to their settlements.

I picture the people who lived here as industrious people who had all the skills needed to survive in the climate at the time and a good understanding not only of local materials, but of how to use those materials to their advantage. Later peoples in the area carved massive buildings into solid sandstone. Their predecessors were not ignorant cave men stumbling about. Instead, they were bright enough to be able to lay out plans for large structures and then to build them by doing exactly what we would do today. They would use their muscles and reach down and pick up rocks of many sizes and over a period of time they would be able to stack enough together to accomplish their goal.

I don't know whether they used animals to help drag the larger stones or rolled them along the ground on sleds or even how they did it. The fact is that they built it one rock at a time and in the end they had a well-organized collection of rocks that weighed about as much (if you believe an archeologist's estimate) as the Eiffel Tower which was itself constructed one piece of steel at a time and held together with bolts or rivets. Again, that is the way you build something that starts off small and ends up huge.

I hope they keep digging out there and that they catalog things and geo-reference everything as they go and that one day they can tell me what the last guy to live there had for supper based on the composition of the most recent coprolite found in the most recently dated septic pit.

I just don't think they need to start right off describing something as a cult and making it sound mysterious that people would slaughter their food animals near where the animals were penned and eat the carcass somewhere else. How many of you bring a goat head home from the grocery store?

> The mustatils themselves look like efficient pens

From the article: "initial theories suggested they were used as territorial markers for ancestral grazing grounds. Yet, as more and more were found, all dating to the same period, a different understanding emerged."

So the cult idea wasn't the archeologists' default description and their initial ideas were the same as yours. There aren't many hints in the article on why they revised that idea, but the following paragraph says this: "They've uncovered large numbers of cattle, goat and wild gazelle skulls and horns in small chambers in the heads of the mustatil, but found no indication that these were kept for domestic use. Since no other animal's body parts were found, it led the team to deduce that these were sacrificial. It further suggested that the animals were sacrificed elsewhere. This is important because it is evidence of a highly organised, cultic society, much earlier than was previously thought – predating Islam in the region by 6,000 years." Any theory will need to explain away the piling of animal skulls, and absence of the rest of the animal bodies, in the mutatils.

"Cult" should not be read negatively. It's probably a way to describe a proto-religion. Not as organised and consistent as modern religions, but enough similarities to indicate common worshipping practice. Certainly the most interesting part is the common culture across a large geographical area, which is quite sophisticated for the times.

Thanks for this reply. I wonder though if it was so unusual for there to be large communities of people living together this long ago and sharing a common culture.

I would think that there would be strength in numbers and that people would gravitate to those places where their daily needs were likely to be satisfied. If there were resource issues, such as food in particular, then we would expect to see more nomadic settlements like we see in north America from pre-Clovis sites. Those sites tended to be occupied seasonally with no permanent structures erected. The people who visited used natural shelters such as the caves or overhangs along creeks and rivers and evidence indicates they were used for thousands of years.

For these people to construct a city they would need not only to have reliable food sources to feed everyone living there but they would need fresh water and shelter.

It appears that they constructed dwellings for many people and this implies the availability of food and water. Food would obviously involve taking advantage of local wild and domesticated animals. To insure daily supplies were adequate these animals would need to be kept close enough to the settlements that it was convenient to get fresh food daily. That is why I think some of these are likely pens. They don't all have to be though. As the settlement size increases the supply of food on hand must also increase. It is likely that since they obviously had fresh water available back then they likely engaged in some form of agriculture, harvesting seeds or fruits of berries, etc locally.

Since some of these sites are large it is reasonable to assume that they share a culture and that each site knew of and traded with their neighbors sharing the burdens of managing food supplies and defense from predators and from common enemies.

Cult to me, being here in Texas, has negative connotations for obvious reasons. We have been host to more than one over the last few decades and a new one has moved in that could turn out to be worse than all the previous cults combined.

I would prefer that these ancient people who shared a culture and beliefs and who enjoyed living in close proximity to each other had a name that humanize them instead of one that could demonize them. The Al Ula people sounds better to me or the Khaybar society.

These links [0], [1] look to have a lot more information about the sites and may have been part of the source for the BBC article.

[0](https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/mus...)

[1](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/mu...)

I am assuming the article is contrasting the long periods of nomadic lifestyle that ruled over Arabia with the more stationary society suggested by the existence of those mustatils.

As for the heads of the cattle, I can easily imagine the mustatils to be some sort of combination farm-market where you would kill the cattle, burry the head, and give the rest to the consumer who would take it far away to their dwelling or on their journey if they happen to be nomadic; leading to random distribution of the rest of the carcass pieces.

> a name that humanize them instead of one that could demonize them.

"cult" has several meanings:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/cult

It's worth remembering that words aren't static over time and the negative connotations you attach to the word 'cult' wouldn't have existed for the early romans and greeks we get the word from. Early archaeologists and historians, being gigantic geeks for classical civilizations, basically copied the meaning during the renaissance / early modern period and that's where the modern term-of-art comes from. If it helps, you can understand it as "specific practices of worship by a group, especially if they're non-christian and non-western". There's some historical pejorative implications from colonial mindsets, but that's a different discussion.

I understand how words and meanings can change over generations and how some words fall out of favor. Here in Texas we have not had good luck with groups described as cults over the last few decades and if you grew up here in a fundamentalist Christian family watching TV preachers every Sunday and a large part of the week then you would not have a favorable opinion of them and would be likely to describe them as cults.

As an American, I understand that and even avoid using 'cult' in my own work because of the pejorative connotations. However, it's a term of art for certain disciplines and the intended meaning should be understood.

I understand the origin of the word but in common usage it has different connotations.

You are apparently familiar with archaeology since you have commented several times on this thread and it is possible from some posts to infer that you may be familiar with operations in this region. If that is accurate how do you interpret these rock structures?

I have included one that I found [0] out near Khaybar on Google Earth. I studied it for quite a while and decided that though it is probably multiple overlapping structures that may not be related, it could be interpreted as I have in my own analysis. What are your thoughts on this? I am wrong I know but this jumped out at me from this complex arrangement.

[0]https://imgur.com/a/JzWydAJ

I'm not really familiar with Arabian archaeology (never been my area), but my initial guess on only the image is that it looks like a hunting funnel/pen (often called 'kites'). I have absolutely no idea whether that's accurate and someone who's actually done groundwork there would have a better idea.

Also worth noting that kites are a separate phenomenon from the mustatil the article is about.

I am familiar with kites though it was more in the context of fish traps. I had seen some ancient examples in other places out on the west coast of the US and had read of their use by Native Americans in rivers and bays to catch fish sustainably.

While rafting out in the western US a few years back I built one on the river from memory using driftwood poles, rocks carefully positioned, etc to funnel fish into the shallow water. I didn't catch anything but, like fishing with any form of fishing pole, that really wasn't the point.

I'm not an archaeologist though I have followed discoveries for years and it all interests me. I love history. I do get annoyed when something new is discovered and the same narratives are applied to make it appear that the people were somehow less sophisticated than ourselves. They made do with the things at hand and had a better grasp of local resources and how to use them sustainably than we will. Or maybe they didn't and we keep repeating the same mistakes they made to the point where it is a genetic defect among humans by now.

Thanks for adding to the discussion.

Fishing traps are actually considered cultural and historical items in the region.

I am from Kuwait and this is the first time I read about desert kites. I am now interested to find out if they have history here.

If you are interested, fishing traps are called gargoor (قرقور)[0][1].

[0] https://www.kuwaittimes.com/gargoor-fishing-trap-past/

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324702737_Gargoor_t...

"It's pretty easy for some people with the benefit of 8000 years of learning to look at something like this and call it a cult."

8000 years of learning - charitable! We have learned many things and forgotten them and rediscovered all sort of things. I'm not sure how old our knowledge really is or if that actually means anything.

Cult: terminology.

Why on earth is Stonehenge mentioned at all? This is the stone age in the modern Arabian peninsula and bugger all to do with a bit of Wiltshire.

I love the BBC but it would be nice if they decided to give up nonsensical parochialism or at least drop it for things like this - it's almost as daft as describing a dinosaur as coming from say London ...

The modern London comes from ... Lundunwic is an early anglisc name (-wic: -wijk, -wick, -vic - probably others). Obvs: Lundumwic came from Londiumium (Roman). So where did Londinum come from? According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londinium - no one really knows. It is unlikely that Geoff off of Monmouth has a clue and frankly it is one of those things.

To effectively engage with our forebears we have to start with dropping dodgy nationalistic labels.

Says British bloke!

I think Stonehenge serves the same purpose as the Eiffel Tower here. It gives a reference that the reader may already be familiar with even though it makes little sense as a marker.

Looking back at the history of the British Isles is like looking across the Channel at northern Europe. A lot of those towns and cities date to Roman times or earlier, to the Gauls and have been renamed. I often wondered how the French language evolved to ignore so many consonants and wonder if they preserved the traditional spellings but chose to change pronunciation over time so it was simpler.

Pretty funny for a Texan who kinda-sorta speaks English, but with a noticeable accent.

English is nominally a Germanic language (German, English, Dutch etc) and French is a Romance language (French, Spanish, Italian etc).

Before the Romans rocked up, a Greek bloke called Pytheas sailed to the region and sailed around the mainland Britain and wrote up his travels and mentioned the Pretanike as the locals so that's an early description of the name that eventually became Britain/Britons.

You are a Texan and I'm sure that if you and I met we would understand each other perfectly well. My brother lived and worked in Plano for a couple of years and my niece was born there - she's a Texan!

English is what we make of it. It is just as much yours (US-TX) as mine (GB). I think the beauty of English is it shows a bit of thigh to everyone.

English is quite an odd language - it wants to be spoken by everyone and will quite happily take from other languages. I suspect that some languages may have evolved simply to be different ... to differentiate.

Anyway, it's probably time I visited a TL&C.

Just to reiterate: you speak English - the same one as me. I'm a Brit and you are a Yank but we both have exactly the same ownership of the language. It is very polite of you to say otherwise - and I think that is a Texan thing.

> "cult to me has negative connotations"

What about the Roman Catholic cult?

It's a big'un!

> Since no other animal's body parts were found, it led the team to deduce that these were sacrificial.

"Sacrificial".

I hate it when I read this sort if rubbish, sorry. It plays too the idea that I'm ancient times, when presumably things were harder, our ancestors indulged themselves in hocus pocus, being primitive, superstitious claptrap.

Wouldn't it just be more honest to say "we don't know what the structures are" than play to these woeful stereotypes?

How many times has this trope to be repeated?

Yes, some "ritual" sites might in fact have been dumbsters.

But otherwise it feels very much like atheist mindset projection. To my knowledge all the "primitive" cultures and tribes we know of, are (or were) deeply entrenched in magical and ritualistic thinking in everyday life. The earliest written proofs are about religious topics. It therefore makes sense, to assume a religious background of sites, that look different and serve no obvious purpose.

We have endless accounts of animal sacrifice across nearly every ancient culture from which we have either their own writing or the writing of other cultures who visited them. I doubt it began with the invention of writing.

There are far more interesting sites in Australia that could change our understanding of pre-history. Just look up the common art that is found in Narwala Gabarnmung, Australia and Gobekli Tepe, Turkey. That alone is enough to re-write what we think we know about agriculture ..

Anyone else think that the formula for BBC articles gets in the way of the information in a particularly mind-numbing way?

Are cults really ever "mysterious"?

Just a way to control people. The original politics.

Much easier to make up woo-woo and make people think they better go along with it.

The entire concept survives to this day via organized religion, well actually any kind of religion but abrahamic are the most obvious forms of tricking people they better go with the flow.

“Religion is to control people” is such a played out and lazy POV.

Religions are mostly a way for people to overcome the fear of death.

Religious books, practices and leaders are used to control people or justify laws using said fear as a lever.

And atheists are enlightened brave warriors who face death head on, right?

These are UFO landing strips.

For evidence of this I think the archaeologists should focus on finding the holes in the corners of the mustatils where they planted their tiki torches used to guide those UFO pilots home.

Maybe all the goat, cattle, and gazelle heads is just evidence that aliens are only interested in the rear portions of earth's animals. That would bolster my personal theory that earth is nothing more than a training ground for alien proctologists and gastroenterologists. Their first visit convinced them that there was nothing here but a bunch of assholes so they decided that in spite of that there was still something they could learn here.

I laughed thank you. Then it got me thinking. If it were the case, hypothetically, ... These would be terrible. It would mean they'd have wings, they'd need air for landing, otherwise it wouldn't be a strip, it'd be just a pad.

Unless, their vehicle is somehow oblong, which is a possibility. However, some of those sights are shown on mountain slopes, what a terrible place to land.

Unless, being that old, those mountains slopes weren't slopes back then.

Finally, why wouldn't there be any wreckage of any type of vehicle from back then? Shouldn't there be at least one ounce of evidence of a past crash?

Unless, their vehicles were made of goat skulls, bones and rocks?

... A $5 Amazon ebook that writes itself. All hail the Ori!

Preposterous.

These are clearly UFO launching strips.

Cult? What unfortunate word choice. We're talking about a period possibly 8000 years ago! The common understanding of "cult" is shaped by the Euro-centric, post-Christian New Religious Movements (the preferred academic nomenclature) of the 1960s. Not only did European culture not exist in the Neolithic, nor did Christian nor even the so-called Axial Age whence the roots of many of the world's major religions.

The common understanding of cult (which I would argue is probably "religion I don't like", but that doesn't matter) is not in use here. This is a technical usage in archaeology to refer to religious interaction with place and object... which is basically all prehistoric archaeology can see.

I wasn't aware of that. It was so drummed into me at university (Religious Studies) to avoid the word that I'm intrigued as to why another academic field would uses it seriously. Do you have any reading recommendations that might give an insight into its technical usage?

I went looking into it, but haven't found a good capsule reference. It's a pretty strong cultural practice (and an old one; references to Classical practices like "the cult of Dionysis" are well-worn) and isn't always specified.

This article "“Cult” in the Study of Religion and Archaeology" in ASMA (https://www.academia.edu/5061036/Cult_in_the_Study_of_Religi...) has a pretty good discussion.

Here's an article from a text book on "Archaeology of Cult and Religion": (https://www.academia.edu/13590600/2005._Archaeology_of_Cult_...)

You can see a working usage in "A Problem Oof Definition: “Cultic” and “Comestic” Contexts in Philistia" (https://www.academia.edu/1868319/A_Problem_of_Definition_Cul...)

I haven't read the books, but there's a couple books covered in this review from AJA on the topic: https://www.ajaonline.org/book-review/619

Modern archaeology makes some odd-seeming linguistic choices to try to avoid implying more than they actually know; part of that is avoiding "religion" in favor of "ritual" and "cultic practices", because "religion" implies a whole lot of stuff that artifacts just can't see.

The Latin word cultus had no negative connotation and described this activity. Anything classicist and classicist-adjacent continues to use the word "cult" because that's how it was used in Latin and in English. The negative connotation did not arise until much later, probably in the mid-20th century.

The "technical" usage is simply the normal usage of the word for anyone who mostly reads books published prior to the 1960s.

>It was so drummed into me at university (Religious Studies) to avoid the word that I'm intrigued as to why another academic field would uses it seriously.

Because there would be very little feedback from Religious Studies into other fields on what words are acceptable. There are disagreements on terminology within academia in the same sub-field (I saw this in even programming language research).

> This is a technical usage

No: the audience is BBC article readers so the meaning is defined by that audience. The BBC is not a technical journal of archaeology, and if they want to use a technical term then they need to explain it and avoid using it in the heading. “cu*t” is wildly incorrect for the audience here.

I understand if you think we're too fragile to hear the word "cult", but the way you chose to obscure it is... not an improvement.

This is the technical use of the word "cult": "a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object". As is "the cult of Diana" and not "the Branch Davidian or The Children of God cults."

It's a religion that was worshipped by a peoples who covered the area of modern day Poland. Cults are lead by a single, charismatic leader (sometimes a couple)... like Jesus, or Jim and Tammy Faye Baker or Jim Jones. There have been many Christian cults, but Christianity is not, itself a cult (any longer). Cults do not have large social influence, like this one obviously did. Calling this a cult is like calling the religion of the Maya or the pre-Christian Romans a cult.

As far as "a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object"... You just described Christianity. The worship of Jesus... while that might not be what the point was supposed to have been, you might want to send a memo out. There are a lot of folks who are idolatrous to that cross.

> As far as "a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object"... You just described Christianity.

Yes. Christianity is, in the scholarly sense of the word intended by the article, a cult or set of cults.

Here's a priest explaining the--his words--"cult of Mary:" https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-is-the-cult-of-mary .

And here's an example of the usage from another article about late-antique Judaism: "...the Sadducees stressed the importance of the priests in the Temple cult, while the Pharisees insisted on the participation of all Jews." https://www.livius.org/articles/people/sadducees/

Yes, Christianity is a cult but not really in the tabloid, cable news meaning that you are used to. “Cult” is not inherently negative or out of the mainstream. It simply means a system of religious worship. It has become more negative in recent decades in popular culture by being associated with some “unusual” religious groups.

I don't mean it as a slur, really but Christianity started as a cult, though it can no longer be construed as one for the most part - aside for certain sects (though I'm unsure about Catholocism and their fealty to the Pope above almost anything... it seems almost antithetical to pure New Testiment teaching, but I'm non religious and wasn't raised Catholic, so much of it is a mystery to me). This religious group they're describing in the article, however seems very out of bounds for the term "cult" and they seem to use the term in merely a pejorative sense.

As far as the legal definitions of cults go (under US law), well there it gets "squishy" and kind of comes down to a popularity contest, almost. "Are you of a certain age", "Are you of a certain size", "Have you a certain amount of influence", type of thing.

http://jur.byu.edu/?p=4386

Cults don't need a single leader. Hellenic cults were lead by the ritual with practitioners themselves leading the rites, not unlike masonic tradition or fraternity rituals today.

In what field is it technical? I have a degree in Religious Studies and we were taught it was strictly jargon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_(religious_practice)

just like 'cultic practice' is used in the article which is not related to the 'New Religious Movement' meaning.

> This article discusses the _original_ meaning of the word "cult", not the term in the sociology of religion, new religious movements called "cults", cults of personality, or popular cult followings.

Emphasis mine. As far as I was educated this is neither the commonly understood nor academically encouraged usage.

It's still used like that in historical or anthropological writing. Cult of the emperor, cult of this or that. You're just used to a different meaning that is also avoided in your particular field where the two meanings are more negatively collidey.

> In what field is it technical? I have a degree in Religious Studies and we were taught it was strictly jargon.

Those two terms are synonymous. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jargon#Noun

> I have a degree in Religious Studies and we were taught it was strictly jargon.

sounds like you were in a cult

Agreed. Was about to comment on the same. Seems like they wanted to imply that the religious practices were less evolved and complex than modern-day religions. But the word choice could be better.

I'm not good in English or Latin language, but as far as I know 'cult' is from Latin 'cultus' which among other things may have something to do with worshiping. Maybe in English it has negative connotations but for example in my native language it does not matter if you say 'cult of sun' or 'cult of Jesus'.

Yes, cult means a system of worship and is an appropriate term to use here. It is commonly used like this in historical and archeological discussions. In recent decades, the most common use in popular culture has been as a label for some very unusual or even violent religious groups. Based on some posts here, even some religious studies programs are avoiding using the work for fear of this popular view of the word.

Putting the cult in culture since 6000bce

Woudn't vestiges of every unexplained culture that predates Stonehenge seem mysterious and cult-like by now?

Lots of things predate Stonehenge. Come on BBC.

I agree that it's a bit silly and pop-sciencey, but it is a cultural reference point for their British target audience

> Around me were more than 30 dwellings and tombs, and that was just a tiny fraction of the remains here. I tried to imagine the landscape as it may have been thousands of years ago: green, lush and teeming with people as they moved noisily round, herding goats and calling out to each other.

When I read comments like that, I am reminded that changes in climate and terrain have always been going on. If we saw a green, lush environment turn to desert today, we would inevitably say it was global warming/climate change.

I wonder what they blamed it on..

as far as I know, the climate change we're experiencing is at a far swifter rate than historical shifts, unless there was some sort of cataclysm

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