A recent article in Archeology Today, Eternal Embrace, deals with a Neolithic burial (5-4,000 BC). There are many such burial sites from this period of time. What caused the archaeologists great surprise was the position of the couple (see image below). Multiple burials are common enough and burial sites often mark the locations of neolithic settlements. The fact that a male and female would be in such positions -- that they died in such positions, though...
The easy first thought is that these are what modern minds think of as lovers. There's a challenge with that, though. "Lovers", as modern minds think of such, is a relatively modern phenomenon. Forget what you've seen in TV and in the movies or what you've read in fiction, that's not how it worked throughout most of human time and certainly not in 4,500BC.
But what if these two 20 year olds were "in love" (another modern concept)? What if their eternal embrace was just that? What if these two children's brains had evolved the necessary structures to experience the emotion we now recognize as "love".
I spend lots of time thinking about love. I once won a poetry contest with an entry about love.
I have held women for one night,no longer,
never loved
and loved them forever.
Held them so tight,
so breathlessly tight,
for fear they would let me go.
Walked one million miles to touch the sun
all the while surrounded by shadows,
fearing to feel that fire on my face
And wept, Jonah in the belly of my own whale.
I spend lots of time thinking about love because it is not well defined or understood. I know I don't understand it or have a good definition of it.
I also know that it's extremely important in modern human history and culture.
One of the best definitions came from a college friend, Donna, whom I lost track of and who sought me out, as documented in For Donna. She told me years ago that "Love is what you've been through together." She said it's from Woody Allen. No idea if it is or not.
I also strongly believe in "No greater love has a person than this; that they should lay down their life for another", an admittedly rough translation of John 15:13. The concept of sacrifice is a strong one in me and goes beyond laying down one's life. It's really about how much you're willing to give up in order to protect another's well-being.
Somewhere between the two while also incorporating them is what's important. I've been with Susan (wife, partner, beloved, ...) for 29 years total, 23 years married. We've had rough times and great times. What have I learned? I wrote in MultiTasking, Anyone? that the secret to loving limitlessly is accepting that what you love most might not love you in return. I also tell people that love is a choice, a choice of what you'll make important in your life. I have chosen to make Susan important in my life. She's probably the highest thing in the "important" scale.
But it was a conscious decision that was influenced by lots of non-conscious activity (remind me to tell you how she knocked out a horse with a punch some day. I saw her do that and immediately said, "I want this woman. She will take no crap from me or anybody.")
Was it conscious or non-conscious activity that caused those two neolithic 20year olds to embrace in their last moments so that we could find them holding each other for all time? Who were they in their community that they were allowed to remain so?
What were they sharing that was that important?
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