Episode 161 - Let's Call it a Ritual Object (LIVE!)

Thanks to everyone who came out to our virtual live show! This is the edited audio of that event. We talk about the role of ritual in daily life, how our big round human brains have evolved the ability to think about abstract meaning and ritual significance, and the theory underpinning all of this. We also take a trip to two incredible archaeological sites to think about how the people living there might have thought about the unknown and unseen in their lives. Whoa.

• Emile Durkheim: religion – the very idea, part 3: ritual, ancient and modern (The Guardian)

• Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice

• ‘Materiality, Belief, Ritual – Archaeology and Material Religion’. An Introduction (Material Religion)

• Materiality: An Introduction (UCL Anthropology)

• Materiality (Society for Cultural Anthropology)

• How Did Belief Evolve? (Sapiens)

• The evolution of modern human brain shape (Science Advances)

• A Shocking Find in a Neanderthal Cave in France (The Atlantic)

• Neanderthals Built Mysterious Stone Circles (National Geographic)

• Early Neanderthal constructions deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France (Nature)

• Athens in Pieces: What Really Happened at Eleusis? (New York Times)

• The Psychedelic Cult That Thrived For Nearly 2000 Years (Gizmodo)

• mysteries, Eleusinian (Oxford Classical Dictionary)

• Mystery Cults in the Greek and Roman World (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History)

• The Ritual Path of Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries (Rosicrucian Digest)

Image: Statue — The Abduction of Persephone by Gian Lorenzo Bernini c. 1621