A Note on Archaeology and the Supernatural

Archaeologists are constantly faced with questions concerning the nature of evidence, and what material remains allow for specific assumptions. Recently, while reading a 2001 paper by Peltenburg et al, I came upon such a situation. The paper deals with the dispersal of the Neolithic to Cyprus, including the site of Mylothkia, which has a pair of early water wells. Overall, there is little issue with the paper, but one section, discussing some of the earliest neolithic wells in the world reads:

..At Mylothkia it is apparent that the well-diggers had to locate their shafts with great precision above small, underground streams. It is hardly conceivable that the exact location of such streams, perhaps only a few centimeters across and flowing some 8 m. below the ground surface, would have been betrayed by surface signs such as vegetative indicators. Since it would seem highly unlikely that Neolithic people at Mylouthkia randomly dug shafts to such great depths on the offchance of encountering a small subterranean stream, then the suggestion that some sort of water-divining or dowsing, was conducted as preliminary to well-digging here during the Cypro-PPNB must seriously be considered.

The assumption here, is that since the wells were a success in finding water, they could be evidence for an early use of dowsing. There is a major problem with assumption though, dowsing does not work.

The question of what evidence we should look for in order to find early dowsing has a number of answers, including, objects associated with dowsing in other, better understood contexts (ie forked sticks or metal rods), written records or iconography of dowsing, or ethnoarchaeological comparison, though this can may be a relatively week form of evidence in some cases.

I bring this up, not to pick apart a paper, but to offer an example with broader application. As archaeologists, it isn’t possible to look at material evidence and say that it is the result of super natural behaviors, and extrapolate belief in or use of associated rituals and behaviors. By definition, any such supernatural behavior is outside of the scientific realm of explanation. A complementary example, might be the traditional use of divination, a term representative of a variety of practices found in many ancient civilizations. In Mesopotamia and the Levant, we find evidence of such practices dirrectly in written materials, and in China we also find a large number of ritual bones and turtle shells associated with similar practices. None of these are seen as signs of success.

Now, I know that I am going to get at least a couple replies saying that dowsing works etc etc, so let me head them off at the pass. There is the possibility that dowsers may pick up on surface signs, such as vegetation or animals, and use this for some minimal level of success. However, scientific studies have shown no success greater than chance in controlled environments or any evidence of the ability of individuals to pick up energies or vibrations.

Certainly such animal or plant signs may have been present on Cyprus, or it could very well have been dumb luck accompanying necessity. The wells are between .9 and 1.2 m. in diameter, and intersect “pipe-like channels” in calcareous sediment that run between 20 and 40 cm in diameter. Perhaps most telling of all, the wells actually widen at the bottom, which makes me, at least, think of searching for water at the end.

In the end, it is completely possible that the ancient Cypriots utilized some form of divining in locating their wells, but at present, there remains insufficient evidence.

Peltenburg, E. et al “Neolithic Dispersals from the Levantine Corridor: a Mediterranean Perspective” in Levant 33 (2001), 35-64.