I think the answer to your first paragraph is 'yes, of course they might well have been.' As soon as religious/spritual belief acquired (or required) priests/elders etc to 'interpret' what nature was doing (and hence all the various gods and the heirarchies they spawned) it seems to me that almost by their very nature these 'movements' would have become dogmatic and authoritarian. However, bear in mind that in the Neolithic/Bronze Ages people's primary loyalties/attachments would have been to their immediate locality and family groups (rather than to a tribe, let alone a nation or other wider sphere of identification) so perhaps there would have been less scope for the sort of mass indoctrination or subjugation one commonly associates with cults or dictatorial setups. The stuff Mike Parker Pearson has done in floating this idea of people gathering seasonally to build/participate in rituals at Stonehenge is suggestive of a 'persuasive' (for want of a better word) element in being able to galvanise such a relatively large proportion of the population but I guess we'll never be able to understand the extent to which it was all hippy-dippy peace 'n love as opposed to creepily coercive. For me that's what makes these sites so enigmatic, the fact that we simply do not know the how, why and what and so yes, we're able to project our own sympathies/fancies.
Good question; would love to know the answer.
 Reply | with quote | Posted by ironstone
1st August 2017ce
14:42 |
Places of worship (Evergreen Dazed, Aug 01, 2017, 13:37)- Re: Places of worship (tjj, Aug 01, 2017, 14:35)
- Re: Places of worship (ironstone, Aug 01, 2017, 14:42)
- Re: Places of worship (tiompan, Aug 01, 2017, 15:39)
- Re: Places of worship (moss, Aug 03, 2017, 10:44)
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Places of worship (Evergreen Dazed)