Summary of : van BERG P.-L., 1996. Mégalithisme et organisation de l’espace: art, architecture et traditions religieuses. In : Monumentalisme funéraire et sépultures collectives, Actes du Colloque de Cergy-Pontoise (CNRS), 13-14 juin 1995 ( = Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française 93/3) : 353-365.

        Megalithism is more than just a kind of funerary architecture. It is a religious transcultural current that, from Brittany and Ireland to Portugal, gives its peculiar character to the Atlantic Middle and Late Neolithic. Architecture, burial rites, arts and ideology are radically different from those of the Balkano-Danubian Early Neolithic, as well as from those of the west-Mediterranean Cardial. Here, religious life appears to be founded on an ancestors'cult, while gods seem to be predominant in the Balkanic and central European traditions. This does not mean that the former ignored the gods and, the latter the ancestors, but that each cultural set put the emphasis on a different source of religious power.

        Since the end of the fourth millenium, we must also take into account new cultural and religious trends, originating from eastern Europe, and brought first by the Globular Amphorae and the Baden cultures. What happens when two or more of these components meet eachother ? Various cases can be observed and, their study sheds a new light on some poorly explained aspects of the European Neolithic. When dealing with the complexity of our own cultures, we use to acknowledge the conjugated influences of Athens, Rome and Jerusalem. During the Middle and Late Neolithic, the dense net of interregional relationships suggests that the genesis of many aspects of spiritual life could also be a multicultural one.[ back ]

Summary of : van BERG P.-L., CAUWE N. 1996. « Magdalithiques » et « Mégaléniens ». Essai sur les sources des structures spatiales du Néolithique européen. In : Monumentalisme funéraire et sépultures collectives, Actes du Colloque de Cergy-Pontoise (CNRS), 13-14 juin 1995 . ( = Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française 93/3) : 366-387.

        The quotes show that the metathesis of the title is not a slip. Indeed, many aspects of the megalithic current seem to be deeply rooted in the Upper Palaeolithic Magdalenian traditions: treatment of the corpses, spatial structures observed in art and architecture, as well as other features of everyday’s life. Inversely, the Balkano-Danubian Neolithic looks closer to the eastern European Epigravettian tradition.

        Fifty years ago, Leroi-Gourhan opposed the linear space of the hunter-gatherers to the circular one of the peasants. We think that this assertion, formulated in a diachronical perpective, can actually be considered as a mere ethnographical distinction. The geometrically ordered space of the semi-settled hunter-gatherers from the Russian plain can be opposed to the more homogeneous and topological space of the nomadic Magdalenians. Later, the geometrical and metrical space of the Balkano-Danubian Early Neolithic illustrates the same kind of contrast to the looser spatial structures of the megalith-builders.

        Thus, both kinds of spatial organization may coexist and do not depend either on a palaeolithic or on a neolithic way of life. As a detailed account of the whole question would require a book, we only stressed here some of the most salient features of these various cultural worlds. Even if such a synthesis may appear to be somewhat audacious, we believe that it remains globally true.[ back ]

Summary of : van BERG P.-L., VANDER LINDEN M., CAUWE N., 2000. Les Indo-Européens dans l’espace. Le cas de la Crète et du continent grec à l’âge du Bronze. In : VANSEVEREN S. (éd.), Modèles Linguistiques et Idéologies : "Indo-Européen" . Bruxelles : Université Libre de Bruxelles, le 29/09/1998. Bruxelles : Editions OUSIA, ‘Ebauches’ : 143-186.

        The Early Helladic II/III transition seems to provide the roots of the succeeding Middle Helladic period. Explanations alternatively stress continuity or discontinuity in the archaeological record, the choice of the emphasis being a matter of epistemological orientation. However, the question ultimately appears to be : were the people of the Middle Helladic period the first Indo-European speakers in the Greek peninsula ?
        Whatever the side of the debate, the arguments usually derive the whole set of changes from one element of comparison, external or internal to the Greek peninsula. Looking for punctual comparisons, these studies act within a restraining methodological framework. We would like to propose an alternative way.
        Anthropological, historical and philosophical research has demonstrated that the way human people structure their everyday space is a social production partly depending on culturally trained habits, related to structures of thought. Therefore, one can hypothesize that the different facets of the social space (e.g. territorial organisation, architecture, burials, ceramics…) tend to be roughly isomorphic and, reflect various aspects of cognition and related systems of ideas.
        From this point of view, the changes under consideration seem to be symptomatic of a complete reversal of the ideologies and point to the inception of a new perception of the world and the society.[ back ]

Summary of : van BERG P.-L., 2001. Hermes and Agni : a fire-god in Greece ? In : JONES-BLEY K., HULD M.E., DELLA VOLPE A., DEXTER M.R. (eds), Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference. Los Angeles May 26-28, 2000 . Washington D.C.  (= Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series, No 40 ) : 189-204.

        The existence of a fire-god is well attested in the Indo-European world (Vedic India, Iran, Rome, Celtic cultures). His absence in Greece, where he is only partially replaced by Hestia, is somewhat inexpected and has not been explained sofar. However, I try to show, through the comparison of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes and the rig-vedic Hymns to Agni, that a fire-god still existed in Greece at the end of the Geometric period.

        Numerous common traits as well as some theological and mythological aspects link Hermes and Agni. Both gods are connected with the first fire and the first sacrifice, and also with cows, poetry and prophetic vision. Both are hidden for a while, searched for, and become plainly gods after having accepted the role of messenger carrying the offerings to the Gods. The consequence are diverse in Greece and India. While Agni reaches more or less the top of the vedic pantheon, Hermes regresses and, leaves the poetic inspiration to Apollo and the domestic fire to Hestia. This can probably be explained by the growing importance of Apollo in the Greek political life during the seventh and the sixth centuries.

        The Hymn to Hermes contains three main episods. As soon as born, Hermes invents the lyra and steels the sacred cows of Apollo. During the same night, he invents the fire and the first sacrifice, then goes back to hid himself in his cradle. The second moment depicts the search of Apollo for his thief. The third one relates the negociation between Hermes and Apollo, at the end of which Apollo receives the lyra and leaves the cows to Hermes. Many aspects of the text are still enigmatic, despite the efforts of the exegets. Vedic data help to solve many of these difficulties.

        For instance, the lure of Hermes reversing the footprints of the cows makes more sense if one keeps in mind that, in the Rig Veda, the hidden footprint of the cow is a symbol for the poetry, the verse and the enigma, expressed in the somewhat obscure language of the gods. Agni reveals ‘the hidden footprint of the cow’ and , elsewhere, hides himself ‘like a thief with the cows’. In the same perspective, the quest of Apollo for the hidden Hermes appears as an initiatic story. First confronted to these footprints, then to the obscure allegations of the old man who has seen Hermes passing by, Apollo sees a large bird in the sky and, finally recognizes Hermes hidden in his cradle. Afterwards begins the contest between himself and Hermes in presence of Zeus. It is only after having understood that Hermes is a powerful god and that violence is useless that Apollo receives the lyra and gives the cows and the " kudos " (magic power of supremacy) to Hermes. More, if like in India, the cow is not only the victim of the sacrifice and a metaphor for the poetry and, but also the expression of material wealth and the salary of the poet, the whole of the Greek poem begins to make sense. If this explanation is accepted, we are in grade to better appreciate the coherence of the various aspects of Hermes activities, as well as his links with Hestia.
As far as I know, this particular connection between Greek and Indian data has not been seen before, as during the last thirty years, the specialists of Greek culture have studied the making of Greece in itself, mainly for ideological reasons, without paying to much attention to its Indo-European past.

        This new reading of the Hymn to Hermes , shows that at the time it was written, the author still knew that Hermes had been associated to fire and, that the old indo-european tradition of poets-seers was still alife in Greece. The Homeric Hymn seems to have been written by a poet trying to adapt an ancient tradition to the new conditions of religious life during the Late Geometric and Archaic periods. The lost of the fire-god in Greek culture is thus a late event, posterior to 650 BC (allusion to the temple of Apollo in Delphi) at the earliest.[ back ]

Summary of : van BERG P.-L., in press. Aryens et Sémites : quel avenir ? Archéologies, langues et visions du monde. Numen  : 11 p.

        Friedrich Max Mueller thought that the 'absurdity' of Aryan myths could be explained by a " disease of language ", that is a shift implying that metaphor was token for reality. Thus, cosmic and meteorologic phenomena came to be considered as human beings living human adventures. He found the etiology of this disease in language, and specially in the polysemy and ambiguity of vedic sanskrit which he opposed to the limpidity of Hebrew. While the difference between the two languages does exist, the explanation has long been acknowledged to be false.

        Actually, the opposition becomes understandable if we consider that Indo-Europeans and Semites belong to much wider cultural basins. Indeed, characteristics attributed by Max Mueller to the Aryans also belong to the Altaic cultures, while those assigned to the Semites are shared not only by Hebrews, but also by many other Semitic and by non-Semitic cultures of the Near East. Hence, we can define two large cultural basins north and south of the Black Sea and the Caucasus.

        In the northern one, Indo-European and Altaic cultures share many traits : organization of space and time, society and knowledge, unreliability of the visible world, conception of the human body, rejection of figuration, for instance. In the southern one, we find radically different conceptions shared by the indigenous Near Eastern cultures.

        Considering that linguistic communication and ways of thinking are only aspects of these two large cultural sets, elaborated separately since the Neolithic and adapted to different conditions of life, we may expect mythologies to reflect these differences and understand that the opposition of vedic Sanskrit and Hebrew is only a small facet of a global phenomenon. [ back ]