{"id":368,"date":"2010-09-02T16:59:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T16:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/09\/return-of-a-shaman\/"},"modified":"2010-09-02T16:59:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-02T16:59:00","slug":"return-of-a-shaman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/09\/return-of-a-shaman.html","title":{"rendered":"Return of a Shaman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Here are links to four versions of the same story about an archeological dig at a 12,000 year old site in Israel: from TIME Magazine<\/a>, US News & World Report<\/a> (which appears to be republishing Science <\/i>Magazine<\/a>), the Christian Science Monitor<\/a>, and the BBC<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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The site is significant because it gives us a picture of the transitionary period from hunter-gatherers who followed wild herds to farmers who raised crops and tended domesticated herds in fixed locations \u2013 the beginnings of civilization.<\/div>\n
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The four sources essentially tell the same story and all four are almost certainly based on a paper to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/i>. The paper isn\u2019t on their website yet and would be behind a pay wall if it was.<\/div>\n
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What I find interesting is that three of the four stories mention the remains of a 45 year old woman with \u201cunusual physical characteristics\u201d who was buried with \u201ca strange assortment of individual animal bones.\u201d Two of the stories speculate that she was a shaman, based on what was found buried with her.<\/div>\n
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The BBC story gives the most details, saying the items buried with the woman \u201cincluded the pelvis of a leopard, the wingtip of an eagle, and the skull of a stone marten \u2013 all animals with distinctive fur or feathers\u201d and that \u201cThe woman herself had some unusual physical characteristics, probably congenital malformations which very likely led to a life-long limp.\u201d But the BBC simply reports the findings and doesn\u2019t mention the inference (no doubt from the archeologists working the site) that she was a shaman.<\/div>\n
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The Christian Science Monitor draws the conclusions the BBC didn\u2019t. \u201cThe carefully constructed burial pit, the apparent \u2018offerings,\u2019 the tortoise shells, and the physical characteristics of the woman herself point to the woman as having a unique status, likely as a shaman.\u201d<\/div>\n
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The US News\/Science <\/i>story simply calls her \u201can elderly woman who probably had been a shaman.\u201d And the TIME story makes no mention of her.<\/div>\n
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So what does this discrepancy mean from a journalism standpoint? Probably nothing more than the background and interests of the individual story writer. But it\u2019s a reminder that what we read and see and hear is only a small part of the whole story.<\/div>\n
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Shamans are walkers between the worlds. If this woman was a shaman, in life she journeyed to the Otherworld to bring back wisdom and knowledge for her people. Now she\u2019s traveling forward through time, bringing us knowledge from 12,000 years ago. May we learn from her \u2013 and then return her bones to their proper resting place.<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are links to four versions of the same story about an archeological dig at a 12,000 year old site in Israel: from TIME Magazine, US News & World Report (which appears to be republishing Science Magazine), the Christian Science Monitor, and the BBC. The site is significant because it gives us a picture of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nReturn of a Shaman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here are links to four versions of the same story about an archeological dig at a 12,000 year old site in Israel: from TIME Magazine, US News & World\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/09\/return-of-a-shaman.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Return of a Shaman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here are links to four versions of the same story about an archeological dig at a 12,000 year old site in Israel: from TIME Magazine, US News & World\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/09\/return-of-a-shaman.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-02T16:59:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/09\/return-of-a-shaman.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/09\/return-of-a-shaman.html\",\"name\":\"Return of a Shaman\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-09-02T16:59:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-09-02T16:59:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\"},\"description\":\"Here are links to four versions of the same story about an archeological dig at a 12,000 year old site in Israel: from TIME Magazine, US News & World\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/09\/return-of-a-shaman.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/09\/return-of-a-shaman.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/09\/return-of-a-shaman.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Return of a Shaman\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"description\":\"Musings of a Druid, Pagan, and Unitarian Universalist.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John Beckett\"},\"description\":\"I grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside my back door. 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