News
College of LAS News
Special Series
Marketing and Media
Faculty Honors and RSS Feed
Anthropology
Gods on Gourds
Depiction changes anthropologists' understanding of the past.
Anthropologists around the world are excited by the discovery of a 4,000 year-old gourd segment depicting the image of the staff god, the main deity worshipped in South America before the Europeans arrived. This small piece of gourd is important because it means that organized religion existed 1,000 years earlier than scientists originally thought.
Helaine Silverman, associate professor of anthropology, also thinks the discovery is significant because since all other representations of the staff god have been found on temple walls, the appearance of one on a common gourd suggests that religion existed in a personalized form.
October 2003
More LAS News Articles
- Cannibalistic Creatures Shed Light on Decision-Making Process
- Political Scientist Warns that Revolution Is Fragile in a Season of Change
- Psychology Professor Takes Startling Demo to the Ellen Show and National Geographic
- Poets and Authors Read Short Excerpts from Their Latest Works in New Podcasts from U of I
- Top Mathematician Honored as She Reaches an Important Number