Prehistory and the Neolithic – The Sacredness of the Living and the Cosmic Force

Introduction

Before the rise of great states and codified dogmas, Prehistoric and Neolithic societies experienced sexuality not as a space of transgression or guilt, but as the direct extension of cosmic forces and earthly fertility. This first chapter explores parietal traces, steatopygous Venuses, and ancestral agricultural rites, revealing a world where the human body served as the immediate vessel of the sacred.

Part 1: Prehistory — The Vital Force

1. The Dawn of Consciousness and the Mystery of the Living

At the origins of humanity, sexuality answered to no moral, sociological, or religious framework in the modern sense. It asserted itself as a primordial certainty: the pure manifestation of the vital force. In a harsh environment where tribe survival depended directly on the continuation of the species, the sexual act and procreation were indistinguishable from the sacred; they were its most direct expression.

The body was neither separated from the mind nor opposed to nature. It served as the channel through which the world’s energy found expression.

2. The Paleolithic Venus: Incarnation of Fertility

The earliest traces of human portable art, from the Venus of Willendorf to that of Hohle Fels, bear witness to this primary sacralization:

• A Symbolic Anatomy: Female forms are exaggerated (generous breasts, broad hips, rounded abdomen), while faces and limbs are barely sketched. This is not the representation of an individual, but the incipit of an archetype: the Primordial Matrix.

• The Phallus and the Vulva as Talismans: Cave engravings and carved artifacts depicting male and female genitalia hold no pornographic intent whatsoever. They are symbols of power, abundance, and regeneration, brandished to summon life and ward off death.

3. Primordial Eroticism: Union Without Guilt

In Paleolithic thought, sexual energy was inseparable from seasonal cycles, the hunt, and the rebirth of nature:

• Absence of Guilt: The notions of “sin,” “defilement,” or “moral taboo” linked to the body were entirely non-existent.

• Immanent Sacredness: The sacred was not relegated to a distant sky or governed by an abstract dogma; it resided directly within the flesh, within desire, and within the mystery of transmitting life.

Part 2: Neolithic — The Cosmic Body

1. The Agricultural Revolution and a New Relationship with the Living

Around 10,000 BCE, sedentary life reshaped the human psyche. Humans ceased merely foraging for survival; they learned to domesticate nature, cultivate it, and anticipate its cycles. This transition from gathering to agriculture fundamentally altered the perception of the body:

• The Earth-Woman Analogy: The soil became a matrix to be seeded. The earth that yielded crops was assimilated to the female body bearing life.

• The Cycle of Death and Rebirth: The buried seed sprouting in the dark directly mirrored the mystery of gestation. The human body was no longer just a force for immediate survival; it became the mirror of the cosmos and its seasons.

2. The Cult of the Great Goddess and Seasonal Eroticism

In the European and Near Eastern Neolithic (illustrated by major archaeological sites such as Çatalhöyük in Anatolia or the Vinča culture in the Balkans), the central divine figure was female:

• The Great Mother Goddess: She embodied sovereignty over soil fertility, livestock fecundity, and clan continuity.

• The Sacralization of Genitalia: The vulvar shape became an omnipresent architectural and ceramic motif. It was represented as the gateway in and out of life, the sacred threshold through which universal energy incarnated.

• Rites of Union and Renewal of the World: Sexual unions during equinoxes or solstices were not merely individual acts. They constituted an active participation in nature’s regeneration. Failing to celebrate the body risked bringing sterility upon the fields.

3. Eroticism as Harmony and Integration

Unlike later constructions that would pit the (elevated) spirit against (lowly) matter, the Neolithic era knew no such rupture:

• Immanent Sacredness: The divine did not dwell in an inaccessible beyond; it incarnated within the flesh, the sap of plants, blood, and bodily fluids.

• Absence of Moral Hierarchy in Desire: Desire was neither a temptation nor a trap of the flesh. It was the vector of harmonization between the microcosm (the individual) and the macrocosm (the universe).

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