FISHSKINLAB - ARCTIC INUKSUIT STONES

ARCTIC INUKSUIT STONES

During the 2024 World Neolithic Congress, held in Şanlıurfa, I presented the Arctic Inuksuit standing stones and Göbekli Tepe’s megalithic round enclosure as cross-cultural crossroads, bridging practical and spiritual life. Huge thanks to Laura Fernández for her invaluable help with the presentation’s graphic design.

From the Inuksuit standing stones in southwest Baffin Island, Canada, to Göbekli Tepe’s megalithic round enclosure in southeast Turkey, rock art spans continents and eras. Constructed through the Neolithic they represent a magic link between the sky and the earth between life and landscape.

Inuksuit, dating to 2400-1800 BCE, are the oldest objects placed by humans upon the Arctic landscape, becoming a symbol of the Inuit and their homeland. These stones, a medium for traditional knowledge, passed through generations served as navigation and hunting guides, marking safe passages, food storage, significant locations and warnings. They also held mystical significance, marking the way to places of earthly and spiritual power where souls resided, shamans were initiated and traditions were observed.

Megalithic round enclosure Göbekli Tepe showcase a ceremonial ritual space containing monumental structures with T-shaped central pillars, surrounded by smaller pillars decorated with animal reliefs. These structures suggest a shamanistic background, where rituals involving animals and humans took place connected to early Neolithic death rites and cult practices.

Arctic Indigenous societies have long held a connection to nature where human, animals and nature are treated as equal. Inuksuit served as practical markers, guiding Natives to rich hunting and fishing grounds acting as helpers in nature and reminders of ancestral relationships with the land.

At Göbekli Tepe, Neolithic architecture and animal carvings suggest dangerous animals feared by humans and associated with supernatural control of the T-shaped pillars wielding power over wildlife, a notion that contributed to early domestication and shifted the human approach from hunting toward farming.

While Inuksuit helped humans engage with the environment, Göbekli Tepe’s symbolic structures represent a shift towards human dominance over nature, a perspective that has paved the way for extraction and over-exploitation. Both regions suggest a potential tension between economic and tourism development and the preservation of local communities’ cultural heritage and natural landscapes.

https://worldneolithiccongress.org/assets/files/Detailed-Programme-by.pdf