During the depths of the pandemic I spent two weeks playing with Google Earth, focusing on the landscapes where fossil or tool evidence of our most distant ancestors has been found.
I was excited to find that the landscapes were virtually all the same. They were located at a tributary in a serpentine river system draining from the headwaters and springs of volcanic mountains. Another favorite spot was at an elevated position overlooking the entire river system.
That made sense – there would be a settlement by the river and permanent lookouts above spotting game to hunt, or to warn of approaching predators. The sites had something else in common: They were located where at least two global bird migration flyways converge, producing a high population and wide diversity of birds.
The bounty of snaky rivers
Compared to a straight or meandering river, a serpentine river creates exponentially more acres of riverbank for insects, fish and amphibians. More shoreline equals more life. The U-shaped area inside a sharp bend in the river was also a perfect place to corral a herd of prey.
Snaky rivers create prime fish habitat in the undercut ledges at every outside bend and where two rivers converge. Serpentine rivers also form oxbows that break away from the main course to form semi-isolated wetlands used by fish and amphibians as a nursery. Finally, because rivers silt up and freeze, a year-round spring is typically found near settlements.
The evidence shows our distant ancestors hopped across Eurasia from one volcanic area to the next, always taking a particular interest in precious magmatic stones like obsidian, rock crystals and flint. Spear points and cutting tools made from obsidian and flint kept archaic humans near the top of the food chain, and protected them from predators.
The evidence
Between 5.6 million and 2.5 million years ago, the earliest human-like species made the oldest stone artifacts ever found by the serpentine Middle Awash River in the volcanic mountains of central Ethiopia, where two bird flyways overlap. Discoveries included three species of Australopithecus, two of Ardipithecus, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens estimated to be about 157,000 years old.
About 1.5 million years ago, Homo erectus used hand axes to butcher hippos and wild cows inside a U-shaped bend of the River Jordan at Ubeidiya, less than two miles south of the Sea of Galilee. Ubeidiya is located in the only active volcanic region of Israel, a country that ranks first in the world with 500 million migratory birds passing through each year.
While a sustainable population of Homo erectus remained in the Near East until about 200,000 years ago, others kept going to India, where 1.5-million-year-old tools were found at Attirampakkam, a prehistoric site in the Kortallayar River basin in Tamil Nadu. Located where two flyways converge in the only active volcanic region in India, the site was also occupied about 385,000 years ago by an unknown human species.
A recent study concluded that Homo erectus built boats to establish a viable population on the island of Java 1.8 million years ago. A 500,000-year-old freshwater shell with zig-zag markings was found along the Solo River on Java, making it the oldest engraving to date. In much later ancient human cultures, including the Celts and ancient Egyptians, the zig-zag symbol stood for water or river.
The highest concentration of Neanderthal remains were found in southwestern France in the only active volcanic region in the country. The only active volcanic regions in Germany and Spain also coincides with a cluster of Neanderthal sites.
The serpent & the bird
The image of hundreds of thousands of birds flocking over a landscape of snaky rivers recalls one of the most common iconic images found across cultures and down through the millennia – the bird and the serpent.
In nature religions, the world tree appears in creation stories as the axis or center of the world where birds perch in the highest branches and a serpent coils at the base, a common ancient symbol for rivers. Snakes remain a symbol of water across Asia and dragons are its apex manifestation — thunderstorms with bolts of lightning flashing from the dragon. (Modern movie makers prefer fire.)
Creation myths from Greece to India, China, and the Americas describe a divine bird mating with a serpent or dragon to produce people. After the Greek goddess Eurynome emerged naked from the primordial waves, the serpent Ophion made love to her and she became a bird who hatched a universal egg, from which came a myriad of creatures.
In Hindu legend, Kasyapa’s wife Vinata gave birth to the Garuda bird while his other wife Kadru gave birth to a thousand little snakes. The Vietnamese creation story describes the goddess An Co flying down from the sky, mating with a dragon prince, and producing a sack of eggs that hatched into humans. In ancient China, the Phoenix was the ancestor of all birds, and a pair of dragons were the ancestors of all other creatures. In Guatemala a Kekchi king killed his daughter after she became pregnant by a hummingbird, but her blood became dozens of small snakes that incubated in a bottle and became women.
What appear to be bizarre mythical stories of inter-species mating may be a symbolic map of the landscape that our ancestors believed was their place of origin. Where birds and serpentine rivers met was the center of their universe.
To the Americas
The closest known genetic relatives of Native Americans lived along the braided Selenge River at least 14,000 years ago where three flyways converge in the volcanic region of Ust-Kyakhta in southern Russia, on the northern border of Mongolia, according to a 2020 genetic study by the Max Planck Institute. The tradition of settling along serpentine and/or braided rivers would continue throughout the Americas.
Clay head pots crafted 1,000 years ago by Mississippian cultures depicted the heads of infants, juveniles, and adults, and have been found in burials of all ages and both sexes. The decorations on the head pots represent an upper world of birds, a middle world of humans, animals, and vegetation and a lower world of serpents, according to archaeologist Bretton T. Giles of Kansas State University, who authored a chapter in the book, New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery, published in 2021.
The bird and serpent symbols on the head pots were consistent with a map of the cosmos created by the Osage of Kansas, who made headdresses from swan skins and woodpecker beaks, and used a pipe covered in the feathers of different birds during peace ceremonies.
Virtually every original capital city in the United States was located on a snaky river and most still are, but the practice faded when some capitals were relocated in the last century.
Quetzalcoatl the feathered serpent
Between 1,000 and 800 years ago in central Mexico, where two global flyways converge in a volcanic region, the Toltec celebrated their feathered-serpent creator god Quetzalcoatl in the capital city of Tollán, known as “Place of the Reeds.”
At creation, Quetzalcoatl mixed its quetzal bird blood with its rattlesnake blood and applied it to the bones of pre-human ancestors to create human beings. The city of Tollán was known for its temples, pools, gardens, and civic spaces; its artisans were known for their beautiful works of obsidian.
After the Toltec decline, Aztec legend recounts a trek when a priest had a vision of an island in a lake with an eagle perched on a cactus, tearing apart and devouring a snake. The next day the travelers came upon a lake with an island in the middle where it was said the priest’s vision came true before their eyes. The lake became the city of Tenochtitlán, the cactus became the Aztec world tree, and the feathered serpent was worshipped as the creator. Today it’s Mexico City, where the bird and snake fly proudly on the nation’s flag.
In South America, two bird flyways converge in a relatively narrow corridor at high altitudes in volcanic regions of the Andes Mountains, including Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, and the city of Cusco, the oldest city in the Americas, founded in 1100. Obsidian artifacts are found at archaeological sites up and down the Pacific Coast.
Eco-history and religion
Following migratory birds through volcanic regions, our distant ancestors thrived in serpentine river systems where they found rock crystals and volcanic glass they made into spear-points and blades.
It’s impossible to know when the foundations of a cosmology of the universe were first laid, but it probably occurred long before Homo sapiens emerged more than 300,000 years ago.
It appears early humans inherited an eco-history filled with a wide variety and high population of birds, serpentine creeks and rivers, active volcanoes, mountain springs and precious stones, all progenitors of mythic themes that would weave their way through ancient myth and religious history. Ultimately the Book of Genesis followed the Judaeo-Christian model of demonizing iconic symbols of the nature religions and the serpent became a representation of evil in the western world. A list of birds once sacred in the nature religions were labeled “unclean” in the Book of Deuteronomy.
(Ben H. Gagnon is an award-winning journalist and author of Church of Birds: an eco-history of myth and religion, released April 1, 2023 by Moon Books and John Hunt Publishing. Order here or at other booksellers. More information can be found at this website, which links to a pair of YouTube videos written by the author and produced by JHP.)
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