Hybrid beings and representation of power in the Prehistoric period

A great change in humankind's cognitive and symbolic world with the start of the Upper Paleolithic period around 40 thousand B.C.E. Depicted works of art describing hybrid creatures have emerged during the Upper Paleolithic period in parallel with emergence of hunter cultures. Ancient forms of Shamanism, a popular belief system among hunter cultures, had an effect on emergence of these hybrid figures. Imitation of the strong and the intelligent within the animal kingdom and the humankind's thirst for merging developing its physical and intellectual capacity with this power are among the main dynamics behind emergence of hybrid figures. The humankind of the Upper Paleolithic period, which has seen the world with a sense of permeability among species and an animalistic sensitivity and vigor, had a cognitive world within which things and humans must have been at the same level and forming a unity. During breakage of this unity and a sense of "togetherness," the hunter tries to balance the fear and suspense caused by prohibition of violence against those that exist at the same level and spiritual unity with mythical thinking. Prohibition of violence gave way to a cognitive status that identifies with the prey. This new symbolic consciousness which has emerged during the Upper Paleolithic period has tried to find a balance between controlling the suspense and fear caused by violence directed against the strong and the wild and the strength of the victim. While there were human-animal hybrids at first, emergence of hybrids of multiple animals and humans during the Neolithic period is of vital importance, as this shows the level of cognitive development of the humankind. Because cultural permeability, continuity, and mobility were substantially prevalent in hunter-gathering societies this study focused on two regions especially where the hybrid symbols are intensively seen, the Upper Paleolithic Europe and Neolithic Near East.