Prehistoric religion
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Prehistoric religion is the
The cognitive capacity for religion likely first emerged in Homo sapiens sapiens, or
The Neolithic Revolution, which established agriculture as the dominant lifestyle, occurred around 12,000 BC and ushered in the Neolithic. Neolithic society grew hierarchical and inegalitarian compared to its Paleolithic forebears, and their religious practices likely changed to suit. Neolithic religion may have become more structural and centralised than in the Paleolithic, and possibly engaged in ancestor worship both of one's individual ancestors and of the ancestors of entire groups, tribes, and settlements. One famous feature of Neolithic religion were the stone circles of the British Isles, of which the best known today is Stonehenge. A particularly well-known area of late Neolithic through Chalcolithic religion is Proto-Indo-European mythology, the religion of the people who first spoke the Proto-Indo-European language, which has been partially reconstructed through shared religious elements between early Indo-European language speakers.
Background
Religion exists in all known human societies,[5] but the study of prehistoric religion was only popularised around the end of the nineteenth century. A founder effect in prehistoric archaeology, a field pioneered by nineteenth-century secular humanists who found religion a threat to their evolution-based field of study, may have impeded the early attribution of a religious motive to prehistoric humans.[6]
Prehistoric religion differs from the religious format known to most twenty-first century commentators, based around orthodox belief and scriptural study. Rather, prehistoric religion, like later hunter-gatherer religion, possibly drew from shamanism and ecstatic experience,[3][7] as well as animism, though analyses indicate animism may have emerged earlier.[8] Though the nature of prehistoric religion is so speculative, the evidence left in the archaeological record is strongly suggestive of a visionary framework where faith is practised through entering trances, personal experience with deities, and other hallmarks of shamanism—to the point of some authors suggesting, in the words of archaeologist of shamanism Neil Price, that these tendencies and techniques are in some way hard-wired into the human mind.[9]
Human evolution
The question of when religion emerged in the evolving psyche has sparked the curiosity of paleontologists for decades.
In early research, Australopithecus, the first hominins to emerge in the fossil record, were thought to have sophisticated hunting patterns. These hunting patterns were extrapolated from those of modern hunter-gatherers, and in turn anthropologists and archaeologists pattern-matched Australopithecus and peers to the complex ritual surrounding such hunts. These assumptions were later disproved, and evidence suggesting Australopithecus and peers were capable of using tools such as fire was deemed coincidental. For several decades, prehistoricist consensus has opposed the idea of an Australopithecus faith.[13] The first evidence of ritual emerges in the hominin genus Homo, which emerged between 2–3 million years ago and includes modern humans, their ancestors and closest relatives.[11][14]
The exact question of when ritual shaded into religious faith evades simple answer. The Lower and Middle Paleolithic periods, dominated by early Homo hominins, were an extraordinarily long period (from the emergence of Homo until 50,000 years before the present) of apparent cultural stability.
The lineage leading to
The study of Neanderthal ritual, as proxy and preface for religion, revolves around death and burial rites. The first undisputed burials, approximately 150,000 years ago, were performed by Neanderthals. The limits of the archaeological record stymie extrapolation from burial to funeral rites, though evidence of grave goods and unusual markings on bones suggest funerary practices. In addition to funerals, a growing evidence base suggests Neanderthals made use of bodily ornamentation through pigments, feathers, and even claws.[21] As such ornamentation is not preserved in the archaeological record, it is understood only by comparison to modern hunter-gatherers, where it often corresponds to rituals of spiritual significance.[22] Unlike H. s. sapiens over equivalent periods, Neanderthal society as preserved in the archaeological record is one of remarkable stability, with little change in tool design over hundreds of thousands of years;[21] Neanderthal cognition, as backfilled from genetic and skeletal evidence, is thought rigid and simplistic compared to that of contemporary, let alone modern, H. s. sapiens.[16] By extension, Neanderthal ritual is speculated to have been a teaching mechanism that resulted in an unchanging culture, by embedding a learning style where orthopraxy dominated in thought, life, and culture.[21] This is contrasted with prehistoric H. s. sapiens religious ritual, which is understood as an extension of art, culture, and intellectual curiosity.[16]
Archaeologists such as
In recent years, genetic and neurological research has expanded the study of the emergence of religion. In 2018, the cultural anthropologist
Lower and Middle Paleolithic: precursors to religion
The
Lower Paleolithic
Religion prior to the Upper Paleolithic is speculative,[13] and the Lower Paleolithic in particular has no clear evidence of religious practice.[27] Not even the loosest evidence for ritual exists prior to 500,000 years before the present, though archaeologist Gregory J. Wightman notes the limits of the archaeological record means their practice cannot be thoroughly ruled out.[31] The early hominins of the Lower Paleolithic—an era well before the emergence of H. s. sapiens—slowly gained, as they began to collaborate and work in groups, the ability to control and mediate their emotional responses. Their rudimentary sense of collaborative identity laid the groundwork for the later social aspects of religion.[32]
Australopithecus, the first hominins,
A number of skulls found in archaeological excavations of Lower Paleolithic sites across diverse regions have had significant proportions of the brain cases broken away. Writers such as Hayden speculate that this marks cannibalistic tendencies of religious significance; Hayden, deeming cannibalism "the most parsimonious explanation", compares the behaviour to hunter-gatherer tribes described in written records to whom brain-eating bore spiritual significance. By extension, he reads the skull's damage as evidence of Lower Paleolithic ritual practice.[37] For the opposite position, Wunn finds the cannibalism hypothesis bereft of factual backing; she interprets the patterns of skull damage as a matter of what skeletal parts are more or less preserved over the course of thousands or millions of years. Even within the cannibalism framework, she argues that the practice would be more comparable to brain-eating in chimpanzees than in hunter-gatherers.[13] In the 2010s, the study of Paleolithic cannibalism grew more complex due to new methods of archaeological interpretation, which led to the conclusion much Paleolithic cannibalism was for nutritional rather than ritual reasons.[38]
In the Upper Paleolithic, religion is associated with symbolism and sculpture. One Upper Paleolithic remnant that draws cultural attention are the
The tail end of the Lower Paleolithic saw a cognitive and cultural shift. The emergence of revolutionary technologies such as fire, coupled with the course of human evolution extending development to include a true childhood and improved bonding between mother and infant, perhaps broke new ground in cultural terms. It is in the last few hundred thousand years of the period that the archaeological record begins to demonstrate hominins as creatures that influence their environment as much as they are influenced by it. Later Lower Paleolithic hominins built wind shelters to protect themselves from the elements; they collected unusual natural objects; they began the use of pigments such as
Middle Paleolithic
The Middle Paleolithic was the era of coterminous Neanderthal and H. s. sapiens (
While the Neanderthals dominated Europe, Middle Paleolithic H. s. sapiens ruled Africa. Middle Paleolithic H. s. sapiens, like its Neanderthal contemporaries, bears little obvious trace of religious practice. The art, tools, and stylistic practice of the era's H. s. sapiens are not suggestive of the complexity necessary for spiritual belief and practice.
Neanderthals
Neanderthals were the earliest hominins
One matter discussed in the context of Neanderthal burial is
The archaeological record preserves Neanderthal associations with red pigments and quartz crystals. Hayden states "it is inconceivable to me that early hunting and gathering groups would have been painting images or decorating their bodies without some kind of symbolic or religious framework for such activities"; he draws comparison to the use of red ochre amongst those modern hunter-gatherers to whom it represents a sacred colour. He similarly connects quartz collection to religious use of crystals in later shamanic practice.[55] Not all writers are as convinced that this represents underlying spiritual experience. To Mark Nielsen, evidence of ritual practice amongst Neanderthals does not represent religion; he interprets their cultural remnants, such as the rare cave art they produced, as insufficiently sophisticated for such comprehension. Rather, Neanderthal orthopraxy is a cultural teaching mechanism that permitted their unusually stable culture, existing at the same technological level for hundreds of thousands of years during rapid H. s. sapiens change. To Nielsen, Neanderthal ritual is how they preserved an intractable culture via teachings passed down through generations.[21]
Ultimately, Neanderthal religion is speculative, and hard evidence for religious practice exists only amongst Upper Paleolithic H. s. sapiens.
In 2019 Gibraltarian palaeoanthropologists Stewart, Geraldine and Clive Finlayson and Spanish archaeologist Francisco Guzmán speculated that the golden eagle had iconic value to Neanderthals, as exemplified in some modern human societies because they reported that golden eagle bones had a conspicuously high rate of evidence of modification compared to the bones of other birds. They then proposed some "Cult of the Sun Bird" where the golden eagle was a symbol of power.[58][59]
Homo sapiens sapiens
H. s. sapiens emerged in Africa as early as 300,000 years ago.
Where behavioural modernity is conceptualised as originating in the Middle Paleolithic, some authors also push back the traditional framework of religion's origin to account for it. Wightman discusses Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa, inhabited 180,000 years ago by early H. s. sapiens and filled with unusual objects such as quartz crystals and inscribed stones. He argues these may have been ritual artifacts that served as foci for rites performed by these early humans.[62] Wightman is even more enraptured by the Botswanan Tsodilo—sacred to modern hunter-gatherers—which primarily houses Upper Paleolithic paintings and artifacts, but has objects stretching back far earlier. Middle Paleolithic spearheads have been found in Tsodilo's Rhino Cave, many of which were distinctly painted and some of which had apparently travelled long distances with nomadic hunter-gatherers. Rhino Cave presents unusual rock formations that modern hunter-gatherers understand as spiritually significant, and Wightman hypothesises this sense may have been shared by their earliest forebears.[63] He is also curious about the emergence of cave art towards the very end of the Middle Paleolithic, where drawings and traces of red ochre finally emerge 50,000 years ago; this art, the first remnants of true human creativity, would usher in the Upper Paleolithic and the birth of complex religion.[64]
Upper Paleolithic
The emergence of the Upper Paleolithic c. 40,000–50,000 years ago was a time of explosive development. The Upper Paleolithic saw the worldwide emergence of H. s. sapiens as the sole species of humanity, displacing their Neanderthal contemporaries across Eurasia and travelling to previously human-uninhabited territories such as Australia. The complexity of stone tools grew, and the production of complex art, sculpture, and decoration began. Long-distance trade networks emerged to connect communities that had complex house-like habitations and food storage networks.[65]
True religion made its clear emergence during this period of flourishing. Rossano, following in the footsteps of other authors, ascribes this to
Art
Upper Paleolithic humans produced complex paintings, sculptures, and other artforms, much of which held apparent ritual significance.[67] Religious interpretations of such objects, especially "portable art" such as figurines, varies. Some writers understand virtually all such art as spiritual,[67] while others read only a minority as such, preferring more mundane functions for the majority.[68]
The study of religious art in the Upper Paleolithic focuses in particular on
Not all religious cave art depicts shamanic experience. Cave art is also connected, by analogy with modern hunter-gatherers, to initiation rituals; a painting that depicts an animal to most members of a tribe may have a deeper symbolic meaning to those involved in smaller
Another art form of probable religious significance are the Venus figurines. These are hand-held statuettes of nude women found in Upper Paleolithic sites across Eurasia, speculated to hold significance to fertility rites.[74] Though separated by thousands of years and kilometres, Venus figurines across the Upper Paleolithic share consistent features. They focus on the midsections of their subjects; the faces are blank or abstract, and the hands and feet small. Despite the near-nonexistence of obesity amongst hunter-gatherers, many depict realistically rendered obese subjects. The figures are universally women, often nude, and frequently pregnant.[75][note 7]
Interpretations of Venus figurines range from self-portraits
Sculpture more broadly is a significant part of Upper Paleolithic art and often analysed for its spiritual implications. Upper Paleolithic sculpture is frequently seen through the lenses of
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Cave art around the Ennedi Plateau
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The Sorcerer of Grotte de Gabillou, an apparent animal-human hybrid
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Possible depiction of a spotted hyena, Grotte de Gabillou
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Horses of Chauvet Cave
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"Swimming Stags" of Lascaux
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Felid statuette in Isturitz and Oxocelhaya caves
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Stylised female figure pendant, Dolní Věstonice
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Key Marco Cat, Key Marco
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The Lion-man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, the first known animal-human hybrid figure
Burial
The Upper Paleolithic saw the advent of complex burials with lavish
One of the most elaborate Upper Paleolithic burials known is that of Sungir 1, a middle-aged man buried at the Russian Sungir site. In good physical health at the time of his death, Sungir 1 seems to have been killed by human weaponry, an incision on his remains matching that which would be produced by contemporary stone blades.[86] The body was doused in ochre, particularly around the head and neck, and adorned with ivory bead jewellery of around 3,000 beads. Twelve fox canine teeth surrounded his forehead, while twenty-five arm bands made of mammoth ivory were worn on his arms, and a single pendant made of stone laid on his chest.[87] Two children or young teenagers were additionally interred near him; their bodies were similarly decorated, with thousands of mammoth ivory beads, antlers, mammoth-shaped ivory carvings, and ochre-covered bones of other humans. The children had abnormal skeletons, with one having short bowed legs and the other an unusual facial structure.[85][87] Burials so elaborate clearly suggest some concept of an afterlife[85] and are similar to shaman burials in cultures described in written records.[88]
Burial is one of the major ways archaeologists understand past societies; in the words of Timothy Taylor, "there can be no clearer a priori demonstration of ritual in past societies than the archaeological uncovery of a formal human burial".[89] Upper Paleolithic burials do not appear to represent an ordinary cross-section of the population. Rather, their subjects are unusual and extravagant. Three-quarters of Upper Paleolithic burials were of men, a significant proportion young or disabled, and many buried in shared tombs. They are frequently posed in unusual positions and buried with rich grave goods. Taylor supposes many of these dead were human sacrifices, excluded from the ordinary means of body disposal (he presumes cannibalism) and warded by talismans.[90] Hayden rather speculates these were shamans or otherwise people whose religious prominence was in life, rather than death; he notes especially the frequency of physical disability, comparing it to the many shamans in recorded societies who were singled out for physical or psychological differences.[91][note 8]
Beliefs and practices
Upper Paleolithic religions were presumably
A popular myth about prehistoric religion is bear worship. Early scholars of prehistory, finding skeletons of the extinct cave bear around Paleolithic habitats, drew the conclusion humans of the era worshipped or otherwise venerated the bears. The concept was pioneered by excavations in the late 1910s in Switzerland, where apparent deposits of cave bear bones from which paleontologists could not draw obvious function were interpreted ritualistically. The idea was debunked as early as the 1970s as a simple artefact of sedimentary deposits changing over thousands of years.[25]
Another controversial hypothesis in Paleolithic faith is that it was oriented around goddess worship. Feminist analyses of prehistoricism interpret findings such as the Venus figurines as suggestive of fully realised goddesses. Marija Gimbutas argued that, as evinced by Eurasian Venus figurines, the predominant deity in Paleolithic and Neolithic religion throughout Europe was a goddess with later subservient male deities. She supposed this religion was wiped out by steppe invaders later in the Neolithic, prior to the beginning of the historical period.[99] The broad geographic range of Venuses has also seen their goddess interpretation in other regions; for instance, Bret Hinsch proposes a line of descent from Venuses to historical Chinese goddess worship.[100] The goddess hypothesis has been criticised for basis in a limited geographical range, and for not mapping onto similar observations seen in modern hunter-gatherers.[79]
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic was the transitional period between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic. In European archaeology, it traditionally refers to hunter-gatherers living after the end of the Pleistocene ice age.[101][note 9] Traditional archaeology takes a quotidian view of Mesolithic life, perceiving it as an era of cultural "impoverishment" without great cultural, artistic, or societal advances.[103] The lack of enthusiasm to study the Neolithic, and the lack of encouragement to do so by way of an absence of interesting archaeological findings, tied into one another; for instance, no Mesolithic cemeteries were unearthed until 1975.[101] Serious study of Mesolithic religion would not emerge until the 21st century, reinvigorating the field and reinterpreting prior assumptions of the Mesolithic as a bleak age.[103]
Much research on Mesolithic religion centres on Scandinavia, where evidence has emerged for a lifecycle based around rites of passage. From the finding of places that may have been dedicated birthing huts, it appears that Mesolithic people shared the assumption of some more modern hunter-gatherers that birth was a spiritually dangerous experience, and that heavily pregnant women needed to be secluded from society for the wellbeing of both parties. Nonetheless, the archaeological findings thought to have been birthing huts are disputed; it is possible their spiritual significance was broader, as a place where people who died young in general would be buried separate from the older dead. Later in life, Anders Fischer argues for the existence of a coming-of-age ritual amongst males—perhaps circumcision—connected to the use of flint blades.[104][105]
The bulk of modern understanding of Mesolithic religion comes from burial practices. Mesolithic Scandinavian burial rites are relatively well-reconstructed. The dead were buried with grave goods, notably including food; remnants of a fish stew have been unearthed from some graves. Burial practices themselves varied heavily. Bodies might be buried whole, or partially dismembered before burial; in some cases, animals were found in graves alongside humans, such as deer, pigs, and cats. Bodies were often covered in ochre. The context of Mesolithic burial is unclear; though some have argued these burials were reserved for prestigious individuals, others think just the opposite, noting that dedicated cemeteries in the era overrepresent the very young, the very old, and young women who may have died in childbirth. These dead are traditionally considered more liminal than the average person, and their burials separate from the community may have marked an intentional distancing.[106]
Neolithic
The Neolithic was the dawn of agriculture. Originating around 10,000 BC in the
As the spectrum of human experience shifted from hunter-gatherers to farmers, ritual and religion followed. The ritual calendar of Neolithic life revolved around the harvest; the people of the age worshipped grain-oriented deities, prayed and sacrificed for good harvests, and threw celebrations in the harvest season.[111] The Neolithic saw the emergence of a "spiritual aristocracy" of people whose societal role was as mages, missionaries, and monarchs. In the Neolithic, shamanism was increasingly understood as the domain of an elite, rather than the Paleolithic conceptualisation where a relatively broad spectrum of society may be able to practice.[112] The era broadly seems to have heralded the beginning of sharp social stratification, as understood from skeletal and archaeological remains.[113][114]
Art, sculpture, and monuments
Particularly in its heartland of the Near East, the Neolithic was an artistically and technologically rich era.[115] The rock art culturally associated with the Paleolithic did not disappear in the Neolithic, and in regions like south India it indeed flourished well into the era.[116] As well as continuing old forms, the Neolithic permitted the emergence of new kinds of art and design. As people moved from nomadic to sedentary lifestyles, they built houses that represented units united through physical structures, "subsum[ing] individuals into new corporate identities".[117] They also built megaliths, huge stone monuments with widely speculated theological and cultural implications.[118] Though a few hunter-gatherers, such as the Jōmon people of Japan, made pottery, pottery overall is another art form that emerged only in the Neolithic.[119]
Neolithic art with apparent ritual significance occurs throughout broad geographic ranges. The
One of the most famous forms of Neolithic art and architecture were the megalithic
Neolithic statues are another area of interest. The
Burial and funerary rites
Burial appears more widespread in the Neolithic than the Upper Paleolithic. In a wide area from the Levant through central Europe, Neolithic burials are frequently found in the houses their denizens lived in; in particular, women and children dominate amongst those buried inside the home.[134] For children in particular, this may have represented the continued inclusion of these children in the family unit and a reincarnation cycle where those children were reborn as living members of the family.[135] As in the Paleolithic, some Neolithic burials may represent sacrificial victims; a group burial in modern-day Henan, containing four skeletons, may have been the death of an important figure heralded by three sacrifices.[136]
Neolithic burials display social inequality. At the Campo de Hockey necropolis in Spain, grave goods are unevenly distributed, and those found are often high-status ornamental objects such as jewellery.[137] This is coterminous with the hypothesised Neolithic emergence of the "big men", societal figures who proclaimed themselves religious and earthly leaders of inegalitarian societies.[138] In the most radical interpretations of Neolithic society, agriculture itself was a practice enforced upon people such that these rulers could acquire power over a more legible sedentary society.[139] Across the Near East, burial inequality is marked in different ways by different societies. In the Lower Galilee, some dead were buried close to their houses, but others were buried in dedicated funerary monuments. Across the Levant, skeletons with the deceased's features modelled in plaster can be found; these dead are thought to have had different status in their societies compared to those buried without such preservation. In the Judaean Desert, decedents were found preserved in a "gelatinous material" and surrounded by blades, beads, and masks.[140]
Sex and gender play roles in Neolithic burial. The Henan burial with potential sacrificial victims was composed of three men and one woman, and was read as a male shaman and his followers.[136][141] Other Neolithic Chinese burials of people interpreted as shamans have been of girls and women, such as two girls found in elaborate tombs at a site in Shanxi—the only non-adults in that burial ground. Sarah Milledge Nelson wrote that burials of subjects of apparent religious importance were often clouded by a lack of clarity as to the subject's sex because of the difficulty of determining sex with certainty from skeletal remains; the focal decedent in "the richest of all Mesoamerican burials" was sexed male, but with low confidence, and could theoretically have been a woman.[141] Neolithic burials broadly suggest gender inequality, with women having fewer grave goods and poorer diets as determined from their skeletons.[142][note 10]
Lifestyle
Much of what is understood about Neolithic life comes from individual settlements with particularly preserved archaeological records, such as
From these preserved settlements, archaeologists try to extract religious practices in day-to-day Neolithic life. In 'Ain Ghazal, "mundane archaeological remains" coincide with striking findings such as caches of skulls, ceremonially buried statues, and hundreds of clay figurines. Many of these figurines seem to have been fertility and birth charms; birth during the Neolithic was "the most dangerous time of a woman's life", and spiritual protection against maternal death of the utmost importance. Other figurines seem to have been used as pseudo-sacrifices, ritually 'killed' and buried around human habitations.[144] Clay figurines broadly have been found in many Neolithic communities, and the individual communities that made them are extrapolated based on their features. Sites in North China, for instance, find a paucity of figurines of humans compared to those of animals, while their southern peers made more human figurines and particularly sexually explicit ones.[145] It is often unclear exactly what role such figurines held to the societies that made them; in addition to religious objects, they may have held more mundane functions such as toys, or even been both at once.[144][146]
The theological practices of people in early state societies with written records, somewhat later than the Neolithic, revolved around their daily lives. In particular, these societies focused on the growing and harvest of grains, and their religions followed; they worshipped gods of grains and had
Ritual and theology
People in the Neolithic possibly engaged in
Neolithic religions were probably heavily ritual-based. These rituals would have signalled membership of and investment in the communities of those who performed them; these communities had labour- and health-expensive initiation rituals (consider the
One idea associated with Neolithic religion in popular culture is that of goddess worship. Some - fancifully - have promoted an idealised image of Neolithic society as a matriarchal theocracy.[151] At Çatalhöyük, traditionally considered a centre of goddess worship on account of figurines found in the area, followers of
In the specific case of Çatalhöyük, the primary objects of worship do not seem to have been human deities but animal ones, and the figurines traditionally interpreted as "goddesses" were possibly anthropomorphic bears, leopards, and cattle.[153] This seems to be reflective of a broad Neolithic tendency towards animal worship; the nearby site of Göbekli Tepe also bears significant evidence for ritual and religious significance of animals.[154] The Xinglongwa and Hongshan cultures of northeastern China carved elaborate jade sculptures of pigs and dragons speculated to have some religious role;[155] China was one of the first major sites of animal domestication,[156] and domestic animals seem to have played wide-ranging roles in Neolithic Chinese ritual practice, in particular as sacrificial goods for high-ranking spiritual leaders.[157]
Compared to the Paleolithic, shamanism seems to have become more peripheral over the course of the Neolithic. In many regions, priests of increasingly centralised faiths probably took over isolated shamanic functions, although shamanism and domestic cults of personal deities clearly continued.[158] Meanwhile, in the highly stratified societies of the Neolithic, elite secret societies flourished amongst the powerful.[159] In these unequal worlds, the spiritually powerful were able to manipulate faith to convince the general population of their social and spiritual subordinacy.[160]
Chalcolithic
The Chalcolithic, or Copper Age,[note 11] was the transitional period between the Neolithic and Bronze Age. In the Copper Age, an early understanding of metallurgy permitted the formation of simple copper tools to supplement stone, but without the deliberate production of its improved alloy bronze.[161] In the Levant, the Copper Age is typified by social, agricultural, and artistic innovation. Horticulture of plants such as olives became a major complement to grain agriculture, while the animal products available to farmers diversified. Settlements expanded and came to inhabit broader geographical ranges, while the art and textiles of the area made great strides in both ornamental capacities and symbolic representation. This contrasts to their peers in Egypt and Mesopotamia, who remained somewhat more inhibited throughout the era.[162] Further west and especially north, the concept of the Copper Age grows controversial; the "British Chalcolithic" is particularly unclear, with both support and opposition for the idea that copper metallurgy heralded a particular era in British prehistory.[163]
Proto-Indo-Europeans
One of the major hypothesised cultures of the Copper Age were the
Proto-Indo-European religion is understood through the reconstruction of shared elements of ancient faith over the regions the Proto-Indo-Europeans influenced. For instance, shared portions of the
Bronze and Iron Ages
In the Bronze and Iron Ages, prehistory shades into protohistory. The earliest forms of true writing emerge in Bronze Age China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, and it is with writing that societies leave their prehistories.[173] Writing was adopted unevenly, across long chronological periods, and the degree to which the Bronze and Iron Ages constitute history, prehistory, or protohistory depends on the individual society.[174] Protohistoric societies have not developed writing, but have been described in written records of societies that have; though this provides more evidence for their cultures and practices than can be gleaned by archaeological records alone, it poses the problem that the only lens these societies are understood through is that of foreigners who may dislike, mischaracterise, or simply misunderstand the people they write about.[175]
In
The people of the Bronze Age Maghreb, living in liminal geographic regions, were heavily influenced by both European and Khoisan cultures. Maghrebinians appear to have venerated weaponry, with intricate depictions of daggers, halberds, and shields dominating their rock art, perhaps as the southernmost practice of a hypothetical pan-European weapon cult. They also produced art of game animals such as antelopes, horses, and camels.[178] Little is known about the religion of Punt, Egypt's major trading partner, but they seem to have had significant cultural exchange with Egypt in this aspect.[179] Other major cultures of Bronze Age Africa whose religious practices can be gathered include the nomadic pastoralists of the Central Sahara, who produced copious rock art,[180] and the Nubian C-Group culture, with wealthy burials and rock art of "highest artistic achievement" depicting apparent goddess figures.[181]
The protohistoric cultures of Central Asia are known through their descriptions by ancient Chinese writers, who thought them barbarians contrasting with "civilised" Chinese society;[182] further west, Russian scholarship more often treats these cultures as outright prehistoric.[183] Bronze and Iron Age cultures of Central Asia forged metal grave goods with both utilitarian and decorative forms. Though the spiritual significance of these artifacts is unknown, archaeologists Katheryn M. Linduff and Yan Sun argue they must have been deeply important to those societies that forged them to play such funerary roles.[184] Xinjiang was a major nexus of cross-cultural interaction in these eras, and is now known archaeologically for its "mummies",[note 13] particularly well-preserved corpses found in burials—perhaps the most famous being the Princess of Xiaohe. This young woman, buried in Xiaohe Cemetery around 1800 BC, was so well-preserved as to retain her long hair and eyelashes; she was found wrapped in a cloak and accompanied by wooden pegs. Other "mummies" of Xinjiang include artificial mummies, not corpses at all but creations of leather and wood, which may represent people who died far from their homes whose bodies were never found.[185]
In Southeast Asia, Bronze Age burials were of far greater complexity than those for their Neolithic predecessors. One burial site in Ban Non Wat, Thailand dating around 1000 BC was lavished with "princely" wealth, with ornate jewellery of bronze, marble, and seashells; in some cases, bracelets covered the whole arm from the shoulder to the wrist. Bodies were found covered in beads in ways implying those beads once served as sequins on masks and hats that rotted away with time. Finely made, intricately painted ceramic vessels were buried with the deceased, in some cases up to fifty in a single grave. In one case, an infant was buried with a particularly well-made vessel bearing a human face, which Charles Higham suggests may represent an ancestor deity.[186] Higham perceives strong evidence for ancestor worship in Bronze Age Southeast Asia, perhaps related to contemporary practice in China.[187] Later in the Iron Age, Southeast Asian societies become trading and cultural partners with the ancient civilisations of China and India. Cambodia and Thailand connected strong trading networks with both regions, becoming protohistoric as they merited discussion in the works of both written societies. Though the burial record for Iron Age Southeast Asia is poorer than in the Bronze Age, lavish burials still happened, and "compelling evidence" for religious practice remains.[187] Vietnamese merchants traded Ngoc Lu drums used for ritual purposes to regions as far-flung as Papua New Guinea.[188]
In Europe, Bronze Age religion is well-studied and has well-understood recurring characteristics. Traits of European Bronze Age religion include a dichotomy between the sun and the underworld, a belief in animals as significant mediators between the physical and spiritual realms, and a focus on "travel, transformation, and fertility" as cornerstones of religious practice.[189] Wet places were focal points for rites, with ritual objects found thrown into rivers, lakes, and bogs.[190] Joanna Bruck suggests these were treated as liminal spaces bridging the world of the living to that of the dead. She also discusses the uses of high places such as mountaintops for similar ritual purposes; geographic extremes broadly seem to have held spiritual significance to Bronze Age peoples.[191]
Recurring symbolic themes have been described in Bronze Age symbolism across Europe. One repeated symbolism Bruck discusses is sexual intercourse, either between two humans or between humans and animals. She also discusses many figurines of ships found deposited in rivers and bogs, and the use of ships as coffins for water burials. Bronze Age cultures also practiced cremation, and cremains have been found inside model wagons and chariots.[192] Evidence from Scotland suggests Bronze Age Britons may have practiced intentional mummification of corpses, previously thought restricted in that era to the ancient Egyptians.[193]
Iron Age European religion is known in part through literary sources, as the ancient Romans described the practices of the non-writing societies they encountered. From Roman description, it appears that the people of Roman Gaul and Roman Britain were polytheist and accepted the existence of an afterlife. A wide array of ancient authors describe the Druids, which they characterise as a class of philosophers, prophets, and mages. They discuss the importance of sacred sites to Iron Age European religion, in particular sacred groves. Some authors also claim the practice of human sacrifice.[194] Druids attract particular attention in the study of Iron Age religion; the exact degree to which they existed and what their practices were is disputed. Contrary to the pop-culture interpretation of Druids as a major impact on Iron Age religious life, some authors doubt either their provenance or their impact.[195] Though a specialised priestly class is evident, the Druids of Roman description may have been exaggerated and misunderstood by a society to which they were alien.[196]
Religion in the European Iron Age was not a single, homogeneous practice throughout the whole continent.
In modern culture
Reconstruction
Pagan positions on prehistoric religion proper are distinct from those written by mainstream authors. Scholar-practitioner
The degree to which reconstructionism focuses on European "ancestral" religions is a matter of some controversy. The pagan author
Wallis sees the study of reconstructionism from the opposite angle—instead of scholar-practitioners defending their religion from bad-faith outside attacks, he focuses on the phenomenon of outsiders fearing "going native", embedding themselves within a marginalised spiritual framework and receiving the ridicule of their academic peers. As a scholar-practitioner himself, Wallis dismisses this concern. Rather, his concern is a gap between scholars and practitioners limiting the understanding of prehistoric religion by placing the two at odds. He particularly concerns himself with archaeology at Stonehenge, today sacred to neo-Druids; he refers to modern practitioners' distress at Stonehenge excavations "digging the heart out of Druidic culture and belief", "stealing" a land from its ancient spiritual guardians. While Wallis does not concur with the anti-archaeological perspective of some Druids, he recognises their concerns—and the problems these concerns pose for the study of prehistoric religion. He particularly compares these concerns to those of indigenous spiritual practitioners, who are now more archaeologically respected than they were in the past, when digging up their sacred sites was an easily accepted sacrifice.[211]
In fiction
Prehistoric fiction emerged as a genre in the 19th century.[214] A subgenre of speculative fiction, Nicholas Ruddick compares the genre to science fiction proper, noting that—although the genre lacks the future orientation most readers think synonymous with science fiction—it is more closely related to the genre than anything else, sharing a fundamental orientation of projecting human experience into eras deep into the future or past. Ruddick notes their overlap particularly in the subset of prehistoric fiction involving time travel, where modern-day characters are exposed to prehistoric society or vice versa.[215] Where early writers interpreted prehistoric peoples as primitive "cavemen" who could barely speak, let alone comprehend complex abstract ideas such as religion,[216] later work permits this abstraction and delves into the depths of religion's origin.[217]
Some prehistoric fiction juxtaposes the religions of different hominins. In
Fiction addressing prehistoric religion does not need to be set in prehistory proper. Prehistoric artifacts, such as stone circles, are commonly used to add an ancient or occult sensibility to a fictional practice's rituals.
Analysis of prehistoric religion in fiction often restricts its study to the Paleolithic, neglecting later treatments of the phenomenon.[225] The chronological focus of prehistoric fiction varies by subgenre; for instance, children's fiction particularly often deals with the Neolithic, in particular Neolithic innovations such as stone circles.[223] Prehistoric fiction often treats religion as a reaction and monotheism specifically as an invention, a corruption of prior, "realer" prehistoric polytheist religion.[226][227] Some prehistoric fiction is written from actively skeptical positions, painting ancient shamans as frauds,[228] while others take a sympathetic position, even agreeing with the foundations of their reconstructed faith.[219]
See also
- Entheogenic drugs and the archaeological record
- Evolutionary origin of religions
- List of Stone Age art
- Paleopaganism
- Religions of the ancient Near East
- Timeline of religion
Notes
- ^ This article uses the scientifically accurate 'hominin' to refer to early stages in human evolution, not the common but inaccurate 'hominid'.[12]
- ^ The Lower/Middle/Upper division is not uncontroversial. A subset of paleontologists find these traditional divisions Eurocentric, and instead work on an "Early/Middle/Late" Paleolithic division.[29] The divisions are particularly contentious in East Asian paleontology, although support nonetheless exists for the use of the Lower/Middle/Upper division in the East Asian context.[30]
- ^ Predating even Australopithecus was Ardipithecus, which is conceptualised as a hominin by some authors, but whose place in the lineage is a matter of dispute.[33][34]
- ^ The precise timeframe of the Venus of Berekhat Ram is unclear. It was between 230,000 and 780,000 years ago,[40] as determined by the age of the layers of volcanic ash it was found embedded in.[41]
- ^ Inconsistencies occur with Homo naledi, an Australopithecus-like small-brained early member of Homo. Evidence suggests H. naledi may have buried their dead, a practice difficult to disambiguate from afterlife belief and religious significance; this has been read as indicative of the emergence of abstract and symbolic thought far earlier in human evolution than previously thought.[50] The H. naledi burials are controversial, and research aided by machine learning suggests they may have been coincidence.[51]
- ^ Regarding the specific matter of cave art depicting animals, study of cave painting sites in southwest France (a particularly rich location for Paleolithic religion) finds distinctive patterns of placement. Bison, aurochs, horses, and mammoths tended to be painted in clear and central locations within caves, while deer, ibex, and bears were in more peripheral and inaccessible locations. Felines were located exclusively in the hardest-to-reach places.[73]
- ^ Figurines that do not fit this description have rarely been labelled Venuses regardless, such as the Venus of Brassempouy.[76]
- ^ Several writers have suggested that what is now understood as psychosis corresponds to ancient shamanism. Joseph Polimeni, professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba, contextualises the modern concept of schizophrenia as synonymous with shamanism, and as providing benefit, not harm, to those who had it in prehistoric societies.[92] Some personal reports from people with psychotic experiences who have lived amongst hunter-gatherer societies where shamanism is still practiced suggest they found greater assistance and quality of life in those societies than elsewhere.[93]
- ^ Some writers claim evidence for Mesolithic agriculture or proto-agriculture, though this is outside the archaeological mainstream.[102]
- ^ It is unclear whether a paucity of grave goods in the female burial record represents a true lack of grave goods. Female grave goods may have been disproportionately made from materials rarely retained in the archaeological record, such as wood or textiles.[142]
- ^ The era is variably known as the Chalcolithic, Eneolithic, or Copper Age by geography, and sometimes by precise chronology. Eneolithic has been characterised as "unfortunate aesthetically" on account of its combination of Latin and Greek roots, while both it and Chalcolithic have been criticised for etymological ambiguity, on account of both aeneus and chalkos being ambiguous between copper and bronze.[161]
- ^ Though madhu is an Indo-Aryan term,[169] Hayden refers to it as Irish, perhaps by confusion with mead (which derives from the same root).[170][171]
- ^ These were not actual mummies in the intentional sense, but rather corpses naturally preserved by desiccation.[185]
- ^ Suggestions exist of a church presence in Britain as early as the second or third century AD.[202]
- ^ See Modern paganism and New Age.
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