Prehistory of Religion 27/08/2007 12:54:00

Hunting Culture
• Ice Age: large mammals dependable source of food
• Hunting favors increased cranial capacity
• Leads to Gender Differentiation: dominant male group
• Violence of hunt threatens stability of community
o Killing becomes a SACRED act
 RITUAL: community controls killing
 SACRIFICE: communal killing ritual dissipates group
friction
 MYTH: explains origins, details of ritual (ETIOLOGY)
o AUTHORITY over sacred realm exercised by leaders,
 Attributed to GOD(s), ANCESTOR-HEROES
 Supernatural authority extends to social and natural
phenomena generally
AGRICULTURE: new technology introduces new elements (DEATH/REBIRTH
cycle)
• Sedentary societies establish CIVIC RITUALS
o Rituals that encompass the whole state

Basis for model

• ARCHAELOGY (objective criteria): artifacts; carbon dating, tree
rings, etc.
• ANTHROPOLOGY (subjective criteria): comparison of periods,
cultures,
• linguistics (combines subjective & objective criteria)

200,000 – 40,000 BP: Middle Paleolithic: Neanderthals

100-40,000: emergence of Modern Humans (Cro-Magnons)
40,000 – 13,000 BP Last Ice AGe
Cro-Magnon innovations
 • ever more sophisticated stone tools: new tool materials used (such
as bone)
• musical instruments (clay flutes)
• definite art; jewelry
• evidence of counting, calendar (tally sticks)
• use of ropes, fibers, needles, awls
• multi-part tools (such as the atlatl and the mano and the metate)
• more complex burials; evidence for more complex spiritual beliefs

13,000 BP beginning of current interglacial period (Mesolithic)

• 10,000 earliest evidence of bow and arrow
9,000 (in Near East) – 3,000 BCE (northwest Europe)
• emergence of agriculture
• land requirements go down

“Neolithic Revolution” (from around 9,000 BCE)

New technologies
• Genetic engineering (selective breeding)
o Crops: wheat, barley, oats; rice; maize, squash, potato (seed,
sowing, harvest; fallow)
o Animals: dogs, goats, sheep (tending, feeding; fertilizer)
• Time reckoning: arithmetic, record-keeping, projection into future
• Monumental building (ex: Stonehenge, calendar and sacred
complex)
Permanent settlements: villages and towns (dozens to hundreds of people)
• Diversified year-round economy
Effects of agriculture-dependence on societies
• Increased population: subsistence on ~10X less land / person cp.
With hunting culture
• Social roles
 o Diversified: farmer / defender / citizen
o Specialized: rulers, priests; craftsmen
o Gender: women’s roles in Neolithic economy
• Trade: surplus, storage, transport, protection
Diffusion
• Slow spread from “fertile crescent” (9,000 BCE) to Europe (5,000 in
Greece)
• Persistence: “barbarians” who attack Rome, etc
Parallel developments: china, Mesoamerica
Relationship between religion and society
• A general principle
o Changes in religious practice with changes in culture at large
Relationship to hunter culture
• SYNCRETISM: adaptation of pre-existing practice to new culture
contexts
• Ex: “Venus Figures”
Neolithic innovations
• Death-rebirth cycle: crops as metaphor for human life and vice
versa
• Monumental architecture (sacred calendar)
• Cities (civic ritual)
o Catal Huyuk in modern Turkey (~7,000 BCE)
 5-10,000 people, evidence of social differentiation
 religion: shrines, altars, paintings; Venus-figures
 blend of wild and domestic symbols (wild bull
horns)
 burial: vulture symbol; plaster heads (ANCESTOR
HEROES?)
o solar temple on island of Malta
 monumental temple-calendar; Venus-figures
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