prehistoric religion

Religious practices and beliefs of prehistoric peoples, as inferred from archaeological findings.

The oldest burials that attest to a belief in life after death date from 50,000–30,000 BC. Corpses were buried with goods such as stone tools and parts of animals, suggesting an attempt to placate the dead or equip them for the next world. The Middle Paleolithic Period provides the first evidence of animal sacrifices, which may have been offerings to the dead, to a higher power, or to the fertility of the animal species. Prehistoric human sacrifices have also been found, usually of women and children. From the Bronze Age on, weapons and jewelry were often thrown into springs, wells, and other bodies of water as sacrifices (probably of war booty). Animals such as bears were important in prehistoric religion from the Upper Paleolithic Period on, probably seen as guardian spirits and associated with magical powers. Fertility rites were also practiced, as evidenced by small, corpulent female figures, known as Venus statuettes, with highly emphasized breasts and buttocks.

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Introduction

 the beliefs and practices of Stone Age peoples.

General characteristics

burial customs and cults of the dead

      The oldest known burials can be attributed to the Middle Paleolithic Period. The corpses (death rite), accompanied by stone tools and parts of animals, were laid in holes in the ground and sometimes the corpses were especially protected. In some cases, the findings give the impression that the dead were to be “held onto.” Whether or not that meant that the dead were to be cared for lovingly or that their return was to be feared, it implies, in any case, a belief in life after death in some form. But it is not necessary to infer a belief in separate souls; rather, it could also indicate the concept of a “living corpse.”

      From the Upper Paleolithic Period on, the burials manifest richer grave goods; however, it is not possible to conclude from this that religious concepts had changed. The same holds for the adoption of other burial practices, as, for example, secondary burials, in which the bodies were first allowed to decompose fully and then the bones were buried, or in the burning of bodies (evident from the Neolithic Period). From these facts it is not possible to infer the existence of a definite belief in souls (soul); it is also not possible to determine the advent of such concepts from archaeological evidence. Even the increase in the discoveries of grave goods, occasionally also including other human remains, is evidence not for a change of religious concepts but for increased needs of the dead in the beyond—i.e., needs after death that are dependent on economic and social status in life. Analogies to recent (primitive) phenomena demonstrate that it is not possible to connect particular burial customs with particular notions of the beyond, or to any other religious conceptions. Other than the burial of the whole body, the disposition of the individual parts of the body, and especially the skull, is important. Ritual deposition of skulls is confirmed for the Middle Paleolithic Period. From even earlier periods, however, individual or multiple human skulls and long bones have been found within a single site (for example, associated with Peking man). It is not necessary to interpret these findings as remains of headhunting or developed skull cults; for even today some simple hunting and gathering societies (hunting and gathering culture) have the custom of preserving such parts of corpses for long periods of time and even of carrying them around on their bodies. The same practice is observed also to have occurred in the Upper Paleolithic and even later periods; but it is not possible to infer an elaborated ancestor cult directly from such prolonged connections of the living with the dead.

      The situation is different with findings from permanent settlements of agrarian people, in contrast to constantly shifting hunter-collectors. Evidences for ancestor cult practices dating to the 7th century BC were first discovered at Jericho in Palestine, where several skulls were found to have been deposited in a separate room, some of them covered with a plastic modelling of faces similar to that found on the ancestral skulls preserved by present-day agrarian peoples of South Asia and Oceania. An elaborated skull cult is usually connected with the veneration of ancestors. An important theme of ancestral cults is the belief in a connection between the dead and the fertility of the land of their descendants.

      An especially noteworthy kind of burial is that of the megalithic (megalith) (huge stone) graves that appear in various areas from the Neolithic Period on. It is probable that in this practice there was also a vital believed link between the living and the dead, and that occasionally sacred areas and gathering places were connected with such graves. The practices of the megalith builders were probably rooted, to a considerable extent, in ideas about the dead and in ancestor cults to which their stones gave a particular durability and a monumental form. It is more difficult to explain the individual erect stones (menhirs (menhir)), which, of course, could be the symbol or seat of ancestors, especially where they show indications of being sculpted in human form. It surely would be a mistake, however, to look for a uniform interpretation of all megalithic monuments or even to speak of a distinct megalithic religion. The megalithic monuments are rather to be understood as a complex of grandiose manifestations of ideas that could well have been diverse, but among which the cult of the dead, nevertheless, played an important role.

cannibalism

      In finds belonging to the Paleolithic Period, pieces of human bodies as well as the bones of other animals are found scattered throughout the archaeological layers and are sometimes broken or charred. This is often taken as evidence for cannibalism, but other interpretations are just as likely (e.g., the action of carrion-eating animals [such as hyenas] turning up the bones to the surface and thus causing their burning by later fires at the same place). To be sure, the finds allow the interpretation of cannibalism; however, they do not necessarily or intrinsically require it but rather permit that explanation if one proceeds from the prior conviction that cannibalism already existed at that time. This obsolete conception, still held by some scholars today—i.e., that cannibalism is an especially “primitive” phenomenon and therefore very ancient—must be abandoned. Ethnological studies show clearly that cannibalism appears almost exclusively in the practices of agrarian peoples, that is, in a later cultural stage, and evidently is essentially bound up with religious or magical conceptions in which cultivated plants play a large role. Even if a Paleolithic cannibalism existed on a large scale, it could not be explained by means of concepts that originated in a cultural stage so differently structured.

      The situation in later periods, especially in the Neolithic, is different. Here, rather than isolated parts of human skeletons scattered about a settlement, human remains occasionally are found in association with remains of foodstuffs in waste pits or in holes and tunnels that served as sacrificial (sacrifice) sites. Especially where human skulls have been broken open and the hollow bones split, the interpretation of cannibalism is unavoidable. Since this inferred practice occurred in the realm of agrarian cultures, it is more feasible to make comparisons with present-day cannibalism, where the meaning is generally the acquisition of the powers and other qualities of the victim.

Sacrifices

      Sacrifices (i.e., the presentation of offerings to higher beings or to the dead) appear as early as the Middle Paleolithic Period. Pits with some animal bones have been found in the vicinity of burial sites; thus, it is a likely possibility that they represent offerings to the dead. There is a dispute over the interpretation of the arrangement of the skulls and long bones of bears, since they are deposited in such a manner that it is hardly possible to discern a profane explanation. It is assumed that they had a cultic or magical significance. Most likely, certain parts of the prey, such as the head and the meaty shanks, or at least the bones with brain and marrow, were sacrificed. Even if it cannot be definitely stated who the recipient of these sacrifices was, analogies with present-day “primitive” phenomena make it likely that a part of the prey was offered to a higher being who was believed to dispense nourishment. It could also, however, have been a matter of preserving parts of animals in order to resurrect the entire animal and preserve the species. Furthermore, finds of bones and drawings show that the preservation of skulls with still attached vertebrae, ribs, and front legs of oxen (ox) and reindeer played a certain religious or magical role. The sinking of whole reindeer into lakes is hard to explain other than as a sacrifice. This might be traced to the idea that what occupies the centre of attention is not the individual hunted animal but the whole herd; no longer only a part of an animal but a whole animal as part of a herd is sacrificed. The custom also existed in recent times among hunters and herders of central and north Asia. As such finds become more numerous, it seems evident that certain specific animals and parts of their bodies are selected for sacrifice.

      It is difficult to differentiate between animal sacrifices and the immediate cultic veneration of an animal at the burial sites of animals. In the Neolithic Period, the sites become especially profuse and are usually found in connection with human burials; nevertheless, there are such burial sites of animals that are not related in this manner and that occur with pronounced frequency, characteristically in particular groups of cultures. In these cases, domestic animals almost exclusively are involved, and among them the dog and the ox predominate.

      The question of human sacrifice is of special significance here. Human sacrifices often were related to cannibalism and to the sacrifice of animals. With conspicuous frequency victims discerned in ceremonial remains are females and children, sometimes along with young pigs. This practice is similar to fertility and agricultural rites that are known to have been practiced in the early Mediterranean civilizations. It is also similar to beliefs and practices observed among present-day “primitive” agrarian peoples (in which pigs are often substituted for humans), such as in ceremonies of secret societies, initiation rites, sacrifices, celebrations of feasts of the dead, and notions about fertility, especially in connection with the growing and ripening of cultivated plants.

      In comparison, the inclusion of servants or women in the burial sites of highly placed persons can hardly be called sacrifice in a strict sense—that is, an offering to a higher power or deity. Such inclusions most likely reflect the social status of the deceased leader and his need for servants in the afterlife, rather than an offering. It is a sacrifice in the wider sense of respect and awe for the person and status—and all that this conveyed—of the deceased leader. This practice becomes more important only where correspondingly differentiated social conditions are found (such as in the royal graves at Ur in Mesopotamia and in those of the Shang dynasty in China). Sometimes it took on almost unbelievable forms, especially in terms of the numbers of persons and animals interred with the deceased leader.

      The ritual preservation of objects (ceremonial object) also must be included in the realm of sacrifice (in a wider sense). This can be demonstrated for the first time in the Neolithic Period (for instance, the ritual depositing of axes); in later periods, it plays a large role. In finds from the Bronze Age on, weapons and jewelry frequently are found in wells and springs. In Iron Age finds, such objects are found in almost unbelievable quantities in a number of swamps and other bodies of water. It seems probable that they represent the sacrifice of war booty.

Hunting rites and animal cults

      In the oldest known examples of graphic art, the representations of animals play a large part; humans appear rarely and then frequently with animal attributes or as mixed human–animal figures. In the context of the whole situation, the view that these representations were merely ornamentations or served a purely artistic need may be dismissed; they are found without boundaries and background on rock walls and are not part of an interrelated scene. It is evident that animals played a predominant role in the mental world of the Upper Paleolithic Period insofar as this role is reflected in the art of the period. What is represented is, first of all, that which is essential to the animal (nature worship), partly in its relation to the hunt, but also in relation to anthropomorphic figures showing the intermixing of human and animal forms. This indicates a special and intimate relationship between humans and animals that transcends and overcomes the boundaries between different realms of being that modern concepts and understanding require.

      This phenomenon is similar to what is still known today as animalism (or nagualism or theriocentrism). It is characterized by close magical and religious ties of humans with animals, especially with wild animals. It is also characterized in terms of otherworldly and superworldly realms and practices, such as placating and begging for forgiveness of the game killed, performing oracles with animal bones, and performing mimic animal dances and fertility rites for animals. Animals were thought to be manlike, to have souls, or to be equipped with magical powers. Animalism thus expresses itself in various conceptions of how animals are regarded as guardian spirits and “alter egos,” of the facile and frequent interchangeability between human and animal forms, and also of a theriomorphically (animal-formed) envisioned higher being—one who changes between human and animal forms and unifies them. Higher, often theriomorphic, beings are gods who rule over the animals, the hunters, and the hunting territory, or spirits in the bushland and with the animals. It is obviously not possible to identify special occurrences or forms of such higher beings during the Paleolithic Period, but their general features may be safely assumed.

      Animalism is, to a large extent, a basis for totemism, which involves various permanent relationships of individuals or groups to certain animals or other natural objects; hence animalism is occasionally called “protototemism.” Individual and cultic totemism, as opposed to group totemism of an almost solely social function, are particularly close to animalism, whereas religious and cultic meanings in group or clan totemism are usually poorly developed. It is not possible to determine to what extent animalism had already assumed the character of true totemism in the Paleolithic Period; the early existence of clan totemism is improbable because it occurs primarily among peoples who are to some extent agrarian, and possibly a certain kind of sedentary life was prerequisite to its development.

      Also, special sacrificial traditions were closely connected to game, particularly the custom of preserving the animal skeleton or a part of a skeleton in order to placate the ruler of the animals (see above) and to provide for continuation of the species.

      A certain kind of bear ceremonialism is rooted in this conception and is to be recognized in several finds and pictures from the Upper Paleolithic Period on. A skin with attached head was evidently draped over the body of a bear made out of clay; the skull and long bones of the bear were buried separately (a practice begun in the Middle Paleolithic Period); the bear was shot with arrows and killed by a shot or a thrust into the lungs; the animal or a bearlike figure was surrounded by dancers. Similar phenomena are documented for more recent periods, above all for the hunting cultures of Neolithic Siberia. These observations can be effortlessly fitted into the practice of bear ceremonialism that is still widely distributed in northern Eurasia and North America.

      The question of whether animals were the immediate objects of a cult is extremely difficult to judge in each particular case. Nevertheless, with the beginning of the Neolithic Period, animal phenomena appear that probably go beyond functioning merely as a sacrifice and symbol. This applies especially to representations of oxen and bulls and to the symbolism of bull (cattle) heads and bull horns.

Female fertility deities

      Small female figures, the so-called Venus statuettes (sculpture), appear for the first time in the Upper Paleolithic Period. In some cases they are very schematically formed, and it is often difficult or impossible to recognize female attributes. In other cases, however, they are naturalistic representations of corpulent women whose secondary sexual characteristics (their breasts and buttocks) were given special prominence, though their faces, feet, and arms were almost completely neglected. Such strong emphasis on the anatomical zones that are related to the bearing of children and nourishing them easily conveys to one the idea of female fertility. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily true of all these small figures.

      Ethnological analogies with present-day primitive phenomena offer the equally plausible view that such figures were regarded as the representations of the abodes of spirits whose function was to help and protect, and especially during hunting. They also may have been conceived, among other things, as mothers or rulers of the animals, goddesses of the underworld, helpers during hunting and donators of game, and as sovereigns of the land and other regions and of natural forces, including that of fertility.

      No known direct continuum connects these earlier Paleolithic figures to similar ones of the early Neolithic and later periods. In settlements and shrines of these later periods are found large numbers of female figurines of widely differing types. They may have been representations of deities and symbols or, perhaps, votive offerings, somehow connected with female fertility. This can be safely assumed for figurines that show an obvious indication of fertility or are connected with children, and even more for shrines containing figures with sculptured pairs of breasts, and figures on the walls of women in childbirth. Not all female figures can, however, be understood merely as fertility symbols; rather, in many cases they are assumed to be house gods or representations of ancestors, and, especially when appearing in graves, as substitutes for the bodies of maids, wives, and concubines. An appearance of a large number of smaller figures suggests a votive or magical usage.

shamanism, sorcery, and magic

      Shamanism is a rather variable and highly stratified complex of practices and conceptions; characteristic among these are the use of ecstasy, the belief in guardian spirits (who are often in animal form, with the function of helping and guiding the dead on their voyage to the beyond), and beliefs concerning metamorphosis (change of form) and travelling to the beyond. Pictures from the Upper Paleolithic Period indicate the existence at that time of ecstatic practices and of beliefs in protective and helping spirits, which assume the form of birds and other animals. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether shamanism existed in fully developed form at that time. Also, in the course of prehistory, objects appear that may well have belonged to the paraphernalia of shamanism. Noisemaking objects (to drive away evil spirits) are often found in the material remains of the Iron Age and probably are connected with shamanism.

      Recent studies stress the religious character of shamanism, though in practice it is related to sorcery and magic. Shamanism is not to be identified with sorcery and magic if they are understood as attempts to manipulate the supernatural through certain human techniques, in contrast with religion, in which man approaches higher beings (gods) in an attitude of supplication. Magic or sorcery thus appears as the opponent of true religion and gains importance when religion declines or is overwhelmed. In fact, magic and sorcery may take over cultic forms and rob them of their religious meaning when this occurs. For these reasons, it is often difficult to decide whether prehistoric phenomena were of religious or magical character.

      Magic also can be practiced to a large degree without the use of material objects, and it is, therefore, as hard to grasp archaeologically as true religion. In the interpretation of the art of the Upper Paleolithic, scholars have given great importance to magic because, for example, missiles (spears and arrows) were drawn on the pictures of animals. This has been interpreted to mean that an effort was made to ensure and compel the success of hunters through magical action. But this interpretation is highly speculative, and it remains uncertain what these drawings mean. It is just as difficult to decide whether or not other pictures, sculptures, abstract symbols, amulets, and similar objects were used to make magic in this and later periods.

Evolutionary development

 Religion is always closely related to other realms of life, such as economic activities. These relations are partly direct and partly mediated by social forms. The latter are, on the one hand, at least partially dependent on economic conditions; on the other hand, social structures influence the formation of religious phenomena and often serve as models for their elaboration. In a negative sense, then, it is often possible to eliminate certain religious phenomena as inappropriate to a particular society. It is inconceivable, for example, that the religious conception of simple hunters and gatherers included an elaborately organized hierarchy of gods with detailed division of labour between the individual figures. Similarly, it is a mistake to attribute to hunters and gatherers conceptions that are bound up with agriculture and the fertility of fields. In a positive sense, however, certain economic and social conditions will encourage the development of certain corresponding religious conceptions. Animalistic notions will be especially effective in situations where animals play a large role as partners of humans. Nevertheless, the spiritual ties to animals will be considerably different among hunters or agrarian peoples who still find it necessary to rely heavily on hunting for their meat supply as compared with pastoral peoples. In fully agrarian cultures, on the other hand, ideas about the fertility of fields and cultivated plants play an important part; they are connected with other notions about fertility and influence other spheres of life.

Stone Age cultures

Lower or Early and Middle Paleolithic

      The oldest burials that attest to a belief in life after death can be placed in the period between about 50,000 and 30,000 BC. The earliest evidence of human activity in any form, on the other hand, goes back more than 1,000,000 years. Yet, since religious conceptions are not always bound to material objects, and since there is evidence that truly human beings existed even during early Paleolithic times, it is inadmissible to infer that earliest man had no religion from the mere fact that no identifiable religious objects have been found.

      A study of very simple hunters and gatherers of recent times shows that several religious conceptions generally considered to be especially “primitive” (e.g., fetishism) hardly play an important part, but rather that, among other things, the supposedly “advanced” conception of a personal creator and preserver of the world does play an important part. Such a belief could never be discovered by examining archaeological sources—the material remains—and hence cannot be ruled out for the Early Paleolithic Period. Whether or not the sacrifices in that era involved divine creators or preservers or other beings can only be a matter of conjecture. Features of animalism, magic, and various other views and practices may have played a role, but probably less so than in later epochs.

Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic

      The animalistic features encountered in the art of the Upper Paleolithic Period were most likely only a part of the religion that existed at that time. Among present-day “primitives” the animalistic realm often occupies only a lower sphere of what can be considered religious, and beyond and above that sphere are still other notions about gods. Practices concerning the resurrection of animals and the preservation of species evidently also played an important part and were closely tied to animalistic conceptions. The corresponding rituals clearly took on a special significance in relation to bears and became the basis for the bear ceremonies that were later widely diffused. Although shamanism may have been initiated somewhat earlier, it was now evident, at least in some of its aspects.

      The realm of hunting (hunting and gathering culture) was primarily a masculine sphere; nevertheless, it also includes in religious phenomena the feminine aspect, as symbols of female fertility (and probably also of female deities) demonstrate.

Proto-Neolithic and Neolithic

      The characteristics of early religion were continued but transformed in the proto-Neolithic and Neolithic periods (Neolithic Period). Shamanism developed, especially among the pastoralists of central and northern Asia. Animals, viewed as the hypostases (essences) of higher beings, especially the eagle or falcon and the raven, became highly significant in shamanism. Animalistic conceptions continued and often assumed the proportions of a true animal cult. Hoofed animals, especially sheep and oxen (ox), played an important part as sacrifices, and bulls particularly assumed a leading role; they seem to have been relegated to the masculine sphere. Horses (horse) appear as domesticated animals and as sacrifices only toward the end of the Neolithic Period. They may have been connected with a heavenly divinity, as later evidence suggests.

      In the early period of agriculture, before the full development of the Neolithic Period, deposits of human skulls appear that suggest the presence of ancestor cults. A spiritual identification between humans and plants apparently played a predominant part in conceptions connected with headhunting and cannibalism. The death of a god was often considered a prerequisite to the appearance and prospering of the plants, and this mythical event was repeated through human sacrifice that was either accompanied by or replaced by animal sacrifice.

      At an early stage, in addition to an agricultural connection with the earlier feminine aspects, the masculine aspect appears in the form of portrayals of sexual union and, perhaps, of the “holy wedding,” or sacred coupling, as well as in portrayals of couples and families. Among the material remains, however, the direct representation of the male element recedes sharply, yet perhaps the symbol of the axe and probably also that of the bull may indicate the male element. This dualism of the masculine and feminine aspects can possibly be interpreted in terms of father sky and mother (mother goddess) earth, and in their union as a couple by which they become parents of the world. In the early civilizations, the conception of a supreme being or a heavenly god (which cannot clearly be recognized either in pictures or in other material objects) plays a minor role. That does not mean, however, that such a conception is necessarily of recent origin but rather that it probably existed at an early period in places where there was no literate tradition (predominantly among pastoral cultures).

Civilizations

      The decisive factors that brought about the early civilizations were the new kinds of economic and social organization, the large-scale exploitation of human energy, the formation of ruling classes, hierarchical organization, and the administrative division of labour. Under such conditions polytheism, which had undoubtedly been nascent before, could develop fully. The social order is mirrored in the conception of city and state gods and of a hierarchically organized “state of gods” with a division of labour. The concentration of power and people in one place, in contrast with the wandering of earlier nomadic cultures, enabled fixed central shrines to become influential. Yet the old traditions continued, and not least among them, that of animalism, in the form of conceptions about a ruler of the animals, animal cults, and similar phenomena. Female fertility figures remain generally prominent, such as the Great Mother and the Earth Mother.

Karl J. Narr Ed.

Additional Reading

Various aspects of early civilizations are considered in E.O. James, Prehistoric Religion: A Study in Prehistoric Archaeology (1957, reissued 1963), a collection of materials on the Paleolithic through the Neolithic periods; and John E. Pfeiffer, The Creative Explosion: An Inquiry into the Origins of Art and Religion (1982), for the general reader.

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