Religion and Spirituality in Prehistory

One major trend in prehistory is moving away from a focus on the individual and towards a focus on the community. With regards to religion, this would translate as a move from spirituality to organized religion. Even before modern homo sapiens, Neanderthals showed an intense knowledge of others in the group. Organizing cooperative hunts of large animals with no capacity for language requires a deep knowledge of each individual in order to understand the details of what others are trying to communicate. This deep knowledge of each individual keeps the group closely knit and quite social. Here I want to distinguish what I mean by “social,” and conversely, what I mean by “society.” To be truly social as the Neanderthals were, this intimate knowledge of others is crucial. Recursively, in order to create and maintain this intimate knowledge among a community, the members must be very social with each other—in other words, interact with each individual frequently. Society has less to do with how well each individual interacts with other individuals, but how well the group functions as a whole. For Neanderthals, the welfare of their society depended upon how social each individual was.

Although Neanderthals did not have the capacity for abstraction—which is a necessary component of language, spirituality, and organized religion—the first anatomically modern humans did have this capacity. Mixed with a Neanderthal-like lifestyle in small bands, it is my speculation that this abstraction created a sense of individual spirituality in humans. Although the art created by these early people is strictly representational, it is hard to imagine that people with the same capacity for abstraction as we have today would not wonder about the world—the big question being, “Why are we here?” It is my belief that spirituality, in its most basic form, is more of an abstract aesthetic sense, rather than a knowingness that many religions today talk of (although this “sense” is certainly part of religions). Therefore, spirituality is more flexible, yet also much more individually-focused. I imagine the Paleolithic spirituality as very personal—raw spirituality. Given their reliance on language, it is hard to imagine that these people would not share their spiritual thoughts with others. However, it is unlikely that their ideas lined up exactly. Within these communities, spirituality likely was not fixed, and often fluctuated due to the small number of people with which individuals interacted. Thus, the individual had more sway on the next generation’s ideas.