I. Wunn, Beginning of Religion.pdf

Beginning of Religion

Author(s): Ina Wunn

Source: Numen, Vol. 47, No. 4 (2000), pp. 417-452

Published by: BRILL

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3270307

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BEGINNING OF RELIGION

INA WUNN

Summary

In the last two decades, the study of Palaeolithic religion has come to be of in-

creasing concernto both scholarsof the history of religion and archaeologists. In this

paper the appropriateness of some recent views in the interpretation of the archaeo-

logical findings is re-evaluated.The conclusion of this study is thatneither evidence

of early ritual practises norof belief in an afterlifecan be endorsed.All relevantcon-

ceptions of thatkind areeither products of a certainmentalclimate at the time of the

discovery of the fossils, or of ideologies. The resultsof palaeanthropological research

prove that none of the early representatives of the genus Homo was capable of de-

veloping a complicatedsymbol system. Only in the middlePalaeolithic period Homo

neanderthalensishad developed advancedintellectualabilities.But neitherin connec-

tion with his hunting customs nor with his domestic activities can any traces of cult

practice be found. Only the rareburialscan be interpreted as a first sign of religious

feelings. But thereare no funeralritualsor funeral gifts. All assumptions thatNean-

derthalman already believed in an afterlife, are mere speculation. Theories of rituals

during the lowerandmiddlePalaeolithic belong to the realmof legend.

The search for the origin of religion was one of the main topics

of discussion during the first half of the twentieth century. It was

Johannes Maringer who interpreted the archaeological findings of

stone-age cultures as a possible indication of early belief in supreme

beings.1 Whenever the question of prehistoric religion arises in recent

publications, authors still refer to Johannes Maringer or one of his

contemporaries2 to emphasise their particular point of view.3

When Johannes Maringer initially set out to portray the belief

system of prehistoric man, he was well aware that knowledge about

Maringer 1956.

2 James 1957, Narr1966: 298-320.

3 See for exampleVerkamp 1995: 5, andDickson 1990.

BrillNV, Leiden (2000)

NUMEN, Vol. 47

418

Ina Wunn

early hominids was hardly sufficient to attempt a reconstructionof

their religion.4 Since then,however, a vast amountof literature dealing

with early religion or the origin of religion has been published.

Whereas Johannes Maringer carefully interpreted the findings and

criticised the documentationof the excavations, his successors are

convinced that religion came into being with the birth of the first

hominids several million years ago. Their theories are based upon

rare archaeological material, interpreted with the aid of ethnographic

analogues. The use of ethnographicanalogues in prehistoric research

is, however, a source of heated debate. The archaeologist Andr6

Leroi-Gourhan emphasises the difficulties encounteredin tracing the

religion of a society of which only material remnants remain. It

is even more complicated to gain insight into the mentality of a

people whose cultureis hardly documentedand only scarcely known.5

On the other hand, scholars such as Peter Ucko and Lewis Binford

extensively discuss the value of ethnographicanalogues to explain the

behaviourof early hunter-gatherer communities.6 They have failed,

however, to develop a set of mutuallyagreed-upon research guidelines

and definitionsthat will clarify analytic approaches to the subject.7

Thereforescholarscontinue to use ethnographicanalogies to explain

possible belief systems of early man without the necessary critical

distance. As a result, the presumed religion in Palaeolithic times

partly resembles the mentality of arctic peoples, and partly resembles

the belief of Australian aborigines,according to the experience and

researchinterestsof the scholar.8The sparse archaeological material

itself hardly allows precise interpretation. Sometimesthereareseveral

possible ways to explain the remains, sometimes nothing can be

said about the context of the archaeological findings. Despite the

4 See Maringer 1956: 298.

5 Leroi-Gourhan1981.

6 Binford 1984, Ucko 1977.

7 For a recentlydevelopedguideline, see Wunn2000 (in press).

8 Mircea Eliade, for example, is convincedthatarcticshamanismwas as much part

of the Palaeolithicbelief system as the rites of pygmies; see Eliade 1978: 19.

419

Beginning of Religion

controversial discussions among archaeologists, it seems to be an

accepted fact in the field of History of Religion thatPalaeolithicman

had a specific religion.9 They performed rituals related to hunting

and believed in a master of animals. They buried the dead and

acknowledged a life after death. On the other hand, due to traces

of cannibalism, they are assumed to have been wild and primitive.

Modem archaeologists and palaeanthropologists are more cautiousin

their interpretations.They describe only fossils and excavations and

hardly ever venture to comment on the mentality of their object of

research.10

Religion of Australopithecus, Homo rudolfensis and Homo

habilis

While scholarssuch as Ioan Couliano or Marija Gimbutasassume

thatthereis no actual proof of religious activity before 60 000 B.C.,11

MirceaEliade is convinced thateven the firsthominidshad a certain

spiritual awareness.For him it is essential thatthe uprightposture of

Australopithecus was the decisive step beyond the statusof mere pri-

mates.Thereforethis earlygenus of hominidsis believedto have hada

sense of consciousnesswhichdiffers only slightly fromthat of modem

humans.ForMirceaEliadeit is proven thatboth Australopithecus and

the first species of the genus Homo were successful hunters.He takes

for granted thatthese early hominidswere already familiarwith rituals

thatare typical of recent hunter-gatherer

communities.12

The commonly acceptedstartingpoint for prehistoricalreligion is

believed to have been about 6 million years ago, when the common

ancestorof modem apes and human beings lived somewhere in the

African bush. The fossil remnantsof this common ancestor, a true

missing link in the evolution of man, has not been discovered until

9 See, for example, Gimbutas 1987: 505-515, Heyden 1987: 127-133, Ripinski-

Naxon 1995: 43-54 andOtte 1995:55-75.

10 Henke and Rothe 1994.

1 See Eliade andCouliano 1991: 27, andGimbutas1996: 3f.

12 Eliade 1978: 15.

420

Ina Wunn

recently. However, the finding of a new African hominid species

in 1994, considered to be at least 4.4 million years old, is closest

to approaching the roots of the human phylogenetic tree. This new

species was firstidentifiedas Australopithecus ramidus, but according

to the latest anatomical studies it seems to belong to a different

genus, Ardipithecus.13Ardipithecus ramidusis probably the ancestor

of the so-called australopithecines, who lived in wooded environments

of eastern and southernAfrica.14 During the following two million

years, the australopithecinesdeveloped into several species, which

disappeared in part after a comparatively short period. Only one

species, most probably the Australopithecusafarensis,developed into

the firstmemberof the Homo lineage. Even the firstmembersof the

early genus Homo show considerable variability in size and shape, so

that they now have been classified as three different species, Homo

habilis, who is at the beginning of the phylogenetic tree of the genus

Homo, H. rudolfensis, and finally H. ergaster, the ancestor of the

modem human.15

As a result of the latest researchin palaeoanthropology(morphol-

ogy and anatomy) it is impossible to maintainthat Australopithecus

and the early representatives of the species Homo pursued the nutri-

tion strategy of hunters.When Raymond Dart published his biologi-

cal analysis of a childlike skull found in the area of Taung in 1925,

he discoveredcertainanatomicalfeatureswhich madeit necessary for

him to classify the unknown species as a new biological taxon.16Aus-

tralopithecus africanus DART 1925 held, in biological terms, aninter-

mediate position between the well-known apes and the genus Homo.

These anatomicalfeaturesof the skull, and thereforethe brain,are,

however, not linked to intellectual abilities, meaning thatthe bipedal-

ism of the youngerAustralopithecus could lead to a change of con-

13 HenkeandRothe 1999: 143ff.

14 The phylogenetic tree of Austalopithecus and Ardipithecus is still a main topic

of discussion among scientists.See HenkeandRothe 1999: 143ff.

15 Straitet al. 1997: 17ff.; Henke andRothe 1999: 177.

16 See HenkeandRothe 1994: 248.

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