Early Religion

Religious behavior is among the oldest distinctively human activities. Evidence of intentional burial — suggesting beliefs about death and possibly an afterlife — dates back at least 100,000 years. Cave paintings, carved figurines, and ritual deposits at sites across Europe, Africa, and Asia attest to a rich symbolic life that almost certainly included what we would recognize as religious practice.

The Neolithic period saw religious expression take on new forms. Settled communities developed elaborate ancestor cults — the plastered skulls of Jericho and the wall paintings of Catalhoyuk suggest deep concern with the dead and their continued presence among the living. The remarkable temple complex at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, built by hunter-gatherers around 9600 BCE, challenges the assumption that organized religion followed settlement and agriculture. It may be that religion helped drive the transition to settled life, not the other way around.

As cities emerged, religion became increasingly institutionalized. Temple complexes in Mesopotamia and Egypt served as economic, political, and religious centers. Priests became specialized professionals. Myths were written down and codified. The relationship between divine authority and political power — visible in concepts like Egypt's divine pharaoh and Mesopotamia's temple-based economies — would shape human governance for millennia to come.