Editing Paleolithic (section)

== Religion and beliefs ==
{{Main|Paleolithic religion}}
[[File:Gabillou Sorcier.png|thumb|Picture of a half-human, half-animal being in a Paleolithic [[cave painting]] in [[Dordogne]]. France. Some archaeologists believe that cave paintings of half-human, half-animal beings may be evidence for early shamanic practices during the Paleolithic.]]

According to James B. Harrod humankind first developed [[religion|religious]] and [[spirituality|spiritual]] beliefs during the [[Middle Paleolithic]] or [[Upper Paleolithic]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.originsnet.org/aboutornet1.html |title=About OriginsNet by James Harrod |publisher=Originsnet.org |access-date=31 January 2010}}</ref> Controversial scholars of prehistoric religion and anthropology, James Harrod and Vincent W. Fallio, have recently proposed that religion and spirituality (and art) may have first arisen in Pre-Paleolithic chimpanzees<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.originsnet.org/chimpspiritdatabase.pdf |title=Appendices for chimpanzee spirituality by James Harrod |access-date=31 January 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080527230019/http://www.originsnet.org/chimpspiritdatabase.pdf |archive-date=27 May 2008 }}</ref> or Early [[Lower Paleolithic]] ([[Oldowan]]) societies.<ref name="V.Fallio">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-kJHI9MdxNwC&q=Paleolithic+religions&pg=PA108 |title=New Developments in Consciousness Research |first=Vincent W. |last=Fallio |publisher=[[Nova Publishers]] |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-60021-247-5 |location=New York |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=-kJHI9MdxNwC&dq=Paleolithic+religions&pg=PA108 98–109]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.originsnet.org/mindold.html |title=Oldowan Art, Religion, Symbols, Mind by James Harrod |publisher=Originsnet.org |access-date=31 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100310011922/http://www.originsnet.org/mindold.html |archive-date=10 March 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref> According to Fallio, the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans experienced altered states of consciousness and partook in ritual, and ritual was used in their societies to strengthen social bonding and group cohesion.<ref name="V.Fallio"/>

Middle Paleolithic humans' use of burials at sites such as [[Krapina]], Croatia ({{c.|130,000}}&nbsp;BP) and [[Qafzeh]], Israel ({{c.|100,000|lk=no}}&nbsp;BP) have led some anthropologists and archaeologists, such as [[Philip Lieberman]], to believe that Middle Paleolithic humans may have possessed a belief in an [[afterlife]] and a "concern for the dead that transcends daily life".<ref name=Lieberman/> Cut marks on Neanderthal bones from various sites, such as Combe-Grenal and Abri Moula in France, suggest that the [[Neanderthal#Cannibalism|Neanderthals]]—like some contemporary human cultures—may have practiced [[excarnation|ritual defleshing]] for (presumably) religious reasons. According to recent archaeological findings from ''Homo heidelbergensis'' sites in [[Archaeological Site of Atapuerca|Atapuerca]], humans may have begun burying their dead much earlier, during the late [[Lower Paleolithic]]; but this theory is widely questioned in the scientific community.

Likewise, some scientists have proposed that Middle Paleolithic societies such as Neanderthal societies may also have practiced the earliest form of [[totemism]] or [[animal worship]], in addition to their (presumably religious) burial of the dead. In particular, Emil Bächler suggested (based on archaeological evidence from Middle Paleolithic caves) that a [[Bear worship|bear cult]] was widespread among Middle Paleolithic [[Neanderthal]]s.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wunn |first=Ina |date=2000 |title=Beginning of Religion |journal=Numen |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=434–435|doi=10.1163/156852700511612 }}</ref> A claim that evidence was found for [[Middle Paleolithic]] animal worship {{c.|70,000}}&nbsp;BCE originates from the [[Tsodilo Hills]] in the African Kalahari desert has been denied by the original investigators of the site.<ref name="Robbins et al">{{cite journal |last1=Robbins |first1=Lawrence H. |first2=Alec C. |last2=Campbell |first3=George A. |last3=Brook |first4=Michael L. |last4=Murphy |title=World's Oldest Ritual Site? The "Python Cave" at Tsodilo Hills World Heritage Site, Botswana |journal=NYAME AKUMA, the Bulletin of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists |date=June 2007 |issue=67 |url=http://cohesion.rice.edu/CentersAndInst/SAFA/emplibrary/Robbins.pdf |access-date=1 December 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928023109/http://cohesion.rice.edu/CentersAndInst/SAFA/emplibrary/Robbins.pdf |archive-date=28 September 2011 }}</ref> Animal cults in the Upper Paleolithic, such as the bear cult, may have had their origins in these hypothetical Middle Paleolithic animal cults.<ref name=Narr>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://concise.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=109434&fullArticle=true&tocId=52333 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080409074119/http://concise.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=109434&fullArticle=true&tocId=52333 |url-status=dead |archive-date=9 April 2008 |first=Karl J. |last=Narr |title=Prehistoric religion |access-date=28 March 2008 |encyclopedia=Britannica online encyclopedia 2008}}</ref> Animal worship during the Upper Paleolithic was intertwined with hunting rites.<ref name="Narr"/> For instance, archaeological evidence from art and bear remains reveals that the bear cult apparently involved a type of sacrificial bear ceremonialism, in which a bear was shot with [[arrow]]s, finished off by a shot or thrust in the [[lung]]s, and ritually worshipped near a clay bear statue covered by a bear fur with the skull and the body of the bear buried separately.<ref name="Narr"/> Barbara Ehrenreich controversially theorizes that the sacrificial hunting rites of the Upper Paleolithic (and by extension Paleolithic cooperative big-game hunting) gave rise to war or warlike raiding during the following [[Epipaleolithic]] and [[Mesolithic]] or late Upper Paleolithic.<ref name="Barbara Ehrenreich"/>

The existence of anthropomorphic images and half-human, half-animal images in the Upper Paleolithic may further indicate that [[Upper Paleolithic]] humans were the first people to believe in a [[Polytheism|pantheon of gods or supernatural beings]],<ref name="mithen">{{cite book| author-link=Steve Mithen| isbn=978-0-500-05081-1| title=The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science| year=1996| publisher=Thames & Hudson| author=Steven Mithen| url=https://archive.org/details/prehistoryofmind00mith}}</ref> though such images may instead indicate shamanistic practices similar to those of contemporary tribal societies.<ref name="Clottes"/> The earliest known undisputed burial of a shaman (and by extension the earliest undisputed evidence of shamans and shamanic practices) dates back to the early [[Upper Paleolithic]] era ({{c.|30,000}}&nbsp;BP) in what is now the [[Czech Republic]].<ref name=Tedlock/> However, during the early Upper Paleolithic it was probably more common for all members of the band to participate equally and fully in religious ceremonies, in contrast to the religious traditions of later periods when religious authorities and part-time ritual specialists such as shamans, priests and medicine men were relatively common and integral to religious life.<ref name="Stavrianos"/>

Religion was possibly [[Apotropaic magic|apotropaic]]; specifically, it may have involved [[sympathetic magic]].<ref name="Miller2006"/> The [[Venus figurines]], which are abundant in the Upper Paleolithic archaeological record, provide an example of possible Paleolithic sympathetic magic, as they may have been used for ensuring success in hunting and to bring about fertility of the land and women.<ref name="McClellan"/> The Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines have sometimes been explained as depictions of an [[earth goddess]] similar to [[Gaia (mythology)|Gaia]], or as representations of a goddess who is the ruler or mother of the animals.<ref name=Narr/><ref>Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe, "[http://witcombe.sbc.edu/willendorf/willendorfwomen.html Women in the Stone Age] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100801065954/http://witcombe.sbc.edu/willendorf/willendorfwomen.html |date=2010-08-01 }}", in the essay "The Venus of Willendorf" . Retrieved March 13, 2008.</ref> James Harrod has described them as representative of female (and male) shamanistic spiritual transformation processes.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.originsnet.org/mindup.html |title=Upper Paleolithic Art, Religion, Symbols, Mind By James Harrod |publisher=Originsnet.org |access-date=2010-01-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100308130503/http://www.originsnet.org/mindup.html |archive-date=2010-03-08 |url-status=dead }}</ref>