i wonder when in pre-history cult-behaviour developed?
(I sort of assume that agriculture/civilisation was a hack on hunter-gathering instincts, but suspect this is just me picking up on some non-mainstream hip anthropologist thing, and would love to be contradicted)
In some sense agriculture/civilisation *must* be a hack on the instincts of hunter-gatherers, but I find it suggestive that we domesticated dogs first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_domestic_dog
The presence of dogs must have changed evolutionary pressures significantly in many respects, and it may well be that agriculture and civilisation only becames options because of adaptions to these new pressures.
@mala Jared diamond has written some interesting stuff on agriculture emerging from hunt/gather. On the other hand he’s the only source I’ve read so I’ve no idea where he is on the spectrum of theories.
@mala cult as in pre-religions? There's a lot of speculation (of course). There are a couple of decent books I've read, one with a stupid title though : "Religion Explained" by Pascal Boyer and (stupid title, great wee book) "The Atheist's Guide To Religion", which spookily I can't find on Amazon to give you the details. The Boyer book is good. Academic.
@mala
Evidence of veneration/worship of what might be called spiritual forces is far, far older than agriculture/civilisation.
100,000 years for the oldest *undisputed* burials.
(We see only the physical evidence of prehistory and even that is thin on the ground at such remote ages.)
Modern humans are around 200,000 years old, so do we suppose that they didn't have belief systems, or rituals?
I'd say they would have to be only superficially modern if that was the case.