Religion in prehistory

This article treats religion in prehistory such as sight by the anthropologists and the prehistorians.

At the XIXe century, the men of prehistory were called Préadamites. Much of them practiced the Religion of the bear, as reveal it the Grotte of Lascaux and the Finnish Mythologie.

The worships remain related to the Création of the languages in the human Évolution: to transmit beliefs or myths there should be transmitted orally, without languages it are religions.

The languages were formed around -200.000 years in the Paléolithique means, the questioning appears: how to give a satisfactory answer to a child, who sees a woman giving birth? who sees his mother milk to die? who sees flashes in the night accompanied by thunders? The invented answers constituted the creation of the first Mythes of humanity and gave rise to the first Cultes.

“Starting from the point where the man cannot speak any more, because he absent or died, where the files are lacking, two testimonys remain: that of Art and that of the Techniques. ” (Andre Leroi-Gourhan)

Considering the Techniques, the burials with properly pertaining to worship objects of the Homme of Néandertal testify to the first worships in the Paléolithique means around -100.000 years with the Moustérien.

The new classification of the kind Homo of 2003 following research DNA distinguishes the Homo neanderthalensis like a species different from the Homo sapiens: a species different from the modern Homme thus had on the Ground pertaining to worship practices… Into this same time the Homo sapiens integrated the funeral worships of the Homo neanderthalensis as seems to indicate it the recent discoveries of the cave of Skhul known as cave of the children.

One also needs an artistic representation of the belief which is transmitted generations in generations whereas the worship extends on vast geographical areas.

Considering Art, the prehistoric worships finds also testimony. It is however necessary to await the Aurignacien (- 35.000 years) in the Paléolithique superior with the paleolithic Venus whose resemblance of almost 250 specimens found through Europe during the twentieth century testifies that the Culte of the goddess was practiced universally during probably nearly 400 centuries.

What think of the man-lion of Hohlenstein-Stadel? This figurine Anthropomorphique going back to -35.000 years makes it possible to suppose that the Croyances and the Mythes of this time were at the origin of the construction of the posterior worships. The Minotaure of the Greek Mythologie seems to have 350 centuries a former ancestor… The oral worships become deformed with the wire of the ages, one can think that the old worships of our era are the result of the deformation of the prehistoric worships.

The historical and scientific analysis of the origin of the worships former to our era became only more speculative about it.

The bases of the worships remain: to provide an explanation to our great questions… Our scientific knowledge advances and makes move back each year the limits of the religions: the myth of Adam and Eve lost of her weight vis-a-vis the Cosmologie (in particular knowledge relating to the Big-Bang), to the Théorie of the evolution treating Origins of life and to the knowledge which we have of our Préhistoire.

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