PHIL204 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Prehistoric Religion, Factions Of Halo, Animism
21 Sep 2016
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Questions of primitivism, simplicity, and transiency: written religions tend to be much more complex and concrete. Expression through dance, masks, wood sculpture, and paintings. Neanderthals lived from 125,000 bce to 30,000 bce: inhabited europe, the middle east, and western and central asia. Buried their dead with food, tools, and weapons, perhaps as offerings to their gods. Forerunners of modern homo sapiens: replaced neanderthals approx. Buried tools, weapons, and ornaments with their dead. Wall paintings in caves in france and spain associated with hunting rituals. Neolithic cultures developed religions based on the fertility of the earth, humans, and animals. Societies erected monuments of huge stones (megaliths) in several parts of the world (i. e. stonehenge) Sacrifice appears in the earliest form of almost all early religions. Belief in spirits that inhabit animals, trees, rivers, etc. (animism) Human relationship with nature: respect for all life forms. Sacredness of time and space: pathways to the other world.
