Dear George,
In my view the idea you are proposing is really serious and far reaching.
Here some first thoughts on my part:
Yes, I think this piece reveals sort of proto-religious awareness: Although much more evolved, it can be compared to ritual practices we are recently discovering in Chimps.
It does not reveal responsibility to God’s law and capability of sinning. It is rather a symbol for archaic religiosity, characteristic of humans which have not yet been endowed with free-will. I find very inspiring your idea that this could have been the kind of religious perception “of humanity beyond the realm of Noah’s flood”, in Germany but also in regions more far away like Australia and America.
Interestingly enough: In the perspective you propose, idolatry like in the episode of the Golden Calf (Exodus 32) could be interpreted as falling back into archaic proto-religious practices to evade responsibility to God’s law. Such a motivation might subconsciously determinate certain current atheistic beliefs as well.