Religion among the Erectines
One of the things that has been asked about my views is can small brained individuals have technology and religion. H. Floresiensis , the tiny brained hominid on Flores Island, has thoruoughly answered the technology question. They made stone tools, used fire and hunted pygmy elephants, all with a brain size of 380 cc.
Daniel Lyons is the human with the smallest known brain. H. floresiensis has a brain the size of a grapefruit, yet he had a technological life equivalent to those of the larger erectines.
I point this technological capability out because one criticism of my view is that small brained people couldn’t have built any kind of ark. That might be an erroneous assumption given what floresiensis did.
Now the question is, is there a brain size below which religion can’t occur? That is an unknowable question since we can’t interview any of these small brained people. And even if they did exist, we have the subjectivity issue. Just looking at you, I can’t tell if ou have a religion or not. I can’t tell what it is unless you are wearing specific religious clothing. Similarly, looking at a cranium tells us nothing about the thoughts that went through that beings brain during his life. All we can do is look at the objects left behind. Unfortunately that means only stone objects left behind. All wood and fibre objects have long ago rotted away. If a hominid carved an idol out of a pumpkin, we would never know it. I do want to say that for every opinion in anthropology there is someone who disagrees. Again, all anyone can do in anthro is cite the actual data and let people know the interpretation of that data that has been put forward. The reader has to decide if he believes it or not.
The best we can do is look at the stone objects left behind. I have mentioned Bilzingsleben, the erectine site in Germany dated between 300-400kyr ago. Here are two descriptions of what I feel is a defendable case of religion among the erectines.
" But Mania’s most intriguing find lies under a protective shed. As he opens the door sunlight illuminates a cluster of smooth stones and pieces of bone that he believes were arranged by humans to pave a 27-foot-wide circle.
"‘They intentionally paved this area for cultural activities,’ says Mania. 'We found here a large anvil of quartzite set between the horns of a huge bison, near it were fractured human skulls. '" ~ Rick Gore, “The First Europeans,” National Geographic, July, 1997, p. 110
We now know that fire was involved in what they were doing at the anvil.
"This is of no concern here, but the use of space at the site may be. Whatever their specific nature, each ring-like structure at Bilzingsleben appears to have been associated with an area of burning, and an activity area usually consisting of elephant bones and a large travertine block interpreted as an ‘anvil’. Of particular interest is Zone V, which consists of a sub-circular ‘pavement’ formed from a single layer of flat stones trodden into the soft sediments of the lake edge. An area of burning was located towards its centre, a large travertine block severely affected by heat at its eastern periphery, and a quartzite ‘anvil’. in its western periphery next to a large bovid skull retaining its horn cores. The lack of splintered bone, hammerstones, or other tools on the pavement contrasts markedly with the rest of the settlement area, and Mania and Mania have suggested that the area around the anvil and bovid skull was intentionally cleaned. The two refitting cranial fragments of Hominin 2 were recovered over 3 m apart on this pavement’, in close proximity to the anvil/skull, and in ‘smashed and macerated condition’, in addition to the juvenile mandible. Small fragments of bone preserved in the natural crevices of the quartzite ‘anvil’ show that bones were smashed upon it, but rather than forward a prosaic interpretation (marrow acquisition, for example) the excavators suggest that this was an area of ‘special cultural activities which probably played a role in some kind of ritual behaviour’, further evidenced by a ‘linear structure of large pebbles, which seem to run towards the circular area and which ends appear to have been marked by …elephant tusks.’ Recovery of engraved marks on four large mammal bones from the site might also indicate further forms of symbolic activity, as noted above ." Paul Pettitt, Religion and Ritual in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic, in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion. edited by Timothy Insoll, (OUP Oxford, 2011), p.336-337
If one walked into a village somewhere and saw this, one immediately think of Indiana Jones, and then would immediately think it was a religion involving human sacrifice. the only reason we claim it can’t have been a religious site is because it was involving late H. erectus. That would seem to be a weak reason to reject the symbolism in this anvil, horns, fire and smashed skulls that we understand.
Symbolic thinking is a prerequisite for religion and I want to start with the earliest symbolic thinking I know of. It is the Makapansgat pebble dating to 3 million years ago. A small brained australopithicus recognized a face in the banded iron pebble and carried it 5 km to his limestone cave.
" Possibly the oldest known piece of evidence bearing on the predilections of the Late Pliocene hominids is the reddish cobble, with presumably weathered-out features making it resemble a humanoid face, that was found in 1925 by W. I. Eitzman at the site that became known as the Limeworks Quarry, Makapansgat, in the Transvaal. It was recovered from a pink stony breccia, later identified by T. C. Partridge as member 4 in his terminology, overlying the main level with Australopithecus remains (the grey breccia, member 3), and dated on the basis of palaeomagnetic readings at 3 Ma B.P. The cobble weighs ca. 260 g. It is jasperite, or banded ironstone of Precambrian age. The banded character reflects varying proportions of iron and silica in the make-up of the rock. The more deeply weathered layers are probably relatively rich in iron, while the more indurated ones are richer in silica. Banded ironstones outcropping about 3 miles (4.8 km) NNE of the limeworks were the probable source of the rock fragment that was eroded to form this large pebble or cobble. It is obviously very water-worn, as though subjected to fluviatile action, and may first have come to rest in the gravel of a river bed."
“The means by which it was eventually transported from, say, a river bed to a cave breccia is a matter for speculation. On the principle of Occam’s razor, it seems reasonable to accept Dart’s hypothesis (see below), based on the remarkable fact that this reddish cobble was unique, quite foreign to the layer of pink stony breccia in which it was found. J.W. Kitching recalls that when he first saw the specimen it still had some of the pink breccia adhering to it. Dart suggests that one of the australopithecine hominids noticed this reddish head-like cobble (I say, perhaps at a river margin), picked it up and carried it as a treasured object to their temporary dwelling place in one of the Makapansgat rock shelters. To my mind, the colour of the cobble was a very significant aspect. According to Sir James Fraser, in a number of creation myths the first men were modeled out of red clay or earth. Red is the colour most attractive to the Hominoidea, i.e. apes and men. Anyone who doubts this should try offering a tray of boiled sweets, each of a single colour, to a group of children, and the marked preference in favor of selecting the red ones will soon become evident.” ~ K. P. Oakley, “Emergence of Higher Thought 3.0-0.2 Ma B.P.”, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B, 292, 205-211 (1981), p. 205-206
Dart didn’t report on this item for forty years because he didn’t quite get its importance. He tells us of this in a 1964 paper:
" Thus, ultimately with the aforesaid australipithecine reconstructional background I had come finally to realise, if tardily, that it was necessary to study the pebble from an ‘australopithecine’ point of view. In that process i was turning the stone around until it was updise down. then instantly the cause of those inhibitions of antagonisms that had prevented me from looking at it seriously during the previous forty years and more became apparent."
"A complete perceptual transformation had taken place. The two little rounded ‘eyes’ retained their visual status though their contours looked more square and adult. The huge ‘brain’ and ridiculously pinched infantile ‘mouth’ that had involuntarily prevented us sapient observers from orientating it otherwise, were now replaced by a dwarfed, flattened, and indented ‘skull-cap’, above a broadly-grinning, robust and typical australopithecine ‘face’. Its broad ‘cheeks’ and gaping ‘mouth’ have become so wide that even the total absence of nostril openings would have been incapable of preventing any perceptive Australopithecus from recognizing it as anything other than a caricature of one or another of his extremely flat-faced male or female relatives in a positively hilarious mood.
“The ‘facial proportions’ from this new aspect are thus in excellent general agreement with those that reconstructional efforts have caused each modern artist, with minor variations, to produce for Australopithecus. This concordance of itself is sufficient justification of the inference that conceptual processes of a similar nature caused an australopithecine to transport the pebble to the cave at Makapansgat. In addition, the curious and to some extent corroborative fact is that once one admits the possibility that an Australopithecus had the intellectual ability to detect the presence of a face on this alien natural stone, then the social responses that capacity evoked, follow. The pebble would have had no point without an ability on his associate’s part to comprehend and share the emotional reactions, the puzzlement and amusement, that the discoverer had had. And from this it may also be deduced that he and his fellows at the australopithecine phase of human evolution had already reached a humanoid level of self-realisation and self-awareness .” ~ R.A. Dart, “The Waterworn Australopithecine Pebble of Many Faces from Makapansgat,” South African Journal of Science, 70(June 1974), pp 167-169, p. 167-168
A comparison is shown below. The ability to recognize that this rock is a symbol for my my face means that even small brained Australopithecines were capable of symbolic thought–that is a sobering thought because symbolism is a pre-requisite for religion. Could they have had religion? Yes, but we are very unlikely to ever know if they did or not.
Given that Australopithecines were capable of symbolic thought, then how can we deny symbolic thought to the larger brained erectines? Indeed, there are other evidences that the erectines engaged in religion. One might even wonder if this is where the mother goddess religions started. First there is the Berekhat Ram figurine. Below are various Venus figurines. The really good ones are from the upper Paleolithic, but then they had better technology with which to cut stone. I think this is an important point. Without fine rock carving tools, one’s artistic abilities can’t produce much of value. Thus Chris Stringer made a chart showing how humans have improved on getting cutting surface out of flint.
" 25. The transition from Lower Palaeolithic (Abbevillean) hand axes, through Middle Palaeolithic (Mousterian) scrapers, to Upper Palaeolithic (Magdalenian) blades. This diagram presents a very progressive view of technology, indicating the increasing efficiency of Palaeolithic tool makers ." ~ Chris Stringer and Clive Gamble, In Search of the Neanderthals, (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993), p. 55.
from a pound of flint
abbevillean obtained 2 inches of cutting surface --this is mostly Australopithicus
Acheulean obtained 8 inches of cutting surface----This is mostly H. erectus
Mousterian obtained 40 inches of cutting surface–This is mostly Neanderthal
Magdalenian obtained 40 feet of cutting surface–this is mostly H. sapiens.
Such control of the cutting process means one can cut finer and finer detail
Here are some of the Venus figurines. The really good ones coemf rom the Gravettian and Magdalenian from 30 kyr on.
"The Berekhat Ram figurine and possibly Acheulian petroglyphs at Bhimbetka, India, would tend to support a model of very early symbolic development, as would purely taphonomic and logical dialectic. " ~ Robert G. Bednarik, “Art Origins”, Anthropos, 89(1994):169-180, p. 170
In a 2011 paper on religion in anthropology, Paul Pettit mentions the earliest figurines, and provides the data which shows that these were modified either by carving or painting.
" Before considering further the emergence of a spatial element to ritual, it is necessary to consider what could be the earliest known archaeological manifestations of any kind of belief system; these are natural objects resembling the human body (or parts of it) which have received minor amounts of intentional modification in order to bring out the similarity further. three of these pierres figures are known, two from the Lower Palaeolithic and one from the Middle. A lower Palaeolithic assemblage at Berekhat Ram in Golan Heights, Israel, dominated by Levallois flakes and containing a handful of bifaces dated imprecisely to between 230,000 and 790,000 (most probably 340-4500,000 BP), yielded a small 3.5 cm in maximum dimensions) pebble of basaltic tuff containing scoria clasts resembling a human torso and head (Goren-Inbar and Pelts 1994). This has been the subject of optical and scanning electron microscope study by D’Errico and Nowell (2000, who concluded that, unlike other pieces of scoriae found at the locale, groves found on the neck and sides of the piece were consistent with those produced by flint points used experimentally and thus that the figurine was intentionally modified. Similarly the Middle Acheulian (~400,00 BP) deposits at Tan-Tan, on the banks of he River Draa in Morocco, yielded a quartzite cobble (5.8 cm in maximum dimension) again reminiscent of a human body and modified with eight grooves and with red pigment (Bednarik, 2003). " Paul Pettitt, Religion and Ritual in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic, in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion. edited by Timothy Insoll, (OUP Oxford, 2011), p. 333-334
“The Berekhat Ram pebble is not the only Acheulian find from Israel which cannot be readily attributed to utilitarian activities. The polished wooden plank found at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov falls into the same category. Non-utilitarian objects of the Mousterian have also been found, but they, too, have not been published and I refrain from discussing any of the unpublished Israeli finds here .” ~ Robert G. Bednarik, “The Paleolithic Art of Asia,” in S. Goldsmith, S. Garvie,D. Selin, and J. Smint eds. _Ancient Images, Ancient Thought, "The Arcaeology of Ideology; pp 383_390, Proceedings of the 23rd Ann. Chacmool Conference,University of Calgary, p. 388
Why would they not publish other stuff they have found? Because of group think and attacks by anthropologists who don’t want there to be ‘human’ traits to the archaics. Consider this:
" While we are on the above subject: another recently discovered example of Middle Palaeolithic sophistication is the flint cortex plaque from Quneitra, Golan Heights, Israel. It was excavated a few years ago by Dr. Naama Goren-Inbar, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She described the find briefly in 1990, and later confided to your editor that she ‘dreads finding more such controversial objects’ because her colleagues then tend to question her credibility. Your editor finds it disturbing that majority view in archaeology can be enforced in this way. It is not the only such example to come to his attention, the German archaeologist Dr. Dietrich Mania, of Bilzingsleben fame, also confided to him that he is unwilling to publish the rest of his cultural material from that site because of the hostile reception of his previous reports. A senior American archaeologists discovered that his peers rejoiced in the fact that during his entire working life, they had collectively been able to ‘keep him out of all the mainstream journals’ through the refereeing system . Are these isolated cases, or symptoms of a more widespread attitude?" Robert G. Bednarick, “Middle Palaeolithic Engraving,” The Artefact 1996, 19:104
So much for the idea that science is about data–it is about the current group think!
The fact that red pigment was found on the Tan-tan figurine is a sign that it was considered a special object because they modified it. As noted above, lots of creation stories have man created from red clay.
Maybe in a day or two I will speak of a more ghoulish evidence of spiritual beliefs–a topic many anthropologists pooh-pooh, but others adamantly defend.
The fact that the major pre-requisite for religion, symbolic thought, can be documented as far back as 3 myr ago, should cause apologists to pause before they proclaim that small brained hominids were incapable of metaphysical thoughts. No doubt, this will make no difference to what people believe, however, the data doesn’t support the claim that small brained hominids were incapable of doing anything described in the Bible.