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Beginning of Religion
Ina Wunn
Summary
In the last two decades, the study of Palaeolithic religion has come to be of increasing
concern to both scholars of the history of religion and archaeologists. In this paper the
appropriateness of some recent views in the interpretation of the archaeological
findings is re-evaluated. The conclusion of this study is that neither evidence of early
ritual practises nor of belief in an afterlife can be endorsed. All relevant conceptions of
that kind are either products of a certain mental climate at the time of the discovery of
the fossils or of ideologies. The results of palaeanthropological research prove that
none of the early representatives of the genus Homo was capable of developing a
complicated symbol system. Only in the middle Palaeolithic period Homo
neanderthalensis had developed advanced intellectual abilities. But neither in
connection with his hunting customs nor with his domestic activities can any traces of
cult practice be found. Only the rare burials can be interpreted as a first sign of
religious feelings. But there are no funeral rituals or funeral gifts. All assumptions that
Neanderthal man already believed in an afterlife, are mere speculation. Theories of
rituals during the early and middle Palaeolithic period belong to the realm of legend.
The search for the origin of religion was one of the main topics of discussion during
the first half of the twentieth century. It was Johannes Maringer who interpreted the
archaeological findings of stone-age cultures as a possible indication of early belief in
supreme beings.1 Whenever the question of prehistoric religion arises in recent
publications, authors still refer to Johannes Maringer or one of his contemporaries2 to
emphasise their particular point of view.3
When Johannes Maringer initially set out to portray the belief system of prehistoric
man, he was well aware that knowledge about early hominids was hardly sufficient to
attempt a reconstruction of their religion.4 Since then, however, a vast amount of
literature dealing with early religion or the origin of religion has been published.
Whereas Johannes Maringer carefully interpreted the findings and criticised the
documentation of the excavations, his successors are convinced that religion came
into being with the birth of the first hominids several million years ago. Their theories
are based upon rare archaeological material, interpreted with the aid of ethnographic
analogues. The use of ethnographic analogues in prehistoric research is, however, a
source of heated debate. The archaeologist André Leroi-Gourhan emphasises the
1 Maringer, 1956.
2 James (1957), Narr (1966: 298 - 320).
3 See for example Verkamp 1995: 5, and Dickson 1990.
4 See Maringer, 1956: 298.
difficulties encountered in tracing the religion of a society of which only material
remnants remain. It is even more complicated to gain insight into the mentality of a
people whose culture is hardly documented and only scarcely known.5 On the other
hand, scholars such as Peter Ucko and Lewis Binford extensively discuss the value of
ethnographic analogues to explain the behaviour of early hunter-gatherer
communities6 They have failed, however, to develop a set of mutually agreed-upon
research guidelines and definitions that will clarify analytic approaches to the subject.7
Therefore scholars continue to use ethnographic analogies to explain possible belief
systems of early man without the necessary critical distance. As a result, the
presumed religion in Palaeolithic times partly resembles the mentality of arctic
peoples, and partly resembles the belief of Australian aborigines, according to the
experience and research interests of the scholar.8 The sparse archaeological material
itself hardly allows precise interpretation. Sometimes there are several possible ways
to explain the remains, sometimes nothing can be said about the context of the
archaeological findings. Despite the controversial discussions among archaeologists,
it seems to be an accepted fact in the field of History of Religion that Palaeolithic man
had a specific religion.9 They performed rituals related to hunting and believed in a
master of animals. They buried the dead and acknowledged a life after death. On the
other hand, due to traces of cannibalism, they are assumed to have been wild and
primitive. Modern archaeologists and palaeanthropologists are more cautious in their
interpretations. They describe only fossils and excavations and hardly ever venture to
comment on the mentality of their object of research.10
1. Religion of Australopithecus, Homo rudolfensis and Homo habilis
While scholars such as Ioan Couliano or Marija Gimbutas assume that there is no
actual proof of religious activity before 60,000 b. C. 11 Mircea Eliade is convinced of
the fact that even the first hominids had a certain spiritual awareness. For him it is
essential that the upright posture of Australopithecus was the decisive step beyond
the status of mere primates. Therefore this early genus of hominids is believed to
have had a sense of consciousness which differs only slightly from that of modern
humans. For Mircea Eliade it is proven that both Australopithecus and the first
species of the genus Homo were successful hunters. He takes for granted that these
5 Leroi-Gourhan, 1981.
6 Binford (1984), Ucko (1977).
7 For a recently developed guideline see Wunn 2000 (in press)
8 Mircea Eliade for example is convinced, that arctic shamanism was as well part of the
Palaeolithic belief system as the rites of pygmy people. See Eliade 1978: 19.
9 See for example Gimbutas 1987: 505 - 515, Heyden 1987: 127 - 133, Ripinski-Naxon
1995: 43 - 54 and Otte 1995: 55 - 75.
10 Henke and Rothe 1994.
11 See Eliade and Couliano 1991: 27 and Gimbutas 1996: 3 f.
early hominids were already familiar with rituals that are typical of recent hunter-
gatherer communities.12
The commonly accepted starting point for prehistorical religion is believed to have
been about 6 million years ago, when the common ancestor of modern apes and
human beings lived somewhere in the African bush. The fossil remnants of this
common ancestor, a true missing link in the evolution of man, had not been
discovered until recently. However, the finding of a new African hominid species in
1994, considered to be at least 4,4 million years old, is closest to approaching the
roots of the human phylogenetic tree. This new species was first identified as
Australopithecus ramidus, but according to the latest anatomical studies it seems to
belong to a different genus, Ardipithecus.13 Ardipithecus ramidus is probably the
ancestor of the so-called australopithecines, who lived in wooden environments of
eastern and southern Africa.14 During the following 2 million years, the
australopithecines developed into several species, which disappeared in part after a
comparatively short period. Only one species, most probably the Australopithecus
afarensis, developed into the first member of the Homo lineage. Even the first
members of the early genus Homo show considerable variability in size and shape, so
that they now have been classified as three different species, Homo habilis, who is at
the beginning of the phylogenetic tree of the genus Homo, H. rudolfensis, and finally
H. ergaster, the ancestor of modern human.15
As a result of the latest research in palaeoanthropology (morphology and anatomy) it
is impossible to maintain that Australopithecus and the early representatives of the
species Homo pursued the nutrition strategy of hunters. When Raymond Dart
published his biological analysis of a childlike skull found in the area of Taung in
1925, he discovered certain anatomical features which made it necessary for him to
classify the unknown species as a new biological taxon.16 Australopithecus africanus
DART 1925 held, in biological terms, an intermediate position between the well-
known apes and the genus Homo. These anatomical features of the skull, and
therefore the brain, are, however, not linked to intellectual abilities, meaning that the
bipedalism of the younger Australopithecus could lead to a change of consciousness.
First assumptions, that Australopithecus knew how to use fire, were based on a false
interpretation of the facts. The blackish patches, which were originally interpreted as
traces of fire, were attributable to manganic discoloration. The hypothesis that these
early hominids mainly fed on meat had to be revised. The fossil accumulations of
bones found in certain places of the South African savannah were caused by lions
12 Eliade 1978: 15.
13 Henke & Rothe 1999: 143 ff.
14 The phylogenetic tree of Australopithecus and Ardipithecus is still a main topic
among scientists. See Henke & Rothe 1999: 143 ff.
15 Strait et al. 1997: 17 ff; Henke & Rothe 1999: 177.
16 See Henke and Rothe 1994: 248.
and hyenas. From a palaeanthropological point of view it is impossible that the
different species of Australopithecus with their low brain volume of 310 ccm up to 530
ccm were able to think in abstract terms. It is true that early hominids pursued the
strategy of progressive brain development and therefore managed to occupy a new
ecological niche as carrion-eaters. This strategy proved to be quite successful during
the first steps of the evolution of man, but does not mean that Australopithecus,
Homo rudolfensis, Homo ergaster and Homo habilis had necessarily better intellectual
facilities then modern day chimpanzees.17 From a different point of view, the
archaeologist Stephen Mithen comes to the same conclusion: He pleads for a certain
model of the mind’s development during evolution, which is deduced from
evolutionary and developmental psychology.18 Hominids as well as young children
seem to have intuitive knowledge in four fundamental behavioural domains. Content-
rich mental modules provide young children and probably our ancestors with certain
abilities, such as social intelligence19, intuitive biological knowledge20, technical
intelligence,21 and linguistic intelligence. Those domains of the mind determine the
way a young child starts learning about language, other minds, and their natural and
physical surroundings. During individual development and evolution the multiple,
specialised intelligences start working together, so that knowledge and ideas can flow
between the former modules.22 But the ancestor of Australopithecus and
Australopithecus himself still had a primitive mind with only powerful general
intelligence, a specialised domain of social intelligence and several minor mental
modules comparable to the mind of recent apes and monkeys.23 This means that
Australopithecus was absolutely not capable of performing rites or developing any
religious ideas.
A further crucial step in the direction of hominisation was the preparation and use of
tools by the earliest representatives of the genus Homo, as Mircea Eliade
emphasises. He is convinced that the very slow advancement of the first lithic
cultures is not connected to a low intelligence. 24 Eliade takes for granted that early
humans of the lower Palaeolithic period made their living mainly by hunting. As a
result those early hunters should have developed a reference system between hunter
17 Grzimek 1972:, 517 and Goodall 1990.
18 Mithen 1996: 42 ff.
19 Whiten 1991.
20 Atran 1990.
21 Spelke 1991: pp. 133 - 168.
22 Mithen 1996: 64.
23 Ibid. 94.
24 Eliade 1978: 16.
and killed animal, which first led to a kind of mythical solidarity between hunter and
game and was the origin of religiosity.25
The hypothesis that early hominids already were successful hunters is attributable to
Raymond Dart, who suddenly found himself at the centre of general critical interest
due to his exciting discovery of a new species.26 Since humans, according to
Raymond Dart, are the only meat-eating primates, his biological conclusions
regarding the classification of the skull of Taung would be supported by evidence of
similar behaviour of this early hominid species. 27 Therefore, he looked specifically for
fossil bone beds, which he interpreted to be the remnants of the prey of
Australopithecus. In this context he also discovered densities close to the bone beds,
which he thought to be traces of fire. Today it is known that those dense areas are
merely manganese discolorations. Dart´s thesis seemed to be confirmed by Louis
Leakey in the Tanzanian Olduvai Gorge, where the famous anthropologist found
remnants of an early hominid, classified as Zinjanthropus, along with primitive stone
tools. Although there were substantial doubts about Dart’s thesis - how could a
delicate creature weighing approximately 45 kg be able to kill the large ungulates of
the African savannah?- Dart’s point of view became generally popular and accepted
in the sixties.28 Only intensive research regarding the behaviour of carnivores, and
taphonomic and sedimentoligical processes made it clear that the fossil bone beds
were the result of different forces in an ecological system seen as a whole.29 The
layers of the findings were by no means the result of the activities of only one species
and certainly not of the weak and delicate Australopithecus. As a result of the
different investigation it is certain that the first humans, including Homo habilis fed on
fruit, vegetables and carrion and were not at all able to hunt. 30 On the contrary the so-
called „Baby of Taung“ had itself become the prey of a predatory animal. The first
stone tools, the so-called choppers, did not serve to kill the prey, but to crack nut-
shells and split open the bones of ungulates killed by lions or hyenas, in order to
obtain the precious marrow. This was the single part of the prey that was left for
Australopithecus or Homo habilis/rudolfensis/ergaster.31
Neither Australopithecus nor Homo habilis or Homo ergaster fits into the category of a
hunter. The mythical solidarity between hunter and victim, claimed by Mircea Eliade
25 Eliade 1978: 16 u. 17.
26 Many arguments against Dart´s classification of the „Baby of Taung“ are due to
scepticism and envy. Henke & Rothe 1994: 248.
27 Also the hypothesis of Joseph Campbell is based on Dart. See Campbell 1987: 359 f.
28 Even in the late seventies and early eighties the archaeologist Glynn Isaac
emphasised a certain hypothesis concerning human evolution based on the assumption that
early Homo consummated a large quantity of meat (Isaac 1978).
29 See Binford 1984: 28 - 57, and Henke and Rothe 1994: 355 f.
30 Binford 1984: 57, and Schrenk 1997: 49 and 72.
31 Henke & Rothe 1999: 187.
for the humans of the lower Palaeolithic period, results from false assumptions.
Eliade assumes that intelligence, imagination, and the activity of the subconscious of
the early hominids differed only slightly from the intellectual abilities of the modern
Homo sapiens. The results of modern palaeoanthropology and evolutionary
psychology indicate that the intellectual capability of those early forms of hominids is
in no way comparable to that of recent Homo sapiens. As stone tools and remains of
meals prove, the first member of the genus Homo had developed only a very small
domain for technical intelligence and several tiny mental modules for interaction with
the natural world, but had not yet full natural history intelligence. 32 The discrete
domain of social intelligence, which the ancestor of early hominids had already
acquired, had developed during the first steps of human evolution into a more
powerful and complex part of the mind. Probably even a primitive kind of linguistic
intelligence had startet to develop. As Steven Mithen emphasises, the intellectual
capability of the Homo habilis group was already higher than that of Australopithecus,
but nevertheless „little more than an elaborate version of the mind of the common
ancestor“33. Therefore Australopithecus, Homo rudolfensis and Homo habilis/ergaster
were at the origin of a development that encouraged the growth of hominids by
forcing them to occupy the niche of meat-eaters. They were competitively successful
because they developed the intellectual facilities allowing them to use stone tools to
serve their needs, but not to think in abstract terms.
Mircea Eliade also assumes that early hominids were able to hunt successfully. There
is no archaeological evidence for this assumption. It is certain that both
Australopithecus and early Homo occupied the niche of carrion-eaters. Eliade himself
was absolutely convinced that even the first of the hominids had a kind of religion that
resembled in one way or the other the religion of recent hunter-gatherer communities.
He called upon his critics to present evidence on the non-religiosity of early hominids.
34 The palaeoanthropology and evolutionary psychology has since provided this
evidence.
2. Religiosity of Homo erectus and his Contemporaries
Homo erectus and his immediate descendants were the first hominids who succeeded
in leaving the African continent and to settle almost everywhere in the Old World.35
One of the first European fossils is a jaw of the genus Homo, discovered among the
32 Mithen 1996: 104 ff.
33 Ibid. P. 112.
34 Eliade 1978: 17.
35 The first human fossil of Europe was detected in 1994 in the Gran Dolina of
Atapuerca in Spain. These early humans are about 780 000 years old. These hominids, named
Homo antecessor, seem to differ significantly from the well known (Asian) Homo erectus and
the African Homo ergaster, which means that the early hominids of Africa, Asia and Europe
belong to different species. Several scientists emphasise the following phylogenetic tree. Homo
antecessor developed from the African Homo ergaster and succeeded to settle in Europe. Here
he became the ancestor of Homo heidelbergensis, who developed into the European Homo
neanderthalensis. See Henke & Rothe 1999: 204 - 217.
pebbles on the banks of the Neckar river at the village of Mauer near Heidelberg. This
jaw of Homo erectus heidelbergensis is approximately 650,000 to 600,000 years old.36
Geologically the find belongs to the period of Cromer. This is a period between two
long-lasting ice-ages, the Günz- and the Mindel-period, where a relatively warm
climate enabled humans to occupy new habitats. Primitive stone tools from the
Neuwieder Becken and the latest excavations at Burgos in Spain prove that the
European continent was inhabited at least 800 000 years ago, or even earlier.
Information on the life style of Homo erectus could only be gained from excavations
at Bilzingsleben, where an early settlement of Homo erectus could be found.
Geologically Bilzingsleben belongs to the Holstein period. This means that the
findings at this place are not only 200 000 years younger than the jaw of Mauer, but
completely independent of the first appearance of a specimen of Homo erectus as a
result of an entire ice-age. This period led to a characteristic change of flora and
fauna, which formed the landscape and ecosystem during the first conquest of
Europe by a hominid. The distance of time between the findings of Mauer and
Bilzingsleben is reflected in the development of the culture. While the tools of Homo
erectus heidelbergensis were still simple handaxes, the Homo erectus
bilzingslebensis was already capable of manufacturing developed weapons and tools.
Theoretically, this made him capable of hunting for game.
Anatomically H. erectus bilzingslebensis was more developed than his predecessor.
Therefore the way of life of H. erectus heidelbergensis must have been even simpler
and less advanced.37 The excavation of the settlement at Bilzingsleben provides
insight into the way of life of the younger Homo erectus. The archaeological findings
of early man prove the following facts: At Bilzingsleben a small group of early
humans camped at the shore of a small lake in not more than two or three tents. Here
they seemed to have occasionally hunted a beaver or other small animals. Their
stone tools were suitable for hunting smaller prey, whereas no weapon was found
which would have been effective enough to kill an elephant or a bison. The
distribution of the elements of the fauna supports this point of view.38 Additionally they
may have fed on the corpses of dead animals which were probably found frequently
along the shore of the lake. Surely elephant and rhino bones, which were found at the
working sites and served as a support or work material, originated from dead animals
that were not killed by H. erectus bilzingslebensis. One could conclude that they also
ate fish, eggs and vegetables, and the food was most likely cooked. The people of
Bilzingsleben were already aware of a certain code of social behaviour and it is also
clear that there was some degree of emotional exchange between certain members
of the group. There are no indications of any religious activities. The comparison of
36 The remnants of four individuals of the species Homo antecessor, which were
detected at the excavation site „La Gran Dolina“ near Burgos, belong to the eldest members of
the genus Homo in Europe. An isolated skull, found near Isneria, Italy, is nearly as old. Early
tools from France have an age of about 1million years and two million years and prove, that
Europe was inhabited very early.
37 See Henke and Rothe 1994: 407 f.
38 Mania and Weber 1986: 20 ff.
Homo erectus bilzingslebensis with recent hunter-gatherer communities is not
convincing due to the following facts: The popular belief that H. erectus successfully
hunted larger game, has been disproved. Many of the findings of fossil bone beds
which were said to be due to the hunting activities of the H. erectus are in the near
vicinity of watering places. Here the ungulates frequently became the prey of
predatory animals. Analysis of the individual age of the bones of fossil mammals at
Bilzingsleben and other Palaeolithic settlements led to the conclusion that many of
those animals died naturally.39 The first evidence that at least the younger Homo
erectus was capable of hunting larger prey originated in Schöningen near Helmstedt,
Germany, where a wooden spear of about 1,5 meters long was found in a hunting
camp inhabited about 400 000 years ago.40 Homo erectus had a brain capacity which
was still quite small compared to the brain of recent Homo sapiens. Only the younger
H. erectus is supposed to have been capable of verbal communication, as anatomical
investigations have proven. Though there is no direct relationship between brain
volume and intelligence, behaviour or certain abilities, scholars are convinced that H.
erectus was quite primitive compared to H. sapiens, as the archaeological findings
related to his culture have revealed.41 The results of evolutionary psychology seem to
prove the following facts. Obviously technical skills increased dramatically over those
of H. habilis. Natural history intelligence and social intelligence were also well
developed. On the other hand the technical conservatism of Homo erectus over a
period of about one million years is striking. The only explanation for this
contradictory evidence is to assume that the well developed multiple intelligences of
the H. erectus were still committed to specific domains of behaviour, with very little
interaction between them.42 Thinking and communication in abstract terms, which are
essential for religious awareness, probably developed quite late.
Though excavations like the camp of Bilzingsleben, Markleeberg, Kärlich or Bad
Cannstadt and the results of archaeological psychology do not support the hypothesis
that early man performed any religious rites, and though the discussion of
palaeanthropological facts prove that H. erectus was not at all capable of performing
complicated rituals, it is still the opinion among scholars of the History of Religion or
several archaeologists that ritual cannibalism was common among early human
populations. Thus Alfred Rust writes: „Unique finds from Asia prove that cannibalism
was exercised on the whole world.“43 Alfred Rust refers to finds of Homo erectus in
the caves of Zhoukoudian which reveal many similarities to Bilzingsleben.44 While
Alfred Rust is convinced that the presence of several „smashed“ human skulls is a
39 Henke and Rothe 1994: 428.
40 Thieme 1997: 807 - 810.
41 See Henke and Rothe: 424.
42 Mithen 1996: 115 ff.
43 Rust 1991: 175.
44 See ibid.: 178.
clear sign of ritual cannibalism, Johannes Maringer presumes that skulls and lower
jaws have been the remnants of the deceased which had been kept and worshipped
by their family. Similar customs are still evident among members of primitive cultures
in Africa or Asia. 45 The palaeanthropologists Winfried Henke and Hartmut Rothe
express strong and justified doubt about this assertion. The analysis of several
craniums of early man gave evidence that the destruction of the skulls was due to the
activities of ancient hyena and normal taphonomic processes. 46 The archaeologist
André Leroi-Gourhan had already noted in the sixties: „The conditions of the former
excavations of Chou Kou Tien make it difficult to even find a map of the site of skulls.
The skulls were extracted from solid limestone and not even one of them is near to
being complete. After decomposing into tiny sections, they entered the general
category of the animal remains. It is difficult to understand how the myth of head-
collecting Sinanthropus could have assumed a definite form.“47 Another victim of such
prejudice is Karl Dietrich Adam in his hypothesis that the skull of Homo erectus
steinheimensis shows traces of having had postmortal manipulations.48 The
destruction of the base of the scull is his only criterion for the hypothesis that stone-
age man was frequently the victim of ritual practices. Between the death of the
individual and the later recovery of the fossil a number of taphonomic processes take
place, which have a significant affect on the later fossil. One of those effects is the
modification of organic matter and its decay, the assortment or destruction of hard
sections as well as sedimentological processes. André Leroi-Gourhan was able to
prove the fact that the cranium and lower jaws are usually well preserved. Therefore it
is only due to taphonomic processes that these individual body parts survive, and not
at all due to human activities or postmortal manipulation.49 In this connection it is
necessary to emphasise that scholars can only come to a decision based on a series
of complex investigations using a scanning electron microscope, whether scratches
on fossil bones are due to violence caused by a stone tool or the teeth of a predatory
animal. Since there are no archaeological findings for the entire Palaeolithic or
Neolithic period to prove the opening of the skull by humans, none of the speculations
about possible cult practise connected with human skulls is based on facts.50
3. Religion in the Middle Palaeolithic Period
45 Maringer 1956: 64-71.
46 Rust 1991: 178 f, and Henke and Rothe 1994: 428.
47 Leroi-Gourhan 1981: 49.
48 Adam 1991: 218.
49 Leroi-Gourhan 1981: 45 and 55.
50 Experiments with animal bones showed that scratches made by stone tools are
absolutely equal to scratches caused by sand. Those scratches occur frequently during the
process of imbedding. It is still difficult to distinguish between traces of human activities and
traces of animal bites. An examination is only possible with the help of a scanning electron
microscope. See Henke and Rothe 1994: 20 - 24.
From an anthropological point of view, the European Middle Palaeolithic is
characterised by Homo neanderthalensis.51 This early form of Homo sapiens or
descendant of Homo heidelbergensis lived over a period of nearly 100 000 years,
during which the landscape, climate and living conditions changed dramatically.
These environmental changes might have contributed to the special anatomical
features of Neanderthal man. Surely the need to adapt to a frequently changing
habitat forced H. neanderthalensis to develop sociocultural abilities which were
closely related to the progressive evolution of intelligence and psychological
abilities.52 The frequent environmental changes to which H. neanderthalensis had to
adapt made life immensely challenging. In the warmer and humid periods of the Eem
period, dense forests covered the landscape. Population migration was only possible
in the valleys. The fauna consisted of elephant, deer, stag, aurochs, bear and others.
Sufficient food-supply in the direct surroundings allows to believe that Neanderthal
man was relatively stationary during this climatic period. The excavated settlement of
Weimar-Ehringsdorf was inhabited during this time. During the initial phase of cooler
climate the flora changed. Fir and pine trees were common and formed large and
humid forests. The winters were cold and snow was plentiful; even in summertime the
temperature remained low. Not only non-migrating animals were hunted by
Neanderthal man; herds of reindeer, wild horse, bison and mammoth provided
sufficient opportunity for hunting. During the coldest periods the forests disappeared
and made room for prairies and tundra. The climate became dry with extremely cold
winters and relatively mild, but short summers. The prairies were full of game which
migrated according to the different seasons.53
The Magic of Hunting in the Middle Palaeolithic
The hunting activities of the Palaeolithic man, which Mircea Eliade and other scholars
take for granted, are only able to be proved in reference to later periods of ice-age. At
the town of Lehringen near Verden an der Aller the skeleton of an elephant was able
to be preserved, which had been killed with the aid of a wooden spear, found between
51 The so-called Neanderthal-problem is, however, a source of heated debate. Only ten
years ago many palaeanthropologists were convinced, that Neanderthal man belonged to our
species H. sapiens sapiens. His characteristic features were supposed to be due to the
extreme climate of the ice-age. In the meantime most scientists are convinced that Homo
neanderthalensis developed directly from Homo heidelbergensis, while the modern Homo
sapiens developed during the same time in Africa and conquered Europe about 40 000 years
ago. See Henke & Rothe 1994: 433 ff, and Henke & Rothe 1999: 272 f.
52 As Steven Mithen emphasises that natural history intelligence, technical intelligence,
social and linguistic intelligence of Neanderthal man were all well developed, but there was still a
lack of interaction between the four domains of the mind. Cognitive fluidity only took place
between the domains of social and linguistic intelligence ( Mithen 1996: 143 and 147 ff). The
author of this article has a different opinion. In general the lithic culture of Neanderthal man is
the Mousterian, which is still simple compared to the technology of the upper Palaeolithic. On
the other hand the lithic cultures are not strictly related to the one or the other human species.
Homo neanderthalensis too was found together with the more advanced tools of the upper
Palaeolithic, as well as Homo sapiens was found with the simple tools of the Mousterian culture.
Therefore direct relations between a certain human species and its lithic culture cannot be
proved. Technical skills of the younger H. neanderthalensis and early H. sapiens obviously did
not differ. That means that there is no palaeanthropological evidence for the assumption of
fundamental difference between the mind of H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens (Henke &
Rothe 1999: 275, Reynolds 1990: 263 ff).
53 See Henke and Rothe 1994: 525.
the ribs of the animal. This is impressive evidence of the fact that Homo
neanderthalensis was well able to successfully hunt big game. Therefore it can be
assumed that Mircea Eliade’s precise conceptions of religion during prehistoric times
may at least be correct with regard to the people of the Mousterian. He describes this
religion as „magic-religious conceptions of Palaeolithic man“ as follows:54 The
documents regarding the religion of the Palaeolithic man are obscure, but available.
Their meaning can be deciphered if the scholar succeeds in inserting these
documents into a semantic system.55 This semantic system is already given by the
results of investigations of recent hunter-gatherer communities. Their similar life style
offers sufficient certainty for identical or very similar religions of recent hunter-
gatherers and Palaeolithic man. Therefore Homo neanderthalensis believed that the
animal is a being quite similar to man, but talented with supernatural forces. He was
convinced that gods such as the „Master of the Animals“ or „Supreme Being“ existed.
The kill of the animal took place after a complicated ritual. On the other hand rites
must have existed, which were linked with a skull-cult and deposits of long bones.
Similarly, Ioan Couliano argues that, „Either similar models of well-known primitive
peoples are referred to, or one dispenses with any model. The History of Religion can
only use the first option, as imperfect as it may be. Scholars have to endeavour to
decipher the mental horizon of the people of prehistoric times by using the results of
ethnographic and archaeological studies.“56 John Campbell concludes from the myths
of peoples, that there must still be close connections between the religions of
Palaeolithic man and recent hunter-gatherers. The following conviction is both
precondition and result of his investigations: „I find that its main result has been its
confirmation of a thought I have long and faithfully entertained: of the unity of the
race of man, not only in its biology but also in its spiritual history“.57 He proves his
assumption with the help of a comparison. Under the title „The Stage of Neanderthal
Man“ the reader finds the detailed description of the life habits of the small and
delicate Negritos of the Andaman Islands in the Gulf of Bengal, but Campbell fails to
prove the connections between the habits of a people of recent tropical Asia and an
anatomically different prehistoric people, which lived in boreal climates 100 000 years
ago.58 Another argument of John Campbell’s is founded on archaeological facts. The
stone blades of the Mousterian (the material culture of Neanderthal man is mainly
Mousterian) are still very similar, a wider range of different tools was unknown at that
time. This means for Campbell, that the custom of tool-making was carefully handed
down from one generation to another, comparably to customs of recent bushman
culture. This extraordinary attention is due to a certain feeling of the holy, which was
54 Eliade 1978: 15 ff.
55 Ibid.:18.
56 Eliade and Couliano: 1991: 27.
57 Campbell 1987: v.
58 Ibid.: 365 ff.
connected with the manufacturing and use of the tool.59 The passing on of Palaeolithic
religion to religions of recent hunter-gatherer communities serves as a proof that the
myths of recent peoples originated in the Palaeolithic and have been handed down till
today without any changes. This means that Joseph Campbell constructed a typical
circular argument. Today’s behaviours and myths are taken as proof, in order to
postulate the existence of the same behaviours and myths as practised by
Palaeolithic man. Then the postulate itself is taken as a voucher to prove the
unchanged existence of those myths from the Palaeolithic up to now.
The opinion, that Palaeolithic man had already a complicated religion with certain
apprehensions of the holy and different rituals, can be found in nearly every religious
reference work. Fritz Hartmann writes for example: „The magic of the hunt belongs to
this typically human conception of the world.“60
Even if the consequences drawn from the archaeologically secured facts in the past
seem frequently exaggerated, several sentences in the volume of Johannes Maringer
explain the intention of the authors. It was a common statement, that prehistoric man
was a mere beast without a developed mind that made the opponents of this point of
view look for counter-arguments which are no longer defendable in the light of
modern research results.61 The use of ethnographic analogies to reconstruct
prehistoric religion is based on a specific understanding of the evolution of religion. In
the nineteenth century Charles Darwin’s theory of biological evolution influenced
nearly all branches of science. In the fields of the Study of Religion and anthropology,
scholars like Edward Burnett Tylor or James George Frazer developed conceptions of
religious evolution which have strongly determined research until today. Tylor as well
as Frazer were convinced that they could prove an ascending development of religion
from primitive origins to the modern religions of the industrial age. According to this
theory the religions of recent hunter-gatherer communities can be classified as relics
from ancient times.62 This means, on the contrary, that it is possible to reconstruct the
consciousness of ancient people with the help of knowledge about the religion of
today’s hunter-gatherer communities. However, only a brief insight into the multiplicity
of so-called primitive religions reveals that their contents and symbols are not similar
by any means. According to Max Raphael, the faith-conceptions of recent hunter-
gatherer communities cannot be consulted in order to derive from them a certain
belief of prehistoric man. Even people living on a relatively primitive economical level
up to the present day, have been affected by their past, which has influenced their
state of mind. As a result their ideas and religious conceptions changed in the same
59 Ibid.: 364 f.
60 Hartmann 1957: 403. Among the latest literature see, for example, Grim 1998: 1107 -
1108, and Hultkrantz 1998: 746 - 752.
61 Maringer 1956: 59 ff.
62 Michaels (ed.) 1997:41-60 and 77 - 89.
manner as the belief system of modern communities did.63 The anthropologist
Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann acknowledges the arguments of Max Raphael when he
emphasises that all known primitive religions are younger than theological religions.64.
Even if ecological and economical prerequisities of different societies are the same,
they do not necessarily have the same or a similar belief system, identical rituals,
symbols and practises. Hermann Schulz emphasises: „Kulturell auf das engste
verwandte Gruppen können einen religiös-symbolisch und artefaktreichen
Ritualismus entwickeln (Sepik-Gebiet) oder innerhalb der elaborierten
ritualsymbolischen Medien tendentiell nichtreligiöse, artefakt-arme Programme
elaborieren (Kapauku).“65
The arguments show that it is by no means sufficient to find proof for the hunting
practices of Neanderthal man in order to imply any kind of religion and especially not
a definite and well-known religion.
Bear-cult
The existence of the cult of the bear in the middle Palaeolithic period is taken for
granted. Åke Hultkrantz writes: „Die Kulturen des arktischen Raumes sind
Bruchstücke einer paläolithischen Jagdkultur.“66 Friedrich Heiler67 refers to similar
ideas as those expressed by Joseph Campbell, who describes the cult of the bear in
an interesting, but hardly well-grounded manner. First Campbell refers to a bear-
festival among the Ainu. After the killing of the captured bear and during the
ceremonies, the skull of the animal is put at the top of a long stick. 68 In a second step
Campbell portrays Neanderthal man in impressive terms: „when the remains of a
strangely brutish yet manlike skeleton were found in a limestone quarry not far from
Düsseldorf, in the Valley of Neander“69. The following descriptions shortly mention the
caves of the Alps, where the remains of the bears were detected. The excavators got
the impression that the arrangement of the fossil bones could hardly be due to nature,
so they attributed this to the activities of H. neanderthalensis who were assumed to
63 Max Raphael writes: „Man hat diese Schwierigkeit umgehen wollen durch
Heranziehen von Aussagen sogenannter primitiver Kulturvölker. Diese nur in sehr engen
Grenzen mögliche Analogie übersieht, daß auch diese Stämme eine Geschichte gehabt haben -
eine regressive statt der progressiven der Kulturvölker. Es liegt ein unberechtigtes Vorurteil in
der Annahme der Einfrierung des Gewesenen; denn >die Primitiven< finden sich, selbst wo sie
auf dem Stadium der Jagdwirtschaft stehen geblieben sind, mit den alten Werkzeugen und
Waffen einer anderen Umgebung gegenüber: die starken, den Einzelmenschen an Mächtigkeit
überragenden Tiere sind ersetzt durch wesentlich kleinere und schwächere“ (Raphael 1978:
78).
64 Mühlmann 1957: 1198.
65 Schulz 1993: 189.
66 Hultkrantz 1998: 751.
67 See Heiler 1979: 78.
68 Campbell 1987: 334 ff.
69 Ibid.: 339.
have killed the animals and arranged their bones during certain ceremonies.70 It is
true that nearly everywhere in the Arctic primitive peoples know certain rituals
connected with the hunting of the bear.71 The excavators of the caves, Emil Bächler
and Karl Hörmann, took these ceremonies of circumpolar peoples to prove their
hypothesis of an ancient bear-cult in prehistoric times.72 In the following years several
discoveries of similar bear-caves seemed to support the hypothesis of cave bear
worship. Emil Bächler himself discovered bear bone deposits at the
Wildenmannlisloch in Switzerland and in Slovenia’s Mornova Cave. In 1946 André
Leroi-Gourhan excavated seven cave bear skulls arranged in a circle in Furtins Cave,
Saône-et-Loire. In 1950 Kurt Ehrenberg secured a deposit of long bones arranged
together with cave bear skulls in the Salzhofen Cave in the Austrian Alps.73
The latest find of supposed traces of prehistoric cave bear worship was published in
1996. In the Rumanian Bihor-Mountains Christian Lascu et al. discovered a cave rich
in palaeontological cave bear deposits.74 Scholars such as Johannes Maringer or Åke
Hultkrantz refer to the reports of the excavators, when they interpret the deposits as
the remainder of cult practise. The historian Karl Narr also gives an account of the
deposits of cave bear skulls and long bones, but remains sceptical.75
A detailed discussion of the finds of cave bear bones under a palaeontological and
ethnographic point of view led to completely different results.76 The careful and critical
use of ethnographic analogues, on which the theories of a cave bear cult is founded
in the end, leads to even contrary results. If H. neanderthalensis had known cave
bear worship, its traces would have been found inside the settlements. The remains
of such a cult would have been the bone deposits of Neanderthal man’s favourite and
most dangerous game, among which, however, the bear did not rank. Recent
peoples, who know the bear cult, catch or kill a bear in his winter accommodation and
bring it to their settlement. There it is killed and eaten by the villagers under different
ritual regulations. The bones of the dead game are put into a holy place or are
carefully buried near the village, but never brought back again to the dwelling of the
bear.
The most impressive arguments against cave bear worship come nevertheless from
the bone deposits itself: Crucial palaeontological objections are to be stated first of
all. Both the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus), which was extinct at the end of the last ice
70 Ibid.: 341 f.
71 Edsman 1957: 841.
72 Maringer 1956: 95 ff.
73 See Lascu et al. 1996: 19-20, and Maringer 1956: 91 - 96.
74 See. Lascu et al. 1996.
75 Narr 1957: 10.
76 Wunn 1999a: 3 - 23.
age, and the brown bear (Ursus arctos), which spread all over Eurasia since the Eem
period, show a strong preference for cave accommodation. There they hide during
wintertime and give birth to their young. The caves where the relics of alleged bear
worship were found are the natural habitat of the animals, where they spend the long
winters and hide their young. At those places the bears sometimes died for several
reasons, for example age, illness, lack of food. Therefore their bone fossils are bound
to be found in those places, if they were not carried off by carrion eaters or removed
by sedimentological processes. The occurrence of cave bear bones in the caves of
the ice age, which served generations of bear families as shelter, is just what a
palaeontologist would expect.
The proponents of Palaeolithic bear worship did not only think the mere occurrence of
bear bones in the caves to be remarkable, but also their alleged assortment and
arrangement in which they were found. However, there first takes place an
amassment of bear bones in certain places by the activities of the bears themselves,
as André Leroi-Gourhan correctly noticed. The parts of skeletons of the deceased
animals, which originally are in their anatomical order, are thrown in disorder or
scattered by later generations of bears. Sometimes they are pressed to the walls,
were they are relatively protected against further decay.77 Also the outweighing of
skulls and long bones is a result of a process of natural decay and not due to human
activities. The mentioned parts of the skeleton are relatively heavy and compact, so
that they are more able to resist decomposition processes than the small vertebrae,
ribs, foot-bones or hand-bones. A result of those processes is the natural selection of
the bone material.78 But not only decomposition influences the state of the bones.
During their history the caves were flooded several times, as the accumulated
sediments prove. Such floodings do not remain without influence on the fossil
material. With high water level and stronger current all loose material is either rinsed
away or carried for a certain distance and then dropped at a place where there is a
weaker current. During these processes the anatomical bone order is radically altered.
Therefore the accumulation of several skulls in one place and the absence of other
bones is due to geological and sedimentological processes and not to human
intervention. The floating ability of sediments can be reduced by prominent parts of
the walls or unevenness of the floor, resulting in some bone parts being deposited in
the proximity of obstacles. A concrete example of this effect is the discovery of
several skulls deposited in a crosslike pattern in the Cold Cave of the Bihor
Mountains. The obstacle, which reduced the transportability of the sculls crucially,
was a stone, at which the fossil skulls were deposited.79 Just as little as the
assortment of the bone material is proof of human activities, so the adjustment of the
fossils is an unnatural process. The movements of a transport medium, be it wind,
sediment or water, are transferred to the material to be transported, so that the
77 Leroi-Gourhan 1981: 39.
78 Ziegler 1975: 44 - 45.
79 See Lascu et al. 1996: 30 plate. 3.
movement in a special direction leads to its assortment. Therefore the assortment of
bear skulls is not due to human activities, but to the flowing water or other transport
mediums in the caves. It cannot be said clearly enough: There was no cave bear
worship in the middle Palaeolithic period at all. The bear caves show exactly what a
palaeontologist would expect. Nothing suggests that the natural process of decay and
sedimentation was at any time interrupted or disturbed.80
Combined burials of man and cave bear
In connection with assumed bear worship the opinion was held that sometimes men
and bear were buried together in one grave.81 As proof served the excavations at Le
Régourdou near Lascaux, where under a hill of debris both the remains of a bear and
a Neanderthal man were preserved. The French archaeologist Fabienne May
demonstrated that the remains of the bear bore no connection with the human
skeleton, and questioned whether there was a funeral at Le Régourdou at all.82
Skull deposits and skull worship
Just as the bear worship was regarded as irrefutable fact, there was hardly any doubt
that Neanderthal man subjected the heads of the deceased to a special treatment and
set them up for ritual purposes. Other scholars are convinced that Neanderthal man
hunted fellow humans to kill and eat them.83 It is said that the skulls of the killed later
became the focal point of a ritual. This hypothesis is suggested by Ioan Couliano:
„Einige Schädel sind in einer Weise verformt, die den Gedanken an ein Herauslösen
des Gehirns nahelegen.“84 Alfred Rust expresses himself absolutely clearly: He is
sure, that the finds of isolated lower jaws and craniums are closely connected with
religious customs.85 Detailed and critically Johannes Maringer argues the question of
the skull cult. He discusses the finds which were considered as proof of the presence
of the alleged practices. There is, for example, the crushed childlike skull from
Gibraltar or the finds of human remains at Weimar-Ehringsdorf and particularly the
outstanding find of the skull of Monte Circeo, which is mentioned by every author as
proof of the described ritual practice. Finally he comes to the following result: „Das
Fundbild der Guattari-Grotte spricht klar für einen Kult, in dessen Mittelpunkt der
Schädel stand. Ursprünglich scheint er auf einem Stock aufgesteckt gewesen zu
sein... Einem heiligen Bannkreis gleich umgab ihn der Kranz von Steinen. Der ganze
Höhlenteil erweckt den Eindruck, als habe er den in der vorderen Höhle wohnenden
80 Wunn 1999a, S. 6 ff.
81 Rust 1986: 15.
82 Ibid.:15.
83 Ullrich 1978: 293 ff. See also the overview in Henke & Rothe 1999: 277.
84 Eliade and Couliano 1991: 28.
85 Rust 1991: 194
Urmenschen als Heiligtum gedient.“86 and further, „Die Schädelsetzungen dürften
aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach eine Art Schädelkult darstellen, in dem das Gedächtnis
der Verstorbenen gepflegt und ihre Hilfe wie auch ihr Schutz für die Sippe erfleht
wurde.“87 Even André Leroi-Gourhan agrees that the skull of Monte Circeo is an
intentional deposition of a skull, but he refuses to draw any conclusions concerning
religious customs.88 On the other hand he can prove that all other finds of isolated
heads or jaws are the result of taphonomic processes.89 After a careful re-examination
of the original reports of the excavations, Fabienne May states that none of the
descriptions of the excavations is sufficient to confirm or disprove the hypothesis of a
ritual.90 The discovery of a supposed cult site at Teshik-Tash in Uzbekistan, where the
skull of a child was set up between several skulls of ibex, does not prove the
hypothesis of a cult. In this case the remnants of ibexes and the skull of the child
have no connection at all.91 Since it could be shown that even the scull deposition of
Monte Circeo was not the result of human activities, but the damages of the skull due
to the work of hungry hyenas, the last argument in favour of a skull cult is disproved.92
Cannibalism
Cannibalism has already been mentioned in connection with the deposition of human
skulls. André Leroi-Gourhan expresses himself as follows: „Die Existenz eines
religiösen Kannibalismus im Paläolithikum mag wahrscheinlich sein, doch läßt sich
dies bei der gegenwärtigen Materiallage absolut nicht beweisen. Und dennoch spricht
kein Autor von der paläolithischen Religion, ohne für oder gegen die
Kannibalismusthese Stellung zu beziehen, wobei in größerem Umfang auf
ethnographische Beispiele zurückgegriffen wird.“93 But particularly those ethnographic
analogies give strong arguments against the hypothesis of prehistoric cannibalism.
The anthropologist Gabriele Weiss and the archaeologist Heidi Peter-Röcher discuss
the topic of cannibalism carefully.94 They state that the ethnographic material itself is
frequently not convincing, because it is based mainly on sensational reports of past
adventurers. There are no assertions by eye-witnesses, but stories of man eaters
were always reported by writers who only stated that they had heard about those
customs. The custom of cannibalism itself was always stated to have been given up
86 Maringer 1956: 80.
87 Ibid.: 85.
88 Leroi-Gourhan 1981: 53.
89 Ibid.: 54-56.
90 May 1986: 17.
91 Ibid.: 33 - 34.
92 Henke and Rothe 1994: 527.
93 Leroi-Gourhan 1981: 56.
94 Weiss 1987: 142-159, and Peter-Röcher 1989.
just several years before the arrival of the traveller. 95 Frequently the assumption, that
a certain people was guilty of cannibalism, was used propagandistically in order to be
able to lead a war against this people or to force them into slavery.96 On the other
hand it was a well known rumour in Africa even up to the beginning of this century,
that Europeans fed on the flesh of African children.97 After all it was stated by Heidi
Peter-Röcher, that there is no evidence of cannibalism among recent people at all. 98
This means that it is nonsense to search for the reason and the origin of that custom
in prehistoric times. It cannot be decided, in what extent Sigmund Freud with his
hypothesis of the origin of human society must be blamed for evoking the idea of
early man-eaters. In his volume „Totem und Tabu“ he made several statements about
the origin of human society, saying that at the beginning of prehistory a group of
humans was ruled by a despotic patriarch, until he was killed and eaten by his sons.99
The sub-title of his volume „Einige Übereinstimmungen im Seelenleben der Wilden
und der Neurotiker“100 reflects however the opinion of many of his contemporaries and
colleagues and contributes to the picture of the mentality of Neanderthal man until
today.101
The facts, on which the theory of prehistoric cannibalism are based, are usually poor.
Frequently it was sufficient to assume cannibalism existed, if a skeleton was found
incomplete or not in anatomical order.102 It is still considered as strong proof for
cannibalism, when split human bones occur, as they were excavated at Krapina. The
defenders of the cannibalism thesis argue, that the remnants of human bones look
absolutely similar to the scattered animal bones at the same excavation site.
Therefore they come to the conclusion, that Neanderthal man treated his
contemporaries in the same way as he treated game. This argument is still stressed
by the anthropologists Tim White and Alban Defleur: Scattered bones of human
beings and deer in the cave of Moula-Guercy show the same scratches.103 This
argument presupposes however, that the humans as well as the animals were killed
by Neanderthal man. Similarly, both the humans and the animals could have been
95 Volhard 1939: 369.
96 Gabriele Weiss mentions the example of a decree of Queen Isabella in 1503, who
gave permission to enslave the Caribbean Indians, because they were said to be man-eaters
(Weiss 1987:152).
97 Ibid.:150.
98 Peter-Röcher 1998. On the contrary the American anthropologist Christy Turner is
convinced, that the Anasazi, an Indian people, who lived in the southern parts of the United
States during historical times, made hunt for their contemporaries. See Turner 1999.
99 See Weiss 1987: 44 - 45.
100 Weiss 1987: 44.
101 Campbell 1987: 339.
102 Maringer 1956: 81 f. In the excavation report of the site Weimar-Ehringsdorf
cannibalism is not mentioned at all. See Feustel 1989: 391 - 393.
103 Defleur et al. 1999: 128 - 131.
the victims of carnivores, for example hyena or cave lion, or the scratches on human
and animal bones can be due to taphonomic processes.104 This thesis would explain
the remains of Krapina as well as the findings of Moula-Guercy. After all, identical
treatment of human and animal bones and the missing of any traces of a ritual do not
promote the hypothesis of a religious custom. In this case Krapina and Moula-Guercy
would prove that Neanderthal man hunted for other humans to gain the meat. This
seems to be impossible, because the hunters of Moustérien lived in a habitat full of
game, which was for sure easier to kill than contemporaries.
The archaeologist Heidi Peter-Röcher scrutinised the theories of alleged cannibalism
in the early history. In this connection she discussed the finds of Krapina in detail. As
a result she points out, that the human fossils of Krapina do not stem from a group of
humans, who were killed during a single event, but stem from frequent usage of the
cave over a period of 40 000 years. One of the main arguments in favour of the
hypothesis of cannibalism was the bad condition of the bones. Since however the
excavators operated with dynamite, the condition of the bones hardly allows any
conclusions about the cause of death.105 Scratches on the bones, which were
supposed to be traces of stone tools, have not been examined with the help of a
scanning electron microscope. Without such an examination the cause of the
scratches cannot be detected at all. In the long run there is not a single point of
reference, which could prove the theory of ritual cannibalism in the Palaeolithic
period.
Funerals and cult of the dead
An intended funeral is considered a clear indication of conceptions of a life after
death.106 Although the archaeologist Fabienne May remains sceptical - archaeology
can probably prove the facts, but hardly find the intellectual background - funerals can
at least serve as indication to possible religious conceptions, if not as proof.107
Therefore reports of alleged funerals always cause attention, even if cautious
archaeologists warn about overinterpreting badly documented excavations.108 Ioan
104 It is still more than difficult to decide, whether scratches on bones are due to human
activities, to carnivores or to taphonomic processes. The topic is still debated among scientists.
For an overview see Henke & Rothe 1994: 19 - 25.
105 Peter-Röcher 1998: 41.
106 Heiler 1979: 516 and Wißmann 1980: 730. Wißman explains: „In der
Religionsgeschichte begegnet eine Vielzahl von zumindest teilweise religiös motivierten
Verhaltens- und Vorstellungsformen, die - hier dem Begriff Bestattung zugeordnet - den
Umgang der Lebenden mit dem Leichnam des Verstorbenen kennzeichnen und die darin
implizit enthaltenen Vorstellungen oder explizit geäußerten Anschauungen, die dessen
Existenzform im Tod oder jenseits des Todes, das Verhältnis des Toten zu den Lebenden oder
dem Leben selbst betreffen.“
107 May 1986: 3.
108 A comment of André Leroi-Gourhan: „So ist das Problem der Paläoanthropinen-
Gräber nur sehr unvollkommen erhellt; die Verantwortung trifft voll und ganz die Ausgräber, die
nicht dem Wunsch zu widerstehen vermochten, >das Fossil ihres Lebens< zu finden.“ Leroi-
Gourhan 1981: 67.
Couliano and Mircea Eliade are convinced that Neanderthal man buried his dead.109
Eliade not only takes the funerals for granted, but believes that the position of several
skeletons indicate, that Neanderthal man feared the return of the dead or hoped for
rebirth.110 Both conceptions are well known in the history of religion. Many funeral
ceremonies among primitive cultures show that the kin of the dead tried to prevent
the return of the deceased. In doing so, the corpse was bound or struck. Wholes were
cut into the shoulders or the belly and the sinews were destroyed. These
precautionary actions were supposed to prevent the dead body from rising and
returning.111 Åke Ström and Harald Biezais mention an example for the belief in
rebirth from historical times. They interpret funerals of the Germanic people as
follows: The corpse was buried in a manner, resembling the position of a child in its
mother’s uterus, so that the dead could be reborn after a certain period. 112 Johannes
Maringer is convinced of the existence of funerals since the Moustérien, too. As proof
he describes the excavations at Kiik-Koba, the Mountain of Carmel and Teshik-Tash.
He also mentions places in Western Europe such as Le Moustier, La Chapelle-aux-
Saints and La Ferrassie.113 The excavation reports seem to prove that the hunter of
the Moustérien already believed in life after death. The young man of Le Moustier
was buried, as Johannes Maringer believes, in a sleep posture. „It is difficult to say,
whether he understood this sleep as contemporary and expected to wake up in
another world.“114 Maringer explains. The foetal position of the human skeletons found
at La Ferrassie and Carmel is strong proof for the hypothesis, that Neanderthal man
bound his dead, because he feared their return.115 Traces of fire in those caves, which
served as temporary shelter, he interprets as remnants of funeral customs. „Vielleicht
hielt der Urmensch die Aschenschicht für eine Decke, die kein Toten zu durchdringen
vermöge, die ihn also an sein Grab banne. Der Abwehrkraft des Feuers steht
wiederum seine wohltuende, wärmende Wirkung gegenüber. Möglicherweise sollte
das Feuer den erkalteten Leichnam erwärmen, ein Zug der Totenfürsorge“.116 In
Johannes Maringer’s opinion the excavation reports do not prove the existence of
funeral gifts. But the bones of ungulates, which were frequently found in close
proximity of the tombs are, as Maringer thinks, the traces of meals to honour the
deceased.117 All documents of the excavations, which Johannes Maringer used to
109 Couliano specifies as follows: „Die unter dem Namen Neandertaler bekannte
Menschenrasse... glaubte zweifellos an eine Art von Überleben Ihrer Toten, die, auf der rechten
Seite liegend und den Kopf nach Osten gewandt, begraben wurden.“ Couliano 1991: S. 28.
110 Eliade 1978: 20 - 22.
111 Wißmann 1980: 733.
112 Ström and Biezais 1975: 65.
113 Maringer 1956 : 71 - 76.
114 Ibid.: 76.
115 Ibid.: 77.
116 Ibid.:77.
117 Ibid.:77 - 78.
prove his opinion of funeral rites in the Palaeolithic period, were recently examined by
Fabienne May.118 She comes to the following conclusions: Not all so called funerals
deserve that name. Neither at Le Regourdou, nor La Qina, or Le Roc de Marsal did a
single funeral take place. Many non-European excavations do not support the idea of
Moustérian burials, for example places like Carmel or Teshik-Tash. At other places,
e.g. La Chapelle-aux-Saints or outside Europe, in Shanidar, the circumstances at the
excavation sites allow us to assume, that intentional funerals took place. Nearly all
graves contain only a single corpse with the exception of La Ferrassie, where two
children were buried together, and Qafzeh, where the skeletons of an adult and a
child were found together. The grave of Shanidar could probably be a collective burial
site as well. 14 corpses out of 34 alleged funerals were found in cavities or graves,
which were all without additional installations. Fabienne May states that natural
recesses could be selected consciously in order to accommodate the corpse, but that
this hypothesis can not be verified.119 All graves were found in the direct
neighbourhood of settlements - that is the main reason, why they were detected at all.
The remains of fire were found at some burial sites, but Fabienne May points out, that
those fires were lit by later generations in the caves and settlements, and have no
connection with funeral rites by mourners or kin.120 In the middle Palaeolithic period
the dead were occasionally covered by slabs of stone. This can be proved in six
cases.121
In correlation with assumed funeral sites as for example Krapina or Kebara the
question arises, whether Neanderthal man probably subjected his dead ones to a
special treatment, i.e. whether they took off the flesh from the corpses and only
buried the bones. There is first evidence for this custom in the Neolithic period.122 In
the case of the excavation site at Krapina the cause for this belief is the bad condition
of the bones. This, however, is more likely due to the activities of predatory animals.
Later in the upper Palaeolithic the other single reason to assume such funeral rites
was the presence of ochre at the bones. Consequently the excavators came to the
conclusion, the bones themselves must have been coloured. On the other hand an
inquiry into the facts demonstrated, that the bones quickly take on the ochre
colouring, if it is present in the direct environment, which was often the case in camp
sites of Neandertal man.123 Traces of cremation are not found in the middle
Palaeolithic. All skeletons, whose position could be reconstructed with the help of the
excavation reports, were buried lying on their back or their side with bended, but not
118 May 1986: 11 - 35.
119 Ibid.: 149.
120 Ibid.:150.
121 These are two burial sites at La Ferrassie, an other one at Régourdou, Monte Circeo
(which can no longer count as funeral), La Chapelle-aux-Saints and Qafzeh. Ibid.: 152.
122 Peter-Röcher 1998: 41.
123 May 1986: 162.
extremely bended legs. This means, that the corpses were not bound before the
burial. There was no proof of funeral gifts. Fabienne May comes to the following
conclusions: There is scarcely any proof for intentional funerals in the Moustérien.
Frequently the excavators preferred to interpret their archaeological findings instead
of describing them carefully. Nevertheless it seems certain, that Neanderthal man
buried very few of his dead by putting them into a natural cavity or covering them with
slabs. Ochre was not yet used in connection with funerals during the middle
Palaeolithic period. Fireplaces in proximity of the grave bear no connection to the
latter. Many caves were inhabited later, so that the traces of daily activities are
frequently found on and near the graves. That means, that knives and other items
found there cannot be interpreted as funeral gifts.124
The only fact which remains of Johannes Maringer’s extensive considerations is the
mere existence of only few funerals during the Moustérien. It must seem natural, that
Neanderthal man knew feelings such as mourning, rage, despair and incredulity at the
final loss of a beloved person. Obviously those feelings induced Neanderthal man
from time to time, to handle the corpse of the deceased in an affectionate way. This
does not mean, that he had to believe in a life after death or that he was capable of
religious feelings. Especially the lack of any funeral rites proves the absence of a
certain common belief. On the other hand those rare funerals can be a first hint of a
initial feeling or hope, that there might be a certain form of existence even after
death.
Conclusion
For the whole lower and middle Palaeolithic period there is no evidence of any
religious practice. All relevant conceptions of that kind are either products of a certain
mental climate at the time of the discovery of the fossils or of ideologies. The results
of palaeanthropological research prove, that neither Homo habilis nor Homo erectus
were capable of developing a complicated symbol system. In the middle Palaeolithic
period, the time of Homo neanderthalensis, things were different. This early
representative of the genus Homo had already developed advanced intellectual
abilities. But neither in connection with his hunting customs nor at his settlements
could any traces of cult practice be found. First signs of a beginning of religious belief
in a form of existence after death, are given by the rare burials. But there are no
funeral rituals or funeral gifts. All assumptions, that Neanderthal man already
believed in an afterlife, are mere speculation. Conceptions of rituals during the middle
Palaeolithic, of cannibalism or bear worship belong to the realm of legend.
The question of the origin of religion is still unsolved. The origin and the development
of religious feeling can be read from archaeological finds of burials. It is only in the
middle Palaeolithic period, that a first hesitation to abandon a beloved is provable.
Proper funerals and possible funeral gifts can be made out during the younger
124 Ibid.: 211 - 212.
Palaeolithic. Only the European Mesolithic and the early Neolithic of Asia Minor know
regular funeral customs and rituals, a certain spectrum of funeral gifts and secondary
burials.125 An increasing care for the dead during the last 100 000 years is
nevertheless easily to detect. It can be supposed that the developing funeral customs
were closely connected to the belief in an afterlife. Obviously religion, which means
the belief in a supreme being, in supernatural power, in an afterlife, the feeling of the
„Holy“ in the sense of Rudolf Otto, was not a part of human nature from the very
beginning, as Mircea Eliade assumes, but had to develop over a period of thousands
of years.126
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