Religious Behavioral Development in the Stone Age

ghostly behaviors developed to what they are today stock in the pre-historic times of the paleolithic, Mesolithic, and the Neolithic. at that place is evidence of these behaviors in the archaeological artifacts as well as fabricationological evidence. Religious behaviors evolved as valet de chambre evolved. Religious whims changed too. In the Paleolithic we learn that people were very spi ghostlike rite everything was tough as a spi rite act. They approached everything ritualistically and their behaviors were in response to the numinous. The numinous is expound as a feeling you get when you cant justify something.There is archaeological evidence window paneing to animal worship during this time too. sacred beliefs in the Paleolithic gave way to potpourris of organized religion based on archaeological findings from the Neolithic. Beginning in the Paleolithic we see evidence of ritual burials as a form of spiritual behavior. Early modern humans buried their numb(p) and some of those graves contained grave goods. These grave goods consisted of string of beads and various pieces of jewelry bracelets, necklaces, and pendants. The grave goods may have implied that the people believed the dead would go on somewhere and they may need, or want, those items with them.This is a belief based on animism, that anything and everything has a soul or spirit. The grave goods could excessively mean that the living tempered the dead the same way they treated the living. The burials suggested they had respect for the dead. These ritual burials continued on in the Mesolithic and the Neolithic. scratch line in the Mesolithic and continuing in to the Neolithic, we see more religious behaviors develop. During the Paleolithic, people were living together and cooperating with one another, building temples, and gathering fare and everyone spoke one language.The myths suggest that at one point the cooperation and consent dissipated, and three new cultures evolved. With the three new cultures came three different languages. The cultures that emerged from the hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic were replaced with farmers, herders, and hunters in the Mesolithic. The myths suggest that the three cultures (farmers, herders, and hunters), came from the three sons of Noah. Prior to that, in the myth of the First Family, there were two types of people, or two different cultures. There was Cain, who was a farmer, a iller of the ground, and his brother Abel, who was a herder, or keeper of the flock. In a later myth we are introduced to Nimrod, who was a hunter, thus round out the three groups. Those three groups had their own set of religious behaviors. Those behaviors include animal sacrifice, human sacrifice, ritual sex, and ritual abstinence. Other behaviors emerged that may not be considered religious behaviors but instead, ways of life, but are worth mentioning since they developed over time along with the religious behaviors and play a major role in the lives of the early humans and constitution evolution.Those ways of life include shamanism, priesthood, matriarchy, patriarchy, Apollonian and Dionysian. We can better understand the religious behaviors of the different cultures besides after we identify the pattern of culture, or traits, individually one exhibited. The patterns of culture are associated with the characteristics in the distinction between the gods Apollo and Dionysius. Apollo was the god of light and Dionysius was the god of wine. Therefore, the characteristics are referred to as Apollonian and Dionysian.During the Mesolithic, Dionysian tendencies gave way to Apollonian tendencies. Dionysian characteristics include earth, Eros, epicurean, heart, emotion, feeling, chaos, excess, fe masculine, equality, art, spontaneity, country, and nature. A culture that exhibited characteristics of Dionysian would most in all probability blueprint human sacrifice, ritual sex, shamanism, and matriarchy as their religious b ehaviors. Apollonian characteristics include sun, psyche, stoic, mind, reason, thinking, order, restraint, male, hierarchy, science, city, and civilization.Differing from Dionysian, a culture that showed signs of Apollonian characteristics would practice animal sacrifice, ritual abstinence, priesthood, and patriarchy as their religious behaviors. Based on the myths and the artifacts of the Mesolithic, and the Neolithic, we are able to determine that the farmers were most likely Dionysian. both(prenominal) of the characteristics evident in the myths, which are told from the farmers point of view, include the earth, Eros, and female. The characteristics in the artifacts include the female as well, but besides equality.The burials, being of the same type, and the houses they lived in, which were also the same, suggest equality, and the female is emphasized in the statues. Eros, which gave us the word erotic, is prevalent in the artifacts and the myths. Based on our understanding of h ow the characteristics define the religious behaviors, we learn that the farmers practiced human sacrifice, ritual sex, shamanism, and matriarchy. Stonehenge was believed to have been built during the Neolithic. Archaeologists found human remains there and a number of the skulls showed signs of blunt-force trauma which suggested human sacrifice.The herders in the Neolithic displayed more Apollonian characteristics. As mentioned earlier, Dionysian tendencies were giving way to Apollonian tendencies. The evidence of this is found in some(prenominal) the myths and archaeologically. The male is prevalent in both, hierarchy is established, and order is suggested. Again, based on our understanding of how the characteristics define the religious behaviors, we surmise that the herders practiced animal sacrifice, ritual abstinence, priesthood, and patriarchy. The restraint and stoic characteristics point toward the abstinence while the male henpecked myths point to the patriarchy way of lif e.There were numerous animal mug up discovered which indicated animal sacrifice. Evidence of the Neolithic hunters way of life is faint-hearted but if we use the myths from the Mesolithic, and the artifacts from the Neolithic, we can deduce that the hunters were also Apollonian. The myths are told from a hunting point of view and they imply hierarchy and are male prevailing. The artifacts hint at the sun and we learned that the hunters lived close to the farmers which means they were civilized, employ reason, and thinking. Being of Apollonian in nature, the hunters shared the same religious behaviors of the herders.In summary, religious behaviors have undergone dramatic, and not so dramatic, changes through the different time periods discussed. Some of those behaviors are still around today. Human sacrifice is probably the only one that has almost completely disappeared in the modern day, but on the other hand, animal sacrifice, which weve seen since the Mesolithic, is still rele vant in this day and age. The behaviors exhibited had benefits such as providing a sense of community, it proved to be a form of communication, it offered assistance during crises, and also provided psychological well-being.