Were our primate ancestors religious too?

Question

What do you think their creation story might have been?

That's right...the rabbits that were being fed by people on a regular basis and were occasionally trapped for food had their own sort of religion, didn't they? They were all weird and they worried the regular rabbits.

Watership Down was awesome! :P It's been so long since I thought about that book.

Answer 1

Most forms of "culture", i.e. art, elaborate burials and so on, begin at about 40000 years b.c and pretty suddenly.

From what I got reading on this subject, the last major evolutionary change for humans was the ability to imagine. Earlier hominids like heidelbergensis lacked this ability. They saw the world exactly as it was (in essence they were the perfect atheists) and were incapable of imagining new worlds or of longterm planning. Once their loved ones died, the body meant nothing to them and was simply left unburried.

When imagination arose, most likely during a severe population bottleneck, man gained a CRUCIAL skill for survival. However, the side effect of this skill is "overgeneralizing" and overapplying it where it's not warranted and then mapping it to reality.

For example, a person could explain one's self-awareness by postulating a "soul" and noticing that other humans also seemed to possess "souls" but then going on to apply it to EVERY single thing. Fire is angry, Wind is gentle, Water is sensuous... and so on.

The first religions of the world were without a doubt various forms of animism combined with attempts to placate nature with sacrifices. Most probably believed in a cyclic universe, a universe of continual renewal and repetition since a tribe living in pretty much the same way for many generations would probably not conclude that the universe had a beginning.

Answer 2

There are crazy creation stories out there, I've heard everything from magical snakes falling from the sky to giant ravens discovering man inside a clamshell, who knows what a monkey would think up. Wish I knew though!

Answer 3

I can't remember if it was Homo erectus or an earlier or later species, look it up. However, the earliest signs of spirituality came when our ancestors started to bury the dead instead of them laying on the ground. Soon came burrying them with tools they'll need in the afterlife and religious symbols.

Answer 4

Actually, one species of chimpanzee (Pan troglodyte) does demonstrate some semblence of religious activities, especially the alpha male.

Answer 5

That's a hard question because I didn't have any primate ancestors. All of my ancestors were human. If any of your primate ancestors wrote down their beliefs (Oh, I'm sorry, primates couldn't write, could they?), why don't you let us know what they were?

Answer 6

Ask Charlton Heston... he's been with them.

Seriously, one of my favorite stories of all time is "Watership Down" by Richard Adams... in there a warren of rabbits has their own sort of 'religion,' so I can at least envision it in my imagination.

Answer 7

If you go down to the south of France, you will find cave paintings depicting a monkey Jesus dying for the sins of his fellow tree swingers.

Answer 8

Early hominids certainly had religion - it was a way for primitive people to make sense of their world.

If you're talking about pre-hominid primates, well... that's debateable :)

Answer 9

I can't believe I found something on this topic.

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/01/31/king/

Answer 10

chimps seem to have some reverence for nature.
http://www.janegoodall.org/chimp_central/chimpanzees/behavior/rain_dance.asp