The Origins Of Religion In The Paleolithic

Author : Gregory J. Wightman
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 307 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2014-12-18
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781442242906

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The Origins of Religion in the Paleolithic by Gregory J. Wightman Pdf

How did religion emerge—and why? What are the links between behavior, environment, and religiosity? Diving millions of years into the past, to a time when human ancestors began grappling with issues of safety, worth, identity, loss, power, and meaning in complex and difficult environments, GregoryJ. Wightman explores the significance of goal-directed action and the rise of material culture for the advent of religiosity and ritual. The book opens by tackling questions of cognitive evolution and group psychology, and how these ideas can integrate with archaeological evidence such as stone tools, shell beads, and graves. In turn, it focuses on how human ancestors engaged with their environments, how those engagements became routine, and how, eventually, certain routines took on a recognizably ritualistic flavor. Wightman also critically examines the very real constraints on drawing inferences about prehistoric belief systems solely from limited material residues. Nevertheless, Wightman argues that symbolic objects are not merely illustrative of religion, but also constitutive of it; in the continual dance between brain and behavior, between internal and external environments, lie the seeds of ritual and religion. Weaving together insights from archaeology; anthropology; cognitive and cultural neuroscience; history and philosophy of religions; and evolutionary, social, and developmental psychology, Wightman provides an intricate, evidence-based understanding of religion’s earliest origins.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 293 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:904012673

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The Origins of Religion in the Paleolithic by Anonim Pdf

Author : Robert N. Bellah
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 777 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2011-09-15
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780674063099

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Religion in Human Evolution by Robert N. Bellah Pdf

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An ABC Australia Best Book on Religion and Ethics of the Year Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution. “Of Bellah’s brilliance there can be no doubt. The sheer amount this man knows about religion is otherworldly...Bellah stands in the tradition of such stalwarts of the sociological imagination as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Only one word is appropriate to characterize this book’s subject as well as its substance, and that is ‘magisterial.’” —Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review “Religion in Human Evolution is a magnum opus founded on careful research and immersed in the ‘reflective judgment’ of one of our best thinkers and writers.” —Richard L. Wood, Commonweal

Author : D. Bruce Dickson
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 1992-07
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780816513369

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The Dawn of Belief by D. Bruce Dickson Pdf

Hunter-gatherers of the Upper Paleolithic period of the late Pleistocene epoch in western Europe left a legacy of cave paintings and material remains that have long fascinated modern man. This book draws on theories derived from cultural anthropology and cognitive archaeology to propose a reconstruction of the religious life of those people based on the patterning and provenience of their artifacts. Based on the premises that all members of Homo sapiens sapiens share basically similar psychological processes and capabilities and that human culture is patterned, the author uses ethnographic analogy, inference from material patterns, and formal analysis to find in prehistoric imagery clues to the cosmology that lay behind them. The resulting book is an intriguing speculation on the nature of paleolithic religion, offering scholars a valuable synthesis of anthropological, archaeological, and sociological research, and general readers an accessible account of how our forebears may have regarded the unknown. "A well-written and intellectually rigorous introduction. If you are curious about prehistory, you will enjoy it." —Wilson Library Bulletin "Most interesting to those scholars interested in seeking materialist foundations or ecological explanations for religious practices." —American Antiquity "A well-written and concise account of what has recently been achieved by the investigations of spiritual life of the Earth's most ancient human communities." —Archiv Orientalni (Czechoslovakia)

Author : John Henry Morgan
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Religion
ISBN : STANFORD:36105124075651

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"In the Beginning-- " by John Henry Morgan Pdf

"This study explores the origins of religious consciousness by means of a systematic analysis of the ritualized burial of the dead and cave art as evidenced in Paleolithic remains. It is suggested here that religion is a natural manifestation of emerging human consciousness demonstrated by empirical archeological artifacts as an integral component to cultural evolution"--Provided by publisher.

Author : Robert N. Bellah
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 777 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2017-05-08
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780674252936

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Religion in Human Evolution by Robert N. Bellah Pdf

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An ABC Australia Best Book on Religion and Ethics of the Year Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution. “Of Bellah’s brilliance there can be no doubt. The sheer amount this man knows about religion is otherworldly...Bellah stands in the tradition of such stalwarts of the sociological imagination as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Only one word is appropriate to characterize this book’s subject as well as its substance, and that is ‘magisterial.’” —Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review “Religion in Human Evolution is a magnum opus founded on careful research and immersed in the ‘reflective judgment’ of one of our best thinkers and writers.” —Richard L. Wood, Commonweal

Author : Julien Ries
Publisher : William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Page : 162 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 1994
Category : Religion
ISBN : UOM:39015032148457

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The Origins of Religions by Julien Ries Pdf

The Origins of Religions opens with a look at prehistoric man's first steps on the planet, then moves on to examine the cultic rituals, artistic expression, and expanding mythology that developed throughout the Paleolithic and Neolithic epochs.

Author : Lisbeth Bredholt Christensen,Olav Hammer,David Warburton
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 655 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2014-09-11
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781317544524

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The Handbook of Religions in Ancient Europe by Lisbeth Bredholt Christensen,Olav Hammer,David Warburton Pdf

"The Handbook of Religions in Ancient Europe" surveys the major religious currents of Europe before Christianity - the first continental religion with hegemonic ambition - wiped out most local religions. The evidence - whether archaeological or written - is notoriously difficult to interpret, and the variety of religions documented by the sources and the range of languages used are bewildering. The "Handbook" brings together leading authorities on pre-Christian religious history to provide a state-of-the-art survey. The first section of the book covers the Prehistoric period, from the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age. The second section covers the period since writing systems began. Ranging across the Mediterranean and Northern, Celtic and Slavic Europe, the essays assess the archaeological and textual evidence. Dispersed archaeological remains and biased outside sources constitute our main sources of information, so the complex task of interpreting these traces is explained for each case. The "Handbook" also aims to highlight the plurality of religion in ancient Europe: the many ways in which it is expressed, notably in discourse, action, organization, and material culture; how it is produced and maintained by different people with different interests; how communities always connect with or disassociate from adjunct communities and how their beliefs and rituals are shaped by these relationships. The "Handbook" will be invaluable to anyone interested in ancient History and also to scholars and students of Religion, Anthropology, Archaeology, and Classical Studies.

Author : Ina Wunn,Davina Grojnowski
Publisher : Springer
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2016-07-27
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9783662527573

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Ancestors, Territoriality, and Gods by Ina Wunn,Davina Grojnowski Pdf

This books sets out to explain how and why religion came into being. Today this question is as fascinating as ever, especially since religion has moved to the centre of socio-political relationships. In contrast to the current, but incomplete approaches from disciplines such as cognitive science and psychology, the present authors adopt a new approach, equally manifest and constructive, that explains the origins of religion based strictly on behavioural biology. They employ accepted research results that remove all need for speculation. Decisive factors for the earliest demonstrations of religion are thus territorial behaviour and ranking, coping with existential fears, and conflict solution with the help of rituals. These in turn, in a process of cultural evolution, are shown to be the roots of the historical and contemporary religions.

Author : Pascal Boyer
Publisher : Random House
Page : 448 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2008-12-26
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781407020877

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Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer Pdf

Why are there religious beliefs in all cultures? Do they have features in common and why does religion persist in the face of science? Pascal Boyer shows how experimental findings in cognitive science, evolutionary biology and cultural anthropology are now providing precise answers to these general questions, and providing, for the first time, real answers to the question: Why do we believe?

Author : Robert N. Bellah,Hans Joas
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 561 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2012-10-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780674067400

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The Axial Age and Its Consequences by Robert N. Bellah,Hans Joas Pdf

This book makes the bold claim that intellectual sophistication was born worldwide during the middle centuries of the first millennium bce. From Axial Age thinkers we inherited a sense of the world as a place not just to experience but to investigate, envision, and alter. A variety of utopian visions emerged and led to both reform and repression.

Author : Sharon R. Steadman
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2016-07
Category : RELIGION
ISBN : 9781315433882

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Archaeology of Religion by Sharon R. Steadman Pdf

Steadman fills an empty niche in the offerings on how archaeology interprets past religions with this useful textbook. The book includes case studies from around the world, from the study of Upper Paleolithic religions and of shamans in foraging societies to formal religious structures in advanced complex societies of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and the Andes. Steadman also includes key contemporary religions—Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, among others—to provide an historical and comparative context. This is an ideal text for a archaeology of religion courses and classes that include a significant component on “past religions,” as well as an excellent guide for general readers.

Author : Robert L. Winzeler
Publisher : AltaMira Press
Page : 340 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2012-04-12
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780759121911

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Anthropology and Religion by Robert L. Winzeler Pdf

Drawing from ethnographic examples found throughout the world, this revised and updated text offers an introduction to what anthropologists know or think about religion, how they have studied it, and how they have interpreted or explained it since the late nineteenth century. Robert Winzeler’s balanced consideration of classic topics, basic concepts, and new developments in the anthropological study of religion moves beyond cultural anthropology and ethnography to gather information from physical anthropology, prehistory, and archaeology. Written as a sophisticated but accessible treatment of the issues, Anthropology and Religion is a key text for upper-division courses.

Author : Hansjörg Hemminger
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2021-09-22
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9783030704087

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Evolutionary Processes in the Natural History of Religion by Hansjörg Hemminger Pdf

The study of religion by the humanities and social sciences has become receptive for an evolutionary perspective. Some proposals model the evolution of religion in Darwinian terms, or construct a synergy between biological and non-Darwinian processes. The results, however, have not yet become truly interdisciplinary. The biological theory of evolution in form of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) is only sparsely represented in theories published so far by scholars of religion. Therefore this book reverses the line of view and asks how their results assort with evolutionary biology: How can the subject area “religion” integrated into behavioral biology? How is theory building affected by the asymmetry between the scarce empirical knowledge of prehistoric religion, and the body of knowledge about extant and historic religions? How does hominin evolution in general relate to the evolution of religion? Are there evolutionary pre-adaptations? Subsequent versions of evolutionary biology from the original Darwinism to EES are used in interdisciplinary constructs. Can they be integrated into a comprehensive theory? The biological concept most often used is co-evolution, in form of a gene-culture co-evolution. However, the term denotes a process different from biological co-evolution. Important EES concepts do not appear in present models of religious evolution: e.g. neutral evolution, evolutionary drift, evolutionary constraints etc. How to include them into an interdisciplinary approach? Does the cognitive science of religion (CSR) harmonize with behavioral biology and the brain sciences? Religion as part of human culture is supported by a complex, multi-level behavioral system. How can it be modeled scientifically? The book addresses graduate students and researchers concerned about the scientific study of religion, and biologist interested in interdisciplinary theory building in the field.

Author : John D. Loftin
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Humor
ISBN : UOM:49015003415180

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The Big Picture by John D. Loftin Pdf

The author examines the history of world religions as a whole, as divided into four major historical categories (Paleolithic, Neolithic, Axial Period, and the Discovery of the New World), and as unique traditions. Contemporary religions focused on include Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Confucianism, and Taoism. The doings of Krishna, Buddha, Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, K'ung Fu-tzu (Confucius), and Lao Tzu are detailed. The impact on world history of other figures, both mythical and historical, is revealed through coverage of such worshipped and worshippers as Tiamat, Enlil, Marduk, Gilgamesh, Ishtar, Ra, Horus, Osiris, Indra, Rudra-Shiva, Vishnu, Shang Ti, T'ien, Yahweh, Elohim, Allah, Moses, John the Baptist, Paul, Constantine, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin. Extensive bibliographies accompany the text.