It would have been nice if the article had been more specific.

The earth is only 6000 years old.

I wonder what the names of their gods were. In any event, I'm sure today's Christians would regard them as pagans, and that their gods are false.

But theism is the commonality.

Or are you saying their gods actually existed?

The search for the Creator, in my words.

With no evidence mind you, but the best part about faith is it gives you liberty to fill in the blanks with no proof of anything.

Lots of things do. Rape, murder, war, genocide. Just because humans have a tendency for something doesn't automatically mean that something is desirable or beneficial today.

Burial rituals are not evidence of religion which requires doctrine and dogma. It's just evidence humans were sentimental about loved ones who died, which isn't surprising given humans aren't unique in that regard.

Religion didn't appear until humans started gathering in larger groups where more sophisticated means of control were required. As long as you could convince someone your authority to rule came from an invisible higher authority, leadership was less likely to be questioned. It also made things like convincing people to march to their deaths in battle far easier.

Obviously someone is trying to create a narrative that suggests religion has always been a part of humans, but pointing to flimsy evidence that only goes back about 1/50th of human existence is kind of a piss poor way to do that. It also betrays a much simpler explanation that religion was simply an invention of convenience intended to manipulate larger populations.

Key words: "Might have."

Inferring religious belief from burial practices is common. Why those burial practices existed remains unknown. Making assumptions about why people do or did things is specious, and derivative of current practices. That trick works poorly.

The thing about death and burial is that the people were loved and missed by those close to them. Rituals to demonstrate that are not necessarily tied to religious beliefs.

"Here! Put toy in hole! Og loved toy!"

are seen in so many ancient cultures.

One would think that the example of the ancient Egyptians providing ritual and actual objects for the use of the deceased to use in the afterlife is the most well known.

useful objects with their dead. Our Native American cultures did that. Belief in an afterlife is not necessarily a theistic thing.

Seems like a common enough thing to do, given all of the archaeology I've seen.

"Joe died. We bury him so he doesn't stink."
"Where Joe go?"
"I don't know."
"Maybe he need arrows and bow?"
"We bury those too."

Assigning religious beliefs to such practices is not necessarily accurate, I think.

why would Joe need any physical objects?

The obvious answer is that these people believe in an afterlife.

the people involved aren't here to answer questions, so it's more likely "Likely".

Ascribing motive to objects from a distant and unknown civilization is perilous, using your modern assumptions.

So this assumption of need proceeds from the survivors who buried these useful and/or symbolic objects with Joe.

And if the objects had value in the life of the deceased, yes, people will infer that the survivors placed these now unneeded objects in the grave.

And given that many religions deal with the concept of the afterlife, it is not surprising that scientists decide, on the weight of the evidence, and based on their own studies, that these objects have a religious significance.

There's no climate change level of consensus here. Not even remotely close.

Interpreting or inferring the intent of a 9,000 year old object is not. Thus the need to compare between cultures.

That is just your assumption, based on your own theism. We do not know anything about the thoughts of pre-historic cultures. We cannot, because they had no written languages. We can only project our assumptions into them - or we can more properly say, "We don't know what that meant to them."

were theistic, we can infer from the existing evidence that earlier, pre-literate human societies were theistic as well.

And projecting that these earlier societies were not theistic lacks evidence.

That does not mean that your inference is correct.

But my inferences, or speculations, rely on actual evidence from societies with a written record, and the assumption that theism did not spring into existence with writing. It preceded it.

So we have evidence that a belief in rebirth, and funerary traditions, can be non-theistic. Assuming they were theistic is a leap of faith.

The validity of a claim is in no way related to its lifespan.

But hey, I like history.

does not tell us what that religion was, or what they believed. It's interesting, yes, but not an argument for the validity of religion.

And that is all that it is.

Good job.

evidence?

who made the discoveries.

Example, Venus of Willendorf. Lay it on its back, and look down along the length of the body. Suddenly, it is no longer distended and distorted. It falls into line and looks, as a sculptor might see, looking down at their own body, in a society where mirrors aren't really invented yet.

Archaeologists are certainly within the sphere of anthropology, but there's more perhaps to it, than just what they know currently.
A sculptor (fine arts) would perhaps have more insight into what a statue means.

Edit: Some light reading.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2744349?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

statuary in general.

And this sculptor might have no knowledge of the particular area covered by this article. Or the many other examples of religious statuary and related artifacts.

But if we see similar artifacts, and if these artifacts are commonly found in graves, we can infer that these artifacts had a symbolic purpose.

it yourself here, toward Paleolithic/Neolithic women. (Who CERTAINLY existed.)

When you're in the paradigm, you cannot see the paradigm.

Please read “Toward Decolonizing Gender: Female Vision in the Upper Paleolithic” and https://qz.com/quartzy/1399713/a-different-view-of-gender-in-prehistoric-society-and-art/

You're guilty of the thing you were just complaining about a patriarchal church doing.

The one that denies the fact that theism, and religious thought, are present in every society with a written record. You cannot accept that these articles might have religious significance.

So you cannot see your own paradigm, and how it colors your interpretations.

And no, I'm not in the paradigm. The 'female fertility goddess' male-gaze explanation for the 'venus' statues never 'felt right' to me, because they don't explain anything, and do not fit the suggested purpose.

And the part about the physical perspective of the artist, and the possible self-perspective while reclining, which I must confess to having never considered, is very interesting, but is in my opinion too restrictive. Would these artists not also have had the ability to look at females from a frontal perspective?


And could one intent, perhaps the primary intent, have been to show woman as the creator of life?

is also, possibly, a lot of things.

But one piece of hard evidence is the forced perspective present in nearly ALL sculpture attempts from that time period.

And thank you again for the link to a very interesting argument.

As to the intent of the artists, we can only speculate.

that religion is an evolutionary artifact, inate in humans.
But again, zero evidence that anything they believe in is real.

and many here would argue against that, perhaps that characteristic is a trace of the Creator's intent. Perhaps it is a reminder that existence and the Creator cannot be separated.

perhaps have an entire belief system made up of perhapses.

Based solely on your own assumptions.

I know many things. I'm inclined to trust some people when they tell me about things I do not quite understand. I believe what I know, and tend to think what people I trust tell me is correct.

I do not have a "belief system." I leave that to the theists, who believe things for which there is no evidence. I can't do that.

to make certain assertions.

contradictory and implausible Gods and supernatural beliefs over the eons would argue against that,

And even more so against your Christian God.

Or your creator doesn't really want people to know anything about anything.

as many imperfect views of a being that we cannot truly comprehend.

The fable of the blind men and the elephant illustrates my point.

More like five blind men in a room describing what they imagine is outside the room.

that you mentioned.

are you trying to make a point/