Tracing the development of ritual and religion through the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic eras is a matter of dealing with two lengthy and distinct histories. First, there is the physical record, which serves to reveal the ceremonies and beliefs behind them that the prehistoric peoples practiced. Existing both in direct relation to this, yet also as its own realm, is the mythology which was begun and refined over the periods.

The pieces do not always fit. In fact, they are virtually impossible to assemble, because only educated speculation can link the increasing refinement of the later mythologies with the crude remains and blocks of stone available as evidence of the founding beliefs. There are Paleolithic religious relics, but their real impact can only be guessed at.  As the eras evolved, however, myth became more stratified, and within virtually every identified culture. Norse, Egyptian, and Greek myth, all emerging from the various Stone Ages, carried on the prehistoric stories and imbued them with the sophistication of each rising civilization.

The Paleolithic Birth of Religion

As there is yet no definitive understanding of the mental capacities of the earliest species of mankind, there can be no certain establishing of when ritual, myth, and/or religion first were manifested. However, the evidence of clearly symbolic statuary dating back to the Paleolithic Age indicates the strong probability that, as soon as mankind was capable of forming some kind of expression by the use of tools, it was determined to address supernatural issues. It is, in fact, likely that the tools were lacking when the first spiritual stirrings occurred.

If anything marks discoveries of Paleolithic relics as different from those of the following eras, it is a primitive quality in both form and apparent meaning. For example, in 1908 the first of the supposed “Venus” statuettes was discovered in the town of Willendorf, in  Austria. Many others have since been unearthed, and all reflect a blatant, crude emphasis on gender: “Like all the Upper Paleolithic artist who created Venuses, the Willendorf sculpture concentrated on the subject’s sexual nature” (Littleton, 2005, p. 1127).

It is interesting to note that all of these female forms have been referred to as “Venuses” by historians and archaeologists. It is as though this is a way of affirming that the later Grecian-Roman cults celebrating the defined goddess were simply extensions of this primal need to celebrate the female gender, in all its perceived mystery and power. Moreover, it is hardly surprising that early Stone Age peoples would turn to sexuality as a foundation of ritual and/or belief system; it was clearly the most evident, and inexplicable, difference between them, and the woman’s ability to bear children must have been taken as a terrifying and inexplicable occurrence. In this way, it seems likely that gods and goddesses were first venerated.

The Paleolithic appears to have had another spiritual concern, and one just as founded in living: death.  “Burials unambiguously associated with grave goods (e.g., body ornaments such as head dresses, beaded necklaces, armbands) increases significantly in the Upper Paleolithic…” (Voland, Schienfenhovel, 2009, p. 131). If birth was a vast mystery, death was equally incomprehensible. Paleolithic mankind was at least imbued with a rough consciousness, and an awareness of life as a span in which it played an active role. Consciousness breeds questioning, and death must have seemed like an irrational finality to those with no understanding of biological matters. Consequently, if fascination with female sexuality and the power of procreation gave rise to “Venus”, or the first goddess, worship, it is reasonable to assume that the end of mortal life, equally staggering in consequence, would create a need to forge an afterlife.

Mesolithic Movement

It is not justifiable, of course, to assert that the Mesolithic Era was more evolved in terms of human growth than the Paleolithic. There is evidence that this was so, certainly in ways reflecting superior skills: “Chipped-stone axes were common in Northern European Mesolithic contexts…the development of Mesolithic bone-and-antler technology is equally distinctive” (Delson, et al., 2000,  p. 845). This does not, however, directly translate to a more evolved view or practice of religion.

Although not as dramatically as the Neolithic Era, the Mesolithic brought about an enlarging of the known world. This era coincided with the modern Holocene epoch, in which the modern world remains. The climate was changing, and warming permitted both nomadic movement and the establishing of settlements, as in the Levant. Peoples could either carry their religious beliefs with them and, by right of force, inflict them on other tribes, or develop their mythologies and spiritual beliefs within rude communities. They were not marked by any significant evolution of understanding; on the contrary, it seems that fear and superstition more powerfully held sway:

“…Many archaeological sites have yielded evidence of practices…such as human sacrifice and the veneration of watery places; some…seem to have been present since Mesolithic times” (McIntosh, 2009, p. 240).

It is probable that the deification of water began at this period, or at least grew to greater proportions. The habitable regions were becoming arid, and farming had yet to emerge; it is only natural that the people would then revere what had become so precious to them. There is less logic to be deduced from the other practice mentioned by McIntosh, although there is more than adequate evidence of it: “ A very well-known site is the Jungfern cave at Tiefenellern in Southern Germany which was used as a place of sacrifice…” (de Laet, 1994, p. 552). Whoever the gods were that the people named as such, appeasing them in the most brutal ways was apparently considered necessary as a religious practice.

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