prehistoric religion

Burial customs and cults of the dead

The oldest known burials can be attributed to the Middle Paleolithic Period. The corpses, accompanied by stone tools and parts of animals, were laid in holes in the ground and sometimes the corpses were especially protected. In some cases, the findings give the impression that the dead were to be “held onto.” Whether or not that meant that the dead were to be cared for lovingly or that their return was to be feared, it implies, in any case, a belief in life after death in some form. But it is not necessary to infer a belief in separate souls; rather, it could also indicate the concept of a “living corpse.”

From the Upper Paleolithic Period on, the burials manifest richer grave goods; however, it is not possible to conclude from this that religious concepts had changed. The same holds for the adoption of other burial practices, as, for example, secondary burials, in which the bodies were first allowed to decompose fully and then the bones were buried, or in the burning of bodies (evident from the Neolithic Period). From these facts it is not possible to infer the existence of a definite belief in souls; it is also not possible to determine the advent of such concepts from archaeological evidence. Even the increase in the discoveries of grave goods, occasionally also including other human remains, is evidence not for a change of religious concepts but for increased needs of the dead in the beyond—i.e., needs after death that are dependent on economic and social status in life. Analogies to recent (primitive) phenomena demonstrate that it is not possible to connect particular burial customs with particular notions of the beyond or to any other religious conceptions. Other than the burial of the whole body, the disposition of the individual parts of the body, and especially the skull, is important. Ritual deposition of skulls is confirmed for the Middle Paleolithic Period. From even earlier periods, however, individual or multiple human skulls and long bones have been found within a single site (for example, associated with Peking man). It is not necessary to interpret these findings as remains of headhunting or developed skull cults, for even today some simple hunting and gathering societies have the custom of preserving such parts of corpses for long periods of time and even of carrying them around on their bodies. The same practice is observed also to have occurred in the Upper Paleolithic and even later periods, but it is not possible to infer an elaborated ancestor cult directly from such prolonged connections of the living with the dead.

Discover how ordinary objects work, and expand your understanding of the familiar.

SIGN UP

" height="20" alt="HEW Logo">

Thank you for signing up!"

Back to homepage

By clicking "Sign Up", you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

The situation is different with findings from permanent settlements of agrarian people, in contrast to constantly shifting hunter-collectors. Evidence for ancestor cult practices dating to the 7th millennium bce were first discovered at Jericho in Palestine, where several skulls were found to have been deposited in a separate room, some of them covered with a plaster modeling of faces similar to that found on the ancestral skulls preserved by present-day agrarian peoples of South Asia and Oceania. An elaborated skull cult is usually connected with the veneration of ancestors. An important theme of ancestral cults is the belief in a connection between the dead and the fertility of the land of their descendants.

An especially noteworthy kind of burial is that of the megalithic (huge stone) graves that appear in various areas from the Neolithic Period on. It is probable that in this practice there was also a vital believed link between the living and the dead, and that occasionally sacred areas and gathering places were connected with such graves. The practices of the megalith builders were probably rooted, to a considerable extent, in ideas about the dead and in ancestor cults to which their stones gave a particular durability and a monumental form. It is more difficult to explain the individual erect stones (menhirs), which, of course, could be the symbol or seat of ancestors, especially where they show indications of being sculpted in human form. It surely would be a mistake, however, to look for a uniform interpretation of all megalithic monuments or even to speak of a distinct megalithic religion. The megalithic monuments are rather to be understood as a complex of grandiose manifestations of ideas that could well have been diverse, but among which the cult of the dead, nevertheless, played an important role.

Cannibalism

In finds belonging to the Paleolithic Period, pieces of human bodies as well as the bones of other animals are found scattered throughout the archaeological layers and are sometimes broken or charred. This is often taken as evidence for cannibalism, but other interpretations are just as likely (e.g., the action of carrion-eating animals [such as hyenas] turning up the bones to the surface and thus causing their burning by later fires at the same place). To be sure, the finds allow the interpretation of cannibalism; however, they do not necessarily or intrinsically require it but rather permit that explanation if one proceeds from the prior conviction that cannibalism already existed at that time. This obsolete conception, still held by some scholars today—i.e., that cannibalism is an especially “primitive” phenomenon and therefore very ancient—must be abandoned. Ethnological studies show clearly that cannibalism appears almost exclusively in the practices of agrarian peoples, that is, in a later cultural stage, and evidently is essentially bound up with religious or magical conceptions in which cultivated plants play a large role. Even if a Paleolithic cannibalism existed on a large scale, it could not be explained by means of concepts that originated in a cultural stage so differently structured.

The situation in later periods, especially in the Neolithic, is different. Here, rather than isolated parts of human skeletons scattered about a settlement, human remains occasionally are found in association with remains of foodstuffs in waste pits or in holes and tunnels that served as sacrificial sites. Especially where human skulls have been broken open and the hollow bones split, the interpretation of cannibalism is unavoidable. Since this inferred practice occurred in the realm of agrarian cultures, it is more feasible to make comparisons with present-day cannibalism, where the meaning is generally the acquisition of the powers and other qualities of the victim.

Explore Britannica Premium!

The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.

SUBSCRIBE