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These are speculations based on my recent readings, about how primitive humans saw the world. My assumption is that if we could time travel to any point in the last 100,000 years, we'd find the peoples there entirely human and understandable-- not mindless zombies!
Other names for this topic are 'cognitive archeology' and 'archeo-psychology' (usually 'archaeo' actually).
African climate: [timeline]
"...a second aridity maximum around 22,000-13,000 14C years ago. Conditions then quickly became warmer and moister, though with an interruption by aridity around 11,000 14C years ago. A resumption of warm, moist conditions led up to the Holocene 'optimum' [8000-6000 BC] of greater rainforest extent and vegetation covering the Sahara. Conditions then became somewhat more arid and similar to the present. Relatively brief arid phases (e.g. 8,200 14C y.a.) appear to punctuate the generally moister early and mid Holocene conditions."
Burial goods
Nature is full of carrion-eaters on the prowl for fresh corpses, so disposing of a relative's corpse by burying it is a pretty minimal gesture of respect. Applying makeup so it looks nicer, and arranging the corpse so it's oriented toward a compass-point are also early developments.
(In Catal Hoyuk they exposed corpses on a platform for carrion-birds to strip, and then buried the skeletons under their beds!)
Including personal items is a simple step, but the escalation of this into elaborate grave-goods including precious metals and jewelry is harder to understand. Part of the explanation may be that keeping the person's possessions would have felt like stealing, and their 'ghost' would have haunted the survivors.
Gods
Humans are always having mental conversations with people who aren't present, often trying out new plans by describing them to the absent one... and death doesn't necessarily put an end to this. These conversations can elicit vivid hallucinations of the other's negative reaction to a plan, so gestures of appeasement may seem necessary to end the 'haunting'.
The transition to worshipping an ancestor as a god was probably a small step. If a statue was used as a symbol, it might become an abstract spirit to appease, shared by a whole community, maybe embodying many ancestors simultaneously. Approaching it might become ritualised, and this ritual might be a group activity, or an individual 'confession'. Such symbolic deference should have been a useful check on the ego of the tribal leader.
When people settled down, the largest statues were naturally identified with their cities. Egypt and the Hittites (etc) held parades for statues of gods, and even lent them out in emergencies. The distinction between statue and god was ambiguous, and attacks on (or theft of) an idol must have been traumatic.
The earliest Egyptian statues were usually totem-animals, which is harder to explain but probably also included mental conversations.
(In the last 20 years the quality of 'national god' offered by our mass media has declined-- eg Cronkite to Rather.)
Sacrifice
Appeasing gods by blood sacrifice was probably widespread at various times. The symbolism favored sacrifice of the most valued victims, making this especially painful (not to say perverse).
The other world
Many peoples must have envisioned spirits living in a parallel world, with similarities and differences to the natural world. Supplying them with food and tools and weapons for this other world is another explanation for grave goods.
Psychoactive plants would have been seen as offering a window to the other world, and the particular local hallucinogens must have shaped the understanding of it. Opium was widespread in Europe and the middle east before 3000 BC (but it was also used to relieve pain, and as an intoxicant).
Decoration
Makeup and jewelry are among the most ancient grave goods, already associated more with women than men. (Men are associated more with weapons.) The mummies of Urumchi show that some cultures went for very vivid colors and patterns in their clothes (this trait makes them much more likable to me).
Multi-colored frescos on white plastered walls in Catal Hoyuk and Minoan Thera also suggest an attractive culture.
Ego
The bragging of genocidal kings that makes up so much of early writing is something I find revoltingly immature. (The expression 'assholes' comes to mind.)
Sex
Different 'gods' tolerated different sorts of sexual expression. (In bonobos, at the free extreme, only mother-with-grown-son seems to be taboo.) Wealthy societies with leisure would have had much more energy for sexual experimentation than lives of hard labor.
The Minoan fashion of female breast-display is so unusual I can't believe it was natural to their religion, but instead must have represented prostitutes who had no choice. (But there's a whole tradition of temple prostitutes that I don't understand, either.)
Blessing and cursing
Blessing and cursing are taken very seriously by most societies. (I wonder if the modern deprecation of prayer, etc, is one of the causes of our 'decline of joy'.)
Security
There's a wonderful anecdote about the re-introduction of wolves in the American west, and how in consequence, moose that had grown fat and lazy were suddenly and dramatically made energetic and alert!
Tribal warfare must have had this effect, but all the same it must have been stressful, especially when neighbors had advantages that made defense difficult.
(Nowadays we have only cardboard 'enemies' like Saddam and Fidel and McVeigh.)
Migration
Many eras of ancient history were (supposedly) characterised by chaotic mass migrations of whole communities, displaced like dominoes by others. This is hard for me to visualise-- to survive on the road they would have had to pillage, and so they should have been cut down as bandits by all the peoples along the way.
Language
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