Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods: Early Humans and the Origins of Religion

by E. Fuller Torrey

In one such study, adolescents with autism, compared to controls, were only 11 percent as likely “to strongly endorse belief in God.” Such findings support the association between theory of mind and theistic beliefs.

Sophisticated tools, pierced shells, fitted clothing, engravings on ochre, rocks shaped to resemble animals, boat travel in open seas—a new kind of hominin had clearly emerged. The behavior of these hominins was so at variance with the behavior of their predecessors that we designate this group as Homo sapiens, “wise man.”

Self-adornment has been used by Homo sapiens in every known culture, often involving extraordinary investments of time and resources, as names such as Gucci and Cartier can attest. At the heart of self-adornment is one Homo sapiens thinking about what another Homo sapiens is thinking about him or her. This is the introspective self.

This is a second-order theory of mind test, because it involves thinking about what one person thinks another person is thinking.

We are aware of being aware, conscious of ‘having’ consciousness, of being conscious. Our knowledge is itself an object of knowledge: we can gaze at our thoughts ‘the same way’ we look at our hands and feet and at the ‘things’ which surround our bodies not being part of them.”

In Christian theology, the emergence of an introspective self is symbolized by the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, who eat fruit from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden and, for the first time, become aware of themselves and their nakedness.

Among many primates, grooming one another is an important means of social bonding. According to this theory, as primate groups grew in size, it became difficult for one primate to groom an increasing number of individuals. Language thus developed as a substitute for grooming: “If conversation is basically a form of social grooming, then language allows us to groom with several individuals simultaneously.”

language as “one of the wonders of the natural world … an extraordinary gift: the ability to dispatch an infinite number of precisely structured thoughts from head to head by modulating exhaled breath.”

This definition of language would thus assume the existence of self-awareness and an awareness of others’ thinking as a minimum prerequisite.

It thus seems possible that the introspective self and language as we know it developed together. As Simon Baron-Cohen noted, language “is not just a transfer of information like two fax machines by a wire; it is a series of alternating displays of behavior by sensitive, scheming, second-guessing social animals.”

Steven Pinker reflected this clearly, when he said, “deep down chimps don’t ‘get it.’ ” And University of Rochester anatomist George Washington Carver succinctly summarized it: “The only reason that an ape does not speak is that he has nothing to say.”

There is also anatomical evidence to support human language as a relatively late evolutionary acquisition, developing in tandem with development of the frontal and parietal lobes.

It seems more likely, therefore, that language was an accelerant of human evolution rather than its cause. What good is the ability to think about yourself if you cannot talk about yourself? What good is the ability to think about what others think if you cannot gossip about them? What good is it to think about what others think of you if you cannot talk to them or others about it?

The acquisition of an introspective self would have been an immense impetus to language development. This was illustrated by Robin Dunbar, who “has eavesdropped on people on trains and in cafeterias, and he consistently finds that two-thirds of their conversations are about other people.”

One theory regarding the origins of gods is the human tendency to anthropomorphize—attribute human agency to—inanimate things or events. Thus we assume that thunder and lightning, floods and droughts, the rising of the sun and the phases of the moon must all be caused by some superhuman or divine power.

But since the brain had already reached an average 1,350 cubic centimeters at least 100,000 years earlier, it could not grow larger, or the head of newborn babies would no longer fit through the bony outlet of a woman’s birth canal.

Thus, by 60,000 years ago, when early Homo sapiens are thought to have left Africa, they had apparently acquired intelligence, an awareness of self, an awareness of others’ thinking, and, most remarkably, the ability to think about themselves thinking about themselves. They had acquired the cognitive skills they would need to displace all other existing hominins and to become the lords of the earth.

It is not simply the introduction of new tools at the start of the Upper Palaeolithic [45,000–11,000 years ago] which is important. It is how these were then constantly modified and changed. Through the Upper Palaeolithic we can see the processes of innovation and experimentation at work, resulting in a constant stream of new hunting weapons appropriate to the prevailing environmental conditions and building on the knowledge of previous generations.

As noted in the previous chapter, it seems likely that a major cognitive change—the acquisition of introspection—occurred approximately 100,000 years ago and that this cognitive change largely accounts for the new behaviors seen at that time. If that is true, is it possible that another major cognitive change took place approximately 40,000 years ago? If so, what was it?

Studies of the development of autobiographical memory in children have shown that the past and future dimensions develop simultaneously and are cognitively integrated. Together, they form the temporal self, enabling the person to use the past to master the future.

This linking of the past with the future, according to Sir John Eccles, demonstrates “the extraordinary ability of humans to plan for the future while profiting from the memory of past experiences.” Eccles added that “we live in a time paradigm of past-present-future. When humans are consciously aware of the time NOW, this experience contains not only the memory of past events, but also anticipated future events.” It has even been claimed that “the primary role of episodic [autobiographical] memory … may be to provide information from the past for the simulation of the future.”

The opening lines of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets describe it succinctly: Time present and time past Are both present in time future, And time future contained in time past.

Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, the White Queen instructs Alice that “one’s memory works both ways.” “I’m sure mine only works one way,” Alice remarked. “I can’t remember things before they happen.” “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” the Queen remarked. “What sort of things do you remember best?” Alice ventured to ask. “Oh, things that happened the week after next,” the Queen replied in a careless tone.

Death was something that happened to other people; to understand that it is also going to happen to you, you need to be able to fully project yourself into the future, both theoretically and emotionally, using your accumulated experiences from the past. In short, one needs to have acquired an autobiographical memory.

modern Homo sapiens slowly developed an autobiographical memory, an awareness of their own death began to take hold. Since they were able to introspectively think about their own thinking, entirely new ideas were born—infinity, eternity, the meaning of life.

Thus, modern Homo sapiens became the first hominin to fully understand the implications and meaning of death. According to British archeologist Mike Parker Pearson, this awareness is “a fundamental defining characteristic of what it is to be human, at the very core of our being and self-consciousness.”

The shamanistic interpretation of cave art postulates that priest-like shamans existed at the time when the caves were painted and that much of the cave art was a product of their trance states.

In summary, by about 40,000 years ago, hominins had completed five important stages of cognitive evolution. As Homo habilis, about two million years ago, they began to become significantly more intelligent, and this trajectory toward becoming progressively smarter continued. As Homo erectus, about 1.8 million years ago, they developed self-awareness. As the Neandertal species of Archaic Homo sapiens, about 200,000 years ago, they acquired an awareness of what others were thinking, called a theory of mind.

As early Homo sapiens, about 100,000 years ago, they acquired an introspective ability to think about themselves thinking about themselves. Finally, as modern Homo sapiens, about 40,000 years ago, they developed an autobiographical memory, the ability to project themselves backward and forward in time, using their experiences from the past to plan the future.

Each stage in this cognitive evolution was accompanied by anatomical changes in their brain, changes that, at least in br...

This raises a question, as Klaus Schmidt noted, “if maybe the ‘invention’ of agriculture was an epiphenomena of these huge gatherings of hunters and the accompanying work.” Thus, the “mass gathering of people over a considerable period of time … may have been a catalyst for the domestication of plants.”

The land that was farmed by one’s ancestors is the same land on which they are buried and the same land that is being farmed by the present generation. According to one summary: “Often the land and the ancestors are intimately connected. Among many African tribes, ancestors are the ultimate owners or proprietors of the land.… Among Australian aboriginals, ancestors are thought to be part of the land itself.” Such arrangements inevitably led to the idea of land ownership, probably for the first time in history.

“What we appear to be witnessing in [southwest Asia] between 12,800 and 10,000 BP (before the present), when farming had its origins, is the beginning of a human obsession with the material presence of the dead among the living.”

Thus, the core concerns of people 12,000 to 7,000 years ago for which they sought the assistance of their ancestors would have been the elementary issues of life and death.

Agriculture and ancestor worship developed together, the former for sustenance, the latter for succor.

Studies of primitive societies have demonstrated that there is often a continuum of spirits and deities. On one end of the continuum are ancestor spirits of parents and grandparents.

As one moves up the continuum from spirits to deities, one acquires more supernatural powers. The line dividing the most powerful human spirits from the least powerful of the deities is imperceptible, similar to the line between twilight and dusk.

Swanson reported a significant correlation between societies that were more socially and politically complex (had more “sovereign organizations”) and the existence of “high gods” (“a god who rules the world and heavens”). A more recent study reported a highly significant correlation between the size of societies (number of levels of political authority beyond the local community) and the existence of “moralizing gods” (“gods who tell people what they should and should not do”).

An autobiographical memory is a necessary prerequisite for the ability to plan but is not planning itself.

Those individuals who had the best-developed lateral prefrontal cortex, and thus the best executive brain function, would have been more successful and more likely to pass on their genes.

It is thus clear that the world’s first civilization was firmly built upon a religious foundation. As George Roux noted, the gods and ideas concerning them “played an extraordinary part in the public and private life of the Mesopotamians, modeling their institutions, coloring their works of art and literature, pervading every form of activity from the highest functions of the kings to the day-to-day occupations of their subjects.”

In Egypt, even more than in Mesopotamia, the sacred and secular were completely integrated. As anthropologist Bruce Trigger noted, the Egyptians had no word for “religion,” since “religion was inseparable from daily life.” The gods were regarded as all-powerful, and the pharaoh was the gods’ representative on earth.

The sacred and secular, gods and governments, developed together. French sociologist Émile Durkheim claimed that “nearly all great social institutions were born in religion.” British historian Arthur Toynbee similarly asserted that “the great religions are the foundation on which great civilizations rest.” The relationship between the gods and governments would thus partly determine the shape of subsequent emerging civilizations.

Beginning 2,800 years ago, the final phase in the emergence of gods and religions as we know them began.

Great empires require great gods and great religions. The original gods of natural forces, life, and death that had been adequate for Mesopotamian and Egyptian cities 3,000 years before were no longer adequate for empires spanning millions of people in multiple ethnic groups. Just as governance had to be systematized to cover the new world order, so did the gods and religions, since they are an integral part of such governance. Those doing the governing derived part of their authority from the gods.

Thus was born the “axial age,” a 600-year period from 2,800 to 2,200 years ago (800 to 200 BCE). During this period, Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism were all born, the latter subsequently giving rise to Christianity and Islam. Together, these religions provide spiritual sustenance to 60 percent of people currently alive.

The period was designated as the axial age by German philosopher Karl Jaspers, because, he said, it represented an “axis in history.” “All the vast developments of which these names are a mere intimation,” said Jaspers, “took place in those few centuries, independently and almost simultaneously in China, India and the West.”

In surveying the development of these religions, five aspects of them are noteworthy. First, all of them offered an answer to the problem of death.

Second, major religions provide other benefits in addition to offering a solution to the dilemma of death. Such benefits include the psychological support that accompanies group membership as well as such benefits as physical protection, social services, and access to jobs or economic advancement.

Third, as noted earlier, major religions usually develop in conjunction with the political governance of the people. The sacred and the secular develop hand in hand and are often inseparable.