The spiritual world of Paleolithic humankind is largely unknown to us, and there are definitely more questions than answers, especially since we have become hesitant to label any archeological find that we cannot readily explain as a “ritual” or “religious” object. There have been several attempts to relate religious ideas and behaviors of much later dates to some Paleolithic origin: especially animal sacrifice and all rituals connected to that have been supposed to go back to the world view of Paleolithic hunters, but one would be hard put to adduce any proof for that notion. Of course, it seems that there are no human societies without some forms of ritualization and symbolization, and it is likely this was no different in the Stone Age. But recognizing these in the archeological record will remain something of a challenge. The use of red ocher in graves of a Late Paleolithic date must Point to some symbol of life, but whether this is a life after death is unknown. The provision of food for the dead might be a better indication of this, but it is not attested: the Paleolithic people did not know of ceramics as a way to store food. Thus, we end up by saying that death was already marked in Paleolithic times as perhaps the most important rite ofpassage in a human life, and was associated with some rituals, but we cannot really go beyond that.
From around 30,000 years ago, humans have been making “works of art.” Maybe we had better speak of representations. Even though we nowadays tend to look upon these creations as “prehistoric art,” we should not conclude that their makers were moved primarily by esthetic considerations. Esthetics will have played some part, but many of these works of art are located in places where they could hardly be seen by their creators, let alone by others admiring their work. This especially holds good for cave art, such as the famous wall decorations in the caves of Lascaux in France or Altamira in Spain, and paintings on rock faces in the open air. We also have movable objects, such as engravings in bone and ivory, and statuettes, many of the type of “Venus figures,” richly endowed motherlybeings. A religious context seems likely for all or most of this art. With the cave art deep down in almost inaccessible caves, and certainly not in inhabited grottos, to interpret this as some kind of hunting magic seems plausible: there are many animals depicted, and these are usually the species that we know were hunted by Late Paleolithic humans. They are shown wounded or trapped, or mating, or with young. Were these images intended to secure success for the hunters, to pacify the spirits of the animals killed and slaughtered, or to ensure the fertility of the animals and thus the future food supply? We cannot know for certain. We also have imagery of humans dressed up in animal skins: gods or other supernatural beings, or human shaman-like individuals. With the Venus figures, a link with fertility seems fairly evident, also considering the fact that we have representations of breasts or pudenda only. But whether we have to think of “mother goddesses” is again impossible to establish.
World History
