As always, thank you for the insightful and thought provoking comment. I appreciate anytime you comment on a post here and wish other commenters would follow your recipe.

On the subject at hand, I know that some primatologists, notably Jane Goodall, have observed chimpanzees doing what can be considered a ritual at a waterfall — so the roots of spirtualism maybe far more deep than we expect. Can you elaborate on the evidence for “shamanic” or other magical-religious thoughts since Upper Paleolithic? In all honesty, I’m unfamiliar with that evidence and would like to investigate.

Kambiz

Since always and by this I mean *at least* since we are Homo sapiens and maybe before. Our greater cognitive ability makes us ask way too many questions, many of which can only have an answer in the realm of the imaginary (magico-religious dimenson). Additionally we know that the pre-scientific mind tends to explain the why of things by affinity, what again leads us to the magico-religious realm.

We think we have evidence of “shamanic” or other magical-religious thought at least since Upper Paleolithic. But it’s very likely that it was there before, since our minds were large enough and became concerned about the why of things – to which magical explanations are the most simple, sometimes reasonably approximate, available explanation without proper science.

Thinking in magical terms is even possible, I think, to understand more or less what the animal offerings in this burial may have meant: the head of a mustelid certainly suggests me smartness, sharp mind, intelligence, while the other offerings may reflect other such attributes (shell for sturdiness and protection; wings for spirituality, far sight or wisdom, etc.) Neverhelss, I must admit that the mammal offerings suggest food to me (ham and bull-tail soup), though they surely meant also spiritual attributes I cannot understand well.