Great Leap Forward".
These traits included the ability to use complex symbolic thought, the beginning of language, tool making, fishing, games, music, self-ornamentation and burial rituals. There are two theories to when behavioral modernity occurred, one was a sudden event 50 thousand years ago and the second was that there was no "Great Leap Forward" but a gradual accumulation of knowledge, skills and culture over hundreds of thousands of years.
Human intelligence has evolved for many hundreds of thousands of years as well, and has been formed from ecological dominance, social competition and social interactions. As a result human intelligence made a shift from learning to master the natural world to competition an dominance among other members in it's social group. With an ever increasing and complex social structure, communication of concepts with complex language ensued and the competition for controlling nature had shifted to influencing others and out maneuvering the other members for leadership.
This was a point at which a major evolutionary change took place called: "Behavioral Modernity" and refers to traits that distinguish present day humans from our most recent ancestors, both the living primates of today and our extinct lineages.
Religious behavior is one of the hallmarks of behavioral modernity in early humans, this is also when they started burying their dead with ritual style burials and represented a significant change in human behavior. All social animals have hierarchical societies in which each member knows its own place. Social order is maintained by certain rules of expected behavior and dominant group members enforce order through punishment or a believed punishment for their actions. Organized religion traces its roots to the neolithic revolution that began 11,000 years ago in the Near East.
This neolithic period was the beginning of a population explosion and the acceleration of technologies. This required a more specialized form of religion that would reflect this new social and political environment. The central authorities governing the new empires didn't believe that the supernatural beliefs by the small tribes were justified , it didn't justify the transfer of wealth or maintain peace between unrelated individual s . Organized religion emerged as a means of providing social and economic stability.
Humans do have ancestors that are millions of years old, contrary to what religions would have you believe. These are the primates and are our closest living relatives. They had high intelligence, the capacity for communication, they built lasting relationships with others, were very social and had a sense of continuity. Around 50 thousand years ago an event happened that archeologist and anthropologist called the "
These traits included the ability to use complex symbolic thought, the beginning of language, tool making, fishing, games, music, self-ornamentation and burial rituals. There are two theories to when behavioral modernity occurred, one was a sudden event 50 thousand years ago and the second was that there was no "Great Leap Forward" but a gradual accumulation of knowledge, skills and culture over hundreds of thousands of years.
Human intelligence has evolved for many hundreds of thousands of years as well, and has been formed from ecological dominance, social competition and social interactions. As a result human intelligence made a shift from learning to master the natural world to competition an dominance among other members in it's social group. With an ever increasing and complex social structure, communication of concepts with complex language ensued and the competition for controlling nature had shifted to influencing others and out maneuvering the other members for leadership.
This was a point at which a major evolutionary change took place called: "Behavioral Modernity" and refers to traits that distinguish present day humans from our most recent ancestors, both the living primates of today and our extinct lineages.
Religious behavior is one of the hallmarks of behavioral modernity in early humans, this is also when they started burying their dead with ritual style burials and represented a significant change in human behavior. All social animals have hierarchical societies in which each member knows its own place. Social order is maintained by certain rules of expected behavior and dominant group members enforce order through punishment or a believed punishment for their actions. Organized religion traces its roots to the neolithic revolution that began 11,000 years ago in the Near East.
This neolithic period was the beginning of a population explosion and the acceleration of technologies. This required a more specialized form of religion that would reflect this new social and political environment. The central authorities governing the new empires didn't believe that the supernatural beliefs by the small tribes were justified , it didn't justify the transfer of wealth or maintain peace between unrelated individual s . Organized religion emerged as a means of providing social and economic stability.
theocracies with chiefs, kings and emperors playing dual roles of political and spiritual leaders. Anthropologists have found that virtually all state societies and chiefdom's from around the world have been found to justify political power through divine authority.
The states born out of the Neolithic revolution, such as those of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, were The reason we spent so much time on ancient human history and religion was to try and shed light on the thinking of today's religious beliefs the leaders and how long it has gone on and why. Is it any wonder why we have the problems we do today? Most scientist who have spent any time researching human evolution will tell you that |
If religion didn't exist, we would have been well on our way to being a truly advanced civilization. Religion generally operates on black hole logic, where it capriciously infuses insoluble rhetoric ("Only God knows such things") where genuine human curiosity would suffice. Religion encourages us to embrace ignorance and be satisfied with being a primitive species.
What does this say about humanity? It says quite emphatically that for all of our technological advancement, we are still little more than apes with tools. It means that even as the most sophisticated animal on the planet, we are incredibly powerless. We have not changed substantially as a species in the last two million years! We are still relying on the use of tools!
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