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Notes on video lecture:
Spiritual Beliefs of Early Humans
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on September 7, 2013 (go to class or lectures)


Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
ate, communicate, evidence, hierarchy, humans, Aztec, Cueva, theistic, song, directly, pacify, chauvinistic, desires, generic, reconstruct, goddess, barrier, local, hunters, agricultural, animist, Venus, different, bird
mental and spiritual lives of pre- -revolution humans
it's a lot harder to know what ancient people believed than what they , especially with no records of writing
animist beliefs
it is generally believed that ancient peoples had beliefs
Latin "anima" = soul or spirit
world is full of animated beings which can communicate with each everything
all rocks and trees have feelings, and needs, might be angry about something that people did
people might go to the rock and talk to it, ask for help
animists that humans could with immaterial entities, which you can communicate
animists believe that you can communicate directory in speech, , and ceremony with wolves, clouds and rivers
may address deers before killing in order to pay homage and not make the deer god angry
shaman contacts spirit who caused the sickness and tries to it or tries to scare it away
what separated animism with later religions is that in animism, the entities which you communicate with are beings such as a particular trees or rocks or spirits in your own valley, but not great gods who lived above the clouds and were responsible for everything
animists believed that there is no for communication between humans and rocks, trees and animals, neither is there strict hierarchy in the world, humans are not above or below other spirits, just existing with them, certainly behind affected both negatively and positively by them but there is rarely an ordered
the world of animists does not revolve around or any other particular being
it's not a specific religion but a name of many beliefs which have a common core approach to the world: no hierarchy and ability to communicate with spiritual entities
may have been just as varied as theist religions today
compare animism with theism
most cultures since the agricultural revolution 12,000 years ago have been religions
theism approaches the world with the belief that there is a hierarchy in which gods are at the top and humans and other entities in the world are below them
theistic religions vary widely: Greek Pagan religions, Hindu, Islam, Judaism, Protestants, Catholics, priests, Muslim Sufi mystics, viking warriors, Roman legionnaires, Egyptian peasants. They all generally believe in theistic gods as opposed to animist spirits.
we don't have engouh evidence to detailed world views of people who lived 30,000 and 40,000 years ago
painting: Lascaux cave painting of bull, man and bird, made by people who lived there 15,000 to 20,000 years ago
what does it mean?
some say that it is a man with the head of a bird with erect penis being killed by a bison, that the bird symbolized the soul being released by body
this could be yet there is little other evidence that this is the case, e.g. that the symbolizes the soul, we lack other writings, drawings and artifacts which indicate this
statue: of Willendorf
20,000 years ago
found in Austria
similar statues that looked like this were found made of many materials all over Europe
scholars say that these statues are of a woman , that they worshiped women and were led by women
this is a theory with little evidence
other scholars say that these statues are proof of a societies and represent an ancient attempt
other scholars say that these statues are ancient type of pornography
we don't have much other evidence so we are left with these theory
art: de las Manos
13,000 to 9,000 years ago
hand imprints on the walls of the cave
it looks as if the hands are moving toward us from within the wall
we know these hand prints were made by people, i.e. we can tell which hands were from men, women, old, and young
there are many theories but we have no hard of why they made these paintings