Cave paintings show religious sophistication

[jonsdigs]

Scholar: Cave paintings show religious sophistication
April 26, 2007
By Ryan Z. Cortazar
Harvard Gazette
FAS Communications

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but for Catherine Perlès, cave paintings provide a link to understanding thousands of years of human history and thought. In examining cave paintings in Western Europe and archaeological sites in the Near East, Perlès said that the similarities and differences between the artifacts shows that, contrary to a controversial theory by archaeologist Jacque Cauvin, human belief in gods pre-existed the birth of agriculture and the cultivation of animals.

Perlès, a professor of anthropology at the University of Paris X, presented her findings at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology where she delivered the Hallas L. Movius Lecture on April 19.

Full Story

[Azurerana]

"Perlès said that the similarities and differences between the artifacts shows that, contrary to a controversial theory by archaeologist Jacque Cauvin, human belief in gods pre-existed the birth of agriculture and the cultivation of animals."

Old idea: look at the work of Abbe Henri Breuil and Joseph Campbell, re cave paintings and prehistoric gods. Gods did not exist until agriculture? Surely, Jacque Cauvin jests, IMO.

I would think agriculture would lessen the belief in gods, at least dependable ones. Nothing is more capricious than the weather.