Paleolithic Art

In my last blog, I asserted that Neanderthals had the capacity for religion, although all evidence pointed otherwise. After reading the last two articles The Nature of Paleolithic Art, I would like to adjust my opinion. To use our computer analogy from class, I now believe that Neanderthals had the software for religion, but not the hardware; while the Homo sapiens who created the Paleolithic art had the hardware, but not the software.

The Neanderthals had many of the cultural icons that are evident in early religions, such as symbols, burials, rituals, etc. Although these are present, the Neanderthals lacked the “cognitive fluidity” to invent symbolic meaning. They had the knowledge of how to make and create these things, but they did not have the capacity to connect them to some larger purpose. The Homo sapiens had just the opposite problem: they had the capability for metaphoric thinking, but the culture they lived in was not conducive to religious thought. The Homo sapiens mentioned in the first chapter of The Nature of Paleolithic Art were physiologically built just as humans today, which means they have the brain capacity for religion. However, Guthrie believes that many of the art forms of these people had no significant religious purpose. When discussing the presence of war scenes and human faces, Guthrie states, “These…may have little symbolic significance” (38). In addition, many would conclude that the location of much of the Paleolithic art (deep in the caves) would suggest some sort of religious or supernatural theme; however, Guthrie dissuades this by explaining that this conclusion can only be drawn if three important points are ignored. The first is that art in caves is more likely to survive that art in the open air. The second is that evidence proves that the caves were rarely used. The third is that significant amounts of Paleolithic art were also found in abri and open-air sites (40). Therefore, these people had the right mental equipment (hardware), but religious thought did not flourish because their culture was missing certain essential aspects, such as morals/ethics, a God/deity, reoccurring symbols, explanations, and a hierarchical system (software). The post-Holocene Homo sapiens were the first of the cultures studied so far in this class to exhibit both signs of hardware and software. They had both the mental capacity for symbolic thought and the cultural aspects to support religion.