>Yup, I stand corrected. But I'm curious, (as are we all ) are about when
>hominids became spiritual beings. Romans 1 is clear that all humans have
>some sort of awareness of God. Is there no way to infer that from the
>fossil record?
It is going to be difficult to determine this since many primitive tribes
this century made idols of wood, which decay away in about 100 years. The
earliest object which I think can be definitively identified as a object of
veneration is the Berekhat Ram figurine which was found in strata dated to
ca. 330,000 years ago (could be as old as 800 kyr). It is a Venus figurine
which were used in the Upper Paleolithic and on into historic times in some
of the fertilitiy cults.
(see Desmond Morris, The Human Animal, (New York: Crown
Publishing, 1994), p. 186-188.)
The mortuary practices of the Sima de los Huesos people 800 kyr ago,
probably indicates some type of spiritual belief. (see my post on the
earliest burial a few weeks ago).
One final possible object is the phonolite pebble found by Mary Leakey at
Olduvai gorge dated around 1.5 myr ago.. It is a face pecked into a rock.
But one can not be sure why it was pecked into the face so it can't be
definitively stated as evidence of religious belief.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm