Here is the fantastic news: one of the world’s greatest filmmakers, Werner Herzog, was granted rare access to Chauvet Cave and filmed the interior in 3-D. Chauvet Cave is of course famous for its 30,000 year old art — it is a spectacular display of human creativity and is probably the result of [...]
Tags:altered states of consciousness·ASC·behavioral modernity·cave art·Cave of Forgotten Dreams·Chatelperronian·Chauvet Cave·culture·Gravettian·John Hawks·Mousterian·Neanderthals·shamanic activities·shamans·soul·soul beliefs·theriomorphs·Werner Herzog
Archaeologists working in Europe have it good, really good. Depending on one’s interests, you can research just about anything. Paleoanthropologists can work on hominid evolution (i.e., Homo heidelbergensis, H. antecessor, H. neanderthalensis), while their colleagues can study a host of fascinating subjects, including the Upper Paleolithic transition, mesolithic hunter-gatherers, incipient agriculturalists, and the usual smattering [...]
Tags:afterlife·axes·barrows·celts·complex hunter-gatherers·cosmology·European archaeology·flints·folk beliefs·grave goods·hominid evolution·Homo antecessor·Homo heidelbergensis·Homo neanderthalensis·Iron Age·Kate Ravilious·Kwakiutl·magic·megaliths·mesolithic·mortuary practices·mythology·myths·Neanderthals·oldest house in Britain·pagans·ritual objects·ritualism·Romans·Sean Coughlan·sedentism·shamanist·shamans·soul·spirit·Stone Age·superstition·talismans·thunderstones·Upper Paleolithic·Vikings
“Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the [...]
Tags:afterlife beliefs·Alexa Tullett·angst·anxiety·burials·Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right·distress·Do Hominid Burials Indicate a Belief in Spirits or Souls·effect of religiosity·Epiphenom·error reactions·fear·Future of An Illusion·grave goods·Homo neanderthalensis·Homo sapiens·Karl Marx·life after death·Michael Inzlicht·mortuary practices·Neanderthals·opiate·opium·proto-religion·received wisdom·Reflecting on God·Rhawn Joseph·Sigmund Freud·theism·Transmitter to God
Over at HuffPo Religion, Wray Herbert asks whether religious belief soothes the worried mind and reports on some new research suggesting it does. Scholars have been asking this question for quite a long time, and many have simply assumed that religion does in fact sooth troubled minds. Freud reached this conclusion in Future of an [...]
Tags:Alexa Tullett·anxiety·burials·calming effects·deliberate burials·explanation·Freud·Future of An Illusion·hominids·Michael Inzlicht·Neanderthals·order·parsimony·Pascal Boyer·purpose·Reflecting on God·Scott Atran·souls·spirits·Wray Herbert
