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Neanderthals are the most-researched extinct members of genus Homo. They have been gone for between 28,000 and 40,000 years, far beyond the reach of cultural memories. An expanding number of archaeologists conclude that Neanderthals are, as genetics confirms, co-human with us whose lineage emerged in Africa about 300,000 years ago. Were they the same as us? No. Do archaeological discoveries of tools and behavioral clues indicate what may have been Neanderthal religion? Taking religion as spirituality realized in common, Hughson answers the controversial question with a conjecture assisted by anthropology. Neanderthals were hunter-gatherer animists associated with bears, burials, defleshed bones, and care for invalids. Hughson goes further, exploring a theology of Neanderthal animism. He argues it was an early, non-verbal revelation of the divine. Experiential consciousness of being-alive meshed with all living things in one web of life that exceeded any living individual. Neanderthals encountered the source of being-alive filtered through nature and the cosmos. Far from complete, the encounter may have had an acuity lost to modernity and many Christians. The book concludes by relating Neanderthal religion to special revelation and biblical faith, with attention to the Gospel of John on the divine Logos and Aquinas on divine immanence.

The new and updated edition of The Archaeology of Religion explores how archaeology interprets past religions, offering insights into how archaeologists seek out the religious, ritual, and symbolic meaning behind what they discover in their research.The book includes case studies from around the world, from the study of Upper Palaeolithic and hunter-gatherer religions to religious structures and practices in complex societies of the Americas, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China. Steadman also includes chapters on the origins and development of key contemporary religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, among others—to provide an historical and comparative context. Three main themes are threaded throughout the book. These main themes involve the intersection between cultural and religious structures (“religion reflects culture”), including the importance of environment in shaping a culture's religion, the role religion can sometimes play as a method of social control, and the role religion can sometimes play as a key component in revitalizing a culture.Updated with new discoveries and theories and with two new chapters (Hunter-Gatherer Religions; and Cultures in East Asia) and with new sections on Neolithic Western Asia, the book remains an ideal introduction for courses that include a significant component on past cultures and their religions.

On the question of how far the almost universal belief in the survival of the human spirit after death, which is implied by the fear of the dead, can be regarded as evidence of the truth of that survival, or opinions will doubtless always be divided. From the crudities, inconsistencies and absurdities in which the belief commonly clothes itself, an impartial observer might be tempted to conclude that the spirits of the dead exist only in the imagination of the fond and foolish portion of mankind; but this conclusion, so little consonant with the natural wishes, and perhaps the instincts, of humanity, is not likely to be ever popular, and it seems probable that the great majority of our species will continue to acquiesce in a belief so flattering to human vanity and so comforting to human sorrow. And it cannot be denied that the champions of eternal life have entrenched themselves in a strong, if not impregnable, position; for if it is impossible to prove the immortality of the soul, it is, in the present state of our knowledge, equally impossible to disprove it. But the batteries of science have an ever longer range, and on this side they may yet make a deep breach in the frowning bastions of faith.Sir James G. Frazer (1854-1941) is famous as the author of'The Golden Bough.'

On the question of how far the almost universal belief in the survival of the human spirit after death, which is implied by the fear of the dead, can be regarded as evidence of the truth of that survival, or opinions will doubtless always be divided. From the crudities, inconsistencies and absurdities in which the belief commonly clothes itself, an impartial observer might be tempted to conclude that the spirits of the dead exist only in the imagination of the fond and foolish portion of mankind; but this conclusion, so little consonant with the natural wishes, and perhaps the instincts, of humanity, is not likely to be ever popular, and it seems probable that the great majority of our species will continue to acquiesce in a belief so flattering to human vanity and so comforting to human sorrow. And it cannot be denied that the champions of eternal life have entrenched themselves in a strong, if not impregnable, position; for if it is impossible to prove the immortality of the soul, it is, in the present state of our knowledge, equally impossible to disprove it. But the batteries of science have an ever longer range, and on this side they may yet make a deep breach in the frowning bastions of faith.Sir James G. Frazer (1854-1941) is famous as the author of'The Golden Bough.'

On the question of how far the almost universal belief in the survival of the human spirit after death, which is implied by the fear of the dead, can be regarded as evidence of the truth of that survival, or opinions will doubtless always be divided. From the crudities, inconsistencies and absurdities in which the belief commonly clothes itself, an impartial observer might be tempted to conclude that the spirits of the dead exist only in the imagination of the fond and foolish portion of mankind; but this conclusion, so little consonant with the natural wishes, and perhaps the instincts, of humanity, is not likely to be ever popular, and it seems probable that the great majority of our species will continue to acquiesce in a belief so flattering to human vanity and so comforting to human sorrow. And it cannot be denied that the champions of eternal life have entrenched themselves in a strong, if not impregnable, position; for if it is impossible to prove the immortality of the soul, it is, in the present state of our knowledge, equally impossible to disprove it. But the batteries of science have an ever longer range, and on this side they may yet make a deep breach in the frowning bastions of faith.Sir James G. Frazer (1854-1941) is famous as the author of'The Golden Bough.'