The earliest historical religions in Europe were those of the Bronze Age Aegean. Although “historical” in the sense that there are texts, the administrative texts which are preserved refer only incidentally to religion and do not throw much light on larger issues; myths, hymns and rituals were not recorded in the material preserved. It is thus hardly surprising that this era is frequently understood as being “prehistoric”: our evidence consists for the most part of archaeological materials, mostly figurines, seals, votive objects, offerings, paintings and so forth, from shrines, tombs and palaces. These are, however, complemented by a few details that can be gleaned from the contemporary texts, offering information that would otherwise be unavailable in the mute world of prehistoric archaeology.

We distinguish these civilizations of the second millennium BCE as the “Minoans” and the “Mycenaeans”. Although the terms are misleading (in the sense that the Ancients will never have understood them as we use them), both are retained here as they are widely recognized. By (a) “Minoan”, we understand the culture of the Middle and early Late Bronze Age Aegean islands (effectively Middle Minoan IB–Late Minoan IB, ca. 1900–1500 BCE), most particularly Crete, before and partially overlapping with (b) the Mycenaeans of the Greek mainland in the Late Bronze Age (Middle Helladic III/Late Helladic I–Late Helladic III, ca. 1700/1600–1050 BCE). Obviously, Mycenaean materials are prominent on Crete, and Minoan materials appear on the mainland, but the division is as clear as are the links.

In this chapter we take the liberty of looking critically at the contributions of the first section of this book. We do so on the assumption that crossing disciplinary borders is difficult: archaeologists have difficulties in discussing religion since religion is assumed to take place in the mind (in the form of ideas and thoughts, and thus in a form which is completely inaccessible in prehistory). Likewise, scholars of religion have difficulties speaking about prehistory, since they have no methodological tools for dealing with material culture (at least without any textual or verbal support whatsoever).

Furthermore, there are other issues which do not normally appear to be problematic in the study of religion. When studying known religions, there is no danger of confusing science and religion, and little of confounding myth and history. Given the neglect of material culture, the importance of art is likewise minimal. In these chapters we have seen how mankind gradually developed a capacity for artistic expression and later exploited iconography to depict the course of the sun. In these pages, religion was associated with social changes and group identities, without any gods. Yet according to the study of religion, religion and its elements are clearly a world apart – so far in fact, that Pascal Boyer (2001) can propose that religious thought is by nature counterintuitive.

PREHISTORY: A QUICK GUIDE

The origins of humanity lie in the depths of the Palaeolithic. Our earliest immediate and direct ancestors, that is, those comparable to ourselves in brain size and erect posture, emerged in Africa around 200,000 years ago. Yet the earliest regular use of tools by hominids – creatures with a slightly erect posture who had developed brains about a third or so the size of our own and those of our immediate ancestors (i.e., less than ca. 500 cubic cm [cc] against 1500–1600 cc) – dates to sometime during the four million or so years before our appearance. At this time, there was little to distinguish our ancestors from chimpanzees, who also use tools. Although the oldest traces of sophisticated tool manufacture and the creation of figurines date to less than half a million years ago this was still a period when the ancestors of our ancestors had developed brains with a cranial capacity only about half the size of our own (ca. 800 cc). This was still hundreds of thousands of years before the appearance of our direct ancestors.

Significantly, our oldest real, immediate and direct ancestors, the Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH, i.e. like ourselves) who appeared sometime around 200,000 years ago in Africa, used the same tools as their slightly older contemporaries, the Neanderthals (who had a larger brain than ours and that of our ancestors, but belonged to a parallel line which broke off from our own around a half million or more years ago).

THE RATIONALE FOR THIS BOOK

“Religion” is an amorphous concept which has been defined in numerous ways, without any scholarly consensus in sight. Its main features seem to us to be (a) having socially shared activities which bear no direct relation to subsistence, (b) demanding some specific attitude towards death and/or the dead, and (c) generally including a discourse including entities which are beyond this world. Whatever it is, religion seems to be uniquely linked to the human race. It was in Europe and the Middle East that the culture of our immediate ancestors first combined the attributes which are the necessary precursors of religion – burials, plastic art and paintings. It was the religions of groups as diverse as the Greeks and the Scandinavians which seem to have given birth to important traits of our civilization as we define it today. Thus the history and prehistory of Europe is fundamental to the history of the human race and religion – and the history of religion is fundamental to Europe.

Anatomically modern humans, that is, the type of humans to which we belong, arrived on the European continent approximately 40,000 years ago. Their arrival in Europe is associated with the end of the Middle Palaeolithic (which began perhaps 250,000 years earlier in Europe) and the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic.

HODDER'S PLACE IN ARCHAEOLOGY

Ian Hodder is an important archaeological voice on the cognitive thought processes of Neolithic humans, processes that can be compared to religious thought – or at least as contributing to its formation. Hodder himself has refused requests to write contributions on the specific subject of religion for more than a decade (including for this volume), and has until recently never taken a clear stand on religion as such. However, more recently (2010), a volume appeared with religion as the focus. In this section we try to identify what we consider to be the relevant aspects of his thought from previously published sources but have also added in some bits on Hodder (2010a).

Hodder studied at the Institute of Archaeology in London before going to Cambridge where he completed his studies and taught, eventually ending up in Stanford where he is now Professor. Since 1993 he has directed the resumed archaeological excavations at Çatal Höyük (an Anatolian village in the eighth–sixth millennia BCE), begun by James Mellaart in the 1960s. The finds from Çatal Höyük were neglected in the era when archaeology was dominated by approaches stressing “systems” and “functionality” whereas Mellaart had declared at the time that the discoveries were clearly incompatible with that paradigm. It was only later – with the support and influence of Hodder – that broader interpretations became acceptable.

Hodder's original base was the European Neolithic.