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  EVOLVING BRAINS, EMERGING GODS

  EVOLVING BRAINS, EMERGING GODS

  EARLY HUMANS

  and the

  ORIGINS OF RELIGION

  E. FULLER TORREY

  Columbia University Press

  New York

  Columbia University Press

  Publishers Since 1893

  New York Chichester, West Sussex

  cup.columbia.edu

  Copyright © 2017 Columbia University Press

  All rights reserved

  E-ISBN 978-0-231-54486-3

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Torrey, E. Fuller (Edwin Fuller), 1937– author.

  Title: Evolving brains, emerging gods: early humans and the origins of religion / E. Fuller Torrey.

  Description: New York, New York: Columbia University Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017010259 ISBN 9780231183369 (cloth: acid-free paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Religion—Philosophy. | Anthropology of religion. | Brain—Evolution.

  Classification: LCC BL51.T6155 2017 | DDC 200.1—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017010259

  A Columbia University Press E-book.

  CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at [email protected].

  Cover design: Milenda Nan Ok Lee

  Cover image: DEA / G. Nimatallah © Getty Images

  FOR BARBARA,

  WITHOUT WHOM THE BOOK WOULD

  NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN,

  WITH THANKS FOR FIFTY

  GREAT YEARS

  I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary.

  —Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 1903

  Civilizations, economic systems, migrations, war and peace may come and go; but the question of death insistently remains. And it links together in one common humanity—perplexed and distressed—all the thousand upon thousand generations of men, all the myriad tribes, races and nations, all the varying groups, types and classes of mankind.

  —Corliss Lamont, The Illusion of Immortality, 1935

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  Acknowledgments

  INTRODUCTION: THE BRAIN, HOME OF THE GODS

  An Evolutionary Theory

  The Human Brain

  The Nature of the Evidence

  Parallel Evolution

  PART 1  THE MAKING OF THE GODS

  1  HOMO HABILIS: A SMARTER SELF

  The First Hominins

  The Brain of Homo habilis

  Basic Areas Associated with Intelligence

  Why Did the Brain Increase in Size?

  2  HOMO ERECTUS: AN AWARE SELF

  Self-Awareness

  The Brain of Homo erectus

  A Self-Aware Neuron?

  3  ARCHAIC HOMO SAPIENS (NEANDERTALS): AN EMPATHIC SELF

  A Theory of Mind

  Do Animals Have a Theory of Mind?

  When a Theory of Mind Is Impaired

  The Brain of Archaic Homo sapiens

  Theory of Mind and Belief in Gods

  4  EARLY HOMO SAPIENS: AN INTROSPECTIVE SELF

  The First Sparks

  An Introspective Self

  The Introspective Self and Language

  The Introspective Self and the Gods

  The Brain of Early Homo sapiens

  5  MODERN HOMO SAPIENS: A TEMPORAL SELF

  Intentional Burials with Grave Goods

  The Advent of the Arts

  Mastering the Future: The Evolution of Autobiographical Memory

  The Emergence of Religious Thought 1: The Meaning of Death

  The Emergence of Religious Thought 2: The Meaning of Dreams

  The Human Revolution Revisited

  The Brain of Modern Homo sapiens

  PART 2  THE EMERGENCE OF THE GODS

  6  ANCESTORS AND AGRICULTURE: A SPIRITUAL SELF

  “The First Human-Built Holy Place”

  Ancestor Worship

  The Domestication of Plants and Animals

  Farming and Parallel Evolution

  The Living and the Dead

  Skull Cults

  The Earliest Gods

  The Brain of the First Farmers

  7  GOVERNMENTS AND GODS: A THEISTIC SELF

  Mesopotamia: The First Documented Gods

  Gods in Other Early Civilizations

  The Emergence of Major Religions

  8  OTHER THEORIES OF THE ORIGINS OF GODS

  Social Theories

  Prosocial Behavior Theories

  Psychological and Comfort Theories

  Pattern-Seeking Theories

  Neurological Theories

  Genetic Theories

  Are Gods the Products, or By-Products, of Evolution?

  Appendix A: The Evolution of the Brain

  Appendix B: Dreams as Proof of the Existence of a Spirit World and Land of the Dead

  Notes

  Index

  PREFACE

  I have been looking for God, indeed any god, since I was a boy. As an acolyte in my local church, I assisted in serving communion and was told that God was there. As a university student, I majored in religion and studied various manifestations of the gods. As a graduate student in anthropology, I discovered surprisingly similar gods in very dissimilar cultures. As a physician and psychiatrist, I have studied the brain and wondered where in it the gods might reside. Seventeenth-century British physician Thomas Willis, the first person to systematically study the brain, was correct in saying that such studies “unlock the secret places of man’s mind.” I have also visited many of the world’s shrines built to honor gods and have inhaled the numinous ether that pervades them all. I am especially fond of Gothic cathedrals, which, when filled with choral music, may become transcendent.1

  It was while visiting one of these shrines, at Avebury in England, that I decided to write this book. Sitting on the terrace of the Red Lion Pub, I could see 4,500-year-old Silbury Hill, 130 feet in height, the tallest man-made earthen mound in Europe. It had been built with remarkable engineering ingenuity, using bone and wooden tools, in a series of radial compartments, so that even today there are few signs of erosion. At the same time that Silbury Hill was being built, Egyptians at Saqqara were building the first stepped pyramid, 200 feet in height; Peruvians at Caral were building a platform mound, 100 feet in height; and the Chinese at Chenzishan were building a massive platform with a temple on top. Earthen mounds and pyramids would subsequently be built in many other parts of the world, including Indonesia, Sudan, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and the United States, such as the 100-foot-high Monk’s Mound at Cahokia, near St. Louis. These were all probably built to reach and honor the gods, a logical response to human needs arising from the evolution of our brain.

  However, it is important to keep in mind that our present theories about gods are based on incomplete information. We still have much to learn about how the human brain evolved and how it functions. Our knowledge of the evolution of Homo sapiens and the development of religious ideas is also fragmentary. Many of the most important archeological finds have been discovered accidentally. For example, the 28,000-year-old burials at Sungir, Russia, were found while removing clay from a pit; similarly, the extraordinary finds at Varna in Bulgaria, Ain Ghaza
l in Jordan, Nevali Çori in Turkey, Wuhan in China, and Garagay in Peru were all accidently uncovered during construction projects, while Göbekli Tepe in Turkey and the Ness of Brodgar in Scotland were uncovered by farmers plowing their fields. There are presumably hundreds of similar sites yet to be discovered; they should provide us with additional details regarding the evolution of Homo sapiens and the emergence of gods. What follows is thus provisional, based on the facts as presently known.

  In describing human evolution, I have generally avoided geological and archeological period terms and instead used a continuous measure of years before the present. When precise dates were needed, I have used BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era). I have also used contemporary geographical names for most ancient places to help readers identify the locations. In keeping with modern terminology, I use hominids to refer to all great apes, including humans, and hominins to refer to the human line, including Homo sapiens and all our immediate ancestors, that separated from the great apes about six million years ago. To assist readers, I have placed the detailed brain information in clearly marked sections for those who wish to skip it, and I have grouped references together at the end of the paragraph.2

  The terms gods and religion are both problematic, because they have been used so variably by different scholars. Some have argued that anything that has supernatural powers is a god, including ancestor, animal, and nature spirits. I am using gods in a more restricted sense to indicate male or female divine beings who are immortal and who have some special powers over human lives and nature. Even this definition covers a wide range of gods with varying degrees of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, who may or may not have created the earth and humans, and who may or may not be concerned with human events. Gods who are completely divorced from all human events are sometimes referred to as high gods. When God is capitalized, it refers to the monotheistic deity of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Religion is also a very broad and imprecise term used to refer to everything from a feeling of spirituality to a set of beliefs and rituals. This book will not attempt to provide a precise definition of religion but rather demonstrate how the emergence of gods led to the development of religion in its many manifestations. When I use the term, I am using it to refer to “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men … in relation to whatever they may consider the divine,” with “divine” meaning “godlike,” as defined by William James.3

  The evolutionary journey of Homo sapiens that brought us gods and formal religions has been truly extraordinary. Not only did our brain evolve, but it also evolved in a way that enables us to comprehend the process by which it evolved, to write about the process, and to think about its implications for our lives.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My largest debt is to Wendy Lochner, the editor at Columbia University Press who believed in the manuscript despite the fact that it mixes multiple disciplines and defies easy categorization. Carolyn Wazer, Lisa Hamm, Robert Demke, and all who assisted with publication were highly professional and a pleasure to work with. I am also grateful to Maree Webster, who generously provided neuroanatomical expertise for the brain drawings. Similarly, I owe many thanks to Andrew Dwork and Jeffrey Lieberman for correcting my many neuroanatomical misconceptions.

  Many people patiently responded to my queries. They include Christiane Cunnar at the invaluable Human Relations Area Files at Yale University, Tim Behrens, Todd Preuss, Tom Schoenemann, and Sara Walker. Many others read sections of the manuscript in its various stages; I want to especially thank Halsey Beemer, John Davis, Faith Dickerson, Jonathan Miller, Robert Sapolsky, Robert Taylor, Maynard Toll, and Sid Wolfe. I thank Faber and Faber for permission to quote from T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Finally I want to express my gratitude to my research assistants, Judy Miller and Wendy Simmons, and to Shakira Butler and Shen Zhong, who provided administrative support.

  INTRODUCTION

  The Brain, Home of the Gods

  It is essential to understand our brains in some detail if we are to assess correctly our place in this vast and complicated universe we see all around us.

  —Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit, 1988

  Where did the gods come from? And when did they come? These questions were the impetus for the writing of this book. Psychoanalyst Carl Jung claimed that “all ages before ours believed in gods in some form or another.” But is this necessarily true? Did ancient hominins also have gods? By contrast, religion researcher Patrick McNamara argued that the existence of gods and their attendant religions is one of the most distinctive characteristics differentiating modern Homo sapiens from our hominin forefathers—“as emblematic of its bearer as the web for the spider, the dam for the beaver, and the song for the bird.”1

  Wherever and whenever they came, it is clear that believing in one or more gods is a deeply felt human need. A poll of Americans conducted in 2012 reported that 91 percent said they believe in God or a “Universal Spirit,” with three-quarters saying they are “absolutely certain” such a deity exists. Such belief supports Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s description of humans as “theotropic creatures, yearning to connect our mundane lives, in some way, to the beyond.” Indeed, our desire for the divine is so strong that Francis Collins, an eminent scientist and devout Christian, has argued that the “universal longing for God” is itself proof of the existence of a purposeful Divine Creator. Almost three thousand years ago, Homer similarly noted that “all men need the gods.”2

  Judaism, Christianity, and Islam teach that there is one God, but most religions claim there are many. Indeed, there is an abecedarian abundance of them, from Ahura Mazda, Biema, Chwezi, Dakgipa, Enuunap, Fundongthing, Great Spirit, Hokshi Tagob, Ijwala, Jehovah, Kah- shu-goon-yah, Lata, Mbori, Nkai, Osunduw, Pab Dummat, Quetzalcoatl, Ra, Sengalang Burong, Tirawa, Ugatame, and Vodu, to Wiraqocha, Xi-He, Yurupari, and Zeus. Sixteenth-century French essayist Michel de Montaigne noted man’s propensity for making gods when he wrote: “Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot make a worm and yet he creates gods by the dozens.”3

  The gods are also ubiquitous, found everywhere on earth, in the heavens, and in regions under the ground. Some gods have been associated with particular places, such as Athena with Athens; others with forces of nature, such as Poseidon with the sea; and still others with human endeavors, such as Aphrodite with love. In monotheistic religions, a single god is often responsible for all human activities, while in polytheistic religions there may be an extraordinary degree of divine specialization. In ancient Rome, for example, three different gods (Vervecator, Reparator, and Imporcitor) were associated with the three times that fields were plowed; another god (Insitor) with sowing the seeds; another (Sterculinius) with spreading the manure; another (Sarritor) with weeding the field; another (Messor) with reaping the grain; and still another (Conditor) with storing the grain. Perhaps the ultimate expression of divine specialization was achieved by Polynesians in Tonga who had “a special god assisting thieves in their trade.” Throughout human history, new gods have appeared and old gods have died. Live gods are found in places of worship, whereas many dead gods are found in museums, where their images are regarded as works of art.4

  AN EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

  Concerning where the gods came from, this book will argue that they came from the human brain. In regard to when they came, the book will argue that the gods arrived after the brain had undergone five specific cognitive developments. Such developments were necessary for being able to conceive of the gods. As Homo habilis, about 2 million years ago, hominins experienced a significant increase in brain size and general intelligence (chapter 1). As Homo erectus, beginning about 1.8 million years ago, they developed an awareness of self (chapter 2). As Archaic Homo sapiens, beginning about 200,000 years ago, they developed an awareness of others’ thoughts, commonly referred to as having a “theory of mind” (chapter 3). As early Homo sapiens, beginning about 100,000 years ago, they developed an introspective ability to reflect on their own thoughts. Thus,
they could not only think about what others were thinking but also about what others were thinking about them and their reaction to such thoughts (chapter 4).

  Finally, as modern Homo sapiens, beginning about 40,000 years ago, we developed what is commonly referred to as an “autobiographical memory,” an ability to project ourselves backward and forward in time. We were thus able to predict and more skillfully plan for the future. For the first time in hominin history, we could therefore fully understand death as the termination of our personal existence. And for the first time, we could envision alternatives to death, including places where our deceased ancestors may still exist (chapter 5).

  Arguing that a specific cognitive skill is associated with a specific stage of hominin evolution of course does not mean that this skill developed only at that time. All cognitive skills evolved as part of the entire course of hominin evolution and presumably are continuing to evolve. Associating a specific cognitive skill with a specific stage of hominin evolution simply means that, at that stage of evolution, hominins exhibited some new behavior of which we are aware, and this behavior suggests that this particular cognitive skill had matured to the point of being able to affect the behavior of these hominins. For example, approximately 100,000 years ago, shells that apparently were used to make decorative necklaces first appeared. This suggests that the cognitive ability of hominins to think about what other hominins were thinking about them had matured to the point where it was affecting their behavior. Precursors of this cognitive skill may have existed 100,000 years earlier, and it may have become even better developed 50,000 years later, but we regard the shells used as decoration as a marker of cognitive evolution.

  The acquisition of an autobiographical memory and other cognitive skills led to the agricultural revolution, beginning about 12,000 years ago. This brought people together to settle in villages and towns for the first time and produced a dramatic increase in the population.