GIVE ME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION

The Fundies and the Baggers believe they have grasped the Eternal Truths and I find that terribly self-centered because of all the different beliefs that came before.  In order to get a sense of how long humans have had some sort of religious belief, I need to refer to this table from The neolithic revolution in the Near East : transforming the human landscape by Alan H. Simmons, page 37:

Table 3.3 Estimated paleoenvironmental reconstruction

Approximate Dates                                                                             Approximate

(BP, uncalibrated)/Event         Conditions                                           Cultural Correlate

20,000-14,500 (LGM)                Cold and dry; hilly coastal areas              Kebaran

have winter precipitation and

forests

14,500-13,500                          Precipitation slowly increases              Geometric Kebaran;

Mushabian

13,500-13,000                          More rapid precipitation                           Early Natufian

increase

13,000-12,800?                    Short cold dry pulse

11,500                                        Peak of precipitation

11,000-10,000                          Cold and dry; retractions of                     Late Natufian;

(Younger Dryas)                     favorable Mediterranean                         Harifian

vegetation

10,300                                     Return of pluvial conditions;                    PPNA

very wet in northern Levant and

Anatolia, but precipitation in

central and southern Levant

does not reach previous peak

10,000-9000                               Increase in precipitation,

especially in northern and eastern Near East

9000-8000                               Rainfall higher than present day,            PPNB

but decreasing precipitation

toward 8,000

7400-7200                               Sudden cooling and decrease in             End of PPN

rainfall intensity; similar to

Younger Dryas?

7200-6000                               Generally more favorable than                PN

today

6000-onward                           Warmer and drier than                      End of PN —

previously but similar to today               post-Neolithic

Sources: Based primarily on Bar-Yosef (1995:518, 1998a: I61); Bar-Mathews et al. (1999); and Weiss (2000:75).

These dates have not been converted into calendar years but if they were, they would range from 2,200 to 1,200 years EARLIER (Simmons, page 7).

The Natufian period  is generally agreed to have lasted some 2,500 or more years.

Now, here's data that I think is important:

The treatment of the dead was not restricted solely to burials. At Wadi Hammeh 27, for example, site deposits contained several burnt skull fragments (Edwards 1991:146). At 'Ain Mallaha, various body elements, such as crania, were lying on the floors of separate structures (Perrot 1966a:445). At other sites, such as Hayonim Cave and Nahal Oren, the removal of the skull, with or without the mandible, became common (Valla 1998:176-177). (Simmons, page 76)

This special treatment of the skull of the deceased lasted well beyond the Natufian era into the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPNA and PPNB) eras (Simmons, page 152), which together lasted over 3,000 years.

So, the various skull rituals lasted at least 5,500 years, a span much. much longer than the Judeo-Christian tradition.