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[Mephansteras]

A very interesting article about a positively ancient temple site (roughly 11,500 old) and the theory the archeologist who is uncovering it has about a place of central worship bringing about the settling of humans into villages.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/233844/page/1

[G-Flex]

I would think that more pressing practical needs would override something like that, though: The benefits of, say, agriculture go far beyond feeding temple-builders, and that doesn't sound to me like the primary impetus for it.


I think there's a serious causation/correlation issue going on here. I can understand a religiously-oriented building being used as a primary gathering place back then, but that doesn't mean that the need to build a community temple is what drove other things; those other things could easily have necessitated building a temple.

[Makrond]

In simpler terms, it makes no sense for a temple to encourage people to settle in one place and develop agriculture or housing, when they would already have needed to settle in that place in order to think building a stone temple was a good idea. Sure, once the settlers built their temple, people might have come from all around to see and worship at it, and some may have even settled with the original settlers. But there would have needed to be people who had roofs over their heads and crops to eat living there before the temple could be built.

tl;dr Stability begets civilisation, not religion. (Organised) religion and civilisation are caused by stability, not by each other.

EDIT: Having actually read the article I don't think this really changes anything. Religion has always been around and would always have had a place in a hunter-gatherer society for whom, often, good and bad results are based mostly on luck and guesswork. Having something to believe in when your entire family's wellbeing hangs in the balance would be somewhat reassuring. Building a temple to make offerings to those gods/forces/nature would only make sense -- and the more effort you put in (the more you 'offer' in its construction), the more devoted it shows you are, thus they will like you (assuming spiritual forces have human reasoning, an assumption many people have perpetuated even to this very day).

Basically the guy's a crockpot who probably doesn't talk to people very often and makes wild assumptions that ignore human nature. Happens sometimes.

[kuro_suna]

I've read a few theory's that the ability to grow and brew grains (beer) was a major draw to civilization.

Given the early interactions between Europeans and native Americans I'm more inclined to believe this one.

[MrWiggles]

Whoa, 11,500 years ago? That beats Ur by like five thousand years or so and Çatalhöyük by four thousand years or so.

Thats really freaken impressive. Will read in the article in a bit.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah, regardless of whether or not this guy's theory is correct the sheer age of this site is astounding. The fact that a giant temple complex exists about a thousand years before the first known village site means we don't understand exactly what was going on in that period as well as people thought.

I found it fascinating, and his theory kind of interesting.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Well, even the best guess is just that, a guess. His theory, on the other hand, is batshit insane. I'd be surprised if he believed it himself, and wasn't just using it to try to get more attention than "Hey, this site, it's totally thousands of years older than anything comparable we've found," would get. Since "OMG THIS CHANGES EVARYTHING!" does grab quite a bit more attention, after all. It also dilutes and sours the *actual* value of a find, by warping it to feed the individual's ego/pockets.

[Leafsnail]

It might be partly because a temple complex is more likely to survive than a village, but still... that is pretty amazing.  It could indeed have helped start tribes settling down in one area.

[Jude]

That guy's idea is not a theory by any scientific definition, more unfettered speculation (and speculation with lots of immediate objections).

Then again, in anthropology, you can say there are no human universals and be taken seriously, so maybe I should cut the guy some slack.

[Heron TSG]

I think that Civilization begets Religion, not vice versa. You can't have priests without a village in place, even if that village is a poor one.

[MrWiggles]

I think that Civilization begets Religion, not vice versa. You can't have priests without a village in place, even if that village is a poor one.

That what been shown with the fertile crescent and other neolithic and bronze age cultures.

[cowofdoom78963]

I think they both begot each other.

[Jude]

I think the most important thing is that we should use this guy's theory as a "spot the bad science" exercise in critical thinking.

Of course Newsweek may be doing a bad job of reporting it but it seems pretty fallacy-ridden to me.

[Ampersand]

Despite the fact that this particular man and this particular argument that he makes are not worth believing, there may be some credit to the idea that organized religion can compel people to act in a, well, organized manner. Since the objective of religion is to spread into as many minds as possible, bringing people into a centralized area where they can be more easily taught doctrine makes perfect sense, from a purely Memetic standpoint.

[MrWiggles]

I think the most important thing is that we should use this guy's theory as a "spot the bad science" exercise in critical thinking.

Of course Newsweek may be doing a bad job of reporting it but it seems pretty fallacy-ridden to me.

It probably is more newsweek then then just being bad science. Science is hardly reported well in mass media. 8/