Before 68,000 BCE: (Shamanism as the First Human Religion — A Religious Belief System Occurring in a Conspicuously Relict Distribution from the Farthest Sout…

Before 68,000 BCE: (Shamanism as the First Human Religion — A Religious Belief System Occurring in a Conspicuously Relict Distribution from the Farthest Southern Point of Africa to the Far Southern Areas of South America, Comprising a Two-Realm Cosmology of Everyday Reality and the Realm of Spirit, with the Shaman Entering Trance to Connect with and Channel Spirit Powers to Heal Harm or Foretell, Persisting Among the Khoesan of Southern Africa and Nuba Mountains Societies of Sudan and Across Northern Eurasia and Native Australia and Widely Among Native American Societies, the Global Relict Distribution Strongly Indicating Shamanism Was the Religion of the First Fully Modern Humans): Technology and material culture are not the only significant arena for fruitful future investigations into human history of the period 68,000 to 20,000 BCE. The combined fields of early religious and art history offer a striking opening, with developments in Africa once again integral to those stories. Around the whole world one religious belief system occurs scattered in a conspicuously relict distribution across far-flung parts of the globe, from the farthest southern point of Africa to the far southern areas of South America. That particular religious belief system is what we might call shamanism. In this belief system existence comprises two realms: the concrete everyday realm in which we live, and the realm of spirit. The religious practitioner, the shaman, especially by going into a trance state, is believed able to connect with and even enter the realm of spirit and channel the powers of that realm into our temporal realm, to heal, harm, or foretell. This religion has persisted right down to recent decades among the Khoesan-speaking peoples of southern Africa; among some societies of the Nuba Mountains region of Sudan; in a variety of societies across northern Eurasia; in native Australia; and widely among the native societies of the Americas. All in all, these global relict distributions strongly indicate that shamanism was the religion of our first fully modern human ancestors. If that is so, then the first religion was born in Africa — born in the same eastern African homeland where syntactic language was born, where bone tools were born, where microlithic technology was born, where the bow and arrow was born. The first human beings to conceive of a realm of spirit beyond the visible world, to enter trance and seek communion with forces beyond human control, were Africans. They carried this religion with them when they left the continent, and it persisted in every region they reached — from the San trance dances of the Kalahari to the ayahuasca ceremonies of the Amazon, from the shamanic practices of Siberian peoples to the Dreamtime of the Australian Aborigines. The first prayer was African. The first vision quest was African. The first attempt by a human being to reach beyond the material world and touch the sacred was made by an African, in Africa, before anyone had ever left.