Rewriting Spiritual History

Good morning all. Just thought I would share a bit of intriguing news that I learned from iShift, the Institute of Noetic Science e-newsletter for March (2010). I have often contemplated religious history and why we as humans began worshiping and knowing about the sacred. Our history books begin human-prehistory with humans who were hunter/gatherers who formed tribes and cities, which ultimately lead to the building of temples (Klee, Cribb, & Holdren, 2007) -- and tah dah, religious worship was born. Recent archeological evidence; however, suggests that the history books might have gotten it all wrong. An article in Newsweek covers an archeological dig that shows that temples may have come BEFORE cities and the formation of societies. A religious monument found at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey predates the development of human townships. To give you an idea as to how long ago that was, it was built 7,000 year before the pyramids (Symmes, 2010). The artifacts and carvings are dated around 9000 BCE (or B.C.) So, it appears that spirituality was already in place by the time humans formed societies. This is big news. The sacred was not born from society, but has been important in human lives for over 11,000 years and may be an innate knowing instead of a developed construct.

If you are interested in learning more, click http://www.newsweek.com/id/233844/page/1 for the Newsweek article. Also, a beautiful video was made and is on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpDgLX3MwOg if you want to see how sophisticated the carvings were. Spectacular.

References

Institute of Noetic Sciences (Publisher). (2010, March). In the news: evolutionary postscript. iShift, 44. Retrieved from http://campaign.constantcontact.com/render?v=001u8SjZbUCyfNOSBaTTmRh9wf9w2xhOY9ZeLfnWIVO3RqV7e2CX7tFg-2yFEObkXazty4ULoNI8n044TdLG5UM4OVNtgeacR1A98I5_6VNJDRArJL8yprMrFQ7jW2G4BiYNxiwZlk6SW1tZrTLfMfBZGNJxgMJ6BSj-fJFn3V-LuQQ8QJcGP35Ly4Cd1_As6j2Q_2a9mwtDJRlabSin_3idQ%3D%3D

Klee, M. B., Cribb, J., Holdren, J. (Editors). (2007). The human odyssey: Prehistory through the middle-ages. Herndon, VA: K12

Symmes, P. (2010, February 19). History in the remaking. Newsweek (online ed.). Retrieved from http://www.newsweek.com/id/233844/page/1