We have generalizations that have been made based on the documented religious development that’s been preserved from later cultures and stone age civilizations that were contacted by explorers, especially in Africa. It seems the best guess is that these figurines represented specific deities that performed specific roles. Such as the reoccurring large, nude women who is typically associated with fertility and found across many different cultures. And of course we can never know for sure, but based on observation and guesswork, I’d say animistic paganism is the best estimate. Although we know that in areas like Mesopotamia, each city had a different patron-deity that the ziggurat at the center was dedicated to worshipping.
We also see religious development based on the circumstances each culture faced. For example in Mesopotamia the Tigris and Euphrates had violent, unpredictable floods which caused the inhabitants to think of the gods as fickle and in need of constant pleasing. But in Egypt the Nile flooded slowly and seasonally around the same time each year so they saw the gods in a more relaxed manner and believed they’d eventually be granted what they were after.
True, but I am always wary of interpretations based on contemporary cultures. I did use this method for my books, but I tried to account for the lessons learned over long periods of time which the Neolithic people had not encountered. Few modern cultures can claim the total isolation of heterogeneous cultures these days.
Also, Neolithic people had to opposite influence of substantial Mesolithic people surrounding them. Mesolithic religion may not have been any less advanced, but was likely different.
[Now for some total supposition]
Mesolithic people may have been more animistic and shamanistic owing to their mobile and hunter-gatherer lifestyle. I suspect they had sacred secrets (rituals, words of power, etc, known only to a few and careful protected), again owing to their more nomadic lifestyle.
By contrast, the Neolithic may have had larger rituals with many more people involved, not just spectating. Consider the larger effort of farming and the need for all involved to participate. Animisim was probably still useful, but gods begin to really form, reflecting the greater control humanity has over the world.
From what we know about the establishment of Judaism, I would say that they most certainly did not. From documentation, we know that the Hebrews practiced Henotheism, the worship of a single god while not denying the existence or possible existence of other deities. That is why Judaism focuses so much on idolatry. It took a long time before they finally got the monotheistic religion we know today. If you look at a lot of the accounts from the Hebrews, they claim to be constantly being punished by God because of the worship of false idols. Henotheism continues to be a problem throughout a good portion of the Hebrew Bible.
Many neolithic cultures would manage to go from village to city and write down their ideas regarding religion and there doesn’t appear to be any instances of evoking the idea of there being just one god. We do however see the the role of gods become bigger as the problems and questions people are asking get bigger. Which goes into my next answer.
Yes animism is what most neolithic people would’ve likely followed, but as they settled into villages and cities you see their world view gradually get larger. And as their world view grows, so do the gods and mystical powers. So you may start at animism where you have the mystical soul of boots, but then gradually that becomes that god of boots. As civilizations got a broader worldview, they had to attribute more power to their gods in order to better explain what they saw around them. So eventually like in Hellenism, you get the god of an entire ocean or the god of the entire sky and thunder, etc.
Judaism is 3000-4000 years old (yes, there are differing opinions on the age). The Neolithic was nearly overwith in most places by then. The events of the Neolithic start nearly 12,000 years ago and end around 4000-5000 years ago, depending on the location. In short, the difference between cultures which started Judaism and Neolithic religions are literally thousands of years.
We do mostly see what may be polytheistic representations (e.g. Catalhoyuk with the bull, vultures, leopard, and other possible deities).
There is not enough evidence to know that something we see as likely a god was so. Was a Cucuteni figure with stripes simply a painted dancer or a goddess? Was famous seated woman at Catahoyuk a leader or a deity? Even if super natural properties were attributed, were the figures messages, gods, or something else.
These levels of attribution cannot, at present, be determined short of a low confidence hypothesis.
Judaism and basically all documented religions are simply too modern and cannot be attributed to the Neolithic without additional supporting evidence.
I would say it’s definitely abstraction, but abstraction based on well founded conclusions. For example regarding the seated woman, she’s likely some sort of fertility goddess. The reason being that we find similar figures in other cultures. So how likely is it that this large nude woman is a leader, when she’s found within several other cultures. The most likely explanation points to divinity of some sort. And yes, we don’t know for sure. But this is a pretty damned good guess based on what we’ve found and know.
True, but my issue is more with comparritive analysis of later religions. I just think they are too different and influence too heavily by a much different technological and cultural context.
Even though there may not be individual control of all or even some of the villagers the possibility of assigning/allocating “Skill” points to specific villagers could provide the ability to get villagers to specialize in certain aspect of the game.
For those of you who have played Neverwinter nights or any of the countless other RPG’s the skill points and advancement using XP in skills applies extremely well to the city builder simulation even though individual control is not provided.
In summery if you allow player to individually modify some aspects of a villagers stats to gravitate toward hunting as experience grows the AI will/should increase the likely hood the same villagers get assigned to hunting task thereby further increasing there skill.
I picked hunting as an example because of the topic but this applies to almost every aspect of the game this system is tried and true and has basis in real life so I believe it could be directly applied to AC provided to much flexibility or should I say excessive allocating is allowed.
To the AC teem please think about training and the concept of giving players the ability to assign a priority to a individual villager
For example beginning of game I assign priority to “Ugg” to be a hunter leader and assign him to hunting big game. Once his skill level has increased I change Ugg to Hunter teaching and assign him to hunting small game. This simulates real world not chance as in a small society once a person is skilled in a profession especially one with the risk of death the best use of that person is in teaching others not risking there life.
“Provide food to a village, feed them for a week. Teach them how to safely hunt, feed them for generations”
