Would Pleistocene era animism be considered the first true religion?
One thing that has bothered me about religion is what would be considered the first "true" religion? Would the beliefs of hunter gather societies of the Pleistocene (like the Eurasian Cro-magnons or North American Clovis) be considered the first real religions?
Check out Pascal Boyer's monograph "Religion Explained" ( This is now a classic!) or Scott Atran's more recent "In God We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion". Once you have a grasp of the minimal cognitive endowment/operations that are hypothesized to play a major role in religious practice understood as a behavioral phenotype you might take a look at Phillipe Descola's "Beyond Nature and Culture". Descola provides as thorough an ethnographic/socio-anthropologic/ philosophical treatment of animism as you're likely to come by. Answers to your questions can be found in some combination of these and similar texts.
