Foundations of Faith

The Dawn of Religion in the Neolithic World: Advancements in modern technologies are providing new insights into our human origins. The appearance of our species some 300,000 years ago was not the inevitable outcome of evolution, but the outgrowth of a long series of successes, setbacks, dietary challenges, innovations in the material culture, and climate change. This class, “The Dawn of Religion in the Neolithic World,” will examine some of the innovative trends in paleoanthropology and archaeology that are shedding light on the ways in which the origin of ritual, symbolic art, and religion impacted human society.