What do chimp ‘temples’ tell us about the evolution of religion?

Having read last year(?) about technological progress made by certain primates this puts the whole being a human animal thing into perspective. We are, after all, basically cave people trying to deal with modern problems (we've barely evolved much since those times).

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2079630-what-do-chimp-temples-tell-us-about-the-evolution-of-religion/?utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=SOC&utm_campaign=hoot&cmpid=SOC|NSNS|2016-GLOBAL-hoot

That was very fascinating! Thank you Akkarin. It's interesting to think of the implications if we discovered that chimps had some sort of religion. We tend to think of that as one of the many things that separates us from animals.

Also, always love a shout out to my home state:

Jill Pruetz of Iowa State University

Even if it is Iowa State (Go Hawkeyes). :laugh:

Amazing!

i find this fascinating, although im not sure that there was any evidence of RELIGION or sense of sacredness per se

if you give a child a toy with a hole in it and another little toy that fits in the hole, eventually the kids gonna "fill in the blank" because it fits

theyve said that these piles are reminiscent of early man's "shrines" but how do they know those were "shrines" either? in the modern sense of the word i think thats an unfair leap to make

and i do believe that religion is tied to development of consciousness, in the biological sense of the brain being able to interpret greater levels of complexity and abstraction - in other words i suspect that religion is a lol NATURAL product of evolution

so i am absolutely sympathetic to the possibility

but i need to see more suggestive evidence for there being any kind of special meaning associated with these actions before im willing to start telling people that chimps build churches lol

definitely a good read and something to keep up with, thanks for sharing this