1. Methodological problems in the study of prehistoric religions
Aleksandar Bošković
University of Belgrade

2. The “question” of belief
There are different views as to whether one can actually speak of the religious practices of prehistoric peoples. While my basic assumption is, following Joachim Wach that human beings are “incurably religious” and that is part of our “nature” (or of our social and biological make up – without entering into nuances of how is this feeling expressed), the issue of dealing with religious beliefs and practices of people without writing, or without symbolic system that we could understand and interpret, leaves a lot of room for discussion.

3. The “beginnings”
Most scholars assume that we can talk with certainty about the traces (physical data) about practices dating at least to Middle Paleolithic (50,000-30,000 y BP).

4. Early interpretations
Since 1950s, French scholar Andre Leroi-Gourhan has helped our understanding of prehistoric rock art and its symbolism, especially when it comes to religious practices. Here is his interpretation of a painting from the cave Altamira, Spain, ca. 18,500 BP.

5. Interpreting rock art
Cave paintings, such as the ones from South Africa depicted here, are difficult to interpret and difficult to comprehend. To make matters worse, it is almost impossible to date them correctly… unless they have been destroyed.

6. Upper paleolithic, 30,000-10,000 BP
Famous “Venus figurines” are dated from around 20,000 years BP, and they have also served for a variety of interpretations.

7. “Fertility cults”
Interpretations of different female figurines as alleged representations of fertility cults proved to be more product of researcher’s fantasies, as with these examples from Tlapacoya, Mexico, ca BCE.

8. Interpreting figurines
As a matter of fact, it seems that many of these figurines were portraits of actual living persons (male and female), and this has been documented recently for the site of Vinča, on the outskirts of Belgrade ( BP).

9. Interpreting sculptures
Other examples of prehistoric art with symbolic motifs include the sculptures from Lepenski Vir (ca BP), on the Danube river, once part of the series of sites in today’s Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria.

10. Religious or everyday symbolism
There are other examples of beautifully carved objects from approximately the same period, like this carved bone found in Central Asia. However, their exact meaning is unknown.

11. Funerary rites
However, the more recent excavations display signs of invariably religious symbolism, especially when it comes to the funerary rites. This urn was excavated last year at the site of Viminacijum, Serbia, and dated ca BCE.