4.Prehistoric evidence of religion

3.Origins of organized religion

Social evolution of humans

Period years ago	Society type	Number of individuals
100,000–10,000	Bands	10s–100s
10,000–5,000	Tribes	100s–1,000s
5,000–3,000	Chiefdoms	1,000s–10,000s
3,000–1,000	States	10,000s–100,000s
1,000–present	Empires	100,000–1,000,000s

Organized religion traces its roots to the neolithic revolution that began 11,000 years ago in the Near East but may have occurred independently in several other locations around the world. The invention of agriculture transformed many human societies from a hunter gatherer lifestyle to a sedentary lifestyle. The consequences of the neolithic revolution included a population explosion and an acceleration in the pace of technological development. The transition from foraging bands to states and empires precipitated more specialized and developed forms of religion that reflected the new social and political environment. While bands and small tribes possess supernatural beliefs, these beliefs do not serve to justify a central authority, justify transfer of wealth or maintain peace between unrelated individuals. Organized religion emerged as a means of providing social and economic stability through the following ways:

• Justifying the central authority, which in turn possessed the right to collect taxes in return for providing social and security services to the state.
• Bands and tribes consist of small number of related individuals. However states and nations are composed of thousands of unrelated individuals. Jared Diamond argues that organized religion served to provide a bond between unrelated individuals who would otherwise be more prone to enmity. He argues that the leading cause of death among hunter gatherer societies is murder.
• Religions that revolved around moralizing gods may have facilitated the rise of large, cooperative groups of unrelated individuals.

The states born out of the Neolithic revolution, such as those of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, were theocracies with chiefs, kings and emperors playing dual roles of political and spiritual leaders.Anthropologists have found that virtually all state societies and chiefdoms from around the world have been found to justify political power through divine authority. This suggests that political authority co-opts collective religious belief to bolster itself.