Ideas and Quotes from Riveting Reads :

A HISTORY OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS : FROM THE STONE AGE TO THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES - BY MIRCEA ELIADE

Every manifestation of the divine is of great fascination to the scholar of religions. "The Sacred is an element in the structure of consciousness and not a stage in the history of consciousness." Deeds and their tenor are conceived to have a sacramental value. We cannot presume to conflate the date of earliest available religious documents with the date of the origin of those beliefs. 

I. Magico-Religious Behavior of the Paleanthropians

 

"Uprightness cannot be maintained except in a state of wakefulness."

Paleanthropians used tools and also, tools to make tools. The slow pace of technological progress does not reflect a similar rate of intellectual growth, for " every innovation brought with it the danger of collective death" ( Andre Varagnac). 

the earliest document of fire use goes back to 600,000 B.C. Domestication of fire probably took place much earlier. 

" For man is the final product of a decision made " at the beginnings of Time" : the decision to kill in order to live."

Paleanthropians lived by hunting for two million years.  Hunting determined the division of labor on the basis of sex and reinforced "hominization". Such difference is unseen in the rest of the animal world. 

Prehistoric documents are opaque and engender much scope for confusion and debate. 

"Beliefs and ideas cannot be fossilized."

Myths of origins of man, game, death, etc., were probably familiar to the Paleolithic popolations.