Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Evoluzione Umana e Spiritualità
Evoluzione Umana e Spiritualità
sapiens)
Religion has been defined as "a set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which mobilizes supernatural
powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing transformations of state in man and nature"
(Wallace 1966: 107). An evolutionary scenario explains the origin of such rituals. Ancient primates
probably used rudimentary rituals to alleviate social stress. Hominids are assumed to have devised
more complex rituals, producing therapeutic altered states of consciousness (ASC). At some stage,
Homo sapiens devised shamanic hypnotic therapies, coupling ASC with suggestion. Because such
practices were effective, these rituals selected for genotypes associated with hypnotizability. With
increased frequency of these genotypes, religious sentiment, myths, and ideologies justifying ritual
became possible. Genetic research provides evidence supporting this scenario. Religious sentiment
(the attitudes, thoughts, and judgments prompted by feelings associated with therapeutic ASC) has a
genetic basis. Comparisons of identical and fraternal twins reared apart indicate that approximately
50% of the observed variance of measures of religious interest, attitudes, and values are genetically
influenced (Wailer et al. 1990) […]
The proposed model portrays religion as the evolutionary product of therapeutic ritual and
language.
Secondo Ernesto de Martino, l’avvento della cultura coinciderebbe con il dispiegarsi della presenza
nel mondo, sorretta dagli istituti magici che allontanano il rischio del suo perdersi, del suo defluire
nel mondo. (E. De Martino, Il mondo magico. Prolegomeni a una storia del magismo, Einaudi,
Torino 2022.)
Possiamo supporre che la spiritualità tra gli ominidi sia nata proprio per sopperire a questi momenti
di crisi?
The proposed model portrays religion as the evolutionary product of therapeutic ritual and
language. The scenario coincides with Charles Darwin's suggestion that hominids acquired the
capacity for song (voluntary modulations of vocal cries) as a stage in the evolutionary process
leading to language.
- Secondo questo modello la spiritualità sarebbe il risultato evolutivo dello sviluppo di
pratiche rituali basate sul canto. –
A variety of evidence supports this scenario. Hominid fossils reveal a gradual cranial enlargement,
progressive changes of the basal surface of the skull, morphological asymmetry of the hemispheres,
and other markers associated with the gradual development of the modern vocal apparatus. Virtually
all studies of the structures of intelligence indicate that musical talent is a separate factor from
verbal skill.
- Lo sviluppo del canto è plausibilmente precedente a quello del linguaggio (secondo Darwin
il canto è un tentativo di articolare delle parole). Inoltre, linguaggio e canto fanno capo a due
aree del cervello diverse suggerendo due evoluzioni separate. –
Mimetic rituals such as chanting, singing, drumming, dancing, and other repetitive behaviors
produce ASC. ASC is defined as "a qualitative shift" from normal patterns of mental functioning, a
subjective sensation associated with behavioral changes (Tart 1969: 2). H. erectus probably engaged
in ASC rituals because of resulting pleasant sensations. Mild forms of ritual ASC are equivalent to
the relaxation response, characterized by EEG changes and reduced heart rate, blood pressure,
respiratory rate, and blood lactate levels, parameters affecting a wide variety of medical disorders.
The relaxation response can become hypnosis when coupled with suggestion (Benson, Arns,
Hoffman 1981.
- La presenza di ASC durante canti, danze e rituali ripetitivi è avvalorata da cambiamenti nel
EEG.
Probabilmente già l'Homo erectus si induceva stati di alterazione perché sentiva che erano
benefici. –
The proposed scenario portrays shamanism as a cultural adaptation to biologically based ASC and
associated adaptive potentials. […] Shamans were the only type of magico-religious practitioner
found in hunting and gathering societies; no shamans were found in sedentary societies. […] The
model hypothesizes that humans benefiting most from shamanic hypnotic rituals had survival
advantages.
High hypnotizability coincides with frequent anomalous and religious experiences, perceptions
providing foundations for religious belief (Hood 1973; McClenon 1994). Such experiences, coupled
with hypnotic suggestibility, allow development and acceptance of ideologies supporting religious
ritual.
- L'ipnotizzabilità, che alimenta ed è alimentata dal rito estatico, funge dunque da base per la
nascita della spiritualità come interpretazione di suggestioni sensoriali e non. –
4. Shamanic/hypnotic rituals were practiced for sufficient time to have meaningful impact on the
frequency of hypnotizability genotype.
The hypnotic capacity of chimpanzees appears shaped by their need to live collectively.
Chimpanzees, rhesus monkeys, stump-tailed monkeys, and bonobos display rituals associated with
aggression and reconciliation.
Ritual grooming in chimpanzees functions to alleviate aggression and sometimes produces the
sleepy, stuporous appearance associated with ASC. Chimpanzees respond hypnotically to repetitive
verbal commands by humans, a reaction more similar to human hypnosis than that of nonprimates.
The model proposes that ancient primate hypnotic capacities were shaped by evolutionary processes
in a direction that facilitated group living.
Source: Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory , September 2015, Vol. 22, No. 3 (September
2015), pp. 751-782
Elisa Guerra-Doce
One of the earliest documents of the occurrence of mood-altering plants in the Old World is that of
a Middle Palaeolithic burial cave at Shanidar, northern Iraq, ca. 60,000 BC. Around the skeleton of
an adult male aged between 30 and 45 years, known as Shanidar IV or the "flower burial",
palynological studies revealed the presence of several medicinal plant species including ephedra, a
natural stimulant. Consequently, this Neanderthal grave was considered to be that of a shaman.
Other scholars, however, dispute the idea that these plants were the result of a ritual deposition, but
rather of a subsequent contamination of the cave by the activity of the Persian jird {Meriones
persicus), as many bones of this gerbil- like rodent were found during the excavation of Shanidar.
Archaeobotanical remains for the use of psychoactive plant species increase significantly from the
Neolithic period onwards. Since the Early Neolithic, many Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements in
north-western provided opium poppy remains, but direct evidence of the exploitation properties of
this species is quite scarce (Merlin 1984). Indeed, at the Neolithic Vaux-et-Borset, Belgium, opium
poppy seeds were added as temper to the produce one of the pots found there.
The domestication of the opium poppy is thought to have started during the sixth millennium BC in
the Western, from where it spread to the rest of the continent to reach north-west Europe by the end
of the sixth millennium (Si parla della coltivazione di oppio. In realtà, come dimostra Shandiar IV
l’uso di piante medicinali e psicotrope non era una novità).
In prehistoric times, alcohol was obtained through the fermentation of sugars certain products by
the action of naturally occurring yeasts and some types of bacteria. The main raw materials used to
prepare alcoholic beverages came from five sugars: sugar-rich fruits and honey (fructose and
glucose), malted grain sap (sucrose) and milk (lactose). Therefore, the variety of alcoholic drinks in
Europe was very limited and involved fruit wines, mead, beer and fermented made from dairy
products; the spread of viticulture and the development winemaking in temperate Europe and the
Western Mediterranean did not until as recently as the first millennium BC during the Iron Age, and
it is commercial expansion of the Phoenicians, Greeks, Etruscans and Romans. It has been
suggested that many primates and early hominids could have consumed over-ripe fruits in search
for their mood-altering properties due content (this is a naturally occurring substance resulting from
the fermentation rich fruits) (Dudley 2004). According to this "drunken monkey hypothesis", come
to be named, primates' attraction to alcohol may have a genetic basis. This habit could have led to
the discovery of alcoholic drinks as the Palaeolithic. Some scholars rule out the that fermented
beverages could have been produced before the invention of pottery during the Neolithic. However,
the technological and prerequisites of brewing were well established in the Natufian, the drinking of
beer made from fermented wild crops could have had an important in the course of ritual feasts
among Epipalaeolithic communities of the Near Est. Yet, for the time being at least, direct evidence
is lacking.