Prehistoric religion
Bronze and Iron Ages

In the Bronze and Iron Ages, prehistory shades into protohistory. The earliest forms of true writing emerge in Bronze Age China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, and it is with writing that societies leave their prehistories. Writing was adopted unevenly, across long chronological periods, and the degree to which the Bronze and Iron Ages constitute history, prehistory, or protohistory depends on the individual society. Protohistoric societies have not developed writing, but have been described in written records of societies that have; though this provides more evidence for their cultures and practices than can be gleaned by archaeological records alone, it poses the problem that the only lens these societies are understood through is that of foreigners who may dislike, mischaracterise, or simply misunderstand the people they write about.

In North Africa, many protohistoric Bronze Age civilisations are known from description by the Egyptians, such as the Kerma culture of what is now Sudan, the Maghrebinians, and the Kingdom of Punt. Before their destruction by their Egyptian enemies, the Kerma served as a true artistic and cultural rival to Egypt's south. They performed lavish burials with a traditional "crouching" style of body placement, the bodies buried on their right sides with their heads facing to the east, and with rich assortments of grave goods. Earlier Kerma burials were accompanied by animal sacrifices, and later by human ones, presumably of servants. The richest members of Kerma society were buried in gold-plated beds with feet of carved lions and hippopotami, in many-chambered burial mounds accompanied by hundreds of human sacrifices and paintings of spectacular imagined scenes.

The people of the Bronze Age Maghreb, living in liminal geographic regions, were heavily influenced by both European and Khoisan cultures. Maghrebinians appear to have venerated weaponry, with intricate depictions of daggers, halberds, and shields dominating their rock art, perhaps as the southernmost practice of a hypothetical pan-European weapon cult. They also produced art of game animals such as antelopes, horses, and camels. Little is known about the religion of Punt, Egypt's major trading partner, but they seem to have had significant cultural exchange with Egypt in this aspect. Other major cultures of Bronze Age Africa whose religious practices can be gathered include the nomadic pastoralists of the Central Sahara, who produced copious rock art, and the Nubian C-Group culture, with wealthy burials and rock art of "highest artistic achievement" depicting apparent goddess figures.

The protohistoric cultures of Central Asia are known through their descriptions by ancient Chinese writers, who thought them barbarians contrasting with "civilised" Chinese society; further west, Russian scholarship more often treats these cultures as outright prehistoric. Bronze and Iron Age cultures of Central Asia forged metal grave goods with both utilitarian and decorative forms. Though the spiritual significance of these artifacts is unknown, archaeologists Katheryn M. Linduff and Yan Sun argue they must have been deeply important to those societies that forged them to play such funerary roles. Xinjiang was a major nexus of cross-cultural interaction in these eras, and is now known archaeologically for its "mummies", particularly well-preserved corpses found in burials — perhaps the most famous being the Princess of Xiaohe. This young woman, buried in Xiaohe Cemetery around 1800 BC, was so well-preserved as to retain her long hair and eyelashes; she was found wrapped in a cloak and accompanied by wooden pegs. Other "mummies" of Xinjiang include artificial mummies, not corpses at all but creations of leather and wood, which may represent people who died far from their homes whose bodies were never found.

In Southeast Asia, Bronze Age burials were of far greater complexity than those for their Neolithic predecessors. One burial site in Ban Non Wat, Thailand dating around 1000 BC was lavished with "princely" wealth, with ornate jewellery of bronze, marble, and seashells; in some cases, bracelets covered the whole arm from the shoulder to the wrist. Bodies were found covered in beads in ways implying those beads once served as sequins on masks and hats that rotted away with time. Finely made, intricately painted ceramic vessels were buried with the deceased, in some cases up to fifty in a single grave. In one case, an infant was buried with a particularly well-made vessel bearing a human face, which Charles Higham suggests may represent an ancestor deity. Higham perceives strong evidence for ancestor worship in Bronze Age Southeast Asia, perhaps related to contemporary practice in China. Later in the Iron Age, Southeast Asian societies become trading and cultural partners with the ancient civilisations of China and India. Cambodia and Thailand connected strong trading networks with both regions, becoming protohistoric as they merited discussion in the works of both written societies. Though the burial record for Iron Age Southeast Asia is poorer than in the Bronze Age, lavish burials still happened, and "compelling evidence" for religious practice remains. Vietnamese merchants traded Ngoc Lu drums used for ritual purposes to regions as far-flung as Papua New Guinea.

In Europe, Bronze Age religion is well-studied and has well-understood recurring characteristics. Traits of European Bronze Age religion include a dichotomy between the sun and the underworld, a belief in animals as significant mediators between the physical and spiritual realms, and a focus on "travel, transformation, and fertility" as cornerstones of religious practice. Wet places were focal points for rites, with ritual objects found thrown into rivers, lakes, and bogs. Joanna Bruck suggests these were treated as liminal spaces bridging the world of the living to that of the dead. She also discusses the uses of high places such as mountaintops for similar ritual purposes; geographic extremes broadly seem to have held spiritual significance to Bronze Age peoples.

Recurring symbolic themes have been described in Bronze Age symbolism across Europe. One repeated symbolism Bruck discusses is sexual intercourse, either between two humans or between humans and animals. She also discusses many figurines of ships found deposited in rivers and bogs, and the use of ships as coffins for water burials. Bronze Age cultures also practiced cremation, and cremains have been found inside model wagons and chariots. Evidence from Scotland suggests Bronze Age Britons may have practiced intentional mummification of corpses, previously thought restricted in that era to the ancient Egyptians.

Iron Age European religion is known in part through literary sources, as the ancient Romans described the practices of the non-writing societies they encountered. From Roman description, it appears that the people of Roman Gaul and Roman Britain were polytheist and accepted the existence of an afterlife. A wide array of ancient authors describe the Druids, which they characterise as a class of philosophers, prophets, and mages. They discuss the importance of sacred sites to Iron Age European religion, in particular sacred groves. Some authors also claim the practice of human sacrifice. Druids attract particular attention in the study of Iron Age religion; the exact degree to which they existed and what their practices were is disputed. Contrary to the pop-culture interpretation of Druids as a major impact on Iron Age religious life, some authors doubt either their provenance or their impact. Though a specialised priestly class is evident, the Druids of Roman description may have been exaggerated and misunderstood by a society to which they were alien.

Religion in the European Iron Age was not a single, homogeneous practice throughout the whole continent. Practices across the continent for which we have strong records included Old Norse religion, Germanic paganism, and Celtic paganism. Traits such as the importance of bodies of water recur across the continent, but the oversimplification of this vast and heterogeneous body of religious faith into a single religion never rises above simple misconception. Simultaneously, the literary records of these faiths clearly miss significant aspects of their practice; although the archaeological record for Iron Age European religion is so dominated by the deposition of statuettes and sculptures into water, this goes almost completely unrecorded by the Romans. Eventually, the Romans converted to Christianity, and set to introduce their new faith to the regions under their sway. Christianity emerged in Roman Britain in the fourth century AD, and the religion was adopted disproportionately by the wealthy residents of such peripheral regions of the empire. After decades, even centuries, of bloody war, European paganism diminished throughout the first millennium AD, and the final sunset of the faith was the conversion of the Vikings in the eleventh century.
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