Monotheism and baboon sun-worship

[Marc Washington]

As this is my first post, I will introduce myself. I am Marc Washington. My interest is the emergence of the human being, language, and culture. My post is entitled:


DID HUMAN RELIGION EMERGE FROM BABOON SUN-WORSHIP

To state that the baboon "worships" the sun or that there is "animal religion" is not in the least to imply that they either worship the sun or have religion as they do neither. The reader will sympathize in understanding that there is no nomenclature to discuss (as is done within) the human mimic of animal behavior which goes on to assume purpose with the human being that is wholly devoid in the animal. Here, we discuss the ancient human mimicking baboon sun-worship with that leading to monotheistic human religion.

Having said that, one might make a case that if religion embodies the feature of daily ritual triggered by a single recurring event that evokes what can be perceived as a sense of reverence, that the daily chatter of the baboon at sunrise is a sign of animal religion. And, as the following will show, monotheistic human religion may have its root in the sun-worship of the baboon.

We read: “[In Egypt], the observation that baboons greet the rising sun in the morning by barking gave rise to a favorite theme in sculpture, painting, and relief – of the baboon worshipping the sun with raised hands.” See: Dieter Kessler, “Monkeys and Baboons.” In: Donald Redford (ed), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, v. 2, (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001), pp. 428 – 432. There are many other sources that refer to the fact seen in nature of the hamadryas "worshipping" the sun. See, for instance: Herman te Velde, “De symboliek van apen en bavianen in de Oud-Egyptische cultuur en religie,” Phoenix, 48:1, pp. 25 – 45, (2002).

I want now to consider the condition that religion must have an object of reverence; in this instance, that object would be the sun and why it is regarded with what appears to be reverence will be discussed. Allowing that the baboons and smaller animals of the jungles are the nightly dish of the felines and other large predators who rely on the cloak of darkness, the coming of the light of day gives the hunted the chance to see concealed predators and escape attack. Further, the great extent nature goes through to develop protective coloration and other avoidance behaviors shows the premium nature places on avoiding fatalities and the value of the sun in lessening the risks of predation. And this is the case that can be made for the perception that the baboon treats the sun with what may be construed to be reverence - and perhaps the source of human reverence. That somewhat leads to the next point.

Jane Goodall records the largely peaceful co-existence between the chimpanzee and hamdryas baboon, the type baboon to which Redford referred above. It is the chimpanzee-human clade from which the human emerged. Thus, the hamadryas and the continuum of evolving hominids on their way to becoming humans, and later humans themselves, co-existed. Every day in unbroken sequence for the six to seven million years the human evolved away from the human-chimpanzee clade, human ancestors were witness to sun worship by the hamadryas. Today, humans in remnants of ancient civilizations still worship the sun each day at the moment it arises over the horizon. Like the baboon, they do so with raised hands.

After worshipping the moon, the earliest humans practiced sun-greeting and among the Bushman (closest to the chimpanzee) and predynastic Egyptian --- peoples who shared the same geographical area [See: George Peter Murdock, Africa – its peoples and their cultural history, (McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, 1959), p. 271.] --- both had hamadryas baboon-gods which worshipped the sun. This progressed, among the Egyptians, to a predynastic Ra. In the Ani Papyrus, among other texts, Ra was conceived with a trinity of features: the sun god whose self is often hidden even as he is the eternal uncreated creator.

This trinity of features of Ra would be the template for the millenniums later Ptah, Amun, and Atum, the three great “pet names,” or other faces, as it were, of Ra. Ra (and those of his template: Ptah, Amun, and Atum) are known as the maker of the gods such as Shu and Tefnut, Geb and Nut. Those such as Shu and Tefnut are called gods in modern literature but are considered as principles of nature by the ancients. See: Heinrich Karl Brugsch, Religion und mythologie der alten Aegypter, (J.C. Hinrichs, Leipzig, 1885-88), p. 93). As stated, these gods (principles) included Shu and Tefnut, Geb and Nut. Chapter 50 in the Book of the Dead states that: “The gods and their symbols come into existence by virtue of the law.” They are principles and the word “god” should be interpreted not as “god” but “netero” – principles. As the Christian god created with the word of law, so too did Ra.

There is a vast literature found in the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, and the Monuments captured in, for instance, The Book of the Dead. There we find the Hymn of the Self-created Ra: "Homage to thee, O Ra, the Lord of Truth, the Only One, the Lord of Eternity and Maker of Everlastingness." The religion of Ra was clearly monotheistic. And, it dominated a huge prehistoric cultural sphere spanning from southern Egypt, through Africa and India (discussed in: Richard Taylor, Te Ika a Maui; or, New Zealand and its inhabitants, 2nd edition, William Macintosh, London [1855] 1870), through New Zealand. Much ado is made of the scarab beetle of the Egyptians and later Greeks as the former of the sun and symbol of the first anthropomorphic god, Ptah for the Egyptians and Hephaistos in his Greek form. Yet, the scarab as the shaper of the world is found from Asia, through Australia, and America in cultures 10 - 15,000 years old. See: Yves Cambefort, “Beetles as religious symbols,” BugBios – cultural entomology – insects in human culture, Issue 2, February 1994. URL: http://www.cheops.org/

This Olden monotheistic world culture stretched back to time immemorial long before the emergence of dynastic Egypt, Greece, or the West. The view held by 19th century scholars such as le Page Renouf, Emmanuel de Rougé, Eugèné Pierret, François Joseph Chabas, Gerald Massey, and Heinrich Brugsch was that dynastic Egypt began as a monotheistic state. True, later men such as Gaston Maspero, Alfred Wiedemann, and others, would speak of Egyptian religion being polytheistic or henotistic (more than one god as in the Christian trinity). [In: Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in ancient Egypt: the one and the many, (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1982), pp. 22 – 25.]

But the present writer believes that Maspero, Wiedemann, et. al. threw up a smoke screen to divert attention from the Book of the Dead's characterization of: “Ra, the Lord of Truth, the Only One, the Lord of Eternity and Maker of Everlastingness." For whatever reasons, they denied Egyptian monotheism for unscholarly purposes. Their claims, I believe, are no different from the 4th century Christian zealot, Lactantius, claiming that Thoth was Greek. [See: Erik Iversen, The fate of the Egyptian Gods, in: Yves Bonnefoy, Greek and Egyptian Mythologies, (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991), pp. 255 – 266.] They understand that the theology of Ra began as monotheism but like Lactantius chose to make other claims.

While predynastic Egypt began with Narmer in 3100 BC, we learn that like Christianity, there was post-mortem judgment and resurrection through the Osirian religion (in human terms Osiris was a great grandson of Ra – but represented as a principle). See: (1) Beatrix Midant-Reynes, The prehistory of Egypt, (Blackwell Publishers, London, 2000); (2) Toby A. H. Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, (Routledge, London, 2000). Judgment, resurrection, and eternal life were predynastic features of a monotheistic religion that, there is no question, went light years beyond human mimic of baboon sun-worship. But, those esoteric features began at that point of pure mimic. The final result of man mimicking the baboon was monotheism. The route is not glorious. But that is the pathway from which religion emerged.

In conclusion, and to restate the introduction, one might make a case that if religion embodies the feature of daily ritual triggered by a single recurring event that is conducted with what can be perceived as reverence (as spoken of above), that the daily chatter of the baboon at sunrise is an aspect of animal religion. And further conclude that monotheistic human religion (those of Ra and Ra by the pet names, as it were, of Ptah, Amun, and Atum) has its root in animal religion – specifically that of the hamadryas baboon. Animals neither worship nor have religion - these terms were used in lieu of better ones that I know of not.

I welcome your comments.


Marc Washington

[John Goodrum]

I don't have an opinion on your interesting theory of animal sun-worship, but was hoping you could clarify one detail that jumped out at me:  When you say, "...the earliest humans practiced sun-greeting and among the Bushman (closest to the chimpanzee) and predynastic Egyptian..." I assume you mean that Bushmen are/were closest to chimpanzees geographically and not evolutionarily, right?  Thanks.

JG

[Marc Washington]

Hello John. This is my first attempt at replying to a comment and I trust I have done it in such away that this post follows yours. You asked if I meant that the Bushman was closest to the chimpanzee geographically or genetically. Both, actually.

Geographically. The human diverged from the chimp-human clade making them live in geographical proximity. Goodall sheds light on this as well as in: (1) Jane Goodall, In the shadow of man, (San Diego State University, San Diego CA, 1988); (2) Jane Goodall, My friends, the wild chimpanzees, (National Geographic Society, Washington, D. C., 1967).          

Genetically. Of the 900 men tested worldwide, the only men who have A (adenosine) at the M42 site, as chimpanzees do, were 15% of the Khoisan, and 5% to 10% of the Ethiopians and Sudanese. These men --- Stanford researchers --- said they must have inherited this ancient form from a common ancestor going back to the chimps. See: (1) Bernard Wood, Human evolution: Ecce Homo -behold mankind, Nature 390:6656, Issue of 13 November 1997; (2) Ann Gibbons, Y chromosome shows that Adam was an African, Science, 278:5339, pp. 804 - 805, Issue of 31 Oct 1997.

[John Goodrum]

Marc,

thanks for your prompt reply.  I'm not an expert or even a professional on these matters, but for whatever it's worth, I'll give you my opinion here.  While it's true that some ancient (in human terms) haplotypes appear to occur at higher frequencies in the San than in other human groups, I don't think the San are more genetically similar to chimpanzees in any meaningful way than are any other people.  In evolutionary terms, the only way the two could be more closely related would be for the San lineage to have branched off from the lineage leading to chimps some time after the lineage leading to other humans split off.  In other words, the San would have to share a common ancestor with chimps more recently than do other humans, which is unlikely to be the case.


JG

[Marc Washington]

MW Post 3

Good morning John:

It's a bit nippy round these parts today. But, there's lots of sunshine and for autumn, the weather is fine.

You wrote: "San would have to share a common ancestor with chimps more recently than do other humans, which is unlikely to be the case."

In my view, the issue in the question you raise is: "Was it the Bushperson who due to living in proximity with the chimpanzee and hamadryas baboon engaged in imitative behavior which resulted first in human sun worship and finally monotheism. That is what my first post considered. I state that here so should there be any question raised by anyone concerning the sentence before this they can confirm the discussion in that post.

Again, you wrote: "San would have to share a common ancestor with chimps more recently than do other humans, which is unlikely to be the case." I have produced the two mentioned research articles saying they are closer in my 2nd post on this subject. The present post is the third. I also offer the following to show that the Bushperson is closest to the chimpanzee. And, I note the comparison with reverence: Ornella Semino, A. Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti, Francesco Falaschi, L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, and Peter A. Underhill, Ethiopians and Khoisan Share the Deepest Clades of the Human Y-Chromosome Phylogeny, Am. J. Hum. Genet., 70:265-268, 2002.  

The above references show that they are the closest. I would like to ask that you show the documentary evidence you have based your conclusion on that they are not the closest.

Again, to keep the focus, I am saying that theirs in an ancient relationship between six and seven million years old. And the daily exposure the human ancestors had to hamadryas sun-worship (keeping in mind that it is not worship, per se) drew the attention of the early human to the sun each morning. In a case of imitative behavior, they too chattered and raised their hands in "reverence" at the rising of the sun. And over the course of millions of years, the final result was monotheism.

[John Goodrum]

I guess I don't really want to argue about this.  You may be right that the San are the human group most genetically similar to chimps, although I think this would only be true in the sense that you're closer to the moon when standing on one side of your back yard than on the other.  Maybe true, but so insignificant that it's not worth mentioning.

Geographically, has the historic range of the San really overlapped that of chimpanzees very much?  I thought the San are more closely associated with southern Africa.


JG

[colin]

All this talk about the San being "closer to chimps" than other people leaves me very uneasy, reminicent as it is of the kind of nonsense frequently spouted by racists in the 19th century.
By definition, all humans owe their genetic inheritance to their ancestors of 7 million years ago, and that genes have come down to us with various mutations which may be more or less common in various populations does not indicate that any modern human is "closer to a chimp" than anyone else.
Colin

[Marc Washington]

Post No. 4

TERMINOLOGY: mya = million years ago; myo = million years old; tya = thousand years ago; tyo = thousand years old


Hello John,

You wrote: "Geographically, has the historic range of the San really overlapped that of chimpanzees very much?  I thought the San are more closely associated with southern Africa."

The implications of your question in light of the title of the introductory post to this section "Monotheism and baboon sun-worship," is to me intriguing. The theory presented is that the largely peaceful co-existence found between the hamadryas baboon and chimpanzee was carried on in the relationship between the human being evolving away from the chimp-human clade 6 - 7 mya. Evolving humans imitated this behavior and the attitude of proto-reverence (as found in the baboon: discussed in the first post) and the result was eventually monotheism. Again, I want to stress that the sun as the symbolic force behind monotheism was singularly powerful as a daily image dominating the blue sky, bringing in day and night, hot and cold, safety of daylight and terror of the sunless night; the earth was formed after dark night etched, actually, by the light of sunrise. This happened every day in unbroken sequence for the 6 - 7 million years of human evolution (keeping in mind such exceptions as the explosion of Mt. Tuba in Sumatra ~ 70 tya that blocked out the sun and lead to volcanic winter).

All these things contributed to identifying the sun as the sole creator. As the baboon and Thoth greeted the sun in the east, in The Book of the Dead is found: "A hymn of praise to Ra when he riseth in the Eastern part of heaven," the welcome Egyptian priests gave as the sun rose: "Hail, thou Disk, thou lord of rays, who risest on the horizon day by day." This was the first written record following eons of oral tradition. Okay. What am I saying. I'm saying that the hamadryas-human relationship resulted in monotheism and that it was the Bushman evolving from the chimpanzee that accomplished this feat as seen in prehistoric and predynastic Nubia and Egypt. This was the Olden world society that existed as northern populations from Europe came at the ice age end and mixed with African populations creating the semitic races and ushering in dynastic Egypt and Western society. We are now living in perhaps the second phase of human evolution (or maybe third). But, the Olden society (the pre-4000 BC world) was often highly formed and developed socially and intellectually.

Again, though, you wrote: "Geographically, has the historic range of the San really overlapped that of chimpanzees very much?  I thought the San are more closely associated with southern Africa." My initial response was in the above where I tried to paint a picture of why it was that the sun emerged as a symbolism of monotheism. Why? To show that the arguments that many raise for early religion being polytheistic don't stand on solid ground. Also, to go into detail skipped in Post No. 1 that didn't describe the dynamics behind the rise of monotheism. But, these last two are another subject unless someone wants to specifically pursue them.

Ornella Semino, L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, and Peter A. Underhill speak of how the Bushman is the first modern man and ancestral to modern man. They also write that it was the Pygmy that is the second most ancient human and that the Pygmy emerged from the Bushman. In other discussion groups (I won't go into detail here), I have shown that phenotypically the Mongoloid resembles the Bushman in every feature but hair where straight Mongoloid hair contrasts with peppercorn Bushman hair - but the first Bushman had straight hair and when you see Asians, you are glimpsing at the oldest Bushman. (This is a side topic that can be gone into should you want to pursue it but shouldn't be pursued in this fourth post).

Where is this line of thinking going in light of the question you raised regarding the domain of the Bushman? That the first people out of Africa were those hominids 4/5ths of the way between the chimpanzee and modern man. I refer you to the article: Michael Balter and Ann Gibbons, Were 'Little People' the First Out of Africa?, Science Now, Issue of 5 July 2002. These "Little People" were ancestral Bushmen, I suggest. So, when you raise the question of domain, the domain was quite great. When you consider that phenotypically the Mongoloid resembles the Bushman in all features but hair, you see as well that the Mongoloid is an example of the geograhic domain of the Bushman. I refer you to Yuehai Ke et. al., African Origin of Modern Humans in East Asia: A Tale of 12,000 Y Chromosomes, Science, 292:5519, pp. 1151-1153, issue of 11 May 2001.

Then, consider that 45 tya both northern Europe and northern China were tropical. Recall that the Pygmy is the offspring of the Bushman. Recall the Bushman and Pygmy feature found in women of steatophygia and the peppercorn hair. With this knowledge in mind look at this url: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid%5F725000/725803.stm   ... it shows the Venus of Willendorf from 22 tya. In light of the preceding, you will see that she has the features of the Bushperson and Pygmy. But, Willendorf is in Germany. Yet, this type of Venus figure was found frequently also in Russia. Combine all these facts together: Bushman phenotypic ancestor of Mongoloid / Asian; tropical northern hemisphere; archelogical evidence. All this shows that the prehistoric domain of the Bushman encompassed the whole Western hemisphere. Encompassed the whole world, in fact.

Now, though David Begun of the University of Toronto is credited with the discovery that Dryopithecus was the ancestor of the chimpanzee and that the chimpanzee and human formed the same clade, it was not Begun who made the discovery. He joined the train after it left the station. The discoverer was Laszlo Kordos presently head of the Museum of Archeology in Budapest. I refer you to: Lászlo Kordos, Description and reconstruction of the skull of Rudapithecus hungaricus Kretzoi (Mammalia), Annales Historico-Naturales Musei Nationlis Hungarici, 79, pp. 77 - 88, 1987. And the later article: David R. Begun, Miocene fossil hominids and the chimp-human clade, Science, 257 Sept. 25 1992 p. 1929-33. But, guess what. The fossils they refer to were found from Africa, through Spain, up to Hungary. Nine mya Dryopithecus was inhabiting the tropical forests of Hungary - though the species is found in Africa from 13 mya.

But, I am still addressing your question and its implication in relation to the topic of the First Post in this particular discussion. The fact is that the domain of the chimpanzee stretched from Africa up through at least Central Europe as did the domain of the Bushman. The Bushman was everywhere. Consider Ctesias the Cnidian, a Persian writing in the 5th century BC who describes Central Asian "pygmies" (I think Bushmen) hunting fox and hare "not with hounds, but with crows, kites, rooks and eagles" like the Egyptians. Raptor skeletons were found in caves there indicating, the writer of the article said, that Pygmies (I think Bushman) were hunting there 10 tya. So, if this is true, not only do we have the Venus of Willendorf being a phenotypic Pygmy or Bushman, we have archeological and written evidence of their presence in Asia. See: Valerie Elliott, Hunt on the wing dates back to ice age, The UK Times, Issue of 26 January 2002.

Consider the geographical mention of the Bushman from th next writer: "Evidence of a widespread primitive civilization is met with in South West Africa as in other parts of Southern Africa. There would appear to be little reason to doubt that some branch of the Bushman family was originally associated with that civilization and that the Bushman of today are descendent from the aboriginal inhabitants of this sub-continent." See: C. H. L. Hahn, H. Vedder, and L. Fourie, The native tribes of southwest Africa, (Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., London, [1928] 1966), p. 81.

Or: "The precise origins of the Khoisan peoples are obscure. Physical anthropologists have long argued that the Bushman (or Boskoid) 'race' once spread over all southern and eastern Africa as far north as Egypt. At least one scholar has hypothesized a possible relationship between present Bushman populations and South African fossil remains some 40,000 years old." See: In: (1) C. H. L. Hahn, H. Vedder, and L. Fourie, The native tribes of southwest Africa, (Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., London, [1928] 1966), p. 81. He gives following citations: (2) P. V. Tobias, Bushman hunter-gatherers: a study in human ecology, in: D. H. S. Davies (ed.) Ecological studies in southern Africa, (Junk, The Hague, 1964), pp. 67 - 86; (3) Trefor Jenkins, Genetic studies on the Khoisan peoples of southern Africa, Proceedings of the Third Congress of the South Africa Genetic Society, Pretoria, pp. 1 - 6, 1966; (4) Trefor Jenkins, Genetic polymorphisms of man in Southern Africa, M.D. Thesis, University of London, 1972.

We could introduce many more such quotes. By the time of dynastic Europe, the Bushman was being pushed out of the upper hemispheres and was finally driven into South Africa and the Kalahari by the Bantu agricultural expansion that began near the birth of Christ. His age of world hegemony ended.

Your question concerned the geographical home of the Bushman in relation to the chimpanzee and baboon. For those are the players involved in the emergence of monotheism. But, we see that the tropical geographic area stretched from Southern Africa through northern Europe and Asia until the Upper Paleolithic some 45 tya. And, even 9 mya, Hungary and Spain were tropical. So, the fact is that the hamadryas baboon-chimpanzee-human triplet jointly coexisted over a vast geographic area. From my research, however, it seems to have been the East, Equatorial, and Central African area where the sun-worship and the earliest recorded sun god (Ra) emerged. Then, as my first post indicated, Ra is found throughout India and in the arc extending over to New Zealand. And monotheism is found in those places too. Again, we are going to run into the ancient world as monotheistic vs. polytheistic argument again and again. But for now, I have responded to your question and stayed on target where the purpose of the first post is concerned: Monotheism and baboon sun-worship. This post more considered the geographical area of this phenomena and the time period it occurred within even looking at relevant conditions before the emergence of the human being.

That's it.

[Stephen M. Kelly]

I am also a first time poster here in the forum, and am currently part of a class at University of Minnesota headed up by Greg Laden on the topic of the EEA.

First, I must concur with others that a greater genetic similarity existing between bushmen and chimps, as opposed to chimps and the rest of humanity, is a difficult assumption to make.  Certainly, I have never seen a phylogeny tree constructed showing a break in AMH that would warrant an assumption that the bushmen are closer realted to chimps than all other humans.  If a scholarly piece of material has been published showing a serious ground in the argument, then it would still at best be a hypothesis subject to extreme criticizm.  As I myself am not an expert, I have to go by what is the current stance in academia at large, that chimps and AMH share a common ancestor, but beyond that it is difficult to speculate.

Currently my topic in the EEA deals with the rise of religion and culture, and this idea is far off the topic from the direction I approach.  My questions to the Human/babbon sun worshiip are these.

1.) Baboons, as far as we can tell do not have the ability to worship.  Why would they holler at the sun in the first?  There must be a cost benefit relationship.  I believe costs are fairly obvious, such as predators being aware of their whereabouts, the sun potentially damaging the eye is stared upon, etc.  but  what benefits do baboons gain from this behavior.

2.) Secondly, bellowing during the rising of the sun is not exclusive to chimps or baboons.  I recall a time when a religion teacher in high school commented everyday on how nice it was to hear the birds chirp when the sun rose everyday.  This brings about the question: did humans mimic baboon behavior, or have humans always in some way acknowledged the rise of the sun as many species do?  If birds had arms, would they raise them?  Does raising the arms and bellowing play a role in warming the body after a lower body temperature overnight?  

3.) Lastly, the difficult thing I have encountered in my research is putting a thumb on the origins of religion.  The idea of humans mimicing baboons to bring about monotheism is a difficult assumption.  The question is if Ra and the Egyptians represent the first monotheistic or one of the first monotheistic religions.  Without written record, it is difficult for us to tell if the Venus of Willendorf was the first god worshipped in true monotheistic fashion.  The assumption is that monotheism grew in an area where baboons and chimps raise their arms to the sun, and therefore could have been mimiced to produce a monotheistic religion.  This is the criteria that would need to be present for this to have occurred.

             A. Monotheism grew around a chimp or baboon inhabited area, and humans were able to mimic the action and create monotheism.
             B. Humans learned the behavior while still in Africa, and took it with them wherever they migrated to, and found monotheism there.

If humans migrated out of Africa, and did not learn this behavior, then began monotheism, then what?  The problem is we can not pin point the origins of monotheism without proper written records.  Artifacts simply can not yield enough insight into the origins of religion and especially monotheism.  So, what does the theory say about the geographical origins of monotheism?

All this is a bit off the topic pertaining to my research, and anyone please correct any errors I've made.  Anyone who can help to answer the above three questions, thank you in advance!

[Marc Washington]

MW Post No. 5

Hello Steven. I'm Marc Washington and will be making comments to your post at the double asterisk (**) and noting the conclusion of the statement by ......END


Steven writes:

I am also a first time poster here in the forum, and am currently part of a class at University of Minnesota headed up by Greg Laden on the topic of the EEA.

First, I must concur with others that a greater genetic similarity existing between bushmen and chimps, as opposed to chimps and the rest of humanity, is a difficult assumption to make.  

(**) Well, Steve. In all fairness, there were only two posters who took a position on this and one said that I might be right that the Bushman is closer to the chimp after I presented additional evidence (see reply #5). But, I am not making the observation for banal or superficial reasons. I am specifically trying to document the raise of monotheism and am introducing the facts (as I see them) necessary to do that.   ......END


Certainly, I have never seen a phylogeny tree constructed showing a break in AMH that would warrant an assumption that the bushmen are closer realted to chimps than all other humans.  

(**) Yes. It was a difficult assumption to make. But, it followed years of tedious research and those were the conclusions. The tree you are looking for is found in the third citation below in the work of L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza.  ......END


If a scholarly piece of material has been published showing a serious ground in the argument, then it would still at best be a hypothesis subject to extreme criticizm.  

(**) The research has been reported in refereed journals: Nature, Science, and the American Journal of Human Genetics. The researchers such as L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Peter Underhill, both at Stanford, Hammer at the University of Arizona and Steven Stoneking at Harvard all have impeccable credentials. They are the pioneers, the trail-blazers, and pace-setters in the field of population genetics where geochronological trees of human dispersal across the face of the earth over the last 50 to 90 tya (and certainly Upper Paleolithic and more recent times) are constructed. Jin Li, who originally worked with Underhill and Cavalli-Cforza at Stanford, is a member of that exclusive club second to none worldwide. Li is now at Texam A&M. The criticism of their work is found, for instance, in the second citation and it is by Ann Gibbons of Science. Her article commends their work.

(1) Bernard Wood, Human evolution: Ecce Homo -behold mankind, Nature 390:6656, Issue of 13 November 1997; (2) Ann Gibbons, Y chromosome shows that Adam was an African, Science, 278:5339, pp. 804 - 805, Issue of 31 Oct 1997; (3) Ornella Semino, A. Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti, Francesco Falaschi, L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, and Peter A. Underhill, Ethiopians and Khoisan Share the Deepest Clades of the Human Y-Chromosome Phylogeny, Am. J. Hum. Genet., 70:265-268, 2002.

I think you'd have a more positive opinion if you read the articles. Keep in mind, however, that saying the Bushman is closest t the chimpanzee is significant in this post as it traces the human lineage back to the hamadryas-chimpanzee relationship where human ancestors who began walking the path that would end in monotheistic religion were exposed to sun-worship for upwards of seven million years every single day.  ......END


As I myself am not an expert, I have to go by what is the current stance in academia at large, that chimps and AMH share a common ancestor, but beyond that it is difficult to speculate.


(**) Well. There is really no speculation. The research methods are detailed in the second citation above. In any case, quoted from the Gibbons article in citation two above, we read:

"The DNA sequences varied among individuals, but Hammer found that the variants cluster into 10 major groups, known as haplotypes, which occur in different frequencies in different populations. Haplotype 1A, defined by an A at a particular site, appears to be ancestral because the A is found in chimpanzees, and Hammer's team found that in humans, it occurs only in some Africans. 'It's at the highest frequency in the Khoisan,' he says - the same population fingered by Underhill's team. Although the ancient form of 1A persisted in some groups in Africa, it also underwent a change to a G (guanine) 150,000 to 200,000 years ago in one descendant of Adam's."     ......END


Currently my topic in the EEA deals with the rise of religion and culture, and this idea is far off the topic from the direction I approach.  My questions to the Human/babbon sun worshiip are these.

1.) Baboons, as far as we can tell do not have the ability to worship.  Why would they holler at the sun in the first?  There must be a cost benefit relationship.  I believe costs are fairly obvious, such as predators being aware of their whereabouts, the sun potentially damaging the eye is stared upon, etc.  but  what benefits do baboons gain from this behavior.


(**) In my first post, I wrote: "The great extent nature goes through to develop protective coloration and other avoidance behaviors shows the premium nature places on avoiding fatalities and the value of the sun in lessening the risks of predation. And this is the case that can be made for the perception that the baboon treats the sun with what may be construed to be reverence." However, please note that I did not say that baboons have the ability to worship the sun. I wrote: "To state that the baboon "worships" the sun or that there is "animal religion" is not in the least to imply that they either worship the sun or have religion as they do neither. The reader will sympathize in understanding that there is no nomenclature to discuss [this subject]." I go into brief detail in the first post. In this reply, I have explained what I meant by worship and addressed the benefits you inquired about.  ......END


2.) Secondly, bellowing during the rising of the sun is not exclusive to chimps or baboons.  I recall a time when a religion teacher in high school commented everyday on how nice it was to hear the birds chirp when the sun rose everyday.  This brings about the question: did humans mimic baboon behavior, or have humans always in some way acknowledged the rise of the sun as many species do?  If birds had arms, would they raise them?  Does raising the arms and bellowing play a role in warming the body after a lower body temperature overnight?  


(**) Well. Humans arise from the chimpanzee-human clade and chimpanzees do not behave in any particular way when the sun arises. This is clearly a case of imitative behavior.  ......END


3.) Lastly, the difficult thing I have encountered in my research is putting a thumb on the origins of religion.  The idea of humans mimicing baboons to bring about monotheism is a difficult assumption.  The question is if Ra and the Egyptians represent the first monotheistic or one of the first monotheistic religions.  Without written record, it is difficult for us to tell if the Venus of Willendorf was the first god worshipped in true monotheistic fashion.  


(**) You are right when you say that it is difficult to ascertain when in history the first monotheistic notions arose and who the object was. You mentioned the Venus of Willendorf, one in a very large example of fertilitity statues found in the Upper Paleolithic nearly everywhere. But, it is the written record that identifies Ra as the first monotheistic god. In the written record, none are earlier. I mentioned him appearing in the written record in the form of petrographic hieroglyphics in Pitcairn Island among the Maori. The hieroglyphic were the same as the Egyptian. You can verify this for yourself. Please don't take my word alone for it.  ......END


The assumption is that monotheism grew in an area where baboons and chimps raise their arms to the sun, and therefore could have been mimiced to produce a monotheistic religion.  This is the criteria that would need to be present for this to have occurred.

(**) Sorry. But I did not say that chimps recognized the raising of the sun. Yes. You are basically right about the assumption.  ......END


             A. Monotheism grew around a chimp or baboon inhabited area, and humans were able to mimic the action and create monotheism.
             B. Humans learned the behavior while still in Africa, and took it with them wherever they migrated to, and found monotheism there.

(**) Yes. This is basically the idea.    ......END


If humans migrated out of Africa, and did not learn this behavior, then began monotheism, then what?  

(**) The problem with that assumption is that it is too hypothetical as there is monotheism throughout Africa and you find these behaviors everywhere. ......END


The problem is we can not pin point the origins of monotheism without proper written records.  Artifacts simply can not yield enough insight into the origins of religion and especially monotheism.  So, what does the theory say about the geographical origins of monotheism?

(**) We can trace historical monotheism back to at least 3500 BC. Keep in mind, however, that my purpose in writing was to trace the emergence of religion from the hamadryas-chimp relationship as experienced by the human being evolving progressively away from the chimpanzee to early hominid, and finally modern man. ......END


All this is a bit off the topic pertaining to my research, and anyone please correct any errors I've made.  Anyone who can help to answer the above three questions, thank you in advance!


(**) Good luck in your research. We all learn by raising questions. I have certainly asked my share.

Kind regards,


Marc Washington

[Stephen M. Kelly]

Thank you for the responses Marc.  I will in the next week try to look into those readings you've listed.  Although I doubt my stance will change, because I find it difficult to believe that a imitated behavior could somehow lead to a complex modular developement in the brain (such as monotheistic religion).  It is nonetheless only through skepticism that answers can be found and hypotheses tested.  Thank you for your timely and lengthy responses!

[Bob Stimson]

You advance an intriguing idea, to wit: "Again, to keep the focus, I am saying that theirs in an ancient relationship between six and seven million years old. And the daily exposure the human ancestors had to hamadryas sun-worship (keeping in mind that it is not worship, per se) drew the attention of the early human to the sun each morning. In a case of imitative behavior, they too chattered and raised their hands in "reverence" at the rising of the sun. And over the course of millions of years, the final result was monotheism."

Your argument sounds a bit facile and seems to take quite a bit on faith. Arguing on faith is the method of religious believers, not scientists, and non-sequiturs are more the province of Henny Youngman. While I would not be surprised if your hypothesis proved to have merit, there seems to be a problem with your chain of evidence.

It is true that baboons, meerkats, and other forms of animal life habitually greet the morning sun with raised arms. For a short time I lived in a van on the beach, and some of the colony would raise their hands and chatter at the sunrise. I did not feel they were worshiping, though, just dispelling the chill like meerkats and chattering like humans.

The first credible evidence of monotheism that I know of (I'm a layman) concerns the Migdol Temple in Jordan, and the first solar monotheism seems to proceed from the god Aton in the time of Amenhotep III. Even if I've got my facts wrong, monotheistic sun worship seems a neolithic phenomenon.

If we journey back into the Upper Stone age, the Venus of Willendorf would seem to be the earliest putatively religious object, and that seems more likely to be a fertility symbol. Before that, we have Neandertals burying their dead, but we're still in the UP.

You are stretching your argument to cover several million years. In order to be convinced of your point (mind you, I'm not saying it couldn't be true), I would need evidence of some physical practice or mental influence that could be seen to operate continuously. Unfortunately, art did not come into its own until the UP. It might, perhaps, be possible to draw a parallel with present-day hunter/gatherers. However, solar monotheism does not seem a staple of these societies, even ones that show evidence of religion such as the Yanomami drinking dead-relative soup.

Marc, show me a 2-million-year-old sun pendant . . . Please?

[Marc Washington]

MW Post No. 6

Hello Bob. I'm Marc Washington and will be making comments to your post at the double asterisk (**) and noting the conclusion of the statement by ......END


Bob writes:

You advance an intriguing idea, to wit: "Again, to keep the focus, I am saying that theirs in an ancient relationship between six and seven million years old. And the daily exposure the human ancestors had to hamadryas sun-worship (keeping in mind that it is not worship, per se) drew the attention of the early human to the sun each morning. In a case of imitative behavior, they too chattered and raised their hands in "reverence" at the rising of the sun. And over the course of millions of years, the final result was monotheism."

Your argument sounds a bit facile and seems to take quite a bit on faith. Arguing on faith is the method of religious believers, not scientists, and non-sequiturs are more the province of Henny Youngman. While I would not be surprised if your hypothesis proved to have merit, there seems to be a problem with your chain of evidence.

(**) Hi Bob. You speak of your experience seeing meerkats as well raising their arms and chattering at sun rise. Sounds like fun living from the van being lulled to sleep by the waves and maybe wakened by the sea gulls. Last time I slept in a van on the beach was in the 80's when heavy clouds rolled in and a torrential rain drove us from the beach into the van. I awoke at 4 AM ducking into my sleeping bag to avoid mosquitoes I couldn't see. Sand grinding into my face on a clammy sleeping bag. I was never so happy to see the sun as I was that morning. That was in Florida.

Bob. I've no problem being labeled facile, religious, non sequitur and showing a problem in my chain of evidence. Now. This is I said. Early hominids imitated the daily routine of the baboon and came to attribute philosophic significance to the cycle of the sun. Here let me add that such thinking must have been fairly recent. I said that below the base of predynastic Egypt were hunter-gatherers in the form of the Bushman and Pygmy who considered the sun as a god to which they gave the name Ra - the uncreated creator. An offshoot of these people went on to form the base of Dynastic Egypt during the influx of migrations from Europe into Egypt and Africa. There is evidence of this incursion in the etching drawings of rock art. [See: (1) Olivia Vlahos, African beginnings, (The Viking Press, NY, 1967); (2) Grafton Elliott Smith, The ancient Egyptians and the origin of civilization, (Books for Libraries Press, New York, [1923] 1970)].

In the oncoming millenniums, Ptah, Atum, and Amon became the namesakes of Ra - all of the same template: self-created sun gods. I went into more detail on their nature earlier. During predynastic times, post-mortem judgment, salvation, and resurrection into "heaven" were features of their religion. I gave citations for each stage of this process. I would be happy to try to improve myself and my mode of thinking. Please be so kind as to show me where I am being facile, religious, non sequitur, and showing a problem in my chain of evidence. ......END



It is true that baboons, meerkats, and other forms of animal life habitually greet the morning sun with raised arms. For a short time I lived in a van on the beach, and some of the colony would raise their hands and chatter at the sunrise. I did not feel they were worshiping, though, just dispelling the chill like meerkats and chattering like humans.

(**) Well. I think we are on the same track here. In your first paragraph you did quote me as I qualified my claims when I said: "keeping in mind that it is not worship, per se."  .....END



The first credible evidence of monotheism that I know of (I'm a layman) concerns the Migdol Temple in Jordan, and the first solar monotheism seems to proceed from the god Aton in the time of Amenhotep III.


(**) Amenhotep III reigned during the 18th Dynasty from 1390 -1353 BC. In my first post, I suggested seeing: (1) Beatrix Midant-Reynes, The prehistory of Egypt, (Blackwell Publishers, London, 2000) and (2) Toby A. H. Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, (Routledge, London, 2000) for evidence of the predynastic existence of the Osirian religion in the theogony of Ra that would date monotheism back to at least 3500.  ......END


Even if I've got my facts wrong, monotheistic sun worship seems a neolithic phenomenon.


(**) I wish I could agree with you but this is not the case. Also in the first post I gave the evidence, by which you can verify for yourself, that monotheism under Ra was prehistoric. In that post, I said the issue is: "...discussed in: Richard Taylor, Te Ika a Maui; or, New Zealand and its inhabitants, 2nd edition, William Macintosh, London [1855] 1870).  ......END



If we journey back into the Upper Stone age, the Venus of Willendorf would seem to be the earliest putatively religious object, and that seems more likely to be a fertility symbol. Before that, we have Neandertals burying their dead, but we're still in the UP.


(**) Human history begins with the keeping of written records and the first such records lay with Menes, also called Narmer, of the First Dynasty, 3100 BC. I stated previously that I referred to the first historic occurrence of a monotheistic god, the first written record. You are certainly right that there is evidence of what archeologists call the fertility gods. Of course, we can never know for certain what kind of symbols they stood for.  ......END


You are stretching your argument to cover several million years. In order to be convinced of your point (mind you, I'm not saying it couldn't be true), I would need evidence of some physical practice or mental influence that could be seen to operate continuously.


(**)  You are right. I am assuming that the baboon responded to the sun in that manner before the divergence of the human being from the chimpanzee-human 6 - 7 mya. You are right. I cannot prove that point. Is it a serious problem? ......END


Unfortunately, art did not come into its own until the UP.

(**) Many people believe that. Not all, though. Some state that the first art is to be found in the Middle Stone Age Levant with what appears to be the etching of the form of a woman in stone. That art is about 125 tyo. I would not know if this old evidence which has survived the criticism of time is in fact true or not.  Wish I could be of more help. I apologize  ......END


It might, perhaps, be possible to draw a parallel with present-day hunter/gatherers. However, solar monotheism does not seem a staple of these societies,


(**) You are absolutely correct!    ......END


even ones that show evidence of religion such as the Yanomami drinking dead-relative soup. Marc, show me a 2-million-year-old sun pendant . . . Please?

(**) Well. You got me on that one, buddy. Sorry I can't oblige you!  


Marc Washington

[Greg Laden]

I'm chiming in here mainly to make a comment about the genetic relatedness of “bushmen” vs. other humans vis-a-vis chimps.  My intention is to correct Marc Washington on this.  Despite Mr. Washington’s citation of the literature, the other posters have it right, and Mr. Washington has it wrong … this is not a mater of opinion, perspective, or debate, but rather of very simple geometry.

All human populations are exactly the same genetic distance from any given chimpanzee, and all chimp populations are exactly the same genetic distance from any given human.  This is very very basic, and despite the very open and diverse nature of this forum, it should be considered a given by all parties.  Implications by some  of the posters on this list that an alternative “interpretation” is potentially racist are right on the mark.


Greg Laden

[Marc Washington]

MW Post No. 7


Mr. Laden, writes: "I'm chiming in here mainly to make a comment about the genetic relatedness of “bushmen” vs. other humans vis-a-vis chimps.  My intention is to correct Marc Washington on this.  Despite Mr. Washington’s citation of the literature, the other posters have it right, and Mr. Washington has it wrong … this is not a mater of opinion, perspective, or debate, but rather of very simple geometry.

"All human populations are exactly the same genetic distance from any given chimpanzee, and all chimp populations are exactly the same genetic distance from any given human.  This is very very basic, and despite the very open and diverse nature of this forum, it should be considered a given by all parties.  Implications by some  of the posters on this list that an alternative  “interpretation” is potentially racist are right on the mark."

___________________



Marc Washington's reply:

What do you understand the writers of the following articles to have said that in your opinion I have gotten wrong and that you have stated correctly:

(1) Bernard Wood, Human evolution: Ecce Homo - behold mankind, Nature 390:6656, Issue of 13 November 1997; (2) Ann Gibbons, Y chromosome shows that Adam was an African, Science, 278:5339, pp. 804 - 805, Issue of 31 Oct 1997; (3) Ornella Semino, A. Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti, Francesco Falaschi, L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, and Peter A. Underhill, Ethiopians and Khoisan Share the Deepest Clades of the Human Y-Chromosome Phylogeny, Am. J. Hum. Genet., 70:265-268, 2002.

In any case, I do not as yet see how your comments pertain to the heart of what I was addressing. I attempted to trace the behavior of the baboon raising its hands and clamoring at the sun with early human affinity for that behavior resulting in eventual sun-worship and monotheism. Gerald Massey addresses the affinity between man and the ape writing:

“Again, the Monkey who is transformed into a man is a prototype of the Moon-God Thoth, who is a Dog-headed ape in one character and a man in the other.” [In: Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt v. 1, (Kessinger Publishing Company, Montana [1907] 1992), p. 15].

In the above quote, we have the Bushman who, like the basal Egyptian, is straddling the borderline of human society at the time when he is leaving the domain of the pre-human and the pre-religious era. I do not see why you raise the topic of racism. I do not see how you are addressing the subject-matter of my post. Please let me know where what you have said applies to what I have been writing.


Thank you,


Marc Washington