While I was doing some research on American history, I had that moment of distraction where I started to wander off of my topic and look into the history of the Northern part of the Americas. As you might have guessed, one thing leads to another and I find myself in Africa, researching primitive man.
In Tsodilo Hills, Botswana, archaeologists discovered what they believe is a cave where people worshiped and performed rituals. They dated the artifacts in the area to be around 70,000 years old which would have put homo sapiens in the area to fit with the 'Out of Africa' theory, with modern version of humans leaving around 60,000 years ago at the earliest.
Since this cave appears to be the oldest discovery of ritual worship, it's caused archaeologists to re-adjust their theories about primitive rituals from 40,000 years. How much farther could it have gone back?
Those discovered remains of archaic homo sapiens in Africa gives the out of Africa theory a lot of credibility and it is broadly accepted by most scientists. Without having to go into details of what behavior makes this religious or spiritual, I would like to move on the idea that development of religion or spirituality in archaic homo sapiens is the 'apple of Sodom' referred to in Genesis. The serving of a higher power.
I would also like to note the location of the Garden of Eden because it is said to be near. If Dr. Juris Zarin's 'Garden of Eden' theory is correct, than geographically, we can put the garden in the country at the Persian gulf to fit around the idea that homo sapiens were dispersed. But we can also say that garden did not exist until 6,000 - 5,000 B.C. which is long after the out of Africa theory.
I'm just throwing shit at a wall (primate humor), to see where it sticks. Ya dig?