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Thank god for civilisation
VINCENT J. MUSI/national geographic creative
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© 2015 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Williams Gibbons (Wolverhampton)
Thank god for civilisation The idea that religion led to modernity is gaining strength ABOUT 10,000 years ago, our ancestors began the greatest transformation in human history, abandoning the nomadic lifestyle that had long served them well in favour of permanent villages. The origin of this “Neolithic revolution” is contentious. The answer once seemed clear: food. Farming was more efficient than foraging and so people gravitated towards it. Cities, writing and organised religion soon followed. In recent years, though, this model has been challenged by archaeological discoveries. The most important is Göbekli Tepe in Turkey: a cluster of 11,000-yearold buildings with spectacular statues and other monumental architecture. The archaeologists
who found it interpreted these as having a ceremonial purpose: a “cathedral on a hill”, as one put it. Yet the people who built them were nomads, not farmers. So the radical suggestion now is that it was not agriculture that drove the revolution, but religion. Some archaeologists oppose this idea, arguing that the ruins could have been domestic buildings, or were once surrounded by dwellings that did not survive. But the ceremony-first model is in the ascendancy, supported by further evidence unearthed in the Levant. Now comes news that another ancient civilisation – the Maya – may also have had spiritual roots. Their oldest city, Ceibal, seems to have begun as a place where
Fifth rock from the sun? WHAT makes a planet a planet? It’s nearly 10 years since the International Astronomical Union created a stir by agreeing a new classification system that kicked Pluto out of the club, demoting it to dwarf planet status. In the intervening years it has become abundantly clear that the solar system’s smaller bodies are at least as interesting as those that
still enjoy full planetary status. We already think that the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are among the best places to search for alien life. Now, as spacecraft begin to map Pluto and its smaller cousin Ceres, dwarf planets are entering the limelight. Is another round of planetary hokey-cokey on the cards? The leader of the Dawn mission is on record as saying that Ceres will
hunter-gatherers assembled for religious festivals (see page 12). The parallels are intriguing. Maya civilisation developed in geographical isolation from the Old World, and several thousand years later. If it followed the same path, perhaps that tells us something profound about human cultural evolution. Some secularists dislike the idea that spiritual needs drove the rise of civilisation. They fret that it will reinforce or restore religion’s central place in society. But just because spirituality may have led to civilisation, it doesn’t follow that it should lead it now. If religion did have an early founding role, we must acknowledge this, learn from it – and move on. n
turn out to be “every bit a planet as its terrestrial neighbours Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury” (see page 8). If Ceres is a planet, so are Pluto, Eris and many others. It doesn’t really matter. In fact, reviving the debate will only detract from the excitement of exploration. Pluto’s demotion was keenly felt by a generation of astronomers, both professional and amateur. Ceres has no comparable emotional pull, and nothing to gain from being promoted to planetary status. n 28 March 2015 | NewScientist | 5
LEADERS
LOCATIONS UK 110 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6EU Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217
Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 330 333 9470 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 [email protected]
© 2015 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Williams Gibbons (Wolverhampton)
Thank god for civilisation The idea that religion led to modernity is gaining strength ABOUT 10,000 years ago, our ancestors began the greatest transformation in human history, abandoning the nomadic lifestyle that had long served them well in favour of permanent villages. The origin of this “Neolithic revolution” is contentious. The answer once seemed clear: food. Farming was more efficient than foraging and so people gravitated towards it. Cities, writing and organised religion soon followed. In recent years, though, this model has been challenged by archaeological discoveries. The most important is Göbekli Tepe in Turkey: a cluster of 11,000-yearold buildings with spectacular statues and other monumental architecture. The archaeologists
who found it interpreted these as having a ceremonial purpose: a “cathedral on a hill”, as one put it. Yet the people who built them were nomads, not farmers. So the radical suggestion now is that it was not agriculture that drove the revolution, but religion. Some archaeologists oppose this idea, arguing that the ruins could have been domestic buildings, or were once surrounded by dwellings that did not survive. But the ceremony-first model is in the ascendancy, supported by further evidence unearthed in the Levant. Now comes news that another ancient civilisation – the Maya – may also have had spiritual roots. Their oldest city, Ceibal, seems to have begun as a place where
Fifth rock from the sun? WHAT makes a planet a planet? It’s nearly 10 years since the International Astronomical Union created a stir by agreeing a new classification system that kicked Pluto out of the club, demoting it to dwarf planet status. In the intervening years it has become abundantly clear that the solar system’s smaller bodies are at least as interesting as those that
still enjoy full planetary status. We already think that the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are among the best places to search for alien life. Now, as spacecraft begin to map Pluto and its smaller cousin Ceres, dwarf planets are entering the limelight. Is another round of planetary hokey-cokey on the cards? The leader of the Dawn mission is on record as saying that Ceres will
hunter-gatherers assembled for religious festivals (see page 12). The parallels are intriguing. Maya civilisation developed in geographical isolation from the Old World, and several thousand years later. If it followed the same path, perhaps that tells us something profound about human cultural evolution. Some secularists dislike the idea that spiritual needs drove the rise of civilisation. They fret that it will reinforce or restore religion’s central place in society. But just because spirituality may have led to civilisation, it doesn’t follow that it should lead it now. If religion did have an early founding role, we must acknowledge this, learn from it – and move on. n
turn out to be “every bit a planet as its terrestrial neighbours Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury” (see page 8). If Ceres is a planet, so are Pluto, Eris and many others. It doesn’t really matter. In fact, reviving the debate will only detract from the excitement of exploration. Pluto’s demotion was keenly felt by a generation of astronomers, both professional and amateur. Ceres has no comparable emotional pull, and nothing to gain from being promoted to planetary status. n 28 March 2015 | NewScientist | 5