Some pods of whales will revisit certain coordinates yearly, or on longer timelines that are extremely regular, where there’s no discernible reason (no food, they’re not mating, etc). They hang out for a while, then leave. They don’t do anything special there but vocalise more, and they’ll put off hunting for this social interaction. It’s reminiscent of early human history when we were nomadic and would sometimes gather, foregoing hunts in favour of sharing stories, often in the form of legends. Our earliest mythologies and spiritualism grew from this, and there’s no reason to discount their behaviour as so different from early hominins.
Elephants have been known for revisiting the bones of family members for decades, and a recent paper has been submitted with evidence they’ve been observed burying their dead on purpose – carrying babies for miles to man-made trenches. They obviously can’t do that with their larger dead, but they appear to prefer their dead to be protected from predation if possible, and they stay with the bodies for days, trumpeting. That strongly suggests they have some kind of opinions surrounding death, which again, in our own ancestors is inextricable from spirituality.
I personally think some other animals have religion – I have no real evidence as that’s just my opinion. I think we vastly underestimate animals and overestimate our relative importance.
Some pods of whales will revisit certain coordinates yearly, or on longer timelines that are extremely regular, where there’s no discernible reason (no food, they’re not mating, etc). They hang out for a while, then leave. They don’t do anything special there but vocalise more, and they’ll put off hunting for this social interaction. It’s reminiscent of early human history when we were nomadic and would sometimes gather, foregoing hunts in favour of sharing stories, often in the form of legends. Our earliest mythologies and spiritualism grew from this, and there’s no reason to discount their behaviour as so different from early hominins.
Elephants have been known for revisiting the bones of family members for decades, and a recent paper has been submitted with evidence they’ve been observed burying their dead on purpose – carrying babies for miles to man-made trenches. They obviously can’t do that with their larger dead, but they appear to prefer their dead to be protected from predation if possible, and they stay with the bodies for days, trumpeting. That strongly suggests they have some kind of opinions surrounding death, which again, in our own ancestors is inextricable from spirituality.
I personally think some other animals have religion – I have no real evidence as that’s just my opinion. I think we vastly underestimate animals and overestimate our relative importance.
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