The Roots of Religion: Genevieve Von Petzinger at TEDxVictoria 

Speaking in a colloquial fashion, Ms. Von Petzinger breathes new life into the ancient mysteries of what it is to be us and how we might have arrived there. Utterly brilliant and insightful.

She's really great. I think I'd enjoy a much longer lecture on this topic.

She is a very good speaker I could listen all day

Ah, hard work, and giving your life with passion, curiosity and dedication to discover the real why's of it all. This is what everyone should be listening to on Sundays.

There should only be one religion , that of caring for your fellow human. It’s called Humanity , try it !

MS. Genevieve, what a wonderful presentation !! I have seen you in two vids,on youtube, but I will search for more. THANKS

Amazing talk ! Loved your work and presentation 😍😍

Working on something creative, especially trying to reinvent something from scratch, gives a few people known to me a certain high which they relate to at a spiritual level, even if they are not followers of conventional religion. This talk makes so much sense.

My cats have religion, they believe if they run around the house knocking stuff off of tables and counters and generally making a loud ruckus for an hour or so, then they will get fed. In reality, I feed them at 9am and 6pm everyday, regardless of how they behave or when they start their ritualized antics. But they sure do believe their highly correlated behavior is causal to their feedings. And they have escalated the rituals over time.

Utterly bloody fascinating! What a treat of a lecture. Love it! 🙏

Very interesting lecture. I am so thankful for thoughtful, curious people.

She has the heart of a teacher !!! so inspiring and passionate. thank you !

I really like this speaker. I like how she was able to present the information without picking sides about religion, plus, she didn't act paternalistic toward primal cultures.

This is the second TEDtalk I've seen of this woman. I love how passionate and knowledgeable she is about her field of study.

Really animated, lucid, and clear lecture on the origin of religion and prehistory. Thankyou.

I found this presentation to be fascinating. By extension, while Ms. Von Petzinger touches upon the use of visual items and themes to bridge the "here and now" with the unfolding of the mental notion of the future and human understanding of the divine, I think it would be interesting to do the same regarding the other senses. For example, certain songs relative to key life transitions, the playing of certain instruments and associated melodies at special life events or ceremonies, and the crafting of certain foods made with specific ingredients and served at key life events or ceremonies. Such things that are meant to "enable bridging" across the time continuum from one generation to the next and from one epoch to the next.

Fascinating research. I just watched another one of her TED's and she's really interesting, deep but still understandable. Trying to find "the particle" of something is just wonderful; getting to see "the first" of something; being able to do the "original gesture" that made us who we are, that's marvelous.

"Religion is a phase where species become intelligent enough to ask profund questions but not intelligent enough to answer them" - forgotten where I read this.

Dr. Genevieve Von Petzinger beautifully shares anthropological evidence of early human behaviour and the beginning of belief systems some 50,000 years ago.

Soooo into Genevieve! Some of that rock art is surprisingly similar to some I saw in my cave archaeology field school and research in Central America. I have seen much on three continents and countless caves and been the first to shine light on some. I'd love to go caving and cave mapping a site with her!

very interesting, as TED talks go, and in keeping with her other talk on her research regarding the symbols found on cave walls primarily in Europe. It's been 5 years and I am aware that Dr.Von Pettinger's research continues and it seems like news discoveries and understandings are revealed daily, and would love to know how our she sees the state of knowledge now. Cheers.

Evolution of consciousness is an absolutely fascinating fact!

A Ten years old post but absolutely fascinating. Both presenter and subject matter. These are great questions and discussions.

I think it's possible we may still carry the memory of our ancestors and this comes out in the trance like benefits from a meditative practice. We still carry a need for survival through symbols and imagery. Much like they did. Love this stuff

She truly found her vocation, irradiates passion for what she does.

Great and interesting presentation. I wait for more from you.

when i was a kid..me and my dog would play chase. I would chase him and he would chase me in turns. I ran around the well house two times in a row, and Brandi, a basset, stopped, and went the other way to catch me going around. Animals use planning and have 'visualized' fore thought capabilities. They use it in hunting as well. Human huge brains has taken it to another level with religion, but I see many aspect of our thinking and behavior very similar and relatable.

This was wonderful. Thank you.

18:00 Zentangle makes use of this type of Trance Imagery in the form of meditation through drawing. It's validating to see that this is a deep part of human history/psyche.

VERY ENLIGHTENING!!!

Thanks for sharing this very interesting information!

One of the difficulties - on display in this talk - is the difficulty imagining the things proposed without doing so from a contemporary thinking perspective. And this is interesting, since Von Petzinger pointed out herself that the brain and frame aren't enough to define that they were "us." Capacity to be us leaves out a colossal amount of visual language, group experiences, developed traditions, presuppositions, etc., which are so much the air we currently breathe, it's impossible to leave behind the imprinted biases. So it's exceedingly difficult to sort of "see with their eyes" regarding what their symbols and practices mean. But this is a very interesting talk on some of what the paleo-anthropologist has done toward that difficult work.

I think us people can’t comprehend that we control our own future and want/need a higher power to look to for questions and answers

Fascinating The cave paintings in France could be the first how to hunting PowerPoint presentation!!!

Please share this brief video with others: Atheists and Agnostics Need This

She made it sound all so simple and easy to understand.

"Is it all in the lobes?" _The Ferengi Alliance has entered the chat_

Thank you Genevieve. You're a genius. Love your work so much.

It is quite fascinating how boring topics are made interesting and amusing by such great individuals like this lady. Thanks.

very excellent, well spoken tutorial about a great many things. thanks for sharing!

wonderful clarity of informed reasoning - religion is the blight of the present world.

Excellent, thank you for being.

I so love Ted Talk I always learn so much life changing information

They began to saw those things in awe and wonder and thus the thought of a power which is beyond their control and worship of those things began.

This is so fascinating that we can learn so much about early humans, that our real history, though unwritten, is so ancient and to consider what this tells us about how we think and what it means to be human... and so disappointing that a large majority of humanity because their religion just says 'nope' just denies that any of this is real, that we have any connection to these people. They refuse to know how humans actually developed into what we are because they think it conflicts with their precious story, ignoring of course that every culture that came before them did the same thing.

Awesome talk! Congratulations!

Fascinating. Thank you

Boy she's careful. And good at it. Otherwise she would not get so many to listen. She knows a lot more than what's said.

She touched on it briefly, but I would like to hear an in depth talk about the role of the Shaman, how it began, how it evolved, and it's importance and contribution to the development of mankind. I've given some thought the topic and the more I explore it the more fascinating it becomes.

Thank you very much . Her efforts are well appreciated. Where do we come from , the existential question .

Thought inspiring vid. Would be super interesting to know at what point in our history (modern human) we started recognizing and actively using psychedelic plants … I would assume also that biochem receptors for same evolved to be part of our biochemical make up. Could be there is a correlation between the “impossible entities” and the types of edible plants we were exposed to whilst having the receptors biochemically established.

So much we don't know, so satisfying to take a guess

Seems almost every comment is about how "religion is evil" and nothing on the actual text of the video. I for one, thought this was a fascinating and engaging talk about our modern origins and how early ideas and practices coalesced, through both evolution and tradition, into something more complicated and spiritual. Someone else mentioned this, but I, too, would like to hear more about the "evolution" of the Shaman, and how that societal role shifted over the course of our early history. Really fascinating stuff.

My friend and I have had lengthy discussions & debates on Evolution: * Descending from the treetops. * Standing erect to view the Serengeti, etc. * Large roaming to find more & newer food sources & water. * FINALLY MOVEMENT TO EUROPE WHICH REQUIRED COMPLETE CLOTHING, MORE TOOLS, & MORE ELABORATE LANGUAGE & SOCIAL ORGANIZATION FOR SURVIVAL.

The desire for comfort in the face of impending (or eventual) death is exactly as old as mankind's ability to envision the unseen. The promise of immortality ubiquitously wielded by religion naturally sprang from that desire for comfort. I suspect burial started as a simple way to protect a loved one's remains from being feasted upon by scavengers. From there, it's a relatively short jump as seeing the underground as the "transfer point" between life and death, and therefore, a "membrane" between worlds seen and unseen. All in all, a very good TED talk.

I wish to thank Genevieve Von Petzinge for this excellent talk. I intend to transcribe all the valuable information she shares here and keep it on file, so I can refer to it again from time to time.

"I once took a radio apart and discovered that there are no talk show hosts, their guests, nor callers-in, it's just that the radio is wired to make it seem as if they exist." - Gus More

She's awesome..... Smart, easy to listen to that voice....💛 Will watch again 👍😶‍🌫️👍

I like how some people give you an insight about certain topics and leave it to you to think ,,,,

There's a couple caves in France with wonderful early human artwork, extremely interesting. Mainly hunting images, but also human and possible religious images. There's one of a poor guy getting killed, but I think there's also afterlife depictions. They're called Cosquer and Chauvet Caves, I believe. I'm sure there's more all over the world. The drawings have been dated, with a center at 31,000 years ago, some older and others newer. Many animal depictions, mostly extinct, but some of horses and lions.

Absolutely loved that talk.. Huge references to other worlds in ancient Celtic/ Welsh mythology and the transition from one to the other by "Shamens". Each other world had Gods. These myths certainly were "alive and well" in the bronze age. Possibly the Shamens of the time were the ones who possessed specialist skills of being able to smelt Copper Ore etc. The world of the dead was called Annwn.. I talk of this only because it's my cultural heritage. Others will have theirs. An observation is that reverence for a buried person is borne out of having a huge emotional loss due to a death. That denotes pretty advanced thought processes to register that loss.

Seeking to understand what it means to be truly virtuous, is what the world needs more of.

wow! amazing stuff. Thought provoking at the very least. Insightful and believeable as we look back at our human ancestry. Seems instinctely right! Thanks Genevieve!

All religions are made in earth. ‏I left Islam when I read the Qur’an and the biography of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam ‏Now I live in Iraq and I can't talk about it even with my family I might be killed, and society will reject me, it's very difficult for me ‏and many Arabs leave Islam every day, but they cannot announce that because they may be killed and of course society rejects them.

How does a mimic octopus mimic items? Does it also have a template in its mind in order to do so?

Please share these brief videos with other people. Thanks!

could the bison-with-arrow pic be an instruction manual? ie "if you see one of those, get one of these and stick it in there" sort of thing?

Fascinating TED Talk... thank you! BTW, it's also been suggested that the 'invention' of religion is what first enabled humans to imagine larger group identities and hierarchies, beyond just local clans and traditional tribal affiliations.

Concise presentation, many thanks

I have seen every talk she's given and read every book she's written. She never fails to make me completely present to life's mysteries.

Man is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven...." ― Mark Twain

"The great Russian author Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) said: 'The religion of those who do not recognize religion is to follow everything the powerful majority does. Simply put, it is the religion of submission to those currently in power.' "Unless people possess firm conviction in their hearts - unless they can honestly say to themselves, "I will never compromise on this point" and, "I will stake my life on defending this ideal" - they will be swayed, unable to resist the pressures of the majority. And of course it will then be even more difficult for them to endure persecution at the hands of the authorities. Ultimately, such people, in everything they do, will follow the powerful majority. They will have a wait-and-see attitude and take whatever action is expedient at the moment. With the hollow of justification that "there's no other way," they will time and again capitulate to those in power." -Daisaku Ikeda

I tend to think that our brains evolved the frontal cortex as a tool for organizing our local social units and communities to improve our lives and ensure our ability to thrive. I suspect that our language abilities served this purpose, primarily by allowing us to communicate in metaphors. With our improved brains we could remember the names of our neighbors and families and the entire structure of the community could be described with our metaphorical language. I can’t help but see a metaphorical language as a tool for social control. I’m sure it was immediately adopted by the most ambitious individuals as a means for controlling the general population. The “magic words” were used to construct a world-view (religion) that set boundaries and that secured the position of powerful individuals. I would like to see more discussion about these ideas. In order to survive this extinction event we need to reform or “re-form” our religious ideas in a metaphorical language that comports more closely with reality than our current language does. We do not have a lot of time.

this is pretty amazing. Very thankful for people like her

An illuminating & substantive share of professional work, on behalf of our species. I particularly appreciate the timeline that reflects the emergence of our more abstract high convergence salience networks as we now know them. Thank you Genevieve 💜

I think it was a way to try to explain what humans could not comprehend .

Hello Genvieve, Thanks for a very interesting presentation. When I just started working as a freshman geologist professional in Chile in 1972, found a fascinating book, which is still in my bookshelf. Its authors were a husband and wife geologists couple - Mr. and Mrs. Jean Termier, printed in 1971 - who had studied stone tools from France's territory, quoting they had found some 760 different rock types used to make tools found in archeological sites. Interestingly, the Termier's finding points towards a large variety of rocks logically to be found within a wide geographic region with a varied geological evolution and many rocks types formation, but it also points to the human tool-making actually experimenting with many rock types in the search for the more adequate materials for tools applications intended to be made for. So this widespread experimenting in search of the "best suited rock types materials" in my view reveals that there was "an intelligent learning process" (intelligence being defined in this case as "acquiring concepts and being able to link them into ideas", that is learning about those diverse rock materials through its empyrical experimental testing. The particular Termier couple finding of numerous rock types used to make tools from an extensive geographic archeological of French territory search, led me as a geologist and minerals exploration/metallogeny researcher, to think those tools were derived both from a diverse and varied abundance of rock types, each with particular rock crushing strength, shear breaking strength and tension strength. Incidentally, the crushing strength of granite - a typical crustal rock - is about 1,500 kg./cm2, its shearing strength being 150 kg./cm2 (i. e., 1/10 = 10%) and its tension strength 50 to 30 kg./cm2 (i. e., 1/30 = 3.3% only); these "rock properties imply that the tool-making energy needed" defined the minimum amount of energy delivery needed and the "human prensile-hand" positioning enabling use of the optimum muscle force to obtain "the useful rock materials shaping with the minimum energy use", while learning about allowing for the preservation of the "fragile muscle-tendon and bone" condition free of injuries while cracking rocks and shaping them into essential survival tools. Interestingly, archeology researchers in the Kalahari Desert of Western Africa, found blocks of obsidian - a volcanic rock glass - which were clearly chipped by large rock-block tools that provided very sharp edges tools; further search in the area found these obsidian rocks were privileged by end- users who transported it for n x 10 kilometers to other human settlements favouring this material to make flesh- and hide-cutting tools. Rocks are defined as "mineral aggregates" and the are at least 3,800 different mineral species, dominated by silicate rocks (equivalent to about 67% of the Earth's Crust mass - which are made of the hardest common base mineral Quartz (SiO2; 7 in Mohs empirical hardness scale) associated mainly with elements such as Ca, Na, K, Al into similarly hard silicate structures (Mohs's 5.0 to 6.5) - which make most of the Earth's Crust; interestingly, Quartz or high SiO2 content rocks (Chalcedony and silicified rocks which are SiO2 replaced rocks) were dominant in the "arrow factory" I found on a hills range overlooking the desert. This "arrow factory" site overlooked from a hill-top into a minute desert spring where animals would drink and eat grass; also found more crudely shaped stone tools such as bone-crushing hammers, animal meat-cutting and hide cleaning artifacts elsewhere, mixed with fired clay containers, etc., while carrying out minerals exploration in other sites of the Atacama Desert. One can conclude therefore, that the "intelligent human indirectly experimenting with rock properties is the base of all human empirical and technical development", since rock usage as tools led to the discovery and later obtaining of metals by smelting of ores, a process which incidentally has led to the emission of about 40% of CO2 worldwide in 2022 from the primitively sustained obtaining of metals by smelting; which replacement by clean processes has been in part my research since 1984, arriving in 2018 at a hydrometallurgical industrial process that needs less than 5% of its current energy consumption. Jaime ARIAS, Geologist (1972); Ph. D. Applied Geochemistry (1978) Santiago, Chile. Cell phone and Whatsapp: 56-9-65160705

Thank you!

Great talk thanks very much.

Wow such an interesting,thought provoking, excellent talk

Fascinating stuff. Does anyone know of a book that would be a good introduction to this field?

Nicely done!

Commenting from 2020 when we've had a pandemic; when people can't go outside (like there's ice or plague) they can't find enough things to do and start baking, crafting, etc. Not surprised cave shelters have a lot of art or that people had time to make beads and jewelry.

I would be curious to see studies about psychedelics roles on the first beliefs.

When humans became conscious of death the natural fear of death is what created the need to delude ourselves that we continue to live after death.

Wow thanks the wonderful information.

Increíble presentación la profesora Genieve es sencilla mente Genial 🌏

I just LOVE IT: the first evidence of modern human behaviour, shells with evidence of wear? JEWELLERY!

Its good that when we look at something, we could all have different views. And if you believe in something, how it can transform into your belief system

I read a hugely influential book when I was at University written by Steven Mithen “The pre history of the mind”. I wonder if Genevieve also came across it? Anyone interested here is such a detailed food for thought on the matter of the pre historical human mind’s formation.

Wow Sharman is very true in my experience. Thank you

Actually, I like the concept of thinking about religion as a “tool” since it is how religion is used. Some religions are sophisticated, some are not. Some organized religions take the basic “tool” and make it into something that is either constructive or destructive. There are a lot of parallels to how we view hobbies, companies, etc.

I wish to take it upon myself to offer an apology for these ridiculous comments that I've been reading.... You absolutely do not deserve that you have a beautiful structured mind I love your presentations please continue your work I just discovered you a couple years ago I love your mind

More like this please! What happened to TED talks deteriorating to idle drivel since this one?

It's important to frame this problem as "organized" religion. The basic drivers for all religions, in the most general sense, are all based on fear, ignorance, and hope. Even our most distant modern human ancestors were trying to make sense of what they experienced, and had to ascribe it to something they can't see, hear, feel, or touch as they reacted to weather, the day/night sky, untimely deaths through illness and attacks, etc., etc. When this all took a turn is when some of those first humans (those darned shamans) realized they could quite effectively personally benefit from the control of other humans with fear and hope by coopting and framing these early belief systems. And over thousands of years, passing along an increasing awareness also passed along the increasing anxiety of learning more and understanding less, and this very human need to create a familiar, human-centric, organized structure that could relieve them of having to figure out the impossible. This will never change.

"Religion isn't the cause of war. It's the excuse." Mycroft Next

The history of the emergence of clothing, tool use, the progression from hunter-gathering to agriculture, tribes, cities, states and empires in Africa and the Near East is fascinatingly illustrated in the narrative of the Bible.

Finding healed broken bones in early humans demonstrates the point that humanity truly became us. Caring for others

It would be interesting to see how the current day bead maker she mentions goes about making a bead and how he concluded his technique may have been the same or very similar to the original makers.

In the beginning of the talk Genevieve opens with ‘we live in a world that is absolutely infused with religion and spirituality, sometimes even to the point where maybe we don’t recognize it’. This statement bolstered my opinion that Science is a Religion, one which we don’t currently recognize as being so. I believe scientists are our modern priests and shamans. To give you one example. The talk mentions shamanistic practices and shamans and the term being applied to ‘spiritual practices where there are specific members of your tribe who intercede on your behalf with an unseen world, whether it’s to influence weather, influence the hunt, whether it’s to do with health and people being sick and trying to make them better again, there’s these people that do that’. I would say the most modern example of a Sharman using this definition is a Quantum Physicist. From my research on modern Religions are how they are formed. My study being conducted on Kundalini Yoga, formed in California in 1968 by a fellow named Yogi Bhajan. It became clear to me that in the early stages of a Religion there is an unawareness of its members that there is a religion that has been formulated, supporting the statement I mentioned earlier. This unawareness can lead to a strong desire to spread and defend the newly formulated Religion and Dogma created, even attacking or rejecting people and ideas which may challenge it. I would say that Science can be very dogmatic.