ABSTRACT

The first humans to immigrate to the Americas were fully modern Homo sapiens, with the complete biological and intellectual capacity of people today. The intellectual capacity for the symbolizing behavior necessary for religious and scientific concepts most likely developed late in the Middle Paleolithic period in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Contemporary researchers disagree on the timing of these genetic changes, and estimates range from as early as 1 million years ago to as late as 50,000. Yet even the latest date for the origins of what we refer to as subjective consciousness or the “mind” in human populations would still be well before the first immigrations to the western hemisphere. Thus the earliest development of religion and scientific thought in South America was purely a cultural and social process; there is no biological cause for the development of the different kinds of religions and worldviews that developed in this hemisphere.