No other animal uses ritual as extensively and compulsively as Homo sapiens. In fact, archaeologists often consider ritual to be one of the core defining features of behaviorally modern humans, because it is related to the capacity for symbolic thought. We humans appear to be unique in our ability to communicate complex abstract ideas and concepts, not only about the here and now but also about other times and places — even imaginary ones. We do this not just through art, narrative, and myth but also through ritual. In fact, various theories on the origins of human cognition have proposed that ritual and intelligence evolved side by side.
Biological anthropologists suggest that group ceremonies could have played a key role in the transmission of cultural knowledge in prelinguistic societies. Through the symbolic re-enactment of collective narratives, ritual functioned as an embodied proto-language that provided an “external support system” to individual cognition — a crucial step on the road towards language itself.
The neuroscientist Merlin Donald has argued that ritual was a mental foundation stone for the evolution of social cognition, allowing early hominids to align their minds with social conventions. By establishing a shared system of collective experiences and symbolic meanings, ritual helped to coordinate thought and memory, allowing a group of humans to function as a single organism. And because of its close connection to symbolism, rhythm and movement, as well as its role in demarcating the extraordinary from the ordinary, ritual has also been linked to the evolution of art.
