It would seem the belief in life after death is as old as spirituality itself. However, the great beyond hasn’t always been considered a heavenly place: at first it was perceived as an ominous realm, the house of darkness. To discover the origins of religious rites it is necessary to investigate prehistoric burial sites from an archaeological perspective. Here are some findings.

The oldest written records describe various forms of life after death. The atheist consensus is that the belief in immortality – or religion in general – was established as a form of wishful thinking, a kind of compensatory self-deceit pursued to counter the horror and inevitability of death. However, this argument can easily be put aside if one looks to the history of religion.