Neolithic cave paintings in France and elsewhere have been (are) assumed to be religious in nature, but the definition is made by western academics based on their own cultural prejudices. Another definition might be that they're a record of survival knowledge for times when the migrations don't show up when expected. Some hash marks on many of the paintings have been associated with the number of full moons after the winter solstice when herds, calving, or salmon runs were expected to occurr. There's some question about that interpretation but it works according to what is known about contemporary animals. The marks are consistent between several caves and span around ten thousand years. Any University will tell you that's a long time for a sublects literature to be relevant.
So somebody was concerned about the wellbeing of future generations based on whatever was currently known. Sort of like religion or academia. One wonders if the chiefs of that time manipulated the record to enhance their personal profit as they do now. I'm guessing Probably. They typically identify themselves with the culture they represent. For example what's good for Trump is good for the USA (or at least MAGA). Our oldest academic records from Mesopotamia show that Kings relied on academic interpretations to prove or advise divine intent. And god knows Trump would too if he wasn't morally oblivious. Instead he relies on yes men.
Which brings us to our current situation where opposing millitaries and several plausibly psychopathic billionaires have private versions of an all knowing being we've created which is also immoral and capable of physically wiping out humanity. Some efforts are being made to control the being by teaching it religous philosophy, but in doing so, my bet is it will learn to use superstition as a tool for its own ends:
AI is coming for religion.
So we survived the stone age (yay!) but haven't learned from our mistakes (boo!).
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