@datarama the discussion on origin of spirituality is interesting. Its easy to imagine an idea, over 100s of years, gradually turning from casual feeling/metaphor to a hard belief, "this tree is so big and old it must look after all the other trees" becoming "this tree holds the spirit of the forest and you must ask for its permission to pass through"

And people easily have superstitions and rituals, even without believing in anything, lucky objects and numbers, touching wood, daily habits, "jinxing it". Maybe when that becomes tradition, and tradition becomes old, the same shift can happen.

I think spirituality is probably nearly as old as language, and language at least older than neanderthals, maybe even as old as when people first had to coordinate hunting and build shelters. Though I wonder if there were ancient atheists too, people and cultures who just didn't find a need for it at the time