Instead of just chucking our dead relatives and friends in human garbage dumps, we actually started burying them. And the fact that we began burying them in graves with flowers, beads, red ochre and other "gifts" indicates that we did this not because we were concerned with sanitation and hygiene (that would come much later), but rather because we began to conceive of an afterlife.

The notion of an afterlife, and the concept that spirits (both good and evil) governed our existence, really began to play out around 40,000 years ago. To encourage the good ones and to keep the evil ones away, we began to adorn ourselves, and our dead, with jewelry, cosmetics and perfume. As John Flügel explains, these portable amulets were a lot more convenient than lugging around a stone Venus figurine, a 10 lb. wooden cross, a dead bird, or other sacred, but cumbersome, object:

"The only protection that is possible against...maleficient influences is the use of counter-magic, and...it is extremely convenient to carry about some amulet which can be trusted to ward off the evil influences without the necessity of active intervention. For this purpose various objects, supposed to possess magical properties, were hung or otherwise attached to the body, and some authoritie[s] are inclined to believe that this magical purpose of articles carried on the person preceded even the ornamental purpose, and therefore constituted the real motive for the first beginnings of clothing. Such a view is of course in harmony with the opinion now coming to be widely held among anthropologists, that in general the earliest forms of art served utilitarian (i.e., magical) rather than purely aesthetic ends."

And so began the traditions of body piercing and adornment. By putting little amulets in our earlobes, lips, noses, and around our necks and arms, we protected ourselves from evil while hunting for food and making love. Covering our bodies in red ochre paint (perhaps the earliest cosmetic) served the same function. Its red color symbolized the blood of life; it encouraged fertility and everlasting life.

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Above: The Venus of Laussel, from southern France, c. 20,000 to 25,000 B.C. (2)