# How Religion Evolved **Entity class:** Book / evolutionary account of religion **Domain:** Evolutionary psychology / anthropology of religion **Author:** [[wiki/Robin Dunbar|Robin Dunbar]] **Maturity:** Developing ## Definition ***How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures*** examines religion through human evolution, social bonding, ritual, cognition, and group organization. ## Corpus Role [[blog/20261007 - The Prayers of Primates|The Prayers of Primates]] uses the book for the affiliation side of worship: singing, dancing, feasting, and synchronized movement can scale the bonding effects that [[wiki/Social Grooming|social grooming]] supplies in smaller primate groups. The article then places that affiliative account beside [[wiki/Primate Rank-Maintenance|Primate Rank-Maintenance]] and [[wiki/Submission to Hierarchy|Submission to Hierarchy]] rather than treating either mechanism as the whole of religion. ## Evidence Boundary An evolutionary account can identify recurrent mechanisms without reducing theology, doctrine, personal experience, or historical institutions to one biological function. ## Relationships - [[wiki/Robin Dunbar|Robin Dunbar]] - [[wiki/Social Grooming|Social Grooming]] - [[wiki/Big Gods|Big Gods]] - [[wiki/Human Animality|Human Animality]] ## Sources / Provenance - Robin Dunbar, *How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures*, 2022.