I'm not sure I'm convinced by Professor Nyord's argument. I understand Christian scholars might have been influenced by their own religion in drawing a conclusion of belief in an afterlife but I don't perceive another explanation for the iconography.
My evaluation of the evidence presented in the paper about the finds of human bones being used for "tools" in Neolithic Liangzhu, China and its modern lesson.
My blog post providing more background about tidal irrigation and the early Ubaid period suggesting how elites rose from the need to administer food surplus to form a complex state harnessing primitive beliefs to legitimize their authority.
