The Worm at the Core -- On the role of death in life by Sheldon Solomon et al

 According to the authors the fear of death is one of the driving forces of human action. "Cultural worldviews have offered immense comfort to death-fearing humans.....the second vital resource for managing terror is a feeling of personal significance, commonly known as self-esteem." Sites inhabited 28,000 years ago have burials with bodies elaborately prepared in death which indicates a belief in the afterlife.

The Gobekli monuments in Turkey date from 12,000 years ago. They predate the wheel and agriculture. There are no sign of human habitation or cultivation there. Each pillar weighs over ten tons so at least 500 workers were needed to drag, carve, and erect them. Perhaps first came the temple and then the city. Burying food with the dead may have caused sprouting of grain and led to the understanding of agriculture.