History of Religion:
Period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,220 years ago (3200 BCE). Writing played a major role in standardizing religious texts regardless of time or location, and making easier the memorization of prayers and divine rules. The concept of "religion" was formed in the 16th and 17th centuries, the word religion as used in the 21st century does not have an obvious pre-colonial translation into non-European languages.
The 19th century saw a dramatic increase in knowledge about a wide variety of cultures and religions, and also the establishment of economic and social histories of progress. Usually, religions were divided into stages of progression from simple to complex societies, especially from polytheistic to monotheistic and from extempore to organized.
The earliest archeological evidence of religious ideas dates back several hundred thousand years to the Middle and Lower Paleolithic periods. Archaeologists take apparent intentional burials of early Homo sapiens from as early as 300,000 years ago as evidence of religious ideas. Other evidence of religious ideas includes symbolic artifacts from Middle Stone Age sites in Africa. However, the interpretation of early paleolithic artifacts, with regard to how they relate to religious ideas, remains controversial.
List of Religion: http://www.letusreason.org/Cult11.htm
From the above link described the History Timeline of World Religions, cults and occcult and its Founders. By this we can learn about the traveling of religion period and changes of religion environment.
And following video link showing the much more interesting clips of the Religion history.
The History of American Religion:1600 to 2017 totally explained by the below link.
For many religions, the very fact of historical study is heretical; for other religions, historical thought is integral to religious practice. We cannot speak about religion without also thinking about its many histories. To start, what is religion? Is it a belief system, a set of cultural values, of ritual practices, and a source of identity? Is it an attempt to explain our place in the cosmos? Or is it all of these things at once? Is its proper role to transcend earthly life or to transform it? Answers to these questions vary across time and place and even in the same time and place, depending on the groups and individuals who answer them.
Religion has been an instrument of liberation and an instrument of coercion. Religious identities have been a matter of choice and a tool of control. Religious institutions—ruled by men and, more rarely, women—have developed sometimes in collusion with and sometimes in antagonism to government power. Religions have been a basic factor of human history in all places and times, and remain so in our own world today. They have been some of the most important forces shaping knowledge, the arts, and technology.
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