What is the oldest religion in the world?

Human beings were religious long before they wrote. Neanderthals and early modern humans buried their dead, sometimes with tools, ochre and ornaments. At Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, people raised great carved pillars around 9500 BCE, before farming had fully begun.

But those beliefs left no names or texts. Living traditions, meanwhile, rarely have a clear starting point. Most grew slowly from older practices, and their followers often see them as timeless. So any answer is an approximation.

Hinduism is most often named as the oldest living religion. Its earliest scriptures, the Vedas, were composed from around 1500 BCE, and the hymns of the Rig Veda are still recited today. Some scholars also see links to the Indus valley civilisation, which flourished from about 2600 BCE, though its script cannot be read and the connection is uncertain.

Hindus themselves often call their tradition Sanatana Dharma, “the eternal order”, meaning that it has no human founder or date of origin.

Judaism traces itself to Abraham and Moses; historically, the religion of ancient Israel took shape in the 1st millennium BCE, and the Torah was compiled by around the 5th century BCE.

Zoroastrianism goes back to the prophet Zarathustra, whose dates are uncertain: estimates range from about 1500 to 600 BCE. Its sacred fires have been kept burning by a small community for more than a thousand years.

Jainism looks back to Mahavira, of the 6th or 5th century BCE, and to his predecessor Parshvanatha, but Jains believe their teaching is eternal and was taught by twenty-four teachers in this age. Shinto grew from the prehistoric worship of the kamikami The gods or sacred powers of Shinto, present in nature, ancestors and great people. Glossary in Japan, though it was named and organised much later.

The religion of ancient Egypt is among the oldest well documented: its gods appear in the first written records around 3000 BCE, and it endured for more than three thousand years before the last temples closed in the 6th century CE. Mesopotamian religion is equally ancient. The religion of the Greeks and Romans lasted from the 2nd millennium BCE into the 4th century CE.

None of these survives as a continuous tradition, though small modern groups have revived the worship of the Egyptian and Greek gods. They remind us that religions, like languages, are born, change and sometimes die.