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I argue that the capacity of the human mind to understand and use signs with arbitrary relations between signifier and signified emerged with abstract signs that signify an irreversibly ‘absent’ (used as a noun here), or the absence of an earlier presence. The cognitive capacity, relevant for religiously relevant perceptions, could probably have emerged in the Early Upper Paleolithic era (c. 50.000–40.000 BP). Abstract signs allowed humans to refer to a dead human, a permanent ‘absentee,’ or simply, an ‘absent’ – a certain former member of the group. Thus, they signify absence of a formerly present individual, and allow to externalize complex emotions. These abstract sings for absence, possibly rocks and stones, and respective emotions such as collective mourning became on their part, it is argued, the basis for religious perceptions such as memorial practices.

Absent dead, and abstract signs for absence: on the semiotic affordance of religion