FlorenceArt - have you seen
this? It describes the work of Iegor Resnikoff, who has tracked the relationship between sound and wall paintings in the caves of South-east France. Resnikoff and his assistants mapped the acoustics of the caves, singing, whistling and clapping their hands. where resonance was strong, that's where they found the paintings. This is very suggestive.
Similar results have been found in the US, and in southern Africa, where San rock paintings are related to acoustic phenomena. Today, although the San no longer paint on rocks, they still dance to the eland, going into trances as they move to the music.
Some anthropologists - not all - think that the rock paintings, the music, and the dance, are related to hypnotic visions. Look for David Lewis-Williams, who is best known for his work on San magical ritual, but who has recently turned his attention to
the French caves.
For some anthropologists, the important functions of religion come from its power to make us act together. It is the way our bodies act in unison, in dance, or in making music. We then tell stories to fix the movements, to encode the collective activities, and these stories (you can find traces of this in folk-tales) gradually take on a life of their own.