Well considering that humans evolved from a much earlier Primate ancestor similar to the rest of the Apes, and apes do not have religions/religious beliefs of any real shape or form then it is ONLY logical that the early humans were Atheists at the onset of their evolution.
Imo, ANY religious belief system/s comes about when someone sees the opportunity to to enhance their social standing, etc, by 'persuading' the rest of the group/clan that they are able to contact the invisible 'higher power' that 'controls' the world around them thus they begin to get the best of everything their group/clan has to offer, etc, etc.
From then on it becomes in-grained into the minds of the peoples that they MUST care for and appease both the so-called 'Agent' of this Higher Power and the Higher Power itself or they will suffer the consequences at, possibly, so later undetermined time.
As the old Political saying goes, " feed the people Fear, keep the people afraid and you CAN do anything you want them and they, usually, will NOT object."

Atheism is natural.. Religion is (hu)man-made...

Good point

It was a good read and of course it stands to reason that atheists existed. Also demented lunatics sounds like a good name for a band.

We aren’t born with religion it has to be planted in our brains, therefore the default human position has to be disbelief. Our earliest ancestors took to worshipping the sun because it is life giving, there’s a logic to it, and worshipping and deifying other heavenly bodies, seasons and animals all makes some kind of sense, however it’s also logical to assume that there must always have been those who dissented and were atheist, as this study of ancient texts confirms. The much more recent worship and belief in one god and creator is much less logical, and quite frankly it baffles me how it has got such a grip and control of people’s minds, even with the seemingly otherwise more intelligent.

Amazing book. Will definitely buy. Thanks for sharing.

Duh, all babies are born non believing in anything until their parents start with the brainwashing. That is the natural state of things and it does not take a Cambridge study to realize it.

And of course, even before the culture of the classical world, many societies, especially those in the hunter gatherer stage of social life, did not have gods, animism and ancestor worship being far more common. Gods are themselves quite a resent development.

We’ve always been around, it’s part of being human.

The Vikings had a name for Atheist, and if you have a name for it then at least the idea must exist.

Interesting article ... thanks for this share! It seems likely that there have always been skeptics and doubters who appear to be 'wired' to call into question the opinions of the majority. But these doubting Thomases may be tolerated only for so long. The majority demands compliance!

Makes perfect sense to me. I'm sure in some societies atheists existed, but if you came out of the closet you could be killed for it.