In ‘Subsistence and the Evolution of Religion’, Hervey C. Peoples and Frank W. Marlowe write the following:“Rodrigue’s (1992) study of temporal relationships between the appearance of surplus storage, trade, and animal sacrifice in the Near East demonstrates that changes in subsistence economy and technology preceded evidence for animal sacrifice or artifacts generally constructed as being religious.”

In ‘Subsistence and the Evolution of Religion’, Hervey C. Peoples and Frank W. Marlowe write the following:“Rodrigue’s (1992) study of temporal relationships between the appearance of surplus storage, trade, and animal sacrifice in the Near East demonstrates that changes in subsistence economy and technology preceded evidence for animal sacrifice or artifacts generally constructed as being religious.”(Peoples & Marlowe 2012: 254; with a reference to C.M. Rodrigue, ‘Can Religion Account for Animal Domestication? A Critical Assessment of the Cultural Geographic Argument, based on Near Eastern Archaeological Data’, The Professional Geographer 44 (1992), 417-430)What is the link between this particular reasonable causal connection (changes in food production lead to changes in lifestyle lead to changes in religion/ritual/symbolic acting, and not the other way around) and the development of moral “high gods”, according to Peoples and Marlowe? In other words: why do Peoples & Marlowe insist on the presence of morality as a defining characteristic of these high gods?Number of sources does not matter as long as the article above is mentioned.