I was talking about religion in the loose sense the dictionary uses in spelling out the meaning of the root words. Religiosity in the cultic sense precedes complex civilizations, and evolves to suit the new social environment.
If you're talking about the Seshat study, one report points out that "that doesn’t mean those people [the ones in civilization before the appearance of moral gods] didn’t have religion. The data also shows that doctrinal rituals—which existed to appease supernatural agents—preceded the concept of gods with lightning bolts often by hundreds of years. Those rituals, the team argues, acted as a social glue that helped form a collective identity."
Also, the coding of historical data can be biased, and the first time something appears in the archeological record doesn't mean it's the first time the phenomenon appeared in history, since there's bound to be a lag.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/which-came-first-society-or-a-fear-of-god
