For a long time people had that idea, but new findings may challenge that view. The Gobekli Tepe site, near Urfa, Turkey (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/gobekli-te...) is dated to ~ 11K years ago and is thought to be the world's first temple. This pushed back the dawn of religion quite far back.
"To Schmidt and others, these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization. Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled communities did they have the time, organization and resources to construct temples and support complicated social structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid the groundwork for the development of complex societies."
This view has not been accepted by all, but it had generated quite a bit of excitement and discovery.
"To Schmidt and others, these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization. Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled communities did they have the time, organization and resources to construct temples and support complicated social structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid the groundwork for the development of complex societies."
This view has not been accepted by all, but it had generated quite a bit of excitement and discovery.