<<The San hunter-gatherers ran with the herd. It follows that their earliest symbolism would be predominantly of animals. Particularly the tastiest ones, the ones easiest to kill, or the ones that filled the most bellies.>>

Hi Mark, we may be looking at the bible from two different angles. You assume it was written by the hunter-gatherers and to me it was compiled from ancient Hindu and AE texts and these two civilizations had a vast astronomical knowledge.
And yes you are probably right that replacing oral tradition with a written script was the first step to a devolution. We got a dead letter without the symbolism explained. There was a book about it few years ago, that argued that the written word (left brain hemisphere/masculine) replacing the visual and auditory (right/feminine/intuitive) has done exactly that, not to mention established the superiority of patriarchal values.