Actually, if the archaeology is anything to go by, ancient peoples seem to have practiced ancestor worship, most of all.
In Britain, at least, structures like burial mounds carry on being built until pagan culture was superceded by Egyptian and Greco-Roman practises, where Deities were the major focus.
Monotheism was tried out, under Akhenaten, but the population gradually reverted to polytheism after his death. The chronology of this 'experiment', relative to Judaistic monotheism, is not known to me but suffice to say that he seemingly arrived at this novel concept independently.
So, as far as the artefacts can indicate, deities arrived quite late in the game.
I see ancestor worship as reasonably logical. Their actions will have won the land you live on, either by wit or by fighting for it; the line of descent gave birth to you; their efforts fed and raised you; their wisdom and skill is passed down to you. You give thanks for everything you have, to them.
However, they're easily trumped. No-one ever supposes them to possess magical powers. That's where god-peddlars always stand to win them over.
But we still hanker after being reunited with our ancestors, don't we? That's what makes the concept of afterlife attractive, I reckon.
@birdie1971
The concept of oblivion is, therefore, scary because that is what we stand to lose, over and above -loss of ourselves-.
The selfishness of wishing to experience contact with both lost loved ones AND maintain some degree of contact with events in the real world, after we're gone is, perhaps, a subject for another thread. If god exists, what would he make of this selfishness? And so on.
Not being a believer, I can't fully address the 'meaningless' scenario. For atheists, your life is as meaningful as you want it to be - either impactful on the world around you or not.
Meanwhile, it's still pretty amusing to think of the faithful forgoing real-world leisure and pleasure on account of time spent worshipping something which turns out not to exist (not that they'll be able to experience the non-existence part, though). If they derive pleasure from that activity in itself - and it seems from page 2 that they do - then it's no loss to them.
Even I can appreciate the architecture in churches and cathedrals, if not their purpose.