What Was a Human Being Before the Axial Age?

Greece and India are the two axial civilizations that I know best. In Greece you move from Homer which is roughly speaking the 8th century BC to a new conception, a radically new conception of man's place in 18th and 6th century BC known as pre-seocratic philosophy. Now what is it that's similar in the between the Indian transition and the Greek transition? Well let's take the idea of the inner self or soul. But before we talk about these, it might be useful to look at the evidence for what we know about what constituted a human being before the Axial Age.