Chapter Two – The Dawn of Man
Lecture delivered by noted archaeologist and historian Professor J. J. Q. P. R. S. T. U. Nixon to his students at the University of South Melbourne.
Throughout the history of civilisation mankind has created many strange and wondrous things. Fire. The wheel. Poetry. Cathedrals. Bridges. The snuggie. I look around us today, and it’s a marvel to think how far we’ve come.
I want to talk to you today about early man. Who were they? Where did they come from? Where were they going in such a hurry? Why didn’t they pick up the milk on their way through? In short, we’re going to take a look at the first humans to grace this earth, and what exactly it was that made them human. Who knows? You may just learn something. Like the whereabouts of the milk.
Creation vs. Evolution – God vs. Darwin
No talk on humankind could begin without talking about the theories of creationism and evolution or ‘Darwinism’. Now we know all about creation. This is the theory that an all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing God created the universe and everything in it.
There are several flaws critics have found with this theory. The first, of course, is how on earth one being could create the entire universe? Especially in six days. All that talk of having the seventh day to rest is just ridiculous. I mean, there wouldn’t have been enough hours in the day. Think of the overtime he would have charged. Not to mention all the time spent sorting out OH&S. Imagine how difficult it would be to get work cover when you have that vast expanse of infinite nothingness to get injured in. Don’t talk to me about quasars.
But I digress.
Let us leave creationism at the moment, and look at evolution or ‘Darwinism’ as it is sometimes known. This is because evolution was discovered by a man named Charles who came from Darwin. Please, don’t interrupt, save your questions until the end.
Charles travelled to a group of islands west of South America called the Galapagos Archipelago, which as we all know is Spanish for Sou’ South West America. It is not, I have been informed, the name of an unaccompanied Mexican singing group. Now where was I? Yes madam I assure you I am a qualified lecturer. Please stop interrupting.
Now as I was saying, Charles from Darwin travelled to these islands and discovered that finches there had, on each separate island, developed different shaped beaks depending on what food was available to them. The most notable was a bird that had learnt how to pick up a cactus needle and mercilessly stab its food to death. Charles thought this was a bit excessive, especially because the bird’s main diet consisted of berries, but as a trained lawyer he appreciated its killer instinct and so it soon became his favourite species. He named it the Lawyerbird, which soon became the ‘Super Finch’ and much later appeared on American T.V. as the much loved children’s character ‘Big Bird’.
This, in a nutshell, is evolution. How it relates to the history of mankind I have momentarily forgotten. So I shall now progress, and let’s never speak of this again.
Monkey to Man and Back Again
Following on from the theory of evolution, it is evident that humans have descended from monkeys. Yes, sir, I mean monkeys. No, there is no such thing as apes. They’re just made up creatures from science fiction movies, invented to frighten children and destroy the Statue of Liberty. Now pay attention and stop gnawing on the desk, there’s a good fellow.
As I was saying, we all know that man has evolved from monkeys. Many is the time I’ve seen a boy climbing dexterously up a drain pipe to avoid the police, or seen a man swing from tree to tree on his tail, and thought “Ah yes. That is the result of evolution.”
But when did they first make the transition from mere animal into mere human? Well personally I think it was when early man first started using tools. Of course this is pure speculation; I don’t have a magic mirror into the past, and even if I did I’d have more interesting things to look at than cave men. But just imagine this scene. Two early humans are standing under a tree. In the tree is an apple. The apple is out of reach. The first man tries to climb the tree, without success. The second man, after careful deliberation, picks up a rock. He looks at the rock. Then the apple. Then the rock. Then the apple. Finally, he takes the rock, kills the other man, raids his home and steals his food.
This is the first example of humanity in action.
Intelligence in Man
Here we are seeing the first instances of sentience in man. But this was purely accidental. It wasn’t until many of the primitive humans had been killed off by their more thoughtful brethren that intelligence as we know it first began to rear its ugly, swollen, horrifying head.
It may have begun one day on a beautiful spring morning. A man wakes up early and leaves his cave to go hunting. But as he steps outside, something in his brain takes note of his surroundings. It is possibly a genetic variation or defect that makes him start analysing the world around him. Maybe he’s just sick of getting up with the sun every day to hunt and he’s trying to fend off boredom.
Whatever the reason he stops and thinks. Maybe he wonders how he could capture the landscape so he could view it forever. Maybe he starts to wonder what the big yellow thing in the sky is, and how it got there. Maybe he wonders if there’s more to life then getting up every morning and eating. Whatever is going through his head, the point is he stands there admiring the world and thinking. What happens next?
He gets eaten by a sabre tooth tiger, thus leading to the well-known saying; “I think, therefore I get eaten by a sabre tooth tiger.”
Yes miss, that is a real saying. Look it up.
And then…?
What was next for man? After tools and thought came civilisation. It began with music. Primitive music was discovered when a man, looking for stones to build a home for his mate, dropped his load of rocks which tumbled down a hill towards a group of unsuspecting villagers. The ensuing screams as they tried to escape sounded so beautiful to the caveman’s ears that he was overcome with emotion and had to sit down for several minutes.
This was the first known example of Rock n’ Roll.
Later, the man attempted to reproduce the scenario using boulders instead of stones, just to see if he could make louder music than before. Unfortunately his experiment wiped out an entire village and half the Amazon Rainforest, which understandably halted the progress of the industry for some time.
Next came language and communication. Primitive human language consisted mainly of grunts, clicks and obscene hand gestures; much like modern teenage communication. But further than that, man started making attempts into long distance communication. Of the many inventions developed in this time, perhaps the most notable was a method employed by one woman to communicate with her sister. She would write a message on a piece of bark in early hieroglyphics, wrap it tightly around a bird and throw said bird dart-like across the village where it would stick beak first into a nearby tree. This, as we all know, was the origins of Twitter. It was soon followed by the establishment of the RSPCA.
But unfortunately I have run out of time. Thank you; you’ve been a wonderful class. This is the first lesson I’ve had where no one’s thrown anything at me.
And so I leave you with this parting remark. If you take anything away from this lesson it should be this; if monkeys hadn’t picked up stones and used them to kill their neighbours, then we wouldn't have the internet.
Class dismissed.
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