PAPER 62
THE DAWN RACES OF EARLY MAN
62:0.1 ABOUT one million years ago the immediate
ancestors of mankind made their appearance by three successive and sudden
mutations stemming from early stock of the lemur type of placental mammal. The
dominant factors of these early lemurs were derived from the western or later
American group of the evolving life plasm. But before establishing the direct
line of human ancestry, this strain was reinforced by contributions from the
central life implantation evolved in Africa. The eastern life group
contributed little or nothing to the actual production of the human species.
1. THE EARLY LEMUR TYPES
62:1.1 The early lemurs concerned in the ancestry of
the human species were not directly related to the pre-existent tribes of
gibbons and apes then living in Eurasia and northern Africa, whose progeny
have survived to the present time. Neither were they the offspring of the
modern type of lemur, though springing from an ancestor common to both but
long since extinct.
62:1.2 While these early lemurs evolved in the
Western Hemisphere, the establishment of the direct mammalian ancestry of
mankind took place in southwestern Asia, in the original area of the central
life implantation but on the borders of the eastern regions. Several million
years ago the North American type lemurs had migrated westward over the Bering
land bridge and had slowly made their way southwestward along the Asiatic
coast. These migrating tribes finally reached the salubrious region lying
between the then expanded Mediterranean Sea and the elevating mountainous
regions of the Indian peninsula. In these lands to the west of India they
united with other and favorable strains, thus establishing the ancestry of the
human race.
62:1.3 With the passing of time the seacoast of
India southwest of the mountains gradually submerged, completely isolating the
life of this region. There was no avenue of approach to, or escape from, this
Mesopotamian or Persian peninsula except to the north, and that was repeatedly
cut off by the southern invasions of the glaciers. And it was in this then
almost paradisiacal area, and from the superior descendants of this lemur type
of mammal, that there sprang two great groups, the simian tribes of modern
times and the present-day human species.
2. THE DAWN MAMMALS
62:2.1 A little more than one million years ago the
Mesopotamian dawn mammals, the direct descendants of the North American lemur
type of placental mammal, suddenly appeared. They were active little
creatures, almost three feet tall; and while they did not habitually walk on
their hind legs, they could easily stand erect. They were hairy and agile and
chattered in monkeylike fashion, but unlike the simian tribes, they were flesh
eaters. They had a primitive opposable thumb as well as a highly useful
grasping big toe. From this point onward the prehuman species successively
developed the opposable thumb while they progressively lost the grasping power
of the great toe. The later ape tribes retained the grasping big toe but never
developed the human type of thumb.
62:2.2 These dawn mammals attained full growth when
three or four years of age, having a potential life span, on the average, of
about twenty years. As a rule offspring were born singly, although twins were
occasional.
62:2.3 The members of this new species had the
largest brains for their size of any animal that had theretofore existed on
earth. They experienced many of the emotions and shared numerous instincts
which later characterized primitive man, being highly curious and exhibiting
considerable elation when successful at any undertaking. Food hunger and sex
craving were well developed, and a definite sex selection was manifested in a
crude form of courtship and choice of mates. They would fight fiercely in
defense of their kindred and were quite tender in family associations,
possessing a sense of self-abasement bordering on shame and remorse. They were
very affectionate and touchingly loyal to their mates, but if circumstances
separated them, they would choose new partners.
62:2.4 Being small of stature and having keen minds
to realize the dangers of their forest habitat, they developed an
extraordinary fear which led to those wise precautionary measures that so
enormously contributed to survival, such as their construction of crude
shelters in the high treetops which eliminated many of the perils of ground
life. The beginning of the fear tendencies of mankind more specifically dates
from these days.
62:2.5 These dawn mammals developed more of a tribal
spirit than had ever been previously exhibited. They were, indeed, highly
gregarious but nevertheless exceedingly pugnacious when in any way disturbed
in the ordinary pursuit of their routine life, and they displayed fiery
tempers when their anger was fully aroused. Their bellicose natures, however,
served a good purpose; superior groups did not hesitate to make war on their
inferior neighbors, and thus, by selective survival, the species was
progressively improved. They very soon dominated the life of the smaller
creatures of this region, and very few of the older noncarnivorous monkeylike
tribes survived.
62:2.6 These aggressive little animals multiplied
and spread over the Mesopotamian peninsula for more than one thousand years,
constantly improving in physical type and general intelligence. And it was
just seventy generations after this new tribe had taken origin from the
highest type of lemur ancestor that the next epoch-making development occurred
-- the sudden differentiation of the ancestors of the next vital step
in the evolution of human beings on Urantia.
3. THE MID-MAMMALS
62:3.1 Early in the career of the dawn mammals, in
the treetop abode of a superior pair of these agile creatures, twins were
born, one male and one female. Compared with their ancestors, they were really
handsome little creatures. They had little hair on their bodies, but this was
no disability as they lived in a warm and equable climate.
62:3.2 These children grew to be a little over four
feet in height. They were in every way larger than their parents, having
longer legs and shorter arms. They had almost perfectly opposable thumbs, just
about as well adapted for diversified work as the present human thumb. They
walked upright, having feet almost as well suited for walking as those of the
later human races.
62:3.3 Their brains were inferior to, and smaller
than, those of human beings but very superior to, and comparatively much
larger than, those of their ancestors. The twins early displayed superior
intelligence and were soon recognized as the heads of the whole tribe of dawn
mammals, really instituting a primitive form of social organization and a
crude economic division of labor. This brother and sister mated and soon
enjoyed the society of twenty-one children much like themselves, all more than
four feet tall and in every way superior to the ancestral species. This new
group formed the nucleus of the mid-mammals.
62:3.4 When the numbers of this new and superior
group grew great, war, relentless war, broke out; and when the terrible
struggle was over, not a single individual of the pre-existent and ancestral
race of dawn mammals remained alive. The less numerous but more powerful and
intelligent offshoot of the species had survived at the expense of their
ancestors.
62:3.5 And now, for almost fifteen thousand years
(six hundred generations), this creature became the terror of this part of the
world. All of the great and vicious animals of former times had perished. The
large beasts native to these regions were not carnivorous, and the larger
species of the cat family, lions and tigers, had not yet invaded this
peculiarly sheltered nook of the earth's surface. Therefore did these
mid-mammals wax valiant and subdue the whole of their corner of creation.
62:3.6 Compared with the ancestral species, the
mid-mammals were an improvement in every way. Even their potential life span
was longer, being about twenty-five years. A number of rudimentary human
traits appeared in this new species. In addition to the innate propensities
exhibited by their ancestors, these mid-mammals were capable of showing
disgust in certain repulsive situations. They further possessed a well-defined
hoarding instinct; they would hide food for subsequent use and were greatly
given to the collection of smooth round pebbles and certain types of round
stones suitable for defensive and offensive ammunition.
62:3.7 These mid-mammals were the first to exhibit a
definite construction propensity, as shown in their rivalry in the building of
both treetop homes and their many-tunneled subterranean retreats; they were
the first species of mammals ever to provide for safety in both arboreal and
underground shelters. They largely forsook the trees as places of abode,
living on the ground during the day and sleeping in the treetops at
night.
62:3.8 As time passed, the natural increase in
numbers eventually resulted in serious food competition and sex rivalry, all
of which culminated in a series of internecine battles that nearly destroyed
the entire species. These struggles continued until only one group of less
than one hundred individuals was left alive. But peace once more prevailed,
and this lone surviving tribe built anew its treetop bedrooms and once again
resumed a normal and semipeaceful existence.
62:3.9 You can hardly realize by what narrow margins
your prehuman ancestors missed extinction from time to time. Had the ancestral
frog of all humanity jumped two inches less on a certain occasion, the whole
course of evolution would have been markedly changed. The immediate lemurlike
mother of the dawn-mammal species escaped death no less than five times by
mere hairbreadth margins before she gave birth to the father of the new and
higher mammalian order. But the closest call of all was when lightning struck
the tree in which the prospective mother of the Primates twins was sleeping.
Both of these mid-mammal parents were severely shocked and badly burned; three
of their seven children were killed by this bolt from the skies. These
evolving animals were almost superstitious. This couple whose treetop home had
been struck were really the leaders of the more progressive group of the
mid-mammal species; and following their example, more than half the tribe,
embracing the more intelligent families, moved about two miles away from this
locality and began the construction of new treetop abodes and new ground
shelters -- their transient retreats in time of sudden danger.
62:3.10 Soon after the completion of their home,
this couple, veterans of so many struggles, found themselves the proud parents
of twins, the most interesting and important animals ever to have been born
into the world up to that time, for they were the first of the new species of
Primates constituting the next vital step in prehuman
evolution.
62:3.11 Contemporaneously with the birth of these
Primates twins, another couple -- a peculiarly retarded male and female of the
mid-mammal tribe, a couple that were both mentally and physically inferior --
also gave birth to twins. These twins, one male and one female, were
indifferent to conquest; they were concerned only with obtaining food and,
since they would not eat flesh, soon lost all interest in seeking prey. These
retarded twins became the founders of the modern simian tribes. Their
descendants sought the warmer southern regions with their mild climates and an
abundance of tropical fruits, where they have continued much as of that day
except for those branches which mated with the earlier types of gibbons and
apes and have greatly deteriorated in consequence.
62:3.12 And so it may be readily seen that man and
the ape are related only in that they sprang from the mid-mammals, a tribe in
which there occurred the contemporaneous birth and subsequent segregation of
two pairs of twins: the inferior pair destined to produce the modern types of
monkey, baboon, chimpanzee, and gorilla; the superior pair destined to
continue the line of ascent which evolved into man himself.
62:3.13 Modern man and the simians did spring from
the same tribe and species but not from the same parents. Man's ancestors are
descended from the superior strains of the selected remnant of this mid-mammal
tribe, whereas the modern simians (excepting certain pre-existent types of
lemurs, gibbons, apes, and other monkeylike creatures) are the descendants of
the most inferior couple of this mid-mammal group, a couple who only survived
by hiding themselves in a subterranean food-storage retreat for more than two
weeks during the last fierce battle of their tribe, emerging only after the
hostilities were well over.
4. THE PRIMATES
62:4.1 Going back to the birth of the superior
twins, one male and one female, to the two leading members of the mid-mammal
tribe: These animal babies were of an unusual order; they had still less hair
on their bodies than their parents and, when very young, insisted on walking
upright. Their ancestors had always learned to walk on their hind legs, but
these Primates twins stood erect from the beginning. They attained a height of
over five feet, and their heads grew larger in comparison with others among
the tribe. While early learning to communicate with each other by means of
signs and sounds, they were never able to make their people understand these
new symbols.
62:4.2 When about fourteen years of age, they fled
from the tribe, going west to raise their family and establish the new species
of Primates. And these new creatures are very properly denominated
Primates since they were the direct and immediate animal ancestors of
the human family itself.
62:4.3 Thus it was that the Primates came to occupy
a region on the west coast of the Mesopotamian peninsula as it then projected
into the southern sea, while the less intelligent and closely related tribes
lived around the peninsula point and up the eastern shore line.
62:4.4 The Primates were more human and less animal
than their mid-mammal predecessors. The skeletal proportions of this new
species were very similar to those of the primitive human races. The human
type of hand and foot had fully developed, and these creatures could walk and
even run as well as any of their later-day human descendants. They largely
abandoned tree life, though continuing to resort to the treetops as a safety
measure at night, for like their earlier ancestors, they were greatly subject
to fear. The increased use of their hands did much to develop inherent brain
power, but they did not yet possess minds that could really be called
human.
62:4.5 Although in emotional nature the Primates
differed little from their forebears, they exhibited more of a human trend in
all of their propensities. They were, indeed, splendid and superior animals,
reaching maturity at about ten years of age and having a natural life span of
about forty years. That is, they might have lived that long had they died
natural deaths, but in those early days very few animals ever died a natural
death; the struggle for existence was altogether too intense.
62:4.6 And now, after almost nine hundred
generations of development, covering about twenty-one thousand years from the
origin of the dawn mammals, the Primates suddenly gave birth to two
remarkable creatures, the first true human beings.
62:4.7 Thus it was that the dawn mammals, springing
from the North American lemur type, gave origin to the mid-mammals, and these
mid-mammals in turn produced the superior Primates, who became the immediate
ancestors of the primitive human race. The Primates tribes were the last vital
link in the evolution of man, but in less than five thousand years not a
single individual of these extraordinary tribes was left.
5. THE FIRST HUMAN BEINGS
62:5.1 From the year A.D. 1934 back to the birth of
the first two human beings is just 993,419 years.
62:5.2 These two remarkable creatures were true
human beings. They possessed perfect human thumbs, as had many of their
ancestors, while they had just as perfect feet as the present-day human races.
They were walkers and runners, not climbers; the grasping function of the big
toe was absent, completely absent. When danger drove them to the treetops,
they climbed just like the humans of today would. They would climb up the
trunk of a tree like a bear and not as would a chimpanzee or a gorilla,
swinging up by the branches.
62:5.3 These first human beings (and their
descendants) reached full maturity at twelve years of age and possessed a
potential life span of about seventy-five years.
62:5.4 Many new emotions early appeared in these
human twins. They experienced admiration for both objects and other beings and
exhibited considerable vanity. But the most remarkable advance in emotional
development was the sudden appearance of a new group of really human feelings,
the worshipful group, embracing awe, reverence, humility, and even a primitive
form of gratitude. Fear, joined with ignorance of natural phenomena, is about
to give birth to primitive religion.
62:5.5 Not only were such human feelings manifested
in these primitive humans, but many more highly evolved sentiments were also
present in rudimentary form. They were mildly cognizant of pity, shame, and
reproach and were acutely conscious of love, hate, and revenge, being also
susceptible to marked feelings of jealousy.
62:5.6 These first two humans -- the twins -- were a
great trial to their Primates parents. They were so curious and adventurous
that they nearly lost their lives on numerous occasions before they were eight
years old. As it was, they were rather well scarred up by the time they were
twelve.
62:5.7 Very early they learned to engage in verbal
communication; by the age of ten they had worked out an improved sign and word
language of almost half a hundred ideas and had greatly improved and expanded
the crude communicative technique of their ancestors. But try as hard as they
might, they were able to teach only a few of their new signs and symbols to
their parents.
62:5.8 When about nine years of age, they journeyed
off down the river one bright day and held a momentous conference. Every
celestial intelligence stationed on Urantia, including myself, was present as
an observer of the transactions of this noontide tryst. On this eventful day
they arrived at an understanding to live with and for each other, and this was
the first of a series of such agreements which finally culminated in the
decision to flee from their inferior animal associates and to journey
northward, little knowing that they were thus to found the human
race.
62:5.9 While we were all greatly concerned with what
these two little savages were planning, we were powerless to control the
working of their minds; we did not -- could not -- arbitrarily influence their
decisions. But within the permissible limits of planetary function, we, the
Life Carriers, together with our associates, all conspired to lead the human
twins northward and far from their hairy and partially tree-dwelling people.
And so, by reason of their own intelligent choice, the twins did
migrate, and because of our supervision they migrated northward
to a secluded region where they escaped the possibility of biologic
degradation through admixture with their inferior relatives of the Primates
tribes.
62:5.10 Shortly before their departure from the home
forests they lost their mother in a gibbon raid. While she did not possess
their intelligence, she did have a worthy mammalian affection of a high order
for her offspring, and she fearlessly gave her life in the attempt to save the
wonderful pair. Nor was her sacrifice in vain, for she held off the enemy
until the father arrived with reinforcements and put the invaders to
rout.
62:5.11 Soon after this young couple forsook their
associates to found the human race, their Primates father became disconsolate
-- he was heartbroken. He refused to eat, even when food was brought to him by
his other children. His brilliant offspring having been lost, life did not
seem worth living among his ordinary fellows; so he wandered off into the
forest, was set upon by hostile gibbons and beaten to death.
6. EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN MIND
62:6.1 We, the Life Carriers on Urantia, had passed
through the long vigil of watchful waiting since the day we first planted the
life plasm in the planetary waters, and naturally the appearance of the first
really intelligent and volitional beings brought to us great joy and supreme
satisfaction.
62:6.2 We had been watching the twins develop
mentally through our observation of the functioning of the seven adjutant
mind-spirits assigned to Urantia at the time of our arrival on the planet.
Throughout the long evolutionary development of planetary life, these tireless
mind ministers had ever registered their increasing ability to contact with
the successively expanding brain capacities of the progressively superior
animal creatures.
62:6.3 At first only the spirit of intuition
could function in the instinctive and reflex behavior of the primordial animal
life. With the differentiation of higher types, the spirit of
understanding was able to endow such creatures with the gift of
spontaneous association of ideas. Later on we observed the spirit of
courage in operation; evolving animals really developed a crude form of
protective self-consciousness. Subsequent to the appearance of the mammalian
groups, we beheld the spirit of knowledge manifesting itself in
increased measure. And the evolution of the higher mammals brought the
function of the spirit of counsel, with the resulting growth of the
herd instinct and the beginnings of primitive social development.
62:6.4 Increasingly, on down through the dawn
mammals, the mid-mammals, and the Primates, we had observed the augmented
service of the first five adjutants. But never had the remaining two, the
highest mind ministers, been able to function in the Urantia type of
evolutionary mind.
62:6.5 Imagine our joy one day -- the twins were
about ten years old -- when the spirit of worship made its first
contact with the mind of the female twin and shortly thereafter with the male.
We knew that something closely akin to human mind was approaching culmination;
and when, about a year later, they finally resolved, as a result of meditative
thought and purposeful decision, to flee from home and journey north, then did
the spirit of wisdom begin to function on Urantia and in these two now
recognized human minds.
62:6.6 There was an immediate and new order of
mobilization of the seven adjutant mind-spirits. We were alive with
expectation; we realized that the long-waited-for hour was approaching; we
knew we were upon the threshold of the realization of our protracted effort to
evolve will creatures on Urantia.
7. RECOGNITION AS AN INHABITED WORLD
62:7.1 We did not have to wait long. At noon, the
day after the runaway of the twins, there occurred the initial test flash of
the universe circuit signals at the planetary reception-focus of Urantia. We
were, of course, all astir with the realization that a great event was
impending; but since this world was a life-experiment station, we had not the
slightest idea of just how we would be apprised of the recognition of
intelligent life on the planet. But we were not long in suspense. On the third
day after the elopement of the twins, and before the Life Carrier corps
departed, there arrived the Nebadon archangel of initial planetary circuit
establishment.
62:7.2 It was an eventful day on Urantia when our
small group gathered about the planetary pole of space communication and
received the first message from Salvington over the newly established mind
circuit of the planet. And this first message, dictated by the chief of the
archangel corps, said:
62:7.3 "To the Life Carriers on Urantia --
Greetings! We transmit assurance of great pleasure on Salvington, Edentia, and
Jerusem in honor of the registration on the headquarters of Nebadon of the
signal of the existence on Urantia of mind of will dignity. The purposeful
decision of the twins to flee northward and segregate their offspring from
their inferior ancestors has been noted. This is the first decision of mind --
the human type of mind -- on Urantia and automatically establishes the circuit
of communication over which this initial message of acknowledgment is
transmitting."
62:7.4 Next over this new circuit came the greetings
of the Most Highs of Edentia, containing instructions for the resident Life
Carriers forbidding us to interfere with the pattern of life we had
established. We were directed not to intervene in the affairs of human
progress. It should not be inferred that Life Carriers ever arbitrarily and
mechanically interfere with the natural outworking of the planetary
evolutionary plans, for we do not. But up to this time we had been permitted
to manipulate the environment and shield the life plasm in a special manner,
and it was this extraordinary, but wholly natural, supervision that was to be
discontinued.
62:7.5 And no sooner had the Most Highs left off
speaking than the beautiful message of Lucifer, then sovereign of the Satania
system, began to planetize. Now the Life Carriers heard the welcome words of
their own chief and received his permission to return to Jerusem. This message
from Lucifer contained the official acceptance of the Life Carriers' work on
Urantia and absolved us from all future criticism of any of our efforts to
improve the life patterns of Nebadon as established in the Satania
system.
62:7.6 These messages from Salvington, Edentia, and
Jerusem formally marked the termination of the Life Carriers' agelong
supervision of the planet. For ages we had been on duty, assisted only by the
seven adjutant mind-spirits and the Master Physical Controllers. And now,
will, the power of choosing to worship and to ascend, having appeared in the
evolutionary creatures of the planet, we realized that our work was finished,
and our group prepared to depart. Urantia being a life-modification world,
permission was granted to leave behind two senior Life Carriers with twelve
assistants, and I was chosen as one of this group and have ever since been on
Urantia.
62:7.7 It is just 993,408 years ago (from the year
A.D. 1934) that Urantia was formally recognized as a planet of human
habitation in the universe of Nebadon. Biologic evolution had once again
achieved the human levels of will dignity; man had arrived on planet 606 of
Satania.
62:7.8 Sponsored by
a Life Carrier of Nebadon resident on Urantia.
