Erich von Daniken - Return To The Stars-pages

Page 15 of 138

Page 15 of 138
Erich von Daniken - Return To The Stars-pages

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appear about 40,000 years ago. The club was discovered as a weapon; the bow was invented for hunting; fire was used to serve man's own ends; stone wedges were used as tools; the first paintings appeared on the walls of caves. Yet 500,000 years lie between the first signs of a technical activity, pottery and the first finds in hominids’ settlements. Loren Eiseley, Professor of Anthropology in the University of Pennsylvania, writes that man emerged from the animal world over a period of millions of years and only slowly assumed human features. 'But,' he goes on, 'there is one exception to this tule. To all appearances his brain ultimately underwent a rapid development and it was only then that man finally became distinguished from his other relatives.’ Who was it that taught us to think? Although I have great respect for the hard work done by anthropologists, I must frankly admit that I am not really interested in the prehistoric age that the eyeteeth of anthropoids or hominids can be proved to belong to by fossil finds. Nor do I think the date when the first homo sapiens used stone tools very important. To me it is as obvious that primitive man was the most intelligent being on our planet as it is logical that the gods chose this particular being for an artificial mutation. I am far more interested in when primitive man first introduced moral values such as loyalty, love and friendship into his communities. What influence were our ancestors under when they experienced this change? Who imparted the feeling of reverence? Who implanted the feeling of shame in connection with the sexual act? Is there a plausible explanation of why savages suddenly clothed themselves? We are given vague hints about drastic changes or fluctuations in the climate. We are also told that the anthropoids wanted to adorn themselves. If that is the correct explanation, the gorillas, orangoutangs and chimpanzees Why did the anthropoids suddenly begin to bury their fellows when they had only just outgrown an animal existence? Who taught the savages to take the seeds of certain wild plants, pound them up, add water and bake an article of food from the resulting mush? Why anthropoids, hominids and primitive men learnt nothing for millions of years and then suddenly primitive men learnt so much is a question that nags at me. Has too little attention been paid to this important question up to the present? worthwhile. Yet the question why, how and from what date man became intelligent seems to me to be at least as" interesting. Loren Eiseley writes: "Today on the other hand we must assume that man only emerged quite recently, because he appeared so explosively. We have every reason to believe that, without prejudice to the forces that must have shared in the training of the human brain, a stubborn and long drawn out battle for existence between several human groups could never have produced such high mental faculties as we find today among all peoples on the earth. Something else, some other educational factor, must living in the jungle could gradually have begun to wear trousers or use ornaments. The field of research devoted to the explanation of the origin of mankind is interesting and very