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IN SEARCH OF THE FIRST PROPHET.
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/ Topic > 1. The Logos Active in Pre-History /
/ Forum > TheologyOnLine - General Theology /
/ Newsgroup > alt.bible.prophecy / 13Jan2002 /
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In order to gain some understanding of the vast sweep of human pre-history prior to the general use of writing (approx. 4000 BCE), let us first go back some five million years. At this time the few thousands of our hominid ancestors were still living the hunter-gatherer existence that is best described as "nasty, brutish, and short" (Hobbes). But the remarkable increase in the brain-size of the hominids had now reached a point that allowed for the emergence of language, the discovery and use of fire, and the fashioning of stone weapons and tools. These three things mark the great leap out of the darkness of natural causality into the relative freedom of self-determination by means of human technology and culture. It is at this point that the Logos enters the human story in a tangible way; for now the slow (but steady) process we call "the rationalization of the cosmos" can begin.
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History, then, is essentially the story of the changes and advances that mark the ever-increasing rationalization of systems, methods, and techniques (as these are expressed within the rise and fall of cultures and civilizations). What marks the passage of time is not so much the measurements of duration (by which we quantify time), but rather the significant changes and events that occur in the lives of populations. But five million years ago, changes in the form of cultural and technical development were very slow in coming, and generally of a very minor sort. This is because History must still await the ongoing evolutionary increase in brain size and mass, which is now accelerating in pace (doubtless spurred on by the success of the three 'new things'); but these biological changes were impossible, of course, to see in terms of an average (and generally very brief) lifetime.
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And as the hominid brain grew larger and larger, the capacity to develop culture and technology increased accordingly. Over the next five million years or so, the changes marking this progress are written in the tools and artifacts of the Old and New Stone Ages. The next major change marking a turning point in the human story came about 40,000 years ago with the dim beginnings of the domestication of plants and animals, and this very gradually allowed for a more settled existence than our far more nomadic ancestors had known.
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Even as late as 20,000 years ago, the sole surviving hominids (homo sapiens) were still living in a timeless world that moved in circles with the natural cycles of the seasons and the heavens. But populations grew as horticulture expanded into agriculture (plow culture), and with this major advance in food production came all the elements that propel us out of the haziness of pre-history into the murky dawn of recorded history: the gradual change over from Neolithic culture and technology (c.6000-4500BCE) to metal working (mining, smelting, casting) with the Copper Age (c.4500-3200), the appearance of cities (which allowed for a greater division of labor, and the protection and defense of the population), and (most importantly to historians) the early development of writing (ie. pictographic symbols representing objects and ideas, and later on, sounds).
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Thus the first recorded event in human history is the creation of the solar calendar in Egypt in the year 4236 BCE. Significantly, this calendar of twelve thirty-day months is the same one we still use today (albeit with slight revisions to allow for greater accuracy). The story of History therefore begins on a note marking the awareness of time and its passing.
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From this point on, the pace of change *gradually* accelerates. And since these changes are now being witnessed and recorded (and therefore passed along to subsequent generations), a new element now enters into the process of rationalization; namely, a more historical consciousness that allows awareness and perception to expand beyond the narrow confines of nature's tight circular movements (ie. day/night, winter/summer, seed-time /harvest, the lunar cycle, and so forth). The importance of this new element in the human mind is not apparent at first (since life, labor, and death continued unchanged), but its effect on the intellectual and spiritual life of humankind would prove to be (in time) profound.
.- the ridiculously long-sighted one - textman ;> x
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