How is this different from what we read about in our newspapers every day? Someone once said that a society that is unwilling to learn from its past is destined to repeat it. Is it any wonder that my friend wanted to be an Indian? The Native American tradition teaches respect for life, be it human or otherwise, and a sense of oneness with the earth which gave us life. It was what my friend perceived as a grounded way of thinking and living that he longed to become a part of. An honorable quest.
Cro-Magnon
Where there had previously been Neanderthals, there were suddenly (about 35,000 years ago) anatomically modern people known as Cro-Magnons. (This happened at different times in different parts of the world.) Should one of these ladies or gentlemen stroll down Broadway in modern attire they would not stand out from the crowd in any way.
The tools of Cro-Magnon people suggest innovation, and were developed rather rapidly, and in succession, according to Paleolithic standards. Although tools continued to be made of stone, they were now thin blades struck off a larger stone. Standardized bone and antler tools appeared for the first time, as did compound tools of several parts tied or glued together, such as spear points set in shafts or ax heads hafted to handles. Cro-Magnons had needles for sewing clothing, awls, mortars and pestles, rope and cordage used for nets or snares, fish hooks and net sinkers.6
Finally, man legitimately became the Big Game Hunter. This was made possible by sophisticated weapons that could kill dangerous animals from a distance. Bagging some of the larger animals must have required communal hunting methods based on detailed knowledge of each species’ behavior. Cro-Magnon sites are much more numerous than Neanderthal sites, implying greater success at obtaining food.
Cro-Magnon people are also well-known for their art. Best known are the rock paintings in caves like those in Lascaux, France, with stunning polychrome pictures of now-extinct animals. But equally impressive are the bas-reliefs, necklaces and pendants, fired-clay effigies and musical instruments ranging from flutes to rattles. Once they had something they could spare, Cro-Magnons began to trade.
Unlike Neanderthals, some Cro-Magnons lived past the age of sixty. The additional twenty years probably played a big role in their advancement. Accustomed as we are to getting our news on a daily basis from the television or newspaper, it is hard to appreciate how important even one or two old people were in a preliterate society. For instance, just one old person could mean the difference between life and death for a whole society if they had lived through the ravages of plague and learned which herbs were successful in treating the illness.
By 8,000 B.C., human populations were found on all the world’s continents, with the possible exception of Greenland. There were people in widely scattered parts of the habitable earth, though not very many in any one place and not very many altogether. No city had yet been built anywhere.
When the warming climate melted the glaciers and raised the seas, encroaching forests drove the great grazing animals, the chief prey of the Cro-Magnon, north, some to extinction. Something new and profound would eventually sweep across Europe and the rest of the world—agriculture. Then, as a consequence of having time for leisure and social contact—civilization.
The passage from pre-civilized to civilized life meant great change, both materially and in the way humans functioned as a group. The primitive and pre-civilized communities of today are held together essentially by common understandings as to the ultimate nature and purpose of life. The pre-civilized society was like the present-day primitive society in those characteristics—isolation, smallness, homogeneity, persistence in the common effort to make a way of life under relatively stable circumstances. “The morale of a folk society—its power to act consistently over periods of time and to meet crises effectively—is not dependent upon discipline exerted by force or upon devotion to some single principle of action, but to the concurrence and consistency of many or all of the actions and conceptions which make up the whole round of life.”7
Not surprisingly, researchers have found few indications of warfare among the clans of the late Ice Age. Violent conflicts came later, when man built permanent agricultural settlements and came to regard the land he lived on as his property, and his alone. By then, Cro-Magnons had evolved into the Gauls, the Celts, the Mesopotamians and all the other tribes that founded great civilizations and went on to fight each other for centuries in Asia and Europe, as well as in the New World. As one anthropologist puts it, “In the light of twentieth century human behavior we should be careful of whom we call brutish.”
Still, it is difficult, if not impossible, for most people to relate in any way with a people so far removed from their own experience as our Paleolithic ancestors. Until 1856, when the first clue to human ancestry was found in a limestone quarry in the Neander Valley near Dusseldorf, we had no idea of the vast age of the earth, or of the long history of humanity.8 9 10 Virtually everyone assumed that mankind had always had the same form as modern humans. It is not surprising, then, that no one was prepared for a primitive “skeleton in the closet.”
A few years ago, Richard and I shared the experience of returning to our ancestral homeland, Scotland. Neither of us had been there previously, but we both sensed a strong feeling of being home. In the short time we were there, we formed a oneness with the land, the past and traditions of our early ancestors. Because of that trip, we better understand why many black Americans are choosing to take African names and wear their traditional dress, and why Mexican Americans want to preserve their language and culture even as they blend into the hodgepodge of American society. And we understand more of what native Americans feel for their native lands.
Of course the native American has a connection to this land. They are in fact, native North Americans! Many Indians still build their traditional shelters, hogans and sometimes pueblos, alongside modern structures. They construct sweat lodges and dance and celebrate in traditional ways. By doing this they stay in touch with who they are and what they are about.
The rest of us, anyone whose Neolithic ancestors did not originate on this continent, tend to move from city to city, from house to house with little attachment. But then, there is nothing aesthetic about a high-rise apartment in the midst of a teeming metropolis.
But is it possible to be “in” a society and not be of it? The great “back to nature” movement in the ’60s, although somewhat misdirected, was part of an instinctive craving to get ourselves into balance with our ancient DNA—to live close to the earth, to dig in the dirt, to become a kinder, gentler people. Sadly, materialism overcame the natural yearnings, and we have now actually lost ground (even the voice of the movement, Mother Earth News, disappeared for a time!).
I am not alone in believing that if it is at all possible to bring sanity back to our civilization, it must be accomplished through an awareness of who we are and what we should be about. It must be accomplished by returning to our beginnings and connecting to one another for strength and support. We are, after all, part of a universal family. We must stop trying to force ideas and ideals on one another and learn to appreciate and love our fellow humans for their inherent goodness. I am not naive enough to expect that we will return to a Garden of Eden where there is no malice or conflict. That has always and will always exist. Nor is it possible in this busy age of computers and high finance to leave everything familiar and move to an isolated nook, as much as we would like to do so. But I do believe that if we re-learn the skills of our ancient past, and by doing so become reunited with our natural world and natural selves, we may be able to rescue humanity—not civilization, but humanity.