The Urantia Book
PAPER 62
THE DAWN RACES OF EARLY MAN
Sponsored by a Life Carrier of Nebadon resident on Urantia.
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.
