Urantia Book Paper 62 The Dawn Races Of Early Man

Urantia Book Paper 62 The Dawn Races Of Early Man
SPIRITWEB ORG, PROMOTING SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS ON THE INTERNET.

Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
...
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Paper 62 The Dawn Races Of Early Man

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Introduction

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

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.

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.

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

A little more than one million years ago the Mesopotamian dawn mammals, the
direct descendants of the North American lemur type of placental mammal,

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

From the year A.D. 1934 back to the birth of the first two human beings is just
993,419 years.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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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.

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:

"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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Sponsored by a Life Carrier of Nebadon resident on Urantia.]

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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
The Adjuster And The Soul Personality Survival Seraphic Guardians Of Destiny
Seraphic Planetary Government The Supreme Being The Almighty Supreme God The
Supreme Supreme And Ultimate--time And Space The Bestowals Of Christ Michael

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