The brilliance of early mankind?

Copyright 2020, InterAmerica

Yes, I catch the Ancient Alien (Astronaut) programs on History when they’re on.

I like the photography (of exotic spaces and things); I’m only off- put by the insistent “extraterrestrials are responsible for every- thing” speculation(s).

Substituting “gods” for ETs eases the pain of the AA maddening thesis, even though one has to allow for the possibility that extra- terrestrials may have stumbled upon the Earth once or twice, in the past and are perhaps even visiting now.

But the idea is science fictional, not reasonable if one uses their capacity for objective thinking.

The crux of the show is that the odd things found around the Earth were stimulated by ET visitors, some of the odd things including the vast megaliths everywhere on this planet it seems, the pyra- midal structures, queer cave art and petroglyphs, and underground caverns that appear to have housed humans during stressful, even cataclysmic times.

This latter caught my ear during a repeat AA show Friday night [1/17/20].

Could primitive man have had the engineering sense to carve out living quarters for whole societies, living quarters with amenities that strike one as thoughtful and existential (in the common vernacular use of that word): stables for animals, ritualistic rooms, “kitchens,” and sleeping quarters, plus shafts for ventilation and receptacles for water?

Julian Jaynes in The Origin of Consciousness in the Break- down of the Bicameral Mind [Mariner, Houghton Mifflin Com- pany, Boston/NY, 1976/1990] presents various theses about how early minds thought and acted, but nothing indicating pre-bicameral brilliance.

Genevieve von Petzinger in The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World’s Oldest Symbols [Atria Books, NY and London, 2016] allows that modern humans appeared about two hundred thousand years ago in Africa, but when did they become us?

The “writing” and art found in caves of humans living during the Upper Paleolithic era doesn’t show any particular signs of sophisticated thinking, although one has to appreciate the effort(s) of early man to communicate with such aesthetic fervor.

In the evolution – Bryan Sentes prefers the word “progress” I think, rather than the overworked “evolution” sobriquet – of mankind one can see the step-by-step increase in the formation of thought and the comprehensive presentation of what was going on in primitive man’s milieu.

But when did a spurt of grand engineering feats take place? Not until well after the last ice age, it seems, or during it, as the AA theorists have it. That would be about 10,000 B.C.

Carl Sagan, with I. S. Shklovskii, in Intelligent Life in the Uni- verse [1966] posited the idea that ET visitors may have shown up on Earth about 10,000 years ago, in Sumeria.

But the caverns for societies, races of people, and such odd locales as Göbekli Tepe seem to have been created well before 10,000 B.C. and the last Ice Age.

How is it that some being – man or woman – was able to out-think the environmental fates?

And what procured for them the engineering know-how to construct life-saving venues above and below ground? Or the great megalithic structures that we humans today admire and stand in awe of?

Where did the brilliance come from? Not ET visitors, by way of many dubious visitations ongoing even now according to the AA and ETH crowds.

What human savants brought about such wonders, and when? And why do we not know who those peoples were or have any clue as to who was a stand-out during dire and peaceful times?

We know about Homer and many Biblical or Egyptian notables but not those well before 10,000 B.C. or much earlier who brought advancement to human conditions or thought.

What Stone Age or Neandertalian genius came upon Earth and brought with him or her the kind of thinking that wouldn’t come about for a millennia?

This is why some accept and laud the AA thesis. It provides an answer, not a sensible answer but, at least, something to get one’s teeth into.

RR