Origin of Cave Men

I am often amazed at the foolishness of people today, who stand in awe of the many technological advances made in the past few decades. Because of the latter, it seems that we can watch our heads get bigger by the minute as our pride grows to excess. But lest you fall take heed to Proverbs 16:18: "Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall." Most of this attitude stems from the evolutionary belief that man evolves in an upward manner, until finally reaching a heightened intellect. The new age belief is that man has reached his highest physical evolution and is now moving toward freedom of the mind enabling him to explore the world of the subconscious and the spirits. However, when we honestly view the past, we see the steady decline of both our physical and intellectual nature.

According to evolutionary theory, cave men arrived during the Stone Age (Paleolithic Era) when biologically these people had reached their peak and worked toward cultural enlightenment. During this time, cave men led a simple life of "hunting and gathering" without concerning themselves about agriculture or domesticating animals because of their nomadic practices. Metallurgy was not around, nor was any system of writing and therefore tools consisted of chipped stone. For protection from the elements they lived in caves, provided they were available or stayed out in the open.

Next came the New Stone Age (Neolithic era) during which broken stones gradually became sharpened tools, animals were domesticated, there was a development of agriculture as the knowledge of it was acquired, and metallurgy and pottery were slowly becoming useful. The development of metal tools naturally took them into the Bronze age followed by the Iron Age.

The above theory is once again based upon vast periods of time as interpreted by the geological record with an evolutionary bias. Now let us look at what the same evidence looks like from a scientific creationist point of view with a Biblical bias. In order to comprehend what seems to be a somewhat primitive culture we need to first find out where cave men came from and what their background was. Biblically speaking, the Tower of Babel provides an excellent answer to almost all our questions. When Noah and his family left the ark, God gave them an important command to spread out and fill the earth (Genesis 9:7). However, not too long after this command, we find one of the earliest post-flood, larger settlements beginning to take root at Babel (Babylon), a direct defiance of God's command to spread out. God threw the people into confusion and upset their common language, stopping their building and communication. This naturally makes most of the individuals more primitive than their society was as a team with their combined talents and ideas.

Separation from today’s society would leave many without knowledge of metals turned into tools. Such lifestyles would most likely consist of hunting and gathering available food, because vast agriculture would be useless for a small population. Homes of nomads would probably be very simple and temporary since they followed animal herds. Rather than taking the heavy, quickly made, stone tools in the move, new tools would be fashioned in new settlements. Now years later when archaeologists dig up these camps, primitive, muscle head images come to mind.

Problems continue to flood this "cave man mentality" presupposition of ancient man, as more and more archaeological evidence is uncovered. One mural painting in the cave of Lascaux in France has been called by National Geographic as the Ice Age Leonardo da Vinci (10/1988, p. 434). Time magazine describes amazing feats of so called primitive stone age people: "Stored in memories of elders, healers, midwives, farmers, fishermen and hunters in the estimated 15,000 cultures remaining on earth is an enormous trove of wisdom. . . Over the ages, indigenous peoples have developed innumerable technologies and arts. They have devised ways to farm deserts without irrigation and produce abundance from the rain forest without destroying it; they have learned how to navigate vast distances in the Pacific using their knowledge of currents and the feel of intermittent waves that bounce off distant islands; they have explored the medicinal properties of plants; and they have acquired an understanding of the basic ecology of flora and fauna. . . guided by their conceits, scientists have often failed to notice traditional technologies even for instance, when they are on display. . . Andean artifacts revealed that they had been gilded with an incredibly thin layer of gold using a chemical technique that achieved the quality of modern electroplating. No one had previously suspected that these Indians had the know-how to create such a subtle technology. . . During the Gulf War, European doctors treated some wounds with a sugar paste that traces back to Egyptian battlefield medicine of 4,000 years ago . . . In central Africa a man's chest was being eaten away by an amoebic infection. It did not respond to drug treatments. A healer applied washed and crushed soldier termites to the open wounds. The patient made a remarkable recovery. The secret of this treatment had been passed down in the tribe for untold generations" (9/23/1991, pp. 46-56). In caves near Beer-sheba pottery and stone vessels were made but so were intricate figurines carved out of ivory and bone displaying their advanced craftsmanship. From the excavations of Ur (Abraham's city) clay tablets outlining the principle of Pythagoras' Theorem were found. Though the name Pythagoras' Theorem does not appear, it demonstrates that in a right-angled triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. All this 1,500 years before the time of Pythagoras. Also at Ur iron chariot rings were found more than 1,000 years before iron was supposedly being used. These are just a few of the hundreds of examples showing early man as intelligent.

A possible explanation is that the stone age may simply be a period of spreading out and resettling when stone tools were accessible and expendable. Rather than the stone age being a period of geological time, it could be a period of adjustment and repopulation. (I know when my wife and I are moving, the house we move into looks like a tornado ran through it for a few months until we slowly get settled in). Sometimes things remain in storage for a while until they are needed. Likewise, when the Babel event dispersed individual groups, a period of cultural chaos occurred and their houses were in shambles. Just as a single checking account does not need a computer to keep track of all transactions, some of the technologies had no use among such a small group, and therefore were not "unpacked" from memory until a further date. Many authors have noted that wherever any human settlements are discovered worldwide, there is almost always evidence of a "Stone Age" culture when that site was first occupied. Then, later periods in the original occupation indicate higher cultures, not because of slow evolutionary development, but because of the rapid growth in population. Then, when that society was overtaken, it was usually from a culture that had more advancements which were then transplanted into that settlement. In addition, progress would be severely hindered in the original site because of the language barrier created at Babel. Today we gain much knowledge from sharing ideas and relating them with each other, however, without communication this would not be possible. Great ice-age hunters, whom archaeologists are now noting, may have used caves when they traveled great distances north to hunt the huge mammoths and other ice-age animals .

Many other archaeological finds suggest that man was intellectually prosperous and perhaps had information that we still do not possess today. Such finds include the ancient batteries found in Egypt, which for the longest time, nobody knew how or why they were used. Some felt the electric current may have been used for electroplating but much more than simple low voltage is required for this process. Recently however, Dr. Paul Keyser of the University of Alberta, Canada has come up with a possible alternative, that being medicinal purposes. Keyser notes that the Greeks and Romans used electric eels to treat headaches and gout. It was also pointed out that in Sumeria, Akkad, and Babylon, the physicians known as the Asu, may have used electric currents for certain ailments. This electricity seems to be a strange and rather unconventional form of treatment but many doctors today are re-discovering the use of electric shock treatment for venomous snake and spider bites. These devastating and sometimes life threatening bites have been cured almost immediately by electric currents.

Just because people happened to live in caves did not mean they were intellectually challenged. In fact, today in other parts of the world there are people who still live in caves by choice. Obviously this minority is not ignorant, rather the caves fit their needs. The people in Bible times seem to have been familiar with cave men, not as ape-like creatures but rather as social outcasts and fugitives: "They are gaunt from want and famine, Fleeing late to the wilderness, desolate and waste,. . . [and eat] tree roots for their food. They were driven out from among men, They shouted at them as at a thief. They had to live in the clefts of the valleys, In caves of the earth and the rocks.. . . They were sons of fools, Yes, sons of vile men; They were scourged from the land" (Job 30:2-8); "Then Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him; for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave" (Genesis 19:30); "Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, the caves, and the strongholds which are in the mountains" (Judges 6:2); "When the men of Israel saw that they were in danger. . . then the people hid in caves, in thickets, in rocks, in holes, and in pits" (I Samuel 13:6); "As I live, surely those who are in the ruins shall fall by the sword, and the one who is in the open field I will give to the beasts to be devoured, and those who are in the strongholds and caves shall die of the pestilence" (Ezekiel 33:27); "of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth" (Hebrews 11:38). These were not people who had yet to evolve into complete human beings, but lived in caves because of social circumstances. These cave men did not live in a separate time frame but simultaneously with intelligent people, explaining the mysterious, "out of place" artifacts which saturate both early and late stone age periods.

The cave men were probably close descendants of those dispersed at Babel who settled in small villages with some going off on hunts or explorations, with others rebelling against the villagers and becoming outcasts or criminals. Presently these village remains of the conquests made by the larger, more warlike individual groups and the nomadic following of herds have been misinterpreted by modern archaeologists as primitive, ape-like, subhumans.