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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 62
THE DAWN RACES OF EARLY MAN
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.
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