--- > _This is not the beginning of time, but the birth of remembrance, the first fracture between presence and myth, the moment where action births symbol, and symbol commands action._ ## The Birth of Man from Cave > _בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ_ > _“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”_ A **statement of metaphysical priority**: before action, there was _intention_. ![[Thomas_Cole_-_The_Voyage_of_Life_Childhood,_1842_(National_Gallery_of_Art).jpg]] This is where we begin our story, [[The Voyage of Life|the birth of man from cave, glaciers retreat, river valleys widen, and rich soils appear where bone‐hard tundra once lay]]. We as _Homo sapiens_ existed for ~300,000 years prior, but it is here where the lifting of eons of fog reveals the [[Barriers to Self-Actualization#Environment|substrate of power]] where our first civilizations will lay. It is no coincidence that these traces are found near the Euphrates and Yangtze. - The Ice Age is ending (~11,700 BCE marks the Holocene onset). - ~4.5 million of us walked the earth, [spread through every continent](https://youtu.be/rXN-KEULia8?si=VgJWno557K4T6BkI) - Climate stabilizes → ecosystems diversify → _predictable seasons emerge._ - [Megafauna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megafauna) recede, both due to overhunting and warming. - Rising sea levels flood coastal zones, pushing groups inland—compression breeds interaction and competition. ![[Lascaux_Caves_17,000_BCE.png]] *Why would our early ancestors spend such [time painting caves?](https://nautil.us/early-humans-made-animated-art-234819/) When [life expectancy was ~30 years](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29211524/), and over 7,000 years prior to the emergence of the civilization (c.17,000 BCE), why leave [such marks](https://youtu.be/q0TElh41MyA?si=BS5SjpFQf-Ywe3-f) behind, [handprints for the future?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cueva_de_las_Manos)* [^2] [^2]: Jungian reading of art as a necessary expression of the unconscious mind attempting to structure its experience of reality. > [Art Teaches Perspective → `<|> <•> <Y>`](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266146) [[Barriers to Self-Actualization#Communication|Art is a language]]—a structuring of experience through symbolic frameworks—that enables coordination beyond immediate family groups. It is the [precursor to written script](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/an-upper-palaeolithic-protowriting-system-and-phenological-calendar/6F2AD8A705888F2226FE857840B4FE19#article), and again, it is no coincidence that its discovery aligns with stabilization of the environment. As _time becomes predictable it enables the codification of planning, storage, and inevitably, **social hierarchy**._ We can see from [dated ruins](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131422) (*~60,000-10,000BCE*); - Grinding stones, mortars → _cereals like barley and wheat are now processable_ - Microliths and composite tools → more specialized hunting, skinning, food prep - Fishing nets, hooks, and boats emerge in some riverine/coastal cultures - Domestication beginnings: **dog**, and early management of **sheep, goats** - **The sickle appears**—the clearest sign that plants are being sown intentionally Tools aren’t just material—they enable _repetition._ Once a group sees another harvest grain, or domesticate, the **desire to control the same outcome** emerges. Spurring rivalry and progress. - Cultivated plants → early surplus → **first storage pits** - Surplus → obligation → economy → inequality → hierarchy - Those who _organize_, distribute, and guard the surplus gain prestige The [[Genisis - Φῶς Πρώτον - בְּרֵאשִׁית|Genesis]] account is not a history of **what God did as logos**, but a **codified memory of what man came to understand**—and more crucially, what he chose to believe mattered _first_. ![[shepherd_tending_his_flocks.png]] --- ## The First Revolution Was in Meaning The Cognitive Revolution, c. 70,000 BCE, marked the emergence for the capacity of abstraction. Now, we witness its consequence manifest: the rise of social structures built on **[[The Nature of Conversation & Vision#The Commons|shared symbolic systems]] — infrastructure.** *Note: Following the near-extinction caused by the [Toba eruption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngest_Toba_eruption) (c. 72,000 BCE), the human population declined to approximately [6,000 individuals](https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a026233). Imagine a group of wise early human sages deciding to take 60 doses of [ayahuasca](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38868739/) to figure out how the gods wanted them to survive [the cataclysmic drought,](https://www.smithsonianbooks.com/store/science-nature/when-humans-nearly-vanished-the-catastrophic-explosion-of-the-toba-volcano/#:~:text=So%20much%20ash%20and%20debris,is%20not%20to%20be%20missed.) only to realize the nature of life and death.* [^1]: The year c. 70,000 BCE was chosen due to more widespread emergence of Homosapien cave art, and alignment with the environmental-stress effects which would've forced an intense selective pressure. However, I refrained from citing a specific study for this date, because frankly we don't know. I've seen papers dating a range from 50,000-100,000 BCE, even [hand-axes made c. 300,000+ BCE.](https://bc805.medium.com/abstract-thought-how-is-it-significant-and-how-does-it-define-the-basis-for-modern-humanity-a98a5b92fb9f) ![[National_Geographic_Reconstruction of the Göbekli Tepe Temples_9600 BCE.png]] It takes a massive amount of coordination and will to move limestone megaliths, some of which surpass [5 meters in height, and weight ~50 tons.](https://www.britannica.com/place/Gobekli-Tepe) Yet at [Göbekli Tepe,](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1572) in Anatolia's [Fertile Crescent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertile_Crescent) (c. 9600 BCE), there they stand. **The first** recorded collective monument to meaning, the _origin point of narrative and myth_. Why would nomads build something that took massive labor coordination? The only answer is _shared belief._ And more importantly, a shared **hierarchy of belief.** > _Göbekli Tepe is not just a temple — its stones do not just weigh tons, but carry the weight of legitimacy._ The site itself was made to be non-residential, tribes of this [pre-civilization religion](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/gobeki-tepe#:~:text=G%C3%B6bekli%20Tepe%2C%20to%20Schmidt's%20way,and%20other%20aspects%20of%20civilization.), likely gathered at a fixed time. They filled the hall with carvings of dangerous beasts hovering outside humankind’s newly formed temples, [boars,](https://i.natgeofe.com/n/3588fe33-07e8-4781-8d1e-e1000984c87f/07-boar-carving-714.jpg?w=2560&h=1706) [snakes](https://i.natgeofe.com/n/7a7e35ff-8524-4b11-915b-06b67bd421bd/08-snakes-on-human-head.jpg?w=2560&h=3226), large human / ancestral figures, and abstract symbols, deifying primordial forces *Predation, fertility, and celestial cycles* in this **proto-pantheon**. - **Shared Ritual Semantics** (sacred cycles) - **Shared Spatial Orientation** (axis mundi) - **Shared Causal Structures** (rain comes after sacrifice) - **Shared Authority** (those who _know_ the meanings become the leaders) [Communal feasting at Göbekli Tepe](https://www.academia.edu/41325734/Klaus_Schmidt_The_role_of_cult_and_feasting_in_the_emergence_of_Neolithic_communities_New_evidence_from_G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe_south_eastern_Turkey?auto=download) almost certainly included “the drinking of beer made from fermented wild crops,” drawing on wild barley and wheat gathered in the surrounding uplands. Further, [chemical residue studies](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X20304090?utm_source=chatgpt.com) detected **calcium oxalate** (“beerstone”) deposits on the interior surfaces of stone basins and troughs excavated at the site—compounds that form naturally during barley-based fermentation—offering yet tentative proof that these vessels were used to brew or serve beer. It was this temple in the [Fertile Crescent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertile_Crescent), and perhaps these very feasts, which lead to the birthplace of agricultural knowledge, allowing those from outside your family to form to clan, to share information, and compound into cult... ![[Urfa museum Fragment of stone vessel Nevalı Çori - Neolithic age 4795.png]] *Note: Other cultures of hunter-gatherers, and perhaps relatively more sophisticated (Anatolia-esque) ones lost to the tides of time, existed throughout Africa, The Americas ([Clovis culture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_culture)) and Eurasia ([大平山元I遺跡](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cdai_Yamamoto_I_Site)). It's impossible to precisely date, or define what exactly life was like pre-genesis, this entry itself, spans a millennium — 1,000 years, with barely a word or two written per year. Furthermore, there is contested evidence, that [early figures of Venus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurine#Notable%20figurines:~:text=citation%20needed%5D-,Notable%20figurines,-%5Bedit%5D) (goddess / embodiment of fertility existed [~300,000-500,000 BCE.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Tan-Tan)) With geological, anthropological, radiometric, and macro analysis, we may begin to learn where we came from.* ![[Reconstruction_of_the_Lady_of_Brassempouy_by_Libor_Balák,_Czech_Academy_of_Sciences,_the_Institute_of_Archaeology_in_Brno,_The_Center_for_Paleolithic_and_Paleoethnological_Research.jpg]] *Reconstruction of [The Lady of Brassempouy (France)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Brassempouy) originally carved from Ivory (C. ~20,000-25,000 BCE.) It's worth noting that [lighter skin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_skin#:~:text=Strong%20selective%20pressure%20would%20be,areas%20of%20low%20UV%20radiation.&text=After%20the%20ancestors%20of%20West,each%20of%20the%20two%20populations.) is contested to have emerged either from ~26,000 BCE, or even as recent as ~10,000 BCE. Despite the likely modern artistic interpretation, the appearance itself is not completely infeasible, and one can image an earlier brother, becoming so enamoured with a ladies beauty, that he decided to immortalize her form for us to see 20,000+ years later.* --- ### The Birth of Hierarchy - Kinship → Clan → Cult At the start there was man and women, then there were small kin groups, fluid hierarchies. However, with the advent of fixed places of ritual, what inevitably emerged were **fixed social orders.** Knowledge is not yet written formally—but it _is_ spoken, ritualized and carved. Every act of planting, of burial, of sacrifice is an utterance in **the language of reality**. These become **oral traditions**, which evolve into mythology, then into scriptures. Thus **[priesthood](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0806030105)** is born—for those who *remember* our genealogy, stories and knowledge... they see the patterns to interpret the unknown, visions of the future. This is the **ontological bridge** to [[Genisis - Φῶς Πρώτον - בְּרֵאשִׁית|בְּרֵאשִׁית]] — *For the first word was not merely a name, but a transformation.* > This divine act of _speaking reality into being_ is **exactly what the proto-priests** of Göbekli Tepe began to imitate. In a world where nothing is written, power flows to those who can speak the unseen into structure. - By declaring the _ritual_, they **shape collective behaviour**. - By **naming seasons**, they _predict the future_. - By building structures, they could **align with the heavens**. *Note: [Obsidian from Cappadocia](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.04.021) becomes widely traded during this period indicating long-distance trade networks (700km+) and complex "proto-cross-cultural" cooperation.* #### The Fall and the Knowledge of Good and Evil This is the **theurgic mimicry** of Genesis (`2:20`): man learns to speak like the gods—**to name, to separate, to declare meaning**. In doing so, they lay the groundwork for religious authority, learning not to just imitate success, those who hunted with the best techniques, but **those who are believed to understand the divine.** ([[Symbol → Ritual → Surplus → Hierarchy → Myth|Belief → Symbols → Mythos → Cult]]) > Once belief becomes the organizing principle, _belief itself becomes the battleground._ Not just what is true, but _who is believed._ This is where we see early symbolic boundaries (“our god(s)” vs. “theirs”): - Tattoos, ornaments, burial styles, tools → _markers of group identity_ - To be marked is to belong. To belong is to be protected. **To deviate is to be punished.** The first scapegoats likely appear in this era—those whose failure to uphold ritual become a threat to communal order, because to emerge is to define. To mark what is, you must draw the line at what is not. To name one thing “good” another must be “evil,” the first act of _division_, the _original sin_, the _Fall of Man_, the **Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.** (Genesis 2–3) > It is not just knowledge, but awareness of the consequences birthed from man's "arbitrary" differentiation caused by definition. For nature, Eden, has no good nor evil, it only exists in perfect harmony, it simply is. Thus [who is man](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Adam_and_Eve_-_St._Sebald_church_-_Nuremberg%2C_Germany_-_DSC01964.jpg), moralizing, to demand to the universe justice? To define good, and to define evil, birthed simply from an [[Νὴ τὸν Ἄγνωστος Θεός|unknown]]? ![[Adam-and-Eve-driven-out-of-eden-Gustave-Dore-illustration-1866-the-bible.webp]] This is **symbolic consciousness emerging**—the true Edenic “fall” into _responsibility_, _meaning_, _hierarchy_, and _narrative._ This epoch does not begin civilization, but it **creates the substrate for civilization.** It does not create kings, but it births **the justification for kingship.** It does not create cities, but it creates *wells of belief whose walls will echo for the eons to come.* It is the age where **truth became story,** and where **story became reality.**