As human beings, we have our own general understanding of how our world came to be. Whether we are in church, the synagogue, or the temple humans have established ideologies. Humans use the creation myths to bring about some understanding as to how humans magically or purposely inhabited the earth. However, even though myths satisfy this yearning for how and why, the scientific world revolted with the idea that creation myths are no longer satisfactory. In unison paleoanthropologists and archeologists along with many other historians said that we as humans need a scientific, concrete, and factual basis for our existence. As a result of many years of research and discovery the scientific world came to two conclusions. Either “Homo erectus evolved into Homo sapiens in each region of migration (Spodek 16)” most notably known as Candelabra. Or the “Homo erectus evolved into Homo sapiens only once- in Africa (Spodek 16)” most notably known as the Noah’s Ark model. Through my journey of understanding both schools of thought I began to rethink the basic sugar coated origins of humanity that teachers spoon feed in high school. Spodek along with the associate authors shined a little light on the fact that Homo sapiens most likely stemmed directly from Africa and migrated to other places in the world. Which leads me to my thesis: Homo erectus evolved into Homo sapiens only once in Africa, and then emigrated to the rest of the world. Even though my thesis aligns with the Noah’s Ark
For thousands of years, scientists have tried to interpret the concept of creation. However, before people had access to modern scientific equipment, they told creations stories. A creation story is a myth that explains how and why the earth was made. A few cultures with differing opinions on creation are Europeans, Cherokee Indians, West Africans, and Hawaiians. Europeans tell the story of Genesis and God creating the earth in seven days and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Cherokee Indians believe that the earth was created by a water beetle. In West African culture, they teach the Golden Chain story, and Hawaiians have the Kumulipo story to explain their beliefs on creation. Although each story follows a basic guideline, they all have distinct disparities.
Myths – as they are known to most of the world – give insight into the pasts of various countries and religions as the people saw them. They have been used to explain phenomenons in nature or describe the tales of courageous and important men and women throughout history. Creation myths in particular define how the Earth itself was created, along with the universe, heavens, hell, people, and creatures that exist today. Genesis of Christian mythology, for instance, tells the story of how the single deity God spoke and formed everything from day and night to man and woman. Various African creation myths, such as with the Yoruba, explain the creation of the Earth through at least a couple gods working together and all life
The general purpose for all myths is to bring an understanding of unknown. The ancient people widely used myths to explain new phenomena and occurrences. The lack of scientific modes of theory formulation caused the people of old to come up with myths to fill the vacuum with the knowledge that existed during their time. The need by man to explain his origin and the origin of the universe led him to the formulation of creation and origin myths. Men of olds came up with myths to explain the mysteries they had no clue about including creation.
Myth still remains one of the major links that merges the different cultures and religions from various ethnicities. “The Creation of the Titans and the Gods”, as well as “The Creation, Death, and Rebirth of the Universe”, are among the many creation myths that highlight these combinations. Throughout history, myths have created various similarities and differences between the cultures and religions of the world.
Every person in America has a myth or conviction of truth as to how creation was formed and human beings came into existence. The following are inclusive in creation myths, the first is the Zulu myth found in the continent of Africa, and the other is the myth of Norse originating from Europe. Both myths give a reason as to how creation was formed on earth. Though there are endless amounts of ideas and vast amounts of myths to explore, the focus of these two particular myths brings fascination to a social phenomenon.
Creation myths play an important role in our culture and even modern day society. They give us something to believe in when the unknown seems daunting. Ontological yearning is the need to know why, and not just accept what is. This is why we not only need creation myths, and myths in general, but actually seek them out. We find every possible reason to believe in them so that we are not faced with the unknown. This is the beauty of myths, we know that they are not true, they cannot be proven scientifically, or even logically, but they explain the unknown to us. It is because of this that we are so quick to believe them as if they are fact.
There is much speculation as to where humans today came from, until recently much was up for debate when considering where one came from. The film, The Human Family Tree, directed by Chad Cohen, produced by the National Geographic Channel in 2009 attempts to answer the question: Where did we (as humans) come from? The film’s answer to this question comes from the Genographic Project which aims to uncover the origins of humans as a modern species. “The Human Family Tree” argues that modern humans originated in Africa around 200,000 years ago. The film uses the evidence provided by the Genographic Project to support their claim.
According to physical evidence, and theories, scholars have concluded upon a whole hypothesis. Based on their knowledge and belief, modern humans diverged from Homo sapiens between 200,000 and 150,000 years ago specifically in Africa, that between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago members of Homo sapiens left Africa, and that these
Modern anthropologists and paleontologists are in relative agreement regarding how long modern humans, Homo sapiens, have been in existence. According to mainstream science, the popular belief is that the cultural and technological history of our species is confined to the past 12,000 years. This figure is a culmination based on what we know about evolution and what we have been able to gather through fossil analyzation and dating of artifacts and human remains. Although the subject of human antiquity, also referred to as human origins, does not prompt a great deal of debate there may actually be the need for some. A reexamination of that humans have only existed a mere 12,000 years should be done as there may be evidence to support a
Non-historical evidence is necessary in understanding human evolution since the earliest stages of our history occurred before writing existed. While later civilizations could record their own history, the account of early Homo sapiens is incomplete without information from before written language. Subsequently, there are no explicit records detailing how humans expanded from one continent to all seven, causing historians to need alternate sources of information in order to expand upon theories of evolution; the non-recorded remains of these civilizations provide answers to many of the gaps left in humans’ evolutionary narrative.
Civilisations use sacred origin stories to offer descriptions on God, identity, meaning and the purpose of life. In many cultures these stories are referred to as creation myths. Bernard Doyle further explains, “Creation myths are amongst mankind's earliest attempts to explain some of the most profound questions about the nature and origin of the universe”. In particular when focussing on the Upper Kingdom ancient Egyptian written and visual creation story, the significance of culture and religion is dominant. This text teaches contemporary Australians about the diversity of creation beliefs in religion. This argumentative essay focuses on a historical and social approach, addressing the theme of change in a religious society. It is important
There are countless stories about how the world was made. Many Cultures around the world begin with birth, which means “new beginning.” Most creation myths have creation beginning on earth, but some start in coas. In some creation myths, people and animals had gotten along until sin had came in the way, In the creation myths, there are three main ideas; organic materials being used for creation of humans, creator or creators destroying life, and feuds among the people.
One of the most debated about issues in anthropology is looking at the question of what are the origins of today’s humans. It is a spilt debate in the anthropological community. Both sides believe that they are correct in which way that we became the modern humans that we are today. The two beliefs are the Multiregional and the Out-of-Africa theory.
read for my book report. Roger Lewin is a British award-winning science author and writer of 20 books. He was employed at New Scientist in London for about nine years. He went to Washington, D.C. to write books and other pieces for science for ten years as news editor. The book by him that I chose, in 201 pages, this book explained answers to questions like where and when modern humans first appeared, what features distinguish modern humans, who our immediate ancestors were, and many more. For example, the subtopics are; the African origin, the multiregional origin, the archeology of modern humans, language and modern human origins, symbolism and
Human evolution is the gradual process in which people, or Homo sapiens, originated from apelike ancestors. Scientific evidence, particularly in the form of fossils and secondary remains, show that the physical and behavioral traits shared by all people evolved over a period of approximately six million years. Humans are primates. Both genetic and physical similarities show that humans and the great apes (large apes) of Africa, chimpanzees (including bonobos, or so-called “pygmy chimpanzees”) and gorillas share a common ancestor that lived between 8 and 6 million years ago. The volume of fossils found in Africa suggests that most evolution occurred there and is likely the place of origin for early humans. This brings to fruition the “out of Africa” theory, also called the “single-origin hypothesis.”