Were There “Cavemen”?
So great has been the influence of books, magazines, museum displays and even comic strips that people usually think of “apemen” and “missing links” whenever anyone mentions “cavemen.” Do you? These terms have almost become synonyms for some creature of the past in an “evolutionary chain”—“primitive man”—on the way from ancient primate to man as he is today. Is this “chain” real? Were there “cavemen” in the evolutionary sense? Has modern science proved these ideas to be true?
The average person assumes it has all been worked out by science, that we do have a proved unbroken chain of development of man, so that a person imagines apelike men of the ancient past living in caves, and even being contemporary with dinosaurs. Why? Well, due to pictures they have seen that have led them to think scientists have found whole creatures, just as illustrated—hairy, stooped over and all!
Examination of the evidence, however, shows there is a difference between what scientists really know and what they think might have been. For example, in a famous museum of natural history is found a display of primates supposedly leading to man and showing also a “family tree of primates.” But it has an important explanation that says: “In the absence of some fossils of both known age and known affinities, some branches and forks are only reasonable guesses.” Guesses are not facts. The connections and ages are not proved.
It is true that scientists have found caves with heaps of ashes from fires, along with traces of food and other signs of human habitation. But that evidence does not tell us that all ancient men lived in caves, or that any who did, really form a link in a chain back to some type of “primitive man.” There are people today who are cave dwellers, such as the Tasaday of Mindanao in the Philippines. While some might consider the Tasaday to be primitive due to a simple life-style, they are not hairy, lumbering, apelike creatures at all.
But have not scientists found skulls and bones of “ape-men,” proving that such creatures lived here at one time? First of all, it must be said that this type of fossil evidence is not plentiful. A few bones do not make a chain. Second, it is the way men interpret or explain what they find that poses problems. Interpreting scanty evidence is tricky. “As always, the fossil evidence is open to several interpretations,” said one evolutionist. Another admitted about fossils: “The study of human evolution is a game, rather than a science in the usual sense.” On ages of these fossils, still another said: “Anyone who feels that we already have the problem solved is surely deluding himself.” Scientists disagree among themselves about what they have found. They make reconstructions of what they discover, interpret it; then later they reinterpret the evidence and change their ideas. To illustrate:
JAVA MAN was found in the early 1890’s, but it was not a complete skeleton. The Encyclopedia Americana says it consisted of “no more than a skull cap and a thigh bone.” The rest was a guess, and yet pictures appear of a hairy, apelike, stooped form. Do you think it possible to tell how much hair a creature had and what its skin color was from just a few bones? The discoverer claimed he had found an “ape-man,” but scientists now say it was an early man. Interpretation changed!
PILTDOWN MAN for more than 40 years was exhibited as one evidence of the “evolutionary chain.” As recently as 1956 it was described in a dictionary as “an extinct species of man.” But in later editions the same dictionary called it “deliberately faked” and “an elaborate fraud.” Interpretations changed again. Why? During the years in between proof was found that it was a hoax, deliberately prepared to look like an ape-man fossil. While the skull fragment was human, the jaw portion was from another creature, possibly an orangutan. Somebody tried to “invent” an ape-man! Why were some scientists so easily deceived by fake evidence? Desperate, perhaps, grabbing at straws?
NEANDERTHAL MAN is also one of the better-known parts of the so-called evolutionary chain. When the first skull portion was found one scientist called it the skullcap of an idiot. Gradually interpretations changed as more bones were discovered. From early reconstructions that showed Neanderthals to be stooped and apelike, with long arms dangling down in front, we now have books that say that “Neanderthal probably did not look very different from some people of today.” One encyclopedia now says that they were “completely human, fully erect.” What a change! Comparing the illustrations in various books will show the adjustments in the claimed appearance of Neanderthal man. And rather than his being an idiot, it is now admitted that Neanderthal man had a larger brain than most modern men!
One reason why some scientists thought of Neanderthal as squat and bent is most interesting. An early skeleton found had bowed legs and a bent form. Of course, since they were looking for apelike creatures to fit their theory, how easy it was to make a mistake! Later, upon further examination, it was shown that the skeleton was deformed due to arthritis!
Nor is that all. In their efforts to make their finds look like a link between ape and man, when Neanderthal’s foot bones were first reconstructed by evolutionists, “they were made to look like an ape’s,” says one book. But the same book admits that the feet actually “look and functioned very [much] like those of modern man.” Look at the picture (opposite page) of feet. Do you think they look enough alike to conclude mistakenly that they are the same?
AUSTRALOPITHECINES are available for study, since many of their bones have been found. Are we more sure about them as ancestors of man? Textbooks say: “What they look like is guesswork.” “There are still many gaps and holes in our knowledge of our ancestors, and some of the things we think we know about them are based on nothing more than careful guesses.” Yet textbooks make it appear that they are links leading up to man.
“HOMO ERECTUS” is a case that shows a person has to be careful not to accept all he sees in illustrations of missing links. One textbook asks: “Were they hairy?” It answers: “Probably not—at least no more so than many people living now.” But on an earlier page the same book shows one as a hairy monster like the above illustration. Is that honest?
The facts are clear that there is not the claimed evidence of a chain linking man to primates. There were not “cavemen” in that sense. Not only are links missing—the chain itself does not really exist. What has been presented as evidence has, in some cases, been faked, changed, even reconstructed to fit a preconceived idea. In other cases, it has been interpreted, reinterpreted, misinterpreted and misapplied.
Man, however, is just what the Bible shows him to be—unique, a special creation. (Gen. 1:26, 27; 2:20) Not only is his brain far advanced in comparison with brains of animals, but so is his body. Even some evolutionists say admiringly: “The most arresting thing about the human body is that it is unique. There is nothing like it in the world.”
[Pictures on page 14]
gorilla
man
orangutan