Cavemen?

[Philippe]

wat does the Church say about cavemen?

[Pio Nono]

JMJ
7/7 - Fourteenth Wednesday

lifeteener,

First things first, I encourage you to read G.K. Chesterton's [i]The Everlasting Man[/i]; Chesterton spends the first few chapters of the book discussing cavemen.

At any rate, the long and short of it is this:

1.) If this is an evolution question (as I read it, anyway), then we can say [b]in a limited sense[/b] that we have "evolved" from cavemen; it would be more correct to say we have descended from them. In effect, there is this thing called microevolution, or evolution within a species, which occurs as climates and environments change - if you were to put 5,000 Haitians in southern Argentina and wait ten thousand years, you'd come back to find a race of hairy white dudes.

2.) Even if there were some sort of evolution from cavemen, we cannot forget that they were [i]men[/i], namely, that they had souls, an intellect, free will, &c. &c. We know this because of our discovery of cave paintings - the artistic desire has appeared only in men and not in animals. To paraphrase Chesterton, if you dig deep in a cave, you'll find a man's painting of a reindeer; but no matter how much deeper you dig, you'll never find a reindeer's painting of a man.

This answer is kinda convoluted and confusing, so if you need it cleared up a little more, feel free to contact me.

Yours,
Pio Nono