Did Ancient Man Evolve?

The evolutionary story often portrays ancient man as a brutish caveman. Over the years, he evolved to become a hunter-gatherer. During the “Agricultural Revolution,” these hunter-gatherers became farmers and raised flocks. Eventually, men advanced to the point that they began to build cities.

Once again, the biblical account of man makes better sense of what we have observed. Cavemen, hunter-gatherers, farmers, and city-builders definitely existed, but they all existed at the same time. In fact, each of these types of people can be found in the world today.

Rather than reflecting an evolutionary progression of early man, these different societies are consistent with what we would expect to find following the Babel incident. People scattered from Babel, bringing their own set of skills to the areas they settled. Some areas were more favorable for hunting, while others were better for farming. Certain groups spent much of their time scraping out a living trying to find enough food for the day, while societies that produced abundant food could devote time to developing their technology.

Technological Explosion: From Horse and Buggy to a Man on the Moon in Only 70 Years

We have experienced rapid growth in technological achievements over the past century, but this does not mean that we are smarter today than our great-grandparents were. The innovations we enjoy today were built upon the shoulders of our predecessors.

False Views About Ancient Man

Ape Ancestry

Evolutionists claim that man descended from apelike ancestors, but no intermediate fossils have ever been found to verify this idea. The so-called “missing links” between apelike creatures and humans were either fully ape (e.g., Lucy and Ardipithecus), fully man (e.g., Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon), or complete frauds (e.g., Nebraska Man and Piltdown Man).

The Bible clearly states that God made man from the dust of the ground and woman from his rib. Our ancestry does not include apelike creatures.

Prehistoric

The concept of “prehistoric” events, animals, and people contradicts the biblical worldview. Prehistoric means “before history” and refers to a time when man was either not around or was incapable of keeping records of his world.

But man was made on day six. He was fully capable of recording events through oral or written testimonies and passing on those details to the following generations. The first five days could not really be considered prehistoric since God revealed the history of what he did on those days. So the concept of prehistoric time does not make sense from a biblical perspective.

Evolution of Religion

Many people assume that humanity’s religious beliefs began with a form of animism or spiritism. Eventually, these beliefs gave way to polytheism (belief in many gods) and then to monotheism (belief in one all-powerful God). However, the Bible explains (and historical studies have confirmed) that the opposite is true. Man began with a belief in the one true God, but knowledge of the Creator diminished in many cultures, giving rise to the false views of polytheism, animism, and spiritism.

A Flat Earth

The popular flat-earth myth that ancient peoples believed was popularized in the late nineteenth century by John Draper and Andrew Dickson White. These men sought to belittle Christians by making the Medieval church look ignorant and anti-science. In reality, people have long known the earth was round. In the third century BC, Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth to within one percent. The Bible also includes passages that imply a round earth.

Start planning your trip to the Ark Encounter today, and learn more about how intelligent ancient man really was in our Ancient Man: Brilliant or Brute exhibit on the third deck of our life-size Noah’s Ark!