Have We Evolved as Much as We Believe?

When thinking of a campfire, one automatically thinks of ‘story time.’ This dates back to the cavemen. Karen Armstrong says in A Short History of Myth, when the Neanderthal “became conscious of their mortality, they created some sort of counter-narrative that enabled them to come to terms with it” (1). Barthes says in Mythologies that a myth is a form of communication that sends a message (215). The message conveyed in these story time gatherings is that of the common language of the inescapable eventuality of death. All races and ages know this language. I will be exploring the oral horror stories shared by the Neanderthals and how a form of this still exists within society today. There is a need for humans to be aware of their mortality and contemplate it, which is why, even today we surround ourselves with these horror stories in movies, TV shows, literature, websites, and especially when sitting around a fire.

According to Armstrong in her book A Short History of Myth, she states that an assumption can be made that the Neanderthal created myths and a belief in the afterlife based on trinkets and treasures found in the tombs of these people. Because the Neanderthal created these elaborate myths, they were well aware of their own mortality, and by attempting to escape it, they became more aware of their capability to die by creating these stories. But I propose that they told grand, elaborate stories of immortal beings, but they also told horror stories of mortal beings in frightening situations. Both of these helped humans cope with their mortality. This was shared by everyone because if nothing else, we all share the eventuality of death.

Ghost stories are told as a way for people to question what might come after death. People create these stories of beings that have passed and have returned to earth for one reason or another. This helps the people cope with the uncertainty after death, and offers an explanation. “We also want to know where we are going, so we have devised stories that speak of a posthumous existence” (6) says Karen Armstrong.

When we compare ourselves to the Neanderthals, we believe we have evolved, and in some ways we have. But, we have not evolved as much as we believe; we have only simply changed forms by which we convey our meanings and messages. This need to be aware of our own mortality is still very much alive in almost every aspect of our culture. It has merely transformed into other forms rather than just the one form of gathering around and orally sharing stories. An example of this change of form is as follows: based on evidence found in the tombs of the Neanderthal that Armstrong speaks of in her book, it seems likely that in ancient times, men and women would gather around, possibly sometimes in the night hours and share horror stories in order to remind each other of our mortality. But now we have changed the form from oral stories to films, TV shows, literature, even websites (http://www.hypnogoria.com/).  But through these forms, we still accomplish the same goals as our ancestors did around a fire: reminding us of our mortality.

This same idea is still with us today. People have the insatiable need to be scared, to be reminded of their own mortality and the meaning of humanity. There are countless movies in which there are terrible deaths. Some people wonder why we watch films and TV shows about gruesome deaths. I believe one explanation is to show the many different possibilities of death. I watched a movie about a group of mountain climbers recently. The climbers became lost within a cave and while trying to find a way out of the cave, each person was killed by realistic, yet unfortunate causes, such as slipping and falling down into a seemingly endless black hole within the cave. This is a terrifying possibility. And because it is a possibility, it reminds the audience of a scenario of death, one that we all will encounter eventually. When speaking on the creation of stories, Karen Armstrong says “it is nearly always rooted in experience of death and the fear of extinction” (3). The experience of death is explored through these ‘campfire stories’ by way of the creation of different possibilities of death. There is a commonality between these modern films and the Neanderthals; Karen Armstrong says “these stories proved to be so crucial to the way that human beings understood themselves and their predicament” (12).

One possibility as to why the campfire indicates story time which in turn signifies the human’s need to be reminded of mortality is the use of metaphor. Life is something known and sure; therefore it is symbolized by the light from the fire, as all things the light touches are seen. But the darkness is death, something unknown and impenetrable. Based on what was found in the tombs of the Neanderthal, one can imagine men and women sitting around a fire at night as they share horror stories of unknown creatures, evil and death, all the while not knowing what is lurking behind their backs in the shadows. One can imagine the fear they must have felt, the light from the fire only expanded over so much ground before the darkness took back its territory. When discussing something as terrifying and unpredictable as death, it seems fitting that the scene should parallel the ambiguity of mortality within the metaphor.