The Haves and the Have Nots
Among Christian thinkers, one of the currently most debated issues in human origins revolves around the relationship between Adam and Eve and the other human-like creatures that may have been alive at the same time and the discussion of whether or not they possessed the image of God. If Adam and Eve lived before about 40,000 years ago these others may have included Neanderthal, Denisovans, and anatomically modern, but behaviorally pre-modern Homo sapiens. Because the story of Adam and Eve describes a time when they lived alone in a garden in the land of Eden, the general category sometimes used to described these other creatures is people outside the garden.
The questions raised include, What is the genetic relationship between Adam and Eve and the people outside the garden? and Did the people outside the garden have the image of God?
This post attempts to broadly outline considerations that demonstrate that 1) the people outside the garden can only loosely be called people, 2) they mostly likely did not possess the image of God as present in Adam, and 3) their offspring would become genetically intertwined with Adam and Eve's descendants and gain the image of God as a result.
Evidence for the Human Mind
Writing for Smithsonian magazine, Jo Marchant opines, "Find early paintings, particularly figurative representations like animals, and you've found evidence for the modern human mind." What motivated this statement in her January 2016 article, A Journey to the Oldest Cave Paintings in the World, was seeing ancient artwork created on cave walls in the multi-island nation of Indonesia. At least 242 cave sites have been found on the island of Sulawesi, and while most have not been dated, the earliest date determined so far is 43,900 years old, followed closely by a 40,000-year-old painting of a wild cow on another Indonesian island, Kalimantan. Examining the 43,900-year-old hunting scene in the Sulawesi cave, the December 11, 2019 article published in Nature makes this statement: "Humans seem to have an adaptive predisposition for inventing, telling, and consuming stories. Prehistoric cave art provides the most direct insight that we have into the earliest storytelling."
Dates for comparable artwork in Europe are currently estimated to be around 40,000 years old or younger. This human ability to tell stories and paint them arrived at about the same time in far-flung locations from Europe to Southeast Asia. Prior to the beginning of painted murals, other ancient artwork contains only abstract symbols. Examples of symbolic art include cave engravings and a fleck of rock with a hash of lines painted with an ochre "crayon" found in the Blombos caves in South Africa that date to about 70,000 years ago.
The ability to make hash marks and utilize them symbolically may indicate the presence of abstract thinking skills that could also afford the ability to handle simple language processing tasks. However, this ability cannot be used to imply the same level of reasoning ability that modern humans possess, nor the level with which we expect Adam and Eve to have been created. An experiment with Capuchin monkeys provides evidence of the need for caution.
Researchers presented Capuchin monkeys with a test to see if they could utilize symbolic markers, such as poker chips, to represent real food and then value the chips in the same way that they valued the food. The conclusions were that the monkeys can reason about symbols but do so in a manner similar to young children. Unsurprisingly, the study authors conclude that the monkeys do not seem to achieve adult-human-like symbolic competence.
According to Lowenfeld's Stages of Artistic Development, the Scribble stage has four progressive sub-stages: Disordered, Longitudinal, Circular, and Naming. Scribbling is typical for children ages 2 to 4 years old. In the Longitudinal sub-stage, controlled repetition of motions are mastered. This seems to most closely correlate to the markings found in 70,000-year-old and older artwork, such as that found in the Blombos caves. Children progress through the Circular sub-stage where they master the ability to create more complex forms before progressing to the Naming sub-stage. The Naming sub-stage is regarded as one of the great occasions in the life of a human. At this stage, the child tells stories about the scribble, demonstrating the ability to visualize in pictures. Given the evidence from the Blombos cave artifacts, it remains difficult to prove that the early humans who made them had advanced much further than Capuchin monkeys or 2 to 4-year-old human children.
I believe it is important to draw a distinction between what can be expected of a fully cognizant, morally responsible, adult modern human and that of an experienced, skilled ancient adult human that has the linguistic and moral reasoning powers comparable to a very young modern child. An adult, anatomically-modern, ancient human would certainly be able to do many things that a young modern child cannot do, like hunt wild animals. And such an ancient human might have had limited linguistic ability and behaved in some "clearly human" like ways. But full behavioral modernity is still a significant leap forward.
The archeological evidence paints a picture (pun intended) of a transitional leap forward. Before 70,000 years ago, Homo sapien sapiens existed who were anatomically quite similar to modern humans, but behaviorally still primitive, even though impressive compared to their ancestors. By 44,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans were creating artwork that compares favorably with the work of master artisans of the Middle Ages. Humanity had jumped from making symbolic hashmarks to painting stories on cave walls.
Critically then, a question may be asked, Did God create Adam and Eve as behaviorally primitive humans, or as behaviorally modern humans?
Did Anatomically Modern, Behaviorally Primitive Humans Have the Image of God?
In a previous post, I compared the image of God as triangle with three sides. The base of the triangle is the substantive abilities of man related to spirit, body, and mind. Mankind did not possess an eternal spiritual nature until God granted this to them; therefore it is begging the question to ask if primitive man had a spirit. Regarding their bodies, they were clearly bearing the external image of a modern human; however, the exact timing of the emergence of the fully modern globular brain shape is still unknown. Some researchers use the broad range of 35,000 to 100,000 years ago for this occurrence. However, a simple but profound lack of human skull specimens from 35,000 to 100,000 years ago prevents narrowing the range down at this time. Homo sapiens that look superficially like modern humans had been on the Earth for up to 300,000 years. If we use the fully modern globular brain structure as a proxy for detecting the image of God capabilities in mankind, then these prior creatures were among the have nots.
The second side of the triangle represents a functional role, especially that of being God's representatives in holding dominion over the Earth. Many waves of early humans migrated out of Africa into the rest of the world, but the world-wide dominion of mankind is tied most specifically to expansion somewhere between about 70,000 and 50,0000 years ago. With the currently available evidence, it is hard to be conclusive about which of the climatically-optimal exit windows is the opportune one. However, if we use the eventual world-wide dominion of mankind as a proxy for the image of God, then the creatures who took part in the earlier waves did not possess it.
The third side of the triangle represents the relational role, characterized by the a relationships between humans and between humans and God. It is in advanced language skills, as exemplified in storytelling, that this relational role seems most fully manifested. The emergence of storyboard paintings on cave walls is so far demonstrated only more recently than about 45,000 years ago. If we use elaborate rock paintings as a proxy for the image of God, then earlier creatures who only make simple symbolic marks are also among the have nots.
These lines of evidence point to the manifestation of the image of God in behaviorally modern humans at a time more recent than 100,000 years ago, and probably between 45,000 and 70,000 years ago.
Perhaps we can draw an analogy between the incarnation of Christ and the incarnation of Adam. In Christ, the fullness of human nature and the fullness of divine nature was manifested. In Adam, the fullness anatomical humanity and the fullness of spiritual humanity was manifested. In other words, when Adam and Eve interacted with anatomically modern humans outside the garden, they were encountering beings who were in many ways similar to themselves physically, but who lacked the genius of the spiritually awake and cognitively modern human mind. They might have been able to talk with those people as someone speaks to a very young child. But in doing so, they were not interacting with equals who shared their spiritual destiny, but rather as earthly vessels fulfilling a natural destiny.
A surprising finding of ancient DNA analysis is that modern humans share some DNA from admixture events that occurred between modern humans and both Neanderthal and Denisovans. What would it be like to meet a Neanderthal? You and I will never know, but our ancestors seemed to accept them as desirable mates on rare occasions. Perhaps they befriended them at times. Humans can establish deep relationships even with animals, how much more so with creatures very similar to themselves. These other creatures were not like other animals, but neither did they share humanity's spiritual destiny. It might be most appropriate to think of them as pre-spiritual people, or aspiritual people.
In contrast to more primitive humans, Adam and Eve did possess, and exhibit, the image of God. God specially created them to embody His ideal for humanity and they were gifted with intelligence, advanced language, and community skills. Their descendants are those who people the world to this day and have dominion over the Earth. They dialoged with God about good and evil and told their stories to their children. Their descendants would go on to develop agriculture, create music, build cities, and invent metalwork. The body, mind, and spirit of humankind may have been developed by God in that order, culminating in the special creation of one called Adam, the son of God, and Eve, the mother of all the living (which potentially carries the meaning spiritually alive or refers to the surviving lineages of humanity).
The Search for mtDNA-Eve Comes Up Empty
But what about Africa? Africa is the birthplace of all the waves of pre-modern humans to expand out into the rest of the Earth. All lineages of those who took part in the earlier exits, until the last one around 50-70 thousand years ago, eventually died out. But the San people of Africa have deep genealogical roots that extend back before these exits. While the wave of humans that populate the world and descended from Adam and Eve trace their lines of decent back to 50 or 70 thousand years ago, the San people trace theirs much further back in time. What this means is that the mitochondrial DNA passed down exclusively from mother to daughter among the San people traces an unbroken line back to a time when it diverged from all other humans. The time of that divergence is thought to be about 150,000 years ago. A woman alive at the time of that split who has living descendants today among both the San and non-San people groups of the world would be considered a mitochondrial Eve. But could one of those women be the true Biblical Eve? I don't think so.
The best explanation for the deep roots of the San people is an early migration of Adam and Eve's descendants back into Africa. Suppose modern human men had taken primitive human females as wives. All or some of their offspring would have inherited the characteristics of their modern human fathers, but all would still possess the ancient mtDNA of their mothers. All or some of their offspring would possess the image of God. It is possible to rationalize that all of the offspring of such a union would be gifted by God with a human spirit and a spiritual destiny. In any case, the advantages of bearing the image of God could quickly become fixed, which means genetically ubiquitous, in the population. Within a few generations, everyone alive would be an image bearer of God, even if some of their grandparents or great-grandparents were not.
The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) determines the energy consumption patterns of a person (or animal). As such mtDNA becomes tuned, over time, to the environment in which a creature lives. In Africa, the mtDNA of the populations living there was highly tuned to those environments. Therefore, it would be very "sticky" in the genealogy of the people of Africa. Modern women who married primitive African men would also give birth to image of God bearing offspring. But these image-bearing daughters might be less robust, in that environment, than other girls born to primitive African women. The image-bearing sons might choose primitive African women as mates who would continue to pass on the ancient mtDNA. In time, all of the non-African mtDNA might pass away. However, the qualities associated with the image of God, whether carried by nuclear DNA or by the gifting of God, could still be passed on and became fixed in the population.
In other words, the deep mitochondrial lineage of the San people in no way detracts from them bearing the image of God, but rather retains a physiological fitness for the environment in which they live. This means that the concept of mitochondrial Eve is a mere distraction, a logical red-herring, in the search for the real Biblical Eve.
A similar argument can be made for the DNA passed down from father to son on the Y-Chromosome. In this case, there is less fitness associated with the Y-Chromosome and the San people retain about 75% ancestral, primitive Y-DNA and 25% modern human Y-DNA. The presence of strains of Y-DNA that originated a the time of the successful Out-of-Africa migration within the San people gives credence to the idea that Out-of-Africa was quickly followed by a Back-to-Africa migration by at least some of Adam and Eve's descendants.
Conclusion
God shepherded humanity through many phases, bringing primitive humans to a very sophisticate level of abilities before taking the final step with the special creation of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve and their descendants had some interaction with more primitive, non-image-bearing, aspiritual people. The offspring of Adam, who is called the son of God, may be the ones referred to in the Bible as the "sons of God". The Bible includes this enigmatic statement: "The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose." This intertwining of Adam and Eve's lineage with any pre-spiritual people groups would quickly lead to the image of God being taken to the whole world.
In places like Africa, modern humanity would take hold by retaining the advantage of genetics tuned to the environment while bringing the incredible selective benefits associated with bearing the image of God. This is shown in the older haplogroup "L0-2" mitochondrial DNA being retained, even though full humanity is gained.
Outside of Africa, a new line of mitochondrial DNA introduced by God with Eve would prove beneficial and take hold everywhere else. This is an shown by the ubiquity of haplogroups M and N mitochondrial DNA everywhere else in the world.
The Biblical story of Adam and Eve continues to be the best explanation for the origin of mankind in the face of partial and complex, yet generally substantiating, scientific evidence.
