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Narratives of Human Evolution
In the notoriously controversial field of paleoanthropology Misia Landau has found a hidden level of agreement among theories of human evolution. According to Landau, these theories are versions of the universal hero tale in folklore and myth. The narratives all have similar structures, featuring a humble hero (in theories of evolution it is a nonhuman primate) who departs on a journey (leaves his native habitat), receives essential aid or equipment from a donor figure (through evolutionary principles such as natural selection or orthogenesis), goes through tests (imposed by competitors, harsh climate, or predators), and finally arrives at a higher (that is, more human) state. Analyzing classic texts on evolution by Darwin, Keith, and Elliott Smith, as well as more recent authors by scholars such as Dart, Robinson, Tobias, and Johanson, Landau reveals not only their common narrative form but also how this form accommodates differences in meaning—widely varying sequences of events, heroes, and donors. Landau shows how interpretations of the fossil record differ according to what the anthropologist believes it the primary evolutionary agent. She concludes that scientists have much to gain from an awareness that they are tellers of stories. An understanding of narrative, she argues, can provide tools for creating new scientific theories as well as for analyzing old ones. Her book will be entertaining and enlightening for both general readers and scholars.
215 pages, Paperback
First published March 25, 1991
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January 15, 2012
Misia Landau was a graduate student in paleoanthropology at Yale University in the 1970s. While working on her dissertation she discovered "The Morphology of a Folk Tale" by Vladimir Propp, a Russian literary critic. Strangely enough, it occurred to her that there might be a dissertation topic involving literary criticism and paleoanthropology!
As she began reading the most influential works in paleoanthropology she noticed two things. First, there was trenchant disagreement among paleoanthropologists over the sequence of evolutionary history. No two anthropologists agreed on the interpretation of the fossil record. Landau claims, “[Arthur] Keith’s description [in The Antiquity of Man] of the Piltdown skull differs so much from the one found in Elliot Smith’s The Evolution of Man that one may wonder whether they refer to the same fossil.” Later she writes, “Theories of human evolution are determined by an apriori set of functions rather than an available set of fossils.” Second, what united their disparate accounts of human origins was an underlying narrative with dominant motifs, hero stories, crises, and resolutions. “I started reading this material” she says, “and couldn’t stop. I started making connections between literature and anthropology texts. I started thinking in terms of a plot in these books. It was very exciting.”
Landau remarks in her preface, “I suggest that all these paleoanthropological narratives approximate the structure of a hero tale, along the lines proposed by Vladimir Propp. . . . They feature a humble hero who departs on a journey, receives essential equipment from a helper of donor figure [in the case of evolution a propitious environment], goes through tests and transformation, and finally arrives at a higher state.”
Again, she writes, “This brings me to my reasons for undertaking this work. It is my belief that scientists have much to gain from an awareness that they are storytellers. . . . Like many myths, the story of human evolution often begins in a state of equilibrium, where we find the hero leading a relatively safe and untroubled existence, usually in the trees. . . . Either by compulsion or choice, the hero is eventually dislodged from his home. . . . Having departed, the hero moves in a new realm where he must survive a series of tests.”
Landau identifies four dominant motifs in the journey of the hero from ape to man: “A move from the trees to the ground—(terrestriality); the development of the upright posture (bipedalism); the development of the brain, intelligence and language (encephalization); and the development of technology, morals, and society (civilization).” Incidentally, when I visited the Smithsonian museums exhibit on the origins of man, these four motifs were clearly featured.
Not all paleoanthropologists agree on the ordering of these events, but they employ them to move the hero along his narrative quest. “Although these events occur in all theories of human evolution, they do not always occur in the same order. . . . Nevertheless there appears to be some underlying agreement about what happens in human evolution. Just as the hero of a fairy tale fights a battle or slays a dragon to the same end, the human ancestor as seen by Elliot Smith develops a larger brain for the same reason that Keith’s proto-human becomes bipedal.”
“Yet there is a final irony, as in many myths. Again and again, we hear how a hero, having accomplished great deeds, succumbs to hubris and is destroyed. In many narratives of human evolution there is a similar sense that man may be doomed: civilization—man’s greatest weapon in his struggle with nature—is now his greatest threat.”
But what about the fossil record? The evolutionist is likely to respond that narrative reconstructions may be tenuous, but necessary nevertheless in order to piece together the prehistoric fossil record of man’s ancestors. But Misia Landau argued that even the fossils are interpreted through the narrative framework, not the other way around! “The question to ask, then, is not what do fossils tell us about human evolution but what is it about human evolution . . . that through fossils is getting said.”
As she began reading the most influential works in paleoanthropology she noticed two things. First, there was trenchant disagreement among paleoanthropologists over the sequence of evolutionary history. No two anthropologists agreed on the interpretation of the fossil record. Landau claims, “[Arthur] Keith’s description [in The Antiquity of Man] of the Piltdown skull differs so much from the one found in Elliot Smith’s The Evolution of Man that one may wonder whether they refer to the same fossil.” Later she writes, “Theories of human evolution are determined by an apriori set of functions rather than an available set of fossils.” Second, what united their disparate accounts of human origins was an underlying narrative with dominant motifs, hero stories, crises, and resolutions. “I started reading this material” she says, “and couldn’t stop. I started making connections between literature and anthropology texts. I started thinking in terms of a plot in these books. It was very exciting.”
Landau remarks in her preface, “I suggest that all these paleoanthropological narratives approximate the structure of a hero tale, along the lines proposed by Vladimir Propp. . . . They feature a humble hero who departs on a journey, receives essential equipment from a helper of donor figure [in the case of evolution a propitious environment], goes through tests and transformation, and finally arrives at a higher state.”
Again, she writes, “This brings me to my reasons for undertaking this work. It is my belief that scientists have much to gain from an awareness that they are storytellers. . . . Like many myths, the story of human evolution often begins in a state of equilibrium, where we find the hero leading a relatively safe and untroubled existence, usually in the trees. . . . Either by compulsion or choice, the hero is eventually dislodged from his home. . . . Having departed, the hero moves in a new realm where he must survive a series of tests.”
Landau identifies four dominant motifs in the journey of the hero from ape to man: “A move from the trees to the ground—(terrestriality); the development of the upright posture (bipedalism); the development of the brain, intelligence and language (encephalization); and the development of technology, morals, and society (civilization).” Incidentally, when I visited the Smithsonian museums exhibit on the origins of man, these four motifs were clearly featured.
Not all paleoanthropologists agree on the ordering of these events, but they employ them to move the hero along his narrative quest. “Although these events occur in all theories of human evolution, they do not always occur in the same order. . . . Nevertheless there appears to be some underlying agreement about what happens in human evolution. Just as the hero of a fairy tale fights a battle or slays a dragon to the same end, the human ancestor as seen by Elliot Smith develops a larger brain for the same reason that Keith’s proto-human becomes bipedal.”
“Yet there is a final irony, as in many myths. Again and again, we hear how a hero, having accomplished great deeds, succumbs to hubris and is destroyed. In many narratives of human evolution there is a similar sense that man may be doomed: civilization—man’s greatest weapon in his struggle with nature—is now his greatest threat.”
But what about the fossil record? The evolutionist is likely to respond that narrative reconstructions may be tenuous, but necessary nevertheless in order to piece together the prehistoric fossil record of man’s ancestors. But Misia Landau argued that even the fossils are interpreted through the narrative framework, not the other way around! “The question to ask, then, is not what do fossils tell us about human evolution but what is it about human evolution . . . that through fossils is getting said.”
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February 5, 2023Humans have a narrative lens that distorts how they interpret data. I'm not in the evolution field and can't critically assess all of the claims, but reading this also helps you see similar distortions and lenses in our own life or field.
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