Human Origins

Before S. Laing asks where humanity began, he asks how we measure time. If Egypt’s oldest records reach thousands of years farther back than familiar chronology allows, what else must be reconsidered?

Writing in the late nineteenth century, Laing begins in Egypt, where king lists, hieroglyphs and monuments offer a historical yardstick. He sets this evidence against the shorter biblical timelines that had long shaped ideas of the human past, then asks what it means for the theory of evolution if civilization is already ancient when written records begin. From Egypt’s dynasties and the records of Chaldæa, he follows the trail toward prehistoric, Neolithic and Palaeolithic humanity, drawing on archaeology, geology and other sciences. How far back can the evidence carry us—and what will it reveal beyond the reach of legend?

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