Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future

128 Pages·1990·46.95 MB·English

by  Dougal Dixon

MAN MAN
after
Homosapiensneanderthalensis,oncethepeak
ofhumanevolutionandnowextinct.
DOUGAL DIXON
MANa terMAN
AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE FUTURE
FOREWORD BY BRIAN ALDISS
Illustrations by Philip Hood
St. Martin's Press. New York
Two creatures- asingleancestor. Eachisa
productof5millionyearsofgeneticalteration
andevolutionarydevelopment. Eachhasgone
throughchanges- artificialandnatural
imposedfrom outsideandfrom within- until
neitherresemblesintheleast thecommon
ancestralcreature. Thenameoftheancestral
creaturewasHomosapiens. Itwasourselves.
Copyright© 1990byDougalDixon
Illustrationscopyright© 1990byPhilipHood
,Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybeusedorreproduced
inanymannerwhatsoeverwithoutwrittenpermissionexceptinthe
caseofbriefquotationsembodiedincriticalarticlesorreviews.
Forinformation,addressSt.Martin'sPress, 175FifthAvenue,
NewYork,N.Y. 10010
DesignbyBenCracknell
ISBN0-312--03560-8
Firstedition
Firstprinting
PrintedandboundinItaly
It £s probably reasonable to conclude that) had £t
not been for temperature-based env£ronmental
changes £n the hab£tats ofearly hom£n£ds) we
would st£ll be secure £n some warm hosp£table
forest) as £n the M£ocene ofold) and we would
st£ll be £n the trees.
C. 1<.. Bra£n
CONTENTS
FOREWORD by Brian Aldiss PART TWO:
8
MAN AFTER MAN
22
INTRODUCTION- EVOLUTION
AND MAN 200 YEARS HENCE
11
Generic engineel'ing 12
Piccarblick the aquamorph 22
Cralym the yacuumorph 24
Jimez Smoot thespace traveller 25
Kyshu Kristaan the squatty 29
PART ONE:
IN THE BEGINNING
16
300 YEARS HENCE
The Human Story So Far
16
8MILLIO YEARS AGO 16 Haron Soltoand his mechanical cradle 31
3MILLIO YEARS AGO 16 Greerath Hulm and thefuture 34
2.5 MILLION YEARS AGO 16 Hueh Chuum and his love 35
1.5MILLIOl YEARS AGO 17 Aquatics 36
500,000YEARS AGO 17
15,000YEARS AGO 17
5000YEARS AGO 18 500 YEARS HENCE
2000YEARS AGO 18
1000YEARS AGO 18 Gram the engineered plains-dweller 37
500YEARS AGO 19 Kule Taaran and the engineered forest-dweller 40
100YEARS AGO 19 Knut theengineered tundra-dweller 42
Relia Hoolannand cultured cradles 43
Fiffe Floriaand the Hitek 43
Carahudru and the woodland-dweller 48
1000 YEARS HENCE
Klimasen and the beginningofchange 48
Theend ofYamo 49
Weather patternsand the Tics 49
Plains-dwellers 52
Hoot, the temperate woodland-dweller 52
TheendofDurian Skeel 53
Aquas 54
2000 YEARS HENCE 1MILLION YEARS HENCE
Rumm theforest-dweller 56 Hunters and carriers 87
Larn the plains-dweller 58 Aquatic harvesters 90
Coom's newfriend 60
Yerokand the Tool 61
2 MILLION YEARS HENCE
5000 YEARS HENCE Travellers 93
Hi\'ers 96
Trancer's escape 62
Snatch and the tundra-dweller 63
Hrusha's memory 64 3 MILLION YEARS HENCE
Tropical tree-dwellers 66
Fish-eaters 101
Tree-dwellers 106
10,000 YEARS HENCE Antmen 107
Desert-runners 108
Symbionrs 67 Slothmen and spiketooths 111
Hibernators 69
Leaderofthe clan 70
Disappearanceofthe plains 71 5 MILLION YEARS HENCE
Cave-dwellers 71
Movingstars 115
Builders 116
50,000 YEARS HENCE Emptiness 123
In theend is the beginning... 123
Families ofplains-dwellers 72
Theadvancingdesert 73 Further Reading 124
Islanders 74
Schoolsofaquatics 75
Melting ice 76
500,000 YEARS HENCE
Stringsofsocials 78
Boatbuilders 83
FOREWORD by Brian Aldiss
Ithas becomenecessary to look intothefuture. proceeded in orbitaboutthe sun. These perceptionswere
There must have been a time, long past, when animals overlaidby superstition.
muchlikeapeslooked up intothe nightskyandwondered Greek reasoning was based on careful observation, a
about the stars: what those pinpoints of light were, and quality in which the Dark Ages and Middle Ages were
whattheywerefor. Onlyabriefwhileafterthat,theapelike weak. The mental world became smaller. Not until the
thingsacquiredlanguage;thenstoriesbegantobetold,and Renaissance in the fifteenth century did learning revive.
fantasies woven about the stars overhead. That cluster LeonardodaVinci,forinstance,studiedfossilsandunder
resembledahunterand,highabove, theoutlinesofagreat stoodtheirorigins.Heexplainswhyleavesarefoundwhole
bear could be discerned. Such stories, told in the Pleisto amongrocks:
cene dark, keptthe bogeymanaway.
There the mud caused by the successive inundations has
Animals have no interest in stars. First speculations
covered them over, and then this mud grows into one mass
regarding the stars represented a revolution in thought.
together with the aforesaid paste, and becomes changed into
Speculations about the future, such as this book, mark
successive layers ofstone which correspond with the layers of
another revolution.
mud.
Futurespeculationisofveryrecentorigin. Yettodayno
man can call himselfcultured who does not occasionally But Leonardo did not know the age ofthe Earth and, in
look beyond his own lifetime and his children's, ifonly to any case, accretion of knowledge is as much subject to
worryaboutwherethecancerousgrowthofworld popula chanceand the processesoftimeas thefossils themselves.
tionisgoing.DougalDixon'sbookisanambitiousattempt Homodiluviitestissurvivedasafantasyforawhile,asPilt
to viewafuture as far distantfrom us as those ramapithe down Man was to do later; they were, so to say, phantom
cinecreatureswhosefragmentary remains turnupinAfri fossils.
canfossil beds. One ofthe difficulties in the way ofunderstanding the
Theabilityto lookintothefuture isarecently-acquired past was that for centuries the past remained obdurately
skill. Ithas, infact, all beendone bymirrors: there was no and orthodoxly small. Religion got in the viewfinder. A
seeingintothefuture until wecouldsee intothepast. Itis wall rather like the walls of Jericho was built about an
the ever-changing panorama of past time which we tiquity by Archbishop Ussher, a seventeenth-century
extrapolate intofuture time. divine, who, after acareful studyofthe Bible, proclaimed
Thebusinessofcomprehendingbygoneageswasahard that the world beganon26October,4004BC, round about
lesson to learn. Fossils, those coinages of past life, were breakfast time. Precision is attractive; Ussher's calcula
always of interest to mankind. They are mentioned by tions becamedogma.
Greek writers, for instance, and certainly Herodotus The'wallsofJericho' begintocrumbleatthebeginning
recognized themas beingthe remainsofonce-livingcrea ofthenineteenthcentury.Whatmadethemcrumblewasa
tures, understanding that theirpresence in the mountains tooth,retrievedfromapileofrubbleinLewes,Sussex,bya
of Upper Egypt was evidence that those areas had pre youngMrsMantell,wifeofadoctor GideonMantell.The
viouslybeenunderwater. Lucretius,too, in hiswonderful Mantells took the tooth to the learned and eccentric Wil
DeRerumNatura, poursscornonsupernaturaleffectsand liamBuckland ofOxford, a man who ate his way through
speaks of the Earth as having 'generated every living the animal kingdom and had gobbled down the heart of
speciesandoncebroughtforthfromitswombthebodiesof RichardCoeurdeLion. Buckland was a little weak on the
huge beasts'. Mantelliantooth. Aftersomeresearchofhisown,Mantell
The light of reason did not always shine. Huge fossil namedtheerstwhilepossessorofhis tooth Iguanodon.
boneslatergavebirth(orsowemaysurmise)tothelegend Buckland, meanwhile, discovered another tooth near
ofgiantswalkingtheEarth.TheperceptionsoftheGreeks Oxford, togetherwithotherremains,andnamed thefossil
were forgotten. Eratosthenes, some time in the third cen Megalosaurus.
tury BC, understood well that the Earth is round, and Thus were the first two dinosaurs named. It was not
measured itscircumferencewith remarkableaccuracy, for until 1842 that RichardOwen defined these newly
the latitude of Alexandria. Aristarchus of Samos, in the discoveredanimalsasadistinctgroupoflargereptiles,and
same period, proposed that the Earth and other planets bestowed on them the label Dinosauria. A powerful new
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idea, a new dimension ofimagination, had been born. By Thatpreciousbookisstillinmypossession. Itwaspub
the time ofthe Great Exhibition in 1851, dinosaurs had lished in about 1933 (no actual date printed). Nowhere
becomecommonproperty,andthenotionofanimalslarger doesitgivetheagesofthevariousepochsofpasthistory. A
than elephants trundling about what became English question mark still hung over that subject in the years
wateringplaceshadcaughtthe popularfancy. before carbon-datingand an understandingofthenuclear
Meanwhile, conceptions of the age of the Earth were natureofthesun. Inonelifetimewehaveprogressedfrom
beingpushedoutatagreatrate. Itspeltthefallofthehouse that grey area to knowing (or believingwe know) how the
of Ussher. Evolutionary theories were current in the universe itself came into being - though some doubt
eighteenth century, for instance in the proposals, many of remainsaboutthefirst few seconds ofthatevent.
themcharmingly rhymed, ofErasmusDarwin. In his The Untilwecouldlookintothepast, untilthepastwasseen
Temple of Nature (1803), he depicts with considerable as a story ofcontinuous development or change, with the
accuracy the pageant oflife from its beginnings until the mutability of species which that implied, the future
arrivalofmankind. remainedblank. Itgavenocrediblereflection.Thiswecan
Darwin's couplets are often neat and memorable, as he seeifwereadromancesofthefuturepenned beforeevolu
intendedtheyshouldbe.Theformationofstrataofchalkis tionary theory became a reality in human minds. Futures
expressedinastrikingimage: werelike thepresentbutmoreso.
MaryShelley's TheLastManof1826,forinstance,isset
Ageafterage expands thepeopledplain,
at the end ofthe twenty-first century. It is a bold stroke,
Thetenantsperish, buttheircellsremain.
andsomeplayismadewithtravelbyairballoonandrevo
Erasmus Darwin celebrated limestone mountains as lutioninEngland;buttheTurksarestillcausingtroubleat
'mighty monuments of past delight', thus in some way the eastern end ofEurope. When a plague commences to
lookingaheadtoJimLovelock'sGaiatheoryofthetotality wipe outallofhumanity, noattemptis made to introduce
ofterrestrial lifeas ahomeostaticorganism. innoculation or vaccination, although that would have
WhatErasmusDarwinlackedwas proofofhis theories, been a reasonable proposition in the 1820s. The novel is
thetoothfoundbyMrsMantellandalltheotherevidences full ofinterestingreflections; but the motive powerwhich
ofremoteand continuous lifeovermillionsofyears which evolutioncould supplyis absent.
soon followed Owen's first christening. As geology kept It was notuntil 1895thatreaders couldtakeup thefirst
pushing back the age ofthe rocks, it was the testimony of novel to be formed by evolutionary thought, as a waffle is
those rocks which supported the theory ofevolution pre shapedbythepatternofthewaffleiron. The TimeMachine
sentedbyErasmus'grandson,CharlesDarwin. Therehad was written byapupilofThomasHuxley, Darwin'sgreat
to be enough time in which the whole great drama oflife protagonist, H.G.Wells. In this marvellous narration,
could be staged. Palaeontology gradually won- by a long Wells sketches out aeons offuture time. It is part ofhis
and painstaking accumulation of facts by numerous design that- unlike the epochs in The Treasury ofKnow
people, learnedand notsolearned. ledge - everything has a date. The date at which the time
Wenowknowthatlifeontheplanetis nolessthan 2500 travellereventuallyarrives is 802,701: not, infact, acred
million years old, whereas the ageofthe Earth is accepted ibledatefortheendoftheEarthbytoday'sstandards,but
as beingsomethingmore than 4500million years. one well designed to seem reasonable to the book's first
Itwas my goodfortune as aboyofsevento begiven an readers, who had enough other marvels to cope with.
imposing volume entitled The Treasury of Knowledge. Indeed,itisdifficulttorealizenowjusthowsubversivethe
There for the first time I learned ofevolution and ofthe bookmusthaveseemedtomanyatthat date,for agloomy
agesprecedingours. SoenamouredwasIofthestoryofthe picture indeed is painted ofthe bifurcation ofsociety into
creation of the solar system, of the dawn of life, of the MorlockandEloi towhichVictoriansocietyisdepictedas
dinosaurs,andofthoseearlymen-likeus,unlikeus- that heading. Evolution is shown as not working on behalfof
Igavelessonsonthesubjectwhenatpreparatoryschool,at mankind, as was then popularlyimagined.
one penny a time. Although I do not recollect ever being And,ofcourse,ourspeciesisshownasmutable,astran
paid, I recall the pleasure we all had drawing bronto sitory.
saurusesandshaggyNeanderthalmen. As the time traveller travels through time into adistant
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future, he observes that 'The whole surface ofthe earth sohefinds hisdietpalatableandnourishing. Buttheques
seemed changed - melting and flowing under my eyes'. tion arisesinourminds: dowenotfind alittlefrightening
ThisisamanwhohasreadSirCharlesLyell'sPrinciplesof andalienthisinheritorofourworld- andwheredidallthe
Geology. 'Isawgreatandsplendidarchitecturerisingabout toastand marmaladego?
me,moremassivethananybuildingsofourowntime,and Weourselveslike- need- acoarsementaldiet. Wepass
yet, it seemed, built ofglimmer and mist.' It is not only forhuman,butperhapsonlyamongourselves.Partofusis
man's achievements, but mankind itself, which proves sanebut,attimesofcrisis,andnotonlythen,aninstinctive
transitory, athingofglimmerandmist. drive takesover. We seektosetasidethehuman aspectby
Without a fresh understanding ofthe past, without its use ofdrink, drugs and othermeans ofescape, as ifbeing
decipherment, The Time Machine could not have been humanwasasyettoomuchforus. Wehaveaheartyappe
written;or, ifwritten, could nothave beendeciphered. titefor apocalypse, as the historyofthe twentieth century
Followingon from Wells, we have had many visions of shows.
thefuture. Whethermechanical,trivial,orprofound,they Withthisappetitegoesanobsessionwiththefuture. The
allrestonthefindingsofthenineteenthcentury;allworkas futures we visualize are generally dystopian. Dixon's is
reflections ofourunderstandingofthe precedingmillions science-based, but proves distinctly ahuman. Sombre, I
ofyears. wouldcallit. Andsombrewasalsoawordthatoccurredto
As much is true of Dougal Dixon's book. Yet it Thomas Hardywhen heconsideredthe changeintasteof
impressesmeasbeingstartlinglyoriginal,perhapsthepro our modern age. Hardy was a pall-bearer at Darwin's fu
genitorofanewbreed,future-faction. Iteschewsthetrap neral,andhiswritingsaresteepedinevolutionarythought,
pingsoffiction uponwhichWells seized. It presentsitself from A Pair ofBlueEyesto The Dynasts, the greatsuper
asastraightrecordofthefuture, thefutureoverthenext 5 naturaldramahewroteintheearlyyearsofthiscentury. In
millionyears. ItisDarwin,LyellandWellsrolledintoone. The Returnofthe Native, he reflectsonsuchmatters:
They would like this book, and be horrified by it: for we
Menhaveoftenersufferedfromthemockeryofaplacetoosmil
have, after all, travelled a long way since their day, and
ingfor their reason than from the oppression ofsurroundings
supped on horrors beyond their resources. We have lived
oversadly tinged. Haggard Egdon appealed to a subtler and
through an age (well, menfelt much the same in 1000AD,
scarcer instinct, to a more recently learnt emotion, than that
though for different reasons) when we have almost daily
whichrespondstothesortofbeautycalledcharmingandfair.
expected the world to beterminated.
Indeed,itisaquestion iftheexclusivereignofthisorthodox
So here is the mutability, with human flesh a thing of
beautyisnotapproachingitslastquarter.... Humansoulsmay
glimmerandmist.ManAfterManisadramaoftheoncotic
find themselves in harmony closer and closer with external
pressure oftime on tissue. Dixon does not tell us ofthe
thingswearingasombrenessdistasteful toourracewhen itwas
thingshiscaravanseraiofcreaturesbelievesandthinks;itis
young.Thetimeseemsnear, ifithasnotactuallyarrived,when
enough thatwe know what theyeat. Forone ofthe revel
thechastenedsublimityofamoor,asea,oramountainwillbeall
ationsbroughthomebyevolutionarytheoryisthatwearea
of nature that is absolutely in keeping with the moods ofthe
partofthefoodchain,alongwithpigs,broilerfowlsandthe
morethinkingamongmankind.
tasty locust.
Ofcoursetheprospectismelancholyaswellasfascinat Hardythereshowshispropheticsense.Wemightgoonto
ing. This is one ofthe characteristics offuturology. After saythatchroniclesofchangewhichimpressonusthetran
all, weare lookingataperiod longafterourown insignifi sitory nature of our lives and our civilization are also in
cantindividualdeaths.Everythingweareaskedtoconsider keeping with the mood of the present. The current
herereinforcesthefactthatourworldandallwecherishin obsessionwith thefuture may also pass away in time; but
itisgone. WeareonewithTutankhamunandArchbishop for now- justfor now- DougalDixonhas the rightidea.
Ussher. Otherbeings possessthefield.
Consider Knut who, Dixon tells us, lives a mere
500yearsfrom now. Knut'sseemsalonelylife. Helivesin
a wilderness of tundra. He subsists on a diet of mosses,
lichens,heathers,andcoarsegrasses.Hehasbeenadapted,
10