Response to Film of Knowing

The film The Fifth Beginning: What Six Million Years of Human History Can Tell Us

About the Future, focuses on Robert Kelly, an anthropologist and professor at the University of

Wyoming, and his beliefs about how research from the past can help us understand where we are

as a society. He starts by explaining how anthropologists study time, and time is defined by the

things that were popular/prominent at the time. An example of this is the stone age or the bronze

age. Both these slices of time are defined by the objects that were important at the time. By

studying the change in objects, anthropologists can see how the organization of human society

shifted. The first beginning is the origins of technology, before humans were fully developed

from their primat form. Stone weapons were formed and this marked the beginning of a culture

shift. These tools are indicators that the beings at that time used them to hunt and gather.

The second beginning marked the origins of culture. Art from this period is up to 200,000

years old, which is significant because the art must have meant something to someone. This

showed a change in human development. Through archaeological discoveries of burial rituals,

we can see that people at this time cared for their dead loved ones, and believed in some kind of

spiritual life. At this point, humans were able to think about the world symbolically rather than

solely physically, like in the previous beginning. The third beginning was the beginning of

agriculture, when modern humans came from the continent of Africa and dispersed throughout

the Earth. Before human colonization of the Earth, hunter-gatherer lifestyles were popular.

Afterwards, agriculture and larger villages started to appear, with different types of structures and

domesticated plants.

The fourth beginning was the origin of states, art, science, and architecture. This is

important because it is the first time in history that inequality becomes an issue, as well as
poverty, slavery and war. Class systems are formed, and society begins to organize itself in a

hierarchical way. All of these ideas were foreign to hunter-gatherer societies, and only occurred

when political states were formed. When Kelly began talking about the present and where we are

as a society, it made me reflect on how much has changed in my lifetime and how much more it

will change in the future. We are currently dealing with the cost of war, the economic effects of

global capitalism, and the cultural effects of globalization. This is the fifth beginning, as he calls

it. He noted that this shaft can be traced back to the end of World War 2. Archaeologists in the

future would notice the 15,000+ shipwrecks following World War 2, and would be able to date

these wrecks back to the 1900s. I liked his example about how many objects are floating around

Earth, and how future researchers will be able to tell that humans and society as a whole was

involved in space exploration.

The most impactful part of this film was when he brought up technology, like cellphones

and the internet. I did not realize iPhones had only been around for about ten years since there

have consistently been new phones on the market every year for a majority of my life. Lately

there have been a lot of videos spreading on TikTok informing people of the modern day slavery

happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo. People mine cobalt daily in order to supply the

market with rechargeable batteries for phones, laptops, and electric cars. They are paid very little

for their work, despite the dangerous and inhumane conditions. As a society we are actively

witnessing the cost of war. The United States has continued to fund the Israel Defense Force

despite Americans calling for a ceasefire across the country. Technology has been a tool to shed

light on the injustices happening in Gaza, thanks to the journalists that continue to post updates

online.