Monsters, Group Identity, and The Ancient World Monsters have been thought to be of ancestral origin to mankind in ancient ​times, which implies that monsters were considered predecessors of humans. As the professor of anthropology at Brook University, David D. Gilmore, notes ​“the​ monsters of the archaic civilizations are both the predecessors and the progenitors of modern humans and thus are closely related” (Gilmore 148). Gilmore implies that in the older civilizations, it was believed that monsters evolved into humans and were closely related to them. But t​hese beliefs​ ​pre-existed the modern-day acceptance of evolutionary theory, so modern historians must grapple with the question of how to interpret this belief system. Did ancient societies literally believe that their progenitors were monsters, or did the monsters signify something about humans through symbolic means?​ The latter notion is partly acceptable as humans and supposed monsters share many traits with each other Another similarity between human and monsters is shown through emotional connections. Humans possess emotions such as fear and terror, ​and ​the monsters are associated with the emo ...
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