Successful cavemen were serial killers
There’s a serial killer lurking inside you.
That’s one of the provocative theories outlined by author Peter Vronsky in his authoritative tome, “Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers from the Stone Age to the Present.”
“Sons of Cain” takes readers from Stone Age brutality, to the “werewolves” and “vampires” whose exploits of rape, murder, necrophilia and cannibalism were memorialized in European folklore, to the atrocities of Ed Kemper and Jeffrey Dahmer.
In addition to vividly cataloging 17,000 years of pathological homicide, Vronksy, the author of 2004’s seminal “Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters,” explores why people can’t seem to get enough of butchering each other.
Perhaps the most chilling prospect that Vronsky’s 432-page volume raises is his convincing argument that all humans are genetically hardwired to become serial killers — and have to be “unmade” into law-abiding citizens.
Mother Nature, according to Vronsky, intended “all of us” to be unrepentant murderers in the wild before civilization took shape, as being adept at violence was a prerequisite for survival in the wild. In his book, Vronksy outlines a theory of the brain first proposed in the 1960s by Yale University neuroscientist Paul MacLean.
Driving the murderous impulse is a small knot at the base of the brain called the basal ganglia, also known as the R-complex or the “reptilian brain.”
“Like an archaeological site, our brains consist of temporal layers, three separate brains from different eras of our evolutionary past, stacked and wired together in parallel loops, each layer more ancient and primitive than the next,” Vronsky writes. “The resulting whole is called the triune brain.”
This most primitive part of our brain regulates “self- and species-preserving behaviors,” including the “four Fs” of evolutionary survival: fleeing, fighting, feeding and f–king. If any of those instincts goes astray, that species will ultimately become extinct, Vronsky writes.
“When food was scarce in the Stone Age, we sometimes combined what we killed in fear and anger with what we killed for food, and sometimes even with what we had sex with,” Vronsky continues. “In times of distress, combat, conquest or famine, our species easily slipped into a mindless, instinctual cocktail of sexualized aggression, cannibalism and necrophilia.”
The second part of the brain — the paleomammalian complex, or limbic system — regulates emotion and long-term memory, as well as sensory and motor functions
who do, it is obvious that a lot can go wrong when you have three cerebral systems working with one another, each more archaic than the last,” Vronsky continues. “One short circuit, and the whole thing can go spinning homicidally out of control, with the primitive, reptilian brain doing what it has no business doing: taking control of the limbic system.”
During a recent interview with The Post, Vronsky expanded on his nightmarish theory.
“Humans have not been around that long as civilized beings,” Vronsky told The Post. “It may sound like a lot — 12,000 to 15,000 years — but actually it’s a microsecond in the human clock, even of our own species. Us not being serial killers is actually a very recent phenomenon. We had to be that for so long and I think that’s what that is: In these pathological serial killers, you have kind of sparking of that primordial, reptilian brain that has not been completely phased out of our biology.”
So the savagery of the Stone Age lurks within us all?
“Absolutely,” Vronsky continued. “It lurks and it’s coded into our DNA. It’s like a bug in an updated piece of software. Every once in a while that bug pops up and it’s like an obsolete piece of coding, essentially.”
For at least 100,000 years, Homo sapiens existed in a “natural state” of cannibalism, rape, murder and then simply running away, Vronsky said.
“That’s all,” he told The Post. “We spent the whole day doing just that, and nothing but that.”
A “total-war death clash” between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens left the latter as the only humanoid species on Earth about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, but the price that humanity paid was very steep, according to Vronsky.
“Our brains had to be hardwired to sustain that kind of constant homicidal aggression toward ‘others’ through countless generations,” Vronsky writes. “Rather than temporarily condition ourselves for war or train to become warriors for a few months or even a few years, as we do today, in the Stone Age we had to kill and kill constantly, for tens of thousands of years, as a way of life, until we emerged as an unchallenged (serial killing) species.”
Vronsky’s titular reference to the biblical account of Cain murdering his brother, Abel, in the book of Genesis is a play on the idea that all humans may carry Cain’s “homicidal mark.”
“Essentially, we’re all sons of Cain,” Vronsky told The Post. “We were all Cain back then and some interpret the parable of Cain and Abel as just a vestige of our war between Homo sapiens and the Neanderthal. That’s actually what that parable in the Bible is expressing.
“So in that sense, all serial killers — and all of us, really — are the sons of Cain because at that time, we all were Cain. That’s what humans are; we’re not Abel, we’re Cain. Abel is extinct now.”
There’s a serial killer lurking inside you.
That’s one of the provocative theories outlined by author Peter Vronsky in his authoritative tome, “Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers from the Stone Age to the Present.”
“Sons of Cain” takes readers from Stone Age brutality, to the “werewolves” and “vampires” whose exploits of rape, murder, necrophilia and cannibalism were memorialized in European folklore, to the atrocities of Ed Kemper and Jeffrey Dahmer.
In addition to vividly cataloging 17,000 years of pathological homicide, Vronksy, the author of 2004’s seminal “Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters,” explores why people can’t seem to get enough of butchering each other.
Perhaps the most chilling prospect that Vronsky’s 432-page volume raises is his convincing argument that all humans are genetically hardwired to become serial killers — and have to be “unmade” into law-abiding citizens.
Mother Nature, according to Vronsky, intended “all of us” to be unrepentant murderers in the wild before civilization took shape, as being adept at violence was a prerequisite for survival in the wild. In his book, Vronksy outlines a theory of the brain first proposed in the 1960s by Yale University neuroscientist Paul MacLean.
Driving the murderous impulse is a small knot at the base of the brain called the basal ganglia, also known as the R-complex or the “reptilian brain.”
“Like an archaeological site, our brains consist of temporal layers, three separate brains from different eras of our evolutionary past, stacked and wired together in parallel loops, each layer more ancient and primitive than the next,” Vronsky writes. “The resulting whole is called the triune brain.”
This most primitive part of our brain regulates “self- and species-preserving behaviors,” including the “four Fs” of evolutionary survival: fleeing, fighting, feeding and f–king. If any of those instincts goes astray, that species will ultimately become extinct, Vronsky writes.
“When food was scarce in the Stone Age, we sometimes combined what we killed in fear and anger with what we killed for food, and sometimes even with what we had sex with,” Vronsky continues. “In times of distress, combat, conquest or famine, our species easily slipped into a mindless, instinctual cocktail of sexualized aggression, cannibalism and necrophilia.”
The second part of the brain — the paleomammalian complex, or limbic system — regulates emotion and long-term memory, as well as sensory and motor functions
who do, it is obvious that a lot can go wrong when you have three cerebral systems working with one another, each more archaic than the last,” Vronsky continues. “One short circuit, and the whole thing can go spinning homicidally out of control, with the primitive, reptilian brain doing what it has no business doing: taking control of the limbic system.”
During a recent interview with The Post, Vronsky expanded on his nightmarish theory.
“Humans have not been around that long as civilized beings,” Vronsky told The Post. “It may sound like a lot — 12,000 to 15,000 years — but actually it’s a microsecond in the human clock, even of our own species. Us not being serial killers is actually a very recent phenomenon. We had to be that for so long and I think that’s what that is: In these pathological serial killers, you have kind of sparking of that primordial, reptilian brain that has not been completely phased out of our biology.”
So the savagery of the Stone Age lurks within us all?
“Absolutely,” Vronsky continued. “It lurks and it’s coded into our DNA. It’s like a bug in an updated piece of software. Every once in a while that bug pops up and it’s like an obsolete piece of coding, essentially.”
For at least 100,000 years, Homo sapiens existed in a “natural state” of cannibalism, rape, murder and then simply running away, Vronsky said.
“That’s all,” he told The Post. “We spent the whole day doing just that, and nothing but that.”
A “total-war death clash” between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens left the latter as the only humanoid species on Earth about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, but the price that humanity paid was very steep, according to Vronsky.
“Our brains had to be hardwired to sustain that kind of constant homicidal aggression toward ‘others’ through countless generations,” Vronsky writes. “Rather than temporarily condition ourselves for war or train to become warriors for a few months or even a few years, as we do today, in the Stone Age we had to kill and kill constantly, for tens of thousands of years, as a way of life, until we emerged as an unchallenged (serial killing) species.”
Vronsky’s titular reference to the biblical account of Cain murdering his brother, Abel, in the book of Genesis is a play on the idea that all humans may carry Cain’s “homicidal mark.”
“Essentially, we’re all sons of Cain,” Vronsky told The Post. “We were all Cain back then and some interpret the parable of Cain and Abel as just a vestige of our war between Homo sapiens and the Neanderthal. That’s actually what that parable in the Bible is expressing.
“So in that sense, all serial killers — and all of us, really — are the sons of Cain because at that time, we all were Cain. That’s what humans are; we’re not Abel, we’re Cain. Abel is extinct now.”
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