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ghosts of cavemen

A

Anonymous

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I HAVE NEVER HEARED OF ANY GHOST SIGHTINGS OF EARLY OR PRIMATIVE MAN -IF GHOSTS ARE REAL THEN THIS TROUBLES ME.
ANY THOUGHTS FORTEANS?
 
Good point. Perhaps ghosts "wear out" like tape recordings?
What's the oldest ghost anyone can think of?
 
Maybe they have been reincarnated many times, with each new incarnation and death, their ghosts get updated.
 
There are a few 'Ghosts of Roman Legions' about the UK. 1900 years and counting....
 
or maybe the way the haunting manifests changes. Going from say, a visual experience to an experience that can be related to empathically. Haunted landscapes and stuff.
 
As a kid I read in a 'True Tales Of The Weird And Totally Spooky' type book about an archaeologist who dreamed about a cave he was excavating.

He's supposed to have 'seen' a young caveyouth/cavegirl couple sneak off for some cavebabymaking only to be crushed by a sudden rockfall. (Yes, the earth moved.)

He dug in the spot he'd dreamed of and discovered wonderful cave paintings and other evidence of early human occupation, but sadly no skeletons.

I read this as 'Wild But True', though I unfortunately cannot produce a source.
 
I recently read about an Ancient Briton type ghost, mounted on a pony. I think it was in Peter Haining's Gazetteer of British Ghosts. I'll check and report back.

Carole
 
Has anyone seen a naked ghost? Ever?

Surely my spirit would not be wearing jeans and a red sweatshirt, should I happen to die in the next few hours? If so, why? I have a wardrobe full of clothes. What happens? Do I get to pick my favourite outfit? Is there a Gap beyond this earthly gap?

Surely if ghosts are real, and are the spirits of the dead, they would be buck nekkid? As a jay bird. In the all together. Birthday suit. Or, they wouldn't look like humans at all (being made up of ethereal spirit matter).

I don't understand how things like chariots, armour, clothing and the like get to be ghosts. Unless they have souls (as Mr Devereux touches on in his article).

(Readers of the recent Tarot thread will be aware that the spirits have instructed me, via a card reader, to smarten up my image with expensive new clothes - so you'll have to forgive me for taking umbrage.);)
 
Maybe cavemen's consciouness was different / less developed from our own, so they don't cast the psychic shadows needed to make ghosts.
 
But, Chatsubo, there are instances of animal ghosts . . .

Carole
 
I especially liked the one about Francis Bacon's plucked chicken ghost.
 
In my view Ghosts seem to be the right proportion to their time frame. There don't seem to be any reported cave ghosts but their was also very few cave people. Where as there were more Victorians, for example, and hence we hear of a lot more Victorian ghosts.

As for clothes, I've always wonderd why we see bodys as surly these were the things we buried. From this we can learn a lot about the nature of Ghosts. They must be more some kind of mental projection rather than actual souls coming back to visit us.
 
perhaps Yeti and Bigfoot are ghosts of cavemen, but then this throws up the thouht of what amkes humans so specail that they seem to be the only creature that has a ghost. In evolution when does a creature have the right to spawn a ghost? this has to be the case as ive never seen or heard about any ghost monkeys running around africa with sharpend sticks.

carole said:
But, Chatsubo, there are instances of animal ghosts . . .

Carole

just because there have been reports of animal ghosts doesnt mean that they should be taken seriously. If there where such things as animal ghosts just look at the ammount of pigs cows and chickens killed each day for food, wouldnt the law of averages mean that the slaughter houses where millions are killed per year be infested with animal ghosts?
 
Both the Hooting Tor case and The Horseman of Bottlebrush Down seem to relate to Bronze Age (or earlier) hauntings.

I'd elaborate further, but I'm finding it increasingly satisfying to make obscure references with no backup.
 
Another sourceless contribution

There's one account from an archaeologist who was badly spooked by a hairy 'something' in a barrow. Honest, I read it somewhere.

Of course the real reason that people don't see ghosts of cavemen, and why ghosts are clothed is that the appearance of ghosts is culture specific.

See, for example 'Appearances Of The Dead - a cultural history of ghosts' by R.C. Finnucane (Junction 1982)
 
You are right wintermute, almost every culture that has evolved on earth has ghosts but the way they are perceived can be completely different.
 
Yes Tang-mallow, perhaps it's not what the ghost actually looks like that we see, rather what we think we should see?
On another note, you question of animal ghosts. My brother, when he was very young, said he saw a man walk into our upstairs toilet surrounded by pigs! We did find out latter that the area used to be farmland. I suppose quite a lot of inhabited areas now were once farmland but there were also a few other 'haunting' instances, also heard by neighbours, in that particular address.
Anyway, cavemen. Maybe there are no/very few/ cavemen hauntings because of the way they were burried? They were a lot more elobarate in how they positioned the body, where it was placed, adornments, personal effects, and such, than more modern techniques?
 
Remember the Roman Legionaire ghosts that were only visable from the knees up? (no I don't have backup, sorry). The rest of the ghosts was underground because the ground level had risen in the intervening years. All the troglodite ghosts would be well underground. Ghost fossils, if you will. :)
 
beakboo said:
Remember the Roman Legionaire ghosts that were only visable from the knees up? (no I don't have backup, sorry). The rest of the ghosts was underground because the ground level had risen in the intervening years. All the troglodite ghosts would be well underground. Ghost fossils, if you will. :)

how do they know the other ghosts where underground? did someone did a hole and look down there at them? :blah:
also if there are such things as ghost i highly doubt that there would be legions of roman soldiers walking about together as there seems to be no set way to die and become a ghost, it almost seems like a random occurance with humans so why would a whole legion become a army of ghosts? I dont think there are many instances of whole legions of roman soldiers being killed in British history (i could be wrong) so would that mean that they all ganged up together later on in heaven or something and are going on marches for nostalgic reasons only? perhaps they had to wait another 20 years for their centurian to die off in rome or something.
I doubt mass ghost sightings.
 
Tang, there are several cases in British history of the mass-death of Roman Legonnaires. In the conquest many hundreds must have been killed in battle subduing the natives, for example the attack on Cadbury castle in Somerset (The castle also has 'camelot' legends attached to it, rather nicely).

There are also several encounters with groups of apparent ghosts on the Civil War battlefields of Sedgemoor and Edgehill, in fact for several years after one of the battles, the eintire encounter was supposed to be re-anacted in the sky, and is fairly well documented for the time (sorry haven't got time to dig it out at the moment). Groups of phantom nurses and wounded soldiers have been seen on the ww2 pacific battle sites of Corregidor.
 
tang-malow said:
just because there have been reports of animal ghosts doesnt mean that they should be taken seriously. If there where such things as animal ghosts just look at the ammount of pigs cows and chickens killed each day for food, wouldnt the law of averages mean that the slaughter houses where millions are killed per year be infested with animal ghosts?

And by the same reasoning, therefore, if millions of people are killed, we would be seeing the ghost of every dead person that ever lived . . . Auschwitz, for example, would be overflowing with unhappy spirits . . .


QUOTE]Originally posted by tang-malow
how do they know the other ghosts where underground? did someone did a hole and look down there at them? :blah:
also if there are such things as ghost i highly doubt that there would be legions of roman soldiers walking about together as there seems to be no set way to die and become a ghost, it almost seems like a random occurance with humans so why would a whole legion become a army of ghosts? I dont think there are many instances of whole legions of roman soldiers being killed in British history (i could be wrong) so would that mean that they all ganged up together later on in heaven or something and are going on marches for nostalgic reasons only? perhaps they had to wait another 20 years for their centurian to die off in rome or something.
I doubt mass ghost sightings. [/quote]

The Roman ghosts which Beakboo refers to were seen by a workman in York working in a cellar (some time in the 1950s, I believe). They appeared through a wall, and proceeded out through the opposite wall, all were seen only from the knees up, which suggested that they were walking on an earlier, lower, floor level. It is a well authenticated sighting and I have a book at home which I will refer to if you require further backup.

Carole
 
Here it is, I found it in ‘A Dictionary of Ghosts’ by Peter Haining.

He describes the ghost “of the Stone Age man who gallops on horseback across Cranbourne Chase in Dorset.” The ghost “clad in fur skins rides his shaggy mount without bridle or stirrups and brandishes what looks like a stone axe in his hand. The . . . ghost is usually seen in the vicinity of the Roman road to Old Sarum, although he has been reported near the prehistoric camp site on the Chase, and this has led to the suggestion that he is the soul of a warrior who once dwelt in the camp.”

My edition of the book is dated 1982, but I don’t know if any sightings have been reported more recently.

Carole
 
Thanks for that carole.
If this is a true case it would then rule out the possibilities of some of the hauntings i have heard/read about. For instance hauntings on animate objects such as trains and boats. If the ghost is imprinted into the area in which it has died then surely the ghosts of these boats would be floating in midair somewhere in the pacific as they would pass thru the hull of the boat.
Also if there are indeed cavemen i guess their spirits must be walking around about 30 feet under us.


:eek!!!!:
 
tang-malow said:
Also if there are indeed cavemen i guess their spirits must be walking around about 30 feet under us.

:eek!!!!:

That's a point worth considering - especially if the Roman ghosts were seen 'knee deep', possible earlier ghosts could well be 'deeper'.

Carole
 
Hi folks.

I think that the theory that most ghost sightings are evidence of a kind of psychic "resonance" attached to a place, as opposed to a detached spirit wandering around, is probably the most relevant to this discussion; after all, most credible ghost sightings tend to be associated with places and things that have been built - ie houses, castles, roads - right? (Please do correct me if I'm wrong). I don't think that there are that many caves, huts or settlements around now - they'll all have been long knocked down and built over, whereas we have tons of 17th- and 18th-century buildings around, hence the prevalence of sightings of ghosts from that period. Tang-Malow mentioned this already - perhaps the imprint remains on the boat/train instead of the geographical location (in which case, if anyone has a paperweight carved from a bit of obsidian that once formed part of the wall of a lived-in cave, don't be too surprised if you find a spectral Neanderthal sitting on your desk picking nits out of his or her mane)

I think that Cursed's point about clothes, armour etc. might be something to do with this as well. We can take it pretty much as read that clothes don't die with us, so why shouldn't all reported ghosts be naked? If you imagine that the unfortunate departed leaves some kind of imprint upon a place when they die, and the impression comes from their mind as opposed to their "soul", then the image that remains will be clothed, as we don't tend to have a mental image of ourselves as walking around naked (or at least I don't). AdamRang - I don't personally belive that there is any mental "projection" involved, I think it's more like the mark you get on your TV if you put a magnet too close to it.
 
What about the possibility that a ghost is left not by the person who is seen but by a witness who was in some way disposed to record the impression of the moment. That would explain mass sightings, recreated battles and so on. It may be that everyone is able to create these impressions but you have to be very like the person who created it to receive it. This could even relate to a perceived/objective time distinction.

I quite like that idea, but I did only just think of it, so I won't be sad when everyone points out the big huge holes in it.
 
Naked spooks

On the topic of ghosts being seen naked:

It seems like there are a variety of ghosts. Ones that are aware of us, ones that aren't aware of us, and ones that act out things that happened in their life. I'm sure there are other broad categories...but here are possible explanations for the ones listed above:

Some ghosts are said to haunt their favorite places in life. Wouldn't it make sense that they would choose to wear clothes that they liked in life as well? Just a thought.

Or, they could be doomed to wear the same outfit that they died in forever. (Another reason to dress well often).

And, another theory is that ghosts are an imprint on a location where something extremely emotional happened. An imprint, to me, would be like a photograph...hence the ghosts that act out their deaths or day-to-day activities that they performed in life. If they are just projections of something that has already happened, the clothes that they were wearing at that time would be projected as well.
 
I can remember watching a program on the tv which told a story about a fort that was haunted. The only thing is this fort was recently made (about 30 years ago) but the materials used for the foundations and some of the walls came from a real fort which was the scene of a bloody battle in whihc an army was trapped inside while another army waited out side for them to come out. Needless to say the army inside died a horrible painful death as disease and hunger was rampant. So this program went on to say that the ghosts had some how followed the bricks cannons etc that where used in the rebuild of the fort. Quite interesting and would give strength to the possibility that ghosts attach themselves to objects such as stone and cannons, one of the paranormal investigators said he thinks ghosts have a lot to do with high emotional times and people which leave inprint in the time continuim which plays over and over like a vcr.
After writing this i think its the last time ill go to an antique store and buy something in fear of buying more that i thought.
 
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