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hazelbiteI was inspired to write this sort-of essay from the quote "I am a wizard, not a baboon brandishing a stick". By combining my love of Harry Potter and Anthropology, I have come up with a basic storyline that may or may not be considered a form of obsession for my favorite fandom. I am simply sharing my opinions on how the wizarding world and, indeed, wizards themselves came to be.
What I believe to have happen is it that, through a random mutation sometime during prehistory, the first apelike humans may have been able to harness magic. Here, I will tell the story of Bob, the first of his kind to use magic.
Let’s start with saying that Bob was born with a mutation that allowed him to be able to make things happens, moving objects, and the like. The mutation was nothing physical, he just had certain abilities that allowed him to do these things. Well, Bob, being an early cousin of modern humans (Homo erectus) and already possessing a larger brain like his counterparts and having the ability to walk on two legs, figured out that he could harness his power and control it to do what he wanted. I believe many of this could have been accidental and that he learned from each occurrence. The form of magic that Bob would have used, I think, would have been less refined than that of the modern wizard (by modern, I refer to fully evolved humans, Homo Sapiens, not wizards in the 1990’s).
This advancement could have led to Bob being regarded as a leader by the others. On the other hand, I think it is more likely that his abilities led to him being ‘shunned’ by his group. Therefore, Bob goes off by himself with his abilities. Later on, there are little Bob’s running around, he himself maybe having found another outcast, an outcast without his own abilities, because his mutation was rare enough in the first place. We know from JKR herself, that magic is a dominant gene, all of Bob’s children now have the same abilities themselves and thus it continues on throughout generations. Sometimes, there are squibs, but the majority all have varying degrees of the original abilities that Bob had.
At this point, I assume that these descendants are all living in their own community, inter-mating, and starting the society that would become that of the modern wizarding world. Of course, their society would still have to have some interaction with the ‘muggles’ as they would later be called, with some inter-mating, widening the gene pool, and passing on the dominant genes. There has to be enough interaction between these two groups so that the ‘wizards’ do not evolve into something entirely different. They will still be able to become Homo sapiens along with the rest. Now that there are early humans with these abilities, those born with them are not ‘shunned’ as much as before because it is more common.
Now, I completely skipped over the beginning of wands, which were, of course, sticks. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll just say that maybe one day, Bob had found a stick and was using it to dig up roots for food. More accidental magic and all of a sudden, the stick helps Bob concentrate his magic; it becomes more powerful, easier to control. Bob’s children learn the practice from him and thus begins the use of magic with wands.
I will not discuss how this early society is set up, because that is not my interest. However, we will skip ahead to the beginning of modern humans. This next part, while being the timeline I am most interested in archaeologically speaking, I will only glance over because my original intent was to discuss the beginning of Wizardry.
It’s the beginning of the Stone Age and humans are still hunter-gatherers. Some ‘wizards’ may be called shaman, witch doctors, religious specialists but they still pretty much interact with ‘muggles’. They have the ability to do magic, heal, ‘see’, and perform ceremonies, that sort of thing.
Then comes the Neolithic age, the ‘new’ stone age, the beginning of agriculture, people are starting to form small civilizations, domesticating animals, growing crops, slowly becoming more complex societies. Wizards still lived amongst the muggles, perhaps not as closely as before, but still among them. I don’t see the two societies starting to completely split apart until all that stuff about the bible (which I hardly know anything about and will skip over) when Wizards could be seen as ‘the devil’.
Anyway, I would LOVE to have Bill Weasley’s job, he gets to work in Egypt! There are mentions of ancient Egyptian wizards putting curses on all the old tombs. It’s in Egypt that I think wizards were acknowledged for the longest length of time.
Then there was the Middle Ages, which I’m sure you know the basics of what happened. Paranoia of ‘Witches’, burnings, torture, etc. Only innocent people were ever caught, the real witches and wizards were able to escape by freezing the fire, as we learn in PoA.
Nowadays, we know from canon that Wizards and muggles live in separate worlds but still interact somewhat. Muggles, of course, don’t know about wizards and probably haven’t for a while now, only those muggles who inter-marry with wizards might know.
Now, this essay is not as in depth as I had planned and more will be added whenever I find more information or think of something else. I would love some con. crit. and your opinions of what you thought. This has got to be the most ambitious project for Harry Potter that I’ve ever taken on!
…Now I am wondering if the wizarding world has the magical equivalent to Anthropologists.
♥ Liz
What I believe to have happen is it that, through a random mutation sometime during prehistory, the first apelike humans may have been able to harness magic. Here, I will tell the story of Bob, the first of his kind to use magic.
Let’s start with saying that Bob was born with a mutation that allowed him to be able to make things happens, moving objects, and the like. The mutation was nothing physical, he just had certain abilities that allowed him to do these things. Well, Bob, being an early cousin of modern humans (Homo erectus) and already possessing a larger brain like his counterparts and having the ability to walk on two legs, figured out that he could harness his power and control it to do what he wanted. I believe many of this could have been accidental and that he learned from each occurrence. The form of magic that Bob would have used, I think, would have been less refined than that of the modern wizard (by modern, I refer to fully evolved humans, Homo Sapiens, not wizards in the 1990’s).
This advancement could have led to Bob being regarded as a leader by the others. On the other hand, I think it is more likely that his abilities led to him being ‘shunned’ by his group. Therefore, Bob goes off by himself with his abilities. Later on, there are little Bob’s running around, he himself maybe having found another outcast, an outcast without his own abilities, because his mutation was rare enough in the first place. We know from JKR herself, that magic is a dominant gene, all of Bob’s children now have the same abilities themselves and thus it continues on throughout generations. Sometimes, there are squibs, but the majority all have varying degrees of the original abilities that Bob had.
At this point, I assume that these descendants are all living in their own community, inter-mating, and starting the society that would become that of the modern wizarding world. Of course, their society would still have to have some interaction with the ‘muggles’ as they would later be called, with some inter-mating, widening the gene pool, and passing on the dominant genes. There has to be enough interaction between these two groups so that the ‘wizards’ do not evolve into something entirely different. They will still be able to become Homo sapiens along with the rest. Now that there are early humans with these abilities, those born with them are not ‘shunned’ as much as before because it is more common.
Now, I completely skipped over the beginning of wands, which were, of course, sticks. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll just say that maybe one day, Bob had found a stick and was using it to dig up roots for food. More accidental magic and all of a sudden, the stick helps Bob concentrate his magic; it becomes more powerful, easier to control. Bob’s children learn the practice from him and thus begins the use of magic with wands.
I will not discuss how this early society is set up, because that is not my interest. However, we will skip ahead to the beginning of modern humans. This next part, while being the timeline I am most interested in archaeologically speaking, I will only glance over because my original intent was to discuss the beginning of Wizardry.
It’s the beginning of the Stone Age and humans are still hunter-gatherers. Some ‘wizards’ may be called shaman, witch doctors, religious specialists but they still pretty much interact with ‘muggles’. They have the ability to do magic, heal, ‘see’, and perform ceremonies, that sort of thing.
Then comes the Neolithic age, the ‘new’ stone age, the beginning of agriculture, people are starting to form small civilizations, domesticating animals, growing crops, slowly becoming more complex societies. Wizards still lived amongst the muggles, perhaps not as closely as before, but still among them. I don’t see the two societies starting to completely split apart until all that stuff about the bible (which I hardly know anything about and will skip over) when Wizards could be seen as ‘the devil’.
Anyway, I would LOVE to have Bill Weasley’s job, he gets to work in Egypt! There are mentions of ancient Egyptian wizards putting curses on all the old tombs. It’s in Egypt that I think wizards were acknowledged for the longest length of time.
Then there was the Middle Ages, which I’m sure you know the basics of what happened. Paranoia of ‘Witches’, burnings, torture, etc. Only innocent people were ever caught, the real witches and wizards were able to escape by freezing the fire, as we learn in PoA.
Nowadays, we know from canon that Wizards and muggles live in separate worlds but still interact somewhat. Muggles, of course, don’t know about wizards and probably haven’t for a while now, only those muggles who inter-marry with wizards might know.
Now, this essay is not as in depth as I had planned and more will be added whenever I find more information or think of something else. I would love some con. crit. and your opinions of what you thought. This has got to be the most ambitious project for Harry Potter that I’ve ever taken on!
…Now I am wondering if the wizarding world has the magical equivalent to Anthropologists.
♥ Liz
