Narrative-Driven Evolution of Human Civilization: The Ontological Transcendence from Fire, Rock Paintings to Writing

Traditional theories of civilization evolution centered on tools and productivity have fundamental theoretical flaws, which fail to explain the essential distinction between humans and animals and clarify the core driving force of human civilization origin. Based on the core ontological proposition of “Narrative is Being. Being is Narrative”, this paper constructs a complete theoretical framework of “narrative-driven civilization evolution” by integrating the latest empirical research achievements in archaeology, anthropology and linguistics. This paper systematically demonstrates that the millions-year evolution history of human beings is essentially a history of continuous upgrading of narrative media and dimensional elevation of narrative: the mandatory forced evolution of narrative capability triggered by fire, the construction of cross-temporal narrative realized by pictorial rock paintings, the standardization of narrative systems completed by oral language, and the permanent solidification of narrative and ultimate birth of civilization achieved by writing. Each revolutionary transcendence of narrative has brought about a fundamental upgrade of human ontological dimension. Based on empirical evidence, this study completely transcends the traditional tool-centric evolution paradigm, provides solid historical and anthropological support for narrative ontology, and establishes an ultimate and self-consistent explanatory system for the origin and evolution of human civilization.