Yes, there were (and are) cavemen. But they were not (and are not) some subhuman species. They were (and are) simply human beings who dwell in caves. The “Ascent of Man” pictorial all of us have seen doesn’t have a shred of evidence to support it. No, we did not evolve from ape-like creatures. Some of the past claims regarding discoveries of bones belonging to pre-human creatures have been exposed as frauds. And some, such as those belonging to the creatures that have been labeled “Neanderthals,” were the bones of humans. The Neanderthals may have had distinctive racial features, just as the different races today do, but they were nonetheless human. DNA studies said to indicate Neanderthals were not human have no scientific justification. In recent years, a 13-year study of remains of Neanderthals unearthed in France led scientists to conclude that they were sophisticated enough to bury their dead, apparently with some kind of burial ritual. They also used tools and apparently had a complex social structure. They were human!

It is an indisputable fact that dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures existed. Many young-earth creationists claim that God created them in the same week He created man. But the fossil record clearly indicates that they died out long before God put man on this planet. The Genesis account of creation is written in such a way as to allow for a large “gap,” or undefined interval, between the time the universe began to exist and the time the Spirit is found hovering over the face of the waters (Genesis 1:2). Genesis 1:1 tells us that God created the universe, but it does not tell us how long the creation process went on. Verse 2 tells us the “earth”—the land—was “without form and void.” This simply means it was not a suitable environment for humans. The same expression is used in Jeremiah 4:23 and refers to the condition of a land in the wake of divine wrath brought upon a sinful nation. So God could have caused the condition of Genesis 1:2, or He could have simply permitted it. We have traditionally accepted the view that the condition resulted from Lucifer’s rebellion. That may be true. But either way, Genesis 1:1–2 is stated in such a way as to allow for what science affirms that the planet we call “Earth” was already very old and had gone through massive upheavals—floods, intense volcanic activity, collisions with asteroids, etc.—by the time man first appeared.

At some point, perhaps billions of years after God brought the universe into existence, He set out to turn this uninhabitable wilderness called “the earth” (the Hebrew word can be translated as “land” and may refer to a particular region) into a suitable environment for human beings. That’s what the six days of Genesis 1 are about. God “made” the earth and the sea and the heavens in six days in the sense that He transformed them in such a way as to create an environment for Adam and Eve and their descendants.

In summary, we don’t know when creation ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) occurred, but it was probably many billions of years ago. But the “creation” of an environment suitable for human beings was a separate event, and while gaps in the biblical genealogical tables make it impossible to determine for sure when the creation of man occurred, we know it was thousands, not millions, of years ago.