“We are locked in history, and they were not.”

History is just as much of an idea as it is an actuality. History can be looked at in many different ways and you can have many unique perspectives on it. The Cave of Forgotten dreams gave me a bunch of new ways of interpreting life awe live it and how these "cavemen" lived it. We have history to look back on so we know that something happened previous to us, but those people back then didn't have that because there was no paintings or stories to be told to explain the past. Once these "cavemen" began the cave drawings, that was not only the beginning of narrative, but along with that history was invented. Just think about it, what really is history? If we had no stories, books etc, how would we know there is a past, and that there were things before we were born? To be honest we would pretty much be like dogs or other animals with no recollection of the past that occurred before them, and we would have no plans for the future because to move on we would have to know there was a starting point to improve on. In my opinions, humans and our critical thinking began when the paintings came about and there were forms of communication to share past experiences and to fuel new ones in the future. That is what this quote means, that since they had no prior knowledge of "history" they were just living day by day without caring or knowing of past experiences, while we know the past and our history and that makes us "locked" because we know what it is, and we know that we cannot change it.