It is also a research problem of mine. In my opinion, with the aid of some readings, the answer is no. Animals are aware of past because they are conscious. One example: my cat, one year ago, was too much small that she could hide in my drawer. Last week, she looked to the drawer, remember about the fact but realize thaat now she is too big to do that.
Also they are some authors that say about plants, even without consciousness, have a lot of memories mecanisms. So Past is not only for humans.
Thank you Rafael, I notice that number of my Western colleagues are seeing this point of view, and also, it's easy -maybe because their own religions- some of my Arab colleagues are insisting on the another point which saying that: human is only organism who aware at all or at least: he (human) is the only who aware of the past. Even if it is something scientific and far away from the ethnic or religions' attitudes but, do you think that there is/are any other organism has/have any type of history depending on his awareness of the Past?
If we define history as some kind of language or writing that depends on awareness of Past, I still sustain my view about animals. Dogs and cats, for an example more clearly, have a personal history about their habits (the place to not do something) and life choices (affection to some humans who didn't live with them every day) and it depends on the past and some kind of remembering it (some may call this memory, other conditioning).
So, there is a history for animals, even they didn't write that with words. We must not make the mistake to say that the only way to access the Past is with words.
Agree, but I do not mean just to access written history but our civilization and culture are historical features if we do not have that long/deep memorized history (whatever, how do we memorize it, by write or also by traditions and the teaching systems ....etc) This is my point depending on my researches (all of my researches in the field of Religion & Culture) could we imagine that there is/are any other have culture and system of memorizing of Past in order to use it to deal with the issues of group/state for example ...?
I quite like those relations about a Past that must be dealt by a group. To keep my line of thought that humans are not the only living organisms that do this, let us think about group of animals.
Elephants, for example, has cemiteries. They don't go to a place at random to die when they are old. And the younger members of the elephant group respect that place. That is a sign of a group dealing with facts that deal with past (the place that some older elephants went to die), the present (the place that the old member go to die) and the future (the place that I, young elephant, will go to die). That is a good sign of a group culture that is aware about the past traditions, like humans do.
I found that American anthropologist Lewis Morgan write a book about the beavers and BBC made this documentary movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLyBZ1mdg2c
The rational soul is the only one that remembers the past, and it is part of the innate state that exists in man to remember what he has missed and to repair the present with the past.