The caveman is a stock character representative of primitive humans in the Paleolithic. The popularization of the type dates to the early 20th century, when Neanderthals were influentially described as "simian" or "ape-like" by Marcellin Boule [1] and Arthur Keith. [2]
The term "caveman" has its taxonomic equivalent in the now-obsolete binomial classification of Homo troglodytes (Linnaeus, 1758). [3]
Cavemen are typically portrayed as wearing shaggy animal hides, and capable of cave painting like behaviorally modern humans of the last glacial period. They are often shown armed with rocks, cattle bone clubs, spears, or sticks with rocks tied to them, and are portrayed as unintelligent, easily frightened, and aggressive. Typically, they have a low pitched rough voice and make vocalisations such as "ooga-booga" and grunts or speak using simple phrases. Popular culture also frequently represents cavemen as living with, or alongside of, dinosaurs, even though non-avian dinosaurs became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years before the emergence of Homo sapiens . The era typically associated with the archetype is the Paleolithic Era, sometimes referred to as the Stone Age, though the Paleolithic is but one part of the Stone Age. This era extends from more than 2 million years into the past until between 40,000 and 5,000 years before the present.
The image of these people living in caves arises from the fact that caves are where the preponderance of artifacts have been found from European Stone Age cultures. However, this most likely reflects the degree of preservation that caves provide over the millennia, rather than an indication of them being a typical form of shelter. Until the last glacial period, the great majority of humans did not live in caves, as nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes lived in a variety of temporary structures, such as tents [4] and wooden huts (e.g., at Ohalo). A few genuine cave dwellings did exist, however, such as at Mount Carmel in Israel. [5]
Stereotypical cavemen have traditionally been depicted wearing smock-like garments made from the skins of animals and held up by a shoulder strap on one side. Stereotypical cavewomen are similarly depicted, but sometimes with slimmer proportions and bones tied up in their hair. They are also depicted carrying large clubs approximately conical in shape. They often have grunt-like names, such as Ugg and Zog. [6]
Caveman-like heraldic "wild men" were found in European and African iconography for hundreds of years. During the Middle Ages, these beings were generally depicted in art and literature as bearded and covered in hair, and often wielding clubs and dwelling in caves. While wild men were always depicted as living outside of civilization, there was an ongoing debate as to whether they were human or non-human.
In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (1912), ape-men are depicted in a fight with modern humans. How the First Letter Was Written and How the Alphabet was Made is one of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories (1902) featuring a group of cave-people. Edgar Rice Burroughs adapted this idea for The Land That Time Forgot (1918). A genre of cavemen films emerged, typified by D. W. Griffith's Man's Genesis (1912); they inspired Charles Chaplin's satiric take [7] in His Prehistoric Past (1914), as well as Brute Force (1914), The Cave Man (1912), and later, Cave Man (1934). From the descriptions, Griffith's characters cannot talk, and use sticks and stones for weapons, while the hero of Cave Man is a Tarzanesque figure who fights dinosaurs. Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels , which aired from 1977 to 1980, is an animated comedy depicting cavemen as being hairy and carrying clubs.
Griffith's Brute Force represents one of the earliest portrayals of cavemen and dinosaurs together, with its depiction of a Ceratosaurus . [8] [9] The film reinforced the incorrect notion that non-avian dinosaurs co-existed with prehistoric humans. [9] The anachronistic combination of cavemen with dinosaurs eventually became a cliché, and has often been intentionally invoked for comedic effect. The comic strips B.C. , Alley Oop , the Spanish comic franchise Mortadelo y Filemón , and occasionally The Far Side and Gogs portray "cavemen" with dinosaurs. Gary Larson, in his 1989 book The Prehistory of the Far Side , stated he once felt that he needed to confess his cartooning sins in this regard: "O Father, I Have Portrayed Primitive Man and Dinosaurs In The Same Cartoon". [10] The animated series The Flintstones , a spoof on family sitcoms, portrays the Flintstones even using dinosaurs, pterosaurs and prehistoric mammals as tools, household appliances, vehicles, and construction equipment. [11]
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic, also called the Old Stone Age, is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehistoric technology. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins, c. 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene, c. 11,650 cal BP.
The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with the advent of metalworking. It therefore represents nearly 99.3% of human history. Though some simple metalworking of malleable metals, particularly the use of gold and copper for purposes of ornamentation, was known in the Stone Age, it is the melting and smelting of copper that marks the end of the Stone Age. In Western Asia, this occurred by about 3,000 BC, when bronze became widespread. The term Bronze Age is used to describe the period that followed the Stone Age, as well as to describe cultures that had developed techniques and technologies for working copper alloys into tools, supplanting stone in many uses.
A troglodyte is a human cave dweller, from the Greek trogle 'hole, mouse-hole' and dyein 'go in, dive in'.
Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil is a former commune in the Dordogne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. On 1 January 2019, it was merged into the new commune Les Eyzies.
The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology. The Middle Paleolithic broadly spanned from 300,000 to 50,000 years ago. There are considerable dating differences between regions. The Middle Paleolithic was succeeded by the Upper Paleolithic subdivision which first began between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago. Pettit and White date the Early Middle Paleolithic in Great Britain to about 325,000 to 180,000 years ago, and the Late Middle Paleolithic as about 60,000 to 35,000 years ago. The Middle Paleolithic was in the geological Chibanian and Late Pleistocene ages.
Walking with Cavemen is a 2003 four-part nature documentary television miniseries produced by the BBC Science Unit, the Discovery Channel and ProSieben. Walking with Cavemen explores human evolution, showcasing various extinct hominin species and their inferred behaviours and social dynamics. The original British version of the series is presented by the British researcher Robert Winston; in the American version Winston's appearances and narration is replaced with narration by Alec Baldwin.
Chuck Rock is a 1991 slapstick side-scrolling platform video game developed and published by Core Design for the Atari ST and Amiga computers. A Commodore 64 port followed in 1992 and an Amiga CD32 version in 1994. The game was subsequently published by Krisalis Software for the Acorn Archimedes. Virgin Interactive published the game for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System, and the Game Gear. Sony Imagesoft published the game for the Sega Mega-CD, Super NES, and Game Boy.
Neanderthals have been depicted in popular culture since the early 20th century. Early depictions conveyed and perpetuated notions of proverbially crude, low-browed cavemen; since the latter part of the 20th century, some depictions have modeled more sympathetic reconstructions of the genus Homo in the Middle Paleolithic era. In popular idiom, people sometimes use the word "Neanderthal" as an insult - to suggest that a person so designated combines a deficiency in intelligence and a tendency to use brute force. The term may also imply that a person is old-fashioned or attached to outdated ideas, much in the same way as the terms "dinosaur" or "Yahoo".
A caveman is a popular stylized characterization of how early humans or hominids looked and behaved. A cave dweller is a real human being who lives in a cave or under a cliff.
Paleolithic religions are a set of spiritual beliefs and practices that are theorized to have appeared during the Paleolithic time period. Paleoanthropologists Andre Leroi-Gourhan and Annette Michelson believe unmistakably religious behavior emerged by the Upper Paleolithic, before 30,000 years ago at the latest, but behavioral patterns such as burial rites that one might characterize as religious — or as ancestral to religious behavior — reach back into the Middle Paleolithic, as early as 300,000 years ago, coinciding with the first appearance of Homo neanderthalensis and possibly Homo naledi.
Paleolithic Europe, or Old Stone Age Europe, encompasses the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age in Europe from the arrival of the first archaic humans, about 1.4 million years ago until the beginning of the Mesolithic around 10,000 years ago. This period thus covers over 99% of the total human presence on the European continent. The early arrival and disappearance of Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis, the appearance, complete evolution and eventual demise of Homo neanderthalensis and the immigration and successful settlement of Homo sapiens all have taken place during the European Paleolithic.
The oldest undisputed examples of figurative art are known from Europe and from Sulawesi, Indonesia, dated about 35,000 years old . Together with religion and other cultural universals of contemporary human societies, the emergence of figurative art is a necessary attribute of full behavioral modernity.
Cro-Magnons or European early modern humans (EEMH) were the first early modern humans to settle in Europe, migrating from western Asia, continuously occupying the continent possibly from as early as 56,800 years ago. They interacted and interbred with the indigenous Neanderthals of Europe and Western Asia, who went extinct 40,000 to 35,000 years ago. The first wave of modern humans in Europe left no genetic legacy to modern Europeans; however, from 37,000 years ago a second wave succeeded in forming a single founder population, from which all subsequent Cro-Magnons descended and which contributes ancestry to present-day Europeans. Cro-Magnons produced Upper Palaeolithic cultures, the first major one being the Aurignacian, which was succeeded by the Gravettian by 30,000 years ago. The Gravettian split into the Epi-Gravettian in the east and Solutrean in the west, due to major climatic degradation during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), peaking 21,000 years ago. As Europe warmed, the Solutrean evolved into the Magdalenian by 20,000 years ago, and these peoples recolonised Europe. The Magdalenian and Epi-Gravettian gave way to Mesolithic cultures as big game animals were dying out and the Last Glacial Period drew to a close.
Prehistoric technology is technology that predates recorded history. History is the study of the past using written records. Anything prior to the first written accounts of history is prehistoric, including earlier technologies. About 2.5 million years before writing was developed, technology began with the earliest hominids who used stone tools, which they first used to hunt food, and later to cook.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to prehistoric technology.
Scladina, or Sclayn Cave, is an archaeological site located in Wallonia in the town of Sclayn, in the Andenne hills in Belgium, where excavations since 1978 have provided the material for an exhaustive collection of over thirteen thousand Mousterian stone artifacts and the fossilized remains of an especially ancient Neanderthal, called the Scladina child were discovered in 1993.
The small Sirgenstein Cave, German: Sirgensteinhöhle is situated 565 m (1,854 ft) above sea level inside the 20 m (66 ft) high Sirgenstein, a limestone rock. The cave sits 35 m (115 ft) above the Ach River valley bottom in the central Swabian Jura, southern Germany. Archaeologist R. R. Schmidt excavated the site in 1906 during which he identified indices of prehistoric human presence. He recorded the complete stratigraphic sequence of Palaeolithic and Neolithic origin. In his 1910 analysis Schmidt inspired future archaeologists with his pioneering concept of including the excavation site within its geographic region, contextualizing it within a wide scientific spectrum and demonstrated valuable results as he correlated the Sirgenstein layer structure to those of prehistoric sites in France. Mammoth ivory beads dating from 39,000 to 35,000 years ago have been uncovered at the cave. Because of its historical and cultural significance and its testimony to the development of Paleolithic art, the cave was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura site in 2017.
Erella Hovers is an Israeli paleoanthropologist. She is currently a professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, working within the Institute of Archeology. The majority of her field work is centered in the Horn of Africa, with a primary focus on Ein Qashish, Israel and Eastern Ethiopia. Her research concentrates on the development of the use of symbolism during the Levantine Middle Palaeolithic and Middle Stone Age. Other research interests include lithic technology, taphonomy, and general behavior of early hominids.
Prehistoric religion is the religious practice of prehistoric cultures. Prehistory, the period before written records, makes up the bulk of human experience; over 99% of human experience occurred during the Paleolithic period alone. Prehistoric cultures spanned the globe and existed for over two and a half million years; their religious practices were many and varied, and the study of them is difficult due to the lack of written records describing the details of their faiths.
Prehistoric Peeps was a 1905 British one-reeler film, directed by Lewin Fitzhamon and produced by the Hepworth Manufacturing Company. The only existing print has been preserved by the British Film Institute.
| Authority control databases: National |
|---|
