The Sad Case of the Caveman (ooga booga)

It is well known and, hopefully, understood that movies and other forms of mass media don’t typically portray reality as it is. For the purpose of entertainment often mixed with some ulterior motives, movies tend to be a romanticized version of the facts.
The stereotyped caricature image of prehistoric man, who is sometimes referred to as the “caveman,” can refer to a wide range of time periods which are at times intermingled and disregard technologies and other progressions of the periods. The movie “10,000 B.C.” is a prime example of how the “caveman” image has been misconstrued. Modern archeology can, however, correct the inaccuracies which occur in the said movie as well as other depictions of prehistoric man in mass media.
One of the first questions to arise concerning the movie “10,000 B.C.” deals with dogs (Canis lupus familiaris). Where are they? DNA evidence suggests dogs diverged from wolves about 100,000 years ago (Haag, 28). In reference to Bonn-Oberkassel, a German burial site containing intermingled human and dog remains, they were domesticated at least 14,000 years ago which makes them the earliest known example of domestication by humans (www.mnh.si.edu).
Based on the archeological record, horses, however, were not yet domesticated. “10,000 B.C.” portrays invaders on horse back. The earliest unambiguous direct evidence for horse domestication is provided by the Sintashta chariot burials. They date to roughly 2,000 B.C. and were found on the south Ural Steppe. Some archeologists believe that horse domestication could have occurred as far back as 4,000 B.C. but the evidence is unclear. Either way, these dates fall short of the 10,000 B.C. mark.
The movie portrays giant, flightless predatory birds. These birds, Titanis walleri, did really exist, but, again, in a completely different time and place and Titanis walleri never co-existed with humans. During an MSNBC interview, Bruce McFadden, a paleontologist from the Florida Museum of Natural history stated, “We found that the Titanis fossils were 2 million years old and not 10,000 years old as had been suggested. This also shows the last known occurrence of Titanis in the fossil record and reflects its extinction.” The fossils referred to here were from North America and it is unlikely that, if they lived in Europe or Africa, the birds existed any time near 10,000 B.C. There did exist a much smaller carnivorous bird in parts of both North America and Europe named Gastornis. Gastornis was not only smaller than the birds depicted in “10,000 B.C.”, however. The youngest known Gastornis remains date to 45 million years ago and, thus, did not co-exist with humans either (Beauffetaut, 359).
Another prehistoric animal shown in the movie is commonly referred to as a saber-toothed tiger. When reflecting on the size of the animal depicted, it is obviously a reference to some type of Smilodon. Although the most recent known Smilodon fossils found do date to as late as 10,000 B.C., Smilodon remains are only found in the western hemisphere. There did exist in Africa and Eurasia another machairodontine cat, Homotherium, with a smaller body mass than that of the Smilodons. However, the youngest Homotherium fossils suggest the species died out in Africa about 1.5 million years ago and about 30,000 years ago in Eurasia for climatic reasons (Turner, 219-244).
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Whether the movie takes place in Europe or Africa is debatable but in either case the mammoths depicted are completely unrealistic. If the movie takes place in sub-Saharan North Africa, which is the general assumption, one should be aware of the fact that there is no archaeological record of either Mammuthus primogenus or Mammut americanum populations in that area at any time and were basically extinct at the time in question. Mastodons, mammoth genetic cousins, may have roamed North America at the time, but were likely on the verge of extinction. The land was as dry as it is today which is an improbable landscape for woolly mammoths anyhow (Clark, 60-64).
As mentioned, the film depicts dessert landscape although desertification did not begin to occur in the north of Africa until about 2500 B.C. There are also scenes depicting tundra and steppe, which is unlikely considering the fact that the area endured little glacial impact (Clark, 57-59). At the end of the movie, the lead characters are given seeds to grow by what appears to be Africans. This doesn’t make much sense either because it is common knowledge that those plants would never survive in the icy cold mountains the main characters come from.
The Iron Age in Europe started at about 1,000 B.C. In “10,000 B.C.,” the humans in the movie are readily using iron in the forms of axes and swords, for example. One of the earliest examples of iron workings globally is iron beads worn in ancient Egypt around 4,000 B.C. and they were merely rubbed smooth like stones commonly were. Other than that, the oldest known iron artifact shaped by hammering is a dagger, also from Egypt of Hittite workmanship, circa 1350 B.C. (www.answers.com).
The movie also has some Egyptian/Atlantis stuff going on (for lack of a better term). There are pyramids, huge temples and a Sphinx. Archaeological records indicate that the mega-building period in Egypt occurred around the same time that Stonehenge was built and is estimated to be circa 2,500 B.C., after the unification of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms provided the man power and resources for such a project. Although radiocarbon dating has been problematic in Egypt, 2,500 B.C. is an estimate based on king’s lists and the Egyptian civil calendar. Along with these depictions is a river, assumed to be the Nile. However, there is no sign of vegetation, only sand. The Nile River would be lush and green, probably with palms. Based on soil analysis and knowledge of unusually strong rains in central Sahara contributing to local runoff from Sudanese tributaries, it is assumed that the area actually suffered violent floods from 15,500 B.C. until about 9,000 B.C (Koch, 26-33).
An obvious fault of the movie lies in the English language being spoken. Of course, one might expect that from a movie for practical purposes, but it is an inaccuracy nonetheless. Even Old English, a conglomerate of North Western European Germanic languages, which replaced Celtic, was spoken from about 450 A.D. to 1000 A.D. after Anglo-Saxon migrations to the British Isles (Arnold, 44), proven through Y chromosome haplogroup analysis. Anglo-Saxon migrations are also hinted at in literature such as Beowulf (ca. 1000 A.D.) and the writings of Gildas (ca. 540 A.D.) and Bede (731 A.D.). The language transformed even further after the Norman invasion of 1066, which is documented through written language as well (Arnold, 45). Place names derived from Proto-Germanic languages first appear in England circa 500 A.D. Thus there is ultimately no evidence whatsoever that the English language was spoken whatsoever 12,000 years ago (Arnold, 44-63).
“10,000 B.C.” is far from being the only image of a misconstrued version of prehistoric man, however. The comic strip Alley Oop was created in 1932 by V.T Hamlin. The main character (perhaps Neanderthal?) rides a pet dinosaur. There has never been any archeological or paleontological records dating human remains and dinosaur remains contemporaneously. He lives in a place called Moo and fights with villagers from Lem. These are apparent references to the fabled lost continents of Mu and Lemuria which was a popular theory at the advent of the comic and later discredited with modern knowledge of plate tectonics.
Another comic strip example of prehistoric man is Tor, created by Joe Kubert and debuting in 1953. The story of Tor is said to take place a million years ago. As mentioned earlier, the earliest example of animal domestication known involves dogs about 14,000 years ago, yet Tor has some version of a domesticated monkey on his shoulder. Another interesting topic worth noting, and is by no means exclusive to Tor’s world of a million years ago is that of prehistoric clothing. In the comic strip people wear loin cloths and the garments pertaining to women always cover their breasts which is probably more of a tribute to Western morals than to archaeological data. Genetic analysis of body lice suggest the species probably originated about 107,000 years ago and may have coincided with the spread of Homo sapiens out of Africa between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago into cooler areas. Because humans have very little body hair, lice need clothing to survive (Kittler, 1414-1417).
The idea of prehistoric man living in caves is not completely unrealistic, although over exaggerated. Of course, our ancestors did not live in ranch style houses of rock as seen in The Flintstones, however. People have lived in caves throughout most of human history. This was not always the case, however. Aside from the obvious examples of well preserved cave paintings (i.e. the cave of Lascaux in France), this is evidenced in the simple fact that some people still do live in caves. As of 2005, an estimated 40 million people in Yanan, China lived in caves. Keep in mind that the locals both have access to and utilize modern technology such as refrigerators and television. They claim that one benefit of cave dwellings is that the shelters are naturally cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Another major factor in the decision by so many to choose a cave to live in pertains to the difficulty in manipulating the hard mountainous soils of the region (Yu, www.thingsasian.com). For most living creatures, the decision to create some sort of settlement is most often based on convenience whether it is due to the issues of geography, safety or resources.
Thus, it is true that prehistoric man could have, and probably would have, thought a cave to be a legitimate structure for habitation. The oldest known human habitats, however, are not of stone. It is possible that huts of dirt, wood, leaves, grass or a combination of materials could have been built as early as 500,000 years ago. A site in Chichibu, Japan, dates to a time contemporary with Homo erectus who was capable of building a relatively sturdy structure. The site consists of ten post holes believed to be the remains of huts which are accompanied by a variety of stone tools.
The stereotypical prehistoric man tends to be quite ignorant to his surroundings and may repeat the same mistakes over and over again. It is true that cranial sizes slowly increased over the 4 million years of human existence. However, basic observations and analysis of one’s surroundings is a simple concept displayed by lower order animals as well as upper order life forms. Through evolution, humans are designed to abandon any instinctive behavior in favor a more beneficial one. Things like curiosity, cooperation and inventiveness (some of the driving forces behind survival) are instinctual and cannot be changed by education. However, the self-discipline it takes to modify an instinct gives humans the ability to be trained through experience (Calvin).
Mass media is not designed for the dissemination of knowledge. Rather, it is more useful for disseminating novel ideas for the purposes of entertainment. This is the sad case of the “caveman.” He is seen as barbaric, incompetent, dim witted, and fantastical. With science, however, it is possible to honor the true image of our ancestors and respect them for their innovations and adaptability.