Cavemen: what did they do in their spare time?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Cavemen: what did they do in their spare time?

Cavewomen.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Cavemen: what did they do in their spare time?

Cavewomen.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj0qx56c ... re=related[/youtube]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Why do they always show cavepersons so dirty?

[Coito ergo sum]

Why do they always show cavepersons so dirty?

Lack of running water and soap?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Why do they always show cavepersons so dirty?

Lack of running water and soap?

No lack of running water, only a moron makes camp when there's no water available unless the situation is dire. As for soap, just scraping dirt off with the nails is better than having itchy, vermin ridden skin. I know this.

[Animavore]

I thought rivers were running water

I've never seen indigenous types so dirty. Even fucking monkeys groom themselves.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I thought rivers were running water

I've never seen indigenous types so dirty. Even fucking monkeys groom themselves.

Fucking dinosaurs (current models) bathe.

[Coito ergo sum]

Why do they always show cavepersons so dirty?

Lack of running water and soap?

No lack of running water, only a moron makes camp when there's no water available unless the situation is dire. As for soap, just scraping dirt off with the nails is better than having itchy, vermin ridden skin. I know this.

By running water, I meant in their homes to bathe with. Obviously a stream is around, but that requires people to hoof it to the stream.
Hot water required work -- to lug the water and heat it up on a fire (probably not even generally possible in large quantities, whatwith the absence of tubs and pots that wouldn't themselves catch on fire.

People were a lot dirtier back in the day, as I understand it. The definition of "clean" was, I believe, a bit different. Like, how like in the 19th century, having a bath on a Saturday night was good for the week. Back in caveman days, they'd have to go an entire winter without much in the way of bathing because the water was icy cold and there just wouldn't be the time and energy to heat enough water for everyone in a tribe to bathe very often.

Sure, scraping dirt off with nails is better than having itchy vermin ridden skin, but that doesn't make one look all that clean. Probably if you were in that situation from experience, you didn't look all that clean, and probably smelled like dirty ass.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That's the pampered view taken care of.

[Coito ergo sum]

That's the pampered view taken care of.

How so? It just explains why they look dirty.

I make no claim to being some sort of woodsy outdoorsman, nor is my experience or lack thereof in that regard at all relevant to why cavemen might be depicted as dirty. They might be depicted as dirty, because they tended to not have the resources to bathe as much, and therefore were dirtier than we are today. I shower twice a day and work in an office, so I don't even have time to get dirty. Doesn't mean cavemen were clean.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Hot water? Really? And it's perfectly possible to get clean using only running water, unless you've been soaking raw petroleum or something similar.

Hot water.

[Coito ergo sum]

Hot water? Really? And it's perfectly possible to get clean using only running water, unless you've been soaking raw petroleum or something similar.

Hot water.

Dude, if you can't understand why people would tend to be dirtier because they have less access to water and soap, and do a lot of "scraping of vermin" off of their skin with their nails, then I can't help you. There is a difference in how clean you can get by scraping the dirt and vermin off of you with fingernails or eating the lice out of each other's hair, than by having a bath with soap and water.

And, it's not just "hot" water -- it's even "luke warm" water that was missing in Europe for several months out of the year -- a season we call "winter" which was a tad bit longer and colder in ice age Europe, by the way. Were your cavepeople all members of the Polar Bear Club and jumping in icy waters in the wintertime? Or, do you think maybe, just maybe, they might have gone a few months without a bath? And, don't you think that taking baths regularly makes you cleaner than not taking baths? Or, are you going to allege that picking the dirt and vermin off of your body with your fingernails is just as effective?

Criminy, dude....

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I've washed up using snow.

[Pappa]

It's been estimated that hunter-gatherers use only four hours a day on all their practical needs, including hunting and gathering, making and repairing their tools/weapons/equipment/dwellings.

Estimated by whom, pray tell? Somebody who's never spent a day in the wilderness trying to survive without modern amenities?

Anthropologists who've studied extant hunter-gatherer societies. People did/do fine without modern amenities if they've grown up without them.

For example, the Yanomami (a group who have been studied quite extensively) require only four hours a day to satisfy their material needs. The anthropological literature has many similar examples, and not just confined to the tropics.

Some Australian Aborigines are good examples of hunter-gatherer society outside the tropics that survive/thrive without modern amenities. A typical Aborigine male would carry a boomerang or woomera that doubled as a friction firestarter... and that's about it. They spent more than four hours a day on their material needs though, as they had special requirements to seek out water that are unusual compared to most other hunter-gatherers.

Lots of anthropological reports also show that hunter-gatherers spend quite a lot of time lazing about.

And they would know this how, exactly?

You're kidding me right? They spent weeks, months or years living with hunter-gatherers and studying them. There are researchers still doing the same right now and there's an awful lot of literature out there on the subject.

and I'm sure tracking game and hunting is a pretty enjoyable type of "work".

Ever tried it? It's only enjoyable when your life does not depend on finding, stalking and killing wild animals every day. It's a sport today because if you don't get your elk or deer, you can always go back to camp and open a can of beans. Even at that it's pretty frustrating to spend hours stalking an elk with a bow and arrow (and yes, I've done it) only to have the damned thing spook as you draw your bow and disappear at top speed over the ridge in the distance faster than you could possibly imagine.

Well, first of all hunter-gatherers don't seem to expect to catch something every day, and going a little hungry is not much of a big deal as there's always another day, and there's always the gathered or stored food to rely on. Also, most hunter-gatherers don't rely on large animals like elk for their meat supplies. I've seen footage of hunters in Papua New Guinea coming home with frogs and rats, plus anything larger they're lucky enough to catch. They throw it all in the pot, boil it up and eat it, bones and all.

Hunting for food is an all-the-time thing for a group which depends on fresh meat for survival. That's why "gathering" became part of the culture. It's way easier to harvest food that doesn't run away from you, and it stores better.

I'm not denying that gathering isn't important. I said as such in my original post. From what I've read/seen, even when large game is caught, it's never left to spoil. Native Americans and Africans dried meat and (in America at least) they kept it for winter. There's evidence that European prehistoric peoples killed mammoth en mass by getting them to run over the edges of cliffs. It's very unlikely that they just cut a bit of mammoth off and ate it. They had the brainpower and technology to dry meat... and with the cold winters it's unlikely they'd not store dried meat for when the snows came.

While women tend to put more time and energy into gathering than men do hunting (and also provide more energy/protein too), the task of gathering is far from drudgery and is usually a community activity.

Clearly you've never spent the day busting ass over the ridges and through the woods looking for something to shoot with your bow or stab with your spear. If you had, you'd understand that hunting is a high-calorie, high-energy activity. Even if you're still-hunting, which means concealed in a stand somewhere, like near a water hole, waiting for game to come drink if you succeed in killing something, then you have to field-dress it and then transport it back to camp, which is always the hardest part of big-game hunting. Took me two whole days to pack out one elk I killed, about six miles one-way to a trail where I could park my Jeep, over some pretty rugged terrain. Way more work than stalking and killing it.

As I said above, hunting "big game" is not a requirement. Rabbits, birds and small mammals don't require much in the way of dressing and transporting. Plus, have you ever seen the tallent people like the Hadza show at tracking, or read about the Native Americans' tracking skills. Their ability to identify and follow tracks and spoor make even most experienced western hunters look like children stumbling about in the woods.

[Coito ergo sum]

I've washed up using snow.

If that was your method of getting clean for most of your life, odds are you'd wind up looking dirty a lot.

Are you really claiming that it would be inaccurate to depict people who basically were survivalist campers their whole life as being a bit on the dirty side? Or, did they smell like roses?