#prehistoric humans

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

The average prehistoric person could make a nice living in about a fifteen-hour work week. Fifteen hours a week for subsistence leaves a lot of time for other things. So much time that maybe the restless ones who didn’t have a baby around to enliven their life, or skill in making or cooking or singing, or very interesting thoughts to think, decided to slope off and hunt mammoths. The skillful hunters would come staggering back with a load of meat, a lot of ivory, and a story. It wasn’t the meat that made the difference. It was the story. It is hard to tell a really gripping tale of how I wrestled a wild-oat seed from its husk, and then another, and then another, and then another, and then another, and then I scratched my gnat bites, and Ool said something funny, and we went to the creek and got a drink and watched newts for a while, and then I found another patch of oats…

Ursula K. Le Guin, "Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction" (1986 essay). theanarchistlibrary.org. [Retrieved 8 February, 2025]

Why, yes. I am going to drip feed you this essay a paragraph or two at a time, out of order.

____

I absolutely agree that the Story is the vital pivot around which human cultures turn. But I'm not sure I agree with Le Guin's premise, here, that the dominance of the Aggressive, Spear-Throwing, Hero within these stories began around those ancient Paleolithic cooking fires.

According to futurist and social scientist, Riane Eisler (Her official website), before the rise of either the Patriarchy or Matriarchy, the earliest human civilizations were Egalitarian, and the shift to a Dominator culture was probably long and gradual.

Maybe, way back then, there were plenty of stories about the adventures of gathering wild oats. Maybe, sometime in the future, we'll rediscover them.

After all, there's the Irish Proverb: Bíonn siúlach scéalach (Travelers have tales to tell). All you need to gather stories (or oats) is to go for a walk.

As it is now, we have no way of knowing either way.

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

RAW DINOSAUR HARDCORE ACTION IN THE SUPER-SEVENTIES -- IN THE MIGHTY MARVEL MANNER.

PIC(S) INFO: Resolution at 894×1363 -- Spotlight on cover art to "Devil Dinosaur" Vol. 1 #1. April, 1978. An early human called Moon Boy partners with a fearsome T-Rex called Devil Dinosaur. Marvel Comics. Artwork by Jack "King" Kirby.

PIC #2: Resolution at 900×1370 -- FEARSOME!!

MINI-OVERVIEW: "The artwork is far better than most people expect. His eclectic style is well suited to themes of historical science-fiction. Kirby's cover seems hurried, but he compensates with a jarring two-page spread toward the front of the book. One of his signature innovations, the explosive scene provides an exciting start to the series."

Source: https://pencilink.blogspot.com/2008/08/devil-dinosaur-1-jack-kirby-art-cover.html & Comic Book Addiction.

[tyrannoninja]

Encino Man

As much as I remember the 1990s teen comedy Encino Man with nostalgic fondness (even if that nostalgia and the soundtrack happen to be more potent than the actual humor), I wonder how much comedic potential you could actually get out of the premise of a prehistoric human being thrown into a modern-day environment.

There would be culture shock for sure, as the prehistoric person would have to learn not only a whole new language but also how to read, write, and use flush toilets. However, if we're dealing with a "Cro-Magnon" Homo sapiens like Brendan Fraser's character Link, they probably wouldn't have much more difficulty with modern life than would current-day hunter-gatherers like the San or Hadza (many of whom do indeed have sustained contact with the outside world through trade and interaction with tourists and anthropologists). Our hypothetical Paleolithic transplant might wonder what the hell a smartphone is at first, but they'd probably be just as capable of learning how to use it as any Millennial.

Also, unlike Link, they'd have a language of their own instead of just grunting or parroting what their modern correspondents say.

It isn't that you couldn't tell a fascinating fish-out-of-water story about a prehistoric person in the modern world. But we might not be laughing at much at their incompetence or animalistic tendencies as we might expect from a movie like Encino Man.

That said, other hominin species like the Neanderthals or Denisovans could conceivably have a more difficult time adapting to modern society depending on how much their native cognition differed from Homo sapiens (which I admit remains unclear), and earlier species like Homo erectus or Homo habilis would almost certainly struggle even more due to, well, being more primitive. Anything predating the genus Homo would probably come across more like one of the apes you would see at the zoo than a person.

As an aside, it should go without saying that the humans who would have lived in California during the last glacial period wouldn't have looked that much like Brendan Fraser, as much as I adore the dude.

[oakandgumtrees]

living in australia really fucks with your sense of the scale of human prehistory

because aboriginal people have been here for at least 65,000 years

so when you hear that the oldest cave art in england is 13,000 years old, instead of being awed by the vast expanse of human time and our ability to connect with our ancestors through the art they left behind, you're just like

pshh

only THIRTEEN thousand?

babies

[mental-mona]

TL;DR female physiology works in women's favor when it comes to chasing big game for long periods of time, and the archaeological record suggests that women were just as involved in hunting as men. Amazing what happens when we remove our patriarchal preconceptions of history!

[diegomaranan]

Recent analyses of physiological and archaeological evidence, published in American Anthropologist, suggest that females hunted just as much as males did during the Paleolithic era. In fact, they were well-suited to long-distance hunting, largely thanks to the benefits of estrogen. Additionally, Neanderthal remains show a sex-equal distribution of bone injuries consistent with hunting. Both males and females were buried with similar items and weapons, suggesting that there was not such a stark division of labor.

[melcowpland]

Boncuklu Tarla - Oldest Human Settlement c11,000BC!

At school we were taught that until about 6000BC humans were hunter gatherers, or cave men. It was the stone age with small family groups roaming and hunting. Of course there is evidence to support this but it seems this story, like many others we have been told is not being updated with new information, especially if that information might cause a hiccup in post modern perceptions of reality…

[codenamefinlandia]

In fact it IS the coolest shit ever. It’s why I’m obsessed with our ancestors. 🥹🥹🥹

Listen if the study of ancient humans doesn’t make you at least a little bit emotional idk what to say.

I started crying today at the museum because they had reconstructed the shoes of Otzi the iceman.

Either he or someone he knew who cared about him made these shoes out of grass and bear skin and twine and he was wearing them when he died over five thousand years ago.

And a Czech researcher and his students did reconstructions of these shoes and wore them to the same place where he died to test them out and they were like yep! These shoes are really cozy and comfy and didn’t give us blisters while hiking!

Is that not just the coolest shit ever????

[catrocketship]

sometimes I scroll until I feel something and then I can go do something else and today this is the thing that made me feel something

Something about this makes me weirdly emotional

[kavdragun]

Hey, remember to go love your fellow T-Rex !

[meirimerens]

youtube shorts is just tiktok without being on the app the amount of "i'm a [qualification] and [misinformation]" could make one turn their skin inside-out in protest. "i'm a board-certified OB-GYN & it's only been about the last hundred years that women have actually experienced menopause. We didn't live long enough to experience it" how can you be so incredibly wrong about something so integral to your practice. King of the Hittites Hattusilis III was told in 1250 BCE that his sister was too old to reproduce at age 50+. Aristotle wrote in the 4th century BCE that women stopped menstruating between ages 40 to 50, common menopause ages today still. i cannot begin to tell you how 4th century & 1250 BCE don't really count as "the last hundred years" unless that -s is doing a lot of heavy lifting. waiter waiter more misinformation laws.

[witchofthesouls]

I'm going to follow up on the fantasy-horror thoughts to be expanded Transformers, so-

Medical/Biological Horror

I haven't really seen takes about established Cybertronian medical biology and the complications with the "humans into Cybertronians" trope.

Like we see the heavy emphasis on T-cogs across the iterations and how it's deeply connected to independence, identity, and person-hood, so how about an ex-human that lacks a T-cog?

Ironically, T-cogs have a lot of emphasis on that particular organ is similar to human hearts in terms of emotional, cultural, spiritual, and physical capabilities and significance. Similar to how humans are capable of donating hearts to others, Cybertronians can perform an equivalent procedure with T-cogs. (On a related side note, the phenomenon of 'cellular memory' has to be extremely appalling to the mechanical species. Not in the sense of upcycling parts, but in the sense that the organs, frame, and equipment still retain the echos of the last person to the point that it influences the new body.)

Imagine that once human inside a medbay as the medics tutted and sadly inscribe their new medical file about their new monoformer status. What a shame, they said. They could have been an excellent addition to (insert whatever frame kibble visible that correlates to a function), they said. Poor thing! With that kind of extrasensory equipment, they'll be a walking target, they said.

So that monoformer with no kibble or those visible beastformer traits without the means to completely escape... What. A. Shame.

Until a random Cybertronian sees that monoformer casually wheeling around with heelies. It's easy to wave away as a reinvention of training wheels, but then they notice those heelies disappear back into the monoformer's frame. The ex-human still has no T-cog. Sweat breaks out because said ex-human had done the fucking impossible.

They're paying closer attention now. They're seeing little micro-transformations happening. The subtle signs of a frame shifting to accommodate an area or space, the way fingertips would sharpen too easily with a file or with a raw cut as a tip is used to scrape away at something, the seams expanding and contracting, so something is happening, they just can't tell...

While this can overlap with the body/psychological horror aspect, I say we should take it more extreme. There had been takes with dysphoria, particularly with the play between mechanical parts and human organs, the differences in senses, and if 'sticky sexual interfacing' is part of it, then sexual hardware of both sets.

However, what about acceptance? The exploration of feeling truly at home in your own new skin? Even if it's high-tech and something out of a sci-fi film/video game with a platform that's incomprehensible because you don't understand the language it uses, but guess what? You can download a packet to fully comprehend a new language. You may not be fluent or comfortably at ease with speaking, but you can read and understand what's being said. A possibility of delving into human disabilities that translate into something easily curable or nonexistent or have well-established accommodations in a Cybertronian framework. Something like hormonal disorders or gastrointestinal issues due to upset gut biome would be wiped clean. Poor/limited eyesight can be compensated with a visor that can't be easily removed or taken away or the additional sensors that provide environmental data. Cybertron has a form of sign language with chirolinguistics where communication is done "by stimulating the nervecircuits in the fingers, wrist and palm of their conversational partner. It seems to be fairly common to know at least a little hand." TFWiki page And it pairs well with internal comms that double as cell phones or an unique user on platform where a Cybertronian can live chat or text another.

A massive tradeoff for this kind of comfort? You now have a visible soul.

Think about it, your soul can be directly handled, as in someone can physically go mess with your most distilled sense of self.

Humanity had long debated the existence of it via philosophy, spiritually, scientifically as well. The heart is the most recent popular choice, but major historical contenders had been the stomach and the mind as well as arguments of the soul isn't found in one specific organ but rather the bridge between them.

People swear by souls and the afterlife. There are many myths and legends that involve souls. Even the most doubtful had been deeply raised in a cultural framework of the concept via media usage, figurative speech, religious imagery, and depictions in art.

That has to be the most mind-blowing and deeply unsettling reality a former human must accept.

I see the comparisons of sparkeaters to vampires as they both prey on the living, but the more apt description should be the product of Harry Potter with Dementors as those Dark creatures eat souls.

So this touches on another genre-

Supernatural Horror

Human adaptability combined with the Earth transformation myths/magic would deeply terrify modern Cybertronians as those new cybered beings don't fit the established medical reality they function with.

This can easily tie very well with expanding Cybertronian folklore of otherworldly beings of their version of fae, demons, spirits, or yōkai. Beautiful, terrible beings that mimick Cybertronians too well... unless to look closer: the shadow missing or not matching (can be tied to Unicron), conflicting kibble, EM fields too wild with a chaotic rhythm no one else can match, colors that change to suddenly, a strange wardrobe (made of dead creatures) that ripples and warps without a breeze, an mechanimal with too much intelligence glittering in its optics...

I'm not even fully delving into the rampant chaos of ex-humans having a host of adaptations suited for tolerating far more ranges of environmental stress and disease-resistance due to the rapid evolution by organic life compared to Cybertronian fauna. Remember, humans are animals. Highly intelligent apex predators that specialize in endurance/persistent pursuit with strong social and communal behaviors, and the cleverness to suit the environment from aquatic to deserts to wetlands to forests to grasslands to tundra. Humanity found ways to not just survive but to thrive in those biomes.

This opens a potential storyline where cybered humans become Cybertron's extremophiles, so that can easily translate into those beings capable of manipulating their own selves to a multitude of frames and shapes.

The example above with the human to monoformer was a show in how transformation mechanisms could be different between the species. If T-cogs are an inherently modern Cybertronian biological trait, then cybered!Earth natives should be either throwbacks or have another approach to it.

And that's the more muted fuckery, but what about straight-up transformations that were deemed unthinkable? Where unnatural formations keep twisting upon themselves, collapsing just to rise higher and higher? The sudden appearance of not one or two extra limbs, but dozens, even hundreds without a sequence as they try to compute how the hell they pull all that mass from nowhere? Armor plating, sure and steady, then turning into a substance that swallows everything and anything as a solid becomes a liquid.

The repression technology may or may not even work as it targets the frame's T-cog. What can it do to a mecha that doesn't have one?

Another aspect overlooked is the animal-human relationship in domestication of wild animals or how communities form symbiotic relationships with different kinds of wild fauna. Combined humanity's collective love for highly dangerous creatures... Wouldn't it be absolutely sick as hell if cyber!human got a sparkeater as their companion? It's still a wild 'animal,' not a fully tame one like a domesticated animal, so they're trying to tedtalk on a human's approach to curating a stable relationship with a predatory species while the rest of the Cybertronians are basically dead-white from sheer fright.

Or on the opposite yet equally delightful spectrum of said exhuman caring for orphaned creatures that reminds them of human pets (like a bunny or a mouse), but those 'cute babies' usually cause massive structural damage to city-states and a known mech-killer. Something like a Scraplet (because, let's be real, deep in your heart, you know a person that would try to keep it as a pet and succeed at it), so their tedtalk about behavioral training, 'reasonable precautions,' and emotional/physical fulfillment is filled with scientists who's curiosity (slightly to completely) overtakes any sense of self-preservation.

[alex51324]

You were right, OP.  

today i learned that there are cave paintings of bats and i think you all deserve to see them

[thesilicontribesman]

Lindow Man 1st Century CE 'Bog Body', The British Museum, London

Lindow Man is a well-preserved human body found in a peat-bog at Lindow Moss, near Manchester, in 1984. He died a violent death, sustaining many injuries before he was placed face down in a pool in the bog.

He was about 25 years old, 1.7m (5ft 6ins) tall and weighed 60-65kg (9.5-10st).

He had done very little hard, manual work, because his fingernails were well manicured.

His beard and moustache had been cut by a pair of shears.

His last meal probably included unleavened bread made from wheat and barley, cooked over a fire on which heather had been burnt.