Quest for Fire

[glennaeichmann]

I think it's time for a new one guys. "A Caveman Saga" in the vein of Dances with Wolves, or maybe the Revenant. Let's see some accurate historical cavemen on screen, no spoken dialogue. Brought to you by National Geographic. Maybe a little dash of Clan of the Cave Bear. I don't think that is too much to ask.

[Cavebear]

I think it's time for a new one guys. "A Caveman Saga" in the vein of Dances with Wolves, or maybe the Revenant. Let's see some accurate historical cavemen on screen, no spoken dialogue. Brought to you by National Geographic. Maybe a little dash of Clan of the Cave Bear. I don't think that is too much to ask.

Revenant confused me because too many of the men looked about the same. Not that it didn't make sense they did, big strong fur-covered guys with beards tend to look a lot alike. But I had trouble knowing who was who.

I am a long-standing fan of the 'Clan Of The Cavebear' books. It's where I got my handle. And I spent a decade at a discussion forum about the books. The details of the times (flora, fauna, hubnting techniques) really interested me and one of my cats is named Ayla after the heroine.

'Dances With Wolves' was one of those unique movies that didn't follow the usual "bad guys kills family, good guy seeks revenge" plots. First time watching it, I was unsure. Second time through, I appreciated the concept.

'Quest For Fire' is under-appreciated. The movie did a lot with little language. Yeah, a few parts were lame, but it was mostly interesting overall. Like 'Dancing With Wolves', I give it credit for being "different".

But you mention you are looking for accurate "caveman" life. I love science/nature/history shows. I have found a few good-quality DVDs over the years...

You might want to look for these:

1. For purely technical discussion, 'Prehistoric Man: Human Evolution" is good. Slightly outdated (2010) but I enjoy watching scientists discussing the general evolution of early apes to Neanderthals. From Just The Facts Learning Series.

2. "First Peoples" by PBS. All about Homo Sapiens development.

3. 'Dawn Of Humanity' by Nova and National Geographic examines a cave filled with early Homo fossils.

4. 'Discovering Ardi' (Discovery Channel) looks at 4.4 million year old earliest bipedal apes.

And if you want to get into deeper evolution. I have a few.

1. 'Major Transitions In Evolution' (Great Courses) goes from start to current. Takes some work at the start, but the detailed lectures are amazing. I now know more about the sponges, flatworms and unfinned fish than I ever imagined I would. And I'm glad of it.

2. 'Miracle Planet' is impressive (Ambrose DVD). It describes the progress and reasons for it rather well.

3. 'Australia's First 4 Billion Years' (PBS) has an odd presentation, but pretty much uses Australia as representative of how Earth and life evolved.

For slightly more recent stuff...

1. 'History Of The World In 2 Hours' (History Channel) is rather interesting. A-Z in 88 minutes...

2. 'The Story Of All Of Us: Mankind' (History Channel) is worth watching. Bunch of short episodes of the history of human civilization.

I hope you check a few of them out. And if anyone has suggestions in return, I will glad of it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I mentioned "Clan of the Cavebear" once and nearly flunked my Anthro class.

[Cavebear]

I mentioned "Clan of the Cavebear" once and nearly flunked my Anthro class.

Maybe your Anthro Professor should have flunked.  

I thought the books seemed relatively detailed and accurate.  But maybe there were errors.  If you want to, point out any major ones.   I know of a few, so I won't jump on you about them any.  But it seemed to me that Jean Auel did a pretty good job of it in general.

And here at past 8:30 am, I am going to bed, so you have a whole day to write...  

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Prof. Meridean Anderson, too late to talk to her.

I wasn't defending the prof or the book, just pointing out that anthropologists, by and large, weren't impressed with it. "Paleo bodice ripper" was a term I remember.

[Minimalist]

I mentioned "Clan of the Cavebear" once and nearly flunked my Anthro class.

Clan of the Cavebear was written in 1980 at a time when the Out of Africa hypothesis insisted that there had never been any interbreeding between HSS and HNS.  It was 30 years later...and I imagine you were long out of college by then... that researchers at the Max Planck Institute determined that modern humans had between 2-4% HNS DNA in their mix and a few years after that at a cave in Israel a skull was found with composite HSS/HNS features.

So Jean Auel was well ahead of her time with her ultimately correct speculation but, you know, science hates speculation without evidence.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

CotC is basically a bodice ripper.

[Minimalist]

The first one wasn't too bad.


The rest of them were little more than soft-core porn.

And a perfect example of why women should leave that kind of writing to men!

[Rhythmcs]

I think it's time for a new one guys. "A Caveman Saga" in the vein of Dances with Wolves, or maybe the Revenant. Let's see some accurate historical cavemen on screen, no spoken dialogue. Brought to you by National Geographic. Maybe a little dash of Clan of the Cave Bear. I don't think that is too much to ask.

You just got 10k bc not too long ago!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I think it's time for a new one guys. "A Caveman Saga" in the vein of Dances with Wolves, or maybe the Revenant. Let's see some accurate historical cavemen on screen, no spoken dialogue. Brought to you by National Geographic. Maybe a little dash of Clan of the Cave Bear. I don't think that is too much to ask.

You just got 10k bc not too long ago!

Phorusrhacids, colloquially known as terror birds, are an extinct clade of large carnivorous flightless birds that were one of the largest species of apex predators in South America during the Cenozoic era; their conventionally accepted temporal range covers from 62 to 0.1 million years ago.

Wikipedia