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For other uses, see Caveman (disambiguation).

A caveman or troglodyte is a popular stock character based upon popular concepts of the way in which early prehistoric humans may have looked and behaved. The archetype of "cavemen" originates with the discovery of Neanderthal remains. The term caveman, sometimes used colloquially to refer to Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon people, originates out of assumptions about the association between early humans and caves, most clearly demonstrated in cave painting.

[edit] Archetype

Popular conceptions of cavemen can be seen as reflecting either the brutal savage image of the 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who famously held that the life of the human being without civilization was "...poore, nasty, brutish and short"; or, on the other hand, the noble savage vision of uncivilized man, popularly associated with Rousseau.

Caveman-like Heraldic "wild men" were found in European iconography for hundreds of years. During the Middle Ages, these creatures 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 animal.

Cavemen are portrayed as wearing shaggy animal hides, armed with rocks or cattle bone clubs, unintelligent, and aggressive. Cavemen are often shown as living in caves, possibly because that is where the preponderance of ritual paintings and artifacts has been found. Although it is probable that Neanderthals and early humans lived elsewhere as well as in caves, artifacts proving this would have been destroyed over millennia, while that which had been left in caves survived to be discovered. Nevertheless, expressions such as "living in a cave" have become cultural metaphors for a modern human who supposedly displays traits of brutishness or extreme ignorance. See also troglodyte.

Other errors in the "caveman" archetype include:

Humans did not begin wearing clothing until (at most) 107,000 years ago.^{[citation needed]}
Cavewoman clothing is commonly portrayed as covering the breasts; this owes more to Western mores than historical fact.^{[citation needed]}
Although cavemen usually carry oversized clubs, Neolithic weaponry incorporated a wide range, including spears, stones, slings, axes, and bows, not just clubs.
While little is certain as to Neanderthal intelligence, that of early Homo Sapiens, or Cro-magnon Man, is assumed to have been largely similar to that of humans today.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Stereotypes in culture

In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (1912) ape-men are depicted in a fight with modern humans. Edgar Rice Burroughs adapted this idea for The Land That Time Forgot (1915). A genre of caveman movies emerged, typified by D. W. Griffith's Man's Genesis (1912) [3]; they inspired Charles Chaplin's satiric take,^[1] in His Prehistoric Past (1914) [4] as well as Brute Force (1914) [5], The Cave Man (1912)[6], and later Cave Man (1934)[7]. From the descriptions, Griffith's characters can't talk (handy for a silent film), and use sticks and stones for weapons, while the hero of Cave Man is a Tarzan-like figure who fights dinosaurs.

[edit] Depictions of the Paleolithic in the media

In fiction, especially as pure entertainment or satire, cavemen are sometimes depicted as living contemporaneously with dinosaurs, a situation contradicted by archaeological and paleontological evidence which shows that non-avian dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, at which time true primates had not yet appeared.

In popular culture, the comic strips B.C., Alley Oop and occasionally The Far Side and Gogs portray "cavemen" in that way. The animated television series The Flintstones, a spoof on family sitcoms, portrays the Flintstones not in caves, but in 1950s–1960s ranch-style homes that suggested caves and had stone fittings.

Stereotypical cavemen are also often featured in advertising, including advertisements for Minute Maid. More recently, GEICO launched a series of television commercials and attempts at viral marketing, collectively known as the GEICO Cavemen advertising campaign, where GEICO announcers are repeatedly denounced by modern cavemen for perpetuating a stereotype of unintelligent, backward cavemen. The GEICO advertisements spawned a TV series called Cavemen which is currently on indefinite hiatus.

[edit] Documentaries

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ Stills from Man's Genesis[1] and His Prehistoric Past [2] show that Chaplin still has his bowler hat.

[0] Stills from Man's Genesis[1] and His Prehistoric Past [2] show that Chaplin still has his bowler hat.

[1]

Contents

[edit] Archetype

[edit] Stereotypes in culture

[edit] Depictions of the Paleolithic in the media

[edit] Documentaries

[edit] Caveman characters

[edit] Movies

[edit] Novels

[edit] See also

[edit] References