Paranormal
Ever wondered what life must have been like in the days of the cavemen? A lot of us immediately bring up our preconceived mental images of what it may have been like. Some might think of dark, damp caves, some think of well-lit caves with families of cavemen sitting around eating the raw meat of an animal killed in a recent hunt, and some see short, hunched, but stocky men in animal fur chasing woolly mammoths and deer around some grassy plain with spears made of wood. I'll tell you what I see, as descriptively as possible.
Imagine life without your TVs, computers, the Internet, cellphones, Mountain Dew or cigarettes. No cars, no watches, nothing electrical, no comfortable beds, no music for that matter. No doritos, pizzas, lasagne, not even the aroma of a warm cup of coffee to wake up to. No chocolate, chips, chocolate chip cookies, no ice cream. No tall buildings and houses. Just the cave as a place to stay with several other families. It's like sharing your house with your neighbors, and that makes it one of the most horrid thoughts to cross my mind today. What's worse is, if I were to be suddenly transported to that period of time, I'd probably die choking on the clean air and lack of cigarettes.
For blankets, the skin of a large dead animal, which probably still smells of old, dried up blood and urine (and any other places the animal may have ventured into during its lifetime). But they were probably used to it. And they must have been accustomed to sleeping on the hard ground all the time. In summers, it must have been a treat to lay out in the open under a brilliant night sky, unpolluted by city lights of any sort. Just them and the stars. Watching every single meteorite burn up in the atmosphere. Lying out there, night after night, what did they think?
In general, people tend to dissociate themselves from the 'cavemen', viewing them instead as another species whose actions and thoughts were alien to us. I say on the contrary, they are our ancestors, and their behavior and thoughts must hold at least some resemblance to ours. Lest we forget, they did have the developed cerebral cortex, which is what differentiates our species from most others. Which is why I believe, that they too must have asked themselves and each other the eternal questions:
"Why are we here?"
"What is our purpose in life?"
"What's that smell?"
And so, lying out there under the starry sky, they must have started seeing patterns and noticing the movement of some of these lights, the planets. The planets were moving gods, therefore. The patterns all probably had a reason why they were there. Stories behind them, of course! And they'd make the stories for those, stories full of the feats of the gods, their valor and their courage. The myths and legends.
In other parts of the world, different cavemen may have thought differently. "Those lights are the eyes of some god looking down upon us. Or maybe they are the light of the campfires belonging to other tribes really far away from us. And those tribes keep moving around us. I wonder, can they see us?"
But everything must have a reason. For their existence, to explain what was not known to them, and to give a reason as to why they do the things they do. Thus arose the concept of 'god'. What a satisfaction it must have been, to fill in the void. And to hold the power that a 'messenger' of god commanded over his people.
And daytime of course, that huge ball of fire moving across the sky, signalling the time for them to go hunting. But hunting wasn't all they did. There was probably more time spent on other things than hunting, because in a hunt, a single large animal would have sufficed for the next two or three days, if not the entire day. It's slightly difficult to imagine what could have been done. We would start looking for a computer terminal or a book to read. They probably made cave paintings, beat up their women and played caveman games. What specific caveman games were played, I cannot comprehend, because unfortunately, the only caveman games I can think of at the moment involve the decapitation of a member of the tribe and various kicking acts being performed on his head.
Now, all that is pretty straightforward. These are the generalities. What about the intricate details? I speculate that they must have had toe grime, but never bothered to clean it. The lack of sandals must imply that they had very thick skin on their feet, and body overall, because they had to brave the harsh weather. They probably ate bugs as well, because you can't just go on eating meat forever. They must have gotten bored of all that at some point, and started adding appetizers (bugs) to the meals. Their hair had to have lice in it. Their teeth were either really strong, or had so many holes in it that when they smiled, it looked like dice. Their breath smelt worse than my socks. They probably had a designated area near the cave where they all went to crap. The same clothes every day. How did they cut their hair? With a sharp stone? Shaving must have been painful. The best part of course, if you didn't like someone, just bash them over the head with a club, but that's just the stereotypical point-of-view speaking. They must have had a lot of union within their tribes and were probably looking to kill and wipe out completely the members of the other tribes. If this sounds barbaric to you, take a look at the 'tribes' today and tell me if anything has changed.
They must have hated the water as well, because when I fall back upon my instincts, I do not want to take a shower. They must have hated water! But still, the life was relatively simple back then. No deadlines to meet, no criteria to fullfil, no websites to update. Just making up stories about the gods in the skies, and worrying at night time whether there was a saber-toothed tiger lurking nearby...
