Humanity 100,000 Years Ago - Life In The Paleolithic

If you have only two fossils of something how you can know if something lived on 1/4 of continent?

The topic at the end reminds me of a quote "Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones. But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said.”

It's really mind-blowing to me that for most of human history, everyone lived so vastly different from how we live today. The fact that I can even watch this on a monitor and write this comment for everyone to see on the internet. It's crazy stuff.

This stuff is so incredibly fascinating to me. Just think of the eons, literally millennia after millennia after millennia after millennia (and on and on) of human existence of which we have no stories, no idea of their languages or customs, and relatively speaking almost no change from one 10,000 year time period to another. I wish there was a time machine that could give us a peak at these ancient peoples and their cultures. I imagine that there are innumerable amazing true stories that have been totally lost to history.

My father was a copilot of a B-25 Medium Bomber crew that was shot down in the Philippines and completed a water ditch off the coast of Mindoro Island in Luzon. This was a crew of 5, and my dad ended up with two crew members in the care of natives. This was mid 44, not too much before the return of U.S troops and MacArthur. Anyway, My father took myriad pics with on of the cameras he had and developed a close bond with the men who secluded them. The Philippines in total and Luzon specifically were under Japanese control. On a couple occasions, my dad told me a story that he has been told by the locals that had harbored him. I was not born until 62, so these were already old stories when dad gifted them to me. The men had told dad of a small group of strange somewhat un-Asian or even un-Pacific Islander in appearance. The said the group was referred to as The Dumagat by some of the men who talked to my dad. But, my father spoke of a leader there who said the people they had found in 36 or 1937 were not Dumagat at all. He said to my father this is why we still tell the story. Dumagat peoples are not a story, they are here and we see them her at times. He told my father that a hunting party had grabbed a small child of 9 or 10 who had a baboon type protruding brow line and a nose so flat it was nearly just 2 holes. He was incredibly hairy, seemed impossible for a child, with thick hair on his back that looked almost to be a coat of fur. The old man told my father that as we marveled and laughed over this terrified child who grunted and cawed like a bird, a group of 4 creatures emerged from the jungle. They were obviously related as a species to the child because each had the same bone structure and hairy trunk. He said they were all under 5 ft tall and clad in jungle made coverings, but one man, who had an elaborate type hat that appeared to be made of leaves and shells and bones, was completely naked. They stood there in a somewhat threatening posture just staring. He said the child appeared to be crying, but it sounded like the baying of a goat. The naked man took a couple steps toward them and then urinated toward the group of hunters, actually holding his "otin" and aiming at them, and considering they were 20 feet apart, coming bizarrely close. He told my dad they were not frightened and that he had no idea how to take the urinating, since it seemed neither threat nor greeting. He told my dad that he did it as another would sneeze. They motioned the chiled over to the small group and then stood looking at each other for at least a minute or two. He said the naked man then looked about the ground briefly until he found a chicken egg sized stone. He spit on the stone and went to the small little wet puddle where his piss stream had arced to. He bent and planted the rock in the wet spot about midway up the small stone. He blew on it as if he were blowing out a candle, he turned and run in a loping type way past his group, and they followed him in the strange animal type run. He told my dad that they never saw them again but that his grandfather had told him of the ancient tribe that still existed in the jungle. That they had been on the earth for a million years but were only a few now. Everything I write here is true in the sense that this is exactly what my dad told me. I also know that this is for the most part just what my father was told. The way I back that up is that my dad took pictures of the natives that risked their lived to seclude dad and his 2 crew mates. The planes Capt, who was my mom and dad's best man when they had married in Hawaii during a leave, had been turned over to the Japanese by another group of Filipinos. He died in captivity. The 5th crewman, a guy dad called Boston, was never seen or heard from again. As a teenager who was fascinated with history and the war my dad fought, I remember asking him who he thought those people were. His joke was they had mated with the baboons, but he told me in earnest that the islands of the Philippines, over 1,000 of them, have had people of one type or another on them since the dawn of time. He said so who knows when these people come from. And dad did use the word "when." My father took photos of the people who saved his life, and I have all those photos. I have every letter dad sent mom from overseas and have discovered that (Although my dad said he kept and still had a journal while hiding on Luzon, I was never able to locate it after dad's death) he wrote about the 3 months in hiding in several letters, but in one specific letter, dad tells my mom about the old man's story of the "baboon people." Stefan, if you would be interested, I would be glad to share that stuff with you.

“Distant cousins, part time lovers” 😂

"Throwing a tortoise on the fire is probably the closest a person in the Paleolithic could have gotten to fast food." Killer quote Stefan

I showed my grandmother this video and she was so fascinated by it but her English is rubbish, so I translated this video for her. She really liked it

My god. I love your videos. Your voice, your cadence, the subject and literally every single topic you cover is amazing af. Keep it up, I love what you're doing.

That spoon he’s holding heightens the drama of this video. Was he going for ice cream? Maybe he’s a late night cereal guy. We’ll never know.

It’s so easy to forget how alive the Earth was in the prehistoric era. It’s often remembered as a time of wide-open barren landscape with few small remote groups of nomadic cavemen setting up camps. But even from 2,000,000-10,000 years ago the planet was full of humans living in early simple societies with their own unknown cultures, languages, and maybe even religions.

“Throwing a tortoise on the fire was probably the closest thing people during paleo this times came to fast food” !!! 😆 Very funny, and awesome informative video. Also, your passion for the subject brings it alive! Thank you.

I love the comic relief in your vids. Super informative presentation, and you're gripping a plastic spoon on the mic, without explanation. Masterpiece.

A Neanderthal, Homo sapiens, and Homo erectus walk into a bar..... It's astounding to realize that 100,000 years ago this joke would have made sense.

So late right now? It sure is. But if Stefan's determined to finish making this video, then I am determined to watch it!

your delivery on this fascinating subject is to be admired. will be looking for other lectures from you.

I really like these videos, because they stick to the facts. There is no dramatization of what life may have been like, or questionable sensationalism. Others may find them uneventful, but I find them to be fascinating, because they are probably quite accurate. Thank you.

"Getting eaten by a hyena is bad." Thanks, Stefan. I'll jot that down.

That final section made them feel so human to me, it really just brought into focus that these ancient peolpes weren't characters in a book we don't know the story to, they lived with struggles and love and a richness that we might not be able to experience, but we can empathise with as part of our shared human experience.

2 years ago or two hours ago doesn't matter imma clicking on your videos!! Learning a lot and being entertained at the same time. Your efforts are much appreciated!!