Cavemen and cavewomen

[Wild-Woman]

This is not strictly wildlife, but hey it's a sort of evolution question. Do you think that cavemen/women had a sense of humour? Do you think they could make a joke or do you think their lives were so based around survival that it would not been thought of. Just cant imagine them having a right old laugh.

[Alan]

Well they say we're not much different intelligence-wise to those back then. It's just a different type of technology or thought process that we use today. I'm sure Mr Ugg laughed out loud when lil Ugg Junior slipped in the Mammoth poo! I also bet Mrs Ugg told her old man off for letting junior get his furs dirty! It's part of learning..

[Wild-Woman]

Originally Posted by Alan

Well they say we're not much different intelligence-wise to those back then. It's just a different type of technology or thought process that we use today. I'm sure Mr Ugg laughed out loud when lil Ugg Junior slipped in the Mammoth poo! I also bet Mrs Ugg told her old man off for letting junior get his furs dirty! It's part of learning..

Well I suppose if junior had hurt himself, he may have cried and that's an emotional response. So if you have emotions,I suppose you'd class laughter as one and it may come automatically...if you see what I mean.

[Ollie]

Well Julie, I am regarded as a caveman and I think I have a sense of humour so I guess they would have had as well. Seriously, I can't see any reason why they would not have had a sense of humour, as Alan said we are not too different intellgence wise.
Roger

[Alan]

I think you'd need a good sense of humour, especially with Saber-tooth tigers to watch out for. Not to mention a life expectancy of only 30 years of so! Nothing like a good laugh to keep the stress away!

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by Ollie

Well Julie, I am regarded as a caveman and I think I have a sense of humour so I guess they would have had as well. Seriously, I can't see any reason why they would not have had a sense of humour, as Alan said we are not too different intellgence wise.
Roger

I live with one and we have a laugh

[speckled wood]

Originally Posted by honeybee

I live with one and we have a laugh

I saw a fair number of Cavemen and Cavewomen walking around Macclesfield town centre this afternoon.

[Rainbowmum]

Originally Posted by Wild-Woman

This is not strictly wildlife, but hey it's a sort of evolution question. Do you think that cavemen/women had a sense of humour? Do you think they could make a joke or do you think their lives were so based around survival that it would not been thought of. Just cant imagine them having a right old laugh.

What a fab thought! I have images of cave people chuckling now
I am sure they did laugh but maybe I say that because the thought of a life without any laughter would be quite sad in every sense.
Louise xx

[badgerwatcher]

We did a bit of exploring caves a couple of years ago in the Lot region in France, something I've always wanted to do but terror of going underground stopped me. We visited one cave where holm oaks' roots growing down through the 'limestone I think' had created what they called 'spaghetti stalactites, thin, hollow, phosphorescent and of various colours due to different minerals. The inhabitants of the cave in prehistoric times had ground some of them up to use as pigment for their paintings, giving a good range of colours. They had used larger hollow ones as lamps by filling them with animal fat. They had even, in a lower chamber where the paintings led us, used some of them to create music, striking them to produce different notes. This area, we were told, was believed to be some sort of religious or sacred room, and the ground was worn by their prossessions. If they were capable of all that creativity, then they were much closer to us than I had ever before believed, certainly capable of a wide range of emotions. It gave me the enthusiasm and courage to visit several other caves which was a great experience. I'm so glad I conquered my fear.

[Wild-Woman]

Originally Posted by badgerwatcher

We did a bit of exploring caves a couple of years ago in the Lot region in France, something I've always wanted to do but terror of going underground stopped me. We visited one cave where holm oaks' roots growing down through the 'limestone I think' had created what they called 'spaghetti stalactites, thin, hollow, phosphorescent and of various colours due to different minerals. The inhabitants of the cave in prehistoric times had ground some of them up to use as pigment for their paintings, giving a good range of colours. They had used larger hollow ones as lamps by filling them with animal fat. They had even, in a lower chamber where the paintings led us, used some of them to create music, striking them to produce different notes. This area, we were told, was believed to be some sort of religious or sacred room, and the ground was worn by their prossessions. If they were capable of all that creativity, then they were much closer to us than I had ever before believed, certainly capable of a wide range of emotions. It gave me the enthusiasm and courage to visit several other caves which was a great experience. I'm so glad I conquered my fear.

That sounds like an excellent place. I'd like to see that.
When you think of cavemen, it's easy to get a vision of an unintelligent thug, with very little in the way of social skills but our ancestors were obviously quite organised and skilled.
As huntsmen, they must have been highly tuned into team work. After all, one couldn't have taken down a mammoth on his own.
It's still quite hard to comprehend them laughing though. And this may sound silly, but I just can't imagine them as romantics!

Think I'll have to study gorillas and apes harder to get my head around this one. The missing link will be a golden prize, if it's ever truly discovered.

[Wild-Woman]

Originally Posted by speckled wood

I saw a fair number of Cavemen and Cavewomen walking around Macclesfield town centre this afternoon.

He he. Old Specked Wood has obviously found the site for the missing links then!

[aeshna5]

Julie, I'm sure they had a good laugh at times. They would have had stresses like finding food + escaping predation themselves, but none of the modern stresses that seem to make so many in the western world depressed + miserable, despite all the modern comforts. For a start they would have been in cohesive family units- so there was probably the occasional rows, but laughter too- sadly this is too often lacking nowadays.

I notice when I travel to undeveloped parts of the world how content people often are provided they have food, water + shelter. Perhaps we ought to start a new troglodytes movement- now where's my loincloth?

[badgerwatcher]

Maybe depression, to which I succumb occasionally, is a 'luxury' of modern times! If your days revolved around finding sufficient food and shelter to get you through until tomorrow, maybe there wasn't much time for phylosophical thought! And anyone sitting around staring gloomily into space probably just got eaten by something big and fierce! Or maybe our adreniline balances were better tuned and therefore we were less chemically predisposed to depressive illnesses. I have had cognitive therapy for agorophobia, and once I could visualise the rush of adreniline which fear produces as a bottle of chemical which would flow out of the system in its own time, I broke the fear cycle and gained some control over the agorophobia. Maybe using that chemical to fight an aggressor or run away is much healthier than what we live with nowadays, where emotions are conventionally supressed. And I'm sure laughter, too, is a reflex which is a tension release mechanism, and therefore built in to us as much as all our other reflexes, so we would be unable under normal circumstances not to laugh when conditions were right.

[Wild-Woman]

Originally Posted by badgerwatcher

Maybe depression, to which I succumb occasionally, is a 'luxury' of modern times! If your days revolved around finding sufficient food and shelter to get you through until tomorrow, maybe there wasn't much time for phylosophical thought! And anyone sitting around staring gloomily into space probably just got eaten by something big and fierce! Or maybe our adreniline balances were better tuned and therefore we were less chemically predisposed to depressive illnesses. I have had cognitive therapy for agorophobia, and once I could visualise the rush of adreniline which fear produces as a bottle of chemical which would flow out of the system in its own time, I broke the fear cycle and gained some control over the agorophobia. Maybe using that chemical to fight an aggressor or run away is much healthier than what we live with nowadays, where emotions are conventionally supressed. And I'm sure laughter, too, is a reflex which is a tension release mechanism, and therefore built in to us as much as all our other reflexes, so we would be unable under normal circumstances not to laugh when conditions were right.

Clever way of looking at it. I suppose also that when a baby starts to laugh, it's a response to stimuli rather than understanding the joke. Therefore cave babies would surely have been the same.

[nightshade]

I would imagine that humour was an imperative in days of yor,so I asked my mother in law and she confirms this

[Wild-Woman]

Originally Posted by nightshade

I would imagine that humour was an imperative in days of yor,so I asked my mother in law and she confirms this

Lol I can feel a spot of blackmailing coming on.