10 Lies About Cavemen You Still Believe

A caveman who lives in a cave, carries a club, drags a woman by the hair and dies at thirty... We all know that picture. Science tells a very different story. Together with Hunter and the hunter Ayla, we break the 10 most repeated myths about prehistory, one by one: huts on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, the 63 million years between us and the dinosaurs, Neanderthals wearing eagle-talon jewelry, six human species alive at the same time, a young woman hunter high in the Andes, the 40,000-year-old Lion Man and a bone flute, a surgery performed 31,000 years ago, and a 9,000-year-old dentist. And we go inside the body: the brain, the Neanderthal gene, the bone and the tooth have something to say. Which myth did you believe the most? Tell us in the comments! 00:00 - The Picture Everyone Knows 00:51 - Myth 1: They Lived in Caves 01:54 - Myth 2: Humans Lived With Dinosaurs 02:47 - Myth 3: Neanderthals Were Dumb Brutes 04:23 - Myth 4: Evolution Was a Straight Line 05:34 - Myth 5: Men Hunted, Women Gathered 06:42 - Myth 6: Dragged by the Hair 07:37 - So What Could They Actually Do? 07:52 - Myth 7: No Time for Beauty 09:14 - Myth 8: They Knew Nothing About Medicine 10:23 - Myth 9: Life Was Brutal and Lonely 11:14 - Myth 10: Everyone Died at Thirty 12:14 - What Really Happened KEY FINDINGS: Ohalo II (Israel): a 23,000-year-old camp of brush huts. Cueva de los Aviones (Spain): painted shells, ~115,000 years old; Krapina (Croatia): eagle-talon jewelry, 130,000 years old. Marcellin Boule (1911): the origin of the «hunched, dumb Neanderthal» image. Denny: a girl whose mother was a Neanderthal and whose father was a Denisovan. Wilamaya Patjxa (Peru): a 9,000-year-old grave of a young woman buried with a hunting kit; women hunted in 79% of 63 foraging societies. Blombos (South Africa): engraved ochre, ~75,000 years old; Sulawesi: a cave painting over 51,000 years old; the Lion Man and the Hohle Fels flute. Liang Tebo (Borneo): a leg amputation 31,000 years ago; Mehrgarh (Pakistan): tooth drilling 9,000 years ago. Hunter-gatherer lifespans: the most common adult age at death was 68–78. Tags: cavemen, prehistory, prehistoric humans, neanderthals, stone age, myths debunked, ancient humans, human evolution, history animated, hunter Made with AI-assisted animation; facts checked against the sources above.