10,000 BC

10,000 BC

I just saw the plot synopsis for the movie 10,000 BC…Oh well, I’ll probably go see it anyway. I tend to like the Big Budget Special Effects flicks. I know the thing will not win any Oscars for script or actor or director, but I like them anyway. Kind of like the olden days of the Hollywood musical, they bore no resemblance to reality, but had big followings in the depression era as an escape vehicle for lots of poor people.

Of course the subject matter, prehistoric man/women, is near to my heart, but I don’t hold out any hopes that the movie will even remotely follow what scientists nowadays believe to be true of the era. For some reason I have a strong attraction to prehistoric times and the chance to immerse oneself in a dreamworld of the times, even if not authentic in all ways, is a captivating thought.

Several things I will keep in mind as I watch: This was the Mesolithic era. World population at that time was maybe 3 million or so. Small cities/large encampments were just starting to pop up. The shores of the Black Sea were about three hundred feet lower than now, and were populated. The Bronze age or iron age had not started. Stone and possibly bone/antler were used for tool making. In warm climate, nudity was probably prevalent. Pottery had been developed in Japan a thousand years earlier, but had not yet spread to the Middle East or Western Asia. Some of what we consider now as farm animals were being domesticated. Five thousand, or more years earlier…the great cave paintings in France were produced. I think that throughout time men/women have had a “creative gene” and have been superb artists. Of course the tools were hard to come by at the time.

Mammoths were still around, but their numbers were dwindling rapidly. Humans had produced a wicked stone spearhead thousands of years before, and were using it very proficiently on large game such as Aurochs, mammoths, bison, etc. Most humans were probably hunter/gatherers, but some small populations in Egypt, the Levant, Asia, and India were probably experimenting with Emmer or Einkorn wheat. The Indus Valley, Egyptian, and the Mesopotamian civilizations and the use of metals were still in the future, but humankind was starting to advance at a more rapid rate than the aeon’s that led to these times

It will be interesting to watch the movie while keeping in mind real world happenings and the Hollywood version.