Simpler Times

Stone Age Realities



The Ice Age was apocalyptic. Palaeolithic Europe was more of a wilderness than it was a frontier. From N’ Africa to the steppes, Neanderthal culture was sparsely distributed throughout a loose confederation. They may have shared tool making technology and rituals. They probably married and traded between tribes too. Tribes spent most of their time isolated from one another though. In order to meet the demand for resources with the technology they had, they were confined to solitary dominions. Neanderthal tribes might not want to share hunting grounds with a big cat or cave bear either. Not only were large predators competition for resources, they were also a threat. The Neanderthals’ role as a niche predator in Ice Age Europe kept their numbers small.
It was a matter of logistics. For Neanderthals, efficiency was a small scale undertaking. Contact between tribes might include trade between them but trade wasn’t much of an extra-tribal practice. Instead of finding a Neanderthal on the trade routes, you’d be more likely to run into one on a game trail. Cro-Magnon Man was capable of efficiency on a larger scale with intricate trade networks over vast distances. Neanderthal tribes had to acquire their own resources instead of be able to rely on trade for them.


Subsistence

Ice Age provisioning is regulated by simplicity just like its industry was. They were each resource dependent. It made trade unique to its time. Life was defined between Ice Age trade, industry and provision. Hunting and foraging supplied most of the ‘subsistence’ for each tribe. Other resources were required for successful provisioning. Tool knappers would fashion spearheads or axes and craftsfolk would weave baskets or nets. Either foraging or hunting parties were usually led in at least small numbers to provide safety. Safety might be democracy’s origin. Even among predators, the ability to coordinate defenses requires some degree of democracy. For all their superiority, prides and packs and tribes provide more strength and resources than big cats and wild dogs and human hunters can alone.
Once food needs were met, hunting and foraging parties would return to the tribe’s campsite to share their haul. Distribution of resources might have been hierarchical. Whether or not the chief went on the hunt, he might get the biggest cut. A well respected medicine man or flint knapper might get choice cuts too. Hunters or foragers would then take their shares for their own hearth before the choicest cuts were all gone. Lower ranking members of the tribe would be last to get a cut. What’s left might have been used as tools or medicine, depending on its properties. That’s a simplified example of distribution but Ice Age democracy relied on rank to some degree.
Neanderthal politics made sure everyone had a role in provisioning the tribe. There were only so many things you could be. The labor force that drove provisioning comprised a good majority of the tribe. If you were disabled, you might be excluded from the hunt or harvest. If you had a more specialized role, you might be delegated to a support position. Neanderthal subsistence seems to have been a very social undertaking. Lacking commerce and complex trade, Neanderthals relied upon a system of common wealth distribution to ensure resource demands were met between the various roles and positions within the tribe once the resources had been obtained.


Daily Life

Cave men must have been brilliant politicians. Cave politics were a matter of simplicity. The tribe’s chief was the resident governor. It would have been a jurisdiction’s breadth to the next tribe, since either had to get by on their turf’s resources. It would have been primitively provincial. Turf wars might have occurred as populations grew or were established. Kinship might have been along patriarchical lines like their social hierarchy seems to have been. As a niche hunter like modern humans, Neanderthals must have been partly opportunistic. Any cave man can tell you, ‘you always share your cave with the biggest predator.’ A fight doctor might tell you the same thing. Bigger predators can turn a corner to their advantage. Rituals and habits might have reflected their rank in the wilderness’s order.
Industry would have been limited to the tribe’s labor and trade potentials. Technology was probably ruled by the tribe’s internal demands. Meteorological forces would have governed Neanderthal daily life too. A good storm could effectively leave you cave bound for its duration. Eventually though, I think daily life was defined by family. With a long hike between tribes, immediate support had to come from the tribe. Education, provisions and morale were all internal matters. With living conditions comparable to combat situations, the archaic breed must have developed a strong sense of duty. It’d be hard to avoid.


Social Life

Neanderthal social life was limited. Nightlife might include a victorious hunting party smoking and drinking around a bonfire before returning to separate corners of the cave to bunk down. Within the same cave, tribes broke up into smaller units with their own hearths. The hearth was like a family apartment inside the cave. With a limited selection of caves and ultimately cave space, Neanderthals “emptied and re-used hearths” that had proven suitable. (Barton – Mousterian Hearths and Shellfish) Meals could be cooked and served from there and sleeping quarters were found there too. It probably wouldn’t be uncommon to find three generations in the same hearth. Grandparents might have helped raise children while parents were hunting or picking wild cabbage. Neanderthals lived on into their thirties before their hard lifestyles caught up with them. Their childhoods lasted until they were able to hunt or run a hearth. If they were lucky, there might have been a good decade (from their mid teens to their mid twenties) that they could hunt and raise children. By their late twenties, old age would set in. For Neanderthals that might mean they had to acquire the winter blankets and clothes in addition to the status they would need for later years when they could no longer hunt.
There was no provincial government. Individual clans didn’t pay taxes to a regional authority for its services. It would have been a time of renegades and lawlessness. Instead there would have been expectations and fear to guide their conduct. If anyone is to blame for feudal society and all its shortcomings it might be the Neanderthals. Feudalism might very well have been derived from their brand of social democracy. At their most socially complex, Europe’s Neanderthals were a confederation of clans. While trade might bring them together with other human breeds, they might be more likely to get together with neighboring clans for an event than for commerce. At least until the trade industry arrived with the Upper Palaeolithic revolution. Aside from feudalism, any lasting influences absorbed from Neanderthal culture might be evident in certain aspects of the military and early European and Near Eastern mythologies.


Language

Telepathic or not, Neanderthals would have been easy to read. They probably didn’t have complex demands upon language. Their brains were devoted to their instincts and sensory functions. They might have had more use for language in their rituals as they invoked the spirits of their totems. They would probably be as blunt as they would be easy to read. They probably would have had ‘little white lies’, just like we have. When someone was ill, I think they would explain it to children through their beliefs. And they might have had legends and stories about heroics on a hunt.
It is hard to keep secrets in a cave though. Their spoken language would have been symbolic and pretty candid but their need for it would have been almost negligible. Like all primates, they would have expressed support through whatever language they possessed. And as a niche predator, they would have needed to issue calls out of distress and coordination when they spotted a big cat on their trail or closed in on prey of their own. There might have been limited industry jargon between stone-working, medicine and craft guilds. Like there was between modern humans who had to keep up with “relatively rapid shifts in core reduction strategies as well as bone and antler tool design”, during the Upper Palaeolithic. (Bar-Yosef – The Upper Paleolithic Revolution) Nothing very extensive because their confederation was a fairly distant one, but maybe enough to swap trade secrets.


The revolution of the Upper Palaeolithic might deserve more credit for the absorption of the Neanderthals and their culture than modern humans do. The commerce and industry that accompanied it were foreign to the Neanderthals’ way of life. They were no match for the innovation itself. It would take a patient Cro-Magnon tribe to teach a clan of Neanderthals how to trade. If they were capable of “an advance in culture, in the form of new tools and fire technology”, both breeds could have benefitted from the exchange. (Shreeves – The Neandertal Enigma) Ultimately, competition or cooperation would have been dependent on available resources.
There’s no substitute for technology. With or without the Neanderthals, innovation and social networks allowed modern humans to thrive in their new environment. Simple Neanderthal politics would have to be capable of compromise with successful outsiders. If they were, Neanderthal culture might have been assimilated by modern humans as it was overrun by them. I hope so. Their simple ways are as comforting as they were quaint. There’s something to be said for simplicity though. Neanderthals may have jvst done it better than anyone else.