How to survive in the stone age

The Stone Age was the period on earth before humans found out how to use metal. This age ended at different times around the planet as metal was discovered by different civilizations during different time periods, but for the purpose of this example, I shall refer to the Stone Age in Britain which ended around 2500 BCE. When it began is anyone’s guess, but the most accurate predictions we can make estimate that it began about 2.5 million years ago which is when homo-erectus are thought to have first started to use stone tools.

In the event that you are suddenly whisked away to the British mainland 10,000 years into the past, here are a few things you should keep in mind to help you survive.

Learn how to hunt giant creatures

The wildlife in Britain 10,000 years ago was completely different than it is now, with most of the animals people are used to seeing not existing in the country at the time. Instead of cats and dogs, there were woolly rhinos, giant cave bears, and the Megalocerus, an enormous type of deer that stood over 10 feet tall. Since people during this time didn’t even have pottery yet, it’s safe to assume they didn’t have the ability to make strings that were strong enough to be used on a bow of any real power. Using nothing but a stone spear and knife, you would somehow have to take down a cave bear that would make today’s grizzly bears look tiny.

Learn how to forage

One of the advantages that comes with having a tiny human population on such a large island is that wilderness would cover the majority of the land. Wild seeds, fruit, nuts, grain, edible leaves, and roots would be plentiful, with the only danger coming from trying not to eat something poisonous. If you are by the sea then you have access to protein all year round in the form of shellfish, but inland the only reliable source you will have would be nuts which are seasonal, forcing you to eventually go and hunt some kind of giant animal.

Get used to eating things raw

It is believed the earliest that people had the ability to make fire was some were around 100,000 BCE based on excavations of what appears to be the remains of campfires in caves inhabited during the Stone Age. There would have been many occasions where people would not be able to make a fire, and so eating things raw would be a regular occurrence. Eating fish and certain red meats raw isn’t too risky, but any meat-eating animal can carry a risk of parasites and would have been avoided, raw shrub root anyone?

Prepare to make sacrifices

Traveling back 10,000 years would be significantly harder for the average person to survive than it would be for someone who was born there, mostly due to the huge number of things they would suddenly have to go without. Every single breed of modern-day cow, pig, sheep, and goat found in Britain didn’t exist here during the Stone Age, with animals like chickens and rabbits being introduced later into the country from the east. You will have to go without every single modern-day convenience you are used to, with creating warmth changing from using a pre-programmed boiler designed to make your home warm for when you walk through the door, to gathering sticks and chipping away at a piece of flint for a few hours until you got a spark.

Avoid getting sick at all costs

Not only was there no such thing as medicine during the Stone Age, but people didn’t even know what germs were. Hygiene was basically guesswork and if you got sick the rest of the tribe would probably leave you somewhere so everyone else didn’t catch it. The best you could hope for if you got ill was to have a hairy tribe member rub some plant leaves he chewed up onto your chest in the belief it would chase out the evil causing you to get sick. A good example of Stone Age medicine is something found in a few rare examples that can only be assumed to be a cure for headaches. A small hole was drilled through the skull using a flint drill until it reached the point where the brain tissue was visible, which I assume they thought would relieve pressure. Personally, I’d rather have a headache than have someone grind through my skull with a rock in an age when anesthetic didn’t exist.

Learn how to make everything you need from a piece of flint

Flint is quite common and would have been readily available to such a small population, but turning it into anything useful takes skill. Flint knapping is the process of chipping off slithers of flint to create a sharp edge, and even though it can become very sharp it shatters and chips easily. Knives, spears, axes, and possibly arrows would have to be made on a regular basis, but as useful as it was for making certain tools it was useless for others. The material wasn’t strong enough to make a saw out of and chopping down a tree would be possible but at the cost of many axes, making it not worth it in the long run.

Get used to the basics

Life during the stone age would consist of nothing more than surviving. Everything they did would take a huge amount of work and there was no time for laziness or fun. Making an item of clothing would be something that you’d set an entire day aside for, with the following days spent foraging and hunting until the time came when your clothing or tools failed, only to go make some more and go through the cycle over and over again.