CaveMan

MonkeyWrench

I had this conversation last night with a friend of mine about advances in medicine and longer life expectancy of modern day humans. Imagine that you lived thousands of years ago where the classic caveman lifestyle was lived out and imagine trying to live your life back then with all the ailments you have now.

Personally I would be a complete mess I’d say. I have pretty poor eyesight and cannot see anything more than a foot away from me without corrective lens. I would have had great difficulty back in caveman times where the male used to go out hunting in packs, I would have gotten lost in a couple of minutes and probably wouldn’t be able to distinguish my prey from a mate of mine! I have broken my left leg and my right arm in the last few years which healed correctly with modern day techniques but I could well have ended up with a permanent limp back then.
So basically in summary I would have been just limping around the place banging into trees and probably got lost on numerous occasions. Great life that would have been, I would probably have been encouraged to stay back with the cave women preparing dinner and taking care of the kids etc..:D
Anyone else with ailments which would have effected their life back then?

gandalf

Lets put it this way I doubt you would be picking up your caveman pension

Black Swan

Big MacMonkeyWrench, a new Sabretooth tiger fast food





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tbh

I've had diabetes for 11 years, so if I'd been alive back then, I'd have been dead for 10 years. if you know what I mean.

The Hill Billy

I would have been dead aged 9 from acute appendcitis.

Even if I had survived I wouldn't be able to see for nuts & would probably have walked over a cliff.

The Bollox

I doubt many of the ailments you have listed there would have been around then! you cannot miss what you never had, and I am refering to corrective lenses. You would have assumed everyone has the same poor vision as you, and you would adapt to it.

The Hill Billy

Marts wrote:

I doubt many of the ailments you have listed there would have been around then! you cannot miss what you never had, and I am refering to corrective lenses. You would have assumed everyone has the same poor vision as you, and you would adapt to it.

Not necessarily. Picture the scene - You & Ugh out hunting on the plains for a wooly-mammoth take-home dinner.

Ugh (pointing): Look at that wooly-mammoth on the horizon. Let's go get him with our flint spears.
You (squinting in general direction of Ugh's finger): What fcuking wooly-mammoth?

Wibbs

Luckily enough I'd probably be grand. I've had no life threatening illnesses that required constant medical care. In fact I don't recall ever having taken an antibiotic. I was going to have my tonsils out but that righted itself in the end. Looks like I'd have been one of the older ones.

In any case when we look at modern hunter gatherer types, although they have very high childhood mortality they can and do live to good ages. It's the childhood mortality that drags down the stats. They're usually free of many of the ailments that plague many in the modern world. They tend to have a more varied diet, have sod all obesity, tooth decay, higher bone densities, less arthritis, cancers, heart disease and stroke and very very rarely come down with type 2 diabetes so if you survived your childhood the chances of you seeing 60 would have been good. Wooly mammoths notwithstanding.....

Ruu_Old

I would have been mostly okay. I used to have a major headache problem as a lad, in that case I probably would be trying to cure it by bashing my head off a rock or something.

tbh

Ruu wrote:

I would have been mostly okay. I used to have a major headache problem as a lad, in that case I probably would be trying to cure it by bashing my head off a rock or something.

you would have invented alternative medicine!

Feral Mutant

I had asthma when I was younger so I probably wouldn't have been able to hunt. Not that it would matter because if I had to kill my own food I'd probably be a vegetarian or a scavenger. I've also managed to break my arm a couple of times.

Dooom

First image that came into my head of Mart adapting to poor vision:

"Oh sorry love, I thought you were offering me melons for dinner."

pbsuxok1znja4r

I'd actually have been fine. No health complaints for me, now or ever. I think heard flies were a huge problem back in those days though. I hate flies.

tSubh Dearg

I wouldn't even be alive as I was born by C-Section due to complications. If by some miracle I did survive then I would've probably died from something like chicken pox or the mumps.

pbsuxok1znja4r

Oh man that's right I had chicken pox as a kid. I guess would've killed me back in teh cave-days.

trout

MonkeyWrench wrote:

Anyone else with ailments which would have effected their life back then?

according to my nearest and dearest i have the following ailments ... surly, brutish, squat, lumpen, oafish, anti-social, belligerent, intolerant, greasy, hairy and aggressive

all of which make a pretty good caveman ... i'm just thousands of years after my time:D

Trinity

Ruu wrote:

I would have been mostly okay. I used to have a major headache problem as a lad, in that case I probably would be trying to cure it by bashing my head off a rock or something.

LOL that brought me back - when i was very young i got the worst headaches ever.

Mam would ask me to describe them (cos i got a couple of different ones) and the only way i could describe them was

1. the one that makes me want to bang my forehead off the wall or
2. the one that makes me want to drill a hole in the side of my head :eek:

anyway my answer would be childbirth, couldnt have done it in the caveman days - probably would've died without the emergency procedure, my son too definately wouldnt have made it.

dabbler2004

I probably wouldn't have survived child birth, I was a breech birth ass first!
The eyesight isn't the best anyway so that would have been against me too.


Nice idea for a thread OP.