Paleolithic in Us – Hailed From the Caves

Only in the recent civilization of the world, mankind started to establish and institutionalize jobs and its specific nature, type and category that people would do for living.

You can be anything today; from technician to engineer, from musician to politician, from kindergarten teacher to university lecturer, from medical assistant to brain surgeon, from ambulance driver to F1 race-car driver, from bicycle repairman to rocket booster specialist, from minyak urut seller to fighter aircraft trader, from GRO to PRO, from storekeeper to company chairman and from housewife to jobless husband.

If folks from pre-civilization era were to wake up from their graves in today’s world, they’d die on their feet due to shock within minutes of their resurrections, if not, chances are they would be sent to psychiatric asylum for failing to grasp the assortments of jobs in today’s contexts.

It does not mean that prior to the modern civilization people did not do work, let alone to suggest that the earlier living humans did not have specific things to do. Those Homo Sapiens, Cro Magnon races or Paleolithic men, as we fondly call them cavemen in our contemporary term, did too have their jobs and worked to bring back dinner to the family in the caves.

I presume that during the cavemen time, the works, tasks and duties were segregated into much simpler form as compared to today’s standard and measure. Probably they might have started off to segregate using gender-based; men would go out hunting and women would stay in caves to raise their young, help gather edible fruits, leaves, nuts and beans in the “orchard” nearby the caves and help roast meats of men’s day catch.

“Phewww… What a bad day! I ain’t catch a single damn boar today…”

“It’s OK honey! We do have some berries I plucked this afternoon”

“Grrrr… May be my club is way too small, need to have bigger, heavier!?”

“Oh no, honey dear! It’s just not your day. Am sure you’ll have a better day tomorrow!”

That could possibly be the exchange of words between a distressed “husband” and a supportive and caring “wife” on one fine evening at the mouth of the cave whilst kids are drowned in their own world playing with their pet tortoise that lucky to be too small for a barbeque.

I have a theory. I think, the initial part of it, both genders would be out of the caves doing similar things until such time they figured out it would be better if men and women would assume different roles. That would probably happen only when they started to see their daily living would run rather smoothly by dividing tasks. They were far cry from female chauvinism and bigotry. It’s just that, nature had taught them to compliment each other to have things in place.

From the initial move of gender-based segregation in tasks and duties that saw the efficacy and efficiency in daily living, they started to get more profound and insightful. Gradually, the idea would be like, let one group focuses on skills in a few things while other groups would tackle other parts of it.

Throughout the course of living – hunting and gathering food for survival, they would then see explicit needs to master on specific skills for the individuals. Hence, works, tasks and duties were beginning to get more complex if not sophisticated, that would see them go deeper in knowledge. They went through stages of developments and evolutions in learning. As their clubs get bigger and heavier, the demands for knowledge get further and farther. As they were busy grinding and sharpening axes and spears in their errands, their knowledge also started to grind and sharpened by the day.

Over the course of time, not only they have perfected the essential skills for them to survive, but striving from one milestone of achievement to another, that in turn, it has done wonder in the civilization of mankind.

Eventually, after millions of years, it makes us living the world as we live today and doing what we do now.

Well, starts from this point onwards, you will see an idiotic or may be preposterous thinking that can only be written for blogs purposes, far removed from the world of intellectual sense.

(This is the beauty when you have time in hand like I do now)

I just wonder what I would be doing if I had a chance to use time machine to travel back through time to be in the eon of cavemen.

Since I am now in the business world dealing with IT, I wish I would still be dealing with something similar in my Paleolithic time. The way I see it, IT stems from the words information and technology. Cavemen loved to disseminate their thoughts, leaving traces of information by drawing & painting on the walls of the caves with a fair deal of “technology” of their time.

So then, my trade is to prepare you the technological side of it, apart from tools. I would barter-trade for good chunk of meat and fresh berries or may be a cave-girl for me to marry, have kids and live-happily-ever-after. In exchange, I’d provide you nice spots on the cave walls and tools for you to write, paint and draw with. But, since you’ve been my good friends all these while, I’d give you free space on the cave walls for you to draw just like the way the cyberspace today provide you free to blog with. Hahahaha!

As it does in our modern world to connect & communicate using internet or to broadcast & spread our feelings and thoughts through blogs in particular, it’d do the same to your drawings & paintings on cave walls. It will last for millions of years that later the asinine archeologists would meticulously study what you had drawn.

Now tell me, what would you like to be in your Paleolithic time?





GAB: I have a “caveman” friend hailed from Batu Caves.

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