Caveman Hygiene Natural History

[nobodysbusiness]

Originally Posted by reneeh63

Interesting - what flawed being designed such a flawed product?

What would you do to improve the "waste system"? Oh, and the menstrual thing? Easiest thing would just be to get rid of both entirely but the whole rest of the body wouldn't work right then....sooooooo....ideas?

No - I don't have any ideas, but I wish people smarter than me would imagine better systems - just fun to think about, nothing serious for me.

[ChileSauceCritic]

Originally Posted by twinkletwinkle22

The anthropologist Margaret Mead considered seeing a humanoid bone that had been broken and healed the first sign of civilization. Meaning that the injured party would have required assistance having their bone set, cared for, and fed until they were healed. I don't know what date that bone would be.

Yep it happened around the same time as the first big jump in our intellect around 60,000 years ago, prior to that if you could not keep up you died, and any shortcuts or slight improvements in tool making or helpful herbs for healing you stumbled across died with you or had to be relearned from scratch. but once we started taking care of the old, feeble and permanently injured knowledge was passed on to the young before they were old enough to join the hunt instead of learning once they got out there on the job where often their first hunt was their last..

[Deserterer]

Originally Posted by nobodysbusiness

No - I don't have any ideas, but I wish people smarter than me would imagine better systems - just fun to think about, nothing serious for me.

Its not a big deal. You make do with what you have and don't have. I have friends who live off grid and have outhouses. I never wanted to live like that but last summer I had to live with an outhouse several hundred feet from my house for 4 months. I got used to it immediately, it was just the way it had to be so I didn't pine for a flusher 24/7. I was happy when I had one again but that's all.



I also had to get inventive for showers, because I had no shower. At first it was bucket baths. Then I was able to rig up a gravity shower using 5 gallon water jugs stacked up to head height, but I was largely dependent on the sun to heat it. You get used to it, that's how we survived as long as we have. I was lucky, they now make body wipes that I could use when all else failed but I didn't really like those because they smell like chemicals, because they are chemical treated.



Now that wasn't quite living in a cave, but it was close. I've also been on long backpacking trips where I did live in a cave, a nylon one that I had to carry, and there were no toilets. No big deal, you get used to it.

[303Guy]

Anyone been to Africa lately? People still living the way cavemen lived. Some in arid regions with no water. No diapers and stuff like that.

Birds poop on their food and in their drinking water. Hippo poop in the water they live in. Feeds the fish. In fact, fish poop in the water they live and breath in.

[Deserterer]

Then we eat the fish.