100,000 B.C. - Doctor Who - 1963
- stephaniecullingfo
- Feb 5, 2016
- 14 min read
At A Glance:
The one with the cave people
Importance:
****
Location:
Unknown – Earth?
Time:
100,000 B.C.
Body Count:
Two
Story Tropes:
Technology, leadership,
Written by:
Anthony Coburn
Transmitted:
30/11/1963 - 14/12/1963
Brace yourselves Wonderers, this is about to get nerdy. Or geeky. I’m just going to use those terms inter-changeably (I mean, is categorising all the textual differences between every edition of The Lord of the Rings geeky or nerdy? Why is a doctor not classified as an anatomy nerd?).
Ahem.
Moving along.
100,000 BC.
Technically, it is never stated that the Tardis crew are in 100,000 years BC. – it was produced under this title but none of the three episodes that make up the serial “100,000 BC” are called that (their titles are ‘Cave of Skulls’, ‘Forest of Fear’ and ‘The Firemaker’), so it’s actually incorrect to refer to them thusly – but we do.
Honestly, it’s difficult to see what they do right in this episode – with historical accuracy it’s somewhere along par with ‘The Flintstones’ (broadcast first in 1960).
Firstly, the central premise of the episode is that the people we encounter have no fire: never mind that we have evidence of the use of fire in rock shelters in Vietnam (Kao Poh Nam) dating to about 700,000 years ago – which was Homo erectus, not one of the ‘archaic’ humans. Aboriginal peoples would carry their fire with them from place to place in the form of embers to reduce the time needed to set up camp, but would always know how to make more. In a similar manner, humanity developed ways of carrying water with them to their camps – a proposition Hur has trouble with.
Secondly, who are these people? The earliest remains of a modern human (Homo sapiens) date back to 195,000 years ago from a crania (skull fragment) discovered at Omo in Ethiopia.
So, plausibly, they could be human. However the contemporary hominid ‘earth-ruler’ was Homo neanderthalensis makes them far more likely to be bumped into by a band of roving Time Travellers. However, we then come to the important point – they don’t look like Neandertals (Neandertal is the correct modern pronunciation, but their species designation neanderthalensis, based on the earlier German, doesn’t change, because of the rules of science). The first Neandertal to be formally described was in 1911-13 by Marcellin Boule, who was blinded by his societies social prejudices and expectations (one being that humans developed large brains first and then evolved bipedalism [we now know it was the other way around]) and thus described stupid, brutish, ape-like creatures who walked stooped over – and this stereotype is very much still with us. In Boule’s defence, or not, the individual he was describing was discovered in the 1950’s to have been 40, suffering from severe arthritis in his spine, probably rickets as a child and had lost part of his jaw. Boule refused (or more charitably) was unable to see these things as abnormalities and – most damningly, see that a society which had produced such a person must have been caring and nurturing to allow a crippled person, who would have been unable to contribute greatly to the tribe, to reach the age of 40 (most Neandertal seem to have died by 30) – clearly he would have to have been provided for and probably fed – or at least helped and defended by other tribe members.
Our cave-dwellers, most importantly, lack the features of Neandertals - most famously, brow ridges but also an expanded-back skull and a backwards sloping face. Is this laziness/poverty on behalf of the design/casting crew (Za, admittedly at least has quite good brow ridges) or are we supposed to assume they are, in fact modern humans, but primitive/animalistic in all their traits? In short that ‘humanity’ was the last thing to come to humans?
These people are not Homo sapiens or Homo neanderthalensis – they are Cavemen, a fictitious group of people based on poor archaeology.
Of course, cave dwelling is in its self a myth (which is not to say that there are not modern Cave dwellers) and its perpetuation can, once more, be laid at the door of mis-interpreted archaeology. Caves were, and are, used as a natural shelter by many creatures from bats to modern humans (and so many more). Early Hominids were nomadic (much like modern Hominids) and would only have stayed in caves while the area around was flush with resources: as the seasons changed they would have left the caves and moved out into the open air. The reason we think of early humans as ‘cavemen’ is because of the art left behind within (which mostly dates to the end of the last Ice-Age) and because preservation is unnaturally selected for within caves which are dry and don’t suffer temperature extremes. Our cavepeople should have left their cave and followed the resources – but sedentism is already implied and that suggestion is never given.
Another anachronism (implied) is that only the leader goes out to fetch meat for the tribe (what the others do is then a matter of conjecture) – when in reality cooperative hunting has been part of our make up before tools, before bipedalism; chimpanzees hunt cooperatively. Not to mention the fact that it simply makes no sense, most of the ‘huntable’ (as opposed to say, rabbits and lizards) fauna of the Old World would simply be too big for one person to take down alone (would you like to take down a mammoth? A deer? By yourself?) would almost inevitably result in the lone hunter’s death unless traps and forward planning were utilised (something this portrayal of Cavepeople would deny). Za also claims to have killed many bears: this, again is based on poor archaeology (though at least it wouldn’t be debunked until 1976) – none of the bear remains discovered show any marks of butchery, and the thought of Za taking on a 3m high bear – let alone many in one day - with a spear is quite ridiculous. Defending from the bear, tiger and leopard would have been a big enough feat.
The most evocative image of the Cave of Skulls/Forest of Fear is the closing/opening moments where Ian points out that the skulls that lie around them have all been cracked open –
cannibalism. Here at least, the writers are on more solid ground, as there is plenty of evidence to show cannibalism among early man – though it is more to create fear and tension and to emphasise the in-humanity of the Cavepeople, and it is important not to think of the archaeological examples in this way: anthropologically cannibalism can occur as a spiritual/ ceremonial element (eating a brave warrior to extract bravely, or communing with the dead), carefully storing the skulls afterward, or as one of desperation – where the tribe is facing starvation. What it fails to show are any cracked long bones – opened up to get the nutritious marrow within. If a tribe is starving so badly that the dead are eaten, the whole body would have been used – not just cracking open the skulls – which rather implies a ritual reason for consuming. Whole skeletons of the tribe would not have been stored willy-nilly in a close-by cave. Neandertals and Humans buried their dead, treated with respect even if eaten (if tribal) or thrown out on to a midden if merely food. The ‘charnel-house’ aesthetic would never have happened – the smell would have attracted too many scavengers and made the caves unsafe.
In short, Sydney Newman’s goal of “all the stories were to be based on scientific or historical facts as we knew them at the time” falls at the first fence.
“But”, I hear you cry “it is 1963. Can we really expect Anthony Coburn to somehow, miraculously know what we know now? They were the facts at the time!”
No. They weren’t.
As I’ve already said, Boule’s interpretation of Neandertals was already being questioned by the 1950s.
As anybody who has tried to research the historical understanding of a theme will know it can be a treasure-less quest. I therefore use Isaac Asimov’s ‘Lastborn’ published in 1958 as my primary source. (‘Lastborn’ is the story of a little Neandertal boy who is stolen out of time by scientists)
‘Timmie’ is described as having no chin, and a bulging head
Homo neanderthalenis is already suggested to be a co-species with us (i.e. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens)
Timmie talks – still a matter for debate, but Neandertals do posses a hyoid bone which is necessary for speech. He also learns as a human child does.
Timmie’s ‘mother’ does some research and discovers: some of the greatest human inventions arose in N. times, the domestication of animals, the wheel, various techniques for grinding stone, spiritual yearnings: burying their dead – possessions with the body – life after death. Which suggests Asimov was getting his hominids/ dates confused as Humans are the only domesticators and wheel makers. Neandertals did bury their dead, but this has only recently been confirmed.
Timmie is not a savage: ‘just as quiet and reasonable as you can expect any 5 year old boy.’
‘Lastborn’ was actually surprisingly modern and delightful after watching ‘100,000 BC.’ – or Foundation.
That was a very long introduction.
So let’s get to it.
‘Cave of Skulls’ opens with a man boggling at the materialisation of the Tardis.
It quickly moves to a cave of apathetic people watching a man run an old bone (his father’s perhaps?) he is desperately trying to make fire the secret of which the tribe has lost. I love the idea that you can get ‘live fire’ from ‘dead fire’ – like seeds. We receive the two themes that will define this episode, leadership and technology.
We return to the Tardis and Ian refuses to believe, point blank that they have travelled back in time – which plays nicely into one of the most minor changes between the Pilot and ‘An Unearthly Child’ – in the Pilot Ian says he ‘didn’t expect [a time machine] in a junkyard’: in the transmitted version ‘I don’t expect…’: past tense vs. present tense. He cannot accept a time-machine, he can’t even accept the concept of a time machine:
I: You can’t get on and off whenever you like in the past or the future.
D: Really? Where does time go then?
I: Nowhere, it just happens and then it’s finished.
D: If you could touch the alien sand and hear the cry of strange birds and watch them wheel in another sky, would that satisfy you?
And Ian does indeed touch the alien sands – he finds them terribly, unnaturally, cold. And it is not until then that he believes.
But before that, we have another great moment in Tardis architecture: seeing the outside from the inside (without the police doors).
We now find out, as the titles anticipated, our elderly time traveler is not Dr. Foreman – Susan borrowed the name from the junkyard – he is Doctor … who?
Both the Doctor and Susan express surprise that the Tardis is still in it’s guise of a Policebox – perhaps when Susan leapt on the Doctor at the end of “An Unearthly Child” she damaged both the chameleon circuit and the ‘yearometer’. The production team seriously considered having the Tardis change between each location but was ruled out as too expensive. It is difficult to think of the Tardis being anything other than a Policebox, and the thought of it changing her shape oftener than the Doctor is a disquieting one: Doctor’s come and go, a Policebox is forever. Would we feel the same way about her if she changed so often? Would we merely see her as a machine – would her character have developed along the ways it has if we saw her as merely a machine? What would have become our fandom ‘touchstone’ if not the Tardis-as-Policebox?
The Doctor, for the first and only time, attempts to have a quiet smoke (with a very large pipe) – it’s clearly a foil to get the story moving – fire comes out of his fingers! [He’s a witch! Burn him!]
Coming into shot is a very nice hafted stone axe. It is difficult to say how accurate the tool set provided to the ‘cavepeople’ is due to the low-definition of the black and white footage. The stone axe (it looks ground in the early scene, but unless it’s a different axe, is actually flaked) has definitely been shaped by chipping away at its edges. It’s quite long in shape which is unusual as most Mousterian (the tool culture of Neandertals) are rounded or tear-drop in shape. The binding style seems to be more inspired by the Amerindian tomahawk than archaeology.
It is interesting that “Old Woman” has to steal Za’s chopper – which indicates that only the men were allowed to own stone tools or, given the skill of making them, were not allowed to be taught. It is round and doesn’t really look as though it has a cutting face on it – and is not really a useful looking hand tool, at least in comparison to the ones found in Neandertal sites – in short, it looks too primitive: more like something from the Olduwan tradition (but I’ve been wrong). The spear is also incorrect, both in its hafting and in its size – it is too big and would have been held on with a sticky substance such as resin or bitumen as well as tighter lashing. I do however love the scene with the children ‘attacking’ the ‘leopard’ and is probably the most accurate scene in the serial – wooden spears (well-known in thearchaeological record)and cooperative hunting.
One of the most subtle points on the serial is when the Doctor speaks to the ‘Cavepeople’ – they have a spoken language but they can’t understand him. When our cast speak to the ‘Cavepeople’ there is a ‘primitivisation’: they have trouble understanding them, subtley indicating that, while the Tardis can translate their words, the meaning cannot be translated – they have no concept of friendship and conclude it is Ian’s name. The crowd’s lines are indeed grunts and grumbles (just lazy ‘rhubarbs’?): are we hearing them without the benefit of the Tardis translation?
When our time travelers are reunited with the Doctor Susan leaps on like a wild cat, while Barbara… utters not a squeak of protest as, apparently without a fight, she is captured. Susan’s actions are entirely justified at this point, but what is with her utter meltdown earlier? Is it because she’s a girl and irrational? Susan seems to have two settings, alien teenager and irrational girl. Barbara looses it as well, later, though her break down is more explicable though no less overwrought.
Hur, on the other hand (and has there ever been a more sexist name – Pussy Galore?) is far more rational (at least in the moments when she’s away from the time travelers): she’s almost a Lady Macbeth, goading Za, exploiting the bounds of cultural femininity to make her menfolk act, she is the eminence grise, playing the system. And then there is ‘Old Woman’ (And the the bronze medal for sexist names...) who is the cultural repository, and while she is abused she still feels and acts upon the power to speak her mind, AND IS LISTENED TO, however unwillingly (she may be Za’s mother: he assumes she was close enough to his father to watch him make fire).
She thinks fire is a bad thing and acts to remove the threat from their midst – she has the tribes best interest at heart. While the Leader brings meat to the tribe, there is no mention of the (women’s) role of gathering (gathering is thought to have produced over 90% of the tribes food) nor any baskets or similar to carry, collect and store food.
The leadership battle between Za and Cal is mirrored in that of Ian and the Doctor, albeit in a civilized manner. Ian tries from the first moment to achieve domination over the Doctor, claiming the Doctor is a charlatan, that time travel cannot be true. And yet it is.
The Doctor orders Ian to free himself, rather than the women, so that he can protect those weaker than himself, making power serve wisdom. Ian, of course, has the ability to make fire (he doesn’t have any matches, as was established in the junkyard) but denies that it has the power to make him the leader – the Doctor’s knowledge of Time/Space (even if it is written in his note book – perhaps the Doctor learned to fly a later model and is still getting used to the Type 40) no more a hallmark of leadership than Ian’s fire. Because he has greater wisdom and intelligence than Ian. Which is not to say, of course that the Doctor’s wisdom is perfect – when Za is hurt it is he who wants to leave him and infamously raises a stone to attempt to kill Za. (it is interesting to ponder whether that might not have been Ian originally, given his descent to violence in the Pilot). Ian stops him. A lot of people comment that it is very out of character for the Doctor (never mind that he is only three episodes old).
But is it?
B:Why do you always treat everything and everybody as less important than yourself?
D: You’re trying to say that everything you do is reasonable and everything I do is inhuman.
D: These people have logic and reason have they? Can’t you see their minds change as rapidly as night and day?
Compare that to:
D: Remember the Red Indian: when he saw the first steam train, his savage mind thought it was an illusion too
I: You’re treating us like children.
D: Am I? The children of my civilisation would be insulted.
Is the Doctor’s rock any different to his electrification of the Tardis consol and electrocution of Ian? Yes, of course, but is the sentiment: he – the great time traveller, is inherently better than these lowers? No. Ian, Barbara (whose name means Barbarian), Za and Hur are near equal savages.
And yet he defends Za and Old Woman (the ‘trial’ scene), he comforts Barbara:
D: Fear is with all of us, and always will be, just like that other sensation that lives with it … hope.
Ian acknowledges The Doctor as the leader because brute force is no system of governance. Hence Ian’s line “Cal is not stronger than the whole tribe” – proto-democracy at work!
On the other hand, The Doctor’s rule is totalitarian – they cannot rise up against him, they have no say where they go (neither does he, true) they have no ability to steer the Tardis, and when he doesn’t get his own way, he sulks: honestly sometimes he acts younger than Susan! The Doctor is King in the Tardis.
An interesting question is: where does this story take place? All my earlier raving will have been for naught if this is a different planet! It could even be Skaro!
In all probability, it is Earth, as this is a ‘historical’ and Sydney is ‘educating’ us.
Where then? It has to be the Old World, as the earliest dates for the Aboriginal settlement of Australia is 60,000 years ago (and that wouldn't be reached until the 70's)
The Classic Episode guide kindly tells me that it would have to take place in Africa or Asia as Europe in the interglacial would have been much more convivial. Surely, it has to be Africa –
Barbara is freaked out by the sight of a decapitated warthog - and yet the cast is exclusively white, no matter how much they’re grubbied up. The only question which needs then be asked is this pure racism or an inability/laziness to hire Afro-British people. If they had been African, would we now see this as totally racist: these black persons reduced to primitivism, being talked down to by White know-it-alls? Would the original audience have failed ‘to see a difference’?
There is no other people in pop culture for whom time has so totally ignored – take Mr. Yunioshi in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ – that is the level of stereotype at which the ‘Caveman’ (not Neandertal, Caveman) continues to exist.
The most correct portrayal of early modern humans is in the 2002 film Ice Age (who are clearly Homo sapiens – and don’t live in caves)
100,000 B.C. is an odd choice for the opening serial – we’ve set up our two access characters, a history teacher and a science teacher, we go back in time and require the skills, not of the historian, but the scientist. Once again, it was not intended to be the first, but it was the first ready. Some people think that The Daleks (coming up) would have been a better first outing, more in keeping with the wonder and amazement of that first moment in the Tardis.
But that moment, that moment when Ian makes fire,
somehow we get a pay-off – no matter how poor the history, no matter how stereotyped the characters, if we have been paying attention the fire – or Tardis – is just as wondrous to us as to our ancestors.
Bibliography
http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_4.htm
http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/archaic-homo-sapiens-103852137
http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_2.htm
https://ia902606.us.archive.org/35/items/Galaxy_Magazine_Volume_16_Number_5_/IA_Galaxy_Magazine_Volume_16_Number_5_.pdf
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30197084
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2726383/
http://dna-explained.com/2013/01/10/decoding-and-rethinking-neanderthals/
http://www.karstworlds.com/2012/03/hafting-with-bitumen-in-neanderthal.html
http://antiquatedantiquarian.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/the-neandering-mind-birth-of-technology.html
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18949-the-history-of-ice-on-earth/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/unearthlychild/detail.shtml
http://josephcphillips.com/2015/09/hollywood-okey-doke/
Kenneth L. Feder, The Past in Perspective: an Introduction to Human Prehistory, Fourth Edition (2007), McGraw-Hill, New York.
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