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Okay, I need to say something about the 'cavemen' thing in documentaries.
I used to just roll my eyes at the whole 'cavemen dragging women by the hair' trope, but after reading a paper from a dig in Catalhoyuk, Turkey, I realized how much that wrong idea shapes public view. The evidence there shows complex social structures and art that totally flips the 'brute' narrative on its head. What's another common archaeology myth that really bugs you guys?
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xenarobinson22h ago
Oh man, the "they just grunted" idea is so tired! It really does make the past seem empty. My pet peeve is the "sudden genius" myth, like complex thought just popped up one day. We had art and glue and boats way before what people call "civilization". It was a slow, smart burn, not a light switch flipping on.
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tessa_kelly27d ago
Yeah, that one drives me nuts too. It's like they can't imagine early people having any kind of culture. The whole "they just grunted" thing really ignores all the evidence of language and storytelling we find. Makes the past seem so much emptier than it was.
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