200,000 years ago, weren't we all in Africa?

For my B-Day, my daughter gave me one of those DNA tests that will tell your origins, from National Geographic. I'm expecting the results soon.

Like Seahawk said, I remember rope being a key, lots of it. You can make snares, fishing nets, fishing lines, etc.

I'm 59, and while I get around, I'd prefer to have participated in this 40 years ago. Actually, I'd have preferred not to even back then.

Hawaii for me.

I could definitely survive in So. Illinois. Game year round, wild berries, mushrooms, pawpaws, fish, crawdads. LOts of minerals, wood, shelter making materials, natural rock formations not associated with living in the mountains proper...

I'd make a good woodland Indian.

ROFL! I dunno, but my sister and I both are gingers, so my mom must've REALLY liked the milkman if that was the case.

Thinking about it, though...dad DID divorce her shortly after I was born...

I'm thinking about Northern Florida or Golf coast panhandle where there are bountiful fish and large tidal basins where at low tide you could gather clams, crabs, and seaweed to keep from scurvy. There are also coconut trees, and I believe pineapple trees in the area. You can make rudimentary rope from weaving the fiberous part of reeds, and the brown part of cat tail plants makes a wonderful fire starter bundle (it's soft, cotton like, and dry inside so a spark starts it easily). I have made fire from a using a bow, drill and bearing stone before while camping.

I would make a strong priority out of finding sharp stone or making my own by flintknapping (breaking off rounded edges). You absolutely need several stone knives, and a coupla spears to go after small gators or maybe a wild pig. Palm fronds weaved together over a sapling roof structure tied together with some of the self made rope will be a good way to stay dry, and a raised off the ground branch/sapling cot with a rope and leave mattress would keep you out of the cold sand and sand mites.

I picked a Southern climate, because keeping warm requires an enormous amount of preparation and energy in a cold climate, and clothing isn't as neccesary.

Exactly. And the toughest place I could survive in from dead scratch is Hawaii. I'd just lie down and die if it was a cold climate location. And I'e use my modern knowledge to begin fermentation. I don't know what pineapple wine tastes like, but I'd know pretty soon.

Pineapples are a transplant from the Caribbean

milkman?


BTW - skin cancer on white skin takes a while; sunburn sufficient to cause debility (unable to hunt game or forage/garden) might happen much more quickly

for dark skin, Vitamin D deficiency is an issue

No. Homo dates back about 1 Myrs BP in parts of Europe.

then again, what do you mean by "we" kimosabe?

Whatever. I'm sure there was native fruit. I chose Hawaii since I believe in 200,000 B.C. there was little there to harm man. But, with today's knowledge at hand, I'd stay away from insects not knowing how to use them beneficially. Now if I was Les Stroud, I'd be in Heaven.

Anyone recommend a good book/source to learn survival craft, preferably the bare-naked kind of survival we are talking about here?

Not that I expect to ever need the knowledge, but you never know . . .

I mean, suppose we don't get dropped in Hawaii or Florida.

Army Field Manuals are my go to

Foxfire books

Who you calling a "homo" i should study up on the subject of Genealogy. I'll post my Nat. Geo. DNA results when they are done in a week or two. I'm pretty sure that I have Afro-American roots. Does that qualify me for any freebies?

us and our nearest relatives

that Lucy chick is out

A position at Harvard possibly.

Yep, those are the books. I have a full set.

This IS an interesting postulation in that most education in modern times does not focus on survival. It is assumed. Nowadays even medically.

I once asked my eye doctor what my vision was in 20/20terms. He said that after about 20/100 that scale didn't mean much. Instead he held up his hand and asked how many fingers he was holding up as he moved closer to me. When he got close enough I told him how many fingers I saw (it was more than one). He stopped and asked me how many feet away from each other we were. We decided that it was about eight feet. So, he said, I would describe your eyesight as "finger count at eight feet".

I would not have survived long as a caveman 200,000 years ago.

Being naked as a jaybird, the biggest risk to life would be extreme temperatures. And extreme temperatures can mean just widely ranging temperatures. In example, in the Middle East I have experienced 40° at night and 110° during the day, that is an extreme that is complex enough to cause death, even without the threat of predators. So, with your book of rules I would have to say a place like Southern California or Italy, assuming that the weather patterns would be the same as they are today. There are not temperature extremes and it would give me time to survive long enough to survive then build shelter, then hunt and gather all the while making water the highest priority for the sequence to occur. Put me butt naked with no tools in an area with temperature extremes and I give myself 10 to 14 days max. And I've had some training.

I have decided that the 200,000 B.C. version of either Costa Rica or the Canary Island will be fine.

I would prefer the Canary Islands. Islands tend to have fewer dominate predators that would be a threat, sea food, bugs to eat and, hopefully, water.

And some para-cord!

Yea, but Costa Rica is where Jurrasic Park is located, talk about dominate predators.

I'm not sure what the deficit is from that description, but the visual system does several things for you:

- closeup vision provides the ability to select ripe and non-infected fruit; avoid small nasties hiding there (mostly toxic injectables from insects)

- long-distance vision for navigation; finding prey; good patches of forest, rivers, lakes; detect predators far away

- quick detection of moving prey and predators

then there is night vision...

how many of you know how to tan a hide?

make fire?

We wouldn't be able to tan a hide with modern methods. I do know how to brain tan a hide...very time consuming, but it's the ancient way. And, yes, I can start a fire, also not easy without the right stuff.

I am functionally blind without my glasses or contacts. I am also very tall, so I used to joke with my eye doctor as she (yes she was hot, but no, I don't have any pictures) asked me to slouch in the chair because I didn't fit her equipment that I was the blindest and tallest person she would see that week. I correct to 20/20, which my eye doctors have all found remarkable. So imagine a 6'4" blind caveman wandering around trying to find a reason to make the clan want to keep me around, and you see why I don't think I'd last very long when men had to compete with the wooly mamoth for food. But I do know that the best way to kill one (or a herd of buffalo) is to scare them into a stampede over a cliff, so maybe they would find a use for me afterall.

I do understand the rudements of how to tan a hide. I read My Side of the Mountain My Side of the Mountain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia when I was a kid. It is the story of a boy who runs away to live on his own in what was then the wilderness of the Catskill Mountains, and he described how to tan a deer hide in the stump of a big oak tree. The book was chock full of survival techniques and is a fantastic read. I highly recommend it to anyone, regardless of your age. It is fiction, but it is so well written and accurate that I used to think it was an autobiography.

The Foxfire books are also excellent for woodcraft survival, as is the Boy Scout Handbook and several merit badge booklets. I can build a shelter and I know the theory behind building a fire, but whether I could do it with a couple of rocks and a pile of tinder for real, I don't know. I think I'd be doing some social engineering with my fellow tribesmen to trade my knowledge for their protection. Maybe I could recite The Illiad or Beowulf to them, or maybe I could write The Art of War or On Strategy and become a great blind poet or advisor to the local warlord. Maybe I could invent a futures market for mamoth skins or derivitives for wampum and become the ancestor of the Rothschilds. If not, I would have died as a preteen when my eyesight started to fail.

I have to use reading glasses now in low light, and hate 'em(!)

The clan would keep you around for your superior wit, wisdom and potential to deter a wolf attack by them stopping to feed on you while the others get away.

but IIRC, this thread is a solo thing, so...

There's help for everyone now - there's a guy in NZ with a YouTube channel called "Primitive Technology." Guy alone in the woods with just a pair a shorts, building stuff. Turn on CC, as he doesn't speak in his vids.

i would be a saber tooth tiger turd.

You would have been a saber tooth tiger turd back in 2013 too according to you then. People would have been one of the more serious dangers 200K years ago. You needed a group unit around you to keep you safe & look out for the safety of the group - otherwise you'd probably end up being hunted down & eaten like any other source of protein.

The "Naked and afraid" TV folks would never want this guy.

Me? Not a chance of surviving.

I'm thinking tropical and coastal. You want warm all year long which means lots of flora and fauna for food all year round Unfortunately, most of us don't live in that environment so figuring out what's good to eat and what's not good to eat could pose a problem if you first find the "bad".

But hey, if Tom Hanks can do it....

I could probably handle my local environment as the harshest (effectively the PNW), provided I was dropped off in the late spring. I'd need to use the warm season to sort out shelter, clothing, extra food, wood stores etc. Given all that preparation, I might be able to survive a winter where it occasionally snows. I probably would have perished last winter though...