Screens of the Stone Age – Details, episodes & analysis

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are not able to post our regularly scheduled episode today, but in its place we'd like to share a YouTube video Josh made for the ComSciCon Canada conference! You can find it at the following link: https://youtu.be/I_jHuLPhF7I

Please check it out, and leave us a comment letting us know what you think!

ComSciCon Canada: https://www.comsciconcanada.org/

Today we’re reviewing Sasquatch Sunset (2024), the story of a family of Bigfoots searching in vain for more of their own kind while coming to terms with a new threat to their survival: humans. It’s a beautiful, powerful film about grief, uncertainty, perseverance, hope, and poop. Lots of poop.

Visit our new website! https://screensofthestoneage.com

Get in touch with us:

Bluesky: @sotsapodcast.bsky.social

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

Ross’ yeti paper: Edwards & Barnett (2015). Himalayan ‘yeti’ DNA: Polar bear or DNA degradation? A comment on ‘Genetic analysis of hair samples attributed to yeti’ by Sykes et al.(2014): https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.1712

Sasquatch Birth Journal 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVTw2w6MiFw

Riley Keough – Creatures of Nature – grunt version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGlueLd7Kqo

Number sense in animals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sense_in_animals

The Patterson Gimlin film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q60mSMmhTZU

Wild chimps play with dolls: https://www.npr.org/2010/12/21/132231422/wild-chimps-may-play-dolls

Sometimes a Great Notion (1971) - drowning scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W3sZedBfIM

Bigfoot behaviour: https://www.bfro.net/gdb/show_FAQ.asp?id=587

Why do chimps throw poop? https://www.livescience.com/66042-why-chimps-throw-poop.html

Bowland et al. (2025). The evolutionary ecology of ethanol: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2024.09.005

Did ‘shrooms send Santa and his reindeer flying? https://www.npr.org/2010/12/24/132260025/did-shrooms-send-santa-and-his-reindeer-flying

Today we’re reviewing two films from a brutal, primitive time in humanity’s past, when both politics and romance were conducted through violence: the early 20th Century! His Prehistoric Past (1914) and Clubs are Trump (1917) follow suspiciously similar plots in which Silent Era stars Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Snub Pollard dream of a simpler time when they could commit violent assaults unimpeded and sexually harass women.

Get in touch with us:

Bluesky: @sotsapodcast.bsky.social

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

Watch His Prehistoric Past (1914) on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iOVyT2rz6c

Watch Clubs are Trump (1917) on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vJWimG0AOI

Victorian Calling Cards: https://hobancards.com/blogs/thoughts-and-curiosities/calling-cards-and-visiting-cards-brief-history

The Truth about “Caveman Courtship”: https://daily.jstor.org/the-truth-about-caveman-courtship/

Timeline of Human Fossil Discoveries: https://australian.museum/learn/science/human-evolution/a-timeline-of-fossil-discoveries/

Piltdown Man: https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/the-problem-of-piltdown-man/

Archaeoraptor fossil hoax: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/fake-dino-bird-explained-1.274812

Cheetah fossil hoax: https://evolutionnews.org/2023/06/fossil-friday-the-oldest-cheetah-was-yet-another-fraud/

The scientific hoax that rocked Japan: https://spyscape.com/article/the-man-who-forged-ancient-artifacts

The Hays Code: https://www.npr.org/2008/08/08/93301189/remembering-hollywoods-hays-code-40-years-on

Winnipeg 1920 exhibit at the Manitoba Museum: https://manitobamuseum.ca/step-into-the-past-winnipeg-1920/

We’re getting into the spooky season with a scary movie! The Neanderthal Man is a classic ‘50s monster movie about a mad scientist who creates a serum to turn back evolution and transforms himself into a primitive beast. Actually, it’s not very scary to modern day viewers. It’s not remotely scientifically accurate either. Also, the acting is pretty bad. Still, we had a lot of fun watching it!

In this episode:

Watch The Neanderthal Man on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6HHl2PqMfs

 A discussion of the phylogeny of big cats

https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/32616/A_revised_Felidae_Taxonomy_CatNews.pdf

Don’t call them sabre-toothed tigers! They’re called sabre-toothed cats!

How do phylogenetic trees work?

https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/reading-a-phylogenetic-tree-the-meaning-of-41956/

The Human Advantage: A New Understanding of How Our Brain Became Remarkable By Suzana Herculano-Houzel

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/human-advantage

Beverly Garland was replaced by a different actress mid-scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1jamApOUHc

Carbon Dating

https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-radiocarbon-dating-and-how-does-it-work-9690

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43/43-h/43-h.htm

It’s a madhouse! A MADHOUSE! In this episode we review Planet of the Apes, the 1968 sci-fi classic in which an astronaut finds himself stranded on a backwards planet where apes rule over humans. For such a silly concept, this movie has some thoughtful things to say about human nature that are sadly as relevant today was they were half a century ago. Oh, and spoiler alert: you’re not going to believe the twist ending!

In this episode:

We spend probably too long trying to figure out how time works. Pro-tip: you can skip that part by travelling close to the speed of light.

Charlton Heston was a better actor in Wayne’s World 2

Jane Goodall’s chimpanzees’ names

https://janegoodall.ca/our-stories/famous-chimps-of-gombe/

Tim Burton’s 2001 remake wasn’t great

We watched it; we can’t unwatch it! In this episode we review four episodes of Futurama, an animated series about a pizza delivery boy who accidentally gets cryogenically frozen and wakes up in the year 3000. What does the future have to do with the stone age? There’s only one way to find out! So grab a can of Slurm and a bowl of Bachelor chow and settle in for this Anthology of Interest!

In this episode:

Greyfriar’s Bobby: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyfriars_Bobby

Repatriation of the Kabwe skull: https://www.sapiens.org/biology/repatriation-kabwe-skull/

Comedian James Acaster on the absurdity of the British Empire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot: https://goodreads.com/book/show/6493208-the-immortal-life-of-henrietta-lacks

The Piltdown Hoax: https://www.livescience.com/56327-piltdown-man-hoax.html

How to pronounce “Neanderthal”: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/is-it-neander-tal-or-neander-thal

Frozen Fauna of the Mammoth Steppe by Dale Guthrie: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3774765.html

It had to be done eventually, so we’ve done it! In this episode we meet the Flintstones, a modern stone-age family from the town of Bedrock. Does this movie get the facts right? No, of course it doesn’t. But does it matter? It has dinosaurs!

In this episode:

♪ Simpsons! ♪ Meet the Simps- I mean, Flintstones!

SAA public perceptions of archaeology study (Archaeologists don’t dig up dinosaurs!): https://www.saa.org/education-outreach/public-outreach/public-perceptions-studies

How old is the Grand Canyon?: https://www.canyontours.com/guides/how-old-is-grand-canyon/

“Peking Man” – Homo erectus from Zhoukoudian Cave, China: https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/fossils/zhoukoudian

The Bone Wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Wars

Brontosaurus is back! https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-brontosaurus-is-back1/

Mary Anning: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/mary-anning-unsung-hero.html

Do we live longer today than people in the past? https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity

Cranium D3444 from Dmanisi, Georgia, is missing almost all of its teeth: https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.a.20379

The Vasquez Rocks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasquez_Rocks

Today we’re joined by Prof. Mirjana Roksandic to discuss The Clan of the Cave Bear, a story about a modern human adopted by a clan of Neanderthals. Author Jean Auel did a commendable amount of research for her book series, but scientific paradigms change fast in palaeoanthropology. How does the movie hold up 35 years later? Let’s find out!

(Note: this episode contains a brief discussion of scenes depicting sexual violence)

In this episode:

Genetics of skin and hair colour: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2016.0349

Cave Bear cults: https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-cult-of-the-cave-bear/

The Shanidar 1 Neanderthal burial, Iraq: https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/fossils/shanidar-1

Clan of the Cave Bear and Feminism: https://slate.com/culture/2014/05/clan-of-the-cave-bear-and-feminism-dystopian-precedent-to-the-hunger-games.html

Human hybridization: Neanderthal mother, Denisovan Father: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06004-0

In this episode we’re joined by Dr. Advait Jukar to discuss the 2002 classic Ice Age, the story of three unlikely Pleistocene mammals who team up to rescue a non-adult Homo sapiens, and in the process discover the value of family. If you like Cenozoic mammalian taxonomy, then you’re going to love this episode! Find Advait on Twitter @amjukar and at https://advaitjukar.weebly.com/

In this episode:

We geek out over the scientific names of prehistoric mammals, including:

Wooly Mammoth – Mammuthus primigenius: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolly_mammoth

Sabre-toothed cat – Smilodon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smilodon

Scimitar cat – Homotherium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homotherium

Ground Sloth – Megalonyx (Bonus – where are sloths’ nipples?): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalonyx

Long-nosed llama – Macraucheniidae: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrauchenia

Glyptodont (giant armadillo relative) – Dædicurus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doedicurus

Ancient proboscidean – Moeritherium (It’s not a tapir!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeritherium

Not actually a rhinoceros – Megacerops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megacerops

Not actually Bigfoot – Gigantopithecus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantopithecus

Dodos don’t get enough credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo

Scrat was real all along! Pseudotherium argentinus: http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/pseudotherium-argentinus-07533.html

We also discuss:

Burrows dug by giant ground sloths: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/get-lost-in-mega-tunnels-dug-by-south-american-megafauna

GABI – Great American Biotic Interchange: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Interchange

People – what a bunch of bastards! https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-happened-worlds-most-enormous-animals-180964255/

Deja Vu! We’re reviewing Iceman again, but it turns out it’s a totally different movie. This one tells the story of the final days of Ötzi, a neolithic mummy found frozen in the Ötztal Alps in 1991. Compared to the fictional stories we’ve reviewed previously, this one has a lot of real-life archaeological data to work with. Do the filmmakers get the facts right? And more importantly, does the true(ish) story translate into an entertaining movie? Listen and find out! (Spoiler alert: Ötzi dies in the end!)

In this episode:

All the dialog is spoken in the Rhaetic language, with no subtitles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhaetic

Ötzi’s remains are kept at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy: https://www.iceman.it/en/the-iceman/

Brad Pitt has an Ötzi Tattoo: https://tattoos.lovetoknow.com/Brad_Pitt_Tattoos

On the misidentification and unreliable context of the new “human teeth” from Fuyan Cave (China): https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2102961118

We were wrong! Animal-human nursing is a thing! https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/02/25/why-goats-used-to-breastfeed-human-babies/

Archaeological baby bottles: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/baby-bottles-1.5296792

MacGuffins: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGuffin