[attach id=309266 size="medium"]Was this caveman bullied because he had piercing blue eyes and all the others had brown eyes? Or was he made leader of the pack?[/attach]

Let’s talk about men today, shall we? Cavemen, to be precise. Archaeologists somewhere in remote, almost unreachable caves in northwest Spain, have dug out a very well preserved skeleton of a human being who lived 7,000 years ago.

The DNA taken from the wisdom tooth of this European hunter-gatherer has given scientists an unprecedented glimpse of modern humans before the rise of farming.

This caveman was 30-something years old when he died. He was lactose intolerant – this being the pre-farming days and therefore he still had to master the art of drinking cow’s milk. And he had difficulty digesting starchy foods, so it was mostly a diet of meat and berries.

Moreover we know that he had very dark skin, brown hair, and the greatest surprise of all about this 7,000-year-old Spanish man: he had piercing blue eyes.

Sadly, the DNA cannot throw light on matters that are more crucial. I don’t particularly care about the colour of his eyes unless I know how his fellow cavemen saw them. Was he bullied because the others all had brown eyes? Or was he made leader of the pack?

Did the lady cave dwellers swoon whenever his shadow graced the cave entrance, and giggled and got lost in his sea-blue eyes? Or did they think he had the eyes of a killer and everyone steered clear of him?

There are some questions about this caveman that we can answer quite confidently. For example: did our Spanish caveman suffer from ‘man flu’? The answer is yes. You might not have heard the term, but I’m sure you’re familiar with it: it is the condition shared by all men wherein a mild cold is thought to be life-threatening by the patient.

A new study by Stanford University School of Medicine suggests that men may actually suffer more when they have influenza because high levels of testosterone can weaken immune response.

In other words, when the caveman got a drenching on one of his hunting expeditions, and got back home with a few sniffles, he had to be pampered by his cave lady love, who fussed over him and kissed him better, but when her concerned girlfriends brought over extra berries, she just rolled her eyes and mouthed: “It’s just man flu”.

“Ah,” they would all have nodded and grinned.

Did the caveman multitask? Was he able to skin the wild hare while watching over the cave baby and etching a to-do list on the cave wall?

There are questions we will never know the answers to: Was ‘You smell of rib-eye; me like’ one of his chat-up lines?

No. Another study out last week confirmed our age-old worst suspicions: men can’t multitask, and women have better memory because their brains are wired differently.

So here’s an insight into the caveman’s mind: I skin hare, I make mess, I try to clear up mess, I see baby crawling, baby is playing with hare’s intestines. Not good! Alarm! Quick, call cave lady! Cave lady scrambles out and sorts things. I need rest.

Here’s another important question about the caveman: was he an alpha or a beta male?

When a grizzly bear growled close to the entrance of the cave, did the caveman: a) promptly drop his chicken drumstick, dash out, beat his chest, charge at the animal and wrestle him for his life, or b) raise his eyebrows, ponder for a while, reach for the slate, sketch a few notes, slide out of the secret back entrance of the cave and lure the bear into a trap without as much as a scratch on his finger.

I’d like to think that he was a beta: the first philosophical man, the thinker who eventually came up with the idea that hey, berries can be planted and grown and there’s no need to starve if there’s no wild game about.

There are questions we will never know the answers to: was the caveman a frog or a prince charming? Was ‘You smell of rib-eye; me like’ one of his chat-up lines? How many cave ladies did he kiss before he said: “You. Me. Ugga ugga!”

Did he polish his little cart on Sunday morning?

Did he get excited whenever someone said: let’s have a barbeque?

Did he finger-comb his hair?

Did he wear skin-tight vests made from deer hide to show off his muscles?

When his cave lady love asked him if her bum looked big, did he answer yes, no, or merely grunt?

Did he tell her to take off the bone that kept her hair up and let her hair loose?

Did he wake up in the middle of the night worrying about the next day?

Did he like to sleep in?

What made him really-but-really happy?

We’ll never know. But we can keep wondering. This is the great thing about archaeology: we get to think about our ancestors, appreciate how far we’ve gone and put ourselves in a context called humankind.

Salud, hombre prehistórico.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti