What Did Cavemen Do All Day Before Jobs Existed? (Stick Figure Animation)
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True Stories · 2:48

What Did Cavemen Do All Day Before Jobs Existed? (Stick Figure Animation)

40,000 years ago there were no jobs, no bosses and no phones. So what did people actually do all day? Follow Tok, a stick-figure caveman, through one full day: relighting the fire at dawn, foraging with Mira, a close call with a sabre-tooth cat, sharing food, making tools and jewelry, playing a bone flute, and telling stories by the fire... and the hand print he leaves on the cave wall that is sti

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What Did Cavemen Do All Day Before Jobs Existed? Forty thousand years ago, there were no jobs. No bosses, no phones, no alarm clocks. So what did people actually do all day? Meet Tok. He lives in a cave with about twenty people. His whole family, his friends, and one uncle who snores like a bear. His day starts at sunrise. Not because of an alarm. Because the fire went out in the night, and it is freezing. So job number one, every single morning: bring the fire back. Blow gently on the embers, add dry grass, and pray it catches. Then breakfast. Yesterday's leftovers. Cold roasted roots, a handful of nuts, and if he's lucky, a bit of dried meat. Now here's the surprise. Studies of hunter-gatherers living today suggest they spend only around four to six hours a day finding food. Mira knows every plant in the valley. Which berries are sweet, which roots heal a stomach ache, and which ones will kill you. Tok goes with the hunters. They don't run after mammoths every day. Mostly they track rabbits, deer, and birds, and they come back empty-handed a lot. Because out here, the hunters can also become the hunted. Tok runs. Faster than he has ever run in his life. He makes it back to the group, out of breath, but alive. And this is what everyone forgets. Nobody did anything alone. Food was shared. Whoever found something, everyone ate. So what about the rest of the day? Hours and hours, with no screens. They made things. Stone blades. Bone needles to sew warm clothes. Even jewelry, made from shells and animal teeth. Yes, cavemen liked to look good. And they played music. Archaeologists found a flute carved from a vulture's bone, about forty thousand years old. The kids played all day. Hide and seek in the rocks, throwing sticks, chasing each other until they collapsed. Then night came. And the night was the scariest part. Wolves. Big cats. Total darkness. The fire was the only thing keeping them safe. So they sat close, and they told stories. About the stars, about the animals, about the people who came before them. Before he sleeps, Tok does something special. He dips his hand in red ochre powder, presses it to the cave wall, and blows paint around it. And here's the crazy part. Hand stencils just like that one are still on cave walls today. Some are more than forty thousand years old. Their way of saying: I was here. So, would you survive one day as a caveman? Comment yes or no, and follow for more lives from the past.

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