Sorry, Most Prehistoric Peoples Didn’t Live in Caves

If you’ve ever heard anything at all about prehistoric peoples, it’s that they all lived in caves. This is one of the most ingrained ideas in our society about what prehistoric life was like. You can find depictions of so-called “cavemen” all over the place in popular culture, such as in the comic strip B.C. (published 1958 – present), the cartoon The Flintstones (originally broadcast 1960 – 1966), the film One Million Years B.C. (released 1966), the film History of the World, Part I (released 1981), the film Quest for Fire (released 1981), the animated film The Croods (released 2013), and in countless other places.

The truth, though, is that living in caves has never been the norm for any species of hominin. Humans and human ancestors have always lived primarily in dwellings other than caves. The reasons why we always imagine our distant ancestors living in caves, though, are complex and fascinating and they reveal a lot more about us than they do about prehistoric peoples.

The world of the Lower Paleolithic

Strictly speaking, people in the Paleolithic Era didn’t “live” anywhere in the permanent sense that we think of people “living” places today. Instead, they were nomadic and they moved around regularly. They would stay in a place for a short while and then they’d move someplace else, almost never staying in one place for very long. It is likely that peoples during the Paleolithic Era rarely ever stayed in any given location for more than a year at the very most.

This nomadic lifestyle was basically the inevitable result of the conditions under which these people lived. Agriculture hadn’t been invented yet, meaning people had to live as hunter-gatherers. Thus, they followed their food supply wherever it went and, when they couldn’t find food in one area, they would move on to another area.

The early hominins during the Lower Paleolithic (lasted c. 3 million – c. 300,000 BC) probably mostly roamed around in relatively small groups and slept in treetop “nests” most of the time to stay safe from predators. They probably did not have dwellings of any kind, but rather slept in new trees each night. This is typical behavior for modern-day chimpanzees, who usually sleep in treetop “nests” that they make in new trees every single night.

Anthropologist Jill Pruetz has observed that chimpanzees at Fongoli in Senegal sometimes take shelter in caves during the hottest and driest months of the year, lasting roughly from October until March. Nonetheless, even at Fongoli, chimpanzees do not normally “live” in caves most of the time; taking shelter in caves is an unusual behavior that they seem to engage in effort to escape the sweltering heat during the dry season.

ABOVE: Photograph from this article from The Conversation of a chimpanzee in a treetop “nest.” Chimpanzees mostly sleep in treetop nests. It is highly probable that early human ancestors during the Lower Paleolithic did the same thing.

The development of temporary manufactured dwellings

Eventually, our ancestors did stop sleeping in trees and, eventually, they started making their own dwellings. The vast majority of people during the Upper Paleolithic (lasted c. 50,000 – c. 10,000 BC) probably lived in a variety of temporary manufactured dwellings, including various kinds of wooden huts and tents. Many of them probably lived in dwellings similar to those that were used by various nomadic peoples up until fairly recently and that some nomadic peoples still live in even today.

Instead of imagining people in the Upper Paleolithic living in caves, we really should be imagining them living in various different kinds of temporary manufactured dwellings, some of them perhaps similar to teepees, wigwams, and yurts.

In some cases, we actually have archaeological evidence of some of these sorts of dwellings. Unfortunately, because these sorts of dwellings were normally made of materials like wood, fur, and leather that don’t preserve well after thousands of years, in most cases, they haven’t survived to the present day.

ABOVE: Photograph taken in 1891 of an Oglala Lakota girl sitting outside a teepee

ABOVE: Photograph taken in 1903 by the American ethnologist and photographer Edward S. Curtis of an Apache wigwam

ABOVE: Color photograph taken in 1913 by the Russian photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky of a Turkmen woman outside a yurt in Turkestan (As I talk about in this article from March 2019, color photography was actually invented in the nineteenth century.)

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of what the dwelling of a hunter-gatherer in Ireland in around 7000 BC might have looked like.

The development of houses and cities

Sometime around 10,000 BC or thereabouts, agriculture was invented. The invention of agriculture greatly changed the lifestyles of many peoples. During the Neolithic Era (lasted c. 10,000 – c. 4,500 BC), many peoples around the world began living in permanent houses, which were most often built of mud brick.

It was also during the Neolithic Era that the first proto-cities arose in the Near East. One of the earliest known proto-cities is Çatalhöyük, a site in what is now southeastern Turkey that was inhabited from around 7100 BC to around 5700 BC.

At its height, Çatalhöyük is estimated to have a population of between 5,000 and 7,000 people. It was not quite a “city” by modern standards, but it was still vastly larger than any other previous settlement that we currently have evidence for. As such, it remains a very significant site because it shows the kind of urban centers that were first starting to develop during this period of prehistory.

The earliest true cities as we might think of cities today first appeared in around the fourth millennium BC in parts of world, including Mesopotamia in the Middle East, the Nile River Valley in Egypt, the Yellow and Yangtze River valleys in China, the Indus River Valley in India, and the Andes region in South America. The fourth millennium BC is the period we generally associate with the beginnings of literate, urban civilization.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the ruins of Çatalhöyük, an early proto-city in what is now southeast Turkey, taken shortly after the site was first excavated

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a model in the Museum for Prehistory in Thuringia depicting what Çatalhöyük might have looked like when it was inhabited

Why you shouldn’t live in a cave

The thing everyone needs to keep in mind about caves is that, in most cases, they’re actually remarkably unpleasant places to live. I know a little bit about caves because I’ve personally been in a few of them. While I’m not an expert on caves, I have to say that none of the caves I have been in are places that I would ever want to live.

Caves are almost always dark, almost always wet, and often unusually hot or unusually cold. Most caves are also quite small and, in many cases, it would be impossible for a human to live in one of them comfortably. You can’t even stand up properly in most caves because the ceiling of the cave is so low. Often, even if you can stand up in the cave itself, to get into the cave, you have to crawl around on your hands and knees or at least duck down.

In addition to being dark, wet, and generally unpleasant, caves are also often labyrinthine with lots of blind corners and potential hiding places. If you were a prehistoric human living in a time before the invention of flashlights or cell phones, going into a cave would probably actually be quite a frightening experience.

If you’re a prehistoric human, when you go into a cave, you never know when there might be a collapse that might crush you to death or trap you inside to starve. People today still sometimes get trapped in caves while caving. Obviously, if you actually live in a cave for an extended period of time, there’s a much higher chance of you getting crushed or trapped than there is if you’re just exploring the cave. Many caves also fill up with water when it rains, meaning, even if there isn’t any kind of collapse, you could still get trapped in the cave or drowned by rising water levels.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of one part of the interior of Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico. Judging from the picture, this is one of the more livable caves and, even then, I still wouldn’t want to live here.

Meanwhile, you also never know if there’s a wild animal of some kind already living in the cave that might attack you. For all you know, there could be a cave lion hiding just around the next bend in the tunnel, waiting to eat you. (It probably would have been relatively rare for people to actually encounter dangerous animals in caves, but the fear of encountering one would have surely been very real.)

Caves are also terrible places to be living if there happens to be a fight between your tribe and some other tribe because there’s usually nowhere for you to run. Your enemies can just block off the entrance to the cave so you can’t escape and kill you along with all your friends and family. Your only hope of escape would be if you know about another exit. On the other hand, if you’re living in tents out in the open, there are all kinds of directions you can run if your tribe gets attacked.

Finally, naturally-forming caves are not especially common, so there really aren’t that many caves to go around. If everyone on Earth tried to live in caves, we’d very quickly run out of caves for people to live in. Even during the Paleolithic Era when there were far fewer people on Earth than there are today, you would have been hard-pressed to squeeze the entire population of an area into caves where they could reasonably live.

Generally speaking, caves are just all-around rather strange and nasty places to live.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a cave lion skeleton.

Why do we think they lived in caves, then?

Now, you may be wondering at this point, “If prehistoric peoples didn’t really live in caves, why do we all imagine them living in caves?” There isn’t an easy answer to this question because there are all kinds of factors that have shaped the modern notion of prehistoric peoples as “cavemen.”

The basic idea of so-called “primitive” people living in caves is extremely ancient; it goes at least as far back as Greece in the seventh century BC. The ancient Greeks believed that it was normal for “civilized” people to live in cities. They imagined “primitive” people as the opposite of “civilized” people and therefore assumed that such people were incapable of making any kind of dwellings for themselves at all. Thus, they imagined “primitive” people as living in caves.

The Odyssey, an ancient Greek epic poem that was most likely composed in around the early seventh century BC or thereabouts, contains a description in book nine, lines 106-566, of the Kyklopes, who are characterized as a “primitive” race of one-eyed giants who live in caves, do not worship any deities, and are cannibals.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of an ancient Greek terra-cotta figurine from the region of Boiotia dated to the late fifth century or early fourth century BC, depicting a Kyklops reclining with a drinking bowel

Later ancient Greek sources follow the Odyssey’s portrayal of supposedly “primitive” people as living in caves. The Greek historian Herodotos of Halikarnassos (lived c. 484 – c. 425 BC) gives a description in his book The Histories, which he most likely wrote sometime in around the early 420s BC or thereabouts, of an exotic nation of supposedly “primitive” people, whom he calls Τρωγλοδύται (Trōglodýtai), which means “cave dwellers” in Greek.

Herodotos claims that the Troglodytai lived in caves in the land of Aithiopia, that they ate only reptiles like snakes and lizards, and that they spoke in a language that sounded like the squawking of bats. Here is what he says in his Histories 4.182, as translated by A. D. Godley:

“These Garamantes go in their four-horse chariots chasing the cave-dwelling Ethiopians: for the Ethiopian cave-dwellers are swifter of foot than any men of whom tales are brought to us. They live on snakes and lizards and such-like creeping things. Their speech is like no other in the world: it is like the squeaking of bats.”

These Troglodytai are mentioned by later ancient writers such as the Greek historian Diodoros Sikeliotes (lived c. 90 – c. 30 BC), the Greek geographer Strabon of Amaseia (lived c. 63 BC – c. 24 AD), the Roman encyclopedist Pliny the Elder (lived c. 23 – 79 AD), the Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus (lived c. 37 – c. 100 AD), and the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus (lived c. 56 – c. 120 AD).

Later, from around the ninth century AD onwards, western Europeans told stories of “wild men” covered in hair who ran around naked in the wilderness. In some stories, these wild men are said to have lived in caves. In all the stories, they always live in remote settings far away from civilization.

Depictions of these wild men recur throughout late medieval and early modern western European art. They are often portrayed in woodland settings, wielding wooden clubs. Modern portrayals of “cavemen” have been greatly influenced by the iconography of wild men.

ABOVE: Panels from a painting by the German Renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer dated to 1499 depicting nude wild men covered in hair living in the wilderness, holding clubs

ABOVE: Design for a stained glass window of a nude wild man wielding a club, produced by a member of the studio of Hans Holbein the Younger, dated to between c. 1525 and c. 1528

Modern fuel for an ancient legend

The idea that “primitive” people live in caves has been around for a long time, but it has been fed in the past hundred fifty years or so by the fact that all kinds of prehistoric remains have been found in caves. We’ve found cave paintings, fossils, and all sorts of artifacts in caves. Naturally, this has led people to assume that prehistoric people must have mostly lived in caves.

The reason why so many remains and artifacts have been found in caves, though, is not because most people actually lived in caves, but rather because caves happen to be extraordinarily good sites for preserving remains. The inside of a cave is sheltered from erosion and wild animals are less likely to find things in them. They are also cold and dark, which are both factors that are beneficial to preservation. They are also usually wet, which is a factor that makes the permineralization of bones more likely.

Basically, if you’re looking for a spot to put something so that it will be preserved for thousands and thousands of years to come, a cave is just about the most perfect spot you’re likely to find in nature. If you put a dead body in a cave, the chances are relatively high that parts of it will be preserved there for thousands, if not millions of years. If, on the other hand, you leave a dead body lying out in the open, chances are it will be gone relatively quickly.

Similarly, if you leave paintings on the wall of a cave, chances are that those paintings will remain preserved for millennia thereafter. It is likely that the vast majority of works of prehistoric art have been lost or destroyed; cave paintings have only survived because of the environment of caves, which is naturally conducive to preservation.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a replica of a painting from Chauvet Cave depicting lions. Chauvet Cave was occupied in two phases, one lasting from around 37,000 years ago to around 33,500 years ago and one lasting from around 31,000 years ago to around 28,000 years ago.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the wall of the Cueva de las Manos in Perito Moreno, Argentina, which is covered in stenciled human hands. These hands are dated to between 13,000 and 9,000 years ago.

Occasions when prehistoric people did use caves

Although very few people actually lived in caves during the Paleolithic Era, people did sometimes use caves for various purposes. One purpose people used caves for was probably ritual. Many caves show evidence of recurring human activity, often of an apparently religious nature, but there is little evidence that people actually lived in them.

I know that, in historical times, certain deities have often been venerated in caves. For instance, in ancient Greece, the god Pan was often worshipped in caves. My guess is that some prehistoric peoples probably also worshipped certain deities or spirits in association with caves and it is likely as a result of this sort of veneration that we have so many cave paintings. I don’t think caves were ever the primary place of worship, but I do suspect that people in prehistoric times probably sometimes worshipped in them.

Some caves do show evidence that people inhabited them for extended periods of time. For instance, Franchthi Cave in southeastern Argolis, Greece, appears to have been seasonally occupied or visited by small groups of people almost continuously from around 38,000 BC until around 3,000 BC. Similarly, Theopetra Cave in Thessalia, Greece shows evidence of having been regularly occupied or visited by small groups of people from the early Middle Paleolithic until the end of the Neolithic.

In other words, it is clear that some people did indeed live in or at least regularly visit caves during prehistoric times, but there was never any point in time when living in caves was ever common. The people who spent a lot of time in caves were exceptions to the overall norm.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the entrance to Franchthi Cave in Argolis, Greece

Conclusion

The notion that most people in prehistoric times lived in caves is a complete misconception. Hominins during the Lower Paleolithic wandered around and mainly slept in trees. By the Upper Paleolithic, people were mostly living in temporary manufactured dwellings such as tents and huts. By the Neolithic, many people were living in full-blown houses and even proto-cities. At no point in time have the majority of people ever lived primarily in caves.

The reason why we imagine ancient peoples as living in caves is partly because cavepeople have been part of western mythology since at least the fifth century BC and partly because artifacts and remains deposited in caves are far more likely to survive than the kinds of temporary dwellings in which most people actually lived.

By the way, since we’re debunking popular misconceptions about prehistoric peoples, it’s worth noting that people in the Paleolithic Era did not eat anything resembling what we refer to as a “Paleolithic diet” either.