Review on a Netflix Movie 10,000 BC

10,000 BC Link

It was at the height of the Enhanced Community Quarantine when boredom struck me. It was then that I decided to borrow the Netflix account of my friend and browse for some films to spend time with. Actually, I should not feel bored because I have a lot of things to do, but I am not in the mood to do it. So here is the catch: I found a movie with the title 10,000 B.C.

As an Archaeology student, of course, I wanted to give this film a chance. I was about a hunting-gathering village that lives in a certain mountainous area filled with ice. They were hunting mammoths. Yes, those gigantic elephants with furs. I am not interested in giving more details about it. You can just watch the Movie.

So, my review here is focused on the archaeology of the Movie. I will comment on the accuracy of the representations of the Movie to the mainstream archaeological knowledge on "prehistory" or what is termed by one of my professors as "paleo history." So the Movie was said to be 10,000 BC. If we are going to calibrate, we are counting time using the unit B.P. or Before present. They are using KYA (thousands of years ago) or MYA (million years ago) for older time depths.

Classical archaeologists still use B.C. because they are usually looking at sites that are young. So, going back to the calibration, the present is 2,000 years away from the start of the common era Anno Domini (A.D). So roughly, the films would be around 12,000 years ago (or 12,000 years B.P.).

So basically, it was happening before the Last Glacial Maximum or what archaeologists and geologists abbreviate as LGM (10,000 years B.P.). What we mean when we say LGM is the point in time when the ice caps have still not melted in many parts of the world, and that the sea level is still low. This specific time frame is referred to as the transition between the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. In archaeology, to be specific, the Pleistocene is the old Stone Age (Paleolithic), while the Holocene is attributed (but not always) to New Stone Age (Neolithic). For starters, the primary difference between these two is for many archaeologists. The Paleolithic was when people used hunting and gathering to survive, while the Neolithic was when humans discovered the domestication of plants and animals.

So the question that I am focusing on here is to what extent the movie makers did it right?

So basically, they could be right in the:

(1) Presence of mammoths. It was a widespread belief in archeology that the extinction of mammoth was caused by human activities. There was a theme in the story that the mammoth's visit was becoming rare, and it threatened the survival of the tribe. It was believed that mammoths became extinct due to the combined effects of environmental changes and human activities.

2. The use of stone tools and bone tools. Yes, this is the Stone Age, and they are using stone tools. It is because it is the only accessible thing for them at the moment. The use of metals was, at the time, absent to humans; thus, having metal tools was impossible during those times.

3. Farming could have existed 23,000 years ago from a fertile crescent, although this is still questionable. This is yet to be debated.

What are the things that I can call inaccuracies?

1. The use of metals. You can see that the tribe was attacked by civilized horse-riding and sword-bearing people. It is hilarious, and I am laughing at it the whole time. Metals could not exist 12,000 years ago. Twelve thousand years ago, only stones and bones were the things that these people used.

2. The megalithic structures. This Movie is just silly and misleading. There is no archaeological evidence that people can build those kinds of structures 12,000 years ago. What I mean here is the temple in which the people of the tribe were sacrificed. The temple that was portrayed there in that Movie should never have existed. I want to clarify myself about my use of megalithic structure. Although it was found that in recent studies, megaliths were used in association with rituals at around 12,000 years B.P., those elaborate temples could not have existed before those that were erected by the Egyptians. Check this link.(Megalithic Structure; Oldest Structures; Egypt)

3. The first boats were used around only 8,000 years ago. It is just outrageous what this Movie portrays. Twelve thousand years, there are no boats.

4. The first horses were domesticated 5,500 years ago in Khazakstan. There is no way horses could have been used 12,000 years ago. If anything, horses might be hunted for food more than anything else.