Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Where Would You Spend One Day in the Past?

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A painting of a Neanderthal family enjoying a fire on a prehistoric plain as a mammoth walks by. Anyone who has participated in the Wednesday Weekly Blog Challenge or who has followed this blog for a few years will probably not be surprised by this answer at all.

If I could visit the past for one day, I’d want to spend it with a Neanderthal family. Ideally, we’d get to see some mammoths and other now-extinct species walking past us in the distance, too!

I’ve been fascinated by prehistory and Neanderthals in particular since I was a kid. You can learn a lot about someone by studying their skeletons and the artifacts they leave behind, but there are many facts that can never be preserved that way.

I’d want to know so many things about them: what language(s) they spoke, what names they gave to their children and why, which forms of entertainment they enjoyed in their free time, how any myths they had might be similar to or different from today’s myths, why they thought their ancestors moved to Europe and some parts of Asia from Africa, what religious and cultural beliefs they might have had that were different from ours, why they died out, and so much more.

(Yes, I am assuming that I’d have a universal translator or something that would facilitate communication between us. Even if they somehow spoke the same languages that Homo sapiens did, it surely would still need to be translated as nobody knows what those languages might have sounded like!)

It would be a dream come true to get to know them better for a day.

19 Comments

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19 Responses to Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Where Would You Spend One Day in the Past?

  1. One day would be all I’d want, but it would be interesting.

  2. I’d visit my hometown in the 1950s, before its economic fortunes sank. I’d want to go inside buildings that have since been lost to history, and take photos — savor the smell of these places. I’d go down the streets my parents grew up on, shop in buildings that haven’t been opened in decades, see the river before it was altered by dams, and watch the jets at the air force base.

  3. Interesting answer. I don’t think I will join you though. I’d be afraid of being cold all the time….

  4. That is one unique answer! It would be amazing to see these extinct species.

  5. That would be interesting to witness, but I’d be worried about my personal safety and what MIGHT try to eat me! Plus I would be afraid they wouldn’t want to let me go! Although WE might appear ugly to THEM, because we’d be different!

  6. I would love to do that. PRehistoric Earth would be fascinating.

  7. That definitely sounds interesting. I don’t know a lot about them, but would love to find out.

  8. No question about it, I would spend the day with Eleanor of Aquitaine and learn everything I possibly could, to finds answers all the questions I still have about her life.

  9. That’s a great choice, prehistoric times are fascinating. I just watched a documentary on PBS about Neanderthals. Actor Andy Serkis was used to help reconstruct the Neanderthal man avatar and it was really interesting!

  10. oh wow, yes that would be absolutely fascinating!

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