paleoanthropology
Original: paleoanthropology on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Child: Dad, according to the museum humans had modern brains for at least 100,000 years before they figured out how to make pottery! How did it take so long?
Panel 2:
Dad: Well, the average lifespan was only about 25 back in those days.
Panel 3:
Dad: So most people were probably just a few years out of college, working as a barista and re-evaluating their choices, and WHAMMO! Gored by a mammoth.
Panel 4:
Dad: Others would've been in their third year of graduate education, just starting to work independently, when nearby tribes burned down their village, killed the men and enslaved the women and children.
Panel 5:
Dad: It was a much harder time. For instance, people don't go to Burger King as often, because worldwide, the average household income was about $50 a year.
Panel 6:
Child: Wowww...
Panel 7:
Child: How do you know so much about history?
Dad: Most of it's obvious.
Votey:
Thought bubble (over a crude cave-painting-style stick figure of a running person holding a spear): What am I doing with my life
Child: Dad, according to the museum humans had modern brains for at least 100,000 years before they figured out how to make pottery! How did it take so long?
Panel 2:
Dad: Well, the average lifespan was only about 25 back in those days.
Panel 3:
Dad: So most people were probably just a few years out of college, working as a barista and re-evaluating their choices, and WHAMMO! Gored by a mammoth.
Panel 4:
Dad: Others would've been in their third year of graduate education, just starting to work independently, when nearby tribes burned down their village, killed the men and enslaved the women and children.
Panel 5:
Dad: It was a much harder time. For instance, people don't go to Burger King as often, because worldwide, the average household income was about $50 a year.
Panel 6:
Child: Wowww...
Panel 7:
Child: How do you know so much about history?
Dad: Most of it's obvious.
Votey:
Thought bubble (over a crude cave-painting-style stick figure of a running person holding a spear): What am I doing with my life
Alt text
A seven-panel comic of a bald, bespectacled dad answering his child's history question. The child asks why humans had modern brains for 100,000 years before inventing pottery. The dad explains that average lifespans were only about 25, so most people were 'just a few years out of college, working as a barista and re-evaluating their choices' before being 'gored by a mammoth,' or in 'their third year of graduate education' when their village was destroyed. He adds that people didn't go to Burger King as often because worldwide average household income was about $50 a year. The child says 'Wowww...' and asks how he knows so much about history; the dad replies 'Most of it's obvious.' The joke: he projects modern middle-class anxieties (college, baristas, grad school, fast food) onto prehistoric humans. Votey: a crude red cave-painting of a stick figure running with a spear, with a modern thought bubble reading 'What am I doing with my life' — the same existential anxiety projected back onto a cave-dweller.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.