Episode 70: Master of the World (1983)

We’re getting back to our roots with Master of the World (1983), an Italian film about modern humans and Neanderthals, and cave bears, and cannibalism, and fighting! And herons. And a plot? Well this is an artistic film, so if you didn’t get it then maybe you’re just not as evolved as we are.

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In this episode:

The world’s oldest spears: https://archive.archaeology.org/9705/newsbriefs/spears.html

Modern humans ate Neanderthals? https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/may/17/neanderthals-cannibalism-anthropological-sciences-journal

The Fore people and Kuru disease: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/09/06/482952588/when-people-ate-people-a-strange-disease-emerged

Endocannibalism, finger amputation, and other funerary practices: https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/how-these-5-death-rituals-from-around-the-world-honor-the-dead

You’re Wrong About – Survival in the Andes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/flight-571-survival-in-the-andes-with-blair-braverman/id1380008439?i=1000584554361

The Last Podcast on the Left – Survival in the Andes: https://podcasts.apple.com/il/podcast/episode-557-survival-in-the-andes-part-i-stayin-alive/id437299706?i=1000638739044

The Cult of the Cave Bear: https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-cult-of-the-cave-bear/

A Cross-cultural Perspective on Upper Palaeolithic Hand Images with Missing Phalanges:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41982-018-0016-8

I couldn’t find an ethnographic source for the use of birthing poles, but here’s an article from OrgasmicBirth.com: https://www.orgasmicbirth.com/birthing-pole/

Were bees the source of the Shanidar burial pollen? https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/aug/28/study-casts-doubt-on-neanderthal-flower-burial-theory

Samson killed a thousand men with a donkey’s jawbone: https://www.bible.com/bible/compare/JDG.15.16

Chewbacca’s voice: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/the-remarkable-way-chewbacca-got-a-voice/375697/

Badger badger badger… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1jEh2bUWuM