Episode 78: Cavemen S01E01 Her Embarrassed of Caveman (2007)

If you were watching American TV in 2004, then you remember the Geico caveman commercials. What you might not remember is that they spun off a sitcom: Cavemen (2007), starring Nick Kroll, was cancelled after only six episodes and is considered one of the worst TV series of all time. But how does it hold up to scientific scrutiny? Find out on today’s episode, where we do the research the screenwriters didn’t!

Win some SotSA Merch! Send your mistakes, inaccuracies, and corrections to us by email or social media:

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Bluesky: @sotsapodcast.bsky.social

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• The Geico caveman commercials

• Watch the full Cavemen series

• Green et al. (2010) A draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome

• Green et al. (2006) Analysis of one million base pairs of Neanderthal DNA

• Denny, the first generation Neanderthal/Denisovan hybrid

• Interbreeding between archaic humans

• “Ghost lineages” in human ancestry

• Oase 1 – a modern human with recent Neanderthal ancestry

• Bacho Kiro – modern humans with recent Neanderthal ancestry

• Nikolai Valuev (is not a Neanderthal)

• Allometry