Wednesday 13 January 2010

An extraordinary 'Stone Age' modern man

I've recently learned the most extraordinary story about an American indian named "Ishi", the last of his tribe, who came out of the wilderness in California in 1911 and lived the rest of his life until 1916 at the University of California Museum of Anthropology in San Francisco.  While he lived there, he gave demonstrations of his native skills in making flint implements, bows and arrows, and in making shelters, making fire and so on.  There are more details of his story here:-

http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/outreach/pdfs/ishi_teaching_kit.pdf

What is especially interesting about Ishi is that he lived essentially a Mesolithic-style life as a hunter-gatherer.  He was a stone age man, projected into the twentieth century and he adapted remarkably well to modern life.