Cave dweller

A cave dweller, or troglodyte (not to be confused with troglobite), is a human being who inhabits a cave or the area beneath the overhanging rocks of a cliff.

Prehistory

Some prehistoric humans were cave dwellers, but most were not. (See "Homo" and "Human evolution".) Such early cave dwellers, and other prehistoric peoples, are also called cave men (the term also has other meanings). Despite the name, only a small portion of humanity has ever dwelt in caves: caves are rare across most of the world; most caves are dark, cold, and damp; other cave inhabitants, such as bears and cave bears, cave lions, and cave hyenas, also have made caves inhospitable for people.

The Grotte du Vallonnet, a cave in the French Riviera, was used by people approximately one million years ago. Although stone tools and the remains of eaten animals have been found in the cave, there is no indication that people dwelt in it.

Since about 750,000 years ago, the Zhoukoudian cave system, in Beijing, China, has been inhabited by various species of human being, including Peking Man (Homo erectus pekinensis) and modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens).

Caveman

A caveman is a stock character based upon widespread anachronistic concepts of the way in which neanderthals, early modern humans, or archaic hominins may have looked and behaved. The term originates out of assumptions about the association between early humans and caves, most clearly demonstrated in cave painting. The term is not used in academic research.

Basis of archetype

Cavemen are portrayed as wearing shaggy animal hides, and capable of cave painting like behaviourally modern humans of the ice-age. They are simultaneously shown armed with rocks or cattle bone clubs, unintelligent, and aggressive, traits more like those of ice-age Neanderthals or much older, pre-ice-age archaic hominins. The image of them living in caves arises from the fact that caves are where the preponderance of artifacts have been found from European ice-age cultures such as Les Eyzies, although this most likely reflects the degree of preservation that caves provide over the millennia rather than an indication of their typical form of shelter. Until the ice age most early modern humans and hominins did not live in caves, being nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes, and behaviourally modern humans living in a variety of temporary structures such as tents (see Jerry D. Moore, "The Prehistory of Home", University of California Press, 2012) and wooden huts (e.g. at Ohalo). Their societies were similar to those of many modern day indigenous peoples. A few genuine pre-ice-age cave dwellings did however exist such as Mt. Carmel in Israel. Some cavemen continue to exist on far off island caves as tribute to their ancestors.