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Issue Date: April 29, 2007
You know those commercials featuring the brainy caveman ...
... and you know the hit show with those egghead 11-year-olds.
But, reader, only here do you get to test yourself against a killer combo of both.
Are you smarter than a 5th-grade caveman?
By Brian Truitt
What's hotter these days than cavemen and fifth-graders? Geico has hit a home run with its cavemen ads, and the hilariously testy portrayal of early man is now in pilot development for an ABC sitcom. And the Fox game show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" is one of the top new series of the season, airing Thursdays through May 10.
Both pop-culture sensations work well for the very same reason: We watch with the assumption that we have an intellectual edge over the subjects. But in the end, it's the cavemen and the fifth-graders who demonstrate that they're the ones with the real smarts. So we at USA WEEKEND Magazine thought we'd present a fun quiz that combines the two: "Are You Smarter Than a 5th-Grade Caveman?"
After all, 11-year-old Neanderthals would have had much more practical knowledge than their modern-day counterparts, says Susan F. McCarter, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University who teaches the popular class "From the Neanderthal to the Neolithic."
We asked McCarter and Carl Zimmer, author of the "Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins," to come up with these quiz questions -- the answers to which any fifth-grade caveman would have known. Up to the challenge? Read on:
1. What rock do you use to make spear tips to hunt a mastodon (a large mammal similar to a mammoth)?
a) Flint
b) Limestone
c) Shale
2. True or false? When hunting, a Neanderthal creeps up on the animal and throws the spear at his prey when he gets close.
3. What kind of animal would a Neanderthal be least likely to hunt?
a) Reindeer
b) Cows
c) Foxes
4. A hunter returns to the cave with a broken arm. What would his 11-year-old son not do to help him treat it?
a) Splint it with bamboo
b) Let the break heal naturally
c) Clean the wound with water and put the arm in a sling
5. Your family has all the modern furnishings that a Neanderthal could want in a cave. But which of the following is not one of them?
a) A dinner table fashioned from hard bedrock
b) Colored stone floors
c) Windbreaks of animal skin stretched over frames
6. In addition to animal skin bags, Neanderthals used what else as containers?
a) Pine-needle trays
b) Dried gourds
c) Straw baskets
d) Animal organs
7. When your mom wants to save extra mastodon meat, which of these does she not do?
a) Freeze the meat and put it underground
b) Smoke the meat and put it in an animal skin bag
c) Soak the meat in brine and put it in an animal skin bag
8. After a feast, your dad and his friends will:
a) Play music on bone flutes
b) Tell stories and smoke tobacco
c) Draw pictures on the cave walls
9. Your grandmother recently passed away. Which object was not used in the funeral ceremony?
a) Flowers
b) Animal horns
c) A woven blanket
10. Where did your ancestors come from?
a) Alaska
b) Japan
c) Israel
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Answers
1. a) Flint. Flint would break easily into sharp blades. Limestone and shale would be too soft to make effective spear tips.
2. False. Neanderthals apparently only stabbed at their prey. "You'd have to go to our species (Homo sapiens) for throwing," Zimmer says.
3. c) Foxes. Neanderthals often hunted all sorts of horses, deer and wild cows.
4. c) Splint it with bamboo
5. a) A dinner table fashioned from hard bedrock. Hearths and storage pits were commonplace.
6. b) Dried gourds
7. c) Soak the meat in brine and put it in a skin bag. They would have either frozen or smoked the meat to preserve it.
8. a) Play music on bone flutes "They probably did tell stories, but they didn't have tobacco," McCarter says, "and they didn't make cave art."
9. c) A woven blanket
10. c) Israel. Alaska and Japan are impossible.
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