Firebringer (2016) is a musical play about the discovery of fire by a tribe of polyamourous, matriarchal ancient humans. They also invent stone tools, art, hunting—they pretty much hit all the classic caveman tropes, and even subvert some of them. The only problem is... it’s a musical.

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Watch Firebringer (2016) on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmVuNlu0LCk

The earliest controlled use of fire: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2743299

The oldest stone tools: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32804177

Neanderthals hafted tools with birch tar: https://www.science.org/content/article/50000-year-old-tar-smeared-tool-shows-neanderthal-smarts

The oldest cave paintings: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aap7778

Divje Babe Neanderthal “flute”: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/holes-in-a-bone-flute-or-fluke

Palaeolithic Lithophones: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0092.1985.tb00229.x

Homo naledi: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/homo-naledi-your-most-recently-discovered-human-relative.html

Early art at Blombos Cave: https://theconversation.com/south-africas-blombos-cave-is-home-to-the-earliest-drawing-by-a-human-103017

Goog Enough on Twitter: https://x.com/goog_enough

Sima de los Huesos: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-sima-hominins-an-ancient-human-cold-case

The Mauer mandible: https://efossils.org/page/boneviewer/homo%20heidelbergensis/Mauer%201

Bae et al. (2023) Moving away from “the Muddle in the Middle” toward solving the Chibanian puzzle: https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.22011

Roksandic et al. (2021) Resolving the “muddle in the middle”: The case for Homo bodoensis sp. nov. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21929

The Middle Pleistocene was renamed to “Chibanian”: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/chibanian-age-earths-newly-named-geological-period-180974224/

Evolution (2001) is a star-studded soft-disclosure propaganda film masquerading as a shampoo commercial intended to prepare us for extraterrestrial butt stuff. I think? I mean it doesn’t seem to know what evolution is. In this episode we discuss organic chemistry, asexual reproduction, and Lamarckism, and also firetrucks for some reason.

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Evolution (2001) production information: https://www.cinema.com/articles/458/evolution-production-information.phtml

Tillers and Quillers (i.e. fire trucks): https://www.fireapparatusmagazine.com/features/cantankerous-wisdom-tillers-quillers/

Head and Shoulders “Intensive treatment”: https://reference.medscape.com/drug/selsun-blue-tersifoam-selenium-sulfide-topical-343485

Lamarckism: https://evolution.berkeley.edu/the-history-of-evolutionary-thought/1800s/early-concepts-of-evolution-jean-baptiste-lamarck/

Asexual reproduction in plants: https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_General_Biology/Biology_(Kimball)/16%3A_The_Anatomy_and_Physiology_of_Plants/16.03%3A_Reproduction_in_Plants/16.3E%3A_Asexual_Reproduction_in_Plants

Stephen J. Gould (1989) Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History: https://archive.org/details/wonderfullifebur0000goul_r6i5/page/n7/mode/2up

Multiple sexes in fungi: https://www.the-scientist.com/this-fungus-has-more-than-17-000-sexes-69930

Starfish Regeneration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_regeneration

Hypothetical types of biochemistry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry

Natural Gas Odorizers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odorizer

Evolution wouldn’t follow the same path twice: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190709-would-humans-evolve-again-if-we-rewound-time

Adam and Eve (Bingo!) Meet the Cannibals (Bingo!) tells the story of two blond (Bingo!) early humans who are banished from their home (Bingo!) and go on a rambling journey (Bingo!) where they encounter dinosaurs (Bingo!) and several tribes of cave people. Of course, everyone will be familiar with the plot because it’s a loose adaptation of the famous story, The Quest for Fire. What’s that? “Bible”? “Genesis”? Never heard of it.

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In this episode:

Where did Cain's wife come from? https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/department/biblical-views-who-did-cain-marry/

Cannibalism in the bible: https://www.openbible.info/topics/cannibalism

Simian and feline immunodeficiency viruses (SIV and FIV): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1659310/

Disease transmission by cannibalism: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2189571/

Can vampires get HIV? https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/nwcs93/vampires_can_vampires_get_hiv_or_aids/

How many holes does a human have? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egEraZP9yXQ

Can you run a string through your entire GI tract? https://www.straightdope.com/21341206/can-yogas-swallow-a-cloth-and-have-it-come-out-the-urk-other-end

Family Guy Seagulls are not cannibals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG0MxhkQ67w

Origin and diversification of birds: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.08.003

Plants take up chronic wasting disease prions in the lab: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/chronic-wasting-disease/plants-can-take-cwd-causing-prions-soil-lab-what-happens-if-they-are-eaten

Kuru disease: https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/kuru

Did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons? https://www.doesgodexist.org/SepOct06/TheGreatBellyButtonDebate.html

Men don’t have fewer ribs than women: https://answersingenesis.org/creationism/arguments-to-avoid/women-have-more-ribs-than-men/

Was Eve made from Adam’s baculum? https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/ncbi-rofl-what-did-god-do-with-adams-penis-bone

Os clitoridis (baubellum): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Os_clitoridis