History Main / ContemporaryCAveMan

* Played with in ''Series/{{Ghosts}}'' with Robin, a prehistoric man living in the modern day who, [[HulkSpeak developmental communication issues aside]], has adjusted pretty well to modern life and who has surprising reserves of sophistication, wisdom and modern intelligence. The twist being that he's technically the ghost of a man who died in prehistoric times but who has haunted the same spot since then.

** One issue of ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' opens with an infodump of how few people living today have been alive since prehistory, then goes to a 15,000-year-old caveman living as a lawyer in New York. As he's reminiscing about a dream he had of his childhood hunting mammoths he is unceremoniously killed by a falling pallet of bricks.

* In the ''VideoGame/ZooTycoon2'' expansion pack ''Extinct Animals'', you can place glaciers in exhibits to make certain animals (namely Ice Age mammals such as mastodons and saber-toothed cats) feel more comfortable in the modern period. Occasionally, this glacier will contain a frozen caveman who will gradually thaw out and then wander around the zoo as if he were any other guest. All the cavemen have ''Flintstones''-style names.

* The cavemen from the Advertising/{{GEICO}} commercials, who are insulted by the company's slogan "So easy a caveman can do it", and even more with the excuse that they did not know cavemen still existed. Which is a baldfaced lie, since the first ad had the caveman being offended actually the boom operator at the shoot. The ongoing commercials would present them as a fairly large and fully-assimilated minority group, making the choice of slogan ''shockingly'' racist. This would later spawn a ''very'' [[ShortRunners short-lived]] [[Series/{{Cavemen}} sitcom]].

** Anthro was frozen in a block of ice in ''Tales of the Unexpected'', and thawed gradually. As it turns out, he speaks only French. Of course. (This is contradicted by ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis'', where he becomes an old man and dies in his original time period. Of course, the Dr Thirteen story in ''[=TotE=]'' was so [[MetaFictionDemandedThisIndex meta]], it's hard to imagine it as proper {{canon}}.)

** The immortal ComicBook/VandalSavage, much more sophisticated and urbane than pretty much anyone else on this page (he's become quite the gentleman and genius in his thousands of years), but still rather hairy and still might kill you with his bare hands. [[IAmAHumanitarian And then eat you]].

* ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'': The Danish comics had a recurring female caveman who was brought into the present by Donald and his nephews. Of course, she had super strength--[[DoesNotKnowHisOwnStrength which got her into a lot of trouble]], with people blaming Donald for her actions.

* "The Gnarly Man" by Creator/LSpragueDeCamp is about a Neanderthal named Shining Hawk whose aging process was frozen when he was struck by lightning early in his life. He has survived by his wits on the periphery of human society since the extinction of his own kind, using a succession of false identities and getting by as a blacksmith or in menial professions like his present one; appearing as an 'ape man' in a travelling freak show. He has been a witness to much of history from the margins, making little personal impact on it. He's also ''frustrating as hell'' to the scientists trying to get information from him, both cause he's deliberately tried to be low-key and stay away from important/influential people (he mentions at one point the only King he ever even personally saw was Charlemagne, from a distance when he was addressing a crowd) and because every conversation about history goes like "Yeah, that was in the 13th century. No, wait, maybe it was the 11th. I remember all the bystanders had beards, so it wasn't the 12th..."

* The ''WesternAnimation/COPSAnimatedSeries'' episode "The Case of the Cool Caveman" featured a caveman thawing out and befriending Longarm's son.

* One of the sample characters for ''TabletopGame/GurpsIOU'' is Og, a caveman with an eidetic memory. He came forward in time with a CTHULHU student who was fleeing a wooly mammoth, and arranged to stay by volunteering as a research subject in exchange for tuition, room and board.

* The cavemen from the Advertising/{{GEICO}} commercials, who are insulted by the company's slogan "So easy a caveman can do it", and even more with the excuse that they did not know cavemen still existed. Which is a baldfaced lie, since the first ad had the caveman being offended actually the boom operator at the shoot. The ongoing commercials would present them as a fairly large and fully-assimilated minority group, making the choice of slogan ''shockingly'' racist.

* There are still a number of uncontacted tribes located throughout the world that have been isolated since before written history, and thus retain much of the same practices they had many thousands of years ago. For example, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people the Sentinelese]] are estimated to have lived on their island for the past 60,000 years and still live as hunter-gatherers. They attack anyone who lands on the islands from outside, so little more has been learned about them. Additionally, the Indian government prohibits visitors, not only for their protection but also the Sentinelese's, so they aren't harmed or have their resources exploited. The tribe made international headlines when [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allen_Chau John Allen Chau]], an American Christian missionary, violated the laws against visiting the Sentinelese in order to proselytize to them, only to get killed.

* There are still a number of uncontacted tribes located throughout the world that have been isolated since before written history, and thus retain much of the same practices they had many thousands of years ago. For example, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people the Sentinelese]] are estimated to have lived on their island for the past 60,000 years and still live as hunter-gatherers. They attack anyone who lands on the islands from outside, so little more has been learned about them. Additionally, the Indian government prohibits visitors, not only for their protection but also the Sintinelese's, so they aren't harmed or have their resources exploited. The tribe made international headlines when [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allen_Chau John Allen Chau]], an American Christian missionary, violated the laws against visiting the Sentinelese in order to proselytize to them, only to get killed.

* Likewise, cryptic enthusiasts will usually categorize BigfootSasquatchAndYeti as protohumans who have survived to modern times.

* Likewise, cryptic enthusiasts will usually categorize YetiSasquatchAndBigfoot as protohumans who have survived to modern times.

* ''Franchise/TheDCU''

** Gnaark, introduced in a time travel story in ''Comicbook/TeenTitans'' #38, and later a member of ''[[WestCoastTeam Titans West]]''.

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* ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians'': In "Jurassic Bark", Lucky finds a frozen cave pup under DeVil manor, and accidentally thaws him out.

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* In ''Literature/TheExtordinaires'', a secret society of Neanderthals has survived since the supposed extinction of their race, and is planning to MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight and reclaim the Earth as theirs.

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* Andromache of Scythia, a.k.a. "Andy," the main character of ''The Old Guard'' by Creator/GregRucka, admits to being roughly six thousand years old, placing her birth in the Neolithic era.

* Ogú, a caveman (or "Golagola", which is how he and his people identify) who often accompanies the present-day boy ComicBook/{{Mampato}} in the latter's adventures through [[TimeTravel time and space]]. A variation, in that he still lives in his original time period, with Mampato coming to pick him up, and that he's happy to go with his best friend (especially since the adventures often involve fighting).
* ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'': The Danish comics had a recurring female caveman who was brought into the present by Donald and his nephews. Of course, she had super strength--[[DoesNotKnowHisOwnStrength which got her into a lot of trouble]], with people blaming Donald for her actions.
* In ''ComicBook/TheFurtherAdventuresOfIndianaJones'' #19, Indy encounters (and becomes an ally to) a tribe of modern cavemen living the Himalayas, where they worship a frozen dragon.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's short story "The Ugly Little Boy" featured a caveman child who came to our time thanks to time travel experiments done by a research organization.
* "The Resurrection of Jimber Jaw", a short story by Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs, features an unfrozen caveman with politically uncorrect views.
** Another Burroughs' example is ''The Eternal Lover'' (a.k.a. ''The Eternal Savage'' and ''Sweetheart Primeval''). A cliff-dwelling warrior of 100,000 years ago, Nu, is magically transported to the present, falls in love with Victoria Custer of Beatrice, Nebraska, the reincarnation of his lost lover Nat-ul, and the two are transported back to the Stone Age.

* Though set on a future alien planet rather than contemporary Earth, ''Literature/{{Riverworld}}'' uses elements of this trope when a group of people from various time periods all awaken together. A single caveman is among them, and his behavior and interactions with the later-era humans is in accordance with this trope.
* In John Darnton's ''Literature/{{Neanderthal}}'', there are two Asian Neanderthal tribes--a cannibalistic one and a peaceful one.

* Creator/RALafferty had the recurring character of Austro, a genius Australopithecus.
* Joseph, one of the immortal protagonists of ''Literature/TheCompanyNovels'' started life as a caveman (in fact, his father was responsible for some of the famous cave paintings). Also, the Company has some immortal neanderthals on staff who can't do public work because of their appearances.
* "The Gnarly Man" by Creator/LSpragueDeCamp is about a Neanderthal named Shining Hawk whose aging process was frozen when he was struck by lightning early in his life. He has survived by his wits on the periphery of human society since the extinction of his own kind, using a succession of false identities and getting by as a blacksmith or in menial professions like his present one; appearing as as an 'ape man' in a travelling freak show. He has been a witness to much of history from the margins, making little personal impact on it. He's also ''frustrating as hell'' to the scientists trying to get information from him, both cause he's deliberately tried to be low-key and stay away from important/influential people (he mentions at one point the only King he ever even personally saw was Charlemagne, from a distance when he was addressing a crowd) and because every conversation about history goes like "Yeah, that was in the 13th century. No, wait, maybe it was the 11th. I remember all the bystanders had beards, so it wasn't the 12th..."
* In one of the ''[[Franchise/ScoobyDoo Scooby-Doo Mysteries]]'' novels, ''Scooby-Doo and the Caveman'', a caveman steals a professional figure skater's trademark silver skate.
* Creator/StevenErikson's satirical novella ''Literature/{{Revolvo}}'' has a neanderthal running around in a contemporary Canadian city. His presence riffs on the (now proven) theory that early humans interbred with neanderthals leading to a certain amount of neanderthal DNA in some modern humans. In this particular individual, the buried DNA has come to the fore, causing him to think and behave like a neanderthal. Since it's a satire, what he ends up doing is hunting and killing vegetarians and vegans because they smell like prey to him.

* "Literature/ClublandHeroes" revolves around a group of pulp-adventure heroes that includes Lord Piltdown, a protohominid who was found frozen in a glacier as a child and raised as an English gentleman. His manners and dress are impeccable, and he's highly regarded as a cricketer. He never speaks, communicating by mime, although apparently he's written some good poetry.

* Ruben Bolling's comic strip ''ComicStrip/TomTheDancingBug'' has a recurring character australopithecine in modern times - he assimilates well into society but occasionally lapses into feral behavior.
* Back in the nineties, ComicStrip/PrinceValiant met the last of the Neanderthals, living alone in the wilderness, the rest of his clan gone. Within the last few years, he discovered a Lost Land that had many more, and three of them accompanied him back to Camelot.

* The titular character from the ''[[Creator/ArchieComics Archie's Weird Mysteries]]'' special "The Archies in Jugman". He was unfrozen when a geothermal heating system was installed in Riverdale High School.

* One of the episodes of ''Series/ElChapulinColorado'' deals with the discovery and education of an unfrozen caveman played by Ramón Valdez and named Chimpandolfo. At the end Chapulin does manage to turn Chimpandolfo into a perfectly civilized gentleman... at the price of him getting crazy and acting like a caveman instead.
* ''{{Series/Beforeigners}}'' has a large number of these, referred to as Prehistorians. The premise centers around time holes that bring people from the mesolithic, the Early Middle Ages, and the 19th century to the present day.

* There are still a number of uncontacted tribes located throughout the world that have been isolated since before written history, and thus retain much of the same practices they had many thousands of years ago. For example, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people the Sentinelese]] are estimated to have lived on their island for the past 60,000 years and still live as hunter-gatherers. They attack anyone who lands on the islands from outside, so little more has been learned about them. Additionally, the Indian government prohibits visitors, not only for their protection but also the Sintinelese's, so they aren't harmed or have their resources exploited. The tribe made international headlines when [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allen_Chau John Allen Chau]], an American Christian missionary, violated the quarantine in order to proselytize to them - he was never seen alive again.

* There are still a number of uncontacted tribes located throughout the world that have been isolated since before written history, and thus retain much of the same practices they had many thousands of years ago. For example, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people the Sentinelese]] are estimated to have lived on their island for the past 60,000 years and still live as hunter-gatherers. They attack anyone who lands on the islands from outside, so little more has been learned about them. Additionally, the Indian government prohibits visitors, not only for their protection but also the Sintinelese's, so they aren't harmed or have their resources exploited.