Whenever a
cave man is depicted in media, he will often be the
Big Guy, having more muscles and stature than his descendants. This is especially true if he's a regular character who has somehow been
de-evolved, but usually it's a defrosted
Human Popsicle scenario.
This is usually a case of
Did Not Do The Research; the author is basing the caveman, rather than off Cro-Magnon humans, off the Neanderthals who were stockier and likely stronger, but
still shorter than Cro-Magnon man. It's almost as if in fiction humanity evolved from the
Frazetta Man.
This may even extend to showing these super-ape-men as having
Super Strength, being incredibly athletic and acrobatic, and generally being savage fighters, which isn't quite so preposterous.
There is a practical aspect to this trope. This is often simply a result of the fact the easiest way to depict a caveman on
Live Action TV is to add brow ridges, fake hair, animal skin clothing, etc., to an actor, so the resulting
Rubber Forehead Alien will be slightly larger than a human, and rather large actors are often cast in the part.
This is usually a double case of
Did Not Do The Research - most often, Neanderthal cavemen are depicted as nothing but simple, dumb brutes capable of barely a grunt. The various sciences researching them indicate that this is untrue, too.
Contrast:
Nubile Savage, where prehistoric men can be whatever they like, but prehistoric women are pinup models with bodies that exactly correspond to the current standards of beauty.
Examples:
Comic Books
Commercials
- The Geico Cavemen
. Played straight with their looks, but subverted in that the cavemen complain that they're being stereotyped as dumb brutes.
Film
- Played straight in Eegah!, with the titular caveman played by Richard Kiel.
- Averted in Encino Man. When 'cleaned up', the caveman is indistinguishable from 'normal' humans except for his decidedly odd behavior.
Literature
- Justified with Joe the Gigantopithecus man and friend of Mark Twain in Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld.
- The Thursday Next series features cloned Neanderthals, brought back to life as cheap labor for the all-powerful Goliath Corporation. Contrary to expectations, the Neanderthals are in fact a quite intelligent and peaceful bunch, albeit very different from humans in that they have no personal pronoun (always referring to themselves as "we" instead of "I") and their communities exist in a state of peaceful anarchy. Their pet political cause is to be cloned with the ability to reproduce, since Goliath made them all sterile as a way of undermining their freedom.
- Completly subverted in Robert J Sawyers Neanderthal Parrallax trilogy in which Barast's (Neanderthal's) are obviously a different species from humanity's ancestors and are rather a cousin species that continued to develop in an alternate reality.
Live Action TV
- In the original Star Trek series episode The Galileo Seven, there was an episode where there were giant alien cavemen threatening a shuttlecraft.
- In the Star Trek The Next Generation episode Genesis, Commander Riker is de-evolved into a Neanderthal... a race of which Riker couldn't have possibly been a descendant (then again, everybody de-evolved into random animals).
- It's actually possible, since there is a theory that neanderthals died out not just from competing human ancestors, but also from being absorbed through interbreeding.
- This actually becomes even more of a Wall Banger, because Data states that Riker may have become an Australopithecus. Which were like four feet tall...
Table Top Rpg
- Dungeons And Dragons 3.5 Frostburn supplement featured Neanderthals as a race of throwbacks dwelling in cold regions. They are on average bigger (including taller), stronger, and more adapted to cold climates but have lower than average mental and social traits. This could be justified as game balance and shoehorning the creatures into the supplement. Odd in that, the orc is usually a fantastic stand in for primitive man.
Western Animation
- Candy in Dave The Barbarian was hit by a de-evolution spell, which turned her into an enormous, dim-witted and easily angered super cavegirl.
- Cave Guy from Freakazoid.
- Java the neanderthal from Martin Mystery.
- Does he count? He actually is a neanderthal, they never try to pass him off as a Cro-magnon.
- The Caveman from the Phineas And Ferb episode "Boyfriend from 20,000 B.C.", though not as hulking as other examples, still is tall and strong-looking.
- One Looney Tunes short has Marvin the Martian hit Bugs Bunny with a devolving ray, which turns Bugs into a big, hulking Neanderthal rabbit.
- The Flintstones averts this big time.
Video Games
- In Earthbound, the cave boy was basically a Big Guy... with a wooden club.
- NetHack. The Caveman role starts with high strength, but low intelligence and primitive weapons. The guardians on the Caveman quest are even called neanderthals.
Real Life
- In Real Life, trolls may have been based on folk memory or skeletons of short, stout Neandertals. Then again, we seem to be wired to believe in Elves Vs Dwarves, whether it's aliens, foriegners, or what-have-you.
- It was either they were tall and able to run your ass down a million times over, or short, stout and willing to bash your head.
- Homo heidelbergensis 'was tall, 1.8 m (6 ft) on average, and more muscular than modern humans.'
