Original French Title: L'Homme du Néanderthal
Setting: 100,000 BC to 35,000 BC
With the changing times, Homo Erectus gives way to Neanderthal Man, who makes more sophisticated flint tools (called bifacials), sets up successful hunting traps, braves the cold, makes jewelry, and even buries his dead.
Tropes:
- All Cavemen Were Neanderthals: Averted; Neanderthals are not said to be ancestors of Homo sapiens sapiens.
- Bears Are Bad News: Towards the end of the episode, Pierre and his tribe encounter a cave bear family, which they vanquish.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Early in the episode, while Pierre and Jumbo are out hunting, their rival Teigneux banishes one of his men for not following his orders. Said man later marries Young Pierrette and has a kid with her. The narrator lampshades this.Narrator: Pest thought he had gotten rid of him.
- Compressed Adaptation: The Comic-Book Adaptation combines this episode with "And Earth Was Created" and "Cro-Magnon Man."
- Cruel Elephant: The beginning of the episode has a Homo erectus being suddenly chased by a woolly mammoth.
- Death by Newbery Medal: Maestro dies of old age at the end of this episode.
- Due to the Dead: Happens twice in this episode, once with an unnamed hunter and once with Maestro.
- Frazetta Man: Averted with Neanderthal Man, who is shown to be as human as us.
- Love at First Sight: Young Pierrette falls in love with the man who was kicked out of Teigneux's tribe.
- Noble Savage: Pierre's tribe
- Rhino Rampage: Pierre and the other hunters in his tribe stalk a woolly rhinoceros, which charges after the kids when they accidentally alert it and then kills an unnamed hunter who lures it away from the kids. It is vanquished by the other hunters when it falls into their pit trap.
- Totem Pole Trench: Pierrot and Little Jumbo do this with a grass skirt.
- Uncertain Doom: During the Ice Age sequence, Le Teigneux and Le Nabot are hunting for food. However, Pierrot leads them to a Burmese tiger trap, and the two men are left there. Whether Neanderthal!Teigneux and Neanderthal!Nabot eventually got out of the trap or died of starvation remains unanswered.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Besides the aforementioned Uncertain Doom, we don't see Neanderthal!Jumbo's wife after the first segment, let alone during the Ice Age segment.
