The argument began, like so many arguments do, at the dinner table. My husband and I had been away for the holidays, and a few nights on an unfamiliar mattress had thrown my back into paroxysms of pain. I found this fact troubling. How is that swapping one plush, spring-loaded mattress for another could cause me so much anguish? “How did cavemen, who lacked every modern comfort, survive?” I wondered. [A cavewoman my age would probably be thinking about dying. But let’s pretend we’re discussing a younger, spryer cavewoman.]
“They were probably just used to hard surfaces,” my husband said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “And they were more physically active. They weren’t sitting all the time like we do. They did a lot of squatting.”
I had no evidence for this statement, but as a girl I had read Clan of the Cave Bear, the story of a human child named Ayla who loses her parents and is adopted by Neanderthals. I couldn’t recollect any specific scenes involving squatting, but the book had left me with a deep sense of knowing. What would Ayla do? She would squat. So would gentle Iza and wizened old Creb. That dickhead Broud? He was definitely a squatter.
“I’m sure they did their fair share of sitting,” my husband countered. Sure, I conceded. Maybe they rested briefly on stones or stumps, or sat on the ground. “But they wouldn’t have gone out of their way to sit down. They wouldn’t have drug stones or stumps around a fire,” I declared.
My husband wasn’t buying it: “I guarantee that somebody dragged a log to a campfire to sit down on it,” he said. “Even early humans enjoyed rudimentary luxuries. We were always trying to make ourselves a little bit more comfortable.”
Hoping to find evidence to support my gut instinct, I entered the rabbit hole of the World Wide Web. Hours later, I emerged, dazed and confused, but also clutching shreds of evidence to support my argument.
In “The Archeology of Human Bones,” Simon Mays writes,
Many human groups who do not use furniture to sit on adopt the squatting posture in repose or whilst working on tasks low to the ground. In this posture, the body weight is supported with minimal muscular activity; it is s comfortable resting position for those used to it.
And squatting leaves a lasting mark: frequent hyperflexing of the joints wears tell-tale divots and scratches in the femur, tibia, and ankle bone. By looking for these so-called “squatting facets” in skeletal remains, researchers can get some sense of whether early humans were habitual squatters or not. Neanderthal remains seem to have these squatting facets. And one study found that late stone age foragers showed signs of squatting too.
Of course, none of this definitively proves my point. Just because some ancient human remains bear evidence of squatting doesn’t mean these people didn’t also sit on logs. Maybe they even used them as chairs. But in a marital dispute, evidence hardly matters. No one knows better than science writers that stories are powerful, and deep-seated beliefs are hard to shake.
***
Image courtesy of Kojotisko on Flickr
Subject matter aside, I can totally relate to this type of marital dispute/conversation.
Also, this post reminds me of a TAL episode on knowing too little and and getting into jackass territory. The prologue had me nodding in agreement:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/293/a-little-bit-of-knowledge
So, what did your husband say when you told him what you found?
Kelly, I forgot all about that TAL episode! Loved it.
My husband isn’t exactly convinced. Also, he still thinks that whatever ancient human first decided to pull a log over to the fire should be celebrated as a f&$%ing hero. He’s a fan of sitting on logs around campfires.
I think what happens in an argument is that you end up taking increasingly extreme views, going far beyond what you actually believe to be true. Because if you ended up saying, “Oh, well, I don’t really know whether they sat or squatted,” then the argument is over. Done. Finished. And nobody wants that. Arguing is so much fun.
Wow, Internet to the rescue at the 11th hour! I love a story that ends with validation. My wife usually just uses Google against me to disprove whatever half-baked point I was wholeheartedly making.
The real question is how Jean Auel knew so much without the interwebs…
Would be interesting to see how the joints of the current-day Asians fare, with squatting a common posture there, although yes, I know they have chairs too and are just as interested in comfort as I am. But I certainly am not comfortable squatting, and probably couldn’t get out of the position once in it. If one is accustomed to squatting, do the ligaments and joints stay more flexible as one ages?
Adam – I can’t recollect whether Auel actually talks about her characters squatting or sitting. While researching this post, I got sucked into watching a bunch of clips from Clan of the Cave Bear the movie on YouTube. (Did you see it? Daryl Hannah played Ayla.) And in the movie, people do a lot of sitting. Sitting on the floor, but still! So perhaps I’m just totally remembering the book wrong. Or perhaps the movie doesn’t follow the book. Or perhaps Auel was wrong. So many possibilities.
Ruth – I did stumble across some studies looking at squatting facets in Indians and Australian Aborigines. And I’ll bet studies have been done that look at squatting facets in Asians. I’m not sure whether squatting would keep you generally more limber, but I would assume that squatting would always be a comfortable position for you if were used to it.
I can’t squat either, not without raising my heels up off the ground. And that is not comfortable.
Squatting is a way of life in my family. The preferred posture when chairs are not immediately avaialable. I will sometimes even exit a chair to assume a squat in social settings, putting certain people on edge. This behavior was handed down from my grandfather, according to family legends.
Also, just an observation/musing: the discerning caveman would select the site for the fire to be close to a convenient log, stone, or what have you. Dragging heavy objects is not rewarding from an energetic point of view. The first guy to drag a log in the direction of a fire was probably an engineer…
You should interview Matt Wieters. Matt is the starting catcher for the Baltimore Orioles and is an expert on squatting. Yoggi Berra is also considered an expert on squatting as well.