Screens of the Stone Age

Today we’re reviewing the third movie in the Jurassic Park franchise with extra special returning guest and actual star of the film: Dr. Andrew Kinkella! He takes us behind the scenes of his breakout role as “Lecture Attendee #231” and reveals why he gave up his film aspirations to pursue a much more practical career in archaeology. Listen to Dr. Andrew Kinkella on the Pseudo-Archaeology Podcast:...

Ross is away today but undergrad student Zach Hoorman is filling in to help us review the first episode of It’s About Time (1966), a sitcom from the creator of Gilligan’s Island about two astronauts who accidentally “break the time barrier” and find themselves stranded one million years in the past. There’s not much real palaeoanthropology to talk about in this episode, so instead Josh does a poor...

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. Win some SotSA Merch! Send your mistakes, inaccuracies, and corrections to us by email or social media: Twitt...

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. Win some SotSA Merch! Send your mistakes, inaccuracies, and...

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...

If you were watching American TV in 2004, then you remember the Geico caveman commercials. What you might not remember is that they spun off a sitcom: Cavemen (2007), starring Nick Kroll, was cancelled after only six episodes and is considered one of the worst TV series of all time. But how does it hold up to scientific scrutiny? Find out on today’s episode, where we do the research the screenwrit...

It finally happened! Archaeologist Flint Dibble faced-off against pseudoarchaeologist Graham Hancock on the Joe Rogan Experience , so we’ve invited Dr. Andrew Kinkella to help us break down this four-and-a-half-hour-long podcast episode! Was there an advanced civilization before the Younger Dryas? Find out once and for all in this episode! Listen to Dr. Andrew Kinkella on the Pseudo-Archaeology Po...

Today we’re reviewing Evolution’s Child (1999), a made-for-TV movie in which a woman is accidentally impregnated by sperm from an Ötzi-inspired ice mummy, and ultimately gives birth to a child with magical bronze age powers—and one fatal weakness. We talk ancient diseases, DNA contamination, and genetic memory, and Ross reassures us that this probably won’t happen at your local IVF clinic. Win som...

We rarely the get change to review a newly released caveman movie, so we’re really excited about Out of Darkness (2022), the story of Upper Palaeolithic modern humans venturing into Europe for the first time, and encountering a mysterious enemy. What could it be? Well if you’ve kept up with the field of palaeoanthropology over the last twenty or thirty years, it’s probably exactly what you expect!...

Today we’re travelling to the 24th century to discover humans’ earliest ancestors in The Chase , a 1993 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation , in which Captain Picard gets a chance to follow the road not taken and fulfill his dream of being an archaeologist. We talk pottery, ancient DNA, and linear progressive evolution. Win some SotSA Merch! Send your mistakes, inaccuracies, and corrections...

The Beast from the Beginning of Time (1965) is a story we’ve seen many times: archaeologists find a caveman who wakes up and kills everyone. It doesn’t have the camp of Trog , or the star power of Horror Express , or the quotable lines of The Neanderthal Man, or the catchy surf-rock tunes of Eegah , or the budget of Neander-Jin… Well, enjoy the episode. Win some SotSA Merch! Send your mistak...

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) tells the story of Hushpuppy, a young girl living with her daddy in the Louisiana bayou, adapting to a changing world: her father is dying, the climate is warming, and prehistoric beasts are returning from the ice to haunt her. Aurochs, the titular beasts, were real Pleistocene animals – although the movie takes some artistic liberties. It’s a wonderful movie wit...

Today we’re diving into the music industry and reviewing seven stone age music videos: from Pearl Jam to Wu-Tang Clan, from folk to metal, musicians seem to love the ancient past. We explore the intersection of art and science, the way every generation projects their own ideals onto the past, and the disturbing amount of sperm in these videos! Featured music videos: Fatboy Slim – Right Here, Right...

We’re getting back to our roots with Master of the World (1983), an Italian film about modern humans and Neanderthals, and cave bears, and cannibalism, and fighting! And herons. And a plot? Well this is an artistic film, so if you didn’t get it then maybe you’re just not as evolved as we are. Win some SotSA Merch! Send your mistakes, inaccuracies, and corrections to us by email or social media: Tw...

It’s Episode 69, dude! So we watched Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), the classic time-travel movie starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter as two slackers collecting historical figures to help them pass their history final in order to save a future civilization founded on their band’s music. Imagine how weird that sentence would sound if you had never seen this movie–but of course you hav...

If you like Screens of the Stone Age , you’re gonna love Greeced Lightning , a podcast about Greek and Roman mythology and history in movies! Sara and Sam joined us for our review of Attila , and here we present the other half of that collaboration: Greeced Lightning is back! We’re kicking off Season 2 with a foreign film and a very special guest. Josh Lindal of Screens of the Stone Age podc...

Happy New Year! To kick of 2024 we’re reviewing Disney’s Brother Bear (2003), the story of a human learning to be nice to animals by being forced to live as one. This is low-key a stone age movie – it’s set in Beringia during the Pleistocene, but other than some mammoths and glaciers, it doesn’t shove its stone-age-ness in your face. In this episode we talk cave art, megafauna, and, as always, Can...

Saving Christmas Spirit (2022) is the story of a holiday-hating archaeologist who must travel to Scotland on Christmas to save her job, where she falls in love with a failing Scotch distiller (get it? Spirit? Scotch? It’s a pun! Do you get it?). Ross tells us everything wrong with this movie’s depiction of the Scottish Highlands (also we talk about archaeology). Get in touch with us! Twitter: @Sot...

After School (1988) is the story of Father Mack, a catholic priest trying really hard to justify sleeping with one of his students. What does this have to do with the Stone Age? Well, inexplicably – INEXPLICABLY – the movie is intercut with scenes of cave people frolicking in a Palaeolithic Garden of Eden. Need answers? Too bad, we don’t have any. Get in touch with us! Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast Face...

Today we’re reviewing two episodes of Pokémon , a dystopian anime series in which children enslave innocent creatures and force them to fight for their entertainment. In Attack of the Prehistoric Pokémon , the protagonists stumble upon a paleontological dig where they awaken giant monsters that battle in a climactic showdown. In The Ancient Puzzle of Pokémopolis , the gang stumbles upon an archaeo...

Today we’re reviewing The Lost City (2022), the story of an archaeologist-turned-romance author who gets swept up in an archaeological adventure which parallels the outlandish plots of her novels. This movie features a star-studded cast, including Sandra Bullock, Brad Pitt, Daniel Radcliffe, and Channing Tatum’s butt. But how accurate is the archaeology in this movie? Let’s find out! Listen to Fir...

We’re continuing our Halloween-themed month with Black Mountain Side (2014), a very Canadian indie horror film in which a team of archaeologists in a remote northern outpost are driven to madness by a Lovecraftian deer-god. We’re starting to get the impression that you can’t write archaeological horror without parasites crawling under skin and impromptu amputations. But at least this one has actua...

We’re continuing spooky month with The Ruins (2008), which we reasonably assumed was about archaeology. Turns out the actual Maya ruins on which the movie takes place are really incidental to the plot, which is centred on the least scary thing we can imagine. Here’s a list of things scarier than the monster in this movie: caterpillars; the X-Men franchise; poison ivy; AI-written books. Anyway, enj...

It’s October, which means it’s time for scary movies! We’re starting with one that is not scary: Sabretooth (2002) is a made-for-TV Sci-Fi channel movie about an evil geneticist and a greedy capitalist who resurrect a Smilodon , which escapes and starts eating teenagers in the woods. This movie has bad CGI, a C- genetics lab, and John Rhys-Davies, who must have taken time off from Lord of the Ring...

Recently Josh invited Kim and Ross on a wildlife hike in Skyrim. You can listen to that conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EfGDRrcb274 If you want to see more stone age video game reviews, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, and let us know which archaeology- and palaeontology-related video games you’d like us to review!