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Back in the days, when home was a cave stuck on the face of a cliff.

Kids, babies, cubs, kittens or whatever you like to call the offspring, all have one thing in common. They love to play. So I think we can safely assume that caveman kids played. But with what did they play with.

What amused the minds of our ancestor's kids. When they were lying around the fire after a hard day learning about staying alive. We are still trying to work out the minor details of the past lives of children of prehistory, but we can dream.

Anyway, were the first jigsaw puzzles just leaves that had been ripped up into little pieces so the little ones could put them back together. Was this a teaching aid so the kids could learn which plants were safe to eat. We will possible never know but it is good to ponder.

Back in prehistory, before houses and cars and TVs, video games and all the modern gadgets that we have nowadays. What toys did caveman kids play with, when daddy was out hunting the mighty mammoth or giant sloth. And mommy was gathering vegetables and herbs and grasses and whatever else they ate back then.

Anyway many artifacts have been dug up, mostly bone and rock carving of people and wild animals. Beautiful carvings, something to be really proud of. Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, it might have been made by a dotting daddy for his little son.

In the future when future man digs up what we leave behind, what conclusions will they come to. Looking at some of the dinosaur toys available, would they conclude that these beasts actually walked among the skyscrapers.

In the 25th century if you dug up an old car toy that hadn't rusted away, how would you explain it.

Would you say it was some sort of God that we worshiped, or was it a decorative item we used to show power. It could have been a model of the king's chariot.

But do we stop to think, that it may have been something for our kids to play with. While we were out making more money to buy even more things for our kids to play with.

We have war games with tiny toy soldiers and cowboy and Indian sets. What is to stop the tiny carved human figures from prehistory being toys to teach the kids the best way to hunt down a mammoth or rhino or deer.

If we made some replica models of some of the artifacts, and gave them to our kids to play with in the sand pit. We might see them reenacting a mammoth hunt or chasing a wild deer into the ground.

Some of the most valuable artifacts would suddenly be delegated from God status to kid status.

I like to look at what we do now and them dream about what could have happened in the caveman days.

Nowadays in any toyshop there is a shelf of toy plastic animals. Anything we see in the wild or on the farm or in the home is there in little packets.

Did the caveman kids also have collections of toys. Now, our kids even have toy cavemen to play with, so what did caveman kids play with.

I can remember 'Fred Flintstone' on TV but did Pebbles and BamBam have any toys. All I can remember is BamBam running around with this big club. Now you can buy big air-filled clubs and hammers that don't hurt when they hit you on the head.

But back to reality, kids love to play and caveman kids would also have played, but with what.

Toy bows and arrows and toy spears. Like kids today who love anything to do with war. Would all the spear points belong to daddy's toolbox or would the smaller ones belong to the son.

They must have had something to play with, but with what.

Maybe in the future someone scratching around in a long forgotten cave will unearth the Barbie prototype. Or the lovely bird carved from a long dead mammoth tusk just might have been from mummy to daughter.

And not some elegantly carved offering to an unknown God.

Article by copyright © Peter Legrove 2006, at www.animalsdinosaursandbugs.com

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Thank you Peter Legrove