Night at the Museum, was easily one of my favorite films growing up. The film stars Ben Stiller as a newly recruited night security guard (Larry Daley) at the Natural History Museum. Stiller soon discovers that an ancient curse in the Museum causes all of the exhibitions to come to life and roam the halls freely at night. The film depicts many historical figures including, most notably, Lewis and Clark, Teddy Roosevelt and a Neanderthal exhibit.
In order to distract the Neanderthals, one night, Larry Daley gives them a lighter, claiming their quest for fire is over. However, after experimenting with the lighter, the Neanderthals catch on fire and begin to panic with accompanying grunting and hollering noises. I definitely could see the stereotyping that modern humans bestowed upon Neanderthals. This scene highlighted the stereotype that “for thousand upon endless thousands of years they suffered, speechless under the debilitating, bone-deforming effects of rickets and iodine deficiency disease (yes, Neanderthals were the original ‘cretins’)” (News Flash: Negative Evidence Convicts Neanderthals of Gross Mental Incompetence, John D,. Speth). The scene narrates the idea Neanderthals lacked an advanced notion of Behavioral Modernity. More specifically, that they lacked the lithic tools of fire and fire-making.
However, the evidence states otherwise. According to a paper published in the scientific journal Nature, Neanderthals living in France roughly 50,000 years ago would start fires by striking flint with materials like pyrite (Neadertal Fire-Making Technology Inferred From Microwear Analysis, Sorensen, Claud, Soressi). Though there is mixed evidence discussing how Neanderthals used fire it is certain that they were able to create fires and therefore would not have been on a “quest for fire” as the movie depicted. They also would not have been shocked when seeing fire, as they had encountered it many times in their environment by natural causes.
The movie highlights a common origins trope, that our ancestors were like “a child without resources, experience, reason or industry, continually suffering hunger and destitution…” (Explaining Human Origins, Stoczkowski). The film pushed the idea that cavemen were nothing more than incompetent beings who floated through the earth, and eventually died out due to their lack of brainpower.
Though I did not expect Night at the Museum to portray Neanderthals, or any of the historical figures in the movie for that matter, in the most historically accurate way, because it’s a children’s movie, it could allow for young people to question the depiction of various historical figures, and look to further educate themselves on who these figures actually were.
Sources
Shawn Levy. Night at the Museum. 20th Century Fox, 2006.
John D. Speth. “News Flash: Negative Evidence Convicts Neanderthals of Gross Mental Incompetence.” Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Wiktor Stoczkowski. Prehistory and the Conditioned Imagination. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
The Museum of Modern Pasts 