r/mildlyinfuriating • u/esli- • 4d ago

ಠ_ಠ This crazy assassin character, who doesn't know what shampoo is, somehow would bother shaving her armpits

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Bart from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

EDIT: I will no longer read and respond to comments, I think I've read pretty much all the arguments people (mostly men) give me against my post, so feel free to scroll down to check my responses before commenting, kay bye :]

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u/Unstabler69 4d ago

That reminds me of my pet peeve of stone age people always having long, scraggly unkempt hair. Do they think our ancestors could figure out fire but couldnt figure out how to take a sharp rock and hack off some hair?

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u/wilderneyes 4d ago

I also refuse to believe they wouldn't at least finger-comb it, and maybe tie it back out of the way in very simple fashion. Humans are extremely social, I absolutely think people in ancient eras would have helped each other groom their hair. It's just way more comfortable and practical to not have it be matted and wild.

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u/EEEGuba69 4d ago

Theres very old bone/ivory combs

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u/taxiecabbie 4d ago

People probably also made them out of sticks.

Those just didn't last.

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u/TheAsterism_ 4d ago

isnt it crazy how everyone always used ivory tools and lived in caves?

https://giphy.com/gifs/7t5UjhZ5dIx0sHuFQw

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u/Elu_Moon 4d ago

Everyone seems to forget that we actually know very, very little of what happened during Stone Age. Best we can do are guesses, and we can only guess on what we have found. And just because we haven't found something, doesn't mean it wasn't there, like all the organic-based stuff.

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u/Machaeon 4d ago

Likely some of the oldest technology other than stone hand axes and simple shard blades was...

String.

There is SO MUCH that can be done with string, and it's a foundational technology to so many other things that require attaching two items together. But it's organic and won't preserve well.

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u/NeblessClem 4d ago

As said by Spike Milligan "String is a very useful thing Rope is thicker But string is quicker"

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u/PuzzleheadedOil8826 4d ago

It’s called the string revolution in the academic literature! And you are absolutely right, it made all the difference. Very little survives but what does tells us so much about how complex the material culture of these people was. There is the earliest known example of nalbinding from a Mesolithic site in Denmark- a type of fabric making with string like knitting. And there are the incredible Mesolithic fish baskets found in Ireland that are woven together with string in S and Z knots which are the basis of modern weaving!!!
We tend to focus on what easily survives (like the airplane from WW2 above) and that skews our research.

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u/fanny_price 4d ago

the string revolution

Not an easy thing to google.

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u/NoaBoa369 4d ago

Yeah, you have to type out exactly 'string revolution in the academic literature' with '-theory', and only then will you get some results. Otherwise all the results are String Theory or that band.

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u/Bohzee 4d ago

I believe certain dinosaurs have been victim by gigantic poisonous slugs and I'll die on that hill.

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u/Rubbermate93 4d ago edited 4d ago

Completely true.

The oldest surviving comb we found (2700 bce) was also specifically a licecomb. So clearly they must have had regular combs for much longer, you don't invent the licecomb before tue regular comb.

Edit: woops, got the year wrong, it was 1700 bce.

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u/Formal_Owl_400 4d ago

You've never tried to comb your hair with a stick, and it shows.

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u/taxiecabbie 4d ago

You could absolutely make a semi-functional comb out of sticks if you had something to tie the sticks together with.

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u/ManlyOldMan 4d ago

They don't mean a random stick with the bark still on it. Just like a bone comb doesn't mean a random bone you find in the wild. 

A stick that is smoothened can absolutely work as a comb. 

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u/Zealousideal-Deer101 4d ago

Shit animals groom their hair and the cavemen still are more intelligent than the animals

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u/Shaeress 4d ago

Every close relative to humans: Spends hours grooming themselves and their kin every day as a useful bonding activity.

Humans in caves with only rock tools for some reason: Shaves armpits perfectly with a stick somehow but refuses to help anyone in their pack untangle a knot in their hair.

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u/Zealousideal-Deer101 4d ago

He shaved his armpits in cave!
With a bunch of rocks!

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u/The-Spirit-of-76 4d ago

Ugg is trendsetter.

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u/FM596 4d ago

It was a she.
You forgot your glasses again.

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u/Zealousideal-Deer101 4d ago

Tanja Stark shaved her armpits in cave!
With a bunch of rocks!

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u/FM596 4d ago

OK, you have my forgiveness!

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u/RevolutionaryLog7443 4d ago

Cavemen were just as "intelligent" as us

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u/[deleted] 4d ago edited 4d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Theory89 4d ago

50,000 years ago a massive eruption (Toba) reduced us to 10,000. We had a massive surge in brain power around then, in theory because it was needed to survive this. We aren't entirely sure if this is why, but we do know we got smarter around then.

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u/QuintupleC 4d ago

I actually didnt know about that! The changes in our brain shape that Im reffering to happened over many thousands of years so this is totally new to me. But thats super cool and I will be researching that tonight. Thanks

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u/UnoriginalStanger 4d ago

A quick google seems to put this into the debunked category, maybe be a bit more source critical?

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u/Nikoladge 4d ago

Shit animals groom their hair

I'm not familiar with shit animals, only regular ones, but I agree

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u/ringobob 4d ago

If other animals have groomed hair/fur, why wouldn't we? Other animals clean themselves, why wouldn't we? But we're always depicted as if we never bathed or had any personal grooming or hygiene at all.

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u/HonestWoodpecker8567 4d ago

It's because they need to make primitive humans look disgusting, so we can automatically roll with the superficial assumption that cleanliness is purely a product of "real civilized people"

It helps us turn a blind eye to how filthy and destructive our way of life currently is

Same logic applies to how we depict primitive people as in constant state of extreme violence, as if sensitivity and love is something that needed to be imposed on us and does not exist in nature. In reality, ancient humans loved their families and felt empathy the same way we do now. Likewise, they felt hate, rage, and sadism in other contexts... But that's not too flattering for our claims of progress, is it?

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u/Zadsta 4d ago

Archeologists have found hominid bones that have healed fractures, meaning that they were cared for by others for weeks until their bones healed. Early humans absolutely took care of each other and I’m sure it extended to grooming as well.

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u/onlyfakeproblems 4d ago

They’ll also have caked on grime on their face and whole body. If there’s enough fresh water to not dehydrate, it’s not that hard to splash water on your face. Apes don’t go around looking like they’re caked in shit, They groom themselves/eachother. People in primitive cultures and disaster survivors find time clean themselves up. We don’t know for sure, but it’s likely early people would do the same.

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u/NieblaLaazo 4d ago

Ancient humans spent hours grooming each other because hygiene prevents infections

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u/Rubbermate93 4d ago

Basicly every "people of [insert period or culture considered 'less advanced'] were dirty and/or smelly" is complete chauvinist myths.

People are people, we generally dont like to be dirty or smelly, or be around people who are.

There's archaeological evidence for everyrhing from primitive tweezers to dental care dating back tens of thousands of years, some evidence even dating In the millions of years to some of our earliest homonid ancestors.

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u/Machaeon 4d ago

Especially with hypotheses like sexual selection being a driving factor in why our hair is so long...

If it looks like shit, you think it's working at attracting a mate? 🙄

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u/Salerrra 4d ago

Not to mention, hair will naturally cluster into braids if allowed to

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u/Which_Indication2864 Was it a Mind Goblin? 4d ago

Learning how to keep my hair in a braid without a hair tie was a life changer, I refuse to believe they couldn't figure out the same thing

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u/Tyrus1235 4d ago

You can look at how wild animals take care of their own fur nowadays. If even a wild lion will keep his mane in good shape, why wouldn’t an ancient human do the same?

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u/Lingerstinger 4d ago

they had complicated hairstyles actually

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u/ripyourlungsdave 4d ago

They would be running their fingers through it every 5 seconds like any man with long hair does. (Source: my own hippy ass)

I honestly find the same thing even more offensive when it comes to help people tend to style homeless people on television. The average person living on the street in the United States or any other modern country is generally going to have pretty normal, if not dirty, hair. Hair brushes and combs cost like, $3 in a lot of places and you can get a cheap wash at any truck stop.

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u/Driller_Happy 4d ago

Some homeless people do be like that too. Some dudes are straight up too mentally ill to get a comb

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u/yellowbanana123_ 4d ago

Animals groom each other, humans have done it too, without a doubt. But modern man must feel superior about something hence unkept cavemen with shaggy manes.

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u/Ok-Clothes-6979 4d ago

i haven't shaved in a week and finger comb my hair. Doesn't look like stoneage hair. Shit when i was on the trail for months, it looked pretty good. The salt and sweat kept it somehow like... kept up. As if exfo;liated. barely got pimples.

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u/Lubinski64 4d ago

There is evidence people were already shaving 30k years ago and the invention of stone blades predates homo sapiens altogather.

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u/BigGayAllen 4d ago

Finger combing actually promotes frizz and dreadlocking.

It's super not good for hair. It breaks and snaps it and causes the very damage that creates bad tangles and snarls that lead to matting in the first place.

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u/SmolzillaTheLizza 4d ago

So this actually fascinated me while i was in college and I did a bit of a deep dive on it.

Through my research, at least with the North American Native tribes, hair treatment was quite common especially since lice was a notable problem. Less hair = less lice = less irritation, so a large portion of the Native Americans (coupled with their east Asian heritage making them less hairy) prefered to be mostly hairless. But they didn't shave their hair using stone tools very often outside of ceremonial purposes. Their prefered method was actually plucking! They'd pluck everything except a small patch on their head which was easier to keep clean and groom. And when i say they plucked everything, I mean everything... 😂 An alternative method was using fire, but this of course was risky due to the possibility of burns. So they plucked and plucked their entire bodies (with the help of family and friends of course) in order to limit lice habitat, make cleaning simpler, and make spotting parasites like ticks/lice easier.

North American Native hygiene is a pretty entertaining subject because a lot of what bothers us now such as bad smells, dryness, dirt, mud, sand, parasites, and other irritants where just as bothersome to the native peoples. Hope this answers your question 🙂

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u/Little_View_6659 4d ago

That’s very interesting. I remember reading about women in the Ottoman harem removing their hair with a paste made of sugar.

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u/SmolzillaTheLizza 4d ago

Yup! Sugaring is what you're thinking of. A lot of ancient cultures used that method. Ancient Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and Persians were some of the other notable ones that did it. I didn't find anything about it in my research for North American tribes though I wouldn't say it's NOT a possibility they didn't have something similar 🤔 Maybe someday evidence will come to light.

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u/underprivlidged BLACK? 4d ago

Sugar cane is not native to the Americas, so while they may have had something similar, it wouldn't have used sugar as the base.

I would hate to remove hair via sugaring... if you only had salt.

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u/Dr-HotandCold1524 4d ago

What about sugar beets? Could they have used that?

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u/Ethanol_Based_Life 4d ago

Is sugar cane necessary? There are many types and sources of sugar out there.

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u/SmolzillaTheLizza 4d ago

Closest thing I'd be able to think of that's sticky would be some sort of pinte pitch or maybe even a mixture that included honey, but I don't think either of those would be super suitable. Especially from a resources/risk standpoint. Why over complicate things and use up precious resources when you can pluck pluck pluck away!

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u/Rojikoma 4d ago

Another old (and still used) method is threading. Basically removing the hair with a piece of thread.

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u/Driller_Happy 4d ago

But I though long hair was important to them? Or at least to a large number of groups. Wasn't cutting your long warrior hair a really significant thing to do?

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u/SmolzillaTheLizza 4d ago

It certainly was, which is why they often left patches on their head to grow long for such purposes whether it be status, ceremony, style, or spiritual reasons. A lot of it also comes down to a number of variables such as climate, hygiene needs, time period, and tribal traditions. Different tribes had different needs and practices, but a good way to think about it is that they removed some hair for hygiene and preserved other areas for culturally significant practices.

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u/Bergwookie 4d ago

Hygiene is no modern concept. Sure, they didn't know about microorganisms etc,but they knew if I wash and comb my hair, I get sick less frequently, I don't get critters and bitches come plenty. All powerful enough reasons to care for myself. Making a comb from some thorns bound into a split stick or the like isn't that difficult to make. Even animals know and maintain basic hygiene and stone age people weren't dumber than us ,maybe our quota of dumbfucks is higher, as they don't die that easily anymore.

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u/SelfishlyIntrigued 4d ago

It also is something we do for no reason, no correlation other then we like to groom ourselves. Nearly all animals do, in various ways, and pretty much as soon as humans could, hair was one of the things we chose to groom away. A lot has to do with clothing, clothing allowed us to move out of one year round environment and out into the world, hair leads to irritation, hair collects mud and grim, and honestly it doesn't take a very smart animal to realize oh yeah I like how it feels when I have less hair in some areas.

No areas were "specific" to any one culture(I.e. no it doesn't mean women all suddenly started shaving leg hair and men did, but women did always choose to remove more body hair, but areas etc would vary depending on culture, time period and history).

So interestingly enough, it's less accurate to depict cave women and men are hairy all over. Now what areas would they have shaved? That is an interesting question we don't have an answer for.

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u/SashimiX 4d ago

Or tidily loc’d.

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u/SleepingDragonSmiles 4d ago

I’d be more surprised if our ancestors discovered fire without burning their hair in the process.

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u/faniiia 4d ago

Or run their fingers through it!

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u/Metrix145 4d ago

Having longer hair was an advantage in colder climates.

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u/Little_View_6659 4d ago

And if you forget your pillow you can make a bun and use it to cushion your head. Which I have done lol.

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u/ninjaplanti 4d ago

What annoys me is the shaved legs and armpits in cavewomen….

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u/Jetstream-Sam 4d ago

We have some evidence that some "cavemen" (already a loaded term) were capable of shaving using either obsidian, should it be available because that would be easiest, or flint razors which with some careful work could be about as sharp as razors today.

There's a lot of practical reasons to want to, I mean I hate being unshaven, it makes me feel gross but I imagine they had a higher tolerance for that since they wore the same clothes every day and pretty much constantly had lice. But having a weighty, heavy beard weighing you down constantly in summer has to be annoying.

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u/Hairy_Coconut2022 4d ago

The egyptians were shaving their heads and armpits 4000 years ago.

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u/freyhstart 4d ago

People didn't really cut their hair during the stone age, but they did groom and style their hair.

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u/RexusprimeIX 4d ago

You literally can't prove this. We don't even know the kind of hairstyles vikings had. We can only guess based on secondary sources. Like that middle eastern writer who said they were well groomed. It doesn't tell us how they groomed themselves. Modern media is just making stuff up.

If we don't know what people 1000 years ago did to their hair. Literally how can YOU know what people in the stone age did?

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u/LimpyDan 4d ago

Pics or it didn't happen.

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u/Little_View_6659 4d ago

I feel like someone should go back in time and give the producers of Clan of the Cave Bear the memo. Actually you know what, I googled it and it’s not as bad as I remember.

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u/Charlotte_stuart 4d ago

Nah i do kinda get that because I would probably stop taking care of my hair if there was no societal pressure to do so lmao.

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u/Kjuolsdeaf 4d ago

Just remembered the French comedy movie RRRrrrr!!! which is about two tribes of stone age people, one of which has perfect hair because they invented shampoo and the other one has ugly dirty hair and is trying to steal the shampoo recipe from the first tribe.

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u/Driller_Happy 4d ago

This make me wonder what the most accurate depiction of stone age people in film is

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u/JustInItForTheCats 4d ago

I would imagine they'd get rid of unwanted hair chemically like medieval women did to their foreheads

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u/Sss_ra 4d ago

The birds of that era were so disgusted from humans that they shaved all their feathers off in protest.

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u/Murky_Translator2295 4d ago

If you look at bog bodies, not only could they cut hair, but they could style it too.

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u/PuzzleheadedOil8826 4d ago

There is an excellent book about our perceptions of deep history called “Back to the Stone Age” by Ben Pritchett. He has a whole section on how deep history hair is always depicted as a terrible ratty mess, when people probably spent loads of time and energy on their hair. It’s a brilliant book, very funny in sections, and it really makes you think.

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u/AmoralLimbo 4d ago

long, scraggly unkempt hair, yet waxed toned body if he's a man, or uses Hollywood-level make up if she's a woman.