The Thames as in the Thames where London, England is?
That's a very different river now to what it was in the stone age. I know it's practically a canal along many parts of it, especially upstream around Henley.
I've rowed the Thames from Lechlade to Teddington, years ago now. The upper reaches are a bit hairy in terms of under/overgrowth but you're into something that's navigable and not over-managed quite quickly, from memory.
There are very built-up stretches, but there are also parts where it's just... water. Going through green fields. For hours. The biggest difference I can imagine with the stone age isn't the river itself, it's what's on the banks. It would have been far more wooded than it is now; lots that's currently farm would have been forest, and from that point of view foraging would probably have been a lot easier.
The Thames is 215 miles long and while there are portions that are 100% wrapped in civilisation I think there are areas in both the tidal and non-tidal sections that are totally wild.
Obviously experimental archaeologists have to try and ignore airplanes, plastic bag waste, and their own good health and shiny teeth but I think this kind of activity is amazing.
"Totally wild" is probably an exaggeration, considering there is virtually nowhere in southern England that could reasonably be considered totally wild.
The nearly entire length of the river is navigable, with the flow controlled by locks and weirs. This isn't to minimize their achievement, but they didn't have to contend with rapids, shallows or swamps like the river would have had back in the stone age.
People have practiced dental hygiene since forever:
> Since before recorded history, a variety of oral hygiene measures have been used for teeth cleaning. This has been verified by various excavations done throughout the world, in which chew sticks, tree twigs, bird feathers, animal bones and porcupine quills have been found. In historic times, different forms of tooth cleaning tools have been used. Indian medicine (Ayurveda) has used the neem tree, or daatun, and its products to create teeth cleaning twigs and similar products; a person chews one end of the neem twig until it somewhat resembles the bristles of a toothbrush, and then uses it to brush the teeth. In the Muslim world, the miswak, or siwak, made from a twig or root, has antiseptic properties and has been widely used since the Islamic Golden Age.
At one point I was in one of their reconstruction huts and they had a large open fire in the centre to keep warm. I was surprised to find they had no chimney system so the hut was full of smoke. If I recall correctly they said it was because the hut was made of wood so they couldn't build a chimney and it would be a fire risk if they put the fire closer to the edge. I questioned whether it was bad for their health that they were breathing in so much smoke and one of the researcher there said, "I don't know, but we'll find out".
It's an interesting iterative approach to learning about history.
The Stone Age is such a ridiculously broad time period.
From Wikipedia[1]:
> The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC.
So, 3.4 million years out of (generously) the last (3.4 million + 6,023) years were the Stone Age. 99.82% of "human" history (of course appreciating that modern homo sapien didn't appear until 300,000-ish years ago).
There's a really great YouTube channel called Primative Technology where the guy without talking works his way through iron age tech. Building kilns and smelting iron eventually. Put the subtitles on for extra info. It'd be great to see something similar about the stone age. Obviously more basic but it'd give a great insight to how these people might have lived.
One bit that stands out to me is how they were invited to a number of lavish parties after the experiment ended and they didn't appreciate the richness of the food, his greatest desire was a plain potato.
(Have watched 12+ seasons of Alone. If you want to dip your toes in, seasons 6 and 7 are great, 3 and 8 half decent too. The Australian season is a bit miserly, while the UK version just finished was fairly budget/amateur.)
