Back when our ancestors lived in caves . . .

I know that the popular concept of a “cave man” is fraught with inaccuracies, though rooted in the fact that at various times some of us did live in caves. Obviously caves were never as ubiquitous as bungalows, and there were undoubtedly many large populated areas totally devoid of caves. So my question is: at the height of human cave-dwelling, averaging across continents and cultures, approximately what percentage of the population actually lived in caves?

Not sure we can really answer this. The prototypical “cave man” is a Neanderthal, and probably all of them lived in caves (or rock shelters of some sort). Of course, Neanderthals weren’t really our ancestors (in the usual sense of the term). Our “real” ancestors were H. erectus in Africa. They may have lived in various types of natural shelters or out in the open.

Our immediate, Stone Age ancestors (us, really, but just Stone Age us) probably lived in a variety of natural and man-made shelters. The latter might be tepee like tents or even shelters made or framed from mammoth tusks.

I would expect that any place where humans live that has caves, they’ve been inhabited almost continuously for almost all of history. A cave is quite convenient, as shelters go, if you have one handy.

Depends on how you define “human”. In this context, it would be any member of the genus Homo. In that case, probably not. If you mean only H. sapiens, then yes.

The earliest members of the genus (H. habils) probably did not live in caves, but slept out in the open or maybe even slept in trees.

And yet there is precious little evidence of actual *H. sapiens *humans ever living in caves. People certainly painted in caves, but the evidence for them living there is ambiguous at best. That is in stark contract to Neanderthals,w here we have numerous sites where hearths were built in caves and animals actually butchered there.

I suspect that this is because caves aren’t really very convenient. Most caves are a long way from water, and the ones that are near water tend to be damp and unpleasant. It’s much easier to build a lean-to near a waterhole than to try to cart water to a cave several kilometres away. The same applies to any other resource, including game, firewood or stone quarries. Caves aren’t portable, so the chances of finding one at a usable distance from any resource is fairly remote.

Caves are also generally not very nice climate-wise. Small caves tend to overheat very fast and lack ventilation. Large caves tend not to heat up at all even with a large fire. In contrast a small lean-to can be warmed quite effectively with just a small fire. In climates where fires are not needed for warmth, then caves are likewise not required for staying warm.

The only real advantage to a cave is that it keeps the rain off your head. However people still need to go outside to hunt, so they aren’t getting any great advantage from the cave anyway except when they are asleep, and a lean-to is just as effective at keeping the rain off as a cave is.

And contrary to the Hollywood version of a cave with a conveniently flat floor with a soft sandy coating, most caves are nothing like that. Most caves have floors littered with sharp rocks, with bumps and rises and large wet patches. They’re mostly not very nice places to sleep.

All that means that basically people only sleep in caves when the weather is absolutely hellish: Unceasing monsoonal rain or prolonged blizzard conditions basically.

So to answer the question, I would guess that less than 1% of people were living in caves at any given time.

I think hardly any humans ever lived in caves. The popular image of the cave man arose because many of the earliest discoveries of prehistoric human bones, artifacts and artworks were found in caves. This was because things that got left in caves tended to be relatively well preserved and relatively easy for modern (like, 18th and 19th century) investigators to find, as compared to stuff that was left in the open or buried. For a very brief period, this pattern of discoveries may have convinced scholars that early humans generally lived in caves. They quite quickly recognized that this was absurd, and that the evidence they had found was very skewed, and did not really indicate it. Unfortunately, by then the idea of the caveman had got out to the general public and taken on a life of its own in popular culture.

Early humans are now thought to have been mostly nomadic hunter gatherers. Finding a new cave every night at each place you had moved on to would have been totally impractical. Caves just are not that common in most places. Like hunter-gatherer people in more modern times, they probably mostly camped out in the open, pperhaps around a campfire, or used some form of tent.

Going the other way, I’d bet that virtually all caves have been slept in, at least once.

Cave paintings have also contributed to the popular notion of early humans living in caves. But the only ones I’ve heard of were created by H. Sapiens. And the presence of a few artifacts doesn’t mean a cave was used as a dwelling. It could just indicate a place where stone tools were made out of the rain or hot sun. There probably isn’t much evidence left of artifical dwellings created out of branches and skins, so caves present the best known type of dwelling, but not necessarily a type that was as commonly used as cultural perceptions have it.

ETA: Well it looks like those points have been made already. Chronos and chacoguy are pointing out that a lot of caves may have been used, at least as temporary dwellings.

Not by humans they haven’t.

Even discounting the ones that are too small to physically fit a human, most caves are littered with broken rocks, have a floor covered with water, have a floor at an angle >45o, are covered in guano and flesh eating beetles, are only accesible after crawling a mile in pitch darkness so on and so forth. Very few caves could be reached or slept in comfortably. and so of course haven’t been slept in at all.

Once again, I suspect this comes from the Hollywood version of what a cave actually looks like, which is nothing like a real cave. Real cave floors mostly look like thisor thisor thisor this.

Not places that anybody in their right mind would choose to sleep.

It might also be a manifestation of the different intellectual capacities of modern humans vs Neanderthal. A tepee type shelter is a lot more comfortable than a cave-- if you can conceive of building the tepee in the first place. It’s also hard to pack up a cave and take it with you if you’re living a nomadic lifestyle. You’d have to hope to find a good one along the way, which would be pretty risky.

Some Indians in the south west US made use of caves as additions to living space around 1000 AD to 1500 AD. Where I grew up in New Mexico there were lots of ruins at the base and sides of cliffs. You can see this in Bandelier, New Mexico and Mesa Verde, Colorado and probably lots more places. The ruins that exist now are in very soft rock so the caves were easily modified by people. And there were extensive buildings out from or in the caves.

When I was a kid in that area we in the course of a few weeks in the summer excavated a reasonable club house out of an existing pocket in the tuff cliff.

http://www.nps.gov/band/historyculture/index.htm
http://www.nps.gov/meve/historyculture/places.htm

There is lots of evidence of anatomically modern humans living in caves, from sites in Souh Africa, to the Levant, and so on.

When there were caves of suitable type, including good location, they were often continuously occupied for many thousands of years. As sites they are well studied, both because of that continuous occupation resulting in much history in one location, and because remains and artifacts are likely better preserved than those scattered on the plains or in the valleys. Hence a selection bias no doubt results in quite a few reports of humans living in caves and fewer digs of nomadic open settlements.

Yes, I’ve been to places like Mesa Verde, and the ruins are amazing . . . virtual cities constructed in wide, deep caves. And you’re right, in many cases the surfaces were actually carved into the rock. Of course these caves were eventually abandoned, for any number of possible reasons.

And of course the time period is practically yesterday.

Interesting references, but I have to wonder how long these site shave been widely known. This is a subject that I have a degree of interest in, and I have never heard of wither of them despite being familiar with various Neadnderthal cave sites.

My point being that it’s unlikely that these sites gave rise to the concept of a cave dwelling human if nobody outside the field of archeology knew of them.

Contrast that with the Victorian era pictures of Neanderthals, which was a species that was discovered in caves, primarily excavated from caves,was always drawn in caves and and entered the public imagination as a cave dweller. AFAIK nobody in Victorian times thought that modern humans lived in caves. That was a trait restricted to primitive ancestors clearly to stupid to build houses.

I also wonder if personal habitats of early man simply degraded and disappeared. Who is to say they didn’t have structures made of grass, animals skins and wood. Caves are long lasting, but it’s possible we are inferring they lived there, simply because it’s all that is left.

Not true. Not trueat all.

Southern African rock shelters have been studied since at least the 20’s (Peer’s Cave) although with a lot of major work done from the 70’s on (the Howieson’s Poort/Stillbay complexes). Certainly not the impetus for Victorian imagery (definitely agree that it’s European cave painting that’s the driver there) but a reinforcer for modern views - anyone who has read a recent article on behavioural modernity will have read of the cave context of the South African finds. Not a large slice of the population by any means, though.

Definitely. The Southern African coastline is literally littered with shell middens, for instance, but it’s mostly the rock sheltered ones that really get continuous study.

Except of course the people in France and Spain who lived in caves … some of the troglodite homes in Saumur have been continuously lived in for at minimum hundreds of years.

Oh, come on—some members of Homo sapiens live in caves even in the present day. If you receive an invitation you can visit their homes yourself and personally examine the evidence that (1) they are, in fact, caves, and (2) someone lives there. There’s nothing ambiguous about it.