It’s doubtful that there would be 160 healthy children in five years without modern health care. In fact, it is doubtful that all 50 adults would be alive in five years. Going half-women is a risk to the genetic pool, because women could die from birthing as well as the other survival hazards. On the other hand, going one male (alpha lion) and 49 females is awfully risky because the male might accidentally die before siring enough children, or the resulting genetic pool is insufficiently diverse. So, I like the 10 men, 40 women idea. Each man should get busy with four women at a time and switch wives between births.
Is it true that:
a) It’s crucial for the Velvet Undeground Colony (VUC) to rapidly deal with their predicament, and their initial survival chances are based on some luck (in geographic placement) and in finding some shelter?
b) It’d be good to have a cove, or cave or whatever kind of fort that was defensible. Humans can dig trenches with their hands, and putting sharp sticks in (the points licked with deadly 21st century homo sapien saliva) - will do.
c) I dunno what the “best” mix of women to men would be. Certainly the initial decisions in VU world would not be dictated by needs to keep the species going. Genetic variance is nice - yet we’re still finding out how previously-believed ‘neutral’ DNA does matter.
d) I’d reckon the political problems would wreak havoc. Starting with: “I don’t like Lou Reed – I only wanted to see Nico!” 
e) Unless you all popped in at the Galapagos - or some other way-out-of-the-way place (Madagascar?) - humans would be the meal of the day for any carnivor. Metalhead’s scenario of humans dropping larger prey by just encircling and waiting is essentially what Hyenas do today.
That said, fifty humans can rule the world.
Nonsense! Up until the Industrial Revolution, the vast majority of women continued to contribute to the family’s survival after having children - there was no other choice. In fact, this is the origin of the idea of women’s work vs. men’s work. Women’s work is, generally speaking, that which can be done while supervising small children; men’s work is that which cannot. Having the women work together in groups makes it easier, since they can watch out for one another’s offspring. (Which isn’t to say that it will be easy, but then, survival rarely is.)
Hunting?
Mwuhaha.
Ignoring the pbvious diease element…
Humans are far more adapted to scavenging than hunting. Our ancient ancestors were able to do the stereotypical 20-guys-in-fur-poking-mammoth-off-cliff deal because they were organized into a structure with knowledge of the terrain and ability to make use of each bit of the critter. Such epic hunts would be limited to a small part of the year, depending on location. The rest of the year, the community would be surviving on gathered foods and whatever else they could scavenge. As was pointed out, the main fear between humans and predators would be the one caught alone. A more likely scenario than humans fighting prehistoric lions would be scaring them off to reach the remains of something.
Also keep in mind that you are migratory, unless you happen to skip ahead to planned agriculture (unlikely) or fishing (still seasonal, but more likely). Even if you did, caves would be bad, due to the fact that soil conditions around your average cave don’t tend to support fertile soil.
So you have one of three ways to go - hunter-gatherer, nomadic (likely with domesticated animals), and agricultural. Chances of survival for each depend on region.
10 men 40 women? Hah. Even considering a pre-historic death rate, each couple need produce 2 children to replace them, 3 to cause 50% population growth each generation. That is 3 children every 20 years, with one child a year. Consider that a pregnant woman and later a woman and her child would require much greater resources and protection while providing less output of work, and you will see that a society based around 10 “family” lines of 1 man and 4 women would quickly result in 30 pregnant women and 10 individuals supporting them. There is a reason gender is basically 50/50. You want maximum efficiency of labor, and the 10/40 ratio is heavily balanced towards production. Most of your people would starve to death until you reached a more natural ratio (read, until it was 10:10)
The carrying capacity of land is limited by 3 things: Famine, Disease, and War. War doesn’t matter (not counting political strife because Ug likes one of your women or wants to play alpha male). Disease strips the population mostly at a younger age. So famine is what you really have to worry about. Even under ideal conditions with ample food, a population increase from 40 individuals to 60 or even 50 individuals in one year would be difficult to reconcile, especially considering that the next year you would boost to 90 individuals without significantly increasing resource intake. By this point, I presume you would be semi-nomadic with seasonal abodes.
Obviosuly, humans did survive in pre-historic times… well, prehistoric defined as the period before written history. They didn’t have thunder lizards to compete with… but considering resources, there wouldn’t be much competition, and neither would humans be prey to large carnivores. Smaller carnivores would be a problem, but they likely lived much like lions, tigers, and bears, oh my. Humans would indeed survive better, with more diversity in food and more adaptability to weather and conditions, as well as requiring less energy to sustain themselves. As Cecil pointed out in his Evolution article, bigger and meaner does not mean better.
As for the twits on Survivor, they likely spent months before the show preparing by taking aerobics and working out instead of beefing up on survival theory, then sat around on their asses for a month waiting for CBS to send them their rice… which is bad. they got their bodies set up for activity and diet, then struggled because they were inactive on a bad diet. I saw ONE episode of those dingbats in the most recent Survivor where they were crying over killing a bloody chicken. if there is one difference between ancient and modern society, it is that modern people bury pets with their own headstones, while the ancients would throw a chicken into their uncle’s grave to ensure he was well fed in the beyond. Funny, how over the thousands of years, we still operate on the presumption that throwing something into the ground with someone ensures that they will be together (whether as food or companions) in the great beyond.
Speaking of, for your survival party, you’d best invent some god to use to give thanks to, blame things on, and remind people that they communicate through you with.
But all of that is assuming disease didn’t kill you within a few years. The plague nearly wiped Europe off the map, and centuries later, Europe did almost exactly the same thing to the natives in the Americas, and these are locations in the same time, just a few thousand miles apart. You are talking about thousands (if not millions) of years. God knows what kind of microscopic beasties lived back then.
Man this thread is long!
You would die by yourself. As mentioned above, you would not have the SDMB. You’d also have no one around to talk about your day. I think man is a social animal. Plus you would be freaked out by not knowing what was going to happen next. Every sound would scare you till you figured out what it was. Plus, and this is the worst, weren’t the mosquito’s bigger back then?
Cast Away - at one point he gave up and tried to commit suicide. He also had a friend he could talk to…
Survivor - They all seem to lose weight. I’m thinking it is rigged in some way, like they can’t kill animals or something. In an early survivor, one guy killed a pig and the public opinion was mixed. In the last one, a monkey would come into the camp and eat their food. If the survivors wanted to, they could have killed and eaten the monkey, but they didn’t. Either the idea did not occur to them, or they weren’t allowed to kill monkeys?
Now, if you have 50 or your friends with you, then you are totally screwed. I agree with mmmmmmilkeeeeeee, there would be infighting, power struggles, probably split into two groups…
Too lazy to use the shift key? You had to use the shift key to get the ! and ? characters!!! The mystery deepens…
p.s. We made it around the sun again! Yeah! Happy making-it-around-the-sun-again day.
Interactive version: Your turn timed out, it’s my turn again.
Having survived the predator, what’s next? Assuming the time machine blew up mid-morning local time, the rocks and twine took till about lunchtime. Wo, no lunch however.
OK, taking my hand-chopper rocks, I start getting long twigs until I have maybe 3 dozen, and I start making a basketry fish trap. (My father made one, they work well.) You make a smallish barrel shape, with the two ends like funnels pointing into the barrel. The funnel holes are big enough to let in the fish you saw in the stream’s pools, and the rest of the basketry is too close together to let them out. I firm up the construction tying it with twine as adisable, and go put it in a good pool, anchored with twine to a shrub on the shore.
That took say 3 hours. Now I get a good driftwood stick or dead branch and start construction: dig out strips of sod 6 inches wide and as deep as convenient. Stack them with curved ends to make an igloo-built doghouse shaped like a long coffin. Gather a big armload of driftwood, and now we get to try for fire. This part could be tough.
Follow what I remember of Ernest Thompson Seton (“Two Little Savages” etc) on how to make a fire drill, and start drilling.
Here would be your turn, does the firedrill work?:
Another turn for you, did the fishtrap work? (experience tells me it would just fine, hint):
If not, I spend miserable night. If yes, I have 1-2 pound fish (remember no one fishes or pollutes this stream, probable a big one in each pool). If fire is yes, I light the driftwood inside the dogloo, and also cook the fish on a skewer. Eat half. Put fish trap in next pool.
If I don’t run out of time by sunset, I get bedmaking materials to put in the dogloo once the fire is out. If not, I stir up the warm earth inside to average out the heat and make it softer, crawl in, set up two small breather holes & close the entrance, say my prayers and go to bed.
Another question about the environment: Can we have it after the Cretaceous? No berries, fruits, grains earlier. Survival a lot easier after they appear, IMHO.
Your turn: