To begin looking at a set such as this we first need to establish some firm dates. The Paleolithic age started millions of years ago, and ended between 20,000 and 15,000 years ago, depending on where in the world you are talking about. Not very precise, but homo sapiens, which is what we have here, emerged perhaps 300,000 years ago, and it is thought they only started regularly living in caves around 50,000 years ago, so that is the realistic starting point for the label ‘cave men’, and the one we will use, though as we shall see, there are other clues to dating in this set.

In most of our reviews, clothing is a major part of the dating process, and that even works here! All the individuals wear basic kilts made of animal skins, and some also have a cloak of similar appearance. The standing spearman in our second row also wears a necklace decorated with animal teeth, but the hunter to his left (the one wearing antlers) also has a long and very regular rectangular cloth running down the back of his head and his back. This has been sculpted as perfectly smooth, and it’s neat and regular shape strongly suggests to us that it is of woven manufacture, as it is hard to imagine anyone going to the trouble of making a perfectly rectangular cover of animal skin simply for the purposes of hunting. Weaving such as this is thought to first appear around 30,000 years ago, which further reduces the timeframe for these figures. However, for this time period we find no problem in accepting the clothing on show here, though we are hardly experts on such things (if anyone is).

The poses are a mixture of hunting and domestic life. A woman holds a small child in the air, and another is breast-feeding hers. We assume the third figure is making fire, and beside them is the fireplace and the wooden rack or spit, from which a number of fishes are waiting to cook. The three poses in the middle row holding spears are all hunters – the first man has thrown his already – and while none are particularly energetic, all are perfectly adequate for the job. The second figure in this row is different in that he holds a torch in his left hand and a paintbrush in his right. Clearly he is indulging in a spot of cave art, of which more in a moment. The figures in the third row speak for themselves. Another hunter prepares to throw or stab with his spear, and there is a very large bear that is presumably either a threat to the people or a potential source of dinner. The bear is on its hind legs, stands about 43 mm to the top of his head, and looks unhappy, perhaps because the hunter in the previous row has managed to throw his spear into the bear’s stomach, the head of which has almost completely penetrated.

The largest element of this set is of course the ‘cave’. This is actually an arch, open at both ends, so more of a token cave, and comes in three pieces which fit together well using pegs and holes, but will either need to be glued to stay together, or else have the two sides of the cave anchored to the ground, in which case the roof will stay put. It is about 65 mm wide on the outside and 55 mm wide inside, with a roof height of about 36 mm, so plenty tall enough for the figures to stand inside. One end is pretty square, but the other (visible above) is more irregular, making a total length of between 45 and 60 mm, so there is room enough to create a small scene inside with several figures. The one figure that obviously complements the cave is the artist, who reaches to work on some artwork that has already been engraved on the inside of the cave wall. We thought this was a really nice idea, and goes some way to justifying the presence of a cave, which otherwise seems a bit of an unnecessary token accessory in our view.

As always, the sculpting is great on these 3D printed figures and pieces, and includes some lovely textures on the animal skin clothing and the bear, faces full of character, and a lot of entirely natural poses thanks to the freedom 3D printing gives a sculptor. There are some really interesting little details worth highlighting too. A couple of the hunters also carry a club, which seems like an obvious inclusion, and all except the artist pose are clean-shaven. Finer details like the necklace already mentioned look great, and the two small children, though naturally delicate, are very nicely done too. The breast-feeding woman sits on a small stool which is clearly wooden, but seemed to us remarkably square and well-made, which may be reasonable but feels just a bit too perfect to us. There is , however, one problem with this set, at least in terms of dating. Every spear here has a symmetrical and beautifully fashioned spearpoint which cannot possibly be stone, flint, obsidian or any other natural material. Being this perfect means it can only be made of metal, and mankind first learned how to fashion metal objects around 8,000 years ago, so long after the Paleolithic era. Oh dear, and it was all going so well up until then.

Prehistory is not our area of interest (the name of the website is a clue there), and we do not claim any particular knowledge of the Stone Age, but apart from the spearpoints (which we would concede is a minor issue) this set met our expectations for what a ‘caveman’ set should look like. The mix of hunting and domestic themes is really nice, and the figures have a lot of charm, though at an average of 1.9 metres tall they must surely be too tall for such people. Purists might also argue that the bear would be very unlikely to be on its hind legs if attacked (a myth created by Hollywood, as so much else is), but we can forgive it that, as otherwise the poses are great, the sculpting excellent, and we even get a decent bit of cave which actually adds something to the set as a whole.