10 caveperson survival skills you need to know
Sometimes you just have to go back to basics.
This story originally featured on Outdoor Life.
Modern survival gear can make any emergency easier to navigate, but what happens when you get caught in a perilous situation without it? These 10 stone-age survival skills are well worth knowing and highly efficient—especially in a time when we rely on electronics (and battery power) to keep us alive.
1. Make a fire using friction
This is one of our most ancient techniques for creating a fire from the natural environment. Most methods involve spinning a drill back-and-forth on a board (reciprocation is the key to most friction methods), or a sawing motion (again, going back-and-forth). But whatever your technique, there are several constants to keep in mind.
Material selection is key—you’ll want softer wood species for the friction components. The wood should be dead and dry (if you plan to use the kit today), but not rotten. Bark falling off and fungi sprouting from it are both typical signs that the wood is too far gone to use as a friction-fire component. You’ll also want to focus on species with low ignition temperatures and low levels of pitch, an oil-based sap that ruining the friction by acting as a lubricant once heated.
Finally, you’ll have to construct the kit correctly and learn the skill of using it. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in this complex art form—but when everything goes right, you get fire.
2. Tie knots for life—but literally
No matter how much you work on your knot tying skills, all that practice will go to waste without the string, cord, and rope to tie those knots. This is where cordage production comes in as the unsung hero of backcountry survival.
The simplest cordage doesn’t need to be braided, twisted, or sliced—it’s ready to use “as-is” from the plants that provide it. Ribbon-like strips of bark, flexible vine runners (like wisteria), and long rubbery roots (like spruce roots) can all be used as a cordage alternative. They’re usually too stiff to fasten complex knots, but a simple sheet bend will usually do the trick.
And for the more plant-knowledgeable survivor, inner bark fiber from certain trees can be twisted into two-ply cordage of any length and thickness. All you need is the time, raw materials, and practice.
3. Make your own stone blades
You can use different stone working techniques to create razor sharp blades from common rocks all around the world. For example, by striking a thin edge on a piece of flint or quartz with a small stone cobble, you can drive off a sharp stone flake that can be used for many camp tasks. From slicing rope to cutting up food, these blades can be as tough as the stones they hail from.
And here’s the trait that actually gives them a leg up on your expensive survival knife—these stone flakes are disposable. You wouldn’t want to butcher an animal with your one and only knife, if you had something else to use that’ll save you the cleaning. (I’ve not only skinned, but also butchered entire deer with sharp quartz flakes.) When you’re done, you don’t have to put a dirty knife back into the sheath—just chuck the stone back into the woods and keep going.
4. Make some traps
Trapping can be used for predator control, or help you harvest game animals that aren’t practical to hunt, such as nocturnal species. When you follow the rules, this skill is a smart and practical way to increase your odds of bringing home meat. In order to harvest game, even when you’re not there, you’ll have to fool their nose by minimizing your own human scent, and also play the numbers game—setting dozens of traps will give you a greater chance to catch game.
Whether you’re setting deadfalls, snares, or some other type of device, trapping is a broad and complex skill set that is full of things that can fail. Even so, when survival trapping goes right, it almost feels like free food.
5. Boil water in a rock
Dehydration can kill us in a matter of days, so drinking enough is key. However, we’re vulnerable to many different organisms found in raw water all over the globe, so we can’t just drink any water. From viruses and bacteria, to amoeba and parasitic worms invisible to the naked eye, microorganisms that live in surface water can easily turn a lifesaving liquid into a deadly drink.
One of the oldest and most reliable methods for disinfecting raw water is boiling, and there’s an ancient way to do it without a pot or kettle—rock boiling. By heating small stones (collected from a dry area) for 30 to 45 minutes in a fire, you can drop these rocks one by one into a vessel to boil the water. The vessel could be a large wooden bowl or trough (something you could never place over a fire) or it could be a cavity in a rock (something too big to move or heat up). I’ve even rock boiled in pumpkin shells and holes in the ground.
I recommend making a pair of tongs from a thick green stick to move your hot rocks and finding the cleanest and largest vessel you can.
6. Build a shelter
Remember the little stick forts you built as a kid? Now it’s time to build another one, and this time, it’s going to save your life.
There are many different survival shelters you can build from the resources in nature. Lean-tos can block the wind and provide some warmth, if we are able to keep a fire going through the night. Debris huts are even better for nighttime warmth, though they are cramped and take longer to build. Whichever architectural style you choose, keep these tips in mind.
- Make sure you allow enough time to build it before dark.
- Choose a build site with good drainage (don’t build in a ditch or ravine).
- Pick a spot with abundant building materials for quicker construction.
- Orient the door away from prevailing winds and storms.
- Keep your fire downwind of the shelter, especially if it’s built from dead leaves, dry grasses, and other flammable vegetation.
7. Forage plants and herbs
On the one hand, foraging is as simple as picking some weeds and eating them, but on the other, there are a lot of subtleties and more than a few things can go wrong. From simple acts like picking berries to more complex ones like cracking and soaking acorns, foraging can be both basic and complicated. However deeply you delve into the subject, it’s crucial that you make a positive identification of the plant species and you’re sure you know how to use the plant parts correctly.
Mistakes in foraging can be as minor as a stomach ache, or as serious as organ failure and death. Collect wisely.
8. Find your way around
Without today’s modern navigation equipment and detailed topographical maps, you might imagine that finding your way in the wild would be impossible. But that’s not true—our species has been finding its way around for millennia.
So when your compass turns up missing and GPS batteries die, you can still find your way by traditional means. The sun and moon can give you a general sense of direction, as both celestial bodies rise in the east and set in the west. Weather fronts can also follow predictable patterns, with most storms and prevailing winds blowing out of the west in North America.
Even at night, friendly stars and constellations can guide you—the North Star and its surrounding constellations (the Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and Cassiopeia) can show us which way is north. If that’s not enough, stab a stick into the ground in a sunny spot during midday. If it’s exactly the midpoint between dawn and dusk, the shadow will point due north. If you’re not certain of the time, mark where the tip of the shadow falls on the ground (place a stone there or stab a smaller stick in the dirt) and mark it again in a few hours. This will give you an east/west line, with the first marker being in the west and the second marker in the east.
9. Go fish
Fishing is an important food gathering strategy—especially in the spring and summer. Ancient fishing tackle looked nothing like the jigs and topwater lures we buy today, but that doesn’t make them less effective if used properly.
Heritage fishing techniques like nets, traps, spears, hooks, and even hand fishing can still land a whopper when luck and skill collide. In a survival setting, fish can provide us with critical calories from protein and fat (two macronutrients that are hard to find in spring and summer plant foraging).
10. Learn how to track
Our ancestors were skilled in tracking game animals and predators. While this art form isn’t used by most people today, tracking can still be a lifesaver in certain situations. Staying alert and reading the signs can warn you a of the dangerous creatures in your area (like bears and mountain lions), and it can also help you locate wild game animals for food.
When you find clear footprints, make sure you know what you’re tracking, and either follow a trail to find your next meal, or avoid a predator by walking away.