The Flintstones—bumptious Fred and willowy Wilma—along with neighbors Barney and Betty Rubble, live in the town of Bedrock, a Stone-Age version of middle America, complete with stone restaurants, stone bowling alleys, stone television, annoying bosses, and a dinosaur racetrack. It’s not exactly clear what the Flintstones routinely eat, but the animated menu did periodically include food. There were pies, upside-down cake, and Bronto-burgers, and there’s a scene where Wilma slices up what appears to be a meatloaf with a sawfish.

The truth about Stone-Age-style food is both bleaker and cooler.

The Stone Age began about 2.5 million years ago, when inventive proto-humans first began to make stone tools. The bulk of it, and by far the longest period (so far) in human