When does practising primitive skills become practising survival skills?

[Man of Tanith]

Recently Jake has developed an interest in primitive living skills (so proud he's only 5 )
So to feed this interest we have been doing all sorts of YouTube viewing and hunting out images on Instagram.
Here is where the question comes from.
At what point is it primitive skills and at what point is it survival skills?
We have seen some amazing stuff online like the primitive technology channel where the chap builds shelters without any modern materials at all beginning by knapping a hand axe and working from there,using vines as cordage etc.
We have also seen some where metal knives are used and bankline is the preferred cordage which to me is more survival skills than "pure" primitive skills.
What does the collective think?

(Also another random question why do so many primitive technology folk wear just shorts? Whats wrong with some sort of footwear and a tshirt? Does it make em more primal?)

 

[Ogri the trog]

My view is that you are partly looking at the question back-to-front.

When we are young and have no prior information about a given task, we learn "life skills" - That a cutting edge will achieve this type of task or that a shelter and be any type of structure.

It is only as we develop and grow older that we pigeon-hole the acquired information under various headings (Primitive, Survival, Woodcraft etc) - that a steel knife is used in this situation whereas a stone knife is for something else - or - a tent is this, whereas a tarp is something else, and a natural shelter is different again.

Maybe I've just demonstrated how muddled my own thoughts can get!

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[boatman]

I can sympathise with the shorts only idea. I used to try the nearly naked, shorts for decency, moving through undergrowth etc. It is refreshing and certainly puts you in touch with the real world. A problem with modern life is that so often apparent tracks through the woods etc have been gravelled which can be hard on soft modern feet. It is as well to be away from people as the vision of oneself emerging from a bushy bank could lead to life changing trauma in the passer-by.

I would say that never were people primitive as they were contemporary with their world. In fact it is surprising how sophisticated solutions are being discovered further and further back in time as archaeology progresses. Smearing mud in a crack in a dugout or bark canoe to stop a leak may seem primitive but it worked which is all that is necessary.

 

[dewi]

Other than starting a fire though, aren't the two things very different?

What I mean is, survival is more often than not a short term affair whilst awaiting or making your way to rescue. You do what is necessary to have water, food and shelter until that rescue, but you're unlikely to be building complex structures, creating anything other than basic tools (if any) and its also unlikely that you would be following an ancient process for the sake of it... you'd be busily trying to escape your survival situation.

There are no doubt lots of transferable skills you can learn, being able to identify edible plants or improvising an alternative to a knife... but as that series Alone has shown, the people who struggle are those who have studied emergency survival techniques... the ones who tend to stick it out longer are those who feel more comfortable living in the environment. That'd be the key difference between learning primitive skills and survival skills... one was about staying put and living... the other about getting out quickly and back to civilisation.

 

[John Fenna]

If you learn primitive skills to feed/clothe/shelter yourself then you can survive economic "down-turns" better.
I have learnt a bit of foraging (a very primitive skill) and it has saved me loads of cash in making (rather than buying) booze, pesto, salads etc ..."Survival" is not all about short term stuff, looking for rescue, but can be about keeping happy and healthy in a declining social environment.
Taken to the logical extreme "primitive skills" would be the key to survival when the manure hits the AC of our cosseted modern life and there IS no rescue....

 

[Janne]

Are not ALL skills we learn survival skills to a degree?
Learning to cross a road, learning to cook a meal, lrarning to drive?

Shorts? It shows how tough they are, braving the hungry swarms of blood thirsty insekts..
Shorts are best worn without shoes, with a ponytail and full beard.

 

[Janne]

Stop showing Jake those youtube vids.
Teach him how to handle a knife, how to make and maintain a fire. Make a tent or shelter in the garden and overnight there. Then go out into the Nature with him.

 

[Robson Valley]

"Primitive" to me is an unjustified critical term. "Paleolithic" could be a far better term for the sorts of living skills needed 5,000 years ago.
As boatman points out, archeologists are uncovering more and more evidence of considerable sophistication from those days and times.

Start with the fire and shelter things. In a day's rain, far easier then to turn your attention to food.

 

[Man of Tanith]

Stop showing Jake those youtube vids.
Teach him how to handle a knife, how to make and maintain a fire. Make a tent or shelter in the garden and overnight there. Then go out into the Nature with him.

We do that as well thank you
As well as tracking, tree and plant ID and uses, he watched me butcher a muntjac when he was 3 and achieved (with help from me) an ember from a bowdrill set at 4 1/2 yrs old.
Watching youtube videos usually end up causing questions discussions and recanting what we have watched in detail.

Thanks for the responses.

Im still not sold on wearing just shorts....

 

[Man of Tanith]

"Primitive" to me is an unjustified critical term. "Paleolithic" could be a far better term for the sorts of living skills needed 5,000 years ago.
As boatman points out, archeologists are uncovering more and more evidence of considerable sophistication from those days and times.

Start with the fire and shelter things. In a day's rain, far easier then to turn your attention to food.

Re the terminology i fully agree but primitive technology/skills seems to be what most folk understand

 

[Janne]

I find most of those vids (and tv shows) portray these skills a "easy", and they tend to show off.
I started with my own son about the same age as your son. He loved watching the various survivor programmes on Tv. He still has the books.

But what he knows I tought him dad-to-son. So the poor guy does not know much.....

Shorts: better to wear shorts than a pair of Speedos!

 

[Robson Valley]

My family went on 7 day camping and fishing trips at least once every summer.
We never returned to a previous location, always somewhere new.

Step One was always a shelter tarp which usually got moved. Hot sun, rain, wind.
Step Two was to decide where to put up the tent (9' x 12' Woods canvas.)
The fire pit was usually defined by a ring of large stones already in place.
Organize the wood supply for the fire. What and where and how to keep it dry.

While there was always a back-up meal plan, us kids were usually sent off to catch fish for supper.
Took several summers to learn to produce boneless fillets.

What I read now and have read in so many threads here in BCUK is something that we never got much of at all: bushcraft.
Simple wood works, simple sewing, even down to the basics of sharpening axes and knives.
No matter what you start with in the way of kit, I see that you have to be able to maintain it.

 

[Janne]

Which brings us to the Eternal Question:
What is Bushcraft?
If it means being safe, being able to solve tricky situation, and rnjoying Nature- I and my son are bushcrafters.
If it means using ancient tech to make fire, cordage, trap food - we are not.

 

[dad-the-diver]

I'm in a similar place with my grandson Ashton. Though I see him a lot less as he lives down in the west country and and live in Surrey. I find youtube a great tool. I'll send his mom/dad a link, they get it on the computer and stick him on the phone (unlimited mininuts to friend and families lol) sure the time we spend together is waaaaay better but, yep routeing thought the Internet has a place. Lucky his dad is in the Army so he has loads kit to nick and use. Also my skills set is quite different, more survival then primitive I guess. Either way can't be much better then being part of a kids path into nature. The shorts thing? I was born and brought up in the far east so I wore shorts almost all the time till I went to boarding school in the UK. There's no denying it's more comfortable having fresh air around your "bits and bobs" in fact I've noticed more guys wearing kilts these days.......

 

[dewi]

If you learn primitive skills to feed/clothe/shelter yourself then you can survive economic "down-turns" better.
I have learnt a bit of foraging (a very primitive skill) and it has saved me loads of cash in making (rather than buying) booze, pesto, salads etc ..."Survival" is not all about short term stuff, looking for rescue, but can be about keeping happy and healthy in a declining social environment.
Taken to the logical extreme "primitive skills" would be the key to survival when the manure hits the AC of our cosseted modern life and there IS no rescue....

Fair point, but then taken to its logical conclusion wouldn't breathing be classed as a survival skill?

I just presumed MoT was refering to survival skills like you see with the many survival documentaries on the telly rather than surviving in general.

 

[Robson Valley]

Shelter, fire, food. Either a little or a lot, that's what bushcraft means to me.
Wind/rain/snow/winter/summer, building and sustaining a reliable fire gives me satisfaction.

You have a store-bought cookie, hard as a rock. Without shivering too much, balance the cookie
on a forked green twig over the fire to try to warm it up. Makes me smile to remember that.

Green conifer twigs burn almost as well as dry & dead ones. Memo to self: find some broad-leaf thing instead.
There's bushcraft in even that little spec of knowledge.

 

[Janne]

Not to make your shelter under the canopy of an old, large tree.

Potentially lifesaving knowledge.

 

[wingstoo]

our civilisation has the benefit of knowledge that has
been accumulated since the beginning of time and yet most of us are less practical than
Iron Age man.'

Then work up from there...

 

[Robson Valley]

To me the bushcraft is knowing which big old trees are OK and which ones threaten to drop limbs!
I hear tell that your beech trees are widow-makers. Yes?
You can camp under my big (12 - 16") spruce all year long.
The only know way to break off the branches is with a chain saw.
The lower branches are some 10' long and bend right to the ground under a big snow load = nice cave near the trunks.

As you can see in my avatar, I'm standing beside the remains of a somewhat bigger tree.

I will not even walk among river bottom cottomwoods on a windy day. I can see what came off, I can hear what's coming off = no thanks.
Seeing them fall across logging roads in my rear view mirror suggests that I am driving fast enough.
Never been hit so far by anything more than 1" diameter.

 

[Janne]

Yep, soft woods, specially old ones, can and do drop branches.

I used to prefer sleeping in the natural "pine tents". Lovely soothing sound, great smell, soft ground.