A few days ago I was sent a link to a BCC documentary that I’d not heard of before. It was a social and anthropological experiment carried out in the late 1970s in England and by all accounts it may well be the first “reality show”. In it, the participants (6 couples and three children) were asked to spend 13 months living life as though they were in the Iron Age. Thanks to the Internet Age, the entire documentary can now be viewed online via YouTube.
I was fascinated by this experiment and have often wondered what it might be like to recreate a similar one, albeit from a different era. What would it be like to live life for a year like our ancestors did before they had power, plumbing or running water? Could we survive living as pioneers, like they did in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books? Maybe someday I will be lucky enough to find out. Yes, I’m just crazy enough to try it.
Please set aside some time to watch this documentary. It is broken into six parts, with each segment lasting about 10 minutes.
Fair Warning: While this documentary does contain incidental nudity, there is nothing of a sexual nature in it whatsoever.
