Tumak's Rock Tribe was supposed to be the Neanderthals
There's a prehistoric allegory here. Even though all the humans depicted in ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. were anatomically modern humans, I believe the Rock Tribe was supposed to represent the Neanderthal Man, or possibly the latest and last evolution of Neanderthal Man before His extinction. (Theory holds that early Neanderthal Man looked more brutish than the last evolutionary incarnation of N. Man)
For those interested in Paleontology:
Tumak's Rock Tribe hunts very much like the way of Neanderthal Man. Current theory is that N. Man did not use projectile weapons and never evolved it. Rather, N. Man applied a combination of team hunting, cunning, and brute strength. Several N. men would spook a herd of game animals and chase them in a circular pattern towards a group of hidden, waiting N. men. The hidden hunters would spring up as the frightened animals ran past. The hunters would grapple and wrestle the animal or animals to the ground. It may have been team work where several held an animal and others stabbed it with thrusting spears and stone knives. N. Man was able to do this because of his thick bone structure and heavy musculature, more much superior to modern humans, giving him great strength. Even so, this hunting technique was fraught with risk and injury. Skeletons of N. Man show a myriad of healed bone fractures throughout. Cro-Magnon Man (us), could not attempt this type of hunting technique because we lacked the bone density and muscle strength. We would have been crushed to death by the struggling animals. Today only one type of modern human exhibits bone fractures throughout their skeleton and that is cowboy rodeo riders who suffer repeated throws, falls, and blows by the animals they ride.
A few years ago, five male paleontologists set out to verify the Neanderthal Man's hunting method theory. Three of the scientists chased and herded a small group of deer through a semi-wooded area. Two of the scientists lay hidden behind trees and bushes. To prove the theory the scientists did not need to kill any animals. What they did was essentially, 'count coup'. The two hidden scientists would slap a deer on the head, neck, or back as it ran by. This proves they could have grabbed the animal in the manner of prehistoric N. Man, or at least could have stabbed it with a spear, stone or bone knife, or clubbed it.
Neanderthal Man and anatomically modern humans overlapped for 5,000 years before N. Man disappeared off the face of the Earth. Till this day the scientists aren't certain why, nor do they agree. The current theory is actually a mix of theories that N. Man faced too many environmental and climatic changes in addition to a low reproduction rate. More, N. Man, despite his great strength and pain endurance, was evidently ill-suited for adaptation, unlike modern man. His lack of technological development over 180,000 years baffles scientists. Evidence is too scarce to verify N. Man was killed off by modern man. More likely, N. Man was already in grave population decline when modern man appeared. It probably wasn't the throwing atlatl darts, spear points, and refined stone knives of Cro-Magnon Man that did in Neanderthal Man, but rather C. Man sneezing in N. Man's face that sealed the latter's impending extinction.