It's hard for a caveman to make it today. But the Mammoth Hunter of Wisconsin persists

Keith Uhlig, Green Bay Press-Gazette
·4 min read
Mammoth Hunter Sean Sullivan works on a fire-starting kit while chatting with his wife, Carol Poppe.
Mammoth Hunter Sean Sullivan works on a fire-starting kit while chatting with his wife, Carol Poppe.

WAUSAU - Being a caveman isn't exactly a lucrative profession in the 21st century.

But The Mammoth Hunter of Wisconsin is giving it his best effort. His business cards identify him as an "experiential archeology consultant" and a "primitive skills specialist," but Sean Sullivan, 40, is a teacher above all else. His specialty is making presentations to school-age children and adults that demonstrate the skills needed for a prehistoric man to survive and thrive.

Sullivan is in the midst of a 20-plus-year journey of learning the ways people survived in the past, and now he's trying to make a career out of it. What started as a hobby is now a way of life that began with him delving into the technology, fashion and skills used during the early fur trading era of North America in the late 1500s, early 1600s.

He started by making his own moccasins. Then he tailored his own buckskin clothes, and it wasn't much later that nearly his entire wardrobe looked a bit like Leonardo Di Caprio's clothes from the "The Revenant." He definitely turned heads when he walked into his neighborhood coffee shop.

Gradually his natural curiosity and obsession with life in the past took him back to the Stone Age. He began to make stone axes, spears and knives. The more he learned, the more he lived as a Paleolithic man would, or at least as much as possible. It all felt natural and right, he said.

"I am as prehistoric as I've ever been," Sullivan said in a Facebook exchange with the Green Bay Press Gazette. "I'd say I have slipped back in time by about 20,000 years."

Sean Sullivan demonstrates what it would be like for a Stone-Age man to spearfish, as part of his effort to promote his educational programs.
Sean Sullivan demonstrates what it would be like for a Stone-Age man to spearfish, as part of his effort to promote his educational programs.

The Mammoth Hunter embraces a paleo lifestyle, if not the paleo diet

Sullivan started learning the ways of the far past when he aimed to bolster his backcountry camping skills.

"My friends and I would go camping on the islands of the Wisconsin River," Sullivan said. "We were taking big two-man canoes full of gear for an overnight trip."

There had to be a better way, Sullivan figured. Instead of paying top dollar for the lightest and newest camping equipment, he started researching the survival techniques from the past. That led him to deeper reading and learning about evolutionary biology, Stone Age life and frontier history.

Soon Sullivan was able to pare down his camping experiences to the bare essentials. At the same time, he honed the skills to live on his own in the wild as a hunter-gatherer.

Now his days begin with quick glances at online news sites. Then, he'll log onto historical and archeological websites, learning as much as he can about the newest efforts to uncover the life of man eons ago.

The journey influenced his diet. He's processed acorns for food into a "surprisingly palatable" form of mash, he said. He's made cattail pancakes. He can use a handmade bow and arrows to hunt rabbits and deer. He fishes with a spear.

But he's not full on with a paleo diet, Sullivan said.

"I eat my fair share of sandwiches these days," he said.

Sean Sullivan holds a molded skull of an extinct species of bear while at one of his presentations. The skull was made for demonstration purposed, but Sullivan made most of the tools, weapons and clothing items himself.
Sean Sullivan holds a molded skull of an extinct species of bear while at one of his presentations. The skull was made for demonstration purposed, but Sullivan made most of the tools, weapons and clothing items himself.

Mammoth Hunter helps build the internet infrastructure

Sullivan started making money being a caveman about the time he started developing the skills of a Stone Age hunter. He began working for a local Wausau museum called Colossal Fossils giving presentations, a job that lasted until the COVID-19 shutdown hit.

Colossal Fossils didn't survive the pandemic, but his experience with the museum gave Sullivan some contacts, so he started offering educational sessions on his own. With his wife, Carol Poppe, doing promotion, management and scheduling, the Mammoth Hunter will be doing demonstrations at six venues this summer, including at libraries in Rio, Sheboygan Falls, Hartland and Superior. He'll also bring his program to the Wildwood Zoo in Marshfield on July 10 and the Mosinee LogJam Festival Aug. 9-11.

When he wasn't working for Colossal Fossils, Sullivan augmented his paleo lifestyle with modern jobs. He worked as a baker for a Panera Bread and Dunkin', and for the Wausau-Marathon County Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department, staffing the winter downhill tubing area at Sylvan Hill Park.

His most recent job will delight irony lovers. He works as a contractor fusing sections of fiber-optic cables together, putting together the infrastructure that enables people to use the most cutting edge technologies. He laughs at that, and points out the craftsman skills he's honed caveman style are very handy when it comes to delicate work.

None of Sullivan's choices, from his style of clothing to his obsession with Stone Age craftsmanship, is contrived, Poppe said.

"He is the most genuine-to-himself person I've ever met," Poppe said.

He's always loved the outdoors, and the questions he has about how people lived in nature thousands of years ago, lures him deeper into the past.

"It's curiosity," Sullivan said. "There's the puzzle of it, the question."

And there's the calmness he gets when he's tanning a hide, making a stone tool or foraging for food.

"More than anything, I feel completely relaxed when I'm out doing these things," he said. "It's the best sort of unplugged."

Keith Uhlig is a regional features reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin based in Wausau. Contact him at 715-845-0651 or kuhlig@gannett.com. Follow him at @UhligK on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram or on Facebook.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: The Mammoth Hunter of Wisconsin shares bushcraft, survival skills