Fitchburg Obtains Bronze Age Technology

MADISON – Due to intense media inquiries, last Thursday a team of UW Madison anthropologist field researchers finally conceded that indeed, as speculated, the nearby suburban settlement of Fitchburg has obtained Bronze Age technology. Madison residents can soon expect their previously degenerate neighbors to be brandishing high-tech marvels such as woven baskets, chamber pots, multitined utensils, and, of course, the aforementioned metal.

Most experts believe that Fitchburg residents had not previously possessed greater than Stone Age technology was because of their unique ancestry. Fitchburg is one of the few surviving pockets of Neanderthal civilization in the world. Neanderthals, possessing a full 115 less brain power than normal homo sapiens, have always been slow to accept innovative new concepts. This has, as a consequence, lead to the near total extinction of Neanderthals, with the exception of a few clans that survived to the ice age due to getting lost during a hunting expedition and accidentally winding up on the American continent (most were later annihilated by Eurasian settlers, but a few were spared because they were so damn amusing).

Fitchburg residents finally incorporated Bronze Age technology into their society by means of imitation. Their hunter-gatherer lifestyle brings them into Madison by day, where they hunt the roving commuter herds, attempt to drive cars, or (more often) just stand around and marvel at modern wonders, such as supercomputers, shopping malls, and indoor plumbing. Apparently, Fitchburg citizens became weary of living in crude huts stinking of human waste, and acquired basic metalworking skills so they might be able to prosper and instead live in extremely large pastel-colored huts stinking of canine waste.

When askedhis opinion of Fitchburg's new found skills, Fitchburg chief Doug Morrissette could hardly contain his enthusiasm. "CHIEF DOUG LIKE SOFT SHINY ROCK. IS GOOD FOR SPEARS AND THINGS." However, former Fitchburg mayor Frances Huntley-Cooper thinks Fitchburg took the wrong approach for technology development. "If we were going to learn modern skills by imitation, we should have gone straight to Iron Age technology. You see, several of my friends and myself moved to Fitchburg some years ago, largely as a move of sympathy. No community so near to Madison deserves to be the armpit of Wisconsin. I would have guided Fitchburg into 17th century luxury had I not lost my leader position last fall in a ceremonial club fight."

Since acquiring these new talents, the Fitchburg clan seems ready to abandon its nomadic lifestyle. With anearly unlimited supply of baskets, food storage preparations are nearly finished, and Fitchburg may develop agriculture any time now. A UW linguist has stated that pronouns may soon come into use, with crude written language not more than 300 years behind. One can only hope. Fitchburg's accomplishments are a shining demonstration of the beauty of the human spirit.