One obvious problem I see here is that they are traveling at warp factor 10. That is theoretically impossible.

Jeanette Isabelle

I think the general consensus seems to be to hide out and try to eke by with a solitary existence.

I like the idea of trying to become engaged in some maritime venture. If I can get enough language skills down, I know my navigational skills are well beyond those that were practiced in 1000 A.D. And I'm sure my marlinspike seamanship skills would hold up. So, I could make myself of use and ports would not be places where it would be that unusual to see someone who was different, as was observed in an earlier post, because at 6'3" and in decent shape at 230+, I am not going to blend in easily.

So, the question to figure out is really how to stay alive long enough to get the language skills.

Rather than hide in the woods I'd keep my eye open for a travelling troupe of performers. I think they'd like a 6'5" giant with them for both drawing crowds to the show and busting the occasional heads as needed. Most actors are a bit strange anyway with so my habits of washing my hands/clothes and only drinking boiled water probably wouldn't be an issue.

-Blast

In that case I would work on sending a message. Find out when in time you are, find a cave or a large rock. Carve a message, explain who you are, when you are and how you got there. Any additional information will also be helpful. Your message will one day be discovered and depending on how accurate your message is, you will be rescued within twenty-four hours.

Jeanette Isabelle

So, your short answer is write a message and hope to be rescued?

Continuing with your line of reasoning, it doesn't work... No one comes... Now what?

I'm sure that the original post was intended as a though provoking question. Considering the timeframe, what people normally have on them at any given moment, assuming zero chance of rescue, how could someone get along in that environment?

The question is not, "Will I be rescued if the message is found?" The real question would be, "Will the message be found?" I think you are missing something important. I would not be back in time if time travel was not possible.

If I am still around a week later then either the message was not found or the information I provided was not accurate. The next thing to do is to verify the date. If, after I have done everything I know to do to verify the date, my information is accurate then my message was not found. I would then find another way to send a message.

Jeanette Isabelle

What would you do for that week... That is the key factor I'm trying to get you to answer...

Stop trying to overthink that "how" part being transported back. Like I said, assume some fluke. There is NO rescue. Period, end of statement... That is the intent of the original poster.

Actually JeanetteIsabelle is right. You could leave messages somewhere they are going to be found. After all you know what is going to surivive. I've seen the Book of Kells myself. Or get the church to pass the message on. You know London is going to be built up miles from where it is now. Just burying plenty of messages anywhere near and some will be found.
There was an iteresting twist on this in a short story where someone leaving a time capsule is approached by a mysterious stranger saying he wants to discover if they will have time travel in the future, by leaving messages in time capsules, claiming to be transcribed from a traveller from the future, too sick to write himself and asking to be rescued. Transcribed because of course the person really leaving the note doesn't know the language of the future.
"But what if a traveller from the future really did want to be rescued?" asked the time capsule man; "how would he persuade people leaving time capsules to include messages?"
"I'm sure he'd think of something" says the stranger.

But as you say JeanetteIsabelle is also missing the point. This is a survival site; we are interested in how we'd manage without our technology (he says after including a science fiction story precise).
I think we'd be lost; so you know radios and cars will be possible one day? Can you make one?
Being able to read and write and do arithmetic could make you a town record keeper. If you could persuade them to let you keep it in your own language while you learnt theirs.
The need for hygiene would probably be your greatest knowledge. Setting up as a doctor who at least didn't use snails and handle wounds with filthy fingers could bring results. Again if you last long enough to learn their lingo.
Do you think the only piece of technology I could introduce; the button, would make me rich? :-)
The Sock

Time travel is possible or it isn't. There is no in between. If there is a way to get there, then there is a way to get back.

In the mean time, finding water and shelter should not be that difficult. Foraging for food may be a little trickier but still doable. I would not be making any long term plans.

Jeanette Isabelle

The point of my original question was intended to promote a survival based discussion, with no hope of "rescue."

If anyone would like to discuss time travel means, getting there/back, leaving messages for future inhabitants, etc., please feel free to start a new thread.

Also, if you happen to carry a knife with you all the time, that doesn't go with you. No jewelry, watches, wallets... just clothing and shoes.

I would disagree with anyone thinking that shelter, water, and food would be anything like a trip to the wilderness today. Any place you would attempt to hermit yourself away is going to be owned by a local noble or goverend by some type of prefect. In order to build a fire, you're going to have to cut down their trees (or harvest dead wood that belongs to them). The subsequent fire may very likely attract attention to your location. I wouldn't think the nobels would appreciate squatters, even though your existance there would be relatively harmless. Food: anything foraged or killed would constitute theft from a noble. And drinking the water without boiling it? Not even the locals would do that, drink the water I mean. They didn't know about boiling anything of course. They all would drink a local brew because without sanitation the water supplies are mostly contaminated.

And again, if you're a circumcised male, I don't think there's much chance of you passing yourself off as a monk who has taken a vow of silence. Upon discovery, you'll immediately be tagged as a jew or a muslim (if not a heretic or a which). I'm not sure of the possibility of conversion, but the complexity of that issue would most likely warrant the need to speak the local language first before that could happen.

As far as long term existance, I would go for either brewing or medicine. The knowledge of basic sanitation would put anyone who knows basic first aid in a league above any of the medical scientists of the dark ages. I've read that brewing recipies were closely guarded secrets and one had to know how to read in order to make anything, thus it was the monesteries where all the brew was made. And I don't think the distillation process was known then. Making a basic distilled spirit would likely create quite a sensation, even with the nobility. You could become a minor celebrity just by making some rot-gut sour mash!