Crossword Genius

Hint of childhood memory soon includes grand old man? (3-6)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

cro-magnon

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'old man?' is the definition.
'Cro-magnon' can be an answer for 'man?' (Cro-magnon is an example). I am not sure about the 'old' bit.

'hint of childhood memory soon includes grand' is the wordplay.
'hint of' says to take the initial letters (the smallest possible amount of the word).
'memory' becomes 'ROM' (Read-Only Memory on a computer).
'soon' becomes 'anon' (synonyms).
'includes' is an insertion indicator.
'grand' becomes 'g' (G is short for grand as in a thousand).
The initial letter of 'childhood' is 'c'.
'anon' enclosing 'g' is 'agnon'.
'c'+'rom'+'agnon'='CRO-MAGNON'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for cro-magnon that I've seen before include "Early European Man" , "Relating to an early type of man" , "Palaeolithic man" , "The first group of modern homo sapiens" , "Relating to an early type of Homo sapiens" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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