Early in our
lineage the handy man,
Homo
habilis, sees
in his mind’s eye
a useful
connection between his hand
and an egg-shaped
basalt cobble milled
by a river’s
turbulent current long ago.
He fits it to his
hand and swiftly strikes
another stone
which produces a flake,
a thin sharp-edged
chopper or scraper
easily seen as a
tool to cut trees or meat,
to scrape bark or
the hide of an animal.
Striding through
tall grasses of the African
savanna in the
bright sunlight, Homo erectus,
holds steady the
image of his hunting fellows,
taking a grazing
zebra bachelor by surprise,
by their combined
effort like a pack of hyenas.
They circle around
under shady acacia trees,
hearing casual
snorts and the switching of tails;
a lame one flees
too late and is killed with clubs.
A runner, having
returned to camp, brings others
with hand axes,
cleavers, and growling stomachs.
Tonight, around a
cooking fire, they feast while
two babies fuss
suckling their mothers’ breasts.
Not enough for
them but more since siblings
died. One mother
clicks her tongue; the other,
blows air on her
infant’s face to bring on sleep.
Pinkish streaks at
the horizon announce dawn.
Lanky men emit a
sliding sound, eeeennaaaa.
Sleepy youngsters
stir in the dust while women
search the ground
for bones that their children
can break for
marrow when they feel hungry.
Men slink down a
slope to a muddy watering hole.
Birds burst
upwards in fright. In the night a pig has
been killed while
it drank. Would there be remains
for scavenging?
Only a muddle of animal tracks are
found. The group
will have to search elsewhere.
Into the hot
sunshine this sweating group of
early humans find
it pleasurable to lope over
the wide savanna.
To their minds no horizon
is too far. They
move toward the blue rise of
mountains in the
distance, hoping to find caves.
Blue-coloured
horizons mean many days and
nights spent
looking for carcasses. Savanna
grass gives way to
scrub trees and succulents,
the latter
becoming a reliable water source.
They meet other
groups of roaming strangers.
Babies who fussed
under acacia trees are now men.
Their deceased
mothers left for predators or buried
in shallow soil.
They carry memories of white-haired
Biftu who gave
names to each in the small group to
organize them and
enable members to communicate.
Succeeding this
migrating group come others who
slip through
horizon after horizon, over endless
surfaces,
imagining what a difference a wooden
shaft would make
fitted to a long sharp blade of flint.
Groups split
apart, seeking alternative ways to live.
Homo
sapiens
emerges as intuitive, if not conscious,
aware of a
companion’s motives and life’s potentials
around them. They
thrive on the northern edge of the
African continent,
adapting to variable environments,
learning from
their experiences and positing “what if.”
By the seaside
their outlook is flat and blue as sky.
They walk through
a vegetal corridor and find a land
northward, not as
luxuriant as the Ancestors had known.
Caves become
dwelling sites, but here they encounter new
inhabitants who
have moved from icy valleys in the north.
Stockier, with a
heavier brow, Homo neanderthalensis
competes with the
African immigrant for lynx and foxes,
pestered by jackals
and hyenas. This singing cave dweller
of the Levant
crafts small flint points with gripping fingers
and his
sharp-edged burin carves on delicate bone or antler.
In open-air sites
men design a core stone for specialty flakes.
Fishes, hippos, small
cats and bears along with wild cattle are
butchered. Women
look for bedding grasses, nuts and seeds.
The two competing
groups realize that combining their efforts
to live make sense
so they begin to cooperate and interbreed.
When Elisav loses
her daughter other women cry with her and
fold the child’s
knees into her chest. A niche in a rock formation
is found in order
that her closed eyes look toward the northwest.
As an intentional
act of affection a red deer jawbone is placed
on the girl’s
pelvis. That night mothers hold their children close.
Later, offerings
of fallow deer antlers and wild boar mandibles
to the dead are
incorporated into a simple ritual using words of
a rudimentary
language. Competition arises when a neighbouring
family shows deliberate
intent to use the same burial ground. The
original group,
claiming ownership, drives them away with stones.
With heads full of
ideas and increasing physical skills, combined
groups, not liking
a crowded landscape, disperse east and west
and proliferate
along the way. Their progeny establish a variety of
races and cultural
traditions. At long last successful groups beget
you and me and
generations of space travellers seeking the moon.
Thus, humans
evolved using an ancient cognitive toolkit that went:
I am preverbal. I
am a figment embraced by imagination. I am the
moment of eureka.
I am the prize of consciousness. I AM AN IDEA.
Abby Ripley is a
seventy-nine-year-old who has had a very rich and varied life. She grew up on a
ranch on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana and spent time as a Peace Corps
volunteer in Niger, a travel agent, a life insurance field agent, and an editor
for Grolier Publishing. More recently she has exhibited as a fine art photographer
specializing in composite images, a painter of watercolors and acrylics, a poet
who has been named poetry finalist three successive years by Adelaide Literary
Magazine, and a novelist with a historical novel in progress. Her poems and art
have appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Oprelle,
Squawk Back, Literary Heist, Under the Sun, Pithead Chapel, The World of Myth
Magazine, Opine Magos, The Rye Whiskey Review, Amethyst Review, and Impspired. She lives with her partner
of forty-six years, two dogs, and a magical Calico cat in the countryside of
Connecticut.
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