Ok well I bashed out a ton of work and felt I had a little spare brain space to contemplate this bas-relief sculpture that I consider to be a very important early link in the possible evolution of Celts.
I’m not happy happy with it as a drawing, but there are certain areas that work. The important thing for now is to discuss it. I think I might draw it again with better light.
In the image we can see a very specific depiction of a Cornucopia, or horn of plenty.
Now it could also be a buffalo horn but, the sculpture is about 20,000 years old and so I think what we’re probably looking at is the earliest type of horn of plenty they used then, before they made them out of straw. This receptacle was a hunter gatherer’s carrier bag if you will.
The sculpture itself is very important because of the way she’s holding the buffalo horn. It’s basically a symbol of abundance and this woman, who is much younger than her carving at first suggests, is saying to all who visit that cave, ‘in this region you will find plenty of food’.
At that time people died around aged 35, in my view even younger, but I’ll leave it at 35 for now. I put this woman at around 22 or 23. She’s had a few babies already and that’s another element of the symbolism, she’s also saying ‘your pregnancy will be successful in this region‘. When I first saw this carving I thought the head was kind of fudged, but now I can see she’s gazing at the cornucopia, so her head is in profile. Again, she’s wearing a Gravettian hair net.
My personal view is that the women back then that could give birth without being killed in the process, went on to have quite a few babies. For instance, for brothers to share a wife, is not unheard of in remote regions.
Her tiny short legs suggest to me that her lineage she was strongly Neanderthal, although a modern human by now.
May I say, I don’t actually understand why people are so anti Neanderthal because we owe a lot to those very strong people. For starters they lived in forests most of the time, and in England we have nothing but the utmost respect for all knowledge about forests. I don’t think that their almost a million years of accumulated knowledge was simply ignored by the ‘small headed‘ invaders. Things aren’t usually so abrupt.
There are so many people anyway that really look like Neanderthals, they don’t even realise it. Personally I’m fascinated in people’s head shape. I think head shapes are pretty special, especially when you relate them to overall stature. I can usually tell from a person’s head shape where they originated from, in terms of their ancestors. I think ancestors are cool and deserve respect. All cultures respect ancestors.
So, I decided to do another short story, but this time about Neanderthals. I think they deserve an airing. I also wanted to weave into a piece of creative writing my take on the whole handaxe debacle. I have a pretty strong feeling that each social group had a handaxe, and I have a really ‘original’ take on the reason why. I can’t wait to finish that one, but at the moment the brother of my protagonist Neanderthal is in a coma. I can’t say anymore for now, you know how it is.
* He who is always hungry is walking around somewhat neglected. Why is having a DH so often like owning a dog I ask myself.
I figured all my short stories about Paleo folk can be published on here, but my murder mystery stuff and other stories have to be posted elsewhere.
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