by Jodi Taylor
We were still in our three groups around the camp. With our coms open I could hear them muttering to each other as they worked – how cold they were, to get this shot or that shot, to get a close up of what that woman was doing, bloody hell it was cold, and so on. The day wore quietly on. We recorded everything in sight. The Security team watched our backs because we’d certainly forgotten to.
The sun, not that strong to begin with, disappeared behind a low ceiling of grey cloud. The wind sang mournfully amongst the dry grasses. I was bloody grateful I lived in the time of central heating, mugs of hot tea, and chocolate. The average life expectancy of anyone, man or woman, Homo sapiens or Neanderthal, was well under thirty. I should have been dead years ago.
I was just easing my cramped and freezing feet for the umpteenth time, and beginning to wonder if I’d possibly been a little hasty in rejecting Professor Rapson’s heated boots, when there was a sudden shout from the camp. People leaped to their feet and grabbed the weapons that were never very far away. Everyone stood staring.
Away in the distance, a figure stood atop a small hill. He shouted and waved his spear in a particular manner, turned, and disappeared.
There was a moment’s stillness and then the entire camp was galvanised into action. Within seconds, what seemed like every able-bodied person was trotting, single-file, armed and purposeful, out into the darkening afternoon.
‘Max? What do you think?’ said Guthrie.
‘Well, obviously they’ve seen something. Possibly another group of humans – although that’s not likely given the tiny population at this time, so more likely, they’ve seen something worth hunting. Boar or bison, maybe. Something big enough that it needs all of them to bring it down.
‘A mammoth?’ said Atherton, and his eyes sparkled with excitement. ‘Could it be a mammoth?’
‘Not a mammoth,’ I said. ‘They travel in herds. Many mammoths. Major, please tell your people they’re in charge of my lot now and their priority is to prevent over-enthusiastic trainees ending up as an unpleasant stain on the landscape.’
I could hear him issuing instructions and I did a little of that myself. ‘From this moment you take your instructions from your Security escort. Record and document by all means but anyone getting themselves trampled or gored to death will answer to me later on.’
I stowed my gear and scrambled to my feet. This was better than we could ever have hoped for. We might be about to witness a prehistoric hunt. And it could be anything – spotted hyenas, woolly mammoths, woolly rhinos, cave bears, giant deer. What was their quarry today?
I did experience a slight qualm but how could we be expected not to take advantage of this opportunity? Besides, we weren’t the ones out hunting. We would only be observing. We’d be well out of danger. What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter Seven
We moved out, following the hunters, taking care to stay well back because it would be catastrophic should they ever catch sight of us.
From what I could make out, both men and women hunted. The little woman did not stay at home tending the kids. The older people did that. All able-bodied people turned out, regardless of sex. If you could walk – you could hunt.
They joined up with another small group of four men and one woman. They must be the spotters. There was a great deal of gesticulating and then they set off. So did we, speculating as we went.
‘Mammoth,’ said Atherton. ‘Please, please let it be a mammoth.’
The god of historians must have been smiling, because, as we cautiously crawled to the top of a small rise in the ground, there they were. Ahead of us and off to one side. Strung out across the tundra, but all moving slowly in the same direction. I’ve no idea whether fifteen mammoths constituted a large herd or not. I think I had in mind the North American bison thundering over the plains in herds so vast they took two days to pass. However, fifteen mammoths still managed to be very impressive.
We crouched behind a small rocky outcrop. Guthrie and his people kept watch while the trainees recorded and I abandoned my supervisory duties and checked out the mammoths.
The first thing I noticed was that they were both like and unlike elephants. They had very small ears, probably to avoid loss of heat. There were the distinctive domed heads and massive shoulders, falling away to a sloping back. As woolly mammoths, they were well named. They were hairy. Really hairy. Great long matted dreadlocks of dingy brown and grey swung as they walked.
All ages and sizes were represented, from the big matriarch at the front, to the little ones in the middle. The biggest stood about ten feet high at the shoulder and almost all of them, apart from the very young, possessed the most imposing sets of tusks I’d ever seen. Forget elephant tusks, with their smooth curves. These were jutting, angular monster tusks so long they almost swept the ground.
They were magnificent. Truly wonderful. Giants of the earth. They moved slowly and with great dignity. Lying on the ground, I could feel the earth shake as they passed.
I turned my head slightly to look at the hunters. I estimated about nineteen or twenty of them altogether which wasn’t many to take down something the size of a mammoth. And they were social animals – attack one and you probably got the rest of the herd for free. Surely these poorly armed people could never bring down something that size.
Yes. Yes, they could. Because not only did they have fire – wonder of wonders, they had dogs, too. Not dogs as we know them – these were not domesticated in any way. They were wolf-like animals, lean and evil looking who, suddenly unleashed, hurled themselves towards the herd, baying as they went.
The herd picked up the pace, lifting their trunks high and trying to close ranks. One or two stamped the ground when the dogs got too close.
These people were experienced hunters. They knew exactly what they were doing. They were going for the weaker animals. Over to the right, one group of people and their dogs surrounded two members of the herd. They were both adults, but one had a very small youngster at her side. Trying to protect it was slowing her down. Expertly, the hunters spread out and began to separate the three from the herd. Shouting, waving with their spears, they strove to push them in another direction.
I stood up to get a better view, taking care to remain out of sight, but I needn’t have bothered. All the hunters’ attention was on the herd.
‘I think,’ I said slowly, clamped to my viewfinder. ‘Yes. Pits. There are pits ahead. Don’t know if they’re natural or not. We can check that out later. North and Hoyle, your team stay with the herd. Sykes and Lingoss, your team stay with the smaller group. I particularly want coverage of the dogs but do not allow yourselves to be seen. Or trampled. Don’t miss anything. Atherton, you’re with me.’
The noise was tremendous. The dogs were howling like the wolves they had been up until very recently. People shouted, waving torches and spears. Sparks arced through the air. Mammoths bellowed and trumpeted.
The herd broke into a shambling run, away from the lights and noise. All except for two huge matriarchs, who turned at bay as the herd thundered past them, rearing up and stamping the ground. I could feel the impact of their landing. When that failed, they lowered their heads and charged straight at the band of hunters following them.
The group of people immediately split into two, fanning out to the left and right and let them charge through, closing in behind them. This group was the distraction. Their purpose was to distract the matriarchs while the others closed in on their quarry. A wonderful example of cooperative thinking. Atherton was gabbling away into his recorder.
Slowly, and not without a great deal of resistance, the other mammoths were being driven backwards towards the pits. They must surely be of natural origin. How difficult would it be to dig something that deep in this almost permanently frozen ground?
I made a note in my recorder to fix the position and pass details to Thirsk. The contents of these pits should be investigated.
Guthrie, Atherton, and I carried on wriggling over
the frozen ground, keeping our heads down. To reveal ourselves to these people would be incredibly stupid. Apart from the damage we could do to a developing culture, I could just see the look on Dr Bairstow’s face as I attempted to explain that certain members of his unit were currently being worshipped as gods.
All this crawling around at ground level took time and when we were eventually in a position to start recording again, we could see that the dogs and people working together had succeeded in moving the two smaller mammoths some considerable distance from the herd. I couldn’t see the calf anywhere. I had no idea what had happened to it because I was watching the ring of hunters as they slowly backed the two mammoths towards the pits.
The animals bellowed, making a sound very similar to that of a modern elephant. Their cries reverberated around the empty plain. Every predator in the neighbourhood would know what was occurring here. How long before they were prowling around on the edge of things, awaiting their chance?
Holding their trunks out of harm’s way, the two mammoths lowered their heads, swinging those massive tusks from side to side. The dogs bayed furiously, closing in to snap at their feet and then dart away again. One dog wasn’t quick enough and was heaved, yelping, into the air.
The people milled around, shouting, jabbing, and stabbing with their spears, slowly forcing them backwards. Those who held them waved flaming torches at the mammoth’s trunks. As the matriarchs had done, they reared up, pounding their forelegs into the ground. I estimated some twelve to fifteen people here, with maybe another half-dozen taking on the rest of the herd. It seemed a pitifully small number to deal with such enormous animals. I was surprised they were willing to take the risk. On the other hand, one kill this afternoon would feed the whole group for weeks, to say nothing of providing skins for warmth and bones for burning.
I was recording, Atherton was dictating. As always, all our attention was on what was happening in front of us – this was a golden opportunity and we weren’t going to miss a second – leaving Guthrie to cover our rear and save us from stray spear thrusts, dog-bites, being trampled by an enraged mammoth, or accidentally torched by an over-enthusiastic contemporary. No one ever said life in the Security Section was easy.
I could hear Guthrie talking into his com. He was in contact with the other teams. ‘Everyone’s fine,’ he said, resuming his watch over my shoulder, breath clouding in the bitterly cold air. ‘Hoyle and North are still watching the group driving off the big mammoths. Sykes and Lingoss were apparently nearly flattened by that calf we saw. It’s run away and they’re keeping an eye on it and will try to drive it back to the herd.’
I nodded absently. No one was dead or dying. That would do for the time being. The climax to the hunt approached. The two mammoths had nowhere to go.
For a moment, one teetered on the brink and then, with one final, huge, despairing bellow, it toppled slowly backwards into the pit and disappeared. Whether in desperation or what, the second put her head down and charged straight for her tormentors. People threw themselves out of her path. It was brought home to me just how perilous a business this was. Fatalities must be frequent. Serious injury a way of life. The odds were with the mammoth every time. The only thing in our favour was a little human ingenuity. Trumpeting victoriously, she stamped off into the growing darkness.
In the far distance, the matriarchs seemed to realise it was all over with. They dropped back to the ground. The other people, realising they had their kill, pulled back at once. The matriarchs turned and headed back towards the herd, as did the one who got away. I hoped the little one had made it back as well, although how likely was it that something so small could survive without its mother?
I turned my attention back to the pits. Some three or four people jumped down out of sight. I heard one last terrified bellow. The death cry. And then silence.
The carcass was butchered amazingly quickly. Of course, other predators would have heard that final scream. How easy it would be, even now, for a couple of sabre-tooths to drive off the humans and benefit from their efforts. I could imagine that happened a lot. All that effort and energy expended, injuries incurred, only to be robbed of weeks of good eating at the last moment. The despair of returning to camp empty handed. In this climate, one or two missed meals could be fatal for the very old and the very young. Looking around at the hostile environment and the killers that lived in it, it really was a miracle the human race had survived at all.
Except, of course, that a part of this group wouldn’t. I was focusing now on the close-ups as they began to sling lumps of bloody meat up out of the pit. The majority of these people were modern Homo sapiens. In this group of hunters, the Neanderthals were in a minority and the few that were here were older. There were no Neanderthal youngsters here. The only children I’d seen had been back at the camp. Those children with the strangely large heads.
Atherton was doing a fine job of recording so I sat back and had a bit of a think. It really was useless to speculate armed with no more information than could be gathered from one very small sample group, but look at the facts.
In this group, the ratio of Homo sapiens to Neanderthal was about 4:1. Of all the children I had seen, only two were Neanderthal and both of those had big heads and, as far as I could see, no mothers. Suppose the mothers had not survived the birth – which could have happened for any number of reasons, but suppose … just suppose …
Human beings have soft spots to enable their heads to pass safely through the birth canal. Suppose Neanderthals didn’t have some or any of those fontanels. Because their frontal cortex wasn’t large enough to need them. At first, it wouldn’t matter, but suppose that as the Neanderthal species prospered and their bodies grew bigger, their heads grew too. And then, suppose they reached a size where it was impossible for mother and baby to be safely delivered. Because of a problem with the fontanels. Suppose … just suppose … the reason for Neanderthals slowly dying out was failure to reproduce successfully. Because the child, the mother, or both died at birth. No species survives failure to reproduce.
Many of us carry Neanderthal DNA, so some successful interbreeding must have occurred. Human children survived. Those with mixed parents sometimes survived. Those with Neanderthal parents rarely survived.
I made another note to recommend further research.
A bloody tusk was handed up out of the pit, followed seconds later by the second. That they were removed almost before the butchering had begun was an indication of their significance. The reverence with which they were handled convinced me the decorated mammoth tusks had some religious significance.
They were butchering the bodies on site, but only a few people actually worked on the carcass. A few more wrapped the meat for transportation, but the majority of them stood around the pit, facing outwards, spears raised, silently watching for anything that might appear out of the twilight. One or two were nervous, turning their heads from side to side and sniffing the air. They bundled the meat up in the bloody skins, which were heaved over people’s shoulders.
The second group turned up. The ones who had been dealing with the main herd. One was cradling an arm, but otherwise they all seemed unscathed. There was some shouting which I took to be a greeting. Or possibly some boasting.
Eventually, as the cold, dark night began to crawl across the landscape, one barked a harsh sound and immediately, everyone climbed out of the pit, shouldered what they could carry, and set off back to camp. They travelled fast, in single file. Two men ran at the front, a group of them in the middle carried as much as they could, but most of them were at the back, scuffing up the snow, casting anxious glances all around. What were they watching for? Bears? Wolves? Sabre-tooths? Anything that would rear up out of the dark and snatch their hard-won kill. It could easily happen. There was no respite. These people had no claws or teeth. They were at the very bottom of the food chain. Everything was a threat. Far off in the distance, I thought I heard a roar.
‘It’s almost dark,’ said
Guthrie softly. ‘They won’t want to be far from home when the light goes. Look at the amount of blood spilled here. And they haven’t butchered the entire carcass. Clever. They’ve left the remains as a decoy. They’re hoping that predators will gather here to feast on the remains and leave them alone.’
I allowed us to spend a few minutes at the edge of the pit, filming the site and the remains. Two of the wolf-dogs hadn’t made it and we got shots of those, too. Guthrie was right, there was a lot of blood around, and although we did our best to avoid it, obviously, we trod in it, knelt in it, and generally got a great deal on ourselves.
Not a wise move as it turned out.
I heard another sound in the night. Not that far away this time.
Guthrie’s head went up.
‘Everyone – sound off. Now.’
‘Maxwell,’ I said softly. Atherton, Hoyle, North, Gallaccio, Keller, and Cox followed suit.
Evans reported that he, Lingoss, and Sykes had lost the youngster in the darkness and were close to the pod.
‘Get them inside at once,’ ordered Guthrie. ‘Don’t let them leave. We’re on our way back to the pod. Historians pack your gear. Now.’
We did. Just for once, there were no arguments.
‘Right,’ said Guthrie, ‘the first thing is to get away from this place. Every hungry predator is on his way here at this very moment. I’ll lead, Keller in the middle, Gallaccio and Cox to bring up the rear. Single file. Max – watch your knee.’
‘Copy that,’ I said, and off we went into the dark.
We trotted because that was the best way to cover the ground. Not running, which would leave us breathless and unable to hear properly. Just a gentle trot that ate up the miles, gave us time to see where we were going and if we did fall, we weren’t going fast enough to do ourselves any real damage. The terrain wasn’t that rough and the moon was up. We weren’t overburdened with kit. We could do this.