Bone Lines

by Stephanie Bretherton

  It had been premature perhaps to complete the visualisation of Sarah before all of the DNA evidence was in, but any unlikely minor adjustments such as colouring should be simple enough to add – especially before going public. For many reasons, from motivating both the team and the money men, they had needed move things along. They had needed to put a face to the name, at last.

  The bust that emerged from the packaging was a brilliant, painstaking and inspired realisation, although surprising in so many ways. Eloise looked at KC to gauge his response. It was typically enthusiastic.

  ‘Hey, Sarah, wow, good to meet you!’ he exclaimed. ‘So, Eloise, is she what you were expecting?’

  ‘Well, based on the skull I would have to say, yes, I suppose so but, oh, I don’t know…’

  ‘I gotta say she’s kind of a shock to me. I mean, considering where she was found I was expecting something more like the Bushmen, the Khoi-San?’

  Yes, that was it. Eloise realised that she too had envisioned an echo of those living archives of human genealogy, a remarkable hunter–gatherer people who had changed little over tens of millennia. It was now believed that they had once stretched from Southern Africa to the Rift Valley, some eventually diverging into variant tribes and a remainder resorting (or rather being pushed) to an almost mythical tradition of desert survival in the parching west. Ancient faces that she knew, personally. Eloise had spent some time with what was left of one branch in the Kalahari (so nearly the victims of an insidious genocide by white and black alike) while taking samples for the genome project. She felt privileged to call some among them friends.

  ‘Well, yes, that certainly would have been a fair assumption, taking into account Sarah’s location, age and mtDNA indications for that area and time. And they do call themselves the ‘First Humans’ after all,’ Eloise replied, a little disappointed that Sarah was not more like her friends.

  ‘But, hey,’ KC added, ‘I guess we can’t be influenced by expectations, or by folklore?’

  That subtle, lopsided smile of his. It still worked on her. Eloise looked back at the reconstruction, cleared her throat.

  ‘No, quite. But I think we really do have to trust the Dutch team on this one, those guys are the best when it comes to anthropology and anatomy. And they do seem to have referenced the current morphology of the Khoi-San to some extent, with the golden brown skin colour and full lips. But you’re right. Her jawline is stronger and more masculine than I had visualised, I must admit. It’s her nose too… it’s longer, narrower. Still flared, but the bridge is much more pronounced. That must have been suggested by the skull? And the epicanthic fold of the eyes, it’s far more subtle.’

  Eloise looked to KC again.

  ‘Yes, exactly,’ he agreed, ‘I was anticipating similar eyelids to the Bushmen too, though not as developed, obviously, as in modern East Asians. It’s there but her eyes are less almond-shaped than I thought they’d be.’

  Yes, thought Eloise. The eyes again, leaving such clues to selective or random mutations. Changes over time to colour and shape probably affected by adaptations to shorter, darker northern days, or a narrowing protection from the glare of Siberian snow fields.

  In the more detailed digital version of Sarah’s reanimation, which had come on a flash drive along with the clay 3D model, Sarah’s eyes were a deep dark brown. This was an appropriate supposition to the team, as the agreed wisdom was that no lasting variation in eye colour had appeared in the gene pool earlier than around 10,000 years before present. However, instead of the low hairline and tight peppercorn curls of the Khoi-San Bushmen, Sarah had been given a higher forehead and slightly looser, longer, almost dreadlocked hair – and a surprisingly powerful, muscular build. Eloise wondered if this was an excess of artistic license or interpretation.

  Or… could Sarah have come from another heterogeneous Homo sapiens line of the time, one that had either died out or perhaps spread north or west into other parts of Africa from the Rift in the following millennia? Sarah’s height might corroborate a connection to other present day African ethnicities. Had the Rift Valley highlands always been her home, or was she more nomadic than previously considered? Could she have travelled there from northern Africa, or even further away? Perhaps to worship on the mountain in some way… or was she trying to escape from something up there?

  Eloise thought about the 90,000 year old Qafzeh skull again, which although at least 15,000 senior to Sarah, was anatomically modern human and may have shared a branch of not-too-distant ancestry. She returned to her recent idea about reviving her father’s hypothesis that the Qafzeh group of early pioneers out of Africa had not completely disappeared but may have left something living behind, something inherited by modern humans.

  Neanderthals had occupied those Levantine lands as well, though it was unclear if the populations had been concurrent. But having worked in that region, having stood in one of the very caves these people had called home, having envisioned their lives, their joys, their struggles, a sense of continuation had been something that her father had enjoyed imagining. Eloise now hoped to link up with other projects tracing contemporary genomes back along all the key African, Middle Eastern and Asian migration routes.

  And, like her father, she had often wondered which of these plucky migrants may have then survived the cataclysm of the Toba supervolcano, the massive and devastating eruption exploding out of Sumatra 74,000 ago. Father and daughter had been in good company in gnawing on this particular bone of contention. There had been persistent doubts that only a few hundred souls leaving via the Nile or the Horn 60,000 years ago (well after the supervolcano) were the sole source for all present-day populations outside Africa. Even before the proof of tiny percentages of archaic interspecies gene flow, evidence found along the Asian coastal route and as far as Australia, in terms of artefacts, symbols, anatomy, and even language, had fed these schools of thought.

  Most intriguingly, tools found both below and above the Toban ash deposits in hard-hit India suggested that some hominin groups had indeed prevailed, despite the choking falls and inevitable drought and famine that must have followed – and were able to re-establish in the same locations. What’s more, curious species such as the ‘hobbit-like’ Homo floresiensis had survived in an isolated pocket of the Indonesian archipelago with the explosion on their very doorstep. Any humans or distant relatives much further north may have suffered less from the heaviest ash falls and more from the volcanic winter, but some could have found ways to survive there, or to migrate south again?

  It seemed that where there was a will – or rather a need – the various branches of humanity had found a way, and with extraordinary adaptability, pragmatism and ingenuity.

  Now Eloise asked herself whether Sarah, who had been carbon-dated to a similar period for Toba, could have been one of its original ‘refugees’ – and perhaps a part of the population bottleneck it may have caused? Did any of her descendants also survive and if so, had her dynasty remained in Africa or could some have joined the most effective expeditions outward again? More to the point, might Sarah’s legacy live on in anyone walking the planet today?

  She shared nothing of these thoughts for the time being, she would wait for further clues from Sarah. The full isotope analysis was due back soon. Yet for all the surprises, all the new questions, now gazing at Sarah fully fleshed once more, she looked to Eloise so… familiar. Almost as if she had met a close relative of hers quite recently.

  Of course she looks familiar, Eloise chastised herself, you have lost your objectivity, become too involved. Step back. Get some bloody detachment.

  *

  The stars. So many now under these clear skies, so, so many. So different, somehow, from the way she remembered them. Hypnotic, soothing, stirring. She has fallen in love with the night.

  They have been following the shore of a massive inland lake (at first fearing they had somehow doubled back and reached a calm sea coast by mistake, but the star shapes have reassured her). They rest o
ften as the little one grows heavier by the day and her back has begun to suffer. This lakeside route is probably longer in steps than by wing line, but it is easier to manage than the challenging terrain she has encountered so far. And here, they are also more likely to find life. For good or bad.

  They camp by night and she manages some long spells of sleep inside the tight circle of spikes that she cuts down and drives into the ground around them, each a hand width apart and strung with shell and pebble. The cut branches are a long-learned habit in the lack of any safer, higher shelter, or when she feels the fire may not be sufficient deterrent… or worse, may attract those unafraid of it. But the rattling shells are a new idea, along with the sharp thorns and crushed leaves from a plant with an unpleasant sting (discovered the hard way) that are sprinkled around the boundary with a pouch-wrapped hand. Any noise, any movement and she will raise the flint hand axe curled in her palm, or her spear, or both.

  First light. So much light now and blinding when it reflects off the lake. It feels wrong to wish for shade again. She pulls up the spikes before the child awakes, some she will re-use as arrows. They pack up and set off again, augurs of discovery under her skin but she cannot tell whether these bode well or ill.

  Before long she sees tracks leading inward to some thick growth. The marks are old, it has not rained for a while, but these are the footprints of men. Perhaps made by a pair of hunters of the lake-life? She has seen one scaly creature with long snapping jaws and learned how to avoid it, and she keeps the child away from the water’s edge – but on land it is slow and she thinks it might make good meat if you could get a spear to its underbelly. Now she notices that the older tracks of the men she has been following are pursued by fresher paw prints.

  At a distance on the plains, she has seen the kind of huge, fierce and beautiful predator that stalks this new land, and has studied its ways. But even if they had caught sight or scent of her and the child, they seemed too well fed, or too lazy in the heat of day to show any special interest. Perhaps unsure if the meal would be worth the effort? If the child were not with her, if she had a band of companions, she would get closer, take the time to watch them and draw on their essence. These tracks are smaller, she realises, not made by those great yellow beasts but not to be ignored. Something more like a wolf perhaps, but she has seen no wolves in this new land.

  There are only two of the creatures, so far, from what she can tell. But the marks belong to something with sharp teeth – of that she is sure. Even so she follows them through the dense green bush, in the same way as these paw prints seem to be shadowing the unmistakable steps of her own, rare kind. At last the thorny growth begins to clear, a relief in so many ways, as her anger has begun to spike with each stinging scratch to her impatient arms and legs.

  There – ahead, she sees it now, a camp!

  But then it becomes clear that she is too late and her heart drops. Whoever was here has now gone. Were they forced to leave quickly? No, the multiple imprints leading away from the camp appear calm and steady. Men, women and young. There are no signs of violence. Then why had they left the camp like this? Discarded. Wasteful. Soiled with scale, skin, bone, ash and scat. Half a carcass, they have taken only the haunches, not buried or burned the fly-blown entrails, not used the bone. The head stares, the horns and the rest of the striped hide are unharvested. This is not wise.

  Worse is to come. It seems not everyone has moved on from this place, something shifts and groans under a pile of unwanted skins. A grey head struggles to lift. It is an old woman, half-travelled to the world beyond and helpless. She will not approach her yet, conscious of the sleeping child, her soft breath so close on her neck – and the handful of small stones within reach of this withered heap, the sharpened stick beside her (which surely she has no strength to wield?).

  They have left her. Her people. To the makers of the paw prints waiting nearby. She feels them now, hears them growling and realises what they are. She has seen them once before, snarling and cackling and squabbling over carrion. Ugly. As though some angry spirit had punished a wayward wolf by flattening its face, hunching its back and raising its spiky hair. Cowardly, thieves, but capable in numbers of killing a child – or her. While she respects that every living thing has its place, its worth, she feels no special kinship with these.

  She must go now. She cannot wait, she must follow the roaming clan, must catch up with them, needs them. As she turns away the old woman cries out, grasping at some wisp of desperate breath. Those half-living eyes are seeking her out now and she looks back into them.

  No. She cannot leave her like this. But she cannot carry her with them. Cannot kill the lurking scavengers, not all of them, though they will begin their ripping and feeding well before the old woman is still or cold.

  Is this her people’s tradition? Will she somehow curse her by interfering? The eyes of the one they have left behind give a different answer. Eyes that once were young, that once had found food for her children, that once had seen beauty and been of use to her kind.

  She will not abandon her to the waiting ones, not like this. She knows that they are near, even if in hearing her approach they have chosen to hide. As she moves close to the old woman she allows herself to grasp a bony outstretched hand. The grip that comes in return tells her all she needs to know. Released from this pleading hold, it takes only one deep tensing breath and one swift movement at the neck, and it is done. She closes the now silent eyes. No time for anything more, she must go forward from the dead, away from the ravening and after the living.

  She stops. It begins to rain so suddenly as it does here, dancing drops of clear fresh water. Good, this place needs cleansing. The torrent seems to wash something within her as well. She is unwilling now to follow the tracks but does not know which way to go. When the rain begins to peter, she looks up and through the soft separation of colours in the watery air she sees a single hawk, determined in its direction. She closes her own eyes and lifts her inner vision to share the eyes of this bird, to imagine and to see what it sees. When she comes back to full awareness of her own body she steps forward to follow a different path, without looking back.

  24

  The South Downs sunset was sublime. A symphony of dust and vapour, scattering the spectrum, stretching out into layers of sky fire. It had been far too long since Eloise had allowed such loveliness to soak long and deep into her psyche. It was good to be out of London.

  Eloise had treated herself to a folding Brompton bike. She needed to escape the metropolis more often, get off the Tube and out of her car and this was the ideal solution for adventures beyond any chosen railway stop. She needed more exercise, more fresh air but could not risk pounding her knees in any more mini-marathons.

  And what a bike! This smart bit of engineering was testament to the kind of genuinely ‘intelligent design’ that got things so right (rather than those frustrating imperfections in the protracted trial-and-error of natural selection). The free-wheeling took her mind off everything for a while.

  If she was honest with herself, it took her mind off KC, although they had now established the nature of their relationship, its allowable possibilities and its unspoken borders. Another time, another place, different choices, different paths perhaps, but this was the tack they both had taken and accepted. Eloise was comforted, however, in the new conviction that this could become a life-long friendship or working partnership, and she looked forward to shared discoveries with a sense of optimism she had not felt for some time.

  They had discussed a potential collaboration on retroviruses, a form of medical archaeology to genetically retrace the evolution of HIV in particular, a project that would call for a return to Africa. (How she longed to go back! And a chance perhaps to walk in Sarah’s footsteps, independent of Darius and whatever his agenda.)

  Eloise had told KC about her time on that fascinating continent for the sampling project, how she had been moved by its beauty and vitality, its wisdom and warmth, devastated by
its problems, its colonial legacies, its looted wealth, its crushing health crises, the ethnic conflicts exacerbated by competition for misappropriated land, power and resources. The genome project had shown how meaningless such imposed divisions were upon the human family and had once seemed to point the way to so much hope, but Eloise could not deny the daily disappointments since those halcyon days.

  She had agreed with KC that for any fresh collaborations they would seek the kind of funding that would allow any results to be posted online as open source. (No more paranoia, no more suspicion, no more commercially driven backing.) It was clear to her now that whoever may have been trying to interfere with or sabotage the Sarah project, it can’t have been KC. She felt guilty, even a little foolish for having considered it. Although he was largely unaware of the extent of her suspicions, she wanted to make it up to him somehow and felt that a joint project such as this would bring them both the considerable satisfactions of a sense of purpose and contribution. (Eloise felt that the exploration of any other form of satisfaction between them was no longer either a risk or an insistent desire.)

  There were other enticements back to Africa. While any new microbial detective work they might undertake there would be concentrated in the cities, typical hotbeds for vector-borne viral fermentation, in truth Eloise hoped to find an excuse for a return to the Kalahari. To the Bushmen, the Khwe, the Basarwa. Probably among the most examined indigenous peoples on the earth, likely among the most endangered, definitely among the most genetically preserved. She often felt that these were the best and most playful, generous, egalitarian and relaxed people she had ever known – the indulgence of romanticism aside. (And all the guilt of imperialism acknowledged.)

  They had much to teach. Also much to be angry or despairing about, yet for the most part, it seemed they had resisted this course. Yes, OK, they practised what many might see as superstitious ritual – and Eloise had witnessed the shrieking of a shaman who had ‘inhaled’ an unnamed evil from a sufferer in order to spew it back to its source. But she had also seen the calm after that storm, the renewed unity of the group after what evidently had been an important bonding experience.