The Book of Firsts: A Romp Through the Neolithic Revolution and Beyond!

By Mary Khazak Grant

This collection of short stories is a romp through the Neolithic Revolution revealing in fictionalized form all the earliest discoveries and inventions of Mankind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365175879

Book preview

The Book of Firsts

THE BOOK OF FIRSTS

by Mary Khazak Grant

The Book of Firsts

Copyright 2016 by Mary Khazak Grant

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,

electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording

or by any information storage and retrieval system

without permission in writing.

Book Design by Mary d/b/a Staingly Bookcrafters

www.lulu.com/storefronts/maryriver8

FIRST EDITION

First Printing 4/15/2011

Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Grant, Mary Khazak

The Book of Firsts

1. Fiction--History2. Anthropology--Neolithic Revolution

3. Inventions--Prehistoric Man

I. Mary Khazak GrantII.  The Book of Firsts

ISBN 978-0-557-74456-5

Cover illustration: Public Domain

All illustrations and photographs:  Public Domain

Although information herein is based on the author’s extensive experience and knowledge, it is not intended to substitute for the services of qualified professionals.

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in

Reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving

how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel!

in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the

world! the paragon of animals!

-- William Shakespeare

in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Act II, Scene ii, 285-300)

This book is dedicated to my brilliant ancestors whose identities and lives prior to recorded history are lost in the sands of time.

And to my two children,

David Jacob and Jaime Arielle Wesker, inventors of the future.

Forward:

This book’s mission is to make readers realize just how high a mountain Mankind climbed from out of the primordial obstacle of the last Ice Age into the era of recorded history.  Over thousands of years, through sheer accident or primitive intuition, modern man’s ancestors developed crude inventions.  Handed down by inventors,  refined and improved, they enabled our ancestors to hard scrabble into the future.

But up until now, these earth-shattering discoveries have been ignored or taken for granted by generations of thinkers outside the field of Science.  With the latest discoveries of Archaeology, a relatively new science, on a global scale, scholars can finally piece together enough details regarding prehistoric inventors to enable a writer to fictionalize the setting accurately.

A writer, with research and imagination has now written the tale of the ancient crucible where such moments as the discovery of fire, alcohol or leavened bread occurred.  These inventions at the time were but a simple little element of a humble life as it was known, but they made possible the very survival of Man and shaped his culture for all time.  Inventions were stumbled upon or created by inspired little people whose names and background have been lost in the dust of time.  Their dreams and startling leaps into the unknown catapulted Mankind into brilliant survival and civilization.

It is not enough to appreciate Mankind’s genius through the culture of eras past, with their legacy of the arts, music, science and technology.  We must go further back, to the times when men had little but their hands, feet, heart and eyes to deal with a wild world of undifferentiated challenge and great danger.

The Book of Firsts, hopefully the first in an expanded series of historical fiction anthologies, will sketch in the most probable moments of discovery based on the life of Paleolithic, Neolithic or Prehistoric Man, in the settings where archaeology has revealed they occurred first.

The most important early discoveries and inventions of Mankind will be depicted, fictionalized and illustrated to inspire wonder and appreciation of just how far we have come.  The writer will strive to be as accurate as possible based on known facts, by deduction.

For the teacher, this book can be a valuable supplement to the social science curriculum regarding early Man.

The author, a certified educator, is well-qualified to do the painstaking research and development of setting and character to give each story an authentic feel.  Students as well as adult readers will get a real taste of the culture and civilization behind each inventor through an extremely plausible fictionalized account. But please keep in mind that some stories, the time sequence of invention has been compressed into one lifetime rather than several.

Learners may be taught utilizing the Study Guide containing questions and answers at the end of the book. Quite a number of ancient cultures are depicted in these pages. They can be contrasted and compared to deepen comprehension of early Mankind’s lifestyle across the globe.

For pure enjoyment, The Book of Firsts should have no equal.  The author hopes that professional anthropologists, archaeologists and other scientists find it interesting.

--Mary K. Grant

Rochester, New York

11/7/11

Handaxes

2,500,000 B.C.axesOlduvai Gorge, the Rift Valley, East Africa

Head and Tall were well-pleased with the site of their new camp:  alongside  the long route their food ran along, in a river migrating from east to west, close enough to the waves of antelopes they hunted, all the men in their bunch which was about twenty-five people, not counting the babies.

It was hot and dry, a new type of climate their clan knew was different from the wet, cooler time before with the ancestors. Olduvai Gorge, and the Rift Valley, suited antelope and Man both in getting down to the water of Lake Tlatla, a place to eat fish, shell fish with ample water and shade.  Each year, as they followed the movements of the great antelope or horse herds through the high grasses, they came through here.   The men remembered the place very well.

As the women crouched down and sat to nurse their babies, Tall rose and walked deliberately toward the wall of the Gorge, his hand carrying a stone to hit any enemy hiding in the woods.  He found the cave after a long while, pushing bushes away roughly until he had located the crevice cutting diagonally into the cliff, the sun pushing through suddenly to light up the left wall.  He stared at it entranced.  The rose and sienna wall glowed faintly, revealing dark red and black figures painted in bright clay and charcoal, man-sized and smaller.

Elder had followed him, wearing his hide shawl, carrying a taper prepared at the camp for when it grew dark.  He entered boldly and disappeared.  Tall turned back, returning to Head’s side.  Silently they sat, scratching the sores and mosquito bites on the tough dirty hide of their bodies.  The women nursed.  The sun slowly went down, it’s rays receding with time to just hit the tops of the tall trees surrounding the clan.  These glowed bright acid green and yellow, causing one of the women, Small, to gaze up with fierce concentration, delight in her features while she peered over the dark head of her son nursing contentedly in her arms.  Like the men, she wore hides sewn together with raw hide strips, her chest bare. 

Tall came up behind Small, scaring her and grabbed the baby from off her lap.  Grabbing her hand, he gently pulled her to her feet, making her follow him, not looking back. He led her to the cave, and pushed her in.  Elder, as he expected, was still inside, settling down for the night.  They brought some tapers up, the rest of the clan, and found Big Tooth, the keeper of the flint.  He always carried it wrapped in some vines about his waist.  Striking it against a stone on the ground, Big Tooth lit the first taper after some time.  With that one he lit the others. 

Dusk was starting to take effect, and the peepers and night bird calls made the hairs on the women’s short necks rise up in fear.  Blinking, Small entered with her man holding a taper.  The other couples followed carrying lights until all were in.  Then One Leg hobbled in last, pulling rough thorn bushes after him to completely fill the narrow opening, sealing it from big cats and trouble.

Inside, the tapers’ smoky fatty flames cast the left rock face into dancing shades of orange, red, brown and indigo.  There was a mural of ancient times, by the old ones who had walked bent over, the ancients who left the floor filled with hearth stones ready to use.  Some of the men made the fire in the big hole closest to the wall.  The ceiling of the cave was not complete, with a rift hundreds of yards higher which let cool air in and smoke out.  They were safe for the night and everyone relaxed.  Some women bothered to gather old leaves and hedges, making up comfortable beds for their families.  Some young men explored in the dark recesses of the cavern, disappearing into the void, their small shadows blowing up to cast giants on the walls of chambers fairly deep into the cliff side. 

One man, Less Hair, while walking back tripped on a huge piece of flint which at first seemed a piece of charcoal from an ancient fire.  He knew immediately it was a find, and wrapped it in the hide on his shoulder for safekeeping.  While looking at its strange round and curved shape, he had in his mind an idea of something to make.

No one there spoke or even grunted.  They were a strange group as they settled down around the cave.  No need to be near the fire, for it was a warm summer night.  The cave had a shallow pool of water to complete Small’s happiness.  It seemed to fill from rain waters falling and splashing down the face of the cliff some way back, to fill a pool only a short depth.  Bending from her narrow haunches, she sipped up the water from the top level, without using a hand.  Satisfied, she returned to her mate’s side, lay down and began to snore.  Within minutes the sky in the crevice entryway was black. The fire burned low as time passed and little disturbed the group.

Less Hair, first up at dawn, crawled through the entryway to stretch and relieve himself.  He had brought that big flint with him.  It fit well in hand, and as he grasped it, he imagined for a moment swinging it down to crack on an antelope’s head.  Looking at the black mass, he noticed little fissures and cracks to one edge.  He picked at these with his nails.

There were the women: Small, Mom, Paint, Hide, Outsider all leaving the safe confines of the cave to gather breakfast.  Using leaves to carry things, they foraged along the forest floor, picking up nuts, mosses, wild onions and berries for the day meal.  It took quite a while.  The men emptied out of the cave.  Without question, if the antelope herd allowed, they wanted to remain another night.  This was such good lodging.  Elder was glad they would not need to build huts--and he grimaced and grunted--gesturing to the men with one hand, back and forth to the cave, showing his approval.  All ate standing or squatting among the huge trees growing along the cliff edge.  Some of the boys climbed a few hundred feet up the trunks to get a view of the clearing.  Seeing antelope, they smiled excitedly, gestured, and climbed back down to be near their mothers once more.

For most of the day, the women would walk alongside the herd path, carrying babies, gathering wild cereal grasses, nuts and berries in bags made of hide, watching the men.  Men would go ahead, restlessly chasing on Tall’s signal the weakest of the herd, seeking to cut out an elderly antelope, a sick calf--to make a group effort to surround it and bash it’s head in with heavy stones.

The day was unsuccessful.  For a long while by a river the herd grazed and drank, its sentries with sharp horns on the outskirts anxiously nickering at any approach by men.  The men, in turn, busied themselves chewing on cereal grass, scratching, or bathing in the river further downstream.  In this way, their scent would not scare the herd.

Bush Hair watched One Leg pull at his stump as he sat and rested, drowsy in the high sun.  Little Hair had that flint out.  Crazily, he began to hit at it with another small rock.  He liked the sound.  It’s Crack made Big Tooth look up startled.  He knocked off a nodule about the size of his fist.  Holding it in his hand, he imagined he was some giant man, about to attack an enemy from another clan.  Amusing the boys,