Chapter image is a closeup photo of Shanidar I's teeth. Shanidar I - whose picture is the image for chapter 2 and whose skeleton helped provide the inspiration for Creb - had very worn down front teeth, likely a result of his needing to use his mouth for tasks that could not be performed by his missing hand. Picture credit belongs to Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at the Washington University in St. Louis, and the image was taken from this article: www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/neanderthals-early-modern-humans-teeth-tools/
For those of us who might not have known or may be at an age to have not been exposed to these older stories. This book was made into a movie in 1986. Darryl Hannah was the young girl. It's not aged well but mayhaps a redoing of this movie with newer technology would give the book and its author a more worthy retelling and recognition.
That movie is a mess lol but I have some real affection for it. Ron Howard apparently produced a pilot for a TV adaptation a few years ago but it got rejected. I wonder though, is this really an adaptable novel? Between the sign language + grunting of the clan, the narration frequently shifting into clinical lectures on pleistocene fauna and handicrafts, the heavy use of extended inner monologues, the psychadelia, it might be a hard one to adapt while still preserving what makes the book so good!
Sorry I sent it without finishing what I was saying. We humans understand sentiment and gestures quite well. I think if the film was well thought out it could be a possibility
I had such hopes for this movie, but it was lacking the humanity of the characters. They grunted a lot and so much was lost. These readings are so good, it gives me hope that a movie could be made that does this book justice. The other books would have been easier to make, but since the first one was not a hit, no others were made.
It was on the best seller list for 52 weeks apparently…I heard of it from my father who insisted I read the book, rather than watch the movie. How did you discover this book on audio?
If they don't hear sounds, how does they think thoughts? Do the just see hand signs? Do they think every thought that involves meaning in images? It must be exhausting to have an internal monologue as one of the cave bears. And if they think in sentences that have words, why not just speak the words. Don't signs just mean words anyway? Or is it just sensations?
Modern sign language is just as fluent and sophisticated as any other language, so it would make sense that the Neanderthals would be able to create sign language very similar to our own if there able to communicate in full sentences. With their entire language being centered around hand signals, there brains would immediately have an image of the words meaning, just as we would immediately picture an 🍎 when we read the word apple. They can occasionally speak out loud, but they only do that to make further emphasise on a particular word, like how you would MAKE WORDS ALL CAPITAL WHILE WRITING SO AS TO MAKE READERS THINK YOUR YELLING. But for the most part, they can’t communicate in a vocal language because in the books there depicted as having lesser developed vocal cords, when in reality they would’ve been able to speak at the same level as a 10 year old, or at least it was possible. Doesn’t take away the possibility they communicated in the same way as they did in the book. Unfortunately you can’t find archaeological evidence for sign language this far back
I was going to ask if you'd bothered to listen, as the author literally addressed your questions in this and the immediate prior chapters: but the way you communicate makes it clear how well you listen.
I was supposed to read this book in Jr high in the 80s. My teacher loved it and encouraged us to read it, but I couldn't really get into it. This week I have been out with the flu and have been listening to it. Facinating story but it would have been difficult to follow as a teenager
I’ve read some anthropologists who claim that, before widespread literacy, most folk stories and myths are a lot like the story of Durc and Ice Mountain. That is, deviation from conformist norms is always bad and almost always punished. It’s not until widespread literacy that stories begin to imagine that, say, social norms could be the bad guys and resisting them heroic. At least, that’s what some people claim. I like the “women’s story” too because you can hear generations of repressed pain and grief in it, though it’s still expressed within Clan norms.
@@DavidReadsASoIaF well while it's obviously impossible to know what stories they would tell in a pre civilisation era you could definitely imagine they were along the lines of these in the story. We pretty much all learn about the boy who cried wolf as a kid afterall. Wouldnt take many generations to completely instill herd mentality when bascially anyone that leaves dies or ends up so far away and disasociated they may aswell be dead.
The lesser known brother of Jeor Mormont, with the unique sigil of a black cave bear on green field... Somehow manages to be even hairier than Jorah Mormont.