Wandering the canyons of Southern Utah last month, I kept on thinking about what life had been like for humans in that area before the modern era.
We visited pictographs that were at least 2,000 years old and caves that had seen consistant human habitation for 8,000 years. Crazy numbers.
What captured my imagination most of all was the idea of a world with so few humans and one where humans shared the very landscape I was exploring with animals like cave bears and lions, woolly mammoth, giant sloths, camels and aurochs.
A world where on average hunters and gatherers needed to work an estimated two hours a day to make ends meet. A world in which humans could draw on thousands of years of history to show them how to live life tailored to their context. A world very different from our own.
Needless to say, I went back and read Clan of the Cave Bear and Valley of the Horses until 2am last night. Racy bits aside, Jean Auel presents such a detailed portrait of how life might have been when the human family tree divided that it felt effortless to time travel. Even without a DeLorean.
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