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Authors: Glenn Cooper
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art.
After yet another expression of wonder from Luc, Hugo was getting impatient. ‘Yes, yes, so you’ve said, but we’ve really got to get out of here now. I can feel my life slipping away.’
Luc was staring eye-to-eye with the bird man, and wanted to speak out loud to him, but for Hugo’s sake, he played out the conversation in his head: I’m coming back soon. You and I are going to get to know each other very well .
He wasn’t sure what made him look down, but in the dimmest periphery of his torch light there was something he couldn’t ignore beside his left foot.
A small edge of black flint against the cave wall.
He knelt over it and swore. He had left his trowel in his rucksack, which was in the previous chamber.
He had a Bic pen in his breast pocket, removed its cap and started picking away at the earth and guano with the plastic prong.
‘I thought you said, touch nothing,’ Hugo complained.
‘Don’t worry. I’m an archaeologist,’ Luc replied. ‘This is important.’
In short order he had pecked away enough of the surrounding earth to expose a long slender blade of chipped flint, almost double the length of his index finger. It was leaning against the wall on its end, almost as if it had been purposefully balanced there. Luc lowered his head almost close enough to kiss it and blew the remaining dirt from its exposed surface, then excitedly he put his camera on macro mode and flashed away.
‘What’s the big deal?’ Hugo asked.
‘It’s Aurignacian!’
‘Oh yes?’ Hugo replied, unimpressed. ‘Can we please go now?’
‘No, listen. This central spine, here, this flaking pattern and this hourglass shape, this tool is definitely Aurignacian. It was made by the very first Homo sapiens in Europe. If, and I stress if, it’s contemporaneous with these paintings, this cave is about thirty thousand years old! That’s over ten thousand years older than Lascaux, and it’s more advanced than Lascaux in every artistic and technical criteria! I simply can’t understand this. I don’t know what to say.’
Hugo tugged him by the sleeve of his jacket. ‘You’ll think of something over breakfast. Now, for God’s sake, let’s go!’
The morning sun had turned the Vézère river into a sparkling ribbon. The air was fresh and birdsong rained down on them. It felt cleansing to breathe clean cool air.
Before they left the cave, Luc carefully rebuilt the dry wall, taking pains to conceal the entrance as effectively as the original wall builders, whoever they were, had done. He was bone-tired but giddy and a small voice inside his head warned him, that under these circumstances, they needed to be especially cautious along the ledge.
Nevertheless, they made steady progress retracing their route and it wasn’t too long before the old juniper tree came into view. Hugo needed to readjust his rucksack and the broad shelf under its rough, peeling trunk was a safe place to stop.
Luc dreamingly sipped what was left of his bottled water as he stared out across the river. Had the night really happened? Was he ready for the position he found himself in? Was he prepared to have his life irrevocably altered, to become a public person, the face of this mad discovery?
His reverie was interrupted by an almost trifling sound, a suggestion of rough scraping coming from the direction they had come. It was out of sight, behind bushes and jutting rock. He almost shrugged it off, but his senses were pricked enough that he couldn’t let it pass. He excused himself and backtracked several metres. As he was about to make his way around the jutting stones he thought he heard another faint scrape, but when he got a clear view of the ledge they had just traversed, there was nothing there.
He stood for a short while, trying to decide whether to backtrack further. There was something about that scraping that unsettled him; he felt a current of concern – or was it fear? – trickle through his body. But then Hugo called,
After yet another expression of wonder from Luc, Hugo was getting impatient. ‘Yes, yes, so you’ve said, but we’ve really got to get out of here now. I can feel my life slipping away.’
Luc was staring eye-to-eye with the bird man, and wanted to speak out loud to him, but for Hugo’s sake, he played out the conversation in his head: I’m coming back soon. You and I are going to get to know each other very well .
He wasn’t sure what made him look down, but in the dimmest periphery of his torch light there was something he couldn’t ignore beside his left foot.
A small edge of black flint against the cave wall.
He knelt over it and swore. He had left his trowel in his rucksack, which was in the previous chamber.
He had a Bic pen in his breast pocket, removed its cap and started picking away at the earth and guano with the plastic prong.
‘I thought you said, touch nothing,’ Hugo complained.
‘Don’t worry. I’m an archaeologist,’ Luc replied. ‘This is important.’
In short order he had pecked away enough of the surrounding earth to expose a long slender blade of chipped flint, almost double the length of his index finger. It was leaning against the wall on its end, almost as if it had been purposefully balanced there. Luc lowered his head almost close enough to kiss it and blew the remaining dirt from its exposed surface, then excitedly he put his camera on macro mode and flashed away.
‘What’s the big deal?’ Hugo asked.
‘It’s Aurignacian!’
‘Oh yes?’ Hugo replied, unimpressed. ‘Can we please go now?’
‘No, listen. This central spine, here, this flaking pattern and this hourglass shape, this tool is definitely Aurignacian. It was made by the very first Homo sapiens in Europe. If, and I stress if, it’s contemporaneous with these paintings, this cave is about thirty thousand years old! That’s over ten thousand years older than Lascaux, and it’s more advanced than Lascaux in every artistic and technical criteria! I simply can’t understand this. I don’t know what to say.’
Hugo tugged him by the sleeve of his jacket. ‘You’ll think of something over breakfast. Now, for God’s sake, let’s go!’
The morning sun had turned the Vézère river into a sparkling ribbon. The air was fresh and birdsong rained down on them. It felt cleansing to breathe clean cool air.
Before they left the cave, Luc carefully rebuilt the dry wall, taking pains to conceal the entrance as effectively as the original wall builders, whoever they were, had done. He was bone-tired but giddy and a small voice inside his head warned him, that under these circumstances, they needed to be especially cautious along the ledge.
Nevertheless, they made steady progress retracing their route and it wasn’t too long before the old juniper tree came into view. Hugo needed to readjust his rucksack and the broad shelf under its rough, peeling trunk was a safe place to stop.
Luc dreamingly sipped what was left of his bottled water as he stared out across the river. Had the night really happened? Was he ready for the position he found himself in? Was he prepared to have his life irrevocably altered, to become a public person, the face of this mad discovery?
His reverie was interrupted by an almost trifling sound, a suggestion of rough scraping coming from the direction they had come. It was out of sight, behind bushes and jutting rock. He almost shrugged it off, but his senses were pricked enough that he couldn’t let it pass. He excused himself and backtracked several metres. As he was about to make his way around the jutting stones he thought he heard another faint scrape, but when he got a clear view of the ledge they had just traversed, there was nothing there.
He stood for a short while, trying to decide whether to backtrack further. There was something about that scraping that unsettled him; he felt a current of concern – or was it fear? – trickle through his body. But then Hugo called,
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