Colin Barrett: Blog

Oops. Sorry about that I've reposted the correct chapter 17. Somehow I picked up chapter 17 of Castaway (which was previously posted) instead of the correct one. Anyhow, it should be right now.

I'm afraid I'm too much of a pacifist myself to buy into the notion that primitive humans were basically hostile and warlike to each other. As I've said before, excessive hostility wouldn't have been a big species survival trait. And without the kind of population pressure that besets our "civilized" society, I doubt that it would have been likely, either. Humanity is basically a social species, banding together in great part by choice and innate predilection as well as necessity. I won't dispute that antagonisms between individuals or even groups very likely existed, but my feeling is that they were more probably subordinated to the cooperation needed for survival in that era, when humans were but one of many species vying for the same resources, and individually were far from the best physically equipped to succeed.
In any case, that's my viewpoint and I've chosen to impart it to the prehistoric world I've postulated.

It's time for Hugo to make his first foray into the world beyond Linda's mountain cabin. I've tried to imagine what might be his reactions, and they still seem reasonable to me. Including his reaction to the would-be carjacker. That scenario isn't as far-fetched as you might think. I've read about enough such to know it actually does happen that way-some of them have even made off with cars holding small children in booster seats in the back, though mostly they've fairly quickly abandoned the car with its unwanted small passenger.
But now Linda's and Hugo's cozy refuge will be invaded by others, which is the next logical step in the progression.
Chapters are a bit longer as the narrative progresses.

Well, you must've known we'd get there. That's about as explicit as sex gets in my writings, I'm afraid. I did label this one "minimal sex," remember?
Hugo's shock at seeing the violence and killing and such on TV may strike you as a bit overblown. Certainly human history is replete with such events, and worse; and most likely that also extends back into prehistoric periods. On the other hand, excessive violence in our prehistory wouldn't have been much of a species survival trait, so it's unlikely to have been a commonplace event. I might also point out that, while members of other mammalian species certainly have their altercations, it's unusual for them to result in the death of a combatant; if two wolves, or lions or whatever get into it, the most common result is that the loser is permitted to retire from the field and lick his (or her) wounds without the victor pursuing to inflict additional, unnecessary damage. I've chosen to impute similar characteristics to my fictitious caveman society.
Oh, about Linda's short tale of her abusive boyfriend. I recall a morning during my first (and not terribly happy) marriage when I awoke to find my wife furious with me over some sort of similar dream she'd had in the night, and she did indeed stay mad at me most of the day. I wonder how many others may have had the same kind of experience. I know for a fact that it does no good to explain how all this was taking place in the dreamer's own head, all that does is aggravate the anger. How dare I seek to excuse my own misbehavior (in her dream), by blaming it on her? The whole thing struck me as so bizarre that I wanted to incorporate it into a novel.

I expect you kind of see where this is going.
I have to make some things up that can't be checked scientifically, so one of my inventions for purposes of this novel is pheremones, that scent that Linda occasionally notices from Hugo. It's a fact that individuals tend to have a unique odor. Your dog will pick it up a lot quicker than you will, but some people are especially sensitive to such things, and early humans would have been more so that modern ones since their noses weren't continuously assaulted by the smells (make that stinks) of urban living. So the pheremones put out by the men and women of that era would have had powerful significance relative to such things as mating. That, at least, is my postulate.
The time spans I mention-how long it's been since modern-day homo sapiens evolved, how long since agrarian civilization arose-are scientifically accurate. Recorded history began some time after agricultural progress first allowed humans to gather into stable and enduring communities, where writing became a necessary adjuct to the trade that those communities permitted and encouraged. We retain, of course, only a fraction (and mostly the more recent, relatively speaking) of the records that were created at that time.