"It came with a bang, apparently out of nowhere . . . the world's first and longest-lived art movement. One of the most spectacular developments in the human story unfolded during the Upper Paleolithic, the Stone Age span extending from about 30,000 to 10,000 years ago. After two or more million years of relatively sluggish evolution in the Homo line . . . what has been called a period of 'almost unimaginable monotony,' art appeared all of a sudden, culminating in the magnificent cave paintings and engravings of Western Europe."
Smithsonian Magazine
Dear Diary:
I sometimes wonder why I even bother getting up in the morning. Life is so unbearably dull I can't bear it! I yearn for something, je ne ugh quoi, that will enable me to transcend my dreary cro-Magnon existence. If this is the Upper Paleolithic's version of "civilization," give me the eolithic any day!
Remember to buy gift for Debbie's rite of passage today.
The boys around here are such hominids!
What a bunch of hominids!
Diary--
Received an invitation to a one-primate show--what's that? Food will apparently consist of small animals herded into corrals and dead-end canyons (Yum!) rather than the usual foraging-society stuff (Yuk!).
Oral culture tonight--I'm glad that stuff rhymes or I'd never remember it.
This period of the Stone Age is passing so slowly.
Hey Di!
I just had the most fabulous time at the show! Loads of fun people, great food and some very striking paintings of ibex, horses, etc.--apparently signs of increasing social complexity. Didn't buy anything of course--don't know where I'd put it in my tiny place. Rents in Lascaux are suddenly out of sight!
Almost forgot--met a cute guy too! (He had bison breath but we can work on that.) Much more sensitive than the Neanderthals I've been dating. He gave me a little chipped stone instrument he said is going to be all the rage—hope he's not a tool head!
I had too many cups of crude mead though. Will try to sweat it out during the extra leisure time I have as a result of the decline of nomadic social structure.
The artsy crowd.
Oh Di-a-ree—
My new "friend" asked me to dinner at his "pit house." Not sure I'm ready to spend time in a man-made shelter--I barely know the guy! He says he migrated to Europe from Asia and brought his distinctive culture with him. Maybe I'm being old-fashioned, but my world-view is firmly grounded in magic and the supernatural, and he's like totally into the arts!
I'm going to wear a saber-toothed tiger thing I picked up at an end-of-communal hunting season sale. Off-the shoulder, darts in the bodice. Wish me luck!
"Does this make me look Neanderthal?"
Di—
I have such a crush on this guy! His place was so nice! Finely-wrought artifacts like I'd never seen before—teeny-tiny microliths everywhere!
He gave me a necklace he made just for me—can't tell if it's ivory or just bone. If it's the real thing, yours truly may just decide to stay home and breed!
After a dinner of wild horse he asked me if I'd like to take a look at an implement of great length and firmness he was working on. I said not on the first date, Mister Cro-Magnon—and he was a perfect gentleman about it!
"I--I thought you loved me!"
Dear Di—
Hold the monogamy ritual invitations! We just had our first fight.
I dropped by his place today with a little surprise (some ground-up pigments—I've got an artsy side too!). Found Mr. Aesthete sculpting a female figure--from a voluptuous live model!
He said he was just doing a fertility goddess statue, he's got bills to pay, ugga ugga, and begged me to forgive him. I made him promise he'd stick to cave paintings of animals from now on. He said he was sorry—and he actually cried!
Men are so cute when they're evolving!
Copyright 2007, Con Chapman
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Comments: 7
It's a good thing her father wasn't around to see her dating an artsy guy.
Or is that classical?