Chapter 1 - Another Beautiful Spring

Six months passed, as the once Neanderthal baby was now a toddler able to crawl around.

Rodrigo, now called Shak'Ar had been gathering information, his father's name was Othar, he was the village chief and the strongest hunter in the village, with a body that would beat a culturist full of strong muscles and the solid bones of a Neanderthal. He was beast, and the best hunter in the village, but not a very attentive father. He saw him bring big deer and bisons, to roast them over a fire, and smoking the rest of the food into jerky, it seemed even more impressive for the baby sized Shak'Ar, as everything looked at least twice as big from a baby's perspective.

Then there was his mother, Jhana, and his aunt Matka, both of them were also quite muscular, and great hunters, but one of them always stayed behind to take care of him, curiously observing him and following him around.

Shak'Ar had tried to make some tools with the bones of the beasts his parents hunted, but it was no use, his toddler's hands were too weak to do anything properly.

His uncle Vit'a, the husband of Matka always laughed really loudly when they ate together with his family. Shak'Ar wanted to try the roasted meat once, but his mother always caught him and breastfed him. It had felt a bit awkward to be breastfed at first, but he was used to it by now, the milk was creamy, and when his mother was away, his aunt Matka fed him along with his cousin Hir.

The spring was in full bloom when he had been born, with lots of prey stored as jerky, then came the summer, as the tribe moved to some plains on the west to hunt, away from their valley, but with widely abundant prey.

They had caught three giant wooly bisons there, and even a mammoth, and made loads and loads of pemmican, drying the meat into jerky on the sun and then grinding it to dust over a rock, finally mixing it with rendered fat to take back, the resulting pemmican blocks highly nutritious and long lasting.

Nothing went to waste, as they transported their prizes back to the village in the valley by the end of the summer. The intestines were a prized material for sewing and securing spear heads firmly in place, as they got tighter as they dried, and the cranium of the mammoth was set on a nearby mountain lake, securely surrounded by stakes, according to his father talking to other hunters, that kept the tasty big brain inside fresh for eating at winter, even the fat on the scalp of the mammoth was saved for illuminating the interior of the cave.

Then the winter finally came, and the tribe didn't go outside much anymore, other than collecting wood, logs, bones, and mammoth skins that blocked the entrance of the cave, but also kept the smoke inside.

Shak'Ars eyes stung from the smoke, and he even tried to draw a rocket stove on the cave wall, but the adults didn't pay him much attention, instead occupied with telling hunter stories over and over again.

Shak'Ar had been excited the first week, as his father's stories were interesting indeed, but after a month it just felt repetitive. His favorite was one from when his father was young and he hunted his first mammoth, they poke it full of spears and had to follow it for days till it bleed out, Shak'Ar couldn't avoid thinking that if they had used some poison on their spear tips the hunt would have been much easier.

His parents and most adults in the tribe also had sex at night with their wives, no one cared how much noise they made though, so sleeping was hard.

His favorite pastime in winter though, was searching for the tribe shaman, Rahiki, the strange man was always crafting one thing or another, from drugs and medicine, to ivory figurines, statues, and paint pigments, moreover he seemed to understand the nonsensical babbles of his baby mouth, though his mostly dilated pupils and incoherent muttering were indeed scary. He sometimes stole some paint pigments from his tent to paint around as he didn't have much to do and the Shaman was frequently collapsed on the floor on his spiritual trips.

One time, Shak'Ar had drawn a floor heating system, like those in ondol used in Korea in the past, drawn in detail in a cave wall beside the shaman's tent, and the shaman had stared at it with wide eyes before looking at Shak'Ar surprised.

Shak'Ar never knew if the shaman understood anything, or was just drugged in one of his spiritual trips, but it had been worth a shot.

He also observed his mother Jhana making stone knives and spearheads, as a matter of fact, everyone in the village knew how to make stone utensils due to necessity, but his mother was quite good at it, making tools for herself and his father Othar too. His fur clothes had also been made for his mother too, his father could also sew but he wasn't as careful or patient.

Meanwhile, his father Othar spent his days in winter carving ivory pieces of the animals he had hunted, using silex flakes from his wife's tool making as tools. Each animal took weeks to carve, but Shak'Ar could see he was proud of each of them, displaying them on a carved log, but never letting Shak'Ar even touch them.

Winter was a boring season, but by the end of it at least, he was able to walk, the first toddler in the village to be able to walk, something that his father Othar couldn't be prouder of, bragging about it, and giving Shak'Ar small stick shaped spears to practice when Jhana wasn't looking.

They had hunted a lot of meat, jerky, and pemmican to pass the winter, but even then, when Spring finally arrived there was barely anything, as Neanderthals ate a lot. At that point, his father had gone to the just unfreezing river, and took out the mammoth head from the past spring back to the village.

The shaman Rahiki skilfully drilled holes on a circle into the bone using a pump drill and a piece of silex as the drill bit, and then with a stone mace, Othar cracked the skull open at the top. The brain inside smelled a bit fishy, but the people quickly served it into bone bowls, taking each their share back to the tribe.

Shak'Ar would have just set the skull over coals to cook the insides if it was him, sadly no one cares about the opinion of a baby.

Once on the tribe, he observed that most tribe people just heat the brain matter somewhat over the fire and ate it. If anyone asked, Shak'Ar would have sweared it looked exactly like foie gras, and the people seemed to enjoy it as they even licked their bowls clean.

The spring came again and so did abundance, lots of women had gotten pregnant during winter, even his own mother was pregnant again.

By the end of spring, lots of babies were born, and Shak'Ar had a little sister now, his parents named her Shab.

He also observed something new that summer, some people also collected some grain plants growing wild in the area, they then ground them into flour and along with some pemmican made meaty flat bread near the fire, and for the first time he was given some to try, it was crunchy and fibrous, not as good as a nice garlic naan, but it was delicious after feeding on only milk.

--- 6 years later ---

Time passed and more kids were born, but lots of them died too, his sister hadn't endured her second year, and had died of a fever in winter, the shaman had tried to save her but she got sick all the time and finally died close to the end of winter. His parents spent less time together for two years after that, but eventually, they got back to producing babies.

Shak'Ar on the other hand could now finally talk and use his hands, he liked making necklaces and small stone knives in exchange for materials. Anuhr was his best customer.

Anuhr was reserved and often avoided by the others, a young hunter that liked preying on already dead animals instead of hunting them himself, he also ate bugs and strange plants, and was frequently sick as a result, but he brought Shak'Ar curious rocks and bones to use, even a glowing strange bezoar stone he had found on inside a beast on the mountains to the East.

Shak'Ar: "wait, aren't the East mountains forbidden to go? father told me so"

Anuhr then shrugged: "everything comes at a prize, the mountains are dangerous, full of monsters, but there's also free meat if you are patient, and willing to take some risks haha~"

That same week Anuhr came back missing his left arm, the tribe people asked him about it, but he seemed too scared to talk about it, only babbling incoherent things about a shadow beast.

Shak'Ar exercised anytime he could, and when the next hunt came he accompanied his father to hunt, he helped them set a stake trap to make the buffaloes fall inside, it had taken a lot of convincing to make the tribe help on his idea, thankfully his father gave it the okay and the results were superb, at least 20 huge bisons were impaled inside, sadly they didn't manage to hunt any mammoths that year.

Shak'Ar mostly collected wild wheat seeds secretly during that hunt though, he wanted to try growing them on the valley back home.

So when they came back, he made a hoe using a bison shoulder blade bone, and tied it up to a rock polished wooden stick, using some cleaned intestines, and some sap and soot glue.

He used the hoe to carve a canal from the river, and covered it in stones, making a small trickle of water flow from the river to a small plot of land he fenced with sticks, and plowed, planting the seeds he had collected

He had also noticed clay while digging the canal earlier, so he also collected some clay on the shore.

Othar: "what are you doing son? we need to start preparing the cave for when winter comes"

Shak'Ar: "thats exactly what I'm doing, aren't you tired of the smoke inside the cave?"

Othar was confused with the question: "yes, but it can't be avoided to stay warm"

Shak'Ar pointed at some baskets full of refined clay he had prepared: "can you help me carry that back home dad? I'm gonna try something to avoid the smoke getting inside the cave"

Othar didn't understand, but he helped his son anyway: "okay son, you can give it a try" not really having much expectations about it.

The tribe people were preparing to set the pelts, but young Shak'Ar stopped them, instead he mixed the clay with dry grass and put it on top of the stick structure that had already been set with the help of the other tribesmen, he left open an entrance and carved open a chimney hole. He made a big chimney big enough to cook, and added a tube made of dried clay hay mix for the smoke to escape.

The tribespeople were excited with the invention when he lit the fire and no smoke remained inside the cave, but he wasn't done yet, he added a new layer of clay on top and covered it on gravel, and then on dry grass, setting it on fire to quickly dry the outer layer.

He then arduously cut some wood against a big stone cutter, and made a crude door he also covered in clay, now the cave entrance was properly insulated, finally ready to protect them from the elements properly.

Autumn came and his plants had somewhat grown, he had left one of the other kids from the village caring after them. Adze was a quite boy from the village that didn't like hunting, so Shak'Ar had given him the job of caring for his plants, and he seemed to love the assignment, making his own small stone hoes to care for the plants and all.

There weren't many grains, but he selected those from the plats that had the most to plant next year, and ground to flour the rest, he had thought about making beer too, but decided against it as the alcohol would do more bad than good for the moment, it was better to use the grains for food.

The next step was pottery, Shak'Ar had had some pottery classes back on Earth, so it wasn't too hard to smash the clay over and over and work it untill he had taken most of the debree out, he then rolled it into strips and accumulated them along the border of a clay base, slowly making a clay vase.

It took almost an hour to make one, and the shape wasn't too perfect due to needing a spin wheel, but they were good enough, some tribe people even tried imitating him.

He then left some to dry from bowls to containers and prepared a firing oven with the help of his uncle that was free, they dug a hole in the ground and covered it with hay clay and flat stones ,and more stones on their sides to create a kind of grill that allowed the ashes to fall while burning, he then added clay and dry grass mix walls and lit a fire inside to help it dry.

Four hours later the improvised oven was ready, and Shak'Ar put his pottery inside, including a botijo jug he had made. The fires were lit below and the top covered with a flat stone, the orange glow of firing pottery soon illuminating the insides alter a couple of hours.

By the next morning, Shak'Ar exited the cave excitedly along the morning dew, the temperatures were already descending as the winter was certainly getting closer. He took off the lid stone, and the fire had died down, he picked up the now cold pottery and tapped it with his nail, the signature metallic ring sound making him know it was ready.

The other tribesmen and women soon came out too, the sun was starting to rise on the horizon as Shak'Ar came back with a container full of fresh water from the river, he had made a basic wooden backpack and strapped the container to it.

Everyone was happy to drink some fresh water in the morning, normally they would use animal skin or a hollowed out piece of wood, some times they found Calabas pumpkins to store water inside, but they were rare.

Pottery became a big thing from that day on.

The winter arrived and Shak'Ar put on his fur shoes and clothes his mother and father had made for him, ready to go outside.

He opened the door and the winter cold hit him, it had snowed during the night so everything was covered by a layer of white.

Othar: "where are you going son? we were about to tell some stories" the furs usually used for closing the cave entrance weren't needed anymore, so thanks to the surplus of skins everyone was wearing thick fur clothes.

Shak'Ar: "I need to cut down a tree to make some cooking utensils"

Othar nodded to the other tribesmen and they stood up, they were the hunter group, twelve males and nine women.

Other came to Shak'Ar and patted his head: "we'll give you a hand son, the outside ain't safe too anyway, there are lots of hungry animals during winter, they would attack if you were alone"

Shak'Ar: "well, we could also carry some more wood back too if so many are helping then, is there any wood good for carving nearby?"

Jhana: " I can take you to some I usually use, I can teach you which ones are good, what do you wanna make?"

Shak'Ar: "since now we have the clay utensils I was thinking of making some bowls and spoon for everyone to eat some soup properly"

Jhana: "soup what's that? and don't we have the bone bowls already?"

Shak'Ar: "soup I meant heating water over the fire inside those clay containers and adding meat inside until it cooks, that way the meat would be juicy and we could also drink the water afterward, two in one"

Othar scratched his chin: "hmm the meat would get soft then, I prefer a good crust on meat and a good chew, but the old or sick would eat it easier... that's a good enough reason I guess, let's go"

They walked for almost an hour to a nearby small forest, and his mother pointed at a tree with white bark.

Jhana: "that tree is easy to work with, the sap is sweet too, also the bark is useful to pack things or to start a fire"

Shak'Ar touched it and muttered: "a birch tree huh... interesting"

Jhana: "what?"

Shak'Ar: "nothing mom, does this tree have a name?"

Jhana shrugged: "white bark tree?"

Shak'Ar: "what about calling it an abedul tree?" (birch in English)

The tribe people shrugged.

Othar: "Sure son, that's fine"

Shak'Ar grabbed some peeled off bark into a fur pouch his mother had made for him, with a boar tusk as the button a nice fire starter to have, they are better combined with a horse shoe mushroom, but he didn't find any.

Shak'Ar: "this wood would be too soft, is there anything harder?"

Jhana: "yeah, there are some nearby, lets go"

They walked for another twenty minutes and reached a forest of ash trees.

Jhana smiled as they arrived: "these are the harder around, they are good for lances, we usually just call them tool wood, wanna name them too?"

Shak'Ar nodded: "yes, fresno would be a fine name" (ash tree in English) he pointed at some suitable trees "those will do"

Othar nodded to the others, and they started chopping with their stone axes, taking turns to chop around the trees, the rocks lost their edge quite quickly too, making the work even harder.

It took almost an hour to fell just one tree, making Shak'Ar convinced of something as he thought [I need to find some metal soon, there should be some natural cooper somewhere... better keep an eye for green stones from now on, some malachite would be great...].

Shak'Ar had been thinking when his father tapped his shoulder.

Othar: "the tree is tied, when will cut it with fire back at the cave"

The tree didn't have any leaves and most branches broke once it fell, even then it took the effort of all of them pulling for a couple of hours to take it back to the cave.

Shak'Ar could smell the difference even, as all of them were sweaty once they got inside the cave, the smoke in the past dulled his senses, but now he could clearly smell how much his tribe stank, the sweat smell covering the entire cave.

Shak'Ar: [...damn, I need to make a bath too, a stone bathtub would be cool... but I would need metal tools for that first... maybe concrete, will need some limestone though, will be hard to test without some vinegar... maybe a wooden bathtub?... Nah, too hard to make with stone tools, concrete will be better...]

He then cut the big tree in pieces using fire, first you use a stone to make a dent, and then you set embers from the fire over it, letting it cut the tree while also heating the cave, the slow burn also doesn't produce almost any smoke. He would also need some wood ash for the cement too anyway.

The carving went smoothly as the rest of the tribe helped after Shak'Ar had finished the first set, he then smoothened their surface using a rough round granite river stone.

Finally, he weaved some sinew strings to make a piece of rope to tie his spoon and bowl to his backpack for traveling.

The bowls and spoons were much better than those made of bone, so everyone liked them.

He then dissolved some pemmican into a pot of water near the fire along with some herbs that smelled like rosemary from the shaman, some smoked jerky for extra flavor, and passed it around. The pemmican and hard jerky were much easier to eat like this, so everyone loved the idea.

He had plans to make more things, but the outside quickly became too cold, so it was impossible to go outside, they had enough food reserves, so everyone just stayed inside, as thanks to the pottery they had plenty of water reserves inside the cave.

Shak'Ar even examined the depths of the cave in his boredom, along with Anzu, a strong girl that liked following him around, but they only found more paintings on the walls, and bodies of dead villagers that had been covered in stones and now dried flowers. The cave finished in a collapsed area, big piles of rocks blocking their path.

Shak'Ar: "seems like the cave ends here"

Anzu: "awww, do we move the stones? I'm strong, I can move them!"

Shak'Ar shook his head: "better leave it as it is, we don't know if its natural or intentional by our ancestors, let's leave it like this for now"

Anzu pouted: "that's no fun, you always sound like the adults"

Shak'Ar: "jaja~ one day I will be the village chief after all, a leader needs to be wise"

Anzu: "No, my father always says the strongest is the village chief, and I'm stronger than you"

Shak'Ar: "well, strength certainly helps but... it's not that important-"

Anzu tried to punch his head, but Shak'Ar sidestepped and grabbed her wrist with his left hand while twisting inwards, and her elbow with his right hand, advancing and successfully immobilizing her.

Anzu: "How did you do that?! that's cheating!"

Shak'Ar chuckled: "brave words for someone punching out of nowhere jaja~"

Anzu: "hmph! that's the only way to hit you! my father always says, that when you hunt prey you need to ambush it when it least expects it"

Shak'Ar released her and sighed: "Let's go back, I will make some soup"

Anzu: "soup? yay!"

Time passed and Shak'Ar became nine years old, so his mother made him a stone spear and stone knife that he carried hanging from his neck.

Winter had just finished after a really cold winter, and they finally opened the door to the outside on the first sunny day.

Shak'Ar came out with all his gear ready as he stretched in the sun, the melting snow around him.

Shak'Ar: "another beautiful spring"