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7. Jean Auel discusses this idea in her Earth's Children book series.
Sun Sep 17, 2023, 08:08 AM
Sep 2023

In the second book of the collection, The Valley of Horses, published in 1982, one character invents the "spear-thrower" which basically extends the reach of any human's throwing arm. The implement in the story was based on both archeological finds and extant technology known to contemporary hunter/gatherer societies.

Auel also explored the idea of Neanderthal/Homo Sapiens hybrids, an idea that was not widely accepted in scholarly or scientific circles at the time. With the improvement in genetic sciences, that idea is being proved correct over and over again as Neanderthal genes are showing up in modern populations.*

With apologies to Dr. Eren, I feel like I spent my entire time as an anthropology student in the nineties deconstructing the obvious prejudices and blatant slants of early anthropologists--who were generally White, cis, male** and wealthy enough to devote their lives to an emerging discipline. Yeah, those guys were often full of it. But I really wish that my courses had allowed me the opportunity to learn more about--you know--anthropology. As a relatively liberal-thinking person, I already had a fairly firm grasp on what was wrong with my own culture. I chose anthropology as my major because I wanted to learn about other cultures.




* There was also a lot of sex in those books. They were sort of like pre-historical romance novels with parkas instead of corsets. . . and there was some science as well as conjecture.

** There was, of course, Margaret Mead, and during my student days, there were newly published works by a young, male anthropologist whose entire academic career was based on deconstructing Margaret Mead.

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