In this episode, our wandering clan find a five-star cave, our tiny protagonist finally gets a name, and Creb takes a lovely wander through the woods.

In this episode we mention:

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Evolution, by Cat Bohannon, 2025

New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History, Colin McEvedy & John Woodcock

Alone, TV Series, 8 season, available on Crave and History

Prehistoric Book Club is hosted by Steph and Kat, two old friend doing a deep dive into the Earth's Children books by Jean M. Auel. Season One covers The Clan of The Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel, 1980

Theme Music: Sanskrit, courtesy iMovie/Apple.

Steph: You found prehistoric book club.

Set down your hand axe, light a fire in your hearth and settle in with Steph and Kat for a close read of Clan of the Cave Bear.

Kat: I'm Kat.

Steph: And I'm Steph.

Kat: And we are talking about Clan of the Cave Bear, chapter three and maybe chapter four.

Steph: Yeah, I think we can probably get these two in together. You know, there's a lot of walking.

Kat: There is a lot of walking.

Steph: Do you want to sum up the chapters for us? Give us a little summary?

Kat: Sure.

Chapter three. Our child wakes up.

We sort of learn her name and her initial and subsequent responses to the clan.

We see a lot of Creb and Iza interacting.

We get a deep dive into ancestral memory from Iza,

which I think we'll talk about a fair bit.

We walk and walk and walk and walk some more.

We walk until the end of chapter three.

By the end of all this walking, Ayla is actually well enough to our mystery girl.

Spoiler alert, just said her name there.

Well enough to explore a little. And finds a cave.

In chapter four,

Brun Gru and Creb explore the cave.

Good omens abound.

There's plans for a hunt.

Creb has a convincing argument for Brun that the young child can stay as a member of the clan.

Not just stay until she's better and send her off somewhere, but join them.

Crib takes on his sister and this wandering child as part of his hearth,

which is a new thing he has not done before. We'll talk about that when we get to it.

And he figures out totems for the young children,

including the one who has just been added to the group.

Steph: That's an excellent summary.

So, yeah, as you say, a lot of walking, a lot of beautiful description of the countryside that they're walking through.

But maybe not great fodder for deep, deep discussion.

Kat: No, it's a lot of day after day of walking and at one point,

Steph: just before this cave is found, there's this sense of like real frustration that we get from Iza where she's like, ugh, we've been walking up and down all these hills. We've been walking uphill a lot.

They're carrying a lot. She's carrying a five year old most

Kat: of the time and is pregnant and carrying all her household goods and somebody else's too. Right? The men are carrying nothing.

Steph: And yeah, she's like, oh, we're going to have to go back down and go back the way we came because we're getting too far away from the steps where they, you know, they need to be near the steps for their hunting.

So, you know,

if the child doesn't find the cave at this, like, by finding the cave like this means that all that walking wasn't for nothing. But you can really sense that, like, she's frustrated.

Kat: Yeah.

Steph: At how long they've been out there looking. But a really important part of this chapter is this naming. Is the element of the name naming.

Kat: Yes. So she finally wakes up.

She's screaming out again for her mother.

She's terrified by Iza's face,

but then calms herself down.

But it's Creb who figures out how to communicate with her first and does this.

Me Creb.

Steph: You Ayla.

Kat: You. You what? Me Creb. Yeah. What? What? Give us a name.

Steph: Yeah. So she.

This is it. This is the last time she's gonna speak her language. Basically,

she says. You say. She says mother a couple times,

but once Creb sort of makes it clear that he's naming himself. He says, Creb. She says his name back to him.

And it's tough for her to say it. She kind of says it is like.

But she eventually gets there.

And then,

you know, he pats her on the chest and is like, basically saying, like, what's your name?

And she makes a lot of noise,

the last two syllables of which must sound something like Ayla.

Kat: Yes.

Steph: And that's all he's able to repeat back to her.

Kat: The first thing he repeats back is ar. Yeah, Ayla. Ayla. Something wrong. But they seem to settle on Ayla.

Steph: Well, and then there's this amazing line right, where it's like,

she can tell Ayla, the little girl can tell how hard it is for him to say it and how hard he's working at it.

And so when both he and Iza have failed really to say what she's saying and that the best they've been able to do is Ayla is She sinks to herself.

She could be Ayla for them.

Yes,

she would be Ayla for them.

Kat: Yeah.

Steph: So it's the only name we will ever know her by. But it's not her name.

Kat: But it's not her name. That's another thing we never actually know about her and we never hear in her. Her saying her own name.

Steph: Yeah. It's clear that there's more to it than that. It might be something like, you know,

Jennifer, Ayla. I don't know. But whatever. There's a bunch of other syllables that just.

They can't do it. And she is like, all right,

this is the new reality. I am Ayla. And just like her mother in the earthquake, whatever her name was is gonna disappear.

Kat: It's gone. Yeah. Yep.

If she remembers it at all. I don't know that she does remember it at all. I don't think we ever have her named anything else.

Nope.

Steph: And then, you know, she's so happy that they've all communicated and she tries to hug them and there's this like, oh, don't touch me sort of thing. They don't, they aren't demonstrative that way.

And especially outside of their own hearth, which they don't have right now because they're all outside.

So, you know, it's a, again, a kind of a bittersweet scene of realizing like, she wants to be exuberant and show her happiness.

And they are, you know, they're like, oh, that's. That's nice. Please don't touch me.

Kat: They're not that touchy feely of a culture.

Steph: No,

no, they are not.

But anyways, it's. It's mostly good news. They've communicated and obviously Creb is very touched by this. He,

you know,

every time he interacts with her, he cares about her more and more and it's part of why he goes to bat to have her stay. Right. I think, and have her be accepted.

Kat: Well, we get the stories from Creb over and over again that this is not how other people's children have responded to him and that he gets used as the boogeyman. Is he maybe frightening for some of them to look at, but that he gets used as a.

A behavior threat,

like,

be good or we'll get to Mog-ur after you. Right. Like, which is not about his physicality, but about his. His role in the community.

And there are no children at his.

At his hearth, he doesn't have a mate. He doesn't have children of his own.

He doesn't, we've come to understand,

has not historically had a hearth of his own. He stayed at eases.

Steph: Yeah. Husband, that jerk.

Kat: Right.

Steph: Good. riddance.

Kat: I don't even know if we ever learn his name.

Steph: I don't think so. And I don't think he needs one.

Kat: But.

Steph: So, yeah, as you say in your summary, at one point, Ayla's sort of allowed to walk around a bit because she's. She's healed up enough and she kind of wanders away from the group and Iza has to go get her,

which Brun notices and is annoyed by.

Kat: Yes.

Steph: But because she does this,

she sees this amazing. Or she doesn't know if it's amazing yet, but she, she she knows it's pretty good. She sees a cave. Iza sees a cave and rushes back to the group,

where she then has to sit down and stare at the ground and quietly wait for Brun to decide whether he would like to hear from her.

And I found this very extra infuriating this time for some reason that he entertains the idea of just not letting her speak because he's so sure that it's gonna be about the little girl.

But it's not even that. He just entertains it, like, as an idea of, oh, maybe I just won't let her speak, even though I can see she really has something to say.

But in the end, he's like, well,

Kat: I guess I'd better find out.

Steph: And lucky for him, it's really good news for him. It's a cave.

Kat: It's a cave.

Yeah. I also found this part infuriating.

Yeah. Not only could she not just scream it from the cave,

she has to come tell him, Tell only him,

and only if he wants to hear it.

And otherwise, what, they're just going to keep walking?

Well.

Steph: And he's on the verge of turning back, right? Yeah, but I mean, again, I have to remind myself it's fiction.

Didn't really happen. Someone decided to write it this way.

But I'm once again going to put my hand up and say, is he a good leader?

Like,

are we sure?

Kat: Yeah, yeah. Or is he just the leader?

Steph: Yeah,

exactly.

And like, he's not the worst leader, but he's not maybe, a good leader. Anyway,

he lets her speak and she says, cave. And that is how that chapter ends.

And most of chapter four is sort of devoted to the big men. Going to check the cave out and have a look at it.

Kat: Yes. So before we move on, the one thing I want to talk about in chapter three is this little description of ancestral memory.

Steph: Oh, yeah.

Kat: Do you? I'm on page 37. I. We are absolutely not in the same editions. Sixth page of chapter three. Her mother had shown Iza the various internal parts.

Steph: Okay, you go keep talking. I'll find it.

Kat: Okay.

Her mother had shown Iza the various internal parts and explained their functions as part of her training. But it was only to remind her something she already knew.

Iza was born to a highly respected line of medicine women.

And through a means more mysterious than training,

knowledge of healing was passed on to the medicine woman's daughters.

A fledgling medicine woman of an illustrious line had a higher rank than an experienced one of mediocre antecedents.

With good reason stored in her brain at birth. Was the knowledge acquired by her ancestors,

the ancient line of medicine women, which Iza was a direct descendant.

She could remember what they knew.

It was not much different from recalling her own experience.

And once stimulated, the process was automatic.

She knew her own memories primarily because she could also remember the circumstances associated with them.

She never forgot anything,

and she could only recall the knowledge in her memory bank, not how it was learned.

And although Iza and her siblings had the same parents, neither Creb nor Brun had her medical knowledge.

Steph: Mm.

Kat: So this feels like this is our computer tech writer at work.

Steph: Yeah. The hard drive gets full. That's why they can't. Like I had that comment in my notes somewhere of like, oh, they. They can't get any smarter because the hard drive is full and the brain can't come out of the brain, the birth canal, if it's any bigger.

Kat: Yeah, yeah. It feels very much like this is not. This isn't how memory works. This isn't how the human brain works. But that's not what we knew then.

Steph: Yeah, absolutely. We didn't know that then. And again, like, this is a fiction that she's decided on. Right. So she's decided this is how it works and we, as the readers, kind of have to just go on this trip.

Kat: Yeah. And if she had known that,

you know, we know now that every time you access a memory, you slightly change that memory,

that there is no permanent copy of anything in our brains.

You know, a thing.

Steph: Yeah. Rom. Remember when I'll be reading all Those encyclopedias on CD ROMs? If that was the model.

Kat: Yeah.

Steph: But, yeah, again, it's one of those things where this description is a good one to point out because there are so many times in the books, I think where is. It does not behave as if this is true.

But that's okay,

you know.

Kat: Yeah. Things are going to happen.

Steph: Yeah. But it's like one of the writerly dangers of world building. Right. Like, then you have to abide by the rules that you wrote for your

Kat: world,

Steph: and it's tough to keep them all straight and to imagine characters acting out of such a different set of motivations or way of being. Right. That's hard work.

It requires great skill.

Kat: Absolutely. So do we want to talk about the cave?

Steph: Yeah. So do you want to.

Do you want to flip back, actually, to the beginning of the Book, I believe every single edition has a map. Right before anything else happens, there's a map.

And in mine, there's like, a little inset. And,

you know, to anybody looking at this, hopefully they can see this is clearly.

This is the Crimean Peninsula in occupied Ukraine today.

And this is where. This is where all of our action's been taking place is on in the late Pleistocene also. Like, that's nice. Also, the map also has this information that's situates us in time a little bit.

We're between 25,000 and 35,000 years ago.

So we look at this map, and what we can see on it is the cave is marked as being sort of on the coast.

There is also a mark leading to a mammoth hunt that happens higher up the peninsula, sort of where the peninsula joins the mainland.

And there is another path that leads west to something called the Clan Gathering. So those are incidences that are gonna happen in the book. But for now,

we have a map here that shows us where this cave is that they've just discovered.

Kat: What it doesn't show us is where any of them came from.

Steph: Right. Very much on purpose, I think.

Kat: Yes,

we know they walked to get to the cave.

We know Ayla was somewhere and then wandered for a long time, possibly not in a steady direction.

And, yeah, this is a large body of water. At the bottom of the insert map is the Black Sea.

Steph: That's right.

Kat: So we're somewhere closer to the Black Sea than the Caspian Sea in that. In that chunk.

Steph: And what's cool is like with this information, which, again, I like. When I read this as a youth, I didn't look at any of this. I don't think I even pulled at an atlas.

You know, I was just like,

bring on the exciting next chapter. But now that I'm old and like history,

because that's what happens,

I have this book called the New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History,

which is.

Was a gift. I asked for maps so that when I was, like, listening to my history podcasts, I could follow along because I would get very. I'd be like, what is Anatolia, though?

So that really helped me. And the very first map in this book is actually from 40,000 BC,

and it basically, it's just showing places where Neanderthal and Homo sapiens early sites have been found.

And there's a really prominent one right where she's situated this. It's called Kiik Koba,

and it's a site where Neanderthal remains, a man and a child were found. But clearly also tons and tons of tools and antlers and bones. And it was obviously occupied by Neanderthals for many, many, many generations.

And it's right in that same area.

So that's. It's possible that that might have been one of the caves that inspired this one.

Kat: Yeah. I'm looking at a photo of it online and it has that sort of triangle opening shape that they talk about.

Steph: But you found something else too.

Kat: Another one, the other one I found that is quite near geographically is the Kachi Kalyon Cave,

which was more recently a monastery,

but who knows what it could have been before that.

And has these landscapes that you look at and you think, oh, I do want to describe that for chapter after chapter after chapter.

Steph: Yeah, that one, especially when you sent me some pictures of it,

I thought, wow, that really looks like sort of the description with the triangular opening. And it has sort of a. A terrace in front of sort of a wooded, like a meadowy sort of space out front and then there's trees.

And I mean, this description of this cave is very alluring. I wanted to move into this cave after reading this.

Kat: Oh, absolutely.

Steph: I was like, this sounds better than my place.

Kat: Yep.

Steph: It's got water nearby. Like, there's a ca. There's a little stream.

There was like, also a. And then like, they found the source. There's a spring of fresh water coming out of the mouth, like, of out of the rocks above it.

They talk about as they're walking like that, the temperature's getting warmer because it's got this effect from the sea being so close that it's warmer and there's. So there's different vegetation,

more varied vegetation.

Kat: I don't know.

Steph: It sounds like paradise.

Kat: It sounds pretty nice. Now. It turns out just finding a cave isn't all they have to do.

Steph: There's a lot more work to do.

Kat: There's a lot more work to do. But. But first we have our three leaders heading in together.

Grood,

Creb and Brun, of course.

And they find what looks like hyena junk in the first cave, that hyenas have been in there using it, but not recently.

Steph: Hyena junk is a great band name, if anybody needs a band name. I feel like hyena junk has major potential.

Kat: So I think it matters that they haven't been there for a while, but I feel like they're just one of those animals who stink.

Steph: Yeah, well, I mean, that's what Jean thinks. So that's what you and I think because we've read these books, because we were. They smell Great.

Kat: I think hyenas stink.

Steph: Maybe they don't.

When we get to the hyena chapter, we'll research it.

So, yeah, they find these remains, but it's all promising because it isn't being actively used,

as far as they can tell, by an animal right now.

Kat: Yeah. There are birds chirping and swooping around the entrance.

Steph: Good omen.

Kat: Birds are a good omen, apparently, that simple. Birds equal good, good. It's hard to argue with.

Steph: And then they're doing their little exploration, and then they find this side cave. And Creb's so excited because it's like, oh, it's a room for me.

Kat: Yep.

Steph: So, yeah, they find this little side cave. He goes in, he looks around,

and he finds the bones of a cave bear.

And this is major because this is the animal they venerate above all else.

They call themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear. They believe that this is the main spirit that looks out for them. So to find that this cave had actually been used by Ursus,

they're like,

this is incredible.

We belong here.

Kat: We belong here. This is why our spirits brought the earthquake.

Steph: Yeah. To the point where it's like they now have, like, using a back formation. It's not that the spirits were mad and destroyed our previous home. The spirits wanted us to come here,

so they destroyed our home. And the six people who died were needed somehow in the spirit world to help with this.

Kat: And who knows what they were needed there to do? Nobody knows the spirits that well, they were just needed.

Steph: But it's a really astute, I think,

observation about the way sort of belief works in us humans. Right. It's like, well, looking back, it's clear this is what was supposed to happen,

meant to be.

But they still have to do stuff before they're allowed to live there.

Kat: They still have to do stuff.

They have to have a hunt. They have to have a successful hunt.

They have to have a ceremony after the hunt.

And the plan is to include in that ceremony the announcement of the totems for the young children who do not yet have totems because they've been walking for so long.

And possibly, if things go well for Broud, Son of Brun,

his manhood ceremony, because he will have completed his first hunt. Maybe crossed fingers, knock on wood.

We're really pulling brood for things to go well.

Steph: But, boy, it's an awful lot to hang on this one ceremony. Right. Like, we've got two babies that need to find out their totems, which is clearly really important.

We've got the manhood ceremony, the first hunt.

It's a lot like,

once again, to my potential sort of thesis that Brun is not a great leader is. I would not have my teenage son be responsible for the first hunt when I can't have this amazing cave.

If he's failing. If he fails the hunt, I would not put those two things together.

Kat: It's a lot to put on him. Yeah.

Steph: And you know, he has this internal argument that it's good for his son to be under this pressure and get to know the experiences of being a leader. But I'm just saying, as an outsider who's like, I'm just a woman standing at the back going,

yeah, but Brun, like, we could have a special thing for him after we move in.

Kat: Could we just send maybe just the best. Most experienced guy?

Steph: The best guy?

Kat: Yeah, yeah. Let's just make things easy on ourselves. We don't have to do everything the hard way.

Steph: Exactly. It's like, why is he set? Like, he's like, let me put this game on the hardest level. Meanwhile, he's so stressed. You bring this on yourself, Brun.

Kat: And you would talk to a professional about it.

Steph: Yeah. And he'd be like, why are you doing this to yourself?

So. But that's. So then we have this amazing sort of internal scene with Creb where he goes off to have a think about the totems.

Kat: Yes. So before that, he gets Brun to agree that Ayla needs a totem,

that Ayla should be added to the membership of the clan and that they're keeping her

Steph: wife. Uses so many great little techniques, too. You can see how smart he is. He's like. Well,

people join other clans all the time because of course, when they go to their big clan gatherings, sometimes some people move. You know, you have to find a new mate.

Maybe there's no one of the right age for you and your.

So he uses these precedents. He's like a lawyer. He's like, here's my precedence.

I'm going to cite the case law to you.

And here's why you should not only allow her to stay, but accept her and. And adopt her into the clan and make her one of us. And so brilliant. Once again, Brun, like, Brun, what are you thinking?

Like,

you can keep the baby, but only till we get here. Now I want you to leave her on a. On the side of a hill. Like,

he's just not. He's not a think ahead guy. And.

And Gene, our author, tries to forgive. Oh, it wasn't his fault. It was A fault of his race?

Well, I don't know. Seems like Creb knows that they're gonna have to deal with this, so I don't buy it.

Kat: Yeah, I don't buy it either. Once again, Brun is startled that they have to make a decision about this kid.

Steph: Yeah.

Kat: And, you know, the cave was. I wasn't thinking about making her one of us.

I only wondered if the spirits would allow her to live with us until she gets older.

So what's your plan?

Steph: Like, how old? How old?

Kat: Who are you gonna take her to? Like, you're just gonna wait till she's a couple years older and then off you go? Like, what. What is the plan?

Steph: This is like, people who foster kittens. Like, if you're gonna end up with a cat.

Kat: It is. It is.

Steph: Yes.

So Creb makes his. His argument and is successful. And you can kind of tell that Brun is, like, pretty. Like, he just doesn't have the brain power to compete. Once Craib decides,

Brun's like, I guess.

Kat: Okay.

Steph: So then Creb goes off for a little walk in the forest because he's going to think about these totems. And I love this scene.

I read it a couple of times,

because he just is observing the world around him so astutely and is thinking about the people of the. Of that. That, you know, the babies in his clan.

Creb notices that,

you know, one of the babies sort of snuffles at his food when he's breastfeeding. He's super into it. And that another baby kind of has big, round eyes and stares and looks at everything.

And it's the way he makes these little connections between them and the animals that they remind him of is so lovely.

Kat: Yeah. And then so, of course, we end up with the young boy who needs his totem, ends up being the boar,

the snuffler, the mighty, mighty boar,

and the little girl, the owl.

And he's a little concerned about the owl and whether or not that's gonna be too strong for her. But does feel, given her family,

that a strong totem will be okay for her.

She wants finding a mate.

Steph: This is interesting, right? So right away in these little two things, especially with the little girl, that we get this sense that if the totem of the girl is too strong, that means that she won't be able to have children.

And it's mentioned about Iza as well, that, like her, a saiga antelope,

which I don't think of as being, like, a particularly tough animal,

but I Guess. Cause it's big and fast.

It's like maybe the reason she couldn't get pregnant in their minds is like, oh, because her totem is too strong. So again, the owl being a predatory bird would, you know, that hunts maybe would be too much.

But in a way, by giving her this totem, it actually protects her because it means that only a strong guy can be her guy. Right? Like no.

No weaklings, no scrubs for this girl.

Kat: No scrubs.

Steph: So yeah, it's interesting, you know, he. We'll get more totem stuff too. But like I, I really wonder if like, if there was like a side book of like totems of the clan and like how you decide, you know, who, what's stronger than what.

I'd be really curious,

you know, what the rankings are.

Kat: There's a series of books for emerging readers for little kids on like, who would win the crocodile or the chimpanzee.

You think it's gonna be something like that? Some series like that?

Yeah.

Steph: I wanna know when I, you know, when a roe deer goes up, a saiga antelope, what do we got here? Which one's stronger?

Kat: Yeah. And who decides?

Steph: I guess Mog-ur, like Creb decides.

Kat: Yes. Or the spirits decide. Or you know, the medicine woman decides.

Steph: I guess Creb would say the spirits decide. But what's cool about this little internal monologue is realizing how much it is Creb that decides.

Kat: Yeah.

Steph: And it's just by letting his mind wander, right. And letting one thing flow into another.

One observation.

And then of course we get him. He shifts his mind to thinking about Ayla.

Kat: Yeah.

Steph: And he sees this scene in his head of like a cave lion cub,

a female cave lion cub,

sort of playing with a big scary full grown lion male.

And how curious and playful and confident. Right? We've used this word before for Ayla. Self assured,

this little cub is.

And he's like, oh yeah, but I don't know why I'm thinking about cave lions. And then he's like, oh my God, cave lions. She was marked by a cave lion.

And it comes to him that he can't put the image out of his head and that this must be Ayla's totem.

Kat: He tries to put the image out of his head and then it just keeps coming back. She's already been marked by the cave lion.

This is the only one of the few things the rest of the clan knows about her is that she was attacked by a cave lion.

And so there we go. Cave lion.

Steph: But he's the last Thing he thinks to himself at the very end of the chapter is, why would a young girl need such a strong,

protective totem? And it scares him. And it reminds me of the. Like the line at the beginning. Right. If nothing in her life had prepared her for this so far.

It's another one of these ominous sort of endings or moments where, like,

we as readers know that she's gonna need. She's gonna need a lot of protection.

And that. That sort of anticipation or that. That apprehension that he feels. We feel it too,

but we don't yet really understand.

I think the clan enough to know just how outrageous this cave lion business is.

Kat: No,

no. We know that it strikes him as it strikes Creb as a wildly powerful symbol to be giving a woman.

But Creb, as we have seen,

a little.

A little curious,

a little trying to be forward thinking,

a little interested in things being different.

Right. We have a moment where he sort of wishes he and Iza could compare notes on what they were using different things for.

Steph: Yeah.

Kat: That he does have that curiosity. And we'll see how everybody else feels about totem. But first we have to have a hunt.

Steph: Yeah. So that's what's coming up is the. Is the big hunt scene.

But I would be so ****** if I was like, I've been walking for.

What are we at now? Maybe at least two weeks. And you're telling me we can't even go in there.

Kat: We can't go in. We gotta sleep out here until this

Steph: teenage boy has managed to kill something.

Kat: Yeah. Yeah.

Steph: Do we think he's teenage? I don't know. It's hard because they find the ages. Maybe he's younger than that. I've been calling him a teenage boy.

Kat: He's almost 12,

so he's 11.

But I think.

And I have something on that.

Let me find it.

The childhood Neanderthal thing,

because we know that they are.

That they develop younger, that more is expected of them at a younger age.

Steph: That. That's certainly the way Gene presents it. And are you saying that it's based on something real?

Kat: I'm saying we don't know,

but I have some speculation from an expert. Okay.

We don't know precisely when this modern pattern of brain development evolved. And what she's talking about here is the extended childhood of humans as we know them and the chance for young humans to spend a very long time,

to spend well over a decade developing their basic functioning of their brain with various leaps and jumps. And.

Steph: And this. This is from the book Eve.

Kat: This is from Eve.

Steph: Okay.

Kat: But we do know that ancient Homo sapiens were already on the path to an extended childhood, given how radically our life patterns differ from those of chumps and bonobos.

Wild chimps enter puberty around 7 years old, with females reaching reproductive maturity around 10 and giving birth for the first time anywhere between 10 and a half and 15.

They are considered sub adults until the age of 13 or so.

Males, meanwhile, begin *********** around age 9, but don't reach their full adult weight and physical maturity until age 15.

Because social factors heavily influence the likelihood that any male,

any chimp male, would be able to father a child.

Male chimps are likelier to be fully adult by the time they successfully pass on their genes.

We don't know for sure if Neanderthals, despite their bigger brains,

massively larger than a rectus, and all the eves before her competing in size even with our own,

also had these chimpy childhood patterns maturing faster than we do.

But if Homo sapiens did capitalize on childhood to the nth degree,

that may be part of an explanation for why we managed to succeed where Neanderthals ultimately didn't.

Okay,

so her argument in this part of the book is that that longer human childhood that we've been evolving for a very, very long time is what allows us to know so much and to be able to do so much and to be able to continue to move forward.

I think that the more chimp pattern,

if that is what the Neanderthals are following, I think that's what Jean is following here,

that they are younger when they start hunting, when they start mating,

that there isn't as much time to learn things until there's the doing time.

Steph: Well, and that's why they have to have these, you know,

genetic memory.

Cause otherwise how could they know enough?

It's like to look at what Neanderthals did, you'd have to know that.

I don't know. It's interesting.

Kat: Yeah.

Steph: Cause I think probably there wasn't as big of a difference in childhood length as all that.

Kat: Yeah, it's hard to know.

Yeah.

And what role children are playing in a community varies between our own different communities. Right now there's likely to gonna be some variants, some people who wanna teach things, some people who don't.

But at what age do you start hunting?

Steph: But there's like a clear thing in here too where like that talk about like. Well, there was a couple of caves where the numbers were dwindling, so they got together and made one cave that obviously there's A population point at which below doesn't work.

The, like the community doesn't work because the young help care for the old. Right. Or, you know, and then so there's no children,

then there's no one to help care for those adults as they enter that older phase of their lives where they're less able to hunt or,

you know, contribute in the same way.

And it made me think of. There's this show called Alone,

which is like a reality show that I've watched a couple times. Me and my husband watch it and like every time it's like six people. I don't have a group of people.

Each one of them is alone in a place that's tough and they have to survive.

And it'll cut back and forth. It'll be like one guy's got managed to get a moose but he, you know, he can't preserve the moose meat. So he's sitting there with this giant moose and he can't eat it fast enough.

And then like, you know, 40 kilometers away is somebody who can't get a moose but has,

you know, so much fur or fish and they just can't do anything with like it's. To me every time I watch him like, oh, if only those two people could get together.

It's like the whole thesis of the show is that they can't. But all I can think is, oh, it would be so great if they could find their way together.

Then they could have a fish and moose meal.

Kat: I mean I'm surf and surf.

Steph: Yeah.

And I always say like, you know, we're just meant to live together. We're meant to have these like we have evolved to be,

to live as a community.

And I think it's even at 20 people like that there's these roles. Right. And like the, and that we need the gener.

The three different generations all need to be present for the system to work.

Kat: Yeah, absolutely. It's weird to think of there being three generations and 30 being an old man.

Steph: Well, there's some history in archeology, fact check there too, which is that chances are like Neanderthals would have also been able to live to 50 and 60 years old. And since,

you know, the 80s, we found more evidence of that.

It that when we talk about this like median age being so much lower, it's because of infant mortality.

Yes.

People didn't live as long as they do now, obviously. But living to 60 was not unheard of.

Kat: No, it's the, the early years, the are the hardest to get through. When you're tasty for everything around you and you don't know anything and disease comes out of nowhere.

Steph: So dumb. So delicious.

Kat: Yeah, yeah. Big brains, super tasty. All that fatty goodness up there. Real dessert treat.

Steph: But I imagine accidents must have been a huge part of it too. Like just like that lifestyle, like, you know, we haven't gone to that. We'll get to that in the next chapter with the hunt.

Right. But like just how dangerous life was in terms of like falling,

hitting your head, something hitting your head.

Kat: Or that you could just wander off and somehow be lost.

Right.

Like Ayla and whoever she was with at the beginning.

Was anybody expecting them to come home?

How often did do people go for a wander and just not make it back from looking for firewood?

Yeah.

Steph: You know, having a gathering,

going out looking for something to eat and never returning.

Yeah. And like such an empty landscape too. Right. Where you can walk like that for weeks and see no one.

Kat: Yeah.

Steph: So what did we learn from these two chapters, would you say?

Kat: Well, I think I learned that I don't have a great memory, but I don't know that anybody does.

Steph: I guess I learned that like if you're gonna go into an unfamiliar cave, go slowly and bring a big stick that's on fire.

Kat: And that you don't have to put everything together. You can have more than one celebration. Not everything has to happen at the same time.

Steph: Yeah, you can have, you could have your hunt ceremony be different from your I found a new cave ceremony. And it takes a lot of pressure

Kat: off, especially a lot of pressure off putting your 11 year old son at the center of everything.

Steph: Maybe even if that is kind of what he wants.

Kat: It is kind of what he wants. It seems to be what he's been getting.

Steph: It's still true today. Like when you're at work and you're trying to do too much and you're trying to multitask. Just remember Brun.

Just remember Brun's stressing himself out for nothing.

Kat: Right. He could have been sitting beside Creb watching a, watching a boar going, oh, it's like that kid, Way more relaxed.

Steph: He really does it to himself.

Kat: He does.

Steph: If only we could get Brun into therapy, this would be a very different book.

Kat: Right, but who would be his therapist?

Steph: I mean us, obviously.

Kat: We could help him. Welcome to therapy with Brun.

Steph: It's a different podcast.

Thanks for listening to Prehistoric Book Club. Follow us on Instagram prehistoricbookclub, where we share details of any books, films or other research we've used in the show Clan of the Cave Bear and the entire Earth Children series are available as audiobooks or get a paperback copy from Beggars Banquet Books in in Gananoque,

Ontario, or your favourite local bookseller. Until next time.