A Day in the Life of Homo Sapiens

Roughly 200,000 years into the evolution of us and 50,000 years ago a much unexpected thing happened. A large hole appeared in the fabric of the universe and through it came an average twelve year old boy with blond hair and green eyes. He was called Adam and he flew through the hole at roughly 20 kilometres an hour and landed in a patch of grass in England. Not just any patch of grass though, a path of grass a fifth fifty thousand years ago. The particular place that he landed was in the middle of a group of a family group of three Homo sapiens. Leader was called Hulu. He lived with his wife Lara and his son Frelek.

When Adam landed in the middle of the family group he looked up in shock at the people. They Lara’s mouth open wide in wordless shock. The boy Frelek asked in perfect English, “Where are you from?” Adam just looked at him for a long ten seconds and then answered, “London.” Hulu asked “where is this, London?” Adam realized that this was never going to work so he decided to lie to earn their trust. “London is the name we gave to a place just north of here.”  “You must have been imagining the portal I came through too”

The Homo sapiens seemed to have accepted this fact and were now moving on to introduce themselves. The boy turned out to be called Frelek and seemed very nice. The man was called Hulu and his wife had a nice name of Lara. It turned out that they were walking to a place called Cheddar Gorge which is famous for having the oldest human remains in Europe. They offered me a drink of water from a carved ostrich egg and I took it, drank, it tasted old and unclean but I drank it anyway.

It turned out that the Homo sapiens were trying to find an abandoned cave where they could settle. But rumour had it that there were some creatures living in there that were stronger than any human, and could rip your throat out with its bare hands. Adam decided to ignore the stories and convince himself that they weren’t real. Soon after I was found we started walking in the direction of the cave. On the way there Lara stopped at a Ginkgo tree and took some seeds that we all cracked and ate. I found them quite hard and strong tasting, a bit like an un-roasted chestnut but I accepted a few happily.

Towards the end of the day they stopped to set up camp and sleep. Lara found us all some lovely soft leaves to sleep on whilst Frelek light a fire. The way Frelek lit a fire was amazing to watch. First he made a stone circle. Then he bundled some dry leaves and kindling and put them in a pile. After that he made a neat little pyramid out of sticks on top. Finally he took out two pieces of flint from his leather pouch and started rubbing them together. After some time sparks flew off and the fire went blazing up. Meanwhile Hulu set himself down to make a spear. First he carved out a shaft out of wood with his stone knife. Then he started knapping away at the flint.

After some time Hulu came up with a deadly sharp point, perfect for killing a deer or defending yourself from a wild cats. After a while we all lay down and fell asleep. In the morning Hulu was the first to wake up he patted each of us gently to wake up and pointed at a deer grazing in the distance. He told Lara and me that Frelek and himself would go hunting and kill that deer to eat. They approached it soundlessly but Frelek tripped and startled the deer. But Hulu was fast and speared the animal straight through the heart and lung area. The animal made a helpless shriek, gurgled and fell to the ground, dead.

Hulu and Frelek hauled back the animal; Hulu butchered the animal with a stone knife whilst Frelek light yet another fire. Lara set up a contraption made of wood which she hung the chunks of venison on to cook.  The smell of venison was overwhelming for Adam and he couldn’t help but watch the meat turning slowly and cooking.

Not long after they set off again on a long trek to the distant cave. This time it wasn’t as long though. Half way they stopped for a water break. Lara offered the water from the ostrich egg once again. Adam had grown used to it now and it tasted great. After roughly six hours of trekking they arrived at the cave. The entrance loomed over them, it looked huge. Slowly, one by one they entered the cave and were surrounded by huge cave paintings, they were enormous. There were pictures of deer and big cats and all kinds of other creatures.

On the way in they also found skulls and skeletons of people, except they had slightly bigger brains and large brows. Adam suddenly had a flash-back of a history class. Their teacher, Mr. Haggis, was telling them about the Stone Age in Britain. He had told them that there were Homo sapiens in Britain but until 30,000 years ago there were also a separate species of Homo called Neanderthals.

As they walked deeper into the cave they started to hear voices. But not the voices of Homo sapiens, they were deeper and they spoke a different language. And suddenly it struck him, they were Neanderthals! Neanderthals were around at the same time as Homo sapiens but they died out during the last ice age. They were very strong and had big bones, they had large brow ridges just like on the skeleton and they even had larger brains than humans. That made them a formidable opponent. Suddenly they heard a scream and Lara was gone.

They were being attacked by Neanderthals! Adam remembered something else too they were also supposed to be cannibals, which ate other humans and even in some case their own kind. They were coming in from all sides now, cutting off the escape routes. They were trapped. The Neanderthals kept coming. Hulu and Frelek took out there weapons. The Neanderthals stopped advancing, looked at them, and then ATTACKED.

The end, or is it?