h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Day 1


N43.905354°, E 43.521883°, at the feet of the Northern Caucasus, some 5000 years ago.

It starts with a death.

Uri had been Chief for a long time, but now he is no more. He left these lands at the venerable age of 30 seasonal cycles. As is custom, he would now be interred in the Great mound, some 20 kilometres Northeast of the village, like his wife two cycles ago. Nobody knows how old the original mound is, but it has grown considerably over the ages. This time round the earthen mound will be covered in stones, just like the last time the mountain spoke on the Southern horizon.

Pato, Uri’s son, is supervising the preparations together with his younger sister, Bora. Soon they will have to make the long trek to prepare for their future and the future of the clan. That had to wait for the main burial proceedings, though.

Uri had been adamant on what bits of his property should be interred with him. Definitely not the wheeled cart and the history stone. Those were too valuable for the community. Especially now, with all those rocks to move and clan continuity at stake. Instead, the square burial chamber contained, apart from the late Uri himself, his bronze sword and axe, the heads of his two prized but rather elderly oxen on either side of Uri, their bronze nose rings and yoke included. Pato had added a delicate ceramic bowl with some dried meat, just in case. “You never know with ancestors.” He had told Bora. The bowl had a pattern of horses on the outside. Uri’s favourite.

One thing bothered Pato. Uri had requested to be buried on his side, facing the setting sun and his late wife, Pato’s mother. This was against precedent within the clan. One should be buried sitting. Pato assumed it was the influence of the Western traders, with their different ideas, putting natural phenomena in higher esteem than their actual ancestors. On the other hand, facing your partner for eternity seemed more like family life and the mountain did inspire a lot of awe when it was in speaking mode, like now.

From Horseback, Pato surveyed the scene once more. The Great Mound was oval shaped, about 40 large steps long and 34 steps wide, going up to the height of nearly three grown men stacked on top of each other. In order to get material, a man deep trench had been dug around the site.

Tomorrow, the cover stone would be put on the burial chamber. The rest of the stonework would have to be done in Pato’s absence.

Well done, Caiman! You're bold to have set your story so far back.

Great start, love it! (also glad I changed my history hole, would've clashed, and yours is so much better!)

Thanks. This time period is indeed challenging. Everything known so far is speculation since no first hand written accounts exist/remain. I suppose when this is over, I will have added some of my own speculations.

Even if we had chosen a similar hole in history, I suspect the end result would be entirely different. Although not reacting on each others stories might have been hard...

This is a nice start, I'm looking forward to finding out more about the clan.

So am I.

My story horizon is about three days ahead of me (some things to go for a week) , so I basically write as I go along (with my quite extensive research at the back of my head, that is).

Lovely start to an intriguing story!

That's really very interesting! Looking forward to reading on!

"Clan of the cave bear" was one of my favorite books at one time. I'm not asking you to rise to the level of that, but so far it's interesting. Thank you for that.

I love “You never know with ancestors.” This is a fabulous start to a history hole!

We each have zillions of ancestors, and we never get to meet more than a few of them.

YOU may have zillions of ancestors. Not me. I'm Scots Irish and Appalachian.

But you seem to have a Greek name, which would put you at odds with the Celtic part of you. The Celts invaded Greece. I don't know why, they just did.

I read a book about the Scotts-Irish. Steve McQueen in Faulkner's "The Reivers" would seem to be the touchstone of Scotts-Irishdom. I get a big kick out of "As I lay dying," another Faulkner classic (the James Franco version was a hoot!)

I'm an unimaginable mix of types -- Some northern Irish, some Scottish, some Pennsylvania Deutsch. I had some ancestors who were as incompatible with each other as it is possible to be. I'm not sure who I am sometimes as a result. (You might have noticed that.)

And, I think I understand you better now that you have explained your provenance. Maybe we had some common ancestors?

This is off-topic. Let's not pursue it.

The off-topic stuff always seems so interesting. Sorry.

Being of Dutch descent to at least Napoleonic times doesn't make me feel better or worse. (Although I know where my mill stood).

Anyway, apart from the 12 ancestors that passed on the name and nationality, there are still 8178 ancestors unaccounted for this way. And that is just for me and the last 300 or so years. My kids have even bigger numbers to cope with.

I understand why the whole Eve and Adam thing is satisfying the need to condense that back to just two.

I know, more off topic, but at least it is the same off topic.

Okay.

People whose ancestors lived in an inaccessible place often suffer from what is technically called 'premature pedigree collapse' - meaning, their ancestors double up, so to speak, and they're related to them more than once. My ancestors for the last 400 years lived in the mountains (they even crossed those mountains with the same people), and there is definitely 'premature pedigree collapse' - my grandparents were cousins, my grandfather's parents had a shared ancestor, etc. Researchers write books about the complexity of interrelationships in the southeast US. The odd Native American in the pedigree shows that they were at least trying for exogamy.

This is actually on-topic considering where my story is going / will be going...

Now, that's .