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She was just over four and a half feet tall, large boned, stocky, and bow-legged, but walked upright on strong muscular legs and flat bare feet. Her arms, long in proportion to her body, were bowed like her legs. She had a large beaky nose, a proganthous jaw jutting out like a muzzle, and no chin. Her low forehead sloped back into a long, large head, resting on a short, thick neck. At the back of her head was a boney knot, an occipital bun, that emphasized its length. |
A soft down of short brown hair, tending to curl, covered her legs and shoulders and ran along the upper spine of her back. It thickened into a head of heavy, long, rather bushy hair. She was already losing her winter pallor to a summer tan. Big, round, intelligent, dark brown eyes were deep set below overhanging brow ridges, and they were filled with curiosity as she quickened her pace to see what the men had passed by.
The folks at the Biomedical Visualization Laboratory are the ones that morphed this female Neandertal.
The leader of
the small clan stared down at the imploring woman. He was much
bigger than she, over five feet tall, heavily muscled and
powerful, with a deep barrel chest and thick bowed legs. The cast
of his features was similar, though more pronounced - heavier
supraorbital ridges, larger nose. ... He carried no burdens, only
his outer fur wrap, suspended on his back by a wide band of
leather wrapped around his sloping forehead, and his weapons. On
his right thigh was a scar, blackened like a tattoo, shaped
roughly like a U with the tops flaring outward,
the mark of his totem, the bison.
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Diorama showing a herd of rare saiga antelope as they might appear during the summer. Iza's Totem. |
Creb, the Mog-ur, was likely based on the first Neandertal discovered in Shanidar Cave in the northern Iraqi mountains. He was a man of about forty years, buried under a pile of stones. He was apparently killed by a rockfall, due to one of the frequent earthquakes in the area, that fractured the ceiling of the cave. This man had arthritis and was blind in one eye. There was also a healed wound on his skull. Moreover, his 'right arm, collarbone, and shoulder blade had never fully grown from birth.' In addition, there is evidence that the end of his arm had been amputated before the man died. 1
Click here to see a 26k drawing of a burial ceremony held at Shanidar Cave in Iraq 60,000 years ago. The remains of 9 individuals were recovered from this cave in the 1950's.
In the soil around the Shanidar burial site was found the remains of woody horsetail and unusually large quantities of pollen from a range of flowering plants, including cornflowers, yarrow, hollyhock, St. Barnaby's thistle, ragwort and grape hyacinth. Mr. Solecki suggested that the man was laid to rest on a bed of woody horsetail and was surrounded by the yellow, white and blue flowers of the other plants, many of which have medicinal properties. The man must've been buried in the spring. 2
Cave
Bear skull (Ursus spelaeus) 21" long.
Mog-ur's eyes narrowed as he saw the pile of bones. He
rushed forward, his staff clattering to the floor as he dropped
to his knees. Scrambling through the pile, he saw a large oblong
object, and pushing the other bones aside, he picked up a skull.
There was no doubt. The high-domed frontal arch of the skull matched the one Mog-ur carried in his cloak. He sat back, held the huge cranium up to eye level, and looked into the dark eye holes with disbelief, and reverence.
"Mammoth! Mammoth!" the men shouted, out of breath as they raced toward the group.
Possible immature mammoth found in Ohio two years ago. See if you agree with the experts.
Brun threw up
his hand in a signal to stop, then pointed ahead at the monstrous
shaggy bruin rubbing his back against a tree. Even the children
sensed the awe with which the clan viewed the massive vegetarian.
His physical presence was impressive enough. The brown bears of
their own mountains, and of these too, averaged about three
hundred and fifty pounds; the weight of a male cave bear, during
the summer while he was still fairly lean, was closer to a
thousand. In late fall, when he was fattened for winter, his bulk
was much greater. He towered above the men of the clan by nearly
three times their height, and with his huge head and shaggy coat,
seemed even bigger.
At Petershöhle in the Federal Republic of Germany, Mousterian artifacts associated with Neanderthals were found in addition to 10 bear skulls in a niche inside the cave. 3
Chapter 24 - The mo-gur's secret ceremony at the clan gathering.
