Lives Lived and Lives Lost

Life #101: That time Harry and Tom lived during the last ice age

Life #101: That time Harry and Tom lived during the last ice age

Ancient Europe, around 12000 BCE

Harry and Tom met during the summer mammoth hunt.

The fact that they now lived during a time when woolly mammoths still existed took them a moment to process once they got their memories back.

Tom's tribe joined up with Harry's tribe on the vast tundra somewhere in the east of ancient Europe. There were rituals to follow when two tribes met up, to ensure that everyone had good intentions and wanted to work for the common good of all people involved.

The elders of both tribes met around a campfire fuelled by dried mammoth manure while they ate freshly cooked trout baked on a flat stone that stood balanced over the flames. They exchanged elaborate greetings, and necklaces made with prized seashells and clay beads tied together on thin strips of leather, as tokens of good will. As everyone else busied themselves setting up their tents made of mammoth ribs and tusks, covered by mammoth skins, the elders talked about the conditions of the weather, the land and the available game.

The elders of Tom's tribe brought news that the mammoths had not arrived in their usual summer grazing grounds and that's why their tribe had looked further afield for an opportunity to hunt the enormous beasts. They all needed to catch at least a few mammoths to be able to survive the harsh winters.

Harry was sixteen springs old and this would be his first mammoth hunt where he was allowed to accompany the hunters. Their people did not count birthdays, as a modern calendar had not yet been invented, but they did count seasons. And every time someone survived a winter they were another spring old. Tom had just seen his eighteenth spring and was now considered a man grown, able to hunt all manner of big game.

And such big game there was out there!

Woolly rhinos and aurochs and Irish elk and tarpans and steppe bison. Even the enormous cave bears were occasionally hunted for their meat and fur, though they didn't taste very good. Their meat was very tough, stringy and gamey, but when there was nothing else to eat Harry was happy enough to use it to fill his hungry stomach. Their fur was fantastic as sleeping mats, to sleep on or under. It would keep you warm on even the coldest nights.

"My kingdom for a camera," Harry whispered in English once their camps were set up and he and Tom had a moment to talk in private away from everyone else. "Mammoths, Tom! Can you believe any of this?"

Tom gave Harry a very fond smile. "It was only a matter of time that we reincarnated this far into the past." Tom's skin and hair were dark, but he had the most amazing sky blue eyes. Harry's skin was dark, too, as were his eyes, but his hair was a chestnut brown that lightened in the summer.

"I suppose," Harry said, still barely able to believe that they were now living in the actual fucking ice age. They had lived primitive lives in ancient times before. Once they were part of a tribe that lived deep in the Amazon rainforest, and once they were part of the Cherokee tribe in North America, both times before the Americas were discovered by Europeans. They'd also lived in ancient Egypt and ancient Rome and ancient China. So they were familiar with primitive lives by now, but living during the actual ice age was still a rather unique experience. "How far back in time do you think we're living?"

"That's hard to say," Tom mumbled with a small frown. "Mammoths and woolly rhinos seem to be getting scarcer, so quite late in the ice age, I think. Probably no earlier than 15000 BCE."

Harry snorted and gave Tom an incredulous look. "We're eating them to extinction, is what you mean." Harry gestured at the camp a small distance away. "Every human alive today hunts and kills what they can, with no regard for conservation."