Bright Stone the Ice Age Climate Denier

Story Notes

What inspired me to write this story:

Marjorie Taylor Greene Makes Bizarre Quip About Taxes During The Ice Age, Insults AOC
https://news.yahoo.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-makes-baffling-155958583.html

"People are not affecting climate change," Greene said. "You're not going to tell me that back in the ice age, how much taxes did people pay, and how many changes did governments make to melt the ice? The climate is going to continue to change."

She continued, "And there is no reason to just open up our borders and allow everyone in and continue to funnel over $50 billion or however many billions of dollars or trillions of dollars to foreign countries all over the world simply because they don't like the climate change."

So I thought of what an Ice Age climate denier might be like.

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Why the names?

Why do Native Americans have names like Crazy Horse, Swallow Bird, Touch the Clouds, Kicking Bear, Rain in the Face and Sitting Bull? - Quora
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Native-Americans-have-names-like-Crazy-Horse-Swallow-Bird-Touch-the-Clouds-Kicking-Bear-Rain-in-the-Face-and-Sitting-Bull

How did Native American personal names originally develop (i.e. "Red Cloud" and "Sitting Bull")? Further, how did the convention of Native Americans taking an Anglo first name and a Native American surname develop (i.e. Jay Silverheels)? - Quora
https://www.quora.com/How-did-Native-American-personal-names-originally-develop-i-e-Red-Cloud-and-Sitting-Bull-Further-how-did-the-convention-of-Native-Americans-taking-an-Anglo-first-name-and-a-Native-American-surname-develop-i-e-Jay

These names are translations of the Native originals, and if one was to do that with our personal names, one would find similar sorts of meanings.

Marjorie Taylor Greene
Marjorie < Margaret < Latin Margarita < Greek Margaritês "Pearl"
I thought of what might be a good term for a gemstone, and I thought up "Bright Stone".

Bernie Sanders
Bernard < early Germanic *berô "bear" + *harduz "hard, hardy, strong, brave"
Sanders < Alexander < Greek Alexandros "protector of men"
I decided on "Enduring Bear".

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What did these people look like?

It's hard to say for sure, but I think that they likely looked Mediterranean or Middle Eastern or South Asian: straight or loosely curled dark brown or black hair, brown eyes, and somewhat light skin. Blond hair and blue eyes and very light skin are likely closer to our time.

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The time and place:

Last Glacial Maximum - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum
roughly 26,000 to 20,000 years ago
Human population dynamics in Europe over the Last Glacial Maximum | PNAS
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1503784112

At the time of this story, the Scandinavian ice sheet was spreading into northern Germany.

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Big Mama?

Venus of Willendorf - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf

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Why no caves?

That's a glaring example of preservation bias, because it's much easier for something to be preserved in a cave than out of it. Most people with Paleolithic technology did not live in caves, because there aren't a lot of caves. Instead, they made tents and huts for themselves, as people with similar technology were discovered to do much more recently. Most of these structures have not survived, but here are some that have:

Perhaps the Oldest Surviving Architecture : History of Information
https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=3449

A Mysterious 25,000-Year-Old Structure Built of the Bones of 60 Mammoths | Science| Smithsonian Magazine
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/60-mammoths-house-russia-180974426/

Perfectly Preserved Mammoth Bone Dwellings Found in Ukraine May Be the Earliest Examples of Architecture
https://earthlymission.com/mezhyrich-perfectly-preserved-mammoth-bone-dwellings-shelters-ukraine-earliest-examples-architecture/

Why the conical tents?

In North America,
Tipi - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipi

In northern Eurasia,
Chum (tent) - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chum_(tent)

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Why no Neanderthals?

They died out well before the time of the story, and the last ones lived in southern Europe. Neanderthals were not as good at making tools or at living in cold climates as our present species, even our Ice-Age Paleolithic ancestors. They did make stone tools, however, and also wooden spears, hunting with them.

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Why no dinosaurs?

Dinosaurs were killed off by the climate effects of a big meteorite impact some 66 million years before, except for the ancestors of present-day birds. I think that dinosaurs have caught people's imaginations because they are just plain weird by present-day standards. The fauna that I described here seems almost boringly familiar, with such minor variations as mammoths being furry elephants. The rest of the Cenozoic was also much like that, all the way back to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

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Why no agriculture?

It was first invented some 12,000 years ago in the Middle East, near the end of the last Ice Age, and was separately invented in several other places in the next few thousand years. Why humanity never did that earlier is a mystery, though I've seen the theory that the climate was not very stable back then.

History of agriculture - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture

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Paleolithic?

Paleolithic - Old Stone Age - hunting and gathering, and often nomadic
Mesolithic - Middle Stone Age - like Paleolithic, but sedentary, especially near large rivers
Neolithic - New Stone Age - with agriculture and animal herding

Aurignacian - 43,000 to 26,000 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurignacian
Gravettian - 33,000 to 22,000 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravettian
Solutrean - 22,000 to 17,000 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean
Magdalenian - 17,000 years ago to 12,000 years ago (beginning of the Holocene Epoch)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalenian

So the people of my story are roughly Aurignacian - Gravettian

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Eating human flesh?

Human cannibalism - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cannibalism

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The cutting-room floor, for anything that I couldn't quite fit into the story.

My story has no dogs because it is set bit early for that, and I thought of putting in some early stages of domestication. Like talk about a strangely friendly wolf who liked to beg for food, or someone trying to raise wolf pups only for them to run away.

Domestication of the dog - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_of_the_dog

I'd also thought about Bright Stone's husband being killed by a mammoth and Enduring Bear's wife mysteriously wasting away and dying, and that being why they moved in with each other.

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The Flintstones?

Projection of 1960's United States suburbia onto the Paleolithic, along with anachronistic dinosaurs.

Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear series?

I have not read a word of that series and I don't think I ever will. The central character Ayla having blond hair and blue eyes? Seems like wish fulfillment. In the first book, she's a somewhat interesting character, but in later books, she becomes a super genius inventor and a Mary Sue wish-fulfillment character.