Poem: "Women Who Run with the Saberteeth"
This poem is spillover from the April 2, 2024 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from wyld_dandelyon. It also fills the "Inventions" square in my 4-1-24 card for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Bingo Fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the series Polychrome Heroics.
"Women Who Run with the Saberteeth"
[1970s-present]
Understanding of humanity's past
evolved slowly as new discoveries
uprooted some previous theories.
Finding Neanderthal settlements
and burials proved conclusively
that anatomically modern humans
weren't the only ones with culture.
Archaeologists pieced together
the story of ancient societies in
the human family tree to learn how
their ancestors spread over the world.
Molecular clock methods enabled
studies of maternal DNA that showed
divisions among modern populations
based on their ancestral movements.
Jean-Luc Auel became fascinated
by ancient human societies, how they
formed and broke up and shifted around.
He also studied why people sometimes
stayed with abusers instead of running away.
The theory was that staying with an abuser
used to be less dangerous than running off
and probably getting eaten by saberteeth.
But there have always been some people
who ran off anyhow, despite the risks.
In 1975, he published a nonfiction book,
Women Who Run with the Saberteeth,
about these aspects of human history.
Then he got into researching one of
the more puzzling finds: a woman and
a sabertooth tiger who had been buried
in adjacent graves along with carvings
of lions and women and lion-women.
That inspired him to write a novel,
The Steppes of the Saberteeth,
released in 1980, followed by
The Pride of the Past in 1982.
They told about a woman who left
her abusive mate to live alone,
and then she befriended
a pride of the great cats.
Counselors were intrigued
by the idea that humans were
hardwired to put up with a lot from
other humans, because leaving
the cave used to mean a high risk
of getting eaten by saberteeth.
It helped them work with
survivors of domestic abuse.
In modern times, the cave might
be a house and the saberteeth
could be things like unemployment
and homelessness, but the forces
trapping people remained similar.
But there have always been
people who said, "Fuck it, I'd
rather risk the saberteeth."
Those were the ones who
hiked off into the sunrise
and discovered new places.
Those were the ones who
came up with new inventions,
striking flakes from flint cores
and twisting fibers into cords.
Perhaps it even had something
to do with the mixture of hunters
and farmers, people who wander
vs. people who stay in place, and
the advantages that diversity
could offer to a population.
Modern society owed a lot
to the people who ran
with the saberteeth.
Gradually these ideas
made their way back to
the researchers who were
working with maternal DNA.
They had been wondering
about how far early humans
might have traveled -- not just
whole cultures and clans, but
individual explorers or traders.
Maybe, the researchers mused,
the whole African outmigration
started with someone who said,
"I'm not going to stay with you
when you treat me like that!" --
then started walking and didn't
stop until she got to Europe and
moved in with the Neanderthals.
There were, after all, a number
of graves whose occupants held
ancestry from more than one
branch of the family tree.
The researchers knew about
Neanderthals and Denisovans,
but there was also ghost DNA
from other populations that
nobody had pinned down yet.
(What was your name again?)
New inventions gave fresh insights
in studying the bones of the past.
Eventually the scientists identified
Mitochondrial Lilith, a woman who left
East Africa around 70,000 years BCE, as
the matrilineal most recent common ancestor
of humans from the recent out-of-Africa dispersal.
They further correlated some genetic markers
with a tendency to seek out new territory in
response to stressful conditions rather
than stay home to troubleshoot there.
Mitochondrial Lilith, along with
her mitochondrial haplogroup L3,
leaned toward migration, whereas
some other haplogroups in Africa
leaned toward staying put.
Everything in the present
was touched by the past,
ancestral ghosts lingering
in blood and bone and seed,
footprints alongside pawprints,
births and unions and deaths.
It was a body of knowledge
as concrete as rocks and fossils,
yet as ephemeral as the breath of
a sabertooth on the back of the neck.
It was the inheritance of Mitochondrial Lilith
and all those who ran with her, before and since.
* * *
Notes:
Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype is a 1992 book by American psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estés, published by Ballantine Books.
The Clan of the Cave Bear is a 1980 novel by Jean M. Auel about prehistoric times. It is the first book in the Earth's Children book series, which speculates on the possibilities of interactions between Neanderthal and modern Cro-Magnon humans.
Shanidar Cave is an archaeological site on Bradost Mountain, within the Zagros Mountains in the Erbil Governorate of Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. Neanderthal remains were discovered here in 1953, including Shanidar 1, who survived several injuries, possibly due to care from others in his group, and Shanidar 4, the famed 'flower burial'. Until this discovery, Cro-Magnons, the earliest known H. sapiens in Europe, were the only individuals known for purposeful, ritualistic burials.
The Aurignacian is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with Early European modern humans lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Gravettian was an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian circa 33,000 years BP. It is archaeologically the last European culture many consider unified, and had mostly disappeared by c. 22,000 BP, close to the Last Glacial Maximum, although some elements lasted until c. 17,000 BP.
The Löwenmensch figurine, also called the Lion-man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, is a prehistoric ivory sculpture discovered in Hohlenstein-Stadel, a German cave, part of the Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura UNESCO World Heritage Site, in 1939. The German name, Löwenmensch, meaning "lion-person" or "lion-human", is used most frequently because it was discovered and is exhibited in Germany.
Early modern human, or anatomically modern human, are terms used to distinguish Homo sapiens that are anatomically consistent with the range of phenotypes seen in contemporary humans, from extinct archaic human species. This distinction is useful especially for times and regions where anatomically modern and archaic humans co-existed, for example, in Paleolithic Europe. Among the oldest known remains of Homo sapiens are those found at the Omo-Kibish I archaeological site in south-western Ethiopia, dating to about 233,000[2] to 196,000 years ago, the Florisbad site in South Africa, dating to about 259,000 years ago, and the Jebel Irhoud site in Morocco, dated about 315,000 years ago.
Mitochondrial Lilith -- She is a woman who left East Africa ~ 70,000 years BCE. She is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor of humans from the recent out-of-Africa dispersal. Terramagne scholars have correlated some genetic markers with a tendency to seek new territory in response to stressful conditions as opposed to staying put. Mt-Lilith and her mitochondrial haplogroup L3 lean toward migration, whereas some haplogroups in Africa lean toward staying put. Compare with the hunter-farmer divergence in personalities and thought processes.
~ 70,000 years BCE -- Mitochondrial Lilith left East Africa. She is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor of humans from the recent out-of-Africa dispersal. Terramagne scholars have correlated some genetic markers with a tendency to seek new territory in response to stressful conditions as opposed to staying put. Mt-Lilith and her mitochondrial haplogroup L3 lean toward migration, whereas some haplogroups in Africa lean toward staying put. Compare with the hunter-farmer divergence in personalities and thought processes.
Sabertoothed predators actually evolved multiple times, including but not limited to several types of sabertooth tiger or sabertooth cat.
Women Who Run with the Saberteeth was a nonfiction book by Jean-Luc Auel about ancient human societies and why people sometimes stay with abusers -- the theory is that it used to be less dangerous than running off to be eaten by saberteeth. But there have always been some people who ran off anyhow. In Terramagne, one of the more puzzling finds was a woman and a sabertooth tiger who had been buried in adjacent graves. That inspired him to write a novel, The Steppes of the Saberteeth, followed by The Pride of the Past. They told about a woman who left her abusive mate to live alone, and then she befriended a pride of the great cats.
In human genetics, the Mitochondrial Eve (also mt-Eve, mt-MRCA) is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all living humans. In other words, she is defined as the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line purely through their mothers and through the mothers of those mothers, back until all lines converge on one woman.
A small group from a population in East Africa, bearing mitochondrial haplogroup L3 and numbering possibly fewer than 1,000 individuals, crossed the Red Sea strait at Bab el Mandib, to what is now Yemen, after around 75,000 years ago. Haplogroup L3 is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup. The clade has played a pivotal role in the early dispersal of anatomically modern humans. It is strongly associated with the out-of-Africa migration of modern humans of about 70-50,000 years ago. It is inherited by all modern non-African populations, as well as by some populations in Africa.
The Hunter vs. Farmer hypothesis -- in essence -- makes the case that people diagnosed with ADHD are modern-day genetic descendants of hunters.
Humans are hardwired to put up with a lot from other humans, because leaving the cave used to mean a high risk of getting eaten by saberteeth. Nowadays, the cave is a house and the saberteeth are things like unemployment, homelessness, etc. But there have always been people who said, "Fuck it, I'd rather risk the saberteeth." Those are the ones who discovered new places. Hell, maybe the whole African outmigration started with someone who said, "I'm not going to stay with you when you treat me like that" and started walking and didn't stop until she got to Europe and moved in with the Neanderthals. We owe a lot to the people who run with the saberteeth.
Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans occurred during the Middle Paleolithic and early Upper Paleolithic. The interbreeding happened in several independent events that included Neanderthals and Denisovans, as well as several unidentified relatives.
"Women Who Run with the Saberteeth"
[1970s-present]
Understanding of humanity's past
evolved slowly as new discoveries
uprooted some previous theories.
Finding Neanderthal settlements
and burials proved conclusively
that anatomically modern humans
weren't the only ones with culture.
Archaeologists pieced together
the story of ancient societies in
the human family tree to learn how
their ancestors spread over the world.
Molecular clock methods enabled
studies of maternal DNA that showed
divisions among modern populations
based on their ancestral movements.
Jean-Luc Auel became fascinated
by ancient human societies, how they
formed and broke up and shifted around.
He also studied why people sometimes
stayed with abusers instead of running away.
The theory was that staying with an abuser
used to be less dangerous than running off
and probably getting eaten by saberteeth.
But there have always been some people
who ran off anyhow, despite the risks.
In 1975, he published a nonfiction book,
Women Who Run with the Saberteeth,
about these aspects of human history.
Then he got into researching one of
the more puzzling finds: a woman and
a sabertooth tiger who had been buried
in adjacent graves along with carvings
of lions and women and lion-women.
That inspired him to write a novel,
The Steppes of the Saberteeth,
released in 1980, followed by
The Pride of the Past in 1982.
They told about a woman who left
her abusive mate to live alone,
and then she befriended
a pride of the great cats.
Counselors were intrigued
by the idea that humans were
hardwired to put up with a lot from
other humans, because leaving
the cave used to mean a high risk
of getting eaten by saberteeth.
It helped them work with
survivors of domestic abuse.
In modern times, the cave might
be a house and the saberteeth
could be things like unemployment
and homelessness, but the forces
trapping people remained similar.
But there have always been
people who said, "Fuck it, I'd
rather risk the saberteeth."
Those were the ones who
hiked off into the sunrise
and discovered new places.
Those were the ones who
came up with new inventions,
striking flakes from flint cores
and twisting fibers into cords.
Perhaps it even had something
to do with the mixture of hunters
and farmers, people who wander
vs. people who stay in place, and
the advantages that diversity
could offer to a population.
Modern society owed a lot
to the people who ran
with the saberteeth.
Gradually these ideas
made their way back to
the researchers who were
working with maternal DNA.
They had been wondering
about how far early humans
might have traveled -- not just
whole cultures and clans, but
individual explorers or traders.
Maybe, the researchers mused,
the whole African outmigration
started with someone who said,
"I'm not going to stay with you
when you treat me like that!" --
then started walking and didn't
stop until she got to Europe and
moved in with the Neanderthals.
There were, after all, a number
of graves whose occupants held
ancestry from more than one
branch of the family tree.
The researchers knew about
Neanderthals and Denisovans,
but there was also ghost DNA
from other populations that
nobody had pinned down yet.
(What was your name again?)
New inventions gave fresh insights
in studying the bones of the past.
Eventually the scientists identified
Mitochondrial Lilith, a woman who left
East Africa around 70,000 years BCE, as
the matrilineal most recent common ancestor
of humans from the recent out-of-Africa dispersal.
They further correlated some genetic markers
with a tendency to seek out new territory in
response to stressful conditions rather
than stay home to troubleshoot there.
Mitochondrial Lilith, along with
her mitochondrial haplogroup L3,
leaned toward migration, whereas
some other haplogroups in Africa
leaned toward staying put.
Everything in the present
was touched by the past,
ancestral ghosts lingering
in blood and bone and seed,
footprints alongside pawprints,
births and unions and deaths.
It was a body of knowledge
as concrete as rocks and fossils,
yet as ephemeral as the breath of
a sabertooth on the back of the neck.
It was the inheritance of Mitochondrial Lilith
and all those who ran with her, before and since.
* * *
Notes:
Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype is a 1992 book by American psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estés, published by Ballantine Books.
The Clan of the Cave Bear is a 1980 novel by Jean M. Auel about prehistoric times. It is the first book in the Earth's Children book series, which speculates on the possibilities of interactions between Neanderthal and modern Cro-Magnon humans.
Shanidar Cave is an archaeological site on Bradost Mountain, within the Zagros Mountains in the Erbil Governorate of Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. Neanderthal remains were discovered here in 1953, including Shanidar 1, who survived several injuries, possibly due to care from others in his group, and Shanidar 4, the famed 'flower burial'. Until this discovery, Cro-Magnons, the earliest known H. sapiens in Europe, were the only individuals known for purposeful, ritualistic burials.
The Aurignacian is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with Early European modern humans lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Gravettian was an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian circa 33,000 years BP. It is archaeologically the last European culture many consider unified, and had mostly disappeared by c. 22,000 BP, close to the Last Glacial Maximum, although some elements lasted until c. 17,000 BP.
The Löwenmensch figurine, also called the Lion-man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, is a prehistoric ivory sculpture discovered in Hohlenstein-Stadel, a German cave, part of the Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura UNESCO World Heritage Site, in 1939. The German name, Löwenmensch, meaning "lion-person" or "lion-human", is used most frequently because it was discovered and is exhibited in Germany.
Early modern human, or anatomically modern human, are terms used to distinguish Homo sapiens that are anatomically consistent with the range of phenotypes seen in contemporary humans, from extinct archaic human species. This distinction is useful especially for times and regions where anatomically modern and archaic humans co-existed, for example, in Paleolithic Europe. Among the oldest known remains of Homo sapiens are those found at the Omo-Kibish I archaeological site in south-western Ethiopia, dating to about 233,000[2] to 196,000 years ago, the Florisbad site in South Africa, dating to about 259,000 years ago, and the Jebel Irhoud site in Morocco, dated about 315,000 years ago.
Mitochondrial Lilith -- She is a woman who left East Africa ~ 70,000 years BCE. She is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor of humans from the recent out-of-Africa dispersal. Terramagne scholars have correlated some genetic markers with a tendency to seek new territory in response to stressful conditions as opposed to staying put. Mt-Lilith and her mitochondrial haplogroup L3 lean toward migration, whereas some haplogroups in Africa lean toward staying put. Compare with the hunter-farmer divergence in personalities and thought processes.
~ 70,000 years BCE -- Mitochondrial Lilith left East Africa. She is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor of humans from the recent out-of-Africa dispersal. Terramagne scholars have correlated some genetic markers with a tendency to seek new territory in response to stressful conditions as opposed to staying put. Mt-Lilith and her mitochondrial haplogroup L3 lean toward migration, whereas some haplogroups in Africa lean toward staying put. Compare with the hunter-farmer divergence in personalities and thought processes.
Sabertoothed predators actually evolved multiple times, including but not limited to several types of sabertooth tiger or sabertooth cat.
Women Who Run with the Saberteeth was a nonfiction book by Jean-Luc Auel about ancient human societies and why people sometimes stay with abusers -- the theory is that it used to be less dangerous than running off to be eaten by saberteeth. But there have always been some people who ran off anyhow. In Terramagne, one of the more puzzling finds was a woman and a sabertooth tiger who had been buried in adjacent graves. That inspired him to write a novel, The Steppes of the Saberteeth, followed by The Pride of the Past. They told about a woman who left her abusive mate to live alone, and then she befriended a pride of the great cats.
In human genetics, the Mitochondrial Eve (also mt-Eve, mt-MRCA) is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all living humans. In other words, she is defined as the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line purely through their mothers and through the mothers of those mothers, back until all lines converge on one woman.
A small group from a population in East Africa, bearing mitochondrial haplogroup L3 and numbering possibly fewer than 1,000 individuals, crossed the Red Sea strait at Bab el Mandib, to what is now Yemen, after around 75,000 years ago. Haplogroup L3 is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup. The clade has played a pivotal role in the early dispersal of anatomically modern humans. It is strongly associated with the out-of-Africa migration of modern humans of about 70-50,000 years ago. It is inherited by all modern non-African populations, as well as by some populations in Africa.
The Hunter vs. Farmer hypothesis -- in essence -- makes the case that people diagnosed with ADHD are modern-day genetic descendants of hunters.
Humans are hardwired to put up with a lot from other humans, because leaving the cave used to mean a high risk of getting eaten by saberteeth. Nowadays, the cave is a house and the saberteeth are things like unemployment, homelessness, etc. But there have always been people who said, "Fuck it, I'd rather risk the saberteeth." Those are the ones who discovered new places. Hell, maybe the whole African outmigration started with someone who said, "I'm not going to stay with you when you treat me like that" and started walking and didn't stop until she got to Europe and moved in with the Neanderthals. We owe a lot to the people who run with the saberteeth.
Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans occurred during the Middle Paleolithic and early Upper Paleolithic. The interbreeding happened in several independent events that included Neanderthals and Denisovans, as well as several unidentified relatives.