On Writing 10,000 BC – The First Geniuses
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008There’s nothing wrong with watching a documentary about some tribe living off the land, fumbling with superstitions and new concepts, throwing spears at their neighbours now and then, and still finding time to eat. All of it is entertaining because that’s what your ancestors were doing, and not so long ago.
Our common ancestors were also eating each other, learning to count and extrapolate basic grunts and growls into complicated yet exacting languages, probably committing genocide without the slightest hesitation, running from sabre-toothed tigers and possibly the last remnants of the dinosaurs, and creating the most important input to civilisation – distillation.
The fertile time before recorded history is a wild canvas to craft a story, and a barbaric time to ponder, so expect blood and guts, brain crushing concepts (the main character grasps the concept of zero – could you if you’d never heard of it?) and old style witch doctors intent on slaughtering the hottest babes on the plains.
Many creators of books and films have all had their stab at the ‘time before time’, so I’ve compiled a few snappy images…
If you can’t recognise this it’s past your bedtime.
Yes, proof we were around with T-Rex, sharing the environment.
One Millon Years BC. ‘Old School’ Woman. 
Say hello to a few of the local beach girls… 
10,000 BC. Hollywood Blockbuster – nearly the same plot as my book!
But even I couldn’t have known that Blondes had evolved into Brunettes in 990,000 years… 
Prehistoric? Modern? I don’t know anymore.
… French artwork on the genre… 
OMG! Real cave paintings! In France!
The cover art designed by my publisher Double Dragon.
The artwork I designed that never made it.
