January-March 2016: Prehistory

Cave painting found at Lascaux, France, dated as being from the Upper Paleolithic.

Four years ago we first started the Quarterly Theme Reads by reading books set in prehistoric times. Now we've come full circle and are ready to take a second tour of that interesting (and relatively long) period of time that's so underappreciated in historical fiction!

The prehistoric time period ends at different dates in different parts of the world and also depends on the definition in use. One definition often used is that prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Using this definition prehistory only ended in large parts of Europe when the Romans conquered it. Another definition, and one that I agree with more, is that prehsitory ends when farming begins. WIth farming came permanent villages and cities, and all of the social intricacies associated with that. And while some let prehistory begin when early humans started to appear, I think prehistory does not necessarily mean that humans need to be present: the Age of Dinosaurs and the Rise of the Mammals are just as much a part of prehistory as the time when (a form of) humans walked the Earth.

So for easy definition for this theme prehistory is the time before agriculture, which roughly coincides with the end of the Upper Paleolithic at 10,000 years ago.



Some books suggestions – with the usual caveat that I haven’t read them and am going off the blurbs to figure out if they fit or not – to get you started:

Circles of Stone by Joan Dahr Lambert
Troll by Richard Sutton
Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver
The Spirit and the Skull by J.M. Hayes
Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson
Song Hunter by Sally Prue
Leaving Eden by Ann Chamberlin

To get inspired and see what we read last time, more information, and to add your own books for this quarter’s theme visit the Quarterly Theme Reads Wiki Page. I’ve started a new list for this quarter, but will add those books to the Prehistory list already made at tne end of the quarter. But I figured it was easier to see what everyone was reading now with a brand new list.

Another suggestion is The Many-Coloured Land by Julian May. I reread the series often.

I'm pondering Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer but am not sure it fits...

ETA: Also Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier seems to fit.
ETA2: nope. That one definitely doesn't.

>2 majkia: I've been pondering the same about Dinosaur Planet by Anne McCaffrey. But while there's dinosaurs, it's also exploring space and a different planet. So unlike Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker, which I read last time and liked a lot, I decided Dinosaur Planet doesn't count.

How about The Inheritors by William Golding?

I have The Seven Daughters of Eve in my TBRs and I think it will work well for this.

>4 baoyu: The Inheritors would definitely qualify for this theme. Provided you don't mind the outdated ideas about Neanderthals that were in use when he wrote the book. I read the book several years ago and I liked it, but it's not for everyone.

>5 cbl_tn: That one sounds really good but sadly my library doesn't have it. I may check if I can get it through inter-library loan, but in the meantime I've put a hold on Stonehenge, which was one of the books read and recommended from the last go-round.

>7 rosalita: If I get to it in January as I hope to, I can read it and pass it on to you. That's one of the nice things about a quarterly read!

>7 rosalita: Oh, that would be lovely! But no pressure to read it early in the quarter if it doesn't fit in with the rest of your reading plans.

Think I'm going to do The Language of the Goddess. It's been sitting around in a TBR pile for several months now, and my New Year's Resolution is to do a lot more ROOTS (Read Our Own Tomes) next year and not buy so much.

>2 majkia: Hominids involves interaction between parallel earths. On one is Homo Sapiens at roughly the time of the books publication (i.e., contemporary). The other is a world at roughly the same age, though the dominate humanoid on that planet are Neanderthals. Both have their own histories/cities/civilizations, etc.

I'm not sure if it's set in 2003, the date of publication, but it was set sometime around there. It's not a prehistory novel.

I'll be reading Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Gee, guess I'll just have to re-read The Many-Coloured Land. Twist my arm!

From my TBR I'll try to read Richard Leakey's The Origin of Humankind which I think will fit this challenge. Otherwise I'm tempted by Shaman and The Many-Coloured Land. Maybe another non-fiction book too?

I am thinking of reading The Dog Master by W. Bruce Cameron, it's tagged prehistoric, prehistory and ice age so I think it will fit.

I might start with the third book in Dorothy Hearst's Wolf Chronicles, Spirit of the Wolves. I read the first one when we did this time period four years ago, as did a couple of other group members.

>5 cbl_tn: The Seven Daughters of Eve will definitely work for this theme, Carrie. It is very interesting and, unfortunately, I have already read it so I will have to come up with something else for this theme. I am using these challenges to read the books that already on my shelves so I have to decide between A Brief History of Stonehenge and Bones: Discovering the First Americans. They both look interesting but the one about the first Americans is definitely tome-like.

Going to read People of the Wolf (North America's Forgotten Past Book 1) as I have book 1 & 2 on my shelf!

I found another one that fits the theme Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland before History - decisions, decisions.

I am giving 5 stars to The Dog Master by W. Bruce Cameron. I loved this big adventure epic and it was the perfect read for me right now when I am housebound. Set in the Paleolithic Era, the story explores how the first wolf came to be tamed.

I read The Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M. Auel

I never like reading in the prehistory time period because I’ve hated every book I’ve taken up. Here is an exception – I really liked this book. Notwithstanding the evolution mumbo-jumbo about eternal retained memories, it was still a 4 star book for me. Sense of place!!! Character development! Story! I’m going to continue the series for the next two months in this quarter’s Reading Through Time of prehistory. Thanks for proving me wrong, Ms. Auel.

>22 countrylife:, I have really enjoyed that series too. Clan of the Cave Bear is the book that got me back into reading after years of not having time and energy left over for my favourite pass-time (due to having babies).

Here's my entry in this quarter's theme:



Stonehenge by Bernard Cromwell.

A fictional account of how the iconic prehistoric stone structure may have come to grace the Salisbury Plain in England. Although I'm quite interested in learning more about Stonehenge, I found this particular account to be somewhat of a slog. Lots of harnessing oxen to sledges to pull big stones, lots of bloody warfare and violence, and some dopey romance combined to make me feel more relieved than inspired by the end. The main thing I learned is that I want to read a good nonfiction account of Stonehenge at some point.

Agriculture didn't come to Ireland until 4500 BCE, so Ireland definitely gets a later start than Europe. I've had a problem finding books for this period in Ireland without buying them--Cornwell and Rutherford don't really appeal to me.

I just realized that "Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish" fits this time period. Morgan Lleywelyn's story is the bloody, violent clan and tribal migration from Spain/Portugal to Ireland. Beautiful and lyrical at times, but a mirror of the violent times.

>25 cfk: I enjoyed Llewellyn's Irish Century series, so I should look for that one by her.

My February read was The Valley of Horses by Jean M. Auel. This is the second in the Earth’s Children series. I was impressed with the first - The Clan of the Cave Bear. The second started off well, but ended up way too steamy for me. Ways and means for living in the stone age was well researched and intriguingly interpreted into the novel. The descriptions of the sex scenes didn’t seem to fit, didn’t flow with the descriptions of life in the rest of novel. It was a disappointment, though I still intend to read the next book in the series to wrap up the prehistory time period for this quarter's challenge.

>27 countrylife: Aaaah, good ol' Ayla. Inventing everything from domestication of wolves to the missionary position. ;-o And they get steamier as they go along.

I finished my first non-fiction book for the period: Vorgeschichte in der Bretagne which looks at the megalithic monuments.

>28 CurrerBell: : Wish I'd known that before I started, Mike. Gotta say, I'm glad pre-history quarter is done for me.

The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel, is third in the Earth’s Children series set in the ice age. This could have been good. Her writing, for the most part, is good. Day to day living in a glacial world is well researched, thought out and portrayed. But, what? Was she in a contest with herself to see how stinking many times she could write sex scenes with phrasings that were not quite exactly the same? And how many scenes did she invent (should’ve kept track!) to show the guy and the gal misunderstanding each other?

“They stared at each other, wanting each other, drawn to each other, but their silent shout of love went unheard in the roar of misunderstanding, and the clatter of culturally ingrained beliefs.”

Why doesn’t he, why didn’t I . . . . over and over and over . . . The sheer repetitiveness of the sex scenes and misunderstanding scenes completely ruined what could have been a good story.

I did in fact read People of the Wolf by the husband/wife team Michael O'Neal and Kathyrn O'Neal, who are archaeologists. This traces a group of prehistoric people across the Bering Strait into North America at a time when there was a land bridge. Much of the story centers on shamanism, the wolf, and the "dance." It was all very mystical and quite brutal. It was an average read, but I am not in a big hurry to read the other 9 books in this series! 3 stars

I read The Language of the Goddess by Marija Gimbutas, which deals with the archeomythology of the Goddess in "old Europe" and argues for the influence of the pre-IndoEuropean Goddess culture on later historic eras, running all the way from the Upper Paleolithic through Classical Greece and Rome.

Also, a reread of Edgar Rice Burroughs's At the Earth's Core. If I have time before quarter's end, I may also get on to rereading Pellucidar, Tanar of Pellucidar, and Tarzan at the Earth's Core. Or I may do a reread of the Caspak series.

ETA ... and I just posted a review of The Language of the Goddess (3½***).

For the prehistory challenge I read Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History. It was about the prehistory of the country. As what is written about is before history was written down it is open to interpretation. Fortunately this is a recent book so it contains the most up-to-trade theories and even touches on DNA research.