More on the Caves

So I want to articulate what I said last night (it was last night in the French Alps, anyway) a little better. The caves I went to were made by a group known as the Magdalenean culture, named after the place where their artifacts were found. But they're part of the group we call Cro-Magnon -- that is, homo sapiens sapiens, that is, us. (As opposed to Neanderthals.) Their average height was six feet. They were as completely evloved as we are. Their paintings (actually frescoes) and engravings were made about fifteen thousand years ago, and they used techniques not seen again until Michelangelo and Picasso. Really.

And only two percent of the art represents any kind of violence, which is something to remember this time of year, yes? We weren't always so divided.

We are literally all descended from groups like this, whether they were in Europe, Asia, or Africa fifteen thousand years ago (and of course they were in Africa, the birthplace of homo sapiens sapiens, from which we ALL spring, even before that). Just one of those things that brings home the point that we are all related in ways that run far more deep than any superficial differences.

So there.