A Tale of Bones

The professor speculated we would find something extraordinary here, but he never imagined it would be this ground breaking. Among the gravel and the dirt, nestled tightly together, were the remains of two girls embracing each other warmly.

“Professor take a look here. They seem to be embracing each other for warmth.” The professor walked over to where I was digging and examined the bodies I had just discovered.

One girl was a Neanderthal, which was expected for this part of the North, but the smaller of the two was different. Her features were smaller proportioned to that of the other girl. She was almost human like. Who was she? What was her story? Why was she with this other girl? Only her bones could tell us the answers.

“It could be that the two are friends or just happened to find each other for warmth. Only the bones can tell us the truth. Let's take them back to the lab for processing. I’ll let you lead this up.” The Professor sounded almost proud when he said that.

“Really? This could be a career making discovery! Are you sure professor?” I was just starting out my career. The professor had seniority over me. He had every right to take over this dig and claim all the glory for himself.

“I’m retiring at the end of the year. I’ll oversee your work. We can coauthor the paper together.” It was his prerogative and I gladly took the opportunity for a career making discovery. It’s what I signed up for after all.

“Deal!” I was more than ecstatic to be heading up the team of Archeologists back at the lab. I couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear. I was going to be the first person to hear these girls speak in over fifty-thousand years.

We packaged up the bones, clothing, and other artifacts found at the dig site. I was more than diligent, borderline obsessive, as I took each artifact and bone out of the earth. When we got back to the lab, I wasted no time in delegating tasks to the team. Before long we had copies of the bones to see what these girls might have looked like. I turned on the lights to the room that housed their bones and meticulously pieced together the puzzle of bones that were once two young girls long ago. In front of me lay the remains of the mystery girl. I closed my eyes and listened to the story her bones longed to tell.

“The land I live in is cold and green. Snow covers the ground most days and the animals we live among are like giants in comparison to me. My sister and I pretend to be them as we play in the encampment our elders created. Our entire lives revolve around the movements of the animals. It is only natural to us to imitate them. We growl and toot at each other as we pretend to be the long-toothed cats and mammoths that share the land.”

I opened my eyes and took a bone sample to compare to known hominids that lived in the area. Listening isn’t something you only do with your ears after all. I package the specimen and place it aside to examine the bones more closely. If my hunch was correct, this was an interspecies child who should by all rights not exist but nevertheless lays before me.

“I am the miracle child of the clan, a child born of a Nubian princess and a northern chief. My sister is of my father. She looks like him, she is strong like him, she is smart like him. I am of my mother. I am dark skinned and cannot hide in the snow and amongst the green of the trees for protection. My sister protects me from the harshness of the wilds we live in as all the clan does.”

The bone analysis came back just as I had expected with one exception. The Neanderthal girl was directly related to the smaller girl through a paternal line. They were sisters, half sisters, but sisters all the same.

“My Mother often talks of her hot and desolate homeland. She sometimes longs for the familiar surroundings of her youth. ‘one day I will take you there, to the place where your father found me.’ Then she sings me the songs of her homeland. Hearing those songs make my heart ache and long for a place I have never been.”

Some of the artifacts recovered were of Nubian craftsmanship. That confirmed my hypothesis along with the bone analysis. It must have been so lonely living in a land that was not her own. The mother must have missed her homeland and clan. I suddenly felt homesick for Carolina, my home state. I too was juxtaposed from my home with no end of when I would ever see it again. I sighed heavily and looked at the bones once more and listened to how the girls might have died.

“That night was cold. It was the coldest night I had ever lived through. My nose dripped a sticky water all night long as did everyone else’s noses that night. My sister and I huddled together for warmth. Neither one of us woke up come morning.”