Valley Of The Neanderthals - Alternative View

Valley Of The Neanderthals - Alternative View
Valley Of The Neanderthals - Alternative View

Video: Valley Of The Neanderthals - Alternative View

Video: Valley Of The Neanderthals - Alternative View
Video: In Our Time: S12/38 The Neanderthals (June 17 2010) 2024, March
Anonim

Many stories are like fairy tales. However, no one can claim that this was not the case.

Lucien Camille Claire, great-grandfather of the writer David Clairre, was born in Alsatian Lorraine in the middle of the 19th century. He lived in the middle of the picturesque Alps, in the place where the borders of three countries - France, Italy and Germany - converge.

The Alps are mountains of fabulous beauty. Rocky peaks with lonely pine trees stretch into the distance for many kilometers. Between them, meandering, fast rivers flow and numerous valleys are hidden, similar to colorful carpets. Ancient forests, glaciers, emerald slopes and waterfalls, spurs and gorges - all this virgin, pure nature leaves a noticeable mark on the human soul, invites travelers on the road.

Lucien grew up in a small valley whose inhabitants were engaged in cattle breeding and spent most of their time in the mountain pastures. In winter there was no time for travel, and in summer the young man learned the basics of mountaineering, first exploring the nearby mountains, and then taking a blanket and a backpack and leaving for many miles from home. He climbed steep peaks and descended into the most remote villages. To get food and a roof over his head, he helped the peasants with the household. Sometimes the locals paid a small amount of money for the work, but this was very rare.

On one of these trips, Lucien stumbled upon an alpine village located in an inaccessible area and therefore isolated from the outside world. The houses in it were very different from the style of the European hinterland that he was used to. All the buildings were constructed of roughly hewn trunks, from which uncut branches protruded here and there. Thick branches left on the logs above supported the beams in the ceiling like an arch.

The local men were stout, with a chest like an oak barrel, thick shaggy hair and huge beards. It seemed as if their figures were carved out of wood with an ax. All as one they were red-haired, with blue or greenish eyes. The peasants were dressed in leather trousers and rough homespun shirts.

Lucien saw no women. It seemed that they spent all their time indoors, doing cooking and other women's affairs. Shy village children were afraid to approach him: they either secretly looked out from around the corners of their homes, or, seeing an approaching guest, rushed away from him in all directions.

The guy also noted to himself that men speak with an unusual accent. Some he barely understood at all, although he spoke French and German fluently. The owner of the house, in which Lucien lived in the barn, spoke to the young man partly with the help of gestures, but on the whole looked friendly, and the guy willingly helped him. Together they built an irrigation ditch, making an airlock from hollow logs.

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Lucien knew how to handle an ax and was not afraid of hard work. One evening, the grateful host invited him to dinner at his house. He said he wanted to introduce the guy to his daughter. Looking forward to a pleasant evening, Lucien happily agreed.

When the owner's daughter came out of the kitchen carrying a heavy tray of food, the guy lost his appetite. The girl's “bare” hands were covered with the same rough red hair as her father's. Fluffy red sideburns peeped out from under the long shaggy hair. And when, putting down the tray, the village beauty bent her strong body over the table, the man saw with horror that she had much more hair on her chest than he himself. Lucien was so agitated that he could hardly swallow his food.

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After supper the men went out on the porch to smoke. The owner said that the nights had become damp, that it would not take long to get cold in the barn. He invited Lucien to spend the night in a house where it was warm and dry. I really didn't want to go to the damp barn, and the guy agreed to stay overnight. At night he could not close his eyes, listening to every rustle.

Stories about village customs crept into my head: it happened that the owner could demand from a guest who spent the night in his house to marry his daughter. Drenched in cold sweat, the young man got out of bed and tiptoed as quietly as possible to the front door. Reaching the barn, Lucien hastily collected his things and rushed out of the valley on his run.

Many decades later, his great-grandson, reading that three percent of the genome of the majority of Europeans carry a "Neanderthal trace", recalled this story. Could a closed population of red-haired hybrids exist in the Alps? Of course. After all, mountains, unlike people, know how to keep their secrets.

Elena Muravyova