BBC Big Read 2021 discussion

Ayla is having a hard time settling in, and Iza is becoming a surrogate mother to her. I find the herbal knowledge of the medicine woman a fascinating topic. Most of our modern medications come from nature, or were found there first. Iza takes willow bark and makes a pain medication and fever reducer to help with Ayla's infection. By trial and error, ancient people discovered many secrets of nature.
On page 37 there's a description of certain mental functions being dominate in one sex or another. That might seem odd in an era where people want to think all races, sexes, and cultures are the same, but she gives a valid reason for the theory. Human brain size is limited by the need for women to give birth to a large head, which puts pressure on hip size in women. Wider pelvis, broader hips, better birthing of large heads, but negative effects on survival if extreme. Already women suffer from less efficient knee joints than men, as they have to take up the abnormal angle of the femur coming down to the knee table from wider hips. Think about that natural selection survival pressure to have efficient, strong knees contrasted with natural selection pressure to have a wider pelvis to give birth to children with bigger, more developed brain vaults!

So, but parsing up the knowledge between male and female: the men with their hunting skills and the women with the memory for herbs and food sources, nature could keep the brain size manageable. Interesting idea! This also made men and women completely dependent on each other, not just for procreating but for daily living.

I was fascinated by the procedure for testing plants on page 38. How do you safely test a plant for poison or medicinal quality? First, you rely on your long lineage of genetic memory, your tribal traditions you have learned, and on all your senses: smell, taste, and so on. Nature makes poisonous things often bitter, and leads you to eat good things by sweetness. Smell will alert you even sooner, perhaps a mile away when it comes to a cesspool, a graveyard, or a rotting carcass. But when something is unknown, there is the method described. This particularly applies to medicines, which are often just poisons at low concentrations, and like willow bark or Aspirin, they do taste bitter. You could say that most medicine and poisons taste bitter.

In my line of work, I often hear of children who eat nothing but candy and other junk food. They can't stand to eat any vegetables or fruit. This is completely the parents' fault in failing to properly teach their children how to eat. Human children are very keyed into their parents eating habits, especially from he ages of 1 to 4 years. If a parent spits something out, says something is gross, or refuses to eat something, the child is already genetically programmed to pay attention and remember that thing is probably poison: don't EVER eat it again! You can see this genetic programming in yourself: If you ever ate a certain dish while sick, it's likely you associate that dish with illness and dislike it to this day. A human child should enjoy all foods that are nutritious, that is the normal human condition.

On page 42, the author hints that the Neanderthals are doomed as a race. The kindness of picking up a sapiens was "a failing [not] of him as a leader, it was a failing of his race." There were 'logical consequences' of rescuing her. I think she's getting at the idea that Neanderthals, much less the barbarians, were perhaps the kinder, gentler creature compared with sapiens. Their failure to be cruel and fight the invasion of sapiens from the South was their undoing and ultimate extinction.

Let's close by commenting on the author's excellent descriptive writing. I always appreciate that in a novel. After all, we aren't watching a movie here. We need description to pain the picture and sent the scene.
"The deeper colors of conifers intermingled with the rich primary greens of the broad-leafed trees and the limes and pale-white greens of the small-leafed varieties. Mosses and grass added their shades to the verdant mosaic of lush growth and small plants, from oxalis, the clover like wood sorrel, to tiny succulents clinging to exposed rock faces. Wildflowers were scattered through the wood, white trilliums, yellow violets, rose pink hawthorn, white yellow jonquils and blue and yellow gentians dominated some of the higher meadows. "

In chapters 2-3 we are introduced to a number of intriguing characters and the social hierarchies that define them. Our helpless orphan is rescued by Iza (who is apparently old for childbearing at 20 years) and nursed back to health with tenderness. The Neanderthals are anatomically different yet they fully possess the Devine quality of compassion and mercy. Despite being recognized as one of the "Others" the wounded child is allowed to stay under the care of Iza. The clan chief, Brun, displays his leadership and intellect as he navigates the complexities of maintaining order and peace within his clan, a feat that many a modern parent or government official aspires to! Creb, the one-eyed deformed magician, provides an intriguing nexus for the clans animistic spiritual belief system. We begin to understand that this system of spirit animals and totems creates the matrix upon which everything in their existence is defined and interpreted including the interactions between males and females. We see the author deferring to masculine norms (still accepted today) that a man is defined by physical strength, self control, authority over women and virility. Are we really that different?