Lucke revised 2025

 

As a prelude to the events referred to in this story, the two peoples of Africa- the humans and the babmans- had come together in ancient times and formed a partnership for the benefit of their people. The humans had evolved from baboons through a series of apes and early mankind. The babmans were actually descended from baboons who had crossed into the Hominines’ line and then sometimes recrossed.

Some time between 100,000 BC and 50,000 BC a group of humans and babmans had commenced a journey from their old southern African home by setting out to travel north across the African continent. Using their immense knowledge of African geography, they were looking to migrate from the African continent over the northern coast of the modern Sinai and find a new land.

The group members had large heads with large intelligent brains and large working bodies. At this time the babmans had dark skin but the humans also had paler skin types. The group’s menfolk had removed their facial hair. The group members were a good natured people who found happiness in simple things. They walked in silence. They were perceptive to the sounds of nature and the swish of the dry grass as it was brushed aside by their moving feet and legs as they walked was emphasised in their awareness. The men wore suede waistcoats that were open at the front and suede trousers. The sleeveless waistcoats allowed their arms and hands a lot of flexibility of movement as they hunted and gathered food in the ancient world. They carried- using a firm hold and a lowered arm- large heavy wooden spears. Because they had a limited group size, they were in a challenging situation and the group members all knew each other, whenever a group member thought or noticed something relevant to their journey it was quickly shared amongst the group. This meant that topical ideas typically tended to be concurrent amongst all group members almost spontaneously.

The group were motivated to leave Africa by a sense of social responsibility. Theirs was a combined human and babman group but the babmans of Africa had decided to “change their faces”. That is, they felt that they were so inherently and intrinsically of a baboon and not a mankind type that they were prepared to exterminate the human and babman types in Africa and revert to a baboon form. They hoped that the baboons would then use selective breeding to enlarge and improve their kind and replace mankind in Africa. However, the group’s humans and babmans dissented from this position and believed that a transition carried a failure risk in that an enhanced baboon may not meet the intellectual or physical standards of mankind. They believed that there was a serious risk that seriously intelligent and advanced life on earth may become extinct. Accordingly, the group negotiated a tentative permission from the violent transitioning gangs to leave Africa forever and establish habitations far beyond Africa.

The group members dissented from the transition in the sense that they had no objection to the baboons seeking to selectively breed and improve their type, but they did dissent to the extremist policies of human and babman extermination. It may be accepted that the baboons may benefit from selective breeding to enlarge their brains. However, the group were concerned because they felt that mankind possessed not just a brain size quantitative intelligence advantage over baboons but that they also possessed an intelligence quality advantage and that this may find no equivalent in larger or more advanced baboons.

The group also believed that the earth’s surface would slowly become uninhabitable so that their descendants would end up living in a protective underground “ark”. Hence they believed that a vast manmade underground world was a major future objective for mankind. The group were also influenced in their actions by a traditional human adage that “maybe something would come” of their people. They hoped that mankind would keep changing and improving things and one day live in a partly man-made world that was different from their current world. Although the adage was originally human, it had been equally adopted by the group’s babmans. The humans were always happy to partner the dissenting babmans because they shared the belief that something would come of the babman type too. Tradition was that the babmans could see things that the humans could not but so too could the humans see things that the babmans could not.

The transitioning babmans of Africa had commenced their transition using the catchcry “Be it man or be it beast ?”. The transients had adopted a motif of “blackness” or “darkness”. Their “dark” motif matched their skins which were black against the African sun. They had wide dark aggressive eyes and brushed their long hair back but cut it off cleanly at the back of their necks. They were accustomed to the heat, sweat and dust of living and working in the African environment. They often wore sleeveless suede smocks which also allowed their arms and hands a full flexibility of hunting and gathering movement. They carried spears.

They had decided that there was no future role for the human and babman types in Africa. The group’s dissenters were overwhelmed by the violent majority of transitioning African babmans. Amidst the long dry tubular yellow grass and drought resistant vegetation of Africa Africa’s transitioning babmans had threatened the heavily outnumbered dissident group. “Be gone” they would say and then repeat it again- ”be gone”. Drought conditions and hunger had accentuated the babmans’ violence. They would make it clear that they had adopted cannibalism and that they were well fed and healthy living on the flesh of humans and dissenting babmans who did not want to leave Africa.

The group’s dissenting humans and babmans had agreed to embark on their journey together. However, at the very start of their journey the dissenting babman group lived a little to the south of the human group. The dissenting babmans therefore agreed to start their northwards journey and stop by the humans on the way so that the humans could join their group and they could travel on together. One morning, the humans stood on slightly raised ground in Southern Africa facing south and waiting for the babman group to walk north to meet them. It was just after sunrise and the morning sun sat low in the northern sky behind the humans. The human group included an older adult male and his similarly highly intelligent young adult son. The father had a darker complexion where the son had pale skin and blue eyes. However, the son’s children would include darker types. The older human wore a broad brimmed leather hat.

It was a curiosity that the first visual sign of the approaching babman group was not their physical presence but rather a distant cloud of light dust which was kicked up by the approaching Ark group in the dry conditions. When the dissenting babman group hoved into sight to join the human group it was clear that the babmans were staying in a close-knit group for their protection and therefore to increase their chances of survival. They amusingly analogised their group with a small herd of grazing animals. These people were ancient hunters with keen hearing directed at quarry animal sounds. They saw a clear analogy between the pitter-patter of their group’s feet and the sound of stampeding herd animals. They also analogised the small amount of dust disturbed by their group with the dust kicked up by herd animals.

The oncoming babman group had consciously adopted a motif of light and not “transitioning” darkness by emphasising that their faces were well light by the northerly morning sun which they were facing. The babmans knew that it was a long and dangerous journey and they knew that some of their number would not survive to the end of the journey. Their journey therefore had something of the feel of a death march about it. They viewed the journey very seriously and were somewhat saddened by having to move from their traditional home. The babmans had deliberately bowed their dark heads so that their head’s profiles symbolically represented a map of the African continent. Their physically emphasised foreheads resembled the North West bulge of the African continent. This symbolised that Africa was “dark”- or a transitioning zone. The babmans used their dark skin to symbolise a fire ravaged landscape with black grass, trees and earth and so reflected the depopulation policy of Africa’s babmans . The symbolism also reflected the drought conditions that were then prevalent in Africa. Their bowed heads also reflected elements of hopelessness and depression about their forced move. The dome of the foreheads of their bowed heads and the close-knit combined shape of the travelling group also symbolised an ark as an ultimate objective of their group. The humans joined the babman group and they commenced their northerly journey together.

Because the group member’s ancestors had spent thousands of years wandering the African continent as hunter-gatherers, the group members knew the geography of the African continent in intimate detail. This knowledge was inter-generational and improved with each successive generation. On a micro-scale they would know every item of gravel and foliage within their neighbourhoods and so would know if these had been disturbed by game animals. They would also know where game animals could be hiding in case these were concealed there. On a larger scale, the group members knew the African landscape in such detail that, whilst traveling North, they could viusalise the whole of the African continent with all its geographical details curved over the surface of the earth in front of them as if the continent was viewed from a very high altitude a little to the south of their location. Hence they effectively possessed a detailed map of Africa as a mental image.

The group used the sun to help the group maintain a northerly direction. The sun travels from East to West daily across the sky but from the group’s position in the southern hemisphere it did so in the northern half of the sky. Therefore the group knew that they were on a northerly course so long as they were facing the sun as it traversed daily across the sky.

The group made their way north through Southern Africa surrounded by dry grasslands populated with sparsely distributed trees and shrubs that were adapted to the semi-arid climatic conditions. Hills and ranges of hills loomed around the travellers. Because the travellers were travelling north- and the sun traversed the sky in the northern half of the sky- the sun generally sat a little behind the hills that lay ahead of the northward facing travellers. This meant that the shaded darker face of the hills tended to confront the travellers. The looming dark face of the hills seemed to evoke symbolism of “darkness” and the transition.

As the group moved into Eastern Central Africa they set their course to head towards modern Mt Kilimanjaro. This enormous monolith was then called “Sky Mountain” and the fact that it was visible for great distances meant that it could be used as a navigational reference point or landmark when travelling the African continent. Sky Mountain was still many days travel away. It was called “Sky Mountain” both because of its immense height and also because when viewed from a distance the mountain’s grey colouration seemed to blend the colours of the mountain in with the colours of the sky.

Whilst the group was travelling through open countryside towards Sky Mountain but were still many days away from the mountain the sky filled with low clouds and it began to rain intermittently. This inclement weather would continue until after the group passed well beyond the mountain. The weather heralded the end of a long drought. The change in weather brought cooler air temperatures and respite from the full day exposure to the African sun that the group had been experiencing. Although the weather had changed the land was not yet restocked with vegetation and wildlife following the long drought. When the group camped- they often slept on exposed soil because the drought stricken ground still had inadequate vegetation cover.

Whilst travelling towards Sky Mountain the group noted that babmans that they came across along their route appeared to be quite violent and stand-offish. The group were under the clear impression that they would attack the group if they could.

Sky Mountain had a unique scientific feature, however, first a brief digression. As traditional hunters the group were very perceptive to physical forces that influenced the natural landscape around them. They could hear distant sounds. The highly viscous air around them felt like a low density liquid surrounding their skins and it would convey slight compression waves from distant movements. They could feel faint earth tremors caused by animal movements. They were so perceptive to ground movements that they could faintly feel the rush of the earth’s West to East rotation as it orbited through the cosmos. An ability to perceive the motion of the earth’s spin provided an additional navigational tool. To travel West was to travel against the spin, to travel East was to travel with the spin and to travel either North or South was to travel across the spin. Sky Mountain was unique in that the giant size of the mountain was so great that it generated it’s own slight gravitational field. These ancient hunters were sufficiently atuned to nature for the mountain’s gravitational field to be perceptible over long distances. The gravity seemed to very slightly pull travellers towards the mountain.

At some point Sky Mountain became visible in the distance. The countryside around Sky Mountain contained open woodland vegetation. Because of the rain which had commenced a little earlier, the land had now become covered in new shoots of lime green grass. This gave the travellers an impression of wading through a sea of shallow water. A perception of water movement was provided by the breeze blowing against the new grass and the group’s slight perception of the earth’s rotation.

Sky Mountain was also known as the “Symbol of Africa”. As the group looked at Sky Mountain they could see symbolism that supported the Ark group’s objective in migrating from Africa and establishing a habitation beyond the continent. The huge dome of the mountain could be seen as representing an inverted ark and it’s huge height meant that it was swathed in light so meaning that it lacked the “darkness” iconography of the Southern African mountains. On closer inspection crags and crevices extended a little way from the top of the mountain down its steep sides. The crevices were filled with snow so meaning that a frayed fringe of snow projections extended down the mountainside from it’s snow capped peak. These projections seemed to symbolise the brain’s neuronal dendrites- mankind’s neurons had been one issue in the group’s decision to leave Africa. Because of the drought conditions some of the snow within the mountain’s crevices had melted away meaning that the remaining snow was slightly hollowed out along the length of the snow projections. These basins seemed to represent arks and the water that had formed from the molten snow seemed to represent the complex electrical patterns within the brain’s neurons. Overall the group was satisfied with the message of Sky Mountain and the support it provided to the objectives of the group.

The group camped near the base of Sky Mountain a little to it’s South and East. The mountain’s gravity was at it’s most intense close to the mountain and the enormous mountain loomed far above them. As they sat upon the ground under low overcast skies the still warm but now humid air seemed closed in around them. The now long grass shoots dating from the earlier rain seemed to have a slightly curved but spear like appearance. In the minds of the travellers the curvature of the new grass also took on an ark-like appearance.

The group was intending to continue travelling through the North East of Africa towards the exit from Africa in the far North East of the continent. This route would have taken the group through the well populated Nile River and Rift Valley region in the centre of the African continent. However, it became clear that these more northern tribes were gathering in groups along the dissident group’s intended route with the intention of killing and cannibalising the group’s members. The drought had broken but the land had obviously not yet restocked so these people were still experiencing famine. The group therefore realised their fear that the permission to leave Africa that they had negotiated from the Southern babmans would not be recognised by the more Northerly tribes. So the group decided to take a North Westerly detour around this central region of Africa. The group knew that the modern Sahara desert would prevent a short detour because it’s vast expanse blocked any travel to the group’s immediate North. Therefore, the group knew that the detour that they would have to take would encompass travelling around the entire Western coast of Africa. They intended to walk West along the West Coast of Africa, then walk north along the North Western Coast of Africa and finally turn East to walk along the Northern coast of Africa towards the exit from Africa. The group amusingly found comfort in their decision to detour by the fact that from the point of their Sky Mountain camp- the mountain’s gravity appeared to be pulling them in a Westerly direction. Therefore the group travelled past Sky Mountain a little to it’s East and then set a North-Westerly course towards the West African coastline

Overcast weather continued whilst travelling through the countryside just to the North of Sky Mountain. The land to the north of Sky Mountain was also covered in a light green sea of newly shooted grass. However, the grass was now growing long as the onset of the rains was now a little while ago. As the group walked individual grains of soil in the now damp volcanically enriched grey soils of central Africa seemed to represent arks. When they impressed their feet into the soil they felt that their footprints also represented arks. The group looked back at Sky Mountain a few times and saw it diminishing into the distance. The group thought that the slight pull of the mountain’s gravity behind them seemingly pulling them slightly back towards their old home symbolised some misgivings about their migration. However, they were certain that their future was to migrate so they kept walking and so left their traditional Southern African home.

When the group reached West Africa they found themselves in an unfamiliar part of the African continent. They thought that these lands were more sparsely populated than East Africa and were relieved to find that the area was also less drought stricken than East Africa. West Africa was replete with tropical jungle. This meant it could be safer to travel these lands as any local inhabitants may not have felt the same population pressures as famine stricken East Africa. The group still felt that it was safer to travel these lands by walking along the beach. By travelling along the beach they would at least positively know that no-one was actually lying in wait to ambush them. Using the beach may have advertised the group’s presence as they were clearly unconcealed and openly visible but it may also have provided any local inhabitants with some assurance that the group was just travelling through their lands and therefore did not pose a threat to them. The route along the empty beaches was also unencumbered by obstacles to movement so the group were able to maintain a reasonable walking pace. The African forest reached all the way down to the beach so meaning that the forest’s canopy often allowed the travellers to travel in the shade and therefore obtain some respite from the hot African sun. This shade, complementary sea breezes and lower food stress allowed the travellers to relax and enjoy their travel experience much more.

The group were skilled hunters and would generally know where bushtucker- food animals and plants- were located in the forest beside them. Group members would continually, but briefly, sally into the forest to hunt and gather these respectively. When the group came across a major coastal river they would rest for a day so that all members of the group- including the women- would be able swim across the river with maximum strength. As they travelled they would camp overnight in the open in bivouacs along the coastline. On leaving a bivouac each morning they would leave the cinders from the previous night’s cooking fire and often a small midden of seashells- the refuse leftover from supplementing their diet by eating shellfish that they had gathered whilst they travelled.

Like their footprints in the volcanic soils of central Africa, as the group walked along these West African beaches they felt that the impressions left by their feet and heels in the soft beach sand represented ark symbolism. The sandgrains themselves had been eroded to rough smooth nodules by the elements so these too seemed to suggest ark symbolism. As the group made their footprints in the sand, their feet seemed to literally shift thousands of sandgrain “arks”. As they did so, their perceptive hearing emphasised the limitless intricacies of the resulting “crunching” sound as a myriad of sandgrains displaced by each footfall were abraded against each other.

One late afternoon the group had stopped walking for the day and were sitting on the West African beach relaxing. The group came to consider whether they should seek to establish a new home in largely uninhabited West Africa. However, the group decided that Africa was a continent that now belonged to the transitioning babmans and that where these had the bushcraft to know the land well they could conceptualise the whole of the African continent. Ill intended babmans would therefore know where the group had sought refuge and may seek to hunt down the group. The group therefore thought that it would be best if they continued with their quest to leave Africa forever. They read the patterns of foam on the surface of the ocean waves that were washing ashore as reiterating in miniature the symbolic message of Sky Mountain. Like the snow projections on Sky Mountain, the continually transforming patterns of the foam seemed to represent inadequate baboon neuronal dendrites. Whilst relaxing on the beach the group’s humans also asked the group’s babmans as to why they were not joining their brethren in their undertaking of a transition. This matter had arisen before and the group’s large male babmans offered their standard reply. They would say that they were “like” the transitioning babmans but that they were also “different”. They said that there was a traditional split within the babmans’ group on this issue. They pointed out that they could help the combined dissenting human and babman group because these were dangerous times and they knew the ways of the transitioning babmans. They said that they could therefore help assist the dissenting group to find safety.

The group trudged on up the more arid North West coast of Africa resigned to the enormity of the journey that they had undertaken. They had always known that the North West Coast of Africa was there and they had always wanted to visit it but they knew little of its details. It was obvious that the area was sparsely inhabited. The group walked on along seemingly interminable lonely white sandy beaches. The picturesque rough deep blue Atlantic ocean to their West would mind numbingly slowly and methodically beat the shoreline with thuds as it’s waves repetitively broke over the beach and then washed back into the ocean. The group noted some similarity between the motion of the ocean's waves and the motion of the body's lungs where a wave washing onto the beach seemed similar to an exhalation of breath but its subsequent retreat to the ocean seemed similar to an inhalation of breath. The aesthetic scenery was completed by the variegated green hues of the coastal vegetation to the right of the beach.

It is possible that in these very arid climes, that the travellers met some of their bodies’ hydration requirements by supplementing their hydration intake with the body fluids of camels and sharks.

The group continued to walk up the broad white sandy beaches that stretched into the long distance ahead of them. There was no shade on these beaches so the group were fully exposed to the daylight. The group tried to match the sound of their footfalls to the sounds of the ocean waves so as not to alert quarry animals that lay ahead of them of their approach. The group thought that the rounded crests and concavely curved fronts of breaking ocean waves might symbolise “ark” imagery. Globular and cratered bubble and froth foaming about the surfaces of these breaking waves additionally appeared ark-like. They could also see Ark symbolism in the curvilinear front edge of the wash of these waves- as they washed over the shallows and onto the sandy beach. Ark symbolism similarly appeared in the roughly convexly shaped damp patches that remained briefly upon the sand after these waves had retreated back to the ocean. The smooth mirror like surface of these damp patches would reflect the colours of the sky far above. In places the long white sand beach coastline formed long distant shallowly curved bays. The group saw these long horizontal basins as reinforcing “ark” symbolism. Indeed, when the group curved their walking route in response to the natural geography and obstacles, the curvature of the route was also, of itself, seen as ark-like.

The group also saw “ark” imagery in the shells of shellfish that they exhumed from the sand and ate along their beach journey north. Digging into the sand for the shellfish could, itself, suggest digging into the ground to establish an ark. The group would also complement their diet with small beach crabs scavenged as they walked along the Northern shoreline. The shellfish and crabs were cooked by placing them near a fire. The heat reddened carapaces of the crabs also resembled “arks” as did the rounded nodules of the crab’s eyes. The group silently ate their shoreline bounty seated upon the beach. In the silence, the high pitched squawking of seagulls, the sounds of the ocean’s waves and the sound of the ocean’s winds seemed very accentuated to these people who were accustomed to monitoring the sounds of nature as they hunted and gathered in their ancient world. As the group slept in the open on the soft dry beach sand that was a little higher up on the beach, their large bodies formed depressions in the sand that also seemed to represent arks.

In places, rounded boulders littered the North West African sandy beaches. Some were partly submerged in the shallow shoreline water and others sat upon the beach and could be partly submerged on higher tides. Waves had washed over the tops of all of these gently eroding the tops of the rocks to a rounded shape. These were seen as ark symbolism by the group. Some of the partly submerged rocks had also been eroded at the waterline giving the appearance of large nodules sitting upon a plinth. This further enhanced the ark imagery. Rounded surface areas and indents upon the rocks also appeared ark-like. In addition, the curved beating wings of seagulls flying above shoreline cliffs suggested ark symbolism.

The group were routinely watchful for the approach of any dangers. They were so perceptive to nature that they could visualise the barrage of particle photons of the sun’s light and feel these gently press upon their bodies and then rebound as reflective light. These early people could also see the curvature of the earth over relatively short distances- including over lakes and a relative decline in the average elevation of shorter distance topography.

The group thought that they could sense land to their West- the Americas- but that the land was a very great distance away. The group moved to cross the north coast of Africa. The group thought that palm trees growing along the Northern African Coast resembled a spear striking an animal where the trunks represented spears and the palm frond canopies resembled the blood splash that could occur when a spear pierced an animal hide. The blood splash analogy was obviously heightened where the palms were date palms and there were bunches of bright orange or reddish dates hanging just below the date palm’s canopies. The spears that the early huntsmen were carrying were large and made of a solid hardwood. The spear tips were wooden and carved to a point. The spear heads tapered to points along a gentle organic convex curve which gave the spears aerodynamic speed, stability and accuracy.

As the group walked along the North African coast low hills a little inland from the northern coastline appeared to be bathed in light and so seemed symbolically different from the seemingly darker imagery of the Southern African hills. Consistently, the rounded shape of these northern hills seemed ark-like. Rounded tussocks of grass and savannah trees with roughly rounded canopies dotted the landscape that adjoined these beaches. The round shape of these appeared ark-like. Small inland stream beds would sometimes run into the ocean across the surface of the shoreline’s sandy beaches. These often had a curved- seemingly symbolically ark-like- appearance. There seemed to be no sound upon these northern beaches at all except the very perceived emphasised sound of the ocean wind. Cumulus clouds drifted in these winds at a high altitude far above the early travellers. The surfaces of these clouds were made up of rounded node shapes all of which seemed ark like. Because the surface nodes would slowly appear and disappear as the clouds changed shape as they drifted across the sky- ark shapes seemed to emerge as organic buds and then disappear almost mystically upon the surfaces of the clouds. This mystic effect was seemingly enhanced by the perceived attractiveness of the contrasting grey and white colouration of the clouds.

On the windswept northern coast the group’s babmans were emphasising ark imagery in the profile curvature of their lower and upper backs and in the curved movement of their feet as they raised and lowered these to walk along the northern beaches. They were also maintaining the earlier “ark” imagery of their lowered emphasised foreheads. The group were now travelling in a rough West to East direction that was broadly aligned with the movement of the rotation of the earth. The babmans additionally emphasised that their curved walking foot movements intentionally replicated and were synchronous with the curved movement of the earth’s rotation.

The group continued their Easterly march along the beaches of the arid North of Africa. When they reached the area of modern Egypt the group’s path to the exit from Africa was seemingly intersected by the large Nile Delta which was a large raised area of alluvial land that seemingly projected into the modern Mediterranean. The modern Nile river was then called the “Hydra” and its foliaged delta carried the gushing clear fresh waters of the Hydra seemingly across the path of the travellers and out to sea. The group found the river delta to be a unique geographical feature because the plain of the delta was elevated above the northern coastline that it intersected so meaning that the river waters that it carried were flowing over the delta at a height that was raised above the North African beaches on both of its sides. The group welcomed the presence of fresh water and the foliaged delta as some of the water that they had drunk whilst travelling across the North coast of Africa had been brackish because it was collected close to the sea. The scarce brackish coastal water had left the group a little dehydrated.

The delta was a landscape feature that the group could visualise as if viewed from above and it was a water course that they would analogise with organic forms. They noted that the Hydra river split into a number of smaller rivers on the delta and that these smaller rivers then flowed into the modern Mediterranean Sea. They thought that the Hydra and its delta evoked imagery of a combination of things- a giant artery distributing blood through a network of veins, a monstrous multi-necked nematode or perhaps a mythical hydra- a legendary multi-headed serpent.

The group thought that the fertile delta may sustain population groups so the group decided to stray from their usual coastal course by climbing up onto the delta and then by travelling directly over it in an Easterly direction. They thought that this method would be the safest as a direct East to West crossing would use a less frequented irregular route across the delta as the delta was typically traversed in a North or South direction. On the delta, the lapping of the lightly silted waters of the Hydra sounded quite accentuated in the consciousness of the travelling group. The group moved on to pass through the exit from Africa.

When the group of humans and babmans departed their old continental African home over the North coast of the modern Sinai they found themselves in unfamiliar terrain. As traditional hunters and gatherers they had a heightened awareness of the natural environment. As they travelled a dry dusty breeze coming from the Arabian desert on the Arabian peninsula to their South and East suggested that that area was not so hospitable so they turned north and headed up the East coast of the modern Mediterranean.

As the group walked on along the coast through the low coastal scrub the young adult male human in the group noticed one of the group’s male babmans. The babman was well built with a large head and he had a large tanned body. His caput was completely bald. His eyes disclosed a serious intelligence and a strong innate energy. He was a dependable and reliable fellow traveller. He was clad in leather clothing and carried a sturdy spear. As he walked he appeared to indicate that the shape of his head was immutable and unchanging against a strong coastal wind that was blowing in from over the modern Mediterranean. The babman was therefore showing that he did not intend to join his brethren in Africa who were “changing their faces”. He was clearly walking with some determination towards some new land somewhere in the East. The human thought that if the babman had any conscious misgivings about not joining his people in their suicidal transition in Africa, his sense of social responsibility and subconscious survival instinct seemed to propel him forwards. The human noticed that the babman’s mental dilemma sometimes caused his subconscious to override occasional conscious urges to return to Africa. This manifested itself in the babman taking taut forced reluctant steps as he walked along the coast. The human thought he could discern an analogy between these steps and the steps of other primitive people who inhabited these unknown lands. Although these local people had not yet been seen by the group, the human vaguely and without clear definition felt that they were probably about and that they were probably scampering away from the traveller’s path using small light footsteps as the group moved on along their northern journey.

The human asked the babman as to what he thought the babmans’ future would be. The babman said that one day they hoped to move to the East of the Europe-Asia continent and live in “China”. “China” was well away from transitioning Africa. The babman did not think that the humans would be joining them in China because he thought that in the interim the human population would be subject to a lot of violence which would deplete the human population of its better people in terms of intellect and physicality. The babman thought that a residual human population would be too mentally and physically inferior to join the babmans in China. With regard to the undesirable outcomes regarding the humans, the young adult male human thought that their realisation may not be so straightforward but rather he hoped that a myriad of individual circumstances might lead to a better result. The babman went on the reiterate that one day in the future the earth’s surface would become uninhabitable and the babmans would live in a protective “ark”. The babman’s large dark rounded head seemed to symbolically reinforce his message of a distant future intention to build an “ark”.

From a modern perspective, the Palaeolithic babmans had very much the same look and personality as their modern counterparts. However, their brow ridge and upper and lower jaw development was a little more pronounced than in their modern counterparts and, although their heads were quite large, their craniums were a a little more backset than their modern counterparts. To return to the story.

The same young adult male human also observed the swarthy, fit and healthy but older fellow human in the group who was his father. The older human had dark eyes and a square jaw. The young human inquired as to whether the older man was finding the journey strenuous. His father replied that he was an experienced enough bushman to know that he was fit enough to go through with this journey and then to help the group to establish themselves in their new home. "I know you’re going to eat me” the older human said in some good humour whilst showing some responsibility for the welfare of the group. He was referring to the tribal practice where all tribe members consented to euthanasia when they became too old to fit in with the tribe’s hunter-gatherer lifestyle. This meant that they would not overburden the tribe who had hard lifestyles in a harsh ancient world. The younger human knew the practice of euthanasia well and was also familiar with older persons subtly and politely hinting when the time for euthanasia was due. The older human then told his son- “I just feel that I am doing the right thing”- he meant that he felt that it was the proper thing for him to do to help and assist the group on their journey north.

As the group moved further North along the coastal lowlands of modern Israel they found that the climate changed from the arid desert south to become a little more temperate with cooler temperatures, more rainfall and with more lowland coastal vegetation.

As the group walked through the unfamiliar Eastern Mediterranean coastal terrain they scanned the landscape looking for suitable stones to make stone tools.  As such every visible stone seemed emphasised in their field of vision. What is more, if a stony area was well fossicked by people looking for stones to make stone tools it could suggest the presence of nearby habitations. Signs of fossicking would include stone chips, and scuff marks and the like left by people moving stones. The group noted that rivulets providing fresh water ran from East to West along the coast of modern Israel at almost equal distances. Olive trees provided insipid but edible olives to supplement their diet. The group used their hands to reach into the olive trees to pull the olive branches down towards themselves so that they could remove the fruit. They would break up the flesh of the olives with their large grinding molars. They noted that olive fruits were ovoid in shape and not spherical like many other fruits. They saw a clear analogy between the elongated distorted ovoid shape of the olives and the babmans of Africa changing their faces.

It was common for ancient people to use hills and mountains as property markers. As they moved up the coast the group came across modern Mt Carmel which is a small mountain that is directly adjacent to the shoreline. The mountain and the surrounding coastal area were then covered in vegetation. The group thought that modern Mt Carmel was probably an ancient property marker of other ancient people so they stayed to the West of it and continued their journey North along the coastal strip of modern Israel. Modern Mt Carmel was so close to the coast that the group had to walk around the base of the mountain along the beach. They commented on the uniqueness of a geographical feature that was a mountain whose slopes led all the way down to a shoreline. As they walked on up the coastal strip the coastline arched out towards the West a little and the group found themselves walking over an area of raised coastal land. Their experience told them that the raised ground was totally firm underfoot and had no risk of earth slippage. The group were now much more experienced travellers than at the start of their journey. They were happy to have had the opportunity to travel so much of their ancient world.

As the group walked north into modern Lebanon they concluded that modern Mt Hermon- which is a large mountain that is inland from the coast- was probably also a property marker so they stayed on their coastal route. As they continued North along the coastal lowlands they noted that mountain ranges to their East during their coastal journey blocked out some of the morning sun from the righthand side of their faces but that the low land stretching to the coast on their West meant that the lefthand side of their faces received full exposure to the afternoon sun. As they walked the group wondered if their descendants would ever remember their fateful journey. They thought that their descendants might recall that they travelled with the sun mostly on the lefthand side of their faces as they travelled on a northerly route. There was an obvious analogy between the sunlight and the babmans “changing their faces” in Africa. The group whimsically observed that olive trees that were growing along their migration route had leaves whose colouration matched the play of sunlight upon their faces. The olive leaves- which they thought were shaped like miniature flint tools- were darker on their upper surface than on their lower surface.

As they travelled the group noticed footprints left by the primitive people who inhabited this area. Their footprints were much smaller than the travellers and their stride distance was much shorter. At one point one of these primitive people appeared standing a little to the East of the travellers. Below the head, the primitive man’s body was covered in a dark thick “bushy” fur and he had only about half the body weight of the early travellers. The young male human here would be about 170 cm tall at the eye level and would weigh about 165 kg and the other travellers were similarly proportioned. The other primitive man simply stood by silently watching the travellers whilst conveying an impression that an attempt to take a path to the East was blocked. This confirmed the impression that the group had that modern Mt Hermon was a property marker. However, they noted an element of bravado and bluff from this individual as they noted that he was standing alone and they thought that he was only supported by a group of three or so additional tribal members camped not very far behind him. The group were happy to respect the other primitive man as a fellow human. The travellers walked past the stationary local man and continued on their northerly route.

As the group travelled further north the vegetation changed to the aromatic cool dark pine and cedar forests of modern Lebanon. When the mountain range to the East of the travellers fell away to low ground in the North of modern Lebanon the travellers noted a slight breeze coming from the upper reaches of the further Easterly Tigris-Euphrates river system. The breeze suggested a moist foliaged inland river system. The group knew that this land would make a new home. They continued to walk north for a while and at some point they turned to walk East towards the Euphrates river system in the North of modern Syria. One morning, as they approached their new home, the group climbed a hill to obtain a view of their new land. The morning Easterly sunlight was bright and yellow and partly obscured their vision but from the hill they looked through the morning sunlight to see a distant view of the Euphrates river system. They thought “our new home”. They then thought- “perhaps our descendants will remember that we changed direction to travel facing the morning sun”.

The Future

The future presents immense big history challenges including the death of the Sun, cosmic collisions and the diminution of the earth’s water and oxygen supply. The modern world has been generally repopulated by descendants of the babmans who are also of the people and culture of Ancient Egypt.

Quality people should really feel a responsibility to promote the miracle of advanced life on earth. They should therefore strive to maintain large brains with high IQs and large working bodies. They would be unwise to take any mind influencing or other toxic substances as these can interfere with fragile genes. The list of undesirable substances would include alcohol, recreational drugs, chlorinated water, pesticides, artificial food preservatives and fluoride. These precepts are not new. The story of the Garden of Eden includes a record of a group of babmans who once wished to exterminate their type and so give way to the baboon form. They tried to weaken and destroy their type by not breeding their quality people and by taking mind influencing substances to lower their intelligence for themselves and their progeny. In the story these wrongs are allegorised by the serpent whose slim incapable body represents a failure to maintain quality types and whose poisonous fangs represent the imbibing of mind influencing substances. The serpent was, of course, exiled from the Garden of Eden. So too in Roman times, some people imbibed to excess but others stayed away from intoxicating substances insisting that their nutriment be “inert” or devoid of any mind influencing effect.

Poor air quality in terms of lower oxygen and higher toxin levels- is another thing that can interfere with a healthy lifestyle. This would be subject to a rider that natural Carbon Dioxide levels and probably other pollutants are a normal part of mankind’s environment.

A further issue that worries me is microwave ovens. It is well known that microwaves can cause cellular damage. However, some years ago I had a look at a microwave oven and concluded that it did leak microwave radiation. There was an intentional gap between the oven door and the oven from which microwaves could obviously leak. What is more, radiation appeared to be leaking through the body of the oven itself. I placed a book on the top of the oven and turned the oven on. When the oven had finished it’s cycle I opened the book and found that the whole of it had been evenly heated by the oven.

Sports like boxing are also unsafe as many people have been mentally diminished by a single punch. I have been surprised to learn that most professional rugby players suffer from brain injuries so this sport may provide society with some challenges. Injuries suffered in these sports could also suggest that “heading” a very fast soccer ball could be extremely unwise. Now at the end of the story, these sports additionally raise a likelihood of a need for less threatening rough and tumble to encourage a body to maintain it’s evolutionary strength.