Central Europe, 5000BC. The first farmers are advancing across the continent from the east. The age of the hunter-gatherer in Europe is drawing to a close.
When a young, Mesolithic hunter is sent into the winter forest, he has no idea his rite of passage will be different to those who had gone before. But the gods have other plans.
Beyond the brutal wilderness, his path will lead him to a different people. People from distant lands, moving ever closer to his. But as his journey takes him further into their world, the plight of a child and a young girl will show him where his true purpose lies - deep in the heart of a conflict as old as mankind.
Against a backdrop of beauty and horror, of compassion and genocide, his is a journey that might have been our own; a coming of age and rise of conscience that marked the dawn of a new era.
Formerly published in 3 parts:
PART 1
THE ANCIENTS
PART 2
THE PEOPLE OF THE LONGHOMES
PART 3
THE DARKENING
INTRODUCTION TO MESOLITHIC EUROPE
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The Mesolithic is the period of the last hunter-gatherers of Europe, beginning with the Holocene warm period around thirteen thousand years ago.
Humans were becoming semi-sedentary and increased use of plant resources paved the way for the Neolithic age and the introduction of farming and herding.
Materials were exchanged over large distances; decorative art proliferated, as did sites with ritual and astrological significance like Stonehenge.
By around 6000BP, the Linear Pottery Culture appeared in the Danube Valley.
