Zia finally leaves the ginte where she has spent happy days near the New Sea in the east, her heart filled with contradictory feelings. She begins her journey of initiation as a priestess and accompanies the funeral procession of her adored grandfather to the necropolis of the Sages. The young girl discovers this sacred place with its striking architecture, imbued with an overwhelming spirituality and majesty. After a difficult break with her mother and separation from her brother, she sets out on the paths that link peoples together along the rivers. His long discussions with his grandmother who accompanies her to the Sacred Cave of Mother Earth reveal to her the ancestral wisdom and customs of the Haganitas, as well as the secrets of the Amulet of the Seasons.
Lost and revolted, Kadmeron sets out on the trail of Potac with all the energy of anger. In front of him rises, once again, a raging stream that he must absolutely cross before even recovering his horse. His friend protects him once more, preventing him from making an irreparable mistake. In his desperate quest, the Marteron travels across vast lands far to the east. The tribes follow one another and allow him to meet love, the ingenuity of the peoples of the great lakes but also the violence and massacres perpetrated by other hunters. Upset but resolute, he sets off at a gallop alone in the infinite horizons of Central Europe, where the mysterious drawn signs lead him.
Inexorably, the trajectories of these two young people in search of meaning in a world in full chaos bring them together. Faced with the incomprehensible violence of humans among themselves, with climatic upheavals which inexorably modify the territories, will they be able to draw the profound lessons from their meetings? Will they be able, despite the hardships, to get up and continue to advance towards each other?
Heirs of the Stone Age – a series that explores the challenges of the Mesolithic period
More than six millennia before our era, Mesolithic Europe was shaken by climatic cataclysms. Torrential rains fall on the world, the Mediterranean Sea invades the coasts. The waters of the Atlantic Ocean rise several meters because of the massive melting of polar glaciers, destroying villages and driving terrified populations away. Although the eastern part of the continent seems less affected, the Black Sea continues to fill up and gain ground on the coast.
It is the beginning of a period of forced migration that places humanity in a terrible situation. Paradoxically poorly documented and controversial, this little-known era of our prehistory opens up the prospects for the fabulous revolution in agriculture and the profound changes that will follow in human societies during the Neolithic era. And in fact, the extraordinary climatic, sociological and cultural constraints will force our ancestors to take drastic and courageous measures. Deeply… human. A message from the past for the profound changes taking place nowadays and which force us to react…
How were our ancestors organized to deal with the waters’ fury and global warming? With what technologies did they manage to survive? What alliances did they have to forge in order to overcome these terrible catastrophes? What beliefs did they use to give them the inspiration, the strength and the motivation to continue to fight and pass on their experience to future generations?
These are the questions the « Heirs of the Stone Age » humbly attempt to answer. This fiction series is based on certain archaeological discoveries uncovered in Eurasia and, of course, on the assumptions and imagination of its authors.
We hope that the adventures of our heroes and heroines from a distant past will help you reflect on the unprecedented challenges facing the people of this wonderful biosphere we share today.
We, who are their heirs.