Trigger warning, child death

The most flimsy thing in the mesolithic were children. About 26% didn't make it to one year old. 40% probably didn't make it to five years old.

There was a 56% chance they didn't make it to puberty.

Today we think about getting vaccinated against viruses, but viruses were pretty rare. We lived in small groups of no more than about 150 people. The odds of you coming in contact with an outsider were slim to none Because population density was measured in less than tens of people per mile. But if you managed to find one that was infected you were going to have a bad time.

Every little bacterial infection was life-threatening. Bacteria lived everywhere. They were out to get you. They would hide out in meat and on berries. And they were out to get the children.

Half of all children never reached reproductive age. If they did there was always the risk of death from childbirth. Which was a bigger risk than getting trampled by an animal in a hunt.

Starting about 40,000 years ago humans started putting notches on bones. Many of them have 28 marks. The same as the number of days in a lunar month. The same as a woman's period.

These are the earliest indications we were aware of time. They are the earliest indication we knew how to count. These are probably the oldest things we have that were created by women for women.

Counting rescued humans from the unknown of time. We could now predict when things would happen. It would take a long time before knowing the passage of time would go from saving us to trapping us. When knowing how many days had passed and were left would turn into knowing when our ability to survive depended on when to clock in and when to clock out.

Cliff traps were a technique used to hunt bison and other animals in the mesolithic. It was a very effective way to more safely hunt large animals.

I was a little short in time today. So you get a comic telling you how this works.

A5, Micron 10

Continuing the mesolithic theme but because there are no native cactus species in Europe or the Middle East so I had to go to the Americas. While Europeans were dealing with cave bears the Clovis people were dealing with giant land sloths. Yes, they really existed. They could be between 9 and 18 feet tall. Though the taller ones were from South America.

But this is really about the cactus. Prickly pear offers defensive positions, food, water, fishing hooks and toothpicks. It's a dramatically under valued plant.

A5, Micron 05, 02, 005

Inktober, miniature.

Maybe you know about the Venus figurines like this famous Venus of Willendorf. But did you know that they are the absolute oldest representation of human figures that are three dimensional? They aren't hunters or warriors. They are women.

They were mostly made from. 40,000 to 10,000 years ago putting them in the Paleolithic and mesolithic periods covering the stone age right up until the rise of agriculture. They are only found in Europe because any not found in Europe would totally get a different name as that's how we roll.

You might know they were considered fertility gods but we don't actually know that. It's a guess. The people who made them were rude and didn't write down what they were for.

Banana for scale.

A5 paper, Micron 01 - 10.

A5 paper, Micron 10 pen. I kinda want to do this again one day but with a proper photographic reference so I can capture more detail. Which means I need an animal headdress, a model and a makeup artist and some rib bones. Maybe one day.

A5 paper, micron 08, 05, 03

Ok I'm done 😂

#1

Just kinda getting some scribbles. Got a better sense of his shape. Maybe can get looser next few times or not.

#2

I used an online photo for reference

A quick drawing I did at a local "art Evening", topic was "funny animals".

The Shell's not as I wanted it to be, since it's missing the hexagonal tiles, but I feared I might spoil it, so I kept it as it was.

I took up drawing as a new hobby last month. Here's my first animal portrait with colour pencils (from photo reference).

cross-posted from: https://dice.camp/ap/users/116075134115737121/statuses/116675873839201357

Between a rock and a hard place

This scene has been bouncing around my brain for a second. White gel pen on black paper.
@artshare #penandink #blackandwhite

Please critique.

This is from 2010, I used to draw insects and arachnids.

Photo quality is junk. Probably threw the original away.

I'm not allowed to decorate my office at all.

So I made these tiny drawings to hide at the bases of my screens. Because I need something to make me smile.