The Last Neanderthal Clan by Charlie Boring

by | Apr 16, 2024 | Author | 0 comments

From Childhood Inspiration to Literary Pursuits: The Genesis of The Last Neanderthal Clan

It’s a pleasure to provide this article about my book, The Last Neanderthal Clan for the Authors’ Lounge. When I was perhaps in the sixth grade, I visited my first library and checked out my first book, “Fire Hunters.” It was a story about prehistoric men and their use of fire in their hunts of large animals. After reading that book, I was hooked.

As I grew up, I looked for more novels set in prehistoric times, but found only a few. Eventually, I went into the Army and became dependent upon the military library system. Still the books with settings in prehistoric times were almost nonexistent. Then, the dam seemed to break and Jane Auel published Clan of the Cave Bear, Valley of the Horses and Mammoth Hunters. Life was good!

Collaborative Beginnings and Personal Tragedy: Writing The Last Neanderthal Clan

Jump forward to the year 2013; I wrote the original version of The Last Neanderthal Clan, with my daughter as co- author. Unfortunately, she did not survive the loss of her twin baby girls and I had to publish my books without her. The initial version of the story included chapters set in modern times and jumped back in time to perhaps forty thousand years ago to tell the story of the last Neanderthals.

Readers commented that they did not like the portion of the story set in modern times and found it confusing. They also wanted more content set in prehistoric times. Hence, I published The Last Neanderthal Clan, Second Edition, which eliminated those chapters set in modern times and added several chapters to the story set in prehistoric times.

Imagine, if you will, that for centuries the robust Neanderthals dominated the northern European landscape, hunting, gathering and multiplying. They were particularly suited for the harsh, cold environment, having wide nostrils and a hairy, muscular torso.

A Changing World: The Environmental Shift and Human Encounters

With the arrival of the Cro-Magnon clans, the Neanderthal faced a new and more dangerous enemy that threatened the Neanderthal’s very existence. Their plight is told in dramatic fashion in this historical fiction, The Last Neanderthal Clan, Second Edition.

Tens of thousands of years ago, the earth was warming after a prolonged deep freeze and glaciers were melting. Rivers were flooded and mountain valleys were no longer filled with ice. The first life to return as the ice fled were the plants. As plants grew more abundant, the plant eaters moved in. The plant eaters were followed by the meat eaters. Of course humans would also follow, for now there was food in abundance.

Clan Encounters and Conflicts: Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal Dynamics

When the ice melted, this allowed clans to travel to regions they had not previously explored. These widely dispersed clans – Cro-Magnon, called northern clans, and Neanderthal, called southern clans – encounter each other during their exploration.

The most dominate among the Cro-Magnon clans was a clan called the Nord Clan that had developed traditions that encourage innovation and the hunting and killing of Neanderthal clans. Some clans resorted to cannibalization, but the Nord Clan was not cannibalistic.

After the Nord Clan leader, Carni, fathered a child with a Neanderthal woman and left the woman and child with her Neanderthal Clan, he led the Nord Clan in search of Neanderthals in a quest to take slaves and hunt in the warmer southern regions.

Survival and Leadership: Raka’s Journey

Later, it fell upon Carni’s son, a Neanderthal/Cro- Magnon child, Raka, to lead what remains of the Neanderthal clan on a quest for new hunting grounds and safety from the northern clans. Along the way, Raka and his clan must contend with the perils of northern clan attacks. The cave bear, the wooly mammoth, the cave lion and the threatening climate to ensure their survival. The reader will become immersed in the story, as Raka learns to be a leader. Will the last Neanderthal clan survive? Only the reader will know.

The book is available at amazon or audible.

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