“The Adventures of a Prehistoric Boy,” a brief summary of which is described in this article, is a work by the French playwright and prose writer Erest Dervilly. This is one of his most popular stories.
The elder of the community gathered boys to collect flint, which was used to create arrowheads and axes. The group went to the White Hills. The women and daughters remained near the cave. It also contained 6-year-old Ojo, the youngest in the tribe. He made sure that the fire did not go out. Everyone was very hungry and waited for the return of their departed fellow tribesmen.
After a long search for flint and food, they settled down by the river. The children showed the Elder what they had collected, and then began to eat. Suddenly, a strong, incomprehensible noise was heard from the direction of the river. Everyone was very scared. It turned out that many birds were circling over the water, and in the river on a white block you could see something large and black. It turned out that it was a mammoth and a rhinoceros fighting. The battle ended, and the ice floe gradually carried away the mortally wounded animals.
The elder and the boys returned to their cave only in the morning. The women were told about the terrible massacre they had seen. However, in the cave the tribe felt protected due to the narrow entrance into which the animals could not get through. However, the male hunters who left for prey did not return and the tribe began to suffer from hunger. Everything had already been eaten - even the skin scraped from the skins.
There weren’t even clay pots or furniture back then. People ate from shells and wicker baskets, and slept on armfuls of leaves and moss. When even the last soup ran out, the Elder decided to send his fellow tribesmen in search of food. Everyone had to return before dark. Only Krek remained in the cave, making sure that the fire did not go out.
However, even before the tribe left to search, little Augie went for acorns. He came running joyfully and showed a small animal that looked like a rat, which he had found in the forest. The animal was called pestrushka. Augie convinced his brother to go with him to the place where he caught and killed the animal. He convinced them that there were still a lot of them left there and that they would be able to feed the entire tribe while they were waiting for the hunters.
However, Krek was afraid to leave the fire unattended - it would suddenly go out and hesitated between debt and hunger. However, the last feeling turned out to be stronger. The guys threw more wood on the fire and ran into the forest.
When we found ourselves in the desired clearing, we fell into a trap. The rats migrated, there were too many of them, and the animals began to attack the children. To escape from the animals, the guys climbed a tree and fell asleep.
At this time, hunters with a good catch met their fellow tribesmen on the way to the cave. Since everyone was very hungry, they immediately stopped and ate a piece of raw meat. When people came to the cave, it turned out that the fire had gone out. Since winter was approaching, without a fire the tribe faced death from cold. The second danger was hyenas, who could easily attack and kill people. After some time, the guilty Ojo and Kerk returned. Times were harsh then and so were the punishments. They wanted to kill the guys. However, Kirk begged for mercy and told how to return the extinguished fire.
The elders of the tribe actually found them in the cave where the stranger once lay, and soon the fire flared up again. Ojo was completely forgiven, but Kerk was only left alive, but expelled from the tribe. The boy was given clothes, food and weapons and told to leave before sunset.
Kirk left the cave and wandered in the forest for a long time until he found a tree to sleep at night. However, a lynx looked for the same place for its bed, and the boy had to fight with it. Kirk won, but suddenly heard his name called. It turned out that the Elder and two boys decided to leave the tribe to accompany him in his wanderings.
With four of us, the road was no longer so scary and stressful. Kirk and his friends went in search of a cave for the winter. This one was found with the help of Ryuk. Then they decided to go down the river, made a raft and met other people along the way. It turns out that this was another tribe that knew how to build houses that floated on water.
CHAPTER I On the river bank
On a cold, cloudy and rainy morning, a little nine-year-old boy sat on the bank of a huge river.
A mighty stream rushed forward uncontrollably: in its yellow waves it carried away branches and grass huddled in heaps, uprooted trees and huge ice floes with heavy stones frozen in them.
The boy was alone. He was squatting in front of a bunch of freshly cut canes. His thin body was accustomed to the cold: he did not pay any attention to the terrifying noise and roar of the ice floes.
The sloping banks of the river were densely overgrown with tall reeds, and a little further the steep slopes of chalk hills rose like high white walls, washed away by the river.
The chain of these hills was lost in the distance, in a foggy and bluish twilight; dense forests covered it.
Not far from the boy, on the slope of the hill, a little higher than that the place where the river washed the hill gaped like a huge gaping mouth, a wide black hole that led into a deep cave.
A boy was born here nine years ago. The ancestors of his ancestors also lived here for a long time.
Only through this dark hole did the harsh inhabitants of the cave enter and exit, through it they received air and light; the smoke of the hearth, on which the fire was diligently maintained day and night, poured out of it.
At the foot of the gaping hole lay huge stones, they served as something like a ladder.
A tall, lean old man with tanned, wrinkled skin appeared at the threshold of the cave. His long gray hair was pulled up and tied in a bun at the crown of his head. His blinking red eyelids were inflamed from the acrid smoke that forever filled the cave. The old man raised his hand and, covering his eyes with his palm under thick, overhanging eyebrows, looked towards the river. Then he shouted:
- Crack! – This hoarse, abrupt cry was like the cry of a frightened bird of prey.
"Krek" meant "bird catcher." The boy received such a nickname for a reason: since childhood, he was distinguished by his extraordinary dexterity in catching birds at night: he captured them sleepy in their nests and triumphantly brought them to the cave. It happened that for such successes he was rewarded at dinner with a hefty piece of raw bone marrow - an honorable dish usually reserved for elders and fathers of the family.
Krek was proud of his nickname: it reminded him of his nightly exploits.
The boy turned around at the scream, instantly jumped up from the ground and, grabbing a bunch of reeds, ran up to the old man.
At the stone staircase he laid down his burden, raised his hands to his forehead as a sign of respect and said:
– I’m here, Elder! What do you want from me?
“Child,” answered the old man, “all of us left before dawn in the forests to hunt for deer and broad-horned bulls.” They will return only in the evening, because - remember this - the rain washes away the traces of animals, destroys their smell and carries away the tufts of fur that they leave on the branches and gnarled tree trunks. Hunters will have to work hard before they meet their prey. This means we can go about our business until the evening. Leave your reed. We have enough shafts for arrows, but few stone points, good chisels and knives: they are all sharpened, jagged and broken off.
– What will you order me to do, Elder?
“Together with your brothers and me you will walk along the White Hills.” We will stock up on large flints; they are often found at the foot of coastal cliffs. Today I will tell you the secret of how to trim them. It's time, Krek. You have grown up, you are strong, beautiful and worthy of carrying a weapon made with your own hands. Wait for me, I'll go get the other children.
“I listen and obey,” answered Krek, bowing before the old man and with difficulty containing his joy.
The old man went into a cave, from where suddenly strange guttural exclamations were heard, more like the cries of alarmed young animals than human voices.
The old man called Krek handsome, big and strong. He must have wanted to cheer the boy up; after all, in fact, Krek was small, even very small, and very thin.
Krek's wide face was covered with a red tan; thin red hair stuck out above his forehead, greasy, tangled, covered with ash and all sorts of rubbish. He was not very handsome, this pathetic primitive child. But a living mind shone in his eyes; his movements were deft and quick.
He tried to get on the road as quickly as possible and impatiently hit the ground with his wide foot with large toes, and with all his five hands he pulled hard on his lips.
Finally, the old man emerged from the cave and began to descend the high stone steps with an agility surprising for his advanced years. A whole horde of savage boys followed him. All of them, like Krek, were barely covered from the cold with miserable cloaks made of animal skins.
Erest Dervilly was a French playwright, prose writer, and poet who lived from 1839 to 1911. One of his most famous stories is “The Adventures of a Prehistoric Boy.” Summary will allow the reader to get acquainted with this work in a few minutes, whereas it would take you more than one hour to study the original.
Heroes of the story
In the first lines of the work, the writer introduces the reader to the main character, whose name is Krek. He sat on the bank of the river on a cold, cloudy morning and watched the stream of water rushing along with stones, branches, and ice floes.
In front of him lay the brushwood that Krek had collected for the fireplace. The child was only 9 years old, but he was already working like all members of the tribe. He received this name because he was an excellent bird catcher, because in the primitive language “krek” is “bird catcher”.
An old man named the Elder came out of the cave in which the child lived with other relatives and called the child. This is where the book “The Adventures of a Prehistoric Boy” begins, the main characters of which are not only the Elder, Krek, but also other tribesmen. The author also introduces some of them in the first chapter.
Gel was the oldest of the children, he was already 15 years old. His main skill was that the young man was an excellent fisherman. Another teenager, Ryuk, had an excellent sense of smell and hearing. He could smell where the mushrooms had grown or where the berries were ripe.
All these characters are among the main ones characters the story “The Adventures of a Prehistoric Boy”, a brief summary will tell about further events.
The old man and the children go for flints
The elder called Krek to him and said that now the boys would go for flints, which they would then cut to make tips for axes and arrows. All the little companions of the Old One put baskets on their backs and followed the old man to the White Hills. There were Krek, Gel, Ryuk and other guys. Their mothers and girls - He and Mab - watched as they left, standing near the cave. And in it was the most Small child of this tribe is six-year-old Ojo. He was ordered to keep the fire going, so he periodically added dry sticks to the fire pit. The boy was upset that he was not taken with them, but even more so that he was hungry, so he was looking forward to the return of his brothers and adult men of the tribe, who had previously gone hunting.
It wasn't just the baby who wanted to eat. The teenagers who left with the Elder were also hungry. But they had to put everything that they found along the way into their bags, so that upon returning home or at a rest, the old man would examine whether the berries were edible, and then divide the spoils among all members of the tribe.
A terrible incident on the river
Finally, it was decided to take a long break. The children showed the Elder what they had obtained. He told them to start eating. The old man refused the snake that Krek presented to him, saying that it was for children.
Suddenly there was a noise from the direction of the river, everyone got scared. What it was is described in the book “The Adventures of a Prehistoric Boy.” A summary will allow you to find out what happened in a minute.
Krek said that a flock of birds was circling over the river. Ryuk saw that something black was visible in the distance on a white block. It turns out that there was a battle on a huge ice floe; a giant mammoth elephant and a shaggy rhinoceros wounded each other, but continued the fight. The children, seeing this, began to cling to the Elder in fear. But the battle was over, the mortally wounded enemies showed no more signs of life, and the ice floe carried them further and further.
In a cave
The expedition returned home to the cave before dark. The teenagers told the women and sisters about the terrible incident. Here they felt calm and safe. A terrible, large animal would not be able to penetrate into the small entrance.
But the members of the tribe still had one terrible enemy, and its name was hunger. The older men had not returned from hunting for 4 days. Those who remained in the cave ate almost everything. It was decided to even boil the skin from the skins from which the fur had been separated.
In those days there was no pottery yet, Ervilly talks about this. “The Adventures of a Prehistoric Boy” is a unique book from which you can learn about the life of ancient people. The air in the cave was stale and there was a stench. Of course, there was no furniture here. They slept on a pile of moss and leaves, which were covered with skins. consisted of bowls made from the skulls of large animals, wide shells and baskets woven from tree bark. Water was poured into such a basket, and then hot coals were lowered - the liquid gradually heated up.
Thus, leather soup was prepared. It was tasteless, but helped dull the feeling of hunger a little. Gel caught the fish, which was immediately divided among everyone. I couldn't get enough of these crumbs. Therefore, the Elder made a decision - he sent almost all his fellow tribesmen in search of something edible. The search had to be completed before sunset. Everyone left, leaving only Krek in the cave, who had to vigilantly monitor the hearth, throwing brushwood into it.
This ends chapter 3 of the book “The Adventures of a Prehistoric Boy.” A summary of further events will be outlined below.
Pestrushki
Even before almost everyone had left the cave, Augie went to collect acorns. Krek was waiting for his younger brother - he came running joyful and excited. He showed Krek an animal that looked like a large rat; it was a pestle. Oji joyfully exclaimed that he himself had caught and killed her and would certainly become a good hunter. The joyful baby began to call his older brother with him, assuring that there were still many pieds there, they would quickly catch them, and the tribe would have a sumptuous dinner.
Two feelings began to fight in Krek - duty and hunger. He understood that the hearth needed to be constantly maintained, but the temptation to bring a lot of food for himself and his hungry fellow tribesmen was stronger. Here is a plot that could very well be real, invented by Ervilly D. The adventures of the prehistoric boy continue.
Throwing more branches into the fire, he and Oji hurried to get the prey. When they arrived at the place, they saw that the grass around was in unnatural movement. By the time they realized why, it was already too late. It turns out that this was facilitated by an endless stream of parsleys that moved to a new place. The rats began to bite the boys; they were lucky that there were dried pine trees nearby. The guys, helping themselves with sticks, began to make a road. Then they climbed a tree and fell asleep.
Tribal Verdict
And at this time the men of the tribe returned with good booty. They met their children and women before they even reached the cave. The people were so hungry that the Elder decided to give everyone a piece of meat, which was eaten directly raw. The hunters presented the contents of a deer’s stomach to the old man himself as a sign of respect.
After the meal, everyone went into the cave and were horrified: the fire did not burn. This threatened the tribe with extinction, since winter was approaching, and without fire there was nothing to heat the home. In addition, wild hyenas, who were afraid of fire, could attack people at night and destroy them.
When Krek and Ozhi returned, according to the laws of that harsh time, it was decided to execute them for such a monstrous offense. One of the hunters had already raised an ax over them, but Krek broke free and fell to his knees in front of the Elder. He told how you can bring back the fire. The writer Ervilly D. knew about this; “The Adventures of a Prehistoric Boy” is an interesting book also because the facts stated in it could well have taken place.
Fo-Stranger's Treasure and the Banishment of the Birdcatcher
Once upon a time, a tribe sheltered a wounded stranger. In gratitude, he wanted to show the Elder what he possessed, but did not have time, as he died from his wounds. However, Krek managed to find out about his secret. Once a boy was turning over stones, hoping to find edible larvae or a snake under them, and saw wooden sticks. At first, Fo the Stranger was angry with the child, but then he revealed the secret. It turns out that if you insert one stick into the hole of another and rub it, smoke will come out first, and then fire will appear. With this, Krek ended his story. The adventures of the prehistoric boy continue.
The old man and his sons went to the cave that the child pointed to. They actually found these sticks. To the joy of the tribe, they soon managed to light a fire. For this, Augie was completely forgiven, and Krek was given life. But for this offense it was decided to expel the boy from the tribe. It was believed that someone who did something bad once could do it again.
The bird catcher was given food, weapons, and clothing. The elder told the boy to remember everything he taught him - this will help him survive. Krek was ordered to leave before sunset.
Friends
Krek settled down for the night in a tree that the lynx had already chosen. The boy won the fight with the animal. Before he had time to catch his breath, he heard someone calling him. It was Gel and Ryuk. Next to them he saw the Elder. He said that he left the tribe to accompany Krek, and reminded him of the incident on the river. After all, Krek did not run away then, but stayed with the old man to protect him. And Gel and Ryuk asked to go with him, and the Elder took them with him.
Of course, traveling with four of us was more fun and calmer. But the adventures of the prehistoric boy did not end there. The main characters set off on their journey together. It was necessary to find a cave where they could survive the winter. Thanks to Ryuk, we found one and spent the rest of the winter there.
Lake inhabitants
Having made a raft, the friends set off to swim. Suddenly they saw people in boats. The old man showed his peaceful mood with gestures and a smile.
When everyone washed ashore, the Elder and the three young men had something to be surprised about. After all, this tribe knew how to build unprecedented houses in the water on stilts from trees. Food was cooked on stoves made of stones and silt. When everyone sat down to dinner, Krek saw two animals. These were the ancestors of modern dogs, but the boy was very surprised, since animals were not domesticated in his tribe.
Krek returned the favor for not being driven away by the forest dwellers. He warned in time that they wanted to attack them, and fought bravely on the side of his new friends.
The author, Dervilly, came up with an unexpected and positive ending to the book. The adventures of the prehistoric boy end with Krek meeting his grown-up brother Ojo and sisters On and Mab. They were almost the only survivors in the tribe. The young man and girls remained to live on the lake, and Krek was destined to become a leader.
When I was a schoolboy, this book somehow fell into my hands. I remember how she captivated me from the very first pages, and with what excitement I followed the adventures of Krek, a boy who lived many thousands of years ago. I was especially impressed by that event in Krek’s life, which had such an impact big influence for the rest of his life. This is the case when Krek, to whom his relatives entrusted their greatest treasure - fire, failed to preserve it, and the fire went out, and with it, it seemed, all life died. After all, people did not know how to make fire - they could only maintain and preserve it. I experienced this terrible event with Krek in his life and in the lives of his family and friends. And with what joy I later read that all was not lost, that Krek accidentally learned from Fo the Stranger, a man from another tribe, a way to make fire - and the fire began to burn again!...
It was a pity to close last page book and parting with its characters, I wanted to know even more about their life, so difficult, full of dangers, so different from our life. ( This material will help you write competently on the topic of The Adventures of the Prehistoric Boy E. d'Hervilly. A summary does not make it possible to understand the full meaning of the work, so this material will be useful for a deep understanding of the work of writers and poets, as well as their novels, novellas, short stories, plays, and poems.) But then it turned out that this is possible and that for this you need to read history books - and they will tell you how people lived in those distant times. It turned out that the same life that Krek and his friends lived, that our distant ancestors lived, is still lived by people in the tropical forests of Africa and South. America, Southeast Asia, in the deserts of Australia. Travelers and scientists who visited them tell stories about the lives of these people. True, they live in others natural conditions, in a different climate,” they are surrounded by other plants, their forests are inhabited by other animals, and yet their life is very similar to the life of those people about which this book tells, about which history books tell.
I’ll tell you a little about the life of one such tribe. It was discovered in the deserts of Central Australia several years ago. You will see that although the people of this tribe live in a completely different environment - not in forests, but in the desert, not in cold, but in hot climates, they hunt not reindeer, but kangaroos - there is still a lot in their life reminiscent of what this book is about - a book about the life of a prehistoric boy. This means that by studying the life of such tribes, we can learn a lot about the life of our own distant ancestors.
The tribe I want to talk about is called the Bindibu, and it was discovered by Australian scientists who went to the deserts of Central Australia in search of primitive tribes not yet known to science. After several days of difficult travel through the sun-scorched desert, the travelers discovered a stream flowing in a deep gorge between high rocks. Several trees grew here, and between them there were small huts made of branches, leaves and grass - shelter from the sun and bad weather. Under each such shelter, a small depression was dug in the ground - a place to sleep for one person, and nearby there were the remains of fires, the fire of which people warmed themselves on cold nights. It was the camp of a small tribe.
Soon people appeared. The men returned from hunting, carrying hunting catch in their hands. Since dawn they wandered through the desert in search of lizards, knocked out birds with sticks, and occasionally they came across larger animals - kangaroos or large flightless emus birds. They killed kangaroos and emus with simple wooden spears.
Women with small children also returned. They carried the smallest ones in their arms, and the older children walked on their own. Women and children also wandered through the desert in search of edible roots, seeds, nuts, all kinds of insects and small animals, which these people eat after roasting them in hot ashes or on the coals of a fire.
Although the Bindiboos had never seen white people before, they turned out to be good-natured, hospitable, friendly people. They accepted the white travelers as their friends, not as enemies to be feared or trusted. And the travelers really liked these simple, honest, straightforward people.
The Bindibu tribe consists of only a few dozen people. In the morning, at dawn, all of them, with the exception of only the helpless old people and the sick, went hunting and in search of plant food, and in the evening they returned to the camp with prey. They knew the desert surrounding them perfectly - every hollow, bush, stream was well known to them from childhood.
Where white travelers often died among the sands and rocks from thirst, the Bindibu easily find sources of water and never lack it.
Neither the Bindibu nor the other tribes of Australia yet know agriculture and cattle breeding. They live only by hunting, fishing and collecting wild edible plants - just as our distant ancestors lived, as Krek and the people of his tribe lived.
For hunting they use spears and simple throwing sticks. They throw spears using a special spear thrower made of wood, about half a meter long. At one end there is a spear stop. When throwing a javelin, a javelin thrower seems to lengthen the arm, increase its swing and send the javelin forward a long distance. At the other end of the spear thrower, a stone knife is fixed using hardened resin. With its help, bindibus make spears and other wooden products, and cut the carcasses of animals killed during hunting. Bindibu have a small set of weapons, but some (like the spear thrower) serve a variety of purposes.
One day, a hunter-bindib wanted to show white travelers how many sources of water he knew in the desert. And then the spear thrower turned into geographical map. Using a sharp stone, he carved numerous circles on it, connected by straight lines. Each circle meant a body of water - a well, a lake, a stream - and straight lines meant roads in the desert from one body of water to another. After all, water for the Bindibu, these people of the desert, is life itself. They glorify water, write songs about it, and most often they sing those songs that talk about the life-giving power of water.
While male hunters never part with their spears, women, when leaving the camp, do not part with long, pointed sticks. From them to how people lived hundreds and thousands of years ago. She studies this from the remains of tools, dwellings, objects of art that were preserved in the ground or in caves where primitive people lived.
But not everything in this book is at the level of modern science. After all, the science is developing, people are learning more and more about the past, and much of what once seemed correct now no longer corresponds to the level of our knowledge.
Let's start with what we have already talked about - with fire. The book very vividly depicts the death of fire - that terrible hour for people when the fire went out. They accepted it as the death of their dearest being. And this was a truly terrible event for them if they did not know how to make fire. But we already know that Australians, who also live in the Stone Age, know how to make fire and even do it in two ways - by drilling, using two wooden sticks, and by striking a spark by striking stone against stone. And we have a reasonable doubt that the heroes of our book did not yet know any of these methods, that these methods were known at that time only to a few people. Most likely, methods of artificially producing fire at this time were already widespread and well known to many.
There is one more inaccuracy, much more important, and it must also be mentioned here. The Stone Age was a very long era in human history - it lasted many thousands of years. The culture of mankind did not stand still all this time, but developed. New, more and more advanced weapons were created. If at first people only knew how to beat and split stone, then gradually they learned to polish it, and then wonderful, smoothly ground stone tools, very durable and sharp, appeared. All new discoveries and inventions were made, and this book tells how its heroes accidentally invented a raft. More and more were created perfect species dwellings: if at first people lived mainly in caves, then gradually they learned to build real houses, including even on stilts. If at first people lived only by hunting, fishing and collecting wild plants, then gradually they learned to grow useful plants themselves - agriculture appeared, animals were tamed - cattle breeding appeared. If at first people only baked and fried their food on hot ash and coals, as Australians do today, then over time they invented pottery - they learned to make dishes from fire-fired clay, and all this happened during the Stone Age.
That is why the history of the Stone Age - this huge period in the history of mankind - is usually divided into two parts: the ancient Stone Age (called Paleolithic) and the new Stone Age (Neolithic), - and each of them also lasted for millennia. In the ancient Stone Age, people did not yet know how to polish stone, but in the new age they have already learned to do this. In the ancient Stone Age they did not yet know how to make large boats hollowed out of tree trunks, but in the new they already had such boats. In the ancient Stone Age, people did not yet have good houses, but in the new one they already did. In the ancient Stone Age, people knew neither agriculture nor cattle breeding. The only animal domesticated by man at that time was the dog. Australian hunters are accompanied everywhere and even helped by packs of dingoes to hunt. And in the new Stone Age, both agriculture and cattle breeding appeared. In the ancient Stone Age, people had not yet learned how to make dishes from baked clay, but in the new age they knew how to make such dishes and knew how to cook food in them.
And so we read in this book how Krek, expelled from his tribe, and his companions, who voluntarily decided to accompany him, meet the lake inhabitants. These people live a completely different life - so different from the life that Krek, his brothers and the Elder led in their homeland. The lake inhabitants already knew how to grind stone and drill holes for handles in stone tools, which means they already lived in the Neolithic-New Stone Age. But Krek and his friends in their homeland did not yet know how to do all this - their fellow tribesmen, therefore, still led the lifestyle of Paleolithic people - the ancient Stone Age. By the way, arrows were never polished, as stated in the book; even in the Neolithic, mainly tools for processing wood—axes and adzes—were polished. The lake dwellers had large boats hollowed out from tree trunks; they had huts plastered with clay, standing right in the lake on stilts - these are all also signs of the Neolithic, and all this was also unknown to the native community of Krek. True, the lake inhabitants did not know how to cultivate the land and grow plants, and the only domestic animal they domesticated was the dog, but even in the Neolithic, agriculture and cattle breeding did not appear immediately, but gradually. The lake inhabitants had not yet learned how to make pottery, but this skill did not come immediately in the same Neolithic.
The way of life of the lake inhabitants, as the author portrays it, is the way of life of the people of the early Neolithic, when many of the achievements characteristic of the society of the later, developed Neolithic had not yet appeared. But this is no longer Paleolithic. And the way of life of the cave dwellers, from whose midst Krek, the Elder and their relatives came, is the way of life of the people of the ancient Stone Age - Paleolithic. Could it have happened that tribes so different in their culture and way of life could live on the same European territory at the same time? After all, between them lie not even hundreds, but the way of life of the lake inhabitants, as it is depicted, this is the way of life of the people of the early Neolithic, when many of the achievements characteristic of the society of the later, developed Neolithic had not yet appeared. But this is no longer Paleolithic. And the way of life of the cave dwellers, from whose midst Krek, the Elder and their relatives came, is the way of life of the people of the ancient Stone Age - Paleolithic. Could it have happened that tribes so different in their culture and way of life lived on the same European territory at the same time? After all, between them lie not even hundreds, but perhaps thousands of years of cultural development. After all, having left the cave dwellers - Paleolithic reindeer hunters - and joined the lake inhabitants, Krek and his friends stepped into a completely different historical era!
The culture of mankind did not stand still at that time. But it developed very slowly then. If now the cultures of the Stone and Atomic Ages coexist in the world, then in Euron of the era discussed in the book, a meeting of cultures so different in their level of development could not yet occur.
Why do some tribes living in the Stone Age survive on Earth today? This is explained for various reasons, and the most important of them is the remoteness of these tribes from the centers of world civilization. After all, they live in tropical forests, in the mountains, surrounded by seas or deserts, cut off from the rest of the world.
The struggle for existence in these conditions was very difficult for people, and this further delayed their cultural development.
But thanks to this, the author of the book was able to introduce us, its readers, to two great eras in the history of mankind - the ancient and new Stone Ages. And together with the heroes of the book, we will also meet the people of those times, learn their sorrows and joys, see how they lived. This fascinating book will introduce us to the life of our distant ancestors. And when we close the last page, this life and these people, previously so distant and alien, will now become closer and clearer to us.