Neolithic Muggings

[ithildin]

Muggings were rife in New Stone Age:

If you are worried about being attacked or killed by a violent criminal, just be glad you are not living in Neolithic Britain. From 4000 to 3200 BC, Britons had a 1 in 14 chance of being bashed on the head, and a 1 in 50 chance of dying from their injuries....

[...]

The injuries were mostly caused by blunt objects, although some of the skulls seem to have been hacked by stone axes and there is some evidence that ears were chopped off.

(emphasis mine)

Fanfic, anyone?

Comments

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I always did like the incongruity of imagining Methos with a big, clumsy stone axe. I bet it took a looooong time to properly decapitate another immortal, in those days.

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that it seems like no one would have paid any attention while he was doing it. Just another day of violent crime in the hood!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

*Snickers* Except for the big rush of lightning, of course....

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

I wonder what a Neolithic response to that would be? It would scare the crap out of them of course, but would it occur to Neolithic immortals to not take heads 'in public'? Would everyone consider it some unexplainable scary thing in a list of the hundreds of other natural occurences that they had no clue over?

[medie]

*snicker* I feel the sudden urge to interrogate Methos, he's got that "don't look at me!" expression on his face.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

...that "don't look at me!" expression on his face.

You mean his normal expression, right? ;)

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Heh heh heh!

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

[snorfle] the wide eyed innocent look.

[enchantersnight.livejournal.com]

Ok what does that say about me when first thought is where is Methos and someone hold him down while we question him!

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

That you have a serious addiction? :) Come join the support group! We meet here several times a week [snicker]

[sophiedb.livejournal.com]

Grr. Argh.

:)

[jinxed-wood.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't know; some of those stone axes were petty sharp - and they were a hell of a lot more durable than bronze weapons of the era. Which is why the Britons were still fond of their axes in the early bronze age, I suppose...

Okay, maybe I put *way* too much thought into this...

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Okay, maybe I put *way* too much thought into this...

Hey, I love knowing stuff like this! So thought away. :)

When I went to Orkney, one of the places I went to was the Tomb of the Eagles, which was on a privately owned farm. The couple that owned must have been in their late 60s. The husband took the group walking out to the back of beyond to the various sites on the property, but his wife greeted everyone. They had an impromptu museum on their porch and one of the things was a skull of a Neolithic woman. She wanted us all to hold it, and she said that 'this was your granny'. It was very important to her that we saw the people that had lived in the same place so long ago as real people, just like us. Not remote figures in books and museums.

Boy, I wish I could go back.

[jinxed-wood.livejournal.com]

LOL! Living in Ireland, I think I may take that kind of thing too much for granted - oh, what's that? Oh that's just a 5,000 year old burial site clogging up the landscape...

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

I can see that. I've just always wondered what people from different eras were really like. What were their hopes and fears? When I worked in old downtown Monterey, I used to sit in one of the walled gardens that were built back during the orignal Spanish settlement. There's wisteria hanging all over one end and a fountain int the center. Anyway, I'd sit there on my lunch and imagine people from that period in the garden. Conversations, how they were dressed, their histories.

Okay, now everyone knows I'm really odd...

[jinxed-wood.livejournal.com]

Not that odd, really! I tend to on the occasional meandering of my own - I live in an area in Dublin called the Blackpitts. It got it's name from the first black death in the 1300's, when the entire area was one mass grave - weird, and slightly creepy, but interesting.

[cyberducks.livejournal.com]

calime33 wrote a wonderful fic a while ago about little Methos - long before his first death - being raised by a very caring adoptive mother in the Stone Age. I hope she updates it one day again.

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Thanks for passing on the link! I'll check out.

A pre immortal Methos story is one of those that's been ratlting around my brain for quite awhile, but I'm not sure it'll ever get written. But at least it's mentl background for other fic.