The Stone Age Settlers

by Petar Petrov (Bulgaria)

I didn't expect to find Germany

Drum sounds please: tum-tum-tum! ‘Tomorrow we are going to meet the Stone Age People! They are coming from near and afar. We are waiting in the right place, at the right moment, and it will be spectacular!’ This is what we told the volunteers the night before the opening of The Stone Age Week. And no, we were not expecting a primitive tribe, survived to this day in an isolated pocket of the planet! We were going to meet civilized people, some of them doctors and layers I was told, who have a strange hobby. They re-play the life of our prehistoric ancestors in its every aspect. I had the chance to discover their fascinating world while I spent two weeks at a Neolithic open-air museum in northern Germany. This is a beautiful place that recreates the cultural landscape from 3.000 BC. It consists of true-to-scale outdoor reconstructions of huts, gardens, and a pond with water plants. It combines two different ‘habitats’— grassy fields (for events) and a forest (for gathering mushrooms and wild berries). I was one of the three leaders of an experimental archaeology project. We had a terrific team of international volunteers from three continents who came to build a wooden pathway here (irregular, crooked, shaky like everything in the prehistoric era). Our project was scheduled so to overlap with the Stone Age Week, which was a highly anticipated event when Stone Age enthusiasts come together. We had the rare opportunity to be able to mingle with these folks. Tum-tum-tum! “Stunned” is perhaps the best word that describes our reaction. We thought we knew everything about such reenactments and we were wrong. I remember the inciting incident when a thought crossed my mind that something is not as expected. A group of volunteers and I had to find the man who kept the key form the tools cabin. We noticed that his family had just ‘settled’ on the nearby lawn, so we went to look for him there. It was only his wife and children, hanging animal skins to dry! The wife told us, with the most casual tone possible: ‘Oh, he isn’t here. He is in the forest, hunting.’ Hunting! Yes, that was one of those awkward moments when you don’t know if this is a joke and should you laugh. We expected those people to wear crazy outfits, including bone necklaces and fancy amulets. Their faces - painted in earth tones. They should do pottery, archery, and of course they should make fire with sticks. Oh, and they should walk barefoot. To my surprise, I found that their secondary life is much richer and more exciting than this and far more complete. The Stone Age people value above all the authenticity. They try to accomplish everything as the people from the past would have. A good example is their cloths. They don’t wear costumes, far from it, but handmade leather dresses, basic and sturdy. Every dress is unique. Actually, the Stone Age people liked to brag about their fashion innovations and kept telling how comfortable these cloths were. Though, I cannot confirm this, I agree that they made a point, you never need to wash them! Every day, I was shocked how busy everyone was. The Stone Age week is supposed to be a time for repose. No? Every minute was dedicated to some sort of work. Most often, they were making tools. Some for domestic purpose and some for warfare. I am speaking of arrow points made of sharp flintstone fixed to wooden sticks, which were actually deadly! But let’s stay on the bright side. We also saw them smoking meat, gathering edible plants and actually cooking real Stone Age dishes. They ground the flour, brought water from a spring, cracked hazelnuts with flat rocks, cut herbs with flint knives, made a fire and then baked! Needless to say, these were full time Stone Age people. They came to this place seeking escape in the wilderness. And after every day of toil they spent every evening around the pleasant warmth of a fire, playing flute, making growling sounds, and telling scary stories to the children.