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"Neander Dad"

Just a Neandertal dad bringing home the bacon, or rabbit in this case. The family looks relieved, maybe due to hunger, because they miss dad or both.

Whereas we can't be sure if this sort of scene would happen during the time of the Neandertals, I think it's safe to assume it is plausible. They're suggested to have been very similar to us in terms of cognition and social dynamics. Given that, and the fact that Neandertals generally lived in smaller groups than us homo sapiens, I imagine the Neandertal family would be happy to see one of their kin after a time of absence.

It's typical to imagine the world 200-60,000 years ago as one continuous ice age with snow and ice everywhere. But that wasn't exactly the case. Ice ages have periods of warmth called an interglacial - basically the warm times between the extreme cold. Hence the predominantly green, forested backdrop. 

Two details that might catch the keen eye are the markings on the cave wall. Whereas the jury is still out on whether Neandertals made art or any kind of symbolic markings, I thought it neat to add something similar to the engraving found in Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar dated to Neandertal times.  

During times of scarcity or following a bad winder, one could envision a lack of big game, and a small Neandertal family unit scraping together a living. The dad goes out for a hunt that can potentially take days, while the family stays behind and subsists off of nuts, berries, and other such foods. A situation where every small scrap counts. That's essentially the idea behind this illustration.

Call it the "dad went out for food and actually came back" scene from about 80,000 years ago.
Neander Dad
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