Ralf Volke writes Stone Age novel "Eva's Children"

The young Tade loves gazelles like children today love chicken nuggets – except that he had to suffer for a long time because meat isn't available in supermarkets and has to be laboriously hunted. And food is becoming increasingly scarce, so Tade's clan sets out in search of new hunting grounds. Tade lives in the Jordan Valley 55,000 years ago. He is one of the protagonists in Ralf Volke's Stone Age novel "Eva's Children." In it, the journalist and former editor of the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschlands (RND) recounts a momentous encounter – that of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. When the former left their home continent of Africa and arrived in the Middle East after a long journey, they encountered the Neanderthals, who were pushed south from their original settlement area of ​​Europe as the Ice Age progressed, as Volke explains in the afterword.

The author imagines what such an encounter might have looked like: Tade's little sister, Eva, is kidnapped by strange hunters and finds a new home with the Neanderthals. According to the author, the name Eva has no religious connotation, as that would overload the story. However, the name does stand for the foremother of modern humanity, who, with the exception of the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa, carries Neanderthal genes, as researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig discovered only in 2010. This discovery also led to the 2022 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

The young protagonists, who have such resounding names as Cukewo, Tade's younger brother, and the theme of a departure into the unknown make "Eva's Children" a young adult novel, but adult readers also learn interesting facts about human history.

Volke's first fictional book—previously a nonfiction book about climate change—is reminiscent of classic adventure novels in which nature and its deadly dangers determine life. The sober language matches the harsh environment. While historical stories from the Old West, for example, still seem conceivable and are supported by written evidence, this exciting journey into the Stone Age leaves plenty of room for imagination.

What did people feel back then, what connects them to us? This quickly leads to the fundamental question of what constitutes human nature. As a reader, you sometimes feel like an archaeologist uncovering traces of past times beneath layers of dust and earth.

Volke says of his motivation for the story: "Especially in our time of resurgent racism, I find it fascinating to realize that all people outside of Africa are mixed race. That's why I added a corresponding framework to the main story, set in the present." Katja, a young woman from Leipzig, is bullied because of her darker skin color. She finds an old tool from the Stone Age and draws new courage from it. While the different human species of that time can only be compared to the different skin colors of today to a limited extent, the conclusion remains that ideological notions of "purity" lack any basis.

The historian Volke largely adhered to known facts in his narrative. "For example, in terms of geography (the large lake in the Jordan Valley), the climatic conditions of the Ice Age, the presumed route of Homo sapiens during their emigration from Africa (across the Red Sea, which at that time had a narrow passage that even Stone Age people could cross), technological skills (making fire, making flint weapons), and diet."

Where there is no certain knowledge, he fantasized a little – for example, he writes about the invention of the bone needle, although we don't really know when that happened.

“Eva’s Children” is published by Books on Demand and is also available as an audio book.