Brian Hayden, a Cortes Island local and archaeologist, has published his first novel.
The Eyes Of The Leopard takes place 20,000 years ago in southwestern France during the ice age. The central character is a young teen who tries to adapt to a new community after his family is forced to move from its familiar territory to a new area in search of food.
In the 300,000 years that Homo sapiens has existed as a distinctive species, we have done very well. During this time we have outlived at least five other hominids, including Homo neanderthalensis, which became extinct a mere 40,000 years ago—depending on ancestry, we actually carry traces of Neanderthal genes as a result of interbreeding. We have also managed to populate the entire planet, an accomplishment that has puzzled those who have tried to explain our unprecedented success. Luck was obviously a factor. But an another is now emerging from the genomic analysis of a rare disorder known as Williams Syndrome. (see “The Last Human” by Kate Ravilious, NewScientist, 29 Nov. 2021.)
