Confused and bewildered, he struggles to comprehend these predatory newcomers who have (so casually) shattered his familiar world they “are like a famished wolf in the hollow of a tree”. Lok is a loveable clown, a child in an adult’s body. So closely do we identify with Lok that our own kind seem as alien to us as they do to him. Waiting in hiding for an opportunity to snatch the stolen children, they watch with amazement as the fascinating, dangerous “others” chatter, get drunk, make boats, draw pictures and practice shamanistic rituals. Only two are left, including the simple-minded Lok, through whose eyes we watch events unfold. They are defenceless against a sudden, shocking attack by strangers who kill most of the adults and take the children as pets. Taking no more than they need, they tread lightly upon the land. They are gentle, nonviolent people, linked by an affectionate group consciousness, at one with themselves and their world. A parable about the cost of evolutionary progress, it’s a haunting tale of innocence destroyed, a prehistoric Paradise Lost set in a vivid, intricately realized European landscape toward the end of the last Ice Age.Īs the weary members of a Neanderthal family reach their summer grounds after a perilous annual journey, they fail to recognize warning signs that they are not alone. Evocative and disturbing, The Inheritors portrays a fateful encounter some 27,000 years ago between a small clan of Neanderthals and a group of Homo sapiens.
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