earth's pharmacopeia

I really like your perspective on this, especially since Jean wrote these right off the tail of second wave feminism, which as a wife and mother at that time, was certainly thinking about these things.

I really like your point about Ayla's gift, I don't know if you meant her "gift of knowledge" in general or even her revelation about men being integral to the creation of children. I personally see Ayla's gift more as an ability to change rather than knowledge itself, as the Clan quite literally has too much knowledge. The difference is that they can't innovate or use anything they learn.

You can see towards the end of LoPC that men are ALREADY starting to question if they have to care about a child in their family if it might not be theirs biologically. You can already see what ignorance does to people. (to be clear they do have 'knowledge' of biological fatherhood now, but ignorance about what that means emotionally.)

The Clan being very strictly patriarchal is shown to be THE reason that the clan has been stunted, they literally cannot evolve, change, or grow to keep up with the Others. They say in the very beginning of CotCB that men and women of the Clan literally cannot live day to day life without each other, precisely because men have gone on so long not doing, "women's skills" that they are now incapable.

It's not hard to draw a parallel between that and men that call taking care of their own children "babysitting", or being incapable of taking care of their home when the wife is unable. Even the fact that the Clan men have a ritual to beg the spirits for a new home at the start which is forbidden for the women to see, purely because it would show that the men are not all powerful, proving that the entire system is fragile and ultimately made up (by the men).

I see the Clan as a cautionary tale against traditional values being held above change. Even if it is for the better, they are scared of change, because they literally can't do it.

This is the Lascaux birdman, the only humanoid figure in the entire cave, and dates back to about 16,000 years ago.

These are a lot harder to interpret with the naked eye, but these cave paintings from Indonesia are at least 43,900 years old (older than the lion man) and are considered to be the oldest representative art in the world. They represent beings with human and animal characteristics- therianthropes- hunting warty pigs and anoa.

It also includes these fascinating paragraphs about the role of estrogen in different types of physical activity, directly debunking the widespread notion that estrogen is the weak human's hormone and only does weak human things:

Given the fitness world's persistent touting of the hormone testosterone for athletic success, you'd be forgiven for not knowing that estrogen, which females typically produce more of than males, plays an incredibly important role in athletic performance… The estrogen receptor—the protein that estrogen binds to in order to do its work—is deeply ancient. Joseph Thornton of the University of Chicago and his colleagues have estimated that it is around 1.2 billion to 600 million years old—roughly twice as old as the testosterone receptor. In addition to helping regulate the reproductive system, estrogen influences fine-motor control and memory, enhances the growth and development of neurons, and helps to prevent hardening of the arteries. Important for the purposes of this discussion, estrogen also improves fat metabolism. During exercise, estrogen seems to encourage the body to use stored fat for energy before stored carbohydrates. Fat contains more calories per gram than carbohydrates do, so it burns more slowly, which can delay fatigue during endurance activity. Not only does estrogen encourage fat burning, but it also promotes greater fat storage within muscles… which makes that fat's energy more readily available. Adiponectin, another hormone that is typically present in higher amounts in females than in males, further enhances fat metabolism while sparing carbohydrates for future use, and it protects muscle from breakdown. Anne Friedlander of Stanford University and her colleagues found that females use as much as 70 percent more fat for energy during exercise than males. Estrogen's ability to increase fat metabolism and regulate the body's response to the hormone insulin can help prevent muscle breakdown during intense exercise. Furthermore, estrogen appears to have a stabilizing effect on cell membranes that might otherwise rupture from acute stress brought on by heat and exercise. Ruptured cells release enzymes called creatine kinases, which can damage tissues… Linda Lamont of the University of Rhode Island and her colleagues, as well as Michael Riddell of York University in Canada and his colleagues, found that females experienced less muscle breakdown than males after the same bouts of exercise. Tellingly, in a separate study, Mazen J. Hamadeh of York University and his colleagues found that males supplemented with estrogen suffered less muscle breakdown during cycling than those who didn't receive estrogen supplements.

I believe these gifs are specifically from the herd that was released into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone when the species was still extinct in the wild. That herd is estimated to be about 100 strong now.

daybreak

This is Sparta, she died 28 000 years ago.

This is Boris, he died 43 500 years ago.

This is Lyuba, she died 42 000 years ago.

This is Sasha, she died 34 000 years ago.

This is Lena, she died 42 000 years ago.

This is the Badyarikha mommy of a Homotherium cub,

This is Blue Babe, he died 36 000 years ago.

Mark Maggiori (French-American, b.1977)

"Dibé Yázhi" (Navajo name for that massive rock located in Monument Valley, Arizona; it means 'little sheep'), 2023

Oil on linen

Paleolithic cultures in Europe

Vladimir Kush