They're excited because... they knew her. Or rather, their ancestors did. The Ancient ones, Ice Weasels who came down off the glaciers, added a little color to the fur, and decided to mix it up with people after the last Interglacial. 

So we got lots about the wing-tip feathers of an Eagle, the pelvis of a Leopard, a Gazelle horn, an Auroch's tail, the leg of a wild Boar, her Husband's foot... and most of all, about the shells of 50 live Tortoises that had apparently been brought to the site, eaten at the funeral, and then the shells thrown in. Better'n crusts from those little sandwiches, I guess. 

Paydirt, baby. Two - count 'em, two - Martens buried with her. 

The Wolverine, for instance, is custom-built to dominate the North. The Otters, and particularly the Sea Otter, are unreasonably cute on the surface... but underwater, savage as a Hungarian water polo player. The Badgers (borrrrrrrring, but good in the trenches); the Ekorus (of which only 59 remain, and none left in the Continental US); the Panserbjørne (or "Armored Bear"); the Ferret (banished from the Clan in 1500 BC not for becoming domesticated, but humiliatingly so); the nasty, brutish, short but well-coiffed Mink, Ermine and Sable; and of course, the Marten. 

This one being almost the spitting image of the ones buried beneath the Shaman's hands.

Now, most of you have probably only ever heard of Martens twice. The 1^st time being some story about how they break into cars so they can bite through the ignition wires & brake hoses. I would hope by now that you understand enough about the Weasel family to realize these are not random acts of vandalism, but rather, deliberate acts of sabotage. And yes, it is personal.

The 2^nd time you've probably heard of Martens is in relation to Lyra Belacqua,  the young Economic Historian of Jordan College, Oxford. There are apparently even some stories & a movie about her, her adventures up North, and the time she spent in the presence of Iorek Byrnison, the Panserbjørne King. Now, the movie made Lyra & her Marten friend, Pantalaimon, a bit cutesy (and forget that ending) - but the Weasels at least appreciated Pullman's central insight... that most Shaman hang with Weasels.

Now, I know you're keen to learn more, and this is a perfect opportunity, so I'll pass on what I learned about the Shaman & the Martens. It took a good many readings, and a few days worth of pretty exhausting chanting before they'd settle down enough for me to ask any questions, but here's the inside dope from Weasel-town:

#1. No, even though she lived between the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean, and just 12 miles from Nazareth, she didn't know Jesus. Your first thought might be that she should probably have made time & made tracks down Highway 79. But she didn't. And yes, that's a bummer. But it turns out they didn't connect mostly because Jesus didn't show up until 10,000 years after she died. 

#2. Plus, she, and her whole people, didn't have any cars. Nor any cows. Not fat cows, nor thin cows, nor thin cows eating fat cows, no domesticated animals period. It gets worse. No domesticated grains. No pottery, much less pans. Look, these guys didn't even have houses to put stuff in, assuming you gave 'em stuff, just as a starter pack. This was, the Weasels remind me, a good 7,000 years before Stonehenge, before the Great Pyramid. Pretty much the only thing they came after was the Ice Age.

#3. Ok, enough dancing around. Here's the thing, the most important thing the Weasels told me. That how most of us see this time is wrong. That we still can't quite grasp that these little people in furs in any way consciously contributed to the earth-shaking innovations that followed - Grain, Animals, Pots, Pillars, Posts, Houses, Villages. That no matter what the scholarly articles say, our mass-media shaped opinion is still that these things happened largely by accident.

Instead, the Ice Weasel claim is that she saw it. In fact, that she saw all these things. Perhaps the most Modern of the Scholar Weasels, Roderick Who Once Ate Cake, put it like this. "She was on the path." At which point his acolytes chimed in to explain the great Weasel's cryptic words, saying that he meant that, "She grasped within herself, embodied, and then expressed to others, a way of being, a way of life, that was the path to a new world." 

When I ventured to argue that maybe she didn't see all the specifics, Roderick plowed back in, in his scholarly way, saying, "What are you, some kinda idiot? Of course she didn't see the exact details, or know the precise time & date or recognize the individual face & place. Are you daft?" He paused and then stated, "Acolytes... This one fatigues me. Bring me refreshment. Pale Ale."

Ok, Rod was a pompous git. But. The Weasels were all quite insistent on this. The word had come down, across hundreds of generations, that it was, in fact, this one little Shaman lady who had been the visionary of her time. There's a level at which the group mind, or collective memory, of the Ice Weasel is pretty damned unified, and on this point, they were in lock step.

Old Rod's wife, Priscilla, Queen of (Pie-Based) Desserts, put it to me somewhat more emotionally. "You assholes think all those cave-people & hunters were as dumb as you. That's the thing, right, punk? You drive a car, flick on a VCR, and haven't the first f*cking clue how they really work. You go through your daily paces, numb & dumb, chained by the ankle to your neighbor, and by the balls to the Man." 

Priscilla was somewhat more forthright than old Rod the Mod Scholar, and his approach was beginning to appeal more than it had initially, which thought apparently was expressed through my "outside voice," because she grabbed me by the collar & lifted me up over a distinctly yellow snowbank, fixed me with the one good rotating eye, and said,

"The problem with seeing early history as consisting of a series of accidents is that it fundamentally assumes that people were dumb. That they had no ability to search out or see patterns. That they couldn't compare & contrast. Couldn't remember what had happened or how things worked & look to splice or modify them. And then, that they couldn't think clearly enough, or concentrate long enough, to organize themselves or persist through the testing of a new course of action."

"Better," I said. "Too slow," she said, "and a bit pompous," depositing me 'midst the stain. 

Fortunately, she went on. "Bald boy.... That woman spent her entire 45 years, walkin' the walk. She had a vision & she didn't back down. She walked it, son. And as the path grew clearer, she kept on walkin' it. And she did all that while draggin' that lameass foot, and those dumbass people of hers, behind. Including her husband, who, by the way, once kicked her for walking too slow. Which is why that foot showed up in her grave. Hehe. And that little Shaman woman paid attention. She may have had to walk slow, but it taught her something. And then, she taught them. 'Slow down and smell the flowers,' where do you think that came from? And while you're at it, how about you big cavemen look at this nice fat grass here, and that relatively more peaceful Auroch there, and look how the water stays cupped there in that mud, even though the mud's dried up? That woman thought slow & deep, and she dreamt big & wide. And when we talked to her, the Martens, she didn't half listen. In fact, she listened so well, we sent two Martens down, dig?"

Well yeah, I dug. But by this point she was off on some long & learned discourse about the ability of early peoples to select, identify & test early plants for medicinal purposes. About their incredible memories, not just visual, but extending right across the senses. Their physical abilities to tackle & manage unbelievably extreme, and volatile, environments. Their skill with stone, bone, flesh, hide, earth & wood.

By this point, she was sounding a bit too much like an old Soc Prof I had, one whom I figured had maybe dropped too much acid or had some nasty-hot same-sex relationship years back that she maaaaaybe pined for a bit.

Unfortunately, it seemed my "inside voice, outside voice" difficulties were recurring, because a talon of hers now appeared to have inserted itself in my forehead. It was interesting at least, listening to the rest of the lecture as the pain rose, and the blood dripped down between my eyes.

"Proof meet pudding. Tortoise pudding. Boy, you ever try to get 50 live, wild tortoises together, at once, for a meal? That takes knowledge, planning, storage systems. And organization." I nodded. But only the once before I figured out how that wasn't workin' too well for me. "And they buried her in a worked grave. Limestone, slabs, laid out, circles, casings, and it lasted. Too far for your brain to stretch, to go from constructing a home for the dead, to one for the living?"

By later that night, I was pretty out of it. Decided maybe I'd hang with a somewhat younger, more relaxed, crowd. Ok... stoners. These were the kinda people Priscilla woulda warned me about. Which was why I was there, as a matter of fact. They were lounging, doing a bit of teenage social grooming, you know, flossing their friends with razor wire and such. I wasn't partaking of the noxious, 'cause the second hand smoke alone was powerful enough to drive my mind on a fast scuttle out from between my eyes. But all in all, even with the smoke & the 4 of us jammed into the back of that VW van, I was pretty happy. Even though when they got stoned, they all affected an accent like Tommy Chong.

Bim the Blissful Idiot was in full... if confusing... flight. "She was an outsider, man. You know that? Yeah, Forced to marry off the ranch by her old man. That's tough, dude. She come from up North, originally. Long walk for a little girl with a bum leg. 300 miles. But her family were wheels, man. Big in Göbekli Tepe. That's like in Turkey now, heh? Urfa. Ur, dude. Remember that? That whole greater Ur region. I hope they test her bones to prove it, man. Feel like sending 'em the money to. Mebbe some big shot will. Mebbe Branson. He's cool."

JoeyJohnny D.D. tuned one up, and started riffing on life in a band. 

She taught 'em, you know? About life. And how to get along. It's tough, man, I don't need to tell you, when you gotta spend longer & longer periods in one place. Like, the patterns of social behavior shift, right? Suddenly, everyone's in your face, got things to do & nowhere else to do 'em. But she just handled it. Smacked it down. Taught 'em all how to deal with it. 'Cause life on the road is nothin' like life at home....

Hey! Get this. Like... that cave they buried her in? That was hers, man. That's why she was the first one buried there. Didja know that? She was the first. And they had to haul her 500 feet up that hill to bury her there. Well, why would they do that? Like, there? I betcha she hung out there. A lot. Maybe it was like... Hilazon Tachtit was her studio. Man."

This made more sense. Somehow.

But JoeyJohnny D.D. was off on his tangent now, running hard. "Think about it. Right? She didn't have no paper or books. Couldn't store nothin' online. So what she learned about a tree, she had to keep in her head. And grasses. All them grasses........... Like, from back at her home too, up Göbekli way. Had to remember all that. And the rock woulda been different, and different clay 'n stuff, and she woulda had to constantly try to explain shit to people, and them thinkin' she was confused, what with the accent, and probably tellin' her to f*ck off 'cause she's a lousy stoner, and Northern scum. And such. I don't wanna grow up, man."

Long, unhappy pause.

"So what could she do, heh? I'll tell ya what. This little crippled kid with the accent, she woulda only had one way to communicate it, what she was seein', and comparin', and imaginin'. And such."

"Dance it, man. She danced it. I'll bet she danced the ass out of it. And if she had the pipes, mebbe sang it too. New songs. She woulda had to jam, right, mebbe fusion, right? Like, how long.... must we sing this old song? I'll bet she'd get 'em all to come to The Cave, Saturday nights, do concerts & shit. Mebbe they had trance stuff too. Like, to help with the memory. Like we do. And stories. Those are good. Man, I could use a couple of stories right now. I'm hungry as hell."

We broke for eats, and ended up at Timmy Rue laRue's unofficial little place, where they had stand-up storytelling. You know, just the two-minute spots, little bitty stories, just enough to beat back the pangs. I donno, I musta got caught up in it, I think I had a dozen Timbits  myself.

Anyway, it was a couple of days before I really got my head clear, and the one thing I remember wanting to look up was that place she came from, up North, outside Göbekli Tepe. I donno whether she actually came from there, but when I checked it out, the site was impressive.

And the pillars all with carvings of Foxes, and Bulls and Boars and Ducks. Lions even. When I searched around the area, they had lots of statues, carvings of humans too. Some were women, Great Mothers and such. Some of men, holding Great Cocks. Plus ca change, eh?

But some of the statues, the ones with eyes, you probably won't forget. Like this guy. Obsidian Eyes.

       

He kinda spooks me, old Obsidian Eyes. What he was thinking. What he saw. The Weasels say the little Shaman lady scared her people too. What with the bad leg & the leopard pelvis & those two Martens always hanging around, chittering. But she earned her keep. Got some respect by the end. You know, them hauling her up to that cave. Making her the first person ever buried there. The first person with a special grave, worked and encased like that. The first person to be buried with all that Shaman stuff.