Two of the most famous victims of Pompeii are a mother with a gold bracelet who hugged her son to protect him from the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. C. But it turns out that neither she was a woman, nor was he her son. A DNA study has just disproved that centuries-old assumption. It was a man who was not related to the little boy in his arms. «No one has disputed in this time that it was a woman with her son. But now we have the scientific data that shows that he is a man who wears an ornament – an absolutely logical and normal thing both at that time and today – and he is trying to save a little boy. We all have that feeling of caring as human beings,” explains archaeologist Marga Sánchez Romero. If the study had been published earlier, that is one of the stories that he would have liked to fictionalize in ‘(Pre)historias. Tales of women who forged the world’ (Destino), a collection of stories for children that she launches in the heat of her first essay, ‘Prehistorias de mujeres’. The also professor of Prehistory at the University of Granada has written and selected the stories (“they are fiction, but each and every one of them is based on complex archaeological data,” she indicates) from the perspective of care. Related News From ‘The Inventor of Travel’ to ‘Infinity in a Reed’ standard Yes Irene Vallejo and the revolution of the invisible heroes Celia Fraile GilFor her, they have not only been essential, but they have modeled human civilization as it We know: «Our survival depends on them. Since we are born, also, because we are the weakest offspring in the animal kingdom. During the first year of life we need constant attention. And later, if we had not continued with that care in every sense (in health, in food, in well-being, in affection…), we would not have reached the technological, cultural or social levels to which we have reached. , without a doubt.”lecturas_no_obligadas_0704Sánchez Romero contrasts this facet of humanity with the most warlike. «The readings that are made about history in many cases are made from the violent resolution of the conflict, war as a way to achieve objectives seems that we can legitimately accept. What I do throughout the book is precisely tell those stories that have to do with the opposite, with having managed emotions, illness, resources, inventions… Things as everyday as a toothpick, which do not appear in nowhere because they are not in museums, they are not in history books. Those little things, which are sometimes very big, such as caring for sick people of any age or who have different abilities, for me are what make us most relevant. “Against fearThere is the story of Benjamina (‘the dearest’), the heidelbergensis girl who lived 530,000 years ago in Atapuerca. She suffered from craniosynostosis, so her brain did not develop properly and she needed help walking and eating. Or that of Aura, the girl with Down syndrome who was born in Lazarides (Greece) 3,300 years ago. Or that of the woman who had the first ear operation in history performed in Dolmen del Pendón (Burgos), 5,300 years ago. Illustration by Clàudia Capdevila for the story ‘Benjamina’ Clàudia CapdevilaFor this popularizer, technical progress also sinks its roots in the need to care. «The medical technology we have today began forty or fifty thousand years ago, with Neanderthals chewing willow bark. They did it to calm the pain because it has salicylic acid. And he thinks the same thing happens with social strategies about how to fight with the fears and uncertainty that surround human existence. «We have the science to explain things, but in prehistory it did not exist. They had to hold on to material things to not be afraid. Like the ceramic figurines that represent women giving birth or pregnant women that served as amulets that were passed from one to another thousands of years ago to be able to have a good birth and that appear worn by use. Illustration by Clàudia Capdevila for the story based on the first ear operation Clàudia CapdevilaInfinity of everyday objects that today we consider modern are derived from the ability to satisfy social and practical needs at this stage. “Few things we use today were not invented in prehistory,” he emphasizes. Several examples appear in his book: from the baby carrier, as reflected in the Gönnersdorf engravings that include a woman carrying a child, to the first baby bottles, which were ceramic vessels with a spout in which traces of milk were found. “All of this connects us with those first forms of technology and innovation, which arose from the real needs of people,” he says. “I want the boys and girls of today to understand that we have been like this since prehistory: diverse, careful, human,” says Sánchez Romero, and this statement resonates today in the wave of solidarity unleashed among young people with DANA. With few resources and often organized spontaneously, they launched themselves to help those who needed it: cleaning streets, distributing food and comforting those affected. For the archaeologist, they are the current echoes of the same ancestral values that allowed the first human societies to prosper.
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