But they didn’t have time to relax. Rob was tired, but he was febrile with determination, and he wanted to talk through his notes. As soon as they reached their hotel room, before Christine had even showered, he quizzed her again.
‘One thing I don’t understand is the jars. The jars with the babies, in Gobekli.’
Christine looked at him. Her deep brown eyes were loving, but bloodshot with tiredness but Rob persisted.
‘You mean…the mere fact they were jars. That confuses you?’
‘Yes. I always thought the culture around Gobekli Tepe was…what was the word Breitner used…aceramic? Without pottery. But then, suddenly, someone came along and taught these guys how to make jars, long before any other culture in the region. Long before anywhere else on earth.’
‘Yes, it’s true…’ Christine paused. ‘Except one place…There was one place that had pottery before Gobekli.
‘Yeah?
‘Japan.’ Christine was frowning. ‘The Jomon of Japan.’
‘The what?’
‘A very early culture. Aboriginal Japanese. The Ainu, who still live in northernmost Japan, may be related…’ She stood and rubbed her aching back, then went to the minibar, took out a cold bottle of water and drank, thirstily. Lying back down on the bed, she explained, ‘The Jomon came literally from nowhere. They were maybe the first to cultivate rice. And then they started producing sophisticated pottery-cordware it is called.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Sixteen thousand years ago.’
‘Sixteen thousand years ago?’ Rob stared across the room. ‘That’s more than three thousand years before Gobekli.’
‘Yes. And some people think the Jomons of East Asia may have learned their techniques from an even earlier culture. Like the Kondons of the Amur. Maybe. The Amur is a river north of Mongolia, where there are arguably signs of pottery going back even further. It is most mysterious. They come and they go, these peculiarly advanced peoples of the north. They are basic hunter-gatherers, yet suddenly they make a wild and irrational technological leap.’
‘What do you mean? Irrational?’
‘This is not the most promising territory for early civilization. Siberia, inner Mongolia, the far north of Japan. These places are not the warm, sunny fertile crescent. These are the freezing and intractable lands of north Asia. The Amur basin is one of the coldest places on earth in the winter.’ She gazed at the bare hotel ceiling. ‘In fact I’ve sometimes wondered, could there have been one protoculture north of there? In Siberia? Now lost to us? Some culture that was influencing all these tribes? Because otherwise it is too bizarre…’
Rob shook his head. He had his notebook flat on his lap; pen poised. ‘But maybe they didn’t go, Christine. These cultures. Mmm? Maybe they didn’t disappear.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The skulls, they look Asiatic. Mongoloid. Maybe these eastern cultures didn’t vanish. They just moved…west. Could there be some link between these advanced Asiatic tribes and Gobekli?’
Christine nodded, and yawned. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Yes, I guess. Jesus, Rob, I’m tired.’
Rob mentally admonished himself. They hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours; they’d done as much as they could. He was pushing Christine too hard. He said sorry and came over, and lay down besides her on the bed.
‘Robbie, we will save her,’ said Christine. ‘I promise.’ She hugged him. ‘I promise.’
Rob shut his eyes. ‘Let’s sleep.’
The next morning Rob was woken by a dream of great violence. He dreamed for a few moments he was being hit, being pummelled by Cloncurry, but when he woke he realized it was drumming: real drumming. Men were walking down the dark streets of Sanliurfa, outside the hotel, banging big bass drums, rousing people for the pre-dawn meal. The traditional Ramadan ritual.
Rob sighed and tilted his wristwatch, which was lying on the bedside table. It was just 4 a.m. He stared at the ceiling and listened to the thumping and booming of the drums, while Christine snored gently next to him.
Two hours later Christine was nudging him awake in return. He stirred, feeling sluggish. He got up and showered in bracingly cold water.
Radevan and his friends were waiting outside. They helped stow the Black Book in the boot. Rob ate a hardboiled egg and some pitta bread in the car as they rattled across the desert to the Valley of the Slaughters. They didn’t have time to linger for breakfast at the hotel.
Rob watched the Kurds as they dug. It was as if they knew their job was nearly over, whatever happened: they were demob happy. This was the last day. Tomorrow morning the time was up. Whatever happened. Rob’s stomach twisted with the tension.
At eleven Rob climbed the hill next to the valley and gazed across the flat, silvery lakewater of the Great Anatolian Project. It was no longer in the distance but only about a mile away, and the water seemed to be accelerating, pouring over hills and filling the dales. The levee would defend them, but the encroaching flood was still a menacing sight. There was a small shepherd’s hut on top of the levee. Like a sentinel, protecting them from the waters.
He sat down on a boulder and made some more notes, threading the precious pearls of evidence onto the necklace of the narrative. One quote kept striking home. He remembered his father, in the Mormon church, reciting it. From Genesis Chapter 6: ‘And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them…that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose…’
For half an hour he scribbled, and crossed out, and scribbled again. He was nearly there; the story was nearly finished. Shutting the notebook, he turned and paced down the hill into the valley. He found Christine lying flat on the ground, as if she was asleep. But she wasn’t asleep: she was staring hard and flat across the dust.
‘I’m looking for anomalies,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘And I’ve found some. There!’ She stood up and clapped her hands and the young Kurds stared at her. ‘Please, gentlemen,’ she said. ’Soon you can go home to your families and forget about the madwoman from France. But just one more effort, please. Over there.’
Radevan and his friends picked up their shovels and followed Christine to another corner of the valley.
‘Dig down straight down. Here. And not too deep. Dig wide and shallow. Thank you.’
Rob went to find his spade so he could join in. He liked digging with the Kurds. It gave him something to do other than worry about the possible pointlessness of what they were doing. And Lizzie. And Lizzie and Lizzie and Lizzie.
As they dug, Rob asked Christine about the Neanderthals. She had been explaining how she had worked on several sites where Neanderthals had lived. Like Moula-Guercy, on the banks of the Rhone, in France.
‘Do you think they interbred with Homo sapiens?’
‘Possibly.’
‘But I thought there was a theory that they just died out? The Neanderthals?’
‘There was. But we also have evidence that they may have bred with humans.’ Christine sleeved the sweat from her face. ‘The Neanderthals may even have raped their way into the human gene pool. If they were dying out, unable to compete for food or whatever, they would have been desperate to preserve their own species. And they were bigger than Homo sapiens. Albeit possibly more stupid…’
Rob watched a bird circling in the air: another vulture. He asked a second question. ‘If they did interbreed, might that have altered the way humans behaved? Human culture?’
‘Yes. One possibility is cannibalism. There is no record of organized cannibalism in the human repertoire before about 300,000 BC. Yet the Neanderthals were definitely cannibalistic. So…’ She tilted her head, thinking. ‘So it is possible the Neanderthals might have introduced some traits of their own. Like cannibalism.’