The shelters of stone - Jean M. Auel [231]
He talked about the large tributary coming down from the north, called North River, that joined The River on the right bank. The northern side of the grassy floodplain was enlarged by North River’s valley as well as by the continually expanding upstream valley of The River itself. Jutting out between the valleys of the tributary and the primary was the oldest living site of the community, the northern settlement, formally the North Holding of the Twenty-ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, but referred to as South Face. To reach it from Summer Camp, he told her, they used a path that led to stepping-stones across the tributary, but now they were approaching it along The River.
Ahead, on a hill overlooking the open landscape, was a triangular-shaped cliff that held three south-facing terraces arranged like steps, one over the other. Though it was within a mile and a half of all the living sites that made up the Three Rocks community, several auxiliary sites were much closer and now considered themselves part of the North Holding of the Twenty-ninth Cave.
He explained that a well-used trail traversed easily up the hillside in two switchbacks to the middle level, which was the main living site of South Face. The upper small abri, which overlooked much of the large valley, was used as a lookout and was usually referred to as the South Face Overlook, or simply the Overlook. The lowest level was semisubterranean and used more for storage than everyday living. Among other food and supplies, the nuts collected at Summer Camp were kept there. Some of the other abris that were part of the South Face settlement complex had their own descriptive names, such as Long Rock, Deep Bank, and Good Spring, referring to the natural spring that welled up nearby.
“Even the storage area has a name,” he said. “It’s called Bare Rock. The old people tell the story that was told to them when they were young. It’s part of the Histories. It’s about a very hard winter and a cold, wet spring when they ran out of all their stored food—the lower rock storage area was Bare Rock. Then the last gasp of winter howled in with a driving blizzard. Everyone went hungry for a while. The only thing that saved them from starvation was a large cache of pine nuts stored by squirrels in the lower rock shelter that a young girl happened to find. It’s amazing how much those little nut chasers can pile up.
“But even when the weather cleared enough to hunt, the deer and horses they managed to kill had been starving, too,” Jondalar continued. “The meat was lean and tough, and it was a long time before the first greens and roots of spring. The next fall, the whole community gathered many more of the nuts from the stone pines as a hedge against future hard winters and hungry springs, and started the tradition of collecting them.”
The young people who had helped them keep the food dry while crossing rivers crowded in close so they could hear Jondalar as he talked about their closest neighbor to the north. They didn’t know that much about them, either, and listened with interest.
About a mile and a half away, and across The River, they could see the South Holding of the Twenty-ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, the largest and most unusual cliff in the region. Though north-facing sites were seldom utilized as living places, this one on the south side of The River was too inviting to be ignored. The cliff face, a half mile in length, rose vertically two hundred fifty feet from The River in five levels and held nearly a hundred caves and cavities, plus overhanging rock shelters and terraces.
Grand views of the valley could be seen from all the terraces, so a specific shelter or cave to use as a lookout was not needed. But the cliff did offer a different, unique view. In one section of a lower terrace that projected over a quiet backwater of the moving stream, it was possible to look down and see one’s reflection in the still water.
“It’s not named for its size,