Smoke and Mirrors of Time Part 1 by Kath Norgrove

It was never going to be an ordinary day. I opened my eyes and had no idea where I was. Take a deep breath, I told myself. Count to ten. Visualise a tropical island.... none of it worked. The feeling of utter disorientation didn't go away. I closed my eyes again. After an unmeasured length of time had gone by, I opened them, very slowly.

I was being watched by someone - or something. Her – at least I thought it was a her and decided it would be a she until I had more information - was a small chocolate skinned naked but slightly hairy human-like creature. She was much more muscular and robust than your average human, though, with much wider hips and elongated legs. She had a long, flat head and the lower jaw lacked a chin. I wondered if this was really what aliens looked like? Most intriguing of all, her face was capped by a strong, prominent brow ridge, over the eye sockets, that extended past the eyes.

She was gesturing and making cat-like noises whilst pointing to something hidden in a tree nearby. It was a large cat-like creature covered with a thick yellow-ish beige coat. It was difficult to make out exactly what it was, but the neck was thick, the chest was broad, and the legs looked short and thick against the muscular body. The most prominent feature were the elongated, curved canine teeth in its upper jaw. I froze to the spot. Should I move, or should I stay and hope I hadn't been spotted? I wasn't sure, but I reckoned I was no match for those teeth and would make a tasty snack should it be feeling a little peckish.

Just then, a bigger chocolate-skinned human-like creature of medium statue with large teeth appeared and grabbed the hand of the small one. Gesturing to me to follow – at least I hoped that's what it was doing - I followed them to a group of similar brown coloured human-like bipeds who were busy stripping a carcass clean of its meat as fast as possible. As I glanced around me, I could see why. There were a large group of more of these feline-esq pointy teeth animals sleeping under the shade of the nearby trees. There were a few of the human-like individuals on guard with spears, or axes, understandable as those curved teeth gleamed in the sun!

Maybe scavenging the remains of a felis longtoothus kill was a way for these anthropoids to get their protein. They quickly started moving away laden with meat, and given the choice of them or the teeth, I chose them.

They walked quickly; I had trouble keeping up with them. We were walking through a continuous tall grass understory. I did wonder whether there were any more of those feline type creatures lurking unseen. It was hot and dry. There was some relief from the scattered trees, but the open tree canopy did not provide much shade.

Eventually, what seemed like an age, we came into a wide valley consisting of more rolling grassland with scattered trees and shrubs, but with what appeared to be a small lake in the centre. As we got closer, I could see it was supplied by a stream from up on the valley slope, which we started following. We headed for a cluster of trees near the top of the slope, where many more of these hominines were busying themselves with collections of different types of food.

The trees under which we stood provided shelter, but were sufficiently widely spaced to see anything else that might be hiding in the herbaceous layer below them. It was a great vantage point, providing excellent views across the open countryside; we were surrounded by seemingly endless open grassland and savannah as far as the eye could see.

Which brought me back to my senses. We'd been on an overland safari and I remember passing the turning for Olduvai Gorge, the 30-mile, 90-metre deep ravine located in the eastern Serengeti Plains. We had been within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, famous for being the “Cradle of Mankind.” and home to some of our earliest ancestors. Yes, we'd been on safari! So, how the hell had I got here? Where was here? What had happened to the others I was with? My thoughts turned to my new 'friends'. Perhaps they'd rescued me?

Were these in fact a modern-day tribe of hunter-gatherers still surviving in this remote and desolate part of northern Tanzania? I remembered reading about some evidence that had been found recently for interbreeding between archaic and modern humans in the past, which might explain their different characteristics and prominent brow ridge. After all, Neanderthal-derived DNA accounted for 1–4% of modern genomes in people outside Sub-Saharan Africa, so this would be no different. I was horrified that I'd thought they were aliens, and realised I'd be safer with them than trying to find my own way back.

And were those cat-like creatures we saw earlier, a new so far undiscovered species of feline or related carnivore? Down on the valley floor, I could make out ostriches, rhinos, baboons, antelopes and what appeared to be primitive-looking deer: perhaps other new subspecies as yet unknown.

My thoughts were broken by someone nudging me. One of the females of similar height to me was offering me some small pea-sized, dark purple berries. I smiled and took them; they were crunchy but sweet and tasty. She signalled for me to follow and took me to a cave. Inside from which, I could make out smoke from a fire. A real fire built within a primitive hearth in the form of a handful of stones in a circle. Were these bona fide cave dwellers? I thought to myself. Delighted, I grinned.

There was no shortage of food, it seemed. Some of the tribe were smashing up copious amounts of the small purple berries into bowl-shaped rocks. Honeycombs from bee hives were piled in the corner. The meat that we'd bought back was thrown onto the hot embers, while tubers that resembled potatoes and turnips were tucked underneath the coals. Hollowed out orange-type fruit skins had eggs cracked into them and cooked over the fire, while fish were wrapped up in large, wide green leaves and put beside them. Even freshwater molluscs that resembled mussels and clams were being thrown into the fire and spiked with a sharpened stick when the shells opened up. The leaves from large green leafy plants were being eaten while the other food cooked, but I could see others laid out like plates. Several of the tribe were drinking from unripe, green coconuts, and I suddenly felt really dehydrated. The female who was with me handed me one, and I sipped the juice; it was subtly sweet with a nutty flavour - pleasantly fresh and extremely refreshing.

After a filling feed, I was given a skin on which to sleep. The fire as well as providing warmth created a social space. It also provided a defence against biting insects and would have scared predators, meaning we were pretty safe sleeping around it. Despite being in the middle of nowhere without any means of contact with those on my trip, I felt I would be safe here until rescue came.