The Crowded Grave

second evidence was genetic, from the FOXP2 gene, which should have produced far more mutations had it come from a common ancestor as distant as four hundred thousand years ago. Finally there was archaeologicalevidence from the Lagar Velho cave in Portugal, which contained the bones of a four-year-old child, the first complete Paleolithic skeleton ever unearthed in Iberia. Horst cited leading scientists who judged that the child’s anatomy could only have resulted from a mixed ancestry of Neanderthal and early modern human.
    “But more evidence is required to turn this hypothesis into something closer to historical fact,” Horst said. “We may now have further important evidence of this kind from St. Denis.” Horst clicked his remote to display a photograph of the pit that Bruno recognized but this time with the covering flat stone removed from the three bodies. Suddenly revealed, the two adult skeletons lay side by side, each body bent in almost fetal position. They were tucked into one another like three spoons, Bruno thought. The largest adult, presumably the father, lay to the right, and then his mate and then the bones of the child.
    “Preliminary anatomical studies,” Horst said, raising his voice above the gasps that came from the audience, “and now confirmed by leading scientists here in France, in Germany and in the United States, suggest that St. Denis may have preserved for us through the millennia something extraordinary. We may have here the first modern family, a Neanderthal male, his Cro-Magnon mate and their child.”
    His words were drowned out by bursts of applause and cheers from the back of the hall, where Horst’s students gathered. As the implications of Horst’s remarks began to sink in, Bruno noticed Clothilde, seated to the side of the stage, rise to her feet and join the applause. Bruno rose from his chair, and with profound thoughts of the origins of mankind mixing with prosaic assessments of the impact on the local tourist trade, he began to clap his hands. Thunderous applause came from Jan, a Dane who had settled nearby and become the local blacksmith, his big hands and massive shoulders producing alevel of volume that drove everyone else to their feet. Bruno felt rather than saw Pamela and Fabiola rise beside him, and then it seemed everyone in the hall was standing to applaud, their eyes shining and fixed on Horst who stood now silent before them, his gaze fixed on some distant place or time. The entire hall felt energized, as if all present were aware that they were sharing a historic moment.
    “And to think I nearly didn’t come this evening,” Pamela was saying as the applause died away and people began to sit down again. “What a remarkable discovery.”
    “It makes you wonder what else is lying out there under the earth, waiting to be found,” Bruno replied, musing on the irony of the new corpse at this ancient site. It made for a crowded grave.
    “Spoken like a true policeman,” said Pamela, amusement in her voice.
    “Perhaps, but I was thinking more of the price we might pay for ignorance if some things are never found. I was trying to remember what I was taught in school about the Neanderthals, savage brutes, speaking in grunts like apes. Did you have lessons like that?”
    “I think we all did. But I also remember seeing a photo of a flint tool that was shaped like a perfect leaf in some textbook, and how it struck me as beautiful. I made a drawing of it and kept it in my purse for years. I think I still have it somewhere. For a while, I wanted to be an archaeologist, and I have that same feeling again now.”
    She glanced at him, and their eyes met. Bruno felt a surge of affection for her, seeing suddenly in her enthusiasm the little girl who found beauty in a flint that had been shaped and made many millennia ago. He reached down and squeezed her hand as Horst spoke again.
    “Let me end with a warning. These are preliminary andhesitant conclusions, or rather suggestions,” Horst said. “There is more research to be done, and however well we think we understand the differences in bone structure, we can still be mistaken in our identifications. And like all scientists, I am human and can be carried away by emotion, by the yearning to see something that may not truly be there. So I leave you with this image of a family, a long-dead man and woman and their child. We do not know how they died, or who buried them, or who made the ornaments of shells that we