A note from William Rubel

There are 70 mortars cut into the rock at the site known to archeologists as Hruk Musa, located in what is now the Occupied Territories controlled by Israel in the Jordan River Valley. The Israeli archeologist we are working with, David Eitam, has used his knowledge and his imagination to answer the question, what are these rock cuts for? He thinks they were for processing wild barley from grain into bread. If he is right, then Hruk Musa is one of the largest and earliest grain processing facilities that has so far been found.

As Jane and I were beginning to work with these stone tools, we both started thinking about how the same skills used by story tellers are often employed by archeologists. As there are few written records from this period, and few artifacts, figuring out what objects like these might have been used for, and then how they were actually used, requires some speculation, but the speculation has to be grounded in what makes sense based on all we have been able to learn about the people we are studying. It occurred to us, as we sat pounding and writing notes on that beautiful hill above what used to be a lake, wild flowers everywhere, birds of prey circling on the lookout for small creatures, that to do the best work we had to try as hard as we could to get into the minds of the Natufian people were were studying: as much as possible, to become Natufians.

In other words, to be effective archeologists we had to think like novelists. Whether you end up being a writer, a doctor, an archeologist, a scientist, or a host of other professions, the skills you develop imagining characters and setting them alive on the page are skills that you will find useful.

I would like you to write a short story in which place and time are important. The Natufian people that we were studying in Israel had tools made of rock, bone, and wood. They made string and knew how to weave fine baskets and also fine cloth, but they didn't have pottery. They could walk places, and traveled distances so they could trade for goods. They left behind combs, and needles, and small sculptures, like those of little birds. But what they ate was mostly a mystery, and it is what they ate that we are studying.

Last week, sitting on rocks surrounded by mortars feeling the gentle spring wind on our faces we tried to imagine ourselves as them--and that is what I would like you to do with a scenario of your own. Create a space for your characters, then place them in that space, and set them free with your imagination.

I am in London this morning. I'll be back in California tomorrow night. The wind is howling outside the window and it is snowing.

Until next week,

William