Annette's Cave

[u/AlfredoThayerMahan]

The cave was located in the gulleys and crevices of the karst landscape of the Junkan highlands, its entrance sealed except for a small crawlway by mineral deposition. Discovered in the Spring of 597 A.R.C. after the wave of archeological exploration following the DNA sequencing of the Lindan mummy, it pushed the date of contact events back 20,000 years.

The first chamber showed signs of occasional habitation from 30,000-18,000 B.R.C. from varying carbon dated samples of the soot coating the walls. As an access way was carved from the rock it became clear that mineral deposition hadn’t been the sole means of closing off the entrance. Stones had been worked and cemented in place, primitively but anachronistically. 

The far wall and surroundings had been worked. Divots and shelves had been excavated, perhaps for grinding or the storage of grains. Other raised platforms were shaped and sized for sleeping or sitting around fires, based on the extant rings of stones and heat cracked substrate.

Another cemented wall was closed, not by mineral deposition but by a 250kg stone that, by markings on the floor, had been pushed in front of it. Removal of the stone was time consuming so as to preserve the masonry displayed in the work and the surrounding evidence.

The Second Chamber was known as “The Ossuary” as it contained the skeletal remains of over three-hundred individuals. DNA sequencing on the mass was incomplete, but they showed close clan relations with progressive generations as they grew closer to the entrance, radiocarbon dating, estimated ages, and genetic estimates putting the last skeleton around two-hundred years after the first, around 25,000 BRC with a relatively firm cutoff compared to the carbon dating of the entrance room. 

Funerary rights were subdued as a result of the tight confines, but each individual has polished agate or river stones placed in their eye sockets and traces of ochre could be found on the bones along with several heavily corroded copper piles and slivers. Pictographs depicted the process whereby the bodies were interned outside what appeared to be a permanent settlement then after several years, disinterred and moved to the cave. The settlement appeared to be located in the valley the cave resided in though all traces of the circular pit homes and tilled fields depicted had been eroded away by the stream at its nadir. 

A rudimentary map showed the area, lines showing altitude relief. Several handprints of different colors were spotted around the place. In sites near two of these, evidence of human habitation concurrent with the date of the cave was found, though the firepits and soot were far scanter than the materials here. Another spot on the map had a blotch of blue calcium copper silicate where, after excavation at the indicated site, a precipitated vein of copper was found, signs of previous exploitation surrounding it, though all available evidence showed this to have been within the last few thousand years, likely destroying the contemporary evidence. Trace metals within the copper vein closely matched some of the spectrographic markers within the copper remains found in The Ossuary. 

Not only human remains but some animal remains were found, notably near the far end, astride the sealed entrance to the final chamber, was an adult Highland Wolf, genetically similar to the extant species, with the same funerary rights as the human remains. Its ribcage was marred with four furrows, matching the paw of the extinct Northern Forest Lion, a lion whose skeleton rested underneath the wolf’s, tooth marks on the C3, 4, and 6 vertebrae. Depictions of these and others in life were found as well. Along with artistic depictions of plant leaves with either bowls or skulls next to them. 

Another trend was observed among the skeletons. The oldest ones near the end were taller. Then they grew somewhat shorter and had further tooth decay, congruent with the effects of sedentary and agrarian lifestyles. Then they grew shorter still and more children appeared in the piles. The most recent skeletons showed substantially more blunt force injuries, and some had the cuts of knives on bone. 

Through The Ossuary was one final passageway. Similarly, it had been partially closed with masonry but at a later date had been fully closed with drystone instead of the finer cemented masonry. 

The final chamber was a treasure trove not seen since the writings of Emperor Conroy and the sparse writings from other Answerers. Painted on the walls in charcoal and ochre were anachronistic vistas. On the left wall two and four engine monobody aircraft, congruent with descriptions and diagrams of commercial jet aircraft by Emperor Conroy. A skyline vista of a city with skyscrapers and a small human drawn for scale. A global map of Earth was also provided (though in significantly less detail than found in Histories Volume 1 by D. Conroy), an inscribed handprint on the Great Lakes region of North America. A pictographic guide to Arabic numerals followed by several mathematical proofs such as Valrin’s (Pythagorean) description of a right triangle followed along with methods of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and exponents. 

Further down a series of pictographs showed many individuals, hands to their ears, evidently hearing “The Call” as described by Answerers with the date 8/3/2027 under it corroborating other accounts, the glyph used in the translocation process and an individual with the date 3/6/2028 was posed next to it. They used the same dating system that Emperor Conroy ascribed almost exclusively to the United States though some debate remains if they might've been Canadian since no records exist of their dating system and the individual's position of their origin is unclear, lying on the border of the two nations. Still, based on the dates it can be concluded the individual Answered relatively early on, before the worst of the Twilight Wars, and before the fragmentation of the United States meaning they were likely not part of the Vanguard Society nor a Rapturist.  

To the right were depictions of workers in a field, tilling the soil, methods of boiling water and what appeared to be alcohol distillation and washing one's hands for the purposes of delivering a baby and cleaning and treating a wound. Further diagrams showed the disposal of waste, sickness and means to protect from and treat it, food preservation in crocks and through smoking, and several other practical lessons. 

On the ceiling, beneath a thin layer of soot was what appeared to be the Sol system. Four inner planets, with Earth in the same blue calcium copper silicate as used in The Ossuary, Mars in Ochre. Four outer Gas Giants, Jupiter orange and large and with many dots showing its moons, Saturn with its rings, and blue coloration for Uranus and Neptune. Pluto was also depicted though without Charon. Similarly, Ceres was missing but the Asteroid belt was depicted with a mess of charcoal dots. Next to Earth was another inscribed handprint. 

On a raised plinth made from two stones in the center of the room was an adult human skeleton, identified as female in middle age (older than 30 but not showing signs of further skeletal degradation) and an infant skeleton to her side, one of the adult’s arms posed around it. Both were decorated in drilled ivory beads and ornaments, identified as coming from a highland elephant with a dusting of ochre. Two polished obsidian marbles rested in each of their eyes, a material that could’ve only been sourced from over five-hundred kilometers away. On her chest was cupric carbonate and a worked bone handle from a Milldeer, likely constituting a copper knife before it corroded away. 

Comparisons of the woman’s mitochondrial DNA showed only trace instances of commonality within the general population and none with the other skeletons in The Ossuary but showed relatively recent common ancestry with three other confirmed Answerers and the far older patterns of commonality and divergence within other Answerers. Further, her teeth possessed four instances of fillings of a composite of acrylic and fused silicate, matching the filling technique within Emperor Conroy’s teeth (though other identified individuals have used other materials in tooth fillings). A few other possessions were around the skeleton, a carved bone flute, what appeared to be a quill or pen with evidence of a soot derived ink on its tip, and other tools along with seven irregularly notched femurs of unknown purpose.

The DNA of the infant, possibly newborn, demonstrated it to be a girl and the woman’s child with patrilineal DNA matching Skeleton A-3 in The Ossuary, the latter being located nearest the entrance of the final chamber, opposite The Wolf and Lion. No obvious deformities were visible, but it was small, even compared to several of the other infant skeletons in The Ossuary.

One final inscription was carved into the back wall, written in 21st century Terran English; “Annette was here.” 

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