This was a very strange cave. The markings were extraordinary, but there was no other evidence of anyone having actually lived here. Why would that be? It didn't fit with local prehistoric peoples at all. Perhaps there was a clue in the line images. What exactly did they depict, anyway? If you looked at it in a certain way, you could almost interpret them all as pictures of someone making cave paintings, couldn't you? Wouldn't that be very recursive?
Actually, they did look a lot like crude images of someone making cave art. How odd. That was rather subtle an image for such primitive times. Looking around at the opposite wall, there was nothing to be seen at all, just a blank face. Maybe it was the cooking side of the cave. The cooking side of the cave that had no evidence of being inhabited? What was this? I stumbled outside and looked at the entrance and the surrounds once again. This was an isolated site, without any doubt.
Frank came up to me with some results from his analysis. The carbon dating on the pigments on the painting were what really interested us. He looked very confused. "What's up, Frank?"
"These results don't make any sense. They're modern pigments, state of the art in fact." He grimaced pre-emptively. It was obvious what I would have to ask next.
"So? Some New Age types came around and did some cave painting, then."
"The pigments are modern types, but..."
"Oh, out with it!"
"They date to three thousand years ago. They're three thousand year old modern twenty-first century paints."
"Oh, for the love of--!" I stopped myself, and went back for another peep. Frank joined me at the cave entrance. "How are we ever going to work this one out?"
"Don't look at me, Buckaroo."
"I wish we had biscuits."
"Don't we all..."
To be continued?
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