Questions for Charlie Sheldon

[Charlie Sheldon]

One more thing, Spain. Underlying my entire series is the nearly universal legend among nearly all native peoples of the Americas that they have always been here, here meaning here in North America. To many of them, I would suggest, the idea that they came over on the Bering Land Bridge 12-15,000 years ago (which is the current scientific theory based on genetics and human origins) is nearly an insult, because that theory essentially then makes all native Americans among the most recent or "new" peoples on earth, finally getting here from Africa, Europe, and Asia. So, this legend, nearly universal among native peoples here, contradicts scientific dogma and interpretation of evidence to date, which so far has not shown any human remains older than abut 13,000 years on this continent and no "established sites older than, say, 15,000 years old. The current theory basically states that anatomically "modern" humans (whatever that means) arose some 300,000 to 500,000 years ago in various forms-Erectus, Heidelbergensis, Neanderthal, Denisovian, etc - BUT that truly MODERN humans as evidenced by religious symbols, burial of the dead, etc, did not arise until 70,000 years ago, or maybe 150,000 years ago.....Big debates bout this, but the idea has been that something happened to the human brain in the last 70-1000000 years which enabled more modern behavior (whatever that means, again). My suspicion is that these variants of humans back then bred together, which humans are known to do whenever they can, and when two of these types merged their offspring were different, somehow, able to tell stories and develop culture. I think actually this is starting to be seen as what happened, based on the literature, but everyone says it happened in Africa or the Middle east or maybe Asia, producing the modern humans from which we all came. So my series basically takes that old legend and suggests it may be true, and then offers a gentle suggestion as to how it cam to be true....Of course such a theory will outrage many, as new theories do....I just know in my bones, though, maybe long after I am dead and gone, some site will be found here in the Pacific Northwest, a real Marking Place.....

[Sarah Schmidt]

I would like to know what inspired the characters themselves. Did you base the story around them, or was it that you had a story in mind beforehand and the characters just fell into place after?

[Charlie Sheldon]

The characters just appeared as I began writing, actually. There is more to it than that, of course, but for me, I need to actually be able to see what is going on, it needs to be real, like a movie, in my mind, and then all I am doing is describing what is hppening, choosing details here and there to move the story along. For this to work - with me anyway - I need at least two characters before me that seem real, are real, full, complex people, because then I watch as they interact and describe what happens.

[Maris Charles M]

I wanted what was the inspiration behind this book?

[Charlie Sheldon]

Please see some earlier repsonses to questions, I have yalked about this subject many times.