8Tallstone and the City - Foundation, tells the story of Pumi the stonecutter and Valki the gatherer from their birth through their death. Pumi and Valki, through innocent acts of living, create a city, domesticate wheat, establish scientific inquiry, create animal husbandry, and lay the foundation for modern civilization.

Pumi's infatuation with fashioning stones leads him to accidentally create the first astronomical observatory -- something tribal skywatchers eventually realize holds the potential to unlock the secrets of the heavens. A new discipline is born -- "astronomy."

Valki's empathy with her aging tribal elders leads her to create a "Last Camp" where they can retire and die in peace rather than being left behind to fend for themselves because they can no longer keep up with their migrating tribe. Her little camp evolves into something much more -- a welcoming home for other tribal elderly plus cripples, castoffs, the weak, and other undesirables. Urfa grows into the first city. With her natural curiosity and unique ability to reason, Valki learns the secrets of growing einkorn and, in doing so, domesticates wheat.

These are some of the people who with time, opportunity, circumstance, determination, love, hate, jealousy, and ambition initiate the human transition from nomadic hunter-gather tribes into permanent settlements, which, in turn, support ever-increasing knowledge, sophistication, and wealth -- the beginning of civilization.

They meant no harm.

This is the first in the six-book series, The Beginning of Civilization, a Possible Fantasy. The series chronicles the lives of members of the Clan of the Serpent and their heirs as they leave the path of "the way things have always been done." The protagonists and antagonists change over time, but the narrative is unbroken.