Dispatches from a Swedish Cave
Dispatch, 11/05/99: In searching the caverns of the Fjorgenstinji here in Sweden, I have come across what appears to be a former settlement of prehistoric humans. Cave men, if you will. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
The cave's diminutive tunnel system has opened up into a large anteroom. The place is caked in fine layers of earth. Some work will be required to learn the true contents of this room. I would like to report that I'm up to the challenge.
Dispatch, 11/10/99: It's been five days now, and the room is beginning to reveal itself. My team of interns has exercised great diligence in clearing away much of the dirt and debris. They've been carting it, via wheel barrow, through the six miles of 2-foot wide tunneling back to the camp site. I regretfully had to send a few of them to the hospital with scraped elbows.
The room, however, is quite extraordinary. Along the widest wall, I have found remnants of a wooden structure. It may have been what we know today as a couch. Nearby, I found smaller structures with similar intended purpose. I have the sneaking suspicion that this cave room was some sort of den. Perhaps a prehistoric living room?
Dispatch, 11/19/99: This room and its contents have consumed my every waking thought. The more my interns and I uncover about this room, the more I am astonished at its very existence. The chamber itself isn't of much importance; it was likely a natural occurrence. But the furniture! It's so familiar. So minimal and functional. I think we're on the verge of a major discovery here.
Dispatch, 12/01/99: There are only a few instances in my lifetime where a discovery has been of such great importance that it has virtually changed our understanding of history. I have a feeling I have just made such a discovery. I discovered what appears to be a book shelf, built by these cave men. Now, obviously, I doubt they put very many books on it, given that they weren't much for reading back then. Perhaps they had stone tablets or oxen-pelt-back romance novels... that's not what's important. What is important is that I was able to dissect the bookshelf.
I have found that the shelf was quickly assembled with next-to-no real tools. The shelves were held together with simple wooden pegs. This piece of furniture, and I assume most everything else in this den, was put together with lots of pounding and smacking. A crude system, to be sure, that was likely cost effective and attractive. Inscribed on one of the shelves was the word "GALANT."
Dispatch, 12/10/99: I have been at this now for a while, and I believe I have discovered the full picture of the Swedish prehistoric man. Painted in otter blood on a rock slab: instructions. Wordless, almost cute instructions beginning with a smiling cave man holding what appears to be the earliest known form of an Allen wrench.
This cave has confirmed what I, and many other archaeologists have suspected for some time: that the origins of cost effective, easily assembled, attractive, minimalist furniture from Sweden originated not with turtle-neck-wearing industrial designers, but instead with club-dragging Neanderthals. Given the means in which you must assemble this modern furniture, with a fair amount of smacking and pounding of small wooden pegs, this is a conclusion I suppose we could have made without spending two months in a cave. It would have saved us many scraped elbows.
Dispatch, 12/11/99: Having finished my work in what are now known as the Ikea Cave System, I am moving on to a possible new project: there is a semi-active volcano in Chile that may or may not be the source of slap bracelets.
