SOLVED. YA Fictionalized imagining of a real archeological burial site. [s]

[Joy]

I saw back in High School on "Reading Rainbow" a short piece on this book. It was a burial site found with a girl's bones, some grave goods, flint axes, and what they thought was a slave servant in ash to go with this child. The book postulated a tribe of nature worshipers who sacrificed flint axes to the river. A tribe of Sun worshipers move into the area. The tribe of the axe people (for lack of a better term) avoid pushing them out as they can all exist. POV character is chief's child, goes against orders and befriends son of chief of sun worshipers. They do things, talk, some light romance. Eventually daughter gets an axe that has been offered to the river out of the pool rhey are in. This angers river and it stops flowing. Book closes on the daughter having to be sacrificed to start the water again. There is some subplot wi ty h the slave girl, who is also killed. I remember a scene where slave is with her lover, cuddl I ng and unaware she is about to be sacrificed.

This was around '84 to '86 when i rember seeing it in PBS. Our school had the book and i read it. I remember being impressed with it.

What struck me the most was the author hearing about the burial site being found, and the author (i think female) did a whole "what if..." off just that.

Forgive fat fingers, im typing on my phone.

[Lsophia]

It sounds like The Faraway Lurs by Harry Behn. But I think the girl was offered a sun disk, not an axe. Everything else matches up, though.

Such a sad story.

[Joy]

Lsophia wrote: "It sounds like The Faraway Lurs by Harry Behn. But I think the girl was offered a sun disk, not an axe. Everything else matches up, though.

Such a sad story."

I found ONE copy online, it's at the Internet Archive, and you can only borrow it for an hour. But I read it. Or started to. Got a third of the way through it and then discovered a search function. Put in Flint and did a search. Sure enough, two scenes I remembered involving the flint axes were there, nearly word for word as I remembered them. Incredible.

Thank you for helping me find that book again. I don't think I ever would have if not for your suggestions Lsophia.

[Lsophia]

You're very welcome. I'm so glad I could help. :)