While the nomadic peoples who once dwelled on the verdant banks of the Willamette River left no enduring legacy to speak of, trace evidence of their brief, historically inconsequential civilization remains. Large-scale excavation of the gathering sites popular during this period (see the Basement Pub, the Clinton Street Pub, etc.) reveals remnants of primitive cave drawings, crudely drawn symbols such as those pictured above.

There is, however, much disagreement among the scientific community as to what these drawings actually signify. While some scholars hypothesize that these symbols represent a nascent written language, others argue that the barely sentient beings responsible for these scribblings could hardly have possessed the capability for abstract thought.

Little is known about the habits of these peoples, though some insight can be gleaned from the above pictographs, carbon dated to approximately 2000 AD. While the significance of the elephant in Fig. One is unclear, the general anthropological consensus holds that that the pachyderm represents a primitive origin myth, the flower symbolizing mankind, nourished by resources derived from the creatures of the earth. Another, less widely accepted interpretation finds a parallel between the trunk of the elephant and the ejaculating phalluses in Fig. Two—the flower in this case symbolizing the completed sex act ("orgasm") with which this culture was known to be preoccupied. This hypothesis is supported by research suggesting that the sites at which these drawings were discovered were central to the mating rituals of these early peoples. There is ample evidence that this pleasure-driven culture thrived on stimulation of both a sexual and chemical nature—for further indication that this was a civilization driven by the basest of appetites, we turn to the most depraved, graphically detailed illustrations ever discovered...

CONTINUED ON PG. 356