The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth's Children, #1)

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The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth's Children #1)

by Jean M. Auel

3.88 · rating details · 47,696 ratings · 2,221 reviews

This novel of awesome beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love. Through Jean M. Auel’s magnificent storytelling we are taken back to the dawn of modern humans, and with a girl named Ayla we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world they shared with the ones who called themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear.

A natu...more

Mass Market Paperback, 480 pages

Published June 25th 2002 by Bantam (first published January 1st 1980)

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Jan 31, 2012

Corey rated it

Shelves: fantasy, thoughts-and-studies

The thing that strikes me most about her work is that every time there's a new discovery about how paleolithic people lived, it goes along with her stories. Things they said were silly back when she wrote it (Neanderthals with instruments, Neanderthals living with homo sapiens sapiens, and the like) keep proving true.

She presents interesting ideas of cognition, culture and how societies develop. The first two books are her best I think. The rest remains interesting if you can de...more

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Jan 08, 2012

Renee rated it

Recommends it for: Everyone!

Shelves: topshelf

This book and the series that follows is endearing, troublesome, and whole-heartedly compassionate. This is the book my grandmother read to me as a little girl during the middle of a tornado, while we waited out the storm by candlelight. This is the book that started me reading... really reading.
I learned that I can love my quiet time, and apparently I love stories on the ancient human race... our beginnings. The ways of survival, ways of development, natural medicine, culture and anthrop...more

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Aug 16, 2007

Holmes! Holmes rated it

Recommends it for: shallow spiritualists harboring secret fantasies of miscegnation

I *really* wanted to dig this book. I have a burgeoning obsession with prehistory, evolution, and the antecedents of man, and a tale of Cro Magnons and Neanderthals is exactly what I'd love to read.

Sadly, this book does not contain that tale.

Instead, it's a goopy mess of inane metaphysics, prurience for prurience's sake, and a none-too-subtle dollop of racism, as the blonde-haired and light-skinned heroine shows the more primitive (and darker-skinned) Neanderthals how to ...more

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Jul 23, 2007

Doc Opp rated it

Shelves: fiction

This was a fantastic book. I read it in 7th grade, and was absolutely obsessed with it (which is nothing less than stunning, because at that age most books that lacked dragons weren't worth my time...). In a way its perfect for around that age, because its all about struggling for acceptance and trying to learn the social norms of a society. But really, everybody has dealt with those issues, and will be able to empathize with the characters. And the setting is so unique, the writing so vibra...more

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Jun 07, 2008

Abby rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. So, I read this book in high school, and it was SO GOOD. It's about this little girl (Ayla) who is left orphaned and alone during prehistoric times, then picked up and raised by Neanderthals. They think she's ugly and weird, but in reality she is a stunningly beautiful, tall blonde leggy woman. She just is living with a bunch of under-evolved people who don't see it. (I think I loved this book because I imagined it was the same way in my life. I am way hotter than people give me credit for, prob...moreSo, I read this book in high school, and it was SO GOOD. It's about this little girl (Ayla) who is left orphaned and alone during prehistoric times, then picked up and raised by Neanderthals. They think she's ugly and weird, but in reality she is a stunningly beautiful, tall blonde leggy woman. She just is living with a bunch of under-evolved people who don't see it. (I think I loved this book because I imagined it was the same way in my life. I am way hotter than people give me credit for, probably.)

So anyways, she grows up, leaves them, meets up with her own people, and falls in love with a hot tall blonde guy named Jondalar. They have adventures. There is a lot more to it in there, and I found the book fascinating. I would really like to read all the rest of the books in the series. I have no idea why I never found time over the years. I have read at least part of the second in the series, maybe all of it. Oh, if only the internet had existed in high school and I'd had this website, I would remember!

K, here is an embarassing story about this book: I went to Enrichment (a church women's meeting) about 3-4 years ago, and they were having a book sharing activity. Everyone brought good books, and we shared ideas about what to read. It was my turn to share a book I really liked, and I named this one. Another (totally nice) girl at the table then said, "That book actually has a lot of really passionate parts in it, I believe." (Read: that book has some really torrid love scenes.) I said, "Oh, really? Ummmm. well...I read it a long time ago, I guess I forgot about those." (Interpretation: "Crap, I shouldn't have mentioned a book with R rated parts at a church activity.") The girl said, "Well, you were a teenager when you read it. You probably didn't understand what they were talking about." Me: "Yep." (Actually, it would be darn near impossible not to have known what they were talking about.)

So anyways, I was totally embarassed. Then about a year ago it occurred to me: WAIT A MINUTE. If she knows there were "passionate parts" in it, then SHE READ THE BOOK TOO. And obviously she didn't stop at the first sign of a "passionate part", or she wouldn't have know that there were passionate parts (plural). Right? RIGHT!

So basically, she indicted herself right along with me. If she was smart, she would've just pretended never to have heard of the book.

As a(nother) side note, I believe I mentioned on here in a recent book review that I have never belonged to a real life book club, I just talk about books on here. Well, that's because the girl I mentioned in the paragraphs preceding has been in charge of the book club in my ward for years. I am afraid she'll ask for book suggestions and I will suggest one with swear words in it or something. (less)

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Apr 18, 2009

Werner rated it

Recommends it for: Fans of fiction set in prehistoric times; fans of strong heroines

Shelves: historical-fiction

Auel's Earth's Children series (this opening volume was followed by, so far, four sequels) garners mixed --and mostly negative-- reviews here on Goodreads. Though none of them have reviewed it, a dozen of my Goodreads friends have given it ratings, ranging from one star to five. Obviously, my own reaction falls at the favorable end of the spectrum.

Ayla, of course, is a Cro-Magnon (i.e., an anatomically modern human; you and I are "Cro-Magnons" too, in that anthropological...moreAuel's Earth's Children series (this opening volume was followed by, so far, four sequels) garners mixed --and mostly negative-- reviews here on Goodreads. Though none of them have reviewed it, a dozen of my Goodreads friends have given it ratings, ranging from one star to five. Obviously, my own reaction falls at the favorable end of the spectrum.

Ayla, of course, is a Cro-Magnon (i.e., an anatomically modern human; you and I are "Cro-Magnons" too, in that anthropological sense) orphaned by a natural disaster and raised by a clan of Neanderthals. For a writer of historical fiction, a prehistoric setting poses a challenge; technically, the genre embraces any fiction set in the past, but its authors usually depend heavily on written records for events and background material, and for the Ice Age, no such records exist. To her credit, Auel was the first writer in the genre to attempt it on a large scale (though Jack London and William Golding each wrote single novels set in prehistory), and to popularize it sufficiently to create a market niche and a subgenre tradition that other writers have begun to develop. In place of written records, she immersed herself in the exhaustive study of every known aspect of the physical evidence from the period, and all of the the various scholarly interpretations of it. Her reconstruction of both Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal natural history, society and culture is of course speculative; but it is based meticulously on this research. Even the more controversial features of her Neanderthals --their "Memories," a genetically-transmitted racial memory of past experiences, and their difficulty with verbal speech (and consequent preference for sign language)-- have grounds in known Neanderthal physiology, such as their hyper-developed back brains, which control memory. (Although Auel is an evolutionist, she recognizes Neanderthals as "a branch of humanity" and depicts them as fully human, not as the "ape-men" who figure in London's Before Adam or Conan Doyle's The Lost World --a point in her favor.)

A weakness of Auel's writing is the converse of her strong research: she has a tendency to want to divulge every iota of erudition she has on the Ice Age world, and doesn't always seamlessly integrate it into the narrative. She also has a penchant for explicitly detailed sex, which in my estimation is not a plus. Here, however, neither of these flaws are as marked as they are in the later books (the latter because the plot here affords little occasion for it --Ayla doesn't yet have a love interest, though that gets remedied later on. :-)) IMO, her strong points outweigh these. First and foremost, she has a capacity to create fully alive, three-dimensional characters whom the reader can relate to (positively or negatively) just like real people --Iza, Creb, Brun, Broud, even several of the minor characters; and above all Ayla herself, as we watch her grow from a scared, traumatized child into a strong, highly competent and intelligent woman. Indeed, she's much too strong, competent and intelligent for some of the Clan to accept in a woman (and judging from critical and reader reactions, some moderns aren't very cool with it either! :-))

That brings up another strong point of the book --Auel's intelligent engaging of serious issues that are still relevant to our lives today. Gender roles are the most obvious; against the backdrop of the male- dominated Clan, Ayla makes a lived-out case for a genuine feminism (of the equalitarian rather than male-bashing sort) that argues for social roles based on demonstrated ability and interests, not gender. But the book also addresses issues of interracial and cross-cultural relations, and the conflict between inflexible tradition and cultural inertia, represented by the change-resistant Clan ("It's never been done before!" is leader Brun's characteristic refrain, which became a byword in our household :-)), vs. needed adaptation to changing conditions. Also, Ayla's fight to save the life of her infant son (conceived in a rape) provides a powerful pro-life message --though that may well have been unintended on Auel's part. (But as D. H. Lawrence said, "Trust the tale and not the teller." :-))

All in all, I consider this one of the better contemporary American novels in any genre, and regard Ayla as one of the greatest fictional characters --and best female role models-- in modern literature. (The series was one that I read out loud to my wife; it also became one of her all-time favorites, and she re-reads it periodically on her own!)(less)

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Feb 24, 2011

Isis rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: People who like historical fiction or character drama

Recommended to Isis by: No one

Shelves: palaeolithic-2-6m-to-12000bce-ficti

Frankly, Auel gets points simply for tackling this period, as I have not found any other books set around this era. Very little is known about human culture in this period apart from a basic overview, let alone Neanderthal culture. Particularly aspirations, values, and spiritual belief systems are the hardest to deduce from the material archaeological record. Auel avoids the problem of getting into the complex details of culture by making the novel more about character relationships than an exot...moreFrankly, Auel gets points simply for tackling this period, as I have not found any other books set around this era. Very little is known about human culture in this period apart from a basic overview, let alone Neanderthal culture. Particularly aspirations, values, and spiritual belief systems are the hardest to deduce from the material archaeological record. Auel avoids the problem of getting into the complex details of culture by making the novel more about character relationships than an exotic cultural setting. It is also clear that Auel is no writer of thrilling action sequences, and the book could have done with some of those to break up the heavy relationship dramas. Still, perhaps if writing action is not her forte, Auel's decision to avoid it could have been a wise one.

The character dramas are very well done, and the lack of action does allow more time to appreciate the wondrous natural environment in which Ayla moves, although I still maintain that the best novels contain a little of everything. In any case, the hunter-gatherer environment was indeed richly created, and I loved the descriptions, especially Ayla's secret clearing.

However, Auel couldn't avoid creating a culture entirely. Whilst she does not have to create a culture for the Cro-Magnons in this first book, she does loosely construct a culture for Neanderthals. The method of communication through gestures seems a perfectly plausible supposition, and the lack of sophistication of the Clan's thought processes draws upon a logical conclusion, but no evidence exists for the idea that females assumed and inferior and strict submissive place in Neanderthal hierarchy, and it is a notion I would personally challenge, as I find it easy to imagine the hardy, thickset Neanderthal women assuming strong and equal places in their society. However, if an author is going to delve into the realms of pure fiction, I do appreciate, as Auel has done, the creation of something for which there is no specific evidence against, and may well have been an actual possibility, rather than authors deliberately and brutally twisting known facts. The idea of animal totems in clan belief was a very interesting and striking one, although it serves largely as a plot device. Creb's rituals occasionally veer over the line of reality towards the fantastical, but Auel just about gets away with it without introducing magic into proceedings and thus transforming the novel from an historical based fiction into a ludicrous fantasy.

Ayla is the Cro-Magnon girl whose eyes we see most of the story through, and she stands in stark contrast to all the Neanderthal around her. She is inventive, adaptive, and makes lightning quick connections in her mind. She flaunts the rules about submission in women to try and experience new things, a compulsion that never once occurs to the Neanderthal women. However, she is not perfect, and in addition she is so unfairly persecuted by Broud that she does earn your sympathy.

I would not call "Clan of the Cave Bear" amazing writing, but it's pretty decent, and an enjoyable story that's packed with detailed, fleshed out character relationships and it kept me turning the pages to the very end. By no means is the ending a happy one, but I would recommend this book. (less)

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Dec 16, 2010

Kayleigh rated it

Recommended to Kayleigh by: Read it for my Bio-Anth class

Shelves: historical-fantasy

A disappointment. The concept is interesting, especially in light of recent archaeological evidence suggesting that Neandertals and Cro-Magnons (anatomically modern humans) may have interbred. However, the execution is extremely poor. The pacing is uneven, the prose is so flowery it hurts, and the characters are flat. Some other things that bothered me:
--The author has the tendency to "info-dump", frequently disrupting the flow of the story to deliver lengthy descriptions of ...moreA disappointment. The concept is interesting, especially in light of recent archaeological evidence suggesting that Neandertals and Cro-Magnons (anatomically modern humans) may have interbred. However, the execution is extremely poor. The pacing is uneven, the prose is so flowery it hurts, and the characters are flat. Some other things that bothered me:
--The author has the tendency to "info-dump", frequently disrupting the flow of the story to deliver lengthy descriptions of plants, rocks, characters' appearances, etc. I understand that setting is important here, as most readers aren't likely to be familiar with the flora and fauna of Ice Age Europe. In that regard, it's obvious that she did her research, but I felt the depiction could have been done better; maybe if the prose weren't so purple, or if she didn't describe the same caves, valleys, and plants over and over again, I wouldn't have minded so much.
--The repetition. Oh lord, the repetition. Constant reiterations of how different Ayla is, how special, how strange, how unique, blah blah blah. Yes, she is different from the people of the Clan (I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say her belonging to a different species might have something to do with that), WE GET IT, MOVE ON.
--Faulty science. Somewhere near the beginning of the book, Auel makes some kind of reference to the size of the Clan members' (Neandertals) heads being related to how much knowledge they can hold. At first, this seems to make some sort of sense, as the size of the skull influences brain size (although brain size and intelligence are not directly correlated--Neandertals' brains were actually larger than ours, though we have no way of knowing how smart they were). But later on she states that this is the reason they cannot progress technologically--because their brains, and therefore their skulls, would have to get larger in order to learn new things, and if their heads get too large, childbirth will become impossible. Honey, that is just not how it works. Does your brain get bigger every time you learn something new? No? Didn't think so. There are also numerous references to "the memories"--knowledge of ceremonies, traditions, skills and Clan history that Clan members are apparently born with. They also have some kind of mystical abilities to access and share the memories of their ancestors stored in their own minds. Though it makes for an intriguing storytelling element, this notion is historically and scientifically ridiculous. It isn't possible for someone to be born with memories or cultural knowledge--culture is learned, and memories are gathered through personal experience. If this were a fantasy book, the mystical story elements would make more sense. But Clan of the Cave Bear isn't a fantasy (supposedly). I found it in the historical fiction section of the library, and I've seen it listed as historical fiction everywhere else I've looked.
Just as ludicrous were Auel's assertions that the Clan people are capable of speech but not laughter (fossil evidence suggests that Neandertals did had the capacity for vocal communication, and if they can speak, there's no reason why they should be unable to laugh), and incapable of crying. These were merely plot devices to make Ayla stand out, but the absolute lack of logic in these distinctions makes me wonder if Auel put any thought at all into why they should exist.
--All of the Neandertal characters have dark hair, skin and eyes, whereas Ayla is blonde, blue-eyed and fair-skinned. I suppose I should give Auel a break on this one, since the book was written in the 1980s, while technology that made it possible to sequence Neandertal DNA--which led to the discovery that some of them possessed the genes coding for fair skin and red or blond hair--wasn't available until a few years ago. Still, I sensed a white supremacist agenda. Ayla, the "golden-haired goddess" is so much better at everything than the people of the Clan, she seems to bring them luck, everything is better with her around, and anyone who treats her badly receives divine retribution.
(less)

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Dec 02, 2008

Sarah rated it

I'll never forget the first time I read this book. I was in the 5th grade. It was sitting around my house - my mom is an English teacher, so we always had plenty of books lying around in various stages of reading completion - and the synopsis on the back cover caught my attention. Some pretty advanced themes for a 5th grader, as my teacher Mr. Konezney mentioned to my mother upon seeing me read this book in school - but it was my very first emotional connection to fictional characters. Ayla,...more

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Aug 30, 2008

Allison rated it

The Clan of the Cave Bear is the first in Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children series, and it’s an exciting way to begin. The book is a coming-of-age story for a young girl, Ayla, living during the Ice Age who is orphaned during an Earthquake. Ayla is adopted by The Clan of the Cave Bear, although she clearly is not “Clan,” as she looks, acts, and communicates very differently. The story is clearly a work of fantasy, as there are obvious factual inaccuracies; however, the quality of Auel’s writing ma...more

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May 13, 2007

Lisa Vegan rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: those who enjoy historical fiction, especially those intrigued by pre/early humans & evolution

Shelves: fiction, reviewed, novels, historical-fiction

This is a great novel; it’s a real masterpiece. I love the whole series but I think this is by far the best book in it, and it stands on its own although I became completely hooked and I’ve eagerly awaited every new book in the series, and I really hope Auel finishes this series! I really admire these epic books. I appreciate stories that are historical fiction or fantasy where a complex society and intricate details about the lives of the inhabitants are described. I feel that I learned so much...more

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Sep 03, 2008

Scarlet Blu rated it

Shelves: fiction

The Earths Children series that this book begins tells the story of Ayla, a young orphan thrown into a primevil world of Neanderthals and primitive humans. Auel describes her journey with an incredibly detailed richness that can only be gained through lifelong study of the ice-age universe. While her depictions can sometimes be a tad off (I think her interpretation of Neanderthal society is a bit crooked and some of the technologies she has the humans using were way ahead of their time) it's e...more

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Jul 20, 2007

Mandy rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I love these books and have read some in the Earth's Children series many times because I love the detailed descriptions of their way of life. I actually started reading them in the 4th or 5th grade. I loved reading about how they hunted, gathered and stored their food, made clothing and jewelry, and the contrasts between the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon in those aspects. I also loved that Ayla was an innovative and strong woman, and I enjoyed learning about botany and medicinal uses for plants...more

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Jul 16, 2007

Claire rated it

Ayla is an outsider among the clan. Found and adopted by the medicine woman of the clan during their migration, Ayla finds herself the target of an ambitious man hoping to become leader, training to be a medicine woman in her own right in hopes of earning some status within the caste, and challenging the set gender roles of her adopted culture.

I was impressed by Auel's research on flora and fauna. The first time I read this I was in seventh grade and stuck home convalescing from an...more

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Feb 22, 2011

Christina White rated it

Shelves: favorites, kindle-books, literary-fiction, historical-fiction

This story was great! As I was reading I totally lost my self in the story. The descriptions and well researched information took me back in time and I could almost hear the grunts, the crackle of the fire and smell the meat roasting! Sometimes though, details were a little much and I felt anxious to get on with the story when the author was explaining the tedious steps involved in making a weapon or such things like that. After finishing the book I have a yearning for simplicity. I set out...more

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Jun 19, 2007

Klasko rated it

Shelves: favorites, toreadagain

I got the unabridged version of this book out of the library on tape to listen to while I was painting several rooms in my house one summer. I loved it. I thought it was a unique look at the author's idea of what life could have been like for neanderthal and cro-magnon man. Jean Auel obviously did a lot of reasearch for this book and it comes out in her descriptions of flora and fauna and what certain herbs were used for and how things might have been cooked, etc. A truly fascinating story a...more

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Jan 07, 2008

DD_Michael Martin rated it

Recommends it for: everyone

I read and could see and understand, the world of people more than 35,000 years ago; civilization is such a thin veneer. I couldn't put the book down because the Author brought this world to life for me.

Take away everything we rely on and fail to appreciate and you will still find the same heart of what we are, good and bad.

Five year old Ayla is left "really" alone when her parents are crushed to death when their cave collapses during an earthquake.

...more

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Oct 24, 2007

Rebecca rated it

I read this series in high school. It was one of my mom's favorites and I just picked Clan of the Cave Bear off her pile one day and never looked back. There is no other series of books that I've read that could compare to these. You fall right into the prehistoric era, and you truly feel like you are there. Since I was reading this in junior high and high school, the sex scenes were also a plus. I'm sure if I re-read these books now I'd find the sexual parts a little to over the top for me...more

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Jul 05, 2008

GoldenjoyBazyll rated it

Recommends it for: Jennifer

Recommended to GoldenjoyBazyll by: Michaelo

Shelves: in-the-begining, made-into-movie-play, jean-auel

In a time long, long ago there once was one named Ayla.... brave- different- corageous. This little blonde haired girl who was able to have tears in her eyes was found by another race of people after an earth quake and being attacked by a cave lion. I read this book in what now seems like another life time- I was camping in Maine and became addicted to the ongoing story of this woman's life.

When you finish it you will definately want to read Mamoth Hunters/ Plains of Passage/ Val...more

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Jan 21, 2008

Blast rated it

Recommends it for: my enemies

Recommended to Blast by: It was on a list of "must read survival books"

Shelves: fiction, survival

This book was recommended to me as a good resource for learning primative skills. I'd have to strongly disagree with that. There were a few medicinal plants mentioned but you have to slog through hundreds of pages of lame story-telling to find them. The book gave a very idealized veiw of the lives of cavemen. Everything was milk and honey and wonderful rather than brutish, ugly and short.

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Sep 16, 2008

Linda rated it

The Earth's Children by Jean Auel starting with the Clan of the Cave Bear is a good start to her series starting in prehistoric times with dinosaurs and moving into a story of a girl from one tribe trying to fit in with another tribe, the flatheads, and all she encounters and how they survive. I was interesting and I read the rest of the series too many years ago.

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Mar 15, 2009

Justy rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction

In the first book of the Earth Children series we meet Ayla. Ayla looses her family in an earthquake and is left alone in a indifferent world. She is rescued by people so different from her that she screams the first time she sees them. [return][return]I love that by reading this book I can escape to a completely different world. A world which make me think about and question the one I live in. Jean M Auel has done an incredible amount of research to make everything in her books as accurate as p...more

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Jun 09, 2011

Leisa rated it

I loved this book when I was a teen. Indirectly, it lead to my pursuit of a BA in Anthropology. Perhaps it is that Anthropology degree that has rendered the book unreadable for me 25 years later.

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Jun 02, 2008

Luis rated it

Jean Auel did a great job researching for this book. It made you feel as though you were there living amongst the clan during prehistoric times. You really get to know all the characters well.

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May 23, 2008

Linda rated it

I found this book to be a very interesting fictional story about the "first" human. It was very entertaining and I look forward to continue reading the series.

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Aug 21, 2007

D rated it

Shelves: historical-fiction

TRUE STORY: reading Clan of the Cave Bear to augment one's understanding of the Upper Paleolithic era is like reading Playboy for the articles. . . .

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Feb 18, 2009

Alana rated it

I loved this series....

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Jan 31, 2008

Karla Rutherford rated it

A enjoyable adventure. The story pulled me in and kept me interested.

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Jan 01, 2011

Jess rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Where do I even start? In a tale that defies biology, geology, common sense and all belief, Jean M. Auel introduces us to a particularly disturbing self-insert in the form of Ayla, a Cro-Magnon girl who is raised by a tribe of doltish Neanderthals.

Not only is Ayla strong, beautiful (though she considers herself ugly and believes that nobody could ever love her) and talented, she's also a virtual genius. Over the course of the series she invents or discovers the spear thrower, basket...more

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Apr 17, 2009

Jen rated it

Shelves: read-2009, fiction

This is the first of a series of four books based in Europe during the Ice Age that follows the journey of Ayla, a woman of apparently many talents and abilities.

While I was mesmerized by the story, I was bothered by some reviews (not just on Goodreads) that claim it is a racist series. Sometimes reviews ruin reading... The fact that I was aware enough to spend time looking for racist overtones distracted me.

Upon reading, here is what I decided. If I can read the boo...more

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About Jean M. Auel

Jean M. Auel, née Jean Marie Untinen is an American writer. She is best known for her Earth's Children books, a series of historical fiction novels set in prehistoric Europe that explores interactions of Cro-Magnon people with Neanderthals. Her books have sold 34 million copies world-wide in many translations.

Author Jean Marie Auel (surname pronounced like "owl") is the secon...moreJean M. Auel, née Jean Marie Untinen is an American writer. She is best known for her Earth's Children books, a series of historical fiction novels set in prehistoric Europe that explores interactions of Cro-Magnon people with Neanderthals. Her books have sold 34 million copies world-wide in many translations.

Author Jean Marie Auel (surname pronounced like "owl") is the second of five children of Neil Solomon Untinen, a housepainter, and Martha Wirtanen. She and her husband, Ray Bernard Auel, have five children and live in Portland, Oregon.

Auel has been a member of Mensa since 1964. She attended Portland State University and the University of Portland. While studying, she worked as a clerk (1965-1966), a circuit board designer (1966-1973), technical writer (1973-1974), and a credit manager at Tektronix (1974-1976). At one time, she shared a secretary with author Ursula K. Le Guin.[citation needed] She earned an MBA in 1976 and has received honorary degrees from the University of Maine and Mount Vernon College for Women.

In 1977, Auel began extensive library research of the Ice Age for her first book. She joined a survival class to learn how to construct an ice cave, and learned primitive methods of making fire, tanning leather, and knapping stone from aboriginal skills expert Jim Riggs. Auel describes Riggs as "the kind of person you could put into one end of a wilderness naked, and he'd come out the other end fed, clothed, and sheltered." Clan of the Cave Bear was nominated for numerous literary awards, including an American Booksellers Association nomination for best first novel.

After the success of the first book, Auel was able to travel to prehistoric sites and to meet many of the experts with whom she had been corresponding. Her research has taken her across Europe from France to Ukraine, including most of what Marija Gimbutas called Old Europe. She has developed a close friendship with Dr. Jean Clottes of France who was responsible for, among many other things, the exploration of the Cosquer Cave discovered in 1985 and the Chauvet Cave discovered in 1994.

Jean Auel's books have been commended for their anthropological authenticity and their ethnobotanical accuracy. However, recent archaeological research may suggest that some prehistorical details in the series are inaccurate and others fictional, and that specifications of prehistorical milestones are sometimes arbitrary and inconsistent. For example, the differences between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens may have been exaggerated or underestimated in the series; it has been found that Neanderthals had a hyoid bone and may thus have been capable of using vocal language and not as dependent on sign language as portrayed in the series (the existence of a Neanderthal hyoid bone wasn't confirmed until 1983, some years after the first book in the series was published).
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Books by Jean M. Auel

The Valley of Horses (Earth's Children, #2)

The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children, #3)

The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children, #4)

The Shelters of Stone (Earth's Children, #5)

The Land of Painted Caves (Earth's Children, #6)

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Quotes from The Clan of the Cave Bear

“But when did you see her, talk to me? When did you see her go into the cave? Why did you threaten to strike a spirit? You still don't understand, do you? You acknowledged her, Broud, she has beaten you. You did everything you could to her, you even cursed her. She's dead, and still she won. She was a woman, and she had more courage than you, Broud, more determination, more self-control. She was more man than you are. Ayla should have been the son of my mate.” — 6 people liked it

“He's part me and part Clan, and so is Ura. Or rather, she's part Oda and part that man who killed her baby.” — 3 people liked it

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The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth's Children #1)

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