The Clan of the Cave Bear

By Jean M. Auel

This is the first book in the Earth’s Children-series about Ayla and the Clan of the Cave Bear, and is a fascinating introduction to what life might have been like 25,000 years ago.

It starts with an earthquake in which Ayla, a 5-year-old girl, loses her entire family. She wanders about until she is found by Clan people, ill and unconscious in a lion cave. Ayla was born to the Others (people who look more like the humans we know today) and does not belong to the Clan, a group of Neanderthals. They therefore want to leave her in the cave, but Iza, the Clan’s medicine woman, refuses to leave the helpless little girl.

Iza becomes Ayla’s mother and raises her together with her brother, Creb, the clan’s Mog-ur (the highest ranked spiritual person). Slowly she is adopted by the Clan although many members resent her deeply. Among them is Broud - the Clan’s next leader. However, Ayla soon starts to feel at home with the Clan. She helps Iza hunt for specific plants, who also teaches her medicine skills, and learns how to hunt, which women are strictly forbidden to do in the Clan. When Broud finds out about Ayla's ability to hunt, she is in deep trouble and is severely punished.

Ayla becomes the mother of a baby boy. She names him Durc. In reality it is Broud who is the father of her son but since the Clan does not believe sex will lead to babies, they do not know or think that Broud is the father. Their world is the world of the spirits, and it is spirits that start babies.

Then comes the day when Broud takes over leadership of the Clan. Broud’s hatred towards Ayla has now grown even bigger, and in the end he manages to turn the Clan against her. She is now forced to leave the Clan – and her son - to save her life. On a cold dark night she wanders away in search of the Others.