The Clan of the Cave Bear
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| Author | Jean M. Auel |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Earth's Children |
| Genre | Historical novel |
| Published | May 4, 1980, Crown |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 468 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 6277166 |
| 813/.54 | |
| LC Class | PS3551.U36 C57 1980 |
| Followed by | The Valley of Horses |
The Clan of the Cave Bear is an epichistorical novel by Jean M. Auel about prehistoric times. It is the first book in the Earth's Children book series which speculates on the possibilities of interactions between Neanderthal and modern Cro-Magnon humans.
The novel references the "coming" advance of "the polar ice" sheets, setting the story before 18,000 years Before Present (BP), when the farthest southern encroachment of the last glacial period of the current ice age occurred. Auel's time-frame, somewhere between 28,000 and 25,000 years BP, corresponds generally with archaeological estimates of the Neanderthal branch of humankind disappearing.
A five-year-old girl, who readers come to understand is Cro-Magnon, is orphaned and left homeless by an earthquake that destroys her family's camp. She wanders aimlessly, naked and unable to feed herself, for several days. Having been attacked and nearly killed by a cave lion and suffering from starvation, exhaustion, and infection of her wounds, she collapses, on the verge of death.
The narrative switches to a group of people who call themselves "The Clan" and who we come to understand are Neanderthal, whose cave was destroyed in the earthquake and who are searching for a new home. The medicine woman of the group, Iza, discovers the girl and asks permission from Brun, the head of the Clan, to help the ailing child, despite the child being clearly a member of "the Others", the distrusted antagonists of the Clan. The child is adopted by Iza and her brother Creb. Creb is this group's "Mog-ur" or shaman, despite being deformed as a result of the difficult birth resulting from his abnormally large head and the later loss of an arm and eye after being attacked by a cave bear. The clan call her Ayla, the closest they can come to saying her "strange" name. After traveling with them for a while and starting to heal, Ayla wanders away from the group when they stop to discuss what they should do since they haven't found a new home and she discovers a huge, beautiful cave, perfect for them; many of the people begin to regard Ayla as lucky, especially since good fortune continues to come their way as she lives among them.
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