The Clan of the Cave Bear

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel

What will you learn about history?
Pre-history comes to life in this book and Jean M. Auel has done enough research to make it as authentic as possible.  The story follows Ayla, a young Cro-Magnon girl whose mother is killed in an earthquake.  After surviving an attack from a cave lion, she meets up with a clan of Neanderthals who lost their cave during the earthquake.  As the girl grows, the physical and cultural differences between the two groups that inhabited the earth thirty thousand years ago become evident.  Auel shows how traditions and religious practices dictate every day decisions.  She also shows how precipitous survival was during the prehistoric era.  Evolution has given Ayla advantages such as the ability to hunt with a sling and to think abstractly.  Her adopted mother is the clan's medicine woman and she quickly learns the locations and uses for herbs and other natural materials.  Ayla is close to the clan's tool and weapon maker and learns how to fashion these tools.  The other women in the clan teach her to make baskets and bags.  She is also capable of vocal language.  The Neanderthal clan that she lives with uses guttural utterances and hand gestures to communicate.

Why should you read it?
This book is the first in a series of books that follow the same character through her life.  Her stories are timeless:  the love of an adopted mother, living on the fringe of a culture that is not your own, and conflict with jealous peers.   In 1986 the book was released as a movie starring Daryl Hannah.  Although the movie was a box office flop, it was nominated for an Oscar for Make-up.  Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, and Allison Shearmur are producing a miniseries based on the book that will air on the Lifetime network in 2015.