When her parents are killed by an earthquake, 5-year-old Ayla wanders through the forest completely alone. Cold, hungry, and badly injured by a cave lion, the little girl is as good as gone until she is discovered by a group who call themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear. This clan, left homeless by the same disaster, have little interest in the helpless girl who comes from the tribe they refer to as the "Others." Only their medicine woman sees in...

No longer alone, Ayla leaves the Valley of Horses that has become her home. Travelling with her is Jondalar, the handsome young man she has nursed back to health and come to love. Together, they embark on a journey that will lad them to the Mamutoi: the Mammoth Hunters. But as she gradually settles into this new life amongst a people at first strange and disturbingly different, Ayla finds herself irresistibly drawn to the magnetic Ranec, their master-carver....

The story of a Cro-Magnon woman orphaned as a child and raised by a group of Neanderthals.

"Ayla lost her own people when she was a child. In the harsh landscape of the Ice Age, where to be alone is the greatest threat, her life has been a fight for survival - and a search for belonging. But Ayla has an overwhelming sense of destiny that pulls against the needs of her heart. She hungers for knowledge and experience of the world. And what she learns will change life for ever ... Earth's Children 6: Jean M. Auel's magnificent conclusion to...