The first novel in Jean M. Auel's magnificent epic sweeps the reader back 25 000 years to a cold, ancient time when two kinds of human beings, Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, shared our world. Its heroine is Ayla, a courageous and indomitable young woman whose story begins when she is a five year old orphan adopted by The Clan, a group of Neanderthals. Ayla inspires first surprise, then wariness and finally acceptance by the Clan. She is cared for by its medicine woman Iza and its wise holy man Creb. But she makes an implacable enemy of the group's future leader.