The Clan of the Cave Bear

The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980) is a historical fiction novel by Jean M. Auel and the first book in her Earth’s Children series. Set in Paleolithic Europe, the book follows Ayla, a Cro-Magnon girl who is orphaned during a catastrophic earthquake and adopted by a band of Neanderthals known as the “Clan.” As she grows up, her quick learning and independent streak clash with Clan traditions and an ambitious young hunter who resents her, turning her coming-of-age into a fight for belonging and survival.

This guide uses the 1981 paperback edition published by Bantam Books.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of bullying, gender discrimination, sexual violence, rape, ableism, child abuse, pregnancy loss and termination, child death, animal cruelty and death, substance use, graphic violence, sexual content, illness and death, and physical abuse.

Plot Summary

In prehistoric Europe, a massive earthquake strikes, leaving a five-year-old Cro-Magnon girl named Ayla orphaned and alone after her camp is destroyed and her family killed. She wanders for days and accidentally strays into the territory of a cave lion. The beast attacks, leaving three long claw marks on her leg and nearly killing her. Wounded and feverish, Ayla collapses near a stream.

At the same time, a nearby group of Neanderthals, who refer to themselves as “the Clan,” were also displaced by the earthquake. As they trek through the wilderness in search of a new home, the clan’s medicine woman, Iza, finds Ayla by the stream. Despite recognizing that the girl is one of “the Others,” Iza pleads with Brun, her brother and the group’s leader, to save the injured child. Brun reluctantly allows Iza to treat Ayla’s wounds. Creb, Iza and Brun’s brother, as well as the shaman, seeks a vision to determine Ayla’s totem, a guardian spirit animal. He interprets the lion’s attack as the spirit “marking” Ayla so she could be found and adopted by the Clan. Brun accepts this, and Ayla is formally adopted as Iza’s daughter.

After the group settles in a new cave, Ayla heals and grows within the Clan. However, she struggles to adapt to living among people very different from her. Iza worries that Ayla may never find a mate when she’s older because, to the Clan, she is “ugly.” To ensure the girl will have a place anyway, Iza trains Ayla to become a medicine woman. Ayla also grows close to Creb, who comes to love her like a father. On the other hand, Broud, Brun’s son and heir, forms a resentment toward her because she “stole” the attention he feels should be his.

One day, Ayla sees Zoug, an older hunter, giving sling weapon lessons to the boys to prepare them to hunt. Broud, in frustration, storms off mid-lesson and tosses aside his sling in anger. Ayla secretly retrieves it and, despite Clan women being forbidden from handling weapons, begins to practice with it. Since Clan women cannot join hunts, she instead hunts small predators that lurk near the cave and cause trouble for the Clan.

However, her secret comes out during a mammoth hunt. Ayla accompanies the hunting group as a helper and healer in Iza’s stead, as the older woman is too ill. During the hunt, a hyena sneaks into camp and snatches Brac, the young son of Broud and his mate, Oga. Ayla is the only one near enough to act and uses her sling to kill the hyena and save the boy. As the immediate shock fades, everyone realizes that Ayla violated one of the Clan’s most sacred laws. The customary punishment for a woman who takes up a weapon is death.

The clan elders and Brun convene to decide Ayla’s fate. In a compromise, Brun declares that Ayla will receive the “death curse,” which means she’s treated as if she were dead and forced to leave the cave immediately. However, Brun’s decree includes some hope: If Ayla can survive on her own for one moon, she will be allowed to return. Alone, Ayla finds shelter in a small cave to wait out her exile and uses her sling to hunt small animals for food. After the period of the moon cycle is over, to everyone’s surprise, Ayla walks back into the cave alive. To mark Ayla’s return, Brun and Creb organize a special ceremony to officially grant her a unique status as The Woman Who Hunts that permits Ayla to continue using her sling.

Years pass, and Ayla reaches the age by which, usually, Clan girls are considered ready to mate and have children. Ayla herself yearns to be a mother and has helped Iza care for her daughter, Uba. However, due to Ayla’s unusual appearance, no Clan man wants her as a mate. Meanwhile, Broud has grown into a strong young hunter and is impatient to assume more authority. Not content with the traditional deference Clan women show to men, Broud seeks every opportunity to exert power over Ayla, escalating until he rapes her. Ayla spirals into depression until she discovers that she’s pregnant. Determined to be a mother, Ayla endures a difficult pregnancy, aided by an increasingly ill Iza.

In the end, Ayla delivers a baby boy who displays a mix of “Clan” and “Other” features. The Clan views these differences as “deformities” and demands she leave the baby to die. Ayla refuses and runs away with her son to shelter in the cave where she survived the death curse. She plans to keep the boy, Durc, hidden for at least seven days, as the Clan will be obliged to accept him then. After a few days, she learns that Brun is on the verge of declaring her formally banished for defying him. Unwilling to endanger Durc’s future, Ayla returns to the clan’s cave earlier than planned and begs Brun for mercy. Moved by Ayla’s courage, Brun allows Durc to live and be accepted into the Clan, though Ayla is stripped of her status as a hunter.

Not long after, Brun’s clan prepares for an upcoming Clan Gathering. Ayla travels to the gathering as a replacement for Iza, who is too ill to travel. At the gathering, Ayla is tasked with preparing the hallucinogenic potion used by the shamans during a secretive ritual. However, Ayla accidentally consumes some of it. In a trance, Ayla wanders into the cave where the ritual is being held. Creb notices and manages to guide her into the group’s mind-journey without alerting the others. She witnesses their shared history. Creb realizes that the Clan as a people are destined to fade, yielding the world to Ayla’s kind. He sends her out of the cave before the others notice her.

The Clan Gathering concludes, and Brun’s Clan returns home to their cave. When they arrive, they find Iza on her deathbed. Before she dies, she urges Ayla to leave the Clan and find her own people, the Others, before Broud becomes leader. Ayla, however, cannot imagine leaving the only family she has ever known. After Iza’s death, Brun and Creb eventually decide to pass the mantle of their positions to new men. In his first act as leader, Broud declares he will take Ayla as his second mate and that Durc will be taken away from her. Ayla, furious, refuses, and Broud orders Goov, the new shaman, to give her the death curse.

As Goov begins the ritual, another earthquake strikes, causing the cave to collapse. In the chaos, everyone flees outside except Creb, who is killed. Despite the tragedy, Broud resumes the sentencing, pronouncing Ayla’s death curse immediately. Knowing she has truly no place in the Clan anymore, Ayla begs Brun to look after her son before leaving them all behind forever.