The series includes a highly detailed focus on botany, herbology, herbal medicine, archaeology and anthropology, but it also features substantial amounts of romance, coming-of-age crises, and-employing significant literary license-the attribution of certain advances and inventions to the protagonists. The couple finally return to southwestern France and Jondalar's people in the fifth novel. In the third and fourth works, they meet various groups of Cro-Magnons and encounter their culture and technology. The story arc in part comprises a travel tale, in which the two lovers journey from the region of Ukraine to Jondalar's home in what is now France, along an indirect route up the Danube River valley. It tells the story of Ayla, an orphaned Cro-Magnon girl who is adopted and raised by a tribe of Neanderthals and who later embarks on a journey to find the Others (her own kind), meeting along the way her romantic interest and supporting co-protagonist, Jondalar. The books focus on the period of co-existence between Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals.Īs a whole, the series is a tale of personal discovery: coming-of-age, invention, cultural complexities, and, beginning with the second book, explicit romantic sex. The series is set in Europe during the Upper Paleolithic era, after the date of the first ceramics discovered, but before the last advance of glaciers. Although Auel had previously mentioned in interviews that there would be a seventh novel, publicity announcements for the sixth confirmed it would be the final book in the sequence.

Auel set circa 30,000 years before the present day. Earth's Children Volumes:Įarth's Children is a series of epic historical fiction (or more precisely, prehistorical fiction) novels written by Jean M. For other uses, see Children of the earth.

Clan of the cave bear series in order