The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children) [Hardcover]

Jean M. Auel (Author)

Book Description

Series: Earth's Children | Publication Date: November 27, 2001

Ayla, the independent heroine of The Clan of the Cave Bear and The Valley of Horses, sets out from the valley on Whinney, the horse she tamed. With her is Jondalar, the tall, handsome, yellow-haired man she nursed back to health and came to love. Together they meet the Mamutoi--the Mammoth Hunters--people like Ayla. But to Ayla, who was raised by the Clan of the Cave Bear, they are “the Others.” She approaches them with mixed feelings of fear and curiosity.

Talut, a powerful bear of a man with bright red hair, a booming laugh, and a gentle heart, and his tall, dark-haired sister, Tulie, are the leaders of the Lion Camp of the Mamutoi. It is here that Ayla finds her first women friends, but some among the Mamutoi dislike Ayla because she was raised by “flatheads,” their name for the people of the Clan. Ayla is haunted by her memories of the Clan because Rydag, a child of mixed parentage living with the Mamutoi, bears so strong a resemblance to her own son, Durc.

It is the Mamutoi master carver of ivory--dark-skinned Ranec, flirtatious, artistic, magnetic--who fascinates Ayla. She finds herself drawn to him. Because of her uncanny control over animals, her healing skills, and the magic firestone she discovered, Ayla is adopted into the Mammoth Hearth by Mamut, the ancient shaman of the Great Earth Mother.

Ayla finds herself torn between her strong feelings for Ranec and her powerful love for the wildly jealous and unsure Jondalar. It is not until after the great mammoth hunt, when Ayla’s life is threatened, that a fateful decision is made.

Set in the challenging terrain of Ice Age Europe that millions of Jean Auel’s readers have come to treasure, The Mammoth Hunters is an epic novel of love, knowledge, jealousy, and hard choices--a novel certain to garner Jean Auel even greater acclaim as a master storyteller of the dawn of humanity.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The authenticity of background detail, the lilting prose rhythms and the appealing conceptual audacity that won many fans for The Clan of the Cave Bear and The Valley of the Horses continue to work their spell in this third installment of Auel's projected six-volume Earth's Children saga set in Ice Age Europe. The heroine, 18-year-old Ayla, cursed and pronounced dead by the "flathead" clan that reared her, now takes her chances with the mammoth-hunting Mamutoi, attended by her faithful lover, Jondalar. Gradually overcoming the prejudice aroused by her flathead connection, Ayla wins acceptance into the new clan through her powers as a healer, her shamanistic potential, her skill with spear and slingshot and her way with animals (she rides a horse, domesticates a wolf cub, both "firsts," it would seem, and even rides a lion). She also wins the heart of a bone-carving artist of "sparkling wit" (not much in evidence), which forces her to make a painful choice between the curiously complaisant Jondalar, her first instructor in love's delights, and this more charismatic fellow. The story is lyric rather than dramatic, and Ayla and her lovers are projections of a romantic rather than a historical imagination, but readers caught up in the charm of Auel's story probably won't care. 750,000 first printing; $300,000 ad/promo; paperback rights to Bantam; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club dual main selections; author tour. Foreign rights: Jean Naggar. December 6
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Ayla, the prehistoric heroine of Auel's immensely popular series, meets a new clan, the mammoth hunters, in this eagerly awaited third installment to the saga. During her sojourn with this clan, Ayla and her lover, Jondalar, encounter a variety of crises triggered by Ayla's past and her involvement with another man. Auel has created an amazing and fascinating world. Every aspect of society and culture is accounted for; no detail is too small to be included. To enjoy this novel the reader must accept the author's concepts and cultural descriptions. Despite the sometimes too-modern dialogue and the often fatuous sex, this is a solid tale that will be particularly enjoyed by those who've been following Ayla's fortunes. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club dual main selections. Lydia Burruel, Mesa P.L., Ariz.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 656 pages
• Publisher: Crown (November 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609610996
• ISBN-13: 978-0609610992
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (192 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #286,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jean M. Auel is one of the world's most esteemed and beloved authors. Her extensive factual research has earned her the respect of renowned scientists, archaeologists and anthropologists around the globe.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Little Bit of the Magic Has Been Lost., May 3, 2004

By 

LostBoy76 (Vancouver, BC Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children, Book Three) (Mass Market Paperback)

I have recently finished the main four books of the "Earth's Children" series, and I have decided to review "The Mammoth Hunters" because I thought that this third book is where the series started to lose some of it's charm. That doesn't mean that it isn't worth reading, though. I just have a few qualifications. "Spoilers"

In the first two books, "The Clan of the Cave Bear" and "The Valley of Horses", the huge amount of detail about the climates, landscapes, and plantlife never really bothered me too much, but in this book (and the last book, "Plains of Passage") I found it dwelt on the most trivial little things for ages! Most of the new characters are fairly likable, though none of them truly stand out, except maybe Rydag. Sometimes the author Ms. Auel seems more interested in Ayla's animal friends than in the people. A very large portion of this book is dedicated to the "love triangle" between Ayla, Jondalar, and Ranec, and this is frustrating for a number of reasons. First, it isn't really a love triangle at all; it is a "misunderstanding" between Ayla and Jondalar which causes Ranec to think that Ayla is available. Second, Ranec is an annoying and slightly creepy character, so I was never really interested in what the heck happened to him. Third, it takes over three hundred pages to resolve this issue!! Literally, three hundred pages of Ayla and Jondalar staring longingly at each other when the other one isn't looking, saying awkward things to each other, getting angry with each other, and so on. That doesn't mean that all three hundred pages are monotonous or boring. There are some very sad and touching scenes that will stay with you: Jondalar crying and clutching the wolf puppy at night while Ayla is sleeping with Ranec; Ayla sobbing to Mamut (the old MogUr-like character), asking him why Jondalar doesn't love her anymore; Jondalar losing control of himself when he's alone with Ayla and taking her by force (though she allows it); Ayla panicking and confessing her feelings when Jondalar leaves without her. These, and a few other scenes, are very endearing, though you may want to scream at Jondalar once in a while for not seeing what's so plainly obvious to everyone else. It never really leaves the reader's mind that all this drama and heartache could have been resolved in about two minutes if the two people just spoke to each other.

On a side note, there seems to be a lot of people taking issue with the sex scenes in this series and I find it very odd. There is also violence, death, and (in the first book) a brutal rape scene, but no-one seems too concerned about these things. I'd call that a serious misplacement of values. Ayla and Jondalar are both adults and in love, so what's the problem? If you're squeamish about the sex scenes, then just skip them! The explicit descriptions are pretty entertaining, if you ask me! Ms. Auel uses hilarious adjectives for the sex scenes (eg. "Jondalar's large throbbing manhood", "Ayla's pink place of pleasure", ect.) that had me laughing out loud at some points!! In the fourth book, Ayla and Jondalar even "invent" the 69 position!

In conclusion, I'll say that this book (and the fourth) is worth reading if you have already read the first two and really enjoyed them. As a stand-alone novel, it doesn't quite work. It's entertaining at times, but nowhere near as brilliant as the first, or as fun as the second.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars What's a [cave] girl to do?, March 16, 2005

By 

M. Fluet (Leesburg, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children) (Hardcover)

Let's start with the positives...the Mammoth Hunters as a tribe were interesting, and the details of how their survival was linked to the many versatile uses of the wolly mammoth were engaging. The Mamutoi social systems, customs, and interpersonal relationships kept me reading to the end.

The real problem with the book concerned the personalities of the central characters, Ayla, Ranec, and Jondalar. Jondalar comes off as incredibly whiny and insecure...nothing he does or says is particularly interesting and he spends most of the book annoying the reader by moping around the camp worrying about his "pleasures" as if he's a bit player on "Sex and the City". He did the same thing throughout the Valley of Horses, too.

Ranec plays the cocky rival for Ayla's affections, but the minute he gets her in the furs he too is reduced to a whimpering mass of desperate neediness, and begins following Ayla around all day nipping at her heels.

The real tragedy here is that these are the first men of her species Ayla encounters, and she feels compelled to entertain their childish behavior and return their affections whenever they manage to get their act together and stop feeling sorry for themselves for 5 minutes (a character flaw developed by years of flathead oppression). By the end, I was rooting for her to let Jondalar split, take the horse and the wolf and go back to the cave in the valley and wait for a REAL caveman to show up.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too tedious for words, October 3, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Mountain View, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children, Book Three) (Mass Market Paperback)

If Ayla was really as smart as she's supposed to be, she wouldn't be appearing in any more sequels.

The love triangle is straight out of daytime TV: "he acts one way, but for some reason I'll just assume he feels completely the opposite". Ayla's accent is continuously described as too small to notice...but everyone does the instant she opens her mouth. Everyone in the book is just great, except for the token one-dimensional bad-guy who turns good in the end.

These savages are so elegant, we expect to see a pre-historic Martha Stewart behind the next mammoth hide. Ayla is already Amelia Earhardt, Joan of Arc and Mother Teresa rolled into one. Read it if it's the only book in the house (this includes the dictionary and the phonebook).