Mammoth Hunters

PRAISE FOR THE BESTSELLING CLASSIC
The Mammoth Hunters

“Storytelling in the grand tradition … From the violent panorama of spring on the steppes to musicians jamming on a mammoth-bone marimba, Auel’s books are a stunning example of world building. They join the short list of books, like James Clavell’s
Shogun
and Frank Herbert’s
Dune,
that depict exotic societies so vividly that readers almost regard them as ‘survival manuals.’
The Mammoth Hunters
weaves such a spell that readers may even suffer momentary culture shock when they are whisked forward twenty-five thousand years from a Mamutoi longhouse into their own living rooms.”

—
Vogue

“
The Mammoth Hunters
is successful because it presents prehistoric people as human beings.… It is genuinely exciting to follow Ayla on her odyssey through Ice Age lands. If hunting a herd of mammoths at the base of a mile-high wall of ice doesn’t provoke your imagination, I don’t know what will.”

—
The Detroit News

“Auel is a prodigious researcher.… Jondalar’s spears and flints are as authentic as Ranec’s skilled carvings. The ongoing narrative of this book, as with the others, is lively and interesting, enhanced greatly by the vividly colored backdrop of early humanity.”

—
The Washington Post Book World

“Jean Auel has established herself as one of our premier storytellers.…
[The Mammoth Hunters]
is a compelling, pulse-quickening tale of adventure, love, and survival during a period of human history that has seldom been drawn upon by other fiction writers.… My thanks to Jean Auel for a pleasurable, refreshing journey into the past.”

—
Chicago Tribune

For
MARSHALL
,
who has become a man to be proud of,
and for
BEVERLY,
who helped,
and for
CHRISTOPHER, BRIAN
, and
MELLISSA,
with Love.

I could never have told this story without the books and materials of the specialists who have worked at the sites and have collected the artifacts of our prehistoric ancestors, and they have my deepest gratitude. To several people, I owe special thanks. I have enjoyed the discussions, the correspondence, and the papers, full of not only facts but also ideas and theories. I must make it clear, however, that those who provided me with information and offered help are in no way responsible for the viewpoints or ideas expressed in this story. This is a work of fiction, a story of my imagination. The characters, concepts, and cultural descriptions are my own.

Sincere thanks first to David Abrams, professor of anthropology and tour director extraordinaire, and to Diane Kelly, student of anthropology, and master of human relations, who planned, arranged, and accompanied us on the private research trip to sites and museums in France, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union.

My thanks and great appreciation to Dr. Jan Jelinek, Director, Anthropos Institute, Brno, Czechoslovakia, for taking the time to show me many of the actual artifacts from Eastern Europe that appear in his book,
The Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Evolution of Man
(The Hamlyn Publishing Group, Ltd., London).

I am grateful to Dr. Lee Porter of Washington State University, and to whatever fates put her, with her American accent, in our hotel in Kiev. She was there studying fossil mammoth bones, and meeting with the very person we had been desperately trying to see. She cut through all the red tape, and arranged the meeting.

I am indebted to Dr. J. Lawrence Angel, Curator of Physical Anthropology at Smithsonian Institution, for many things: for some positive and encouraging words about my books; for
giving me a “backstage” look and an explanation of some of the differences and similarities between Neanderthal and modern human bones, and particularly for suggesting people who could give me further information and assistance.

I deeply appreciate the special efforts of Dr. Ninel Kornietz, Russian expert on the Ukrainian Upper Paleolithic, who was gracious and kind, even on short notice. With her we saw artifacts in two museums, and she presented me with the one book I had been searching for on the musical instruments made out of mammoth bones by Ice Age people, and a recording of their sounds. The book was in Russian, and I owe deep thanks to Dr. Gloria y’Edynak, formerly an assistant of Dr. Angel, who knows Russian, including the technical terminology of paleoanthropology, for arranging for a translator for this book, and especially for checking it over and filling in the correct technical words. Thanks are also due for her translation of the Ukrainian language articles comparing modern weaving patterns in the Ukraine with designs carved into Ice Age artifacts.

To Dorothy Yacek-Matulis I owe great appreciation for a good, readable, workable translation of the Russian mammoth bone music book. The material has proved invaluable.

Thanks are also in order to Dr. Richard Klein, author of
Ice-Age Hunters of the Ukraine
(University of Chicago Press), who kindly provided additional papers and information about the ancient people of the region.

I am particularly grateful to Alexander Marshack, research fellow of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, and author of
The Roots of Civilization
(McGraw-Hill Book Co.), for copies of the results of his microscopic studies of Ukrainian Upper Paleolithic art and artifacts, which appeared in
Current Anthropology,
material from his as yet unpublished book on the Eastern European Ice Age people.

My sincerest appreciation to Dr. Olga Soffer, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, and probably the leading expert in the United States today on the Ice Age populations of Russia, for the long, interesting, and useful conversation in the lobby of the Hilton, and her material, “Patterns of Intensification as Seen from the Upper Paleolithic Central Russian Plain,” from
Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers: The Emergence of Cultural Complexity,
T. Douglas Price and James A. Brown, editors (Academic Press).

Gratitude in great measure goes to Dr. Paul C. Paquet, co-editor,
Wolves of the World
(Noyes Publications), for interrupting his vacation to return my call, and for the long discussion on wolves and their possible domestication.

Thanks again to Jim Riggs, anthropologist and instructor of “Aboriginal Life Skills” classes. I continue to use the information I learned from him.

I am indebted to three people who read a fat manuscript on short notice and offered helpful comments from a reader’s point of view: Karen Auel, who read a first draft and got caught up in it, and let me know I had a story; Doreen Gandy, poet and teacher, who squeezed the reading into the end of her school year without any loss of her usual insights; and Cathy Humble, who managed, again, to make astute observations.

Special thanks to Betty Prashker, my editor, whose perceptions I value, and whose commentary and suggestions were right on target.

Words are insufficient to thank Jean Naggar, friend, confidante, and literary agent beyond compare, who has continued to exceed my wildest expectations.

Sincere appreciation to the production and art departments of Crown Publishers, whose care and expert workmanship consistently turn out beautiful and well-made books.

I am grateful to Judith Wilkes, my secretary and office assistant, whose intelligence I have come to depend upon, and who eases the pressure of my increased volume of correspondence, so I can write.

And to Rav Auel.…