The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [0]
The Clan of the Cave Bear
The Valley of Horses
The Mammoth Hunters
The Plains of Passage
The Shelters of Stone
Copyright © 2011 by Jean M. Auel
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
EARTH’S CHILDREN is a trademark of Jean M. Auel.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Auel, Jean M.
The land of painted caves / by Jean M. Auel.
p. cm.—(Earth’s children; bk. 6) 1. Ayla (Fictitious character)—Fiction.
2. Prehistoric peoples—Fiction. 3. Women—Europe—Fiction.
4. Glacial epoch—Fiction. 5. Europe—Fiction. I. Title. II. Series.
PS3551.U36L36 2011
813′.54—dc22 2010021873
eISBN: 978-0-307-88665-1
Jacket illustration by Rob Wood/Wood Ronsaville Harlin, Inc.
Jacket typography by Anthony Bloch
Map illustration by Rodica Prato after Jean Auel
Inset map © Palacios after Jean Auel
v3.1
For RAEANN
First born, last cited, always loved,
and for FRANK,
who stands by her side,
and for AMELIA and BRET, ALECIA, and EMORY,
fine young adults,
with Love.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful for the assistance of many people who have helped me to write the Earth’s Children® series. I want to thank again two French archeologists who have been particularly helpful over the years, Dr. Jean-Philippe Rigaud and Dr. Jean Clottes. They have both enabled me to understand the background and to visualize the prehistoric setting of these books.
Dr. Rigaud’s help has been invaluable beginning with my first research visit to France, and his assistance has continued over the years. I particularly enjoyed the visit, which he arranged, to a stone shelter in Gorge d’Enfer, which is still much the way it was in the Ice Age: a deep protected space, open in the front, with a level floor, a rock ceiling, and a natural spring at the back. It was easy to see how it could be made into a comfortable place to live. And I appreciated his willingness to explain to reporters and other media people from many countries the interesting and important information about some of the prehistoric sites in and around Les Eyzles de Tayac when Book 5, The Shelters of Stone, was launched internationally from that location in France.
I am most grateful to Jean Clottes, who arranged for Ray and me to visit many remarkable painted caves in the south of France. Particularly memorable was the visit to the caves on the property of Count Robert Begouen in the Volp Valley—l’Enlene, Trois-Freres, and Tuc-d’Audoubert—whose art is often pictured in texts and art books. To actually see some of that remarkable art in its environment, escorted by both Dr. Clottes and Count Begouen, was a treasured experience, and for that thanks in great measure are also due to Robert Begouen. It was his grandfather and two brothers who first explored the caves and began the practice of maintaining them, which continues to this day. No one visits the caves without the permission of Count Begouen, and usually his accompaniment.
We visited many more caves with Dr. Clottes, including Gargas, which is one of my favorites. It has many handprints, including those of a child, and a niche large enough for an adult to enter, whose inner rock walls are completely covered with a rich red paint using the ochers from the region. I am convinced Gargas is a woman’s cave. It feels like the womb of the earth. Above all, I am grateful to Jean Clottes for the visit to the extraordinary Grotte Chauvet. Even though he became too ill with the flu to accompany us, Dr. Clottes arranged for Jean-Marie Chauvet, the man who discovered it and for whom it was named, and Dominique Baffier, curator of Grotte Chauvet, to show us that remarkable site. A young man who was working at the site was also with us and helped me through some of the more difficult parts.
It was a deeply moving experience that I will never forget and I am grateful to both Mr. Chauvet and