The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [0]
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
This eBook version of THE MAMMOTH HUNTERS contains bonus content not found in the printed version.
A Sneak Preview from THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES
Read an exciting preview from Jean M. Auel’s The Land of Painted Caves, on sale in hardcover in Spring 2011.
EARTH’S CHILDREN® Series Sampler
Read excerpts from each of the novels in the Earth’s Children® series.
Q&A with Jean M. Auel
In this special Q&A, Jean M. Auel discusses her bestselling Earth’s Children® series.
This edition contains the complete text
of the original hardcover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
THE MAMMOTH HUNTERS
A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with
Crown Publishers
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Crown edition published December 1985
Bantam edition / December 1986
Bantam reissue / November 1991
Bantam reissue / April 2002
EARTH’S CHILDREN is a trademark of Jean M. Auel
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1985 by Jean M. Auel
Excerpt from The Land of Painted Caves copyright 2010 by Jean M. Auel.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 85-17503. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, NY.
eISBN: 978-0-307-76763-9
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book The Land of Painted Caves. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
v3.1_r2
For MARSHALL,
who has become a man to be proud of,
and for BEVERLY,
who helped,
and for CHRISTOPHER, BRIAN, and MELLISSA,
with Love.
Novels by Jean M. Auel
THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR
THE VALLEY OF HORSES
THE MAMMOTH HUNTERS
THE PLAINS OF PASSAGE
THE SHELTERS OF STONE
And the latest novel in the Earth’s Children® series
THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES
Acknowledgments
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,