Jean M. Auel - The 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, Auels books are a stunning example of world building. They join the short list of books, like James Clavells Shogun and Frank Herberts 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 doesnt provoke your imagination, I dont know what will.

The Detroit News

Auel is a prodigious researcher. Jondalars spears and flints are as authentic as Ranecs 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
Read an exciting preview from Jean M. Auels The Land of Painted Caves, on sale in hardcover in Spring 2011.

Read excerpts from each of the novels in the Earths Children series.

In this special Q&A, Jean M. Auel discusses her bestselling Earths 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

EARTHS 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.

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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 Earths Children series
THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES

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 yEdynak, 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.