The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel

It was my sophomore year of high school when I first heard of author Jean M. Auel.  As part of my world history class, I was required to read a work of historical fiction, and at the suggestion of my teacher I chose Auel's The Clan of The Cave Bear.  TCoTCB is the first installment in the Earth's Children series, which follows Ayla, an early human, as she is raised by Neanderthals and later leaves to find people of her own kind.  Now, two books and three years after first encountering Auel, I embarked on reading The Mammoth Hunters, novel number three in this epic series.

While Ayla is the true star of this work, she shares the spotlight with Jondalar, her romantic partner and the first man of the Others, or non-Neanderthal Cro-Magnons, that she meets.  While journeying together after both having left their native homes, they meet the Mamutoi, a tribe of mammoth hunters.  These friendly strangers welcome Ayla and Jondalar with open arms, inviting them to stay at their communal home for the winter.  What follows is a season of new experiences for Ayla and the first feelings of acceptance she has ever known.  But tensions arise between her and her partner as a handsome Mamutoi man, Ranec, sets his eye on Ayla and is relentlessly determined to win her for his own.  As this exotic woman becomes enmeshed in the society of the Mammoth Hunters, even to the point of being adopted as one of their own, Jondalar feels more and more the outsider and considers leaving to take the year-long journey back to his former home and family.  The climax of the novel occurs when Ayla is forced to choose between the man she loves and the acceptance she's found with the Mamutoi. 

Obviously, I enjoy the Earth's Children series, else I wouldn't have bothered continuing with them after book number one. Though lengthy, often topping six-hundred pages, the books are reliably enthralling and rich with detail.  Auel has a painstaking loyalty to historical accuracy and often devotes pages to describing events and objects as fully and beautifully as possible.  Life in the Stone Age is chronicled so deftly that it is not merely conceptual, but definitively historical.  Readers are witnesses to the invention of the sewing needle, the domestication of the first horses and wolves, and the building of early earthen homes and hearths, and they see the world as it was thirty thousand years ago.  This may sound horribly boring to those only interested in emotional fluff such as romance and suspense, but the manner in which these milestones are presented is both gripping and exciting as the elation of the innovators is conveyed so clearly that it is easily felt by the reader.  To be fair, though, the emotional fluff is equally as powerful and as deeply transcribed, giving balance and context to the factual material.

But this book is not without it's faults.  A few hundred pages too long and a reincarnated version of it's predecessors, The Mammoth Hunters is better if read as a stand-alone novel as it traces the same worn paths of Auel's earlier works.  Discovery, drama, and the dangers of nature get to be tedious themes after a while and the level to which they are eloquated becomes somewhat tiring at a point, causing the plot to drag and become a drudgery to read.  The numerous scenes of graphic coitus also get a tad droning as the reader strts to wonder whether Auel has some fetish with throbbing organs and musky dampness, (be prepared to skip numerous episodes of this, sexually awkward readers.  But to those of you who are more pornographically minded, enjoy!) Aside from these complaints, The Mammoth Hunters gives little reason for discontent and makes up for it's shortcomings in it's stellar triumphs of detail and depth.

A sophisticated narration of prehistoric times, The Mammoth Hunters is a worthy read for those up to the challenge.  Patience is necessary and a mind fresh for epic saga, but if these requirements are met then there is a highly intriguing tale of early human life to be uncovered.  Though not perfect, especially to a reader worn and weary of dense detail, it is worth more than a mere perusal to those with a curious mind and a hunger for adventure. 6/10