The Clan of the Cave Bear is a story set in prehistoric Europe during the last ice age; it has sometimes been
categorized as "caveman" fiction. The novel’s exact setting on the Crimean Peninsula is detailed in a map preceding the text. The heroine of the captivating story is Ayla, a Cro-Magnon girl who, at age five, loses her family in an earthquake and survives a number of terrifying events, including the attack of a cave lion, before she is found half-dead by Iza, the medicine
woman of a Neanderthal clan uprooted by the same earthquake and in search of a new cave. Iza empathizes with the barely alive child and convinces her brother Brun, the leader of the Clan of the Cave Bear, to let her bring the child along. When the girl recuperates from her wounds, it is obvious that two separate worlds have met: The Neanderthal Clan members are described as short, stocky, bowlegged, dark-haired, with large heads, and communicating mostly with hand gestures; Ayla, on the other hand, is thinner, taller, blond, blue-eyed, and talking freely in a language that the Clan does not understand.
Initially, everyone is suspicious of the orphan, who is so different from them and who belongs to what the Clan terms the Others. Ayla’s biggest supporter is Creb, the Mo-gur, the mighty magician of the entire Clan of the Cave Bear. Creb, brother to Iza and Brun, is a misshapen, one-eyed cripple, who, as a child, had survived the attack of a cave bear. Ayla shows him the affection that he never received from anyone else, and a deep bond develops between the disparate pair. Creb officially accepts Ayla, who accidentally discovered the new cave, into the Clan at a special
ceremony, scandalizing the Clan by assigning her the powerful cave lion totem and laying the groundwork for the hatred of the arrogant and brutal Broud, whose own manhood ceremony is eclipsed by Ayla’s discovery of the cave and her totem ceremony.
From that time on, Ayla must learn how to be a Clan woman, whose tasks and rules are very different from those of the men. Ayla is especially adept at assimilating Iza’s medicinal knowledge and is groomed for the prestigious role of medicine woman. Ayla’s real trouble starts when she secretly learns to hunt with a sling, an enormous taboo for the women of the Clan and punishable by a form of exile. Because of her analytical skills, intuitive thinking, and tenacity, Ayla survives the exile and returns to the Clan. Broud, however, is pushing Ayla to the extreme, abusing her verbally and physically, eventually brutally raping her. The result of the rape is Durc, Ayla’s son, whom the Clan wants to reject and who is eventually accepted because of Creb’s influence. The novel ends as it began—with an earthquake, in which Creb is killed. Ayla is exiled by Broud, who has finally become the Clan leader.