Scientists squabble over the locations and dates for human arrival in the New World. The first explorers were few, encampments fleeting. At some point in time, between twenty and forty thousand years ago, sea levels were low enough that a vast land bridge was exposed between Asia and North America-- but was not the only way across. Childs provides an unsparing, vivid, revelatory travelogue through prehistory that traces the arrival of the First People...

The Shelters of Stone opens as Ayla and Jondalar, along with their animal friends, Wolf, Whinney, and Racer, complete their epic journey across Europe and are greeted by Jondalar's people: the Zelandonii. The people of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii fascinate Ayla. Their clothes, customs, artifacts, even their homes -- formed in great cliffs of vertical limestone -- are a source of wonder to her. And in the woman Zelandoni, the spiritual leader...

Now a beautiful young woman, Ayla leaves the safety of the Clan who raised her and sets out alone on an epic journey of discovery. A hostile land of glacial cold, terrifying beasts and intense loneliness awaits her, and her need for human companionship and love remains unfulfilled. But in the Valley of Horses she finds refuge and contentment. There, fate brings her a stranger, Jondalar, and Ayla is torn between fear and hope - and carried away to...