Or am I just disgusted because of the modern take on girlhood? Either way, this is a book about child abuse, about archaic dogma that serves no one and inevitably leads to the downfall of a whole race of hominins.

Clearly the dangers of children giving birth to children would have been known back then as it is today. I doubt that Neanderthals would have matured much earlier than Cro Magnon girls and I doubt the ancient peoples would really be so stupid as to not understand how babies are made. And it’s infuriating to listen to the narrative of these events, calling the girls “women” when they so clearly are far away from adulthood. It is stomach churning to imagine such things happening to children. Ayla is 11 when she has her son Durc and isn’t able to nurse him because she basically hasn’t developed breasts properly. Oba is 8 years old when she’s mated (prehistoric term for married). The most shocking and upsetting part of Clan of the Cave Bear is not the fact that it’s perpetrating sadistic violence against women, but the fact that these so called “women” are in fact children.

The noted differences between Clan and Others seem quite unbelievable too, knowing what we know today about Neanderthals. One would think that prehistoric peoples would see the disadvantages of such rites for the Clan’s survival, hence the whole ordeal seems somewhat unbelievable and veered from the book’s previous scientific accuracy. Demeaning religious rites, designed to disenfranchise women, feel so suffocating it’s nauseating to listen to. The forceful nature of the Clan’s men rears its ugly head towards her. But then the sexism and the severe abuse starts. Her joy of being in the forrest, learning to hunt and become a stealth hunter in secret, is captivating and infectious. The way she learns to talk using the Clan’s hand gestures, and get her training as a medicine woman, is very believable and scientifically accurate. It starts out a truly fascinating tale of a young girl surviving in the wild in prehistoric Europe. But once Ayla, played by Darryl Hannah, was violently raped, my mum made me cover my eyes for practically the rest of the movie. At first it seemed like a movie suitable for children, so my parents let me watch it. I was first captivated by the Clan of The Cave Bear a long time ago, having seen the 1986 movie when I was roughly five years old.

Jean auel clan of the cave bear