The Mammoth Hunters

The Mammoth Hunters is a historical novel by Jean M. Auel, published by Crown in 1985, and the third book in the Earth's Children series. It continues directly from The Valley of Horses: Ayla and Jondalar travel together into the lands of the Mamutoi, a people of the ice age who depend on the mammoth for food, shelter, tools and ceremony.

The Lion Camp takes the two travellers in, and Ayla is adopted not simply as a guest but because of what she can do: she hunts unusually well, she has knowledge of healing, she can start a fire quickly, and she arrives with a horse she has tamed and a wolf pup she has raised. Learning a new language and a new set of rules occupies much of the book, and Old Mamut, the camp's shaman, takes a particular interest in her.

Auel's series is built on the archaeology of the upper palaeolithic, and the Mammoth Hunters' reliance on one animal for so many parts of their lives is the book's organising fact. The human story runs alongside the travel and the work of the camp, and the strained arrangement between Ayla, Jondalar and a rival man carries the second half of the novel.