Jean M. Auel

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**Jean M. Auel**
Born:	February 18, 1936 Chicago, Illinois
Occupation(s):	novelist
Nationality:	American
Genre(s):	historical fiction
Website:	jeanmauel.co.uk

Jean Marie Auel (born February 18, 1936 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American writer. She is best known for her Earth's Children books, a series of historical fiction novels set in prehistoric Europe that explores interactions of Cro-Magnon people with Neanderthals. Her books have sold 34 million copies world-wide in many translations.

Auel was the second of five children of Neil Solomon Untinen, a housepainter, and Martha Wirtanen. On March 19, 1954, at the age of 18, Jean married Ray B. Auel. They had five children by the time she was 25: RaeAnn, Karen, Lenore, Kendall and Marshall.

Auel attended Portland State University and the University of Portland. She has also received honorary degrees from the University of Maine and Mt. Vernon College. She got her MBA in 1976 at the age of 40. She also worked as a clerk (1965-1966), a circuit board designer (1966-1973), technical writer (1973-1974), and a credit manager at Tektronix (1974-1976).

Jean began researching for The Clan of the Cave Bear in 1977. In addition to spending many hours in the library studying the Ice Age, she joined a survival class to learn how to construct an ice cave and how it feels to live in one. She learned primitive methods of making fire, tanning leather, and knapping stone from aboriginal skills expert Jim Riggs. Jean describes Riggs as "the kind of person you could put into one end of a wilderness naked, and he'd come out the other end fed, clothed, and sheltered."

The first book in the Earth's Children series was The Clan of the Cave Bear. Since then, she has written The Valley of Horses, The Mammoth Hunters, The Plains of Passage, and The Shelters of Stone. Each of these titles was created as a sequel to the previous one; however, although the action follows on immediately from one book to the next, the publication has suffered gaps as long as ten years between volumes. The sixth book in the Earth's Children series is expected eventually.

After the financial success of her first book, she was able to afford trips to see the prehistoric sites she wrote about, and to meet, not just correspond with, the experts. Her research has taken her across the continent from France to Ukraine, including most of what Marija Gimbutas called Old Europe. She has developed a close friendship with Dr. Jean Clottes of France who was responsible for, among many other things, the exploration of the Cosquer Cave discovered in 1985 and the Chauvet Cave discovered in 1994.

Jean's books have been commended for their anthropological authenticity and their ethnobotanical accuracy. Reviewers have described as "a minor miracle" her work in describing a detailed Ice Age society including general interactions, trading, religious rituals, and relationships. Her books also remind us not to take things for granted, such as the bountiful but limited resources of the earth. Above all, they reinforce the fact that people living 20,000 years ago were as intelligent and creative, and as human, as any person alive today.

However, the series has been criticised for poor characterisation. The central character, Ayla, excels in the many endeavours she applies herself to (with the exception of singing), and has few discernible character flaws; several critics have described her as a canonical Mary Sue. Recent archaeological research has shown of the historical details in her books to be inaccurate. Some others are fictional, such as the domestication of horses, which really occurred much later. It should be noted, however, that such "archeological evidence" is itself subjective, with historical milestones (such as the domestication of horses) being attributed arbitrarily to moments in history determined by inconsistent means. Hypothetically, Ayla could have domesticated two horses out of necessity without starting a sweeping universal movement of equestrian domestication.

Auel's books may have exaggerated the difference between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens sapiens. It has been proven that Neanderthals had a Hyoid bone. Thus, they were most likely capable of using a vocal language and were not dependent on sign language, but in Auel's books, they are portrayed as incapable of complex verbal expression (see Neanderthal's ability to speak). However, the existence of a hyoid bone in Neanderthals was only confirmed in 1983, some years after the first book in the series was published. Also, they would not look as different as Auel describes. They had a receding chin and not none as Auel describes, as a look at their remains and the reconstructed images confirms.^{[citation needed]}

Auel lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband Ray and is now working on the sixth book of the Earth's Children series. At one point she shared a secretary with another anthropologically-inclined writer of speculative fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin. She is also a member of Mensa^[1].