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DEDICATION

For RAEANN

First born, last cited, always loved,

and for FRANK,

who stands by her side,

and for AMELIA and BRET, ALECIA, and EMORY,

fine young adults,

with love

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the assistance of many people who have helped me to write the Earth's Children(r) series. I want to thank again two French archaeologists who have been particularly helpful over the years, Dr. Jean-Philippe Rigaud and Dr. Jean Clottes. They have both enabled me to understand the background and to visualise the prehistoric setting of these books.

Dr. Rigaud's help has been invaluable beginning with my first research visit to France, and his assistance has continued over the years. I particularly enjoyed the visit, which he arranged, to a stone shelter in Gorge d'Enfer, which is still much the way it was in the Ice Age: a deep protected space, open in the front, with a level floor, a rock ceiling and a natural spring at the back. It was easy to see how it could be made into a comfortable place to live. And I appreciated his willingness to explain to reporters and other media people from many countries the interesting and important information about some of the prehistoric sites in and around Les Eyzies de Tayac when Book 5, The Shelters of Stone, was launched internationally from that location in France.

I am also most grateful to Dr. Jean Clottes, who arranged for Ray and me to visit many remarkable painted caves in the south of France. Particularly memorable was the visit to the caves on the property of Comte Robert Begouen in the Volp Valley — l'Enlene, Trois-Freres, and Tuc-d'Audoubert — whose art is often pictured in texts and art books. To actually see some of that remarkable art in its environment, escorted by both Dr. Clottes and Count Begouen, was a treasured experience, and for that thanks in great measure are also due to Robert Begouen. It was his grandfather and two brothers who first explored the caves and began the practice of maintaining them, which continues to this day. No one visits the caves without the permission of Count Begouen, and usually his accompaniment.

We visited many more caves with Dr. Clottes, including Gargas, which is one of my favourites. With its many handprints, including those of a child, and the niche, large enough for an adult to enter, whose inner rock walls are completely covered with a rich red paint using the ochres from the region, I am convinced Gargas is a woman's cave. It feels like the womb of the earth. Above all, I am grateful to Jean Clottes for the visit to the extraordinary Grotte Chauvet. Even though he became too ill with the flu to accompany us, Dr. Clottes arranged for Jean-Marie Chauvet, the man who discovered it and for whom it was named, and Dominique Baffier, curator of Grotte Chauvet, to show us that remarkable site. A young man who was working at the site was also with us and helped me through some of the more difficult parts.

It was a deeply moving experience that I will never forget and I am grateful to both M. Chauvet and Dr. Baffier for their clear and astute explanations. We went in through the ceiling, much enlarged since M. Chauvet and his colleagues first found their way in, and down a ladder that was attached to the rock wall — the original entrance was closed by a landslide many thousands of years ago. They explained some of the changes that have occurred during the past 35,000 years since the first artists made their magnificent paintings.