Ayla

At five, an earthquake separates Ayla from her mother. Alone, she is attacked by a cave lion and hangs between life and death until Iza, the healer of a Neanderthal clan, finds her.

Chief Brun doesn't want a stranger in the group, but Iza refuses to leave her behind. Creb, the shaman, looks at the claw marks on the girl's leg and decides the lion's spirit has chosen her.

To the Clan, a child of the Others is almost a strange animal. Ayla is too tall, too fair and can't follow the gestures they use to talk. She has to learn everything from scratch.

Ayla thinks differently from the Clan and keeps running into its customs. She wants to understand everything and can't stay in the place women hold there.

Iza knows hardly anyone will want a mate like her. So she teaches the girl to be a healer, a role that earns respect even without a partner.

In the Clan almost everything is said with hands and body, with few words. Ayla, who comes from a people who speak, picks up that language bit by bit. Even so, her questions seem bold to those born there.

Broud, Brun's son, hates Ayla and assaults her again and again. She gets pregnant. In secret, she learns to use a sling, a weapon women are forbidden to touch.

When a wolf attacks a child, Ayla kills it in front of everyone. Instead of death, she is banished. She survives alone, gives birth to her son, Durc, and returns when her sentence ends. Creb keeps the baby from being killed for having a different face.

Iza dies and Broud becomes chief. He tries to take Ayla for himself, wants to separate her from her son and throws Creb out.

Ayla takes on Broud in a fight and wins. Brun shames him, and Broud agrees to let Creb stay. Even so, Ayla knows she has no future there. She leaves Durc with Creb and heads west to find her own people, the Others.

The goodbye is the price of winning. Ayla has no place in a clan led by Broud, but she trusts Creb to look after the son she can't take with her.

Daryl Hannah plays adult Ayla in the film; Nicole Eggert plays her as a teen and Emma Floria as a child. In Jean M. Auel's books, Ayla leads all six volumes of Earth's Children.