Best-Selling Author Jean Auel to Speak at UW

Sept. 5, 2003 -- Author Jean Auel, whose books about life in the Stone Age have been worldwide best sellers for more than 20 years, will speak Thursday, Sept. 25, at 3 p.m. in the University of Wyoming College of Arts and Sciences auditorium.

The free lecture, "30,000 Years Ago: The Way the World Was Then," is sponsored by the UW Department of Anthropology's George C. Frison Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology. Auel will sign copies of her books at 4:30 p.m. in the A&S building lobby.

Auel's recent release, "Shelters of Stone," is the fifth book in the Earth's Children series about a woman named Ayla and her stone age adventures as a Cro-Magnon living with the less developed Neanderthals. Her first book, "Clan of the Cave Bear," was made into a movie with Daryl Hannah as Ayla. Other books in the series are "The Valley of Horses," "The Mammoth Hunters," and "The Plains of Passage."

In 1998, UW created the George C. Frison Institute providing a focus for the study of cultural dynamics and prehistory in North America. The institute emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches to studies of the early settlement and occupation of the Americas. Frison, internationally-recognized archeologist and the first UW professor elected to the National Academy of Sciences, has consulted Auel to help ensure the scientific accuracy of her work.

Posted on Friday, September 05, 2003