ABSTRACT
The heroine of Auel’s Clan, Alya, was a Cro-Magnon, and her prefrontal neocortex development made her capable of problem solving, planning, and conscious decision making, which enabled her to face future challenges of the environment. Her entrance into the clan, however, stimulates tension and generates anxiety between the comfort of understanding and doing things the old familiar way versus life’s demands for adaptation, flexible thinking, and new behaviors. The clan owes its loyalty to the old way, but life’s incessant demands for new ways won’t go away!
