The inheritors - William Golding

When the spring came the people - what was left of them - moved back by the old paths from the sea. But this year strange things were happening, terrifying things that had never happened before. There were inexplicable sounds and smells, new, unimaginable creatures half-glimpsed through the leaves: a new race of men and women. Though they did not know it yet, though they were never really to know it, the day of the people was over. It had ended a long time ago.The Inheritors is a brilliant imaginative re-creation of the lost world of the Neanderthals, and of the beginnings of our own age.