More than 3,600 years ago, the world stood poised between two very different fates. In the largest eruption in recorded history, Mt. Thera unleashed catastrophic climatic changes, heralding the ascent of our Aryan ancestors at the expense of older cultures. One of these threatened groups, the People of the Painted Earth Temple, represented the last of a dying breed: the hunter-gatherers of Europe. Separated from its nearest neighbours by weeks of travel through the Alps, their village seemed invulnerable to the changes around them. But nothing could stop the Aryan tide. And the People of the Painted Earth Temple were forced to leave Gaia’s land on an odyssey that would take them over the land bridge - and into the New World.

Building on the beautiful epic he began with Eyes of Wisdom, beloved storyteller Heyoka Merrifield continues the Native American saga of White Buffalo Woman, taking readers back to her deep origins in the cave cultures of Europe. Painted Earth Templereconnects us with a mythic tale both sacred and endangered - a connection to sacred Earth that binds east and west, past and present.