It looks like I've come to the end of a long journey, I've read the reviews for Painted Caves and it doesn't look pretty... a lot of recap and rehash, which I must say is prevalent throughout the series, the author almost wants to make it so you don't have to start at the beginning of the series, but can get along with the story no matter what book one starts with... sorta.
Over all, if you want some great explicit love/sex scenes, this book does it with reckless abandon :-), the information of herbal healing was awesome too. Also quite a bit of how we got here today, our religion and political development and social hierarchy can nearly be explained by the contrast of the Neanderthal way of life to the Cro-Magnon's way. I'd recommend the series.