Children of the Circle is the sixth and final novel in The People of the Stone saga, which details the peopling of North America from the end of the Ice Age to the coming of the first Europeans. The story is set in and around the events of the arrival of Hernando de Soto in the southeast in 1539. The impacts of this sudden appearance and the mystery it presents to men such as Datkas, the native spirit healer, provide the backdrop for a story of dramatic change, fantastic new forces of technology and belief, and the inevitable conflict of two opposing cultures, which will forever change the face of native North America and the different peoples who will come to share the land afterwards.