Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America
The first people in the New World were few, their encampments fleeting. On a side of the planet no human had ever seen, different groups arrived from different directions, and not all at the same time. The land they reached was fully inhabited by megafauna—mastodons, giant bears, mammoths, saber-toothed cats, enormous bison, and sloths that stood one story tall. These Ice Age explorers, hunters, and families were wildly outnumbered and many would themselves have been prey to the much larger animals.
In Atlas of a Lost World, Craig Childs blends science and personal narrative to upend our notions of where these people came from and who they were. How they got here, persevered, and ultimately thrived is a story that resonates from the Pleistocene to our modern era, and reveals how much has changed since the time of mammoth hunters, and how little. Through it, readers will see the Ice Age, and their own age, in a whole new light.
In Atlas of a Lost World, Craig Childs blends science and personal narrative to upend our notions of where these people came from and who they were. How they got here, persevered, and ultimately thrived is a story that resonates from the Pleistocene to our modern era, and reveals how much has changed since the time of mammoth hunters, and how little. Through it, readers will see the Ice Age, and their own age, in a whole new light.
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Community Reviews
I'd been meaning to read a couple of Craig Childs's books and with a short block of time to fill, I decided on this one first. The book focuses on human migration over the Bering land bridge tens of thousands of years ago. Childs travels along the path of the migration, often with his family, describing their adventures, while talking with experts in the field, and recreating scenes of what life was like for these people.
The book reminded me of [a:John McPhee|40|John McPhee|https:images.gr-assets.com/authors/1235861988p2/40.jpg]'s [b:Basin and Range|19894|Basin and Range|John McPhee|https:images.gr-assets.com/books/1388755256s/19894.jpg|1665814] (part of his Annals of the Former World series). McPhee crossed the country with experts in geology, trying to understand how the continent was shaped. Childs does something similar, following the path of migration, looking at fossils, sites of ancient hunts, studying stone spears and scratches on bones, trying to recreate what life was like ten thousand years ago. Childs effort comes across as more mainstream than McPhee's (not a bad thing!).
For me the best parts of the book were the passages describing what life was like for people who lived alongside mammoths, dire wolves, massive bears, and how they first survived, and then conquered their environment.
The book reminded me of [a:John McPhee|40|John McPhee|https:images.gr-assets.com/authors/1235861988p2/40.jpg]'s [b:Basin and Range|19894|Basin and Range|John McPhee|https:images.gr-assets.com/books/1388755256s/19894.jpg|1665814] (part of his Annals of the Former World series). McPhee crossed the country with experts in geology, trying to understand how the continent was shaped. Childs does something similar, following the path of migration, looking at fossils, sites of ancient hunts, studying stone spears and scratches on bones, trying to recreate what life was like ten thousand years ago. Childs effort comes across as more mainstream than McPhee's (not a bad thing!).
For me the best parts of the book were the passages describing what life was like for people who lived alongside mammoths, dire wolves, massive bears, and how they first survived, and then conquered their environment.
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