Atlas of a Lost World

Posted on 23 April 2017 by Craig Childs

From the author of Apocalyptic Planet comes a vivid travelogue through prehistory, that traces the arrival of the first people in North America at least twenty thousand years ago and the artifacts that tell of their lives and fates.In Atlas of a Lost World, Craig Childs upends 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 The lower sea levels of the Ice Age exposed a vast land bridge between Asia and North America, but the land bridge was not the only way across Different people arrived from different directions, and not all at the same time.The first explorers of the New World were few, their encampments fleeting The continent they reached had no people but was inhabited by megafauna mastodons, giant bears, mammoths, saber toothed cats, five hundred pound panthers, enormous bison, and sloths that stood one story tall The first people were hunters Paleolithic spear points are still encrusted with the proteins of their prey but they were wildly outnumbered and many would themselves have been prey to the much larger animals Atlas of a Lost World chronicles the last millennia of the Ice Age, the violent oscillations and retreat of glaciers, the clues and traces that document the first encounters of early humans, and the animals whose presence governed the humans chances for survival A blend of science and personal narrative reveals how much has changed since the time of mammoth hunters, and how little Across unexplored landscapes yet to be peopled, readers will see the Ice Age, and their own age, in a whole new light. Free Read [ Atlas of a Lost World ] author [ Craig Childs ] For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr Atlas of a Lost World Travels in Ice Age America is an elegiac meditation on the possible history of humans in the Ice Age Americas I say possible because the picture drawn by Childs, compiled from the research of scientists over the decades, remains out of focus, a function of the immense span of time that has passed and the paucity of artifacts available.For me, the book is also an examination of humanity s refusal to think far in the future By that, I mean the flagrant overuse over hunt Atlas of a Lost World Travels in Ice Age America is an elegiac meditation on the possible history of humans in the Ice Age Americas I say possible because the picture drawn by Childs, compiled from the research of scientists over the decades, remains out of focus, a function of the immense span of time that has passed and the paucity of artifacts available.For me, the book is also an examination...I have a bit of a reader crush on Childs His blend of personal narrative and succinct, vivid, relatable and compelling summary of archaeological research evidence makes for compulsive reading for me This despite the fact that much of what he writes about half of each book, really is to some extent nature writing in which I have little interest Perhaps this is because the landscapes in which he ten...This is not a scientific text Not even close What this is, is a lyrical travelogue through ice age sites in America Childs doesn t show us The Story of prehistoric man on this continent, but rather A Story, filled with possibilities, even probabilities, based on evidence of tool making, camp sites, kill sites, and his own vivid imaginings of what his experiences in these places might have been like ten or fifteen thousand years ago.Moving back and forth from his own travels to his recrea...I never knew I was a sucker for the Ice Age until I saw a fabulous exhibit on it at the Cincinnati Museum Center a few years back This is the book I ve been wanting to read ever since, and it hit all the right buttons I love Childs hazy retreat into h...Most of Craig Childs books follow the same formula he picks a topic, writes half a book about it, then fills the other half with his own adventures often getting pretty personal in the process and ties his adventures back to his topic His prose is usually very polished and well written this one is no different but his books tend to be a little uneven skirting that fine line between interesting and boring.This is one of his better attempts The topic this time is the migration of Most of Craig Childs books follow the same formula he picks a topic, writes half a book about it, then fills the other half with his own adventures often getting pretty personal in the process and ties his adventures back to his topic His prose is usually very polished and well written this one is no different but his books tend to be a little uneven skirting that fine line between interesting and boring.This is one of his better attempts The topic this time is the migration of humans to the Americas around 18,000 up to 40,000 years ago He covers many of the proposed hypotheses on how people came to and spread across these continents did they cross a land bridge Did they boat along the coasts Did they boat across open...I enjoy books that mix history with personal accounts I felt as if I d been going from landmark to landmark, asking, Are you my mother Childs writes about the Pleistocene era, the last ice age, relating his own search for understanding of the first settlers who crossed the Bering Strai...Take that, ColumbusAtlas of a Lost World is a tour with a difference Its chapters are thousands of years long, but it all takes place in the present Craig Childs has tried to follow the real first pilgrims as they migrated from Asia to the western continents He says the so called land bridge over the Bering Straits was not so much a bridge as a natural part of the land when the seas were much lower during the ice age Far from a narrow, temporary bridge, it was 500 miles wide Those making th Take that, ColumbusAtlas of a Lost World is a tour with a difference Its chapters are thousands of years long, but it all takes place in the present Craig Childs has tried to fol...GoodReads should have a category begun, not finished But as it doesn t I put this under read I read about 53 pages They were interesting enough, but glancing through the book I thought the rest was likely to beof the same, just taking place in other sites The author is imaginative enough and intrepid in describing what the early from Asia Siberia travelers were likely to have...We think of ourselves as different from other animals We extol our own tool use, congratulate our sentience, but our needs are the same We are creatures on a planet looking for a way ahead Why do we like vistas Why are pullouts drawn on the sides of highways, signs with arrows showing where to stand for the best view The love for the panorama comes from memory, the earliest form of cartography, a sense of location Little feels better than knowing where you are, and having a reason to be t We think of ourselves as different from other animals We extol our own tool use, congratulate our sentience, but our needs are the same We are creatures on a planet looking for a way ahead Why do we like vistas Why are pullouts drawn on the sides of h...If you have any curiosity about ice age man, creatures, and the land, this is for you Childs weaves together scientific discoveries of mammoths, mastodons, and other Pleistocene animal bones, with descriptions of the types of stone tools that were created to bring them down He is able to make a story out of each clash of man and animal by putting himself in the out of doors where they took place, making this an adventure story too.Childs doesn t draw conclusions, but lets you decide for yourse If you have any curiosity about ice age man, creatures, and the land, this is for you Childs weaves together scientific discoveries of mammoths, mastodons, and other Pleistocene animal bones, with descriptions of the types of stone tools that were created to bring them down He is able to make a story out of each clash of man and animal by putting himself in the out of doors where they took place, making this an adventure story too.Childs doesn t draw conclusions, but lets you decide for yourself when and how the first human walked on the American continen...

23 April 2017

Craig Childs