Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America
By Craig Childs
I didn't know what to expect when I bought this audio book from Chirp, but it was well worth the sale price! It isn't just a book about archeology, the ice age periods, early man and beasts that roamed the land. This is so much deeper, richer, and more filling than any other archeological book I have read. It more than surprised me, it captivated me!
Childs takes the reader around the world, and back in time, making you feel like you can glimpse the past, the raw nature, changing climate, the beauty, and the struggles to survive.
Childs has a charming touch with words that is hypnotic and drew me in and held me spell bound. I also felt his passion for the subject and for the people that came before us.
Highly recommend this wonderful book.
I bought the audio version and he narrates the book himself. I often avoid books where authors narrate their own books due to past experience. This book sounded intriguing and it was practically free so I gave it a go and now I can't imagine it without him narrating it. He added that special heart-felt narration that shined through! ( )

This book is a pleasing blend of science, history, and memoir. As I read it, I felt like I was accompanying author Craig Childs back into prehistory. He traces the arrival of the first humans in North America and describes artifacts that tell how they lived and died. Childs travels to various archaeological sites, covering a wide swath of North America, with stops in Canada and the US, including Alaska, Oregon, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Florida, and more.

The book is structured in a loosely chronological order, from approximately 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. He investigates discoveries of the bones of mastodons, dire wolves, giant bears, mammoths, bison, lions, and sabertooth cats. He looks at the evidence of tools, plants, and diets. He includes interviews with selected scientists who provide expert viewpoints on dates, migrations, and lifestyles of these ancient people.

This book is right up my alley. One of the aspects I liked the best is the personable way these potentially dry topics are covered. The author has made it into a travelogue of sorts. He describes his traveling companions, and what they saw and did at the various sites they visited. This book examines so many fascinating topics, such as archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, ecology, geology, and geography. I you like to read about one or more of these, it is a wonderfully entertaining glimpse into the a past era.

4.5
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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 history after discussing archaeological digs and camping trips, bringing the past to life. I now have an even greater appreciation for the world that came before ours and will look at the land in a whole new way. ( )

A very interesting book tracing movement of Ice age humans and about the new findings that indicate humans were in Americas much earlier then 10,000-12,000 years ago, that today's "Native Americans" weren't the first ( )

This is a great review of current thinking on the origin of native Americans, using sciences of archeology, meteorology, oral history, geomorphology, and paleo-climate documentation, along with genetic data. I like how the author does the review by personally visiting key sites, often with his family, some friends, and the way he shows contrasting cultural changes in both time, and other regions of North America, Siberia, and Japan. The author gives a lot of space for the comments and convictions of archeologists who have studied both the artifacts and culture of the many sites he mentions.

The reader gets a well-rounded, well-documented look at what life was like throughout the last 30000 years across North America. The reader also gets an insight how life in the field is for archeologists, and even for the archeologist's kids. The author provides some information of the culture of raising kids many thousands of years ago, and the closeness of the different ancient cultures to specific now-extinct species of large mammals.

There are a few memorable statements in the last portion of the book, contrasting modern life with ancient life and values. At the end of the book the author contrasts the current annual event known as "Burning Man" in the Nevada desert to ancient gatherings in that same region 11000 to 14000 years previously.

I would rate this slightly higher if the book ended in a more dramatic way but I really enjoyed the way he included the daily lives of his family and friends, who accompanied him on numerous trips to the sites.

I recommend this book for those wanting to know the culture and migration routes of the early North Americans and also for those who simply like a good narrative of trips with family members and good friends into the "field" to see and understand things firsthand. ( )