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A review by micdalli
Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America by Craig Childs
3.0
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 ocean? Did people arrive multiple ways? He also talks at length about what the arrival of people did to the megafauna, which in these days of growing mass extinction at the hand of human progress, is worth considering - maybe people tens of thousands of years ago weren’t so different than us today.
With such a short book it is impossible to discuss the ins and outs of the various hypotheses, so scholars in archeology and early human migrations into the Americas will be left a little let down, but there is the perfect amount for the general masses. Unfortunately his ties between personal experience and scientific/archeological analysis gets a little tenuous at times, and occasionally skirts past that fine line into boring territory. But that is only occasionally, and I’d still recommend this book to those interested in the subject matter.
One point where Childs gets bonus points - many books in this genre ignore or barely gloss over the oral traditions and creation stories of the descendants of these people - the tribes that still exist today. They ignore them because they don’t consider their stories and histories to be scientifically, which is a disservice - there is more to archeology than what you find in a dig or through carbon dating, thus the rise of ethnohistory. Childs did take the time to seek out elders to discuss this facet of human history in the Americas, and he does ponder the questions about where people came from in this light. And while I would’ve liked to see a bit more of this in his book, I do applaud Childs for including this information in his book.
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 ocean? Did people arrive multiple ways? He also talks at length about what the arrival of people did to the megafauna, which in these days of growing mass extinction at the hand of human progress, is worth considering - maybe people tens of thousands of years ago weren’t so different than us today.
With such a short book it is impossible to discuss the ins and outs of the various hypotheses, so scholars in archeology and early human migrations into the Americas will be left a little let down, but there is the perfect amount for the general masses. Unfortunately his ties between personal experience and scientific/archeological analysis gets a little tenuous at times, and occasionally skirts past that fine line into boring territory. But that is only occasionally, and I’d still recommend this book to those interested in the subject matter.
One point where Childs gets bonus points - many books in this genre ignore or barely gloss over the oral traditions and creation stories of the descendants of these people - the tribes that still exist today. They ignore them because they don’t consider their stories and histories to be scientifically, which is a disservice - there is more to archeology than what you find in a dig or through carbon dating, thus the rise of ethnohistory. Childs did take the time to seek out elders to discuss this facet of human history in the Americas, and he does ponder the questions about where people came from in this light. And while I would’ve liked to see a bit more of this in his book, I do applaud Childs for including this information in his book.