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Chargement... Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America (2018)par Craig Childs
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Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. 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 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. 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. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
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"From the author of Apocalyptic Planet, an unsparing, vivid, revelatory travelogue through prehistory that traces the arrival of the First People in North America twenty thousand years ago and the artifacts that enable us to imagine their lives and fates. Scientists squabble over the locations and dates for human arrival in the New World. The first explorers were few, encampments fleeting. At some point in time, between twenty and forty thousand years ago, sea levels were low enough that a vast land bridge was exposed between Asia and North America. But the land bridge was not the only way across. This book upends our notions of where these people came from and who they were. The unpeopled continent they reached was inhabited by megafauna--mastodons, sloths, mammoths, saber-toothed cats, lions, bison, and bears. The First People were not docile--Paleolithic spear points are still encrusted with the protein of their prey--but they were wildly outnumbered and many were prey to the much larger animals. This is a chronicle of the last millennia of the Ice Age, the gradual 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"-- Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)551.7Natural sciences and mathematics Earth sciences & geology Geology, Hydrology Meteorology Historical geologyClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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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! ( )