Craig Childs’ Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America may lack some of the passion of his other works, but he fulfills the core mission of all his writing: he gives us a detailed glimpse of a topic that manically grips him.
Here Child explores the peopling of America during the Ice Age, traveling to the locations of campsites, stone making sites, and even exposing himself to sub-freezing temperatures on Lake Superior to experience the Ice Age first hand. Really, he will do anything to get closer to his subect.
The book lacks structure, and may make the reader a bit confused about the time line of how American was populated. This is based, in part, because,= there is no consensus; as best we can tell, groups came from Asia, the Pacific Rim, and perhaps Europe (although this theory has been much undermined lately). DNA studies of modern Native Americans support an exclusively Asian/Siberian origin.
Childs shows us this and more, revealing a complex and incomplete picture. He is not afraid to show the gaps.
Here Child explores the peopling of America during the Ice Age, traveling to the locations of campsites, stone making sites, and even exposing himself to sub-freezing temperatures on Lake Superior to experience the Ice Age first hand. Really, he will do anything to get closer to his subect.
The book lacks structure, and may make the reader a bit confused about the time line of how American was populated. This is based, in part, because,= there is no consensus; as best we can tell, groups came from Asia, the Pacific Rim, and perhaps Europe (although this theory has been much undermined lately). DNA studies of modern Native Americans support an exclusively Asian/Siberian origin.
Childs shows us this and more, revealing a complex and incomplete picture. He is not afraid to show the gaps.
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