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  • Published: 9 April 2019
  • ISBN: 9780345806314
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $39.99

Atlas Of A Lost World

Travels in Ice Age America



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.

The first people in the New World were few, their encampments fleeting. On a side of the planet no human had ever seen, different groups arrived from different directions, and not all at the same time. The land they reached was fully inhabited by megafauna—mastodons, giant bears, mammoths, saber-toothed cats, enormous bison, and sloths that stood one story tall. These Ice Age explorers, hunters, and families were wildly outnumbered and many would themselves have been prey to the much larger animals.
 
In Atlas of a Lost World, Craig Childs blends science and personal narrative to upend 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, and reveals how much has changed since the time of mammoth hunters, and how little. Through it, readers will see the Ice Age, and their own age, in a whole new light.

  • Published: 9 April 2019
  • ISBN: 9780345806314
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $39.99

Praise for Atlas Of A Lost World

  • "Clever, smartly written and . . . enthusiastic. . . . The past is a country to which one cannot return, but Atlas of a Lost World at least helps you imagine what you might be missing." --The Wall Street Journal
  • "A useful and transporting tour d'horizon of the prehistoric Americas. . . . Both engaging and indispensable for those with an interest in prehistory." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
  • "Captivating. . . . Childs's account will fire the imagination of ordinary readers as well as anthropologists and prehistorians." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)