About this item
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.
About the Author
Craig Childs is an Arizona native now living in western Colorado. Winner of the 2009 Rowell Art of Adventure Award, he is part deep traveler, part writer who focuses on natural sciences, archaeology, and journeys into the global wilderness. He is a commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Men's Journal, Outside, the Sun, and Orion. Subjects range from pre-Columbian archaeology to US border issues to the last free-flowing rivers of Tibet and Patagonia.
