The Last Lost World: Ice Ages, Human Origins, and the Invention of the Pleistocene

An enthralling scientific and cultural exploration of the Ice Age--from the author of How the Canyon Became Grand

From a remarkable father-daughter team comes a dramatic synthesis of science and environmental history--an exploration of the geologic time scale and evolution twinned with the story of how, eventually, we have come to understand our own past.

The Pleistocene is the epoch of geologic time closest to our own. The Last Lost World is an inquiry into the conditions that made it, the themes that define it, and the creature that emerged dominant from it. At the same time, it tells the story of how we came to discover and understand this crucial period in the Earth's history and what meanings it has for today.

Lydia V. Pyne, a lecturer and visiting fellow at Drexel University, has done extensive fieldwork in archaeology and paleoanthropology. She lives in Philadelphia.
Stephen J. Pyne is the author of Voyager, Year of the Fires, The Ice, and How the Canyon Became Grand, among many other books. He lives in Glendale, Arizona.