I was very excited to start reading this book about the cool Pleistocene (“Ice Age”) mammals of the UK written by fellow ancient DNA time travel friend Ross. We shared a PhD supervisor, although Ross was based in Oxford and I was based in the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) at Adelaide, and while my PhD focused on the ancient DNA of extinct and ancient bears, Ross’s PhD focused on ancient Felids/large cats like Smilodon and Cave Lions.
I bought my copy of the book from Ross directly, and he kindly posted it to me along with a bookmark inserted at arguably the most important part - a whole chapter on ancient bears!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. After a pretty intense few months reliving some of of the not so great aspects of my PhD experience this year, this book helped to remind me why I wanted to do a PhD in ancient DNA in the first place! It's incredible to think of all the wonderful almost mythical creatures that roamed the earth not that long ago...so recently in fact that our ancestors would have seen and hunted them. It is so sad that so many have been driven to extinction and we will never see Mammoths, Mastodons, Giant Short-Faced Bears, Cave Lions, Sabre-Tooth cats again. But with ancient DNA, it is kind of the closest you can get to time travel, using genetic and isotope technology and paleontological analysis to learn about what they ate, how they responded to climate change, their interactions with early modern humans, what they were related to...etc It also makes you value the diversity of species we still have left, but scares you with how much humans have destroyed and are continuing to destroy in this 6th Mass Extinction that we are living through (and causing) currently.
Ross not only tells you interesting facts about all these cool creatures of the Ice Age, but shares fascinating stories of history and science and human culture, plus lots of random and often hilarious side stories and footnotes. It is not a dry non-fiction book, it is page-turning and full of interesting stories, personal insights/opinions and humour. There are plenty of side references to pop culture throughout, including Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and Star Wars. The book obviously was pretty close to home for me, with many of the animals and ancient DNA techniques, characters and concepts being familiar from my PhD days...but I still learnt heaps of things from the book and thoroughly enjoyed it. I also dont think you would need to be an ancient DNA nerd like me to enjoy it immensely.
Started reading: 14th September 2019
Finished: 4th October 2019
My score/review: 9/10
Genre/Topics: Non-Fiction, Ancient DNA, Paleontology, Ice Age, Extinctions.
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