Out of the Ice: How Climate Change Is Revealing the Past

Gr 3–5—Our changing climate is causing Earth's ice to rapidly melt, creating future problems for much of the world. But from this difficult scenario a new scientific field is born: glacial archaeology. With the melting of the glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost comes long hidden artifacts. Tools, clothes, and even fully preserved humans have been found in Norway, Peru, and parts of Siberia. Using tools such as radiocarbon dating, DNA analysis, and powerful scanners, glacial archaeologists are able to recover specific and exact information regarding the last days of their subjects' lives. Some of the remains discussed and illustrated are of children, long ago hunters, baby lions, and puppies. The findings revealed by the melting ice have reshaped some long held concepts of migration and evolution. Using photographs along with colorfully drawn illustrations as well as maps, charts, and an accessible text, this is a highly useful work.