Atlas of a Lost World by Craig Childs

Author:Craig Childs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2018-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

Braided human cordage surrounded by insect detritus, remnants found in Ice Age layers at Paisley Caves

I explored one shelter after the next, and two pigeons flapped out of the largest, where human artifacts and coprolites had been found. As the pigeons left this protection for the open sky, I ducked farther in, moving past sandbags and backfill left by Jenkins and his crew.

In the back of the cave, three perfectly proportioned eggs lay in a crib of twigs. The palm-sized nest looked like a quick attempt, no more than half an hour of pigeons scavenging packrat middens for sticks. Columba livia is a rapid colonizer; not originally native, it spread to nearly all of North, Central, and South America within a couple centuries of coming over on European vessels in the 1600s. The name of the pigeon’s genus, Columba, comes from its ability to navigate, yet another moniker derived from Christopher Columbus. The name ends up on a lot of American species, including those who didn’t start here. The original Latin name in the Old World was Columba Noachi, Noah’s Dove, the one sent out from the ark in the Bible to find the first appearance of land after an Old Testament flood. The bird has found an island for itself at Paisley Caves, a small anchor in the American interior.

Native songbirds weave baskets into the grass and sage. Their speckled eggs are hidden near the ground. These birds have been here since the Ice Age. Pigeons lay eggs the color of pearl. They are softer than prairie eggs, requiring less investment in their production. This allows for a more rapid spread, exploiting niches at the edge of livability. Eight to twelve days after mating, a female Columba lays eggs, which hatch after eighteen days. Nesting areas that prove beneficial are kept for life, mated pairs often monogamous in order to hold the same location. If a nest is successful, it builds up. Feces and detritus pile up over time, and it eventually forms into a sort of mud pot, incorporating unhatched eggs and the mummies of dead nestlings.

I like to think of my own history as less vulgar. But it is still a history of colonization, a tale of land grabs and uprooted histories, a quickly moving people with eyes on the horizon. It might be a trait of any organism engaged in dispersal and colonization. Here they ate roots and lived in the company of horses and giant, curve-toothed panthers, stepping out of this same cave to see the same snow-topped mountains. Based on the evidence, they didn’t put up their feet here for long. These caves were rarely occupied, with centuries or thousands of years between visits. By twelve thousand years ago, stays in the shelter were more frequent, while in the beginning people were few. The trickle would become a flood. The emergence would turn into an eruption.

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