Lost Civilizations

The longstanding appeal of the Atlantis myth is a sort of historical rubbernecking. Everyone loves a good disaster story, especially when it’s real. But lurking underneath it is a more haunting thought—one day, like maybe next Tuesday, we could go the same way as the Pompeiians. That’s one argument for the practicality of archaeological research—if we can figure out why, say, the Anasazi died out, it’s less likely we’ll follow them into the grave of history. Atkinson, a British journalist and scriptwriter, tackled asteroid and meteor strikes in the critically well-received Impact Earth. In Lost Civilizations: Rediscovering Ancient Sites Through New Technology, he brings the scale down a notch, albeit still a world-spanning one, to catch us up on the state of the science. Taking 20 vanished societies from across the globe, Atkinson uses satellite photography and computer-aided design to recreate what their cities and cultures must have looked like in their prime—some likely familiar, like the monumental temples of Angkor Wat and the giant Mayan pyramids, and also more obscure locales like the Arabian Peninsula cities of Mahram Bilqis and the Ubar. Many of these sites are only accessible thanks to space-age technology, which allows the easy scan of a remote jungle site from 300 miles up and reduces complaints from locals who understandably don’t want sacred places disturbed—nicely ironic, that the past is more illuminated only as we move further into the future.