Our Most Metal Episode of All Time - Ep 73

Time to throw the devil horns and apply superfluous umlauts to vöwëls, because this week The Dirt is totally metal! Metallurgy, that is. How and when did humans first use metals, and what can we learn about them? Some come straight from the ground, others from far, far away, some from a combination of raw materials, and some? Some come FROM OUTER SPACE.

Links

• King Tut’s Dagger Was Made From a Meteorite (Smithsonian)

• The meteoritic origin of Tutankhamun's iron dagger blade (Meteoritics and Planetary Science)

• Greenland's Iron Age came from space (Science Nordic)

• New Respect for Metal's Role in Ancient Arctic Cultures (Science)

• Robert E. Peary and the Cape York Meteorites (Polar Geography)

• The Dollop Episode 240: North Pole Madness

• On the origins of extractive metallurgy: new evidence from Europe (Journal of Archaeological Science)

• Prehistoric Balkans Were 'Faking' Gold 6,500 Years Ago (Ha’aretz)

• Theorizing Bronze-Age Intercultural trade : the evidence of the weights (Paléorient)

• Exchange Systems and Trade Networks in Anthropology and Archaeology (ThoughtCo)

• Antikythera Shipwreck Yields New Cache of Treasures, Hints More May Be Buried at Site (Smithsonian)

• High spatial dynamics-photoluminescence imaging reveals the metallurgy of the earliest lost-wax cast object (Nature Communications)

• Lost Wax Casting Process (National Sculpture Society)

• How Was Iron Smelted in Ancient Israel? Researchers Build Kilns to Find Out (Ha’aretz)

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It's the (Moral) Circle of Life! - Ep 72

This week, Amber and Anna wade into the moral circle. When it comes to deserving help and care, who counts? What does that care look like, and how can we see evidence for it in the historical and archaeological record? We do our best to wrap our brains around all this and more.

Links

• Should animals, plants, and robots have the same rights as you? (Vox)

• Lake Erie now has legal rights, just like you (Vox)

• Expanding the moral circle: Inclusion and exclusion mindsets and the circle of moral regard (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology)

• A Brief History of Charitable Giving (Visual.ly)

• Ancient Bones That Tell a Story of Compassion (New York Times)

• Calculated or caring? Neanderthal healthcare in social context (World Archaeology)

• Brutal Brawls And Cranial Surgery Discovered On Ancient Skeletons From Lake Titicaca (Forbes)

• How the poor became blessed (Aeon)

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Mark My Words: Linguistics! - Ep 81

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In this episode, Amber and Anna talk about talking. It’s finally an episode on linguistics! We think about Neanderthal speech, wrestle with syntax and semantics, and have a whole language family reunion.

Links

• What is Speech? What is Language? (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association)

• The Neanderthal Throat—Did Neanderthals Speak? (Sapiens)

• Introduction to Linguistics (UCLA Linguistics)

• Glottolog
  

• Map of Indo-European Languages (Wikimedia)

• The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World (via Google Books)

• The Origins of Proto-Indo-European: The Caucasian Substrate Hypothesis (Journal of Indo European Studies)

• Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe (Nature)

• Mysterious Indo-European homeland may have been in the steppes of Ukraine and Russia (Science)

• Telling Tales in Proto-Indo-European (Archaeology Magazine)

• Language Isolates and Their History, or, What’s Weird, Anyway?

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Aiding and A-vetting: The Archaeology of Animal Care - Ep71

This week Anna and Amber told you we’re going to the park, but really it’s a trip to the v-e-t in an episode all about evidence for animal care and veterinary medicine in the archaeological record. Learn how archaeologists assess animal welfare from bone analysis, ancient Egyptian animal medicine, a snapshot of life on a medieval French farm, and more, including 2nd millennium BCE pro tips on how to get your horse absolutely jacked.

Links

• Prehistoric Puppy May Be Earliest Evidence of Pet-Human Bonding (National Geographic)

• Excavating the history of ancient veterinary practices (Veterinary Record)

• The Kikkuli Text. Hittite Training Instructions for Chariot Horses in the Second Half of the 2nd Millennium B.C. and Their Interdisciplinary Context (Peter Raulwing, via Academia.edu)

• Kikkuli (International Museum of the Horse)

• A Quick History of Veterinary History (Canidae)

• Care or Neglect?: Evidence of Animal Disease in Archaeology

• One and the same? An investigation into the connection between veterinary and medical practice in ancient Egypt (in Mummies, magic and medicine in ancient Egypt)

• Lahun Veterinary Papyrus

• Early Egyptians Revered Lowly Donkeys (New York Times)

Lahun Veterinary Papyrus

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Japanese Food and Drink, Then, Now, and Way Back When - Ep 70

It’s the second half of our two-episode series on Japan! This week, Amber and Anna explore some of the traditions and material culture surrounding Japanese food. We research rice, sample sake, banter about bento, and MAYBE MAKE THE BEST SERIES OF PUNS EVER HEARD ON THE SHOW.

Links

• Rice in Japan: History, Kinds of Rice and Cooking and Eating Rice (Facts and Details)

• How Japanese Traditions Work (How Stuff Works)

• Rice: It's More Than Food In Japan (Stanford SPICE)

• A Brief History of Japanese Sake (Culture Trip)

• Brewing Behind Barbed Wire: An Archaeology of Saké at Amache (Digital Commons @ DU)

• The Japanese Ghost Town Buried Deep in a Canadian Forest (Gastro Obscura)

• The controversial history of the bento box (Timeline)

• Sampuru: Japanese Food Models (Tofugo)

• The Japanese Tea Ceremony (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

• The Story Behind the Japanese Tea Ceremony (Culture Trip)

• Ancient Pottery Reveals Japanese Hunter-Gatherers’ Taste for Fish (SciNews)

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