Volcanoes! - Ep 124

Let’s lean into our fear of pyroclastic flow and talk about the traces that volcanoes can leave in the archaeological record. Turns out, it’s a lot more than buried cities. We’ll also take a look at how volcanoes manifest in the myths and legends of various cultures.

Links

• Hawaiian Myths Tell A Story About Volcanic Activity At Kilauea (Forbes)

• Volcano Myths and Rituals (American Scientist)

• Why ancient myths about volcanoes are often true (BBC)

• The Harmful Pseudoarchaeology of Mythological Atlantis (Women Write About Comics)

• Santorini eruption: new theory says ‘pyroclastic flows’ caused devastating Bronze Age tsunamis (The Conversation)

• The A.D. 79 Eruption at Mt. Vesuvius (UCSD Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics)

• Tephrochronology and its application: A review (Quaternary Geology)

Contact

• Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com

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The Good Old Days: Prehistoric Inequality - Ep 123

This week's episode is a listener-sponsored one! Ancient hunter-gatherers are often painted as egalitarian, with all members contributing to the needs of the group. But what does evidence from prehistory say about things like access to nutrition, or care for the sick or injured? Are there cases where some individuals were clearly treated differently from others? How far back can we go to find clues? Stay tuned, sleuths.

Links

• Did agriculture create inequality? (Scientific American)

• Hunter-getherer envy (SAPIENS)

• Issues with using modern forager groups as proxy for ancient ones (Evolutionary Anthropology)

• The earliest deliberate burial? (SAPIENS)

• Sunghir burials (SAPIENS)

• Different types of burials at Sunghir (Antiquity)

• Status-symbol scapulae? (Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences)

Contact

• Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com

Affiliates

• Wildnote

• TeePublic

• Timeular

Unboxing Boxgrove - Ep 122

This week, Anna introduces Amber to the site of Boxgrove, in what is now Sussex, England. It's one of the oldest known hominin sites in the UK, and features the remains of our early relative, Homo heidelbergensis. Join us to learn more about the Muddle in the Middle, the world's hardest jigsaw puzzle, and the molecular clock.

Links

• The man who died half a million years ago (Current Archaeology)

• We may now know what our common ancestor with Neanderthals looked like (New Scientist)

• Boxgrove Project Blog

• The Middle Pleistocene human tibia from Boxgrove (Science Direct)

• Flint formed in chalk (The Geological Society)

• Boxgrove: how we found Europe’s oldest bone tools – and what we learned about their makers (The Conversation)

• Europe’s Oldest Bone Tools Hint at Early Hominin Sophistication (Smithsonian Magazine)

Contact

• Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com

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• Wildnote

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Bonus Ep: Five Stars' Worth of Fun with One Star Archaeology

It's a bonus episode! Anna and Amber are joined by some of the wonderful folks at One Star Archaeology (Twitter: @1starchaeology, Instagram: @onestarchaeology) for dramatic readings of internet reviews of archaeological sites.

Contact

• Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com

Affiliates

• Wildnote

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• Timeular

Merry Hyksmas! With Dr. Chris Stantis - Ep 121

Seasons greetings! And by that we mean we're wrapping up 2020 by sitting down with Dr. Chris Stantis, who uses stable isotope analyses to learn how people lived in the ancient past. We discuss the real story of the Hyksos Dynasty during the Second Intermediate Period in Egypt. Were they the pushy invaders they've been made out to be? Or is there more to the story? (There's more to the story). Not only ALL THIS, but Dr. Stantis convinces Amber and Anna to love those pesky little atoms--stable isotopes!

Links

• Who were the Hyksos? Challenging traditional narratives using strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis of human remains from ancient Egypt (PLOSOne)

• The Foreigner as Scapegoat: Lessons from Ancient Egypt and Today (Chris Naughton dot com)

• Additionally, Dr. Stantis has the following recommendations for those interested in learning more about the Hyksos:

  • The Ascendancy of the Kushite Kingdom of Kerma in the Post Middle Kingdom Era: Revisiting the Second Intermediate Period of Ancient Egypt (Archaeological Research Facility, UC Berkeley)

  • Dr. Danielle Candelora’s research on Hyksos and “race” in scholarship

Contact

• Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com

Affiliates

• Wildnote

• TeePublic

• Timeular