Shaking Hands With Ella al-Shamahi - Ep 143

Ella al-Shamahi is a paleoanthropologist, National Geographic Explorer, evolutionary biologist, stand-up comic, and author of the new book The Handshake: A Gripping History. And NOW, she's a guest on The Dirt Podcast! We chat about how she came to anthropology, learn about the biological and cultural roots of the handshake, about science's Geography Problem, and what it's like to be a capital-E Explorer.

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Star-Struck by Ancient Astronomy - Ep 142

People in the past looked up at the stars and planets, too. How did ancient cultures perceive the night sky? How did they explain the movement of celestial bodies? How did astronomy figure into ancient religion, calendars, city planning, and more? Was it aliens? Nope, but it was pretty much all math. Sorry.

Links

• Decoding European Palaeolithic Art: Extremely Ancient knowledge of Precession of

• Decoding Göbekli Tepe With Archaeoastronomy: What Does The Fox Say? (Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry)

• Celestial Fertility Guide (Science)

• GIFs Show Constellations Transforming Over 150,000 Years (Wired)

• The world's oldest observatory? How Aboriginal astronomy provides clues to ancient life (ABC)

• Nabta Playa: The World's First Astronomical Site Was Built in Africa and Is Older Than Stonehenge (Discover)

• Nabta Playa and Its Role in Northeastern African Prehistory (Journal of Anthropological Archaeology)

• Megaliths and Neolithic astronomy in southern Egypt (Nature)

• Satellite Imagery Measures of the Astronomically Aligned Megaliths at Nabta Playa (Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry)

• Five Solstice Sites That Aren’t Stonehenge (Sapiens)

• Three thousand years of sexagesimal numbers in Mesopotamian mathematical texts (Archive for History of Exact Sciences)

• The History of Trigonometry- Part 1 (NRICH)

• Enuma Anu Enlil (Tablet 50) (British Museum)

• The Theory of Knowledge and the Practice of Celestial Divination (Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World)

• Knowledge of Planets in the Third Millennium BC (Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society)

• Vedānga Jyotisha (Encyclopedia.com)

• Vedānga Jyotisha (Indic Civilization Portal)

• Chinese astronomy: a guide to ancient stargazing in China (BBC Sky At Night Magazine)

• July 4, 1054: Crab Nebula Makes a Spectacular Debut in the Heavens (Wired)

• The Dunhuang Star Atlas (International Dunhuang Project)

• Book copied on silk, Divination by Astrological and Meteorological Phenomena (Hunan Museum)

Contact

• Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com

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The Archaeology of Patagonia - Ep 141

This week, we talk about the first (known) human arrivals in this region, waaaay way down at the tip of South America, and the archaeological remains that tell us how they lived. We've got a cave of hands, commentary from Charles Darwin, old old feet, fish ears, and SO much more!

Links

• Peopling time, spatial occupation and demography of Late Pleistocene–Holocene human population from Patagonia (Quaternary International, via ResearchGate)

• The initial peopling of Central Western Patagonia (southernmost South America): Late Pleistocene through Holocene site context and archaeological assemblages from Cueva de la Vieja site (Quaternary International)

• New Light on the Ancient Human Populations of Patagonia (Popular Archaeology)

• Patagonia (Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian)

• 500 years after Ferdinand Magellan landed in Patagonia, there’s nothing to celebrate for its indigenous peoples (The Conversation)

• Junius Bird (Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology)

• Junius Bird Collections from Sites Rockshelter 1, 2 and 3 (Beagle Channel, Patagonia, Chile) (tDAR)

• South American Archaeological Collection (American Museum of Natural History)

• Antiquity and Migrations of the Early Inhabitants of Patagonia (Geographical Review)

• La Cueva de las Manos (Cave of Hands) (Atlas Obscura)

• Scientists in Chile have found a 15,000-year-old footprint, the earliest sign of humans' presence in the Americas (CNN)

• Macrauchenia (Wikipedia)

• Oldest Human Footprint in Americas May Be This 15,600-Year-Old Mark in Chile (LiveScience)

• A late Pleistocene human footprint from the Pilauco archaeological site, northern Patagonia, Chile (PLOSOne)

• Characterizing seasonal fishing patterns and growth dynamics during the Middle and Late Holocene in the Strait of Magellan (Chilean Patagonia): Sclerochronological analysis of tadpole codling (Salilota australis) vertebrae (The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, via ResearchGate)

• Ancient Peoples in Patagonia Who Adapted to Changing Climate Offer Insights for Today (Columbia Climate School’s GlacierHub)

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• Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com

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The Plaster Skulls of Jericho - Ep 140

In 1953, archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon and her team uncovered human skulls covered with plaster and decorated with shells to resemble human faces. These Neolithic artifacts may be one of the earliest known examples of human portraits. In this sponsored episode, we’ll dig into the discovery, the site of Jericho itself, and the lives of the people who buried the skulls in the first place.

Links

• Dame Kathleen Kenyon’s Excavations (msu.edu)

• Biography of Dame Kathleen Kenyon (Archaeology Magazine)

• The John Garstang Excavations (University of Liverpool)

• Jericho (worldhistory.org)

• The Jericho Skull (National Geographic)

• The Jericho Skull reconstruction (The British Museum)

• Early History of Jericho (Auja Ecological Center)

• Why Walls? (Time Magazine)

• Canaanite and Lebanese DNA (The New Scientist)

• DNA study at Jericho (American Journal of Human Genetics)

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Welcome to Lemurtown - Ep 139

Listeners, once again, life has come at us like a poorly written simile, so we're releasing a previous Patreon episode. And once again, we are so deeply grateful for your patience and support. Thank you for sticking with us. As an extension of March Madagascarness, we head back to the island with our (ill-fitting) primatology hats on. Anna put together a fun script about giant extinct lemurs, tiny not-extinct lemurs, and even creepy aye-aye fingers, but somehow Amber managed to have a full on meltdown about a lemur named Maki.

Links

• Graveyard of Giant Lemurs Discovered Underwater in Madagascar (National Geographic)

• Human population boom led to Madagascar’s megafauna extinction: Study (Mongabay)

• A new interpretation of Madagascar's megafaunal decline: The “Subsistence Shift Hypothesis” (Journal of Human Evolution)

• The Aye-Aye and the Finger of Death (Pacific Standard)

• Scientists Discover New Species of Mouse Lemur (SciNews)

• Lemur Missing, Possibly Stolen, From San Francisco Zoo (NPR)

• ‘There’s a lemur!’ 5-year-old helps crack SF Zoo theft case (AP)

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• Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com

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