An Under-the-Weather Special - Ep 203

Anna is sick this week, so we've been unable to record new episodes. But rather than leave you hanging, we're releasing a lightly trimmed version of the latest episode of Old News. We've got human bone jewelry, the first Black Baptist church in colonial America, alleged art crimes, some seriously inclement weather, and more!

Old News is one of our monthly bonus episodes that comes with the Absolute Dirtbag tier over at Patreon.com/thedirtpodcast, so head over there if you want to support the show and get access to FOUR YEARS' WORTH of bonus content.

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Links

• Human bones used for making pendants in the Stone Age (Phys.org)

• French Authorities Detain Two Archaeologists, Including a Louvre Curator, as Part of an Ongoing International Art-Trafficking Dragnet (Artnet)

• Excavation of graves begins at site of colonial Black church (NBC News, AP)

• First Baptist Church Excavation Project (Colonial Williamsburg website)

• 5,200-year-old stone carving chrysalis found in north China (Xinhua)

• Rare coffee beans dating back 167 years ago found by archaeologists working on the Metro Tunnel project (9News)

• Jawbone Discovered in Spain May Be Oldest Known Hominin Fossil (Archaeology)

• A massive tsunami destroyed the Spanish city of Seville in the 3rd century, new study finds (El Pais)

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The Dirt Goes Site-Seeing - Ep 202

This week, Anna and Amber debut a new (occasional) series: Site-Seeing! There are so many archaeological sites out there, and some of them tend to overshadow others. In order to learn about and showcase some lesser-known sites, your hosts will each present a brief exploration of a site previously unknown to either of them. This time, we feature Djenné, an ancient city in what is today Mali, and Ban Chiang, in what is today Thailand.

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Links

• Djenne-Djenno (World History Encyclopedia)

• Old Towns of Djenné (UNESCO)

• Djenné, Mali (BlackPast)

• Djenné (Encyclopedia Britannica)

• A Tribute to Islam, Earthen but Transcendent (The New York Times)

• Initial Encounters: Seeking traces of ancient trade connections between West Africa and the wider world (Afriques)

• Great Mosque of Djenné (Khan Academy)

• Storage vessel from Northeastern Thailand (Asian Art Museum)

• The Ban Chiang Project - Background (Institute of Southeast Asian Archaeology)

• Carabel type pot (Institute of Southeast Asian Archaeology)

• Ban Chiang Pottery and Rice (Expedition)

• Ban Chiang National Museum

• The Ban Chiang Project - Metals Database (Institute of Southeast Asian Archaeology)

• South California Museum Raids (2008) (Trafficking Culture)

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The Past Smells - Ep 201

We've asked this on the show before, but..what did the past smell like? In this episode, we talk about some of the ways that researchers are finding and recreating some ancient aromas. We also get speculative about smellscapes and honk the Clown Horn of Orientalism at some perfumes. Get your sniffers ready, this one's fun!

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Links

• How our sense of smell evolved (ScienceDaily)

• Does Archaeology Stink? Detecting Smell in the Past Using Headspace Sampling Techniques (Rose Malik)

• Odeuropa

• Ancient “smellscapes” are wafting out of artifacts and old texts (ScienceNews)

• Eau de Cleopatra (Near Eastern Archaeology)

• Copal: the Blood of Trees: Sacred Source of Maya and Aztec Incense (ThoughtCo)

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Summer Blockbuster 3: Avatar - Ep 200

To wrap up our inaugural Summer Blockbuster series, Amber leads us on a mission to Pandora with Avatar (2009). Rather than exploration of the culture of the indigenous Na’vi population (or maybe in addition to), we’ll examine some of the philosophical underpinnings of the franchise and discuss the book that completely changed Amber's intellectual trajectory.

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Links

• “Avatar” Advertising Invades “Bones” Episode “The Gamer in the Grease” (Wall Street Journal)

• Do You Speak Na'vi? Giving Voice To 'Avatar' Aliens (NPR)

• An interview with Paul Frommer, Alien Language Creator for Avatar (Unidentified Sound Object)

• Some highlights of Na’vi (University of Pennsylvania Language Log)

• Avatar: an all-purpose allegory (Foreign Policy)

• Avatar (Rotten Tomatoes)

• Avatar: A Marxist Saga on the Far Distant Planet (Communication, Capitalism, and Critique)

• Orientalism (via Bookshop.org)

• An Introduction to Edward Said, Orientalism, and Postcolonial Literary Studies (Amardeep Singh)

• Orientalism and power: When will we stop stereotyping people? (BBC Ideas, via YouTube)

• Watching Avatar through a Postcolonial and Orientalist Lens (via Academia.edu)

• Jairo Funez on Twitter

• Edward Said - Framed: The Politics of Stereotypes in News (Al Jazeera English, via YouTube)

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Summer Blockbusters: Apocalypto - Ep 199

Amber guides Anna through the jungle of the 2006 film Apocalypto...but hopefully a little less racistly than director Mel Gibson did! We’ll talk about human sacrifice, what was (and was not) going on in Maya culture in the 15th century CE, and the movie’s ending that couldn’t be more on the nose if it went “boop!”

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Links

• The Story of Civilization (via Wikipedia)

• With help from a friend, Mel cut to the chase (The Washington Post)

• Mel Gibson criticizes Iraq war at film fest (Today)

• Is Apocalypto Pornography? (Archaeology)

• Relativism, Revisionism, Aboriginalism, and Emic/Etic Truth: The Case Study of Apocalypto (The Ethics of Anthropology and Amerindian Research: Reporting on Environmental Degradation and Warfare)

• The perduring Maya: new archaeology on early Colonial transitions (Antiquity, via ResearchGate)

• Maya Resistance to Colonial Rule in Everyday Life (The Latin American Anthropological Review)

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