The Dirt Podcast

The Dirt Podcast episodes:

• 05.08.2024

  Get to Work!

  Greetings, fellow workers! In observance of May Day, which in many parts of the world is a day for celebrating and acknowledging the struggles of workers in the labor movement. In that spirit, we bring you an episode about work....

  
• 04.24.2024

  Greetings from the Anthropocene (Part 2)!

  It's time for part 2 of our exploration of the Anthropocene -- a period of time that has very wobbly boundaries and probably doesn't even exist? Can we define a chunk of geological time based on human impacts? People sure...

  
• 04.10.2024

  Greetings From the Anthropocene!

  Get ready for a two-part exploration of the proposed "Anthropocene" era. Can we define a chunk of geological time based on human impacts? When would that start--at the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s (CE)? Earlier? Later? More importantly...should we even...

  
• 03.27.2024

  Total Eclipse of The Dirt

  Turn around, bright eyes! In anticipation of the Great North American eclipse coming up on Monday, April 8, 2024, we're scooting in front of this topic like the moon in front of the sun. We're looking at some of the...

  
• 03.24.2024

  Premium Feed TEASER! Tools and Fire: Not Just For Humans

  A few select tidbits from the most recent episode on our premium feed. Support The Dirt and help us continue to make episodes! Subscribe to our back catalog of bonus content (fresh helpings coming January 2024) for $5...

  
• 03.06.2024

  Extremely Specific Hats

  We're back! Hi! Sorry for the unplanned hiatus--we missed you, too. This week, we've got a delightful sponsored episode featuring the most specific and niche topic we've ever covered. It's hats! 18th-century naval knit hats recovered from shipwrecks! See? Extremely...

  
• 02.07.2024

  New Olds : 5 Recent Archaeological Discoveries

  Anna walks Amber through a sampler platter of recent archaeological news stories. We talk about inner ears and gibbon arms, chromosomes galore, Medieval dogs, the Ishtar gate of Babylon, ancient hunter-gatherer poop, and more! We need your support!! Help...

  
• 01.17.2024

  Human Evolution 101 (Part 1)

  We probably should have done this about 200 episodes ago, but it's time to lay down the (very very) basics of the evolution of the genus Homo. First of all, how does evolution work? Who were our ancestors, where...

  
• 01.03.2024

  I Hope This Tablet Finds You Well: It's a Hittite Episode!

  This week we venture off to Bronze Age Anatolia to pay a visit to the Land of Hatti, and snoop through the royal mailbags.     Want to support the show? SUBSCRIBE to our back catalog of bonus content for $5...

  
• 12.16.2023

  The Dirt Sings the Blues

  It's another sponsored episode! Anna takes Amber through a short history of the blues, specifically as one of the many musical genres to come out of the African diaspora. We start by learning about the clave, which is both an...

  
• 11.29.2023

  Skara Brae and Orkneyology

  It's a listener-sponsored episode! (That's right, that's still a thing that we do). Anna whisks Amber along on a tour of Neolithic sites in the Orkney Isles, an archipelago off the coast of Scotland. Around 5,000 years ago, this...

  
• 11.15.2023

  The Dirt on Myths, Glyphs, and Grifts

  This week, Amber is in Toronto giving a paper and running the podcast library booth at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association! But don't worry, we won't leave your ears hanging. That came out weird, sorry. Anyway! Here...

  
• 10.31.2023

  The Dirt Lays Down the 'Lore

  Spooktober 2023 reaches its climax with a special Halloween treat. Amber shares a series of spooky stories from her own childhood back in Appalachia, but not without exploring the many roles of folklore in societies-- all of 'em! Four...

  
• 10.18.2023

  The Dirt Digs Deep. Like, Really Deep

  Hellhole, and welcome to The Dirt! Spooktober continues with an exploration of portals to the underworld. We're bringing you some unexpected sounds from Siberia, a couple of incredible caves, and the science behind sacrificial bulls dropping dead in ancient Rome....

  
• 10.04.2023

  The Dirt Gets Witchy

  Get your eye of newt and toe of frog ready, because something witchy this way comes! Amber is traveling once more for work, and Anna is dealing with some health issues, so we are releasing this Deep Cuts episode from...

  
• 09.20.2023

  Spooktember: Nothin' Fancy, Just Necromancy!

  Welcome to SPOOKTEMBER! In previous years, Amber has treated Anna to a month of stories and studies from the ghoulish side of archaeology and anthropology. This year, since we moved to biweekly episodes, we're extending the season! This week, it's...

  
• 09.06.2023

  The Dirt Digs The Big City

  This week, we're talking about urban archaeology! Archaeology in, around, and under cities. Humans have been building their living spaces on top of previous occupations for basically forever. When you translate that to a modern city environment, with every big...

  
• 08.17.2023

  Wendell Phillips: Pawn or Player?

  This week: A brief catch-up sesh with Anna and Amber, who are both recovering from Covid (hence the late episode, sorry y'all!). Then, Amber guides us through her months of archival research, uncovering the real life and expeditions of her...

  
• 08.16.2023

  New episode coming soon!

  Hi friends, We've got a real banger of an episode recorded and ready to edit, but ...Amber and Anna are both recovering from Covid. So things are moving a little more slowly than usual. Keep your ears ready, though, because...

  
• 08.02.2023

  Let's Gö to Neolithic Anatolia

  The Neolithic period in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) saw lots of changes happening. Hunter-gatherers gradually adopted a less schleppy lifestyle, embracing agriculture. This happened over thousands of years, and wasn't quite the dramatic "rise of cities and civilization" that often describes...

  
• 07.12.2023

  Mariner's Myths

  To celebrate our brand-new coming-soon sponsorship platform, Ghost, it's a release from the vaults of Patreon bonus episodes! Recorded around this time last year, when Anna was too hot and sweaty and dreaming of the ocean, this is a goofy...

  
• 06.28.2023

  The Dirt Plays Pretend

  TRY THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK TO LEARN ABOUT THE PAST, FAST! We're talking scams, frauds, fakers, and pretenders this week. Anna just hauled a whole household halfway across the country and is still recovering. So Amber has stepped...

  
• 06.07.2023

  The Dirt Rocks Out

  If you don't like this episode, well, you can go kick rocks! Just... not these rocks, they're culturally significant. That's right, it's an episode about megaliths, monoliths, and other kinds of -liths that were placed on the landscape by humans....

  
• 05.24.2023

  RE-RELEASE: Show and Tell Abraq

  Hiya, friends! Amber is currently traveling in Saudi Arabia for work so we're re-releasing this extremely relevant episode on Arabian archaeology! We'll be back in your ears with new content soon. Amber takes Anna on a guided tour of...

  
• 05.10.2023

  Drug Ethnographies with Danielle Kabella

  Hooray! It's the first of our episodes highlighting the work of our 2022 Pass The Mic travel grant recipients! Danielle Kabella works with communities in New Mexico that have historically had a complex relationship with substance use, recovery, and the...

  
• 04.26.2023

  The Dirt Gets Fired

  Sick burn, breh--This week, Anna and Amber tackle the origins of fire use in the hominin archaeological record. We've taken a journalistic approach, so we've got What Fire, Where and When Fire, Why Fire, Who Fire, and How Fire. Plus,...

  
• 04.12.2023

  MINISODE - Pseudo-archaeology and Pop Culture

  It was Anna's turn to get sick, so this week we bring you a portion of the most recent episode of our bonus series Dirt After Dark. Most of that episode is about Ashayana Deane, a purveyor of pseudoscience and...

  
• 03.29.2023

  What's in a Name?

  We're naming names this week! An aspect of studying the past that might surprise you, names can add some fascinating nuance to our understanding of people and places. What did ancient people call themselves and everything around them? What kinds...

  
• 03.15.2023

  MINISODE: A Nugget of Old News

  You know that cold that made Amber's voice all froggy? Turns out it was COVID. And the flu. But she's on the mend! And to give her time to fully recuperate, we're releasing a portion of the most recent episode...

  
• 03.06.2023

  What Is Going on With Those Denisovans?!?

  Anna and Amber sit down to chat about the Denisovans, the human ancestors we didn't know we had until recently. Learn about what evidence we have for Denisovans, the traits for which we can thank them, and some of...

  
• 03.01.2023

  Achoo, and Welcome to The Dirt

  This week, Amber is recovering from a nasty cold that has left her normally dulcet tones extremely froggy. So we've made lemons out of that germy lemonade (ew, sorry). It's an episode about the archaeology, prehistory, and history of the...

  
• 02.15.2023

  MINISODE 2: It's Just Archaeology

  We're doing something different this week while Amber is on a whirlwind tour of life admin stuff. In response to some of the conflict over Graham Hancock's Ancient Apocalypse show on Netflix, Anna has been writing about the double-edged sword...

  
• 02.01.2023

  MINISODE - The World's Oldest Story

  This week, Anna has some big questions about the Pleiades, a group of bright, beautiful stars also known as the Seven Sisters. The myth of seven sisters that were turned into stars is remarkably consistent across multiple cultures. Also, it's...

  
• 01.18.2023

  Gimme (Rock)Shelter: Neanderthals at Home

  We've discussed Neanderthals quite a bit on The Dirt (it's a whole section of Anna's contract). But while we've talked about their diet, their bodies, and their genes, we haven't spent much time thinking about their daily life, their living...

  
• 01.03.2023

  Episode 213 - The Dirt Wines a Bit

  Join us for a tasting session along the timewine (TM) of human history! Is the human capacity to digest alcohol an evolutionary advantage? Are drunk apes chill apes? When did the first deliberate grape fermentation occur? How did a Greek...

  
• 12.21.2022

  Episode 212 - Sport, Kinship, and Black Football with Dr. Tracie Canada

  Anna and Amber chat with Dr. Tracie Canada a socio-cultural anthropologist whose ethnographic research uses sport to theorize race, kinship and care, gender, and the performing body. We talk about the lived experiences of Black athletes, the role of sports...

  
• 12.09.2022

  Welcome (Back) to The Dirt!

  Hello, and welcome to the new and improving Dirt Podcast! If you’re a longtime listener, welcome back and thank you so much for sticking with us. If you’re new to The Dirt, welcome! On normal episodes, we explore stories from...

  
• 12.04.2022

  Happy ThanksViking!

  This week, Anna and Amber have a Thing*: it’s an episode all about the Viking Age! Sail with us through an exploration of life during the Viking Age. We talk about the ships they sailed, the food they ate, and...

  
• 12.04.2022

  View to a Kilwa: The Medieval Swahili Coast

  This week, while Anna and Amber's actual selves will be on the West Coast, the show heads for the East Coast-- of Africa, that is! Take a whirlwind tour of the Swahili coast and the economic and cultural exchanges over...

  
• 12.04.2022

  Oh, Curses!

  Halloween may be over, but Anna and Amber are keeping it spooky as they discuss curses and their consequences this week. Anna shares some tactics for recovering stolen tunics at Aquae Sulis (Bath, England), and what perils awaited medieval Javanese...

  
• 12.04.2022

  Beware the Boogeypeople!

  This week, Anna and Amber hunker down around the campfire to talk about things that go bump in the night, and encounter some common themes from around the world. Amber fangirls over a baby-snatching Mesopotamian demon and stumbles upon a...

  
• 12.04.2022

  Cladh Hallan: An Episode in...Several Parts!

  This week, Anna introduces us to Bronze Age Britain and Amber tells us about the very, very unexpected discoveries at Cladh Hallan, Scotland. For maximum spookiness, don't read ahead: it's a real rollercoaster of a story about Bronze Age life,...

  
• 12.04.2022

  Forensic Anthropology with Dr. Jonathan Bethard

  We talk to REAL LIVE FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGIST Dr. Jon Bethard (University of South Florida) about his career path from bassoons to bioarchaeology, the many duties of a coroner, life in Transylvanian villages, vampires (maybe), and his important work helping to...

  
• 12.04.2022

  Welcome to Cliff Palace: Ancestral Puebloans

  This week we round out this month's coverage of indigenous Latin America with a look at the Ancestral Puebloans of the American Southwest. We couldn't fit 10,000 years of human experience and complexity into a single episode, so instead we...

  
• 12.04.2022

  The Tarahumara (Rarámuri) Runners

  This week Anna and Amber run through the history of the Rarámuri of Chihuahua, Mexico. It's more than just sandals and beer, folks! Plus, a rundown of some of the biomechanics of ultramarathon running, and a theory for how Homo...

  
• 12.04.2022

  Aztecs are not Inca are not Maya

  It’s Latinx and Hispanic Heritage Month here in the United States! This week, we attempt to help you (and ourselves) be less wrong about the most famous early Latin American cultures. Amber provides a crash course on Aztec, Inca, and...

  
• 12.04.2022

  Meow and Then: Cats Through the Ages

  It wouldn't be the internet if there weren't cats, so this week is the purr-fect op-paw-tunity to talk about Felis catus. Apologies (a-paw-logies? No? Ok, we'll stop) in advance, there's an odd crackling in the final minutes, but don't let...

  
• 12.04.2022

  Barkaeology: A Brief History of Dogs

  What better time to discuss the domestication and use of Canis familiaris than here in the dog days of summer? Anna and Amber discuss recent research tracing how wolves evolved into the pups we know and love, the earliest dogs...

  
• 12.04.2022

  Dicky Three-Sticks (The Burial of Richard III)

  If you thought we were experts, well, that's about to change. This week, Anna and Amber wade out into the great unknown-to-them of British history and discuss Richard III and the events that led to the excavation of his remains...

  
• 12.04.2022

  Back to School Special: Archaeological Hoaxes

  This week, we fake it til we make it, tackling four archaeological hoaxes. Even when things aren't what they seem...they aren't what they seem. What's the deal with that stone giant in some guy's field? How can that mummified Persian...