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The Dirt Podcast
The Dirt Podcast episodes
- Terra Nullius - Ep 194
Terra nullius is a Latin phrase meaning “nobody’s land,” but historically it has tended to mean something closer to *grabby hands.* What does it mean when a place is considered no one’s? Are there still places where people aren’t? Are there places where we've never been? The answers may surprise you.
Members, check out an extended edition of this episode here.
Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot!
Connect with James on Twitter: @paleoimaging
Interested in sponsoring this show or podcast ads for your business? Zencastr makes it really easy! Click this message for more info.
Links- Rockall (Wikipedia
- When Will It Get Too Hot for the Body to Survive? (Slate)
- The Alaskan Island That Humans Can’t Conquer (Smithsonian Magazine)
- The bones that could shape Antarctica’s fate (BBC Future)
- Three High-Altitude Peoples, Three Adaptations to Thin Air (National Geographic)
- Tibetans inherited high-altitude gene from ancient human (Science)
- Sama (Encyclopedia Britannica)
- The Identity and Social Mobility of Sama-Bajau (Sari)
- Explorer Reaches Bottom of the Mariana Trench, Breaks Record for Deepest Dive Ever (LiveScience)
- What Land Did Europeans Actually Discover? [Infographic] (Popular Science)
- The Wilderness Act (Wilderness Connect)
- Son Doong 360 (National Geographic)
- The last unmapped places on Earth (BBC Future)
- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
- APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet
- APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet
- Tee Public Store
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1 hr 14 min - Fruits de la Mer - Ep 193
Welcome to episode one of our themed month: The Dirt at Sea! The oceans (and seas and lagoons and fjords and so on) have provided people with food and other resources for hundreds of thousands of years. We’ll be discussing some examples of this from the archaeological record. We’ll also investigate how archaeology can get at the relationship between people and the big blue – and it’s much more than just reconstructing ancient coastlines.
Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot!
Connect with James on Twitter: @paleoimaging
Interested in sponsoring this show or podcast ads for your business? Zencastr makes it really easy! Click this message for more info.
Links- Living Ocean (NASA Science)
- Last Interglacial Iberian Neandertals as fisher-hunter-gatherers (Science)
- Neanderthals Really Liked Seafood (Smithsonian)
- Indigenous oyster fisheries persisted for millennia and should inform future management (Nature Communications)
- North American and Australian Indigenous Communities Farmed Oysters for 5,000-10,000 Years (Sci-News)
- Research Shares Importance Of Studying Indigenous Oyster Farming History (Tasting Table)
- Indigenous oyster fisheries were ‘fundamentally different’: Q&A with researcher Marco Hatch (Mongabay)
- Cetacean exploitation in Roman and medieval London (Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports)
- Guidance Note for Dealing with Stranded Whales, Dolphins and other large Marine Wildlife on Kent Coast (Kent City Council)
- Seeking Prehistoric Fermented Food in Japan and Korea (Current Anthropology)
- Thule Winter House (The Canadian Encyclopedia)
- Ancient seafarers may have hunted whales around the world (Science)
- Archaeologists Unearth Hollowed-Out Whale Vertebra Containing Human Jawbone, Remains of Newborn Lambs (Smithsonian)
- The Earliest Shell Fishhooks From The Americas Reveal Fishing Technology Of Pleistocene Maritime Foragers (American Antiquity)
- More Than 30 Million Years Ago, Monkeys Rafted Across the Atlantic to South America (Smithsonian)
- Human evolution: Small remains still pose big problems (Nature)
- On Crete, New Evidence of Very Ancient Mariners (New York Times)
- Scientists reveal how seascapes of the ancient world shaped genetic structure of European populations (Science Daily)
- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
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1 hr 13 min - Video Game Archaeology with Dr. Bill Farley - Ep 192
There are surprising intersections between video game creation and archaeology, and that, of course, comes along with the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of mining ancient history for content creation. Neither Anna nor Amber really grew up playing video games, so we are extremely lucky to have a guest expert, Dr. Bill Farley, Associate Professor of Anthropology at South Connecticut State University. Bill will be our guide on the subject. The Toad to our Mario Party. Right? That’s a thing, right?
Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot!
Connect with James on Twitter: @paleoimaging
Interested in sponsoring this show or podcast ads for your business? Zencastr makes it really easy! Click this message for more info.
Links- Bill's YouTube channel
Contact- Email the Dirt Podcast: [email protected]
ArchPodNet- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
- APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet
- APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet
- Tee Public Store
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1 hr 23 min - Cargo Cults: Actually a Thing? - Ep 191
First used to describe religious movements that emerged in Melanesia following contact with Allied military personnel in World War II, cargo cults are sects and ritualized behaviors intended to summon outsiders (and their stuff) back and bring about a new age. We’ll explore theories for why they come about, discuss some examples of cargo cults in the traditional definition, and consider what parallels might exist in other cultures.
Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot!
Connect with James on Twitter: @paleoimaging
Interested in sponsoring this show or podcast ads for your business? Zencastr makes it really easy! Click this message for more info.
Links- Cargo cults (The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology)
- How “Cargo Cult” Is Born: Scientific Angle on an Old Subject (Pacific Islands Monthly, via Trove)
- 50 Years Ago: Cargo Cults of Melanesia (Scientific American)
- The Cargo Cults (Air Force Magazine)
- Strange Stories of John Frum (Cargo Cult, via JSTOR)
- In John They Trust (Smithsonian Magazine)
- 'Cargo Cults' and the Prince Philip Movement (CenSAMM)
- Prince Philip: the unlikely but willing Pacific deity (The Guardian)
- Prince Philip: The Vanuatu tribes mourning the death of their 'god' (BBC News)
- Cargo Cult Science (Caltech Library)
- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
- APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet
- APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet
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1 hr 21 min - They Told Us So - Ep 190
We’ve had plenty of instances on the show (in the main feed and especially in Old News) of archaeological research bearing out information that existed already in the historical and oral traditions of Indigenous groups. We’ll discuss some examples of this, and we’ll also examine the relationship of Indigenous science and knowledge with the Western systems that actively invalidate and exclude them.
Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot!
Connect with James on Twitter: @paleoimaging
Interested in sponsoring this show or podcast ads for your business? Zencastr makes it really easy! Click this message for more info.
Links- When Scientists “Discover” What Indigenous People Have Known For Centuries (Smithsonian)
- Folklore and earthquakes: Native American oral traditions from Cascadia compared with written traditions from Japan (Geological Society London Special Publications, via ResearchGate)
- Lost Apes Of The Congo (Time)
- Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia (Journal of Ethnobiology)
- Why These Birds Carry Flames In Their Beaks (National Geographic)
- The Birds That Start Fires: Using Indigenous Ecological Knowledge to Understand Animal Behavior (PLoS)
- Tribal History (Crater Lake Trust)
- Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (via WorldCat)
- Zoe Todd thread on Braiding Sweetgrass (Twitter)
- Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science (via WorldCat)
- Indigenous Fire Practices Shape our Land (National Parks Service)
- Knowledge of medicinal plants at risk as languages die out (The Guardian)
- Cultivating Connection: Restoring Clam Gardens (Biohabitats)
- Jessica Hernandez on Twitter
- Fresh Banana Leaves with Dr. Jessica Hernandez (YouTube)
- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
- APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet
- APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet
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Affiliates- Wildnote
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1 hr - Becoming Dr. Bonesaw with Naomi Martisius - Ep 189
This week, Amber's under the weather, so Anna goes solo with special guest Dr. Naomi Martisius. Naomi tells us how she deciphers clues about human behavior by looking at tiny tiny VERY tiny portions of animal bone surfaces under a microscope. We’ll get into her undergraduate discovery that re-wrote a part of prehistory (no, really), and her work on the extremely cool bone artifacts and ornaments from Bacho Kiro Cave, in what is today Bulgaria.
Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot!
Connect with James on Twitter: @paleoimaging
Interested in sponsoring this show or podcast ads for your business? Zencastr makes it really easy! Click this message for more info.
Links- Naomi's Bacho Kiro paper in the Journal of Human Evolution--available for free until June 25th!
- Amber's Fundraiser for Holler Health Justice
- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
- APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet
- APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet
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1 hr 21 min - What have Anna and Amber been up to? - Ep 188
BONUS
Hello, friends! We’re moving our episode schedule slightly—episodes will now be coming out on Wednesdays!! But in the meantime—This is a shortened version of a much longer chat that's available to our Patreon members (link below to join and support the show)! Anna and Amber chat about some changes in their personal lives, plus some updates to The Dirt. We also FINALLY answer our own interview questions:
1. What's the best thing about anthropology?
2. What moment from human history/prehistory or the history of anthropology would you want to go back in time to see?
This is a departure from our usual episodes, so if you're not a big fan of parts of the show where we get chatty...this one might not be for you!
Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot!
Connect with James on Twitter: @paleoimaging
Interested in sponsoring this show or podcast ads for your business? Zencastr makes it really easy! Click this message for more info.
Links- Support The Dirt on Patreon
Contact- Email the Dirt Podcast: [email protected]
ArchPodNet- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
- APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet
- APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet
- Tee Public Store
Affiliates- Wildnote
- TeePublic
- Timeular
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1 hr 19 min - The Neo-Assyrians - Ep 187
Settle in for a HEFTY episode, folks! This week, Amber and Anna examine the world of the Neo-Assyrian empire. This means some substantial time spent context-setting, thanks to the complex nature of early Mesopotamian politics, religion, warfare, and state propaganda. Then we look further at that carefully crafted state propaganda and its influence on Assyriology. THEN we get into a bit of archaeology, and finally, discuss the Neo-Assyrian legacy and descendant communities. What a ride!
Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot!
Connect with James on Twitter: @paleoimaging
Interested in sponsoring this show or podcast ads for your business? Zencastr makes it really easy! Click this message for more info.
*LISTENER NOTE* We discuss some pretty graphically violent art in this episode, starting around time stamp 35:00. Content warning for war crimes and sexual assault--skip ahead about 25 minutes.
Links- Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (via WorldCat)
- Ideology and Propaganda in Assyrian Art (Power and Propaganda: A Symposium on Ancient Empires)
- The Assyrians — The Appalling Lords of Torture (Medium, cn illustrations of graphic violence)
- Assurnasirpal II, king of Assyria (r. 883-859 BC) (Nimrud: Materialities of Assyrian Knowledge Production)
- Object: The Banquet Scene (The British Museum)
- Assyria: Lion hunts, Siege of Lachish and Khorsabad (The British Museum)
- Ancient salmu and the (Post-) Modern Scholar (JAGNES, via Academia.edu)
- Early Excavations in Assyria (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
- A History of the Ancient Near East (via WorldCat)
- Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History (via WorldCat)
- Marxist Historiography and the Ancient Near East (What’s Left of Marxism: Historiography and the Possibilities of Thinking with Marxian Themes and Concepts, via Google Books)
- Ancient near Eastern History from eurocentrism to an Open World (ISIMU: Revista sobre Oriente Próximo y Egipto en la antigüedad 2)
- Approaching ancient Assyria through archaeology leads to new insights (Universiteit Leiden)
- Archaeologists Find 2,700-Year-Old Assyrian-Style Leather Armor in China (Sci-News)
- (Re)Animating The Oikos: Tell Billa’s Domestic Space In 3D (UPenn)
- Excavations at Nineveh: The Halzi Gate (IRAQ)
- The sack of Nineveh in 612 (Nineveh. The Great City. Symbol of Beauty and Power, via Academia.edu)
- Assyrians (UNPO)
- Assyrian Aramaic Dialects | Similarities & Differences (via YouTube)
- Assyrians Celebrate Akitu In Northern Syria (North Press Agency Syria)
- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
- APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet
- APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet
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1 hr 52 min - Maroon Communities - Ep 186
On a listener-sponsored episode, Anna and Amber tackle the archaeology and historical context of maroon communities. These are societies formed by self-liberated Africans during the period when the slave trade was a huge part of the world economy. We discuss some archaeological case studies, and then really think long and hard about what it means to reconstruct these lives, and who has historically done so.
Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot!
Connect with James on Twitter: @paleoimaging
Interested in sponsoring this show or podcast ads for your business? Zencastr makes it really easy! Click this message for more info.
Links- Maroon Communities in the Americas (Slavery and Remembrance)
- Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge (US Fish and Wildlife Service)
- Landscape of Power: Freedom and Slavery in the Great Dismal Swamp Region (via Vimeo)
- Deep in the Swamps, Archaeologists Are Finding How Fugitive Slaves Kept Their Freedom (Smithsonian)
- Archaeology of Marronage in the Caribbean Antilles (Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia, link to PDF download)
- Maroons under Assault In Suriname And French Guiana (Cultural Survival)
- Marronage Perspective for Historical Archaeology in the United States (Historical Archaeology)
- Desolate Place for a Defiant People : the Archaeology of Maroons, Indigenous Americans, and Enslaved Laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp] (via WorldCat)
- Music of the Maroons (Smithsonian Folkways, via Youtube)
- Meet the legendary community that fought for its freedom in Jamaica (National Geographic)
- Maroons: Rebel Slaves in the Americas (Smithsonian Folklife)
- Maroon Archaeology beyond the Americas: A View from Kenya (Historical Archaeology)
- And follow Prof. Ignacio Gallup-Diaz on Twitter!
- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
- APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet
- APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet
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1 hr 7 min - Anthropology and Science Fiction - Ep 185
In a SURPRISE THIRD INSTALLMENT of our discussion of sci fi and archaeology, we talk about two giants of world building, Octavia E Butler and Ursula K LeGuin. We also talk about a few fictional anthropologists of TV and cinema.
Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot!
Connect with James on Twitter: @paleoimaging
Links- Speculative Fiction (Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature)
- Fractured Fairy Tales (Rocky and Bullwinkle Wiki)
- Indian Epic Poetry & SF Origins (SciFi Fantasy Network)
- Read Mahabharata as science fiction: C Radhakrishnan (Deccan Chronicle)
- Vimana Aircraft of India: More Sloppy Scholarship from David Childress (Jason Colavito)
- Separating fact from ancient Indian science fiction (Live Mint)
- The Story of Urashima Taro, the Fisher Lad (Japanese Fairy Tales, via Lit2Go)
- Hafele–Keating experiment (Wikipedia)
- The Lucian of Samosata Project
- Abdallah the Fisherman and Abdallah the Merman (Wikisource)
- The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. LeGuin)
- The Dispossessed (Ursula K. LeGuin)
- Ursula Le Guin’s Speculative Anthropology: Thick Description, Historicity and Science Fiction (Theory, Culture & Society)
- How Ursula Le Guin’s Writing Was Shaped by Anthropology (Sapiens)
- Introduction: Speculative Anthropologies (Society for Cultural Anthropology)
- The Parable Series (Octavia E. Butler)
- Thinking Parabolically: Time Matters in Octavia Butler’s Parables (Society for Cultural Anthropology)
- Why So Many Readers Are Turning to Octavia Butler’s Apocalypse Fiction Right Now (Slate)
- Octavia Butler (Society for Cultural Anthropology)
- Mothership: Voyage Into Afrofuturism (Oakland Museum of California)
- Afrofuturism: From the Past to the Living Present (UCLA Newsroom)
- When is Wakanda: Imagining Afrofutures (The Long Now Foundation)
- Radical Reproduction: Octavia E. Butler’s HistoFuturist Archiving as Speculative Theory (Women’s Studies)
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (via WorldCat)
- Anthropology in Outerspace (The Geek Anthropologist)
- Forensic TV Post-Mortem: The 5 Most And Least Accurate Episodes Of 'Bones' (Forbes)
- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
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1 hr 15 min
About The Dirt Podcast
From the publisher's feed
Join Anna and Amber; friends, archaeologists, and big nerds, for an exploration of the lives of people in the past.