The Dirt Podcast

The Dirt Podcast

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The Dirt Podcast episodes

  • Thanksglyphing - Ep 164

    We’re shaking things up this year, and instead of doing a ThanksViking episode, we’re peeking into the world of Maya and Aztec art and writing. The Maya wrote using a system of around 800 glyphs--the Aztecs used as many as 2,000. We won’t get to ALL of these, but we’ll talk about how these writing systems developed, how they were used, and the role they played in the lives of the Aztec and Maya people.

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        • 43 min
      • Yes We Cant: Anti-Languages and Argots - Ep 163

        Come along for an exploration of anti-languages and the qualities that make them successful in building community and maintaining safety among the people that develop them. From occupational jargon to survival as a marginalized group to being hip with the kids, we tour a few of these languages, and subject everyone to a 16th century dialogue with translation.

        Links

        • O latín dos canteiros en Cabana de Bergantiños (Madrygal, in Galician)
        • Anti-Languages (American Anthropologist)
        • The Language of the Underworld and its Sociolinguistic Significance (Contributions to the Study of Language, Literature and Culture)
        • The secret “anti-languages” you’re not supposed to know (BBC Future)
        • The Book of Vagabonds and Beggars: With a Vocabulary of Their Language (via Google Books)
        • A caveat or warning for common cursetors, vulgarly called vagabonds. Whereunto is added, The tale of the second taking of the counterfeit crank (via Google Books)
        • Uncovering Thieves’ Cant, the Elizabethan Slang of the Underworld (MentalFloss)
        • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (via Project Gutenberg)
        • A brief history of Polari: the curious after-life of the dead language for gay men (The Conversation)
        • The Polari Bible (Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence)
        • Putting on the Dish (via YouTube)
        • Putting on the Dish Screenplay (Brian and Karl)
        • This Month in Linguistics History: Lavender Language/Linguistics (Linguistic Society of America)
        • Cants And ‘Anti-Languages’ — The Hidden World Of Secret Languages (Babbel Magazine)
        • Verlan - French Slang (ThoughtCo)

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              • 49 min
            • Deep Cuts: These Aren't the Glyphs You're Looking For

              Anna takes Amber on a short but eventful journey into an investigation of Egyptian hieroglyphs located in eastern Australia. How did they get there? Did Egyptians reach Australia thousands of years ago? ARE THE CHICKENS A CLUE?? Plus, a detour into mummy drugs. 

              For more information, check out:

              Bulgandry Aboriginal Art Site - This Place (Indigenous.gov.au)

              Hair Raising Cases in Hair Testing: Are ‘cocaine Mummies’ Real or Fake? (Cotsford Lab)

              New World Tobacco in Old World Mummies (Skeptoid)

              Rameses II and the Tobacco Beetle (Antiquity, via ResearchGate)

              Translated: This Is What The 5,000-Year-Old Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs In Australia Say (Humans Are Free)

              Egyptologist debunks new claims about 'Gosford glyphs' (ABC)

              Gosford Glyphs, Walking Track to Secret Treasures! (Kombi Lifestyle, with pics)

              Gosford Glyphs (Atlas Obscura)

              The Gosford glyphs, debunked (Australian Geographic)

              First rock art (National Museum of Australia)

              39 min
            • Kyle Jordan - Ep 162

              Anna and Amber are joined by wonderful Special Guest, Kyle Jordan! Kyle is a disabled Egyptologist interested in themes of religion, magic and identity in the Egyptian world, with a specific focus on the appearance and interpretation of disability in Ancient Egypt and Egyptology as a discipline. We had a wonderful-- and long-- conversation with Kyle about how Egyptians viewed the embodiment of disability, how perception of disability in archaeology has changed (and how it still needs to change), and more.

              Listener note, we mistakenly discuss the dialogue of a man and his ka, which was in fact between a man and his ba. This dialogue is on the subject of suicidal ideation, so please take care or skip forward at about [41:04.000].

              Links

              • Follow Kyle on Twitter!
              • "Disability in Ancient Egypt - the Case of Geheset" (via YouTube)
              • "Disability in Ancient Egyptian Myth and Literature" (via YouTube)
              • Let That Be Your Last Battlefield: Tutankhamun and Disability (via Semantic Scholar)
              • Dialogue of a Man with His Soul (Ethics of Suicide Digital Archive) (cn discussion of suicidal ideation)
              • Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology
              • Westcar Papyrus: Khufu and the Magician (Ancient Egypt Online)
              • Human History Gets a Rewrite (The Atlantic)

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                    • 1 hr 41 min
                  • Let's Call It a Ritual Object - Ep 161

                    Thanks to everyone who came out to our virtual live show! This is the edited audio of that event. We talk about the role of ritual in daily life, how our big round human brains have evolved the ability to think about abstract meaning and ritual significance, and the theory underpinning all of this. We also take a trip to two incredible archaeological sites to think about how the people living there might have thought about the unknown and unseen in their lives. Whoa.

                    Links

                    • Emile Durkheim: religion – the very idea, part 3: ritual, ancient and modern (The Guardian)
                    • Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice
                    • ‘Materiality, Belief, Ritual – Archaeology and Material Religion’. An Introduction (Material Religion)
                    • Materiality: An Introduction (UCL Anthropology)
                    • Materiality (Society for Cultural Anthropology)
                    • How Did Belief Evolve? (Sapiens)
                    • The evolution of modern human brain shape (Science Advances)
                    • A Shocking Find in a Neanderthal Cave in France (The Atlantic)
                    • Neanderthals Built Mysterious Stone Circles (National Geographic)
                    • Early Neanderthal constructions deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France (Nature)
                    • Athens in Pieces: What Really Happened at Eleusis? (New York Times)
                    • The Psychedelic Cult That Thrived For Nearly 2000 Years (Gizmodo)
                    • mysteries, Eleusinian (Oxford Classical Dictionary)
                    • Mystery Cults in the Greek and Roman World (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History)
                    • The Ritual Path of Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries (Rosicrucian Digest)

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                      ArchPodNet

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                          • 1 hr 1 min
                        • Spooktober: Fear Itself - Ep 160

                          We explore the evolutionary roots of fear, and the science of how it works. Why do some people love thrills and chills, while others don't? Why does fear make us stinky? And how can we think about something as personal and ephemeral as fear in the archaeological record?

                          Links

                          • Why We Physically Feel Fear (University of West Alabama)
                          • The biology of fear- and anxiety-related behaviors (Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience)
                          • What Happens in the Brain When We Feel Fear (Smithsonian)
                          • Humans can smell fear - and it's contagious (NBC News)
                          • Humans Respond to Scent of Fear (LiveScience)
                          • The Powerful Smell of Fear Doesn’t Smell Like Anything At All (Inverse)
                          • Alexithymia and emotional reactions to odors (Nature: Scientific Reports)
                          • Instructed fear learning, extinction, and recall: additive effects of cognitive information on emotional learning of fear (Cognition & Emotion)
                          • Monsters on the Brain (Social Research)
                          • What we fear most: A developmental advantage for threat-relevant stimuli (Developmental Review)
                          • Playing With Fear: A Field Study in Recreational Horror (Psychological Science)
                          • Why is it fun to be frightened? (The Conversation)
                          • Why Do Some Brains Enjoy Fear? (The Atlantic)
                          • Our age of horror (Aeon) - cn image of human remains
                          • The Archaeology of Anxiety: The Materiality of Anxiousness, Worry and Fear (via Google Books)
                          • The Architecture of Fear: San Sabá’s Lasting Impact on Spanish Colonial Mission Construction as Exemplified at Mission San Lorenzo in Real County, Texas (The Digital Archaeological Record)

                            • Contact


                            ArchPodNet

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                                • 43 min
                              • Spooktober: Monster Mash - Ep 159

                                This week, we lift our spirits (oooOOOooo) with a round-up of monsters. We explore their origins and effects on us, with examples ranging from memories of very real things in the past to a hypothesis that doesn't quite have legs (unlike griffins).

                                Links

                                • Why we'll always be obsessed with – and afraid of – monsters (The Conversation)
                                • Why the scariest monsters look almost human (Wellcome Collection)
                                • Why We Still Need Monsters (Nautilus)
                                • Why Are So Many Monsters Hybrids? (Nautilus)
                                • A History of Monsters (Aeon)
                                • Why do we want to feel sorry for monsters that scare us? (Gizmodo)
                                • Why Frankenstein is the story that defines our fears (BBC)
                                • Neanderthals, Scandinavian trolls, and troglodytes (Norwegian American)
                                • Ōnamazu (Yokai.com)
                                • Namazu-e: Earthquake catfish prints (Pink Tentacle)
                                • Namazu (World History Encyclopedia)
                                • Giant catfish and a legacy of disaster in one of the world's most seismically active regions (Phys.org)
                                • Folklore and earthquakes: Native American oral traditions from Cascadia compared with written traditions from Japan (Geological Society, London, Special Publications via ResearchGate)
                                • Why Protoceratops almost certainly wasn't the inspiration for the griffin legend (Mark Witton)
                                • Griffin Bones (American Museum of Natural History)
                                • Andrewsarchus, "Superb Skull of a Gigantic Beast" (American Museum of Natural History)
                                • Jumbies of the West Indies (The Brown Geeks)
                                • Rare Book Library Summons Tales of World’s Oldest Monsters (Smithsonian)
                                • The evolution of monsters in children’s literature (Nature)
                                • A Visual History of Society’s Monsters (Hyperallergic)
                                • The Nazi Werewolves Who Terrorized Allied Soldiers at the End of WWII (Smithsonian)
                                • Doin’ The Mash (Tedium)
                                • The strange tale of ‘Monster Mash’, the graveyard smash that will never die (NME)

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                                  ArchPodNet

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                                      • 56 min
                                    • Spooktober: Homo lepidopteris - Ep 158

                                      This week, we're taking a turn for the cryptid and spooking local with the legend of West Virginia native son, the Mothman. For a little over a year leading up to December 1967, sightings of a winged humanoid with glowing eyes were reported in and around Point Pleasant, WV. Since then, Mothman has evolved from evil omen to legend to meme. In this episode, we’ll explore the legend, collective memory, and the power of portents.

                                      Links

                                      • Paranormal Activity in West Virginia (Marshall University)
                                      • Mothman: The Facts Behind the Legend (West Virginia Book Company)
                                      • Mothman myth rooted in Messenger reporter's work (Athens Messenger)
                                      • Is the Mothman of West Virginia an Owl? (Audubon Society)
                                      • Silver Bridge tragedy still haunts river city residents (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
                                      • Tu-Endie-Wei State Park (WV State Parks)
                                      • Point Pleasant, West Virginia: Making a Tourism Landscape in an Appalachian Town (Southeastern Geographer)
                                      • West Virginian Urban Legends and Their Impact on Cultures Both Local and Abroad (Bowling Green State University)
                                      • The Mothman and Other Strange Tales: Shaping Queer Appalachia Through Folkloric Discourse in Online Social Media Communities (University of Kentucky)
                                      • UFOs Were Born Among America’s Cold War Fears (Foreign Policy)
                                      • Welcome To The 'TNT Area,' Home Of The Mothman (NPR)
                                      • Federal Facilities Restoration Program (WV Dept of Environmental Protection)

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                                        ArchPodNet

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                                            • 1 hr 14 min
                                          • Spooktober: Feral Children - Ep 157

                                            SPOOKTOBER HAS BEGUN! This week, we discuss the trope in myth, legend, horror, and adjacent genres of feral children. We won't be directly discussing actual cases of trauma, neglect, or child abuse, but rather the place of the bestial feral child in the mythology of different ancient cultures all the way up to a more recent timeline. Why do these stories interest us, spook us, and who's the real monster here?

                                            Links

                                            • Register for our International Archaeology Day Live Show on October 16!
                                            • Black Doves Speak: Herodotus and the Languages of Barbarians (Center for Hellenic Studies)
                                            • How Young Children Learn Language (Scholastic)
                                            • Flint Dibble on Wolf’s Milk and More
                                            • Guide to the classics: the Epic of Gilgamesh (The Conversation)
                                            • Between gods and animals: becoming human in the Gilgamesh epic (Aeon)
                                            • The History of Hayy ibn Yaqzan, translated by Simon Ockley
                                            • Rewriting the Savage: The Extraordinary Fictions of the "Wild Girl of Champagne" (Eighteenth-Century Studies)
                                            • The Wild Girl, Natural Man, and the Monster (via WorldCat)
                                            • Why Sasquatch and Other Crypto-Beasts Haunt Our Imaginations (Anthropology of Consciousness)
                                            • Feral Disorders and Colonial Exclusions: Animal Reared Feral Children, Discourses of Animality, and the Treatment of Animals in Colonial India (via Academia.edu)
                                            • Wild stories: why do we find feral children so fascinating? (The Guardian)

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                                              ArchPodNet

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                                                  • 1 hr 10 min
                                                • Disability in the Ancient World With Andrew Gurza - Ep 156

                                                  This week, Anna and Amber are joined by Andrew Gurza, disabled content creator and fellow podcaster, to talk about disability and care in the ancient world. We talk with Andrew about the need for disabled voices in archaeology, his path to podcasting, and some archaeological case studies that show that humans have always taken care of one another.

                                                  Links

                                                  • Andrew Gurza's website
                                                  • Ancient Bones That Tell a Story of Compassion (NY Times)
                                                  • Ancient Bones Offer Clues to How Long Ago Humans Cared for the Vulnerable (NPR Goats and Soda)
                                                  • Follow Andrew on Twitter: @AndrewGurza_

                                                    • Contact


                                                    ArchPodNet

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                                                        • 1 hr 3 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.