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The Dirt Podcast episodes
- Feeling it Out: Phenomenology - Ep 145
How do we capture a sense of the experience of living in a landscape of the past? What did the past smell like? What did it feel like? How can we understand ancient people's mindsets, perceptions, intentions, and emotions? Will Anna end up deeply confused? Tune in to find out!
Links
- A History of Archaeological Thought (via WorldCat)
- Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
- How Can Phenomenological Methodologies help us understand past Landscapes? (The Post Hole)
- A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments (via WorldCat)
- Archaeological Theory: An Introduction (via WorldCat)
- Phenomenology in Practice: Towards a Methodology for a 'Subjective' Approach (European Journal of Archaeology, via ResearchGate)
- Experiencing the past? The development of a phenomenological archaeology in British prehistory (Archaeological Dialogues)
- Investigating Neolithization of Cultural Landscapes in East Asia: The NEOMAP Project (Journal of World Prehistory)
- Performance Space, Political Theater, and Audibility in Downtown Chaco (Acoustics)
- Mystery of 'chirping' pyramid decoded (Nature)
- Mapping an archaeology of the present: Counter-mapping at the Gummingurru stone arrangement site, southeast Queensland, Australia (Journal of Social Archaeology)
- Mapping an archaeology of the present: Counter-mapping at the Gummingurru stone arrangement site, southeast Queensland, Australia (via Academia.edu)
- Counter mapping at the Gummingurru stone arrangement site (via Academia.edu)
- Gummingurru in the Landscape (Prezi)
- A Phenomenological Approach to the Kom El-Shuqafa Catacombs (Cornell eCommons)
- 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
58 min - Nazca, Outside the Lines - Ep 144
On this sponsored episode, Anna and Amber talk about the Nazca culture of coastal Peru. There's SO much more to talk about than the famous Nazca Lines. There's gorgeous ceramics, ingenious irrigation, trophy heads, cactus tripping, and much more!
Links
- The Puquios of Nasca (Latin American Antiquity)
- Cahuachi: New Evidence for an Early Nasca Ceremonial Role (Current Anthropology, via ResearchGate)
- Ritual Uses of Trophy Heads in Ancient Nasca Society (Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru,)
- Traditional Medicinal Plant Use in Northern Peru: Tracking Two Thousand Years of Healing Culture (Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine)
- Nasca Ceramics: Ancient Art from Peru’s South Coast (Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology)
- Nazca Pottery (World History Encyclopedia)
- Nasca Ceramic Iconography: An Overview (The Studio Potter)
- 2,000-Year-Old Nazca Line Featuring Lounging Cat Found in Peru (Smithsonian)
- 2,000-Year-Old Cat Etching Found at Nazca Lines Site in Peru (New York Times)
- Peru’s Nazca Line etchings depict bird species not native to the area (PBS)
- Identifying the bird figures of the Nasca pampas: An ornithological perspective (Journal of Archaeological Science)
- The Racism Behind Alien Mummy Hoaxes (The Atlantic)
- Ancient Nazca people of Peru created own demise (Seattle Times)
- 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
58 min - 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.
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
55 min - 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)
- 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
1 hr 21 min - 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)
- Wildnote
- TeePublic
- Timeular
48 min - 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)
- Wildnote
- TeePublic
- Timeular
54 min - 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)
- Wildnote
- TeePublic
- Timeular
50 min - Holding Out for a Hero(dotus) - Ep 138
It's Amber's birthday episode! Since she loves historiography, we're taking it back to one of the earliest historians, Herodotus. How did he think about the past, and how did that influence historians who came after him? What did he get right, and what did he get wrong? What's up with that weird boat, those mummy enemas, the flying snakes, and the giant ants? Listen and find out!
Links
- Herodotus (World History Encyclopedia)
- Guide to the classics: The Histories, by Herodotus (The Conversation)
- Herodotus (Livius.org)
- Herodotus’ Histories (Livius.org)
- The Histories (Perseus)
- From Herodotus to H-Net on WorldCat
- 2,500 Years Ago, Herodotus Described a Weird Ship. Now, Archaeologists Have Found it. (LiveScience)
- 10 Historical Facts That Herodotus Got Hilariously Wrong (Listverse)
- Herodotus on the gold-digging "ants" (Livius.org)
- The Winged Snakes of Arabia and the Fossil Site of Makhtesh Ramon in the Negev (Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Des Morgenlandes, via JSTOR)
- Herodotus on the phoenix, on the horned serpent, and on winged snakes (Hyde and Rugg)
- DNA Boosts Herodotus’ Account of Etruscans as Migrants to Italy (The New York Times)
- Darius, Herodotus and the Scythians (British Museum Blog)
- The Real Amazons (New Yorker)
- Wildnote
- TeePublic
- Timeular
1 hr 9 min - Prepare to Be Amaz(on)ed - Ep 137
We haven’t covered much archaeology from the Amazon Basin on the show, but this week, that changes! Instead of being the primitive groups early European explorers reported on, people lived in the Amazon Basin region for thousands of years by adapting to their landscape as well as modifying their environment to suit their needs! Somehow, we suspect that you, listeners, are not shocked.
Links
- Amazon People (World Wildlife Fund)
- People of the Amazon (Ascent of the Amazon)
- Who Lives in the Amazon? (Amazon Aid Foundation)
- The Archaeology of Anthropogenic Impacts on the Amazon (Harvard University)
- The legacy of 4,500 years of polyculture agroforestry in the eastern Amazon (Nature Plants)
- Archaeologists find vast network of Amazon villages laid out like clock faces (LiveScience)
- Ancient farmers transformed Amazon and left an enduring legacy on the rainforest (ScienceDaily)
- Archaeologists Discover Some of the Amazon’s Oldest Human Burials (Smithsonian)
- Persistent Early to Middle Holocene tropical foraging in southwestern Amazonia (Science Advances)
- Wildnote
- TeePublic
- Timeula
49 min - Mummies' Day - Ep 136
This week, Anna and Amber celebrate some of the lesser-known mummies of the world. Amber shares her hometown mummies, while Anna spins the stories of a smoke-dried philosopher, a legendary Lama, and...a winery? Plus, one Egyptian mummy thrown in for good measure.
Links
- Jeremy Bentham (Crime Museum)
- English Philosopher’s Dressed-Up Skeleton Goes on View in New Glass Display (Smithsonian)
- Jeremy Bentham's Auto-Icon (Atlas Obscura)
- Jeremy Bentham’s Head Is Coming Out of Its Box and Under the Microscope (Atlas Obscura)
- Nightmarish mummies attracting curious to rural Philippi (West Virginia Explorer)
- Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
- The Mystery Behind Russia's Buddhist "Miracle" (The Culture Trip)
- Ivolginsky Datsan (Atlas Obscura)
- Summum Pyramid (Atlas Obscura)
- First-known pregnant mummy discovered (Live Science)
- Wildnote
- TeePublic
- Timeular
48 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.