The Dirt Podcast

The Dirt Podcast

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The Dirt Podcast episodes

  • It's the (Moral) Circle of Life! - Ep 72

    This week, Amber and Anna wade into the moral circle. When it comes to deserving help and care, who counts? What does that care look like, and how can we see evidence for it in the historical and archaeological record? We do our best to wrap our brains around all this and more.

    Links

    • Should animals, plants, and robots have the same rights as you? (Vox)
    • Lake Erie now has legal rights, just like you (Vox)
    • Expanding the moral circle: Inclusion and exclusion mindsets and the circle of moral regard (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology)
    • A Brief History of Charitable Giving (Visual.ly)
    • Ancient Bones That Tell a Story of Compassion (New York Times)
    • Calculated or caring? Neanderthal healthcare in social context (World Archaeology)
    • Brutal Brawls And Cranial Surgery Discovered On Ancient Skeletons From Lake Titicaca (Forbes)
    • How the poor became blessed (Aeon)

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        • 1 hr 6 min
      • Aiding and A-vetting: The Archaeology of Animal Care - Ep 71

        This week Anna and Amber told you we’re going to the park, but really it’s a trip to the v-e-t in an episode all about evidence for animal care and veterinary medicine in the archaeological record. Learn how archaeologists assess animal welfare from bone analysis, ancient Egyptian animal medicine, a snapshot of life on a medieval French farm, and more, including 2nd millennium BCE pro tips on how to get your horse absolutely jacked.

        Links

        • Prehistoric Puppy May Be Earliest Evidence of Pet-Human Bonding (National Geographic)
        • Excavating the history of ancient veterinary practices (Veterinary Record)
        • The Kikkuli Text. Hittite Training Instructions for Chariot Horses in the Second Half of the 2nd Millennium B.C. and Their Interdisciplinary Context (Peter Raulwing, via Academia.edu)
        • Kikkuli (International Museum of the Horse)
        • A Quick History of Veterinary History (Canidae)
        • Care or Neglect?: Evidence of Animal Disease in Archaeology
        • One and the same? An investigation into the connection between veterinary and medical practice in ancient Egypt (in Mummies, magic and medicine in ancient Egypt)
        • Lahun Veterinary Papyrus
        • Early Egyptians Revered Lowly Donkeys (New York Times)

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            • 47 min
          • Japanese Food and Drink, Then, Now, and Way Back When - Ep 70

            It’s the second half of our two-episode series on Japan! This week, Amber and Anna explore some of the traditions and material culture surrounding Japanese food. We research rice, sample sake, banter about bento, and MAYBE MAKE THE BEST SERIES OF PUNS EVER HEARD ON THE SHOW.

            Links

            • Rice in Japan: History, Kinds of Rice and Cooking and Eating Rice (Facts and Details)
            • How Japanese Traditions Work (How Stuff Works)
            • Rice: It's More Than Food In Japan (Stanford SPICE)
            • A Brief History of Japanese Sake (Culture Trip)
            • Brewing Behind Barbed Wire: An Archaeology of Saké at Amache (Digital Commons @ DU)
            • The Japanese Ghost Town Buried Deep in a Canadian Forest (Gastro Obscura)
            • The controversial history of the bento box (Timeline)
            • Sampuru: Japanese Food Models (Tofugo)
            • The Japanese Tea Ceremony (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
            • The Story Behind the Japanese Tea Ceremony (Culture Trip)
            • Ancient Pottery Reveals Japanese Hunter-Gatherers’ Taste for Fish (SciNews)

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                • 48 min
              • Prehistoric Japanese Pt 1 - Ep 69

                This week, it’s a sponsored episode (thanks Elizabeth!) and part one in a two-part series on ancient Japan. This week—the Jomon, prehistoric Japanese hunter-gatherers, and their descendants, the Ainu indigenous people. Also, some bears.

                Links
                • Spotlight on Research: What Can Archaeology Tell Us About the Prehistory of the Japanese Islands? (Hokkaido University)
                • The Untold Story of Japan’s First People (Sapiens)
                • A-hunting we will go! (Heritage of Japan)
                • Tattooing Among Japan’s Ainu People (Lars Krutak)
                • Ainu Decorative Needlework (TRC Leiden)
                • 20 Vintage Portraits of Japanese Ainu Women With Their Traditional Tattooed Lips (Heritage Daily)

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                    • 40 min
                  • It's A Wash - Ep 68

                    This week, Anna and Amber decided to clean up their act and take a look at the history of bathing and hygiene. We’re dipping our toes into Roman baths, sweating through Finnish and Russian saunas, discussing the shrewd marketing behind the “Halitosis Effect,” and more. Plus, what even IS soap, anyway?

                    Links
                    • A natural history of hygiene (Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology)
                    • Evidence that disgust evolved to protect from risk of disease (Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)
                    • The First Soap - The first recorded evidence of soap making (Soap History)
                    • Out of the Vapors: A Social and Architectural History of Bathhouse Row
                    • More Than a Bath: An Examination of Japanese Bathing Culture (Claremont Colleges)
                    • Self-Reflection in the Tub: Japanese Bathing Culture, Identity, and Cultural Nationalism (Asia Pacific Perspectives)
                    • Dip into the history of the Japanese 'system bath' (Japan Times)
                    • Networking Naked With Finland's Diplomatic Sauna Society (The Atlantic)
                    • A `working' bath: Finland's answer to negotiations. SAUNA DIPLOMACY (Christian Science Monitor)
                    • The Standard Guide to Global Bathing Cultures (Standard Hotels)
                    • The History and Science Behind Your Terrible Breath (Smithsonian)
                    • Fighting bad breath -- a battle through centuries (Los Angeles Times)
                    • Who invented the toothbrush and when was it invented? (Library of Congress)

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                        • 51 min
                      • Still Spooktober: They Built It on a Haunted Burial Ground - Ep 67

                        Spooktober winds to a close once again, and we end with a mystery. Bundle up and join Anna and Amber at Roopkund Lake, where bones scatter the shore and speculation and science meet. Who were the people whose skeletal remains keep appearing in a remote lake in northern India? How did they get there? How might we find out?

                        Links

                        • Nanda Devi Raaj Jat Yatra (Uttarakhand Tourism)
                        • 10 Things You Should Know About Nanda Devi Raj Jat Yatra (eUttarakhand)
                        • Roopkund Lake (EcoIndia)
                        • There's A Frozen Lake In India That's Full Of Skeletons. What On Earth Happened Here? (IFL Science)
                        • Skeleton Lake of Roopkund, India (Atlas Obscura)
                        • Mystery Solved - The Skeleton Lake of India (Science, Dummy) cw: human remains
                        • Inside Roopkund Lake, The Curious Indian Lake Where Skeletons Wash Ashore (All That’s Interesting)
                        • Tourists to Roopkund trek back with human skeletons (The Indian Express)
                        • The Mystery of ‘Skeleton Lake’ Gets Deeper (The Atlantic)
                        • Biomolecular analyses of Roopkund skeletons show Mediterranean migrants in Indian Himalaya (Phys.org)

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                            • 36 min
                          • Spooktober: The Nature of Evil - Ep 66

                            Come along for a look at the anthropology of “evil,” some of the psychological designations that true crime podcasts might neglect, some wildly speculative thoughts about the roots of human evil, and how scores on “psychopath tests” vary across societies. Plus, the earliest cold case murder, Machiavelli on Machiavellianism, and unfortunately, the entirely unwelcome reappearance of the Evil Neanderthal theory.

                            Links

                            • Cultural Relativism (WIkibooks)
                            • How evil is a socially constructed concept: Evil across societies (The Manitoban)
                            • Demons, Dybbuks, Ghosts, & Golems (My Jewish Learning)
                            • Psychiatric labeling in cross-cultural perspective (Science)
                            • The Anthropology of Evil
                            • The Nature of Evil (Huffington Post)
                            • The Stigma of Personality Disorders (Current Psychiatry Reports)
                            • Personality Disorders (The Mayo Clinic)
                            • Why It Pays to Be a Bit of a Psychopath (LiveScience)
                            • Successful cavemen were serial killers (New York Post)
                            • The Criminal Psychopath: History, Neuroscience, Treatment, and Economics (Jurimetrics)
                            • Quick and Dirty: Some Psychosocial Costs Associated with the Dark Triad in Three Countries (Evolutionary Psychology)
                            • A world shrouded in darkness: Accounting for variance in the Dark Triad traits around the world (ANU)
                            • This Author Thinks We Might Be on the Verge of a New Generation of Serial Killers (Vice)
                            • World's Oldest Cold Case: A 430,000-Year-Old Murder Victim Found In Pit Of Bones (Forbes)
                            • Unraveling the True Machiavelli (JHU Arts & Sciences Magazine)
                            • 500-year-old arrest warrant for Machiavelli discovered (Archaeology.wiki)
                            • Monster Talk episode with Jon Ronson discussing the Psychopath Test

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                                • 1 hr 11 min
                              • Spooktober: South American Horror Story - Ep65

                                This week, head south to the misty, mysterious island of Chiloé, Chile, where Amber tells Anna a story of a powerful cult of warlocks that held the island in their grip in the late 19th century CE. But, as in all good horror stories, the true villain is possibly something else entirely. Sit down for a hearty meal of the spookiest spaghetti and explore indigenous Mapuche governance, colonization, and whether the ghost stories of Chiloé might be more meaningful than they seem.

                                Content warning: there is a brief scene describing graphic violence, but we’ll warn you when it’s time for sensitive ears to skip ahead.

                                Links

                                • Into the Cave of Chile’s Witches (Smithsonian)
                                • The Myths and Mythologies of Chiloe, Chile's Most Haunted Island (Culture Trip)
                                • Myth and Magic Infuse Chilean Island (NPR)
                                • Invunche (Chiloé Mitologico)
                                • The Cave of Quicaví (VoiceMap Tours)
                                • La Enfermadad de todos en El Cuerpo Propia: Brujeria y performatividad del Tribual de la Raza Indigena en Chiloé (Universum)
                                • Rhetorical Imperialism (Digital Commons @DU)
                                • Shamans' Pragmatic Gendered Negotiations with Mapuche Resistance Movements and Chilean Political Authorities (Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power)
                                • Imbunches and Other Monsters: Enemy Legends and Underground Histories in José Donoso and Catalina Parra (Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies)
                                • Reyes Sobre La Tierra: Brujería Y Chamanismo En Una Cultura Insular. Chiloé Entre Los Siglos XVIII y XY
                                • Pueblos Originarios - Indigenous Populations of Chile Map
                                • The Cinematic Spell in an Island of Uncertainty (Anthrovision)
                                • Lore Episode 25, “The Cave”

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                                    • 51 min
                                  • Old News, Issue 12

                                    OLD NEWS IS BACK and slightly older than usual, dear listener! This month, we look at lovers, fighters, sports fans, sippy cups, and so much more!

                                    Viking Drinking Hall in Scotland (Archaeology Magazine)

                                    Ancient Egyptian Yeast (Archaeology Magazine)

                                    Woodstock Archaeology (Time) 

                                    The bow of a World War II submarine was discovered off the coast of the Aleutian Islands (CNN)

                                    Ancient DNA from Roman and medieval grape seeds reveal ancestry of wine making (Science Daily)

                                    Age of Discovery ship found perfectly preserved in Baltic Sea (The Independent)

                                    Indigenous petroglyphs found for 1st time in Newfoundland (CBC)

                                    This Young Man and Woman Were Buried Face-to-Face 4,000 Years Ago in Kazakhstan (Live Science)

                                    'Lovers of Modena' Buried Hand-in-Hand Turn Out to Be Men (Live Science)

                                    Forgotten Sculpture of Alexander the Great Found in Greek Museum’s Storage (Greek Reporter)

                                    Skeleton of Ancient Sports Fan and Head-Shaped Jar Found in Bulgarian Grave (Live Science)

                                    Babies Drank from Ancient 'Sippy Cups' Thousands of Years Ago (Live Science)

                                    15th-Century Scottish Warrior Who Died in a Clan Feud Was Buried with 5 Extra Heads (Live Science)

                                    Genome of nearly 5000-year-old woman links modern Indians to ancient civilization (Science)

                                    Extinction of Icelandic walrus coincides with Norse settlement (ScienceDaily)

                                    55 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.