The Prehistory Guys

12th feb 2021 BBc broadcast a programme hosted by Professor Alice Roberts called 'Stonehenge, the Lost Circle Revealed'.

Both leading up to and afterwards, there was a flurry of headlines in the press ranging from the reasonably restrained to the outright sensational. To cut to the chase, the end result has been - to the dismay of many in the archaeological community and both Rupert and I - the the perception has been left with the general public that Stonehenge had a previous existence in the south Wales hills before it was transported wholesale to what is now Wiltshire.

We followed up that broadcast with a short off-the-cuff show of our own on YouTube that attempted to redress some of the (what we regarded as) misleading elements of that programme.

In some eyes, this was interpreted as an attack on the lead archaeologist featured in the BBC show, namely Prof Mike Parker Pearson. It was not. What MPP has done here is amazing and we hope by the time we’ve got to the end of this section in the podcast, you’ll get a sense of the high regard we’ve got for him.

What we were trying to do however is point out that there was so much more nuance to the finds that have been made and the results that have been extracted. Moreover that there are other voices in the field that were ignored by the BBC and that all is not as simple as made out.

All that said - the story is amazing, the questions it poses are mind bending and the picture of people in the late Neolithic and what they were up to remains just as enigmatic if not more so than before the gloss of certainty that was painted over this whole question of the origins of the bluestones of Stonehenge by the BBC programme.

We just want to make it real again. Strip it back to the actual evidence and leave you - we hope - much more excited by just how much more complex this story is than the impression left by the BBC in this case.

As ever - even with the detail we go into here - we've barely scratched the surface. This could have been a very long podcast indeed. However, let us know if you think we should do more on this!

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"Welcome to another prehistory guys interview, introducing you to people, often hidden in the background, whose work is really making a difference to our understanding of humanity in prehistory

"Today we’re talking with Dr Kenny Brophy Senior lecturer of archaeology at the University of Glasgow. Kenny’s work focuses mainly on the British Neolithic, particularly of Scotland, and he has written copiously about the many cursus monuments to be found there.

"Kenny is passionate about bringing archaeology into the public domain and is equally interested in how people have engaged with ancient monuments throughout history. Pursuing this theme, he writes a regular blog under the title of The Urban Prehistorian, exploring the roles that megalithic and other prehistoric sites continue to play within society.

"Apart from having directed numerous excavations in Scotland, he lectures widely and is always a captivating speaker. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did."

KENNY'S PAGE AT GLASGOW UNIVERSITY: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/kennethbrophy/ 

THE URBAN PREHISTORIAN:  https://theurbanprehistorian.wordpress.com/ 

THE COCHNO STONE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochno_Stone 

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IT'S BACK!

Rupert & I are delighted to present you with a recording of us producing our first audio podcast after a long break. We're back to our old format with Pushing Back the Boundaries, news, a central topic and finishing off with Stonehead of the Month and a bit of Whimsy.

Scroll down for links to some source material.

There is a video version of this podcast at https://youtu.be/fEegOLUPfk4

PUSHING BACK THE BOUNDARIES

Long distance trading of exotic foods in prehistory https://phys.org/news/2020-12-food-south-asia-revealed-east.html

NEWS

DNA from Neolithic in present day population in Western Canada https://www.abroadintheyard.com/dna-links-aboriginal-woman-canada-and-200-x-great-grandaughter/

Bronze Age Lovers? https://www.livescience.com/romeo-and-juliet-skeletons-israel.html

Baby and Puppy burial https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/15/2000-year-old-remains-of-infant-and-pet-dog-uncovered-in-france

MARITIME TRAVEL IN PREHISTORY

Seagoing explorers 35,000 years ago - Modern day Japan https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-humans-sea-voyage-japan-ryukyu-island-migration

Peopling of the Caribbean Islands https://phys.org/news/2020-09-archaeologists-step-by-step-path-people-caribbean.html

Polynesians and Native Americans https://phys.org/news/2020-07-polynesians-native-americans-contact-european.html

List of ancient ships on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_ships

STONEHEAD OF THE MONTH: Amanda Hart

Coninium Museum https://coriniummuseum.org/

'Stone Age to Corinium' launch https://youtu.be/M_pcK_kRdY8

WHIMSY

Oldest sword known was thought to be medieval https://www.livescience.com/ancient-anatolian-sword-in-venetian-monastery.html

The thumbnail image for this video incorporates an image from theTanum petroglyphs, Sweden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Carvings_in_Tanum

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Despite any number of challenges over the past six years, including more recently the Covid lockdowns of course, Amanda has kept driving the project of giving the museum a complete overhaul and redesign, and with her team has created a breathtaking set of galleries that cover the full span of human history in the Cotswolds.

One thing that makes Amanda so rare, is that she is a museum director with archaeology in her veins. She studied archaeology at university and has been involved on excavations of the Bronze Age sites in the Maroni Valley on Cyprus. Ultimately she turned this back to her love of museums, bringing a unique slant on how archaeology could be presented to the public.

"We think that what Amanda has achieved at Corinium is nothing short of extraordinary and this interview is our way of helping celebrate her dedication and devotion in bringing prehistory to a wider audience."

Corinium Museum website is here: https://coriniummuseum.org/

Watch the online opening of the new museum here: 

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In fact, some of Tom’s recent research has even shed light on different funerary practices in the Bronze Age, revealing some fascinating discoveries about ways that people related to, or looked after the remains of their departed. (We first reported on this in a piece in the Prehistory Show #3. https://www.patreon.com/posts/prehistory-show-42771218)

Tom's work is really bringing some clarity to the huge genetic shifts which took place in the major transition periods of the past and it’s remarkable how the study of ancient DNA is opening so many windows into the past.

As is so often the case, we could have talked long enough to make half a dozen interviews. We hope you enjoy this one.

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However, she has a particular passion for Iron Age torcs, running a website with restorer Roland Williamson called The Big Book of Torcs. https://bigbookoftorcs.com/ There's no-one better with whom to explore the detail and peculiarities of these magnificent artefacts than Tess and 'talking torcs' is the central theme of this discussion.

And then - chocolate torcs anyone? No time to explain ... listen on! 😊

http://www.prehistoricsociety.org/

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We met Seren in 2019 at the Prehistoric Society’s 'Landscapes of the Dead' conference at the Society of Antiquaries in London where she gave a fantastic talk. In fact, the first thing Rupert said to Michael after her presentation was that he really wished she had been one of his lecturers!

It really is no surprise that Seren was the youngest person ever to be invited to give the very prestigious Golson Lecture at Australia National University in Canberra in 2018.

Seren's specialities are science in archaeology and public archaeology, and her work on the mesolithic neolithic transition is something we’re interested in as well. However, we're particularly fascinated by what she has to say about a site that we're slightly (infamously!) connected to - Bryn Celli Ddu. Together with Ffion Reynolds, she has been lead archaeologist on the excavations there over the last 5 years.

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