The Dirt Podcast

Hiya, friends! Amber is currently traveling in Saudi Arabia for work so we're re-releasing this extremely relevant episode on Arabian archaeology! We'll be back in your ears with new content soon. Amber takes Anna on a guided tour of her beloved Arabia. Learn about the varied mountains, deserts, and oases that are nowhere near as empty or inactive as Western explorers might have you believe. We ex...

Hooray! It's the first of our episodes highlighting the work of our 2022 Pass The Mic travel grant recipients! Danielle Kabella works with communities in New Mexico that have historically had a complex relationship with substance use, recovery, and the legal system. Danielle's work focuses on recovery efforts of the past 50 years as a way to understand the changing relationship between recovery sc...

Sick burn, breh--This week, Anna and Amber tackle the origins of fire use in the hominin archaeological record. We've taken a journalistic approach, so we've got What Fire, Where and When Fire, Why Fire, Who Fire, and How Fire. Plus, how do archaeologists look for evidence of fires that happened up to a million years ago? Amber also shares some Big Life Updates! To learn more: Microstratigraphic e...

It was Anna's turn to get sick, so this week we bring you a portion of the most recent episode of our bonus series Dirt After Dark. Most of that episode is about Ashayana Deane, a purveyor of pseudoscience and ancient aliens accounts, and a very complicated lady. However, in the first part, Anna recaps some takeaways and opinions from the recent Faking it and Making it panel on pseudo-archaeology...

We're naming names this week! An aspect of studying the past that might surprise you, names can add some fascinating nuance to our understanding of people and places. What did ancient people call themselves and everything around them? What kinds of meanings can names hold? Hold onto your butts, it's time to think some big thoughts!

You know that cold that made Amber's voice all froggy? Turns out it was COVID. And the flu. But she's on the mend! And to give her time to fully recuperate, we're releasing a portion of the most recent episode of Old News, one of our premium content shows! This batch of news stories includes some Neanderthal food, some African archaeology, some Horse Guy stuff, and more! Support The Dirt: patreon....

Anna and Amber sit down to chat about the Denisovans, the human ancestors we didn't know we had until recently. Learn about what evidence we have for Denisovans, the traits for which we can thank them, and some of the mysteries that remain. Come for big reveals about what's in human DNA, stay for ample use of phrases like "bouts of interbreeding." To learn more, check out: Meet the Denisovans ( Di...

This week, Amber is recovering from a nasty cold that has left her normally dulcet tones extremely froggy. So we've made lemons out of that germy lemonade (ew, sorry). It's an episode about the archaeology, prehistory, and history of the common cold! Learn how to tell if a skeleton had the sniffles, figure out if there are ghosts in your colon, uncover the great Vitamin C scam, and more! CONTENT W...

We're doing something different this week while Amber is on a whirlwind tour of life admin stuff. In response to some of the conflict over Graham Hancock's Ancient Apocalypse show on Netflix, Anna has been writing about the double-edged sword of creating archaeology content online. Social media can be a useful tool, but it can also be...well, not great. So, we figured, why not cover two types of c...

This week, Anna has some big questions about the Pleiades, a group of bright, beautiful stars also known as the Seven Sisters. The myth of seven sisters that were turned into stars is remarkably consistent across multiple cultures. Also, it's always seven sisters, even though you can really only make out six with the naked eye. So what's going on? IS IT ALIENS?? No, of course not. It's much more i...

We've discussed Neanderthals quite a bit on The Dirt (it's a whole section of Anna's contract). But while we've talked about their diet, their bodies, and their genes, we haven't spent much time thinking about their daily life, their living spaces, and the idea of "home." How did Neanderthals organize their domestic spaces? How do you make a cave cozy? How did people keep track of familiar places...

Join us for a tasting session along the timewine (TM) of human history! Is the human capacity to digest alcohol an evolutionary advantage? Are drunk apes chill apes? When did the first deliberate grape fermentation occur? How did a Greek wine cauldron end up in a Celtic burial in France? What's up with wine terms? Sip on all this and more in this week's episode. Many thanks to Rosie for sponsoring...

Anna and Amber chat with Dr. Tracie Canada a socio-cultural anthropologist whose ethnographic research uses sport to theorize race, kinship and care, gender, and the performing body. We talk about the lived experiences of Black athletes, the role of sports in human society, the many health implications of a contact sport, and more. Find Tracie's work here: https://www.traciecanada.com/

Hello, and welcome to the new and improving Dirt Podcast! If you’re a longtime listener, welcome back and thank you so much for sticking with us. If you’re new to The Dirt, welcome! On normal episodes, we explore stories from archaeology and anthropology in a way that is hopefully accessible and entertaining for anyone, regardless of educational background. If you’re fascinated by the lives of peo...

This week, Anna and Amber have a Thing*: it’s an episode all about the Viking Age! Sail with us through an exploration of life during the Viking Age. We talk about the ships they sailed, the food they ate, and the helmets they DIDN'T wear. Plus, some very experimental archaeology, and Amber learns how the salami is made...and nothing will ever be the same. *Thing: An Old Norse word for an assembly...

This week, while Anna and Amber's actual selves will be on the West Coast, the show heads for the East Coast-- of Africa, that is! Take a whirlwind tour of the Swahili coast and the economic and cultural exchanges over land and sea it has enjoyed for more than a thousand years, before zooming in on the very powerful, and very cool, medieval sultanate of Kilwa Kisawani. To learn more: Making Histor...

Halloween may be over, but Anna and Amber are keeping it spooky as they discuss curses and their consequences this week. Anna shares some tactics for recovering stolen tunics at Aquae Sulis (Bath, England), and what perils awaited medieval Javanese wrongdoers. Meanwhile, Amber looks at a ritual executioner from Australia, his highly collectible shoes, his supernatural counterpart, and the very rea...

This week, Anna and Amber hunker down around the campfire to talk about things that go bump in the night, and encounter some common themes from around the world. Amber fangirls over a baby-snatching Mesopotamian demon and stumbles upon a familiar monster in Native American myth, while Anna offers some DIY advice for combating medieval witches. To learn more about these (and other!) boogeypeople, c...

This week, Anna introduces us to Bronze Age Britain and Amber tells us about the very, very unexpected discoveries at Cladh Hallan, Scotland. For maximum spookiness, don't read ahead: it's a real rollercoaster of a story about Bronze Age life, and death, and... after-death? Get ready, everyone. This one's nightmare fuel. To learn more (and see photos!), check out: Must Farm Latest archaeological f...

We talk to REAL LIVE FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGIST Dr. Jon Bethard (University of South Florida) about his career path from bassoons to bioarchaeology, the many duties of a coroner, life in Transylvanian villages, vampires (maybe), and his important work helping to identify victims of political conflicts and natural disasters all over the world. Learn more about Dr. Bethard and his work at: University o...

This week we round out this month's coverage of indigenous Latin America with a look at the Ancestral Puebloans of the American Southwest. We couldn't fit 10,000 years of human experience and complexity into a single episode, so instead we highlight some architectural and engineering achievements, petroglyphs, and some of the mythological beings represented in them. Plus, the origins of the word "...

This week Anna and Amber run through the history of the Rarámuri of Chihuahua, Mexico. It's more than just sandals and beer, folks! Plus, a rundown of some of the biomechanics of ultramarathon running, and a theory for how Homo sapiens successfully overran Europe. If you’d like to learn more about this week’s topic, why not start with: “The Tarahumaras,” from GEOG 571: Cultural Intelligence, Appli...

It’s Latinx and Hispanic Heritage Month here in the United States! This week, we attempt to help you (and ourselves) be less wrong about the most famous early Latin American cultures. Amber provides a crash course on Aztec, Inca, and Maya history and the thorny issues of contemporary indigenous cultural identity, while Anna chimes in with fun facts and Very Cool Things about each group! To learn m...

It wouldn't be the internet if there weren't cats, so this week is the purr-fect op-paw-tunity to talk about Felis catus. Apologies (a-paw-logies? No? Ok, we'll stop) in advance, there's an odd crackling in the final minutes, but don't let that stop you from learning all about the history of kitties, their domestication, and some of their silly antics from the past several millennia. If you're sti...

What better time to discuss the domestication and use of Canis familiaris than here in the dog days of summer? Anna and Amber discuss recent research tracing how wolves evolved into the pups we know and love, the earliest dogs known in the archaeological record, the evolution of our relationship with them, and some Very Good Boys and Girls throughout history. Plus, medieval pet name suggestions, A...