A Life In Ruins

On this episode of A Life in Ruins, we continue our series on ancient civilization and discuss Indus Valley Civilizations and their precursors. We have Stefan Milo join us to discuss this region. Stefan Milo is a popular Youtuber who has appeared on episodes 20 and 43. He made a video on an Indus Valley Civilization where he discusses the interesting lack of social hierarchy found in this civiliza...

We celebrate our 69th episode by investigating the rise of early state civilizations in South America. The four early states that we cover are Norte Chico, Chavin, Nazca, and of course, Moche. This episode is a wild ride of pyramids, ceremonial complexes, severed heads, and Moche sex pots. Sprinkled throughout the episode are references to Star Wars, Civilization, SAA conferences, South Park, Rick...

Buckle up for an episode on the theory of the rise of early states and ancient civilizations. Episode 68 sets the stage for a series investigating early civilizations across the globe. We break down Elman Service and Lewis Henry Morgan's theories on cultural complexity and go through a couple of definitions for "civilization". Think that's going to be boring? Well just wait, we even talk about pri...

In this episode of the A Life in Ruins Podcast, we interview Kelly Brown, the Archives Lab Manager at the Augusta Veterans Curation Program. Her main job component is managing archives, her secondary responsibility is being David's workplace babysitter. She recently graduated with a Master's Degree in Library and Information science (MLIS) and has accepted a position at the Savannah River Site Mus...

We wrap up our animal domestication series with a discussion about animals that were domesticated in North and South America. We cover llamas, guinea pigs (so startled), turkey's and a few other domesticates that the three hosts didn't know about. Of course, there are plenty of South Park and Disney Movie references throughout the episode. Literature Recommendations Animal Domestication - Table of...

In this episode of A Life in Ruins podcast, The hosts have another off the rails discussion about domesticates. This time however, talking llamas, guinea pigs, camels, horses, goats, and dogs. You might notice that not all of them are Old World Domesticates. Honestly, you’ll just have to listen to the episode understand. It is actually a very thoughtful and funny conversation about the idiosyncras...

In this episode, we delve back into the Paleoindian period. We interview Kelton Meyer, a graduate student in anthropology at Colorado State University about his research on game drives in the Rocky Mountains and the techniques he utilizes to analyze spatial relationships. The three hosts also chat with Kelton about his recent publications and research awards.  Literature Recommendations David...

For this episode of Just the Boyz, we kick off our series on animal domesticates, starting with the oldest known domesticated animal: the dog. We are fortunate to have David as a one of the hosts as he is one of the leading public scholars when it comes to the relationship between dogs and humans throughout human history. We chat about the earliest evidence for dog domestication, the leading theor...

In this episode, we are pleased to have Carson Black return to the show. Carson joined us way back on Episode 17 to talk about Primatology and the beginnings of her Master’s thesis research. We are excited to announce that Carson recently graduated with her Master’s degree and are happy to have her back on to talk about her thesis research. We discuss her finishing her degree amid a pandemic, miss...

In this episode, we continue talking about the Revolutionary War, aka the War for American Freedom, aka ‘Merica War’. We hope this one is more factual and just as hilarious as Episode 57. We recount the events following the Crossing of the Delaware River, highlight Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga, the winter at Valley Forge, the alliance between France and the US, and how this alliance changed th...

In this special episode, we discuss the potential closing of the Archaeology Department at Sheffield University with Dr. Umberto Albarella and Helen Thompson. Dr. Albarella is faculty in the Archaeology Department and Helen is a Ph. D. student in the program. They fill us in on what's going at the University of Sheffield, the events leading up to this current controversy, and what we can do to hel...

In this episode, we chat with Dr. Mason Brown, a guest assistant professor for Kathmandu University Department of Music and Affiliate Scholar for the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Asian Studies. We delve into his early interests in ethnomusicology / Tibetan culture and get into the details of what ethnomusicology is. Dr. Brown talks about music theory, pentatonic scales, and all the...

In this episode, we are chatting with Dr. Jamie Goodall. Dr. Goodall is currently a staff historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History and has just released a book about pirates. Her new book is titled, Pirates of the Chesapeake: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars. We grapeshot her with questions about pirates and she enlightens us. So sharpen your sabers and load the muskets, and b...

For this episode of Just the Boyz, the hosts attempt to discuss the events leading up to the American Revolution and the first year of the fight for America's Independence from the English Crown. Early on in this episode, you can tell that hosts have a lot to say without a really coherent plan as to how to say it. The guys are all over the place with this episode, but you can definitely get a sens...

In this edition of Our Ruined Lives, Morgan Kinney, a graduate student at Adams State University, joins the hosts to talk about his career in cultural resources management. Morgan is pursuing an M.A. in CRM, which provided an opportunity for the hosts to discuss the differences between a CRM-based M.A. and a general Anthropology M.A. We close the episode with a discussion on Morgan's experiences i...

In this episode, Dr. Spencer Pelton returns to the show to chat with the hosts about becoming the Wyoming State Archaeologist. Dr. Pelton first appeared on the show as the featured guest for Episode 1, almost two years ago! We dive into the responsibilities of being the Wyoming State Archaeologist and how it differs from most other State Archaeology Offices. Following up on that conversation, we d...

In this special edition of the A Life in Ruins Podcast, Carlton co-hosts an episode with Emily Van Alst, Ash Boydston-Schmidt, and Kay Mattena. The four discuss the recent SAA controversy surrounding the "Curation, Repatriation, and Accessibility: Vital Ethical Conversations" session. Specifically, the “Has Creationism Crept Back into Archaeology?” presentation. The four Indigenous scholars discus...

The hosts discuss four hypotheses for the arrival of humans into the New World: Beringian Land Bridge, Coastal Highway, Solutrean, and Oceanic. They discuss the early Paleoindian site complexes such as Folsom and Clovis in which David (allegedly) reveals the existence of the Clovis Organized Crime Syndicate. A large part of the episode centers around "pre-Clovis" sites and whether they would belon...

In this episode, we are excited to chat with Maynard Okereke, who goes by the Science Communicator persona: Hip Hop M.D. Maynard is a Science Communicator, Entrepreneur, Engineer, and Digital Media Producer who tells us about his undergraduate journey at the University of Washington, his post-college career, and what inspired him to create Hip Hop Science. Maynard is passionate about Science Commu...

In this episode, we chat with Chris Rowe, a returning guest who originally appeared in Episode 12. We begin by catching up with him on his life and his work situation through Covid. After that, we talk about the potential of an archaeology trade school while also discussing the CRM and academic divide. Chris and the cohosts delve deeply into the curation crisis, what it is, what are some contribut...

In this episode, we are chatting with Dr. Jesse Tune, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Fort Lewis College. Now, this isn’t the first time Dr. Tune has been a guest on the Podcast, he first joined us on Episode 37 with Dr. Shane Miller where we talked about some recent updates on the Cerutti Mastodon Site. For this episode, Jesse tells us about his introduction to archaeolog...

In this episode, David, Connor, and Carlton each take a segment to talk about a topic in the past that interests them. David takes the first segment to discuss Alexander The Great and explains his greatness. Connor talks about some of Genghis Khan's policies and his brilliance (although he was still a very bad person). Carlton nerds out about WWII-era aircraft, the "Blitz", and their relationship...

In this episode, we are chatting with Dr. Gino Caspari, a Postdoc in Archaeology at the University of Sydney and the University College London. Dr. Caspari also runs a very popular archaeology Instagram account @ginocaspari that currently has over 123K followers and we discuss the importance of science communication and his experiences on Instagram. We cover his wild and interesting academic caree...

In this edition of Our Ruined Lives, we are pleased to have Erina Baci return to the Podcast. Erina first appeared on Episode 7, way back in October 2019. We begin the show by catching up with her on what she has been up to since she first appeared on the podcast. We then delve into a discussion on the importance of geography and resources to people in the past, modern geopolitics, and how modern...

In this episode, we are pleased to introduce Maria Diget Sletterød, a Danish archaeologist studying the Pre-pottery Neolithic in the Near East at the University of Copenhagen. We start off with a brief introduction as to how the hosts found Maria which was through an Archaeologists in Quarantine episode with Carlton hosted by Tash . Then we delve into her diverse archaeological research and excava...