The Archaeology Show

On this week’s news episode we start with two stories about slavery. The first comes from the discovery of a 2000 year old child’s show found in an Austrian mine. The second is from Ghana and the discovery of Britain’s first slave fort in Africa. Finally, we learn about conclusive evidence of Vikings arriving in the Americas well before Columbus. Links 2,000-Year-Old Child's Shoe Found in Austrian...

What if time travel were possible? Well, it is, sort of. Into the future, anyway. But what about time travel to the past? What rules would a time traveler likely have to follow from a historical perspective? Where would Chris and Rachel like to go and what would we like to do or see? We talk about all this on today’s episode. Where would you go? When would you go? Links From historical holidays to...

Seriously, it’s the last time we’ll talk about Greece. Well, our trip to Greece. Of course we’ll keep talking about Greece because it’s a SUPER cool place! Anyway, we talk about Athens, the Parthenon and the Acropolis, the Agora, and Kerameikos necropolis. Links History of Athens The Acropolis - UNESCO Site Athens Acropolis The Acropolis Kerameikos The Agora of Athens Rick Steves Audio Tours Conta...

Well, we had to do something for Halloween because, well, that’s what podcasts do. So, in our style, we decided to talk about Vampires from a few news articles we found in the last couple months. Where does the legend come from? What did historic cultures do to suspected vampires? We learn all about it on this episode. Links Archaeologists unearth 17th Century ‘vampire child’ burial in Poland http...

It’s another episode about Greece! We hope you love it as much as we did. On today’s show we talk about Crete and the Palace at Knossos. Knossos is where the Minoan civilization got it’s name from. Links Crete - from Britannica https://www.britannica.com/place/Crete Knossos: Palace of the Minoans https://www.livescience.com/27955-knossos-palace-of-the-minoans.html Contact Chris Webster chris@archa...

This week it’s another Greece episode featuring some of our travels. We spent a week on the island of Naxos and there is so much cool history there. We talk about the Portara, the remains of an ancient temple, the. Temple of Demeter, a Colossal Kouros, and olive presses. Links Naxos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxos Naxos History https://www.naxos.net/history/ Naxos Portara (or Temple Of Apollo)...

Chris and Rachel are on an epic trip and we talk about a few of the places we visited on today’s show. First up is Split and Dubrovnik in Croatia. Aside from being picturesque and awesome cities with wonderful people, Dubrovnik was also the filming site for Kings Landing and other locations in HBO’s Game of Thrones. In the third segment we talk about the small country of Montenegro and it’s massiv...

UNESCO meet in September to review the nominations to the World Heritage list from 2022 and 2023. They have added added a bunch of new sites, so this week we take a look at some of our favorite new ones. Also, we talk about sites that have been removed from the “in danger” list, as well as a couple that have unfortunately been added to it. Links The 27 new Unesco World Heritage Sites for 2023 reve...

We are headed to Greece for a working vacation, so we have been on the lookout for new archaeology news about Ancient Greece! Today we’ve got a story about the furthest east ancient Greek City to be found, a rare and valuable marble lion head, and some temple ruins on an uninhabited Greek island with 2,400 year old statues. Links What Became of the Ancient Greek City they Found in Afghanistan http...

his week we have 3 interesting archaeology news stories. First, we take a look at an article about Roman structure in the Swiss Alps. Then we head to Egypt where researchers are performing chemical analysis on the residue on the jars that held a mummy’s organs. And finally we look at an article about a site in in Peru where the remains of a possible religious cult leader have been uncovered. Links...

On this news episode we start with a cool discovery in England and a great law that benefits everyone. Then we go to Spain and some very ancient burial practices. Finally, we look at one researcher that things oral histories, language, and genetics point to a massively early arrival of humans to the Americas. Links Amateur archaeologists 'disbelief' after finding rare Roman treasure in field: http...

We’ve got a news episode this week and three great articles. First up is possibly the world’s oldest synagogue outside of Israel. However, not everyone believes it. Then we’ve got an article about some civil war soldiers that we know a lot more about now. Finally, what happens when you worship a god of the sea and it all goes wrong? The Greek city of Helike has an idea about that from 2,600 years...

We mention there is a YouTube video of this episode. Well, that was before we tried to edit it. There was a big error that couldn’t be overcome in the processing of the video. So, you don’t get to see Chris’ ugly face and Rachel’s face-for-video…maybe next week! Lately it seems like every archaeology news article we read references the Stone, Bronze or Iron Age as a hook in the headline. We were c...

We’re back with a news episode! This time we’ve got fast food in Pompeii, someone found the Kingdom of David, again, and an awesome female warrior. Links Pompeii had kitchen shrines, dozens of bakeries, and a 'pizza' fresco: https://www.insider.com/pompeii-kitchen-shrines-bakeries-pizza-fresco-archeology-russo-snake-find-2023-7 Archaeologist Controversially Claims He's Found The Bible's Kingdom Of...

We’re playing an episode of the ArchaeoTech podcast for you on today’s episode. However, it was one that Chris and Rachel took over to do some tech-related news stories. We talk about artificial intelligence and how it’s being used to translate ancient text and find new sites. Links Segment 1 AI identifies 3 more 'Nazca Lines' figures in Peru Accelerating the discovery of new Nasca geoglyphs using...

For some reason we have a Brazilian-themed show today…we start with the recovered skeletal remains of a teenager with a debilitating disease with an intricate bead bracelet. Then we look at an impossibly old site with jewelry made by very ancient Brazilians. Finally, we look at the discovery of a ship scuttled by a truly terrible person during the slave trade years. Links Segment 1: Skeleton of Di...

We’ve got three news stories for you today. First we go to England and find out just how big a “giant hand axe” is. Then we learn about textiles and jewelry from an Iron Age cremation burial. Finally, we’re honing in on the oldest human sites in North America with some new dates from a site in Oregon. Links Segment 1 Giant Hand Axes Discovered in England Point to Prehistoric Humans' 'Strength and...

We’ve got a few really interesting news articles for this week. First, a priest found what he called the “backdoor to hell” in Mexico in the 1600s and sealed it off. Archaeologists may have found it. The we look at a Dutch henge complex that could have been use to monitor the solstices. Finally, we learn about a possible Age of Bamboo in the Philippines 39,000 years ago. Links Archaeologists Found...

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was just released so you know we had to review it! We start with an overview of the movie plot, and then we spend some time looking at how historically accurate the artifacts, people, and events were. We rank the movie on a scale of 1-10 as well as all the IJ movies in order of best to worst, what’s your ranking?? Here’s ours: Rachel: Dial of Destiny 8/10; IJ...

On this week’s news episode we first cover some cool bird bone flutes that were used up to 12,000 years ago as calls for birds of prey. We then go to Greece where the archaeological record has been pushed back a quarter million years to about 700,000 years ago by the presence of stone tools. Finally, we talk about some ancient ovens that were used consistently for over 5000 years by native America...

Chris, one of the hosts, is a lefty. He’s always had to deal with what that means. But, why are 85% of humans right-handed while only a disproportionate few are left-handed? It’s not fair! But, it is evolutionary. On today’s episode we talk about how we know when handedness in humans likely developed and why it was the right side that became dominant. Segment two features an interview for Lana Ruc...

This week we have 3 archaeology news articles. First, even more research points to animal digesta playing a crucial role in providing nutrition to prehistoric peoples. Once again, this also challenges the traditional idea that men were the hunters in hunter-gatherer societies. Then we head over to Barcelona were 9 Roman era burials were found below the city streets. And finally, a site with 37 sta...

On today’s show we have 3 news stories from the Middle East. The first story is about rock art “blueprints” for desert kites in Jordan. Then we move over to Jerusalem where researchers have tested the microbes left behind in ancient toilets and a stone receipt was found on the pilgrimage road between the gates of the city and the temple. We finish up with a short update about the archaeology proje...

We’ve got three stories about pretty well known places or events. The first contains a video and pictures representing over 700,000 images that were stitched together to form the most complete views of the Titanic, ever! We then go to Pompeii to discover that not everyone died as a result of the eruption of Vesuvius. Finally, we head down to Maya country to see a CRM project find a rare sculpture...

We saved the drama for, well, YOU this time! We start with an archaeologist that’s trying to build somewhat of an archaeology theme park in Guatemala and the local community isn’t having it. Then we go to Netflix’s latest blunder regarding a show about Cleopatra. Finally, if you find something in England with your metal detector you’d better report it or suffer the consequences. Links U.S. Archeol...