The Dirt Podcast

If you thought we were experts, well, that's about to change. This week, Anna and Amber wade out into the great unknown-to-them of British history and discuss Richard III and the events that led to the excavation of his remains from a parking lot in Leicester, England. Plus, the secret to Richard III's perfectly aligned teeth, other rulers whose final resting places remain a mystery, and the curse...

This week, we fake it til we make it, tackling four archaeological hoaxes. Even when things aren't what they seem...they aren't what they seem. What's the deal with that stone giant in some guy's field? How can that mummified Persian princess be neither Persian nor a princess? Did someone stumble upon the final resting place of Jesus' little brother? Did Vikings inhabit Oklahoma in the 11th centur...

This week we're pushing our "um, actually" glasses up the bridge of our nose and busting some myths about archaeology. Was 30 the new 80 in the Paleolithic? Would someone from the Middle Ages be too short to ride a rollercoaster? Carbon dating is pretty precise, right? Can we tell if a skeleton is a lady? All this and more! To learn more about this week's topic, check out: The idea ancient people...

Vacation season is here, and Anna and Amber are island-bound: To the site of Liang Bua, Indonesia! Join them as they get to know Homo floresiensis , our diminutive extinct cousins in Flores, and discuss their place on our complicated, ever evolving human family tree. Plus, local lore about small, hairy cave-dwellers said to steal food and/or children, and a brief moment of Hobbit (TM) Drama. To le...

Sink your teeth into this nutrient-dense episode, in which we discuss the recent discovery of bread(-like substances) in the Eastern Mediterranean from more than 14,000 years ago, and learn more about what one might actually have eaten in the Paleolithic. Plus, Anna tells us what we can learn from stuff stuck in your teeth, and we speculate wildly about Iberian vegan Neanderthals. For a deeper div...

We POKE AROUND the subject of tattoos. What are the oldest ones? What do they mean? How were they made? This one gets under our skin. To learn more about tattoos and tattooing through the ages:    Siberian Princess reveals her 2,500 year old tattoos  ( The Siberian Times ) Inside the World’s Only Surviving Tattoo Shop For Medieval Pilgrims  (Atlas Obscura) Algeria's Tattoos: My...

We're steppin' out to talk about some of the oldest human footprints ever found in North America, Europe, and Africa. We encounter a giant sloth hunt, and Amber and Anna have a series of existential crises as we dive deeper and deeper into the depths of time. Worry not, though: despite a strange audio glitch that suggests otherwise, Anna is not recording from beyond the grave. #notallsloths To lea...

Bienvenue, and welcome to Le Dirt! This week, we discuss the discovery and translation of the Rosetta Stone. We brush off our best French accents, geek out over dead languages, and realize that we are very, very bad at pop culture references. To learn more about the this week's episode, check out: Digitized versions of Champollion’s work (in French) Précis  (1824)  http://gallica.bnf.fr/...

It's...maybe the most infamous episode of The Dirt! Strap on the barf bags, folks, because today we're talking about bog butter, ancient beekeeping, and where Classical poets thought baby bees come from. Plus, Amber shares a cautionary tale about licking things on an excavation. And hey--never put archaeology in your mouth. To learn more about this week's topic, check out: Carson, Rachel D. (2015)...

After a curious coincidence in 1924, the world's weirdest paperweight was revealed to be the fossilized remains of one of our earliest ancestors. To learn more about today's topic, check out: Lee R. Berger, & Ronald J. Clarke. (1996). The load of the Taung child. Nature, 379(6568), 778-779. Berger, L.R., Clarke, R.J., 1995. Eagle involvement of the Taung child fauna. Journal of Human Evolution...

Meet your hosts, Anna and Amber, talk a little bit about archaeology, anthropology, and how we definitely do not study dinosaurs. Also, we air some hot takes on some of pop culture's most important "archaeologists." To learn more about today's topic, check out: Why Archaeologists Hate Indiana Jones Stepping Through The Stargate: Science, Archaeology And The Military In  Stargate SG1 Archaeolo...

Anna and Amber rummage in the history fridge and pile up a Dagwood sandwich of tasty leftover Viking morsels. Learn about Viking games and sports, Norse trade systems, mythology and more! To learn more, check out: Games and Sports in the Viking Age (Hurstwic) Towns and Trading in the Viking Age (Hurstwic) And get your hnefatafl on with this printable board !

This week, Anna and Amber are in the holiday spirit and ready to celebrate Chrono-kah! A holiday that we just made up where we try to fathom the immensity of time! What's the difference between the Stone Age and the Paleolithic? When is North America finally going to enter the Bronze Age? Why do we call this year 2018? Were the early Middle Ages faked? Some of these questions are easier to answer...

Anna and Amber can’t help you with your real medical complaints, but they’re here with a whole batch of knowledge* about what people used to do for their sniffles (and worse). So grab your tea, lozenges, and a mouthful of miscellaneous herbs and shuffle along with us as we explore ways in which diseases have been diagnosed and treated over the millennia. *Not medical knowledge! Go see a doctor! To...

Never heard of anthropodermic bibliopegy? That's about to change, friends! This week, Anna and Amber look at some unexpected objects made out of people, and discuss the effect of such objects on the living. Content note: We discuss modification of human remains, so please exercise discretion in listening. Our content warning goes double for this week’s show notes! As your editor (Amber) realized h...

Grab a cup of cocoa (or something stronger) and join Anna and Amber as they don their coziest jammies and tell the story of Mithras, the lesser-known Reason For The Season from the ancient world. Learn how religions shift through time and place, and why you might want to feast on bull meat in a cave with some Romans this holiday season. To learn more, check out: The Roman Cult of Mithras (The Tert...

Anna and Amber are keeping the festive mood alive this week with a wine and cheese platter for your ears, and boy howdy, is it a silly one... and we weren't even drinking! Learn about the world's oldest wine gunk and the many (many!) sizes of wine bottles, and then we'll discuss the difference between wine and "wine," and nibble on some stories about very, very aged cheese. Old Wine: An ancient ti...

In a very special mid-week release, Anna and Amber take a look at the handful of rad archaeological discoveries that happened in 2018 that they're resolving to learn more about in 2019. From that juicy sarcophagus in Alexandria, to the bajillion newly detected Maya structures in Guatemala, to the itty bitty bones of the newest addition to our hominin family tree, there's so much research coming ou...

Anna and Amber work their way up the trunk of our shared evolutionary tree, tackling the thorny issues of identifying our earliest mammal, primate, and hominin ancestors. We learn about the early development of bipedal walking, and really struggle (as usual) with the question of deep time, but this week it escalates to wondering how anybody knows anything. All we know is, we didn’t come from no mo...

Anna heads further up the family tree (as Amber lags behind, gasping), and introduces us to our Australopith and Paranthropus relatives. You can always rely on us for our australo-pithiness: Anna gives us the scoop on Lucy's new neighbor Selam and tells us about why babies have such grabby little hands, while Amber grapples with the prospect of a world before people and realizes she might have met...

In this episode, we conclude our journey along the human timeline with a look at the genus Homo, of which we are all card-carrying members. Amber also contributes a brief study of human butts-- what's up with them? To learn more about our closest relatives, and ourselves: Human Evolution Timeline Interactive (Smithsonian Institution) Human Fossils (Smithsonian Institution) Exploring the fossil rec...

We all do it. We've done it for millions of years. It's the Poopisode, a Very Special Sponsor pick! Anna and Amber discuss coprolites (archaeological poo), and some of the surprising things we've learned from it. Anna's pun game has rarely been stronger, and Amber...well, Amber survived this episode. If you want to learn more (and admit it, you do), check out: To Truly Know an Ancient Society, One...

Every year, the American football season ends with the Big Game, but this week, Anna and Amber are superfans of a much bigger game: the 3500-year-old Mesoamerican ballgame. From its Olmec origins to the athletes keeping it alive today, learn all about how to play, why you might not want to (ouch), and what makes it so significant to past and present communities. To learn more about this week’s top...

Valentine's Day is upon us, and love is in the air-- love for relative and absolute dating methods, that is! Anna brings the science with C14 dating and its gang of radiometric friends, boggles minds with flipped magnetic poles and the last time archaeological material saw the sun, and finds some hot tree-ring takes in California. Meanwhile, Amber goes on a bit of a jag about ancient imperialism,...

It's another sponsored episode! This week, we bring you the fascinating (and sometimes delicious) topic of evolutionary anachronisms. What happens when two species co-evolve to support one another, but one goes extinct? What's up with that obscure, hipster fruit, the paw-paw, and why is Amber mad at NPR? What can blue jays tell us about human impulsivity? All this and more! Gallery of Megafauna Fr...