The Extreme History Project: The Dirt on the Past

Join Crystal and Nancy, co-hosts of The Dirt on the Past podcast, for a history minute!  

Join Crystal and Nancy, co-hosts of The Dirt on the Past podcast, for a history minute!  

Join Crystal and Nancy, co-hosts of The Dirt on the Past podcast, for a history minute!  

Join us as we speak with Micah Chang about his time working on the first joint archaeological field school between the University of Montana and Montana State University. This field school, initiated by the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, was held to immerse students in federal archeology. Students conducted field surveys and carried out archival research on an African American mining and ho...

Join us for our conversation with Sarah Rosenberg, the Historic Preservation Officer for the City of Bozeman, MT. We discuss all things historic preservation with Sarah including her vision to tell stories of the underrepresented communities and promote the protection of intangible heritage. We do a little myth busting about what you can, and cannot, do to your house if you live in a historic dist...

Join us as we talk with filmmaker, Kimberly Hogberg about her film, The Story of Us: The Women who Shaped Montana. This short film was a collaboration with The Extreme History Project, so we are so excited to talk about the film and its debut on Montana PBS! We discuss the film and what goes into creating a historical documentary including the fundraising, the filming, the editing, and the post-pr...

Join us for a conversation with Francesca Pine-Rodriguez, the Director of the nonprofit, Mountain Time Arts that is based in Bozeman, MT. We discuss a program led by MTA, Yellowstone Revealed, a series of place-based projects led by a group of inter-tribal Indigenous artists and scholars that happened in Yellowstone National Park during the summer of 2022. We also discuss Indigenous Peoples' Day a...

Join Nancy and Crystal as they discuss the mythology and true archaeology surrounding the Runestones in the Americas and archaeological evidence of early Norse Settlements before Columbus. We use the series America Unearthed on the History Channel as an example of how to spot entertainment versus scientific evidence that supports archaeological or historical theories.

Join us as we talk with Kate Moore, a New York Times Bestselling Author about her new book, The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear. This is a narrative, non-fiction page-turner about Elizabeth Packard who was a housewife and mother of six in 1860, when her husband of 21 years has her committed to an insane asylum s...

Caleb Gayle talks with us about his new book, We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power. This book tells the story of the Creek Nation, a group that historically owned slaves and accepted Black people as full citizens. The story is told through the lens of a few people, but most prominently a man named Cow Tom, a Black Creek citizen who rose to become chief of...

Mark Johnson recently published, The Middle Kingdom Under the Big Sky: A History of the Chinese Experience in Montana. We discuss the book, including experiences of Chinese women in Montana. We also talk about Mark's new project in collaboration with the Mai Wah Museum, to translate Chinese headstones in cemeteries located in Helena, Bozeman, Billings, and Butte. The translations will identify the...

Archaeologist, Bisserka Gaydarska, discusses Ukranian Mega Sites with us this week. The Trypillia megasites of Ukraine are the largest known settlements in 4th millennium BC Europe and possibly the world. With the largest reaching 1.2 square miles in size, megasites raise questions about their origins and purpose. Current theories assume maximum occupation, with all houses occupied at the same tim...

Betsy Gaines Quammen discusses her book, American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God & Public Lands in the West. Our discussion explores how the Bundy family mix spiritualism, patriotism, and wild places to assert possession over western federal lands. We discuss the myth of the cowboy, militia conceptions of public land in the west, wilderness, and Mormon history. Dr. Betsy Gaines Quammen holds a doctorate...

Join Nancy and Crystal for a conversation with Dr. Jennifer Hill as we discuss her new book, Birthing the West: Mothers and Midwives in the Rockies and Plains. This book delves into the history of childbirth and reproduction in the west, focusing on the mid-1800s through the 1940s in the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana. We talk about Jennifer's research methodology, untold histories of birth on the...

Join Nancy and Crystal as we talk with author and geneticist, Jennifer Raff, on her new book, ORIGIN: A Genetic History of the Americas. We discuss the genetic history of the first peoples in the Americas, who they were, current theories on how they arrived, and why they made the crossing. We delve into how they dispersed south and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their...

Join us as we talk with Dr. Julie Schablitsky about the recent discovery of the spot where Harriet Tubman’s father, Ben Ross, had his home, and where Harriet would have spent some of her childhood. Harriet Tubman was born as Araminta Ross in March 1822 on the Thompson Farm in Maryland. She and her mother were enslaved by the Brodess family and moved away from the farm when she was a toddler. Ben R...

Join us as we talk with Dr. Laura Arata about her book, Race and the Wild West: Sarah Bickford, The Montana Vigilantes, and the Tourism of Decline, 1870-1930. We discuss the life of Sarah Bickford, a black woman who grew up enslaved in Tennessee and then traveled to Montana Territory after she was emancipated. Sarah settled in the gold rush town of Virginia City where she lived out the rest of her...

Join Nancy and Crystal as they discuss the new series, 1883. This is a prequal to the popular, Yellowstone series that premiered in 2018. Yellowstone is an American drama created by Taylor Sheridan and John Linson that follows the fictional Dutton family, owners of the largest cattle ranch in Montana. The prequal, 1883, follows the origins of the Dutton family on a a journey from Texas to Montana...

Who owns the past and the objects that connect us to history? We discuss this and so much more with Chip Colwell as we talk about his book, Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America's Culture. Our conversation revolves around NAPRA, repatriation of human remains, and ultimately human dignity and the importance of relationships. Chip Colwell is the founding Edi...

Join us for this timely conversation with Doug MacDonald on his book, Before Yellowstone: Native American Archaeology in the Park. As Yellowstone National Park celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2022, we discuss the deep history of people living in this region. The archaeological research done by Doug and his team of students from the University of Montana shows that the wild landscape has a long...

Join us as we recap our year of podcast episodes. We discuss what we've learned from our amazing guests, and some highlights from our second season of podcasting. We dive into the why we think this podcast is important and our take-aways from the year. Join us for this final conversation of 2021!

Join us as we talk with Chris Tomlinson about his new book, Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth, co-written with Bryan Burrough and Jason Stanford. Every nation needs its creation myth, and since Texas was a nation before it was a state, it's no surprise that its myths bite deep. There's no piece of history more important to Texans than the Battle of the Alamo, when Davy Crocke...

Join us as we talk with Utah State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) with the Utah Division of State History, Christopher Merritt, about his work as a SHPO and his interest in historic Chinese communities in the West. We talk specifically about a ghost town called Terrace, UT. Terrace was once a bustling town located along the transcontinental railroad, but has long since been dismantled and ab...

Join us as we talk with archaeologist Jack Fisher about his career as an archaeologist. We discuss his ethnoarchaeological research among the Efe people in the Ituri Forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his work at First People's Buffalo Jump in Montana, his research partnership with John Parkington of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and his...

Join us for a conversation with Dr. Lilly White on her work as a forensic anthropologist. We talk about how she became interested in the field, the cultural and historical traditions around death and dying, Lilly's work during the pandemic as a condolence specialist, and what her work as a forensic anthropologist entails. Lilly received her PhD in Anthropology in 2019 from the University of Montan...