Episode 18

Cladh Hallan: An Episode in...Several Parts!

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 finds at Must Farm provide a vivid picture of everyday life in the Bronze Age (University of Cambridge)

History made: In an astonishing Bronze Age discovery a 3000-year-old community has been unearthed (CNN)

The Prehistoric Village at Cladh Hallan (University of Sheffield)

Mummification in Bronze Age Britain (BBC)

"Frankenstein" Bog Mummies Discovered in Scotland (National Geographic)

Ancient DNA typing shows that a Bronze Age mummy is a composite of different skeletons (Journal of Archaeological Science)

Solved: the mystery of Britain’s Bronze Age mummies (The Conversation)

Mummification in Bronze Age Britain (Antiquity)

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The Dirt Podcast
Archaeology, Anthropology, and our shared human past.

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The Dirt Podcast

As science communicators in anthropology and archaeology, we hosts of The Dirt acknowledge that we hold a position of considerable privilege and opportunity, and commit ourselves to continuous learning, unlearning and reflection. We recognize that our disciplines, as well as our own lives, are rooted in and propped up by settler colonialism, white supremacy, and dispossession.

We now reside on the stolen ancestral territory of the Shawnee and Haudenosaunee and on the lands of the Muscogee and Cherokee Nations, but over its lifetime, The Dirt has also been produced on the unceded traditional territory of the Piscataway Conoy and Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians, as well as that of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, Patwin and Miwok peoples and all those dispossessed by Cession 296. We offer our show as a platform for Indigenous scholarship, history, and cultural expression, through citation and conversation, and we welcome the opportunity to host and compensate Indigenous scholars of archaeology and anthropology as interview guests.

Likewise, we encourage all listeners who reside in settler-colonial states to learn about on whose land they reside, their place in the ongoing process of colonization, and how to contribute materially to reparations and Indigenous sovereignty.