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Deep Cuts: Definitely A Lost Cause (Confederate Treasure)

This month, we revisit something that's haunted Amber since we watched Sahara: what was the deal with that Confederate gold? Where's it hidden? Did it ever exist? What even is currency? We tackle all these questions and more, before exploring other, definitely real, treasure hunts that have happened in the United States. 

Confederate States dollar (via Wikipedia)

The Georgia Odyssey of the Confederate Gold (The Georgia Historical Quarterly)

What we learned from History's 'The Curse of Civil War Gold' (MLive)

Michigan Civil War gold mystery returns to History channel (MLive)

Did the FBI find a fabled cache of lost Civil War gold? Pa. court order might help treasure hunters find out (PennLive)

On the Trail of the Golden Owl (Wikipedia)

Forrest Fenn confirms his treasure has been found (Santa Fe New Mexican)

Eccentric jeweller sparks treasure hunt for buried millions (NZ Herald)

And a bonus we didn't tackle in the show: X Marks the Spot (Texas Monthly)

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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.