Episode 28

New Year, Old Stuff: Our Most-Anticipated Archaeology for 2019

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 our way!

To learn more about what we want to learn more about, check out:

The 10 Biggest Archaeology Stories of 2018 (LiveScience)

Mysterious sarcophagus opened in Alexandria (CNN)

Ancient Infant's DNA Reveals New Clues to How the Americas Were Peopled (The Atlantic)

Fermented beverage and food storage in 13,000 y-old stone mortars at Raqefet Cave, Israel: Investigating Natufian ritual feasting (Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports)

Scientists Stunned by a Neanderthal Hybrid Discovered in a Siberian Cave (The Atlantic)

Terminal Pleistocene Alaskan genome reveals first founding population of Native Americans (Nature)

Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived on Amazon, available at your local independent bookstore!

Ancient lowland Maya complexity as revealed by airborne laser scanning of northern Guatemala (Science)

Iron Age Teenagers (Archaeology)

The Dare Stones (Brenau University)

Is This Inscribed Stone a Notorious Forgery—or the Answer to America’s Oldest Mystery? (National Geographic)

Etzanoa Conservancy

'Miracle' Excavation of 'Little Foot' Skeleton Reveals Mysterious Human Relative (LiveScience)

A multiscale stratigraphic investigation of the context of StW 573 Little Foot and Member 2, Sterkfontein Caves, South Africa (bioRXiv)

A multispectral imaging approach integrated into the study of Late Antique textiles from Egypt (PLOSOne)

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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.