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Old News, April 2021

Yesterday's news, tomorrow. This month we’ve got racism in archaeology, other racism in archaeology, connecting with others across time and space, people enjoying the little things hundreds of thousands of years ago, a heads up that aliens aren’t responsible for ruins found in China, and a study with recommendations for doing something about all that racism in archaeology.

Stories discussed in this ep:

An archaeology society hosted a talk against returning Indigenous remains. Some want a new society (Science)

Remains of children killed in MOVE bombing sat in a box at Penn Museum for decades (Billy Penn)

The day Philadelphia bombed its own people (Vox)

Archaeological Finding Points to Previously Unseen Connections Between Ancient Mesoamerican Civilizations (ArtNews)

Somebody in the Kalahari Had a Crystal Collection 105,000 Years Ago (Ha’aretz)

Stone Age house painstakingly recreated by archaeologists using bone tools and ancient materials (Telegraph)

'Completely unfounded': Chinese archaeologists refute 'alien theory' about Sanxingdui Ruins (Global Times)

Stunning discoveries at China's Sanxingdui Ruins (Global Times)

Archaeologists say removing statues will not “erase history” (Open Access Government)

Iron Age warriors BENT the swords of their defeated enemies, ancient hoard discovered in Germany reveals (The Daily Mail)

The Limes Arabicus – The Desert Frontier of the Roman Empire (Heritage Daily)

A New Archaeology for the Anthropocene Era (YubaNet.com)

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About the Podcast

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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.