Episode 219

The Dirt Rocks Out

If you don't like this episode, well, you can go kick rocks! Just... not these rocks, they're culturally significant. That's right, it's an episode about megaliths, monoliths, and other kinds of -liths that were placed on the landscape by humans. Y'all. There are so many big rocks. We spend some time thinking about cultural memory, heritage, and colonial dispossession of these monuments. We also cover the Stonhenge-ification of megalith sites, learn to tell a dolmen from an orthostat, and find some extremely cool desert kites (not the flying kind). So. Many. Big. Rocks.

To learn more:

MTV Arabia “Dabke Dude” promotional spot (via YouTube)

Monumental Colonialism: Megaliths and the Appropriation of Australia's Aboriginal Past (Journal of Material Culture)

Aspects of the Megalithic Era (Newgrange.com)

Astronomy of Nabta Playa (African Skies)

Interactive Map (Globalkites)

Desert Monoliths Reveal Stone Age Architectural Blueprints (New York Times)

The Use of Desert Kites as Hunting Mega-Traps: Functional Evidence and Potential Impacts on Socioeconomic and Ecological Spheres  (Journal of World Prehistory)

The Sailing Stones of Death Valley (National Park Foundation)

Radiocarbon dates and Bayesian modeling support maritime diffusion model for megaliths in Europe (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

What Was Stonehenge For? The Answer Might Be Simpler Than You Thought. (New York Times)

5 Strange Theories About Stonehenge (LiveScience)

Indonesian Megaliths: A Forgotten Cultural Heritage (eBook via Google Play)

Dolmens of Ancient Korea (World History Encyclopedia)

Gochang, Hwasun and Ganghwa Dolmen Sites (UNESCO)

Dolmens in Gochang, Hwasun and Ganghwa (Korea Cultural Heritage Administration)

Identity and power in the ancient Andes: Tiwanaku cities through time (via Archive.org)

Alien Architects Didn't Build This Pre-Incan Complex, 3D Models Show (LiveScience)

Tiwanaku Lecture Resources (Dr. Alexei Vranich)

Megalithic monumentality in Africa: from graves to stone circles at Wanar, Senegal (Antiquity)

Stone circles of Senegambia (UNESCO) (via YouTube)

Stone Circles of Senegambia (UNESCO)

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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.