Episode 15

The Tarahumara (Rarámuri) Runners

This week Anna and Amber run through the history of the Rarámuri of Chihuahua, Mexico. It's more than just sandals and beer, folks! Plus, a rundown of some of the biomechanics of ultramarathon running, and a theory for how Homo sapiens successfully overran Europe.

If you’d like to learn more about this week’s topic, why not start with:

“The Tarahumaras,” from GEOG 571: Cultural Intelligence, Applied Geography, and Homeland Security (Penn State)

The Sacred Corn Beer of the Tarahumara (NPR)

Tarahumara Runner Lorena Ramírez Makes History at Spain’s Ultramarathon (Remezcla)

Decorated Tarahumara Runner Calls on AMLO’s Support so She Can Continue Racing (Remezcla)

The legend of the Tarahumara: Tourism, overcivilization and the white man's Indian (International Journal of the History of Sport)

Harvard Professor Explains How the Tarahumara Run So Well in Those Sandals (Remezcla)

Strike type variation among Tarahumara Indians in minimal sandals versus conventional running shoes (Journal of Sport and Health Science)

1975 advertisement for The Earth Shoe

Athletic shoes with reverse slope construction (Justia Patents)

The science of elite long distance running (The Conversation)

Early humans won at running; Neandertals won at walking (Phys.org)

Choguita Rarámuri (Tarahumara) Phonology and Morphology (UC Berkeley Dissertation via eScholarship)

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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.