The Dirt Podcast

This week we're pushing our "um, actually" glasses up the bridge of our nose and busting some myths about archaeology. Was 30 the new 80 in the Paleolithic? Would someone from the Middle Ages be too short to ride a rollercoaster? Carbon dating is pretty precise, right? Can we tell if a skeleton is a lady? All this and more!

Vacation season is here, and Anna and Amber are island-bound: To the site of Liang Bua, Indonesia! Join them as they get to know Homo floresiensis, our diminutive extinct cousins in Flores, and discuss their place on our complicated, ever evolving human family tree. Plus, local lore about small, hairy cave-dwellers said to steal food and/or children, and a brief moment of Hobbit (TM) Drama.

Sink your teeth into this nutrient-dense episode, in which we discuss the recent discovery of bread(-like substances) in the Eastern Mediterranean from more than 14,000 years ago, and learn more about what one might actually have eaten in the Paleolithic. Plus, Anna tells us what we can learn from stuff stuck in your teeth, and we speculate wildly about Iberian vegan Neanderthals.

We POKE AROUND the subject of tattoos. What are the oldest ones? What do they mean? How were they made? This one gets under our skin.

We're steppin' out to talk about some of the oldest human footprints ever found in North America, Europe, and Africa. We encounter a giant sloth hunt, and Amber and Anna have a series of existential crises as we dive deeper and deeper into the depths of time. Worry not, though: despite a strange audio glitch that suggests otherwise, Anna is not recording from beyond the grave. #notallsloths

Bienvenue, and welcome to Le Dirt! This week, we discuss the discovery and translation of the Rosetta Stone. We brush off our best French accents, geek out over dead languages, and realize that we are very, very bad at pop culture references. Support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/thedirtpodcast for bonus episodes, extra content, and our undying gratitude!

Anna introduces The Dirt's Patreon, and walks you through everything in store for patrons at each support level. Shoutouts, postcards, BONUS EPISODES, and more await generous patrons like you! Support us at: https://www.patreon.com/thedirtpodcast Yeah Yeah by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: http://audionautix.com/

Strap on the barf bags, folks, because today we're talking about bog butter, ancient beekeeping, and where Classical poets thought baby bees come from. Plus, Amber shares a cautionary tale about licking things on an excavation. Hey--never put archaeology in your mouth.

After a curious coincidence in 1924, the world's weirdest paperweight was revealed to be the fossilized remains of one of our earliest ancestors.

In our first episode, we introduce ourselves and talk a little bit about archaeology, anthropology, and how we definitely do not study dinosaurs. Also, hot takes on some of pop culture's most important "archaeologists."

Join Anna and Amber, two friends and big nerds, as they get excited about all the weird, amazing, mysterious, and fascinating stories from our human past.