Hopping Over to Himyar - Ep 204

For the first half of the first millennium CE, Himyar was based in what is today Yemen and flourished thanks to its role in inter-regional trade. We’ll discuss the political landscape of ancient southern Arabia, the conversion of the Himyarite dynasty from polytheism to Judaism, and recently published research on environmental factors that contributed to the Himyarite state’s decline and eventual conquest.

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Links

• Zafar/Yemen - a Brief Summary (via Heidelberg University)

• Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (via Wikisource)

• Zafar, Capital of Himyar, Ibb Province, Yemen: First Preliminary Report: Summer 1998 and Autumn 2000, Second Preliminary Report: 2002, Third Preliminary Report: 2003, Fourth Preliminary Report: 2004 (Archäologische Berichte aus dem Yemen)

• Arabia and Ethiopia (Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity)

• Zafar, Capital of Himyar, Seventh Preliminary Report, February–March 2007-2008

• A Late Antique Christian king from Ẓafār, southern Arabia (Antiquity)

• Non-Destructive Chemical Analysis of Old South Arabian Coins, Fourth Century BCE to Third Century CE (Archaeometry)

• Droughts and societal change: The environmental context for the emergence of Islam in late Antique Arabia (Science)

• Megadrought Contributed to Fall of Jewish Kingdom in Arabia, Rise of Islam, Study Suggests (Ha’aretz)

• Speleothems (Paleoclimatology)

Contact

• Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com

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Video Game Archaeology with Dr. Bill Farley - Ep 192

There are surprising intersections between video game creation and archaeology, and that, of course, comes along with the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of mining ancient history for content creation. Neither Anna nor Amber really grew up playing video games, so we are extremely lucky to have a guest expert, Dr. Bill Farley, Associate Professor of Anthropology at South Connecticut State University. Bill will be our guide on the subject. The Toad to our Mario Party. Right? That’s a thing, right?

Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot!

Connect with James on Twitter: @paleoimaging

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Links

• Bill's YouTube channel

Contact

• Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com

ArchPodNet

• APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com

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How Long Ago Was the Past? - Ep 168

When does “The Past” start, and how far back does it go? How long did it take people to get places in the past? How do we attempt to hold the vastness of time and geography in our minds? Not well, especially in an audio medium, but we’re excited to blow your minds.

Links

• The Greatest Animal War (Nautilus)

• The last slave ship survivor and her descendants identified (National Geographic)

• How Far Can A Horse Travel In A Day? (8 Facts) (Deep Hollow Ranch)

• RGS-IBG Expedition Handbook (Royal Geographical Society)

• Speed Under Sail of Ancient Ships (Transactions of the American Philological Association)

• An Ordinary Ship and Its Stories of Early Globalism: World Travel, Mass Production, and Art in the Global Middle Ages (Journal of Medieval Worlds)

• Royal Road (Livius.org)

• ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World (Stanford University)

• Modeling Ancient Population Structures and Movement in Linguistics (Annual Review of Anthropology)

• Convergent geographic patterns between grizzly bear population genetic structure and Indigenous language groups in coastal British Columbia, Canada (Ecology and Society)

• Human mobility and innovation spreading in ancient times: a stochastic agent-based simulation approach (EPJ Data Service)

• Optimising human community sizes (Evolution and Human Behavior)

• Size of human groups during the Paleolithic and the evolutionary significance of increased group size (Behavioral and Brain Sciences)

• The Oaxaca Barrio in Teotihuacan: Mortuary Customs and Ethnicity in Mesoamerica's Greatest Metropolis (Southern Illinois University Carbondale)

Contact

• Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com

ArchPodNet

• APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com

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Holding Out for a Hero(dotus) - Ep 138

It's Amber's birthday episode! Since she loves historiography, we're taking it back to one of the earliest historians, Herodotus. How did he think about the past, and how did that influence historians who came after him? What did he get right, and what did he get wrong? What's up with that weird boat, those mummy enemas, the flying snakes, and the giant ants? Listen and find out!

Links

• Herodotus (World History Encyclopedia)

• Guide to the classics: The Histories, by Herodotus (The Conversation)

• Herodotus (Livius.org)

• Herodotus’ Histories (Livius.org)

• The Histories (Perseus)

• From Herodotus to H-Net on WorldCat

• 2,500 Years Ago, Herodotus Described a Weird Ship. Now, Archaeologists Have Found it. (LiveScience)

• 10 Historical Facts That Herodotus Got Hilariously Wrong (Listverse)

• Herodotus on the gold-digging "ants" (Livius.org)

• The Winged Snakes of Arabia and the Fossil Site of Makhtesh Ramon in the Negev (Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Des Morgenlandes, via JSTOR)

• Herodotus on the phoenix, on the horned serpent, and on winged snakes (Hyde and Rugg)

• DNA Boosts Herodotus’ Account of Etruscans as Migrants to Italy (The New York Times)

• Darius, Herodotus and the Scythians (British Museum Blog)

• The Real Amazons (New Yorker)

Contact

• Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com

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Book Club Bonanza - Ep 84

Settle into your comfiest chair for Book Club with Anna and Amber this week. We talk about our favorite books, movies, and TV shows with archaeological or anthropological themes! We've also got some tips for listeners on how to get your literary fix while you're sheltering in place.

Links

• 8 Home Library Apps to Keep Your Book Collection Organized (Book Riot)

• Thanks to Bookshop, There Is No Reason to Buy Books on Amazon Anymore (InsideHook)

• An Update From Emily Powell (Powell’s Books)

• National Emergency Library (Archive.gov)

• Crocodile on the Sandbank

• Lest Darkness Fall

• Motel of the Mysteries

• Compass

• The Last Neanderthal

• The English Patient

• Anil’s Ghost

• The Golden Goblet

Contact

• Email the Dirt Podcast

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