The Extreme History Project: The Dirt on the Past

Feminism and Gender in Archaeology with Meg Conkey

Join us for a deep dive into gender and feminism in archaeology with archaeologist, Meg Conkey. Meg is professor emerita of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley and is known for introducing feminist perspectives into archaeology. We discuss her early work with Janet Spector, Joan Gero, and others to bring women and gender into the study of archaeology and what it means to do archaeology as a feminist.

To learn more:

Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory edited by Margaret Conkey and Joan Gero
What this Awl Means: Feminist Archaeology at a Wahpeton Dakota Village by Janet Spector
Archaeologies of the Heart by Kisha Supernant, Jane Eva Baxter, Natasha Lyons, and Sonya Atalay
Reindeer Moon by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

Ridgeline: A Story of Justice with Michael Punke

Join us for our conversation with author Michael Punke on his new book, Ridgeline, a novel that details the story of the Fetterman fight or the Battle of One-Hundred-in-the-Hands. In 1866, with the country still reeling from the Civil War, the U.S. Army established Fort Phil Kearny in the home of the Lakota Nation. In his book, Punke tells the story of the months leading up to this battle between the U.S. Army and the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe. The result was what we now know as the Battle of One-Hundred-in-the-Hands. Michael talks with us about the book, his processes, the characters, the diversity of the west at this time, and why this story is still important today. Michael is the author of several books including The Revenant, a #1 New York Times bestseller and basis for the Academy Award–winning film. 

 

To Learn More:

We highly recommend Michael's other books including The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge, Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, The Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West, and Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917. 

Mudlarking with Lara Maiklem

Join us for this fascinating conversation with Lara Maiklem who is a mudlark. She searches for lost and forgotten objects on the foreshore of the river Thames in London. She has been mudlarking for almost 20 years, searching and finding lost items including Tudor shoes, medieval pins, Roman pots, Georgian wig curlers and modern wedding rings. We talk with Lara about objects she has found along with her collection, research, and curation processes. She has written, Mudlark: In Search of London's Past Along the River Thames and can be found on Facebook and Twitter (@LondonMudlark) and on Instagram (@London.Mudlark). Her book is now available in paperback with a color plate section and a gorgeous new cover!  

 

To learn more:

Mudlark: In Search of London's Past Along the River Thames https://wwnorton.com/books/mudlark?fbclid=IwAR1U_ExZnU7-W3g-ziM1n9q_-Y7bH7bTXuLMlFfPxNdm_s5y6nionnSk3QY

Returning from Yosemite with Scott Carpenter

Join us as we talk with archaeologist Scott Carpenter about his career, including his time as Chief of Cultural Resources at Yosemite National Park, the excavation of a cache of obsidian artifacts, his work with indigenous communities, and his documentation of a portion of the Lewis and Clark trail. 

 

To learn more:

Return the National Parks to the Tribes https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/05/return-the-national-parks-to-the-tribes/618395/

From Cliff to Cache: Analysis of a Middle Archaic Obsidian Cache from Southwestern Montana lithics-chapter10 (2).pdf

Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks https://www.amazon.com/Dispossessing-Wilderness-Indian-Removal-National/dp/0195142438

 

Boomtown Archaeology with Kelly Dixon

Join us for this lively conversation with Dr. Kelly Dixon, an archaeologist who studies boomtowns, colonization, colonialism, extractive industries, human-environment interactions, landscape transformations, and marginalized populations. We discuss her work excavating the Boston Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada and the resulting book, Boomtown Saloons: Archaeology And History In Virginia City where Kelly discusses the excavation of four historic saloons in Nevada’s Virginia City and how the artifacts from this handful of drinking establishments, affiliated with a range of ethnic and socioeconomic groups, offers a new perspective on everyday life in the mining West.

 

To Learn more: 

Boomtown Saloons: Archaeology and History in Virginia City by Kelly Dixon

The Materiality of Freedom: Archaeologies of Postemancipation Life by Jodi A. Barnes

Archaeology, Photography, and Tea with Matt Stirn and Rebecca Sgouros

Join us as we talk with archaeologists, Matt Stirn and Rebecca Sgouros about how they have followed their love of archaeology, photography and tea (yes tea) to interpret and bring archaeology to the public. Matt Stirn holds an MSc in Environmental Archaeology and Paleoecology, and specializes in understanding how humans adapted to high elevation landscapes around the world. He has directed several archaeological research projects in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and has been involved in excavations on four continents. He is a member of the Sigma Xi Research Society, a National Fellow for The Explorer’s Club and currently has ongoing archaeological research in Wyoming, Greece, and Italy. Rebecca is an environmental archaeologist and educator. She is a freelance archaeologist focusing on projects in the Rocky Mountains, specifically the Tetons, Gros Ventre, and Wind River Ranges in Wyoming. Current projects include investigating life and food choices at high altitudes, paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the Tetons, ice-patch archaeology survey along the Continental Divide, and an ancient food & diet study using biomolecular and experimental archaeology techniques . . .  and Rebecca owns an online tea company called Tea Hive! We have a conversation about the importance of bringing history and archaeology to the public, through all the methods Matt and Rebecca bring to the table in their work and their research. Join us for this fun and fascinating conversation! 

 

To Learn More:

 

Tea Hive https://www.myteahive.com/

 

Matt Stirn Photography https://www.mattstirnphoto.com/

 

In the Land of Kush https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/sudan-land-kush-meroe-ancient-civilization-overlooked-180975498/

 

Yaupon: the Rebirth of Americas Forgotten Tea http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20210223-yaupon-the-rebirth-of-americas-forgotten-tea

 

Sabu-Jaddi: The Site Revealing the Sahara's Verdant Nast http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200607-sabu-jaddi-the-site-revealing-the-saharas-verdant-past

 

Historic Inscriptions with Tim Urbaniak

Join us as we discuss historic inscriptions, ghost signs, rock art, DStretch, petroglyphs and pictographs. During the 19th and 20th centuries, emigrants on the Northern Plains engaged in a communication behavior that left messages carved, incised, and painted onto the physical landscape. Often mingling with indigenous pictographs and petroglyphs, the emigrants' messages are called "historic inscriptions" and exist in the form of names, dates, text, and ideographs. Historic inscriptions relay information on identity and cultural value and are a new way of interpreting how people reacted to the landscape of the 18th, 19th, and 20th century west. Tim Urbaniak is a Professor Emeritus at Montana State University (MSU-Billings).  Join us for this fascinating conversation!  

 

To Learn More:

Historic Inscriptions https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/4410/

3D Scanning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e9ELzAWIII

Carbon County Historical Society presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7RRoNYb7J8

The History of Archaeology in Montana with Nancy Mahoney

Join us this week as Crystal interviews Nancy about her research on the history of archaeology in Montana through the lens of three men including amateur archaeologist Oscar Lewis, academic William Mulloy, and advocate Melville Sayre. We discuss their work to bring archaeology to Montana and the significant archaeological sites they excavated in the 1930s and 1940s, including Pictograph Cave and the Hagan Site. 

Human Origins with William Kimbel

Join us as we take a deep dive into the science of human origins with Dr. William Kimbel, Director of the Institute of Human Origins based at Arizona State University. We discuss Dr. Kimbel's research on human origins, specifically the period between 2.5 and 4 million years ago - during which our own genus Homo emerged from smaller-brained ancestors. We talk specifically about Lucy (Lucy is a hominin ancestor that lived in east Africa between 3 and 3.9 million years ago, and she is “famous” because her skeleton is remarkably complete – 40 percent – and because she changed the way we understood the evolution of bipedalism. She is a member of the species known as Australopithecus afarensis. We also talk about another well-known Australopithecine species found in South Africa – A. africanus – which lived between 2.7 and 2.3 million years ago. And last but not least, we focus in on Ardi (Ardipithicus ramidus), a remarkably complete skeleton, which also came from Ethiopia and dates to 4.4 million years ago. This is a fascinating discussion about our deep genealogy, join us and learn more about how we became human. 

 

To Learn More:

Institute of Human Origins https://iho.asu.edu/

Fossil Men by Kermit Pattison

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History - What does it mean to be human? 

Bozeman, the Series, with Jerry Williams

In this episode, we talk with Jerry Williams about a television series he has created called, Bozeman, that features the history of Bozeman's town founder, John Bozeman and his good friend, William McKinzie. We discuss his research in Georgia and Montana, and how this story plays out on the national stage at a critical time in our country's history from the 1860s to the 1870s.