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What is "Collapse?" Interview with Professor Guy Middleton
Season 4 Episode 120
"Collapse" is an evocative and powerful term, but what does it really mean? And how can we use it to help us understand the actual processes and events through which ancient people lived? Professor G…
Published on 3 years, 1 month ago
The Battle of the Tollense Valley
Season 4 Episode 119
More than 3,000 years ago, two armies met in a titanic Bronze Age battle along a river in northern Germany. We don’t know why they fought or who won, but thanks to stunning archaeological discoveries…
Published on 3 years, 1 month ago
Tutankhamun's Trumpet and the Long, Winding Past of Ancient Egypt: Interview with Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson
Season 4 Episode 118
What ties the long history of ancient Egypt together into a meaningful whole? Professor Toby Wilkinson, one of the most renowned Egyptologists on the planet, visits to talk about the unity of ancient…
Published on 3 years, 2 months ago
After the Bronze Age Collapse
Season 4 Episode 117
As dramatic and transformative as collapses are, they're rarely a complete apocalypse. People survived the Bronze Age Collapse, and then they had to wake up in the morning, care for their children, t…
Published on 3 years, 2 months ago
Season 4 Mailbag: Prehistory and Early History
Season 4 Episode 116
It's mailbag time! Patrick answers a variety of questions about topics covered (and not covered) in this season of Tides, ranging from Svante Pääbo's Nobel Prize in paleogenomics to Indo-European ori…
Published on 3 years, 2 months ago
Empires, Networks, and the Hittites: Interview with Professor Claudia Glatz
Season 4 Episode 115
What is an empire? It sounds straightforward enough, but figuring out what the term means - much less whether it really helps us understand past political units - is actually pretty complicated. Prof…
Published on 3 years, 2 months ago
Who Were the Sea Peoples?
Season 4 Episode 114
When assigning blame for the Bronze Age Collapse, the most common culprits are said to be the Sea Peoples: nomadic raiders and sackers of cities who plied the sea-lanes of the late Bronze Age world a…
Published on 3 years, 2 months ago
The Fall of Mycenaean Greece and the Trojan War
Season 4 Episode 113
Mycenaean Greece was one of the glittering jewels of the late Bronze Age world, but it fell to pieces in dramatic fashion: burned palaces, abandoned settlements, and the end of a centuries-old politi…
Published on 3 years, 3 months ago
How Ancient Economies Fell Apart: Interview with Professor Sarah Murray
Season 4 Episode 112
We're often told that trade was central to the interconnected world of the late Bronze Age, but what were people really trading? Why did trade matter so much? And what happened when that trade disapp…
Published on 3 years, 3 months ago
What was the Bronze Age Collapse?
Season 4 Episode 111
The term "Bronze Age Collapse" is by now common, but what do we actually mean when we talk about "collapse?" Is it a matter of political reorganization or something rather more drastic? In the case o…
Published on 3 years, 3 months ago