Podcast Episodes
Back to Search
Indo-Aryans, the Rigveda, and a World on the Move
Season 4 Episode 90
Four thousand years ago, the sprawling cities of the Indus Valley Civilization dominated much of South Asia; a millennium after that, however, the cities were in ruins, and new migrants ultimately de…
Published on 3 years, 8 months ago
The World of the Indo-Iranians
Season 4 Episode 89
More than a billion people around the world speak a language of the Indo-Iranian family today. These languages all trace their origin to a group of innovative people living on the steppes of southern…
Published on 3 years, 8 months ago
What was the Indus Valley Civilization? Interview with Dr. Adam Green
Season 4 Episode 88
The Indus Valley Civilization doesn’t get much attention compared to Mesopotamia or Egypt, but it covered an area of a million square kilometers, was home to hundreds of thousands or millions of peop…
Published on 3 years, 8 months ago
Languages of the World in 1200 BC
Season 4 Episode 87
Language is fundamental to how people experience the world, but how can we know what languages people spoke in the distant past? By 1200 BC, the linguistic outlines of the world were becoming a bit c…
Published on 3 years, 9 months ago
Kathryn de Luna on Africa, Bantu, and Historical Linguistics
Season 4 Episode 86
About one in every five people alive on the planet today speaks a language belonging to the Bantu family, and Bantu-speaking peoples have shaped the history of Africa in profound ways. But how did th…
Published on 3 years, 9 months ago
What is the State?
Season 4 Episode 85
The state - a centralized administration that exerts control over a territory and can coerce the people living there - is one of the driving forces of the last several thousand years of history. But …
Published on 3 years, 9 months ago
Mary Prendergast on Ancient Africa
Season 4 Episode 84
Ancient DNA and new archaeological work have changed our understanding of many different parts of the global past, but nowhere more so than Africa. Professor Mary Prendergast sits on the very cutting…
Published on 3 years, 9 months ago
The Green Sahara and African Neolithics
Season 4 Episode 83
The most striking environmental shift on the planet in the Holocene epoch was the greening of the Sahara. For thousands of years, the now-deserts of northern Africa were a mosaic of savannahs, river …
Published on 3 years, 9 months ago
Africa and the Many Cradles of Humanity
Season 4 Episode 82
Africa is rightly known as the “Cradle of Humanity,” because that’s where the most recent wave of modern human migrants originated and so much of our species’ evolutionary history took place there. B…
Published on 3 years, 10 months ago
Who Were the Human Sacrifices in Shang China? Interview with Dr. Christina Cheung
Season 4 Episode 81
Human sacrifice is an ugly but essential topic in understanding the Shang Dynasty, but we know very little about precisely who these people were, where they came from, and what their lives were like …
Published on 3 years, 10 months ago