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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. P…
4 years, 7 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 …
4 years, 7 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…
4 years, 7 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, whe…
4 years, 8 months ago
The Genetic Origins of Indigenous Americans: Interview with Professor Jennifer Raff
Season 4 Episode 80
Professor Jennifer Raff, a longtime friend of the show, returns to discuss her work on the genetic ancestry of America’s Indigenous peoples. We talk …
4 years, 8 months ago
The Shang Dynasty, Oracle Bones, and the Roots of Chinese History
Season 4 Episode 79
More than 3,000 years ago in China’s Central Plains, the Shang Dynasty crossed the threshold from prehistory to history. For the first time in China,…
4 years, 8 months ago
The Complicated World of the Bronze Age Near East: Interview with Aaron Burke
Season 4 Episode 78
The reality of the Bronze Age Near East was much messier and harder to understand than a straightforward story of city-states, empires, and kings. Di…
4 years, 8 months ago
The Dawn of History in China
Season 4 Episode 77
China’s written history goes back more than 3,000 years, stretching deep into the Bronze Age. But just how far back does it go, and how reliable are …
4 years, 9 months ago
Encore: How Latin Became the Romance Languages
Season 4 Episode 76
How did Latin splinter into the Romance languages? In this episode, we explore how Latin transformed from a single, widely dispersed language into a …
4 years, 9 months ago
The Rise and Fall of China’s First States
Season 4 Episode 75
China’s late Neolithic period saw the emergence of increasingly powerful groups of elites who buried themselves in lavishly decorated tombs and built…
4 years, 9 months ago