Horror Part 3 - Ep 33

The long arm of the prehistoric past reaches through the millennia to grab our attention, and, in this episode, to grab us by the throat. Yes, we’re talking folk horror in this episode, and trying not to shiver as we discuss how the past intrudes in uncanny ways on the present in films, plays and books. We have a full cast of characters in this spine-tingler, including Dr Lauren McIntyre, Rebecca Lambert (or Lady Liminal), David Southwell of the Hookland Guide, Dr Simon Underwood and Drone Lord.

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Horror Part 2 - Ep 32

2019 Prehistories.jpeg

The long arm of the prehistoric past reaches through the millennia to grab our attention, and, in this episode, to grab us by the throat. Yes, we’re talking folk horror in this episode, and trying not to shiver as we discuss how the past intrudes in uncanny ways on the present in films, plays and books. We have a full cast of characters in this spine-tingler, including Dr Lauren McIntyre, Rebecca Lambert (or Lady Liminal), David Southwell of the Hookland Guide, Dr Simon Underwood and Drone Lord.

Guest Socials

Contact

Horror Part 1 - Ep 31

2019 Prehistories.jpeg

The long arm of the prehistoric past reaches through the millennia to grab our attention, and, in this episode, to grab us by the throat. Yes, we’re talking folk horror in this episode, and trying not to shiver as we discuss how the past intrudes in uncanny ways on the present in films, plays and books. We have a full cast of characters in this spine-tingler, including Dr Lauren McIntyre, Rebecca Lambert (or Lady Liminal), David Southwell of the Hookland Guide, Dr Simon Underwood and Drone Lord.

Guest Socials

Contact

Christmas Books - Ep 30

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Join Kim as she talks to Professor Chris Gosden of Oxford University about the historical and prehistorical links to Christmas books we all know and, perhaps, love. We take in an ambitious collection of four books from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, to John Masefield’s Box of Delights, Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising and Terry Pratchett’s The Hogfather.

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Iceman - Ep 29

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Kim talks to stone tool specialist and experimental archaeologist Dr James Dilley about the film Iceman, a dramatic reconstruction of the last days of Ötzi the Iceman. We consider such important questions as “What was the social structure of Chalcolithic society?”, “Did they not have mittens?” and “Which 80s blockbuster was that actor in?”.

James - @AncientCraft https://www.ancientcraft.co.uk

Contact

Find this show on the educational podcast app, Lyceum.fm!

Folklore and prehistoric sites - Ep 28

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Ghosts, magic, witches and sacrifice, just in time for Halloween! Kim talks to Sue Greaney and Joana Valdez-Tullet about folklore and prehistoric sites in Europe. Sue is working on. PhD about Neolithic sites in Britain and Ireland and is responsible for interpretation at Stonehenge for English Heritage but got into folklore due to a chance find in a junk shop. Joana works for Scotland’s Rock Art where she uses her doctoral research into rock art, and has uncovered lots of folk tales related to panels of rock art.

Links

Contact

  • Twitter: @prehistpod

  • Kim Biddulph: @kimbiddulph

  • Sue Greaney: @SueGreaney

  • Joana Valdez-Tullet: @JoanaValdez

Find this show on the educational podcast app, Lyceum.fm!

On Raven’s Wing - Ep 27

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I talk to Dr Rena Maguire about On Raven’s Wing by Morgan Llywelyn. This book is a retelling of part of the Ulster Cycle, especially the life of Cuchulain, the Hound of Ulster, and the Tain Bo Cuailhge, the Cattle Raid of Cooley. It is mainly set at Emain Macha which is known to be Navan Fort bear Armagh. How much of the story reflects the Irish Iron Age?

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Contact

Find this show on the educational podcast app, Lyceum.fm!

The Book of Taliesin - Ep 26

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Kim talks to Erin Kavanagh, a poet and geomythologist based in Wales about the old Welsh “Book of Taliesin”, especially the recent translation into English by Gwyneth Lewis and Rowan Williams. How much can we learn about the post-Roman period of Britain from the literature of the time?

Links

Contact

Find this show on the educational podcast app, Lyceum.fm!

Viper’s Daughter by Michelle Paver - Ep 25

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It’s been two years since we published the last episode, and it’s been ten years since Michelle Paver published the last of her Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series of Mesolithic set books that had started with Wolf Brother. But we’re both back! We kicked off this podcast with Wolf Brother back in 2015 and now I get to talk to the author as she publishes a new book in the series, Viper’s Daughter, that sees Renn, Torak and Wolf journey to the far north and encounter new tribes, new dangers and the last surviving mammoths.

Links

Contact

Find this show on the educational podcast app, Lyceum.fm!

Early Man (film) - Episode 24

Literature Meets Real History and Archaeology

I give Early Man the Prehi/stories treatment with James Dilley, an ancient technology specialist, and Erin Kavanagh, who is interested in how the past is represented whether that's the prehistoric past or the footballing past. The film is just a bit of Aardman fun, of course, but it opens up wider topics for discussion about how the past is discussed. With plenty of political prehistory in the news, where does this fit in? The fact it was storyboarded as far back as 2011 suggests we may be reading a little too much into it...

Guests

James Dilley @ancientctaftUK; Erin Kavanaugh @geomythkavanagh

Host: Kim Biddulph @kimbiddulph

Links

Boy with the Bronze Axe - Episode 23

Literature Meets Real History and Archaeology

The Boy with the Bronze Axe by Kathleen Fidler is set in the Neolithic Orkney settlement of Skara Brae. Though written for children this book is also really interesting for adults thinking about how interpretations of Skara have changed over the years. Kim talks to Orkney resident and specialist Caroline Wickham-Jones about the archaeology behind the book when it was written in 1968 and how it could be updated for the 21st century

Guests

Caroline Wickham-Jones https://www.mesolithic.co.uk/contact-me/

Host: Kim Biddulph @kimbiddulph

Links

Archaeologists preparing a raft to take cores in the loch of Skaill. This picture also illustrates how different Skara Brae is from the era depicted in The Boy With The Bronze Axe . The picture is taken by Sue Dawson and the work is funded…

Archaeologists preparing a raft to take cores in the loch of Skaill. This picture also illustrates how different Skara Brae is from the era depicted in The Boy With The Bronze Axe . The picture is taken by Sue Dawson and the work is funded by Historic Environment Scotland.

Warrior Scarlet - Episode 22

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Warrior Scarlet by Rosemary Sutcliff is a book set in the transition from Bronze to Iron Age, but that's the least interesting thing about it. I talk to Dr. Helen Chittock of the University of Oxford and Dr. Julia Farley of the British Museum about the history of archaeological theory as demonstrated by this book written in 1958.

Guests

One Million Years BC to The Last Hunter - Episode 21

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Take a few archaeologists who think they're film buffs and what have you got? A prehistoric film special! From fur bikinis to inter-species rape, we look at the best that we could find of a very small film genre with a sometimes critical and sometimes fond eye.

A Night in an Iron Age Hillfort - Episode 20

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Kim Biddulph and friends spent the night in an Iron Age Hillfort sharing food, exchanging stories, and discussion ideas. It was an amazing night full of fun and excitement. The audio is a bit challenging at times, as you would expect it to be in this situation, but we've cleaned it up a bit and most should be OK.

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Archer, Journey to Stonehenge - Episode 19

Jane Brayne has written and illustrated a comic strip style picture book on the journey of the Amesbury Archer, and kindly appears as a guest on the podcast to talk about it. The original excavator of the early Bronze Age burial the book is inspired by, Andrew Fitzpatrick, also talks about the background evidence for the book.

Links

Mezolith - Episode 18

Mezolith is a graphic novel set loosely in the Mesolithic period (with shades of the Palaeolithic) somewhere in northern Europe. Written by Ben Haggarty, a storyteller steeped in legends of many cultures, which all come through in the book, and drawn by Adam Brockbank, an artist who has worked on X-Men and the Harry Potter films, it packs a punch stylistically but does the content match? Guests helping us decide this are Matt Ritchie from the Forestry Commission Scotland, John Swogger, archaeological comic artist and Erin Kavanagh, geomythologist and poet.

Links

Contact:

Archaeological Comics - Episode 17

Show host Kim Biddulph talks to three archaeological comic writers and artists, John Swogger, Hannah Sackett and Katy Whitaker about their work and the current and potential uses of comics in archaeology. Comics are obviously a great way to engage children in archaeology, but can they be used beyond that?

Links:

Contact:

Kim Biddulph
Twitter (@kimbiddulph, @schprehistory)
Prehistories Blog

Hannah Sackett
Twitter (@DrHcomics)
The "Other" Prehistories Blog

Katy Whitaker
Twitter (@artefactual_kw)
Artefactual Blog

John Swogger, blog

The First Drawing and Stone Age Boy - Episode 16

Two children's picturebooks are the subject of episode 16 of Prehi/stories. Picturebooks may be the first contact children have with prehistory, so we're looking at how two of the best, The First Drawing by Mordicai Gerstein and Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura, represent the remote past. In this episode my guests are Ghislaine Howard, a painter of powerful and expressive means whose works chart and interpret shared human experience. Her drawing Pregnant Self Portrait 1987 was part of the British Museum's exhibition Ice Age Art: arrival of the modern mind in 2013. I also talk to Andrew Needham, Associate Lecturer in Palaeolithic Archaeology and Post-Doctoral researcher on the Templeton funded 'Hidden Depths: The Ancestry of our Most Human Emotions' project at the University of York.

LINKS:

A short film, Ice Age Art: The Female Gaze, featuring Ghislaine Howard can be found at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2hv2ssmB_MU

Ghislaine Howard: The Human Touch, Paintings Drawings and Prints 1980-2016, published by Manchester School of Art in association with Martin Heaps on March 16th 2017. For further information contact raffi@collectart.co.uk or visit www.ghislainehoward.com

Some of the following may be behind a paywall, but some are open access.
Women and Children in art
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10816-015-9265-8
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/div-classtitleevidence-for-cave-marking-by-palaeolithic-childrendiv/091A61EF12E5E703412D3CE9A49568DA
http://www.jstor.org/stable/43184971?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ojoa.12052/abstract

Pal Art beyond Europe
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313000757
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027737911630508X
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v514/n7521/full/nature13422.html
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248409000207
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/334/6053/219

Early Pal domestication of the dog
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879981716301127
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440311003499

Neanderthal art
http://www.nature.com/news/neanderthals-made-some-of-europe-s-oldest-art-1.15805
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/37/13301.full
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/3/1023.full

Contact:


@kimbiddulph @schprehistory
Andrew Needham @andyneedhamarch
https://www.york.ac.uk/archaeology/research/research-students/needham/
http://york.academia.edu/AndyNeedham
Ghislaine Howard @ghislainehoward @ghislainehowar4
http://ghislainehoward.com/