Viper’s Daughter by Michelle Paver - Ep 25

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

• Wrangel’s Island Mammoths

• PreHistories Episode 2: Wolf Brother

• Buy Viper’s Daughter

• Michelle Paver on Twitter

• Michelle’s Website: https://wolfbrother.com/

Contact

• Twitter: @prehistpod

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

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

• Link to Mezolith and Mezolith 2
• Information about the Vedbaek swan's wing burial
• Article about gender equality in hunter-gatherer groups
• Fishing spear found in Denmark featured in Mezolith
• Legend of Wayland the Smith used in Mezolith

Contact:

• Kim Biddulph
  • Twitter (@kimbiddulph, @schprehistory)
  • Prehistories Blog
• John Swogger
• Matt Ritchie
• Erin Kavanagh

The People of the River by Michael Gear and Katheen O'Neal Gear - Episode 14

To move away from being totally Eurocentric, Prehi/stories takes a look at fiction set in North America. The People of the River is set in Cahokia in Illinois, and so I talk to Thomas Emerson, Director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey and expert in the archaeology of the Eastern Woodlands, who gives the background reality of archaeological investigation to this story.

Links

• Information about and publications of Thomas Emerson.
• The People of the River by Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear

Contacts

• Kim Biddulph
  • @kimbiddulph
  • @schprehistory
• Thomas Emerson isas@illinois.edu

Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M Auel - Episode 3

Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M Auel

What you need when discussing Clan of the Cave Bear are two Neanderthal experts, which is what I got – Rebecca Wragg Sykes of Bordeaux University and Matthew Pope of UCL, London. The fascinating subject of Neanderthal/Homo sapiens relations occupied us at length, when we weren't being diverted by thoughts of an American mini-series of the book produced by Ron Howard.

Book Details

Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M Auel, published in 1980 by Crown Publishing Group.

http://www.jeanauel.com/books.php

Contact details

Rebecca Wragg Sykes - @lemoustier on Twitter and blog at therocksremain.org

Matthew Pope – matt.pope@ucl.ac.uk and on Twitter at @matthewpope