A Life in Ruins

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Just the Boyz: Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and WWII Aircraft - Ep 49

In this episode, David, Connor, and Carlton each take a segment to talk about a topic in the past that interests them. David takes the first segment to discuss Alexander The Great and explains his greatness. Connor talks about some of Genghis Khan's policies and his brilliance (although he was still a very bad person). Carlton nerds out about WWII-era aircraft, the "Blitz", and their relationship to sampling bias.

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Our Ruined Lives with Gino Caspari - Ep 48

In this episode, we are chatting with Dr. Gino Caspari, a Postdoc in Archaeology at the University of Sydney and the University College London. Dr. Caspari also runs a very popular archaeology Instagram account @ginocaspari that currently has over 123K followers and we discuss the importance of science communication and his experiences on Instagram. We cover his wild and interesting academic career, with many changes in majors and degrees. We also discuss Dr. Caspari's ongoing research in Siberia and his collaborative work with Indigenous Siberians and the issues of language barriers in publications.

Dr. Caspari’s Literature Recommendations:

  • Frozen Tombs of Siberia: The Pazyryk Burials of Iron-Age Horsemen by S. I Rudenko

  • Who We Are and How We Got Here by David Reich

  • Kon-Tiki: Across The Pacific By Raft by Thor Heyerdahl

Our Ruined Lives with Erina Baci II - Ep 47

In this edition of Our Ruined Lives, we are pleased to have Erina Baci return to the Podcast. Erina first appeared on Episode 7, way back in October 2019. We begin the show by catching up with her on what she has been up to since she first appeared on the podcast. We then delve into a discussion on the importance of geography and resources to people in the past, modern geopolitics, and how modern issues affect our current understanding of the past. This leads us to discuss an upcoming Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Albania and the potential implications of the MoU for Balkan Cultural Preservation. We close out the episode with Erina serving up some awesome advice for future and current graduate students.

Erina's Literature Recommendations:

  • Archaeological Guide of Kosova - Online PDF

  • The Illyrians by John Wilks

  • Evaluating social complexity and inequality in the Balkans between 6500 and 4200 BC by Marko Porčić (2019)

  • Archaeology as Bearing Witness By Hauser et al. (2018)

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Near Eastern Archaeology with Maria Diget Sletterød - Ep 46

In this episode, we are pleased to introduce Maria Diget Sletterød, a Danish archaeologist studying the Pre-pottery Neolithic in the Near East at the University of Copenhagen. We start off with a brief introduction as to how the hosts found Maria which was through an Archaeologists in Quarantine episode with Carlton hosted by Tash. Then we delve into her diverse archaeological research and excavation projects and how she has worked all across the Near East and Europe. David and Maria swap stories about visiting/working in Israel. We follow up with a discussion on Maria's thesis work and where the discipline of archaeology fits in the Danish educational system and what exactly is the "Pre-pottery Neolithic". We close the episode out by asking Maria about what it's like to work in the Near East, a region that is known in the American media for being geopolitically tenuous.

Contact For Guest:

  • Maria's Instagram: @maria_archaeology

  • Maria's Email: mariaconstanze@hotmail.dk

Maria's Source Recommendations:

  • The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why did Foragers become Farmers- by Graeme Barker

  • The Archaeology of Mesopotamia - By Roger Matthews

  • The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt - By Ian Shaw

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Just the Boyz: Emails, Gaming, and Columbus - Ep 45

We are now uploading video versions of the podcast to our YouTube channel thanks to Zencastr's new video podcast component. You can find the video version of this episode by going to our YouTube Channel "A Life in Ruins"

A Life In Ruins Youtube

In this episode, the guys gather around their mics and webcams to talk about a recent email they received at the beginning of the new year and the impact it had on them. In the second segment, they actually begin to talk about archaeology through a conversation about the PC game Dawn of Man. This leads the guys down a path to talking about how cultural evolution is portrayed in popular gaming and a hypothetical discussion regarding what would the Americas have looked like if Europeans hadn't arrived in the 15th and 16th centuries.

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