Advertise on podcast: The Shindig - An Archaeology Podcast

What can a cow bone tell you about a medieval army? More than you'd think. In this episode of The Shindig host Gretchen Kessler sits down with David Romera Fernández, for a fascinating deep-dive into zooarchaeology. In this episode, you'll discover: What zooarchaeology actually is — and why it's not just "old bones"How to tell a cow's age from its skeleton — and why that matters for understanding ancient populationsWhat cut marks on bones reveal about butchery, diet, wealth, and gender in ancient societiesThe difference between a wild boar and a domesticated pig — written into the bone itselfWhy Ireland desperately needs more zooarchaeologists (spoiler: there are almost none)A story involving a police stop, a van full of medieval bones, and very long hair David also shares the evidence for ancient pet burials, healed animal fractures that hint at real human-animal bonds, and explains how the study of animal remains is quietly rewriting what we know about women's roles in history. Oh, and if you've ever wanted to time travel? David's answer will take you further back than anyone before him on this show. 70 million years further back, to be precise. The Shindig is produced by Rubicon Archaeology one of Ireland's leading archaeological consultancies, with teams working across Ireland, the UK, and Germany. We believe great archaeology starts with great people, and this podcast is our way of introducing you to them. 🦴 Subscribe, follow, and share — and let us know: what would you do with an hour in the past? The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Shindig, Gretchen chats with archaeologist Ben Spillane, a specialist who has worked with Rubicon on a number of projects including creamtion cemeteries, stone beads and more. This conversation is about the fascinating world of the Bronze Age. Expert insight, relaxed conversation, and a glass of wine, this is history brought to life. The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Click to learn more about Rubicon Archaeology: https://www.rubiconarchaeology.com/link-tree In this episode, we’re kicking things off with a brand new host and diving straight into a fascinating topic: Conflict Archaeology. Our guests bring two very different — but equally exciting — perspectives: 🧠 Damian Shiels explores conflict archaeology from an academic point of view, helping us understand the real stories behind historic battlefields and artefacts. ⚔️ Alex, a reenactment specialist and experimental archaeologist, brings history to life by showing how people actually lived, fought, and experienced conflict in the past. Together, they break down how archaeology helps us understand conflict in a way that goes far beyond textbooks — making the past feel real, human, and relevant today. At Rubicon, it’s all about Managing Risk, Delivering Quality — and uncovering the stories that shape our world. The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dr. Jane Kershaw and Prof. Rory Naismith discuss the origins, sources, and circulation of a revolutionary silver coin currency during the ‘long 8th century’ in early medieval northwestern Europe. Jane and Rory are co-authors of a transformative new study, which can be read about in the Antiquity Open Access paper, ‘Byzantine plate and Frankish mines: the provenance of silver in north-west European coinage during the Long Eighth Century (c. 660–820)’ – Jane Kershaw, Stephen W. Merkel, Paolo D’Imporzano and Rory Naismith (2024). Jane and Rory explore the remarkable provenance of this silver, its composition, and sources, including the initial use of recycled Byzantine metal from the Eastern Roman Empire and the subsequent dominance of Frankish mined silver. Speaking with Dr. Tom Horne and Luke Barry, Jane and Rory highlight the importance of their research in shedding light on this fascinating period of northwestern European history, with its huge characters like Charlemagne and Offa and its vital economic and exchange developments, and the potential of their new, minimally-destructive, analytical methodology for future study. Read the Antiquity Open Access paper: ‘Byzantine plate and Frankish mines: the provenance of silver in north-west European coinage during the Long Eighth Century (c. 660–820)’ – Jane Kershaw, Stephen W. Merkel, Paolo D’Imporzano and Rory Naismith (2024) https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2024.33 Watch The Video version of the Shindig on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt4Lz_ocPm7DQTJY8W9riTET_Zf66BWiV Follow us on X: Red River Archaeology: https://x.com/ArchaeologyRed Rubicon Heritage Services: https://x.com/rubiconheritage Follow us on Instagram: Red River Archaeology: https://www.instagram.com/redriverarchaeology/ Rubicon Heritage Services: https://www.instagram.com/rubicon_heritage/ Like us on Facebook: Red River Archaeology: https://www.facebook.com/RedRiverArchaeology Rubicon Heritage Services: https://www.facebook.com/RubiconHeritage Visit our website: https://www.redriverarchaeology.com/ The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, our own Dr. Enda O Flaherty talks about heritage infrastructure preservation in Ireland, with a particular focus on the fascinating development of 'greenways', which can be defined as linear active-travel paths, parks, or areas of cultural interest that often incorporate historic (linear) infrastructure like defunct railway lines. We explore the challenges of balancing the needs of new and rejuvenated infrastructure with the heritage value of existing environments and delve into the impacts of infrastructure projects on rural Ireland and the potential of greenways to provide alternatives to car reliance. Importantly, Enda discusses the importance of the distinction of creating a culturally and historically resonant 'place' versus a mere 'space'. Watch The Video version of the Shindig on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt4Lz_ocPm7DQTJY8W9riTET_Zf66BWiV Follow us on X: Red River Archaeology: https://x.com/ArchaeologyRed Rubicon Heritage Services: https://x.com/rubiconheritage Follow us on Instagram: Red River Archaeology: https://www.instagram.com/redriverarchaeology/ Rubicon Heritage Services: https://www.instagram.com/rubicon_heritage/ Like us on Facebook: Red River Archaeology: https://www.facebook.com/RedRiverArchaeology Rubicon Heritage Services: https://www.facebook.com/RubiconHeritage Visit our website: https://www.redriverarchaeology.com/ The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we talk to Dr. Rebecca Boyd about the fascinating topic of Viking-Age towns in Ireland, from how Vikings helped create the first urban settlements, to discovering the smells, sights and sounds of daily life within a home. For the big picture, we chat about Scandinavian-influenced urbanism across Viking-Age Ireland and Europe, but balance this with a focus on the microscopic patterns and cadences of life and work in Viking-Age town houses in towns like Dublin. The vital role of developer-led archaeology in the study of Viking-Age towns in Ireland is key to much of Rebecca's research and Rebecca's new book, Exploring Ireland's Viking-Age Towns: Houses and Homes, which is a brilliant exploration of towns and urban life and one we heartily recommend to all of our listeners! The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dr. Tom talks with Kenneth and Kirsty from the Caithness Broch Project, a pioneering scheme to build a ‘broch’ – massive Iron-Age drystone towers concentrated in Caithness, northern Scotland – for the first time in 2,000 years. Brochs are the tallest prehistoric structures found in Britain or Ireland, with these ‘pinnacles of prehistoric Scottish architecture’ potentially reaching over 15m in height! Their use is not certain – community-centred domestic use seems most likely – but the monumental scale suggests they were built to impress and act as highly-visible centres of their farming communities. The challenge of building a broch in the modern day is huge, but the Project has now selected the perfect site for the Big Broch Build and its mission to ensure heritage-based regeneration of Caithness, a region facing massive depopulation and job losses, can now continue apace! The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Devil's Dollar: In this US Civil War episode, Dr. Ryan K. McNutt talks about the Union's attempted naval blockade of Confederate ports. More than this, however, Ryan discusses the dark secret at the heart of official British neutrality: Clyde-built 'blockade runners', fast and agile shallow-drafted paddle steamers that could evade Union patrols on their short dashes to and from the Caribbean, were key to the Confederate war economy, bringing in European arms and luxury goods to Southern ports in exchange for the slave-harvested cotton that kept the British economy growing. Shocking and fascinating in equal measure, Ryan talks about his research into the dark dealings of the Glasgow and Clyde shipbuilders and discusses the remarkable range of British, Irish and Continental industries kept afloat by the devil's dollar. The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We enter the world of the 7th-century Anglo-Saxon Trumpington Cross burial, from the vanishingly rare - and stunning - gold and garnet pectoral cross found on the teenager's chest and the bed on which she was buried, to this young woman's distant origins in central Europe. Drs. Leggett, Rose and Brownlee talk about a fascinating range of topics, including potential cultural links between early medieval England and Southern Germany, the significance of pectoral crosses found in high-status female burials, the role of women in the Christianization of England, isotopic and aDNA analysis in archaeology, diet and mobility in the past, and the bed burial phenomenon in 7th-century Germany and England. We also talk about the ongoing exhibition, Beneath Our Feet: Archaeology of the Cambridge Region, 'a new exhibition at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology explores the traces of where people have lived, worked and died for thousands of years in Cambridgeshire', which features the Trumpington Cross burial. Read the University of Cambridge web story about the burial and the exhibition here: https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/trumpington-cross-burial-facial-reconstruction-new-evidence-revealed The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology - MAA: https://maa.cam.ac.uk/ | https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/events/beneath-our-feet-archaeology-cambridge-region Our thanks to Tom Almeroth-Williams, Communications Manager (Research) of the University of Cambridge Office of External Affairs for use of copyright images and all other help with this episode. The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We chat with the Red River Archaeology Group's Graphics & IT Manager Hannah Sims about her life in archaeology and the fascinating and intricate world of archaeological illustration! The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The story of a hidden Seven Years' War ('French and Indian War') time-capsule building in Pennsylvania and what it tells us about this vicious 18th-century North American conflict and the exact whereabouts of a young George Washington and his commander, General John Forbes. Join Dr. Terence Christian as he describes the war, George Washington's key role and the discovery of a lost building that Washington may have frequented during the Forbes Campaign. 01:54 - The Seven Years War: was it effectively the first world war? What happened in North America? 03:20 - French and British conflict over the strategic Ohio River Valley 05:05 - How a young British colonial militia officer, THE George Washington, started the conflict 07:45 - George Washington the battles of Jumonville Glen and Fort Necessity 08:14 - Jumonville & Fort Necessity - How Washington 'didn't really mean to start a world war' 10:19 - Washington and the Braddock Campaign and 'the start of a world war' 11:20 - Dr. Terence Christian's commercial archaeology project of a 1750s mystery building survival 12:45 - Washington the Surveyor and Braddock's Road to the French frontier 14:43 - 'A confluence of stupidity' Britain and the disastrous Battle of Fort Duquesne 17:03 - Return to Fort Duquesne - The Forbes Expedition, 1758 17:30 - Terence's Site: a building connected to Braddock's Road and Forbes of the Forbes Campaign 18:30 - 'When [the building owners] pulled the walls down, they realized they had something far older' 19:08 - The Project: a mysterious 3-sided log-built structure buried within later walls 19:22 - Was this General Forbes' lost guns and gunpowder store from the lost Fort Bedford? 19:58 - The commercial archaeology project begins - desk-based map regressions and site visits 37:23 - Found! The last remnant of the Rising Sun tavern, central to Forbes' officers like Washington 38:50 - Huge importance of this last structure relating to Forbes, Fort Bedford & the 'First World War' The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

By Mapping the Vikings, archaeology PhD student Tenaya Jorgensen has developed a fascinating new narrative about what was happening in the 9th-century North Sea and Atlantic Viking world: two distinct Viking groups - one centered on the Irish Sea and Scottish region(s), and the other in England, Frankia and the Channel Area - were raiding, trading and settling in the early Viking Age, with the former dominated by groups from western Norway and the latter from southern Scandinavia. Tenaya asks us to move away from Anglo-centric ideas of the 'Great Army', reimagining it as a 'Channel Army' influential not only in England, but also in its apparent area of origin in that coastal area between the Danish territories in southern Scandinavia and western France. While there are (later) political connections between Dublin and York, this is more a 10th-century development. Ultimately, it is - as Tenaya states - 'all politics', with the biggest developments relating to the massive 'ripples of power' set off by a Frankish (Carolingian) state with designs on Danish possessions, that then included large parts of southern Norway and south-west Sweden. Click the link to see Tenaya's Open Access interactive map: https://www.tenayajorgensen.com/vikingagemap #Vikings #archaeology #history #Viking The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Burial in Your Bed, Early Medieval Style: Join Cambridge graves and cemetery expert Dr. Emma Brownlee as she talks about the archaeology and history of the fascinating phenomenon of early medieval bed burials from their Coptic Egyptian or Byzantine origins to the stunning 'Harpole Treasure' grave in 7th-century Anglo-Saxon England. 01:43 - What is a bed burial? The where and when in early medieval Europe 03:19 - Why bury your loved ones on a bed? Status and Emotion - providing comfort for eternal rest 05:10 - Scandinavian bed burials were VERY comfortable, even having mattresses! 06:15 - Bed burials: a huge investment of time and resources - often under monumental mounds 07:40 - Beds are high-status - who is being buried in them? The boy buried in a cot in Cologne 10:20 - Types of beds, from simple 'crate' beds to 'baluster' beds, and the differences in England 13:00 - Were the beds heirlooms, or made bespoke for the burial? 15:00 - Not Dead, Only Sleeping: bed burials providing comfort until the Resurrection 16:50 - Origins: where and when do bed burials originate? Coptic Egypt? Eastern Roman Empire? 18:55 - The grave goods in bed burials: the Cologne boy with weapons, helmet, and food offerings 20:15 - Christian grave goods (burial artefacts) - beautiful high-status crosses in (English) bed burials 22:14 - Why are Christians buried with grave goods? 22:54 - England is different: *all* 7th century, *all* women, and had a distinct style of beds 25:48 - English beds: how they are special - it's all about the eyelets 28:00 - Beautiful grave goods: bed burials have 'much richer' artefacts than other burial types 28:57 - Less is More: the wonderful Trumpington bed burial, including a cloisonné cross 32:55 - Isotopic analysis - where were the 'English' bed burial women coming from - NOT England! 35:10 - Amazing mobility of bed burial women: Christian rite imported from Continent by women 34:45 - The Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England: women, conversion, and import of bed burials 38:10 - The Famous Harpole Treasure (Bed?) Burial: *that* necklace, the silver cross, and a bed (?) 42:30 - Emma's Favourite Finds: the Trumpington bed burial Interviewer: Dr. Tom Horne Producer and Editor: Luke Barry #archaeology #history #podcast #medieval #earlymedieval #graves #cemetery The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Part 2: Join archaeologist Dr. Ryan K. McNutt as he leads us through stories of human misery from both enslaved camp builder and Prisoner of War perspectives, informed by his directorship of the archaeology and history project at Camp Lawton, a slave-built open-air US Civil War POW Camp established in the horrific winter of 1864 by the Confederacy to hold Union Prisoners moved from hellish prisons like Andersonville. Meant to be Over By Christmas, the US Civil War lasted for four horrific years, leading to nightmarish conditions for POWs incarcerated within vast and poorly-planned prisoner of war camps. In Part 2 of this podcast, Ryan talks about: - Malnourishment, disease and death - (TW) PTSD - The wartime chronology of the site - Union invasion of the South - Today's outreach program(me) and African-American finds 01:58 - local wildlife: alligators, mosquitos, tarantula-sized spiders 03:48 - digging the archaeological site of Camp Lawton surrounded by alligators 04:22 - POWs eating rodents like gophers and turtles to stave off starvation 05:07 - snakes: desperate POWs capturing, skinning and eating a 6-foot snake 06:04 - the horrors of malnutrition, disease, gangrene, blood poisoning, scurvy, smallpox, exposure 09:55 - money: 'Your survivability is tied on how lucky you are to have money' 10:28 - PTSD as a killer: the horrors of war and Camp Lawton POWs digging their own graves 12:45 - POW mental health issues: letters home talk about 'other' prisoners' torment 14:10 - boredom: keeping yourself busy with escape attempts, crafting (chess pieces) 16:02 - wartime chronology: Sherman's March to the Sea through Georgia and evacuating Lawton 18:44 - Lawton evacuees' deadly winter journeys to new POW camps; some back to Andersonville 20:10 - winter clothing in short supply: taking clothes off dead POWs 23:39 - past and future archaeological finds at Camp Lawton: 'time capsule' site 28:30 - investigating the African-American presence at and around Camp Lawton Links: https://twitter.com/CampLawtonGSU https://cbss.georgiasouthern.edu/camp-lawton/from-the-director/ The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Meant to be 'Over By Christmas', the US Civil War lasted four horrific years, leading to nightmarish conditions for POWs incarcerated within vast and poorly-planned camps. Join Dr. Ryan K. McNutt as he leads us through the stories of human misery from both enslaved and POW perspectives, informed by his directorship of the archaeology and history project at Camp Lawton in Georgia, USA. The Shindig is a Rubicon Archaeology Production. Keep up to date with everything Rubicon here: Click for More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.