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The Shindig - An Archaeology Podcast

Secrets of the Ice with Julian Robert Post-Melbye

Season 1, Ep. 6

Julian Robert Post-Melbye, a member of the glacial archaeology team for the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, Norway, speaks to us about life as a glacial archaeologist, some of the incredible finds their team has uncovered, and how they are racing against time to recover as many artefacts as possible before the glaciers of Norway disappear forever.


To learn more, you can visit their website Secrets Of The Ice and follow them on social media: Secrets Of The Ice (@brearkeologi) / Twitter, @secretsoftheice (Instagram).

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    48:25
    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!
  • Taking The Devil's Dollar: Blockade Runners and The Confederate Clyde with Dr. Ryan K McNutt

    01:08:32
    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.
  • 2. Trumpington's Anglo-Saxon Teen VIP Revealed - With Dr. Alice Rose, Dr. Emma Brownlee & Dr. Sam Leggett

    01:36:11
    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-revealedThe Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology - MAA: https://maa.cam.ac.uk/ | https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/events/beneath-our-feet-archaeology-cambridge-regionOur 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.
  • 1. Meet our Archaeologists - with Hannah Sims

    01:12:19
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  • 16. The Bone Chests - With Dr. Cat Jarman

    51:15
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  • 15. Irish Prehistoric Rock Art - with Clare Busher O'Sullivan

    53:55
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  • 14. Neolithic Crannogs in the Western Isles of Scotland – A Dig It! Special with Prof. Duncan Garrow

    26:37
    An almost incredible discovery has been made in Scotland’s stunning Western Isles: human-made islets in lochs, known in Scotland and Ireland as crannogs, were being constructed by Neolithic communities. Previously, these remarkable sites, phenomena both of waterside habitation and ritual activity, had been thought to be a development of the Late Bronze Age or early Iron Age, but new archaeological research is showing far earlier origins, in a revelation with major ramifications for how we view not only the Scottish but also the European Neolithic periods.Join us for this Dig It! special as we chat with Professor Duncan Garrow of the Islands of Stone project and the University of Reading to hear about the amazing survivals of Neolithic pottery and organic artefacts that are changing the way we look at these wonderful feats of house engineering and ritual practice.Islands of Stone: https://crannogs.soton.ac.uk/A note from our wonderful Dig It! partners:Dig It! is coordinated by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and primarily funded by Historic Environment Scotland.Dig It! is a hub for Scottish archaeology coordinated by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Our mission is to increase understanding of and engagement with archaeology for Scotland-based audiences by providing promotion and support to the heritage sector and enabling other sectors and excluded communities to connect with archaeology. One example of this is our annual Scotland Digs summer fieldwork campaigns and for 2023, we’re excited to be working with the Red River Archaeology Group to produce special episodes of The Shindig podcast to showcase a few of the fantastic archaeological projects taking place across the country.Dig It! website: https://www.digitscotland.com/Dig It! Digest: https://www.digitscotland.com/contact-us/newsletter/
  • 13. Digging a Lost Viking Cemetery – with Adam Parsons

    01:17:56
    A Viking Cemetery in northern England: Adam Parsons of Oxford Archaeology tells us about the spectacular Cumwhitton Viking cemetery in Cumbria, subject of the brilliant ‘Shadows in the Sand: Excavation of a Viking-age Cemetery at Cumwhitton’, which Adam co-authored.Initially discovered by metal detectorists Peter Adams and George when they found two Viking-style oval brooches, Oxford Archaeology excavated what turned out to be one of the most spectacular and important Viking cemeteries ever found in Britain. The seven furnished graves contained a truly remarkable selection of grave goods, including the remains of a wooden box containing shears, needles and a glass slickstone for smoothing fabric, with other graves containing items like amber beads, pins, silver rings, swords, axes, spears, spurs/buckles, and rare evidence for rugs and textiles. While few bones remained in the sandy soil, the burial items at Cumwhitton tell us of a society rich both in material culture but also in the cross-cultural contacts and borrowings that made Viking-Age Cumbria such a remarkable place.From Cumwhitton, we move across Cumbria to Workington and the discovery of a huge early medieval cemetery under the burnt-out remains of St. Michael’s church. Excavated by Carlisle Archaeology, Adam and his colleagues completed the post-excavation work and wrote up the report on the amazing early medieval carved stones, inclusive of fragments of a newly-discovered ‘hogback’ stone, and multiple cemeteries, which include a mid-to-late 9th century grave with strong parallels to the Viking burials at Cumwhitton, underneath St. Michael’s.With a focus on the northern Britons, we end with a fascinating discussion on the new multicultural world that was carved out in Cumbria and its surrounding regions in the Viking Age.Adam Parsons is a brilliant archaeological illustrator, writer and editor with Oxford Archaeology who has worked in archaeology for over 20 years. What's more, he has devoted his spare time to being brilliant at early medieval public outreach, making exact reproductions of historical artefacts for museums, universities, and individuals and being part of Cumbraland, a living history group dedicated to portraying the 9th-11th century Brittonic Kingdom of Strathclyde. Adam is no stranger to online outreach, having large followings across his Blueaxe Reproductions social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more!Prof. Fiona EdmondsGaelic Influence in the Northumbrian Kingdom: The Golden Age and the Viking AgeEdmonds, F. 15/12/2019 Woodbridge : Boydell & Brewer. 322 p. ISBN: 9781783273362. Electronic ISBN: 9781787445864.The expansion of the Kingdom of StrathclydeEdmonds, F. 1/02/2015 In: Early Medieval Europe. 23, 1, p. 43-88. 46 p.Prof. Stephen DriscollDriscoll, S.T. (2014) The Govan Stones. History Scotland, 14(1), pp. 36-37.Dalglish, C., Driscoll, S.T. , Maver, I., Shead, N.F. and Shearer, I. (2009) Historic Govan: Archaeology and Development. Series: The Scottish burgh survey. Historic Scotland: Edinburgh, UK. ISBN 9781902771625Driscoll, S.T. (1998) Church archaeology in Glasgow and the kingdom of Strathclyde. Innes Review, 49(2), pp. 95-114.Cynthia ThickpennyThickpenny, Cynthia Rose (2019) Making key pattern in Insular art: AD 600-1100. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow. https://theses.gla.ac.uk/41009/
  • 12. Scotland's First Railway: The 1722 Waggonway with Ed Bethune. A Dig It! Special

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