Episode 13 – M for Microwear Analysis, Avar DNA, and spooky Archaeology News

Into the Dust Archaeology

In this episode, Jason goes through 3 segments – The ABCs of Archaeology, a special about a study of Avar DNA, and Archaeology News
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8U8IYIyz04&list=PLcH4-BWqVM6KHP2Ih6UEq4_G1qRq8MgSn&index=14
ABCs of Archaeology – M is for Microwear Analysis

Sometimes when archaeologists find stuff, they aren’t sure what it was used for, if it was used, or even what it is. In this case, Microwear Analysis is our friend! By looking very closely at a range of materials – stone, bone, wood, teeth, and even fabric, for example – we can get some real clues into the life of an artefact and therefore the people who made and used it. Thanks to advanced microscopy and scanning techniques, archaeologists gotten even better at this type of analysis. Let’s see it at work at Vindolanda, a site we on this channel know well.

Special Episode – Avar DNA

The Avars – who we briefly mentioned in our Scythian Archaeology Porn episode – were a mysterious group of people who made it all the way from Central Asia to Hungary in the Early Medieval era, becoming a scourge to their neighbors, especially the Byzantines. However, relatively little was known about them…UNTIL NOW! Thanks to a massive DNA project which sequenced the genomes of four entire Avar villages, we know much more about their family structure, immigration patterns, and social practices. This case study reveals how powerful ancient DNA analysis can be, and now that it is becoming so much cheaper and faster…buckle up! Archaeology and DNA together will increasingly reveal secrets of the human past we never thought it possible to uncover.

Archaeology News – Zombie Archaeology

Archaeology can be spooky because it really just tells us the story of the human past, and that involves all kinds of ghosties, ghoulies, and things that go bump in the night. We talk about two recent discoveries: a revenant burial in Germany and a highway for the dead in Ireland. The dead walk the earth in this edition of archaeology news!

· Sources

o https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a60649902/zombie-grave-discovered/

o https://newsweek.com/archaeologists-unearth-grave-zombie-ancient-folk-wanted-buried-forever-1894751

o https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/exploring-the-baltinglass-cursus-complex-routes-for-the-dead/81B05D3592918A99143EAE71B083B436
#archaeology #history #zombies