Every week we make an exclusive short podcast for our Patreon supporters called 'The Monday Moot'. It's a kind of a sandbox where we air our thoughts on aspects of prehistoric archaeology.
Sometimes, those thoughts become worthy topics for a wider audience and this is one of those instances. Here, Michael & Rupert ask if the word 'henge' has an impact on the way we view our circular earthworks in the UK.
KENNY BROPHY INTERVIEW: https://youtu.be/f6yQcGzqccg

Why Stonehenge isn’t a henge and what is a henge anyway?

We take you to The Scottish Isles, Bohemia and South Carolina!
More fingerprints on pottery have been found at the Ness of Brodgar and it turns out that they all belong to young adult men and that the most recent print to be found belonged to a thirteen year old boy!
A team of archaeologists from the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen have discovered a long barrow, built around 3,800BC on the legendary Říp Mountain in the Czech Republic.
Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence applied to LIDAR technology has led to the discovery of ancient Shell Rings on Daws Island, South Carolina.
00:00 - Intro & Titles
00:23 - Ness of Brodgar Fingerprints
04:23 - A Long Barrow in the Czech Republic
09:27 - Patreon/Buy Me a Coffee appeal
10:56 - Shell Rings, machine learning and A.I.
15:30 - Finishing up

WERE MEN MAKING THE POTTERY AT THE NESS?

This is an excerpt from a longer YouTube interview conducted with Professor Timothy Darvill in August 2021.
The argument over the A303 Stonehenge Tunnel doesn't go away and although it may seem that the general consensus is that it's a bad idea, that impression is incorrect. One authoritative archaeological voice is that of Tim Darvill's and here we present a view from someone who was in at the inception of the scheme to restore the Stonehenge landscape to be in keeping with the dignity of the site.
 
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Should there be a Stonehenge Tunnel? Prof. Tim Darvill

Hope you'll find it in your hearts to excuse the clickbaity title - but then again it is a truly valid use of the word 'alien'. The rocks in question are certainly not where they belong and pose a genuine mystery as to why they are where they have been found - down near Avebury henge in Wiltshire, 280 miles from their origin. We hope you enjoy our discussion, but rocks aside, we're very glad to have this additional leverage into discussing the importance and purpose of the West Kennett palisades and indeed the prehistory of the whole Avebury landscape. We feel we're just lifting the edge of the carpet ... 😊
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Alien Rocks at Avebury Henge? | The Prehistory Guys bring us down to earth.

This is the audio from a Prehistory Guys YouTube video released in March 2022. https://youtu.be/ubMqZv_eozY
Back in February we received an email from whoever deals with Tim Darvill's press releases with an embargoed link to his new paper: 'Keeping Time at Stonehenge'. We felt honoured to be included in a trusted circle - and normally would have done something about it by now, but, as you know, circumstances have been difficult lately and so we're a bit late to the game with this one. 
Anyway, here is our breakdown of Professor Darvill's hypothesis that Stonehenge (in Stage 2 - 2,500BC) was constructed to be a monumental perpetual calendar whose purpose was to keep in pace with the solar year. We hope we add some clarity to other reports that have been in the press and that you end up with enough information to make a judgement for yourself about the strength of this idea.
LINK TO THE ORIGINAL PAPER AT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journa...
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Has Stonehenge been decoded? | The Prehistory Guys find out.

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Dr. Lee Clare is the research co-ordinator and archaeologist in charge of the excavations at Göbekli Tepe. He took on the position of research coordinator of the DFG long-term project at Göbekli Tepe in 2015, and in 2019 moved to the DAI’s Istanbul Department where he is now acting consultant for prehistoric archaeology.
The image of Göbekli Tepe in the wider world has become a bit distorted over time as far as we can tell and has not kept up with the most recent discoveries and interpretations. We thought we’d go straight to the source and talk to the man who can give us the very latest on the excavations and current views one of the oldest megalithic site in the world.
We truly were thrilled to be able to talk with Lee (from his home in Istanbul) and are very excited at the prospect of one day being able to visit the site and expand our knowledge further.
 
There is an extended version of this interview with more questions answered available to Patreon supporters here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/gobekli-tepe-dr-62006084 
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GÖBEKLI TEPE REVEALED: What we know in 2022 | Dr. Lee Clare

We talk with archaeologist Sue Greaney, Senior Properties Historian with English Heritage and Editor of PAST, the newsletter of the Prehistoric Society about her passion for archaeology and her responsibilities at Stonehenge and other sites managed by English Heritage.
The main reason we wanted to get her on, though is that Sue is the author of a fantastic new piece of research on the Mega Henge complex at Mount Pleasant in Dorset.

INTERVIEW: Archaeologist SUE GREANEY: The Mega-Henge of Mount Pleasant

We're very proud to bring you our interview with Professor Alice Roberts - anatomist and biological anthropologist, author and broadcaster and Professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham.
Alice will need no introduction for many of you, but to understand why we were so thrilled that she agreed to be on the show, as per Rupert's intro:
Before becoming a writer and presenter, Alice’s career began as a medical doctor, she went on to become a university lecturer, teaching human anatomy, developing a particular expertise, and doing a PhD in paleopathology (the study of disease in ancient human remains). Through a circuitous route, this led to her working as a bone specialist with the renowned archaeology series Time Team and then on to presenting SEVERAL OF her own land mark television series.
She has won numerous awards, perhaps most notably being the first recipient of the Royal Society David Attenborough Award in 2020. Her books are always a joy to read and her latest title, Ancestors, The Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials is so relevant to everything the Prehistory Guys are about, that it seemed the perfect time to get her on to talk about that, along with her thoughts about many other aspects of her work.
We hope you enjoy our chat as much as we did…




 

INTERVIEW: Alice Roberts | Ancestors, Time Team, Science and Archaeology

Our second interview with Tim Darvill and a riveting first-person deep dive through prehistoric archaeology from in-the-moment practical concerns of current practice, through to the more philosophical concerns confronting the modern day antiquarian. 
We talk about Stonehenge, long barrows, bluestones, emerging narratives for the Neolithic, prehistory in the press ... and much more!

PODCAST #43 | INTERVIEW; Professor Tim Darvill O.B.E. of Bournemouth University

More for your money in this Prehistory Flash: we've expanded the format to include more than one item to help return us to more of the podcast style delivery. Hope you enjoy!
There will be video versions to follow.
This time:
Pythagorian geometry in Mesopotamia 1,000 before Pythagoras
New finds at King Arthur's Stone in Herefordshire
and possibly the earliest coin factory in the world!

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🔵 BUY ME A COFFEE: If you want to show some love to the Prehistory Guys but don't want the commitment of a monthly subscription, you can make a on off donation by following the link below. NOTE: all single donations are going forward to production of a new film next year: STANDING WITH STONES 2! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/prehistoryguys
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PREHISTORY FLASH #30 | Pythagorian geometry in ancient Mesopotamia and more ...

This is ground breaking research from the Balkans where researchers are piecing together the apparently widespread use of cosmetics as far back as six and a half thousand years ago.
Tiny ceramic bottles have been excavated across a wide region of the Balkans and Transdanubia, and as long ago as the 1930s it was suggested that they might be for cosmetics or medicines. So Bine Kramberger from the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia, Christoph Berthold and Cynthianne Spiteri from Eberhard Karls University at Tübingen in Germany have analysed a number of pots from various locations, to try to identify exactly what these tiny vessels contained.
 
🔵 PATREON: We have a friendly and enthusiastic Patreon community helping us create our content through monthly subscription. Get access to exclusive (ad-free!) content, be on the inside track of what we're up to and help us build the channel at https://www.patreon.com/theprehistoryguys
🔵 BUY ME A COFFEE: If you want to show some love to the Prehistory Guys but don't want the commitment of a monthly subscription, you can make a on off donation by following the link below. NOTE: all single donations are going forward to production of a new film next year: STANDING WITH STONES 2! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/prehistoryguys
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PREHISTORY FLASH | Cosmetics in the Stone Age

30,000 years ago, close to the banks of the river Danube, it seems that the saddest of events occurred to a family living there during the Paleolithic period. Michael and Rupert bring you some of the background to this story emerging from the latest aDNA study of remains found in the town of Krems in Austria.
🔵 PATREON: We have a friendly and enthusiastic Patreon community helping us create our content through monthly subscription. Get access to exclusive (ad-free!) content, be on the inside track of what we're up to and help us build the channel at https://www.patreon.com/theprehistoryguys
🔵 BUY ME A COFFEE: If you want to show some love to the Prehistory Guys but don't want the commitment of a monthly subscription, you can make a on off donation by following the link below. NOTE: all single donations are going forward to production of a new film next year: STANDING WITH STONES 2! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/prehistoryguys
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PREHISTORY FLASH | Paleolithic Tragedy on the Danube (11 MINUTES)

Welcome to another prehistory guys interview, introducing you to archaeologists and historians, all too often hidden behind the scenes, finding out what they’re up to while the world isn’t watching.
This time we're talking with Dr Lee Bray, lead archaeologist for the Dartmoor National Park in Devon, south west England.
Lee started out in geology before making the move into archaeology, and to Exeter University where he gained his doctorate in Romano British Iron production on Exmoor.
Dartmoor is a special place for us, so we were very much looking forward to this conversation with Dr Bray, who has possibly the best job archaeology can provide.
He didn't disappoint.
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PODCAST #42 - INTERVIEW with Professor Lee Bray, head archaeologist of Dartmoor National Park

12th feb 2021 BBc broadcast a programme hosted by Professor Alice Roberts called 'Stonehenge, the Lost Circle Revealed'.
Both leading up to and afterwards, there was a flurry of headlines in the press ranging from the reasonably restrained to the outright sensational. To cut to the chase, the end result has been - to the dismay of many in the archaeological community and both Rupert and I - the the perception has been left with the general public that Stonehenge had a previous existence in the south Wales hills before it was transported wholesale to what is now Wiltshire.
We followed up that broadcast with a short off-the-cuff show of our own on YouTube that attempted to redress some of the (what we regarded as) misleading elements of that programme.
In some eyes, this was interpreted as an attack on the lead archaeologist featured in the BBC show, namely Prof Mike Parker Pearson. It was not. What MPP has done here is amazing and we hope by the time we’ve got to the end of this section in the podcast, you’ll get a sense of the high regard we’ve got for him.
What we were trying to do however is point out that there was so much more nuance to the finds that have been made and the results that have been extracted. Moreover that there are other voices in the field that were ignored by the BBC and that all is not as simple as made out.
All that said - the story is amazing, the questions it poses are mind bending and the picture of people in the late Neolithic and what they were up to remains just as enigmatic if not more so than before the gloss of certainty that was painted over this whole question of the origins of the bluestones of Stonehenge by the BBC programme.
We just want to make it real again. Strip it back to the actual evidence and leave you - we hope - much more excited by just how much more complex this story is than the impression left by the BBC in this case.
As ever - even with the detail we go into here - we've barely scratched the surface. This could have been a very long podcast indeed. However, let us know if you think we should do more on this!
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PODCAST #41 | Waun Mawn & Stonehenge

"Welcome to another prehistory guys interview, introducing you to people, often hidden in the background, whose work is really making a difference to our understanding of humanity in prehistory

"Today we’re talking with Dr Kenny Brophy Senior lecturer of archaeology at the University of Glasgow. Kenny’s work focuses mainly on the British Neolithic, particularly of Scotland, and he has written copiously about the many cursus monuments to be found there.

"Kenny is passionate about bringing archaeology into the public domain and is equally interested in how people have engaged with ancient monuments throughout history. Pursuing this theme, he writes a regular blog under the title of The Urban Prehistorian, exploring the roles that megalithic and other prehistoric sites continue to play within society.

"Apart from having directed numerous excavations in Scotland, he lectures widely and is always a captivating speaker. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did."

KENNY'S PAGE AT GLASGOW UNIVERSITY: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/kennethbrophy/ 
THE URBAN PREHISTORIAN:  https://theurbanprehistorian.wordpress.com/ 
THE COCHNO STONE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochno_Stone 
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INTERVIEW: Dr. Kenny Brophy | Senior Lecturer, Glasgow University - The Urban Prehistorian

IT'S BACK!
Rupert & I are delighted to present you with a recording of us producing our first audio podcast after a long break. We're back to our old format with Pushing Back the Boundaries, news, a central topic and finishing off with Stonehead of the Month and a bit of Whimsy.
Scroll down for links to some source material.

There is a video version of this podcast at https://youtu.be/fEegOLUPfk4

PUSHING BACK THE BOUNDARIES
Long distance trading of exotic foods in prehistory https://phys.org/news/2020-12-food-south-asia-revealed-east.html 

NEWS
DNA from Neolithic in present day population in Western Canada https://www.abroadintheyard.com/dna-links-aboriginal-woman-canada-and-200-x-great-grandaughter/ 
Bronze Age Lovers? https://www.livescience.com/romeo-and-juliet-skeletons-israel.html 
Baby and Puppy burial https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/15/2000-year-old-remains-of-infant-and-pet-dog-uncovered-in-france 

MARITIME TRAVEL IN PREHISTORY
Seagoing explorers 35,000 years ago - Modern day Japan https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-humans-sea-voyage-japan-ryukyu-island-migration
Peopling of the Caribbean Islands https://phys.org/news/2020-09-archaeologists-step-by-step-path-people-caribbean.html
Polynesians and Native Americans https://phys.org/news/2020-07-polynesians-native-americans-contact-european.html
List of ancient ships on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_ships 

STONEHEAD OF THE MONTH: Amanda Hart
Coninium Museum https://coriniummuseum.org/ 
'Stone Age to Corinium' launch https://youtu.be/M_pcK_kRdY8 

WHIMSY
Oldest sword known was thought to be medieval https://www.livescience.com/ancient-anatolian-sword-in-venetian-monastery.html

The thumbnail image for this video incorporates an image from theTanum petroglyphs, Sweden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Carvings_in_Tanum



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MARITIME TRAVEL IN PREHISTORY | The Prehistory Guys FEB 2021 PODCAST

Despite any number of challenges over the past six years, including more recently the Covid lockdowns of course, Amanda has kept driving the project of giving the museum a complete overhaul and redesign, and with her team has created a breathtaking set of galleries that cover the full span of human history in the Cotswolds.
One thing that makes Amanda so rare, is that she is a museum director with archaeology in her veins. She studied archaeology at university and has been involved on excavations of the Bronze Age sites in the Maroni Valley on Cyprus. Ultimately she turned this back to her love of museums, bringing a unique slant on how archaeology could be presented to the public.
"We think that what Amanda has achieved at Corinium is nothing short of extraordinary and this interview is our way of helping celebrate her dedication and devotion in bringing prehistory to a wider audience."
Corinium Museum website is here: https://coriniummuseum.org/
Watch the online opening of the new museum here: 
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INTERVIEW: Amanda Hart | Director of the Corinium Museum, Cirencester

In fact, some of Tom’s recent research has even shed light on different funerary practices in the Bronze Age, revealing some fascinating discoveries about ways that people related to, or looked after the remains of their departed. (We first reported on this in a piece in the Prehistory Show #3. https://www.patreon.com/posts/prehistory-show-42771218)
Tom's work is really bringing some clarity to the huge genetic shifts which took place in the major transition periods of the past and it’s remarkable how the study of ancient DNA is opening so many windows into the past.
As is so often the case, we could have talked long enough to make half a dozen interviews. We hope you enjoy this one.
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INTERVIEW: Dr. Tom Booth | Cheddar Man | Prehistoric Boundaries & Migrations

The aim of these two chaps is to transform the economy of Caithness, no less - up in the North East corner of Scotland! And the medium by which they're going to achieve this? By building an Iron Age Broch of course!Crazy? Not so fast. There's method in their madness, but you'll have to listen to the podcast to find out why. Help support us and join our Patreon community
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INTERVIEW | The Caithness Broch Project, Iain Maclean Kenny McElroy

However, she has a particular passion for Iron Age torcs, running a website with restorer Roland Williamson called The Big Book of Torcs. https://bigbookoftorcs.com/ There's no-one better with whom to explore the detail and peculiarities of these magnificent artefacts than Tess and 'talking torcs' is the central theme of this discussion.
And then - chocolate torcs anyone? No time to explain ... listen on! 😊
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