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The Zooarchaeology of ArchaeoAnimals - Ep 65
888 Plays11 months ago
In this final episode of ArchaeoAnimals, Alex and Simona look back to over five years of podcasting about the archaeology of animal remains. From the very beginnings, to some of the running themes, recurring characters and inside jokes, this episode is an introspective journey into ArchaeoAnimals. Tune in for some of our favourite ArchaeoAnimals moments, we hope you’ll enjoy them as much as we did.
Transcripts, Links, Sources
For rough transcripts, links, and sources, go to: https://www.archpodnet.com/animals/65
Contact
- Alex FitzpatrickTwitter: @archaeologyfitz
- Simona FalangaTwitter: @CrazyBoneLady
- Alex’s Blog: Animal Archaeology
- Music "Coconut - (dyalla remix)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UiKoouqaY
Affiliates
- Motion: https://www.archpodnet.com/motion
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Transcript
Welcome to the Arceo Animals Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to Arceo Animals, the podcast about Zoo Archaeology. This is episode number 65, our final episode, the Zoo Archaeology of Arceo Animals. My name is Tristan, I'm the producer, and I have two wonderful hosts here to take you back through all the amazing things that we've done over the last five years.
00:00:38
Speaker
So, without much further ado, I want to introduce Alex and Simona and introduce you to this episode of Arceo Animals.
Reflecting on Five Years of Podcasting
00:00:52
Speaker
Well, it's our final episode of Arceo Animals, and I guess I would say we go off with a bang, but given that Tristan couldn't even remember the name of the show. It's like a clown horn, really.
00:01:05
Speaker
But hey, so yeah, I mean, I guess that's a fitting way to start off our final episode. And, you know, we're also celebrating our five year run. I think that's a pretty solid run for a podcast that I think was supposed to be about zoarcheology and then kind of turned into a video game podcast and whatever we wanted to talk about podcasts. So I think we did pretty well.
00:01:30
Speaker
all things considered.
Origins and Inside Jokes
00:01:32
Speaker
So to kind of celebrate that, because we want this to be a joyful episode, and we want to celebrate ourselves, I guess, and what the show's been for the past five years, or I guess over five years a bit now, we'll be turning our zoo archaeological lens inwards and look at the zoo archaeology of ourselves. What a wild ride it has been over the last five years and a bit.
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess to start, it would be good to probably tackle our origins, like we do with a lot of our episodes, or we tackle the origins of, we don't actually, we don't really do that at all. I made that up. I know we do, I guess, we've tackled domestic origins and things like that. While we're at it, actually, because you've already mentioned the one thing, we do have a bingo card this fall. Yes, true.
Balancing Education and Humor
00:02:29
Speaker
I mean, it's a bit of a cheat to do the bingo card on this episode, because this episode is kind of just a bingo card of the greatest hits. But I figured, you know what, great way to encourage people to go back to the back catalogue and listen to old episodes and utilize that bingo card, right? Yeah, because we've been talking about it for
00:02:49
Speaker
Probably not the whole five years, but the better part of five years. Alex has thankfully now indulged us with an actual bingo card. Instead of doing anything productive that would support myself, my academic work, anything like that, I made a bingo card, folks. And it will support the comic relief of all of the listeners out there. Yes, and that means more than, you know,
00:03:18
Speaker
I paid job. But yeah, we won't let's let's go to the origins. Let's go. Because, you know, God forbid we don't go off track on our last episode, but let's let's go back to our origins. So kind of where the show began, which was about me, obviously, I did an episode of a different podcast called the Women Art Gallery podcast.
00:03:42
Speaker
Chris, who is the creator and god of the archaeology podcast network, heard it and reached out and said, hey, you can string five words together and form a sentence, a rudimentary kind of elementary sentence. Why don't you do a podcast about archaeology? No one's really done that. And I was like, well, I love to hear the sound on my own voice. I assume other people would too.
00:04:08
Speaker
But I didn't want to do it by myself because that would be sad. And I wanted to make people think I had friends. So, of course, I bullied Simona into doing this show with me. Very much doesn't like hearing the sound of her own voice.
00:04:23
Speaker
So there's been a lot of growing in and facing my own anxieties with this. But I felt like it was this. Simona was already someone who was like really smart and doing some psych-comy stuff when you were still on the internet.
00:04:38
Speaker
And it was very smart sounding. I don't know what I'm talking about. Ninety percent of the time I figured at least someone should know what they're talking about on this show. And, you know, I'm very grateful that you said yes to join me on this journey. It was great. And also feel that it made a.
00:04:55
Speaker
It made it a lot more comedic. Hopefully.
The Comedic Evolution of the Show
00:04:59
Speaker
And you know, the show itself has kind of really changed. I would rather never hear our first episode again. But I do vaguely remember that I don't think we even had show notes. And that was something we had to have.
00:05:15
Speaker
In a way, I feel that it used to be more of a blurb, as opposed to sort of more of a summary of what the episode was about. Yeah. But I think, yeah, the show sort of evolved over time, because it started off because again, like, first experience of podcasting for both myself and you. So as definitely as far as I'm concerned, was like the first few episodes were very sort of robotic and trying to sort of get the thorough research course was still going on later on, but I try to make sure that everything was absolutely tipped up.
00:05:44
Speaker
and correct and being very factual about things and sort of as we're slowly finding our feet sort of like our bubbly personalities, or your bubbly personality and my personality of some description, start shining through sort of more and more over time as we're finding our feet. So even though it's still, it is still research based and educational, there's been more of a comedic element and a back and forth going in there because it's, I did personally didn't want this to be a
00:06:13
Speaker
dry podcasts that just portrays the facts. There's nothing wrong with that. That is perfectly fine, but it's just not what my preference is. I like that we found sort of this middle ground where it's still sort of, and hopefully, entertaining and educational for people. Edutainment, as the folks say. And more poorly, I learned how to eat dinner before recording, although that took about, I don't know, two and a half years.
00:06:40
Speaker
So that was... Yeah, I want to point out how bad it was that every single time we would just do the pre-show and it's like, I'm really hungry. I'm like, you know, this is happening. Like every single time we record, like we're organizing ahead of time. But yes, that was very good. And then you'd rush off to go and eat your food. But you've learned and that's a very good
00:07:07
Speaker
It's called growing as a human being, folks. That's character development right there. Yes. Speaking of which, actually, of growing up, the show has seen us for the rest of our 20s.
00:07:19
Speaker
That is absolutely horrible. I want to stop before now. Like, I just turned 32, like, a week ago. Please stop. This is not... Simona, why did you have to... My doctor just told me my body bad. Why would she want to, like, really emphasize that? Yes. You as the listener, I hope you've seen how much we've grown and how unsensible we still are.
00:07:49
Speaker
Well, to be mature still, let's talk about our favorite bits. Let's move on to what everyone wants to hear us talk about, which is the bits. And to start off, we'll start with a real easy one. Is it ritual?
00:08:05
Speaker
I'm just gonna real quietly, quietly, real quickly, in fact, summarize it if for some reason you have never listened to an episode or you've managed to just ignore the fact that we talk about which are a lot. Well, it's because it's a common joke among archaeologists that somehow, you know, became what, like 50% of what we talk about, mainly because I did my PhD on it and I need to like actually use that degree sometimes. Yeah.
00:08:33
Speaker
That is a good point, actually, that you actually got your PhD, like, you're now a doctor, during this as well. Yeah. Dr. Badbody. Well done. Ooh, we did it. Folks, if I can get my PhD, literally anyone can. You've heard me on this podcast for five years. You now know that to be true.
00:08:53
Speaker
Yeah, ritual. We actually somehow did a whole episode on it, episode eight, but also literally talk about it in probably every single one of our episodes because everything is ritual.
Exploring Themes of Domestication
00:09:05
Speaker
And that's because ritual is hard to identify because it can mean a lot of things. Luckily, though, some archaeologists have tried to kind of pinpoint some useful elements.
00:09:17
Speaker
Colin Renfrew has done so with the four aspects of ritual practice. You got your intention focus activity, which you can see in the archaeological record. You got those liminal zones, you know, those in between zones correlated with archaeological material. You got your focus on transcendence and symbol and material record.
00:09:37
Speaker
And you got your archaeological evidence for participation or offerings. Yes, we are going to try and put some educational information in this podcast, which is just us patting ourselves on the back. Merle If you've been listening to our other shows or other show or other episodes, so one 50% of it was indeed ritual, with the other 50% being domestication. This
00:10:03
Speaker
which we do tend to talk about a lot, especially in the whole like things like our domestication of species x and y probably happened at several points in time in the different geographical areas. You might have heard that on a number of episodes. But yes, we do talk about domestication a lot because what it is one of the main relationship that we've had with animals, open millennia,
00:10:25
Speaker
It's very important to our species, and thus to archaeology. And you'll see that we've covered it in loads of episodes. I mean, we've discussed it in the sheep goat episode, episode four, in our cat episode seven, and episode three, that was all about dogs. Pretty sure also the domestication got its own episode, which is a very own episode two featuring the robotic voice.
00:10:51
Speaker
So we managed to cover not all the domesticated species, but pretty close, I think. We've also talked about the three pathways of domestication, commensal, so your wild species that are attracted to pests and waste from human sites like dogs and cats, prey, humans who began to control the breeding of species they commonly hunt, like cattle and pigs, and then your direct domestication where captured species are utilized
00:11:16
Speaker
travel or labor and have their breeding controlled like horses. And we've even done some episodes where we've talked a bit more about the more nuanced kind of in-between levels of domestication where you kind of have your managed herds like reindeer or tamed animals like many of those that are bred in captivity.
00:11:37
Speaker
So yeah, those are basically the two episodes we've kind of
Favorite Bones and Zooarchaeological Insights
00:11:40
Speaker
done. Domestication and ritual. But we've also just had episodes where, you know, we talk about our favorite bones, like the humble Astragalus, which I believe in episode 51, we declared to be our favorite bone. I believe it was fairly unanimous, yes. Yes. I mean- That's unanimous of two. Yes.
00:12:00
Speaker
And that's all that matters. The unanimous you straggle us. I like it. It's going to be like, it's going to be like a folk punk band. That's the spin off show. What shape is this straggle us again?
00:12:14
Speaker
It's a race car. It's a race car. It's a race car, folks. The race car bone, as everyone famously refers to it as, of course, also called the knuckle bone. And if for some reason you don't remember what it is, it's basically found in the heel of various mammals like pigs and sheep and deer. It also has some really interesting use in kind of
00:12:39
Speaker
different temporal and cultural contexts, so sometimes it's used as offerings, other times as game pieces, as dice, and potentially may have also been used as money as well. But more importantly, it's a race car.
00:12:54
Speaker
But it's, no, it's a very interesting bone. It's very pleasing to look at. It's very dense, so it survives very well across millennia. And yeah, even in the ethnographic record, there's still tons of uses for the Astragalus now, like sort of from talismans to divination sets to games to teach children how to count. Yeah, and I think because it's utilized so much, you tend to find it like very polished, which also just makes it aesthetically pleasing. Can you think, oh, has this been worked? No, it just got handled like so many times.
00:13:24
Speaker
Yes, it looks like a race car. Obviously, everyone's going to utilize it, right? Now, we can't really have a zoo archaeology episode of our own show without mentioning potentially one of the most important bits of the podcast, which is Simona's Romans. Is it now? And we reiterate, Simona is not a Roman archaeologist. And yet, and yet,
00:13:52
Speaker
I mean, what do you say about how do you even capture so many years of Simona's Romans?
00:14:02
Speaker
just I guess the reluctant Roman archaeologists. I mean, yeah, I mean, to be fair, we do do archaeology in Britain, and it's like really hard to not run into Roman things. Literally can't go anywhere without tripping on Roman archaeology in Britain. So it's unavoidable. Yeah. And they also just like went everywhere and like moved things everywhere, including species. So it's really hard to not
00:14:25
Speaker
talk about them when you're talking about zoarchaeology particularly in like Europe. Yeah, so it's just, yeah, one of those things, you know, I left my whole room like the ancestral lands of the Romans, and found me some more Romans in Britain. So it's just, it's just one of those things that it might not be necessarily my favourite time period. But if you work
00:14:47
Speaker
in archaeology in Britain, you will in times sort of amass an amount of knowledge on the Roman period. Just one of those things. And more importantly, you do all the Latin pronunciations, which is saving so many people who listen to this podcast from hearing me do it. And that is truly a miracle to everyone. Which is not at all just me reading the stuff in an Italian accent. I mean, for me, it works. So it's fine.
00:15:15
Speaker
Anyway, if you wanted to hear just one episode on it, even though it probably shows up in almost every episode we've done, we do have
Incorporating Video Game Discussions
00:15:22
Speaker
a proper episode on Roman Britain in episode 37. I think a good way to compliment my Romans will be Alex's fish. Bad.
00:15:33
Speaker
Bad fish bone. Bad bone. Bad fish. Hate it. I did my master's project on fish bones and I'm dealing with the trauma ever since then. Did you know that fish usually have over a hundred bones in their skull? Have you ever tried counting fish scales by hand? Did you know that if you handle fish bones, a lot of times you'll get bone splinters in your fingers? Fish bones, not even ones. Ew.
00:15:59
Speaker
Thank you. All right, let's end this segment off with a positive, to be fair, and let's talk about chunky toes and chunky boys.
00:16:09
Speaker
because some of the boys we work with are not only chunky, their bones are chunky, and I literally cannot remember where this started. I went back and looked at all of our show notes from previous episodes. I have no idea where this came from. It would be great if a listener can point out where this came from. I did not want to listen to 50 hours of the show to figure it out, but yeah.
00:16:32
Speaker
Chunky toes. I know the toes are chunky because the Metapolios are chunky. They're really chunky bones. I don't remember, though, what specific animal you're talking about, though.
00:16:43
Speaker
I think it might have been the camelid one. Maybe that sounds right. But nevertheless, since we do not know how the Chunky Toes mythos originated, we'll just use the most likely explanation. It was ritual. See, this is why this is why Simona is one of the best podcast co-hosts. Simona, queen of segways, baby. And speaking of that, let's segue into our first break and we will be back after this.
00:17:14
Speaker
And we are back with Archaeo Animals, Episode 65, the last episode of Archaeo Animals, and the episode where we're looking at the zoo archaeology of Archaeo Animals. And now it's time to talk about where we've kind of failed. And we have failed in being a zoo archaeology podcast most of the time, because we have slowly but surely ended up being a video game podcast.
00:17:39
Speaker
the zoo archaeology and video games. So still relevant. Yes, true. Well, we're really stretching it, I think in some cases. Yes, we'd like to point the listeners to our recent Predator episode.
00:17:53
Speaker
Yeah, okay. Well, but I feel like it would be amiss if we didn't cover a highlight reel of some of our favorite episodes of video game talk. And I think before we, this one that we're going to talk about, I think we did kind of like a broad, you know, this archaeology of video games episode, but I wanted to like start off with our first like reel.
00:18:18
Speaker
video game episode, which was episode 26. And it was all about the Witcher. Yes, that was a lot of fun. I mean, like the format for a lot of these video game episodes or the Witcher included was Alex and myself discussing sort of various creatures in these video game franchises describing so their appearance and what their skeletal morphology would have looked like.
00:18:40
Speaker
So for the case of the Witcher, we discussed the Gryphon, which for those who have played it is one of the very first creatures you fight in the Witcher 3. So the sort of hybrid creature with a feline and bird bits and two subspecies, an arch Gryphon and a royal Gryphon.
00:18:58
Speaker
and then sort of snowballed into the archaeologist side of Geralt of Rivia, who was able to identify elements, just the age and species of monsters remains, as well as paleopathology, which you do see in the Gryphon quest, but also believe there's a quest in White Orchard with a Braith. Yeah, there is.
00:19:19
Speaker
I mean, I think the Griffin one we talked about because I was like the first big quest you do in the game. And I think when we record it, I like kind of started playing the third game. So I wasn't as informed as you were about a lot of the animals, the monsters that you fight in that game.
00:19:40
Speaker
Oh, like, I went full out for that episode, I think, because I even did. I think I even bought this, like, there was like a Witcher sort of companion book that had a beast sharing that. I bought the book. I mean, now now I get it. I've played I've played through Witcher 3 twice now, including the DLC. And I probably have like, you know, three hundred hours in that game alone. So I get it. I definitely get it now.
The Witcher: A Bioarchaeological Perspective?
00:20:05
Speaker
But I mean, but it is really interesting because of the way
00:20:09
Speaker
the Witcher kind of mechanics work in the video game where it's very investigative and because he's a monster hunter, the two kind of cross over in this kind of way that makes the Geralt kind of a bioarchaeologist because he does this whole thing where, you know, he looks at the remains, he's like, oh, well, I can't, I can't do the voice. I'm like trying to like, like brace myself to try and do the voice.
00:20:35
Speaker
He's American in the video game, so it's fine. I could do it. I'm making myself kind of hysterical trying to do this. Come on, Alex. I know you can do it. Just sum it up. I need to do something to get me in the mood. Like, when selling. Okay, I'm fine.
00:20:57
Speaker
But he's just like, you know, he looks at the girlfriend, he's like, must be a female or whatever. Oh, my voice. Oh, my throat hurts so bad. Doug, how do you do that voice all the time? Oh, anyway. Alex and myself have similar video game preferences. So, you know, I think we both enjoy like nice world building and thus a very sound creature design, which is something all of the games are about to mention have in common.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yes, and I think the Witcher was a great way to kind of do it, because like I said, because you play as a monster hunter, there's a lot of that lore about, you know, the physiology and the anatomy of the creatures built in, inherently into the stories and the video game that it was very easy to talk about. Like you have like a whole bestiary in the menu of the video game, which is extremely useful.
00:21:51
Speaker
But we also, me and Simona share a love of Bioware games. So obviously, of course we ended up, although interestingly, we didn't do Dragon Age first.
Mass Effect: Characters and Romances
00:22:01
Speaker
We did Mass Effect, which I feel like is a weird one to do first. I think it's probably because we mentioned Dragon Age creatures in our main video game episode, so in the generic one, but Mass Effect didn't make the cut.
00:22:15
Speaker
So we started with a whole episode of Mass Effect, which also I think by that time, I'd only played Andromeda. So I think I was very confused for a lot of it. And I've since played because in the meantime, the remaster came out. So I got that. I played through all three of them and all the DLCs. I think I've done three playthroughs. Oh, wow. Because there you go. That's my hyper focus for you. I still have not played Andromeda.
00:22:46
Speaker
I will still insist it's fine as a different day. I gave up on it. I was just I headed to the planet hopping because it was just just felt so menial. But no, the originals are great. Apart from, you know, the one thing that we all know about. Yeah. This is about me romancing Caden again. Oh, we've been through this. I already admitted my shame.
Dragon Age and Assassin's Creed: History Meets Fantasy?
00:23:15
Speaker
yeah okay that is pretty shameful it's a really nice romance okay if you like stick it out for the whole thing it's like a nice kind of like arc where you have the breakup in the second game and you get back together the third game leave me alone
00:23:30
Speaker
It doesn't sound like a healthy relationship. Okay. If you've seen the people I've dated, you would be impressed. I've made it this far with Caden. There's been a lot of Cadens, right? Okay, got it, got it. But no, I was referring to the ending of Mass Effect 3. Of course. What ending? No, that's not a thing.
00:23:52
Speaker
Of course. Do you mean the Citadel DLC? The true ending of that game? Okay, fair enough. I agree. Citadel DLC. I think I played the Citadel DLC so many times because I tried to get all the various options in terms of the types of parties that you could have. So I'll have Wild Party in both segments or Chill Party in both segments. Did you do 100 pull-ups? I can't remember now. It takes so long.
00:24:23
Speaker
I can't even remember. My favourite was when Zahid put all the booby traps around the apartment.
00:24:32
Speaker
Okay. It's fun. This is nothing about Zuarkia. We're just talking about how much we like the game. But yeah, there is clearly, I mean, you mentioned Garris, there's so many really interesting alien designs in the franchise. And we do talk about a bunch of them, but I really want to just bring back because I didn't remember this until I looked back at the episode. Do you remember the shifty looking cow?
00:24:54
Speaker
No! So this is a cow you can find in the first game, I believe. A planet, Antoram. So there's a space cow, and it kind of looks like a thylacine almost, but it's got like four legs and two little arms in the front, and it's a herbivore.
00:25:09
Speaker
if you interact with it as Commander Shepard, it will slowly follow you around the planet and slowly steal all your money. Lapera I suppose they've never interacted with it. Evie But we talked about it in the episode. And that's just really important we talk about on the archaeological level.
The Fascination with Pokemon and Ghosts
00:25:25
Speaker
Lapera But while we're reminiscing about Mass Effect, just because we will never have a chance to bring this up ever again, the Elkhor Shakespeare.
00:25:33
Speaker
One of the best things I've ever seen in my life. It's just a thing of beauty. If you've not played Mass Effect, just look up the video of the Elkhor Shakespeare production. It's just, it's gold. It's just, it's a lot of fun. The alien designs are so great and really interesting.
00:25:53
Speaker
And, you know, it's a great, it's a great game regardless of it's kind of not really sticking the landing, but it's fine because we have another, uh, BioWare franchise we can talk about and that's Dragon Age. And I mean, yeah, there's not, there is a lot you could talk about Dragon Age, although I feel like maybe not as much in some, we did talk about the dragons. In a way, there is so much to talk about that it would just.
00:26:23
Speaker
be reductive to summarise it. There is just too much. But again, I'm very pious because Dragon Age is probably my favourite game of all time. I own literally
00:26:37
Speaker
or every single game and DLC, book, magazine, every kind of media that has come out on Dragon Age. I have it. So would you say you're more of a Thedans expert than a Roman one? I think quite likely. I think I probably know the Thedans sort of calendar best.
00:27:00
Speaker
like it because the world building is so like interesting and they've got different names for the days of the month and celebrations of course you know they're very not so loosely based on some of our celebration and some of our sort of old pagan holidays but nevertheless great world building great creature design great sort of companion mechanics and things as in mass effect to be fair that's also spectacular so yes 10 out of 10 would recommend
00:27:27
Speaker
And it's got nugs, which I believe we talked about. Because in Dragon Age Inquisition, you can find a giant nug. Which are basically, they kind of look like bunnies without any fur. But they have horse teeth. They do, yeah. So you can... What? It's very strange. Yeah. And there's a big one that you can ride into battle in Inquisition. Even though they're usually quite tiny, so...
00:27:54
Speaker
It's very important that we had to talk about. I normally, I usually always go for the big stag. I go for the bog one. Oh, the bog unicorn's quite cool as well. It's quite, quite cool. But it's just big because I'm always like a female elven mage. Yeah, no, actually I do go for the stag as well because I am also a female Dalish. Oh, we need to stop before we just, this becomes the Dragon Age podcast.
00:28:19
Speaker
If you would like to see us in the future doing a Dragon Age only podcast.
00:28:43
Speaker
Also, I just noticed as well that it was literally every other episode. The Dragon Age was 31, Assassin's Creed 33. I know. It was really bad. We really had a string of video game episodes. We just could not be stopped. But yeah, good news. I played Valhalla now. Great game. Really enjoyed it.
Tributes to Podcast Characters and Moments
00:29:00
Speaker
I've still not finished it. Oh, I've done everything. And I've got like another 200 hours into that game. I've done everything but the very last quest. So like I've stopped playing ever since you've done the last bit of main storyline in the present.
00:29:16
Speaker
Okay. I got so miffed. I mean, fair. Yeah. No, I similarly felt like that. So I get, I get that vibe. So like, no, you don't get to play any of this. I'm not finishing this. You made a character.
00:29:32
Speaker
But yeah, the Assassin's Creed games were interesting because it's interesting how well they've been at really making the Fauna accurate to the time period. I mean, we talked about like the Aurochs and stuff like that you can see in the game. And for me, in Assassin's Creed Rogue, which I've never played, but I do know the Great Auk makes an appearance and I love the Great Auk as someone who
00:29:53
Speaker
wrote about them a lot, my PhD, little kind of puffin looking animals that lived up north. And that makes me very happy. So I appreciate that commitment to detail in the Assassin's Creed games. I mean, of course, aside from the big like boss legendary creatures, which like should stress neither Alex or myself believe that those are accurate. Yeah, yeah, that's our main problem is that they're not accurate.
00:30:19
Speaker
So she was like, Oh, like they did a very like a lot of research in the portrayal of wildlife things like, okay, maybe learn not the gigantic polar bear in Norway, like maybe not that. I don't know. I don't know. You weren't there. You weren't in the Animus.
00:30:34
Speaker
The last video game episode I want to talk about, which is episode 34, is the Pokemon one. I mainly just want to bring it up because it's one of my favorite moments of the podcast, which is when Simona, who is not familiar with Pokemon, was introduced to the concept of Pokemon eggs, and more specifically, the fact that there are ghost Pokemon. Hence, there are ghost Pokemon that are hatched from eggs.
00:30:57
Speaker
A little Viberous Ghost! Why are you making me relieve this trauma? Because it's amazing and it's extremely funny. That's like the main thing you got out of that Pokémon episode. There's like over, you know, like 600 or whatever Pokémon. The thing you got out of it was, oh Viberous Ghost! No!
00:31:28
Speaker
It's a lot to take in. So to avoid Simone having a nervous breakdown, we'll do a quick toast to some of our favorite recurring characters on the show that I feel like we need to mention now that we're moving away from the video game episodes. And we'll talk about, I guess, Simone, do you want to introduce us our first character that we'll be giving a toast to?
00:31:50
Speaker
Yes, so Billy, we'll say our final farewell to our good old friend, General Sitophilus Granarios, first mentioned in episode 30. The general is a humble species of a grain weevil, which is actually a pretty nasty grain pest that has been brought into Britain, thanks to the Romans. However, in our imaginary, General Sitophilus Granarios, which is nothing but a grain weevil that has a centurion helmet on,
00:32:20
Speaker
I've got a battlefield promotion to general, because apparently me sort of pronouncing the Latin to the scientific name with an Italian accent makes it sound like a Roman general. And I just can't be serious for a moment on this podcast.
00:32:39
Speaker
So that snowballed into a whole character. I believe we have received fan art about the general. Yes, we have. And I'm so glad that the general has resonated with you all as it's resonated with us. And I mean, it is an incredibly important friend to archaeologists given its obsession with stores of grain, which helped to hitch a ride with the Romans to Britain and helps us with interpreting environmental thingies.
00:33:09
Speaker
know, so we should mention like, you know, the general, you know, is since he's got an acting role, as well, potentially neither a series of comics or a feature film in which general sycophilus granarios is actually a man trapped in the body of a grain weevil, that has to like, jump, travel through time with the help of Pliny the Elder, so he could recover as human form.
00:33:33
Speaker
It's very Kafkaesque. That was a very good reference, and I hope that somebody listening understands that. But anyway, shall we metamorphosize into the next one? Yeah, we can hold off our last two toasts for the next segment. We'll be back. We'll leave you all waiting to find out who else we're going to mention.
00:33:58
Speaker
And we're back for the third and final segment of the final episode of Archaeo Animals, episode 65.
Reflecting on Successes and Failures
00:34:08
Speaker
Our previous segment was interrupted mid-applause.
00:34:16
Speaker
of some of the recurring characters that have hopefully entertained you over the past five years. So we already said thank you to General Sitophilus Granarios, but I think we thanked him enough, so I think we should talk about Nickus instead. NICKUS Yes, Nickus the Steer, who I didn't realise was such an early reference back in episode six. NICKUS And even then, when we recorded episode six, Nickus the Steer was already old news.
00:34:43
Speaker
So yeah, Knickers the Steer, a 2,800 pound, six foot four inches tall, Holstein-Friesian dairy steer in Australia, who became a meme. And weirdly enough, was not large enough to beat the world record holder, Abilino the cow from Italy, who is six foot six, another one for Simona. Because, surprise, I am that cow from... That's what I was going to say, but okay.
00:35:14
Speaker
go off, I guess. You all learned the secret, the terrible secrets of our animals. That's why she's so good at this. I'm actually the lead of the cow masquerading as a person. There's been a bovine conspiracy this whole time. I thought you were really tall when I met you in person.
00:35:38
Speaker
I would have thought the mooing in the, like, the Frisian kind of like outfit would have given away someone or Alex. Yeah, the listeners get really confused because actually, like you think it's there's a recording of me talking, but all the listeners can hear is just me like mooing. Yeah, Alex and I are just having a shared kind of experience of like it being translated, you know, she got like the babble fish right here.
00:36:08
Speaker
Let's move on. It's on the bingo board. It's on the bingo board. Well, I was going to say, if you don't have your bingo cards handy, Tristan makes a bad joke. It's on there. You have to have at least one, you know, or six, but a final thank you. Well, unlike the other two, someone who did actually, well, no, no, because they exist. Our last thank you is to
00:36:37
Speaker
The Great, Playa the Elder. We could not have done it without him. No, I wonder if he knew back then when he wrote his natural history that thousands of years later he was going to inspire. Whatever this is, this nonsense really.
00:36:57
Speaker
We don't even have one episode, really, to pinpoint. He's often referred to because, like Simona said, he wrote one of the earliest encyclopedias, The Natural History, which was hugely influential even up until the medieval period. He was originally a Roman lawyer, then a military commander, and eventually died during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79th.
00:37:18
Speaker
CE. He did a lot of writing and helps how we understand Roman knowledge at the time as imperfect as it was. So thank you, Pliny the Elder.
00:37:31
Speaker
kind of cut through this final segment with some extra stuff from the last one. But, you know, we should point out that the third segment is normally a dedicated segment to the case studies. And obviously we can't end our podcast without discussing everyone's favorite part of the show, a claim that we have never in five years of podcasting actually provided evidence for, but we have said constantly like we were going to manifest it.
00:37:58
Speaker
Although Tristan said before we started recording that it is his favourite part. Who cares? Being very quiet about all this. He's crying.
00:38:15
Speaker
So yeah, case studies. It's something we brought into the show structure just to kind of give us a chance to talk about real research instead of whatever we've been talking about and like cite some actual work that's going on. And like I said, we've just decided it's everyone's favorite. So tough. If you don't like it, whatever. Who cares? I don't. It's our last episode. We do what we want.
00:38:37
Speaker
So yeah, here's some of our favorites. And I believe, Simona, you specifically wanted to talk about this. From episode 61, Bog Butter. Oh, like the episode that descended very quickly. Or the case study that descended very quickly. Well, bogs, as an environment, occur mainly in Ireland. Oh, nope. Yes, there is only bogs in Ireland. Ireland is the only place with bogs.
00:39:06
Speaker
Obviously. There's episodes just like, I still crack up even thinking about it. Because it's not funny. It's not funny, but it is. Sorry. Are you still thinking about the squirrel worship of bug butter? No, it's the person. It's the reason why the bug butter even exists. It's just somebody accidentally just drop.
00:39:33
Speaker
I don't remember the episode I described like a bar of soup, but like is it? Somebody's squeezing the butter and it's plopping out and then just going, oh for god's sake, not another one!
00:39:51
Speaker
It just kills me every time. I just, I think it will be the best, like the funniest episode we have definitely. Oh God. And you say it's the send it again. And the reason it's like in the same kind of bogs and same positions, they only get so far before they squeeze. There must be a better way of carrying these book.
00:40:18
Speaker
I'm sorry. Okay, I'm done. But yes, just so why didn't you tell people about bug butter before? Because I won't be able to. Okay, evidence of bug butter has been mainly recovered in Ireland. As the name suggests, it's not only found in bugs, it's found in bugs. It's made largely of cow's milk. And the butter would be
00:40:48
Speaker
Why? We'll be placed in the bog to keep it cool, keep it secret, keep it safe. Or perhaps offer to the gods. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Let me eat it. Let me eat it, folks. I'm volunteering to eat the bog butter.
00:41:09
Speaker
Yeah, let Alex eat the thousand-year-old. Who cares? Are we, like, okay? Have we composed ourselves to move forward? Am I going to say goodbye to the bog bottle? Yeah, well, I'm going to, like, make everyone compose themselves by talking about the sad, depressing story of the Great Auk from episode 20.
Favorite Case Studies and Finds
00:41:32
Speaker
We kind of talked about it in this episode, but again, they're from my PhD, so I have to keep mentioning them.
00:41:38
Speaker
And I'm going to make everyone sad by talking about it because it's an extinct species. And the way the last one died is that a bunch of sailors found one and then tied it up. And then there was a bad storm. So they thought that the Great Auk was a witch. So the sailors beat it to death. RIP Great Auk. Thank you.
00:42:01
Speaker
way to bring the moods out on frog butter. Well, yeah, because the alternative is we're going to be like in hysterics for the next 20 minutes. Someone needs to bring us down back to earth. And I'm going to do that with sailors beating to death a bird. Well, let's let's sail away from this history of death and let's land on the shores of Sicily. Six chests, Sicily, Pleistocene. No people, beautiful.
00:42:33
Speaker
Now, this is something that we mentioned in Episode 32. And it's actually an island. It's called the island effect. And it's something that you see what a lot of islands not just Sicily during the Pleistocene period, where a lot of the megafauna is actually quite small. And a lot of the smaller fauna, it's abnormally large.
00:42:53
Speaker
So in the Pleistocene period in Sicily, you'd get elephants, basically the size of a large dog, and dormites, so leafy species, the size of cats.
00:43:04
Speaker
you do get that in other islands around the Mediterranean Sea. So like in Formentera, dormites are still like up to 50% larger than the ones found in the mainland. It's a strange sort of dynamic that you get on islands, because of course there's sort of less resources. So the megafauna tends to be a little bit smaller, but at the same time, due to the absence of predators, the smaller fauna are a lot bigger. Big mice. Big mice.
00:43:32
Speaker
Big ol' mice. Well, if we're still in the island mood, we'll stick with that fishiness and talk about Garum, although I'm sure it sounds nicer when Simona says it. Garum? Thank you. I can't roll my R's. This was always a problem when I took Latin. A real struggle. Yeah, I think after the buck-butter, yeah, it was still like me I'm drinking.
00:44:00
Speaker
things of a yeah, yeah, a taste foodings. Because garum is a specifically a Roman fish sauce. So again, if you've got the bingo cards, Romans, there you go. Probably got five of those already so far. It's a fish sauce made up from macerating small fish over a span of months, a few times over. And actually, in a fish episode, we had a case study
00:44:28
Speaker
23 and 4 of Garum were found in a garum shop in Pompeii.
00:44:34
Speaker
I don't want to know the smell if they opened or broke any of those. It turns out they've been made from species such as anchovies, mackerel, pickerels, herrings and tuna. And this was actually quite interesting from a scientific point of view because the age, death and seasonality helped confirm Pompeii's date of eruption. You can find out more I believe in episode 12.
00:44:57
Speaker
Now, this next one may send Simona back into Starks. Camels in Disguise, episode 58. So in the 9th century BCE, King Stabrotez of India had elephants that were not defeated by Assyria's queen Saramis and her pack of camels, which were, of course, dressed as elephants by using dyed or dark ox hides to make the costume.
00:45:26
Speaker
Although the real elephants were confused by the camel smell, of course, from the fake elephants, they still trampled them to death. Was that the noise of a camel or was that the noise of an elephant? Or was it a camel dressed as an elephant?
00:45:48
Speaker
being trampled. It is still like a step up from King Darius of Persia's use of camels on fire. I mean, the camels were carrying bundles of fire, unlike the Megarians of Greece who literally lit their pigs on fire to fight elephants. People really did the most to fight elephants. Yeah, but their enemy's bacon was cooked at that point.
00:46:18
Speaker
Anyway, next case study. I just wanted to be a completely blacked out square by the end of this show. People are just going to set their bingo cards on fire. So our next one, real, real easy, real quick. Let's just mention Bufo Bufo. It's a common toad from episode 53. The name is Bufo Bufo. I don't know what else you need to know. Bufo Bufo.
00:46:45
Speaker
Yes, next case study. We did a whole miniseries. We did a couple miniseries, but we did one of our miniseries was our Where the World Miniseries, where we tackled every single continent and did the zoology of
Fun Zooarchaeological Facts
00:46:56
Speaker
them. And yes, that even includes Antarctica, which we actually did a whole episode on, episode 50. And in 1933, as part of a publicity stunt, three Guernsey cows with great names like Klondike Nira,
00:47:10
Speaker
Deerfoot Guernsey Maid and Foremost Southern Girl. Her favorite. Yeah, I mean, that one's amazing. And as well as a bull calf born on the way named Iceberg, we're all sent to work in a dairy in Antarctica for a year and big dairy strikes again. Foremost Southern Girl. I'm going to name my next cat that. It's just like a flay that they have to have three names.
00:47:39
Speaker
Why shouldn't it have three names? Yeah, yeah, you know what, you got me there. But then the babies just named iceberg. I think they just run out of ideas by that point, they've been traveling for a few months on a boat and it's just the iceberg.
00:47:54
Speaker
So, the final case study I'd like to bring up, because I remembered it. I remember Simona being slightly tickled about this. It's Waterfowl Collections from episode 45. Should I back it? Can Tristan try that in a posh accent? I'm not. What is it again? Waterfowl Collections.
00:48:15
Speaker
Oh yes, I'm just perusing my waterfowl collection in my stately home here in the drawing room where, ironically, I do not draw. Is that okay? Yeah, because, you know, I think if I did it, I would get deported immediately. Is that not you just being a camel disguise if you did it? You called me a camel. I'm disguise?
00:48:44
Speaker
You call me an elephant? In disguise. Anyway, yeah, wonderful. Actually, all along, like, that was a cow. This guy said Alex was a camel. You'll never know what animal I was. Oh, the donkey. Eat on, that's not right.
00:49:06
Speaker
Yes, the Waterfowl collection. It's apparently the Canadian geese, Bramta Cannadensis, were worthy of being gifted to royalty in the 17th century. Who'd have thunk everywhere now. But yes, they were worthy gifts to royals and nobles who had Waterfowl collection. Apparently it was all the rage in the 17th century.
00:49:29
Speaker
That included King James II of England, King Louis XI of France, and now Canadian geese are everywhere in the UK and France. Thanks a lot, guys. Inside Waterfowl Collection or outside Waterfowl Collection. Thanks.
00:49:50
Speaker
Anyway, on that note, yeah, so here we are at the end of our last show.
Final Thoughts and Thank Yous
00:49:56
Speaker
So any final thoughts, Simona? Not about Bob Butter? Just want to put that in the... Not about Bob Butter, because we cannot keep doing this.
00:50:07
Speaker
No, jokes aside, no, it's been fun. I think, I think we've done something good here. I do think we've been striking, for the most part, a good balance between educational and entertaining. Okay, we might have gone a little bit heavy on the entertaining mostly of ourselves. Yeah, or more, more than one occasion. But I think
00:50:30
Speaker
I think I've done a good thing. It's been fun. And I said, like, it's been a good sort of middle ground for something that yes, it is sort of an inherently academic subject. But I do think that we've tried our best to make in a way that is entertaining and accessible. So it's not just something about zoo archaeology for zoo archaeologists or for archaeologists, which again, that is also fine.
00:50:54
Speaker
But as far as I'm concerned, that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to create a show and content that could interest anyone regardless of sort of like whichever walk of life you come from.
00:51:07
Speaker
If you like animals, or like old things, you might like argue animals. I mean, if you like dead animals, it's a bit morbid, I guess. That could take a disturbing turn. Yeah, I mean, that's all I wanted to do this show originally, because I just felt like people even in the field didn't really
00:51:27
Speaker
know what zoo archaeology was, or didn't really give it the kind of respect that it deserves. There's a lot of, you know, feelings of people being like, Oh, animal bones, let's just go. That's from the, you know, soil heap just tosses aside, but that's like really important. And we learned so much from it. So I'm glad that we had this platform to kind of talk about it. And I think we've
00:51:47
Speaker
basically covered a lot in the five years. You know, I don't feel like, you know, we're missed out on so much. I think we've covered a lot of, you know, ritual domestication, but just in general, I think we managed to touch upon a lot of different elements of the archaeology pun intended, like I don't know, whatever.
00:52:07
Speaker
I think we've showcased a good range of topics within zoo archaeology. There definitely is a discipline that is not as glamorous as some of the other sub-disciplines within archaeology. Of course, especially, you think of archaeology, a lot of people will be interested in the ceramics or the shiny things and all the metal objects. And here's us with, oh, look at this tibia. We're cool. That's all we want to do is prove that we're cool.
00:52:36
Speaker
But yeah, so even though it's the end of this podcast, don't forget, the archive will still exist. You can listen to the backlog. You can listen to old episodes and use your bingo card to see how well you do. I'm sure you'll constantly get a black square because we just say the same three things over and over again for 65 episodes. Let's be real. And yeah, but you know, also there's the rest of the podcast network.
00:53:02
Speaker
with great shows and maybe future great shows, so stay tuned. And I guess it's time to do some final thank yous. So as much as I hate to say it, thank you to Tristan, who has kept this podcast to be listenable to most human beings, maybe not through his jokes, but through his productive skills, production skills. That's what I meant, not productive skills, I know you.
00:53:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's very true. Production, production. Yeah, that's the key. The key to it, I think, is sitting here and waiting for the perfect moment to interject with your own opinions rather than properly listening to the conversation that's going on. And I think I've really worked on that skill.
00:53:49
Speaker
Okay. Shush now. Thank you to Chris as well, who helped us start this to begin with and the rest of the APN who have also always been really good supporters of the show. Thank you to Zoo Archaeologists and Archaeologists alike for which we needed all your actual research to kind of get the show to have things to talk about.
00:54:09
Speaker
because it wasn't going to be us, really. Me and Simona, too busy playing video games, to be honest. I got some other thank yous that are really serious that I need to do right now. Thank you to the remaining staff members of Bioware Studios, whoever you are. Thank you to George Lucas, partially. The entirety of Latin, all animal bones except fish bones, plenty of the elder, medieval, natural historians and artists. And of course, thank you to all of our listeners as well. Simona, did I miss out on any other thank yous?
00:54:35
Speaker
Didn't thank Sandy. Oh, gosh, I'm sorry. Thank you to Sandy. Thank you to Bastet. Thank you to Cerny. Thank you to Violet. Yes.
00:54:45
Speaker
And Bruno. Thank you to Bruno. Any other pets I want to thank you to all the Korean cats. I follow Instagram. Thank you to Bone Bone, the Persian house cat that I follow on Instagram. Anyone else, any other animals who want to start? Thank you to Nickers, the steer. Yes, Nickers, obviously. And I want to pull up a list of famous. Thank you to all the people who dropped
00:55:09
Speaker
big loaves of butter. Thank you to Bog Butter. Thank you to the one guy in prehistoric Ireland who just really was trying so hard, bless him, to carry that butter and just could not every single time. God bless you.
00:55:26
Speaker
to that man. Thank you to that man specifically. What a way to end this podcast. Well, can I just interject one last time? Yes. I would like to say thank you to you, Alex, and to you, Simona, for making this such a fantastic show to listen to. You know, because obviously I get to sit in the seat and listen to you guys talk, but I think the success of the show has been
00:55:52
Speaker
because you guys put so much hard work and effort in and you just you work very well as a team and I really really really I'm gonna miss it and I just want to say thank you for you know tolerating me and thank you obviously I'm technically also co-founder of the APN so also from the APN thank you so much for all that you've done over the last over five years and
00:56:19
Speaker
And yeah, I think this is definitely a testament to just the amazing work that you've done. So thank you. Thank you. You know, it would have been really cool if I had like actual bog butter to eat on this last episode. And then I just dropped dead. Whenever you really cool.
00:56:41
Speaker
I don't want to make this episode in Memoriam, please, Alex. If anyone has access to Bogbutter, I will record a bonus episode as a postscript and I will eat the Bogbutter live on the podcast. Just saying, just saying, it's my last, my last request as a podcaster. Bogbutter eating ASMR. Yes. Oh my gosh. Do we have time to do one last, last episode?
00:57:09
Speaker
All right, folks, I think before I go nuts, we will end it here again. Thank you all so much. Although actually, we've said it for a few times over the last five years as a joke. And now we get to say for real. So so this was the last episode.
00:57:36
Speaker
Thank you for listening to RQ Animals. Please subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you get your podcasts from. You can find us on Twitter at RQAnimals. Also, the views expressed on the podcast are those of ourselves, the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily represent those of our institutions, employers and the Ocogi Podcast Network. Thanks for listening.
00:58:00
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.