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Archaeology in the Levant feat. Idan - Ep 19 image

Archaeology in the Levant feat. Idan - Ep 19

E19 ยท I Dig It
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In this episode, we talk with archaeology student Idan from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem about his studies, mom's homemade sourdough bread, work, and goals as an archaeologist!

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Introduction and Hosts Introduction

00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to the iDicket Podcast, a podcast where we talk about the student perspective of navigating the world of archaeology and anthropology. I'm your host, Michaela. And I'm your host, Alyssa.
00:00:22
Speaker
Hey, welcome back to the podcast.

Special Guest Idan's Introduction

00:00:24
Speaker
Today we have a special guest with us. Today we have Idan here from Israel. He is doing his bachelor's in archaeology of the Levant in the Near East at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Welcome in. Super cool. Welcome in.

Connecting Through Discord and Tumblr

00:00:39
Speaker
And we met Idan through our Discord channel.
00:00:43
Speaker
where he has been super active, having a lot of fun chatting in there with other people also. So thank you so much for volunteering to come onto the podcast with us today. Excited to have you. Thank you very much for having me. Which platform did you find the Discord on? Actually, I found it randomly through Tumblr. Ooh, it was Tumblr, yay. It was my Tumblr blog.
00:01:09
Speaker
Yeah, I was I am following the archaeology and history tags on Tumblr. So randomly one day just popped up.
00:01:17
Speaker
And I was like, well, I got nothing to lose. So I joined. I'm so excited. I feel like I think a lot of people from the Discord came from Tumblr because the first post that I did with the Discord link had like so many re-blogs. So Tumblr is a great way to find. I found there's a lot of archaeologists on Tumblr. It's crazy. I mean, you have to dig into a rabbit hole somewhere when you're not digging into dirt.
00:01:47
Speaker
The internet and Tumblr is one way to go. Definitely. I never got into the Tumblr scene though. I was always into Reddit though. You haven't missed anything.
00:02:01
Speaker
I didn't go on Tumblr when it was a thing, like when we were in high school and stuff. I actually just started like during my master's degree a couple of years ago because I wanted a place to blog everything and that one's free and there's a lot of people already on it where you can like scroll like social media. So it was an easy start. But yeah, so I recently got into Tumblr.
00:02:21
Speaker
Very nice, very nice. Yes. All right, so Iran. I was gonna say, tell us a little bit about yourself. What are you studying? What's your program like? How'd you get here in this world?

Idan's Family Influence and Studies

00:02:39
Speaker
So it all happened in
00:02:41
Speaker
And one night in 1995, I'm just joking. I'm not going to go 25 years ago. Which is, by the way, in about a week and a half next weekend, I have my birthday. Happy early birthday. In my family, we all really love history and archaeology. My father actually wanted to be an archaeologist, but it didn't happen sadly.
00:03:09
Speaker
But he's still very enthusiastic about it. So he really pushed me to learn history. And thanks to him, I actually found it very, very fascinating to learn about the past, more specifically about wars and stuff like that, because Soviet Union, Mother Russia, and stuff like that. So war is very, very interesting in our family in general. The way I went to study archaeology specifically was
00:03:40
Speaker
Actually very random because I wasn't planning on starting any college degree at all. I Well, I was kinda just getting out of depression of severe depression and I didn't really wanted to do anything with my life, but my mom one day Set me next to my computer and told me we done you got a sign up for university and I don't care So this is what I did and I actually chose
00:04:09
Speaker
criminology as my main bachelor. However, because criminology in the Hebrew in the Hebrew University is a double degree, or how we call it in Hebrew, do ho gi. So we have to take two bachelors in order to complete a full bachelor degree because they are because it's relatively short, I had to choose a second one. And one of the other ones that I could choose was archaeology. So I went with that.
00:04:39
Speaker
Why the archaeology of the Levant? Because we are living in the Levant. As simple as that. Two years ago in autumn 2018, I started my bachelor. And I'm now currently on my third year.

Impact of COVID-19 on Idan's Studies

00:04:57
Speaker
And I would have to, at this point, continue it a little bit longer, longer than three years, because
00:05:05
Speaker
during the second year, I didn't really take any courses, any significant courses, I planned on other things, but then 2020 happened. You understand the pain of everybody's existence. Okay, so you have one year left of school then? Yeah, roughly. How has it been so far? How's your program been? Have you done much archaeology during your program at all? Or is it
00:05:30
Speaker
Well, field school, I tried to go, but due to a medical condition that I'm currently dealing with, it didn't go up out very well. So much so that I had to drop out of field school. And I have to redo it whenever I can. I hope that this summer I will be able to, but I don't have my hopes high because I need to sort out this medical condition first.

University Work and Discoveries

00:05:59
Speaker
However, I do work in the University, in the Archaeological Institute of the University, as you could say it's a research assistance, although my actual job is going through bags of dirt from an excavation that was done in 1994.
00:06:24
Speaker
and sift through it and go through everything with a pair of tweezers. I actually have a lot of fun and I do it for two years now. Have you found anything cool in there yet? Well, I actually have and I don't remember if I've actually shared it on the Discord, but the coolest thing that I found was a full, complete bone. It was a small one, about two and a half centimeters long, about an inch.
00:06:52
Speaker
But it was from one joint to the other joint. So I know it's a full bowl of a small rodents. So that was very, very nice. We love dirt. Dirt. If you didn't love dirt, what are you doing in archaeology exactly? Yeah, that's true. Exactly. I finished today with the bag that this giant Brixia came from. Nice. Congrats.
00:07:21
Speaker
Thank you very much. That must have been very fulfilling. Well, it was actually very, very disappointing because half of the bag was Brexia. What is Brexia for those who don't know? In the university, we have given two lumps of basically almost falsified dirt, ash, and other material that can be broken down. And in most cases, you can find pieces of lint inside it.
00:07:50
Speaker
as well as some fauna and on rare occasions also flora, if it has survived that long. Sounds very useful. I also call it falsified bone stew. I like that name better. Yeah, I like that. I think the name itself is a French one.
00:08:17
Speaker
And I wouldn't be surprised if it is because we are working with a lot of French PhD students and post doctorate and masters who are doing their whatever in the university. Is the department at your university pretty large?

Archaeology Department Dynamics

00:08:34
Speaker
You could say it is. However, it's going to get even bigger because this month they started to renovate the old building that was less renovated whenever it was built in
00:08:47
Speaker
41. Yeah, I mean, the floor is falling apart. Who needs a floor? How many people are in your department, like your year? My year? I know, hold on. I have my friend who works with me on the side that I work on, which is a mood cave. I have
00:09:13
Speaker
Two of my good friends from my year who are working, one on Tinchemet, which is an ongoing excavation, and another one on Ingev, which is also an ongoing excavation. Tinchemet is a mustarian site, and Ingev is an Atufian site. Amudgev is a mustarian site as well. That's awesome. Is it mostly just your university working on those sites, or do you have an international team there also?
00:09:43
Speaker
or who do you find on the site? The site that I am working on has combined basically right now the research that I'm doing is basically project cleanup to clean up the space and try to salvage the bags that haven't been literally evaporated throughout the years.
00:10:08
Speaker
On that one is the Hebrew University with a combined effort of individual researchers from all around the world. Whoever wants to join basically can join on that project because it's basically a project that started in the 60s with Japan of all people. Interesting. Yeah, in the 60s they did an excavation
00:10:37
Speaker
there. And then in the 90s, Professor Hovers did a combined project with, I believe, University of Iowa, but I don't really remember. Either Iowa or Ohio. It depends. It is actually written on the bags. Yeah, it's written on the bags, but I don't really remember because I haven't looked at the labels
00:11:04
Speaker
as of late. But I can get back to you on that one on Sunday. Sounds good. That's awesome. For university, do they put you on a site or do you choose a site? Because it seems like with
00:11:22
Speaker
being an archeologist, they assign you or you get onto a site where you're able to work instead of just taking classes and not doing any fieldwork or like being a part of like a field study or something like that. Is that accurate? Cause I know in the U S they just are like, Oh, you can do field school or fieldwork. You just have to find on your own, but we're not going to explicitly have it at the university for you guys.
00:11:49
Speaker
Well, here, I guess we are very, very lucky because from what I understood from people from the US and the rest of the world, we actually have a department of archaeology and a full bachelor degree with archaeology, with a lot of archaeologists working together and then split it up to wherever they want to go.

Archaeology Focus in Israel vs US

00:12:09
Speaker
Unlike, for example, those who are studying biblical archaeology in the United States, from what I heard, they go to
00:12:17
Speaker
biblical studies or something like that and becoming archaeologists of that department. Here in Israel we have archaeologists working as an archaeologist who only later during the second year chooses which actual department or which era, so more accurately it would be, they decide which era they are gonna focus on. Yeah also we have so many sites I mean
00:12:48
Speaker
Yeah, I would imagine so. Yeah, that must be amazing. It's a blessing that also occurs, especially when it comes to renovating buildings and keeping them up to code, especially in Jerusalem. Because the entire city of Jerusalem is considered to be an archaeological site. The whole city.
00:13:08
Speaker
And whenever they want to rebuild something or renovate or just put it up to code because, yeah. I mean, or just put it up to code because we are awaiting a huge earthquake that is supposed to happen and just doesn't come for some reason. Every 100 years we have one. The last big one was in 1927. Oh my God. Oh my God. Coming up.
00:13:33
Speaker
Yeah, coming up. So we are renovating. But we have a high chance actually about this, that the most devastating damage would be either in the West Bank, in the Palestinian authorities, because they are not keeping anything up to code, and some cracks on the even older buildings. And that's it.
00:13:53
Speaker
It's kind of similar to how it is in England where just everywhere you dig, there's something Roman that you need to worry about. So when people try to make the new railway systems and everything, it's a big process of making sure you're not disturbing any of the archaeology or disturbing it properly. When we built the tram line in Jerusalem, more than a decade ago by now, a very small section
00:14:23
Speaker
right between basically the ultra-religious areas of Macobao where the bazaar and the market and all of those and the central bus station they had an excavation for like half a year because they found their relics and buildings and stuff
00:14:45
Speaker
But then after they've dug out all everything valuable out of there and kept only the structures, they have covered it back in dirt and everything and build the rail and the tram lines on top of it. Oh, wow. Yeah. Also, there's a space in the Armenian quarters in the old city of Jerusalem that is a green space, open space, but nobody, everybody refused to build there.
00:15:14
Speaker
Because they know as soon as they put a truck there and start digging, they will find something. And then they will have to stop digging, start an excavation and pull everything out of there. So nobody wants and nobody wants to pay the bill. So they just so they just keep this green hill with nothing on top of it. As it should be.
00:15:42
Speaker
On the other hand, there's a serious apartment shortage in Jerusalem. However, in the recent four years, the mayor and everybody involved started to finally build actual buildings in Jerusalem. And they didn't have to take down any buildings or
00:16:03
Speaker
or they can't. Furthermore, if you have a new building or old building that you want to renovate, you must keep the outer walls intact as they are. Then you can do whatever you want on the inside, but the outside must remain as it is. This is the main reason why in St. Louis Hospital in Jerusalem, they have still bullet holes on the building from the Six Days War and the War of Independence in 1948.
00:16:32
Speaker
because the law forbids them to touch the outer side. Why is that? Is that like an aesthetic thing or a cultural thing? Why can't you change the outsides of the buildings? Because of heritage. It is considered to be an archaeological remain, and you are not allowed to touch it at all. However, if it
00:17:00
Speaker
in a dire state, such as, for example, in the city of Caesarea. I have no idea what is the English name of that city. A Roman city. They have retouched the huge podium that I think Herod the Great built it. Augustus, the Roman emperor of the time, they have retouched and did a very beautiful
00:17:29
Speaker
job at the stadium and every time a singer wants to perform they perform there and it's huge and a lot of people can sit there and they sit on the actual stairs or the seats or whatever of the ancient Roman stadium there so but it had to be a little bit retouched because it was completely destroyed when they
00:17:59
Speaker
excavated it originally. I don't remember when. That's kind of cool with the building with all the bullet holes at the hospital. Cause it just like preserves that history. And it's like, ah, this happened. And this, this is why, you know, it happened because look at these holes. It's like, Oh, look at this stadium. You know, this was here and this is used. And then archeologists came in and, and now we can use it again. Yeah. And with that, we'll be back after this break.
00:18:30
Speaker
Ida, what are your future goals for archaeology? What's the plan after you graduate? Do you have anything you want to be doing? Right now, my undergrads would be with a prehistorical focus. I've moved from biblical to prehistoric when I've decided to do an actual full bachelor degree in archaeology. Before that, I didn't want to do that because I wanted to focus on
00:18:58
Speaker
criminology. But 2020 happened and I've decided to finish a full bachelor degree in archaeology with a focus on prehistory.

Idan's Future Plans in Archaeology

00:19:08
Speaker
My shift is, well, my focus is on my master's degree to work on archaeozoology and more specifically study the fauna from a mud cave. There are several approaches we can take here. One is trying to
00:19:27
Speaker
say what animals they are or more specifically each bone in from a wood cave as shattered and crushed as it may be if you look under the microscope you can see some cutting patterns on it so the thing the thought is
00:19:51
Speaker
try to look at all of those patterns and see if there is an actual pattern going on and learn from that how the Neanderthals who sat in that cave, how did they prepare their food? How did they prepare their meat? How they cut it? Did they cut it before cooking or after cooking? And stuff like that. This is one focus. The other one is focusing on
00:20:21
Speaker
inner ear bones that can be found in the cave. Now, it is very, very interesting because Professor Hovers told me that this is one particular bone, which I forgot the name of, that is found in the site, but no other bone of the ear. And only this particular bone, and they still cannot tell
00:20:52
Speaker
Why only this bone had survived? Because they are very, very small and fragile. I forget the name of it too, but it helps with the ancient DNA and you just smoosh it and then it powders and then you get the DNA out of that. The bone? Yeah. The little teeny ear bone. And you have to be like in a whole lab, you have to be super sanitized. You have to be like in hazmat suits.
00:21:19
Speaker
go through like several airlocks or whatever. And then you go into the room where you have the bone and then you smash it with a hammer. And if there happens to be one particle that is not sanitized or just from somewhere else, like if a window's open or something by accident or there's a cat hair, it's, it's obsolete. You can't use it. Yep. Pretty much. That's wild. That's so cool. Like I love this study.
00:21:46
Speaker
Sadly, ancient DNA doesn't survive that long in the Levant because of the climate. And the site is too old for any chance for ancient DNA. So there's other reason because there are relatively a lot of bones there. So far, there were recorded 24.
00:22:08
Speaker
different bones of the inner ear, the same bone. And I have found and separated two in the last couple months. I found and separated two, two more. Not to mention other bones that I found throughout the years and never separated because I didn't know. But I remember how they look like. And when I've been shown about three or four months ago, how does this bone looks like? And I immediately said, well, I know this bone.
00:22:37
Speaker
It's pretty cool that it's an ear bone. I just assume it's a tiny little hand bone or whatever from a rodent or something. And apparently it is a bone of a bigger animal. These aspects are birds, but they cannot really tell for sure. I have found three human bones. Three human fingers. Two of them belong to the baby from the site.
00:23:07
Speaker
the baby of a moon cave and it was it has been talked about in the 90s in the archaeological world of prehistory and another bone of right now an unknown person and it is currently being worked on and I have no idea who is it and I'm very very curious to know because regardless of who it is
00:23:36
Speaker
It will be very, very awesome to see that I've been actually correct. Does your project have a website or anything that you guys have been updating or blogging about or anything like that? Sadly, no, because it was updated and the entire history of the site is updated and regulated by the old fashioned ways
00:24:06
Speaker
of posting it in peer-reviewed magazines and stuff. The last one, by the way, was posted several months ago. If I remember, I might share it, have it somewhere safe. Yeah.
00:24:27
Speaker
So yeah, but the most yeah, the most yeah, yeah, the most talk is mainly about the lit, the lithics. But also some, there were some studies about the fauna, some studies about the human remains. And they want to actually start to study about the botanic remains that can be found. But currently, there is no study going on.
00:24:54
Speaker
The only thing that's going on there is just separating and labeling it. And sorry, I was trying not to burp and failed. Anyway. That's all right. So where was I? Oh yeah.
00:25:23
Speaker
So right now the only study that is going on is basically going through the huge amount of fauna that has been found in the site and thinking for the future basically and the project cleanup that I do right now.

COVID-19's Impact on Fieldwork

00:25:41
Speaker
Is your project still able to do stuff right now with COVID and 2020 and everything? It sounds like you're still doing a little bit of lab work, which is awesome, but have you been able to get into the field at all or has that completely stopped with 2020? Well, at first it did stop, especially when we had the first lockdown in March when it all began, but everything stopped. So it wasn't,
00:26:08
Speaker
something specific to the archaeological research. After that, it started in May, returning back. Right now, the Institute of Antiquities, or however they're called, hold on, let me check out what is their actual name in English. Israel Antiquities Authority.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah, this is their name. So they basically stopped almost all of their work aside from archaeological excavations regarding the, I guess the best way to put it is just before putting down infrastructure
00:27:05
Speaker
they are doing usually a test dig to find to see if there is a significant archaeological interest underneath the ground so they're still doing that but other than that they're not really doing anything of significance. The universities and stuff like that I guess we all remained lucky aside from field schools that were cancelled
00:27:35
Speaker
only like specific very small groups were managed to excavate such as Tinshemet and other places. I know that Tinshemet had their annual excavation done and also Avel Beit Maha in the northern side of the country, which is a Bronze and Iron Age city, a biblical one.
00:28:06
Speaker
So they managed to do it. Obviously you have the regulations. Also in the city, in the old city of Jerusalem, there was an excavation in August that sadly I couldn't participate in, even though I wanted because of medical conditions and stuff. But obviously everything is up to code, wear a mask because we have a mandatory mask mandate. Whatever I just said, I have no idea.
00:28:32
Speaker
Yeah, we have to have a mask on and keep the distance. And if somebody is suspicious of COVID, everybody is getting into quarantine, all of that good stuff. Luckily, when the second lockdown rolled around in September, the archaeological research wasn't hinted by it. That being said, because I am reliant on public transport, I couldn't get to work. So I was staying at home.
00:29:01
Speaker
But be I a person with a vehicle, I could, in theory, still go to the university and do my speaking, as we call it. Yeah. Have all your classes been online? Up until last month, yes. Imani Benta. Yeah, my mom gave me a third of a bread that she made. Oh.
00:29:30
Speaker
It smells so good. She uses the ancient ways to make bread without yeast. Wow. Yeah. I have no idea how it's called in English. Wait a minute. I have Google translate sourdough. Google translate to the rescue. Love Google translate. That's funny. Homemade sourdough bread sounds so good right now. Oh yeah.
00:30:00
Speaker
It's so tasty, but I have to hold myself not to eat it because if I start eating it, I don't stop. I think I might go buy some sourdough today. That sounds so good. Why buy when you can make your own? Because you need the starter. Yeah, the starter takes like a week to make.
00:30:20
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So start with a starter now. Get a loaf of sourdough at the store. And the next week you'll have your own sourdough. Yes. Yes. Yes. There are a lot of recipes online. Yeah. A lot of people do really cool designs on their bread too, which has been cool to see, especially with quarantine. People are getting creative with bread. Because bread. Because bread. Yeah.
00:30:50
Speaker
I think I have on my computer some pictures of what my mom does. Ooh, please send it. We can post it on our Instagram. Your mom's sourdough. Oh yeah, we're doing a thing. Yeah, we're doing a thing now. All right. Hey, this is on a podcast about bread. I think we need to start another. A bread archaeology podcast. Honestly, that would be a cool episode.
00:31:19
Speaker
Out of all the things about humanity, bread has remained pretty consistent. We did have one about ancient cider. Oh, true. Now we need bread. Bread. Well, you have in Egypt for that, they literally have an actual loaf of bread. And if I remember correctly, researchers from Egypt
00:31:42
Speaker
tried to redo a sour bread made out of barley that was oftentimes the salary of the workers on the pyramids. They've been given a bread, pretty nice loaf of bread, sourdough barley bread or however you say it properly in English, I don't know.
00:32:10
Speaker
No, they tried to redo it the same process. They said that it wasn't that good. That being said, you need to know how to make sourdough. So your mom could do it. Yeah. For my mom, it took several. Well, it actually didn't take her a lot of attempts because
00:32:32
Speaker
She was watching some Russian tutorials and apparently the Israeli flower is way better than the best quality flower in Russia. Wow. Also, a lot of guys in Israel really like to bake bread, which is fun. We love bread. Yeah. In this society, so good. Give me those carbs.
00:32:58
Speaker
And with that, we'll be back after this break. So are you finished with the semester or quarter? We have about a month and a half left. Some of the classes return to university and more specifically the lab classes, so to speak.

Return to Physical Classes

00:33:17
Speaker
In archaeology is the experimental archaeology that has been has returned and
00:33:26
Speaker
pottery and lithics also have returned to university because you need to actually look and touch the things in order to understand what are you talking about also which is not really the good thing but we do it anyway we also have one of the classes that is supposed to be online still but because everybody of the class we all are actually working together in one capsule including the professor who teaches us
00:33:56
Speaker
a PhD in that case. We all work together anyway. So we decided that because we are all in the university and we are all working, why not also have a class? So we are having a class, although we are not supposed to have a frontal class yet. But we'll keep it a secret. I haven't said which class in one day. So
00:34:25
Speaker
They'll never know. Yeah. Also, everything is a legend. It was Wi-Fi used for worship. Exactly. Like Professor Ariel Shon? No. Ariel Shon was our Prime Minister. I mean, Ilan Shon. Professor Ilan Shon of the Archaeological Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem says,
00:34:54
Speaker
Whenever you don't know what was a certain thing used for, it was used for worship. That's honestly the best thing to say. Ritual purposes. It's not incorrect. Or it's not incorrect until proven to be incorrect. Yes. It was used for worship until proven otherwise. Yes, exactly.
00:35:23
Speaker
because our ancients were very worshipy. Or so we think. I mean, I watched one episode of Ancient Aliens, and it was all about worship. And it was just like, oh, these things are used for worship for the aliens. It was like, oh, we don't really know the gods, aliens. What's the difference? And I'm just like, oh my god. Archaeology 101. Yeah.
00:35:54
Speaker
It was a wild episode and I never want to watch another episode in my life. I've been dreaming a lot about aliens lately. I wonder if it's prophetic. Maybe it's the monoliths. Put on the tin hat, tin foil hat. Yeah. Please come help us, aliens. I think they are watching the 2020 sequel and they are like, dang, what happened there? Now it's the commercial break.
00:36:26
Speaker
We are the the comedy of the universe. That's for sure. Well, we should wrap it up. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it. Thanks so much for being here. You are. I think you're the first person we've had from that region of the world. So that's exciting. I'll be happy to join every time as long as I don't have too many essays and whatnot. So now I'm not supposed to have. So let's do a check in like sometime next year. We'll see how it's going.
00:36:55
Speaker
Let's hope for the best. Yes, let's hope for the best. 2021 is our year, right? Yeah, I hope. I mean, on my birthday, they're starting to vaccinate the first round in Israel. What a great birthday present from Israel to you. Yeah. For now, the first ones to be vaccinated would be the medical personnel and
00:37:22
Speaker
security workers, i.e. the police, the firefighters and the military, for now. And also officials, government officials and others, they will be also the first ones to be vaccinated. And not only because all of them are above the age of 60. I haven't heard much about vaccinations over here yet.
00:37:46
Speaker
They haven't really said when they were going to be doing it. Thank you so much for coming in today or coming online today. Thank you for having me. Well, good luck with the rest of your quarter and we'll keep in touch and check in soon. See how you're doing. Thank you very much. I would love to have to come again.
00:38:08
Speaker
We'd love to have you. Yay.

Social Media and Community Engagement

00:38:12
Speaker
Be sure to check out our social medias and we'll, they'll learn more about Yidan there and be sure to join our discord where you can join in all their fun conversations and you won't feel like you're left out when we're talking about wifi and aliens. And worship. And worship. Yes. Link in the description. Bye. Bye.
00:38:42
Speaker
The show is produced by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle, in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective. 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 chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.