Podcasts by Pre History - the archaeology of the ancient Near East
The Near East - the region known politically as the Middle East - is the home of both a long and eventful history as well as a much longer and fascinating prehistory. Here on Pre History I will cover the story of the Near East as we know it from the archaeological study of what people left behind as hunter-gatherers turned into farmers, as villages turned into cities, and as empires rose and fell.
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Episode 26: Samarra from 2022-12-01T15:05:14
As we finish off the Neolithic we must first go backwards to one of the less well known but vastly important cultures of the Neolithic Near East - the Samarra. As the first known Neolithic cultu...
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Episode 25: The Neolithic Comes to Transcaucasia from 2022-08-01T19:38:18
In the east of Anatolia and off to the north of Mesopotamia is the southern Caucasus, which is also known as Transcaucasia. This region combines being one of the last parts of the Near East to h...
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Episode 24: Early Chalcolithic Anatolia from 2022-06-06T08:54:51
After all of the arguments that we saw for the Wadi Rabah as to whether it was part of the Late Neolithic or part of the Early Chalcolithic, this time we shall have a look at Anatolia in the fir...
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Episode 23: Wadi Rabah from 2022-05-15T17:18:43
In this episode we head south to look at one of the major cultures of the Southern Levant during the sixth millennium BCE - the Wadi Rabah. While there is a lot that we know about the Wadi Rabah...
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Episode 22: Halaf from 2022-03-03T10:50:02
The Halaf culture was first discovered on the eve of the first world war at Tell Halaf in eastern Syria. The beautifully made and elaborately decorated pottery of this culture made it a sensatio...
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Episode 21: Cyprus Goes the Way of the Khirokitia Culture from 2021-11-17T16:00:32
After having a look at the seventh millennium BCE across Anatolia, the Levant and Mesopotamia, it is time to come back to Cyprus and see how life changed here after 7000 cal BCE. After the end o...
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Episode 20: Mine! Advances in the Seventh Millennium BCE from 2021-09-16T17:05:54
Now that we have seen how societies changed over the seventh millennium BCE in Anatolia, the Levant and Mesopotamia it is time to have a look at a couple of important and common developments tha...
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Episode 19: The many faces of Late Neolithic Mesopotamia from 2021-08-25T14:43:50
Now that we have had a look at the seventh millennium BCE in Anatolia and the Levant, this time I want to have a look at the change from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to the Pottery (or Late) Neolit...
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Episode 18: The Levantine Pottery Neolithic from 2021-07-16T16:15:30
Following our look at the change into the Pottery (or Ceramic) Neolithic in Anatolia, this time we are having a look at the Pottery Neolithic (also the Late Neolithic) in the Levant. Actually, t...
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Episode 17: Ceramic Neolithic Anatolia from 2021-06-12T10:36:47
With the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic the Near East moved into the Pottery Neolithic - also called the Ceramic Neolithic or Late Neolithic depending on the region. Today we can have a look a...
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Episode 16: Collapse? The end of the PPNB from 2021-04-19T15:42:49
Today we say goodbye to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B with a look at the collapse of the PPNB world system. Of course, as it is still up in the air as to whether we ever actually HAD a PPNB world ...
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Episode 15: Cyprus from 2021-03-01T10:33:44
Now that we have had a good look at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in most of the Near East, this time we are travelling over to Cyprus. Cyprus also has a Pre-Pottery Neolithic, but it isn't exactly ...
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Episode 14: Social Bubbles and Social Networks in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic from 2021-02-14T10:53:08
Now that we have seen how people moved over to growing rather than gathering their own food, and settled into villages with the birth of communal village life, we can have a look at some of the ...
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Episode 13: It takes a village to make the Neolithic from 2021-02-01T17:18:58
This week we are looking at what life was like in Neolithic settlements, and how these have changed from the first permanent houses that we found in the Late Epipalaeolithic. Both time periods h...
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Episode 12: Domestication on the Hoof in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic from 2021-01-11T17:28:58
Last week we looked at the move from collecting to growing our own food during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic by discussing the process of plant domestication. This week we complete this change in ho...
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Episode 11: Bright Ideas? Growing your own food in the Neolithic from 2021-01-05T18:06:11
This week we will be starting on the Neolithic, the last of our three stone ages. As a lot of big things happen in the Neolithic, we can't do everything in one episode so I am breaking it up and...
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Episode 10: Settling into the Late Epipalaeolithic from 2020-12-29T15:17:56
Last time we looked at whether or not we could really think of the earlier Epipalaeolithic as being something distinctly different from the later Upper Palaeolithic. This week we look at the lat...
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Episode 9: Why do we have an Epipalaeolithic? from 2020-12-05T09:41:50
The Epipalaeolithic - the period from the Last Glacial Maximum to just before the beginning of farming - is an awkward period to characterise in the prehistory of the Near East. Mostly this is b...
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Episode 8: Eating and Social Networking in the Upper Palaeolithic from 2020-11-30T16:06:10
This week we continue our look at the Upper Palaeolithic of the Near East with a look at what people were eating, and how they were eating it. Life is not just about food though, even for Palaeo...
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Episode 7: Inventing the Upper Palaeolithic from 2020-11-22T13:22:36
Last week we said goodbye to our cousins the Neanderthals and stood along as the only people species in the Near East. This week we shall see what we humans got up to in the Upper Palaeolithic n...
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Episode 6: Humans, Neanderthals and the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic Transition from 2020-11-15T14:17:43
This week we say goodbye to the Middle Palaeolithic. Modern humans have migrated out of Africa and into the Near East, and this time they mean to stay. Have a listen to what we know about the ch...
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Episode 5: Middle Palaeolithic Humans in Arabia from 2020-11-07T16:53:20
This week we look at the last stage of the Middle Palaeolithic. After looking at Neanderthals last week, here we get into what we know by contrast about humans in the Middle Palaeolithic, and wh...
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Episode 4: Neanderthals from 2020-10-31T17:01:45
In this episode we continue in the Middle Palaeolithic, looking at our cousins the Neanderthals. This episode examines what we know about Neanderthals, and what mistakes which we made about them...
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Episode 3: Making the Middle Palaeolithic from 2020-10-23T04:00
In this episode we move into the Middle Palaeolithic, looking at how life changed in the Near East after about 215 thousand years ago. Changes in the way that people moved around, particularly a...
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Episode 2: The Lower Palaeolithic from 2020-10-17T05:00
Archaeological evidence for people in the ancient Near East begins with the Lower Palaeolithic. When Homo erectus wandered out of Africa and spread out across other continents they left...
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Episode 1: A long and short prologue from 2020-10-10T08:28:27
Before we begin with the first people in the ancient Near East, here is a prologue of everything which people got up to beforehand. This is a brief coverage of everything that we know about huma...
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