In this week’s episode, we cover three archaeology news stories. First up, a Nature-backed report on unusually old woodworking from Kalambo Falls, where waterlogged conditions preserved a wedge, digging stick, and notched logs dated by luminescence to about 476,000 years ago, suggesting advanced planning and challenging simple “Stone Age” assumptions. We then discuss a Pompeii discovery of two skeletons outside the city walls near Porta Stabia, including a man apparently shielding his head with a terracotta bowl and carrying an oil lamp, and we debate the benefits and risks of an AI-generated scene reconstruction. Finally, we examine Peru’s Monte Sierpe “Band of Holes,” over 5,200 aligned pits mapped by drones and analyzed via microbotanical remains, with a study proposing early market use and later Inca-style accounting patterns resembling quipu, while we question how and why such a vast system was built and used.
Links Segment 1
- World’s oldest wooden structure was built by an unknown species, nearly 200,000 years before modern humans evolved (earth.com)
- Hominins built with wood 476,000 years ago (Nature)
Segment 2
- This Man Fled Pompeii as Mount Vesuvius Erupted. Archaeologists Found Him 2,000 Years Later, Holding a Bowl to Protect His Head and a Lamp to Light His Way
Segment 3
- Study suggests these 5,200 holes dug into a mountain were some form of ancient accounting (earth.com)
- Indigenous accounting and exchange at Monte Sierpe (‘Band of Holes’) in the Pisco Valley, Peru (Cambridge University Press)
Contact Chris Webster
- chris@archaeologypodcastnetwork.com
Rachel Roden
- rachel@unraveleddesigns.com
- RachelUnraveled (Instagram)
ArchPodNet - APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN Discord: https://discord.com/invite/CWBhb2T2ed
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
- APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet
- APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet
- APN Shop
Affiliates
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.