Prehis/Stories

The long arm of the prehistoric past reaches through the millennia to grab our attention, and, in this episode, to grab us by the throat. Yes, we’re talking folk horror in this episode, and trying not to shiver as we discuss how the past intrudes in uncanny ways on the present in films, plays and books. We have a full cast of characters in this spine-tingler, including Dr Lauren McIntyre, Rebecca Lambert (or Lady Liminal), David Southwell of the Hookland Guide, Dr Simon Underwood and Drone Lord. Guest Socials @noddinggoth @ladyliminal1 @sunderdown @Drone_Lord @HooklandGuide @cultauthor Contact Twitter: @prehistpod Affiliates Wildnote TeePublic Timeular

The long arm of the prehistoric past reaches through the millennia to grab our attention, and, in this episode, to grab us by the throat. Yes, we’re talking folk horror in this episode, and trying not to shiver as we discuss how the past intrudes in uncanny ways on the present in films, plays and books. We have a full cast of characters in this spine-tingler, including Dr Lauren McIntyre, Rebecca Lambert (or Lady Liminal), David Southwell of the Hookland Guide, Dr Simon Underwood and Drone Lord. Guest Socials @noddinggoth @ladyliminal1 @sunderdown @Drone_Lord @HooklandGuide @cultauthor Contact Twitter: @prehistpod

The long arm of the prehistoric past reaches through the millennia to grab our attention, and, in this episode, to grab us by the throat. Yes, we’re talking folk horror in this episode, and trying not to shiver as we discuss how the past intrudes in uncanny ways on the present in films, plays and books. We have a full cast of characters in this spine-tingler, including Dr Lauren McIntyre, Rebecca Lambert (or Lady Liminal), David Southwell of the Hookland Guide, Dr Simon Underwood and Drone Lord. Guest Socials @noddinggoth @ladyliminal1 @sunderdown @Drone_Lord @HooklandGuide @cultauthor Contact Twitter: @prehistpod

Join Kim as she talks to Professor Chris Gosden of Oxford University about the historical and prehistorical links to Christmas books we all know and, perhaps, love. We take in an ambitious collection of four books from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, to John Masefield’s Box of Delights, Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising and Terry Pratchett’s The Hogfather. Links Chris Gosden's profile on the University of Oxford's website Chris Gosden's book The History of Magic A Christmas Carol on Project Gutenberg The Box of Delights from publisher Egmont The Dark is Rising from publisher Penguin The Hogfather on Terry Pratchett Books Stations of the Sun by Ronald Hutton on Oxford Scholarship Online Herne the Hunter Contact Twitter: @prehistpod, @kimbiddulph

Kim talks to stone tool specialist and experimental archaeologist Dr James Dilley about the film Iceman, a dramatic reconstruction of the last days of Ötzi the Iceman. We consider such important questions as “What was the social structure of Chalcolithic society?”, “Did they not have mittens?” and “Which 80s blockbuster was that actor in?”. James - @AncientCraft https://www.ancientcraft.co.uk Contact Twitter: @prehistpod and @kimbiddulph Find this show on the educational podcast app, Lyceum.fm!

Ghosts, magic, witches and sacrifice, just in time for Halloween! Kim talks to Sue Greaney and Joana Valdez-Tullet about folklore and prehistoric sites in Europe. Sue is working on. PhD about Neolithic sites in Britain and Ireland and is responsible for interpretation at Stonehenge for English Heritage but got into folklore due to a chance find in a junk shop. Joana works for Scotland’s Rock Art where she uses her doctoral research into rock art, and has uncovered lots of folk tales related to panels of rock art. Links Provenance of Sarsens used in Stonehenge Joana’s book on Atlantic Rock Art Rollright Stones Contact Twitter: @prehistpod Kim Biddulph: @kimbiddulph Sue Greaney: @SueGreaney Joana Valdez-Tullet: @JoanaValdez Find this show on the educational podcast app, Lyceum.fm!

I talk to Dr Rena Maguire about On Raven’s Wing by Morgan Llywelyn. This book is a retelling of part of the Ulster Cycle, especially the life of Cuchulain, the Hound of Ulster, and the Tain Bo Cuailhge, the Cattle Raid of Cooley. It is mainly set at Emain Macha which is known to be Navan Fort bear Armagh. How much of the story reflects the Irish Iron Age? Links On Raven’s Wing by Morgan Llywelyn Navan Research Group Tain online Emania Journal The Togail Kenneth Jackson Mallory, James P. [ed.], Aspects of the Táin, Belfast: December, 1992. Contact Navan Fort, as their shop may still have copies Contact Twitter: @prehistpod Guest Twitter: @justrena Find this show on the educational podcast app, Lyceum.fm!

Kim talks to Erin Kavanagh, a poet and geomythologist based in Wales about the old Welsh “Book of Taliesin”, especially the recent translation into English by Gwyneth Lewis and Rowan Williams. How much can we learn about the post-Roman period of Britain from the literature of the time? Links https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/274601/the-book-of-taliesin/9780141396934 Contact Twitter: @prehistpod Twitter: @geomythkavanagh Find this show on the educational podcast app, Lyceum.fm!

It’s been two years since we published the last episode, and it’s been ten years since Michelle Paver published the last of her Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series of Mesolithic set books that had started with Wolf Brother. But we’re both back! We kicked off this podcast with Wolf Brother back in 2015 and now I get to talk to the author as she publishes a new book in the series, Viper’s Daughter, that sees Renn, Torak and Wolf journey to the far north and encounter new tribes, new dangers and the last surviving mammoths. Links Wrangel’s Island Mammoths PreHistories Episode 2: Wolf Brother Buy Viper’s Daughter Michelle Paver on Twitter Michelle’s Website: https://wolfbrother.com/ Contact Twitter: @prehistpod Find this show on the educational podcast app, Lyceum.fm!

Prehistories is back and to celebrate its return, the show goes back to its roots. Kim sits down to talk to Michelle Paver, author of Wolf Brother, who has now relased another book called Viper's daughter. Here is a snippet of their chat - stay tuned to the APN for the full episode! Twitter: @prehistpod Links: https://www.michellepaver.com/

To celebrate the APN turning 5, we have asked some of our hosts what the network means to them. Kim Biddulph of the Prehistories podcast talks about her experiences of the APN, her show and why podcasts are important part of outreach. You can find more info about Kim on Schools Prehistory website and her own website

I give Early Man the Prehi/stories treatment with James Dilley, an ancient technology specialist, and Erin Kavanagh, who is interested in how the past is represented whether that's the prehistoric past or the footballing past. The film is just a bit of Aardman fun, of course, but it opens up wider topics for discussion about how the past is discussed. With plenty of political prehistory in the news, where does this fit in? The fact it was storyboarded as far back as 2011 suggests we may be reading a little too much into it...

The Boy with the Bronze Axe by Kathleen Fidler is set in the Neolithic Orkney settlement of Skara Brae. Though written for children this book is also really interesting for adults thinking about how interpretations of Skara have changed over the years. Kim talks to Orkney resident and specialist Caroline Wickham-Jones about the archaeology behind the book when it was written in 1968 and how it could be updated for the 21st century.

Warrior Scarlet by Rosemary Sutcliff is a book set in the transition from Bronze to Iron Age, but that's the least interesting thing about it. I talk to Dr. Helen Chittock of the University of Oxford and Dr. Julia Farley of the British Museum about the history of archaeological theory as demonstrated by this book written in 1958.

Take a few archaeologists who think they're film buffs and what have you got? A prehistoric film special! From fur bikinis to inter-species rape, we look at the best that we could find of a very small film genre with a sometimes critical and sometimes fond eye.

Kim Biddulph and friends spent the night in an Iron Age Hillfort sharing food, exchanging stories, and discussion ideas. It was an amazing night full of fun and excitement. The audio is a bit challenging at times, as you would expect it to be in this situation, but we've cleaned it up a bit and most should be OK.

Jane Brayne has written and illustrated a comic strip style picture book on the journey of the Amesbury Archer, and kindly appears as a guest on the podcast to talk about it. The original excavator of the early Bronze Age burial the book is inspired by, Andrew Fitzpatrick, also talks about the background evidence for the book.

Mezolith is a graphic novel set loosely in the Mesolithic period (with shades of the Palaeolithic) somewhere in northern Europe. Written by Ben Haggarty, a storyteller steeped in legends of many cultures, which all come through in the book, and drawn by Adam Brockbank, an artist who has worked on X-Men and the Harry Potter films, it packs a punch stylistically but does the content match? Guests helping us decide this are Matt Ritchie from the Forestry Commission Scotland, John Swogger, archaeological comic artist and Erin Kavanagh, geomythologist and poet.

Kim talks to three archaeological comic writers and artists - John Swogger, Hannah Sackett, and Katy Whittaker - about their work and the current and potential uses of comics in archaeology. Comics are obviously a great way to engage children in archaeology, but can they be used beyond that?

Two children's picturebooks are the subject of episode 16 of Prehi/stories. Picturebooks may be the first contact children have with prehistory, so we're looking at how two of the best, The First Drawing by Mordicai Gerstein and Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura, represent the remote past. In this episode my guests are Ghislaine Howard, a painter of powerful and expressive means whose works chart and interpret shared human experience. Her drawing Pregnant Self Portrait 1987 was part of the British Museum's exhibition Ice Age Art: arrival of the modern mind in 2013. I also talk to Andrew Needham, Associate Lecturer in Palaeolithic Archaeology and Post-Doctoral researcher on the Templeton funded 'Hidden Depths: The Ancestry of our Most Human Emotions' project at the University of York.

Matthew Pope of UCL and Beccy Scott of the British Museum shed light on the extraordinary tale of the Neanderthal Lok and his extended family written by William Golding. Given the topic of Golding's more famous work, Lord of the Flies, it's not surprising that things get a bit vicious in this book too when some other kind of humans turn up. But were our ancestors really that vile?

To move away from being totally Eurocentric, Prehi/stories takes a look at fiction set in North America. The People of the River is set in Cahokia in Illinois, and so I talk to Thomas Emerson, Director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey and expert in the archaeology of the Eastern Woodlands, who gives the background reality of archaeological investigation to this story.

I talk to the archaeologist/author, Mark Patton, about his first book, The Undreamed Shores, which is set at the end of the Neolithic in the Channel Islands and Wiltshite

There is a law that every podcast about books will eventually talk about A Game of Thrones, and that's where we've got to on Prehi/stories. Kim talks to two die hard fans and archaeologists Lucy Hooton and Brett Thorn about the history behind the iconic books.

A first for this podcast is to have the author of the book on to talk about it, so we welcome John R Barrett to Prehi/stories, and Brian Wilkinson, a community archaeologist from Scotland where the book is based. The Whitestone Stories is a children's book but well worth the read for children of any age.

A poet, a prehistorian and a podcaster sit down to Skype. That's not a joke, that's what happened for this episode where my guests were Erin Kavanagh, a geomythologist, and Gavin MacGregor, an archaeologist and we talked about the incredible power of poetry to express how we feel about the past, our jobs and to inform research.

What can Asterix tell us about the prehistoric past? Not very much, it turns out, but we have a bit of fun anyway. I talk to my husband, Edward Biddulph, as we bridge the divide between Iron Age Gauls, Britons and Romans.

Professional Neanderthal botherer Beccy Scott joins me to talk about the nation's favourite Neanderthal, Stig of the Dump. Many of you will have read this book as children, as it was published all the way back in 1963, and we talk about the popular notion of a caveman, and what people (both Neanderthal and Sapiens) might actually have been like.

I talk to the awesome superteam of bloggers, the Twilight Beasts, namely Rena Maguire, Ross Barnett and Jan Freedman, about the charismatic animals of the late Ice Age that humans in the Upper Palaeolithic watched, hunted, possibly tamed and definitely painted on cave walls. If you're interested in wild horses, sabre-tooth cats, cave lions or hyenas, listen in.

I talk to Susan Greaney of English Heritage about Bernard Cornwell's epic novel about Stonehenge. Despite noticing some chronological finessing, and railing against the sexism of the late Neolithic as portrayed by the author, we discuss how the imaginative storytelling allows us to think about the why behind the building of this iconic monument.

The Ravens is a children's book about the first Roman invasion in 55 B.C. set around Hertfordshire and particularly the hillfort now known as Ravensburgh Castle. It was written by the excavator himself, James Dyer, who was also a schoolteacher. My guest, Francis Pryor, dug with the late James Dyer on this very site and joins me to share his memories of this early dig and his subsequent experience of digging up roundhouses, among other things.

I go back to the Mesolithic in earnest in this episode and talk to Caroline Wickham-Jones and Spencer Carter about a wonderful tale that is part prehistorical fiction, part family saga, part whodunnit, the Gathering Night by Margaret Elphinstone. We also talk about the relative impact of natural disasters in prehistory.

What you need when discussing Clan of the Cave Bear are two Neanderthal experts, which is what I got – Rebecca Wragg Sykes of Bordeaux University and Matthew Pope of UCL, London. The fascinating subject of Neanderthal/Homo sapiens relations occupied us at length, when we weren't being diverted by thoughts of an American mini-series of the book produced by Ron Howard.

My guests are Matt Ritchie, Forestry Commission Scotland's archaeologist, Donald Henson, studying for a PhD in Public Perceptions of the Mesolithic at York University, and James Dilley of Ancient Craft and about to embark on a PhD as well. matt quickly disabuses me of the notion that Wolf Brother is set in the Scottish Mesolithic (which is the only reason I had him on in the first place) and then we chat about the wondrous period of hunter-gatherers, wildwoods, and magic in the forest.

I talk to Tristan Boyle, host of the Anarchaeologist Podcast and the instigator of my podcasting career, and get him to care about stories in archaeology. The sage words of Game of Thrones author, George R. R. Martin are invoked, and, we inquire quite why Ug: Boy Genius of the Stone Age, is the only one to think of having soft trousers. Plus a bit of Aesop's Fables thrown in for good measure.