2023 marks the 5th anniversary of ArchaeoAnimals, a podcast I’ve been hosting alongside my friend and fellow archaeologist Simona Falanga on the Archaeology Podcast Network. Back in 2018, I was approached by the Archaeology Podcast Network after a recent guest appearance on the Women in Archaeology Podcast and asked if I would be interested in hosting my own podcast. At the time, I was two years into my PhD and still in the process of finding myself as an actual professional and expert in the field – this was also about a year into me blogging on here, so I was also just starting to find my voice as a communicator of archaeology-related things as well. As someone who had been a devout podcast consumer since the mid 2000’s, taking that next step into podcasting felt natural in some sense – but also was quite terrifying as well. Fortunately, I’ve been lucky to have my fellow host, Simona Falanga, whose actual keen expertise in zooarchaeology balances out my own rambling, nonsensical nature, as well as our producer, Tristan Boyle, whose been crucial in ensuring that our shows are tightly designed to be informative and fun without going completely off the rails and devolving into boring iterations of facts.
Archaeology podcasts have existed for a while now, with two of the earliest shows first published back in 2005 (Archaeological News and The Wessex Archaeology Podcast). Today, there’s over 100 shows (at least, based on my last survey of podcasts on Spotify) available focused on archaeology and archaeology-adjacent topics. And in my opinion, it’s great to see – archaeology has long struggled with how best to engage with the general public directly, and podcasts have always had potential for being a vehicle for public archaeologists (Amundsen & Belmonte 2018). Of course, much of the archaeology podcast audience consists of other archaeologists, but this can also be useful, particularly for students and early career archaeologists who could benefit from “behind the curtain” discussions about the field (Boyle 2017). Podcasts are uniquely embedded into social media (itself an important contemporary tool for archaeologists) in a way that can support building both an audience as well as community – something that can also be done within podcasts themselves as well by having guests, which can not only encourage interdisciplinary conversation but also provide the audience with different viewpoints and expertise on certain topics (Slotten 2022). Overall, there is a flexibility and informal nature inherent in podcasts that provide archaeologists with a means of disseminating research in a way that can be engaging, informative, collaborative, and, perhaps most importantly, not boring.
But why, in particular, a zooarchaeology podcast? Well, zooarchaeology remains a (comparatively) unknown subdiscipline within archaeology that most people outside of the field have never even heard of. And yet, it’s also an incredibly important one – after all, although humans are important to understand as part of exploring the past, we’re only one species out of millions! But it’s also a great way to discuss the complexities of archaeological research, particularly how subdisciplines like zooarchaeology can work together with others to develop rich, nuanced understandings of the past – for example, previous episodes of ours have also touched on experimental archaeology, palaeobotany, archaeological science. The ubiquity of animals in not just history but also in media and culture has also allowed us to get a bit more flexible with what constitutes as a “valid” topic for an archaeology podcast, with some episodes detouring into video games, films, and even mythology.
Since we published our first episode back in 2018, we’ve had many listeners get in touch to express their positive feelings about the podcast. Although many are archaeologists themselves, some listeners are not even remotely connected to the field on a professional level, and are mainly enthusiasts who have never even heard of zooarchaeology before. And I guess that really emphasises the importance of this – and really, any other – podcast. In a time when “fake news” and pseudoarchaeology is becoming a much more prevalent threat, particular with the proliferation of social media in everyday life, having channels for experts to speak about their research directly to others is vital. Although Simona and I have made the decision to end the podcast in 2024, its been an honour to have a small role in increasing outreach and understanding of archaeology over the past five years. And who knows? Maybe we’ll inspire some future zooarchaeologist to get just as annoyed at fish bones as I once was.
Also, we’ve gotten fan art of the show, so I think that’s proof we’ve been successful, right?
You can find past episodes of the ArchaeoAnimals Podcast on the Archaeology Podcast Network website, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Audible, and Spotify (and probably anywhere else you download podcasts!).
References
Amundsen, C. P., & Belmonte, C. (2018). How to Podcast in Archaeology: A Guide for Archaeologists Doing Public Outreach. Advances in Archaeological Practice, 6(3), 259-266.
Boyle, T.J., (2017). Middens and Microphones: Podcasting as Digital Public Outreach in Archaeology. Advances in Archaeological Practice, 5(4), 388-392.
Slotten, C. (2022). Podcasting as public archaeology. Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage, 9(2), 134-137.
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