Hi everybody, from Wondery, welcome to another episode of Tides of History.

Thanks for joining me.

Over the course of this season of Tides, we've been all over the world, from the Paleolithic

all the way up into the Bronze Age.

Some of the topics have come up over and over again.

How cities came into being, how and why states formed, and how people understood themselves

in relation to others.

Today's guest has a great gift for exploring some of those really big and fundamental questions

and doing so not just in one place in the ancient world but several very different ones.

He's an associate research scientist at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University

of Michigan, specializing in ancient Mesopotamia and especially in North Africa, especially

Newbia.

He's excavated numerous sites including Telbrok in Syria, El Kuru in Northern Sudan, and

now Jabobarcal, also in Northern Sudan.

While doing all that, he has written and co-authored a staggering number of articles, book chapters

and books, and most recently he co-edited the Magisterial Oxford Handbook of Ancient Newbia.

Dr. Jeff Emberling, thank you so much for joining me today.

Pleasure to be here Patrick.

So your work has focused on two different regions.

First, Mesopotamia, where you excavated the site of Telbrok in Syria, and more recently

Ancient Newbia, what's now in Northern Sudan.

How did you end up working in two such different regions covering much different spans of time,

...