Oh hi, hello, welcome. This is Let's Talk About Myths, baby. But this week once again, better known as Let's Talk About Things Played O'Invented, baby. Doesn't have the same ring to it.

I am your host, Liv. The woman who's trying to very kindly and considerably destroy all your childhood dreams, but a lost island of Atlantis.

But hey, we'll always have the Disney movie, right? A mile low.

This week is the first in my series of Atlantis-related conversation episodes. Honestly, this is kind of what sparked the idea for me in general, or more so made it clear that my covering Atlantis while non-traditional and tricky and requiring heavy, heavy amounts of research into things I'm much less familiar with, is important.

The idea of Atlantis as a myth from ancient Greece or a story from actual history has picked up in recent years, with so-called documentaries covering Atlantis on major networks and in often deceptive sorts of ways.

There's a group out there who would suggest that it's harmless to search for Atlantis. A concept that we heard on Tuesday's episode is truly based in Plato's imagination, and as we'll cover on next Tuesday's episode, serves explicitly as an allegority proof of philosophical point about ideal societies and hubris.

But the truth is that searches for things like that, things that are inherently false and not based in reality take away from real archaeology, a field that is supremely important to understanding ancient cultures and human history.

But on top of that, Atlantis is linked with really dark conspiracy theories and bad actors online who promote nonsense, science, and nonsense pseudo-archeology that often devolves into racist theories on human evolution.

Unfortunately, the idea of Atlantis may be being real is no longer harmless, and I'd rather you all hear me talk about the truth of the story of Atlantis rather than accidentally stumbling upon some of those dark and troubling racist theories and ideologies.

So today, I'm bringing you the first of these conversations I've had with archaeologists, real archaeologists. Today's episode is with Flint Dibble, a researcher at Cardiff University who studies animal bones and who's knowledgeable on the Bronze Age Mediterranean, particularly Bronze Age Athens, which is the best starting point for looking at why Atlantis isn't something anyone should bother looking for.

We talked about Mediterranean archaeology of the Bronze Age, zoarchaeology that is animal bones, and what they mean about these time periods, fascinating.

I got to ask about hecatomes, a special interest of mine since reading you all the Iliad. We talked about the dangers of pseudo-archeology and the importance of working from the known to the unknown rather than the other way around.

We talked about these recent so-called searches for Atlantis and the issues around them, and so much more. It's seriously fun, in addition to being fascinating, important, and full of Bronze Age archaeological tidbits.

I think you'll all really enjoy this episode, and you will absolutely learn something.

A couple notes, this was recorded back in November, as you'll hear with the connection to American Thanksgiving, and if you can believe it, hecatomes. And you'll also just note a couple moments where I've removed or silenced a couple of people's names, because, well, I don't want to get sued in Atlantis's touchy as hell.

I am nervous enough about this series without naming people.

As always, I absolutely love these conversation episodes. I learned so much, and then I get to bring it to you. These special Atlantis conversations are no different.

Oh, is there so much to learn? So much I didn't know until I started digging into this and speaking with these archaeologists.

You're in for a wild ride, as if I haven't said that enough when it comes to Atlantis.

Conversations from the known to the unknown, Atlantis versus Mediterranean archaeology with Flint Dibble.

I think a lot of people come at it from a really honest place of just growing up in a world where you think it's at least a Greek myth.

I mean, even I sort of thought that for a while until I sat down and looked into it, and I realized what it was coming from. And so, you know, yeah, it's something that's totally understandable. It's just presented in that way.

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