Groundhogs: incidental archaeologists, mystical meteorologists

Outside/In

NHPR

Society & Culture, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Nature, Science

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Despite being the only rodent with a holiday to its name, groundhogs are often considered pests. However, these natural-born diggers have unearthed rare artifacts, play a pivotal role in shaping ecosystems, and are tied to important breakthroughs in hepatitis B treatments. Plus they’re pretty cute. So in this episode, a special Groundhog Day edition of our Holy Scat series, we’re digging up as many amazing factoids about these creatures as we possibly can. Featuring: David Scofield, Amanda Gillen, Eric D’Aleo, Joe Bruchac, and Sandra Sexton SUPPORT Donate to support the show and get your hands on a limited edition Outside/In opossum camp mug! Subscribe to our FREE newsletter. Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook LINKS Youtube video of a whistling groundhog NBC News video of Groundhog Day 2022 prediction Read more about the Meadowcroft Rockshelter – the oldest known site of human habitation in North America, discovered by a groundhog. Read this 1996 article about hepatitis B research using the woodchuck animal model at Cornell University. CREDITS Host: Nate Hegyi Reported and produced by Felix Poon Edited by Taylor Quimby Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, this is that side in, I'm Nate Hegey here today with producer Felix Poon.
0:05.2	I want to kick us off with a story.
0:09.2	So it's 1955, Western Pennsylvania, and there's this guy named Albert Miller, just kind of
0:15.7	walking around on his property.
0:17.7	Albert was a farmer, and he was the local historian and an amateur archaeologist.
0:23.8	This other voice is David Skofield, by the way, director at Metocraft Rock Shelter in
0:28.4	Historic Village.
0:30.0	So Albert is walking around, and he sees something as a farmer that would be his worst nightmare.
0:35.4	But as an amateur archaeologist, it was pretty exciting.
0:38.2	And notice that a groundhog had freshly excavated a hole.
0:41.8	E. Groundhogs.
0:42.8	I've heard they're not great for crops.
0:45.4	But.
0:46.4	He sifted through what the groundhog had excavated and found some artifacts.
0:51.5	So Albert gets a shovel and starts enlarging the groundhog hole.
0:55.9	And the stuff he's finding is old, like really old.
1:00.0	He found burnt bone, some flint flakes, and eventually at 30 inches deep, he encountered
1:07.7	an intact flint knife.
1:10.4	Long story short, professional archaeologists come into excavate the site and they learn
1:14.7	it's over 19,000 years old.
1:18.0	Wow.
1:19.0	That's old.
	...

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