The Mystery Bones of Witch Hill

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

African American History And Culture, Tony Cohn, Natural History, Air And Space, Society & Culture, Art19, Smithsonian, Science, Sidedoor, History Of The World, The Smithsonian, Pop Culture, Zoo, Dc, National Museum, Exhibit, History, National Zoo, American History, Exhibits, Postal Museum, Washington, Museum

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2018

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It begins a bit like a *Scooby Doo *episode: archaeologists digging at a place called “Witch Hill” discover mysterious human remains in an ancient trash heap. Who was this person? How’d they get there? Astonishingly, it would take 40 years to find out, and the story is way more surprising — and groundbreaking — than anyone could’ve ever imagined. So, grab your Scooby Snacks and join Sidedoor as we journey to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama to see these unusual bones firsthand and meet the “meddling kids” trying to solve a mystery 700 years in the making.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Sideor, a podcast from Smithsonian with support from PRX.
0:13.4	I'm Tony Cohen.
0:17.0	Right at the top of the stairs. These are all human remains that I haven't gotten to yet.
0:26.6	They're all under original packaging. Oh God, that smell is like musty. I don't even know how to describe that.
0:35.0	In an old theater in East Linnau's Panama, Nicole Smith Guzman is showing me cabinets full of
0:39.8	thousand-year-old bones. And let me tell you, they don't smell that fresh. But that doesn't
0:44.6	seem to bother Smith-Gusman. She's a bio-archiologist, which means she studies human remains.
0:50.3	And her lab just outside of Panama City used to be a theater.
0:53.0	Her main workspace is up on the mezzanine, which looks out over rows and rows of bone-filled cabinets.
0:59.0	The bones are just kind of in like normal cardboard boxes.
1:04.2	One of them just says to wash,
1:07.2	one of them says human skeletons.
1:11.2	No, umano swelto, so loose humans.
1:15.0	It's a surprise.
1:17.0	We don't know what's in all these boxes.
1:19.0	Something to look forward to.
1:20.0	Yes.
1:21.0	The boxes are labeled in Spanish because this lab is part of the Smithsonian Tropical Research
1:25.2	Institute in Panama. Recently the Side Door team took a trip down there to visit with
1:29.5	Nicole and check out her research. And you guys, Panama is amazing. I mean just before our
1:34.3	interview I saw a sloth hanging out in a tree. But up in the mezzanine there
1:38.2	weren't any sloths, which was a total bummer, just a bunch of tables covered
	...

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