Why Were There So Many Neolithic Farmers? And What Can Big Data Do For Archaeology? Interview with Professor Stephen Shennan

Tides of History

Wondery / Patrick Wyman

Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2020

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Professor Stephen Shennan is one of the world's leading experts on the early farmers of the Fertile Crescent and Europe. In this interview, I pick his brain about why early farmers were so, uh, fertile, and produced so many descendants; how those farmers spread outward from their regions of origin; and how we can understand their Neolithic world. Professor Shennan also one of the world's most accomplished archaeological theorists, and he answers my questions about archaeology in the age of Big Data, statistics, and new ways of understanding the past.

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App. https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory

Support us by supporting our sponsors!

New Yorker - For a limited time you can get 12 weeks of The New Yorker for just SIX dollars. Plus, you will receive an exclusive tote bag for FREE. Go to newyorker.com/TIDES!

The Great Courses Plus - Go to thegreatcoursesplus.com/TIDES and treat yourself to a FREE Trial of access to the entire library.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to Tides of History, add free on Amazon Music.
0:04.2	Download the app today.
0:06.2	Hi everybody, from Wondery, welcome to another episode of Tides of History.
0:20.5	Over the past several months, we've been talking a lot about the origins and spread of
0:23.9	agriculture.
0:25.2	Where did it begin?
0:26.2	Why?
0:27.2	Where did it begin?
0:32.2	Where did all those people come from?
0:36.6	The best book I read on all this, when I found most convincing, was entitled The First
0:39.9	Farmers of Europe, an evolutionary perspective, and today we'll be talking to the author.
0:44.0	He's a professor of theoretical archaeology at University College London and was previously
0:47.9	the director of the UCL Institute of Archaeology.
0:50.9	He's held numerous major research grants and is the author of a whole bunch of books
0:54.3	and papers of which The First Farmers of Europe is only the most recent.
0:58.0	Professor Steven Shenan, thank you so much for joining me.
1:00.4	Thank you very much for asking me.
1:02.2	So at the heart of The First Farmers of Europe is the argument that with the advent of
1:06.0	agriculture, populations expanded.
1:08.6	How do we know the populations expanded?
1:10.2	What evidence can we use to tell?
1:12.2	Well, the most obvious evidence is that there are more archaeological sites and those sites
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Wondery / Patrick Wyman, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Wondery / Patrick Wyman and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.