What does the discovery of exotic species such as bananas, soybeans and turmeric in the second millennium BCE Southern Levant tell us about trade, tastes and smells in the past? And does the fact that the discovery comes from scraping the teeth of dead people say more about the potential of microarchaeology or about the need for flossing? Our panelists agree about flossing, but not about bananas.
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Exotic foods reveal contact between South Asia and the Near East during the second millennium BCE
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/12/16/2014956117
Did a comet break up over earth 12,800 years ago causing glaciers to melt and prompting humans to invent agriculture? What was it like to have your village suddenly heated to 4000 degrees Fahrenheit? How would this event have been culturally encoded by anyone who wasn’t cooked and/or pulverized? Our panelists have nano-diamonds on the souls of their shoes and tell all.
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A Comet May Have Destroyed This Paleolithic Village 12,800 Years Ago
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/comet-upended-life-paleolithic-village-12800-years-ago-180974575/
Cannabis and frankincense residues on an altar found in an ancient Israelite temple? Were the ancestors of Jews going one toke over the line? Why the heck did this tradition end? This changes everything, man, and our panelists are really into it. Well, maybe after a snack.
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Cannabis was used for religious rites at a biblical site in Israel, study finds
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/world/tel-arad-shrine-israel-cannabis-study-scn/index.html