Archaeologists do it in holes: Tales from the stratigraphy

[Legbiter]

Great interview with David Reich on the archeogenetic revolution. All this stuff was science fiction 10 years ago.

[grumbler]

Great interview with David Reich on the archeogenetic revolution. All this stuff was science fiction 10 years ago.

 

This changes almost everything I thought I knew about the relationship between archaic and modern humans.

[crazy canuck]

This was fascinating

[Jacob]

Yeah, I'm not normally a podcast watcher - especially long ones - but this was super interesting. Thanks for sharing

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Something to listen to tomorrow, the intro was intriguing

[jimmy olsen]

Judaism and it's offshoots rising to such prominence was indeed bizare. Seems to be very much a fluke of history.

But even there I'm sure working backwards a logical story could be pieced together - Judaism really taking religion in the modern sense of the word seriously and not playing nice with others would naturally lead to it rising above more flexible indigenous beliefs.

It was the axial age
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age

[HVC]

Akhenaten Doesn't get enough love as a monotheistic pioneer

[Josquius]

The thread being bumped up reminds me.
The Orkney Empire may not have been a thing afterall

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2g55ly0e6o

[Tamas]

The thread being bumped up reminds me.
The Orkney Empire may not have been a thing afterall

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2g55ly0e6o

Shocking.

[Sheilbh]

Caithness! (Or, less excitingly, Aberdeenshire)

[The Minsky Moment]

Akhenaten Doesn't get enough love as a monotheistic pioneer

Because there isn't any clear influence on later developments.  His cult was suppressed and mostly forgotten.

I don't think the Judaism story is that complicated.  The Judean elite spent decades in exile in the most sophisticated and polyglot city in the Western Hemisphere and were exposed to all the latest ideas. They then allied themselves with Persian conquerors whose religion was monotheistic. The narrative in Ezra-Nehemiah preserves the account that when the exiles returned, the common "people of the land" didn't recognize the religion that was being "restored." The Bible contends this is because the people backslid without priestly guidance or because pagans had been placed on the land.  But a simpler explanation is that the "people of the land" were keeping the traditional faith and the Persianized exiles (Nehemiah was a high Persian official) were the innovators.