Episode 33: Night at the Museum (2006)

On this episode we’re spending the Night at the Museum, the 2006 blockbuster where dinosaurs skeletons, historical dioramas, and ancient archaeological artifacts come to life. Josh is frustrated by the plot holes, but Ross uses all of his academic might to rationalize the inconsistent worldbuilding. Either way, this movie is a celebration of museums, and we can all get behind that.

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• The museum in the film is modelled after the American Museum of Natural History in New York

• Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun were different people

• Neanderthals didn’t usually make cave paintings, but sometimes they did

• Alfred Russel Wallace was way cooler than Darwin

• Source: “This was once revealed to me in a dream”

• Attendance to the AMNH increased in the weeks following this movie’s release

• Admission UK museums is free

• Easter Islanders call for return of statue from British Museum

• Howard Carter stole Tutankhamun’s treasure

• Read Ross’s book, The Missing Lynx

• Anton van Leeuwenhoek identified sperm cells under a microscope after making love to his wife

• The Scully Effect
  

Episode 32: Mohenjo Daro (2016)

On this episode we’re joined by Akash Srinivas and Durga Kale of the Chippin’ Away podcast to review Mohenjo Daro (2016), the story of a simple farmboy’s first trip to the big city where he falls in love, discovers his destiny, and saves an entire civilization. Mohenjo Daro was a real city in the Indus Valley, and Akash and Durga help us sift through the real-life archaeological evidence that inspired this film.

Listen to Chippin’ Away wherever you listen to podcasts

Follow Chippin’ Away on Twitter and Instagram @chippinawayind

View Akash's research profile

Follow Akash on Twitter @AkashSrinivas91

Find Durga on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/durgakale/

Follow Durga on Twitter and Instagram @kalemighty

Read Durga’s Blog: www.kalemighty.com

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Learn more about the Indus Valley Civilization at https://www.harappa.com/

• Pineapples as a status symbol

• Ancient Harappan DNA

• We still can’t read Harappan writing

• What does the representation of horses in Mohenjo Daro have to do with debates about Indian ancestry?

• Harappan Plumbing

• Dales & Raikes (1968). The Mohenjo-Daro Floods: A Rejoinder! American Anthropologist, 70(5), 957-961. https://www.jstor.org/stable/669762

• Harappan unicorn seals

• The origin of the unicorn myth on Chippin’ Away

• The Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi

• No, Mohenjo Daro was not destroyed by a nuclear explosion

Episode 31: The Ugly Little Boy (1977)

The Ugly Little Boy (1977) is an adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s touching short story about a Neanderthal child kidnapped across time by unscrupulous scientists. In this episode we talk about chaos theory, the ethics of human research, and the 1970s Canadian film aesthetic.

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Watch The Ugly Little Boy on YouTube

• Read the novelization of the short story by Robert Silverberg

• Neanderthal blood type

• How the Rh factor can affect pregnancy

• American Anthropological Association statement on ethics

• Edward Lorenz and the origin of the “Butterfly Effect”

Episode 30: Prometheus (2012)

We’re venturing into the space age again with Prometheus (2012), the Alien prequel in which an archaeologist couple travels to a distant planet in search of humanity’s creators. Our opinions of this one are mixed, but we can all agree that the influence of the Ancient Astronaut hypothesis on popular culture is uniformly bad.

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Scotland was completely covered in in Glaciers during the Ice Age

• It’s Probably (Not) Aliens

• Prometheus in Greek Mythology

• King Pakal’s sarcophagus lid

• Pseudoarchaeology and the racism behind Ancient Aliens

• Assassin’s Creed: Unity can’t actually help rebuild Notre-Dame

• Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez

• The Xenomorph life cycle in Alien was inspired by real-life parasitoid wasps

• Does toxoplasmosis make you love your cat more?

Episode 29: RRRrrrr!!! (2004)

On this episode, Predrag (Pedja) Radović joins us as we travel back to l’Âge de Pierre in the French movie RRRrrrr!!! (2004), a comedy in which cavemen use shampoo and investigate the world’s first murder. We wish we understood French better because we probably missed a lot of good puns in the translation.

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Gerard Depardieu claims to have killed two lions

• Sima de los Huesos, the Pit of Bones

• Rouffignac Cave Paintings

  The Red Lady of Paviland Cave

• Flickering fire light may have “animated” Palaeolithic cave paintings

• An “animated” ancient goat from a bowl discovered in Iran

• Palaeolithic thaumatropes

• Pedja and Josh have written about Paradolichopithecus, an extinct monkey from Europe

• Mangalitsa – Hungarian Woolly Pig

• Daniel Fisher suggests Palaeolithic humans may have preserved meat in ponds

Episode 28: Jurassic Park (1993)

We were so preoccupied with whether or not we could we didn’t stop to think if we should! On this episode we’re joined by Dr. Elsa Panciroli to discuss Steven Spielberg’s classic Jurassic Park (1993), even though it has nothing to do with the Stone Age. We all agree it is a perfect movie and possibly the best of all time, but we’re still going to criticize its scientific accuracy, because that’s what we do here.

Follow Elsa on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gsciencelady

and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elsapanciroli/

Read Elsa’s Books:

Beasts Before Us: The Untold Story of Mammal Origins and Evolution (2021) https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/beasts-before-us-9781472983978/

The Earth: A Biography of Life (2022) https://www.nhbs.com/the-earth-a-biography-of-life-book

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• The oldest DNA found so far

• Animals that can change sex

• How old is amber?

• Docodonta – Mesozoic mammals

• 3D-printed mummy voicebox

• Thagomizer

• Herbivores aren’t friendly

• Inaccurate dinosaurs in Jurassic Park

• Jurassic Park’s Velociraptors were actually based on Deinonychus

• Raptor Red (1996) by a guy named Bakker

Episode 27: Encino Woman (1996)

Happy Anniversary! This episode marks one full year of SotSA, so to celebrate we’re reviewing Encino Woman (1996), the made-for-TV sequel to our favourite movie, Encino Man. It’s really not fair to compare the two, but this movie has its own message and it does its best to tell it. Or maybe it’s just the 90s nostalgia...

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Watch a VHS recording of this movie on YouTube

• Archaeological woven sandals

• Mousterian bowls make their return!

• The History of perspective in art

• Lucy, the Australopithecus

• Breccia

• Riviere and Wheeler (2005) Cementum on Smilodon sabers: https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.a.20199

• Antón et al. (2022) Concealed weapons: A revised reconstruction of the facial anatomy and life appearance of the sabre-toothed cat Homotherium latidens (Felidae, Machairodontinae): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107471

Episode 26: The Cannibal in the Jungle (2015)

On this episode we’re joined by Dr. Matt Tocheri to discuss The Cannibal in the Jungle (2015), an Animal Planet mockumentary which blurs the line between fact and fiction. The (fictional) story centres around a team of ornithologists who were attacked by a group of Homo floresiensis (the so-called “hobbits”), which happen to be Matt’s area of expertise. We discuss hominin evolution, biogeography, and the boundaries between entertainment and misinformation.

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Watch the director’s cut here

• Homo Floresiensis and the myth of the ebu gogo

• Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid By Gregory Forth

• Ghostwatch (1992) BBC Halloween special

• Wolf Creek (2005)

• The Flores Scops Owl:

• What is the Wallace Line?

• Evans et al. (2020). Mitogenomics of macaques (Macaca) across Wallace's Line in the context of modern human dispersals. Journal of Human Evolution, 146, 102852.

• Teixeira et al. (2021). Widespread Denisovan ancestry in Island Southeast Asia but no evidence of substantial super-archaic hominin admixture. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 5 (5), 616-624.

Episode 25: Neander-Jin (2011)

Neander-Jin: Return of the Neanderthal Man (2011) is an obscure and inexplicable “romantic comedy” about a Neanderthal who somehow travels trough time and falls in love with a young professional woman, but ultimately becomes corrupted by commercialism and fame. What do Japanese culture, German Unity Day, and gummy bears have to do with Neanderthals? Nothing, but yet they are all in this movie for some reason. Don’t worry, Josh has lost his movie-choosing privileges for at least three episodes.

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• If our synopsis sounds unbelievable, you can watch this movie for yourself on YouTube

• Neanderthals had larger brains than modern humans

• The Neanderthal Museum

• Neandertal (Neander Valley) is a place in Germany

• The Neander Valley is named after Joachim Neander

Episode 24: Harry and the Hendersons (1987)

Regular listeners know how much we love bigfoot, so we’re very excited to be reviewing Harry and the Hendersons (1987), the story of a family of hunters who accidentally befriend a sasquatch and have to protect him from an obsessed cryptozoologist (and the rest of human society as well). What will it take to scientifically prove bigfoot exists? Probably more than we can ethically afford, but at least we can enjoy movies about it!

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Bigfoot hunter Jacques LaFleur is loosely based on Swiss-Canadian bigfoot researcher Rene Dahinden

• Rene Dahinden was briefly the spokesperson for Kokanee Beer

• John Green, Canadian Sasquatch researcher (pdf)

• John Green’s exhaustive Bigfoot sighting database

• Fahrenbach (1998) Sasquatch Dimensions and Traits. Cryptozoology 13, 47-75

• Scientist Grover Krantz risked it all... chasing bigfoot

• The truth behind “Birds aren’t Real”

• Is it legal to kill bigfoot?

• Gregory Forth (2022) Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid

• Mike Morwood (2009) A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the "Hobbits" of Flores, Indonesia

• Can humans hybridize with other apes?

• Allen et al. (2020). A mitochondrial genetic divergence proxy predicts the reproductive compatibility of mammalian hybrids. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 287(1928), 20200690 (pdf)

Episode 23: King Kong (2005)

This week we’re taking a look at King Kong (2005), Peter Jackson’s epic three-hour remake of the 1933 classic. We talk about the biology and evolution of island ecosystems, but we should have had a physicist guest host this episode because this movie can’t seem to help breaking the laws of physics!

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Apes are monkeys – deal with it

• Monkeys travelled to South America by raft

• Insular Dwarfism – the “Island Rule”

• Human “hobbit” species, Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis

• The North American House Hippo

• Gigantopithecus, the largest ape that ever lived

• How big can mammals get?

• King Kong defies physics

• The Square-Cube Law

• American missionary killed by indigenous people of the Andaman Islands

• Giant Wētā, the largest living insect

• Why aren’t there giant insects today?

Episode 22: The Land That Time Forgot (1974)

Today we’re reviewing The Land That Time Forgot (1974), the story of a WWI submarine crew who gets stranded on a mysterious island populated by dinosaurs and prehistoric people. It takes itself seriously enough to wax philosophical about war and human nature, but it was also featured on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, so its profundity might have been undercut somewhat by its bad dinosaur puppets.

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• The Simpsons character Troy McClure was based on Doug McClure

• Neanderthals wore talons and feathers as jewelry

• Is the Loch Ness Monster a Plesiosaur?

• Ogopogo, Canada’s lake monster

• Pareidolia – why we see faces in everyday objects

• Why does everything taste like chicken?

• Changing representation of dinosaurs in film

Episode 21: The Valley of Gwangi (1969)

We’re on a stop-motion dinosaurs kick! The Valley of Gwangi can best be described as Jurassic Park with cowboys. Neither are really the focus of this podcast, and while the movie hinted at human and mammal evolution, those topics were never spoken of again once the dinosaurs showed up. I guess the takeaway is that we should have been dinosaur paleontologists.

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Jurassic Park drew inspiration from Gwangi

• Eohippus and the evolution of the horse

• New research divides Tyrannosaurus rex into three species

• Moa genetics

• Tyrannosaur Chronicles by Dave Hone

• Horse diving was a real thing

• The death of a horse in the cowboy film Jesse James led to the Human Society slogan “no animals were harmed”

Episode 20: Caveman (1981)

Caveman is a story about a caveman starring Ringo Starr. Actually, “story” is a bit of a stretch – like many classic caveman movies we’ve reviewed, it’s about a caveman who is banished from his group, and then a bunch of random things happen, and then he returns. But at least it has some fun stop-motion dinosaur animations!

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Starr got his big break as the drummer for a 1960s boy band, but you’d probably recognize him best as the narrator of Thomas the Tank Engine

• The Chewits Muncher

• Ringo Starr met his wife Barbara Bach on the set of Caveman

• Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human by Richard Wrangham

• Early use of fire at Koobi Fora, Kenya

• The Divje Babe “Flute”

• Neanderthals made glue from birch tar

• The West Tofts Acheulean Handaxe features a shell fossil

• The Ica Stones

• Gideon Mantel and the reconstruction of Iguanodon

• The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte

Episode 19: The Croods (2013)

Today we’re reviewing The Croods, the story of a Neanderthal family led by a paranoid patriarch whose authority is threatened by an innovative young modern human. Despite the star-studded cast, Ross may never forgive us for making him watch this one.

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Whale phylogeny

• Chang and Eng Bunker, the original conjoined twins

• Neanderthal control of fire

• Neanderthal art

• Why aren’t there any blue or green mammals?

• Four-winged dinosaur

• Neanderthal footprints at Theopetra, Greece

• Was hookworm responsible for the “dumb hillbilly” stereotype?

• Guinea worm has almost been eradicated

• The Hygiene Hypothesis of allergies

Episode 18: One Million Years B.C. (1966)

We’re diving into the classics for this episode! One Million Years B.C. is recognizable for two things: Ray Harryhausen’s groundbreaking dinosaur animations, and Raquel Welch’s fur bikini. What’s not to like? Well, everything except for those two things, as it turns out.

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Seriously, check out this Allosaurus scene

• Sima de los Huesos – the Pit of Bones

• Could Roger Patterson have used a costume from this movie to fake his famous bigfoot footage?

• Roger Patterson drew a bigfoot with breasts a year before the famous footage #PGhoax don’t @ me

• Cowgirls vs. Pterodactyls (2021)

• Stone age twin burial with mammoth scapulae (shoulder blades)

Episode 17: Early Man (2018)

What do you get when you cross Wallace and Gromit, 10,000BC, and The Mighty Ducks? Early Man is the story of a bumbling tribe of Stone Age cavemen who challenge the Bronze Age to a football (soccer) match to save their village. This movie is drenched in references to both football and British culture, and considering this is a nerdy science podcast we mostly understand the latter!

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Difference between geological time periods and cultural ages

• The Beaker People

• Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

• A discussion about colour (Radiolab did it better)

• Lumpers and Splitters

• Prof. Yoel Rak locked out of his office over archaeology drama

• The history of football

• Ba game – medieval Scottish football

• Ancient Mesoamerican ballcourts

• Pelota – student video game

• Archaeology of the Olympics

Episode 16: 10,000 BC (2008)

There’s no other way to say it: this is the worst movie we’ve reviewed so far. If you’ve seen it, you probably know what we’re talking about, and if not, buckle in for a rant. 10,000 BC is the boring story of a caveman with no personality who needs to rescue a cavewoman with no personality from anachronistic slave traders building the pyramids with the help of domesticated mammoths. If that sounds stupid, it gets even worse: in this episode, we talk ancient aliens, hyperdiffusionism, and the racism underlying archaeological conspiracy theories.

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• B.C., A.D., B.C.E., C.E., or B.P.?!?

• Phorusrhacids (Terror birds) don’t belong in this movie

• The last mammoths survived until 4000 years ago on Wrangel Island

• Atlantis never existed

• Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly

• Chariots of the Gods(?) by Erich von Daniken

• Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

• Pseudoarchaeology and racism
  

Episode 15: Rare Exports - A Christmas Tale (2010)

We have a special holiday episode today! Rare Exports is the crazy story of an illicit archaeological excavation which unearths the frozen remains of Santa Claus, who then goes on a murderous rampage in search of naughty children. To be honest, it’s not really about archaeology at all, but the Venn diagram of stone age movies and Christmas movies basically only overlaps at this one and a Flintstones Christmas special, and I think we made the right choice.

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Joulupukki, the Finnish Santa Claus tradition

• Other scary Christmas traditions

• Philippa Langley helped to discover the remains of King Richard III in a Leicester car park

• Hunting mammoth ivory in Siberia

• Dinosaur 13 (2014), documentary about the ownership of Sue the Tyrannosaurus

• The Hobby Lobby antiquities smuggling controversy

• The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth's Ultimate Trophy by Paige Williams

Episode 14: Alpha (2018)

On today’s episode we are reviewing Alpha (2018), the story of a lost Solutrean boy who befriends and domesticates a wolf, with TWO special guests! Dr. April Nowell studies the origins of art and language and the archaeology of childhood. Dr. Grant Zazula is the palaeontologist for the Government of Yukon, and he was the palaeontology consultant on Alpha! He takes us behind the scenes as we dissect the real-life inspirations behind the language, artifacts, landscapes, and of course ice-age mammals in this beautiful movie.

Check out April’s new book, Growing Up in the Ice Age

April is giving a talk on Thursday January 13, 2022 at 9:00 PT / 17:00 GMT as part of the University of Liverpool Evolutionary Anthropology Webinar Series

Check out Grant’s work with the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre

Get in touch with us!

Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/

Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

In this episode:

• Christine Schreyer on the construction of fictional languages in film

• CBC under fire for documentary promoting the Solutrean Hypothesis

• Archaeology of the Night: Life After Dark in the Ancient World, edited by Nancy Gonlin and April Nowell

• Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump in Alberta

• Winnipeg professor teachers how to survive falling through the ice

• Mammoth bone houses

• Painted pebbles from Mas d’Azil, France

• Borneo hand stencil cave paintings

• The domestication of dogs

• “Alpha wolves” don’t exist

• Check out Ross’s book: The Missing Lynx: The Past and Future of Britain’s Lost mammals