Episodes

  • Episode 95: Ross from Friends
    Jan 19 2025
    Today we’re talking about Dr. Ross Geller, the best friend from NBC’s hit 1990s sitcom. Ross is probably the world’s best-known palaeontologist, except it’s not clear if he specializes in dinosaurs or Pleistocene mammals. And sometimes he seems to be doing palaeoanthropology... or geology. Anyway, we’re not on a break, so prepare to pivot and achieve a state of true unagi, because we have 18 pages of notes for this episode—front and back!Get in touch with us:Twitter: @SotSA_PodcastBluesky: @sotsapodcast.bsky.socialFacebook: @SotSAPodcastLetterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sotsa/Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.comIn this episode:Ross Palaeontology YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4rnE_UsfHM&list=PLzzOAyef3Dyo8xLTGP_E2aW_yZhA3PkXf Museums in Friends Blog: https://museumsinfriends.wordpress.com “Mastodon” means “breast tooth”: https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/mammoth-mastodon-differences Chambers and McCahey (2024) 1990s dinomania: Public and popular cultures of palaeontology from Jurassic Park to Friends: https://doi.org/10.1177/03080188241233121 Robert Bakker and the “Dinosaur Renaissance”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_renaissance Whom should we really call a “doctor”? https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5973890/ T. rex and the Crater of Doom (1997) by Walter Alvarez: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691169668/t-rex-and-the-crater-of-doom Bruce Trigger Warning: https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/5081017-bruce-trigger-warning?store_id=145043 Real palaeontologist Dr. David Schwimmer: https://www.columbusstate.edu/profiles/schwimmer-david Is it this Ted Rigby? http://rienco.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Ted-Rigby-CV-Updated-Sep-2015.pdfDavid Schwimmer didn’t steal beer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2pDsCk01F4 The Felidae of Rancho La Brea (1932) by John Merriam and Chester Stock: https://archive.org/details/felidofranchol4221932merr/page/12/mode/2up John C. Merriam, Palaeontologist: https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/about-ucmp/history-of-ucmp/john-c-merriam/ Ross Barnett on Ross Geller: https://twilightbeasts.org/2014/05/13/the-one-with-the-sabretooth/comment-page-1/ Why does Ross, the largest friend, not simply eat the other five? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-06ki92PyVY What is Chandler’s Job? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIpA9j1TVYo
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 21 mins
  • Episode 94: La Brea S01E01 (2021)
    Jan 5 2025

    Today we’re returning to L.A.’s famous tar pits for the pilot episode of La Brea (2021), the timey-wimey story of a family of Los Angelinos who fall into a sinkhole in Wilshire Boulevard and somehow end up in the Pleistocene. If you love ice age megafauna, this episode is for you! The show, maybe not so much.

    Get in touch with us:

    Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

    Bluesky: @sotsapodcast.bsky.social

    Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

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

    Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

    In this episode:

    Dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus): https://tarpits.org/stories/our-evolving-understanding-dire-wolves

    Smilodon: https://tarpits.org/stories/smilodon-saber-tooths-and-tigersoh-my

    Teratornis merriami: https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-giant-bird.htm

    Megatherium: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-was-megatherium.html

    Marcus (1960) A Census of abundant large Pleistocene mammals from Rancho La Brea: https://web.archive.org/web/20220226104339id_/https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/partpdf/226856

    Spencer et al. (2003) Taphonomic Analysis of Large Mammals Recovered from the Pleistocene Rancho La Brea Tar Seeps: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4096974.pdf

    La Brea Woman: http://www.laalmanac.com/history/hi02v.php

    Show More Show Less
    47 mins
  • Episode 93: The Christmas Quest (2024)
    Dec 22 2024

    Happy Holidays! To celebrate the season we’re reviewing The Christmas Quest (2024), a brand-new Hallmark movie starring Lacey Chabert as an archaeologist searching for the lost treasure of Iceland’s Yule Lads. Josh regales us with stories of his Icelandic/Canadian heritage, from prune cake to giant classist cats to the witch living in his grandmother’s attic.

    Get in touch with us:

    Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

    Bluesky: @sotsapodcast.bsky.social

    Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

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

    Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

    In this episode:

    Gryla and the Yule Lads: https://guidetoiceland.is/history-culture/the-icelandic-yule-lads-and-gryla

    Icelandic patronymic surnames: https://www.routesnorth.com/language-and-culture/icelandic-last-names-a-simple-guide/

    Icelandic Runic Alphabets: https://guidetoiceland.is/history-culture/a-guide-to-icelandic-runes

    The Galdrabók (Icelandic Book of Magic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galdrab%C3%B3k

    Necropants: https://guidetoiceland.is/connect-with-locals/aldasigmunds/the-necro-pants-revisited

    The Rosetta Stone: https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/everything-you-ever-wanted-know-about-rosetta-stone

    Geographic coordinate system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_coordinate_system

    Jólabókaflóðið: https://jolabokaflod.org/about/founding-story/

    One in ten Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/444296-most-published-writers-per-capita

    Snowmance (2017) trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WeODKICqxA

    Hot Frosty (2024) trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmi794YO-0w

    Kilchurn Castle, Scotland: https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/kilchurn-castle/

    Kæstur hákarl (fermented shark): https://yourfriendinreykjavik.com/fermented-shark-iceland/

    Harðfiskur (hard fish): https://grapevine.is/food-main/2016/06/30/food-of-the-week-hardfiskur/

    Vinarterta: https://macleans.ca/society/life/dont-ask-icelanders-how-to-make-their-traditional-christmas-cake/

    Pönnukökur: https://www.cietours.com/en-ca/blog/recipe-icelandic-pancakes

    Dimmuborgir: https://guidetoiceland.is/travel-iceland/drive/dimmuborgir

    UK Escalator PSA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zirp59zm1qE

    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 15 mins
  • Episode 92: One Million B.C. (1940)
    Dec 8 2024

    Today we’re reviewing One Million B.C. (1940), a film from Hollywood’s Golden Era which is probably the common ancestor of all caveman movies. The 1966 remake with Raquel Welch is much more famous, but as it turns out it’s pretty faithful to the original, the main difference apparently being the blatant on-screen animal cruelty (consider this your content warning).

    Get in touch with us:

    Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

    Bluesky: @sotsapodcast.bsky.social

    Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

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

    Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

    In this episode:

    Watch One Million B.C. (1940) on YouTube in glorious AI colour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgJBtn417Qo

    Listen to our review of One Million Years B.C. (1966): https://youtu.be/gcTrCwrR0tk?feature=shared

    Victor Mature: “I’m not an actor – and I’ve got 64 films to prove it!”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Mature#:~:text=Mature%20was%20famously%20self%2Ddeprecatory,That%20is%20my%20real%20occupation.

    Snow White singing with the animals in the forest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khmrr7-W6BA

    The TVTropes entry for “Slurpasuar” has a screenshot from this movie: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Slurpasaur

    Animal cruelty in One Million B.C.: https://www.californiaherps.com/films/lizardfilms/OneMillionBC1940.html

    The modern bikini was born in 1946: https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/07/05/culture-re-view-a-short-history-on-the-invention-of-the-bikini

    Seventeen thousand-year-old conch shell horn: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966322717/why-a-musician-breathed-new-life-into-a-17-000-year-old-conch-shell-horn

    Palaeolithic flutes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_flute

    Show More Show Less
    47 mins
  • Episode 91: National Treasure (2004) with the History According to Hollywood Podcast
    Nov 24 2024

    National Treasure (2004) is lowkey an American history lesson disguised as a heist movie—or vice versa? Either way, there are no cavemen in it, so we have invited Kyle from the History According to Hollywood Podcast to help us Commonwealth citizens understand the American obsession with faded old documents, broken bells, and Benjamin Franklin.

    Listen to the History According to Hollywood Podcast – maybe the episode where Josh joined them to discuss 10,000 B.C.? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBdkfjssevo&list=PLMIHuz5VH0Xdk_w8feD8qJiLM0ygQ-eBl&index=2

    Get in touch with us:

    Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

    Bluesky: @sotsapodcast.bsky.social

    Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

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

    Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

    In this episode:

    The Silence Dogood Letters: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-01-02-0008

    The Charlotte: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_(1784_ship)

    Revolutionary War codes and invisible ink: https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-revolutionary-war/spying-and-espionage/spy-techniques-of-the-revolutionary-war

    Symbols on American Money: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/frbp/assets/institutional/education/publications/symbols-on-american-money.pdf

    Ben Franklin didn’t invent Daylight Saving Time: https://fi.edu/en/science-and-education/benjamin-franklin/daylight-savings-time

    George Washington Inaugural Buttons & Medalets 1789 & 1793 by J. Harold Cobb C.P.A.: https://kirkmitchell.tripod.com/CobbGW/GWIBM.pdf

    Treasure hunting laws: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/130306-finders-keepers-treasure-hunting-law-uk-us

    The Repatriation of Egyptian Art: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1054&context=jtlp

    Treasure hunters allege the FBI made off with Civil War-era gold and covered it up: https://www.npr.org/2022/06/13/1104823285/treasure-hunters-fbi-gold-civil-war

    Metal detectorist who stole £3m Viking hoard jailed for five more years: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/sep/12/metal-detectorist-who-stole-3m-viking-hoard-jailed-for-five-more-years

    Amistad (1997): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118607/

    Skullduggery (1970): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEyACQ0Yvy0

    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 38 mins
  • Episode 90: Ancient Apocalypse: The Americas, Episode 6 (2024)
    Nov 10 2024

    Today we’re making a sacrifice to the gods of the algorithm and reviewing an episode of Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse: The Americas (2024). To help carry this burden, we’re joined by Dr. Andrew Kinkella, who helps us evaluate claims about the ancient Maya in this series’ sixth episode. How did ancient people learn to count? How did they find out that the sun exists? It’s a real mystery.

    Check out Andrew Kinkella’s shows:

    The Pseudo-Archaeology Podcast: https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com/pseudo

    The CRM Archaeology Podcast: https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com/crmarchpodcast

    Kinkella Teaches Archaeology: https://www.youtube.com/@KinkellaTeachesArchaeology

    Get in touch with us:

    Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

    Bluesky: @sotsapodcast.bsky.social

    Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

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

    Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

    In this episode:

    Fingerprints of the Gods (1995) by Graham Hancock: https://ia803100.us.archive.org/8/items/fingerprintsofthegodsbygrahamhancock/Fingerprints%20of%20the%20Gods%20by%20Graham%20Hancock.pdf

    Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882) by Ignatius Donnelly: https://archive.org/details/atlantisantedilu00donnuoft

    Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl: https://www.worldhistory.org/Kukulcan/

    Palenque: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/411/

    Palaeolithic Calendars: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_115

    How to track the solstices and equinoxes yourself: https://johnmuirlaws.com/sun-shadows-exploring-the-solstice-and-equinox/

    Milky Way Mythology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way_(mythology)

    Ayahuasca: https://adf.org.au/drug-facts/ayahuasca/

    The Mayan Numeral System: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/waymakermath4libarts/chapter/the-mayan-numeral-system/

    Serra da Paituna: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5173343/

    The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825211000262

    Flint Dibble livestream with Ken Feder for #RealArchaeology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEimOPN_pO8

    Homer Simpson deceptively edited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEGFaOeUm2A

    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 12 mins
  • Episode 89: As Above, So Below (2014)
    Oct 26 2024

    Today we’re getting spooky with As Above, So Below (2014), the story of yet another unethical archaeologist who has no qualms about breaking into sites, vandalizing artifacts, and never documenting anything. Unlike most archaeological heroes, however, she is forced to atone for these sins by passing through the nine levels of Hell, à la Dante’s Inferno.

    Discover new #RealArchaeology podcasts, YouTube channels, and more at https://real-archaeology.com/

    Get in touch with us:

    Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

    Bluesky: @sotsapodcast.bsky.social

    Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

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

    Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

    In this episode:

    Visit the Paris Catacombs: https://www.catacombes.paris.fr/en

    The movie was actually filmed in the catacombs: https://ew.com/article/2014/08/28/as-above-so-below-dowdle/

    The real Nicolas Flamel was not an alchemist: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history/cobbling-together-legend-nicolas-flamel

    Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell: https://www.thoughtco.com/dantes-9-circles-of-hell-741539

    You can’t get a PhD in “Symbology”: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2009/09/in-the-dan-brown-books-robert-langdon-is-a-professor-of-religious-symbology-is-there-really-any-such-thing.html

    Semiotics: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~chazelle/courses/BIB/semio2.htm

    The Sedlec Ossuary: https://sedlecossuary.com/

    We ArE lIvInG iN a SiMuLaTiOn – R/sUpErStOnK kNoWs ThE tRuTh! https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/q0m68d/so_uh_anyone_read_manly_p_hall_lucifer_equals_741/

    Manly P. Hall – The Secret Teachings of All Ages: http://www.themasonictrowel.com/books/hall_the_secret-teachings_of_all_ages/files/chapter_29.htm

    “It’s the Trevi Fountain! There can be no question!”: https://comb.io/iPRAQX

    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 13 mins
  • Episode 88: Tar (2020)
    Oct 13 2024

    It’s October so we’re reviewing scary movies! Tár (2022) is the story of a groundbreaking orchestra conductor who... wait, that doesn’t sound right... Oh, I see, we actually watched Tar (2020), the story of a greasy prehistoric demon who emerges from the La Brea tar pits to haunt a small computer repair store. Well, Josh and Ross did – Kim messed up and watched the wrong movie, but we decided to spare her the ordeal and record the podcast anyway.

    Win some SotSA Merch! Send your mistakes, inaccuracies, and corrections to us by email or social media:

    Twitter: @SotSA_Podcast

    Bluesky: @sotsapodcast.bsky.social

    Facebook: @SotSAPodcast

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

    Email: screensofthestoneage@gmail.com

    In this episode:

    Watch Tar (2020) on YouTube (with Sinhala subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB5SN57t9OA

    Academy Award Nominee Graham Greene as explosives expert Edgar Montrose on The Red Green Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyPjeeoVMU0

    Predator Traps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator_trap

    Predator fossils from La Brea: https://tarpits.org/research-collections/tar-pits-collections

    La Brea Woman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMKptjhffrM

    Other tar pits: https://tarpits.org/tar-pits-world

    Horses in the Americas: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/native-americans-spread-horses-through-the-west-earlier-than-thought-180981912/

    Matchee Manitou: https://dchp.arts.ubc.ca/entries/Matchi%20Manitou

    Show More Show Less
    52 mins