AnthroBiology Podcast

Ron Romano of Spirits Alive (a non-profit dedicated to preserving Eastern Cemetery and its history) joins the show to talk about gravestone symbolism, mortuary practices, cemetery organization and social status, and the evolution of gravestone creation in Eastern Cemetery of Portland, ME.

Cemeteries reveal a lot about the people who made them -- how they think about death, life, and religion; social and economic hierarchies; changing technologies; what's important to them; what causes anxiety. Cemeteries are human-made spaces filled with our bodies and artifacts that we've created. They can't help but be reflections of who we are and what we care about in any particular moment. Historians like Ron help us unpack these layered contexts by using the cemetery as a lens for interpretation of the past.

Recommendations

Spirits Alive
Spirits Alive - Monographs about Portland's Eastern Cemetery by Ron Romano
Association for Gravestone Studies
Romano, R. (2017). Portland's Historic Eastern Cemetery: A Field of Ancient Graves. Historic Press.
Romano, R. (2016). Early Gravestones in Southern Maine: The Genius of Bartlett Adams. Historic Press.
Giguere, JM. (2024). Pleasure Grounds of Death: The Rural Cemetery in Nineteenth-Century America. University of Michigan Press.
Burnett, A. (2015). Gone to the Grave: Burial Customs of the Arkansas Ozarks, 1850-1950. University Press of Mississippi.
Blachowicz, J. (2015). From Slate to Marble: Gravestone Carving Traditions in Eastern Massachusetts, 1770-1870 (Vols. 1-2). Graver Press.
Bondeson, J. (2002). Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear. W.W. Norton & Company.
Hartnell, J. (2019). Medieval Bodies: Life and Death in the Middle Ages. W.W. Norton & Company.
Hartnell, J. (2019). Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages. Wellcome Collection.
Faust, DG. (2009). This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. Knopf Publishing Group.
Houlbrooke, R. (1998). Death, Religion, and the Family in England, 1480-1750. Oxford University Press.
Houlbrooke, R. (Ed). (2021). Death, Ritual, and Bereavement. Routledge.
Doughty, C. (2015). Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory. W.W. Norton & Company.
Deetz, J. (1996). In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life. Anchor Books.
Shultz, SR. (2005). Body Snatching: The Robbing of Graves for the Education of Physicians in Early Nineteenth Century America. McFarland & Company.

Dr. Wakefield (Northeast College) and Dr. Neidich (University of Missouri) joined the show to discuss their research on death in early New York mental health institutions and how it differed from the populations around them. Along the way, we talk about the history of mental health institutions in the United States and how differences in the amount and causes of death can illuminate what we care about as a society.
Dr. Walker also worked on this project, but unfortunately was unable to join. Her collaborators wanted to make sure that her contributions were noted :)

Recommendations

Dr. Wakefield's faculty profile
Dr. Niedich's faculty profile
Dr. Walker's faculty profile
Stuhler, L.S. (2011). The Inmates of Willard 1870 to 1900: A Genealogy Resource. Createspace Independent Publishing.
Penney, D. (2009). The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic. Bellevue Literary Press.
Willard Suitcases photo gallery
Moreno-Garcia, S. (2020). Mexican Gothic. Del Rey Books.
Wynn-Williams, S. (2025). Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism. Flatiron Books.
Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club series
Brindlewood Bay role-playing game

Dr. Brian Villmoare of the University of Nevada - Las Vegas shares how his team found teeth in Ethiopia and what those teeth might mean in terms of who was around when in the evolutionary record.

Recommendations

Dr. Villmoare's University of Nevada - Las Vegas staff profile
Dr. Villmoare's Human Paleontology Lab
Villmoare, B., Delezene, L.K., Rector, A.L. et al. New discoveries of Australopithecus and Homo from Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia. Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09390-4
Kalb, J. (2013). Adventures in the Bone Trade: The Race to Discover Human Ancestors in Ethiopia's Afar Depression. Copernicus.
Wood, B. (2019). Human Evolution: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. [Ian Tattersall's books + Ian Tattersall's website
Jablonka, E. & Lamb, M.J. (2014). Evolution in Four Dimensions, Revised Edition: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life. Bradford Book.
Sapolsky, R.M. (2023). Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. Penguin Publishing Group.
Rachel Kushner's books
Reiss, T. (2006). The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life. Random House.
Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club series

Keri Porter, a PhD candidate at Notre Dame University, joins the show to discuss their research on patterns of violence in a Bronze Age urban center in the Southern Levant. They focus on cranial trauma and what it can reveal about humans attempting to live together along with what it might reveal about who suffers violence. They also share some excellent recommendations for how to think about grad school, whether or not to go, and tips for applying.

Recommendations

Keri Porter's Notre Dame profile page
Martin, D.L., Harrod, R.P., & Pérez, V.R. (Eds.) (2013). The Bioarchaeology of Violence. University Press of Florida.
Regev J, De Miroschedji P, Greenberg R, Braun E, Greenhut Z, Boaretto E. Chronology of the Early Bronze Age in the Southern Levant: New Analysis for a High Chronology. Radiocarbon. 2012;54(3-4):525-566.
Greenberg, R. (2019). The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant: From Urban Origins to the Demise of City-States, 3700-1000 BCE. Cambridge University Press.
Krakowka K. (2017). Patterns and prevalence of violence-related skull trauma in medieval London. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 164(3), 488–504. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23288
Krakowka, K. (2015). Understanding violence in medieval London: an examination of the skeletal evidence. [PhD thesis]. University of Oxford.
Gorn, E. J. (1985). "Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch": The Social Significance of Fighting in the Southern Backcountry. The American Historical Review, 90(1), 18–43.
Collins, S. (2025). Sunrise on the Reaping. Scholastic Press.
Fox, J. (2025). Down the Drain. Simon & Schuster.
Green, J. (2025). Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection. Crash Course Books.
Reinhard, A. (2018). Archaeogaming: An Introduction to Archaeology in and of Video Games, Berghan Books.
Porter, K. (2022, November 4). Digging Up the Digital Past: Archaeogaming and Archaeological Practice in the Sims™ Franchise. UMMAA Brown Bag Lecture Series, Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, IN, USA.

Dr. Maria Nieves-Cólon and Jamie Zolik join the show to discuss their ancient DNA research in San Luis de Cañete and what it can reveal about the historical population of the town specifically and the African diaspora in South America generally. They share some of the exciting ways they've forged a partnership with the community in order to carry out the work as ethically as possible.

Recommendations

Dr. Maries Nieves-Colón's faculty page at the University of Minnesota
Nieves-Colón lab
Jaime Zolik's bio
Museo Afroperuano de San Luis de Cañete
Nieves-Colón MA, Ulrich EC, Chen L, Torres Colón GA, Rivera Clemente M, Corporación Piñones se Integra (COPI), Benn Torres J. Genomic variation in Puerto Rican Afro-descendants illustrates diverse histories of African diasporic populations. American Journal of Biological Anthropology.185(3), e25059.
Arbour, L., & Cook, D. (2006). DNA on loan: issues to consider when carrying out genetic research with aboriginal families and communities. Community genetics, 9(3), 153–160. https://doi.org/10.1159/000092651
Flewellen, A.O., Odewale, A., Dunnavant, J. et al. Creating Community and Engaging Community: The Foundations of the Estate Little Princess Archaeology Project in St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands. Int J Histor Archaeol 26, 147–176 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-021-00600-z
Ávila-Arcos, M. C., de la Fuente Castro, C., Nieves-Colón, M. A., & Raghavan, M. (2022). Recommendations for Sustainable Ancient DNA Research in the Global South: Voices From a New Generation of Paleogenomicists. Frontiers in genetics, 13, 880170. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2022.880170
Marciniak, S. Hunting for Pathogens: Ancient DNA and the Historical Record. (2016). In Mant, M., & Holland, A. (Eds.). Beyond the bones : engaging with disparate datasets. Elsevier Academic Press.
Harper, K. (2023). Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History. Princeton University Press.
Nieves-Colón, M.A. and Stone, A.C. (2018). Ancient DNA Analysis in Archaeological Remains. In Katzenberg, M.A. & Grauer, A.L. (Eds.). Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton. Wiley-Blackwell.
Kowal E, Weyrich LS, Argüelles JM, Bader AC, Colwell C, Cortez AD, Davis JL, Figueiro G, Fox K, Malhi RS, Matisoo-Smith E, Nayak A, Nelson EA, Nicholas G, Nieves-Colón MA, Russell L, Ulm S, Vergara-Silva F, Villanea FA, Wagner JK, Yracheta JM, Tsosie KM. Community partnerships are fundamental to ethical ancient DNA research. Human Genetics and Genomics Advances. 42(2): 100161.
Buffalo, V. (2015). Bioinformatics Data Skills: Reproducible and Robust Research with Open Source Tools. O'Reilly Media.
Ted Lasso (TV series)
Arcane (TV series)
Dungeons & Dragons (game)
Marques, G. G. (1967). One Hundred Years of Solitude. Harper & Row.
Wynn-Williams, S. (2025). Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism. Flatiron Books.
Osman, R. (2021). The Thursday Murder Club. Penguin Books.
Sterling, E. (2021). The Ex Hex. Avon Books.
Henry, C. (2022). Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga. Black Spot Books.