Episode 102 - Chalk it Up to Science

This week, on a short but fun episode, Anna and Amber investigate some of the massive figures cut into the chalk landscape of the Southern UK. Who made them? How old are they? Why are there so many horses?

• Cerne Abbas Giant is NOT prehistoric and may have been created just a few hundred years ago before becoming a propaganda tool for William of Orange, snail shells reveal (Daily Mail)

• England’s 7 most intriguing chalk figures and the stories behind them (Wanderlust)

• Chalk Hill Figures (Historic UK)

• Southern England Chalk Formation (Wikipedia)

• An Introduction to Prehistoric England (Before 43 BC) (English Heritage)

• Bronze Age discovery reveals surprising extent of Britain’s trade with Europe 3,600 years ago (The Conversation)

• Bronze Age Britain (BBC)

• Footprints, Size 10, From Britain’s Bronze Age (The New Yorker)

• The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe (Nature)

• Boom and bust in Bronze Age Britain: major copper production from the Great Orme mine and European trade, c. 1600–1400 BC (Antiquity)

• Against All Odds, England’s Massive Chalk Horse Has Survived 3,000 Years (Smithsonian)

• England’s Enormous Chalk Figures (Atlas Obscura via Google Earth)

• Britain's Spectacular (and Sometimes Mysterious) Hill Figures (Gizmodo UK)

• Why Is the Kiwi’s Egg So Big? (Audubon)