Episode 215 - Achoo, and Welcome to The Dirt

This week, Amber is recovering from a nasty cold that has left her normally dulcet tones extremely froggy. So we've made lemons out of that germy lemonade (ew, sorry). It's an episode about the archaeology, prehistory, and history of the common cold! Learn how to tell if a skeleton had the sniffles, figure out if there are ghosts in your colon, uncover the great Vitamin C scam, and more!

For more on this episode's topics:

Humans are 8% virus – how the ancient viral DNA in your genome plays a role in human disease and development (The Conversation)

Prehistoric viruses smuggled genes into our DNA (Chemical & Engineering News)

Cold Virus Found To Manipulate Genes (ScienceDaily)

Sequences capture the code of the common cold (University of Wisconsin)

Common cold virus may predate modern humans, ancient DNA hints (Live Science)

Paleomedicine and the Evolutionary Context of Medicinal Plant Use (Nature Public Health Emergency Collection)

Cowabunga! Horn reveals herbal mixtures used by medieval healers in South Africa (RFI)

Africa's Medical History Revealed (Origins)

Infectious Diseases in the Archaeological Record (Ember Archaeology)

Disease concepts and classifications in ancient Mesopotamian medicine (Systems of Classification in Premodern Medical Cultures)

The Life and Health of Assyrian Queens (Ancient Near East Today)

Cold Sore Virus Detected in Ancient Human Remains (Archaeology)

Common cold: The centuries-old battle against the sniffles (BBC News)

Medical Practitioners: Ancient Legacy (Prof. Sean Taylor, MSU Moorhead)

Ancient Egyptian Medicine: A Systematic Review (Philosophy, Social and Human Disciplines)

Glossary of Medical Terms Used in the 18th and 19th Centuries (Craig Thornber)

Ethnobotany of Purple Coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia, Asteraceae) and Other Echinacea Species (Economic Botany)

How Linus Pauling duped America into believing vitamin C cures colds (Vox)

Archaeobotanical evidence of the use of medicinal cannabis in a secular context unearthed from south China (ScienceDirect)

Image: Poster from 1937 encouraging citizens to "consult your physician" for treatment of the common cold.
Dec 1 1937. Work Projects Administration Poster Collection (Library of Congress).