{"podcast":{"title":"AnthroBiology Podcast","slug":"anthrobiology-podcast-263302","podcast_index_feed_id":263302,"rss_url":"https://anthrobiologypodcast.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"https://anthrobiology.com/","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/5/9/d/4/59d47ccc72bd27a1d959afa2a1bf1c87/1Logo.jpeg","author":"Gaby Lapera","episode_count":74,"summary":"The AnthroBiology Podcast sits down with biological anthropologists once or twice a month to learn about what they do and why it's rad. Want to know more about our evolutionary past? Or what your bones say about you? Maybe chimps are more your speed? If it's anthropology and it's about humans, we'll cover it. Learn more at anthrobiology.com","last_synced_at":"2026-07-30T04:19:27.461817+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/anthrobiology-podcast-263302"},"episode":{"title":"Dr. David Orton – Rats in Europe and Zooarchaeology","slug":"dr-david-orton-rats-in-europe-and-zooarchaeology","published_at":"2025-06-25T15:19:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/anthrobiology-podcast-263302/dr-david-orton-rats-in-europe-and-zooarchaeology","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/anthrobiology-podcast-263302","url":"https://anthrobiologypodcast.libsyn.com/dr-david-orton-rats-in-europe-and-zooarchaeology","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/anthrobiologypodcast/ABP_Orton_0625_mixdown.mp3?dest-id=1761989","summary":"Dr. David Orton of the University of York joins the show to discuss how he uses zooarchaeology (the study of animal remains in archaeological contexts) to understand the how rat and human populations interacted and affected each other over time in Europe. He gets into the spread of rats, the plague, using ancient DNA and isotopic analysis to analyze rats, and what rats can tell us about historic events. Books, articles, and media mentioned in this episode + helpful sites and articles: Dr. Orton's University of York faculty profile RATTUS project website Eric Guiry et al. , The ratting of North America: A 350-year retrospective on Rattus species compositions and competition . Scientific Advancements. 10, eadm6755(2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adm6755 Yu, H., Jamieson, A., Hulme-Beaman, A. et al. Palaeogenomic analysis of black rat ( Rattus rattus ) reveals multiple European introductions associated with human economic history . Nature Communications. 13 , 2399 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30009-z Jason Munshi-South et al. , The evolutionary history of wild and domestic brown rats ( Rattus norvegicus ) . Science . 385, 1292-1297. (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.adp1166 E. E. Puckett, D. Orton, J. Munshi-South, Commensal Rats and Humans: Integrating Rodent Phylogeography and Zooarchaeology to Highlight Connections between Human Societies . BioEssays 2020, 42, 1900160. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.201900160 Guiry, E.J., Gaulton, B.C. Inferring Human Behaviors from Isotopic Analyses of Rat Diet: a Critical Review and Historical Application . J Archaeol Method Theory 23 , 399–426 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-015-9248-9 Susat, Julian et al. A 5,000-year-old hunter-gatherer already plagued by Yersinia pestis . Cell Reports , Volume 35, Issue 13, 109278. Hall,…","meta_description":"Dr. David Orton of the University of York joins the show to discuss how he uses zooarchaeology (the study of animal remains in archaeological contexts) to…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4401,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/anthrobiology-podcast-263302/episodes/dr-david-orton-rats-in-europe-and-zooarchaeology/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/anthrobiology-podcast-263302/dr-david-orton-rats-in-europe-and-zooarchaeology.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}