Ancient History
This is a space to discuss and learn about ancient archaeology, history, philosophy, etc.
Ancient History Videos/Podcasts
With the advent of AI slop videos the ancient history space has been hit especially hard with generated conspiracy videos making it difficult to find informative and well sourced information. This section is intended to provide a human curated list of informative podcasts and video documentaries on topics relating to ancient history. This list is in its infancy and I will add more as I have time. Feel free to suggest a documentary or history creator you feel belongs here.
History With Cy
Cy does both short (~15min) videos and long-form documentary videos covering the ancient world. He has dynasty by dynasty coverage of ancient Egypt, lots of coverage of the Persian Empire, lots of coverage of ancient Greece, and a few great videos on the Indus Valley. I’m not sure what Cy’s formal education is but he clearly does detailed work. He lists the sources he relies on under each video. His video animation is a bit rudimentary but it gets the job done.
He also has some podcasts.
Fall of Civilizations
Paul Cooper writes and produces a podcast and video documentary series covering ancient civilizations. His documentaries are all long (1-6 hours), atmospheric, engaging, and well informed. The podcast is the same content but without visuals. He holds a PhD in the cultural and literary significance of ruins.
Historia Civilis
HC covers the ancient world through videos with a special focus on Roman history. His videos tend to be a bit shorter (10-20 min) though he has a handful around an hour. He lists the sources he relies on under each video. His video animation is a bit rudimentary but it gets the job done.
History Time
History Time is written and produced by Pete Kelly. Pete does long-form (1-4 hours) video documentaries on ancient civilizations. He has some great coverage of the ancient Americas (check out the this one on the Amazon). He has a lot of coverage on the Vikings. He has an excellent video on Doggerland. Stuff on Rome, Greece, the medievals, myths…he casts a wide net.
The Entire History of the Earth
Co-created by Pete Kelly, his brother David, and Dr. Leila Battison, this video documentary series delves into geological research about the deep past including the formation of the earth, formation of life, etc. Super intriguing standpoint to consider our planet from.
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Thank you, Dr. Social Media Scientist.
We're clearly much more intelligent than those stupid hunter-gatherers who spent a tiny portion of their days doing needed work and the rest of the time having wild parties and daring each other to eat new plants and try sitting on the back of random animals to see which ones are sort of okay with it.
We have smart phones and a constant string of fight-or-flight triggers for things we can't actually do anything about every day.
Do you engage in all discussions by misrepresenting the other side and jumping immediately to mockery?
To mockery for sure. The minute I stop being able to look around myself and laugh at the thoughtless horrors and countless tribes who all believe they're righteous and welcoming yet all spit hate at anyone who doesn't chant their accepted manifesto I'll probably eat a shotgun.
That’s some pretty mean things to say about people you don’t know on the internet. By your own words you are the one spitting hate here. Doing that is probably not helping you either in the long run. I hope life gets better for you. Trust me, you’re not the only one having a shitty day/week/life.
The spitting hate was referring to the tribalist nonsense of seeing anyone who doesn't quote their specific manual on how to act, what words to use, and how to use those words as evil monsters. I'm always going to make fun of people who get upset about a joke they don't approve of. That could probably be called dismissive, but not hateful.