The Pyrenees stretch 270 miles from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, separating France from Spain, and most people think of them as a natural barrier: remote, barren, and largely untouched. They would be wrong. These mountains sit at the edge of where early humans were supposed to have settled, yet a cave above the village of Tautavel contains the oldest human face ever found in Europe, a skull 450,000 years old, with sixteen feet of unexcavated sediment below it that may hold remains older still. And from that moment forward, humans never stopped reshaping these mountains. They cleared forests so aggressively that Louis XIV sent an inspector to survey the damage in 1672 and he found entire valleys stripped bare. They carved terrifying paths into vertical cliffs so oxen could drag tree trunks down for the navy's masts. They built 5,000-year-old agricultural terraces, Roman marble quarries, medieval fortified caves, zinc mines at nearly 10,000 feet altitude so deadly they were called the Man-Eater, and dueling World War II fortification lines on opposite sides of the same ridge. By one measure, the Pyrenees may be the most thoroughly human-altered mountain range on earth, and almost nothing about them, from the treeline to the meadows to the shape of the valleys, is actually natural.

Today's guest is Colin Duncan Taylor, author of The Pyrenees: A Human History. We discuss how prehistoric artists worked 3,000 feet inside a mountain to paint bison and horses that a nineteenth-century archaeologist dismissed as "funny sketches by amateurs," why a 5,000-year-old massacre in a Spanish cave reveals the violent birth of farming in Europe, and how transhumance, the seasonal movement of livestock between lowland and mountain pastures, created a cross-border legal system that predates any nation-state by centuries. We look at how the French navy hacked a terrifying path into a cliff face so oxen could drag tree trunks down for ship masts, why a village of fifty-five people built a museum for a 5,500-year-old goddess statue that someone had chopped up to build a tomb, and how both Franco and Hitler simultaneously fortified opposite sides of the same mountain range to fight each other. Taylor argues that the Pyrenees are not a barrier between France and Spain but a bridge that humans have been crossing, shaping, and fighting over for thousands of years, and that almost nothing about these mountains is truly natural.

The Pyrenees stretch 270 miles from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, separating France from Spain, and most people think of them as a natural barrier: remote, barren, and largely untouched. They would be wrong. These mountains sit at the edge of where early humans were supposed to have settled, yet a cave above the village of Tautavel contains the oldest human face ever found in Europe, a skull 450,000 years old, with sixteen feet of unexcavated sediment below it that may hold remains older still. And from that moment forward, humans never stopped reshaping these mountains. They cleared forests so aggressively that Louis XIV sent an inspector to survey the damage in 1672 and he found entire valleys stripped bare. They carved terrifying paths into vertical cliffs so oxen could drag tree trunks down for the navy's masts. They built 5,000-year-old agricultural terraces, Roman marble quarries, medieval fortified caves, zinc mines at nearly 10,000 feet altitude so deadly they were called the Man-Eater, and dueling World War II fortification lines on opposite sides of the same ridge. By one measure, the Pyrenees may be the most thoroughly human-altered mountain range on earth, and almost nothing about them, from the treeline to the meadows to the shape of the valleys, is actually natural.
Today's guest is Colin Duncan Taylor, author of The Pyrenees: A Human History. We discuss how prehistoric artists worked 3,000 feet inside a mountain to paint bison and horses that a nineteenth-century archaeologist dismissed as "funny sketches by amateurs," why a 5,000-year-old massacre in a Spanish cave reveals the violent birth of farming in Europe, and how transhumance, the seasonal movement of livestock between lowland and mountain pastures, created a cross-border legal system that predates any nation-state by centuries. We look at how the French navy hacked a terrifying path into a cliff face so oxen could drag tree trunks down for ship masts, why a village of fifty-five people built a museum for a 5,500-year-old goddess statue that someone had chopped up to build a tomb, and how both Franco and Hitler simultaneously fortified opposite sides of the same mountain range to fight each other. Taylor argues that the Pyrenees are not a barrier between France and Spain but a bridge that humans have been crossing, shaping, and fighting over for thousands of years, and that almost nothing about these mountains is truly natural.

For history lovers who listen to podcasts, History Unplugged is the most comprehensive show of its kind. It's the only show that dedicates episodes to both interviewing experts and answering questions from its audience. First, it features a call-in show where you can ask our resident historian (Scott Rank, PhD) absolutely anything (What was it like to be a Turkish sultan with four wives and twelve concubines? If you were sent back in time, how would you kill Hitler?). Second, it features long-form interviews with best-selling authors who have written about everything. Topics include gruff World War II generals who flew with airmen on bombing raids, a war horse who gained the rank of sergeant, and presidents who gave their best speeches while drunk.

A show about American history, world history, World Wars 1 & 2, the Civil War, and much more.

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged is one of the longest-running history podcasts of its kind, with over 1,000 episodes covering everything from Alexander the Great's plans for European colonization to the untold story of Alabamians who fought for Sherman deep inside Confederate territory. Topics range from the Bronze Age Collapse to the naval campaigns of the Barbary Wars to Daniel Boone's forced adoption by a Shawnee chief. Guests on the show include history professors, Pulitzer Prize winners, consultants for historical films, and outsiders like Joakim Brodén from Sabaton. The show is hosted by Scott Rank, a history professor specializing in the Ottoman Empire and author of 12 books. And for those who love to spin the wheel of what-if, the show regularly ventures into alternate history, exploring questions like what the USSR's victory in the Cold War would have meant for the modern world, or how our current map might look if the Confederacy had survived the Civil War.

 

History Unplugged is one of the longest-running history podcasts of its kind, with over 1,000 episodes covering everything from Alexander the Great's plans for European colonization to the untold story of Alabamians who fought for Sherman deep inside Confederate territory. Topics range from the Bronze Age Collapse to the naval campaigns of the Barbary Wars to Daniel Boone's forced adoption by a Shawnee chief. Guests on the show include history professors, Pulitzer Prize winners, consultants for historical films, and outsiders like Joakim Brod&eacute;n from Sabaton. The show is hosted by Scott Rank, a history professor specializing in the Ottoman Empire and author of 12 books. And for those who love to spin the wheel of what-if, the show regularly ventures into alternate history, exploring questions like what the USSR's victory in the Cold War would have meant for the modern world, or how our current map might look if the Confederacy had survived the Civil War.
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