Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm to bling a chalklate boarding, and we've been talking about our favorite historical finds of eleven, all of the cool history related news stories that really caught our eye, and that also played into some of the themes that we've talked about a lot on the podcast this year. Yeah, we've been talking about things that we're actually unearthed as inver brought to the surface, and also things that just there were new findings about something that was discovered a while back, new discoveries made. And some of the themes we're going to hit on today include shipwrecks, which I know we talked about quite a bit this spring, art which we're kind of always throwing in the random art history episode, and uh, wine and beer too, which we did a two party this summer. It was a real it was a real summer kind of episode. It was on historical wine, historical beer, even some mead thrown in there. So we're going to talk about news stories related to those things today and um, just let you know kind of that history keeps on chugging too. People keep on making discoveries, and the news really figures into our podcasts a lot more than some people might expect it does. And first off, we're going to start out with another great pirate story that I know people always love to hear more about, no matter how much you already know about it. And it's a follow up on an episode that we actually did a couple of years ago. Well, not me personally, some of my esteemed colleagues, black Beard and his flagship the Queen Anne's Revenge, which ran aground near Beaufort, North Carolina in seventeen eighteen. As you already know from the earlier podcast, because of course you've listened to it. The shipwreck itself is not a new find. We even had a listener who worked on conserving its artifacts right in But one of the coolest pieces of listener mail I think I've ever gotten it is But what is really big news for this year is that the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources has come out and said that the ship that most folks thought was probably the Queen Anne's Revenge is definitely the Queen Anne's Revenge. So we'll give you a little bit of background on the ship. The reck site was found back in nineteen and it was under only twenty five ft of water in less than a mile and a half from Sure So it sounds like under those conditions it might be easy to excavate. That was not the case at all. Bad weather, a little visibility, difficult funding. All of these things have made excavating the site really slow going, and currently archaeologist since that is believed that they have found or cataloged about half of the site, which is enough to finally feel confident in labeling it Blackbeard's famous pirate ship, fortunately in time for a major exhibition of its artifacts. But why did they decide that they were confident calling it the queen ans Revenge after years of saying it's probably the queen ans Revenge. Well, there are a few reasons. First of all, its size, The Queen Anne's Revenge was a big ship, a former French labor called law Concord. Its approximate date was another thing. Archaeologists have found a bell on board labeled seventeen oh five. Another clue was its location. It's right where black beard ship should be, and there weren't other large ships known to have sunk in that area. But maybe most importantly is the weaponry that they found on board. This is a big one. There's an astonishing number of weapons aboard this wreck. And just this October, for instance, divers pulled out the thirteen cannon from the wreck. Of the other twelve cannons that they found so far four have been loaded, so like in the middle of a battle or something ready to go. But according to Wendy Welsh, who is the manager of the Queen Anne's Revenge Conservation Laboratory in Greenville, North Carolina, who spoke with the Smithsonians before the big announcement was made, she said, quote, We're not going to find anything that says Queen Anne's Revenge or black Beard was here. You have to use all these little clues. Although I do like the idea of finding some sort of black Beard was here. It was filled with a z or something exactly. But when the announcement came out, Claire Obell, who is the public relations coordinator for the North Carolina Maritime Museum, really still echoed that sentiment of Wendy Well. She was quoted in National Geographic News saying there was not one moment there was a collection of moments in a deduction based on the evidence. So they've been compiling all this stuff for years and years after repeated dives in lots of study, and finally felt competent to say, yes, this is black Beard ship. It took a long time to analyze that evidence though, after the dives to pull out artifacts. Corroded items like cannons require about five years in a chemical bath to gradually remove their thick marine life crust, which seems like a really long way for me. You just want to figure out what it is. And apparently if you just chip away at it or something, you if it's something like a cannon, maybe it won't break. But if it is maybe glass underneath, you chip away at that marine life crust and you break the glass underneath and you don't have anything anymore. So you have to just gradually eat away at it. And apparently some of these items too, are so thickly covered in this crust you'd have no idea what they are underneath until you until you get down to it. There's one other cool find though, from the now official Queen Anne Revenge wreck, and that is some insight into terroristic pirate tactics and this stuff really kind of shocked me. So while trying to recover a three thousand pound anchor from the ship, archaeologists from North Carolina's Department of Cultural Resources found these three metallic clusters in a small area of the seabed that surrounded the wreck. And the clusters contained residue like nails and glass and lead shot and they're believed to have been fired contained in canvas bags out of cannon, so they would just spray everywhere, kind of like a street sweeper pirate. Addition, and according to Discovery News, the expedition's leader, Mark Wild Ramsing, who's the deputy State Archaeologists, said quote, as with all pirates, Blackbeard did not want to sink merchant ships, but to scare them into giving up shooting bolts and scrap lead, iron, and glass would have been very effective. Indeed, so our next find is a little bit on the lighter side, the more artistic side. The roof Ignat caves in the Dordogna region of France have long been known as a prime site for cave art. As in modern art, there are different ancient art styles and mediums. One type is called finger flutings and it's done by running the fingers over soft clay, so the roof and nac caves are filled with thirteen thousand year old finger flutings. Some are just pretty swirls and lines, and others look like recognizable shapes huts for instance. But the big news in cave art in Tleven is that many of the roofing nat cave systems finger flutings were made by kids. So back in two thousand six, Walden University researcher Leslie van Gelder and her late husband Kevin Sharp, came up with this technique to measure the finger flutings and determine the age and the sex of the artists who made them. And age determination doesn't really work for adults because the measurement is based on hand size, specifically the width of the pointer, middle and ring fingers, and of course that can vary a lot between adults who are all the same age potentially, but for kids it's a lot more standard. I guess kids have more similarly shaped hands, and flutings under thirty four millimeters are believed to have been made by children under the age of seven, and they can even break it down further than that, so these are made by two or three year olds stuff like that, and gender can be determined by the fingertip shape. And most of these just look like lines, but if you google a picture of them or something, you'll see there are clear end points where the fingertips are are visible. This year, Van Gelder and the University of Cambridge archaeologist Jessica Cooney measured many of the case flutings and determined according to history dot com, but kids worked in almost every chamber in the complex, even those quite far from the system's entering about like a forty five minute walk through a cave, so pretty deep in there, and the most prolific artist was likely a five year old girl. One room had so much child made finger painting it was described as a quote playpen. But the cutest thing about this discovery, in my opinion, is that many of the flutings were well over the heads of small children. You know, they were on the roof of the cave, if you could put it that way, which of course suggests that adults lifted the kids to help them do their art, and obviously took a more forgiving stance on drawing on the walls thirteen thousand years ago than they than they might today, we have another interesting art history find for you. Though. While children in France were finger fluting with their adult care givers, an ice age hunter in what is today Florida was carving animal pictures into bone. In two thousand six or two thousand seven, a fossil hunter named James Kennedy picked up a find on Vera Beach. He didn't think much of it and word it under his sink until two thousand nine, when he finally cleaned it off and found an etching of a mammoth. So now, in two thousand eleven, the carving has been authenticated, reported as real in thirteen thousand to twenty thousand years old in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Not that everyone was easily convinced about that, though, no, not at all. According to National Geographic News, the study leader, Barbara Party of the University of Florida, started researching on the assumption that the thing was fake, but tests and analyzes eventually convinced her that it was real, and she even showed a little hesitation even after the paper and everything. She said, quote, you always have some lingering doubt since there's no way to get an actual date on the bone or the actual in sizing. The only way we're going to really, really really prove it's authentic is to do some excavations and see if perhaps there are additional specimens. But barring further investigations, how did research your is come to the conclusion that the finding was not a fraud? Because we have talked about historical hope this year too, and it did um I could easily understand how somebody would think this would be right fraud. Well, first of all, they authenticated the bone. It belonged to a mammoth, masted on or a giant sloth, all of which were extinct in Florida by the end of the last ice Age, so that was one thing. They also determined that the etching had aged at the same rate as the rest of the bone, so it wasn't like it was just scratched out with a metal. We found an old bone and then and then rub some dirt in it or something to make it lookal. The study was done with optical and electron microscope, so they're pretty convinced of at least those two things, and they might really go do some more excavations of the beach to see what else is in this area. We have one more art history ancient art history entry for you on this list, and we have to consider that modern art is really pretty relative. I know there's capital modern art, but um, in a broader sense, it's very relative because compared to this find, the finger flutings or the carvings of thirteen thousand years ago would really be pretty recent stuff. This fall, a study was published in the journal Science, detailing the fines of study leader Christopher Henschelwood, an archaeologist at the University of Bergen in Norway and the University of the woodwaters Rand in South Africa. He and his team found ancient paint residue and one hundred thousand year old abalone shells from Blombous Cave near Still Bay, South Africa. The still bright red pigment contained ochre charcoal, crushed seal bones, court site chips, and some kind of liquid. The Arts Studio label came from other items that were found along with the paint, though grindstones, hammerstones of fire pit, and animal bones that would have been used as a means to transfer the paint, which I was imagining with kind of like a paint knife. Yeah, maybe something like that. So, yeah, we have our oldest known arts studio here. But one cool side note on this. It's not just a sign of serious interest in art one hundred thousand years ago, but it's also it also shows an early understanding of chemistry. So according to Henschelwood and National Geographic News, he said quote, they seem to know that sealbone is really rich in oil and fat, which is a critical component in making a paint like substance. They also need to add charcoal to the mixture to bind and stabilize it, and a little bit of fluid which could have been water or seawater or urine. So there you go, um, a possible twist to this ancient art studio. I still think that's um. That's pretty cool though, especially that the pigment is still bright. That was something that stood out to me. You think of even paintings from the Renaissance, they get their sort of faded look sometime where we were talking about Van Gogh recently, and some of his bright, bright colors have gone off because he strapped them a little bit with other components that haven't aged as well. But apparently this mixture is a surefire way if you want your your art to remain as vibrant as ever, it does make you interested in the chemistry at it. Next that we're going to move on to a very different kind of concoction. In January, in the Journal of Archaeological Science, an international research team including Armenian, Us and Irish archaeologists announced that they discovered the world's oldest winery in an Armenian cave. Up until then, the oldest known winery was in Israel and dated back to sixteen fifty b C. And this new discovery took place on the same site as one of last year's unearthed the unearthed in twenty ten entries and that was the world's oldest shoe, which I think was I don't know. I'll speak for myself. I think it might have been my favorite. Well had the world's best quote, but went along with the one about the woman being so excited to find a shoe and how that had been a goal her whole live dream. If you haven't heard that episode, go back at us and into it because it's funny. So there must be something about that spot. But wine production artifacts found here include simple Want a simple wine press, fermentation vats with residue storage jars, remnants of grape vines and seeds, and a small cup that might have been used to sample the wine. And researchers used radio carbon analysis to date all this stuff back to about BC and four thousand BC, so about six thousand years ago. Still, the researchers say that the press and a wide, shallow vat resemble foot stomping equipment used for wine making and the Caucuses and the Mediterranean as recently as the nineteenth century. So it's again technology paint. We're talking about things that really last ohile. But we also and we talked about this sum in our Historical Wine and Spirits episode, we have to wonder what was this early wine like like, what would it have tasted like? And analysis of the residue, and of course the remnants that were found lying around indicate that grapes were used to make the wine rather than pomegranates or some other kind of fruit. Gregory Rishian, who is the co director of the excavation and the assistant director of the University of California, Los Angeles Cotson Institute of Archaeology, told CNN that the wine that was being made there would be similar to a modern, unfiltered red wine and probably tasted something like a merlot, so not too bad. We don't know too much about the people who were making this wine, but they may have been predecessors to the current access people in early Transcaucasian group. We do know that they weren't drinking just for the sake of drinking, though, they weren't just drinking to get drunk or something. Since the cave winery was found near a cemetery site, researchers think that it was actually used for ceremonial purposes, probably playing apart in funerals. And Dr Patrick McGovern who we mentioned quite a bit in our earlier episodes. He's a senior search scientists at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. He told CNN that the find is quote an important link in the development of wine culture throughout the region, and Arisian wants to try to reconstruct the entire press, the entire process, to see what the wine would have really tasted like and what people would have gone through in making it. So, you know, this year we talked about dog fish heads, recreations of these ancient beers, ancient mead, that sort of thing. Maybe maybe in another year we'll be talking about recreation of ancient wine yes a similar find along these lines. In June, archaeologists revealed that they had found evidence in France's Provence region of the country's oldest known brewing operation, which is probably also one of the oldest in all of Europe. The brewing operation is essentially a home brewery from the Iron Age, which was about two thousand, five hundred years ago, and that was discovered by archaeologist Laurent Boubet from France's National Center for Scientific Research and to his colleagues. The researchers got their findings by analyzing three different sediment samples from the site of a fifth century b c. House in southeastern France that had been excavated in the nineteen nineties. They took these samples from the floor near the hearth of the house, a ceramic vessel, and a pit near some other containers that were there, and all of the samples contained carbonized barley that somebody had sprouted on purpose. And they were able to tell that because the barley seemed like it had been sorted really well. There were no weed seeds that were present, and it didn't seem to the researchers like the present where the sprouting was accidental. They don't know what the spear tasted like, but they think that the brewing process wasn't all that different from modern home brewing. They probably soaked to the grain, spread it out in a flat area like the floor, dried it in the oven, ground it, and then put it in containers for fermentation and storage. Researchers are still trying to determine how this fits into a life in Iron Age Europe. Wine was already popular there at the time, but people of Celtic heritage had settled in this region of France during this time and they liked beer, so it's possible that they could have traded amongst themselves. Makes sense. I actually just started reading a book about the history of food, and this story especially was really interesting to me because it talks about how people might have figured out the fermentation process or the distillation process later things like that, even how people might have figured out that you can boil your food stuff like that. It's it's cool to consider how we got to where we are today. Well, I think talking about food and beer and wine is a great way to kind of finish off this year end episode that we're doing here. Don't you do. It's kind of cheers to two thousand eleven and all the discoveries that were made, and looking forward to much more in two thousand twelve to kind of spur us along in our own research. And with that, we're going to move on to another mega edition of Listener Mail and share a bunch of bunch more emails, letters and postcards and things related to episodes that we've done recently. We want to start off with kind of an example of when we do a podcast on recent history, it's nice because people have experienced it or been a part of it, and they write in to tell us about that, and we really appreciate it. And so I have one here to share with you regarding our polio episode, and it's from Rick and Arizona, and he says, your recent podcast on polio and the development of the polio vaccine as a subject I know well. I was part of the test group for the Salk vaccine. I was in the second grade at the time. We were called the Polio Pioneers. At the time, I had a little understanding of the severity of the problem, but I can recall pictures of hospital wards lined with iron lungs. Seeing that people were in them was frightening to a child. The initial vaccine was a series of seven shots over a period of time. Like most children, I hated needles and the idea of getting seven shots didn't set very well with any of us. Looking back, I was lucky I received the vaccine, not the placebo. Some of my friends had to go back for the real thing when the test was concluded so that they would be properly immunized. Today, we're very lucky the ravages of that horrible disease are behind us. And we did hear from quite a few people who had family members or they remembered as kids the polios are going on. It was one that brought out a lot of personal recollections for sure. Yeah, So thanks Rick, and thanks everyone who shared those stories with us. We also hear from quite a few listeners who used the podcast for educational purposes, and one of our proudest moments i'd say this year was you guys voted for us for the Podcast Awards in the Education category, So we thought it would be fitting to share a few of those um. One is Froom Jenna. She wrote us to say that she had decided to go back and get her doctorate in American history after you're listening to a bunch of podcasts about American history and deciding she wanted to pursue it in a format a little longer than you know, the twenty minute Jim exercise or car ride or whatever. So cuds to you, Jenna, that's pretty awesome. We have a similar one from Kimberly and Arkansas. And she talks about how she used to use the podcast in her English classroom and that kind of helped them When she was a Quizble sponsor. She said, I even encouraged my team to listen to the various stuff podcasts in preparation. Perhaps you were part of the reason we won first place in our district. Then she goes on to say, stuff you missed in history class reawoke a passion for history I had let go when I decided to focus on teaching English. Thanks to you, I tested. I decided to test into History certification. I listened to your podcast as part of my study regimen for the practice exam the exam teachers must take to prove they are qualified to teach a subject. Although I can't give you, guys, all the credit. There were more than a couple of questions I recognized from previous podcasts, and only from previous podcasts. So so she's now pursuing a master's in American History? All right? Where to go? So we also hear from some folks who are still in school, not just about to go out and get their advanced degrees. One example of this is listener Michaela, who is from southern New Hampshire and she's a freshman in high school. And she wrote in to say, many of my friends made fun of me for listening to the podcast, but I never thought too much of it and um. She went on to say that it helped a little bit with one of her English classes, and she wrote, I wanted to thank you for helping me use my resources to create a wonderful piece of writing and showing my friends that my favorite podcast can really help in other classes besides history. So yeah, show your friends, Michaela. Podcasts are are cool. Sometimes people are inspired to start their own podcasts. We have a note here from Marie and she says, back in January, after several long drives, I had heard the idea of more art history topics coming up and This got my brain turning. As a photography student at Utah Valley University, my love of history has bled into a love of art history. I got to thinking, why couldn't we have an art history podcast on campus. Our podcast Arts and Facts officially launched this month and we're finally on iTunes you. We're looking forward to getting more people interested in topics of art and I have stuff you missed in history class to think so. And I think the listeners who have started their own podcast as one of my favorite genres of listener mail. We do hear from teachers sometimes who get their whole class making podcasts as a project or an alternative to a research paper, and I think that's so cool. And we've even been like enough to hear some of the podcast that kids have have recorded. Very cool. But I wanted to read one more education related email. This one is from Jason, and he says that my wife and I are homeschooling parents, so we are always looking for resources to make our seven and eleven year old daughters education fun and interesting. We search for and download episodes that are relevant to what they're studying at the time and just play them while the kids are in the car or sitting at the table drawing or coloring. Some of their favorite episodes are the top historical pets naturally, I mean she doesn't like that one, and anything about princesses so well, I agree with both of those. The pet one of my favorite topics to cover. So yeah, education emails are just so neat together. They make I don't know, they make me feel good when I when I read them, for sure. So we also get postcards from people all over the world, which we love. You guys sometimes see them. They end up on Facebook. We put them up there so you do a little collage of postcards every now and again. But we get so many more even than just those, and we wanted to share one with you from Shannon and she is writing from Germany, the birthplace of the Brothers Grim. She says, I have recently moved to Germany and love listening to the podcast when I take the train to explore. One of my favorite podcasts was on the Brothers Grim and it inspired me to go on their trail even today. Some of the forests and I'm sorry I can't totally read her handwriting all here, but I think she says something to the effective they're still dark and deep, and it's easy to see why the original versions of the fairy tales were not sweet bedtime stories. But she did include for us a little treat. She gave us each a little frog prince figurine from what So. She said she wanted to give us something from one of the nicer tails, So thank you very much, Shannon. We're enjoying those. It's an adorable addition to Sarah's little king slash prince collection she has. I have a lion that I think we just got as some sort of discovery gift. I don't know, maybe like a new website came out. And then of course the Beaver King. The Beaver King one of the better known um bow teas from listening Meals this year. But before we sign off, we want to leave you with a few more of these listen While segments that we've started doing recently, and um, I think you guys have had a lot of fun writing in and telling us what kinds of cool things you do while you're listening to the podcast. One is from Jenny and she writes, I am the operator of a very small ferry that crosses the william At River south of Salem, Oregon. Since I get fewer than fifty cars a day this time of year, and it's only a three minute trip across the river, I've got plenty of time to listen to old episodes of stuff you missed in history class. So that's what she's doing while she's listening to us. We've got another one from listener Joey and Lafayette, Louisiana, and he listens while he makes his own Cajun sausages down there in Cajun Country. We have another one from listener Jimmy, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and he's an artist, and he says he listens to our podcast for hours on end. In his studio, he makes quilts with images of space on them. And his note here that I love is space Nerds love history to exclamation point true. We also received an email from a listener in Ovlin, Norway. His name is spelled k j E t I L, and he wrote to say that he listens to episodes while he's working on building a theater in Oslo. And he said, inspired by listening to history podcasts all day, I made everyone who had been involved in creating the theater sign their names underneath the stage floor for people to find when they change the floor many years from now. A little time so cool. We have another one here from Anne and Sacramento, and she says, during naptime, I listened to as many podcasts as I can before the kids wake up. Your podcast is a welcome break from kids voices during the day. I thought that one was funny. We also heard from some Facebook commenters Twitter followers. It's a really Both are really good mediums for people to share these listen wild topics. We heard from Facebook commentator Megan who listens while she grooms horses and works on flower beds. The folks at Bang Bang Pie and Coffee listen while they bake pies, of course, of course, and another Facebook commentator, Alice, listens while she does taxidermy. She actually explained taxidermy a little bit to us since we have talked about it in a few episodes. Our understanding of it was somewhat flawed, so now we know you guys could maybe find that conversation if you're interested. Um. We also heard from Bart who listens while pruning and pollinating petunias for branch research. This reminded me of a book I read when I was a kid called Frankenstein Plants Petunias, I think, um, and we heard from another interesting art related one. Yep. Heather listens while she works on her Chandler and Price antique letter press. And we have a few letter press listeners, but our last one to include today. Kathleen from New Jersey listens well, volunteering at her local animal shelter. But she has a funny comment to share. She says, it's quite a contrast thinking about Empress CC and her cult of beauty while scooping cat boot. I guess that's our our thought to leave you on for eleven. Um, have a great new year and we will be back in with more history. Yeah, and keep sending us emails and notes. It's so easy. You can write us at history podcast at how stuff works dot com, or you can look us up on Facebook and leave a comment, or you can look us up on Twitter at myston History. And as always, you can find a lot of articles on our home page at www dot how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House Stuff Works. iPhone up has a right download it today on iTunes, m

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm to bling a chalklate boarding, and we've been talking about our favorite historical finds of eleven, all of the cool history related news stories that really caught our eye, and that also played into some of the themes that we've talked about a lot on the podcast this year. Yeah, we've been talking about things that we're actually unearthed as inver brought to the surface, and also things that just there were new findings about something that was discovered a while back, new discoveries made. And some of the themes we're going to hit on today include shipwrecks, which I know we talked about quite a bit this spring, art which we're kind of always throwing in the random art history episode, and uh, wine and beer too, which we did a two party this summer. It was a real it was a real summer kind of episode. It was on historical wine, historical beer, even some mead thrown in there. So we're going to talk about news stories related to those things today and um, just let you know kind of that history keeps on chugging too. People keep on making discoveries, and the news really figures into our podcasts a lot more than some people might expect it does. And first off, we're going to start out with another great pirate story that I know people always love to hear more about, no matter how much you already know about it. And it's a follow up on an episode that we actually did a couple of years ago. Well, not me personally, some of my esteemed colleagues, black Beard and his flagship the Queen Anne's Revenge, which ran aground near Beaufort, North Carolina in seventeen eighteen. As you already know from the earlier podcast, because of course you've listened to it. The shipwreck itself is not a new find. We even had a listener who worked on conserving its artifacts right in But one of the coolest pieces of listener mail I think I've ever gotten it is But what is really big news for this year is that the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources has come out and said that the ship that most folks thought was probably the Queen Anne's Revenge is definitely the Queen Anne's Revenge. So we'll give you a little bit of background on the ship. The reck site was found back in nineteen and it was under only twenty five ft of water in less than a mile and a half from Sure So it sounds like under those conditions it might be easy to excavate. That was not the case at all. Bad weather, a little visibility, difficult funding. All of these things have made excavating the site really slow going, and currently archaeologist since that is believed that they have found or cataloged about half of the site, which is enough to finally feel confident in labeling it Blackbeard's famous pirate ship, fortunately in time for a major exhibition of its artifacts. But why did they decide that they were confident calling it the queen ans Revenge after years of saying it's probably the queen ans Revenge. Well, there are a few reasons. First of all, its size, The Queen Anne's Revenge was a big ship, a former French labor called law Concord. Its approximate date was another thing. Archaeologists have found a bell on board labeled seventeen oh five. Another clue was its location. It's right where black beard ship should be, and there weren't other large ships known to have sunk in that area. But maybe most importantly is the weaponry that they found on board. This is a big one. There's an astonishing number of weapons aboard this wreck. And just this October, for instance, divers pulled out the thirteen cannon from the wreck. Of the other twelve cannons that they found so far four have been loaded, so like in the middle of a battle or something ready to go. But according to Wendy Welsh, who is the manager of the Queen Anne's Revenge Conservation Laboratory in Greenville, North Carolina, who spoke with the Smithsonians before the big announcement was made, she said, quote, We're not going to find anything that says Queen Anne's Revenge or black Beard was here. You have to use all these little clues. Although I do like the idea of finding some sort of black Beard was here. It was filled with a z or something exactly. But when the announcement came out, Claire Obell, who is the public relations coordinator for the North Carolina Maritime Museum, really still echoed that sentiment of Wendy Well. She was quoted in National Geographic News saying there was not one moment there was a collection of moments in a deduction based on the evidence. So they've been compiling all this stuff for years and years after repeated dives in lots of study, and finally felt competent to say, yes, this is black Beard ship. It took a long time to analyze that evidence though, after the dives to pull out artifacts. Corroded items like cannons require about five years in a chemical bath to gradually remove their thick marine life crust, which seems like a really long way for me. You just want to figure out what it is. And apparently if you just chip away at it or something, you if it's something like a cannon, maybe it won't break. But if it is maybe glass underneath, you chip away at that marine life crust and you break the glass underneath and you don't have anything anymore. So you have to just gradually eat away at it. And apparently some of these items too, are so thickly covered in this crust you'd have no idea what they are underneath until you until you get down to it. There's one other cool find though, from the now official Queen Anne Revenge wreck, and that is some insight into terroristic pirate tactics and this stuff really kind of shocked me. So while trying to recover a three thousand pound anchor from the ship, archaeologists from North Carolina's Department of Cultural Resources found these three metallic clusters in a small area of the seabed that surrounded the wreck. And the clusters contained residue like nails and glass and lead shot and they're believed to have been fired contained in canvas bags out of cannon, so they would just spray everywhere, kind of like a street sweeper pirate. Addition, and according to Discovery News, the expedition's leader, Mark Wild Ramsing, who's the deputy State Archaeologists, said quote, as with all pirates, Blackbeard did not want to sink merchant ships, but to scare them into giving up shooting bolts and scrap lead, iron, and glass would have been very effective. Indeed, so our next find is a little bit on the lighter side, the more artistic side. The roof Ignat caves in the Dordogna region of France have long been known as a prime site for cave art. As in modern art, there are different ancient art styles and mediums. One type is called finger flutings and it's done by running the fingers over soft clay, so the roof and nac caves are filled with thirteen thousand year old finger flutings. Some are just pretty swirls and lines, and others look like recognizable shapes huts for instance. But the big news in cave art in Tleven is that many of the roofing nat cave systems finger flutings were made by kids. So back in two thousand six, Walden University researcher Leslie van Gelder and her late husband Kevin Sharp, came up with this technique to measure the finger flutings and determine the age and the sex of the artists who made them. And age determination doesn't really work for adults because the measurement is based on hand size, specifically the width of the pointer, middle and ring fingers, and of course that can vary a lot between adults who are all the same age potentially, but for kids it's a lot more standard. I guess kids have more similarly shaped hands, and flutings under thirty four millimeters are believed to have been made by children under the age of seven, and they can even break it down further than that, so these are made by two or three year olds stuff like that, and gender can be determined by the fingertip shape. And most of these just look like lines, but if you google a picture of them or something, you'll see there are clear end points where the fingertips are are visible. This year, Van Gelder and the University of Cambridge archaeologist Jessica Cooney measured many of the case flutings and determined according to history dot com, but kids worked in almost every chamber in the complex, even those quite far from the system's entering about like a forty five minute walk through a cave, so pretty deep in there, and the most prolific artist was likely a five year old girl. One room had so much child made finger painting it was described as a quote playpen. But the cutest thing about this discovery, in my opinion, is that many of the flutings were well over the heads of small children. You know, they were on the roof of the cave, if you could put it that way, which of course suggests that adults lifted the kids to help them do their art, and obviously took a more forgiving stance on drawing on the walls thirteen thousand years ago than they than they might today, we have another interesting art history find for you. Though. While children in France were finger fluting with their adult care givers, an ice age hunter in what is today Florida was carving animal pictures into bone. In two thousand six or two thousand seven, a fossil hunter named James Kennedy picked up a find on Vera Beach. He didn't think much of it and word it under his sink until two thousand nine, when he finally cleaned it off and found an etching of a mammoth. So now, in two thousand eleven, the carving has been authenticated, reported as real in thirteen thousand to twenty thousand years old in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Not that everyone was easily convinced about that, though, no, not at all. According to National Geographic News, the study leader, Barbara Party of the University of Florida, started researching on the assumption that the thing was fake, but tests and analyzes eventually convinced her that it was real, and she even showed a little hesitation even after the paper and everything. She said, quote, you always have some lingering doubt since there's no way to get an actual date on the bone or the actual in sizing. The only way we're going to really, really really prove it's authentic is to do some excavations and see if perhaps there are additional specimens. But barring further investigations, how did research your is come to the conclusion that the finding was not a fraud? Because we have talked about historical hope this year too, and it did um I could easily understand how somebody would think this would be right fraud. Well, first of all, they authenticated the bone. It belonged to a mammoth, masted on or a giant sloth, all of which were extinct in Florida by the end of the last ice Age, so that was one thing. They also determined that the etching had aged at the same rate as the rest of the bone, so it wasn't like it was just scratched out with a metal. We found an old bone and then and then rub some dirt in it or something to make it lookal. The study was done with optical and electron microscope, so they're pretty convinced of at least those two things, and they might really go do some more excavations of the beach to see what else is in this area. We have one more art history ancient art history entry for you on this list, and we have to consider that modern art is really pretty relative. I know there's capital modern art, but um, in a broader sense, it's very relative because compared to this find, the finger flutings or the carvings of thirteen thousand years ago would really be pretty recent stuff. This fall, a study was published in the journal Science, detailing the fines of study leader Christopher Henschelwood, an archaeologist at the University of Bergen in Norway and the University of the woodwaters Rand in South Africa. He and his team found ancient paint residue and one hundred thousand year old abalone shells from Blombous Cave near Still Bay, South Africa. The still bright red pigment contained ochre charcoal, crushed seal bones, court site chips, and some kind of liquid. The Arts Studio label came from other items that were found along with the paint, though grindstones, hammerstones of fire pit, and animal bones that would have been used as a means to transfer the paint, which I was imagining with kind of like a paint knife. Yeah, maybe something like that. So, yeah, we have our oldest known arts studio here. But one cool side note on this. It's not just a sign of serious interest in art one hundred thousand years ago, but it's also it also shows an early understanding of chemistry. So according to Henschelwood and National Geographic News, he said quote, they seem to know that sealbone is really rich in oil and fat, which is a critical component in making a paint like substance. They also need to add charcoal to the mixture to bind and stabilize it, and a little bit of fluid which could have been water or seawater or urine. So there you go, um, a possible twist to this ancient art studio. I still think that's um. That's pretty cool though, especially that the pigment is still bright. That was something that stood out to me. You think of even paintings from the Renaissance, they get their sort of faded look sometime where we were talking about Van Gogh recently, and some of his bright, bright colors have gone off because he strapped them a little bit with other components that haven't aged as well. But apparently this mixture is a surefire way if you want your your art to remain as vibrant as ever, it does make you interested in the chemistry at it. Next that we're going to move on to a very different kind of concoction. In January, in the Journal of Archaeological Science, an international research team including Armenian, Us and Irish archaeologists announced that they discovered the world's oldest winery in an Armenian cave. Up until then, the oldest known winery was in Israel and dated back to sixteen fifty b C. And this new discovery took place on the same site as one of last year's unearthed the unearthed in twenty ten entries and that was the world's oldest shoe, which I think was I don't know. I'll speak for myself. I think it might have been my favorite. Well had the world's best quote, but went along with the one about the woman being so excited to find a shoe and how that had been a goal her whole live dream. If you haven't heard that episode, go back at us and into it because it's funny. So there must be something about that spot. But wine production artifacts found here include simple Want a simple wine press, fermentation vats with residue storage jars, remnants of grape vines and seeds, and a small cup that might have been used to sample the wine. And researchers used radio carbon analysis to date all this stuff back to about BC and four thousand BC, so about six thousand years ago. Still, the researchers say that the press and a wide, shallow vat resemble foot stomping equipment used for wine making and the Caucuses and the Mediterranean as recently as the nineteenth century. So it's again technology paint. We're talking about things that really last ohile. But we also and we talked about this sum in our Historical Wine and Spirits episode, we have to wonder what was this early wine like like, what would it have tasted like? And analysis of the residue, and of course the remnants that were found lying around indicate that grapes were used to make the wine rather than pomegranates or some other kind of fruit. Gregory Rishian, who is the co director of the excavation and the assistant director of the University of California, Los Angeles Cotson Institute of Archaeology, told CNN that the wine that was being made there would be similar to a modern, unfiltered red wine and probably tasted something like a merlot, so not too bad. We don't know too much about the people who were making this wine, but they may have been predecessors to the current access people in early Transcaucasian group. We do know that they weren't drinking just for the sake of drinking, though, they weren't just drinking to get drunk or something. Since the cave winery was found near a cemetery site, researchers think that it was actually used for ceremonial purposes, probably playing apart in funerals. And Dr Patrick McGovern who we mentioned quite a bit in our earlier episodes. He's a senior search scientists at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. He told CNN that the find is quote an important link in the development of wine culture throughout the region, and Arisian wants to try to reconstruct the entire press, the entire process, to see what the wine would have really tasted like and what people would have gone through in making it. So, you know, this year we talked about dog fish heads, recreations of these ancient beers, ancient mead, that sort of thing. Maybe maybe in another year we'll be talking about recreation of ancient wine yes a similar find along these lines. In June, archaeologists revealed that they had found evidence in France's Provence region of the country's oldest known brewing operation, which is probably also one of the oldest in all of Europe. The brewing operation is essentially a home brewery from the Iron Age, which was about two thousand, five hundred years ago, and that was discovered by archaeologist Laurent Boubet from France's National Center for Scientific Research and to his colleagues. The researchers got their findings by analyzing three different sediment samples from the site of a fifth century b c. House in southeastern France that had been excavated in the nineteen nineties. They took these samples from the floor near the hearth of the house, a ceramic vessel, and a pit near some other containers that were there, and all of the samples contained carbonized barley that somebody had sprouted on purpose. And they were able to tell that because the barley seemed like it had been sorted really well. There were no weed seeds that were present, and it didn't seem to the researchers like the present where the sprouting was accidental. They don't know what the spear tasted like, but they think that the brewing process wasn't all that different from modern home brewing. They probably soaked to the grain, spread it out in a flat area like the floor, dried it in the oven, ground it, and then put it in containers for fermentation and storage. Researchers are still trying to determine how this fits into a life in Iron Age Europe. Wine was already popular there at the time, but people of Celtic heritage had settled in this region of France during this time and they liked beer, so it's possible that they could have traded amongst themselves. Makes sense. I actually just started reading a book about the history of food, and this story especially was really interesting to me because it talks about how people might have figured out the fermentation process or the distillation process later things like that, even how people might have figured out that you can boil your food stuff like that. It's it's cool to consider how we got to where we are today. Well, I think talking about food and beer and wine is a great way to kind of finish off this year end episode that we're doing here. Don't you do. It's kind of cheers to two thousand eleven and all the discoveries that were made, and looking forward to much more in two thousand twelve to kind of spur us along in our own research. And with that, we're going to move on to another mega edition of Listener Mail and share a bunch of bunch more emails, letters and postcards and things related to episodes that we've done recently. We want to start off with kind of an example of when we do a podcast on recent history, it's nice because people have experienced it or been a part of it, and they write in to tell us about that, and we really appreciate it. And so I have one here to share with you regarding our polio episode, and it's from Rick and Arizona, and he says, your recent podcast on polio and the development of the polio vaccine as a subject I know well. I was part of the test group for the Salk vaccine. I was in the second grade at the time. We were called the Polio Pioneers. At the time, I had a little understanding of the severity of the problem, but I can recall pictures of hospital wards lined with iron lungs. Seeing that people were in them was frightening to a child. The initial vaccine was a series of seven shots over a period of time. Like most children, I hated needles and the idea of getting seven shots didn't set very well with any of us. Looking back, I was lucky I received the vaccine, not the placebo. Some of my friends had to go back for the real thing when the test was concluded so that they would be properly immunized. Today, we're very lucky the ravages of that horrible disease are behind us. And we did hear from quite a few people who had family members or they remembered as kids the polios are going on. It was one that brought out a lot of personal recollections for sure. Yeah, So thanks Rick, and thanks everyone who shared those stories with us. We also hear from quite a few listeners who used the podcast for educational purposes, and one of our proudest moments i'd say this year was you guys voted for us for the Podcast Awards in the Education category, So we thought it would be fitting to share a few of those um. One is Froom Jenna. She wrote us to say that she had decided to go back and get her doctorate in American history after you're listening to a bunch of podcasts about American history and deciding she wanted to pursue it in a format a little longer than you know, the twenty minute Jim exercise or car ride or whatever. So cuds to you, Jenna, that's pretty awesome. We have a similar one from Kimberly and Arkansas. And she talks about how she used to use the podcast in her English classroom and that kind of helped them When she was a Quizble sponsor. She said, I even encouraged my team to listen to the various stuff podcasts in preparation. Perhaps you were part of the reason we won first place in our district. Then she goes on to say, stuff you missed in history class reawoke a passion for history I had let go when I decided to focus on teaching English. Thanks to you, I tested. I decided to test into History certification. I listened to your podcast as part of my study regimen for the practice exam the exam teachers must take to prove they are qualified to teach a subject. Although I can't give you, guys, all the credit. There were more than a couple of questions I recognized from previous podcasts, and only from previous podcasts. So so she's now pursuing a master's in American History? All right? Where to go? So we also hear from some folks who are still in school, not just about to go out and get their advanced degrees. One example of this is listener Michaela, who is from southern New Hampshire and she's a freshman in high school. And she wrote in to say, many of my friends made fun of me for listening to the podcast, but I never thought too much of it and um. She went on to say that it helped a little bit with one of her English classes, and she wrote, I wanted to thank you for helping me use my resources to create a wonderful piece of writing and showing my friends that my favorite podcast can really help in other classes besides history. So yeah, show your friends, Michaela. Podcasts are are cool. Sometimes people are inspired to start their own podcasts. We have a note here from Marie and she says, back in January, after several long drives, I had heard the idea of more art history topics coming up and This got my brain turning. As a photography student at Utah Valley University, my love of history has bled into a love of art history. I got to thinking, why couldn't we have an art history podcast on campus. Our podcast Arts and Facts officially launched this month and we're finally on iTunes you. We're looking forward to getting more people interested in topics of art and I have stuff you missed in history class to think so. And I think the listeners who have started their own podcast as one of my favorite genres of listener mail. We do hear from teachers sometimes who get their whole class making podcasts as a project or an alternative to a research paper, and I think that's so cool. And we've even been like enough to hear some of the podcast that kids have have recorded. Very cool. But I wanted to read one more education related email. This one is from Jason, and he says that my wife and I are homeschooling parents, so we are always looking for resources to make our seven and eleven year old daughters education fun and interesting. We search for and download episodes that are relevant to what they're studying at the time and just play them while the kids are in the car or sitting at the table drawing or coloring. Some of their favorite episodes are the top historical pets naturally, I mean she doesn't like that one, and anything about princesses so well, I agree with both of those. The pet one of my favorite topics to cover. So yeah, education emails are just so neat together. They make I don't know, they make me feel good when I when I read them, for sure. So we also get postcards from people all over the world, which we love. You guys sometimes see them. They end up on Facebook. We put them up there so you do a little collage of postcards every now and again. But we get so many more even than just those, and we wanted to share one with you from Shannon and she is writing from Germany, the birthplace of the Brothers Grim. She says, I have recently moved to Germany and love listening to the podcast when I take the train to explore. One of my favorite podcasts was on the Brothers Grim and it inspired me to go on their trail even today. Some of the forests and I'm sorry I can't totally read her handwriting all here, but I think she says something to the effective they're still dark and deep, and it's easy to see why the original versions of the fairy tales were not sweet bedtime stories. But she did include for us a little treat. She gave us each a little frog prince figurine from what So. She said she wanted to give us something from one of the nicer tails, So thank you very much, Shannon. We're enjoying those. It's an adorable addition to Sarah's little king slash prince collection she has. I have a lion that I think we just got as some sort of discovery gift. I don't know, maybe like a new website came out. And then of course the Beaver King. The Beaver King one of the better known um bow teas from listening Meals this year. But before we sign off, we want to leave you with a few more of these listen While segments that we've started doing recently, and um, I think you guys have had a lot of fun writing in and telling us what kinds of cool things you do while you're listening to the podcast. One is from Jenny and she writes, I am the operator of a very small ferry that crosses the william At River south of Salem, Oregon. Since I get fewer than fifty cars a day this time of year, and it's only a three minute trip across the river, I've got plenty of time to listen to old episodes of stuff you missed in history class. So that's what she's doing while she's listening to us. We've got another one from listener Joey and Lafayette, Louisiana, and he listens while he makes his own Cajun sausages down there in Cajun Country. We have another one from listener Jimmy, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and he's an artist, and he says he listens to our podcast for hours on end. In his studio, he makes quilts with images of space on them. And his note here that I love is space Nerds love history to exclamation point true. We also received an email from a listener in Ovlin, Norway. His name is spelled k j E t I L, and he wrote to say that he listens to episodes while he's working on building a theater in Oslo. And he said, inspired by listening to history podcasts all day, I made everyone who had been involved in creating the theater sign their names underneath the stage floor for people to find when they change the floor many years from now. A little time so cool. We have another one here from Anne and Sacramento, and she says, during naptime, I listened to as many podcasts as I can before the kids wake up. Your podcast is a welcome break from kids voices during the day. I thought that one was funny. We also heard from some Facebook commenters Twitter followers. It's a really Both are really good mediums for people to share these listen wild topics. We heard from Facebook commentator Megan who listens while she grooms horses and works on flower beds. The folks at Bang Bang Pie and Coffee listen while they bake pies, of course, of course, and another Facebook commentator, Alice, listens while she does taxidermy. She actually explained taxidermy a little bit to us since we have talked about it in a few episodes. Our understanding of it was somewhat flawed, so now we know you guys could maybe find that conversation if you're interested. Um. We also heard from Bart who listens while pruning and pollinating petunias for branch research. This reminded me of a book I read when I was a kid called Frankenstein Plants Petunias, I think, um, and we heard from another interesting art related one. Yep. Heather listens while she works on her Chandler and Price antique letter press. And we have a few letter press listeners, but our last one to include today. Kathleen from New Jersey listens well, volunteering at her local animal shelter. But she has a funny comment to share. She says, it's quite a contrast thinking about Empress CC and her cult of beauty while scooping cat boot. I guess that's our our thought to leave you on for eleven. Um, have a great new year and we will be back in with more history. Yeah, and keep sending us emails and notes. It's so easy. You can write us at history podcast at how stuff works dot com, or you can look us up on Facebook and leave a comment, or you can look us up on Twitter at myston History. And as always, you can find a lot of articles on our home page at www dot how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House Stuff Works. iPhone up has a right download it today on iTunes, m