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Oliver is joined by J. Alyssa White, PhD candidate in Archaeology at the University of Oxford, to discuss the prehistoric tragedy of the world’s oldest known shark attack victim. The 3,000-year-old remains of Tsukumo No. 24 were first excavated in Okayama prefecture in the early 20th century covered in hundreds of small cuts to the bone which had baffled archaeologists until now after Alyssa, along with a team of researchers, compared the damage to that of contemporary shark attack victims. Join us as we explore the final moments of Tsukumo No. 24 in amazing detail.
Read Alyssa’s article: 3000-year-old shark attack victim from Tsukumo shell-mound, Okayama, Japan
For a comprehensive list of Japanese time periods, please see Japanese History: A Timeline of Periods and Events
Image and audio credits
Intro clip: tiger sharks by dinger154 is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License
Intro-outro audio: jasonszklarek / MotionElements.com
[L] Excavation photo – Original excavation photograph of Tsukumo No. 24, courtesy of the Laboratory of Physical Anthropology, Kyoto University
[R] “IMG_1794bcra Tiger Shark (Galeocerdo cuvier)” by Kevin Bryant, DMD is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0