10 Fierce Debates Rocking Ancient History (2025)

Video Description

Ten arguments that lit up ancient history this year. From an Old Kingdom genome to the Indo-European homeland, from Petra’s “Treasury tomb” controversy to AI re-dating the Dead Sea Scrolls—here are the 10 fiercest academic debates (2024–2025) with both sides presented. CONTENTS 00:00 Introduction 00:35 Ancient Egyptian genome 02:44 Repatriation vs. Universal Museums 04:31 Indo-European homeland 06:30 AI vs. human translators 08:03 Amazon “cities” 10:08 Celtic identity 11:42 Earliest writing in South India 14:00 Eurocentrism in Classics curricula 16:06 Petra’s Treasury tomb 18:13 Dead Sea Scrolls re-dated by AI? Wondering why I say "BCE" and "CE"? Find out here: https://youtu.be/s6Lv3KpphVg ►DOWNLOAD Professor Miano's free e-booklet: "Why Ancient History Matters": https://86fb90c275cd11ef91efc1594cccd986.eo.page/n272t ► REFERENCES https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09195-5 https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/07/02/ancient-egyptian-dna-analysis-study/ https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/07/30/french-government-adopts-bill-restitution-colonial-era-objects https://itsartlaw.org/art-law/redefining-restitution-frances-legal-shift-on-nazi-looted-art/ https://culturalpropertynews.org/france-sets-conditions-for-colonial-restitution-but-not-without-control/ https://www.government.nl/latest/news/2025/06/18/benin-bronzes-from-the-netherlands-returning-home-to-nigeria https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/jul/11/campaigners-parthenon-elgin-marbles-sculptures-return-greece-british-museum www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.17.589597v1.full.pdf https://paulheggarty.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Commentary-on-Lazaridis-et-al-2025-on-Indo-European.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.02572 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09292-5 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/google-just-released-an-ai-tool-that-helps-historians-fill-in-missing-words-in-ancient-roman-inscriptions-180987046 https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/aeneas-transforms-how-historians-connect-the-past/ https://www.robbewulgaert.be/education/predicting-the-past-aeneas https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi6317 https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/06/ancient-garden-cities-amazon-indigenous-technologies-archaeology-lost-civilisations-environment-terra-preta https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/ancient-cities-in-the-amazon https://www.researchgate.net/publication/383123716_E-letter_concerning_the_consistency_of_the_cultural_sequence_in_Supplementary_Materials_for_Two_Thousand_Years_of_Garden_Urbanism_in_the_Upper_Amazon_1 https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/meet-pedro-porras-the-priest-who-first-rediscovered-amazon-ancient-cities/ https://www.deccanherald.com/india/fresh-scientific-dates-push-origin-of-tamili-script-by-a-century-2-3048845 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/keeladi-excavations-one-more-potsherd-with-name-inscribed-on-it-unearthed/articleshow/83461603.cms https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/artefacts-with-tamil-brahmi-script-unearthed-at-keeladi-to-find-a-special-place-in-museum/article66529594.ece https://science.thewire.in/society/history/keeladi-settlement-tamil-nadu-department-of-archaeology-tamil-brahmi-script-indus-valley-civilisation/ https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/archaeological-survey-of-india-asks-amarnath-ramakrishna-to-rewrite-his-report-on-keezhadi-excavations/article69605593.ece https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chennai/asi-archaeologist-keeladi-report-citing-need-authentic-data-10024141/ https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/keeladi-report-not-technically-supported-union-minister/articleshow/121760852.cms https://theprint.in/politics/another-round-of-centre-south-clash-as-union-minister-says-keeladi-report-needs-scientific-validation/2653741/ https://thecritic.co.uk/should-we-make-classics-history https://www.historytoday.com/archive/review/celts-modern-history-ian-stewart-review https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/review/2025/04/22/the-celts-a-modern-history-by-ian-stewart-an-extensive-work-overlooking-several-essential-studies/ https://news.st-andrews.ac.uk/archive/st-andrews-researchers-make-historic-discovery-underneath-one-of-the-seven-wonders-of-the-world/ https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/oct/19/petra-jordan-archaeology-tomb-excavation-nabataean-experts https://news.artnet.com/art-world/petra-tomb-discovery-underwhelms-historians-2556832 https://acorjordan.org/exu-learn-more/ https://x.com/petrabonegirl/status/1848109219842502904 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0323185 https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/dead-sea-scrolls/can-ai-date-the-dead-sea-scrolls/ https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/ai-analysis-suggests-dead-sea-scrolls-are-older-than-scientists-thought-but-not-all-experts-are-convinced