This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss learning from civilizations past and learning to drive.

JASON: I mentioned this on a podcast a few weeks ago, but I have been falling asleep lately to the Ancient Americas YouTube channel. Made by a guy in the midwest named Pete, Ancient Americas makes 30-minute to hour-long videos about indigenous American civilizations: The Mayans, the Incans, the Aztecs, the Nazca, sure. But also the Calusa, the Toltecs, the Tarascans, the Marajoara, the Cahokia, and lots of other civilizations / peoples / cities / ruins that I had never heard of and never learned about in school.

I didn’t have any specific interest in this–Ancient Americas started autoplaying one night at 3 AM when I couldn’t sleep, and Pete’s monotone voice put me back to sleep very quickly. I started listening more often, and it has quickly become my go-to thing to fall asleep to. Pete says he is not an archaeologist or an anthropologist, but each of his videos is insanely well researched, and he includes a Google Doc bibliography with each one. His recent video about the “Mayan Collapse” sources 10 books and academic papers, and includes 16 pages of single-spaced image credits and licenses. I have seen Pete go on the channels of historians and archaeologists with PhDs and more than hold his own. In short, he is the real deal.

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