Entangled Histories: Rats in Human Worlds with Daan Jansen

What can rats tell us about human history? 

In this episode of Two Friends Talk History, newly minted Dr Zofia Guertin (!) is joined by University of York doctoral researcher Daan Jansen to explore the surprisingly complex relationship between humans and rats. From eighteenth-century attitudes towards animals to the changing fortunes of black and brown rats in Northern Europe, Daan reveals how human beliefs, urban environments and animal behaviour have shaped one another. Together, they ask what it means to write history from an animal’s perspective—and why rats might deserve a much bigger place in our understanding of the past.

To read more about the traces of rats in his archival research: https://the-rattus-project.blogspot.com/2025/04/rat-traces-in-archives.html

You can follow the project at @archaeoRattus on Twitter, and Daan on Bluesky @daancjansen or Instagram @animal_historian.

Studies mentioned in this episode:

Moth and plant communication: https://english.tau.ac.il/research/moths-plants

Grammar of whales: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240709-the-sperm-whale-phonetic-alphabet-revealed-by-ai

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Music by the wonderfully talented Chris Sharples
Illustration by Zofia Guertin