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We are on our own making good

2:02

out here in the world, continuing the

2:05

process of bringing you real unfiltered

2:07

conversations with actual human beings. We

2:10

barely produce this thing. We throw

2:12

people on the line. It's legit. We

2:14

check mostly for sound quality when people call.

2:17

We barely edit these things. Why

2:20

would we? The raw, real conversation

2:22

is when it's at its best. And I take it seriously

2:25

that we're becoming this now near decade-long

2:28

chronicle of human conversation

2:31

and human thought occurring

2:33

in a comfortable place, no judgment in the

2:35

moment. I'm proud of it. And I'm

2:37

happier here. And I thank you for sticking

2:40

with us. And I have to give a huge heartfelt

2:42

thanks to everybody who expressed

2:45

such kindness last week. I

2:47

really put it out there in that intro. Got emotional

2:49

a little bit. Let you know that there

2:51

were some tenuous times, some good times. And how

2:54

we landed on our feet. And

2:56

the upswell of support I saw from our

2:58

community, it

3:00

really meant the world to me. And I'm

3:02

still out here trying to make moves. I'm going to let you guys

3:04

know I need to stay sane

3:07

with these intros. And I feel like these intros

3:09

are my way to connect with you as an audience. So each

3:11

week, I'm going to go ahead and tell you

3:14

how long to skip if you want to skip the intro.

3:16

You should have heard that already. And then the intros are going to be longer

3:19

because

3:20

I can't stress enough that that

3:22

was the one policy on our old network was they

3:24

always wanted the intros to be three minutes or less. And

3:27

I get it. And it's probably better. But for

3:29

my sanity, I have to connect

3:31

with you.

3:32

I just have to connect with you and put some things out

3:34

there. So here's a few things I want

3:37

to let you know about. One, we have

3:39

a new Instagram page, beautiful anonymous

3:41

pod on Instagram. Go follow that.

3:43

We're going to put the number on Twitter still.

3:46

I can't say X. I can't.

3:48

I won't. It's a nightmare. And

3:51

that platform is becoming increasingly concerning

3:54

in so many ways. So we will still put the

3:56

number up there because so many of us are used to doing

3:58

it. We're also going to try to get an original. of putting

4:00

it up on the new Instagram, Beautiful Anonymous

4:02

Pod on Instagram. I'm going to try to get that number

4:04

up in our Facebook group, Beautiful Anonymous,

4:07

the community. I'm going to try to start getting

4:09

in a rhythm where when I post the number, it's being posted

4:11

in multiple places because I know a lot of

4:13

people find Twitter to be something that's

4:16

bad for their health, bad for their mental health,

4:18

bad for their time management, bad for their anxiety,

4:21

and I get it. So we're

4:23

going to start spreading that number a little farther and wider.

4:26

I think the Instagram, the Facebook group, and

4:28

Twitter is a good policy. I might mess it up

4:30

sometimes as I get used to it, so

4:32

bear with me, but we're going to try.

4:34

We're going to try because I hear you. I hear a lot of people

4:36

saying, I can't really mess with Twitter

4:38

right now. What else? The

4:41

Patreon. I mentioned that we are going to be building a Patreon.

4:43

It will be coming soon within a few weeks.

4:45

A lot of you out there said,

4:47

you were so lovely letting me know. Let

4:49

me know and I'll sign up. We're building a cool one. Me and

4:51

Andrea right now, we're building it in a way

4:54

that is, I

4:56

think, really reflective of what people ask

4:58

for with the show. You all know

5:00

me. I'm a Jersey guy. I'm

5:02

not ever going to ask for your money and then not work

5:04

hard. I will work hard. Work my ass

5:07

off for that money. We're

5:09

building some stuff that I think will be really cool

5:11

supplemental stuff

5:12

that's just a smart, logical extension

5:15

of what Beautiful Anonymous already is, and that gives

5:17

you a lot of bang for the buck. More

5:19

info on that coming soon. I'm also going

5:21

to tell you this.

5:23

There are incentives. I have a contract

5:25

with Patreon and there are incentives where if

5:27

you sign up in the first month

5:29

or three months, if I can convince

5:32

you, if you're someone who's like, I'll give a shot someday. If

5:34

I can convince you to do that in the first month or two

5:36

or three, I make more

5:39

money. I

5:41

get little incentive bonuses and it helps

5:43

my family

5:44

and it helps me.

5:45

I'd like to be honest with everybody about that.

5:47

I was like, yeah, if you're thinking you might try it, try

5:50

it in the early days and you really will help

5:52

out your old pal, Chris. Anyway,

5:55

I have shows coming up this week, 817

5:58

in Oklahoma City.

5:59

818 in Dallas, 819 in San

6:02

Antonio. The ticket sales for these shows

6:04

are bad. I think stand

6:07

up it culturally is leaning away

6:09

from thoughtful Raycon tours, and

6:12

people who like to express their

6:15

emotions, like men who aren't

6:17

that masculine diving into their emotions.

6:20

It was really in vogue a few years ago, but the

6:22

ticket sales are bad on me. So if you're going to come

6:24

out to Oklahoma City, Dallas or San Antonio,

6:27

Chris, get.com. And I mentioned it

6:29

last week laughing together.org.

6:31

That is a new organization I'm

6:33

building. I'm teaming up with a mental

6:35

health nonprofit to build some

6:38

really cool stuff that I'm going to be telling you about. And the

6:40

very first thing we're doing is a show in Anaheim. On

6:43

September 7, we added Eddie Pappaton

6:45

this show you can't beat this show me and

6:48

my old dear friend, Christie cello, a

6:50

partner on chairla, Emmy nominee

6:52

Nicole Beyer and the bitter Buddha

6:54

himself, Eddie Pappaton.

6:56

And it's free. Did I mention that?

6:58

Because they told us if we want to shrink the space

7:01

and hang curtains, it'll cost us $10,000. I said, we won't need the curtains,

7:05

we'll just pack in more people. So if you're in Southern California,

7:08

and you want to come to an amazing show,

7:10

go to laughing together.org. You

7:12

can get a free ticket. It's not a joke. And

7:15

we're going to ask people to donate if they're

7:17

fit. But I also think you know me, I'm a big

7:19

fan. There's some people out there that don't have 2030 bucks

7:22

to spare in a comedy show. I like the idea

7:24

that you can show up and if you can't donate, don't donate.

7:26

I don't care. Come enjoy. Laugh.

7:29

Help us out fill up the space will get enough

7:31

donations from the people who do have some money to spare.

7:33

Don't you worry about it. If you're someone in Southern California,

7:36

who doesn't have much expendable income. Maybe

7:39

you have a kid and you know,

7:41

between the sitter and the dinner and the ticket

7:43

prices, you don't get to do things so much. Take

7:45

the ticket price out of the equation this night. Come

7:47

hang out.

7:48

I'm for real about this. That's

7:50

many headliners on one bill right there.

7:54

Come do okay. Another thing I

7:56

want to get into is to let you guys

7:58

know some of the stuff out there that I've been

7:59

and to maybe help it

8:02

lead to some community discussion of stuff

8:04

you've been leading. And I'm trying

8:06

to think of like how to do this in a way that

8:08

ties into what we do here at Beautiful Anonymous.

8:11

And I think this first one, there's

8:13

a shout out. I want to give a shout out. If you're

8:15

looking for another podcast, if you are

8:17

a fan of the X-Men, which I am lifelong,

8:20

since 1988 or 1989,

8:21

I read my first X-Men comic book, there's

8:25

a podcast right now called Cerebro. It's

8:27

fantastic. It's also insane.

8:31

Each episode focuses on a character. Routinely

8:35

episodes are four hours long of them talking about

8:38

Forge, who was like a very

8:40

B tier X-Men, four hours on Forge.

8:43

And it's brilliant

8:44

and it's hilarious. It's hosted by this

8:47

guy, Connor Goldsmith. I don't know him. To

8:49

my knowledge, we've never met. I don't think we've ever communicated

8:51

anyway, but he's really hilarious,

8:54

really brilliant. He's a literary

8:56

agent as his day job, and it shows up. Now, a lot of people

8:58

are

8:59

going to go, the X-Men are not my thing.

9:02

And this podcast is probably not for you, but

9:04

I want to point something else about it. Connor,

9:06

in the intro to the show, says that he is

9:08

a gay man and that he's often

9:11

linking up with his friends to talk on

9:13

these episodes. And the guests are often

9:15

LGBTQ people, people

9:18

from the community. And I will

9:21

just say,

9:24

outside of the fact that I get to be super

9:26

nerdy and listen to a literary agent, sometimes

9:30

break down old testament analogies

9:32

unfolding in old Chris Claremont X-Men

9:34

episodes, that issues that I never picked

9:37

up on as a kid and that I've reread 10 times. And I

9:39

go, oh my God, this all ties into

9:41

the Jewish faith in a way. I'd love

9:43

to hear this deep dive analysis

9:45

from a literary agent on the X-Men. On

9:48

top of all that, it's just got what I can only

9:50

describe as just joyous

9:52

queer energy, this show. And you

9:54

can soak yourself and bathe a little

9:56

bit in some really positive,

9:59

nerdy... joyous queer

10:01

energy. You can hear them talk

10:03

about how Romani characters

10:05

are often stand-ins for Jewish people because

10:08

Jewish creators at Marvel didn't feel like they

10:10

were allowed to talk about their Jewishness and I sit here with

10:12

my mind blown. And then also long talks

10:14

about, I mean, I heard the phrase on this show, nobody

10:17

lays down dick like Daddy Forge about

10:19

a B-tier X-Men character. And it's

10:22

so funny and charming and I think that's what it

10:24

ties in with this show. I think Beautiful

10:26

Anonymous at its best often allows

10:28

you to soak in other people's energy. And

10:32

people who are not from your walk of life, you get to soak in their

10:34

energy a little bit. And I sort

10:36

of think that maybe that's part of being a citizen of the world.

10:40

And being a

10:42

functioning human being. And being

10:45

a well-rounded human being who comes to empathize and show compassion

10:47

towards others means soaking in their energy. I

10:50

know for me, I was 19 years old, I had only

10:52

lived in North Jersey, I

10:54

started taking classes at the UCB Theater in the year 2000.

10:58

And I grew up in an era in the 80s and 90s where movies

11:00

threw around homophobic phrases like nothing,

11:03

where people would say words that would come

11:05

out of their mouth that even on the show,

11:07

in the early days, a

11:09

couple times where people went, whoa, and I went,

11:11

oh my God, I grew up saying things, casual.

11:14

And these are not casual words. You know

11:16

what shakes you out of that? Showing up

11:18

and hanging out at a theater in Chelsea, New York

11:20

in 2000. And then just doing

11:23

art in Chelsea forever, which is just

11:25

so beautifully a center

11:28

of gay pride in New York City. And

11:31

I got to be a kid, a college kid,

11:33

all of a sudden out of North Jersey, which could

11:35

sometimes have a close-minded attitude. And I'm here

11:38

and I'm drinking at bars that are down the block

11:40

from gay bars. And the Gay Pride

11:42

Parade is passing through Chelsea and

11:45

the neighborhood is partying. And you're

11:47

around the energy and you get to know people. And

11:49

it's joyous just the same way that I

11:52

think of growing up when I first got invited to Bar

11:54

Mitzvahs, because the elementary, this town

11:57

I grew up in was so diverse in West Orange.

11:59

I went to bar mitzvahs and I got

12:01

to be exposed to joyous Jewish energy

12:04

and those bar mitzvahs to date are

12:06

some of the best parties I have ever been

12:08

to man Brad do Jeff had an ice sculpture

12:10

of himself dunking a basketball.

12:13

These parties were so fun and so wild

12:17

and the language and the dress and the traditions

12:19

and breaking glass you got to be there in the

12:22

joy of it. My middle school and high

12:24

school.

12:25

I went to this town was so diverse. I

12:27

remember when the black kids in high school

12:29

started the step team and now my high school

12:31

has a step team that was started when

12:34

I was there and this type of team now will have

12:36

clips that go viral

12:37

from West Orange and they're bad as

12:39

and I remember the black kids the black

12:41

students also starting a fashion show and I remember going

12:44

a fashion show I mean we're like in 9th

12:46

grade fashion and then

12:48

it was joyous energy was joyous

12:51

celebration. It was people coming together.

12:53

It was cultures bumping

12:55

into each other in this way

12:57

when I lived in Jackson Heights, Queens, I got

12:59

to be around so many families

13:02

from South America

13:04

you walk down Roosevelt Avenue and there's people selling

13:07

food, there's people cooking you get to Corona

13:09

Flushing Meadows Park, there's people playing volleyball

13:12

people with their family setting up tents people

13:14

cooking on grills you got to get around

13:16

other people's energy and it's not always ethnic or religious

13:19

go to a comic con get around that nerd energy

13:21

go to see some pro wrestling you will

13:23

be shocked and how different the energy

13:26

is than you expected you want that Irish

13:28

Catholic energy that I grew up with

13:30

go to Woodside Queens go to those bars down

13:33

there by 61st Street, I guarantee you stay

13:34

long enough you have some guy you don't know arm

13:37

around your shoulder telling you the saddest story

13:40

you've ever heard, but you'll be laughing at it somehow

13:43

you want that Italian energy come to Jersey

13:45

come meet at the Belmont Tavern in Belleville

13:48

you come hang out get around other

13:50

people's energy as often as you can

13:54

be on the periphery be a fly

13:56

on the wall, maybe even feeling uncomfortable

13:59

in an environment. That's not the one you grew up in but

14:01

where you are respectful and absorbing it and

14:03

being around it and goddamn it The cerebral

14:06

podcast is brilliant both in

14:08

its literary analysis of very

14:10

obscure X-Men characters and also in

14:13

the way that it is such a nerdy

14:18

Fun

14:20

unapologetic celebration of

14:22

A joyous queer energy and

14:25

I love this show I'm obsessed

14:27

with it and I want to know what are the things out there that

14:29

you're finding What are the podcasts the TV shows

14:32

the books you're reading leave that in the comments Do

14:34

I want to start doing things like this in our Facebook

14:36

group comments? What are the things

14:38

out there especially if you're someone from a group

14:41

and you feel like there's something out there

14:43

That's thrown down where you go. This makes

14:45

me feel like how I grew up, right

14:48

in the same way That show the adventures

14:50

of Pete and Pete on Nickelodeon. I could talk for hours

14:52

that show

14:53

Represents a New Jersey childhood more

14:56

than anything else Sopranos gets a lot

14:58

of credit as being the Jersey show and it is But

15:00

I think for a lot of us who grew up here you go and Pete

15:03

and Pete like we weren't all talking

15:05

to mafia Dons, we knew that we were around

15:07

we knew that their kids went to school with us supposedly

15:10

people had cousins in the mop But that

15:12

was not talked about Pete and Pete

15:15

That's how we all grew up. That's real Jersey

15:17

energy right there. Anyway, what are the things that

15:20

spread that energy? What are the things you know about spreading

15:22

energy from all different cultures? What are you absorbing

15:24

lately? I want to know this week

15:27

on the show. We're gonna absorb some Archaeologist

15:30

energy we have a caller who is an archaeologist

15:32

and is ready to talk to me about it And

15:35

I say some truly dumb things along the way,

15:37

but she's so nice about it

15:40

We talk about Indiana Jones. We

15:42

talk about what it's like there in the field We talk

15:44

about the things that are exciting We talk about how the past

15:46

connects us to the present how the past predicts

15:49

the future Get into all kinds

15:51

of cool stuff We learn about why it's

15:53

so exciting to find a two-inch clay

15:55

tablet with untranslatable script

15:58

on it. It's it's a really cool

15:59

conversation from someone working a job that's so

16:02

specific and so unique and

16:04

I really loved it, I think you're going to love

16:06

it too. Thanks for supporting the show.

16:09

I have come back to life in a way you can

16:11

feel it that means the

16:14

world to me. And this I'll

16:17

never stop thinking about beautiful con on a miss

16:19

in May when that community showed up in person

16:21

and made me realize I can't

16:23

stop the fight for this show because

16:26

we get to have conversations like this when you're about to hear

16:28

and I'm not going to apologize or be self-deprecating

16:31

about it. I'm proud of it. It's a good call. I

16:33

think you're going to like it enjoy.

16:39

Thank you for calling beautiful anonymous

16:42

a beeping noise will indicate when you're on

16:44

the show with the host. Hello.

16:48

Hi. Hi.

16:52

Hi, I'm going to say it this must

16:54

be Chris is it Chris. This is Chris

16:57

look at this the tradition. The old traditions still

17:00

in this new version

17:03

of the show totally totally how

17:05

you doing. Yes, I just

17:08

I was telling your producer I was just

17:10

listening to the episode that dropped today so

17:12

I

17:13

listen to the intro and had started

17:16

the caller and I'm so relieved to hear

17:18

it's continuing 5 years of amazing

17:20

congratulations. Oh my goodness,

17:22

I'm very psyched and I'm psyched to see where

17:24

it goes and I'm psyched to enable

17:27

more stories from people all

17:29

over this world and I'm psyched

17:31

you are now one of those stories.

17:34

That's so cool. Thank you. Yeah, when

17:36

I heard 5 years, I thought maybe the next 5

17:39

years, I'll be able to get through and then

17:41

look at this wild. Boom

17:43

day of your like 5 years, I'm not

17:45

waiting half a decade. Yeah, leave that

17:48

all these other jumps.

17:51

So yeah, well, I've been listening for

17:53

many many years so yeah, this

17:55

is super cool. How are you doing today?

17:57

How am I doing a pretty good. I

18:00

would say, as mentioned,

18:03

we are recording this on the day that we switched

18:06

from our old network to our new system.

18:09

I woke up today with a lot of anxiety

18:11

like, oh, something's definitely going to go wrong,

18:13

but it seems

18:15

that nothing has gone wrong. I'm

18:18

pretty pleased. No. Yeah. I'm

18:21

feeling good. That's amazing. Yeah.

18:24

I saw on the Facebook group that you were asking if people had seamlessly

18:26

gotten into their feeds and I was about to comment and

18:28

then I saw like 70 other people had reassured

18:31

you. Yeah. I

18:33

hope you're less anxious about that now. Yes.

18:36

The Facebook group is full of notoriously

18:38

kind human beings. I'm

18:41

lucky, but I was like, guys, can you just tell me

18:43

if it's going well because I'm sitting here fretting. And

18:46

then what happened was

18:48

everybody went, everything's fine. And

18:51

then one guy was like, did you just really use the

18:53

word fretting? And I said, yes.

18:56

Yes. As

18:58

you said. Indeed.

19:01

Indeed. Now, most importantly, how

19:04

are you? How are you doing? Pretty good things.

19:08

I woke up with a little bit of

19:10

a headache, but it's hard to know if that's

19:13

rainy weather today or

19:15

I was actually just thinking

19:17

you were talking about camping outside with your son.

19:20

I have a one year old. He's actually like 15 months today.

19:23

So it's hard

19:23

to know if that's like a sleep or whatever.

19:26

Oh, thanks. Yeah. It's

19:28

super fun. It's amazing. But the sleep has

19:30

definitely taken a hit in the last 15 months

19:33

for my husband and I. So yeah,

19:35

some days headaches. That's okay.

19:37

All right. And have you and I

19:39

spoken before? We

19:42

have not. No, I've seen your

19:45

live Beautiful Anonymous in Toronto. That's where

19:47

I'm originally from. But no, I've,

19:49

oh, wait, that's a lie. I've gotten through on

19:52

the New Year's resolution.

19:54

So I've spoken to you for one minute.

19:56

Look at that. I was going to say

19:58

there's something familiar. your voice and

20:01

maybe that was it? Wow, you're

20:04

very good. Yeah, that was a few years

20:06

ago and I guess that actually kind of ties into

20:08

what I was, well I always wanted

20:10

to talk to you about which is at the time I

20:12

called I was aiming

20:13

to finish my doctorate,

20:15

my PhD that year and I

20:19

did a couple years ago and

20:21

my doctorate is in archaeology

20:23

and I always thought it would be, I know

20:25

you like sort of niche communities

20:28

in the world and niche subjects and archaeology

20:30

is definitely

20:31

one of those so I've

20:33

always been keen to talk about the

20:35

archaeological world with you. I would love

20:37

to talk about archaeology with you.

20:39

I would love nothing more. I'll

20:42

put this out here, here's my first reaction and

20:45

I bet you get this a lot. Archaeology

20:48

is a thing that I am aware it

20:50

exists. I have

20:52

a vague guess as to what

20:54

it actually entails but

20:57

I'm starting to giggle

20:59

right out of the gate because it's a word that I've

21:01

known pretty much my whole life

21:03

and I can't totally

21:06

claim that I know what it means.

21:08

No problem, I think lots of people

21:10

are the same way. I actually thought you were gonna

21:13

say do you dig dinosaurs because

21:15

that is the number one thing I get

21:17

asked like, wow that's so cool

21:19

you're an archaeologist, you dig dinosaurs

21:22

and unfortunately

21:22

I don't. I mean it tells you I

21:25

did have the internal thought I immediately went

21:27

well and luckily I am the father of a four-year-old

21:29

boy so that's paleontology right?

21:32

Yes exactly.

21:34

You'll be happy to hear you said

21:37

archaeology and my initial

21:39

thought I went wait is that do you dig up dinosaur

21:41

bones or is that like Indiana Jones? That's

21:44

my dumb reaction to what you just

21:46

said.

21:47

No not dumb at all, nothing is dumb

21:49

about it and in fact I love talking to sort

21:51

of the public and people outside of archaeology

21:53

about archaeology because

21:55

I think it's too insular

21:57

just to keep it talking amongst ourselves so.

22:00

No, I

22:01

ask away, ask anything. There's no such

22:03

thing as a dumb question. Yeah,

22:06

paleontology is for dinosaurs and fossils

22:08

and things like that. And then archaeology

22:10

is specifically anything human

22:12

made in the past. So it can cover

22:15

any type of history from 50 years

22:17

ago to thousands of years ago, but it has

22:20

to be human materials.

22:22

So yeah, Indiana Jones is the

22:24

number one pop culture reference, exactly.

22:27

I imagine you're not tooling

22:29

around on a motorcycle with a sidecar

22:32

with your dad and fighting Nazis

22:34

on blimps though, Indiana Jones

22:36

style. No.

22:38

Yeah, good. No, it's definitely,

22:40

yeah, that's definitely romanticized.

22:43

But

22:43

I have been fortunate to do a bunch of overseas

22:47

digs or excavations. My research

22:50

is mostly in Greece. I

22:52

really work on like three to 4,000

22:55

year old stuff in Greece. And

22:58

the big season as we call it is

23:00

the summer. So for many, many summers,

23:02

I would go over to Crete, this island in

23:04

Greece and work there. I haven't

23:07

unfortunately been back in four

23:09

years now.

23:09

I was just thinking about that yesterday. It's been

23:11

too long because of the pandemic,

23:14

obviously, and then the baby. So

23:16

I'm hoping that next summer will be

23:18

my first summer back in

23:20

Greece. But

23:23

yeah, that's my main main area

23:25

of

23:25

work. But people work

23:26

in archaeology all over the world, including my

23:28

husband is also an archaeologist. And

23:31

ironically, listening to today's

23:33

episode, we're actually in Alaska now,

23:35

calling another caller

23:37

from Alaska, because he

23:40

works in Alaska

23:41

here doing archaeology. But

23:43

I'm not a pilot. And I don't think I have

23:45

quite such an exciting life as that called.

23:48

I do I just want to say, as mentioned,

23:51

if you're you know, if you're someone who just tunes

23:53

in from time to time, our

23:56

show has been going through some major changes.

23:58

We recently left the earwolf. We also

24:00

now exclusively talk to people in Alaska.

24:03

We only will take calls from Alaska

24:05

from this point forward No,

24:07

I love it. So okay. I have a few thoughts.

24:10

I have a few thoughts which is one

24:12

Crete

24:15

You said it's part of Greece is that not

24:17

the island that Turkey also lays claim to That's

24:21

Cyprus Yeah,

24:26

no, that's okay. That's pretty easy to do Yeah,

24:28

Crete is part of Greece, but it's

24:30

right. It's the most southern Island

24:33

like it's kind of halfway between North Africa and

24:35

Greece now if you're gonna go into

24:37

archaeology Let's be

24:40

honest. It's Egypt or it's Greece.

24:42

Those are the big two, right? Yeah,

24:46

I mean I have friends who will fight you on that and

24:49

say no way They have their own

24:51

favorites or whatever

24:51

But I think a lot of my friends

24:54

in my undergrad degree when I started

24:56

out they got into it through Egypt Personally,

24:59

I always liked Greece and Rome but

25:01

other people you know to get into American

25:04

archaeology or Meso

25:06

American like Mayan or Incan things

25:09

like that, but personally for me, I don't

25:11

really know why I was just

25:12

always I'm not Greek or Anything but I was

25:14

just very drawn to those stories

25:17

and then took the deep dive into it

25:19

But yes, I mean people I think

25:21

kids especially when I work

25:23

with kids or talk to kids they kind of think ooh Pyramids

25:27

mummy is like that's archaeology. I mean there's

25:29

a lot more to it, but I think that's a big gateway

25:31

for imagination into it Sure.

25:34

I mean those seem to me to be the two civilizations

25:37

that Probably when

25:39

people think archaeology It's

25:42

Egypt and it's Greece. Those are what they're thinking

25:44

and then of course like you said it's

25:46

everywhere But as far as like the

25:48

the young person's fascination,

25:51

so you're living the archaeologist dream in

25:53

a way. I

25:55

Mean there are definitely years.

25:58

Yeah that it was

26:00

pretty surreal, like working

26:01

and writing and researching, teaching

26:04

in the winters and then in the summer, going

26:06

off to Greece for like three months. Yeah,

26:09

that was

26:10

pretty incredible. And I do hope to get back to

26:13

some some of that, but you know, I mean,

26:15

as you know, I know family life

26:18

kind of takes over and

26:20

jobs and figuring

26:22

out how we can kind of make that

26:24

work in the future. But, but

26:27

yes, I've been very fortunate to have some

26:29

amazing experiences on

26:31

digs and traveling around.

26:33

Now, I have the

26:36

image in my head, right?

26:38

What you see in like a picture in a magazine

26:41

or an article, there's like

26:43

a pit, there's a bunch of scaffolding

26:46

around. There's people

26:48

in there who have on, you

26:51

know, gloves and gear and they have these

26:53

fine brushes and they're washing,

26:56

they're whisking away sand with the brushes

26:58

and everything needs to be done so gently. And they, you

27:01

find like an urn, right,

27:03

like a big urn and the urn still

27:05

has some visible paint on the side that tells

27:07

the story of whose ashes are in this urn

27:09

and you

27:10

find out the urns from 3000 years

27:12

ago, like, this is the image

27:15

we all have in our mind. So I guess I want to ask

27:18

A,

27:18

how real is the experience compared

27:21

to that image and B, what's

27:24

really happening in archaeology beyond

27:26

just that popular image that we all have?

27:28

Let's

27:32

pause there. That's the type of question

27:34

I ask around here sometimes. Let's

27:37

get, let's pull back the curtain and

27:39

hear what's really going on beyond the pale

27:42

in the world of archaeology. But

27:44

you know what? I make fun of myself,

27:46

but oftentimes questions like that

27:48

yield really unexpected answers.

27:50

Let's see if we get one when we get back. The

27:53

following is not something I have ever hidden. I get

27:56

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27:59

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28:01

did a whole HBO special about What

28:04

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28:10

In my own personal life how hard it can be

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28:17

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28:20

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28:25

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28:27

on my end I want to thank them for making

28:29

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28:31

Therapist you like and

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to all of our advertisers. Now let's get back to

31:01

the phone call.

31:06

This is the image we all have in our

31:08

minds. So I guess I want to ask A,

31:11

how real is the experience compared

31:13

to that image? And B, what's

31:16

really happening in archeology beyond just

31:19

that popular image that we all have?

31:23

Yeah, this is a good question. I

31:25

mean, for the most part from the outside, I

31:27

guess it would look a bit like that. There's

31:29

a group of people in

31:31

the dirt, in the sand with

31:33

shovels and pickaxes and then eventually

31:36

sort of dental tools to pick

31:38

out the little fragile pieces. Sometimes

31:41

there's sort of scaffolding, but often

31:44

my digs haven't

31:45

had that level of infrastructure. It's

31:47

more just

31:48

a big open pit.

31:49

And then off the grid

31:51

line. So we've laid out with string

31:53

like trenches so that you

31:55

know where you are and what you're

31:58

digging. is

32:00

that we record everything and make note of

32:02

everything. So the

32:04

difference between just digging

32:07

and looting, pulling things out of the

32:09

ground without context and without

32:11

archeology,

32:12

and the

32:14

actual science of archeology is recording

32:16

and measuring and taking note

32:19

of where everything is. So yeah,

32:22

it's very, very important to measure, to

32:24

have,

32:25

well now we can use computers and things

32:27

in the field to

32:28

document, and then to take notes.

32:30

So it's the most important thing to write everything

32:32

down in half records.

32:34

So there's probably gonna be a lot of people sitting around

32:36

taking notes, and

32:39

probably some computer technology to

32:41

take images and map the

32:44

area.

32:46

But yeah, otherwise it does look, you're under

32:48

the hot sun doing a lot of physical labor,

32:50

it is a lot of work. I guess

32:52

the part people don't think about is after

32:54

all that, you know, that's usually six to eight

32:57

weeks to actually excavate,

32:59

but after that, each evening, you're

33:01

bringing all the materials into like

33:04

a storage area or a laboratory, and

33:06

cleaning them, registering

33:08

them, making sure you know what you have,

33:11

and then storing them in a way that you can find them

33:13

later, because you can't really

33:15

study everything fast enough in the moment. And

33:18

then long after you've already been digging, you

33:21

have months

33:22

and months of work ahead of you studying

33:24

the actual objects. So that's kind

33:26

of the, it goes from being

33:29

super physical and very

33:31

demanding every day to,

33:33

I mean, demanding in a different way, but sitting

33:35

with these objects and studying them and writing reports.

33:38

So it's kind

33:39

of two sides of this coin that, I

33:42

mean, I love both, but they're very different. And

33:44

it's interesting to have been in something that

33:47

requires two totally different skill sets.

33:50

So I guess what people don't see is during the

33:52

year, I'm in the library writing

33:54

reports, and

33:56

writing papers to kind of share with the

33:59

academic community. So you do get

34:01

the adrenaline rush. You do get the we

34:03

have a hunch that there used to be a town

34:06

here and that if we dig we might find some

34:08

infrastructure of that town, some remnants

34:10

of life from that town and we're gonna go

34:13

we're gonna do it and I imagine you're using like radar

34:15

and sonar stuff at this point in history

34:18

and I have to imagine there's that big adrenaline

34:20

rush when that works out and then also a

34:22

lot of boring paperwork that surrounds

34:24

all that.

34:25

Yeah, yes, especially

34:29

for permission to dig in places

34:31

there's a lot of sort of permitting

34:34

and permissions that you need from governments

34:36

and local authorities so that

34:39

that can take a long time even before you

34:41

get into the field and then once you're in the

34:43

field that's where yeah the adrenaline rushes

34:45

happen and for sure it's it

34:48

can be kind of mundane and then it can be super

34:50

exciting. I remember one of my digs they found

34:53

something that the director was so excited

34:55

about honestly

34:55

it wasn't valuable a lot of kids

34:58

asked me, oh are you finding gold? Well,

35:01

no, I mean this was a little piece of writing

35:03

that meant a lot to our site and

35:05

anyway when he found it he brought champagne

35:07

to the site because

35:09

he was just

35:10

so over the moon for this tiny little

35:12

you know two-inch wide

35:14

piece of clay

35:14

tablet but it meant a lot to the

35:16

history of the site.

35:18

Can I ask what was did you

35:20

get that two inches translated?

35:23

So interestingly my so the

35:28

kind of culture that I specialize in is called

35:30

the Minoan. They're the prehistoric

35:32

people who lived on the island of Crete.

35:34

So if anyone's been to Crete you'll probably

35:36

have seen a lot of their art and stuff it's

35:38

all over the island you know you can bet get like

35:40

tea towels and things with Minoan art on

35:43

it and the Minoans lived there between

35:46

three

35:46

and four well three to five thousand years ago and

35:49

their main language is actually

35:51

not deciphered. So

35:53

I do a lot of outreach with kids

35:56

and I'm always trying to tell them you know we have this language

35:58

that still we don't understand.

35:59

So if you grow up and are

36:02

really into this you could help us sort of crack

36:04

the code to Reading

36:06

this language. We know some words

36:08

and some sounds, you know people who do specialize

36:10

in it We know some of it, but not

36:13

all of it So no, we don't know what that little

36:15

piece said but the fact that that site

36:17

had some writing I think it was the first writing

36:19

that was found there

36:20

and your director is like pop

36:22

and champagne like wow We

36:25

found a two inch fragment

36:28

Yeah, indecipherable writing

36:30

that we don't understand. Let's let's

36:33

sip some bubbly everybody

36:36

Yep, yeah,

36:37

that's what's so wild about

36:39

archaeology is it's just tiny little

36:41

pieces over time that help

36:43

to make the full picture But yes,

36:46

we are studying very niche

36:48

things Now

36:50

I Want to ask you about something

36:52

you brought up that I actually just recently

36:55

read an article about

36:57

And I would not be surprised if you maybe

36:59

read this article or know about this person But

37:03

you mentioned, you know the accountability writing

37:06

everything down getting permission This is

37:08

the difference between archaeology and looting

37:11

now. I

37:12

happen to know that this is actually

37:14

a really serious thing and I

37:17

have to imagine it makes your blood boil because

37:20

there is a whole culture of looting

37:23

in human history and

37:26

I read this article. I believe it was about

37:28

a husband and wife maybe in Ohio Who

37:33

had a farm? Okay Where

37:35

federal authorities were tipped off that these

37:37

people basically it was

37:40

this husband and wife and you know some

37:42

some families You know go. Oh every year we

37:44

go on a cruise or Every

37:46

year we go camping and this couple

37:49

was just oh every year we go and we

37:52

dig up stuff

37:54

And they were basically like untrained unlicensed

37:59

self-proclaimed claimed archaeologists, which

38:01

is not how this is supposed to go. And

38:04

the federal authorities found a barn on

38:06

their farm full of,

38:08

you know, not just like ancient

38:11

relics that had been removed from places all over

38:13

the world, skulls, like

38:16

these people had convinced themselves they were doing

38:18

archaeology, but this is actual grave robbers

38:21

and this

38:22

is still happening

38:25

all over. Then you

38:27

think back and you go, there's also this whole culture

38:30

of, I want

38:32

to know from you about the history of the field too,

38:34

because even within recent human

38:36

history, there was

38:39

archaeology but

38:42

not really archaeology that would be, PT

38:45

Barnum has a traveling sideshow and

38:47

you can also see, you know,

38:50

and a lot of times it was,

38:52

it was indigenous

38:54

people, right? Like you can come see a Native American

38:57

skeleton and you can pay a quarter to see

38:59

it. And even places where

39:02

it gets real sad, where it'll be like, oh, you can

39:04

pull over in the middle

39:06

of this

39:08

highway in Oklahoma and

39:10

you can see the world's third biggest ball of

39:13

yarn and also

39:16

Roman war helmet from the

39:19

Julius Caesar era and all of

39:21

this of questionable lineage

39:24

and authenticity. So

39:27

I want to ask you your opinions on that, how prevalent

39:29

that still is and when archaeology

39:32

solidified

39:34

into being not

39:36

that, because it seems

39:39

like it was pretty

39:41

Wild West, you might say, up until pretty

39:44

recently as a field. Yeah.

39:47

Yeah. And I mean, I'll

39:49

say it definitely is still going on. Obviously

39:52

that article is proof of that. I haven't actually

39:54

heard of that story. So I'm going to have to look

39:56

that up. But I mean,

39:58

looting still happens all over. the

40:00

world.

40:02

People don't always realize the laws

40:04

that are in place. Yeah,

40:06

it definitely still happens. I mean the

40:08

early history of archaeology,

40:10

people kind of joke that they were looters

40:13

themselves, grave robbers. I mean it was true

40:16

for a long time. I think the example

40:18

that

40:18

Greek archaeologists always think about is the

40:22

man who found the site of Troy

40:25

and a bunch of other ancient Greek sites.

40:28

He wasn't really trained

40:31

archaeologist or wasn't really that

40:33

science yet. No one had sort of solidified

40:35

that as a field and so he

40:38

did a service to everyone by

40:40

finding these sites but just

40:42

wanting to find the treasures and

40:45

the objects

40:45

behind these stories that he'd

40:47

heard, he just dug holes

40:50

down to get the objects, pulled them up and

40:52

brought them home. So he recorded

40:55

some things but

40:58

it wasn't to the standards of today by

41:01

any means and he famously used dynamite

41:03

to get down to the levels of Troy that

41:06

he thought were part of the story.

41:08

I guess I should explain that Troy

41:10

people might know from the Trojan War story,

41:13

the Trojan Horse. Basically

41:15

we have these myths written down

41:17

in the Iliad in the Odyssey and

41:19

he'd read these and thought that

41:21

they had to be true and so he took

41:24

these stories and

41:25

found a place in Turkey that

41:27

he thought

41:28

could be the actual

41:29

site of Troy and turned that he seems

41:32

to have been correct. So that's

41:34

been amazing. He has found these ancient sites

41:36

for us, were able to

41:37

learn more from them now but

41:40

in order to get what he wanted out of them

41:43

he took explosives

41:45

and dug down to the levels

41:47

that he thought were the proper

41:49

levels, turns out they actually weren't

41:51

but anyways, and extracted

41:53

the gold and brought that back home.

41:56

So very problematic today. We

41:59

do have to give them some

41:59

credit for finding them

42:02

and being interested in this subject.

42:04

But the methods by which he did

42:06

this are not proper.

42:10

And then that sort of continued. The

42:12

early history of archaeology,

42:14

there were lots of people who just sat in on world

42:17

tours and

42:20

wanted to find cool things and bring them

42:22

back home. Famously, the Elgin

42:24

marbles, which are the sculptures

42:27

from the side of the Parthenon

42:28

in Athens, were literally

42:31

chiseled off and taken back

42:33

to the British Museum. I mean, originally somewhere

42:35

else, but they are now in the British Museum. And they're still

42:37

there. So that's a very controversial

42:39

thing. There's lots of artifacts like that that

42:42

are in museums now because of this colonial

42:44

history. And where

42:46

should they be? Where's the rightful place? So

42:49

that's a whole area of

42:51

discussion. And then there

42:53

are people who, like you're

42:55

talking about, will go into the backyards

42:57

or go into fields and dig illegally.

43:00

In the United States and

43:03

in Canada,

43:05

I mean, the biggest issue

43:08

with that, obviously lots of issues with that. But

43:10

the thing that is so heartbreaking

43:13

is that we have a lot of laws in place to

43:15

protect the indigenous tribes and their

43:18

culture and their material culture and

43:20

their graves. And

43:22

people who are totally disrespecting that are

43:24

not only disrespecting the science of archaeology,

43:27

but also these

43:27

people's sacred spirituality

43:32

and their history. And they're

43:34

taking that from them. So there are

43:37

a lot of laws in place to protect that.

43:39

But people who don't listen to that

43:42

and, I guess, risk the

43:44

charges against them by

43:47

doing that are,

43:48

yeah, it's wrong on so many different

43:50

levels. So it definitely does

43:52

still happen. There's a lot of organizations

43:55

trying to stop it or educate people. I

43:58

do get the sense that some people don't realize.

44:00

why it's wrong to do that. And

44:02

aside from the

44:04

cultural aspect and the spirituality,

44:07

the connection that some people have with

44:10

objects and with, I mean,

44:12

human remains are a totally kind of other

44:14

story. It

44:17

kind of goes beyond that, but even just sacred

44:19

objects,

44:21

aside from that, which is so, so, so

44:23

important,

44:24

digging out of the ground without recording

44:26

is also removing that object

44:29

from context. And that means that we can no longer

44:31

learn what that

44:33

object meant in the ground. So when we're digging

44:36

something up, we're looking at where

44:38

it was, what's next to it, what

44:40

scientific techniques we might be able

44:42

to apply to it, how

44:45

this is in connection with the rest of the site. And

44:48

if you're removing the object from that context,

44:50

then there's no

44:51

way to put it back and no way to learn all

44:53

those things. So we're

44:56

losing

44:56

a lot of knowledge and also totally

44:59

disrespecting the people whose past

45:01

that that is. Does that make

45:03

sense and answer your question a little bit?

45:04

It does super thoroughly,

45:07

thank you. And yeah,

45:10

hearing about the whole idea of lost

45:12

context

45:14

is huge,

45:16

right? Like on the whole

45:18

level of grave robbing, especially,

45:21

you mentioned

45:23

the British Museum. The British Museum, I've

45:25

read enough to know Britain

45:28

famously in recent centuries,

45:32

like colonizer and in

45:34

some cultures viewed as a brutal colonizer.

45:37

And there are a lot of countries that have said like, hey,

45:40

be really nice if you gave us our stuff back because

45:42

you kind of just took it. And that is

45:45

a

45:46

huge issue. And

45:48

the British Museum, I think is like probably

45:51

the most famous representative of that. Thinking

45:53

about when people mess with graves, you

45:55

mentioned like that's a whole other thing.

45:58

And I think the issue. is when

46:01

people go, oh, I'm gonna go dig up a native

46:04

grave, oh, I have a skull, you

46:07

are inherently making

46:10

a weird game for

46:12

yourself in a way that dehumanizes

46:15

someone else. Like living indigenous

46:18

people who might wanna visit their ancestors'

46:20

graves now can't because you have now said that

46:23

your priority as a treasure

46:25

hunter overrides their priority

46:28

as a human being who wants to grieve

46:30

or celebrate their lineage and

46:32

disrespects the value of that lineage. But

46:35

hearing that even on a more basic level, hey,

46:38

it's cool you might have found something

46:42

that might seem as simple as like an

46:44

old drinking glass

46:47

and you wanna take it home and polish it up, but

46:51

now the person who's gonna get there and do it the right

46:53

way doesn't have a piece of the puzzle

46:56

and might not be able to solve

46:59

the puzzle, so to speak, of what this place

47:01

was because you took a piece

47:03

of the puzzle. They might get to that frustrating

47:06

moment at the end of the jigsaw puzzle where they realize,

47:09

oh man, whoever put this away

47:11

last time didn't put the last three pieces in

47:13

the box and now we can't

47:16

see the whole picture. That's, it's

47:19

pretty terrifying. Yeah,

47:22

yeah, totally. And it is when it accumulates,

47:25

it can be a huge problem.

47:27

I would encourage everyone to look up if

47:29

you haven't already seen images from Syria

47:33

specifically, but also Iraq and Iran

47:35

has this issue. With

47:37

the recent Syrian

47:38

war, there was a lot of looting and

47:41

there are images from aerial photography

47:43

that show archeological sites, just

47:46

pockmarked with holes where

47:48

looters have gone in and just dug

47:51

a hole, taken the artifacts out

47:53

and

47:54

basically give those artifacts to people

47:56

who sell them on the black market.

47:59

that might not seem like a lot,

48:02

but these holes all

48:04

across the site. I mean, we've just lost

48:06

so, so much from the

48:09

problem of looting.

48:10

And it's a complex issue too,

48:12

because it's not... It's

48:15

hard to blame the looter themselves.

48:17

A lot of the issues around the

48:20

wars in the Middle East in the last little while have

48:22

been people who need income.

48:26

And the way they're making their income is to

48:28

go out and find some antiquities

48:30

and solve them. And they need that for their

48:32

families and to survive. So it's

48:35

a larger

48:36

issue about how people

48:38

are making a living and war and

48:42

social policies.

48:44

So it's complicated, it really is. But

48:46

just to think about

48:47

the amount of knowledge that we've lost from

48:50

people doing what they think

48:52

are small looting things or people

48:55

will never miss this little bit that we're taking

48:57

from

48:58

such a big site. Well, it adds up after

49:00

all these people contribute to it. And

49:04

that's not to say it doesn't happen in other countries as well.

49:06

Obviously, this happens

49:07

everywhere. But it's just we've had

49:09

these images from the past few

49:11

years from Syria and Iraq

49:13

that are just heartbreaking. Right.

49:16

Right. That when you destabilize a place

49:18

and a people, you create desperate times

49:21

and people start participating in desperate measures

49:23

to survive.

49:24

Yeah. Wow. It also makes

49:27

me realize I brought him up before.

49:31

But I think the most famous pop

49:34

culture archaeologist is Indiana Jones.

49:37

You know, some of the famous quotes, it belongs

49:39

in a museum as he's like chasing these

49:42

looters exactly from spots. But

49:45

I'm also thinking back just my cursory

49:48

images of the Indiana Jones movies.

49:50

And it's a silly thing to say because look, he's a fictional

49:52

character. Indiana Jones is a terrible

49:54

archaeologist,

49:56

just based on what you've told me in the first half

49:58

hour of this call. The amount of things

50:01

I saw explode or tip over

50:04

in his archaeological, I mean he dropped, spoiler

50:07

alert, end of last crusade,

50:09

the holy grail itself has dropped

50:11

deep into a crevasse. That's

50:13

the definition of horrific

50:16

archeologizing.

50:18

You don't want to drop the holy grail into

50:20

a canyon. You

50:22

don't want to go underneath Venice and to

50:25

a chamber where you find a

50:27

bunch of grave sites of former

50:30

crusaders with their helmets,

50:32

swords and shields and

50:34

have it explode because it fills with

50:36

gas and rats.

50:38

That's bad archeology. Yes, yeah. He's

50:41

maybe the worst archeologist ever.

50:47

Boom. Nailed you fictional

50:49

character Indiana Jones. You're

50:53

bad archeologist. Finally

50:56

I'm saying what we've all been thinking for decades.

50:59

Now let's have some ads.

51:05

Thank you so much to our advertisers. Now

51:07

let's finish off the phone call. That's

51:13

bad archeology. Yes, yeah. He's

51:15

maybe the worst archeologist ever.

51:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I

51:21

would agree with that. Yeah, weirdly

51:23

archeologists still tend to love those movies other

51:25

than the shall not be named

51:27

fourth movie. That one we tend

51:29

to forget about.

51:29

But the other ones we do like,

51:32

but

51:32

I think with the very large caveats

51:34

that that's not real, the

51:36

real science of archeology. It's

51:38

just adventure. As I think about

51:41

Indiana Jones in the context of everything

51:43

you've told me,

51:44

the idea that any institution

51:46

of higher learning would let that man try to

51:49

teach the skills of what he is.

51:52

He would never be a tenured professor behaving

51:55

like that. He'd never get tenure. Yeah,

51:57

no, no,

51:58

no. And I think he's.

51:59

supposed to be. You know, there's scenes in

52:02

this classroom

52:02

teaching students, teaching classes.

52:05

People flitting with them right there in the class. A

52:08

lot of problematic things about academia and

52:10

archaeology. Totally. Very

52:13

problematic. Yeah.

52:15

Not great. But yeah, that's one

52:17

that archaeologists hold

52:18

on to. It is fun to look

52:21

at movies

52:21

and pop culture and dissect

52:25

what has gone wrong and what is historically inaccurate.

52:27

You know, we've had lots of in my time

52:30

in universities, like movie nights to

52:32

talk about, to watch Gladiator and talk

52:34

about it or Tomb Raider or something. And

52:36

some are better than others. But I

52:39

always think it's an interesting, interesting

52:40

look at the field and also

52:43

like relevant because I

52:45

took a few film studies classes as well

52:47

in the school. I always loved that.

52:49

It sort of maintained my side love of film.

52:51

And they actually

52:53

have done studies that enrollment

52:56

in programs in archaeology increased

52:57

after the lease

53:00

of Indiana Jones. Programs of medieval

53:03

studies, enrollment increased after Lord

53:05

of the Rings. Like there, there's actual

53:07

direct ties to these fields from

53:09

pop culture. And that's not to say that they

53:12

are obviously

53:12

good representations

53:14

of the field, but they definitely affect

53:16

people. So, you know, we have to

53:18

take them somewhat seriously in how we

53:21

discuss them. Absolutely. Andrea,

53:23

who produces the show

53:25

and has a background in academia, did just leave

53:27

me a note in our shared document pointing

53:29

out Indiana Jones could only behave the

53:31

way he did after he already got tenure.

53:34

So that is good too.

53:35

That is actually true. Yes. Andrea

53:39

obviously knows what she's talking about. You don't,

53:41

you don't start blowing up Crusader

53:43

graves. Yes. Once you get tenure, that's

53:46

when you feel the freedom to just

53:48

literally blow up a bunch of graves

53:50

of some old Crusaders. You

53:53

don't do that. You don't take that risk pre tenure.

53:56

No way. If you're still adjunct, you're

53:58

not, you're not risking that.

53:59

You're not risking that. Oh,

54:02

no Not risking much of anything,

54:04

but I do love what you're saying Like I have to imagine

54:07

as an archaeologist that when

54:09

a good Indiana Jones movie comes

54:11

out You might get an uptick

54:13

of kids who are interested and you might get an uptick

54:16

of kids who are taking classes when they hit

54:18

the college Level and that that's a good

54:20

thing and I have to imagine Jurassic

54:22

Park Helped paleontologists

54:24

feel pretty cool and might have helped send

54:27

some money their way and some grants and some

54:29

interest and That tie between

54:31

pop culture and what you guys do has has

54:33

its ups and its downs. I'm sure

54:36

Totally yeah, it is definitely related

54:39

and I remember one of my professors asking one

54:41

of our classes in my undergrad How

54:44

many

54:44

of you are here because of the

54:45

Indiana Jones and I would say it was almost half

54:48

like 40 45 percent of people Raise

54:50

their hands really really interesting

54:52

that that yeah, I know

54:55

It's pretty cool. It's pretty

54:57

cool. Yeah So

55:01

yeah, it's a fascinating field

55:03

of lots of different areas well,

55:06

I want to talk about the fascinating side of it because

55:08

Here's what I want you to be able to speak to

55:11

that. I can't quite wrap my head around That

55:14

I understand. Well, no, it's the

55:17

passion of it of someone who would go into

55:19

it professionally and keep returning to Crete Because

55:22

there's something so cool about it. There's something

55:24

undeniably cool about the fact that you do

55:26

that.

55:27

It's also I

55:30

say this non judgmentally and as someone who

55:32

lives a very weird life myself It's a weird life

55:35

right to sign up for of like every oh,

55:37

yeah every once in a while I'm gonna uproot

55:39

myself go to a small

55:41

Grecian Island and dig up clay

55:43

tablets with a language on it that no one understands

55:46

like this is specific and somewhat

55:48

odd choice by many

55:50

people standards, but

55:53

Yeah, there's a broad question that sounds

55:55

silly But I ask

55:57

it genuinely We all

56:00

know that we can go to museums and

56:02

see things that archaeologists have uncovered.

56:05

I know that I was young, I went

56:07

to Pompeii and I saw,

56:10

right? This

56:12

has to be one of the most famous spots. And

56:14

you can see the sensationalistic

56:17

things obviously of the, you

56:19

know, the casts of bodies that were,

56:21

you know, recovered

56:24

in that interesting way. Not the bodies themselves, the

56:27

negative space where bodies were

56:29

covered that were then filled with material

56:32

to replicate the bodies. Then you also

56:34

start to see, I'll never forget, I went,

56:36

I was 17 when I went and

56:38

the tour guide took great glee and

56:40

pointing out to us. And, you

56:42

know, so Pompeii was a place

56:45

where a lot of sailors congregated and they spoke different

56:47

languages. So when they were looking for companions,

56:51

they had to follow signs and if you see the penises

56:54

carved into the sidewalks, those are pointing towards where

56:56

brothels used to be because everyone

56:58

understood what that meant.

57:00

You start to see this stuff. So we

57:02

can all see museums, we can all visit

57:04

places like your Pompeii

57:07

and pyramids and Aztec

57:10

and South American things.

57:12

But outside

57:15

of just going, hey, we found this and now you can

57:17

look at it. Why do

57:19

you as an archaeologist think that

57:22

archaeology is important to the human experience?

57:28

Oh, I love that. Yeah,

57:31

I mean, really, archaeology, the heart

57:33

of it is

57:34

people's stories. I mean, it's probably

57:37

why I love this podcast. I

57:39

think storytelling is

57:41

the most important form of

57:43

empathy. I think it's the way we understand

57:45

and live in another person's shoes.

57:48

And humans are humans when they lived.

57:50

So even though there are these big historical

57:53

differences,

57:54

obviously, we're very removed

57:56

in time from the people we're digging up, at

57:58

least in Crete. we're talking three, four

58:01

thousand years,

58:02

they were still human beings. And there's

58:04

a lot of similarities in

58:06

that human experience that we can try

58:08

to uncover. So they still have families, they

58:10

still have government, they still interact

58:13

with the natural world. And how

58:15

did that is what we're studying. And

58:18

I think it's an important thing to

58:19

learn about how other people live

58:22

and how other people understand the

58:24

same

58:24

planet that we all share, even

58:27

though we're living it at different times.

58:30

So I think it's just like, I think

58:32

travel is important. I think reading is important.

58:35

You know, understanding another

58:37

person's human experience, archaeology is another way

58:40

to do that. And sometimes it's easier

58:42

than others to get into that headspace.

58:45

I mean, if you're looking at an

58:47

undeciphered piece of tablet,

58:50

it's a little more

58:50

obscure than, you know, I've

58:53

looked at some pieces of pottery that have

58:56

a fingerprint on them. And I just

58:58

think that's like magic. That is so

59:00

cool. That's a person who lived 4,000 years

59:02

ago and their

59:03

thumbprint is still in the clay. So

59:06

that's

59:07

what I try and sort

59:09

of keep

59:10

in mind when I do archaeological

59:11

work that why am I doing this? Well,

59:14

to share human stories with humans

59:16

today, to make our lives better

59:18

and to make the world better.

59:20

It's easy to get bogged

59:22

down in the details, I will say. So I try and

59:25

remind myself of that aspect from

59:27

time to time.

59:29

But I think it's also

59:30

why we should remember to

59:32

share archaeology and share what we learn

59:34

with the public because it's not just for the

59:36

little academic community, but

59:39

for people, people to learn

59:41

about people. Are there hearing

59:44

about the thumbprint?

59:47

I imagine that that might be a strangely

59:49

emotional experience in a way.

59:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

59:54

it definitely is. I mean, it doesn't happen all that

59:56

often, but when things like that do, yeah, I find it.

59:59

to be for sure.

1:00:01

Are there other things like I would imagine

1:00:03

as a parent, there

1:00:06

might be something where you go to your

1:00:08

digging in Crete and

1:00:11

there might be something where you dig up

1:00:15

a 4,000 year old baby rattle and go oh babies

1:00:17

have human babies

1:00:19

respond to this sound and they have for millennia.

1:00:23

Can you think of any other specific things where

1:00:25

you found yourself almost emotional

1:00:29

or taken aback or smirking

1:00:33

at the consistency of humanity

1:00:35

over time? This might be an unfair

1:00:37

question to throw at you.

1:00:40

No, no I like it. Yeah

1:00:42

I mean it's interesting I haven't actually been

1:00:44

to Greece since like

1:00:46

in the field really since having my son

1:00:48

so that will be really interesting. I'll say here

1:00:50

in Alaska so my husband

1:00:53

works at this national

1:00:55

park as the archaeologist and there's

1:00:57

a cemetery

1:00:58

here from that has

1:01:00

graves going back about 150 years and I was

1:01:03

walking around it with a friend recently and

1:01:06

looking at the graves of like two,

1:01:08

three, four year olds who died which was you

1:01:10

know so common back then and I did

1:01:13

find myself getting choked up and I thought

1:01:15

oh my gosh what has happened to

1:01:16

me? What didn't have happened

1:01:19

earlier you know it would have just been history

1:01:21

and that's it but having the connection

1:01:23

to a kid is really

1:01:25

yeah it's a different thing. I

1:01:28

will say that my PhD

1:01:31

actually is I mean yeah anyone

1:01:33

who knows me will know this is me but whatever

1:01:35

my PhD is on miniatures

1:01:37

and miniaturization because

1:01:40

miniature objects are quite common in

1:01:42

the Minoan world and no one

1:01:44

is really you know we've tried

1:01:47

to understand why but I tried to look

1:01:49

at a

1:01:49

comprehensive look at

1:01:52

miniaturization why people do it and why the

1:01:54

Minoans might have done it in their specific context

1:01:58

and some of them do seem to be very different.

1:01:59

could be for children. And this is something

1:02:02

that different cultures

1:02:04

around the

1:02:04

world do. Now, I will

1:02:06

say not all of them, and that's a big point

1:02:09

of my research was that we can't

1:02:10

just look at a miniature and say, ooh,

1:02:12

the child. It actually seems to have been a spiritual

1:02:16

practice in many cases. But

1:02:18

there are miniatures, in Crete

1:02:21

and other cultures around the world, that

1:02:23

are like toys for kids

1:02:25

or learning objects.

1:02:27

So here's a miniature tool. Well,

1:02:30

mommy and daddy are using the real tool. You can

1:02:32

have a miniature one and learn how to do this.

1:02:35

And

1:02:35

I find that really interesting because we

1:02:37

do the same thing. Kitchen sets

1:02:40

and tiny little lawn

1:02:42

mowers and toys are

1:02:45

also learning

1:02:46

items. And we don't always think

1:02:48

about it like that. But a child's experience

1:02:51

interacting with objects is

1:02:54

at a small scale.

1:02:55

I just

1:02:58

got weirdly choked up because sometimes

1:03:00

I mow the lawn and Cal follows me around with

1:03:02

his little mini lawn mower.

1:03:05

Oh, that's so cute. I didn't

1:03:07

know that. That's amazing. Hearing that the Minoans,

1:03:10

who I have to imagine the Minotaur was named

1:03:12

for, they were doing that too. Now,

1:03:16

here's where I'm an artist and I have

1:03:20

this dumb brain that

1:03:22

would never allow me to be focused enough

1:03:24

to be an archaeologist.

1:03:26

Is that when you were like, so the Minoans had a lot

1:03:28

of miniatures.

1:03:29

My initial thought was, were

1:03:32

they small?

1:03:34

Maybe they were just all small. That

1:03:37

was my initial thought. That's why I'm

1:03:40

dumb. That's why I'm dumb.

1:03:43

And no, of

1:03:44

course, not at all. Not dumb at all. Or

1:03:47

a dreamer. I'm not dumb, but I'm a

1:03:49

dreamer. Yeah, it's very imaginative. Did

1:03:52

you ever think about maybe an acree? Everybody

1:03:54

was three feet tall?

1:03:55

Ever think about that? As

1:03:58

if you haven't thought about that. really,

1:04:00

that would be a very interesting revelation,

1:04:03

but no, fortunately we have.

1:04:05

If on the phone right now you were like, holy

1:04:08

shit, hold on, I gotta

1:04:10

call some people because we've never

1:04:12

once even looked at their bones.

1:04:15

Totally, I gotta rewrite my PhD

1:04:17

dissertation, it's all wrong.

1:04:20

Turns out they was all little.

1:04:23

Okay, so

1:04:25

some people say, you know, in the past people were a bit smaller,

1:04:27

that is true, but we're talking like sometimes

1:04:30

these miniatures are an inch

1:04:32

tall, like teeny,

1:04:33

teeny, tiny

1:04:35

like dull

1:04:36

miniature objects. As you explained,

1:04:39

I understood how dumb

1:04:41

my thought was and knew I had to share

1:04:44

it as comedy because

1:04:46

my immediate thought of maybe the

1:04:48

people had many stuff because they were many

1:04:50

people was so ludicrous

1:04:53

that I only could say it out loud as

1:04:56

a joke, but it's a thing I really thought.

1:04:59

No, no, it's not, it's legit

1:05:01

and I'm sure people have thought it and I

1:05:03

mean, it's got to take it into account, I

1:05:06

suppose, but fortunately we do

1:05:08

have some human remains. It's

1:05:12

interesting that it's so long

1:05:14

ago that they don't always

1:05:16

preserve super

1:05:16

well and also there's periods of time

1:05:19

where we don't actually know where they were burying their dead.

1:05:22

We haven't found graves

1:05:23

per se, so it's a bit of a mixed

1:05:26

bag, but

1:05:27

we have some. So we could say that their bones

1:05:29

are not smaller

1:05:33

than the average human. Also to

1:05:35

my credit, there is, I believe,

1:05:37

have been bones found of human

1:05:41

related ancestors dating back

1:05:43

like pre-neandertal who were smaller

1:05:46

skeleton

1:05:47

creatures along the way who did go extinct,

1:05:51

I believe. This is a true fact. Before

1:05:53

I just feel like a total dummy, there

1:05:56

have been civilizations of

1:05:59

smaller.

1:06:00

non-homosapien creatures but

1:06:03

different branches of the homosapien family

1:06:06

tree that died out along the way, right?

1:06:09

Yes, yes. No,

1:06:11

you're not totally out of left field,

1:06:13

you're correct.

1:06:14

But you know, 3,000 years, it's funny because

1:06:17

three or four

1:06:17

thousand years sounds like a really long time to us and

1:06:19

I mean it is but also in the

1:06:21

grand scheme of human evolution, it's nothing. So

1:06:24

yeah, they weren't, you know,

1:06:26

tiny, tiny people but they

1:06:30

might have been a bit smaller than us. We don't even.

1:06:32

You're being so kind, you're being

1:06:34

so kind by even saying that. We don't need

1:06:36

to pretend I said anything.

1:06:42

Go for it. Well, I was

1:06:44

gonna ask one question that comes to

1:06:47

my mind too is, you maybe

1:06:51

think of, you know, outside

1:06:53

of Indiana Jones, a lot of people

1:06:55

might think of archaeology and they might think of like, okay,

1:06:58

this is really

1:07:00

academic and nerdy on some level and you've

1:07:02

made it clear there's a lot of paperwork. I'm

1:07:04

sure it is those things

1:07:07

but it sometimes suggests

1:07:09

the image of these people who only think about the

1:07:11

past but I have to imagine that there's

1:07:13

people out there either as a rule

1:07:16

in archaeology or some people

1:07:18

in archaeology who think this way who

1:07:20

go, well, the reason to study the past

1:07:22

is to learn about the present and the future

1:07:25

and I wonder if there's anything that either you've

1:07:27

seen or you've read amongst peers

1:07:30

where you go, oh, you can actually look at this and realize

1:07:32

like

1:07:33

there's something that someone found that was

1:07:36

seven thousand years old that's

1:07:38

an actually interesting thought about how we're screwing

1:07:40

things up today or we're

1:07:42

making the same mistakes that this other culture

1:07:45

made and they, you

1:07:47

know, that place doesn't exist anymore for a reason

1:07:50

and it

1:07:50

would be cool if we were all a little more aware

1:07:53

of why that. I wonder if there's any cautionary

1:07:55

tales or any lessons

1:07:57

about the present or the future that you

1:07:59

you've come across that we

1:08:02

all might not know as non-archaeologists?

1:08:06

Oh, that is a really good question. I feel

1:08:08

like I would have to really think on that to

1:08:10

come up with something

1:08:12

really good and poignant.

1:08:14

But I will say that a number of

1:08:16

years ago, a scholar sort

1:08:19

of in the field of, we call it the Bronze

1:08:20

Age in the Mediterranean, this era

1:08:23

that I work in, wrote

1:08:25

about, I think it was actually like

1:08:27

an op-ed piece in the New York Times on

1:08:30

climate change and how the

1:08:32

end of the Bronze Age, there's

1:08:35

debate about what caused it, and there's probably

1:08:37

a bunch of factors.

1:08:38

But one of them was

1:08:41

probably climate change that brought

1:08:43

the Bronze Age to this sort of

1:08:44

end or transition period.

1:08:47

And he sort of wrote about the warning

1:08:49

signs that we should be paying more attention

1:08:52

to and what we could sort

1:08:54

of expect in terms of like a systems

1:08:56

collapse if

1:08:58

we go ahead with ignoring everything. And

1:09:01

again, it's been a while since I sort of read that

1:09:04

or

1:09:05

taken a dive into that subject

1:09:07

area. So I don't want

1:09:08

to speak to all the details, but I'm sure

1:09:10

you could still look it up and find this

1:09:12

article. And then there was also a book written

1:09:14

about the end of the Bronze Age by the scholar.

1:09:17

And

1:09:19

yeah, climate change is definitely an interesting

1:09:21

one, especially because now it's so

1:09:23

much so obviously a human

1:09:25

led climate change, whereas in the past

1:09:27

it seems to have more been fluctuations

1:09:30

in the earth. But the fact that

1:09:32

it is human driven and so drastic

1:09:35

means that future

1:09:37

changes could

1:09:39

be even more extreme. And that's

1:09:41

a lot scarier. So

1:09:43

that's definitely something that archaeologists sort

1:09:45

of consider when studying

1:09:47

the past.

1:09:49

And then also

1:09:52

shifts of power, sort of government

1:09:54

relation. Oh, so there's,

1:09:57

okay, there's this case in the late

1:09:59

Bronze Age where

1:09:59

A lot of people think of these

1:10:02

cultures as very independent. So

1:10:04

there was Crete and there was the

1:10:06

Mycenaeans was sort of a later

1:10:09

Greek culture, the

1:10:10

Egyptians, the Acadians, and

1:10:13

a lot of people just think of them as like silos,

1:10:15

but they were interacting with each other. And

1:10:17

there was actually a very large trading network around

1:10:20

the Mediterranean, you know,

1:10:22

more than 3000 years ago. And we actually

1:10:24

have, archaeologists

1:10:27

have uncovered these tablets in Egypt that

1:10:30

are

1:10:30

letters written from king

1:10:32

to king or leader to leader

1:10:35

within this Mediterranean network. And

1:10:37

it is really cool to go read them. They're

1:10:40

called the Amarna tablets. So

1:10:42

you can always Google and read some of the translations.

1:10:45

And sometimes they're just so funny. Like a

1:10:48

king will say,

1:10:49

how could you give me only

1:10:51

that

1:10:51

amount of grain when you have

1:10:54

gold in abundance? And

1:10:57

they're using like ridiculous numbers

1:10:59

to kind of exaggerate it. And

1:11:01

they're mad that they didn't get more stuff

1:11:04

from that king. So it's just

1:11:06

sort of reminiscent of

1:11:08

trading today and countries

1:11:11

and leaders and politics and some

1:11:13

things just never really change.

1:11:15

So it's amazing that we have those

1:11:17

tablets preserved and can actually read. We

1:11:20

can read those ones. We understand

1:11:22

what they say. Yeah,

1:11:25

it's, I've already looked up

1:11:27

the Amarna letters and

1:11:29

you can find a lot of

1:11:31

stuff on them. And I look forward

1:11:34

to reading more. Hearing too, like

1:11:37

when you find a site where you

1:11:39

go, there's a whole city that was abandoned.

1:11:42

And then you think about the fact that there are a lot

1:11:44

of cities on

1:11:46

earth as old as those cities

1:11:48

that were not abandoned. Right?

1:11:51

Like that, it's very interesting to think you say 4,000 years

1:11:56

and I go, Oh, wow. Yeah, that's your wiping

1:11:59

dust off in the day. desert, but then there's

1:12:02

cities all over the world that are 4000 years old that

1:12:05

are still functioning places where people are waking

1:12:07

up every morning. Oh yeah. And going to work and

1:12:10

you're studying places that are contemporary like

1:12:12

you're finding sites in Crete,

1:12:15

but

1:12:17

Cairo, I'm sure is 4000 years old and Athens is still

1:12:21

up and running and that's way older than that

1:12:23

and all over the globe. And I sit

1:12:25

here and go, Oh, something happened.

1:12:27

And here's what happened is

1:12:29

war happened or disease happened or

1:12:32

they couldn't get enough water and food to

1:12:34

this place. And people went, I

1:12:37

got to get out of here. We need water and food.

1:12:39

Yeah, yeah, totally. The sort of abandonment

1:12:42

of site,

1:12:43

the interesting

1:12:44

topic of study and it changes

1:12:46

depending where you are, where in the world, what

1:12:48

time period, sort of at the

1:12:50

end of the Bronze Age, there's a movement

1:12:52

on Crete from settlements

1:12:54

closer to the coast in low land. And

1:12:56

then they move up into the mountains and

1:12:59

it's

1:12:59

pretty obviously we call them refuge settlements,

1:13:02

like there's pretty obviously threats from the

1:13:04

coast. So a lot of people have suggested invaders

1:13:07

of some kind or for whatever reason, the coast

1:13:09

is no longer safe and they go up into

1:13:12

these

1:13:12

refuge settlements. So that's like

1:13:14

a pretty, you know, small

1:13:16

in the grand scheme of things, small example,

1:13:18

but we see movement

1:13:20

of people like that. And this isn't

1:13:22

quite the same, but a natural disaster. Kind

1:13:24

of like when you were mentioning Pompeii, there's like Pompeii

1:13:27

of Greece is a site called Acroteri

1:13:29

and it's on the island of Santorini, which a lot of people

1:13:31

know Santorini, it's like

1:13:33

the blue roofs

1:13:35

with the white washed walls. Everyone

1:13:38

goes there on their cruises and things, but

1:13:40

there's

1:13:40

an actual archaeological site that not

1:13:42

many people know about called Acroteri where

1:13:45

the same thing happened, Santorini

1:13:48

was a volcano. And in

1:13:50

the Bronze Age, it erupted and

1:13:52

the ash covered Acroteri. So you can go

1:13:54

and visit this site that's very

1:13:57

well preserved because of the volcanic

1:13:59

ash.

1:13:59

But different from Pompeii is that

1:14:02

there are no bodies. We've never to this

1:14:04

point have never found human

1:14:06

remains. And so it seems like they

1:14:09

had warning signs and knew to get out

1:14:11

and knew to leave the island.

1:14:14

So unlike Pompeii, we have the dramatic casts

1:14:17

of people who are the victims

1:14:19

at Akrotiri. It's just

1:14:22

the preserved Bronze Age town. So I encourage

1:14:24

anyone who's going to Santorini to go check

1:14:26

at Akrotiri because it is amazing.

1:14:29

So that's an abandonment example that's a

1:14:31

natural disaster rather than sort of

1:14:34

social changes. And that's the storytelling

1:14:36

you were talking about. There's

1:14:38

a story you can piece together of like, oh, they got a warning

1:14:41

somehow and they got out. Yeah.

1:14:43

And that meant that there were totally that meant that there were

1:14:46

civic leaders and thinkers

1:14:48

and scientists

1:14:50

who had to start telling people, we got

1:14:52

to go. And there were probably people who resisted

1:14:54

it. They're probably people who lived here for generations

1:14:57

and then they left. And it's like

1:14:59

the place where you find abandoned

1:15:01

areas near the coast and then nearby

1:15:04

areas more in the highlands. And you realize,

1:15:06

oh, this was an agrarian society. And we

1:15:08

found no evidence of

1:15:09

fortifications or a military

1:15:12

presence. So if,

1:15:14

you know, invaders from across the Mediterranean

1:15:17

or

1:15:18

Vikings from Northern Europe showed up, they

1:15:21

didn't have the option to defend the city. So

1:15:23

they left it and they went to someplace

1:15:25

up in the mountains, which is a natural defense.

1:15:28

And they learned that defense was a priority. That's

1:15:31

storytelling. That's telling

1:15:33

the story of these people who lived three or four

1:15:35

thousand years ago. For

1:15:38

sure. Yeah. It's all just

1:15:40

stories told through objects, which is what I love.

1:15:43

Now, I want to write in the beginning, you

1:15:45

said something that fascinates me. I was surprised

1:15:48

to hear that there's not you said archeology

1:15:50

can be dealing with 50 years

1:15:51

ago. I'm very

1:15:54

shocked to hear that. I would have thought that there might be,

1:15:56

you know, almost like what

1:15:58

makes a song qualify as an old. Like how

1:16:00

old does it have to be before they play it on in

1:16:03

New York? CBS 101.1 FM Cousin

1:16:06

Brucie Bob Shannon, that's our nation. So 50

1:16:09

years ago. I'm like if you're studying things from 50 years

1:16:11

ago, I'm 43

1:16:12

Like

1:16:14

we're talking about there's photographs

1:16:17

of people 50 years ago. There's home

1:16:20

video footage is not too far away from

1:16:22

that So what makes it

1:16:24

how old does it have to be to qualify

1:16:26

as archaeology or what methodology? Allow

1:16:30

something for that reason right to

1:16:32

be considered archaeology

1:16:37

Right. Well, so there's a

1:16:39

whole other field called contemporary archaeology,

1:16:41

which is yeah the more recent history

1:16:44

or understanding more recent history through

1:16:46

Archaeological remains. I mean someone

1:16:49

who's in that field will probably have all

1:16:51

those details. I don't want to speak

1:16:52

too directly to it but

1:16:56

there are people

1:16:56

who are studying things as late as

1:16:59

that and Sometimes it's applying

1:17:02

archaeological techniques to

1:17:04

the material. So obviously we're not looking

1:17:06

at like abandoned cities

1:17:08

or things underground but applying

1:17:11

sort of the use of context and mapping

1:17:15

GPS things like that to

1:17:18

more recent objects and

1:17:21

I remember reading our cool ones about Someone

1:17:23

who was studying like an anthropologist who is studying

1:17:25

migratory patterns through

1:17:27

the United States and how like

1:17:30

refugees Would leave camps

1:17:32

along the way and sort of trying

1:17:34

to understand

1:17:36

people's migrations

1:17:38

Applying almost an archaeological

1:17:40

lens

1:17:41

to these very very recent

1:17:43

camps so it's

1:17:44

not archaeology in the the same

1:17:47

sense is like what we typically think

1:17:49

of but using the scientific

1:17:52

process to

1:17:54

uncover more but

1:17:56

then I mean some of the things

1:17:59

that are

1:17:59

Yeah, officially, archeology are

1:18:02

not that old. I mean, even here,

1:18:04

you know, my husband's often digging up things that are 100, 130

1:18:08

years old. And, you know,

1:18:10

that's a few generations is actually not that

1:18:14

that far. But a lot of it is

1:18:16

underground, just based on, like, abandoning

1:18:19

sites and then shifts in the environment,

1:18:21

soil, rivers change and soil

1:18:23

covers it. But because it

1:18:25

was so recent, we have photographs of

1:18:27

what was there. We have writing people

1:18:30

to count. We have people

1:18:31

who their grandparents

1:18:33

talked about it, you know. So that's

1:18:35

the very interesting thing about more

1:18:38

historical archaeology we call call

1:18:40

that historical archaeology is anything that we

1:18:43

have writing about we have the history

1:18:45

history is written text. So

1:18:47

we have the written text to support the archaeology.

1:18:50

And I'm sometimes very jealous from

1:18:54

the Minoans who we don't even understand the

1:18:57

language they wrote to

1:18:59

have people looking at archaeological

1:19:02

remains

1:19:02

that they can just compare to a photograph

1:19:04

and read the

1:19:07

accounts of the people who lived there. That is

1:19:09

so, so cool. So that's doing archaeology

1:19:11

in multiple different ways.

1:19:13

I love that. So

1:19:16

this is like, you know, a lot of us I've

1:19:18

had the experience where, you know, you're you're hiking

1:19:21

through some woods and

1:19:23

you find an old beer can and

1:19:25

you can still make out the logo and realize, oh, this

1:19:27

is a brand of beer that my grandfather

1:19:30

used to drink and they haven't made and they haven't made this

1:19:32

in 40 years. In some sense,

1:19:35

right, that can is an

1:19:37

archaeological find. If

1:19:39

you apply archaeological techniques to it. Mm

1:19:43

hmm. Yeah.

1:19:45

Yeah. And there's a lot of study

1:19:47

of everyday objects in historical archaeology.

1:19:50

Last year he was looking at glass

1:19:52

bottles

1:19:53

and sort of the change

1:19:55

in shapes of glass bottles, the brands,

1:19:58

the openings.

1:20:01

What's the theory in archaeology, which is the

1:20:03

series of something, how it changes over time,

1:20:06

the style. It would be like if you lined up Coke

1:20:08

bottles from when it was first invented

1:20:10

to today. Now we're talking. How does a Coke bottle

1:20:12

change? Now you're talking my language. There you

1:20:14

go. Your soda obsession.

1:20:15

Yeah. Or I

1:20:17

say pop, but I'm starting to say soda because

1:20:19

I feel like everyone hears this. Soda. I

1:20:22

know Toronto is a pop town. I understand. But

1:20:25

you do get into this. Exactly. It's where

1:20:27

you start to realize there's a whole

1:20:29

story there of certain bottles that are resealable

1:20:32

when you would take it to a soda fountain versus

1:20:34

when people started doing their shopping and bringing

1:20:37

everything home with them instead.

1:20:39

And when they start

1:20:41

getting put into cans, that's a reflection

1:20:43

of certain types of industries

1:20:45

coming up or certain types of material becoming

1:20:48

cheaper, certain machinery,

1:20:50

industrializing in certain ways. Tells

1:20:53

the whole story. Interesting. Yeah.

1:20:56

And because each shape

1:20:58

and change in a bottle will have a date

1:21:00

or a date range assigned to it. We

1:21:03

know when Coke changed their

1:21:05

shape to this or added this stamp

1:21:07

on it or something, then we're able to

1:21:09

better date that whole

1:21:11

layer of soil. So when you're digging and

1:21:13

you find objects all together in one

1:21:16

layer,

1:21:16

if you have a bottle that you can identify to

1:21:19

a certain, even decade or something, then

1:21:21

that's going to help you date that whole layer,

1:21:23

all the objects in it.

1:21:25

Well, our 60 minutes is up and

1:21:28

I'm shocked. Oh my goodness. I've

1:21:30

loved this. Yeah. We haven't

1:21:32

even gotten by. I have been. I

1:21:35

am chagrin that I never got to ask you how

1:21:37

you got together with another archaeologist

1:21:40

and that whole love story. But

1:21:42

maybe we'll be able to talk. It is a great story,

1:21:44

man. Oh, how are you going to tease us like

1:21:47

that? How are you going to

1:21:49

teach us to imagine to a short. We

1:21:51

met in Crete. So there you go. Two.

1:21:54

Here's the here's the tag. I was giving a speech at your

1:21:56

wedding to people.

1:21:59

spent so much time

1:22:01

obsessing over the past

1:22:03

only to look up from the dig, lock eyes, and

1:22:05

realize that maybe the present has

1:22:08

loved to offer. How's that sound?

1:22:11

Oh, that's beautiful. Beautiful. It's perfect.

1:22:13

What's the most, what's the most romantic

1:22:16

way to phrase it? Two people looking

1:22:18

down, brushing away the

1:22:20

dust under the hot Cretan sun, only

1:22:23

to look up and realize that the cooling salvation

1:22:26

they need was found in each other.

1:22:28

Oh, wow. And maybe the antiquities of

1:22:30

the past are nearly

1:22:33

as simmering and romantic as

1:22:36

the thrills of the present. Also,

1:22:39

amazing. Where do you even go on

1:22:42

a honeymoon when your job is already to just go

1:22:44

to cool places? How do you two even pick a cool honeymoon?

1:22:46

I need to know before I got

1:22:48

so we are. Well,

1:22:50

we haven't gone on a honeymoon

1:22:51

because we were a COVID wedding. So

1:22:53

we do laugh that, you know, someday we need to do

1:22:55

a honeymoon. And now you got the kid. And

1:22:58

now the kid, the kid, now we have the kid. Oh,

1:23:01

your kid is gonna go. Yeah, your kid's

1:23:03

gonna listen. I'm gonna say a phrase. Sorry,

1:23:05

Sally on this one. I've tried to clear my language on the show,

1:23:07

but we're gonna, your kid is gonna cock

1:23:10

block your honeymoon.

1:23:14

Well, we've laughed that

1:23:16

way. We should wait a few years until he's old enough

1:23:18

to drop with the grandparents or something.

1:23:20

And then we can just go the two of us.

1:23:22

I think that's probably we'll

1:23:24

go on vacations with him, but then actually

1:23:27

a honeymoon just the two of us. Yeah. And

1:23:29

we have a lack that it can't be anywhere with archaeology

1:23:31

because we will just want to work. So our plan

1:23:33

was Ireland.

1:23:35

But that was foiled by COVID. So Lord

1:23:37

knows there's no no ancient civilization.

1:23:40

You two are gonna sit here and start digging

1:23:43

up old Celtic axe

1:23:45

heads. And then you're gonna be like, why focus

1:23:47

on the Celts when we could also just do a deep dive

1:23:49

into the pics. You know about the pics.

1:23:52

I know.

1:23:53

I know. Yes, I do. I know. It's a little

1:23:55

dangerous. We want no place with archaeology.

1:23:57

So we're picking Ireland What

1:24:01

are you talking about?

1:24:04

It's mostly that we don't, we're not, we

1:24:06

don't dig Irish stuff, so we

1:24:08

won't be as tempted to like go visit friends.

1:24:11

Whereas if we went to like Italy, we

1:24:13

have friends who dig in Italy

1:24:16

and then we'd have to like go visit their sites

1:24:18

and get wrapped up in like Roman

1:24:20

archaeology. But Ireland, we would go admire

1:24:22

it, but we wouldn't be as tempted to like stick

1:24:25

around and I've

1:24:26

ruined it. I've ruined it. You know that

1:24:28

I've ruined it. You're going to

1:24:30

turn to your husband and be like, on

1:24:32

the phone he mentioned that they don't just have Celts, they had

1:24:34

Picts too. And then you

1:24:36

were going to get your gears turned. If you want to go

1:24:39

to a place

1:24:40

with no culture where you won't

1:24:42

be distracted by a potential archaeology, may

1:24:44

I suggest Atlantic

1:24:46

City, New Jersey. This is the only place, the

1:24:49

only option. They knock it

1:24:51

down and pave it over and you go

1:24:53

digging in the sand. You're just going to find

1:24:56

like people's tears from

1:24:58

them gambling away their whole future.

1:25:00

Anyway, OK, listen,

1:25:02

this has been a great conversation. I feel so

1:25:05

lucky that we got to have it. And you've

1:25:08

shown me a lot of the joy in what you do. And

1:25:10

it's super, super cool. Thanks for the inside look.

1:25:13

Oh, that's awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks

1:25:15

for listening. And you've been on many digs with

1:25:17

me. I've listened to Beautiful Anonymous for many,

1:25:20

many, many years now. So I've listened

1:25:22

to many Beautiful Anonymous episodes. Yes,

1:25:24

love is everywhere. I was crying while

1:25:26

cataloging pottery. So, yes,

1:25:29

thank you for all you do. And

1:25:31

for this podcast, I'm so glad it'll continue

1:25:33

for more years to come. That's

1:25:36

so cool to hear that I have been

1:25:38

played in a Cretian archaeology

1:25:41

site. That's awesome. Oh,

1:25:43

yeah, definitely. Yes. Thank

1:25:45

you so much. Much love to you and the family

1:25:48

and the little one. And I hope you get back out

1:25:50

there soon. And thank you so much. Your

1:25:52

joy about this was infectious. Thank you. You too.

1:25:55

Oh, I'm so glad.

1:26:02

Caller, thank you so much for calling in and

1:26:04

filling us in on the wondrous world of archaeology.

1:26:07

As I said, a lot

1:26:09

to hear about. Who you are beyond just

1:26:11

this, I guess maybe we'll never know. Or

1:26:14

maybe you'll get through again someday. Or maybe

1:26:16

we'll do a follow up, but probably we'll never know.

1:26:19

That's the beauty of the show. Thank

1:26:21

you so much for calling. Thank you so much for

1:26:23

listening. Thank you to so many people out

1:26:25

there who have been expressing their support in

1:26:27

this new era of the show. I see you,

1:26:30

I hear you, it's giving me confidence

1:26:32

and I thank you so much for

1:26:34

it. Thank you to our producer, Andrea

1:26:37

Quinn. Thank you to Shell Shag who provides

1:26:39

our theme music. If you want to know more about me, including

1:26:41

the dates when I'm out there on the road, chrisgeth.com

1:26:44

has all the answers. And hey,

1:26:47

wherever you're listening, there's a button that says subscribe

1:26:50

or favorite or follow something along those lines.

1:26:52

If you hit that button, it helps the show more

1:26:54

than you know. So think about doing so. Most

1:26:57

importantly, if you like this show, let

1:26:59

people know about it. If you've got friends and they would

1:27:02

like it, say to them, hey, check

1:27:04

this episode out. I think you'd really like it. And

1:27:07

it helps so much. And especially now that we are independent

1:27:09

without the support of a network. Man, it's

1:27:12

the community, it's the word of mouth, it's

1:27:14

that sort of support that's going to make this thing thrive.

1:27:16

So thank you so much for all your help

1:27:19

with that. And enjoy the rest of your day.