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A Podcast Donnybrook with Tristan Boyle - Ep 94
425 Plays4 years ago
On this episode of A Life in Ruins Podcast, we talk to our arch-nemesis, co-founder of the Archaeology Podcast Network, and host of the Modern Myth Podcast Tristan Boyle. We start out talking about our terrible impersonations of him and talk about where he is from and where he currently lives in the UK. We then delve into his formative years and how he got into archaeology. Tristan then nerds out about heavy metals in hair samples. We then ask him to recall the APN origin story. Tristan then talks about Unarchaeology as a response to inaccessibility within archaeology as a discipline. He then talks about his favorite "Modern Myth" Podcast and we finish talking about the CRM career field and how it needs to change.
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Links
Literature Recommendations
- Vox Archaeo: Podcasting the Past by Tristan Boyle in Public Archaeology: Arts of Engagement
- Middens and Microphones: Podcasting as Digital Public Outreach in Archaeology by Tristan Boyle
Guest Contact
- Tristan's Instagram/Twitter: @anarchaeologist
Contact
- Email: alifeinruinspodcast@gmail.com
- Instagram: @alifeinruinspodcast
- Facebook: @alifeinruinspodcast
- Twitter: @alifeinruinspod
- Website: www.alifeinruins.com
- Ruins on APN: https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com/ruins
- Store: https://www.redbubble.com/people/alifeinruins/shop
ArchPodNet
- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
- APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet
- APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet
- Tee Public Store
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Anti-Irish Sentiment
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Hi guys, it's Tristan here, part of the APN, kind of in charge of the APN. You'd say, I do listen to these, you know, it's not like they go under the radar and the increasing anti-Irish sentiment on these podcasts have been flagged to my attention and that's why I'm giving you one last chance. I'm warning you, I don't want any more paddywhackery.
00:00:35
Speaker
Welcome to Episode 94 of a Life in Ruins podcast, where we investigate the careers of those living life in ruins. I am your host, Carlton Gover, and I am joined by my co-host, Connor Jahnen. Strider's gotten out and David's trying to, frankly, catch him running down the street in Nashville, Tennessee, so TBD. Today's guest is Tristan Boyle, co-founder of the Archaeology Podcast Network and host of the Modern Myth podcast. Tristan, thank you so much for joining us today. How are you doing?
00:01:01
Speaker
I'm doing really, really well and I can just say finally, finally I'm on, finally I'm here, finally I'm here to deal with some of the things that have been happening on the show. It's funny how your listeners might already know who I am or at least they know of me because I've heard that on this show my name comes up far more often than it need to.
00:01:26
Speaker
Is there any kind of voices or impressions anybody wants to do at this point in time? Or am I waiting for David to arrive to do the impressions? Who's usually the one doing it? Not pointing any fingers, but I think it's Carlton. Yeah, I think that's me.
00:01:44
Speaker
I don't even know how it started. Us mentioning you on the podcast, I think it was way back on Slack or something when we were all chatting and we all changed our profile names to your profile picture.
Tristan's Multicultural Background
00:02:00
Speaker
Do you know what the worst thing is? The worst thing is that Chris always gets it mixed up where I'm from. And to be honest with you, I don't blame him because I am a bit of mishmash of a lot of different places, you know? So like I'm half German, but I grew up in Northern Ireland and I now live in Scotland. So like I'm mishmash of lots of different things. So I can understand if some people think I'm Scottish, but I am definitely not.
00:02:27
Speaker
Definitely. And you're recording today from Scotland, correct? But I am recording today from Scotland. Yeah, that's where I live. But my accent is more Northern Irish than it is Scottish. I know you Americans think there's all one gelatinous blob called England, but we actually do have different places with different cultures and different languages and different food. Just like the United States.
00:02:56
Speaker
It can be offensive if you mislabel said things, calling a Northern Irish person an Irish person. There's some animosity there. That's not as egregious as calling you English. That is the worst. That is the highest. But it's like me calling somebody from Tennessee Texan. No, Tennessee is Tennessee.
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it would be more egregious if, for following that same example, like calling a Texan a Yankee. Like that, I think they would drop their, they'd pull out their concealed carry or open carry firearm. Oh, would they drop their 10 gallon hat, would they? Well, there's only been like one civil war between, you know, the North and the South. I think there's been a couple more in England. I don't know, you know?
00:03:49
Speaker
Yeah, kind of. The UK has had its history. We'll see what happens. If you break out of one union, other things might happen.
Brexit's Impact on Northern Ireland
00:04:04
Speaker
Has Brexit even happened yet?
00:04:05
Speaker
Yes, technically it has, but it hasn't. So it's technically happened, right? It happened like last year, right? So we've just come to the end of the transition phase where all the trade rules sort of changed, right? But the problem is that because of Northern Ireland specifically, some of the trade rules have been kept so that there's not friction between Northern Ireland and Ireland, which would be a contravention of the Good Friday Agreement, which was the agreement that sought peace in Northern Ireland.
00:04:35
Speaker
So, without getting too technical, yes it's happened, but...
00:04:41
Speaker
Northern Ireland is practically still in the EU when it comes to trade. And so it's actually done quite well recently in terms of like economically because it's stayed basically, you know, it's called in alignment with the EU. So like the trade rules are the same and the rest of the UK has suffered because they are no longer in alignment with the EU. And so there's like 25,000 pages you have to sign if you want to import or export something.
00:05:10
Speaker
Gotcha. I think the thing is that like, for a lot of people, they're not seeing the pain yet. But once they do, I would easily see like Scotland breaking away from the UK. I could see that happen.
00:05:25
Speaker
Cause wasn't that the whole point when the referendum for Scotland's independence was up? They're like, no, we should stay part of the UK because we'll be part of the EU. And then like a couple of years later, UK was like, fuck it. We're out. That is actually it. I mean, technically these are two separate things, but they did suspiciously happen pretty close together. And to put an analog with America,
00:05:53
Speaker
Imagine the Tea Party wanted to secede from the Union. The South would secede again, right? And they said, oh, no, don't secede. We've got all these great trade things with the rest of the world. Let's not secede. And then Trump comes into power and then puts on tariffs on everything. And it affects exporters in the South. It's kind of like that.
00:06:22
Speaker
Yeah. I'm not an expert on US politics, but I do dabble. I do dabble. Fair enough. Well, that was a fun, fun talk, but this is an archeology podcast. I mean, it was good for listeners to understand. So like, I mean, it's fun banner, but I am a, I'm a, I'm a really difficult, I'm a great podcast host. I'm a really difficult podcast guest. I can tell you that.
00:06:47
Speaker
Well, we'll keep you on the straight and narrow. So getting into, into today's topic, Tristan, what were your first experiences with archeology growing up?
Journey into Archaeology
00:06:55
Speaker
Cause you grew up in a Northern Island.
00:07:00
Speaker
And up there, archaeology is an anthropology, right? Like, archaeology is history in the UK. We've talked about this. So for you, what were your first experiences with archaeology as a kid? Do you know, it's only when I did it at university and college that I actually realized that I'd done a lot of it when I was a child. So where I grew up, there was a little local museum. And during the summer, they would always have fun activities there.
00:07:27
Speaker
And I didn't think anything of it at the time, but I would spend a lot of time there, because it was like the middle of the town. There was playing fields nearby. It was nice and central, and it was really, really nice. And I remember always being fascinated with ancient Egypt. So I would have all these little tiny figurines that I would love to collect. I asked my parents to paint
00:07:55
Speaker
my bedroom walls a sand color because i had the idea that i would then paint on like cartouches on it and like learn hieroglyphics and stuff but i never got around to that because i was six and i didn't have forward planning so i basically had this kind of stuff going on where i was really interested in dinosaurs i mean who isn't you know and all of that was happening but
00:08:19
Speaker
when it came to like, when I was in school, I was always really into science. So I was like really into kind of like, chemistry and physics. And I remember going to getting ready for university, I went to study chemistry at university pure chemistry. So that's when I arrived at uni, not really doing anything to do with archaeology. I didn't watch time team. I wasn't like part of young archaeology clubs. It was almost
00:08:46
Speaker
like super distant to me right and it just so happened that I had like my first year of university we had courses that were set and we had to then choose elective courses and I remember us going through the book and it was like the course advisor was like right Tristan let's let's go to do you want to do you know and flipping through this book A to Z like
00:09:13
Speaker
Oh, do you want to do psychology? No, no. Do you want to do zoology? No. Okay, let's go back to the start. Let's go back to the start. A kind thing. No. Archaeology. Yeah, let's, let's, let's, let's do some archaeology. Do you know what?
00:09:32
Speaker
sign me up for archaeology. And he's like, Oh, yeah, these are compatible courses, you can even do a degree program in chemistry and archaeology. I was like, I never be doing that. I'm just doing chemistry. But
00:09:45
Speaker
I'll do a little bit of archaeology on the side. And that's that's how it started. It was only until I did my first like graded assessment in archaeology and I got like 90 percent. And I was like, what? I haven't written an essay in years. Are you sure? Is this this is too high? What? I think you've got the wrong person, you know. And it was just that that that that got me that got me.
00:10:14
Speaker
But I still was like, I'm doing chemistry, I'm doing chemistry. It was only in second year when I chose archaeology again, that I was introduced to the wonderful world of archaeological theory. And I was hooked. I love archaeological theory. You're like the first guest ever to say that. I absolutely adore archaeological theory. You're wearing a blue shirt right now.
00:10:43
Speaker
I absolutely love archaeological theory through and through. It is what sold archaeology to me. Because I will say this, as much as I do love digging in the dirt, and I really do, I also think that there is a really cool and viable way of thinking about the past that's really, really important, that doesn't get enough attention.
00:11:06
Speaker
Like, people say to me, oh, well, why is archaeological theory important? It's like, otherwise, you literally have dirt in your hands and you can't do anything with it. You need archaeological theory to not only do your work, but to actually engage the public at all. I think, to me, archaeological theory was the cornerstone in which I was like, okay, this is interesting. And I don't know, I mean,
00:11:32
Speaker
I'm not that big on Ian Hodder, right? Just going to put it out there. But I know, I know, I know. But I think the important thing is to realize is that we had cultural heritage, we had processional archaeology, we had post-processional archaeology.
00:11:53
Speaker
And what's the next point? Great, we've had those. Fantastic. Where's the next bit of theory? Because that's what's always bothered me is when I was learning about this, it was like, oh, well, of course nothing's happened. We've reached the end of history. We've reached the end of history. And I really don't believe that. I think that the way that we can adapt ourselves to the study of the past is something that's dynamic and constantly changing.
00:12:20
Speaker
It's just, maybe it's one of these things that you can't see it until you're past it. But that's why I think archaeological theory is so interesting. I don't know about you guys. Is there anything redeemable about archaeological theory?
00:12:36
Speaker
Post-percessional paradigm kind of opened up. Like it's an umbrella term, right? It's not just like one view. Because underneath post-percessionalism, you have materiality, you have indigenous archeology, and you have like all the, it just kind of like fingered out to all these different views of looking at the past. And I think each one of those subfields is like really fascinating to look into. Although the materiality stuff can get pretty, pretty dense pretty quickly. And I get confused by that.
00:13:03
Speaker
really, really fast. I'm reading an article, especially if it's coming from Mesoamerica and trying to understand some of this stuff. But I've seen a couple things. I have a colleague who's looking at economic theory in Mesoamerican societies, which I found pretty extremely fascinating. We've had Ray Sumner who's looking at military theory and applying it in the archaeological record in Plains history.
00:13:28
Speaker
I like theory. It's the way that I look at it and I don't know about you, Connor, like I kind of view theory as like a toolbox now rather than it's not like that's what you come with one theory. That's all you do at your approach. You have basically this giant tool set of different theories and you kind of use the right one for the job.
00:13:47
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree. It's a mechanism to be used to understand the past is what I do. And I'm way more into quantitative kind of stuff just because that's where my research interests are. But melding it with these different paradigms and working within these and connecting it all is really fun, is really interesting. And you really can ask good questions and answer good questions about the past when you use and combine all those things.
00:14:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's important to state there's like, there's no, I don't think there's any right way of doing archaeology in a sense, because there are so many tools in the toolbox. And I think it's important for us as archaeologists to always be open and expressive about these methodologies, because ultimately, that is what separates us from pseudo archaeologists and pseudo intellectuals is the ability for us to say, actually,
00:14:43
Speaker
it's not just my feeling on this, it's not just my random thoughts on this. I actually have a fully referenced background, I have a methodology, I have like, you know, like you can pick apart what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And that's why I think
00:14:58
Speaker
you know, selling, selling theory and branding it and marketing it something positive is so important because, you know, like one of the biggest struggles I think archaeologists have, especially in the public sphere is, you know, how do we say that we're better than the pseudo archaeologists if we're just copying the way that they're talking about it? No, I'm an archaeologist. I know better.
00:15:25
Speaker
Well, that's what they say as well. You know, we've got to find better ways of explaining that. But yeah, you actually want to know how I became an archaeology wee bit more, because at this point, my second year, I'm still not doing an archaeology degree program. I'm still doing chemistry.
00:15:42
Speaker
And I'm consistently getting higher marks in all my archaeology courses than my chemistry ones. So I halfway through my third year, so Scotland do four year courses for undergrad. And halfway through my third year, I said, I spoke to one of my course advisors and I was like, can I switch my degree? And they said, are you joking? And I said, no, I would like to switch my degree. Can I switch to archaeology with chemistry?
00:16:11
Speaker
And they were like, hmm, hmm, hmm. OK, but, but, but, but, but you have to do a dissertation that mixes archaeology and chemistry together. And I said, fine, whatever.
00:16:26
Speaker
So I had basically a topic handed to me. Well, not handed to me. I was kind of like asked, do you want to do something like this or something like this? So I ended up doing trace mercury analysis in ancient hair samples. And that was really, really, really fun. Really cool technique that you don't really get to see a lot of because heavy metals are not as easy to fingerprint as other isotopes. So like trace metal analysis is
00:16:54
Speaker
You have to figure out a lot of other stuff with it. It's not like nitrogen or carbon.
00:17:01
Speaker
That's really interesting. I think the melding of chemistry and archaeology makes a lot of sense to me now. It might not up front when you're starting to study archaeology, but having the background in both is huge. And we'll probably talk about this more in the next segment, but can you give us the elevator speech of what you learned from the analysis of mercury levels in hair samples in
00:17:30
Speaker
the place I can't pronounce in Alaska? Oh, so the place is Nunalik in Alaska. And it was, well, the idea is that because mercury in its organic form is more kind of like readily available to animals in the water column, you'd think that marine animals should have higher levels of mercury than land animals.
00:17:54
Speaker
So, if you took the carbon-nitrogen ratios and compared them to your mercury samples, you should have a kind of correlation. But we don't know about the diagenic alteration of mercury. We don't know what happens to it when it's in the ground. And even though these hair samples were from permafrost-preserved soils, it doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't some sort of post-depositional alteration at some point.
00:18:22
Speaker
That's the fancy elevator speech, just because I want to use post-depositional alteration in a sentence. Thank you. Excellent. So it's the processes that occur after an object has been deposited into the soil, correct? Yes, and it's my next doom metal album name as well.
00:18:41
Speaker
Thank you, Tristan. With that, we'll be right back with episode 94 of a Life in Ruins podcast. Welcome back to episode 94 of a Life in Ruins podcast, where we have our favorite producer, Tristan Boyle. We asked this question to Chris, but we wanted to talk to you about the founding of the APN and how you ultimately got roped into starting a podcast network.
Founding of APN and Podcasting Journey
00:19:08
Speaker
So let's go back to 2014. I was doing my final year in university. I have probably, I've been podcasting in one form or another since 2008, so I've almost spent half my life podcasting. It's pretty crazy when I put it like that, but I remember being at the end of my unique kind of life and thinking, hell, I want to do an archaeology podcast.
00:19:31
Speaker
or you know like I'd be interested in doing that but let me hear what other stuff is available. So I was listening to every archaeology podcast I could find and I'll be absolutely honest they didn't intrigue me in any way. Number one none of them were focused on theory or talked about how good archaeological theory was so that was a real bummer.
00:19:51
Speaker
And they were all pretty safe, like they were really safe. Like, oh, here's an episode on the Romans in Britain during this time. Oh, great. Here's an episode on like ancient Mesopotamia. OK, interesting. But there was nothing that was like gripping or dangerous or angry, you know? And so I was like, you know what? I need a dangerous, angry, out of the box kind of podcast. So I decided to put together
00:20:21
Speaker
Drumroll, please. And Puns Ready? The Anarchiologists Podcast. Oh, that was really good. Well timed. So, Anarchiologists is meant, it was always meant to be a kind of like a, like, fuck you to like, the kind of like, easy, like, kind of lazy kind of like,
00:20:42
Speaker
Here, we're going to present to the public in a nice, digestible way. I wanted something different. And so for my first show, I had a chat with Andrew Reinhardt of the Atari Dig fame about Arceo Gaming, which back in 2014, I'm pretty sure, and people can dispute me if they want, wasn't as big as it is today. So I was one of the first people to talk about it.
00:21:10
Speaker
Or alternatively, the better way of looking at it is Andrew Reinhard was one of the first people who was willing to talk to me, knowing nothing about me. And I think I really do owe him that, because he was one of the people who said, yeah, OK, I will talk to you. So I started that in around July-August 2014. And I actually was listening to the CRM archaeology podcast at the time. And I think it was probably about September
00:21:39
Speaker
Chris had put a call out in one of the shows that he did where he was kind of interested in getting some people together. And I kind of said, okay, I'm going to go and chat to this guy. He's some weird American from Nevada. Let's see what he's got to say.
00:21:54
Speaker
And yeah, I guess we kind of just started chatting and we both had similar ideas. Like I'd been the head of production for student radio when I was at university. And so I had like a background in organizing. So we kind of decided that, yeah, we'll put some stuff together.
00:22:12
Speaker
There was another show, Jenny McNiven's Struggling Archaeology's Guide to Getting Dirty, and so all three of us were kind of on board, right? Let's start this, the Archaeology Podcast Network. I mean, I'll be absolutely honest, Chris did most of the legwork, and I hope this story matches up with what he's said.
00:22:36
Speaker
I plead the fifth if I got anything wrong. She just blanks the whole thing out. Redacted.
00:22:49
Speaker
But that's kind of like, that's how I remember it. And I remember having discussions about like, how do we get other shows on board? How do we get more people involved? How do we get more conferences involved? And I think we realized pretty quickly that we would have to do a lot by ourselves because at that time, especially nobody trusted a podcast. Nobody knew what a podcast was. Like legitimately, I had to explain what a podcast was to people, which
00:23:19
Speaker
it feels like if I said that I had to have explained to somebody what a podcast it was nowadays, that would be really weird, you know, because everybody's knows everybody's got a podcast, you know, it's it's one of those things. I like the joke like, what do you call four white guys in a room chatting together?
00:23:42
Speaker
a podcast.
00:23:59
Speaker
David's missed a lot, I must say. Yeah, David's on the verge. And am I going to go? Yeah, you remember what I said before the recording, only one of us is allowed to be.
00:24:15
Speaker
But yeah, so that's kind of where we started with that. And I think at the time and now, we just wanted to kind of get to more and more people. I think we've always just wanted it to
00:24:32
Speaker
be something where really interesting people who have great stories and are passionate about the past like are able to have like a bigger and bigger audience. I think that's a really important thing. It was never for world domination per se. It was always the benefit of other people. So like, yeah, that's kind of kind of where it started. So you wanted people with passion and
00:25:00
Speaker
and drive and intelligence, and then you got us. Well, I was going to say, we then realized pretty quickly we had to just make do with what we had, what came to us.
00:25:13
Speaker
I can't say anything. I used to have good show numbers until I stopped. I have a big problem with being organized and sticking to stuff. I honestly think something in my brain is not working properly. But you guys get a lot more downloads than I do. So that means you must be accommodating to some audience out there. Some people like listening to you.
00:25:39
Speaker
Well, we got dangled the advertisement revenue in front of us, like if you record more and post more, and we finally did. And Chris was like, oh yeah, but we don't have any advertisers. And we're just like, dude, what? Like the whole reason we've been doing all this is for numbers, man. But now that has changed thanks to our very brilliant and easy to use recording platform, Zencaster, which is now sponsoring the APN. And we really do want to thank our podcasting overlords for
00:26:07
Speaker
giving us such a wonderful platform to make podcasting easier. Are we? And I will say this, like Zencasters fixed a lot of problems. Like no, I went back in 2014, like podcasting was a hell of a lot different. I remember getting somebody to download audacity and record themselves and talking through that.
00:26:34
Speaker
and then getting them over like a 512 to maybe like two megabit line, like getting them to upload that to me. I can tell you that that was not fun. Not fun in the slightest. So I'm happy for how easy it is to do like podcasting now. It's much easier.
00:26:54
Speaker
Yeah, I pimp it out, Zencaster. I pimp you out to all my friends who do podcasting, not through Zencaster. But yeah, no, I've liked this platform, but enough of that brown-dosing here. People are like, oh, you have a podcast? Let me look around in this plug-in for Audacity, and I immediately just tune them out because I'm like, okay, I'm not five. I don't use Microsoft Paint of podcasting.
00:27:20
Speaker
You Zencaster, zencaster.com. Check it out. Excellent. So, but the APN has morphed, right? Like you guys are extremely busy managing so many shows, managing your own shows on top of that. And now you guys are reaching out into this new
00:27:39
Speaker
umbrella organization called Coltero in order to grab podcasts that aren't strictly archaeological and bring us all under one podcasting theater state.
Culturo and Expanding Beyond Podcasting
00:27:52
Speaker
We're not quite an empire, but we're getting there.
00:27:55
Speaker
I think culture was maybe even, the vision for culture is even broader than just podcasts, you know? I think culture represents the kind of like the ideas beyond just podcasting and just archaeology. Because I think, as we've talked about before in this episode, things like chemistry and archaeology go really well together, but most people off the back of it don't really realize that or understand that.
00:28:22
Speaker
And I think it would be really good if we can take what we've learned in producing media in the APN and make it just much more flexible for people. And so I think Culturo aims to provide a kind of an open space for like, I don't know if you've heard the term before, but STEAM topics. So like STEM plus arts plus humanities plus everything else, you know.
00:28:48
Speaker
Because I think the thing about the Archaeology Podcast Network is it's niche, but it works because you know what you're getting. Whereas we wanted to capture something that was larger and wider, and we wanted to be doing more than just podcasts. We want to be doing like an open access journal. We want to be doing conferences. We want to be at some point even doing courses and stuff. So we've got lots of things under Culturo that aren't just podcasts and aren't just archaeology.
00:29:16
Speaker
But we're working on making that kind of like we're trying to build that structure a bit better now so that when we finally have it out there, it's like it's a finished product and it's ready to go. So I know we have our monthly meetings and that's hours like them.
00:29:35
Speaker
I think our January one was canceled. Chris rescheduled it, but I don't know if this episode comes out in February, so we might've had it right now. But I mean, in order for you guys to pull off Kulturo, you guys need a lot more hands. So when is that switch
00:29:51
Speaker
if at all do you think going to happen when you basically do like Coltero full-time and create like basically you guys stop doing your side hustles and go straight for this for Coltero? I think this is one of those things where like with all good project management you have to have the right people in the right places. At the moment I don't think we have enough hands and we don't have the right type of hands because like
00:30:18
Speaker
The thing about me and Chris, the reason why we worked so well together over the years is we're both pretty kind of like, we have both initiative and drive. We both are reliable enough to kind of like, right, I've got an idea, I'm gonna run with it. I'm gonna build it as much as I can. And for a lot of people coming into the zone that we have, it's sometimes a bit scary to see how much responsibility you could be given quickly.
00:30:48
Speaker
We're looking for people who are ready to hit the ground running, ready to bring ideas, and ready to be communicative. I think one of the biggest problems with organizing something across time zones, across countries, across the world, is communication can fall so easily. And I'm bad at it as well. I struggle with communication. I do have to get better.
00:31:12
Speaker
If you are somebody who's really good at communication, really good at taking self-inition and self-starter, we're looking for people who are interested in not just content production, but organizing, maybe even doing editing for a journal, like an online open access journal, or even helping us with making conferences happen. That's the kind of people we're looking for, and you don't need to come from an archaeology or anthropology background.
00:31:39
Speaker
Yeah, I was just gonna say, I think you guys have enough archaeologists. Yeah, we do. But, you know, with- We're not even getting rid of them.
00:31:50
Speaker
And I was the one who just signed up and said I would do more as well. But we need people with those different diversity backgrounds, running businesses, social media, et cetera, to ultimately make this thing. I'll take somebody who's willing to commit, who's willing to commit, willing to communicate. That's in my books all I need. I don't need somebody with a big fat resume.
00:32:17
Speaker
I need somebody who I know, if I say, look, I need this done, what do you think? Can come back to me and say, look, I'm going to try this, try this, try this. That's all I need. Because I've had people with big resumes. I've had people with small resumes. And the people that have stuck the longest are the people I know and I can rely on to self-start and initiate. So that's the kind of people I'm looking for.
00:32:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's not us. We're pretty happy with what we're doing. I don't think I could take on another responsibility on top of that, but I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with Kulturo. I've talked with Chris about helping out in small ways if I can. Can you guys tell me how not to spin more plates and say yes to more things? I haven't figured it out, man.
00:33:04
Speaker
I'm five or six, seven ways in my life right now. And I'm just going to get more and more. And it's just one of those things. Like, I don't know. I just can't say no to stuff. I'm like, that sounds really interesting. I'd like to do that. You know, that's so bad. I found that broadcasting that I have mental illness like really helps people like not want to talk to me. And that has definitely slowed it down. Well, yes, to everything.
00:33:30
Speaker
David, I don't have that, like, not, I don't have that thing to say to people. So, like, I'm stuck. I'm unfortunate. Just say you lost your gallbladder. I'm like, I'm sorry. But that doesn't affect my, okay, yeah, sure, fine. I had, I have, I mean, I did have trauma in hospital, but like, hey, it's fine. It's fine. It's over gone now. David, you did miss a lot. You missed a whole lot.
00:33:56
Speaker
Well, obviously, too, because we did that. We talked about your pancreas in that toasties before recording. But you're one grilled cheese sandwich away with mac and cheese inside from going back to the hospital, man. I am, I am. I have to be careful. I have to be careful. I can't tell you the number of times I've used that I got my appendix out to get out of basically anything. Really? No, no. It's not a good excuse.
00:34:23
Speaker
Like, did they do a keyhole to you? Because I've got a massive scar across my belly, like it's a huge scar, like a shark bite size scar. I don't know if you like got that or you got just like keyhole stuff. I got keyhole, so it's like a belly button and then like a little bit on the side. Yeah. See? Nah, I've got massive shark bites, so.
00:34:47
Speaker
I got the scars, like battlefield scars. That's what you need. So, random question. What is episode of Modern Myth would you recommend for someone trying to get into that podcast?
00:35:00
Speaker
Okay, this is going to get really serious for a second, right? Like, this is going to get super serious, so, like, prepare yourselves. So, my best episode that I've ever done was the episode when the show was still called The Anarchological Show, and I spoke to Teresa O. Mahoney, and that's episode number 33.
00:35:22
Speaker
And Teresa O'Mahoney was a mature student who herself was disabled. And she found that a lot of things in the heritage sector in the UK were set against disabled people. And so part of her research work was actually seeing what the conditions were like in the heritage sector employment for people with disabilities. And she found
00:35:51
Speaker
She was absolutely shocked by how readily people were discriminated against, even though there are very strict laws in the UK, as I'm sure there are in America, about disability discrimination.
00:36:08
Speaker
And so she began working on kind of like information for employers to kind of like how better to enable archaeologists with disabilities. And she actually was looking at starting what's now called the Enabled Archaeologist Foundation.
00:36:25
Speaker
Unfortunately, she passed away a couple of years ago and she like, I honestly, she was again, one of these people who saw the benefit of podcasts like, you know, before other people did.
00:36:43
Speaker
And she was one of the people who anytime I met at a conference was just really lovely and smiley and just really nice to talk to. And, you know, so I I think that like I listened back to it every year, at least once. And for me, that was the one of the really, really tough ones to listen to and to work through, because it is it is terrifying and shocking and also kind of like it makes you feel
00:37:13
Speaker
It makes you feel really sick inside that, you know, we have a sector that looks at people, you know, it looks at studies, people studies, history of people has, you know, like, it's difficult to go through like an anthropology or an archaeology kind of course, without touching on sociology and the study of discrimination and a fundamental understanding of humans as human beings.
00:37:38
Speaker
And to see then that not translate into a empathy and an understanding, you know, day to day, that makes me feel as if like people aren't listening or learning to the stuff they're like reading. So, yeah, I'd say episode thirty three of the Anarchiologists podcast, now Modern Myth, is with Teresa O'Mahoney is probably the one to listen to because
00:38:04
Speaker
I think, in my opinion, it's the best guest I've ever had. Excellent, man. That's a good way to end the segment. With that, we'll be right back with segment three and with Tristan Boyle. Here after these messages. Hi, you're listening to the Laughing Ruins podcast with me, your guest, Tristan Boyle.
Unconference Concept Explained
00:38:23
Speaker
I don't know where I'm from here, but I'm doing an accent because these guys think I can. So we're going to talk a little bit more about archaeology and my favorite part of it, which has got to be the unarcheology. That's the opposite of archaeology. All right. Pleasure to meet you, Southern Gent. Yeah, so let's talk about unarcheology. What is, excuse me, what is unarcheology?
00:38:50
Speaker
on archaeology is the study of, no, I'm not going to do a whole episode like that. So the coolest thing I've ever heard of is an unconference. So an unconference is apparently the opposite of a conference. So going back to Andrew Reinhardt from earlier in this show, Andrew Reinhardt is one of the first kind of like digital archaeologists I kind of bumped into.
00:39:15
Speaker
to. And I remember when I was kind of researching for having him on the show, I came across a thing that he did called the Unconference. And the Unconference was like, you like did your presentation as like music or like a beat poet, or you know, like you did something like that wasn't just a speech, it was not meant to be like that.
00:39:35
Speaker
And it ended up sounding like a party. It was so cool. But it had research in it. So that feels very punk, very DIY to me. And as the anarchologist, of course, I'm all over punk and DIY stuff. For me,
00:39:56
Speaker
deconstructing the traditional ways of doing stuff is cool in my game, in my head. So when it came to lockdown, I kind of was like, I need to do something, I need to do something different, right? And I need to do something that's not APN, not Archaeology Podcast Network, I need to be something fresh, new, separate,
00:40:15
Speaker
something where I can literally like no holds barred, I can do something different. So I had this idea that like, it'd be cool to do like an online panel, like a discussion, but like really talk about the meta aspect of archaeology, like archaeology itself.
00:40:34
Speaker
So I've had the pleasure and the privilege to sit on work committees for the Charter Institute for Archaeologists here in the UK, and I've been on the Scottish group part of that. And that's about representing archaeologists in the sector, things that affect them, job roles and grading and everything like that.
00:40:59
Speaker
I find that the employment side of archaeology is extremely problematic. Like you don't have, like there's no real career progression. There's no set levels. There's no like pay is kind of like pretty awful. And the expectations that people have for you starting out as an archaeologist, I think are ridiculous. Like I honestly, I do not think that somebody
00:41:26
Speaker
should be expected to do two years of temporary work so that they have enough experience to then get a permanent job maybe. The idea that somebody has to travel from A to B to C to D across the country for weeks at a time in order to do a job. That's the bare minimum and that's the expectation for everyone. I don't agree with that.
00:41:54
Speaker
And I think what it does is it individualizes people, it splits them up, it atomizes people. And so that's why in the UK, only in the last couple of years, archaeologists have begun to join unions. Before that, no, it was like every person for themselves, you know, a dog eat dog world.
00:42:18
Speaker
you know, I'm helping your American listeners to climate that. I kind of was very frustrated with this because I feel like it's the same in academia as well, because like I feel like everybody's like doing their own little thing. And then even in podcasting and online media spaces, everybody is doing their own little tiny thing. Everything's fragmented and disconnected and it's all pieces, right?
00:42:47
Speaker
So there was a couple of people who I knew in Scotland who were kind of interested in stuff that like kind of artsy programs and like projects that are not really kind of like kind of blue sky thinking kind of things. So I remember sitting down on a Zoom chat and saying, look, I've got this idea. What do you think? And we talked through this, you know, and formed these ideas into like a panel of like, well,
00:43:15
Speaker
What, how could we phrase this what I'm summing up here? How could we get people to talk about that? So I don't want to talk about like methodologies. I don't want to talk about like, you know, like certain time periods. I actually want to take the mirror and reflect it on us as archaeologists. Why are we like this? And what's the problem here?
00:43:38
Speaker
So I took this idea and I thought I've got this in August. I can set up a live event for November. I just need a couple of pairs of hands and I'll be fine. Right. Reader, I was not fine. I was stressing. So I put out the call on all the social medias and I was like, I don't even know if anybody will respond.
00:44:01
Speaker
And then it just kind of happened where people were kind of like coming to me and saying, hey, can I help organize? And then another person, oh, can I help organize? And it's like all these random people came and came to me and I thought, wow, this WhatsApp group is not going to be big enough. So we had the big WhatsApp group and then we had our first meeting.
00:44:24
Speaker
And everybody kind of was really, really keen to add their piece. Because the thing is, I realized that one of the biggest problems that we have in archaeology is that people like myself, you know, like a straight white cis man,
00:44:41
Speaker
They were usually the head of everything, you know, like if you looked at any kind of head of department, if you look at like in the UK, head of SIFA, head of like at the time the Council for British Archaeology, head of the British Museum, like the institutions are all headed by people who look like me.
Critique of Archaeology Employment Conditions
00:45:01
Speaker
And so one of my kind of things was like, well, maybe we need a really diverse panel. So I put that up front. I'm looking for like diverse organizers and diverse panel. And because I put that there, that's the kind of people who ended up coming to me.
00:45:18
Speaker
And we realised pretty quickly that, like, there wasn't enough for just one panel. We needed at least two. So that's how it became panel one, disconnectivity and fragmentation in archaeology, and panel two, DIY archaeology.
00:45:33
Speaker
or mutual aid archaeology, whatever way you want to look at it. And that's how our archaeology was created, was from this desire to talk about ourselves, to hold up the mirror. And no matter how ugly it looked, no matter how weird it looked, we had to talk about archaeology and archaeologists ourselves.
00:45:55
Speaker
I think that's needed everywhere, but I just, yeah, I kind of decided I want us to do something and I just put it in motion, you know? Yeah, I think that's why a lot of
00:46:07
Speaker
It's a comedy specifically, but other like trades where they have podcasts. It's not so much like for comedy, for example, like you're not listening to it to hear them do stand up. You're listening to comedians interact with each other and be funny and talk about what they do and like that whole culture.
00:46:26
Speaker
I know there's a lot of like food podcasts for the same way and then actors talk about it. So like archaeology, yeah, you could watch some like BS thing about Egyptology on CuriosityStream, but then like you could, we're not sponsored by them by the way, but you could also listen to podcasts like yours or ours where it's people just, you know, shooting it and like talking about stuff, but there also needs to be more like you're saying it's more like, you know, about, meta about archaeology. Yeah.
00:46:54
Speaker
Because I don't know bits and pieces about how it is in the States, but I still feel like there's a lot of barriers that don't need to be there in the heritage sector. And I don't know why. We know what these barriers are. We know what the problems are. But it still feels like everybody's just on a shoestring budget all the time. And that excuse gets trotted out all the time.
00:47:22
Speaker
I don't know if it's the true in America, but in the UK, if you want to be in the heritage sector, your parents better have some money so that you can do all the free interning you want so that you can actually get in somewhere. It's not merit-based. It's based on getting in. It's bullshit.
00:47:44
Speaker
Yeah. The version of it that we have in the states here is shovel-bombing where you don't have a central location, you don't have a house, you don't have anything because you can't afford it and you're like on this kind of, I mean for some people it works and you know good for them but that's how you have to get into archaeology is like living this nomadic lifestyle where you can't have any commitments to anything.
00:48:09
Speaker
Or you go into academia and get a higher degree, so you don't have to do that. I mean, the first archaeology, I've been a commercial archaeologist for all of two months, because I started in October. And by December, I was like, I've got literally no jobs I can go and do, and I've got rent to pay. So I need to get out of archaeology. But I remember there was a guy who was in his 30s,
00:48:38
Speaker
And he'd been doing commercial archaeology for at least a decade or more, or at least a decade. And he said he's training to get out. He's trained to be a plumber because he's not got a mortgage. He can barely save. He wants a family. And he couldn't do it being an archaeologist. So I know there's people who listen to this and be like, oh, yeah, but I managed it. Great. But this should not be the norm. And that's the thing is that,
00:49:08
Speaker
Archaeologists usually are really really intrigued and interested about what they do. They're really passionate people and they're really dedicated and so they'll put up with a lot of stuff and that goodwill I feel is like being abused. Like a lot of things in the pandemic, especially the goodwill of people has been like the credit card of goodwill has been used up. It is maxed out. It is overdrawn.
00:49:33
Speaker
And it's time we start treating people better. And I mean that as a sector. I think if we want archaeology to be better, we cannot just continue doing the same thing over and over again and thinking something's going to change.
00:49:48
Speaker
So that's why I would like to see proper unionization of archaeologists in America, because I think that the shovelbun model, as great as it is for some people, should not be the way of doing things.
00:50:05
Speaker
Yeah. And then the US just takes to get blacklisted by like one person in a company to be like screwed with either like Tetra-Tec, Tetra-Tec, Paleo West, or someone like that. That's ridiculous. Because I'm sorry, but I've not got on with everybody I've worked with.
00:50:22
Speaker
I've not gone with all the managers I've worked with, but that doesn't mean I'm a bad worker. And this is the other thing. Archaeology, let's be honest, is really cliquey as well. We all know the cliques.
00:50:37
Speaker
Yeah, and the thing is, I've blocked people before. I've ceased communication with people before because I don't want to enable somebody, but at the end of the day, I feel like the cliquiness is really a big problem.
00:50:54
Speaker
And that's why for me, doing projects like unarcheology is a way of kind of reaching out and stretching out the kind of people I work with. So I'm like not just doing APN stuff. So I'm not just the podcast guy. I'm actually trying to contribute to a platform that doesn't actually put my voice first, but actually allows other people to speak. You know, that's the
00:51:20
Speaker
I mean, that's the other thing about unarcheology is it's always meant to be like for other people, not for me. And I think that the best thing I ever did with that was I relinquished a lot of control. And I think that
00:51:36
Speaker
in a lot of projects nowadays, I am going to relinquish control a lot more and allow other people to put their input in because I think that's again missing from archaeology. Everybody holds on to their projects and their funding as they've learned to because they're worried that any kind of like release of the grip and it's all gone. It's all gone in a flash. It's a shame. It really is a shame.
00:52:02
Speaker
We're definitely clicky. That's a thing. And at least in the States here, I don't know how different that is in any other industry. Like there's always like, you know, it's who, you know, and yada yada. Well, like in archeology for sure, maybe just academia, it is pretty prevalent. I mean, like, yeah, I wish, I wish like,
00:52:25
Speaker
I wish it could be better, you know, because like, even in the UK, a couple months ago, we had like, a lot of archaeology departments being shut down, just for, I don't know, wide range of variety of stuff. I mean, the government has pulled funding for archaeology courses, and like humanities courses in general, but archaeology comes under it. And what it means is that like,
00:52:48
Speaker
universities are then not incentivised to put in archaeology courses because they don't get any funding from the government for them and so we have a shortage of archaeologists in the UK and now we're cutting down the number of graduates who are going to be archaeologists and it's just
00:53:06
Speaker
it's, you know, it's, it's, there's no support, there's no support. And so, you know, even when there are groups and campaigns to kind of support archaeology, there's a lot of kind of like suspicion about why those groups exist and who's leading them and who's part of them and why they doing that. And
00:53:25
Speaker
There's just a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of suspicion and cliqueness and it's, it's a problem.
Engaging the Public in Archaeology
00:53:31
Speaker
It really is. Cause the thing is ultimately all of us, we want to advocate for an open and thriving public archeology because like, let's be honest, archeology is public archeology or is nothing.
00:53:44
Speaker
you know? What's the point in doing any research? I will fight anybody on that. Archaeology is public archaeology or it is nothing because what happens when you put all these numbers and dates together and like nobody sees it? Like what was the point? What is the absolute point? So like I will fight on and die on the hill that like unless you do it, unless something you do contributes to public archaeology, I don't know why you're doing it.
00:54:11
Speaker
Well, if you don't put it to wider audiences, you don't get more diverse people in the discipline excited by it. So it just promotes this rich, usually white kind of discipline if you're not talking to the public as a whole as part of it. I completely agree. Yeah, 100%.
00:54:32
Speaker
Well, Tristan, that was fantastic. Thank you for coming on the show. Finally, really appreciate you being here, man. So before we end the show, what are a couple of sources, these books, articles, videos, et cetera, that you would recommend for anyone interested in your work and in the topics that we covered today? I think I've written two bits. So there's one called Vox Archeo podcast in the past, and that's a book chapter. It's open access, free to read. The other one's called middens and microphones. It's also
00:54:58
Speaker
free to read if you just type in my name and middens and microphones you'll find it just talking about podcasting and archaeology. I would really, I would say a great resource is internet archaeology, the open access journal, and I would say anything on that is really, really amazing.
00:55:13
Speaker
And if you want to find out anything I do, check out the Archaeology Podcast Network and check out Modern Myth. I do have an episode ready, almost ready to go out. It'll probably be out by the time this episode is out. And I also am on Twitter far too much. So if you want to follow me at anarchaeologist, you can hear me kind of complain and shout there. Cool. Anywhere else they can find you on social media?
00:55:40
Speaker
I don't really use it. It's not worth it. It's not worth it. I don't post on Instagram. I'm not one of those influencers. You know, I don't, I don't, uh, you know, like, I don't know what, what do you do on Instagram? Do you gram stuff? Like what's, what's the thing? What's the thing? So I take it you have no control over the APN Instagram account, but I'll put that in another place. It's nothing to do with me. I'm a boomer when it comes to Instagram. Like I'll take, I'll take that hit.
00:56:07
Speaker
I'll take that in. You can find the Archeology Podcast Network on Instagram. Instagram is visual Twitter to me for people who can't read.
00:56:17
Speaker
Nice, nice. Yeah. So yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. If given the chance again, would you still choose to live a life in ruins? Every time. Excellent. Well, when we just interviewed Tristan Boyle, you can find him on Twitter at an archaeologist. You'll be able to find all of his social media contacts and his sources in the episode description wherever you are listening to this podcast.
00:56:40
Speaker
Please be sure, guys, please, please, please, please rate and review the podcast. I will show you pictures of my feet. I will hold a bag of your feces. Just give us a review on Apple and you'll be really help us out. Jesus.
00:56:57
Speaker
Yeah, I will hold if you mail it to me, I'll do it because it would be funny at that point. Is this does this get cut or does this get left in Jesus Christ? What is the standard?
00:57:15
Speaker
You should totally write and review the show because it makes us all happy. And if nothing else, if you can increase someone else's happiness, why choose not to do that today? See, that is the difference between the Atlantic Ocean and us over here. Yeah. I mean, it should be like... Wait, sorry. Sorry. Didn't I threaten to break someone's legs last time? So let's not sugarcoat that. You know, let's not sugarcoat that.
00:57:46
Speaker
Yeah. Please be like a can of spinach on Apple who gave us a five star review. One of a kind. These gentlemen make a great show. The topics, the guests, the host, the format. It's all enjoyable. Glad I subscribe because they release content very regularly. Please give us feedback. We need to know we have. Yeah. Our reviews come few and far between. So please, please, please rate and view the podcast. And with that, we are out.
00:58:15
Speaker
Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com. And remember, make sure to bring your archaeologists in from the cold and feed them beer. A baby whale is talking to his dad. He's like, dad, where did I come from? He's like, and the dad's like, from my penis, of course. The kid's like, oh, thanks.
00:58:41
Speaker
And the dad says, you're welcome. Thank you, Connor.
00:58:48
Speaker
Oh, it's funny, just like not the usual type of joke you tell. Oh no. Do you know, I thought the penis thing was going somewhere. Like I really, I was waiting for that to be relevant. Like you could have literally made that joke with like, do you have a felt like kind of like fixation Connor? Like, do we need to talk about your father? Do we need to?
00:59:16
Speaker
It was a visual meme on Reddit. Okay, we're done. Aye, that was really something really funny. Hilarious actually. And you know where I come from? The way we express laughter is sometimes by doing someone's knees in. Be careful, it might be yours.
00:59:48
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.