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ENCORE Hoo dis? with Tash and Raven - Ep 168
2.5k Plays1 year ago
n this episode, we are pleased to have Raven Todd da Silva and Natasha Billson return to the Podcast. Raven is another OG from the early episodes, appearing on episode 9 and runs a very popular Instagram and Youtube Channel called “Dig it with Raven” and Natasha aka Tash was recently on episode 29, and runs a youtube channel called Behind the Trowel. If you follow us on Social Media, then you know that both of these archaeologists are a part of the Archaeology Avengers and we are super excited to have them back on the podcast. We discuss Netflix’s new hit movie, The Dig, and discuss the archaeology of the site on which the movie is based on. We also discuss how archaeology is portrayed in the media.
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Context
00:00:10
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Welcome to episode 168 of A Life for Men's Podcast. I am your co-host, Connor Johnen. We're going to do another repeat this week on an episode. I just got out and back from 10 days in the field. Carlton's enjoying his summer break that he earned and David's working hard on other stuff right now.
00:00:30
Speaker
We will be back next week with a new episode, new content. So we thank you for being patient with us and listening to the podcast. These August months, as you noticed last year, are hard for us and busy. Our jobs involve a lot of fieldwork. So we have to do that over the summer and we have these windows that we have to get this stuff done.
The Dig Movie and Sutton Hoo Overview
00:00:51
Speaker
So once again, we appreciate you listening to us, supporting us, messaging us, and we will have new content back next week.
00:00:59
Speaker
But for now, we're going to do a repeat episode of an episode we did about certain who ship found and the dig that was with Tash and Raven. So please listen to it, check it out, and we will see you all next week. Hey, guys, this episode is going to be about the movie called The Dig on Netflix. If you haven't watched that, I would go ahead and watch that first before you listen to this one or listen to this one and then watch the movie. Do what you want to do. But just spoiler warning in general. Also, Tash and Raven have a cool announcement.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yes, so I just need to have a very proud roommate moment here. If you guys don't know, Tash and I are housemates here in London. And I just want to say that Tash has a show coming out on February 17. So if you are based in the UK, definitely check it out on channel four. It's called The Great British Dig. And she gets to be a superstar archaeologist on TV, dig up people's back gardens and just uncover some amazing history.
Guest Introduction and Sutton Hoo Discussion
00:01:55
Speaker
And I'm just really proud of her to make sure you go watch it and give it all the light.
00:01:58
Speaker
Thank you. I don't think I could have even summed it up like that. I was there while you were filming it. I was just watching you and just being like so proud. I was like, there she goes. Off for another week to just be famous. On a fun note though, we do have a site that's about Anglo Scandinavian and Anglo Saxon cemeteries. So kind of links in to today's episode. Awesome. Well, yeah, you guys can find that on channel four over there. Um, I might get an acorn here. I don't know, but all right. Anyway, check out Tasha's page for that, which is behind the trial. All right, guys, here's the episode.
00:02:32
Speaker
Welcome to episode 44 of A Life in Ruins podcast. Re-investigate the careers of those living a life in ruins. I'm your host Carlton Gover, and I am joined by my co-hosts Connor Johnin and David Ian Howe. In this episode, we are pleased to have Raven Todd De Silva and Natasha Bilson return to the podcast. Raven is another OG from the early episodes appearing on episode nine and runs a very popular Instagram and YouTube channel called Dig It With Raven.
00:02:55
Speaker
And Natasha, AKA Tash, was recently on episode 29 and also runs YouTube channel called Behind the Trail. If you follow us on social media, then you know that both of these archaeologists are part of the Archaeology Avengers. We are super excited to have them on the podcast. Raven and Natasha, thank you guys so much for joining us. How are the two of you doing? Hi. Thanks for having me back and us back. I'm doing good. I'm just, you know, trying to live through 2021 the same way we did 2020. This is barely.
00:03:24
Speaker
Well, thanks for having us. I'm excited for us to all be together on a podcast. It's so weird not to see your faces though, just to hear your voices.
00:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, because every time you do one of your archaeologists in quarantine, it's always recorded and face to face. Well, not face to face, screen to screen. And live. And live, yes. Screen to screen live. Yes, all of those things. So today we wanted to bring Natasha and Raven on the show to talk about Netflix's The Dig, which is about the Sutton Hoo excavation
00:03:55
Speaker
in the late 1930s. Both of these archaeologists have produced Sutton Hoo related videos on their YouTube channels that I highly encourage you to check out. They are always informative and very fun. So Natasha, what is Sutton Hoo? Well, Sutton Hoo is actually the name of a village in the east of England in Suffolk. So a lot of people ask, why is it called Sutton Hoo? Well, it's literally because it's a place. It's the name of the town and it's an estate that was owned by Edith Pretty.
00:04:25
Speaker
And literally it starts from somebody's just pure wanting to know what was going on in her land. Apparently it's the reason why they had bought that estate because of these peculiar mounds, these hill-like shapes that were in her estate. So it just happens from a conversation in I think 1937, excavations start in 1938 where they excavate mounds two, three and four. And then the famous excavations of 1939, where we hear the beautiful ship burial
00:04:54
Speaker
Which ironically, actually, I want to say from the get-go, it's not the first and only ship burial at Sutton Hoo, it's one of two. But we only ever hear about this one. So I just want to put that out there first. So yeah, it's really one of those fantastic archaeological discoveries in British history. And it's kind of through a pinnacle moment in time because World War Two was looming.
00:05:19
Speaker
So I think there's so much more going around it, not just archeologically, but also nationalistically, like it really gets everybody excited about something during a period when people are just facing another world
Character Portrayal and Historical Accuracy
00:05:32
Speaker
war. So I think there's so much more going on socially as well as historically on the site.
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah. And that, that time period is pretty, pretty important because they don't in the movie, the dig, they don't blatantly come out and tell you what year it is. Like they have Mrs. Purdy asks her Butler to turn on the wireless, also known as a radio. And, uh, you know, they're talking about Hitler and what's going on in Europe. And so you can, they're not blatant about it, but you have this backdrop of this is Britain right before world, their entry into world war II. I think in the beginning of the movie, it says 1939.
00:06:07
Speaker
Do they actually? Yeah. So just negate everything I just said, but if you weren't paying attention to the front, you can pick it up towards the back. So I think World War II started in September. Anyways, my question is, is they talk throughout, you know, the archeologist that comes in from the British museum who comes in later, Basil Brown, the excavator, the amateur archeologist, I say, like how would we describe Basil Brown? Cause he's pretty prominent in this whole excavation, right?
00:06:34
Speaker
Avocationalist, I think would be the word here. He's an, he's an archeologist. Come on. He's an archeologist. Just back then, they would just say, because he's not part of the, you know, a museum or from a university, they, they distinguished him as somebody else. But I mean, come on, his experience in the field prior to this excavation and after over 30 years worth. So he's an archeologist in my eyes, but he's referred to as an excavator.
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I think they see that in America too, kind of the early archeologists, you know, with the quotation marks around them are folks who actually go out and do it in the field, but they might not have this background, this academic background to say that they are like full on archeologists, but they are, you know, in reality, they are people who are, you know, doing the work that we ultimately study in these periods.
00:07:31
Speaker
And I'm just like, I'm thinking about some of the early archeologists in America. Wasn't there like a Norwegian or someone who like came to Mesa Verde and like blew it up with dynamite to get things out. And he was a trained archeologist. Yeah. Yeah. I think that is, yeah, I think that's very much the case. So like the academics are in here throwing dynamite and things and the avocation is, or have the avocation, null.
00:07:57
Speaker
whatever works. Yeah, that, that word. Yep. You got it. 10 out of 10 are doing kind of some interesting work. So, but that's also like a blanket statement. So don't, don't believe everything you hear coming out of my mouth. And so like Mrs. Pretty has these mounds on, on her property, like that her and her, her husband bought the property, right? Who was a Colonel in,
00:08:20
Speaker
The British military, he passed away before the events of the movie took place. Do we know if he passed, like, is that accurate? Like did the movie portray that correctly? Like she was just there with herself and her son and her- Yeah, she was a widow. They were married for about 12 years before she passed and he left her with a young son on the site there. So she was, that was an accurate part of the film. Gotcha. You know, here in the States, we do have mountain cultures and
00:08:48
Speaker
It kind of kind of similar in thinking about the the mounds that we see in northern and western Europe. In the movie, they portray Basil Brown as excavating a mound of his choice because it's circular. While Mrs. Pretty is really wants to excavate an oval shaped one. But since it was odd, he didn't want to do anything about it. In the movie, they portray him digging that oval mound second after the wall collapse and he gets buried alive. Thankfully, he was rescued.
00:09:16
Speaker
So Tash, you were mentioning earlier that that longship excavation wasn't until like fourth or fifth, right?
Archaeological Methods vs. Movie Techniques
00:09:22
Speaker
Right. So that would have been mound one. We refer to as mound one, which the excavation is taken in the second season, which is 1939, which is when the book and the film is based on. But of course, Basil Brown was there a year prior where he did mounds two, three, and four. And in the book and in the film, they depict the sides collapsing. That's probably one of those mounds. So they've just incorporated it together.
00:09:43
Speaker
To be honest, probably like we know from the archaeological record that they did not look at Mound 1, which is the ship burial that we always think of as Saturn Who. They were looking at something else before. So I guess it's just a nice sort of tantalizing way to entwine the excavation so far and to show, maybe actually to show the fact that things get robbed, right? There's a lot of activity going on archeologically and during antiquitarian times and even in the Tudor times that we know Saturn Who has been interfered with.
00:10:12
Speaker
So I think the film and the book is trying to show that there might be something that's interacted with the mounds and we might not get the full archeological deposit. I think that's what they're trying to show here by the rubber cuts. So they'll, I think they call it a rubber shoe. Is that right, Raven? I can't remember the term they're using the film sort of rubber shoot. Maybe he calls it flute flute. That's it. Yeah. Flute. Ah, there you go. So I think that's what they're trying to show in the film to show that there's something else going on and
00:10:39
Speaker
Who knows? I mean, to be honest, if you have a large mound, you're going to be fascinated by that large mound more than the little ones. So maybe that's what they're trying to show. Who knows? I'm not sure. Raven, do you know if it was Edith that he was pushing for the larger mound to be excavated? Jesus. Exactly. Really.
00:11:03
Speaker
Oh no. I don't know who was pushing for what. All of the readings, you know, if you read any sort of, you guys know academic journals and stuff about finds and sites. They don't tell you the cool nuance stuff. So I'm not sure who pushed for which one, but the way they did it in the film kind of makes it a nice like storytelling art.
00:11:27
Speaker
So they're taking a little bit of liberties with the exact premise of how things happen, which is very common in archaeology depictions in general. Do you guys think it does the site justice by kind of twisting this narrative?
00:11:46
Speaker
The movie was based on a book that was based on the site. So it's kind of like liberties taken times two. I did enjoy the more realistic depictions of archaeology that the film had in comparison to our typical Indiana Jones Lara Croft, even though we do love them. But I think Tash agrees on it too, and she can speak more to it. But the depiction of
00:12:15
Speaker
A lot of, and a lack of other women that were present on the site and doing the work there, that was kind of a little bit of a sad moment in telling the story of Sutton Hoo. One thing that I really wish the film would have portrayed is like Rory, the cousin of Mrs. Pretty is a fictional character, and he was the one taking the photographs. But there's actually like two photographers that were present. They were both women, Mercy Lack and Barbara Wagstaff.
00:12:44
Speaker
And it's widely held that they produce the first color photographs of an archaeological excavation in England. And I felt like that was something that they missed and I would have liked to have seen like that. That would have been cool, right? Like Sutton Hoo isn't just
00:12:59
Speaker
first in terms of finding the ship and what it meant in the context of the archaeological record, which we'll get to later, right? The importance of this find, but also other things that were going on that were rather new to archaeology, right? And especially like color photographs is not something that we think of when it comes to the 1930s. No, exactly. And I do wish that they had kind of not done the whole half fulfilled love interest scene that they had with, was it Rory and Peggy?
00:13:27
Speaker
kind of like ended weird that way and they just kind of I just feel like they just had to throw in oh there's another woman on the site let's just throw this love story in to try and yeah I thought that was kind of contrived that was okay but I mean it was cool but yeah it was a happy ending at least right well it's happy ending but isn't it I find it so funny that the author of the book is the nephew of Peggy I didn't really
00:13:52
Speaker
What? Yeah, yeah. Wow. You know, it's her nephew. So maybe she like told him a story? Well, apparently they didn't they were not in touch. And apparently he only knew that she excavated at Sutton Hoo when he was thinking of writing a book. That's what apparently they're saying. But who knows, right? We're just speculating who knows. But I mean, it's the nephew. So I don't know, it just adds another layer to it, I think.
00:14:17
Speaker
There's some drama there. Right. So the whole, so the whole cast of characters, right? I think it's important because we bring this up. So you have Mrs. Pretty, she's the landowner. Her son, Robert, right? Yes. Young, young son. They have a fictional character named Rory, who is Mrs. Pretty's cousin, who in the film, he's basically waiting on orders to go to the RAF. Basil Brown, the, um, advocacy archeologist, the original excavator. Then the two field hands. I forget
Cultural Significance and Connections to Beowulf
00:14:44
Speaker
their names off the top of my head. Does anyone know them?
00:14:48
Speaker
Oh, the guard, the staff, which is pretty staff, right? You mean all the archaeologists? The staff. Yeah, they're just there to help. They don't have much storytelling. But then the archaeologists from the British Museum, I forget his name. Uh, him. Charles Phillips. Charles Phillips, yeah. Charles Phillips. Okay. Charles Phillips. Peggy, who is the, she's an archaeologist who's a wife of another archaeologist. And what is his name? Like they, they're,
00:15:17
Speaker
They don't do a good job of names in the film. No. I just feel like the pickets in general, they're not depicted well, both of them. I mean, they're both esteemed archaeologists, Stuart and Peggy, especially Peggy and the way they depict her. I mean, as you said earlier, like how the women are, there's four main female individuals who are part of Saturn, whose excavations in 1939. And we only see two of them.
00:15:44
Speaker
And that's Edith Prittian and Peggy Piggott. But even Peggy's not depicted correctly, and nor are the two photographers who are replaced by a fictional character, Rory. However, we've got to remember it's a book, and then it's a film. So there's only so much we can say about that, right? So in terms of film quality, if we're not looking at this from a factual or archaeological lens, is this a good movie overall? I thought so, yeah.
00:16:14
Speaker
I liked it. I mean, it's definitely for people who love archeology and history. I think it's a niche. It's very niche, but I mean, I enjoyed it. I think it's done quite well considering. Did you guys pick up on what the deeper theme of it was besides the archeology? Because I kind of had a thought that it was about loss, but I couldn't tell exactly because then they moved new plots in through the middle of it.
00:16:45
Speaker
Cause like the lady was dying and then like that one lady's relationship was falling apart. And then the guy was going to war, but like, I couldn't really put that together with like the ship other than that, like, you know, being almost lost to history in a way, you know? Whoa, David, that's deep. Oh yeah. This is David. I was talking to David about it last night and I was like, I, I, at first I really didn't like the movie because I was like, this is so slow. It feels like I'm a crew chief just watching an excavation. And then I was talking to David. He's like, no, no, no, dude.
00:17:14
Speaker
The film's about loss in an archeological setting. And then I rewatched again this morning with that framework and I was like, oh no, this is actually really good if you're not super focused on the archeology. That makes a lot of sense actually, because you can kind of see, even dealing with Rory going off to the war and that whole talk about when you join the RAF, you're pretty much just signing your death certificate.
00:17:38
Speaker
yeah and the little boy was frustrated because obviously he lost his father and then like he was losing his mother too and he was like i can't do anything about it kind of thing and and then he almost lost basil and he biked all the way to his house
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah. So I was focusing on that at the same time, but I'm trying to be like, why the hell are they digging it that way? And I was kind of upset, but there were many times where most of the movie, it was really good excavation techniques. I think I just steamrolled over you guys, but you know British stuff more than I do. Yeah. And also they're digging a burial, which is all about loss too, right? So even what they're working on is about
00:18:19
Speaker
how people are finalizing someone's death and prehistory. Speaking of finalizing, we're going to step out of this segment, which is segment one of this episode, and we will catch you on the next one. So welcome back to episode 44 of a Life in Ruins podcast. We are here with Tash and Raven at this point, chatting about the dig and Sutton who and kind of
00:18:44
Speaker
representation of archaeology in the media. And I wanted to ask you to how you feel about their approach to depicting archaeology. So they obviously take some, they take a tack where they're focusing on kind of the human part of the archaeology here and less focusing on the excavation methods and things like that. So do you think
00:19:12
Speaker
that's an appropriate way for archaeology to be portrayed going into the future. So I think there's a couple of things we need to look at. First of all, it's a film. It's not a documentary. If they had focused so much on the archaeology, would that have appealed to the wider audience?
00:19:28
Speaker
Secondly, come on, we all know when you're on excavations and there's a lot of people, a lot of archaeologists, sometimes a romance may happen. So who knows? Maybe the author knew this and wanted to add that bit in. But what we should focus on is the fact that when they're depicting excavations, they actually did have consultants, right? They had actual archaeologists, they have representatives from MOLA, and they actually got to go to an archaeological site. If memory serves in 2015, they went to Borhead.
00:19:56
Speaker
which is an Elizabethan, I think it was a theatre, if memory serves. And they got to go, at least for a day, they got to see how archaeologists were excavating the deposits and interpreting the deposits and they had to look around the site. They also then had people on site who were also archaeologists from Mola. And they even had trials from some archaeologists from the same company. And they were shown how to travel, how to put the string line up, how to excavate
00:20:26
Speaker
in a systematic way. So they are depicting it quite well. I mean, the mounts that we see in the film, they created this for the film, the ship, that's a prop that they created as well. So all of this, they put so much into it, actually. I think a lot of money was put in to making sure that the excavation techniques were depicted in a way that is true to what we do and the tools that we see, the system, they did quite well. Okay. There's a few things here and there. I remember
00:20:55
Speaker
And there's a scene where Peggy is brushing and she's quite annoyed with her husband, Stuart. And the way she's brushing that I'm like, or traveling. There's something, there's a movement she was doing and I was like, what is she doing? But obviously she's the character, she's upset with him, right? So there's a few things here and there, but generally speaking, I think they did quite well. And apparently the actors, they didn't know where the artifacts were buried. So apparently we see their reaction to finding the artifacts. So we're kind of getting that connection with them.
00:21:23
Speaker
as well as then seeing the artefacts in its glory. But as we know from seeing the film, they don't really focus on the archaeological artefacts itself. They look more towards the excavation techniques and the people who were there at that time. But as David said before the break, there's more to it than just the archaeology.
Challenges in Film Portrayal of Archaeology
00:21:40
Speaker
There's, I think, what's going on at that moment in time and loss and death. And I think, I don't know if you guys saw it as well, there's a lot of correlation between
00:21:51
Speaker
For example, there was that crash, the airplane crash, that's fictional at that time, it didn't happen during the excavations. There is something that happens later on, but at that moment in time, that doesn't happen. And they rescue that soldier, that RAF pilot out the plane, they put him into the boat and you see him, this body of the soldier in a boat. Maybe that's to give you an idea of what the burial might have looked like, right? The Sutton Hoo ship burial.
00:22:17
Speaker
And then we see, yeah. And did you guys, did you not, did you guys see the bit where there's like Edith pretty, she's like,
00:22:26
Speaker
She's quite ill and she's like crouched. And that kind of reminded me of like the crouched burials. I think I looked maybe too much into this, but there's also this scene at the end when she's lying in the burial before they... Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's kind of really cool. So she's like seeing, looking about the stars, having a little sleepover. There's so much, I think there's so many correlations. It depends how deep you want to look into it, isn't it? But it's definitely loss. There's definitely something there. So I think it's done quite well considering it's a film. Yeah, I thought so.
00:22:57
Speaker
I did love that fact about the finds being hidden, because for me, that was probably the most exciting part of the film, because you feel that excitement. And that is the same excitement that at least I get when I'm on site and I find something, even if it's not as exciting as what they were finding. But if you get something that's kind of cool or interesting and you get that rush, and I really think that they did a good job of portraying that part of archaeology.
00:23:23
Speaker
Yeah, it was really cool to see them down in like the trenches of it or I guess in the ship. Like it looks exactly like the photos like they got it. One thing I've always wanted to do like doing all this media stuff is figure out how to make like a convincing looking archaeological site so I could like bury stuff into it and like then dig it out. But like obviously it looks disturbed and the soil is kind of weird but it looks like they really like put their time into like making a completely mock
00:23:53
Speaker
shit burial because it looked real, you know, it was cool. Yeah. They did a great job with that. And I think them traveling it out and stuff, it looked like miserable, like it usually is. Um, but also not miserable at the same time. Cause you're digging something really cool. Could you imagine X like, cause missus, uh, what is it? Peggy, what's her name? Peggy. Yeah. Yeah. Peggy piggett. It's like excavating and like a summer shirt.
00:24:19
Speaker
Like I couldn't imagine excavating in a, in a skirt, like in the slightest or even like Basil Brown is wearing a three piece suit. Well, as you know, the gentleman archeologist, that's what they would, you know, you'd wear that to go to the grocery store back then too, right? Yeah, that's true. And he's riding his bike with it all sweaty. Get into the museum. Oh yeah. So it seems like they did a good job of kind of depicting the times at least, although they took liberties and in certain areas. But you know, I think we want to,
00:24:50
Speaker
talk about the actual dig that happened at Sutton Hoo and various phases and whatnot. And it's actually a pretty significant find for British archaeology in general. I don't know if, Tash, you were taught about this in school or anything like that. How did they kind of depict this? Right. I'm trying to go from memory now. So if I remember correctly, Sutton Hoo kind of just
00:25:20
Speaker
It changed our understanding of what we interpreted Anglo-Saxons at that time period. They were more sophisticated. They were trading with the world. I mean, if you look at the material culture, things that we were finding, it was from all over the world, those grave goods, those gifts that were given to that individual. Everything that we found in that burial chamber redefined what we understood.
00:25:48
Speaker
Bearing in mind, we're talking about the early 1930s, you know, like, well, late 1930s, maybe now we would interpret it differently. But at that moment in time, it really changed everything for us. It was really an important finding. One of the main reasons why it's an archaeological discovery of the century and why we still talk about it today. I mean, there's only one, I think, of four helmets. Yeah, the Sussan Hoo helmet is one of four. It's one of three ship burials found in England.
00:26:16
Speaker
it's really a really important part of English history, of Anglo-Saxon history, that if they were not excavated, who knows, probably it could have been destroyed during World War II due to the location of that of the estate of Sutton Hill estate, that land was taken over during World War II trenching when they're practicing. So who knows how much would have been
00:26:41
Speaker
kept if they had not excavated prior to World War II.
Sutton Hoo's Impact on Archaeology
00:26:44
Speaker
There's so much going on about it. It's really unbelievable. It's an iconic site and we're still learning so much about it, considering only like later on, post-war, we were able to look at the artefacts and understand exactly what was going on with it. And that's kind of what I like about the film. Like at the end, you don't really, even though it's a shame, they don't really focus on the finds that much, but you see in the crates, you see glimpses of the
00:27:09
Speaker
of the helmets, you see bits of it. And I think they do it on purpose to kind of scandalise it a little bit, because I don't think the archaeologists on the site understood exactly how significant it was. They saw the coins, but until you look at everything, the material culture, everything that's going on, then you fully understand.
00:27:26
Speaker
from my point of view, it was significant in a nutshell. It was a significant site. And what I find interesting is one of the most famous poems in the Western world is Beowulf, of course. And Beowulf is supposed to take place before the Vikings. And in that tale, they talk about kings and longships and gold and treasure. And it was thought of as just legend.
00:27:52
Speaker
but even like the helmet that we were talking about matches pretty closely with descriptions of what's in Beowulf and what they found at Sutton Hoo, actually kind of like what Beowulf, even though it's, you know, a story, right? That it was based on some sort of reality that based off of the Sutton Hoo excavation was actually telling how they were describing pre-Viking Britain was based on actual culture, right?
00:28:19
Speaker
Exactly. I mean, Beowulf, when you think about it in that context, of course, we're speculating who knows what that poem is, if it's written on a particular individual, particular people of the time, or they're being a bit more vague. Most likely, I'm sure Raven would agree, it's quite speculative. We can't compare them as being, you know, it's definitely the same. We can just look at it as two texts. But what we need to know is that when they were interpreting Sutton Hoo, they were looking at Beowulf, right? And they were like, Oh, well,
00:28:48
Speaker
They match up pretty well. So this is kind of an issue, I think, is that sometimes we might look at a historical text or a poem and we call it historical text and then we're like, well, this says this and we found this so it has to be the same. So I think we need to have some flexibility there.
00:29:05
Speaker
Yeah, because we always take these historical documents with a grain of salt, you know, assuming that they're writing from a certain perspective or they're writing to trying to tell it, trying to tell a tale or something like that. But it, you know, like you said, Tashi, you, I think we need to take these texts a little more serious. And I like, I absolutely love that.
00:29:28
Speaker
Sutton Hoo is like this perfect example of that. And it's super interesting for me as someone who's, you know, being an America and things like that, we tend to discount or we take all these historical writings as, you know, with a grain of salt, but there is this overriding truth deep within them. And that's super cool. Super cool.
00:29:57
Speaker
Anything you want to add? Well, you know, I just, you know, there is truth to, to every story, right? And people when, you know, when things are written down, when stories, poems, folk tales, myths are created, there's always some little bit of truth in there and yours, you know, you there's the whole you write what you know thing. So I do agree where you kind of have to take you have to do take them with a grain of salt, but
00:30:25
Speaker
Don't completely dismiss them because it's all part of the culture. So you want to be able to look at the whole picture. And to do that, you need to use these literary fictional sources because it can give you an insight into even just the mindset or the values of the people who wrote it and what that material culture could translate into.
00:30:56
Speaker
Absolutely. And so as we were kind of talking about in the beginning, we're in the mid part of this section, like a prominent theme throughout the dig up until they find the grave goods being gold and some of these other things. Basil Brown is adamant. He's like, he thinks that this ship is older than Viking. So as we kind of touched upon already in his Tosh and Raven, I mentioned like,
00:31:17
Speaker
there is a limited understanding of pre Viking invasion culture in, what is it? East Anglia is where this is. I watch a lot of Vikings. And when they find that coin, I just thought it was interesting when that Arcea, when Basil brings over that coin that's from a particular period. Merovingian. Merovingian, yes. Merovingian coin that
00:31:40
Speaker
the archaeologist started screaming. It's like, it's Anglo-Saxon. These people had culture and just got really excited. I felt that enthusiasm because that's, as we've mentioned, it's a revolutionary new understanding of the established cultural chronology.
00:32:00
Speaker
of Britain at that time. I'd like to talk about that, uh, that archeologist actually, I forget his name, Charles Phillips, Charles Phillips. Yeah. With all of the, you know, like anti-science, anti-archeology stuff on the internet these days, not to get into that too hard, but like they really paint that guy to be like, and show all archeologists to be total.
00:32:24
Speaker
for lack of a better word, like douches. So like it was it like kind of made me upset but obviously for the story and to like discredit Basil in the like that they like they made their point but then like I know anybody who doesn't like archaeology or thinks archaeologists are you know quote unquote hiding the truth it literally amplifies that tenfold in the movie and I was like uh like that's not good but that guy
00:32:50
Speaker
when reading about the site literally did that and they didn't put his name on the thing. So pre-modern archaeology at the British Museum doesn't seem like it was a great place, but I don't know. That's and that's and that's like a nice asterisk to put on that is that
00:33:07
Speaker
early on this might have been something you would hide from communities or worry about people treasure hunting or things like that. But I think in modern archaeology, the goal is, and plenty of the projects I work on,
00:33:22
Speaker
now in CRM, there's this public aspect to it that you want to bring to light. I mean, we want people to know where they live and where they live and what has happened before then. So I completely agree, David, that they amplify that a little bit, but I think there should definitely be an asterisk there where it's like we are trying to remedy that right now. Right. Yeah. And I think they, with Basil's story, made it
00:33:51
Speaker
Good, you know, like, cause I learned how to dig from quite literally a British, like, you know, volunteer at the top or site and he knew how to dig better than most archeologists. So like, like, obviously you shouldn't like rule people like that out. And Basil obviously knew what he was doing. Well, on that note, we're going to rule out this second segment here and we'll catch you in the third segment.
00:34:15
Speaker
Welcome back. So we are recording this on February 8th, and today is a very special day. And why is that, Connor? I heard there's a birthday going on as part of this podcast, and it is indeed Davey and Hal's birthday. So we wanted to opera sing. Uh,
00:34:38
Speaker
Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you Happy birthday dear David
00:35:07
Speaker
Happy birthday to you. And you smell like a monkey. Hashtag Jane Goodall. Can you believe we did that without rehearsing?
00:35:26
Speaker
Uh, wow. Wow. That's all I gotta say to that. Uh, yeah, thanks guys. Hopefully it's my last.
Public Perception and Safety in Archaeology
00:35:36
Speaker
Jesus. No, stop it. We had this conversation. You got to stop with those jokes. Don't say that you're my age, right? So it's like, this is just, Oh God, I'm 29. So I should, I'll be, uh, one more year. And then my knees give out. Oh, you still have your knees. Wow.
00:35:56
Speaker
Mine went like three years ago. Oh, did you have back surgery before you were 30? I didn't think so. Plain. Oh yeah. That's right. I forgot about that. Connor. Yeah. Sorry to hear that. That back dude. Oh, it's, it's, it's not good.
00:36:13
Speaker
I have, I have disk degeneration already and I'm not even 30. So, you know, cheers. Um, on that, on that point, Carlton wanted to talk about the techniques and how they excavated at, at sudden to who. So Carlton, if you don't mind, uh, elucidating on that. Do you mind if I interject real quick before you start that interject? Cool. This is a neat fact that I was trying to sneak in at some point, but I don't know where else to sneak it. So I'm doing it now.
00:36:43
Speaker
Sutton who is actually how you pronounce how when I looked into my last name. So it's the same thing and it means like burial mound, which is cool. So like how is the modern spelling of that? But like apparently in like Gaelic you'd say who, which is cool. So the site's named after me, therefore I own it. Cool. Go called it. Are you going to bury yourself in a mound as well? I thought how was the village?
00:37:09
Speaker
It's like a village, a highland or a mound is like how I've always heard it described. So it seems like a place that's not flat. Okay, we'll burn you then. Cool, good to know. Yay.
00:37:20
Speaker
It's interesting that it's like a time period piece, 1930s, where archaeological excavation and techniques weren't, they're very different than how we have them today. And we mentioned this, at least previously, that they're actually digging with trials at Sutton Hoo, and that's pretty important, right?
00:37:42
Speaker
Yes, I loved watching that happen and just seeing them actually using trowels. And one of my favorite parts was when they were all along the edges and they were saying, you know, careful when you're stepping in. And I was like, oh my gosh, like, yes. Got me very excited because you always see people jumping into trenches and whatnot. And talking about the trenches when he got Barry alive and he was telling Mrs. Pretty to not be there because it would fall.
00:38:09
Speaker
That's a real danger for archaeologists that no one really talks about. And so seeing all these kind of methods and the discussions they have on the site was very exciting to see in a Hollywood film. So I just want to say quickly, Raven, you know when you were researching the tools, but I know you maybe did that a bit more. In regards to trials, I know we use trials. I remember seeing photos from 1920, late 1920s as first an excavation of Scotland, and there's an archaeologist who have trials.
00:38:39
Speaker
I'm not sure on the shape exactly. Cause obviously in the film they're using modern trials. So I think they definitely had trials, but maybe not obviously stainless steel. Like we have now, maybe a bit more flimsy. Do you remember what type of tools they had? I've never gone into the history of the trial, but that would make a great video. Isn't that literally the name of your YouTube channel? Tosh behind the trial, trowel drop boom.
00:39:08
Speaker
Also, you dig with a square trial, not a pointy trial, I'm just saying. Amen. 100%. Can't tell me otherwise. Pointy trials are for breaking bones and stabbing students. Oh, wow. I've spoken from experiments, Ollie. He did lead an excavation to- My lawyer said not to comment. I'm his lawyer, and legal counsel says that he should not say that. That's a t-shirt coming, but yeah, no. Yeah, you guys use pointy trials over there, don't you?
00:39:37
Speaker
I mean a lot of archaeologists here do too. I think it's a really Wyoming thing, the square trowel as the, as the prominent one. I like straight lines. Do you want straight walls or not a thing? I don't know about you guys, but I can make a straight wall with a pointy trowel.
00:39:54
Speaker
You are a goddess in human form because I don't, I don't understand how that happens otherwise. But you guys are doing mainly test pits, right? So it's a bit different. So maybe it depends on your, the situation of how you're excavating something. Yeah. Like if you're just peeling off layers, I think a marginal trial is the way to go. But if you're trying to like dig something out and around something, I think the point of trial is the way to go. Marginal trial, look at you and your big fancy words.
00:40:23
Speaker
Yeah, I've used my pointy trial just helps me get plasters out of the ground more accurately. But I just, I think it's just a preference thing. I just like the square trial a little bit more.
00:40:33
Speaker
We're done being snobs. I was going to talk about when the mound collapses on the guy. My first thought was, because he says to the lady, hey, don't step in there. That's not safe. And then the next scene, or in that same scene, that collapses on him. But in a regular mound excavation, at least, or any excavation here, we have OSHA. This is more for the audience listening. That's Occupational Safety.
00:41:02
Speaker
Hazard associate something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're the ones that shut down sea world. Okay. Uh, that might've been Peter. All right. That's something different. Nope. Anyway. Okay. Well, oh, well, it was eating people. True. Uh, OSHA basically makes us, if you have something more than a meter deep, you have to like shore your walls or it depends on I think that where you're at, but he did not shore the walls at all. They were just completely vertical, taller than his head, which will cause them to fall in on you like that. So that's a no-no.
00:41:29
Speaker
It is what it is, Kaz. Yeah, it's what it is. Yeah, of course. Even now, we wouldn't dig that deep.
Final Thoughts on Archaeology in The Dig
00:41:34
Speaker
Every single site's a bit different. I mean, that was sad. So yeah, there shouldn't be a theory. Now, we wouldn't be doing that. Generally, bog standard, 1.2, we say 1.2 meters. If it's 1.2 meters, then you have to start stepping. But depending on the deposit surface, if it's sand, it's a bit looser. You'd start
00:41:52
Speaker
stepping it out. So literally creating this sort of step system way before. It just depends on the deposit itself. So yeah, same thing. All you're sure it just depends on what's going on. And the only way to become a really famous archeologist is to have your walls collapse on you. Shout out George Frison for being buried alive and at multiple places. That's the only way to get really, really famous in archeology is to have your walls collapse on a new RIP George.
00:42:19
Speaker
I told my mom that and she was freaked. She started freaking out. She didn't know it was a real thing. So thanks for it. She's going to listen to this and be like, Oh, great. So that's how Raven's going to go. That almost happened to me at on before on rock shelter up at Wyoming where I had like a bit of, um, I think it was just like really crappy courtside or something came off the wall. And I thought like, cause I was in like a three meter deep test unit. And I thought that was the beginning of me just getting buried alive and to take them like six or seven feet just to get me out of there. But thankfully it didn't.
00:42:49
Speaker
I mean, heart attack inducing episode there. Quickest way to save your life if that happens is to always wear a shirt, stick your head in your shirt, and then you have a small pocket of air to breathe before you inhale a bunch of dirt and choke to death. But if the weight of it is enough to crush you, then, you know, you rest so well.
00:43:06
Speaker
This is a really dark turn after the happy birthday, really. Yeah. Top tips from David here. Make sure you wear a shirt when excavating. That way you could pray out loud before you die.
00:43:24
Speaker
So yeah, continuing with the excavation talk, the way Basil prepped his excavation, like he removed the top sod first to expose the top soil. And then kind of, it looked like he went stratigraphically, you know, I mean, maybe not stratigraphically, but like the way he prepped the site before excavation, I thought was really well done as well. And once they had, you know, the ship exposed, they had the wall shored up,
00:43:50
Speaker
and they're using brushes and trowels. And they even mentioned at one point when the archaeologist, Phillips, wants to get in there. And Basil's like, this site's too fragile. I don't think it could support someone of your, what do you say, stature or build or something like that. Basically calling them like, hey, fatty, stay out of my hole. And they had people, and we see that. I know in
00:44:12
Speaker
Alex Garcia from the University of Wyoming was telling me once when they were excavating in Peru that they had to wear socks in one of these excavations and only really light people could get in there because they were working in a cemetery with a lot of exposed bone and they didn't want to destroy the bone. They didn't want you wearing shoes, so you didn't crush it underneath your feet, so you had to wear something flat. What other things did we notice other than the troweling that we would nod at and say, yeah, that's good work?
00:44:39
Speaker
Is it my imagination or did I see a grid? You know those ones where you're drawing and you can just like place the grid over it so you can, I know they're in there in the photos and I'm trying to remember if it was actually in the film as well. I think in one scene or two they were there. You kind of see it propped up against the side, right? Wait, in the 1930s they made a grid? Yeah, it was just like a screen grid that you could just place down. So you're drawing. It's called drawing 10 centimeter by 10 centimeter.
00:45:10
Speaker
in some situations. That's, that's amazing. Cause I don't, I don't think that came into archeology in the Americas till like the seventies or eighties. And even then it was used very sparingly. So that's cool. That's super cool. Cause that that's, that's how we control things in archeology is doing things via grid. Yeah. I didn't know it took that long for us to get it. It seems like a pretty, you know, ancient technique you could use for anything. I could be wrong. Also I can be very wrong, but I, I assumed
00:45:38
Speaker
Yeah, I have no idea. But another thing I wanted to say, with the ship burial, they didn't explain this in the movie at all, and I had to look it up. Obviously, the wood had rotted away from the ship. So what you were seeing, that was the beams of the ship. And you could see the wood and the rivets and stuff. The soil was discolored in those spots where the wood had rotted away. So they could dig around that, and the soil would be a lot darker there. So it literally made the imprint of the boat.
00:46:07
Speaker
Which when the guy comes up and he's like, whoa, capital, when he like sees the excavate, like it would have been extremely impressive to see that because it literally preserved itself with like a shadow. Yeah, that's really cool. And it's for me with preservation and stuff and how things survive throughout the.
00:46:27
Speaker
the record, it's super interesting to see how we can still find stuff like that. Even if it has been disintegrated, you just have to be careful enough with your excavation methods. Thankfully, Basil Brown was in order to recognise it and make sure that we were able to uncover it. Exactly. Because like, what a lot of people don't realise is the mound was literally like acidic baths.
00:46:55
Speaker
it's like bubbling away at the archaeology. That's why we don't have a lot of organic material. We mainly just have the metals and the imprint, which is why we don't have a body. We don't have human remains and only in the 60s when we did a phosphate analysis that they could determine that, yes, there was a body here. Scientifically, they've somewhat proven that there definitely was some sort of human remains. At one point, they weren't sure if the burial chamber was made in ritual or if they actually had a human burial within the chamber.
00:47:26
Speaker
It's really interesting, actually. The site itself is so super interesting. Yeah. The more that we learn about it, it's just, oh, it's awesome. I really liked that he was telling, I think it was just the pretties that like, like the mother and the son, like how they would have gotten the ship there. And he like did landscape archeology really quickly and explained, you know, like the thought processes of the people at the time. It wasn't just about the, like the value of the artifacts. He said like these people would have come from the river.
00:47:56
Speaker
moved the ship all the way across with logs, probably took hundreds of people. And that's why it's significant because like they wouldn't have done that for just anybody. And that's like a huge aspect of archeology that I think misses a lot in the public. It's like it more, you see the cool artifacts in a museum, but to us, it's more about the behavior that happened there. And that's the coolest thing they said in the movie. That's costly signaling, right? I mean, in a sense, yeah, you're just, it's prestige.
00:48:23
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that, that, that requires a certain amount of organization, you know, that, that, that you're, you have people who are working in certain, yeah, it just, it you're organized in a way where you can build a boat together. And that that's super interesting to see, at least for hunter gatherers or anything like that in any sort of society. So that's dope. Soundbite that.
00:48:45
Speaker
So like Tash and Raven, what are your like final thoughts since we're like getting close to the end of the segment of the movie of Sutton who like, what, what is your like, uh, your final statement about the, what happened there? If Raven, if you don't mind going first.
00:49:01
Speaker
Well, I personally have a soft spot for Sutton Hoo because in my archaeology 101 class first semester of university, like my undergraduate, my professor, Dr. Ross, he had this thing called
00:49:18
Speaker
archaeology movie Thursdays, because we had class twice a week and on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And every Thursday would be us watching some sort of archaeological documentary. And the very first one was the documentary on the discovery of Sutton Hoo.
00:49:36
Speaker
So that was my first introduction to the site, one of my very first introductions to learning about archaeology in an academic setting. And it always kind of stuck with you because it's this amazing find, right? You look at the helmet and you automatically know where it's from. And it is one of those big ones where even if it's not your area of research or specialty, like you know it and you appreciate it for what it is and just how fantastic it is.
00:50:05
Speaker
seeing the film, I was very excited for the film. I had high expectations for it. And I will say I wasn't as disappointed as I thought I was going to be. And there were some very great moments, you know, very exciting things where you feel that excitement with them. But I did, I do agree with Connor, not Connor, sorry, I do agree with Carlton saying that at one point I was thinking like, this is this pretty slow. And they should have in my opinion, because that's just
00:50:36
Speaker
who we are as archaeologists. I would have loved to have them focus more on the finds or just give them a little bit more love to show people how spectacular it is and how different it is from a lot of other things that they were finding at the time and why it changed the field of archaeology. But of course, that's just a pipe dream because Hollywood would never go for that. But it was fun. I have been recommending it to my friends and family. So that's always a good sign.
00:51:06
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And Tash, if you don't mind answering kind of the same question, that wasn't a question, but then I intertwined it with another question because that's just who I am as a person. Well, I think for me, maybe I'll just like to look at the finds itself, which are not really mentioned that much in the film. And that's just like the more recent work done. If you look at the helmets itself, as Raven just mentioned,
00:51:33
Speaker
What I love about it is that of course we see the symbolisms, the iconography of the animals, the snake and the flying animal who's either a bird or a dragon and the relationship they entwined and they're fighting with each other. But I love when you look at the eyes, where you see the garnets, kind of like where the eyebrows are, and it's kind of like the bird or the dragon's on fire, right? The wings are on fire.
00:51:57
Speaker
And I love how there was a paper done recently by Paul Mortimer and Neil Price, where they look at the mask and they kind of interpret what's going on with the garnets and how only one of the eyes are somewhat reflecting the light in and out, kind of like a bike reflector, bicycle reflector. And the other one's a bit more dark to resemble sort of Odin's eye. And I love how they've kind of interpreted the mask as symbolizing
00:52:23
Speaker
the Odin, you know, the pagan sort of belief. And on a flip side, I love how there was work done by Sue Brunning, I don't have to pronounce the name actually, I've forgotten, I think it's Sue Brunning's, who's the curator of European Early Medieval Collections at British Museum. And she looks up the pommel of the sword, and she basically interpreted the pommel by analysis that
00:52:50
Speaker
potentially the individual was left handed. So I just want us to maybe think about the artifacts and how they give us a bigger insight into the individual and the people of that time. That's just what I'd like to say. Well, yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for, for both of you for coming on and chatting with us. Um, where can folks find you, uh, Tash, if you don't mind starting, where can they find you on Instagram, YouTube, et cetera?
00:53:19
Speaker
Sure. So if you are interested to see what I do, you can find me on Instagram on Tash underscore Arceo and behind the trial. I also have a YouTube channel behind the trial. And you're going to soon find me on our podcast network where we have behind the trial podcasts and you will be able to listen to Arceo just in quarantine, which is a live stream YouTube show, which we're converting into a podcast format. So I'll be joining the APN family. Very cool. And Raven.
00:53:46
Speaker
I can be found on all of the socials, so Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok now, because I'm trying to be cool with the youths, and dig it with Raven, as well as on YouTube under the same name. What about MySpace? You know what? I tried the MySpace thing. I just got a lot of weird emo kids trying to send me stickers and whatnot. It was weird.
00:54:14
Speaker
So I kind of backed away from that one. So we're just going to go full on with TikTok and see what comes out of that. I'm trying to emulate David there, see what I can do. Excellent. And with that, that is episode 44 of Life in the Roots podcast. We just had an awesome interview about Sutton Who and the movie The Dig on Netflix with our friends Natasha Bilson and Raven Todd De Silva. And with that, we are out.
00:54:47
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. Knock, knock. Oh, Jesus. No, no, no, no. I know where this is going. No, I can't. I know. I don't. Yep.
00:55:13
Speaker
Who's there? Sutton. Sutton who? Well, Sutton who is a fantastic site in England and you should listen to the rest of the podcast and enjoy it. Peace. Thank you for that. That was horrible. Um, one last thing, guys, if you listen to the podcast, please for the love of God, leave us a review. All right.
00:55:52
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, Dig Tech LLC, Culturo 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.