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ENCORE Commonly Held Myths About CRM Archaeology - CRMArch 263
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The Archaeology Podcast Network is taking a break for the holiday season. In the meantime, please enjoy this encore episode. It’s a favorite of ours! Happy holidays!
You’ll never have a family in CRM. You need a Master’s degree to do ANYTHING. You’re NOT a scientist. Leader’s are made in college. These are just a few of the common myths in CRM archaeology. We talk about these and a lot more on today’s episode.
You’ll never have a family in CRM. You need a Master’s degree to do ANYTHING. You’re NOT a scientist. Leader’s are made in college. These are just a few of the common myths in CRM archaeology. We talk about these and a lot more on today’s episode.
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Transcript
Introduction to CRM Archaeology Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. This is the Serum Archaeology Podcast. It's the show where we pull back the veil of cultural resources management archaeology and discuss the issues that everyone is concerned about. Welcome to the podcast.
Debunking Myths in CRM Archaeology
00:00:23
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the CRM archaeology podcast, episode 263 for May 3rd, 2023. I'm your host, Chris Webster. On today's show, we talk about common myths and misconceptions in CRM archaeology. So don't go get your whip in fedora because you are not Indiana Jones and because the CRM archaeology podcast starts right now.
00:00:51
Speaker
Welcome to the show, everyone. Joining me today is Heather in Southern California. Hi, everybody. Andrew also in Southern California. Hey, guys, how's it going? Doug in Scotland. Hey, everyone.
00:01:03
Speaker
And I am also in Southern California. I am currently in Palm Springs, hot, hot Palm Springs. It was 106 yesterday. It's supposed to be 105 today and it's garbage, but our air conditioners are killing it. So there you go. Oh man. We're like in the high forties at the moment. I'm trying to see the ah conversion. Yeah. Yeah. I think like today's high was like seven Celsius.
00:01:28
Speaker
Oh, oh, 45 degrees. Yeah. nices Nice. Today's high was 45. I'll tell you what, we're here for two weeks. This is our second week. We're starting in Palm Springs, and then we're going to ah another park on Oceanside, California, which is between Los Angeles and San Diego. The highs the week we're supposed to be there are literally in the mid sixties. It's so different just going out to the coast versus like right here in Palm Springs. It's amazing. Yeah. ah Heather and I are in coastal California. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:59
Speaker
And it's nice. Yeah, it's, it's, it's cool right now. I would say it's like sixties. Yeah, you can say it Heather. It's super nice. just super super hard its right Yeah. This is what we call like a warm Scottish summer. So know right that's the that's good temperature.
Realities of CRM Archaeology
00:02:17
Speaker
You know, what's not super nice. All the myths about CRM archeology that people seem to believe. oh Doug, um to lead us bridge chris but it's Doug's topic this week. So elaborate on that, Doug. Yeah. So the topic is like, uh, we could call it miss miss misunderstandings, but It's not like 100%, but there's there's certain myths out there about like professional archaeology that just are completely not true or only partially true. like there There'll be some truth to them, but it's those things that like just sort of won't die, those ideas about what we do and how we do things that are just not connected to reality or only partially connected to reality. so That's yeah that's the that' the theme of this episode. I guess it's your guys who's like,
00:03:13
Speaker
biggest pet peeves on those areas of um sort of myths that exist that shouldn't exist in archaeology. I'm just going to throw it out there and go down our list of who who we have first. Actually, Chris, on my screen, you're first, so I was going to throw it out. What's one of your myths that you see in professional archaeology?
00:03:35
Speaker
Well, I mean, I've got quite a few based on like leadership and things like that, but I'll start with one a little lower down the totem pole before when you're first getting into the field. But archaeology is all about Indiana Jones and excavating, right? It's it's exciting. it's It's digging in trenches and and units and and finding stuff all the time.
00:03:54
Speaker
It can be that, but it's just simply not for a lot of places, right? There there is a lot of times in CRM archaeology where you don't find anything. I've been on lots of projects where it was just miserable. It was hot. It was humid. I'm specifically thinking about you, Georgia. but It was hot, humid. You're just like machete-ing through briars and finding literally nothing. Like you're machete-ing for 30 minutes to get to your next shovel test. You do that shovel test. It's garbage. There's nothing there. And then you move on. Right. And it is just absolutely annoying. Now I'm not a very good example of this. Cause my first, I think two years in CRM, just by luck of the draw, I wasn't even searching for this. I was just applying for everything I could. My first two years was like all excavations. So. So, but then I did like eight years of survey with some excavations pop, you know, in between there or more. So it was weird that it was all excavation, but I guess where that goes is it depends on where you want to work too. If you work on the East coast, you're more than likely going to do more excavation. You're going to do a lot more so shovel testing, which is, which is excavation in its own right. But the excavation you would think of the the large scale block excavation
00:04:58
Speaker
You're going to do more of that on the East Coast because there's less opportunity to move things when things are found on survey. right so They either have to abandon the project, the developer does, or they have to dig it up. There's only two options. you don't not like Out here in the West, you can just move the little pushpin that is the pipeline and then put it around the site. You've got to survey that whole area now. but you can get around some of the big stuff without actually digging it up. So that happens out here, at least in the desert
Regional Differences in Archaeology
00:05:24
Speaker
west a lot. I'm sure California and and the busier parts of California are similar in that there's little opportunity to move things. So there might be more excavation in those areas when they aren't when things are found, especially with paleontology being a factor as well. But anyway, that was one of the myths I thought of is you come out of school and you're you're reading about all these excavations. You don't read about miles and miles of boring survey or exciting survey. It can be really fun. you know like that's That's the other thing is
00:05:48
Speaker
I always said that your worst day in the high desert in Nevada where you don't find anything is just an awesome hike where nobody's been for a hundred plus years. Right. And it's just, you know, amazing scenery and it can be really cool from that standpoint. But when you do it 10 on four off all day long and you don't find anything, it can start to wear on you professionally. Right. You're just like, what am I even out here for? And you stop looking at the ground sometimes and you're just like hiking at that point. I mean, everybody's done it. Everybody's done it.
00:06:17
Speaker
So it's something, but that's, that's what I'll start with. Yeah. I mean, we're somewhat similar over it like, okay, not quite the same, but like in the UK, like something they don't teach you is so you do what you're watching brief a lot of times. So you don't usually have to do shovel test pitting. You get out like a JCB and they scrape away a pattern throughout the area. And you just look at a machine slowly tilling away the land, hoping to find something.
00:06:47
Speaker
So a lot of people do end up on excavation sets monitoring. You only only need one to two people depending on where the site is and what's happening. But like what they don't teach you is yeah, that you might go like several months of looking at a machine, dig a hole and find absolutely nothing. And yeah it actually can break a lot of people. Like I know I've known more, okay.
00:07:13
Speaker
Obviously not like a good sample and not statistically sound, but I'm pretty sure I know more people who have left archaeology because of the boredom of that than like anything else. that like It just breaks you after like eight weeks.
00:07:28
Speaker
of being out in the rain, in the cold and watching machine dig a hole. I agree with you. Yeah. Brown dirt. Yeah. I've seen that like in action. I've seen people like break, you know, like doing that. And I think we can all understand that. And the other thing that happens is not only do they break, but they also just start to see artifacts everywhere because the human mind. I was just going to say that.
00:07:57
Speaker
ah Andrew. How about we jump ah one at a time and just head over to you on on one of your sort of myths of a professional archaeology.
Technology in Archaeology: LiDAR and GPR
00:08:04
Speaker
OK, so in thinking of of myths, it's so funny as I thought of this, I'm like, man, I could do this for the pseudo archaeology podcast, too. It's like two for one. So for me, mine are largely technological. They kind of go under this umbrella of the myth of technology in archaeology. And for my first one, I'm going to go with Lidar. Now, Lidar is great. I'm not here to say that Lidar sucks or, you know, Lidar is the work of the devil.
00:08:33
Speaker
Lidar when you can get it for your site is really, really killer. So and I've worked at sites that have had this. But the public perception is that these sites have like never been found. Then a plane flies over. And now all of a sudden, this amazing new site in the Maya jungle has been found. And that's not the truth. The truth is.
00:08:58
Speaker
99 times out of 100, the site is already totally well known and already mapped too. But the lidar goes over it and kind of checks our map. And every so often you do find like a little extra piece to the site or something like that, which is really amazing and really great. But it's not magic. And you still need to have people, real archaeologists,
00:09:23
Speaker
ground truth it, because even Lidar can record a hill that's only a hill. So you really have to check and remember that this stuff is just a tool. It's not magic. You need real people to continue the work.
00:09:42
Speaker
I might expand that into, you're yeah again, coming from school, right? so Even if you're coming out of a master's degree, you' you've gone into this little bubble of, here's how you know things should be done. But coming out of your undergrad, you might hear about all these you know these really great technologies that we do have as tools, but you're probably not going to use or see any of those in CRM for the most part. of Great point. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you'll, you may use them. It depends on the company that you're working for and, sure and the type of projects. I mean, Lidar, I think is very rare, at least in the United States, you know, where it is more popular now is in Hawaii.
00:10:21
Speaker
oh yeah because there's a lot of limitations first, you know, like topographical terrain limitations, but also limitations and where you can even go and where you can dig. And so we're finding that we have an office in Hawaii that LIDAR is used more and more now and not just for archeology, lots of other biology, geology. And so LIDAR, I think it just depends. And remember also LIDAR costs money because that's just yeah And so if you're in a, we have a small CRM firm, you know, they're looking at their return on investment. It doesn't make sense. Although so that stuff is coming down dramatically. There's it is three to $4,000 drones with LiDAR included. And it's not super great LiDAR. It's going to be close in LiDAR, but it's LiDAR nonetheless. It depends on what you need, but that stuff is kind of coming down and that's, you you know, you can go even less so you can get some off your shelf commercial drone.
00:11:19
Speaker
maybe like around a thousand and then can get lidar, you could just attach to your drone. Again, right not it's not super great. and But you can do it in a ah small site and that's like 150, 200 bucks. Actually, like a quarter of the price you were quoting there, and Chris, you could probably get something they can do maybe like 500 square meters in a Passover or probably actually more. It depends. and you know It all comes down to resolution and stuff. and You'd want to go slower to get more points and stuff like that for better. because ah If you're paying 150 for Lidar, you're not paying for great Lidar. But you know but but but the other thing that you have to think about is it's not just about getting the data. You have to have somebody who knows what they're doing looking at it. exactly you know and And that costs money too. you know yeah So with smaller companies, as exciting as it is and fun to use new tools and useful sometimes, it's not, again, it's the return on the investment. For a small company, it doesn't make sense for them.
00:12:22
Speaker
But that's actually two skill sets too though, right? It's the person to, if you're doing it in house with like a drone, it's the person to fly the drone adequately with the right search patterns and things like that to get the right coverage, especially for something like YDAR and photogrammetry and things like that. You can't just fly transects. Yeah. And what you have to be certified of course. Yeah. yeah And then somebody, which could be somebody completely different, to actually do the analysis. But building up our last episode, I'm going to tell Doug that pretty soon, I'm going to say maybe next year, Doug, I'm just going to go hole in with it. I'm going to say you're going to tell Chat GPT to go Lidar your site, and it's just going to launch drones from an Amazon facility. And it's going to... It's well played, man. Well played. Well played. Listen, if we just put if we just put LiDAR and all the Amazon delivery drones that are going to be coming out, then we could just get the lot of the whole area LiDAR for free. You know, you know even though that's a joke, but that was one thing I also wanted to bring up is even though LiDAR is super expensive, as time goes by, there's just going to be more LiDAR maps. So small companies might just use a LiDAR map that was produced like eight years ago.
00:13:26
Speaker
Yeah, now for sure. There will be more of it no matter what. Yeah, there is some Lidar most of the UK now, um at least most of Scotland. I mean, the the resolution, it depends again, like what do you what do you need it for? But it's actually pretty decent resolution. Yeah, it's usually pretty damn good. Massive chunks of the area done now, which used to cost a small fortune. CRM is done based on what's required.
00:13:55
Speaker
in the budget And the budget. right Exactly. but And what's required. So if there's, I mean, there's sometimes there's tools that we can bring out that are going to make our work more efficient. And so the client doesn't need to work where the experts are doing what we need to do within the budget. But if it's not required and it's going to cost more money, is that going to happen? Because the client's not paying us to play around and have fun. Yeah. Hey, Heather. Yes. as You're the last person. Well, actually, I guess I should say something as well, but Do you have another myth that you'd like to throw out there?
Career and Income in Archaeology
00:14:29
Speaker
Well, Doug, as a matter of fact, I do. or men I imagine you have several Heather. Mine is a little bit more, and I've said this before, but I'm going to say it again, because I think it's worth saying, is that it is a myth that you cannot make money in this business. You can.
00:14:49
Speaker
Now, it's just like anything. When you're going in and you're you're doing work in any kind of profession, the entry level, you're not going to make money right away. i mean you are That's just the way it is and in in any business, really. You start off at a certain point. Sometimes you can catapult to a higher level because you have some kind of a skill set or your education has allowed you to do that, but you're not jumping into the highest point of your career.
00:15:16
Speaker
So, you can make money in this business, but you have to go for it. You have to be strategic. It is up to you. you know It's not something you just sit back and allow to happen to you. It is a lot of hard work. There's some professions outside of archaeology, obviously, that you know you step in, you make money a lot of money because that's just It's just that business. But in this business, if you want to make money, it is possible. You can do that, but it's going to take a lot of initiative on your part. So it just it irritates me because I i ah hear this a lot. You see it a lot on social media. You hear it a lot from other people. And you know what? Honestly, a lot of it's big it's an excuse not to go out and grab your destiny. Go out and do you know what you need to do to make money in this business.
00:16:07
Speaker
So that would be my myth slash soapbox. ah man Like you're you're stealing, you're stealing my thunder there, Heather. If you hadn't said it, I would have like, cause I do those surveys of archeologists and like, I can tell you there are millionaire archeologists, like archeologists who, who make enough, who are making, you know, I'm not going to throw out numbers, but you know,
00:16:35
Speaker
six figures. I can't give exact because of you know data protection and stuff like that. But basically, you know after a couple of years, if they're if they're saving, and also I should say these are in places where there's low cost of living as well. but Obviously, you could you could be making six figures and living in a cardboard box in Manhattan, basically, because that's all you could afford off of that salary for an apartment. But like we're talking yeah low cost of living places where it's not going to cost you six figures to have a one bedroom apartment that you share with like four roommates or something. I don't know, you guys are in California. So I'm sure you you kind of know all that stuff, but yeah, man, like yeah it's a range. And like, as Heather said, like, and actually, to be honest, like starting out is a bit rough in that, like we usually require a degree. And so like for the money you get for a degree, it's not great.
00:17:33
Speaker
But honestly, it's still well above minimum wage in most places. i mean like ah You could maybe compare like minimum wage in California versus you might be making less of that in Alabama or something, but you'll still be making more than that the minimum wages in Alabama. It's not great money, but it is still heads and shoulders above. I get so sick of people on like social media who'd be like, oh, you know ill I could leave archaeology and go bag groceries and make more money. And one, you can't. And two, usually the people that say that couldn't actually handle a job like that.
00:18:14
Speaker
yeah But yeah yeah and it's also it's also, as far as, again, return on investments, also you know there's there's it's not a job that requires you to to get a degree from an expensive university. so Yeah. All right, guys. Let's take a break now, because we've got, I'm sure, a lot more to talk about in Segment 2. Back in a minute.
00:18:36
Speaker
Welcome back to the Sierra Mark podcast, episode 263. And Doug, I think it's your turn to go. So I'll call you in for this one. It's your, it's your show. So I guess I'd just like to add like a little asterisk at the back end of our last conversation to say like wages are pretty, are okay beginning out in archeology and you can actually make pretty good money. Though if you're taking it up, your problem is actually not so much the money you're paying. It's the,
00:19:07
Speaker
getting constant work is the harder part. ah So I just like to add that little asterisk of like you know yourre your hourly pay or your weekly pay, your monthly pay is actually going to be better than like the average pay in most countries. Like in the UK, it's better than the average in America, it's still better. It's well better than minimum wage. There's still a problem though, like until you actually get like a permanent constant job of work, that's the bigger problem. It's not your hourly wage. It's you may only work six months or three months or nine months out of the year and that could be tough.
00:19:42
Speaker
there's ways to work around that. And again, it's the same thing. I agree with you, but it's the same thing. You have to go out and get it. You have to be creative. It's not something, it isn't the kind of job that you show up at a brick and mortar every day and you have a job waiting for you. It is something you're going to have to work at. So if you're in an area where you can't do archaeology year round, you're going to have to do you know or or well field archaeology year round, you're going to have to expand your skill sets. You can do work in-house. You can you know be a good writer. You have to differentiate yourself from the rest. And it's not that hard to do. And then also be open to traveling to other parts of the country, which is only good as an archaeologist to get more experience and makes you a better archaeologist in your area. You know you have more experience, so you can work in more areas.
00:20:34
Speaker
and you know, having permits. I mean, there's so many things that I think at University people don't tell you. In some states, you have to be permitted to work there. Even in certain areas, you have to be permitted within that state to work there. And so, the more permits that you can acquire, the more attractive you are at to companies. And the more skills that you can acquire, the more attractive. And also, not digging your heels in and saying, no, I'm not you know I'm not willing to do this or that. I mean, the the person who's steps up and the company calls them and you're available and you're willing to kind of look outside the box and do work as long as you're being fairly compensated for it, you should jump on it. If if you want to do this, it's going to require some travel. It's going to require you know stepping outside of your comfort zone. You're not going to be able to go to the same place every day. That's just not the nature of this business.
00:21:28
Speaker
and so That would be what I would say, especially in the beginning, is be open. Yeah, I'm actually like, I had a different myths, but I want to like piggyback off of Heather's thing, and somewhat related. But I'd also say it's like, there's an expectation in archaeology that you need to be an archaeologist 100% of the time to actually be an archaeologist. Whereas I just go back to like, where Heather, yourre your comment about like,
00:21:58
Speaker
field archaeology, especially in the high plains or places up north when you're you get like six feet of snow and there is not going to be any archaeology during the winter or sometimes into May or June because there's still snow on the ground. It's a weird thing in our field where like we sort of look upon people who can't do archaeology all year round as not being archaeologists or as it being a sort of a failure in the field.
00:22:27
Speaker
I would actually say like there's it's almost a myth that actually you could do archaeology all year round, everywhere. And that's that's not true. I would say like very few places are you able to actually be able to do archaeology or field archaeology, you know go out and excavate or survey or whatever. At least you know in the United States, and to be honest, like even in parts of the UK, it's just not going to be possible during certain times. or It may be possible, but you definitely don't want to do it.
00:23:03
Speaker
I thought you were going a different route with that because I i agree. i Obviously the field is limiting in certain areas with weather, but I thought you were going the other way and just saying that it's a myth that archaeology requires you to be in the field because there's so many other aspects of archaeology outside of the field. That's what I was going to say. That's a myth. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. ah Take it up, guys. Go with run with that as well. Yeah.
00:23:28
Speaker
the big I mean, building on that, I watched an interchange on, I want to say archaeo field text on Facebook or something like that. Somebody, I can't even remember what the conversation was about, but Tom King jumped in and he's getting more and more cantankerous as he, uh, you know,
00:23:43
Speaker
Yes, he gets older. Wait, has he reached maximum cantankerousness? Oh, I don't think there's a maximum for talking. But but he he jumped in and somebody was talking about they have a bachelor's degree. And oh, I think the the conversation was she was saying she's tried for several years to get to get jobs. She's got little things here and there. But in reality, she's going to have to go find another field because she just can't do this anymore.
00:24:06
Speaker
and Tom King jumped in on one of the threads of conversations, basically saying that she's not an archaeologist yet because she doesn't have a master's degree. and like He's basically saying, you're a field technician okay yeah when you become an archaeologist.
00:24:21
Speaker
i know right i know i know so Anyway, this is the Tom King, Tom King, sad trombone. Yeah. I think that's a huge myth and it it really just depends on your mindset. Like I, when I first got into this field before I even had a master's degree, I, felt I felt like shovelbumps for sure, but even field technician to an extent was almost disparaging to the people who, you know, went and got an education and and did this and and they have a BA or a BS or something like that. And in something that makes them, I mean, technically I wasn't even an archeologist. I was an anthropologist. That was what what my BA was in.
00:24:54
Speaker
It wasn't even archaeology, you know what I mean? So strictly speaking, but then you go into that field and you're doing that profession. I don't see why we're so crazy about not saying you are this. And I i wouldn't, I wasn't even going that route when I was first starting, I was like calling everybody scientists, especially when I was, you know, being ah or a crew chief and with my undergrad degree, without a master's, I was like, you know, Hey, we're all scientists here. We're doing scientific work, whether you like it or not. And let's think of ourselves that way. And we're not just.
00:25:23
Speaker
We're not just warm bodies. We're not just hole diggers. We're not just, you know, people surveying. We're doing actual scientific work using the scientific method. Right. We have a hypothesis out here. We have research questions and we are trying to but find evidence in support of those or not one of the two. And that's what every archaeology project is. And I think people forget that sometimes, to be honest. Chris, you don't know because I'm really the only archaeologist here because I have a PhD. OK, so anyway.
00:25:54
Speaker
I'm just been monitoring this conversation. Wait, wait, Doug has a PhD. Oh, wait, what? Well, real archaeologists here. But wait, Andrew, archaeology, everyone has a PhD. Yeah, he got his but Doug got his PhD in in it in in the UK. So it's kind of like a PhD minus. Yeah. Right. So just couch h I the pH. h Yeah. Yeah. You're just a just a bunch of pH.
00:26:21
Speaker
There's another myth, right? Like you, you can't get a PhD in the UK and then use that over here in the, or masters for that matter yeah and use that over here in this country. Yeah. They're like, Oh, you'll be blacklisted because you didn't get it here and study i mean not' say native Americans. Yeah. i blacklist Well, you would. Yeah. I blacklisted do a while back. That's actually a really good myth there as well, where people are like, they call it the drive by master's degrees. it's down It's just more efficient. But yeah, but honestly, like,
00:26:51
Speaker
out of my year, there's quite a because quite a few Americans went over there. The people are still in archaeology, one made it all the way to a PI. And then the other person is, they're working in archaeology as well. and UK masters or even UK PhD had like no effect like no negative effect that I could see on their careers. We have multiple people in our company that have degrees from Europe. yeah yeah It makes no difference. At the most, like sometimes for like five, you might need to pay like an extra couple of hundred bucks to get a certificate that like certifies it so that it can count for maybe some government level, something of
00:27:34
Speaker
a regional or national level accreditation of ah a university. It's it's something very silly. That is only, I think usually I've only heard about that needing that for federal. Most of the time, you know, people just, I would be sharp a degree i would be shocked if they required a US degree. I mean, you can get a medical license in this country with a degree from Mexico. You know what I mean? Not to disparage that. I'm just saying there's a lot of people that do that. There's a lot of Mexicans that come up here with, you know, degrees and various things so for in the medical profession. My brother-in-law is one of those. He's he's ah a dentist and you can do that. Why would archaeology be any different? I mean, I'm saying it isn't. I've just never heard of it. Well, I do i think that there could be an argument, although I don't think it's true, but why? Let's say if they were to do that ah for the same reason why you have to permit in certain areas, because archaeology looks different. Archaeology is different in different parts of the world.
00:28:25
Speaker
you know and so but But you can study Belizean archaeology in the United States. You can. Exactly. And that was my point. That's why right. So why why look at somewhere from, you know, Europe as as any different than somebody who's studying at UCLA, but they're doing Egyptology. I mean, it's just, yeah, Egypt.
00:28:47
Speaker
Somebody I used to work with a long time ago, actually I actually haven't seen him in a long time, but he got his master's and I want to say PhD as well in the ah in England, I think it was, but he was studying these, I can't remember what they were called. It was these particular types of stones that are found in usually cave type environments or rock shelter type environments in California. Cause he's worked in California a lot. He just happened to be doing that research from a school in England.
00:29:11
Speaker
right But he was definitely studying something very pertinent to US archaeology, if not CRM archaeology, and he was just doing it somewhere else. so yep And this happens also, like you get this in the UK as well, where like a lot of the universities, again, kids will go to their field schools in Cyprus or Sicily or you know France or someplace like that. and like if you're starting out, that can they might take the person who did like the field school that's local. I think that yeah this is pretty true for like anywhere in the US, s but like as soon as you have a little bit of experience- It doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, that's that's what isn't that's what counts. like there's like There's a vague thing of like if you had zero experience and you're going for a job and there's you and another candidate,
00:29:59
Speaker
And that other candidate has a field school and like, I don't know, Wyoming and you're going for a job in Wyoming, they'll probably choose the kid who has like a little experience in Wyoming, maybe, ah or they could also like, you never know, they could like know the field director of that and be like, oh, they know nothing. We're never going to hire anyone who's ever gone to that field school. So like, you know, there's all these little random things that are going to be probably have a bigger impact. But as soon as you have that experience in that area,
00:30:26
Speaker
what you did in your degree means less and less. I don't know, like I'd say after you get your degree, the moment you've like stuck a trowel in the ground or a shovel or something like that, your paper is almost worthless. It's not because you need like, you know, permitting and stuff like that. I mean, is that sort of a myth there? Is that like actually a degree makes much of a difference beyond like you need them for certain permits and stuff like that.
00:30:54
Speaker
We had you know somebody from our staff on the show once, Linda Cree, who is, and it's actually one of your points, so I won't steal your thunder, Chris, but that later. But she is and a prime example of how you know you can not fit the stereotypical role of a leader in in archaeology or somebody who becomes successful in archaeology without all the bells and whistles that people say. and that you have to have. And I don't think that people you don know't necessarily have to have everything. you know When you start working in this business, that is what's going to give you the credibility. And so, yeah yes, you need to have degrees. It is a little frustrating because there are times where she could write a full report and without my assistance whatsoever,
00:31:44
Speaker
We always senior review everything, but you know and she's capable of senior review as well, but that report can't go out with my name on it without my name on it because she doesn't have it. But those are limited. As far as doing the work and being able, there are so many aspects of this business that requires a skill set that have nothing to do with archaeology, that if that person has those skill sets, which unfortunately a lot of archaeologists don't, part of it, yeah common sense, business acumen, all these leadership qualities, if you have those things, you just have to be able to show them. yeah Show what you got. Yeah. And I want to bring up a lot of stuff around that in segment three for sure, but maybe we should go to Andrew for the last one. Yeah. Nice late myth there on technology. Yeah, on my technology rant. But another one that it goes very close to LiDAR is ground penetrating radar. The idea that ground penetrating radar, all you do is like turn on a machine and it looks under the ground and you can see everything. You know, you just like roll a box.
00:32:47
Speaker
Oh, yeah. No, actually, no, it's so funny. You look at this screen and you're like, is that anything? What? ah So and I think like movies like Jurassic Park, that they actually have that in the beginning where they have this ground bed during radar and you can see the like Tyrannosaurus perfectly under the ground.
00:33:05
Speaker
And yeah and but like the general public especially, nobody's going to realize that it's just these like funky little like blobs on the screen. Yeah. They're hills, basically. their parables invered from yeah my In my experience, it's a lot of hype. and And I'm not saying it's worthless, but it doesn't return nearly like you think.
00:33:26
Speaker
In certain circumstances, it's very helpful when it comes to burials. We're talking about like full burials. That is definitely helpful if you're looking at trying to find something where I think is it truths things.
00:33:42
Speaker
When you think something is there, it helps you identify maybe where it is. Like if you think there's and a privy somewhere, you know it's somewhere. You're not quite sure where it is or you know, there's a foundation somewhere, but you're not quite sure where it is or burial. Yeah, that's where it's it's helpful, but it's not the end all be all. And you're right. yeah And you have to have the skill set to to be able to analyze what it is that you're looking at. Yeah. And notice you list you listed really big things. You know what I mean? Like, okay, we're looking for this, but in terms of any kind of fine grain, you know, approach, it just, in in my experience, which is limited, it was, you know, it's a lot of work for not that much return. but I found that with most geophysics, like magnetometry, relativity. Yeah. Like, I kind of feel like you get the map and you look at it and you're like, oh, there could be some stuff there.
00:34:36
Speaker
And sometimes I kind of feel like we're under a trap of where we try to make it. Like it's, it's almost a like a, uh, uh, was it Rorkshaw? What's with those ink blog? Uh, yeah, I almost feel like at least for me, at least for me, why, why, why we do geophysics for anything and it doesn't matter what type it is. I feel like, like it's that where you're looking at it and you're like, it's a blob and you're like, yeah, that's a ditch there.
00:35:02
Speaker
Or, you know, and then like, but well, it really takes a skilled analyst, right? It takes a skilled analyst, somebody who's seen these things before to say, I know what the signature of this thing is. My, my friend, Dan Bigman, who runs Bigman geophysics, that's what they do. In fact, they've gotten almost away from archeology because so many other industries need their GPR skills for like finding pipes under highways and stuff and, and utilities locating and things like that. And his people just.
00:35:29
Speaker
They've seen a thousand of them. They're just like, oh, that crazy little parabola, that's a pipe that's six inches wide, right? They just know that because they've seen so many of them. But you need to know the baseline too. You need to know what you're working with and there's a lot more to it than just sticking the machine on. I've seen beautiful pictures where like magnetometry, where like you see the outline of every building and every ditch. It looks amazing. And you're like, I just personally have never experienced it. Like every time, doesn't matter what it is, it just blobs. And even after we excavate it where we think something is, it's not there. But also like, I'm in a part of the world where it doesn't work as well because high volcanic rock. So you it just really mess up yeah, it's it's not a great place to try to do geophysics, unfortunately. All right. Well, we're going to end this segment, but I'll just say if you don't know anything about geophysics and you're listening to this, just take away one thing. It's for finding features.
00:36:26
Speaker
not anything else. You're not going to find individual artifacts with shallow geophysics. You're going to find features. That's basically it. All right. So let's end this and go on to segment three. Back in a minute.
Work-Life Balance in CRM Archaeology
00:36:36
Speaker
Welcome back to the final segment of episode 263 of the CRM archaeology podcast. And I got a couple of myths here that are related to advanced degrees, typically a master's degree, because ah I would say most people don't go on to PhD primarily because you don't need it. That doesn't mean you can't get a PhD and be in CRM. There's quite a few people with PhDs in CRM, but a lot of people will stop at the at the master's level. So I'll just talk about that real quick.
00:37:01
Speaker
First off, you know, a big one is you can't get married and or have a family in CRM without having a master's degree. And really what I mean by that is you can't have a family or get married or whatever, have a partner without having some sort of permanent job where you're, you know, nine to five Monday through Friday.
00:37:18
Speaker
because typically, and maybe this is another myth, that's what a master's degree gets you, right? Oh, I had a master's degree. I never have to do fieldwork again, right? I'm going to sit at a desk and and have a normal job. I mean, that's kind of true sometimes, and it's probably more true than it is not. You're you're going to spend more time at a desk probably, but you're more than likely also going to go in the field.
00:37:37
Speaker
But you can have a family. Heather is a good example of that. Doug's a good example of that. I'm a good example of that. I don't have kids, but I met my wife in in CRM and we made it work. I wish Bill was on this show. Bill has lots of kids and a wife and has been successful in his CRM career and is now a professor at Berkeley. So.
00:37:56
Speaker
andrew And Andrew too, yeah, I think if you want to make it work, you can make it work. It just requires some flexibility and some logistics for sure. You have to have good management of your time, your quote, work-life balance and things like that. And you you might have to hunt around for the for the right position as well, but I think it can be done for sure.
00:38:16
Speaker
and Chris, that just sounded like a humble brag by you the whole time being like, yeah, so you guys have kids. You have kids. I don't have kids, but you know, you know, suckers. Exactly. Exactly. So I kind of feel that way sometimes to be honest with you. It's so freeing. I'm not disparaging children, but you know, I live in an RV and we travel around the country and again, you can do that with kids too. There's plenty of people that we know that live full time in some sort of rig. The people that do it in like a small bumper pole trailer with like two kids,
00:38:44
Speaker
I don't know how they do that, but they make it work and they're happy. They're happy doing it. So if they can do it, if the RVing community can do it, I feel like the CRM community can do it. and And a lot of people have done that successfully. That's one thing. I want to get a few of these others ones because this one's going to probably get some conversation too. This is such a common one that I feel like field technicians think when they have a crew chief or a project manager or somebody that does have a master's degree, or maybe they don't even have a master's degree, they're just in a leadership position over them. And people with master's degrees or people in leadership positions, this is the myth, should know more than me.
00:39:20
Speaker
know Well, that's probably kind of true because they're probably in that position because they either A, been doing you know something either at that company longer or maybe they haven't. I mean, there's plenty of field technicians who don't want to lead that have been doing this for 20 years. so And there's somebody who's been doing this for five years that's now a crew chief, right? You're never going to know more than that field tech that's been doing this for 20 years. You're just not. You might have a bigger piece of the the overall picture because you're in that position and you've been told more about that particular project or whatever you're doing.
00:39:48
Speaker
But the simple fact is from a skills standpoint, you don't necessarily have to know more than everybody who's working for you. You just have to be able to manage them and their skills and get the project done or your aspect of the project on time and under budget is the hope. But that's it. You just have to be a good manager. Go ahead, Heather. I know you got a lot to say on this.
00:40:09
Speaker
Yeah. Well, i I'm going to agree and disagree with you. I sound like Doug. Awesome. Awesome. So I totally agree with you that there's, like we were talking about, there's different skillsets that people have. And just because somebody has 30 years experience, doesn't mean that they're a good manager of people. And so there's different roles, have different but requirements for you know abilities and And so yes, there's some things you're not going to know, but here's another myth that goes ah kind of long with this. You could have somebody who's been working in the field for 30 years and who probably has a better idea of maybe what they're going to find across the other, you know, that next Hill or whatever, but they don't know anything about a research design. They don't know how to make a research design. They don't know how to put together a work plan. they They may not know how to do certain types of analyses. You can have people that are coming straight out of college that have learned certain things that would are very valuable. And so this concept that, oh, I've been in the field for 30 years and this younger person with a graduate degree, or not even a younger person, but somebody I haven't seen before with a graduate degree, they don't know anything. because they don't know how to hold a compass and walk a straight transect. They don't know anything. And I know more than they do. That's not true. Everybody has their role and we need to respect each other. This concept where we're always like comparing and I'm a better archeologist, you know, it's but our field is so cannibalistic. We're we're so nasty to each other. you know Instead of really respecting where that person, what their skill set is, and what they bring to the table, and I bring a different kind of skill set to the table instead of comparing ourselves to each other because we're insecure people, is it's not conducive to a good working team. and so
00:41:55
Speaker
When you have people that come in and they do have a graduate degree, you like have an open mind. because Just because they don't maybe dig a good hole doesn't mean that they don't have all this analysis and and understanding that also brings something valuable to the project. so along the lines with what you were saying earlier with what was it, Linda, who was on the show, who works with you, you know, another friend of mine who I'll leave him anonymous because I didn't ask him if I could use his name, but I was asking him about this when this topic came up and and he sent a couple of things over. And one of them just mentioning that a friend of his has no master's degree, just experience. A lot of it was hired as an assistant PM. So project manager and working mostly remote at a very good salary is what he said. So,
00:42:39
Speaker
you know, going along those lines, you know, experience can get you somewhere. And you know, when I was saying, you know, the person who has the master's degree over the top of you, that might be a ah project manager, field director, even crew chief or something like that, you know, should know more than you. That also goes kind of the other direction. You don't have to, I guess, have that sort of degree in order to be in those positions. And you shouldn't be seen as, as less than because of that as well. Right. You should just be, you know, judged on your merits.
00:43:08
Speaker
just be respectful of each other, yeah have an open mind, go into the field and say, instead of saying, I am the most experienced here, or I don't know anything because everybody else is more, just walk in and say, okay, what can I bring to the table here? How can I help not compare? Yeah, it just, we need to be a little healthier.
00:43:30
Speaker
It is tough though, because because there's a heavy amount of competition, especially regionally, right? If somebody wants to get that coveted permanent position or something like that, or even be called back for the next project at a minimum, right? I mean, there's a lot of competition and you've got to try to stand out. And some people just don't do it in a tactful way. You know what I mean? dan i don't think're realizing Yeah, just focus on and And we're probably going on another tangent here, but just just focus on being the best archaeologist you can be. And that will settle its stuff out. You know, things are going to happen. People are going to get positions that you should have gotten. That's life. It happens. Yeah, just for sure. Stay on that narrow road or that that road of, you know, doing the best that you can personally. And right.
Archaeologists' Lifestyle and Stereotypes
00:44:11
Speaker
Oh, man, I'm a I'm a totally like flip is a different direction right now. I'm just going to throw out another myth out there. Archaeoholics.
00:44:20
Speaker
that like oh yeah archaeologists are heavy drinkers. And this is not to say that there are not some heavy drinkers that are archaeologists or archaeologists that are heavy drinkers, however you want to phrase that. But like this idea that like archaeologists drink more than the average person, or that like you you need to be able to drink heavily to be an archaeologist, complete and utter myth. We did a survey, like well, now it's like three years ago. but like archaeologists exactly average with reporting as anyone else. A little caveat here, like reporting is everyone always under reports. The famous garbage project in Arizona shows that like what people drink and what they actually drink don't quite line up. But right for the most part, archaeologists report the same amount of drinking
00:45:13
Speaker
as pretty much the entire rest of the population. And there's this idea that, like, archaeology has a heavy drinking culture. But every example I've ever heard is, like, if you were to, like, pull yourself out, look on the outside as, like, a scientist, and, like, be looking at, like, the data and, like, the stuff you'd be like, yeah, that's a biased example. That's a biased example. That's a biased example. Heavily biased, that's not actually, like, anything accurate, because you could be like, oh,
00:45:42
Speaker
So and so, you at this conference, we we drank this bar. They had to close down all the taps. we we We drank them out. And you're like, so let me tell you, you went there for a conference, 400 archaeologists on a Tuesday in February.
00:45:57
Speaker
when they weren't expecting 400 people to show up on Tuesday in February and you happened to clear out a bar. I'm like, yeah, guys, like that was 100% expected it to happen. That's just like that's just like physics of numbers and stuff. That's not like proof that archaeologists are heavy drinkers. It's just yeah how those things go. So I'm going to throw that out there that like everything I've seen, and actually the hard data says that like archaeologists don't drink any more than anyone else, um which I'm pretty sure like cuts people pretty deep. like that's ah That's a hardcore like identity thing with archaeologists, is like we must be heavy drinkers, you must be able to drink, and actually not true at all.
00:46:41
Speaker
I think where that might come from is the situational times when when that might actually be. It's not true. It's it's situational. like your Your average person may drink more at a wedding reception, for example. you know everybody you know But that's a situational thing. But archaeologists just have a lot more of those situations.
00:46:58
Speaker
where you might be doing that in certain circumstances, like a conference. You're at a conference, you you haven't seen a bunch of people that you see maybe once a year or just at conferences, and maybe you're going to live it up you know one night at a bar, and that's going to be it. right But that's going to be what a lot of people have as an impression of you, because that's literally the only time of the year they see you. And every time they see you,
00:47:18
Speaker
you're drinking heavily at a conference. But maybe that's only four times a year that you drink heavily, right? And then the other one is that I've definitely seen anecdotally is on long field projects where, not even long ones, but especially in the beginning when people just get to know each other, there's often the tailgate, have a few beers at the end of the workday and in the hotel parking lot. And there's usually a few people, and and I would say it's often a lot of the younger ones or the ones that are newer in the field, younger in that respect, that just to have a hard time treating this as a real job and not seeing the fact that you're in every, every project is a field school. You know what I mean? When, when you're first starting out, every project seems like a field school. You meet new people, you're in a different area, you're in a different location and you don't treat it like a day to day thing. And you might just have a drink every day, not even to excess, but you might drink every single day with everybody else back in the tailgate of the truck in the parking lot, right? That could be perceived as,
00:48:13
Speaker
heavy drinking, but I think it's situational and people people get out of that. So I don't know, Andrew. Yeah, I'm glad that the data says that. And I am super sick of the sort of drinking culture of like, dude, we drink so much. We do. We are so badass because we drink. And that always sort of turned me off myself personally. I drink a little bit, but I'm very, very conservative drinker. But also in my experience, I don't know. I've seen a lot of drink. And over like a very long time. So again, I'm glad the data says that, but man, my personal experience says something else. Yeah. Yeah. you yeah You're probably like, if you get, yeah if you got a different job and you probably were out there, I think Chris got hit on exactly what situational yeah is like it is that, and you will see like, there are some heavy drinkers, but there's like heavy drinkers.
00:49:06
Speaker
everywhere. I think what what gets left out is like, so people will be like, and Chris is perfect with the conference where they're like, oh, you know, you only see someone, you know, once or twice a year. and It's always at like a reception at a ah conference and stuff. It's always drinking. And so you always associate that with that. But like yeah having run a lot of conferences or been in them involved in the running of a lot of conferences,
00:49:28
Speaker
people remember that because they go to the reception and there's usually booze, but actually a significant amount of people don't actually go to those receptions and don't drink. like But you you never see that. That's how you're not socializing. Yeah. I mean, like with the conference I ran, like 40% of the people did not go to the the drinks. And I've seen other were other places as well where i've i've I have access to the numbers and it'll be like, yeah, 200 people at this conference. and actually
00:49:59
Speaker
maybe 100 or 120 actually show up to the reception to drink. and so like When you're there, of course, everyone's drinking, but like a lot of people you know just don't drink or don't want to drink that time. or you know there's There's a lot of stuff that just people don't see because of the situation. Yeah, I think Chris's word of situational, you know, I think that that is true because it's like if you've been living in a hammock for two weeks in the middle of the jungle, when you come into town, yeah, you're going to have a drink, you know, and I i guess I've seen a lot of that. And everybody in that town thinks every time this person comes into town, they drink to excess, right? Right. It's like once every two weeks. That is exactly right.
00:50:38
Speaker
Yeah.
Conclusion and Reflecting on Misconceptions
00:50:39
Speaker
All right. Well, we only have a couple of minutes left. I don't know if we have enough for this because I've got at least one or two more. Maybe we can just go around without too much discussion and just, just say some of these myths and have our audience think about it maybe in post and and perhaps these can be fodder for other things. So I'll kick it off real quick and then I'll throw it around the room. A master's degree will make you a leader. That's a common myth, right? Leadership skills make you a leader. Leadership training makes you a leader. Not necessarily having a master's degree just makes you a leader or being a crudchie for that matter.
00:51:07
Speaker
It just doesn't do it. Heather, do you have one? Yep. That boilerplate specifically background context do not need to be updated. Nice. They should be regularly updated.
00:51:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's called boilerplate, but you have to look at it. Yes. and it and it should be up I see this a lot in peer reviews where people do not update their background context either to new theories, new discoveries, and then also customizing the backend of it. So the further along in a background context you get, the more customized it should be.
00:51:41
Speaker
So yeah as you get down to the end of the background context, it should be more specific to your project area. And then those things really do need to be more customized based on your project. All right. Quick ones, Andrew, Doug. Yeah, I got one. High technology is needed to do good archeology. Good one. There you go, Doug.
00:52:04
Speaker
that the public is only interested in buried treasure. I know we get a lot of questions like, have you found any gold ever or anything like that? But I think that's more of a just a not quite understanding what we do. So you ask a question like that, like, have you found a dinosaur? Have you found gold? Stuff like that. But honestly, I think we don't give the public enough credit on that they'd be interested in things that are not related to gold slash dinosaurs slash lost ah super civilizations of whatever. I know Andrew has a whole, a whole podcast that all, all those stuff that like we think that people are just interested in, but yeah are not true. I think that's a myth.
00:52:49
Speaker
All right, well, I'll end with one last one, a fun one. And that's every archeologist got into this because of Indiana Jones. And that's not true. And you know what? Weird thing is I've heard two examples on different, two different shows in the last two weeks on the APN. One was a life and ruins podcast. And I can't remember what the other one was, but either way, the two examples were the two separate people got into archeology because of the mummy of all things, the movie, the mummy. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Although Indiana Jones five is coming out in July and Steven Spielberg says it's great. It's the first one he hasn't directed. So we'll see. We'll see. Cause he did direct four. Yeah, go from there. Yeah. All right. This has been a great episode. If you're listening to this, what myths do you have that we didn't cover? You know, leave those in, you know, comments on the websites. Don't leave them in a review, but leave us a review. That would be great. Wherever you're listening to this Spotify, Apple podcasts, but you know, wherever you see this, go ahead and tell us the myths that we didn't cover that you've commonly heard with that. We'll see you guys next week.
00:53:58
Speaker
That's it for another episode of the CRM Archaeology Podcast. Links to some of the items mentioned on the show are in the show notes for this podcast, which can be found at www.arcpodnet dot.com slash CRMARC Podcast. Please comment and share anywhere you see the show. If you'd like us to answer a question on a future episode, email us. he Use the contact form on the website or just email chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com. Support the show and the network at arcpodnet.com slash members. Get some swag and extra content while you're there. Send us show suggestions and interview suggestions.
00:54:28
Speaker
We want this to be a resource for field technicians everywhere, and we want to know what you want to know about. Goodbye. yeah um right yeah that that right there that's sigh the for this will kid be going for months chris for months all right guys see just get that sigh right there can just put that like that loop for me yeah that's that's that's what i live for man that's what i live for with this For everyone else, we'll see you in the field. Goodbye. I'm not even going to say the whole thing. Thanks for listening. See you guys next time.
00:55:09
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his ah RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech 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.