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Georgia (the Army, and Odin) on my Mind: A Historic interview with Joshua Herrin - Ep 158
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In this episode of A Life In Ruins podcast, Connor and Davíd interview Joshua Herrin; archaeologist and artifacts laboratory manager of the Augusta Veteran’s Curation Program. Josh originally started his career at Georgia, Southern University, but then found himself in the United States Army.
After finishing his tenure with the National Guard, Josh re-enrolled in his undergraduate studies and later, earned his masters degree from Georgia Southern as well.
Connor and David interviewed Josh about his nontraditional career path in archaeology and especially his focus on historic archaeology in the south. Josh is very knowledgeable about Georgia History, and the three have a fascinating conversation about the history of the colony and then later the state of Georgia.
They end the show talking about Josh and Davíd’s job at the veterans Curation program, and how it’s such a unique job, as it is the definition of applied anthropology.
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Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/ruins/158
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Welcome to Episode 158 of the Life and Ruins Podcast, where we investigate the careers of those living a life in ruins. I'm your host, Connor John, and I'm joined by my co-host, David Howe. For this week's episode, we are joined by Joshua Herron. Josh is a military veteran who served in the United States Army. He then attended Georgia Southern University for his undergraduate studies and later earned his master's there as well.
00:00:27
Speaker
Josh is not only knowledgeable about British colonial and southeastern archaeology, but also is the current laboratory manager of the Augusta Veterans Curation Program, accepting the job after David's departure.
Life and Background of Joshua Herron
00:00:38
Speaker
Yeah, man, spend a minute. I guess we were just saying in the chat, like, I guess since you took my job, well, took my job, I handed you, I don't know what the word is, pass the torch. There you go. I also need to bring up really quickly, you're the first person I've seen with the Majora's Mask poster in the background, so automatic points.
00:00:56
Speaker
So David, how long were you in Augusta at the program? I started in like April 20 or May 2018, April 2018, and then left in like, I remember Halloween 2021. So I took the brunt of COVID living alone in Augusta and it was not, I'm where I am now because of that. Yeah, it was not, it was not a good time down there for me.
00:01:22
Speaker
Do you enjoy Josh not living in Augusta? Augusta, you know, for all its charms is just kind of a gross place. It's hot. It smells and like I would describe it as like it has every chain restaurant you could want besides like In-N-Out. But like there's nothing else there. It's just nothing to do. I don't know. But anyway, we're really selling Augusta. So where exactly do you live and are you a Georgia boy?
00:01:49
Speaker
I live in a tiny little town called Social Circle. Wow. It's right below Covington, Georgia, which is about 30 minutes from Atlanta. That sounds like Elon Musk's new thing. Oh, God. His new social media output. I'm in Social Circle, Georgia.
Military and Archaeology Journey
00:02:06
Speaker
So, did you grow up in Georgia, Josh?
00:02:09
Speaker
Yep. I've been here my whole life. I don't know why I'm not built for the heat. I hate it. And I live in one of the hottest places in the US. So I grew up in a little town called Jessup. And to everything you imagine a small town in Georgia would be spent most of my time at my grandfather's in an even smaller town called Oliver, which has a total population of about 250. Wow. Yeah. And Georgia.
00:02:35
Speaker
So in Georgia, so I guess we talk about Western archeology a lot here. So like out West sites just appear like on the surface. They were like a paleo Indian dropped there. It's still there out East though. Did you get to find a lot of like stuff as a kid?
00:02:52
Speaker
You know, we lived on such a big farm and I mean, it was something like 200 acres or something like that. Never found a single artifact, but it was likely because I'd never thought, hey, I'll find some artifacts here. Gotcha. So, you know, looking back, I'm thinking, my God, I was probably surrounded.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah, like just take a few STPs and find some. What kind of led you, well, you joined the military eventually, but like, what got you into archaeology as a kid? You know, as, as much as I've learned differently about archaeological ethics, it was in fact Dr. Jones himself that got me into archaeology. Nothing wrong with that, dude. I thought I'm going to be punching Nazis and wooing women and finding treasure, but
00:03:35
Speaker
Nope. Yeah, it's quite the opposite. Yeah. Which one is your favorite? I'm an outlier. My favorite's temple. No. Yeah, I always get people tell me theirs is either Ark or Crusade, but I like temple. I think it's because it was the first one I saw. Yeah, it's just different. Are you a Lost World person versus Jurassic Park 1 or 3 then?
00:04:00
Speaker
Oh, wow. I definitely perpetuate the dino stereotypes that we get as archaeologists because I love dinosaurs. I saw Jurassic Park when it came out in theaters. I'm actually drinking water out of my what's the most recent one, the Jurassic World one.
00:04:17
Speaker
Well, I'm drinking out of my commemorative cup and also have the commemorative popcorn bucket. Cause I went and saw it when it first came out, you know, the first one and the last one. Hell yeah. I think they did what they could with the latter ones, but you know, there's something about the first one that just seeing it when it first came out, it was pure magic.
00:04:35
Speaker
Yeah, wait, I didn't realize yeah, the first one came out like what 90 94 I believe 94 Wow. Okay.
College Experience and Army Decision
00:04:43
Speaker
I was I was a fetus Yeah, I was I was in there watching it with my grandma and grandpa and I had to come out during the raptor scene But I bucked up and went back in and made it through I used to be scared of the the Stegosaurus like when it
00:04:58
Speaker
the like my neighbors were watching it and like what is sick laying on the the ground like that's a triceratops just right triceratops right sorry i didn't mean to do the stereotype again please correct this man i remember hiding under a blanket and i threw up and like i was just scared not one single adult in my life as a child was like why does he throw up so much maybe he needs some anxiety medicine i don't know but yeah
00:05:24
Speaker
Like I just you just farted underneath there or? No, but just like it.
00:05:32
Speaker
No, I was thinking, I'm a huge fan of the second one. I don't know. That's a little bit an outlier. Oh, yeah, it is. It's wild. But I'm glad you are another person who perpetuates the stereotypes of archaeologists and dinosaurs, because I'm also the same way. I was a paleontologist first, and then I adopted archaeology as a secondary career. Yeah, we all kind of get into that. So yeah, did you go to college first, or did you join the military first? I can't remember.
00:06:01
Speaker
So there's a running joke in our department at Georgia Southern. Well, it's not my department anymore, but there's a running joke in the anthro department that I've been there longer than most of the professors. One of my mentors, Dr. Heidi Altman, we often make the joke when we both first started there, we had brown hair and now we both have gray hair. My mentor, Dr. Wood, I've been there for about six years longer than him. I started in 2006, straight out of high school. I was immediately introduced to the gym.
00:06:30
Speaker
and met a bunch of bouncers and they were like, Hey, dude, come bounce, which led to free drinks at the bars, which led to academic probation, which led to having to stay out for three years to get all my grades reset, which led to me being broke and saying, you know what, screw it. I'll join the army. They pay. So it was definitely not out of, yeah, it is very,
00:06:52
Speaker
I do love that the gym was the gateway drug. Oh, absolutely. Once I discovered that you can be a huge human, I was like, Oh yeah. And then, you know, you get the bars in Statesboro were such a cult. We were such all the bouncers and bartenders and servers were such a group of like, there is one thing to do and one thing only. And it's just get trashed. So it definitely led to my academic downfall early on.
00:07:16
Speaker
I could definitely see you being a bouncer. Cause when I first met you, I was definitely shocked at how just like large you are. Like, like, like in terms of height, I should say like, that's what it's made all the time. It's like, dude, he's just a large human.
00:07:31
Speaker
You could crush me. I was like damn. I'm such a gentle giant
Pursuing Archaeology Dreams
00:07:36
Speaker
but my face just makes me look like a Bax murderer. Well yeah you got the people can't see it right now but you got the big long beard and then do you still have the like the Mohawk ponytail thing? Nope, I went back. It was just the Georgia summer. I don't know how I thought I was gonna survive with that hair. No, yeah. I couldn't do it either. Yeah. Did you initially go in for history anthropology something like that or did you
00:08:00
Speaker
I did not know that anthropology led to archaeology. In fact, I didn't even know anthropology existed. So for my first semester, I was a history major. And then I discovered, hey, anthropology is where I need to be. So I quickly switched over.
00:08:16
Speaker
I did this, uh, letters to a pen pal thing, you know, pair STEM professionals with kids in underserved communities and just kind of talk to them and basically like, Hey, you can do STEM too. And we got to talking about that. Me and Nate were trying to answer the question of like, what was hard in your college career? And I was like, I just, I didn't, I had no direction. I had no idea what anthropology was. They don't prepare you for it in high school. They don't even tell you that it exists. Yeah. It's a, I didn't know it existed. I think I knew.
00:08:43
Speaker
like I'd heard of anthropology in terms of like evolution, but I didn't think about it being like an archaeology kind of thing, you know? Yeah, and I think it's like statewide, sort of United States-wide, like it's not a talk class or something that's mentioned. I mean, you do your psychology as you do even sociology probably in some locations, but I don't, anthropology is like really drastically underrepresented in high school. It's kind of a wild
00:09:08
Speaker
They said when I, when I was in eighth grade, we took Georgia history and I can just answer your question here. It was called the war of Northern aggression. So that I was not getting any intro to anthropology in my hometown. Honestly, if they, uh, like made anthropology like a high school class, there would be no GOP. Like that's a, that's a firm belief of mine. I agree. I think it should be required. Yeah. Yeah. I shouldn't say GOP, but you know, like the extremes of it.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think that there's certain aspects that wouldn't be around anymore. Yeah, when you're exposed to just like the diversity of humans, it's hard to be really racist and terrible to other people. Yeah, I guess debatably. But anyway, so the army and you were, what exactly did you do?
Balancing Military and Civilian Life
00:09:59
Speaker
I was a 13 Bravo cannon crew member. I didn't mean to be one. I went in with a buddy, you know, the, the first of the one 18th, it was in Savannah. When I got into it, it's a kind of a famous guard unit, Pickery's house. There's, I took the ASVAB and then when I told him I wanted artillery, they were like, really? Because you don't have to be real smart. You just gotta be strong. I should have said, no, not artillery. He was like, you know, on MI or something like that, military intelligence, but we went into artillery because we had a bunch of friends in that unit. So.
00:10:29
Speaker
you know, whatever, we'll get through these six years and be done. It was fun. It was type two fun. I'll say that for sure. It was fun later. It's fun after I was done with it. I've never heard that. It may be made up because Nate told me about it. Type one fun as apparently you're having fun while you're doing it, but type two fun as you look back and you're like, yeah, that was fun. It was miserable while I was doing it, but yeah, it was fun.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah. It's like the reminiscing about it is the good part. Yeah. So you go away, do your six years, come back and decided that anthropology history was kind of what you wanted to continue to study? Well, so the good thing about the army guard is, you know, you work a civilian life and a military life. So I was able to work civilian jobs and
00:11:16
Speaker
Without education, my grandpa was a big construction guy. So I worked construction, I did pipe fitting, I did farm work, I did corrections. And I just was like, man, this is miserable. I have to buckle down and get this stuff done so I can be an archeologist. I don't want to be one of those guys that had big dreams and now I'm a SoundCloud rapper.
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah, I'm there. I get it. It's amazing with a little hard labor and real world jobs will put into you.
00:11:51
Speaker
Yeah. So what was it like doing? I mean, obviously you just kind of explained to be like balancing both. Sounds like hell to me. It's one of the reasons that I am so passionate about the VCP is it was hell. Most guard units are pretty standard.
00:12:07
Speaker
two days a month, two weeks during the summer. The 118th was not standard. The 118th was all about training. They're a sister unit to the third ID in Fort Stewart, which has a ridiculous deployment rate. So it was more like
00:12:22
Speaker
three days a month, 60 days during the summer. So there's no way to balance a civilian life. Yeah. Legally civilian employers have to keep your job and this and that, but we all know they can find a way to fire you. So, you know, it's just how capitalism works. They'll find a way to fire you. So that's, that's one of the reasons I was like, man, this program's important. I gotta, I gotta be a part of it. The, uh, the, the VCP. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. How'd you find it by the way?
00:12:49
Speaker
It was actually my mentor, Dr. Jared Wood at Georgia Southern was like, man, I think this is, it's almost like this program was made for you to be a part of. Cause you know, I veterans get a pretty crappy end of the stick. And if I could combine archeology and my passion for helping other veterans, like why not? You're going to pay me to do that. Sweet.
00:13:08
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely like as an anthropologist shocked me at that job.
Challenges for Veterans
00:13:13
Speaker
Not only like, I mean, veterans are just very hardworking and like drilled people, but like just how like the Army's like or the Navy Air Force two or Marines are just like, bye. And then like they have no idea what to do. And yeah, I was like, wow, I never thought about that.
00:13:30
Speaker
Yeah, the common, I feel like that my knowledge was that they would like treat you well and like get you situated into like civilian life, but it doesn't seem like that's something like that's ever done. I mean, shit. Yeah. It's like, Hey, did you turn in all your gear? Okay. See you. Hope you don't die in the streets. Jesus. That's pretty bad. And like some people get disability and stuff and then you get your.
00:13:53
Speaker
Do you get a pension or is that only if you're like a captain? It's only if you retire. Okay. Which is super hard in the guard because in the regular army, you just do your 20 years, but in the guard, you have to do a certain number of years and milestones to equal up to a certain amount of points. So it may be 23, 24 years when you actually retire. Gotcha. And even then it's not like the VA is just terrible to deal with.
00:14:18
Speaker
as I experienced. Yeah. I think on that cheery note, we're going to end this segment and we will be right back talking with Josh Herron. Welcome back to episode one 58 of a life in his podcast. We're here with Josh Herron. And last time we just kind of talked about the military and job, but I'd love to know when you got to Georgia Southern, what was your undergrad experience like and like, you know, research wise and kind of stuff are you doing?
00:14:42
Speaker
So when I finally got my collective crap together, I volunteered in the lab quite a bit and it led me to connect with who I consider to be my mentor now, Dr. Jared Wood. He's an archeologist at Georgia Southern. And I just kind of tried to stick to him like glue because he's one of those guys that just knows everything.
00:15:05
Speaker
He's so smart that he I guess got bored in archaeology and co-authored a paper with a biologist at Georgia Southern about an invasive gecko species.
00:15:15
Speaker
God, you know what I mean? Like he's one of those, he just knows literally everything there is to know. I was lucky enough to, to be able to work under him and learn under him and the other greats at Georgia Southern really, really dedicated staff there, which is awesome to see. They truly care about this. It's a small department. There's more students, but it's a small department and they're able to individually get with the students and you know, really get to know them. I ended up volume. I ended up doing the field school.
00:15:43
Speaker
on the site that actually ended up being my thesis site. And we, me, Dr. Wood and another student, his name was Val. We volunteered and put in the research on some of the stuff and ended up being able to co-author a paper with Dr. Wood on it and present it at the Georgia Archaeological Society. And being a non-traditional student, you know, when I finally graduated like 14 years later,
00:16:07
Speaker
I went to Dr. Wood and the faculty and I was just like, you know, Hey, I own a house here. I'm in my thirties, just got divorced. I think it would be too hard to go somewhere else for grad school. Would you guys let me come here? Turns out as much as I liked him and, you know, was trying to learn from him, I had taken like one of Dr. Wood's courses. So it worked out to where I was like, you know, not relearning the same stuff, which is, you know, why they want you to go to their schools. So I was lucky enough to get to do that and start grad school there at Georgia Southern.
00:16:37
Speaker
Very cool. Okay, Joshua, what site did you do your field
Academic Pursuits and Thesis Work
00:16:41
Speaker
school on?
00:16:41
Speaker
So this was a site, it was private land in Scraven County, Georgia, something like 600 acres. The landowner was an acquaintance of Dr. Woods that he'd spoken to over the years and wanted the land to revert into, I forget what it's called, like a managed area by the DNR or something, you know, where it wouldn't be chopped up and sold. There's several, several possible occupation sites on the land. So, you know, it's right near a confluence of streams. I'm not going to go into super deep detail.
00:17:11
Speaker
since it is private land, but it's a really great site and there's prehistoric and historic components. That's awesome. Did you guys focus on both of them or did you? Well, initially, I don't know what they've done so far after I've left, but it was the historic component was what was really focused. What's it like digging a mixed context site like that?
00:17:33
Speaker
I'll tell you this. I have enough chirp to do eight or nine theses. Okay. On that, on that site. Oh shit. So, and maybe like a total of like 200 historic artifacts. So pretty, pretty challenging. Yeah. Damn. Did you do your thesis specifically on the historical and, and, or did, did you do some other sort of research or?
00:17:57
Speaker
So I was mainly focused on trying to prove Stan South wrong, which is a lofty goal. Well, I won't say prove him wrong. Contest his views? Yeah. Well, I mean, Stan South himself said, my sample size is small. Please go out and try to prove me wrong. We need more sites to make my theories correct.
00:18:17
Speaker
I don't know if it's fortunately or unfortunately. I did all, you know, I did everything about the metal detection and then I was like, Oh my God, I'm going to prove Stan South wrong. This isn't even close to any of his site types. Did the metal detection. It fits squarely in the frontier pattern. So Stan South wins again. So for those who are not, of us who are not like familiar with that, what is Stan South and what kind of theory does he have that you were kind of hoping to contest or
00:18:42
Speaker
Stan South, he focused primarily on colonial site formation processes, mainly with the use of refuse disposal. He got it so down pat. Oh my God, I can't believe you asked me this. If Dr. Wood listens to this podcast and I'm wrong, I'll never hear the end of it.
00:18:59
Speaker
But he mainly focused on the refuse disposal. He was able to come up with the Brunswick pattern, which was basically saying, Hey, this is a British colonial site based on the refuse disposal. He could even tell you where the front and back doors of a building were based on the refuse disposal.
00:19:14
Speaker
He also focused a lot on ceramics, getting the mean ceramic date, which is annoying because I initially thought that archeology had no math. I'm really bad at math. Turns out it's like all math. Yeah, there's a lot of it. So I was bamboozled from the get-go. But yeah, basically it fell into two site types, the Carolina pattern, which was a more domestic site.
00:19:36
Speaker
and the frontier pattern. And he did this through his artifact groups and the percentages that were present in the refuse disposal. So the Carolina pattern focused a lot more on like kitchen stuff and ceramics and the frontier pattern would focus more on things like nails and outdoorsy. I'm using finger quotes here kind of stuff. So is this an absence of like any sort of structure or anything like that? This is just like focusing squarely on where people through all their stuff.
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there are often structures, but there were zero structures where I was, and I was still able to fit it squarely into the frontier pattern, but just based on the refuse disposal. I mean, that may have changed with further work done out of there, but when I stopped, that's what my data showed me.
00:20:25
Speaker
So we don't talk about historic archaeology much on here just because we haven't done a ton of it. Oh, do you go off? Yeah. What would you tell someone who is wanting to study historic archaeology? Like, how would you get them excited about this?
Interest in Historic Ceramics and Georgia's Colonial History
00:20:41
Speaker
So I didn't even know that I wanted to do historic archaeology. Whenever we were doing this paper as an undergrad, I initially was like, hey, I want to do the prehistoric stuff. Dr. Will was like, no, big dog, you're going to do the historic stuff. So turns out I loved it. The ceramics are wild. I have a favorite ceramic. It's mocha ware.
00:21:02
Speaker
smoke aware is made. Well, it's characterized by its brown dendritic patterns. Those patterns come from a mixture of urine and tobacco juice. Oh, so yeah. So a I wonder who thought I'm going to pee on this and spit on it and see what happens and then mass market it.
00:21:21
Speaker
But I always, there's a piece in a collection at the Augusta lab, David, that is a true mocha ware. And I'll pass it around, kind of talk about it and be like, Hey guys, guess how that's made? It's maybe pee pee. And they're all like, Oh, I touched it. The thing I would say is, you know, there's a lot of
00:21:39
Speaker
what Dr. McNutt, another one of my mentors called sexy archeology. What a sentence. Yeah. A lot to unpack there. So, but yeah, you know, it's stuff like lead balls, lead shot. I didn't find any, but muskets, pistols, stuff like that. Dr. McNutt is a conflict archeologist, which is some of the most awesome historic archeology ever.
00:22:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. He did his, I know he did his doctorate at Glasgow university or is it university in the UK? I don't know. But yeah, between, between him, Dr. Wood and doc doctors Altman and Compton. I had a pretty sweet team of mentors at Georgia Southern. I mean, don't get me wrong. I was beaten down and broken, but.
00:22:32
Speaker
I would be the archaeologist I am without them. Yeah, as I do fun. Yeah, as is tradition with with grad school and all that stuff. Yeah, that's cool to be exposed to that because I think what I think of in terms of historic archaeology is kind of these random can scatters maybe later stuff, but there are
00:22:55
Speaker
pieces of information and really cool things you can kind of study and things you can trace back to certain manufacturers or you know or talk about creation with getting peed on and spit on you know that's that stuff is super interesting
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah, I was like fascinated when I took a historic archaeology class that like you can tell the period of time based on like how they laid the bricks. I was like, wow, this is really something I'm getting tested on right now. But like, cool. And it's kind of fascinating how they can once you have documents, you can do all that.
00:23:30
Speaker
Yeah, documentary evidence definitely is a great part of historical archaeology. It makes things a lot easier. Yeah. Can you elaborate on what that's like, actually? Because besides archives from the VCP, I have no experience with historic documents doing archaeology.
00:23:46
Speaker
So there, there are things called, you know, plat maps that are basically like, I may think, Hey, there's a site here. There's no structures. I don't, nobody knows about it or whatever. And I go check in the counties. Gosh, what did I think? Like the tax office or something. And here's a plat map showing a building that was built in 17, well, not in Georgia, 1757.
00:24:08
Speaker
And now I can go look and be like, hey, I have this platinum. Oh, it shows a giant oak. Look, there's a giant oak. Now I have a much better concept of where I'm probably going to start working. The Georgia. What is it? I've purged a lot of thesis stuff out of my head. Rightfully so. Same.
00:24:23
Speaker
There's a whole book, like 26 volumes of letters from the trustees of the Georgia colony, you know, back to England to random officials and stuff that trace orders for millstones and supplies and hey, we're going to build a town here and that kind of stuff. Yeah. So it's very helpful.
00:24:43
Speaker
That's super cool. We don't get, at least out here in the West, we do a lot with plat maps in terms of mining and GLOs and stuff like that, but that documentary evidence, those letters and stuff, is that really interesting to read and kind of see what people are talking about in their day-to-day lives? It is very interesting, and I just remembered it. It's the Colonial Records of Georgia, and it's available online to read for anybody who's interested in it.
00:25:11
Speaker
Georgia had a shortened tumultuous life as a colony before freedom with all caps. So it's pretty cool to read what was happening in that short period.
00:25:23
Speaker
Georgia, was it a penal colony? I hear that a lot, but I never remember if it was. No. Okay. So that that's an urban myth. I'm going to try to stay out of the weeds because I could talk about this for hours. Do it. Oglethorpe wanted a colony that was different from the Carolina plantation style economy where all the wealth was concentrated in plantation owners. He wanted a colony. Progressive. Yeah. Progressive colony. Slavery was outlawed in Georgia initially. Slavery was not legal in Georgia until 1751.
00:25:50
Speaker
That's when Georgia went from a trustee colony to a royal colony and they were like, hey man, South Carolina and North Carolina are just making tons of money. We got to do something else, bro.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah. So it was initially Oglethorpe and Oglethorpe actually caused it himself by defeating Spanish to battle a bloody marsh because it ended up taking away the threat that if they brought in slaves, they would defect to the Spanish for freedom and fight against Georgia. So Oglethorpe accidentally screwed himself. He played himself. Was Florida in Spanish hands at that point? Is that why it was kind of kind of on the edge of that? Yeah.
00:26:25
Speaker
Okay. St. Augustine's like right south of Georgia, pretty much. Yep. It's only a couple hours from where I grew up. Yeah. It was a typical poor people vacation spot when I was a poor kid. St. Augustine. Yeah.
00:26:41
Speaker
My parents just visited it. My dad was telling me, like, well, one, he said it was very disappointing, like the archaeology there, because it was just all for kids. Yeah. But if anyone works at St. Augustine that's listening to this podcast, I'm sorry, I guess. But he also was telling me, like, because when the Spanish got here, it was like, like they had just kicked the Muslims out of Spain. So like it was.
00:27:02
Speaker
like medieval architecture. And he was saying that the St. Augustine is technically like the oldest medieval architecture in the Americas because it is the only medieval architecture, like those kinds of forts. And I was like, that is interesting. I didn't think about that. Yeah, it was like mid 16th century when St. Augustine was founded. So it's pretty old. Yeah. And that's another thing people don't think about about historical archaeology is how old some of the stuff truly is in the US.
00:27:27
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So after the war, what kind of went on like in Georgia, like the revolutionary war, this plantation economy.
00:27:36
Speaker
it gravitated that way. And one of the big things in the South was timber. Okay. There were many examples of tall, straight, huge timber in the colonial records of Georgia. And it was sent back to Britain initially as, you know, ship stuff. I kind of my expertise and I'm using finger quotes and expertise kind of ends at the revolution. So. Gotcha. Okay.
00:28:00
Speaker
We just went wild, I think. There was a lot of whiskey. Georgia is pretty like forested for sure. Like I was surprised by that when I got there. Oh, me too. When you, when I like visited you out there, I was like, what? I thought it was just like, you know, fine. Yeah. Plantations and like, no, no sort of like, um, topography or anything, but where you're like a pine jungle. Yeah.
00:28:28
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. The pine barrens. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like a gust is wild and you're right near South Carolina and all that stuff. So it's cool. I mean, it's a really cool landscape would recommend. I wouldn't recommend living there, but you know, visiting. Yeah. No, we got, we got a lot of stuff like, you know, we got the coast, we got the coastal plane. We got the Piedmont area where there's mountain. Well, Nate forced me to climb a mountain in North Georgia a couple of weekends ago. It was pretty miserable.
00:28:57
Speaker
So there are, you know, there's the Appalachian Trail starts here. It's a very, we got a, we got a little bit of everything in Georgia. The beaches are pretty too. Yeah. Yeah. But everywhere, everywhere it's hot. Yeah. So I, I agree with that. Yeah. Wasn't like almost like every film filmed in Georgia or there's like a large majority of films? Yeah. There's a huge film industry in Georgia and Atlanta. You know, Forrest Gump was filmed in Savannah.
00:29:23
Speaker
or parts of it was filmed in Savannah. My friend that I worked with in the bars back in the day, his name's Bo Terpen. He works in, I don't know what he'd call it, Atlanta Wood. But anyway, he does films. Cool. Because I know most of the Marvel green screen stuff is done in Georgia or Atlanta. I thought that was neat. Yeah.
00:29:43
Speaker
Well, anyway, we definitely want to ask you about your thesis and your master's work and then how you got to the VCP. So let's wrap this up and we'll come back in the next segment. Welcome back to one for the native life from its podcast with Josh Herron
Norse Paganism and Personal Interests
00:29:56
Speaker
and Connor John. And I want to ask you about your thesis to call back to when I said you were a very imposing human. You like.
00:30:04
Speaker
in the very first day of working with you established with me that you were a Norse pagan or practicing one and I was like, wow, that makes sense. And I was like, wait, are you Norse? And you said, no, Irish. That was really funny. But you also, I can't remember if you were a priest or you had something blessed by a priest and you sent it to me, that wolf totem thing.
00:30:23
Speaker
I didn't, it wasn't blessed, but it was, you know, a big thing in paganism is gift giving. So, you know, wolf totem, your work with dogs. Yeah. Uh, yeah. So I'm not, I will not ever profess to be an expert in this at all. I'm just, just wading into these waters. I think it's one of those things where like, you know, when it thunders, I don't believe that that's Thor beating his hammer on something. I just liked the way that Odin goes about teaching stuff. It's kind of like all the stuff Jesus said in the Bible. And it's good stuff.
00:30:53
Speaker
but it doesn't really get used. So yeah, it's pretty cool. The unfortunate part is all the white supremacists took our symbols. So I can't get any tattoos. I want to get a Milner tattoo, but obviously I can't because it just wouldn't look good. Not a good look. I actually have a friend from Georgia Southern, Michael Putnam that I don't know. I just kind of, wait, how's that one funny?
00:31:19
Speaker
I would think like a friend that introduced you to North paganism would be like, Oh, he was in the anthropology department as well. He's a graduate of Georgia Southern and I don't, I just kind of saw his stuff on Facebook and I was like, Hey man, this looks really cool. It seems like a really inclusive, you know, really positive thing. And I just kind of got into it and took me under his wing and here I am beard later.
00:31:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool. I don't think I've ever met one in person. So I was, I've tell people that now, like I know no guy. Do you do any, what kind of practices is, is, is part of that? You know, a lot of the pagan festivals, like a star, uh, I'm big on, uh, Luna saw, which is, and it's based on an Irish deity, Lou. He's kind of an all around bad-ass. You know, I just, I learned, I learned bread baking, which is a big thing. Kind of, I'm like that.
00:32:17
Speaker
Annoying hippie uncle that gives handmade gifts all the time now because I give handmade gifts all the time now That's nice, yeah, it's just yeah, I mean that's that's that's better than a gift card. Yeah, it's just it's better than pulling up in a longboat No, it's a it's a lot of I guess I'd classified as like down-to-earth stuff just sure it's such an accepting world
00:32:43
Speaker
that I really enjoy it. And it, you know, the lessons aren't even crazy. Like I bought, gosh, I can't remember the name of it. It's basically like the teachings of Odin. And it's, it's just not, it's not even crazy stuff. It's like, Hey man, yeah, go out and have a few beers. Just don't get trashed and throw up on yourself. Yeah. Hey, sure. Go out and fight. And, but you know,
00:33:06
Speaker
maybe don't murder people that don't need murder. And yeah, it's pretty, it's really simple town to get behind that. Yeah. Yeah. I can get behind that. You know, it's not like, uh, yeah, it's not like other, other religions where there's very specific things. It's like, Hey, maybe just be a good human sometimes. And I think it's the Hava mall. This is what it's called. I think. Do you, I mean, obviously I'm being insensitive by laughing about some things, but like, do you find like, wouldn't say prejudice or like, do you find people that are like just kind of scoff at it kind of thing?
00:33:35
Speaker
Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's like I'm assuming because with Vikings and all that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, even my aunt, she's like, you know, I love her to death. She's like a hardcore Southern Baptist. So, you know, I don't get how people look at one. And I'm using religion very loosely. It's more of like a lifestyle. But which one neither one of them are crazier than the other. You know, they're all pretty crazy.
00:34:01
Speaker
That's your anthropology talk in there, bro. I just, I love that you're like six foot five massive beard. You're a Norse pagan and you're from Georgia and you say, gosh.
00:34:19
Speaker
I'm telling you, man, I'm like the nicest dude ever. And one of my, um, one of the things from, I don't think last session. No, it was last session. It was like, he's kind of unapproachable. And I was like, dude, I can't turn off this.
00:34:33
Speaker
Asshole face like it's just natural. I'm really really nice It's funny you say that too because I a lot of the Employees I had like because you can't hang out with them like when they're employees but after I would get a beer at them and stuff when they graduated and like one girl was like I you just seemed so unapproachable because you were so busy and I was like I was absolutely not
00:34:56
Speaker
I was writing Instagram posts on my computer and I felt bad that I was taking government money to do this. Like you could have come up and talked. She's like, you seem so like smart and intimidating. And I was like, I was literally probably looking up Zelda theories.
00:35:11
Speaker
Like yeah, yeah, it was a fun gig. I learned a lot and it was very, I'm successful now. I put that in quotes like you've been doing because of that job, I would say. So that's good. Can you guys both like kind of talk about the highs and lows of something like this? Cause it's not, it's not a straightforward archeology or anthropology job. Like you are, you have to have a skillset that is not inherently taught to you. Like a people skillset that I don't think is taught to everyone.
00:35:40
Speaker
I was a therapist dude for like yeah. Yeah. I took the same thing that David did. I took the mental health first aid thing. Oh, yeah, you did too. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I'm pretty much just David now. Yeah. It shocks me. And I'm like, I'm sure you know this too. Like, especially if they've seen some stuff in the
00:35:58
Speaker
and on deployments and things like the mental health system when you're out of the army is even harder to figure out, I'd imagine. So I would just be like, dude, I think about that shit all the time. I don't own a gun. It'd be bad if I did kind of thing. And they're like, oh, me too. And then we would talk and like, yeah, that was pretty dark, sorry. But you know what I mean? That was an extreme.
00:36:18
Speaker
But the stigma of mental health is still there. I mean, you know, the initial part of the war, you know, there was a big stigma about PTSD. Nobody wanted anyone to know they had PTSD, no mental health problems because you got characterized as this crazy, violent war fighter, you know? So that still persists, you know, 20 plus
PTSD, Mental Health, and Advocacy
00:36:37
Speaker
years later. We actually have had texts be like,
00:36:40
Speaker
I refuse to get a PTSD diagnosis, which is like 50% at the VA. That's like 50%. That's a lot of money. And I've been like, I refuse to get it because I don't want it to affect jobs in the future. I don't want people to think I'm crazy. Yeah. I think it's, you know, it's no secret for a lot of people, but especially with me, I have a big problem with how our country treats veterans. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I'm not one myself, but from what I saw there, I was like, yeah. Do you think this program is like a
00:37:09
Speaker
one of a good example of a way that the country is teaching people and giving people jobs and whatnot. I do. I, and I also think, you know, particularly every lab is great, but I know particularly in Augusta, we go out of our way to make it a comfortable environment. Yeah. You know, like we were, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. I have been in the last few years, I've taken charge of my own mental health and I'm trying to be very vocal about it.
00:37:35
Speaker
You know, like, Hey man, I have debilitating panic attacks. I have, you know, I probably checked the door to see if it was locked 18 times before I left the house today. Yeah. Talk to me, man. You know, talk to me. Don't, don't let it eat you up. So it is a, it's a little, it's a little bit of a drain on your own mental health, but I think it's worth it.
00:37:54
Speaker
Yeah, and I like, I don't mean to talk for you, but the, just all the stuff that people go through and things and like, I would say the hard part too, and you might experience this as well as like, I can talk to a guy like me and you, like a vet like that, like a Marine that was my age, I could easily level with him. But when he came in and said like, I need help finding a job, I was like, all right, dog, let's, let's do this. But when it's a mother of three and she's like 45, like I had no idea how to like,
00:38:19
Speaker
help like it was just a new thing I had to like deal with because like I've never had kids like I've never had a 401k so I or I do now but or not not a lot of it uh how to help them and it was part of my job to to do that and it was something I had to learn but what was really unique and the state archaeologist of Wyoming told me this too he was like you're the first person I know
00:38:40
Speaker
that's like left grad school, not gotten a PhD and not gone into CRM, but got a job doing anthropology. And like that hit me and I was like, right, because I'm an anthropologist at this job and you have to play the role of like, I was like, shit, I'm my professor. Like I'm the guy at the desk that they come talk to. And like that hit me one day. And then also like with that mother of three, like, okay,
00:39:05
Speaker
I'm an anthropologist. Here's the patterns I've seen of the veterans that come in. Here's how the culture works in Augusta. Here's how I can help you based on what I know empirically. I don't know if you have that experience there too or not. Oh yeah. There's been many times veterans are talking to me and they feel so down about not being farther and I'm like, man, I have these exact same thoughts.
00:39:28
Speaker
You know, you're in a great position here. We're here to help and stuff, but just know like everyone around you is thinking, man, I'm not far enough, man. I'm not doing good enough, man. This sucks. Yeah. It's been, it's been, how do I say it's been great to use my own poor experiences as a veteran to help other veterans. So at least those poor experiences are good for something. Yeah.
00:39:53
Speaker
Oh, that's good, man. And then you're the artifacts manager too, so I'm sure you're dealing with my aftermath of Tougaloo. You had a hiccup the other day, I remember, but I don't know if we can talk about that one.
00:40:07
Speaker
Oh, it was a good one. Let's tell Connor after the show. Did David write something? I know. Yes. Yes, he did. How did you know that? Chris Rowe is a good friend of ours and I think we had this conversation before. How is working for Chris? Is Chris a decent
00:40:30
Speaker
So Chris has moved into an admin's position where I don't work directly for him, but Chris is one of the best people I've ever worked with. So, you know, I don't think I've ever seen Chris have a bad day. It's bizarre. It's bizarre. I've never met a human like that.
00:40:48
Speaker
Yeah, it'll be like he could just get his leg like taken off by a train and he'd be like, gosh, darn it. You guys want to get tacos? He's just never had a bad day. That's Chris. Yeah. Shout out Chris Rowe. You're a fantastic human. As we're like kind of winding down, I did want to ask you. Oh, thesis, right.
00:41:07
Speaker
No, I was going to ask him like, did you have any advice for either veterans or non-traditional students who want to get an archaeology? Do you have any things, tips, tricks, dance moves? So for non-traditional students, I know it sucks and it seems like you're too old or...
00:41:24
Speaker
You're never going to finish it, but you definitely can in my end. When I was in grad school, there was a dude that was like 75 finishing his masters. So it's never too late. Don't give up on your dreams just because it seems hard because you know, here I am. Mama made it, but.
00:41:41
Speaker
for veterans, one of the good things that comes out of being a veteran, you know, there's a lot of crappy stuff that comes out of being a veteran. But one of the good things about being a veteran is that is a leg up in the world of archeology, you know, especially with like federal jobs. That's an automatic boost to get you ahead of the game in federal jobs. So use it. I've always been very hesitant about
00:42:03
Speaker
using a veteran's discount or being like, Hey, I'm a veteran. Thank me. But in federal jobs, use it. Yeah. So it is definitely something that will benefit you. So if you're considering going into archeology, federal jobs, where it's at, things like 88% of archeology is CRM, 88% of archeological employment, CRM, and a lot of that's in the federal
Veterans' Work Ethic and Public Understanding of Archaeology
00:42:25
Speaker
sector. So man, be a loud veteran.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's good advice. And I don't mean to take from you, but I would also add too, to that statement. Like when I was a younger person before that job, I would say like, I always just assumed veterans, like they get priority because like, you know, they quote, serve the country or yada, yada. But then like, and it was out of respect, but like after working, like having them work for me,
00:42:51
Speaker
Like they're the most hardworking people ever. Like they would finish something so quick that I had nothing left to give them. And I was like, bro, just like watching Netflix. Like I don't know what to tell you. And like, I would always, I see why veterans get priority a lot in jobs like that. Unfortunately, they're not treated as great as we'd like them to be in any, in other areas, but I could see why like it, I would always pick a veteran over someone else at this point, I think.
00:43:15
Speaker
Anything else I'd want to tell the world about archaeology is, I'm involved in a lot of public outreach with New South, our parent company at the VCP. I think it's super important that people know about archaeology. I think it's more involved in every day than people think it is. I think a lot of people don't even know what archaeology really is and how much
00:43:38
Speaker
it drives industrialization in the modern world. So anytime I can get a chance to show people archeology, its usefulness and why you shouldn't just kind of shrug it off and be like, Hey, I'm going to take this cool arrowhead from this random spot. I like to jump on that. And even to get to distill it a little bit more anthropology is the
00:44:01
Speaker
the more important piece of it. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for chatting with us. We asked all our guests this. So do you have any like books, lit articles, blogs, discord channels that you would recommend for folks who are interested in kind of historic archeology or veteran archeology and stuff like that?
00:44:24
Speaker
So method and theory in historical archaeology by Stan South, it's a little bit of a wordy read, but it's worth it. I would check it out. But other than that, you know, maybe not literature, you'd be surprised at how many volunteer archaeology projects are going on around you. So if you're truly interested in it, seek out your county's archaeological society and they're probably hosting a dig soon and you'll get to go out there and do stuff.
00:44:50
Speaker
That's really good advice. I would also second that too. I don't think anyone's really said that before on this podcast is like your local chapters or how you get in the door. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Advocational archaeology is a huge part. Volunteers make up so much of the work archaeology does. Yeah, absolutely. And another thing we have to add