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Archaeology: Cool Women Who Dig - Episode 31
64 Plays7 years ago
On today's episode we talk about a new book from Nomad Press by Anita Yasuda called, "Archaeology: Cool Women Who Dig". It's a book intended for children ages 9 through 12 and focuses on three dynamic women who are working in archaeology around the world.
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Transcript
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00:00:01
Speaker
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Speaker
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Introductions
00:00:48
Speaker
Hi and welcome to the women in archaeology podcast.
00:00:52
Speaker
My name is Chelsea Slotten, and tonight I am joined by Emily Long and Carson Lopez. Ladies, as always, thank you so much for being here. It's great to be here. Thank you. Yeah.
Book Review Introduction: 'Archaeology, Cool Women Who Dig'
00:01:04
Speaker
So today we're going to do another book review episode. As some of you may remember really early on in our show, we did a book review of Alan Kaiser's book, Archaeology, Sexism and Scandal.
00:01:21
Speaker
And I think it was a really big hit and we all really enjoyed doing it and getting to learn some more about our history as archaeologists and who's writing about it and the politics of that.
Overview of Book and Interactive Elements
00:01:32
Speaker
So we've been lucky enough to get to do another book review, this time on a book called Archaeology, Cool Women Who Dig, which was written by Anita Yasuda. Hope I'm not butchering her last name.
00:01:49
Speaker
and is published by Nomad Press. It's part of their Girls in Science series. So this was a really, really recent publication. It was copyright 2017. And it's a really great book that they do.
00:02:10
Speaker
kind of an introduction to archaeology, introduction to some of the really cool women who have participated in archaeology and helping make the fields what it is, moving on to look at a couple notables from today. And as well as being interactive and interesting, and I'm clearly a big fan of this book.
Hosts' Impressions of the Book
00:02:32
Speaker
But Emily or Kirsten, do you guys want to jump in with some kind of initial impressions, I guess?
00:02:39
Speaker
Sure. I really was pleasantly surprised by the book. I feel like there's so many, well in fact there actually aren't many children's books or even pre-teen books on archaeology where you're getting a well-rounded picture of what the field is actually all about and how you actually get into archaeology. A lot of the books seem to be more about the stuff
00:03:02
Speaker
about the artifacts and like ooh look a sword ooh look this is excavation um yay things where's this it's really about the archaeologists and it gets into so much detail about well how did this person even decide to get into archaeology and how did they go about it and then it provides an example for
00:03:24
Speaker
every kind of career you could have in archaeology. So talks about bio archaeology. Well, here's a great bio archaeologist who also happens to be a woman. Hooray. So I think my my general impression of the book is like, wow, this provides great role models for boys and girls.
Interactive Features and Accessibility for Young Readers
00:03:44
Speaker
And it's really informative. It does a good job of breaking down what archaeology is all about.
00:03:50
Speaker
And it's interesting. It's not too dry. It doesn't dumb it down, per se. It's a great book, in my opinion. I would definitely recommend it for teachers and for students. Like, it's a good one to just have on your shelf ready to go.
00:04:04
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. You guys are totally spot on, said everything more or less, I was thinking. There's some neat features that I found really cool that would include a lot of other interactions that would be useful outside of the book. So say there's these QR codes, there's websites, but the QR codes I think are really neat because it's very much like right now,
00:04:32
Speaker
if you're interested or if you find this interesting. Yeah, it's you know, you can just kind of hop on right now. It also has like questions and interactives for teachers to hop into. So it's it's just very rich in the content and its potential for encouraging further exploration. Now, one thing I know that I didn't mention earlier, but the the age range for this book is technically
00:05:01
Speaker
I'm created at ages 9 to 12 for guided reading level T. I will admit that I have no idea what guiding reading level T means. One of the things that I like about it that I think we've kind of all touched on in a somewhat roundabout way is its accessibility. From the guided questions that teachers could use to the QR codes that'll send you to
00:05:29
Speaker
interesting websites so that you can learn more without having to really go do an in-depth search. And also, it does mean that the sites that you're going to go to are going to be age appropriate. And I know so often when you Google things about archaeology, you get, you know, the post-processual methodology of, you know, whatever. Somebody starts talking about Binford, who is
00:06:00
Speaker
equatious to say the least. And some of that can be difficult even for advanced scholars to access. My college kids are still confused by my theory lectures. They're so like, wait, what was that? So yeah, I can't imagine trying to explain processionalism and post-processionalism and so on to a nine-year-old. Just be like, yeah, don't worry about it. Right.
Ethics and Complexity in Archaeology
00:06:28
Speaker
And this, I mean, it doesn't really talk about interstitialism, but it does make archaeology interesting and more realistic than some of the, look, I found cool stuff. Yeah, outside of the Indiana Jones bit or any of that, I mean, it's the way that it kind of starts off with very distinctly separating collectors.
00:06:56
Speaker
from archaeologists. And I thought that was a really neat thing to really kind of kick it off in the very first few pages. It's definitely getting into and separating that out.
00:07:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah, because I was curious I had went on amazon.com and just typed in archaeology and then went to kids books. And yeah, it's just it's mostly about the stuff and they don't really get into too much about the difference between collecting looting and then
00:07:31
Speaker
archaeology as a science and how it's no longer really collecting or looting, per se. I mean, that can be controversial, but a lot of those books don't really get into how if you find something, leave it where it is. And you're right, Kirsten, it's great that the book just right off the bat is like, yeah, there's a huge difference between these two things.
00:07:56
Speaker
don't collect, even though early archaeology was all about collecting stuff, it goes into then the transition to, well, here's now what archaeology is. Yeah, I really liked that too. And that the key points on context and the importance of context, you know, is is dug into a little bit, which is kind of neat because
00:08:20
Speaker
That's really what it's all about. And one of the really neat things I really like about the way the author, the way that Anita really kind of explored the concepts is she didn't really shy away from some of the things that other authors have a hard time portraying, it feels like, especially when it comes to kids' books, so things like context. She also has some quotes in here from archaeologists, which I found really kind of fun because
00:08:47
Speaker
They have words like paleoethnobotany. You kids are going to be like, what is that? But then she's got the index, or the glossary, I'm sorry, at the end, where you can look that up and it defines it for you. And even outside of that, there's so many references and so many resources where it really encourages kids to, instead of skip over the challenging words,
00:09:16
Speaker
you know, ask those questions. It doesn't shy away from those while it still stays at that nine-year-old, you know, what, fourth through sixth grade reading level.
Women in Archaeology History
00:09:28
Speaker
On top of that, one thing I really enjoyed about the book too, just even the first couple chapters, they mentioned, the authors mentioned pretty much all the women we talked about in the history of women in archaeology episodes, like, oh, we talked about that person. Oh, we talked about that person. And it just made me happy that they devoted a good chunk of the book to, well, here, women have been trying to be archaeologists and do archaeology.
00:09:56
Speaker
For a long time before we even were really accepted into the field and it even portrays that Really well, like there are questions like you should ask Let me see if I can find it. There's a story about Mary Leakey and then at the bottom it shows Ask an answer and it goes why is it important for women to have the same career opportunities as men? It's like yes
00:10:22
Speaker
Thank you, not only connecting to these issues in the past, you're bringing it to the present. Yay, good job, book. So I found that really enjoyable, that...
00:10:33
Speaker
women were mentioned throughout various periods in history in terms of their connection to archaeology, all the way from just like early collectors during the Renaissance period to women like Mary Leakey and Jane Delafoy. I mean, it just it does a really good job giving a background to women
00:10:53
Speaker
doing archaeology for quite some time. Because like you said, you type in archaeology, you're going to get Indiana Jones. Women are usually not thought about when you think about the history of archaeology. And so I think it's great that it presents it in such a well-rounded way. Yeah, definitely. And one of the things that I have to say I really enjoyed, and some of this goes back to the age group,
00:11:20
Speaker
that this is geared at. But so often, like you said, when people think archaeologists and you see Indiana Jones and, you know, could probably do an entire episode at some point about all of the things wrong with Indiana Jones, several episodes, in fact. But, you know, they are looters, they are male, they are all of these these other things. And the ideas that individuals get about what are
00:11:50
Speaker
kind of appropriate, you know, air quotes, appropriate roles for men and women to have are formulated really, really early. I remember reading an article about pedagogical theory, so teaching theory, and they were talking about this really interesting project they'd done where they had
00:12:15
Speaker
someone go into a kindergarten class. So we're talking four, five, six-year-olds. You might have a couple four-year-olds who started early and a couple six-year-olds who started late, but basically five-year-olds.
Gender Stereotypes and Representation
00:12:27
Speaker
Yeah, haven't been around all that long. Who were asked to draw pictures of police persons and fire persons and nurses and doctors and EMTs and astronauts and
00:12:45
Speaker
all of these careers that could be really interesting. And 90, 95% of the class, some absurdly large percentage of the class drew male police people and male astronauts and male doctors and female nurses and female teachers. And it became really obvious through
00:13:13
Speaker
you know, asking these students and the students in the class were roughly 50-50 male to female students, that these gendered ideas of what jobs people have based on, you know, their biological sex or their gender are very, they're inscribed at a very young age. And then they did a really interesting thing where they had a bunch of female doctors and firemen and police officers and astronauts come in
00:13:43
Speaker
And then a bunch of male nurses and male teachers and afterwards had all the kids draw those people again. And they saw a much more even gender distribution in the drawings. But having something like this that is geared towards someone nine to 12 is so important because I didn't start learning about female archaeologists until junior year of college, maybe.
00:14:13
Speaker
It was it was never a focus. You know, you've got a life, you know, 20, 20 years of gendered expectations. And if you can catch people when they're younger and start to change the expectations of what is a, you know, air quote, appropriate job, you can really start to to change the world. Oh, definitely.
00:14:41
Speaker
I looked out as a kid that I had a stubborn streak a mile long, still do. So even though I may have been told like, well, women don't really do archeology. I was like, yeah, they do. I'm off, you know, but you're 100% right. We need to have more visuals of positive role models doing all kinds of jobs.
00:15:08
Speaker
and not even just the STEM stuff. I mean, in the arts and music as well, but yeah, specifically focusing on archaeology.
00:15:17
Speaker
I don't remember seeing very many women in archaeology either until probably about college except one children's book and I think it may have actually been about paleontology but it had women digging and it had women looking at fossils and whatnot and it was a book by Avi and I wish I could remember what it was called off the top of my head but yeah there are very few
00:15:46
Speaker
representations of women doing more scientific jobs, like archaeology. Sorry, I'm kind of just ranting on top of what you just said. But it bears repeating. It's super, super important.
00:16:03
Speaker
Yeah, and so it's I mean, it's incredibly frustrating. And I guess I just I lucked out that no one really ever told me all that, you know, strongly like you can't do that. But I think it would have been better if I had had seen more.
00:16:19
Speaker
women doing these types of jobs that I now do because I've been like, oh, well, it's not odd that I'm doing these things. It's just part of the norm. All women, you know, go do fire archaeology. All women go do CRM. All women go study in a lab. All women go on a, you know, go scuba diving to look at shipwrecks. But you don't see that. Yeah.
00:16:43
Speaker
There's a couple of things or a couple of the historical personas that I went into to allow a book that we did have discussed on a previous episode. Check it out. One being Gertrude Bell. Yes, it is really good. One being Gertrude Bell. One of the things that I'm still working on actually, one of her biographies, there have been several written,
00:17:09
Speaker
that I just I find her story very fascinating because she was so part and parcel to the political establishment of Iraq in the 1920s as an independent country from the British rule.
Highlighting Notable Women in Archaeology
00:17:25
Speaker
And they touch on that a little bit in this and that she was, you know, honorary curator or what's the word, basically head of the museum
00:17:36
Speaker
in Baghdad and she wrote a lot of the laws that ended up being in place for until fairly recently. The laws are still in place, but with safeguarding the heritage and keeping people from removing artifacts any longer. So this was sort of during the decolonization process from the British Empire in the early 20th century. And I think it's really neat that
00:18:05
Speaker
because she's one of those few examples, a man or woman, who in the process of being an archaeologist in the early 20th century was also part and parcel to helping protect the national heritage or the cultural heritage of another country rather than, you know, most
00:18:27
Speaker
of this arrow, you know, you go and you take, you take home. Everything goes back to your home country. And everything goes back to the exactly. And so, you know, obvious cases are like, you know, Greece, and in the British, basically looting of the Elgin marbles, the Elgin marbles, yeah, the all of the
00:18:53
Speaker
everything. Yeah. So it was kind of neat that she was, yeah, just this single British woman aristocrat who decided that it wasn't that and the place that she fell in love with, she bought to have them keep their stuff. Um, and then the second being, I think this was one of your guys's favorites, uh, with Jane De La Foy. Yes. I pronounced that correctly. Um,
00:19:22
Speaker
who is similarly fascinating for however her decision that it was easiest which I can no doubt fully assume because in some parts of the world this would also make our work easier is to just dress and presume that everyone knows that you're a man instead of a woman and but she
00:19:48
Speaker
did this sort of despite it being very contrary to French, she was French, French social norms at the time. It was actually illegal. She had to get special dispensation to allow her to do it. Yeah. You can take that and run with it, Chelsea, if you want. She's such a fascinating person.
00:20:14
Speaker
So it's awesome that she ended up in the book. They chose well. They chose a couple really good people because obviously it's hard not to be like, Oh, why didn't they do, um, Zelia, uh, is it Natal or Natal? Oh, Natal, I think. And they're like, there's so many great examples, but it's a kid's book. You can only pick so many, but yeah, I think they did a good job. Although of course it'd be great to have like,
00:20:43
Speaker
More. Always want more. Yes. Well, you know, digging into that, you know, they have a little bit on their biographies, but also the projects that they worked on, you know, it's not just about, you know, here is what this woman did from the state to this state. This is the place she went to this state, did this generally.
00:21:07
Speaker
There are some specific sites that are involved, some of which are continuing to be excavated and worked on today and researched. So that was kind of a neat kind of pull from the past into the present and that connection of continuity is kind of neat. Yeah. So I think that's actually a really great place to head to our first break.
00:21:32
Speaker
on the importance of the continuity of women in archaeology. And when we come back, we will talk a little bit more about some of the specific historical examples of women and move on to some of the modern women that are also mentioned in this book.
00:22:03
Speaker
Archaeology and Ale is a free monthly talk presented by Archaeology in the City from the University of Sheffield Archaeology Department. That's where the archaeology part of archaeology and ale comes from. As for the ale part, the talk is held upstairs at the Red Deer, a great local pub on Pitt Street in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, on the last Thursday of every month. If you're in Sheffield, do come along, and don't worry, non-ale alternatives are also available. If you can't make it to Sheffield, never fear.
00:22:30
Speaker
you can listen to the archaeology and ale talk every month right here on the archaeology podcast network. And now back to the show. Hi and welcome back to the women in archaeology podcast. So far on this episode we have been discussing the book archaeology, cool women who dig. When we left off we'd been talking about some of the great historical examples of female archaeologists at the book
Engagement through Comics and Illustrations
00:23:00
Speaker
mentions and I think we're going to continue on a little bit with that and then move on to some of the excellent modern female archaeologists that we can all look up to. I just I just loved all all of this. It was so so great and you know we had we had mentioned Gertrude Bell a little bit earlier. I didn't
00:23:27
Speaker
throw this in at the time, but one of the really great things that I appreciated in this book in terms of interactives, there were two separate interactives for Gertrude Bell, one of which was a QR code that will actually take you to a website that has some of Gertrude Bell's letters and diaries, you know, scanned and digitized online so that you can actually
00:23:56
Speaker
go back and see what this incredible woman was saying firsthand. It's not somebody's interpretation or something a history book is telling you. You can go and make your own judgments and do your own investigating. And the other thing I really liked was, and this is another QR code, but it's a link
00:24:23
Speaker
to a comic series that was based on Gertrude's life. It was produced by Newcastle University and just kind of going on the same theme of having information be more accessible to people of different ages. There are also people who really hate reading. They don't like reading, they're dyslexic, they're, you know, whatever. I'm dyslexic. It took me a long time to think that reading was fun or to sit down and think that
00:24:54
Speaker
you know, reading, you know, a long book was going to be something enjoyable rather than like, God, why are all the letters swimming? Comic books are really great. And I know a lot of times people look at comic books and think of them as, you know, four children or a means of entertainment, not as a means of conveying knowledge, but the fact that you can take something like Gartrude's story
00:25:24
Speaker
turn it into a comic which might appeal to a different audience to spread that knowledge in a different way. I just thought it was so great. Did you check out the comic? I did. There's actually a series of educational comics that they've done, you know, a comic on marine biology and a comic on
00:25:52
Speaker
being a volcanologist and a whole bunch of other things. I will admit I haven't read many of them. I think one of them was a part of the free comic book giveaway that it happens every May and that's how I found out about it and I've perused a couple other ones. So, I mean Newcastle University certainly isn't the only university that's trying to take
00:26:22
Speaker
more academic style knowledge and making it accessible in different ways. I don't know that they've done an archaeology specific one. But unfortunately, I can't remember who the publisher of that particular comic is. But I'm always up for talking about comics. I think they're fun too. And it's such a great way to disseminate information. Because I mean, having substituted for many, many different grades and ages,
00:26:50
Speaker
Kids seem to have a very, very short attention span and something that can break down information in a quick, but also unique way is always wonderful. Cause people are like, Ooh, look at the art and like, Ooh, these are really neat pictures. And then they read the conversations like, ha ha, you are learning and you don't even realize it. We'll hop.
00:27:14
Speaker
And that's also stuff they're going to remember because they're not sitting in a classroom having to memorize something. You know, I'm sure that there is a ton of information that I've forgotten that I had to memorize for some test at some point in my life. Right. But a book you enjoy reading or a comic that's interesting that you can talk to your friends about that, you know, it sticks around.
00:27:39
Speaker
So that actually makes me think of the illustrator. So there's Lena Chanhock has done some wonderful illustrations in here based on photographs alongside some really great historic full color photographs of the modern women archaeologists, as well as their sites and different areas that they've studied or have interest in.
00:28:05
Speaker
So you have a couple of historic photographs in black and white. So those, but each of the featured archaeologists, so Chelsea Rhodes, Justin Benanti, I believe is how you pronounce that. They are all illustrated in their element. So Justine is underwater, of course, with her
00:28:27
Speaker
her underwater paper, which I thought was really kind of fun. She's not pictured with the digging equipment per se, but it's her really cool underwater. Like waterproof paper. Yeah, waterproof paper. And it looks like, I'm not sure what the weight things are. It almost looks like a, do you guys know what that is? On page 75.
00:28:54
Speaker
This is how much I know about underwater archaeology. But they're tools that she uses in the field, which I don't do underwater archaeology, so I wouldn't know what they are. But they feature other tools like the total station, which I thought was kind of fun. That's a lot of wonderful illustrations and photographs.
00:29:14
Speaker
Yeah, so it's neat to look at as well. There are a lot of works just because it's a higher rating level, but it is definitely not just boring stuff. There's a photo of Chelsea Rose in Alaska, so you get a really beautiful view of the mountains.
00:29:33
Speaker
And like, some, she has her dig. So she, Alexandra Jones is set up with her, her teaching environment, which is kind of neat. But each one, like I said, it's kind of set in their own, their own element, which was kind of cool. And in many different avenues, like, or different elements, too. Yeah, like you have them,
Profiles of Outreach-Oriented Archaeologists
00:30:02
Speaker
at a dig site than, you know, with Chelsea against the mountains. And it's nice showing that they're doing different things rather than, like we said at the beginning of the show, it's not just the stuff. It shows what they're doing. It's the job. It's showing much more about the profession, which is so much fun.
00:30:26
Speaker
And one of the neat things is that all of the archaeologists that they've featured, or all three of them, do outreach. They are involved in public outreach. So there's a potential for kids to read this and then meet these archaeologists, which is pretty neat. Chelsea is involved in a lot of public outreach in and around Jacksonville and Southern Oregon, fairly consistently. Alexander Jones, of course, has said
00:30:55
Speaker
AITC, the archaeology in the community in the DC area, and the underwater, what is it, diving for a purpose? Yeah, that sounds right. Justine puts together youth diving with a purpose. And so it's a pretty neat thing to be able to read about an archaeologist and have them very accessible. It's not just
00:31:26
Speaker
you know, someone who's really far away and was locked in a research office for a lab. And Chelsea's been on our podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Let's check out the portrayal of a women archaeologist in the media episode. And she was on there with us. And she is fantastic and really fun to talk to. She was on the
00:31:51
Speaker
time team America television show gets on PBS and you can a lot of libraries carry that you can also watch it online. I did a program with kids and I had them watch part of one of the episodes just as an introduction to this is what archaeology is all about and showing them what archaeologists do and it's a wonderful program and the book does get into that a little bit and it's nice how much the book gets into the community outreach side of each person.
00:32:21
Speaker
And the programs they do, it's not just a one-liner. It's like, oh, they actually really are doing a lot of outreach beyond just academia, publishing, excavating, et cetera. And I'm not as familiar with the other two individuals who are highlighted in the book. But having talked to Chelsea just on this podcast,
00:32:47
Speaker
I can see why she's in the book. It makes perfect sense. She's great.
00:32:54
Speaker
And that also brings me to another point, because the audience is set for a certain age level, and it's good for teachers to have around. But also, archaeologists often, I know I get requests, because I've done some, not nearly as much outreach as these women in the book, but I've done a few bits of outreach in public education, and I'm always getting questions for how to do such things.
00:33:20
Speaker
And this actually would be a really great resource for other archaeologists to get an idea or a feel for the possibilities that are out there. To even have examples of programs to look at to be like, hey, I'm interested in doing this is sort of the right age range or even being able to look at it and customize it for something that might be, you know, as an inspiration for something that they might be interested in. I mean, Alexandra's
00:33:48
Speaker
organization being a non-profit is actually for me very inspiring because it's something that I have splitted through the back of my mind. I don't know if it'll ever be something that happens, but to do the volunteer work for people and organizations that don't have the funds even though they need to do cultural resource management. This in here talks a little bit about a church in the D.C. area who when the church was
00:34:14
Speaker
The interior was destroyed from a fire, but it was a historic church. Due to it being a very well-known historic church, they had to do archaeology before they could restore it and before they could rebuild. But they didn't have the means to do this type of project because they're not, unfortunately, they are more expensive.
00:34:42
Speaker
any other research project or construction project. So what she did is set up to be able to help organizations out that have to do such things and involve the community that is involved. I don't like repeating myself, but she involved the church community for which she was working with. So she had a lot of people that went to this church for years help out.
00:35:12
Speaker
and get to learn about the history of the place that they had already fairly well known, but you always learned something new with archaeology, as well as professionals alongside her in those works. So that was kind of a really neat thing to see that you don't see a whole lot of. That's really also the right way to do archaeology, you know, to not come in and tell someone else what their history is, but to, you know, it's like
00:35:40
Speaker
collaborative learning experience. Talk about just the individuals mentioned in the book in general. One thing I think the book does really well that I haven't really seen in other kids books, it doesn't only get into
00:36:08
Speaker
Each person, as an archaeologist, it goes through the process of how they became an archaeologist.
00:36:15
Speaker
it like, what was it that inspired them to become an archaeologist? And then where did they go to school? What field schools did they go to? How did they then get into this career that they now have? And then how they've branched out in many different directions. So it's not only just giving kids that the idea like you can be an archaeologist, well, here's the how, here's the work that these individuals went into went through to get to where they are now. So it
00:36:46
Speaker
provides a realistic idea of the work each person went through to get to where they are now, as opposed to just, you know, going from point A to then point Z. It gives a lot of the invitation, which I think is great. Yeah, definitely. I mean, that's something I think that is more of a feature of the Girls in Science series towards trying to inspire
00:37:10
Speaker
kids and in particular girls, but you don't have to have a predestined path, like you don't have to know how to get there necessarily from the beginning, you just have to be inspired. And it's not a, you know, my father was a doctor before me, so I must be a doctor, sort of, you know, repetitive thing. It's, you do have to be inspired to be in this business.
00:37:33
Speaker
As we all know, for numerous reasons, but it helps to really kind of have that thrive. I haven't known, I can't say you can't really, but I haven't known a lot of archaeologists that have just happened since landed in archaeology and are happy with it.
00:37:54
Speaker
So you generally fight to be in here, you push and inquire and kind of wiggle your way in and you love it. And that's you do all of that because you're interested in these topics, but it's a very broad set of topics and skill sets, which is another thing that they hit on too, is you don't have to be a physics major or this great. I mean, you do have to have some math skills, one might say, but you don't have to finish
00:38:24
Speaker
calculus too in order to become an archaeologist. Unless you're specializing in certain things, it's that broad field of study that has many different types of specializations and that's something that they get on to. So that brings up another really great point.
Diverse Paths in Archaeology Careers
00:38:40
Speaker
I think it is Chelsea Rose is the woman who went and she did I guess like a year at the University of Oregon
00:38:53
Speaker
and then went and took a couple years off before she went back and finished up her schooling there. And she went and she traveled and she did some really interesting things. And that kind of brings up the point that lots of children are told
00:39:17
Speaker
Well, you get good grades, go to college, you get good grades, you get into a good college, go to college, get a job, you go on to grad school. It's very like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I think having examples of successful people, just in general, who haven't necessarily followed that path is really good. And Chelsea has certainly learned from the traveling that she did and those experiences that she had.
00:39:47
Speaker
you know, going and meeting other people will make you a better anthropologist and a better archaeologist because we are all, after all, trying to understand other people. It's kind of the goal. Definitely. I bet it helped her from not burning out as well. I think that's the big one is if you just go straight through. It's exhausting and maybe you don't want to be an archaeologist or anthropologist at the end of that because you're so sick of it.
00:40:16
Speaker
Yeah, and I've met a lot of people that get uninspired and worn out. So that's, it is, I mean, you've, at least I've read studies over the years that tout the benefits of taking a year off after high school or between degrees, just so you can read
00:40:36
Speaker
hydrate life again. And you're not lost in this whole of like, I am only my schoolwork or only my, you know, my academic profession or your academic career. And then if you get a different job or do something else, the rest of your life, it's kind of like, what is the rest of my life? I don't know. Like you, you're not sure where you are and where your true love for what you do is. So that is definitely a really,
00:41:05
Speaker
inspiring point on what you're saying. Oh, yeah. It's good to see in a book you don't have to follow the traditional path. Yeah, I'm I am a huge fan of gap years. I took some time off between my master's and my PhD. You know, for exactly the reasons that you were saying you get tired and anyone who tells you that academia is easy or not stressful is lying.
00:41:33
Speaker
I took a break between undergrad and my master's and I thank God that I did that. Yeah. And I'm super grateful for the time that I took off because, you know, I learned more about myself and more about, you know, some different aspects of the world and it was great. And I think that that probably just about brings us up to the end of our second segment.
00:42:00
Speaker
And when we come back, we will talk a bit more about some of the other awesome things that are happening in this book.
00:42:12
Speaker
Interested in archaeology? Want to hear from experts in the field about the latest discoveries and interpretations? Check out The Archaeology Show every other Saturday and let hosts Chris Webster and April Camp Whitaker take you deeper into the story. Check out The Archaeology Show at www.archpodnet.com forward slash archaeology and subscribe, rate, and comment on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, and the Google Music Store. That's www.archpodnet.com forward slash archaeology. Now back to the show.
00:42:40
Speaker
Hi and welcome back to the Women in Archaeology podcast. So far on today's episode, we have been discussing the book, Archaeology, Cool Women Who Dig. When we left off at the end of last section, we were talking about some of the great variety of experience and paths to archaeology that the women in this book talked about or the experiences that they had.
00:43:09
Speaker
But in addition to kind of the big three women who have their own chapters, there are all sorts of really, really great little vignettes of other women who are doing really, really wonderful things in archaeology. So I think we're going to talk a little bit about some of those inspiring individuals. Emily or Kirsten, do you want to kick us off with anyone in particular?
00:43:36
Speaker
So I want to say I'm on the page exactly. So there is one of our fellow women in archaeology, um, ladies who is, um, well not on the show, but a woman archeologist rather. But we'd love to have you on the show. She has been all over the media lately, which has been,
00:44:03
Speaker
endearing in some ways. And I find it both somewhat hilarious, not on anything against her, but just the fascination with her work. It is really cool work. Don't get me wrong. But it is unique enough that it has caught the imagination of the public. And she was featured yesterday on 60 Minutes.
00:44:29
Speaker
I have seen her pop up all over various news outlets. And long story short, she's also featured in this book in one of these little squares, these little cool careers.
Innovative Archaeological Methods and Critical Analysis
00:44:44
Speaker
And this is the space archeologists. And Sarah, you will have to let us know the proper pronunciation because I do not know it. And we were just discussing whether it is Sarah Parcak or Sarah Parsak. So apologies.
00:44:59
Speaker
ahead of time, but we need that correction. But this talks a bit about her work and what she does. So this is looking at using satellite imagery to look for sites.
00:45:21
Speaker
And so this is one of those things that is fascinating to the public, partly because of Google Earth. And this is, I'm sure, I know people have done this, where they'll spend hours coming over Google Earth just to look at what the Earth looks like from that distance, right? And when you zoom in, you can zoom in really closely. However, the materials that Sarah works with are
00:45:50
Speaker
much more detailed and are from different times of the day. And so she can get a much finer comb, I guess is the best way to put it, to find new sites. So the one featured in here is in 2011. She discovered potentially new sites of ancient pyramids in Egypt. And that's something I haven't looked into more, but that's one of the many things that she's done
00:46:17
Speaker
with her work. She's also mentioned on page three of the book and talking about her work in Canada on Newfoundland where she helped find potential new evidence for the Vikings in North America and there's actually a really fun
00:46:39
Speaker
And I say fun because it's more fun than it is like uber scientific, but really fun documentary on Netflix. And she's featured prominently in it. And the research is featured beautifully in it. I'm called Vikings Unearthed.
00:46:56
Speaker
And they do a highly dramatized version of what she does, where it kind of looks like the Bones Laboratory on TV, but I'm sure she usually just looks at a computer, whereas this was like special lighting. It's a really fun documentary that shows that research and how it came about. So like Kirsten was saying, it's mentioned in the book and oh, it's so much fun. Yes.
00:47:25
Speaker
And Chelsea, of course, you work with fucking material, so I know you have your own thoughts on that, I'm sure. I mean, I always have opinions. How long have we been doing this if you don't know that by this point? I think her work is fascinating. I think the potential implications of it are
00:47:52
Speaker
mind blowing, it could really change the face of the field. That being said, I have a healthy dose of skepticism about this site in Newfoundland, which is mirrored by many other individuals. That being said, this book was put together for publication before
00:48:15
Speaker
a lot of those results had been made public or published or discussed before some of the excavation was probably taken place. I'm not entirely sure of the timeline for this book, but I know you don't snap your fingers and have a book two weeks later. So I imagine this was potentially written before excavation had taken place at that particular site in Newfoundland. And let's just go with healthy dose of skepticism.
00:48:44
Speaker
Well, the lovely thing about this book, though, so far is that they're very good with their wording because, of course, these are potential sites. And looking for, because I mean, that's the biggest thing about searching and doing surveys is kind of where are high probability areas. So this can definitely help with that to a certain extent, of course.
00:49:12
Speaker
There's a lot that you're not going to be able to see. But there are things that you'll be able to see from that distance that you wouldn't be able to see on foot. So I think definitely a combination of techniques is something that she really kind of gets into on a more professional level of discussion versus stuff that's discussed with the public just due to the level of understanding of how archaeology works. But it is one of those things that will grab the attention of
00:49:42
Speaker
of kids, because space is always cool. Oh, definitely. I think her work is very interesting, and there are so many really fascinating possibilities. This particular site is in my area of expertise, so I have opinions. Yes. Well, I mean, she was looking at caves in the Great Basin and probably having similar opinion issues.
00:50:13
Speaker
And yeah, there were some others. Did you have another one of those cool career squares that you wanted to discuss? Yeah, so I mean, I really love the attention that Christina Kilgrove was given and I know that she's been given
00:50:33
Speaker
some more attention recently. She was given, I believe it was at the AAA's, the American Anthropological Association meeting this year, where she was given an award for the outreach and the work that she does, in addition to being a spectacular scholar. And if you haven't read any of the work that she's done, it's really wonderful. And she teaches, I believe it's down in Florida, but I'm not even
00:51:04
Speaker
for high and guess what university in Florida. In Miami. Yeah. So one of the things Christina does is she works for Forbes and what she does for them is she's a an archaeologist reporter writer and she takes recent publications. And summarizes them and takes what may be a twenty fifteen to twenty page article. And turns it into a two three four page
00:51:34
Speaker
piece for Forbes. It's hard to tell the exact length because I usually read them online and they don't have page breaks online. You can just talk to the best. Right. So if I've grossly, you know, miscalculated the length of these articles, my apologies. But she she breaks down what oftentimes maybe three pages of
00:52:00
Speaker
you know, materials and methods section on, you know, strontium isotope and oxygen isotope. This indicate that the levels of water runoff, you know, that I mean, most people are not going to have any clue what what is being talked about. And summarizes that in a way that is very approachable.
00:52:27
Speaker
And the other really great thing about it is that while you might not be reading the full text from the journal, one, you know it exists. So if you want to go find the full text from the journal, you can access it. But two, journal access fees are prohibitive, highly prohibitive. Yeah. They're so expensive. You know, if you're not part of a university or a research institution. Well, even then they can be really crazy.
00:52:56
Speaker
Right, but hopefully you can get your research institution to pay for them then. We can all dream, right? So having this place where you can go and get an idea of what's being said and have the major points summarized is really great and it makes it accessible on a couple levels.
Making Archaeological Knowledge Accessible
00:53:16
Speaker
One being the cost factor, two being
00:53:20
Speaker
the language that's being used to turn something that is created for a very academic audience into something that can be consumed by a more general audience. And just brings a lot of awareness to the field, what we do, why it's important. And I believe Forbes was one of the first articles or one of the first print magazines, newspaper, that sort of thing that
00:53:49
Speaker
started doing this, but now the Daily Mail and the Independent and the Guardian have all started doing it. And it's really caught on as a thing that people like reading and they like learning about it. It's interesting. And it's starting to be mimicked. And I think a lot of that has to do with Christina's ability to
00:54:15
Speaker
translate this information and make it approachable and make it interesting, rather than just a list of chemical values that might not mean much to even other archaeologists if you don't have the chemistry background. Yeah. And it's hard to do. I've tried. I mean, I work with the isotopes.
00:54:43
Speaker
It's painful, even though this is my area of specialization. I have moments sometimes where I'm like, why am I doing this? And it's because I love what it can tell us, but it's definitely something that I have worked to gain the knowledge in order to translate it better for that reason. The work that she does definitely is a good indicator of where a lot of archaeologists should go to it because we are such a broad field and we should
00:55:12
Speaker
you know, have more access, be more accessible to the public. So my thought I was just thinking on another level, there's a couple of discussions in here through a view of the different archaeologists about looting, which I thought was really neat too. About what, sorry? Looting? Looting, yes.
00:55:42
Speaker
So that was, there she is. So Monica Hammer, Dr. Monica Hammer works with in Egypt to help save antiquities for everyone in her program. Let's say there was another one with Twitter, I believe. Do you guys remember who that was? I don't remember who the Twitter person was. I know that there are,
00:56:12
Speaker
There's a lot of really interesting things going on on Twitter. I mean, we just recently had the first, you know, public archaeology conference on Twitter. That was. Oh, Dr. Monica Hanna. Oh, that's what I was just talking about. OK, yeah. So she uses Facebook and Twitter to raise awareness and defend Egypt's cultural heritage from thieves. It's a direct quote from the book.
00:56:40
Speaker
So it's great that the book even shows how social media can be a positive force in archaeology. Because I mean, I don't think a lot of people would consider social media a good form or Twitter to be of use for anything, you know? And here you go, Twitter and Facebook. It's, and I'm sure other blogs and whatnot.
00:57:05
Speaker
have been great in terms of getting not only just knowledge about archaeology out, but trying to combat issues of looting and collecting in such heavily looted areas. I mean, it seems like there's a new news article every day about Egypt or Iran or Iraq of some area that's getting slammed in terms of collectors and looters and whatnot.
00:57:31
Speaker
Well, and I mean, even in those days, we have quite a problem with with looting, but also even just vandalism, rock art sites and stuff. So that's in national parks and elsewhere. So that's a whole other thing. But just bringing that issue up as an issue as something that it's like, this is a problem. So it's like they start the book with, you know,
00:57:59
Speaker
collecting is in the history. It's different than what we do now, which is archaeology, contrasting, collecting and archaeology, but then also just speaking out against looting and that it is an issue and a problem and it does put this knowledge at risk.
00:58:19
Speaker
So even if it just keeps one kid, you know, while they're on a hike with their family and they see a really cool projectile plane, they pick it up and go, ooh, they know. Well, I can't really take this with me. The book said don't collect it. So, and they'll put it back down. And if their parents try to take it, they'll slap it out of their hands.
00:58:40
Speaker
and take a GPS and report it to their local ship. So I actually just really quickly want to go back and retouch on Christina because I went and actually found the age on Christina Kilgrove in the book and realized that as much as I talked about her awesome work with Forbes, it's not really mentioned a ton.
00:59:07
Speaker
in her vignette on what she does. She's a bioarchaeologist who works with or has been working with Roman skeletons, looking at the, you know, their pathology and their, you know, like the chemical makeup of their bones and where they came from, learning that they came from, you know, all over Europe, Africa and Asia. So,
00:59:36
Speaker
Yeah, just to make clear that the book doesn't spend, you know, five pages talking about forms. That's just me. But she's worth looking into and checking out her work on forms. Yes, because public outreach is important for adults as well. As far as just me. It's all good.
01:00:03
Speaker
Anyway, so I think that we're probably approaching the end of our third, well not probably, we are approaching the end of our third section. Does anyone have any kind of final thoughts or anything they want to say?
01:00:19
Speaker
Check this book out.
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
01:00:20
Speaker
I mean, it's a great addition, I think, to any school library. I think parents might have fun reading this with their kids. I just I think it's a great book. Check it out. Yeah, I just wanted to kind of add again that this is a great resource for anyone who is kind of querying over or troubling themselves over how to do public outreach.
01:00:47
Speaker
because there's some good examples in here. And also, just the amount of resources. I mean, this is a great starting point, as well as an ending point. Like it is a complete thought in and of its own, but if, you know, kids or you want to, you know, look harder, it's got a lot of good resources. And I especially like, I'm a really big fan, and I know I mentioned this earlier, in the back of the book is the timeline. Starting at the sixth century BCE,
01:01:15
Speaker
all the way through 2015. And this book was actually published. It came out this April, actually. So it's still pretty well up to date. So that's kind of a nice touch in that. So it has a timeline that goes up to 2015. However, the book was published very recently. It just came out this April in 2017. So there's a lot in here that's still pretty current.
01:01:44
Speaker
And all of the sites that they discuss in here, you can probably look up and get some good information about. And most of the archaeologists in here are very accessible and you can find more information on even outside the links that they offer. So it's a really great starting point for educators, novice educators, kids, of course, and everything that Emily said.
01:02:09
Speaker
Hooray! And I was hoping, I was hoping to have some critiques to offer, but, um, and this sounds really kind of cliche, I'm sure, but there is a whole lot that I saw in here that I would improve on. I mean, they're very careful with their word of choice, which is very inspiring because I tend to be overly critical of kids' books myself. Um, for having a child, partly I'm like, I don't want to teach them that, like, thought pattern sort of thing. Um, but everything from,
01:02:37
Speaker
looking at what a tunnel station is to meet the Maya and all of the questions and answers throughout here is just, it's really, really well done. And I am actually inspired to look at more of their series in the Girls in Science because, you know, archaeology is one of many and because we're so interdisciplinary, I'd like to see what they have on, you know,
01:02:59
Speaker
they have a section, a book on forensics, technology, astronomy, engineering, architecture, kind of everything. So definitely, if you have kids that are interested in other things as well, or want to see what other things that the series has to offer, it's definitely worth a look at. Yeah, and I would just second that. I think it's a really
01:03:26
Speaker
A well done book. I'm super happy that someone is gearing material towards this age range. I think it's important to get people involved and engaged in thinking about this from a young age and providing young girls with good role models of women in whatever field they want to be in and succeeding. So I think it is just really a well done book.
01:03:57
Speaker
And I think on that note, ladies, it has been lovely as always to have you on. So thank you so much for joining me tonight and for anyone who is listening. If you are interested, you have more questions about the book or about anything we've said today, we can always be reached on Twitter.
01:04:24
Speaker
at womenarchies or by email at thewomenandarchaeologyatgmail.com. So thanks again for joining, ladies, and I'll talk to you next time. Awesome. Thanks. Bye.
01:04:45
Speaker
We hope you have enjoyed the show. Please be sure to subscribe and rate our show wherever you listen. We are available on iTunes, Stitcher, and probably whatever your favorite podcasting app is. Remember to like and share. If you have questions or comments, you can post them in the comments section for the show at the Women in Archaeology page on the Archaeology Podcasting Network site, or email them to us at womeninarchaeologypodcast.com. This show is part of the Archaeology Podcasting Network,
01:05:13
Speaker
and is produced by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle. You can reach them at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com. Music for the show was Retro Future by Kevin MacLeod, available at IncomTep and Royalty Free Music. Thanks for listening.
01:05:37
Speaker
This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com