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Australian Mine Blows up an Archaeological Site - Ep 272
2.6k Plays5 months ago
First up this week, we look at why an extremely significant site in Australia was able to be destroyed by a mine, against the wishes of the Traditional Owners. Then, through the efforts of engineering and experimental archaeology, a full size replica of a 4,000 year old ship was launched in Abu Dhabi. And finally, a fragment of red fabric that was dyed with bugs has been found in Israel.
Links
- Results from Juukan Gorge show 47,000 years of Aboriginal heritage was destroyed in mining blast
- A 47,000 year archaeological and palaeoenvironmental record from Juukan 2 rockshelter on the western Hamersley Plateau of the Pilbara region, Western Australia (Quaternary Science Reviews)
- Ancient ship — made of goat hair and reeds — reconstructed off Abu Dhabi, photos show
- 4000-Year-Old Fabric from Cave of Skulls is Oldest Known Insect-Dyed Textile
Contact
- Chris Webster
[email protected] - Rachel Roden
[email protected]
RachelUnraveled (Instagram)
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to The Archaeology Show. TAS goes behind the headlines to bring you the real stories about archaeology and the history around us. Welcome to the podcast.
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello
Episode Topics Overview
00:00:16
Speaker
and welcome to The Archaeology Show, Episode 272. On today's show, we talk about mines destroying archaeology, an ancient ship reconstruction, and red fabric dyed with bugs. Let's dig a little deeper. Oh, it's going to be
Travel Adventures and Recording Delays
00:00:32
Speaker
a good one.
00:00:38
Speaker
Welcome to the show. Hello. I'm so tired right now. You are? Yeah. You look fun to me. Oh, well, I always look good, little tired but Yeah, today was a drive day for us. And as kind of per usual, we didn't like super plan well. So mean we are recording the podcast after a long drive day. Yeah, I mean, we were supposed to record yesterday, but work kind of got away from me. Work did get in the way for both of us, for sure, but that's all right. I mean,
Arrival and Local Experiences in Massachusetts
00:01:10
Speaker
we've got some cool articles to talk about, so it's a nice, relaxing end to a long travel day.
00:01:17
Speaker
I will say though, much like when we went to Canada a few years ago and had poutine on day one, as you do when you enter Canada, we got to Massachusetts, got our site set up. It was about five, 5.30 when we got everything all kind of unpacked. We immediately went into this small town that's nearby where we're at. What's it called? Ware? Wareham? Wareham? Yeah, through Cape Cod. There's a bunch of tiny little towns here. And immediately had fish and chips and clam chowder. Yeah, because we've been talking about eating chowder for the last two weeks in anticipation of coming here. And I would say this restaurant delivered. It was pretty good. Yeah, it wasn't bad. It was a small little place right in the water. Yeah, it was really cute. Yeah, it was really cool. It was exactly what we wanted. Felt like a local joint, because every single person had a really strong Massachusetts accent. I was like, well, you don't belong here, but that's OK. We're here anyway. We're enjoying this food. Yeah, another thing that made it feel local is that even though neither of us were super hungry, we both had a bowl of, well, you actually had fish chowder.
00:02:26
Speaker
I did try the fish chowder. The clam chowder definitely was better. We're talking a lot about chowder right now. I know. But then we shared it like an entree of fish and chips. But overall, the whole meal was under $40 worth of tip. It was. That's how you know it wasn't touristy. Yeah. That's true.
Mining vs. Aboriginal Heritage in Australia
00:02:40
Speaker
It felt like local prices. Yeah. It was good. Yeah. You know it's not good. What? Blowing up indigenous caves in Australia. Yes. yeah Not good at all. Australia. I know. God. I know. So, Rio Tinto. Add it again. but Well, actually more just like the same old, same old getting brought up again. Oh, yeah. Pretty much. All right. Well, this article is called Results from
00:03:08
Speaker
and I don't know if it's Jukin or Jukin. I don't think it's the WU. Yeah. I would think it's Jukin jukin or Jukon. Jukon Gorge. Our Australian friends probably you know exactly how that's pronounced. But anyway, show 47,000 years of Aboriginal heritage was destroyed in mining blast. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Super great. Thanks guys. yeah So this article was published in phys.org and what ah immediately grabbed me about this is that, oh, actually I think it originally was published in the conversation potentially and then phys.org pulled it over. yeah There's definitely some article sharing going on. There's credit for all of it in the thing. So you'll you'll see it when you click on the link. but
00:03:47
Speaker
Anyway, they the article was written by the archaeologist that did the original work back in 2014. And
Protests Against Juken Gorge Destruction
00:03:53
Speaker
they have recently published that work for the first time in Coronary Science Reviews. And this would be Michael Slack, Jordan Ralph, and Wallace Boone Law. So I guess in conjunction with releasing their results or whatever, they wanted to have a little bit more conversational discussion around the site and then what happened to the site that this work was published about. So that's sort of the context here. Yeah.
00:04:19
Speaker
And so the sort of, I wouldn't call it the subtitle of this article, but like the first line of it. I'm just going to read it because it kind of gives you the immediate lay of the land. But in May 2020, as part of a legally permitted expansion of an iron ore mine, Rio Tinto destroyed an ancient rock shelter at Juchen Gorge in Putu Kunti Karama country in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. yeah That was a lot of traditional traditional people's words there. So sorry if I got any of them wrong. but yeah But yeah, so that's what happened. They were legally permitted to blow up this area as a part of expanding the mine. And it sounds like a lot of people were not happy about it. There was kind of an uproar on the world stage, so to speak. So yeah. So the archaeologists initially excavated the shelter in 2014. And that's what we're going to talk about for probably the bulk of this, yeah this article, because that's that's really what the
00:05:16
Speaker
The article that led to this is about, it's not a political article, it's not about, oh, you know we we try to get this done, we we try to not have
CRM Archaeology Challenges
00:05:24
Speaker
this done. They do mention that they use the results of the 2014 Excavation to try to stop the cave from being destroyed. yeah but ah Listen, the simple the simple fact is um we work as CRM archaeologists in the United States and we've been on lots of projects where things have been found and the simple fact is if you go in and you find evidence of something and you record that evidence and then you decide or through your archaeological research that no further information can be found or that it is not significant following very specific criteria or even if it is significant
00:06:06
Speaker
you still yeah There's still reasons why it could be not significant enough in that somebody could be permitted to come in and basically take it out. It just depends on the the reasons for the thing that's getting done. is it you know i mean Iron ore is one of those kinds of things that somebody probably argued is national interests. They need iron ore for the country to move on and yeah and progress. you know and I don't know. Well, I wonder, so the blast happened six years after the initial excavations, which were in 2014. And I'm like, well, that's six years. So did did they just not have all the results of the study in yet? Because as we're about to get into, this is an extremely significant site for tens of thousands of years. I
Cave Artifact Politics
00:06:52
Speaker
mean, yeah it is it's hugely significant. so
00:06:56
Speaker
Were the people who made the decision about allowing this explosion to happen, were they missing all the information? Did they not care? Did they exploit a loophole? I'm not really sure because we don't have the whole political context here, but it is it would be interesting to know or hear more about that. In fact, our friends in Australia might know more about it because I have a feeling it was more widely discussed in Australia because this is the first I've heard of it, this this article here. so Yeah, I don't know. I mean, i'm I don't ever want to like stop progress, modern human progress. And arche archaeology is an inherently destructive science anyway, so it they might have just felt like the work they did, right by they I mean the people giving the permit, they might have felt that the work that was done, which did destroy because it it's archaeology, that's what it does, was enough.
00:07:46
Speaker
But I don't know. And listen, it's a simple fact that when you get in and you say as archaeologists that you've, quote, found everything and you've done all the work and you found all the stuff and then a really tiny small handful of people say, well, this side's still significant to us. And even though that may be true and it is true and it's still sacred to them, even though you you went in and dug everything up and you destroyed it all because archaeology is destructive. I mean, modern laws and things like that just really haven't caught up to that. They haven't. And I, I think that that's not right and that there probably needs to be a bigger, broader discussion around that, you know, because it does kind of marginalize people who are already marginalized. It takes their voice away from them when they say that they don't want to say destroyed for traditional reasons. It's a fine line too, though, because in some parts of the world, like you can't preserve a hundred percent of everything. You can. Yeah. You have to find a compromise somewhere in there yeah for sure. So it's such a sticky topic and I would not want us to sound like we're coming down on the side of the mine on this one. We're not. no We don't have the whole story. We're not coming down any one side. We're on nobody's side. We're just looking at all of the different discussions that could have been had. And regardless of what they were, this is the outcome. The cave was blown up. It just was. But
00:09:04
Speaker
Let's get away from that and start thinking about what they actually found in the cave because they did do work there and they found some amazing things.
Significance of Juken Gorge Artifacts
00:09:10
Speaker
Yeah, they found thousands of artifacts there. Yeah. including an ancient plate of hair, human hair and tools and animal remains. Yeah. So we'll talk about all that. So much stuff. So the Jukin to rock shelter was once part of a deep gorge with freshwater holes, large areas that would have been good for like camping, I suppose, like talking to hunter gatherers like where they would have, you know, camped. So it was surrounded by the massive ironstone mountains and a large river. So there's a lot of resources in this area in the prehistoric landscape. So it was a, and you can see the picture too. i We definitely recommend going and looking at the picture in the article because you can see this overhead shot of the cave while they were doing the excavations and it's It just looks like a really inviting place to like like set up camp, make a fire, and you know chill after you've been hunting all day or do it whenever. Yeah, if you're so inclined to, the original journal article is ah open source and available as well, so take a look at that. We did link that in there too, but it's also linked in the article. so yeah
00:10:09
Speaker
This game is significant from both a cultural and archaeological perspective. Culturally, it's a deeply spiritual place for the Putu Kunti Karama people. And archaeologically, it's one of the oldest sites in inland Australia. Yeah, it's about 500 kilometers from the coast today and up until about 10,000 years ago, it was actually almost a thousand kilometers inland and it was like solidly in the desert too. It still is, I think, especially judging by looking at that picture. So, you know, it was a unique place to
00:10:41
Speaker
figure out a way to survive because it's the desert. And the level of occupation that they have here for tens of thousands of years just shows that many, many human groups throughout that time yeah we were picking this as a spot to set up camp. Yeah, they found resin from what's called spinifex grass. That's so cool. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Which was likely used as a kind of glue to hold together pieces of composite tools. so I never would have i know thought that that is the kind of thing that you could find, but I've never even heard of that before. That is just so cool. I know. It's pretty neat. There's actually a picture of one of those composite tools in the article. Yeah. Yeah. It's it ah I mean, it's a composite tool, which I don't think I'd really
00:11:22
Speaker
have much experience with here in the United States, this this kind of tool that is literally made of a bunch of different pieces and just glued together. so Well, could it be kind of like hafting, like hafting spears or hafting points for an arrow? i mean I know those weren't typically glued here in the United States, but they were attached to the end of a right of something that it that doesn't survive time. True, true. yeah So I'm wondering if it's a similar thing like that. I think it is. I think it is, but it's just, I feel like it's done in a different way than yeah than we're kind of used to. Yeah, definitely. Very interesting. um They also found bones from animals that had died naturally and also bones associated with people cooking and eating kangaroos, emus, and even echidnas. I guess those are not as common, commonly found. So, but yeah, so people lived here. They kept animals here. They ate animals here. So all the things.
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah, the cool thing about the human hair is it was dated to about 3,000 years ago, and they were able to find dna well take DNA from the hair and test it and found that it was likely related to the traditional owners of the land. yeah And not only that, but the traditional owners of the land that were assisting on the excavation at the time. Yes, and the ones who who were against the explosion, too. sure So to have direct evidence of one of their relatives occupying the cave, I feel like that should have just given them more like clout when it came to their protest. But clearly it didn't work, because the cave was all blown up. OK, and now this was so cool. They found a bone point made from a kangaroo shin bone. It was around 30,000 years old, so definitely one of the older artifacts. right
00:13:05
Speaker
And it has ochre on its end. So that's so cool. And I think they said they don't know exactly what it was used for yet. They have to do more research on that. But I'm like, come on, get a let's go, guys. It's been 10 years. Maybe that was one of the more recent finds, which there were more recent finds, which we'll tell you about here in a second. yeah But yeah, they've done some really great things. I'm not sure if we, we saw this in the very beginning, but 47,000 years of heritage. I mean, that's like one of the oldest ah sites of that age in Australia, which is just still blows my mind that they were able to blow it up. Yeah. You know what else blew their mind? The fact that, um,
00:13:46
Speaker
ah For those of you that don't know a whole lot about mining, you know we've worked on mine sites. yeah And in mines, the reason they use a lot of explosions is because, well, a you know a lot of times they're just trying to do either A, get to a vein of something that they actually want to dig up a little more carefully. right So they've got to blow up all the stuff on top of it. yeah Or B, they do just want to cart out all the stuff that they're blowing up and process it somewhere else. yeah right So one of those two things. But a lot of times they will just blow up large pieces of area because they'll you know doing these explosions and setting them up and getting the permits for them is actually really hard you know for these mines a lot of times. So they'll blow up huge amounts of area and get all this rubble and then spend the next several years sometimes just going through it. But
Artifact Salvage Efforts Post-Destruction
00:14:34
Speaker
they'll do this all in one big shot. right They'll do these huge things.
00:14:38
Speaker
And that sounds like possibly what happened here, because the archaeologists were able to go back in after the explosions, after the cave was destroyed. And probably, I mean, yeah, sure, it was unfortunate that the cave wasn't able to be preserved, but what a unique circumstance to go in after it was actually exploded. And now they were they spent about two years basically removing rubble and were able to do that, obviously, without any mining activity nearby. So the mine wasn't there. yeah they weren't They weren't focusing somewhere else, clearly. yeah Which kind of also leads me to believe that, did you really have to blow that up right now? Yeah, did you have to do that? Could you have waited? Yeah, like why couldn't they just remove that section from the list of places to blow up, you know? Like why? But anyway, they were able to spend about two years removing rubble, which would have to have included the walls and ceiling of the cave because that took them to the original floor.
00:15:30
Speaker
yeah And then they continued to excavate and find ah more amazing artifacts, including shell beads from the coast, the jaw of a Tasmanian devil, but which we all know is a cartoon, so that can't be real. But those have been extinct on um main mainland Australia for about 3,000 years, so that kind of tells you how old they are. Yeah. I wonder how good the stratigraphy is after the area goes through a blast like that. and Like that it says I got to the original floor, but is it like an intact original floor or is it just like the remains of a blown up original floor? I mean, it really just depends on how and where the blast was really. Yeah. You know, if it just blew up like the mountain side around it.
00:16:09
Speaker
Then it just collapsed on top of it. Basically, you just have to get that out of the way. It really just depends. yeah so i mean it doesn't If they even said the words original floor, it doesn't sound like it had any literal impact on the original floor. It just covered it all. yeah so yeah Yeah. Anyway, interesting stuff. And I'm sure this is happening around the world constantly every single day. yeah And there's not a whole lot you can do about it sometimes. you know It just kind of is what it is. Yeah. And like we said in the beginning, this article was written by the authors of the scientific paper. This article was written by archaeologists. And I have a feeling it was probably in conjunction with some of the traditional owners of the land as well. yeah It's almost written kind of as a protest to, not a protest, but just that, hey, look, we found all this amazing stuff.
00:17:00
Speaker
And then they blew it up, hed like like wanting to get the word out there. And so it's definitely a, I guess what I'm trying to get at is it's probably a biased look at what happened in favor of the archaeologists, the cultural group involved and what happened. So I would be interested to hear the other side of the story and to know like, Why was this able to to happen? Is it a loophole? Was somebody disregarding the native people's opinions or, you know, yeah, I just, I just would love to know what the other side looks like. Now I'm going to say something here and we have no knowledge of anything that happened here, no knowledge of the laws, no knowledge of anything that happened. But I did hear somebody tell me one time,
00:17:42
Speaker
on a mine, somebody that worked for a mine one time, and it was kind of told to me in confidence. This was years, decades ago, really. Yeah, and it was an American mine. It was here in the United States. They basically said that as long as you don't do it too often, that it's basically easier to just pay fines than it is to get permits. And sometimes, if it looks like it's going to halt operations long enough, it literally is cheaper to just pay the fine. Because the fines for destroying archaeological site, a fine might be $50,000, but it might be costing you $100,000 a day to stop working. And it comes down to numbers for these guys.
00:18:28
Speaker
And then, on the other hand, it does come down to political pressure, too. Rio Tinto is a worldwide global mining operation. It's a huge company. They have operations in South America, in Africa, in Australia, in the United States. They have operations all over the place. They're a massive influence. I have no doubt that they have political strategists all over the place trying to make laws in their favor to make mining easier for them, because that's what lobbyists do. That's what lobbyists do. That's not a bad thing, necessarily. Lobbyists on all sides do that. That's what the lobbying system does.
00:19:08
Speaker
problematic. Let's just go with that. It's problematic until it works for
Mining's Economic and Political Influences
00:19:11
Speaker
you. It's problematic and most money wins. Right, but like I said, it's problematic until it works for you because the Native Americans have lobbyists, too. The Aboriginal Australians have lobbyists, so it's problematic until it's in your favor. Yeah, but if you only have to lobby because somebody else with more money is also lobbying, then it's just feeding into a system that is... I mean, I hear you. going down a rabbit hole there. Anyway, the point is there was probably a lot more political you know pressure on that side and probably political political power, I guess. yeah and they just They just moved quicker yeah and and were able to advance before some sort of injunction could be made, yeah before some stoppage could be made, yeah yeah and then and that could happen. so I mean that's true, but but these mines though, like i I remember a mine that I worked for in Nevada, they cared more about maintaining a good relationship with all of the different agencies involved, and that included the public land agencies, BLM Forest Service, I think it was a combination of all of them, as well as the the tribal,
00:20:19
Speaker
the the tribal groups that also had a claim on the land. They cared more about preserving those relationships than they did about not spending money. Like in one case I was monitoring and we um like we stopped work for some reasons that in my opinion were not archaeological but they were important to the native Americans that were on the project and that's fine and honestly the mine was happy to do it because they wanted to maintain this relationship and stopping work for a couple days while The tribes did whatever they needed to do to feel comfortable before the work went forward They were happy to do it, you know, it cost money, but they were happy to do it. right So
00:20:56
Speaker
and ah Minds can behave better, I guess is what I'm saying. True. They can behave better and they can look at the relationships and cultivate good relationships with those traditional, what do they call them in Australia, traditional owners of the land. In the end though, they probably learned they probably learned to do that in that particular case, in that mine, in that area, because more than likely that tribe or those areas, you pushed back, as well they should. And they probably pushed back a number of times so that if they didn't stop for stopping for a few days, probably cost them less money than moving forward and saying, nope, you know what? This isn't worth our time. Then the tribe pushes back, sues them, cost them even more money. and Because in the end, it always comes down to money. Yeah. I mean, it always comes down to money. And they said, you know what? You're right. This this gives us goodwill, gives us political goodwill, but ultimately it costs our shareholders less money.
00:21:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's possible. I hate to look at it from just the money perspective because the people I was working with seemed like they just wanted to have good relationships with all of the people. Oh sure, on that end of it. Yeah, but they're on the low end. Yeah, they were. They were. We all were. We were all the grunts just doing the work and wanting everybody to get along. All right. Well, you know what else gets along? Go here and read. If you put them in the right combination, they'll float. Let's find out why on the other side of the break. I think you just gave away the whole segment. I did. We're done. Let's go to three.
00:22:19
Speaker
Welcome back to The Archaeology Show, episode 272. And
Reconstructing an Ancient Ship
00:22:24
Speaker
this is segment three, because apparently I did segment two at the end of the last one. No, it's not. It's segment two. It is segment two, but this is a really quick story. I just thought it was so cool that we had to include it. It's kind of gross though. Like, ah yeah. Okay. Let's get into it. I'll tell you why it's gross and disgusting. No, let's just do this. study Then I'll tell you why it's gross. Okay. All right. So this was published in the Miami Herald again, coming through with the hot archeology news. Yeah. Because the Miami Herald won't report on the fact that they'll be underwater in like two years. They have to report on stories out of Dubai. So go ahead Miami. I just, they have a lot of archeology stuff lately. I don't know why, but they're probably just pulling it from somewhere else, some aggregate or somewhere. Probably the Idaho Statesman, but go ahead. Oh, we haven't had an Idaho statement story in a while. I'm going to go hunt one down. Okay. So this article is called ancient ship made of goat hair and reeds reconstructed off Abu Dhabi photos show. I don't know why they had to put photo show at the end of that title. Wasn't that like kind of a dumb thing to include? that's a newspaper articles. Yeah, it really yeah it is. So, but that being said, go look at the photos because they are really cool and the photos do show. So the reason we like this story is because this is basically experimental archaeology on steroids and it's just really cool. These people went to great lengths to recreate an ancient ship, basically. Call it on hairoids.
00:23:54
Speaker
No, there's no hair, it's reeds. Goat hair. Oh, goat hair, right. The goat hair was used for sewing, but yeah. Yeah, it's still gross. and Okay. Yeah. All right. So a team of specialists reconstructed a 4,000 year old ship and put it to sea off the coast of Abu Dhabi. Again, felt like that was a little bit misleading. It's not an actually 4,000 year old ship. It is in the style of a 4,000 year old ship. Yes. yeah None of this ship was 4,000 years old. None of it was. It was all new materials that would have been available 4,000 years ago. Parts of the ship were probably several years old. oh well I mean, the trees were probably 4,000 years old. The reeds aren't 4,000 years old. The trees. Oh, the trees. Because there's wood. And we're jumping ahead, as usual.
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's a recreation of what's called a magen boat, or magen, M-A-G-A-N. Magon, magen. Sure. Maget. No. I don't know. Magen, which dates to about 2100 BCE. um They used ancient plants from 4,000 years ago in the construction. So, wait, ancient plants. Did you say planned? Oh, yeah, ancient plans. Yeah, ancient plans. Not ancient plans. Am I leaving all that in then? Yes, you are. Should I edit that out? Ancient plans. I was like, did you say plant or plan? Ancient plans made on ancient plants from 4,000 years ago in the construction. We're delirious. I know. Yeah. So no, the ancient plans were from 4,000 years ago. They were on a zip drive. That's how old they were. All right, you're done. So don't even know what a zip drive is.
00:25:33
Speaker
Not if they're under the age of 40, probably not. That's like your new metric. That's the second time you said under the age of 40 today, just because you're 40. Well, yeah, but I'm also. Because you know what it is, so you have to say 40 is like your age. I do, but also I'm from that generation that's right at the break, right? I'm a zennial. I don't know if you knew that. I mean, I'm partially Gen X and partially millennial. I'm like right in the middle. Oh, yeah. I'm the oldest millennial, but I could be the youngest Gen Xer.
00:26:01
Speaker
We'll literally just fell asleep per minute. All right. Whatever, Gen X. All right. Okay,
Boat Speed and Construction Insights
00:26:06
Speaker
so the outer hull is made from over 30,000 pounds of reeds. Yes. That's a lot of reeds. That's a lot of reeds. And they were bundled together with rope made from palm fiber. I didn't really understand exactly what that meant, but if you go look at the picture of the insides before they put the skin on it, so to say, you can see that they're almost like these rounds of, of reads that they bundled into these thicker rounds and then stacked all those together to create a like smooth hole shape. I don't know if I described that really well. I tried. So yeah, go look at the pictures.
00:26:39
Speaker
Yeah, pretty good. The interior frame is made of wood. The sails were sewn together using the aforementioned goat hair and that's where it gets super gross. I don't know why you think that's gross. There's a lot of water and, you know, just like salty sea water in the air, right? Like sea, like just mist, I guess. And anything that's made of hair is just going to start smelling and get weird, isn't it? Is it just cause he's going to get gross? Like you just got this goat hair sale flopping through the air. So they say goat hair, but I think what they probably did is they got sheared goat fur and then spun it into more of a thread. Disgusting. Do you think ah wool clothes are gross? ands I actually hate them. They're scratchy, and I'll never wear them. Well, you're off my knitting list. well but Do you want to hear the grossest thing ever about that, though? ah So what I have really, really long hair, right? Like super long hair. Trust me.
00:27:42
Speaker
It's like in a ponytail and it's still halfway down my back right now. I had to get a king size bed to try to get away from it, and it still might make the play over. Too personal. Anyway, so when I'm knitting, sometimes a hair will get sort of mangled up into the skein of yarn I'm knitting with, one of my hairs, and then it gets knitted into the project. And it is impossible to get it out once it's in there. You have to cut it to get it out because hair is so darn strong. It is a very strong. So in case you were wondering, you could knit with human hair. Probably it would be very strong. So I'm sure go hair is too.
00:28:21
Speaker
You know, we need to have a whole episode on things you can make with human byproducts. So you could make a handbag, cheese. ahhu ah i mean I don't know what else. I'm so done with all of the things you just said. Instruments, I guess. None of that. yeah All right. Well, let's get back to the Chris Hates Hair podcast. so I do. The vessel was seaworthy until you know they realized it was made of goats and they all jumped aboard. The vessel was seaworthy. yeah They actually did a series of rigorous tests that spanned about 57 miles of the Arabian Gulf. That's actually pretty impressive for this kind of a boat. and
00:28:58
Speaker
super impressive. They reached speeds of 5.6 knots, which is a little bit meaningless for me, but I think that's pretty fast, right? So, we actually follow another YouTuber of the Winds, actually. Yeah, the Winds. There's a lot of people that follow the Winds. Yeah. They recently got a brand new boat. Gone with the Winds. That's third. Yeah, it's called Gone with the Winds, yeah. They recently got a new boat, which is a really fancy boat. It's not a racing boat by any means, but it's a pretty fast 44, 45 foot boat. And they had like a friend on there and one of the most recent episodes in the last couple of months, if you're listening to this in real time. And the guy was like, oh my God, we're doing like six knots. Like he was super impressed by that because he's got kind of a homemade boat, like a Filipino sort of a traditional. Like traditional style. style. It's a huge boat and it's got these massive outriggers, but he was super impressed by doing like six knots. And now their boat can actually go probably twice that if it's really trimmed out with some good wind. But still, to have this traditional boat do 5.6 knots is kind of astounding. So when you put it like that, totally. I wasn't thinking about that because I hadn't, when I first wrote these notes, we hadn't watched that episode of the ones yet. And yeah, his bow, which was made with traditional techniques, very similar to how this one is. He was using Filipino and this is... Middle Eastern. And yeah, like he definitely could not go that fast, but yeah. So that is, that is definitely true. So pretty fast. Yeah. Pretty fast for a boat made of Reed's wood and goat hair, goat hair.
00:30:32
Speaker
The project was driven by the Zayed National Museum, Zayed University, and and NYU Abu Dhabi. NYU, is that New York University, like Abu Dhabi? I believe so. They didn't specify, but I... Oh, yes, actually does say it right here. oh yeah New York University Abu Dhabi. I missed that part. The aim was to better understand what life was like during the Bronze Age, as well as preserve the country's maritime heritage. Yeah.
Discovery of Ancient Red Textile
00:30:57
Speaker
I mean, it's a beautiful, beautiful ship that they created. Yeah. When you see the the pictures of it, like actually like sailing, it's got this big black sail. The hull was painted black too. So it's sort of this black with the like bright tan accents. It's really beautiful. All right. Well, let's go over to Israel and find out why squishing insects all over your fabric is also beautiful back in a minute.
00:31:24
Speaker
Welcome back to the archeology show, episode 272. 4,000 year old fabric from Cave of Skulls is oldest known insect dye textile. Didn't we have a dyed feature last time too, or we did a couple times ago? Yeah, like a cup maybe a couple weeks or a month ago, it was purple dye for that one. This is red dye. And do you know why we always do these stories when they come through? because you're Google News Search. I have a Google News Search for textiles in archaeology, because I think we all know by now I have a little bit of an obsession. And this one popped up, and but it was overwhelming how many different alerts I got for it. like I don't know, 10 to 15 different news sources reported on this. so Nothing ever comes up in my Google News Search. well yeah and know No articles ever show up. Really? Yeah. what Do you not have any? No, I have one for um aliens did archeology. Like aliens did it and nothing ever shows up. It's crazy. but huh yeah Well, maybe you're looking in the wrong place. Cause aliens didn't do it. Yeah, correct. So yeah.
00:32:32
Speaker
So the article we linked to is one of many that came through the Google Alert. And this one is ancientorigines.net, which is really not my favorite new source to link to. But they actually did a pretty good job on the article. And I don't really have any complaints. so yeah Yeah. All right. Yeah. So the premise here is that archaeologists have uncovered an ancient textile dyed with the Kermis vermilio insect. And that is in the cave of skulls in Israel. Yeah. The textiles date to the middle bronze age, which I guess for those of you that still don't know when that is. Wait, hold on. As we've discussed on episodes dedicated solely to this topic, it's different everywhere you go and in every part of the world. They know we're talking about Israel and everyone knows when the Middle Bronze Age is in Israel. In Israel? Okay. In this case. Well, for those few people who don't know... Yeah, you know who we're talking about. Please tell us what are those days. You know who you are.
00:33:36
Speaker
1954, not 1954. Well, I guess it's 1954 to 1767 BCE. What? Almost 4,000 years ago, basically. A long time ago. yeah The Cave of Skulls is located in Nahal Zalem in the Judean desert. yeah Yeah, and this site has been excavated many times over the years since the first excavations in the 1960s, and most recently was 2016, which is, I believe, where this the study is is coming from. yeah It was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science reports.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yeah. They found over 430 textiles from various historical periods. So lots of different things, which is kind of weird from lots of historical periods. I'm not sure why. i Well, I guess what that tells me actually, just without, if I knew nothing else about this article and nothing else about this cave, it would tell me that textiles were common. ah hu Obviously people wore clothes yeah and it would tell me that people routinely or commonly either buried with them, deposited them, you know, got new ones or repaired them or did things or made them or did stuff when they were just was a very common thing. And also that this cave preserved them very well. Yes. Yeah. And they did say that the conditions in the cave are perfect for preserving textiles and other organic artifacts. It's very dry and very stable. And those are the two main things you need for preservation of these kind of organic artifacts.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. They're from mostly two time periods. Yeah. um The Chocolithic period, which again, for those idiots out there that just have no idea what that is. Please enlighten me because I don't know. I literally have no idea. 4,500 to 3,800 BCE or the Roman period around 2000 years ago. yeah The Roman period was pretty much just like now to whenever. is It was basically like all of it, all of it the Jesus period. yeah Yeah. Yeah. Which there's a big time gap between those. So it may be there were larger occupations in those two time periods, which is why most of it's from then. And then the most interesting thing is that this specific piece of textile that they're, they're studying in this article is not even from either of those. Cause it's kind of right in between them. It's 4,000 years ago. So yeah.
00:35:53
Speaker
So, they say that many did to the Bar Kokoba Revolt yeah in the second century CE. And again, if I knew nothing about that, I would say it was a nudist revolt, because people went in this cave and threw all their clothes on the ground and then walked it but right back out. so no no i think that would be the people living in Israel at the time revolting against the Romans, probably, if I had to guess. Oh, that's less entertaining. Less fun. Yeah. But maybe clothes were removed. I don't know. yes and Sometimes when you revolt, you got to take your clothes off, I guess. I'm just saying. What did the Romans give us? Certainly not. It's modesty laws. Oh, man.
Process of Creating Red Dye from Bugs
00:36:32
Speaker
Well, among the textiles that they found is one unique bright red fabric.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yeah, fragment of a fabric. Yes. Yes. And researchers used a high pressure liquid chromatography or HPCL to analyze the dye. It's usually what I use. yeah I mean, and what else would you analyze dye with? Yeah. And they found high concentrations of kermesic acid, which is a marker for the kermese vermilio, which is an insect that's used to produce said red dye in the middle Bronze Age. So that's pretty clear evidence of what that how that fabric got to be read.
00:37:09
Speaker
And the insect itself is called Kermis vermilio, and it's a scale insect, which I'm not sure exactly what that is, maybe like a beetle-y type of thing. And it lives on oak trees, and of course it produced this super vibrant red, but the other important thing about it, almost more important, I would say, as somebody who has done a lot of fiber dyeing in my day, it is a more stable red hue. So you could you could trust that it was gonna produce the color that you wanted. Dyeing is, It's a science, but it's not always an exact science. And especially when you're using natural dyes, you sometimes have no idea what the outcome is going to look like. You could even have dye in the pot that looks one color, and then you put your fabric or in my case, the yarn into it and pull it out. And the color is completely different from what it looks like in the pot. And that has to do with like, I'm getting like way too technical with this, but I love this stuff. But it has to do with the temperature of the dye in the pot when you're setting it.
00:38:09
Speaker
So if it's really hot, it can set at a slightly different shade than if it's a lower temperature. And then you learn how to control that as you get really good at it. So anyway, there's a lot of science and also just like, uh, experience that goes into working with these kinds of dyes. I never got very good at working with natural dyes. They're too complicated. Also it's super gross. Yeah, the actual, the actual insects. Yeah, look them up. like they're yeah They're pretty gross looking. Yeah, they are. Yeah, they're really small. Very tiny. They did say that in the article. Yeah, yeah just like Google Kerme's Vermilio. Yeah. And so as you can imagine, because they are super tiny, collecting them is labor intensive. And they're so small, each insect doesn't produce very much dye. So you've got to get a lot of them in order to get enough dye to be able to do anything. so
00:39:00
Speaker
You know, when you've got something like that, a product like that that is desirable, you know, the the rich people of this time period like to wear red and vibrant colors like that. Of course I do. And
Significance of Early Animal-Based Dye
00:39:12
Speaker
maybe they liked it specifically because it was expensive, because it was labor intensive to produce, or maybe because it was a super vivid, bright color, or maybe all of that combined made it desirable. But either way, it was yeah luxury, status. Those were the people wearing these clothes. So, yeah. Yeah, it is one of the earliest examples of the use of animal-based dyes in textile production, too. Yeah, that's pretty significant. Kind of interesting. Yeah. I mean, that's really like the most significant thing about it, right? I would say so. You know, people figuring out that they could crush up these little insects and turn it into a really pretty color is kind of amazing. Like, how? How do they get...
00:39:51
Speaker
Who just like got super pissed and crushed a bunch of these insects and was like, what is on my hand right now? Yeah, like it must it must come out with like a dye color when you when you squish it. and I mean, something. It must come out with a red color when you yeah squish it and that somebody thought to try to dye with it, right? That's the only thing that makes sense. mean I wonder, like we just don't think that way anymore. you like I would never go squish a bug and think, what color are you gonna make? Well, I mean, I see a lot of them squish on my windshield driving the RV, you know, because they, like when you're driving your car, you see a bug squish on windshield, sure, but you see a lot more on the ah RV because you're driving a straight wall. Yeah. Right. And they just splat and there's a multitude of colors.
00:40:30
Speaker
But it's mostly, well, not colored, like yellowy white. That's gross, why are we talking about this? I know, because it is pretty gross. One did splat super red though, remember that? It was like a splat of red across a windshield. But I think that was blood. But a mosquito? I don't think it was a blood eater. Well, maybe. Well, anyway. Anyway. All right, so that was good. We digress. So yeah, super cool piece of fabric, though. So you know me, I'll keep hunting for fabric. And maybe someday I'll get back to figuring out how to use natural dye. Because you can still get this stuff. And you can still use it to dye yarn or fabric or whatever you want. So you know. So send Rachel your bugs, if you find any. No, process them into die first, please. I don't want the bug bits. We'll just give you an address. yes Send it to Tristan. Oh, wait, that's an email. Send your bugs to him. Yes, send them to him. yeah yeah No, you can actually send them to Dr. Andrew Kinkella at Bloorport College. Is he our new scapegoat?
00:41:36
Speaker
He's got a lab. He does. He can figure it out for us. Oh my gosh. All right. I hope he hears that. I won't ah do a shameless plug for our Roadster Adventures Instagram, at Roadster Adventures Instagram, at Roadster Adventures Instagram, because clearly no one wants to follow us, so I won't plug it again. But I will say that you know we are over here in the land of the original settlers and colonists to, you know, at least the white ones. When I say original, I mean original 400 years ago. You mean the invaders. Not 14,000 years ago. Right. Yeah. yeah And so we're going to be doing a lot of sightseeing and visiting and and and a lot of cool things. And we kind of decided that we're going to do some, we we're i obviously going to do a few podcasts that are associated with stuff like this, at least one. And it just depends on how that goes. But we're also going to do some like kind of onsite, just kind of off the cuff,
00:42:31
Speaker
recording on some of this stuff. yeah And we're going to throw some of that into some bonus episodes yeah that we're not really going to edit too much. It's just going to be us talking a little bit. And if you want to hear that, you're going to have to be APN subscribers. It's going to be so different from the way we talk on this podcast right now. Oh, yeah. This is so polished. And this is heavily scripted. ah Yeah, it's going to be so different from this. What was that? What was that? I'm just talking to our producer. um Yeah, so.
00:43:00
Speaker
um um Wow. That's the producer in the control room in the RV next door. yeah They travel with us in the sound studio. yeah yeah So anyway, um so no if you're not an APM member, you know we're we're actually making a push across the entire podcast network as one of our primary benefits to produce more bonus content. Yeah. Yeah. My trial podcast did a bonus episode, which will be out this week. And then we are hopefully doing one, which will be out probably in a couple of weeks. It just depends on when it comes out. And we want to do a lot more lot more bonus content for our members. so Yeah. And we want to do a live episode at some point soon too. So we've got to figure out what that's going to look like because we've done some in the past and honestly kind of burnt out on it a little bit. So I think we might want to look for a different structure or a different idea if anybody has any ideas. We're always open to it, so yeah. All right, artpadnet.com forward slash members, if you want to check that out. It's $7.99 a month. You pay more for that in coffee, so yep go check it out. And it helps keep the lights on over here and you know just keeps everything going because this isn't free to do. Thank you. All right, thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate it. We'll see you next time.
00:44:12
Speaker
by
00:44:20
Speaker
Thanks for listening to The Archaeology Show. Feel free to comment in and view the show notes on the website at www.arcpodnet.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at arcpodnet. Music for this show is called, I Wish You Would Look, from the band C Hero. Again, thanks for listening and have an awesome day.
00:44:43
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his ah RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.