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National Museum of the American Indian and Washington DC - TAS 284
404 Plays22 days ago
This week we talk out our recent visit to Washington DC where we went to The National Museum of the American Indian, Ford’s Theater, the National Archives and the National Museum of Natural History.
Links
- National Museum of the American Indian
- WHY I CAN’T VISIT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
- Mixed Reviews for Museum of American Indian
Contact
- Chris Webster
[email protected] - Rachel Roden
[email protected]
RachelUnraveled (Instagram)
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Transcript
Introduction and Travel Plans
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.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to The Archaeology Show, episode 284. On today's show, we talk about our recent visit to Washington, DC, where we saw the National Museum of the American Indian, Ford's Theater, the National Archives, and the National Museum of Natural History.
00:00:30
Speaker
Let's dig a little deeper. Make it so.
00:00:37
Speaker
Welcome to the show, everybody. How you doing? Hello. All right. Well, this might be the last time for a couple of months that we mentioned where we're at.
00:00:49
Speaker
I know because we're in one place and we're not moving. We're not RVers anymore. We gave it all up. were Like literally our RV is in storage right now. Yes.
Exploring Washington, DC
00:00:57
Speaker
But that's just because we're visiting family for the holidays and I know the holidays aren't actually here yet, but we just decided to get here earlier and hang out from now until the end of the year. Although there could be one time in December, if we don't get our shit together, that we're recording in another country. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're going on a cruise. I know what you're thinking, going on a cruise again. God, those guys. Anyway, we're going on a cruise. Nobody's thinking that, just you. I'm thinking that. Anyway, we're going on a cruise and we're not taking our recording equipment. We might have to. No, get your shit together. We're not taking our recording equipment.
00:01:31
Speaker
Although we might record there, there might be some historical stuff we see. Maybe. Yeah, I'm bringing the little mics. OK, that's fine. You can have travel mics. You just podcaster to the core you.
00:01:44
Speaker
Have mics while travel. Anyway. yes So yes, we're in Charlotte, North Carolina for the next couple months. And so this episode is going to be the last one for a little while, where where we talk about cool historical and archaeological things that we have seen in our travels.
00:02:01
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I mean, maybe there's cool historical things here in Charlotte. We may not see any of it. We'll try. maybe I don't know. I mean, I grew up here. There's not that much, but I have to make an effort to go see some stuff because I know there is things here. Yeah. Yeah. There are things here. Not that old of a city. Surprisingly enough, being in the shop a few hundred years. I mean, but there's prehistoric things here. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. All right. But anyway, a few weeks ago, because we've had some interviews, we've had some other crazy stuff going on in this podcast that we don't normally do, but a few weeks ago, we were in Greenbelt, Maryland at a pretty cool campground where we were sort of off grid in the middle of the city.
00:02:36
Speaker
It was crazy. It was kind of like central park in New York, except this was a green area in the middle of like suburban DC basically. Like we were in Maryland technically, but yeah. And then this park was huge and run by the national park service yeah and all of our, anytime we tried to map somewhere to go, like we're going to go to a restaurant that's like literally two miles from the park, it was 20 minutes away yeah because it was 15 minutes to get out of just to get out of the park. yeah It was big and they put the campground at the far end of it. so yeah like right in the middle
00:03:07
Speaker
But it was such a cool spot. I have to keep talking about this just a little bit longer because, okay, we're nerds. I really feel like all of our listeners are nerds. Please don't take offense. I think that's a good thing.
Native American Museum Insights
00:03:19
Speaker
And if you have thoughts or plans to visit DC, but you're put off by how expensive the lodging is there, and it is, we know, then look into this campground because it's very reasonable.
00:03:30
Speaker
And if you have either a tent equipment or you know an actual like trailer or something, a small RV, you could rent an RV. It just makes being in the DC area so much more affordable. And there is a train station within walking distance if you want to do that. We did not. It was pouring rain. It wasn't going to work. We had to drive. But you know it's it just makes DC so accessible yeah and much cheaper. so They've got a path right from the campground, literally called the Metro Trail, that takes you to, not the Metro Station, but a road that's then half a mile from the Metro Station. So I mean, it's going to take you 20 minutes to half an hour to walk to the Metro Station. But that's not terrible. In nice weather? We would have totally done that if it had been nice out. Yeah, it was just disgusting. It was too rainy. It wasn't going to work. If we were just going there for the day, we may have done it, but we were actually going to go there and spend the night, which we'll talk about in segment two or later. But we were, yeah, we were, we had stuff with us and like nicer clothes. So we didn't want to get all gross, but it was, um, and it was a little, it was a little humid. So somebody among us is not a fan of being this body was not built for sweating. Yeah. I mean, I can sweat, but I just don't want to go to a play. So anyway, anyway, yes. So DC. Yeah. So that was actually on that Friday at the end of the week, segment two will be about what we did that night. But the next day on Saturday, we went and did a couple of museums. Now we've been to DC before. You've been a few times. I'd only been like once before where we really kind of did it up. One of the things we didn't do the first time we went together was the National Museum of the American Indian. So we made a point to go there this time. Yeah, we just didn't have time when we were there last time, but this time we decided to prioritize it so that we wouldn't run out of time like we did before. And we went there right when it opened, which was cool because there was almost nobody there at the entrance. Yeah, another tip. Go when these places first opened because, yeah, there was nobody there. And because the weather was bad too, it felt like it never got crowded, even though it was a Saturday that we were there. So kind of shoulder season too. It was mid September. Yeah, true, but yeah, I mean, rainy day at a museum, that's not a bad way to spend your afternoon, you know? So that was kind of perfect. Okay, so just quick facts about the museum so you know what it is, where it is, how it came about. It's officially called the National Museum of the American Indian. It is on the National Mall. It's one of the closer museums actually to the Capitol when you're looking at the National Mall. I don't think there's too much past it before you get to the Capitol.
00:06:03
Speaker
And it was built as a result of the National Museum of the American Indian Act, which was passed in 1989. That was way earlier than I expected it to be. yeah I didn't know that this whole thing was put into motion that long ago, but yeah, 1989.
00:06:18
Speaker
And it was sort of like a we're so sorry kind of act because in the 80s it came out that the Smithsonian Institution housed 12,000 to 18,000 human remains and many of those were Native American and the Native American groups across the country were you know, justifiably not happy about that. they They really don't like their ancestors to be in a box somewhere on a shelf. they They really don't like that. And that is totally understandable. So part of what this was, was to repatriate these remains and then any of the funerary or ritual objects that also went along with those remains to the various tribes. So it was kind of a twofold purpose.
00:07:05
Speaker
build a museum to teach people about Native Americans, but also return remains and important objects to tribes around the country. right yeah yeah And just going there, everything about the museum, like I would say some of the museums on the National Mall, and some of the museums on the National Mall when you go there, they're just like,
00:07:27
Speaker
America's version of Rome. That's what I feel like. Like they're just like these huge, they're huge monolithic, you know, things that are just like, if you've ever been to Rome or Greece, you see these huge columns and buildings and it's almost like our attempt at that. Right. Well, because they were built like a hundred years ago when that like revival Greek revival style was so popular. Right. But this was built in conjunction with a number of organized tribes across the country. yeah And there's a lot of styles and literally every every single detail that you see outside and inside the museum has been thought out. yeah Every single piece of detail. yeah I mean from the from the vegetation, the trees, the the little, almost like the water feature on the outside, the shape of the museum, every single, the the orientation of it even, everything has been thought out.
00:08:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's this really large, like flowing looking yeah structure. And you learn, up when you okay, so another cool thing, another cool tip is that you can listen, do like an audio tour for free. yeah And what we did is we just, you had it on your phone and then we shared a pair of headphones and listened to it together so that we can kind of experience the audio tour together. That was ah really that worked really well for us.
00:08:37
Speaker
And so that's put together by the museum, by the way. That's not like something separate, yeah third party. Exactly. I'm sure there are other ones out there, but this is free and it's from the museum. So like you hear people who are affiliated with the museum talking, which is really cool. Like Carlton's cousin. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Which there's an interview on an old episode of life and ruins with Carlton's cousin, Kevin Gover. Dr. Kevin Gover. He actually is one of the directors of the museum, yeah the director of the museum. Yeah, he's moved on, he's in a higher position now, but yeah he was at that time. Anyway, you hear interviews with them and them talking about the decisions they made when they were building the museum and how there is a Native American architect and designer and all of the water was meant to flow around the building in a way that is significant to various Native American cultures. And yeah, it was just really cool and so much thought and planning went into it. And sometimes that can really backfire and it looks too contrived, but this structure is just stunning. Inside and out. i can't Even if you don't want to take the time to run through all the exhibits, just walk in and check out that in that first atrium in the front and all the different pieces from all the different cultures around the country, around the around North America, really, that go into it. It's just stunning. Yeah, and just talking about that entrance, some of the things I liked about it were they didn't try to represent
00:09:54
Speaker
i guess I guess Native American cultures or a Native American culture in like a pristine fashion
Ford's Theatre and Lincoln's Legacy
00:10:00
Speaker
yeah because one of the most striking features of the entrance when you first come in is not only the ceiling that goes you know all the way up with this sort of skylight.
00:10:12
Speaker
But there's this big copper woven feature. And it's made of copper because copper was an important um important metal to a number of cultures. I mean, that's what they say in there. I can't remember exactly which cultures. But the copper feature is a woven basket. And it's represented as a basket that's like half buried in the ground, yeah which I like. It's like ah that's like an archaeological feature. yeah you know So it's not like a pristine basket that somebody would have woven that's just sitting there. It's literally a buried basket that's been found. right So cool. I love i love that, too. it was And it's on such a grand scale, too. Oh, yeah. It's huge. It's very immersive when you're walking around in yeah in it. And I mean, you don't really feel like you're in a basket. But you can see what they were going for. It's just really cool. Yeah. And there's it as you listen to the audio, there's probably seven or eight different clips just from that entrance area, because the sandstone on the walls, the there's a prism that's in this wall window feature. that kind of changes as the sun goes through. and And I'm actually looking at my pictures kind of remembering all this. And there's just like literally, like I said, every single detail that's in this room from a ah totem pole from the Pacific Northwest ye and and just all kinds of things. And that's all just in the entryway. So yeah from there you get into the different floors and the exhibits that they have that are, you know, and just like any museum, I don't think any of the exhibits are permanent. They're probably there for a certain period of time and then they rotate out.
00:11:34
Speaker
Yeah, and I again I felt like they did a really good job I know there's been some criticism of this museum over the years. We don't really need to go into that into that too much I found a an article written by a Native American woman where she goes into her criticisms of it But what I think they were trying to do is communicate Native culture through their arts both past and present yeah and also I think the criticism has been that this museum has sometimes glossed over the colonialism aspect of the interaction between Europeans and Native Americans. And for that reason, I think they've corrected because now there is a huge exhibit about all the treaties between Native American groups and colonial Europeans of various different nations and how
00:12:28
Speaker
most of those were broken by the Europeans or they were just completely misunderstood by the native Americans because they didn't have any concept of a treaty like that. That just wasn't something that was part of their culture. did They just did not yeah connect correctly and they did a good job of portraying that. It is a lot of words on displays, which was kind of hard. And I started like cruising through it a little.
00:12:50
Speaker
quickly at the end there, like just picking up the words on display. Like I could read this somewhere else. as i So it irritates me when it's like that. Represent it some other way. But I understand it. But this, you know, you, you do need to read the words of the people at the time and it's from both sides, both the native side and the European side. And some of them are authentic artifacts too, which I do like seeing. Yeah. You know, that's what museums are for yeah in some cases. Right.
00:13:13
Speaker
yes And speaking of, i mean kind of along the lines of colonialism, is cultural appropriation. yeah And that exhibit was really cool. I loved that exhibit. Because there's a huge exhibit showing how, ah it kind of starts off saying that people say that Native Americans don't have much influence on our culture, and by our I mean like white people and Americans. Like American culture. Yeah, like as though Native Americans aren't Americans. yeah But there's this huge exhibit showing throughout decades including now where Native American symbolism and words and just imagery has been used and flagrantly used throughout time from things you probably know like the Indian motorcycle brand to just
00:13:53
Speaker
just crazy advertising ads and things like that. Like the cigar store, Indian, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, where things like headdresses and stuff like that that you see down to things you might not even think of. And there were so many things on this wall, not just stuff from the heyday of Native American imagery from the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, but all the way up to now and before.
National Archives and Historical Documents
00:14:17
Speaker
Yeah, even like there's a Barbie from the 90s that was like Indian Barbie or whatever. that I almost agree with because Barbie went through a time where they were trying to represent like different cultures. So if they're going to have a black Barbie and why would they have an Indian Barbie? Okay. Check your Barbie history because they were not trying to make Barbie look or be like these other cultures. They were just trying to take white Barbie and like put other people's cultural stuff onto her. Now, yes, there was a black Barbie that came along pretty early, but
00:14:49
Speaker
it it was not It was not actually inclusive, I guess is what I'm trying to say. We could have a whole argument about that. What they're doing now is they're making more of an attempt to actually like bring other cultures into the Barbie world. But anyway, but in the 90s, they were not doing that. All I know about Barbie came from the Barbie movie. Well, the Barbie movie is great. And so we can we can agree that that was good. Yeah.
00:15:10
Speaker
But anyway, yeah, that that exhibit was really, really cool. I enjoyed seeing that. And I actually liked the words in the audio tour where they were talking about how they could have made the choice to like, like show all this stuff as bad and, you know,
00:15:29
Speaker
and censor it, essentially, right? But what they actually chose to do is display it all and be like, look, all of this happened and all of this had an effect on the American culture. It wasn't necessarily good, and but it's a ah part of our history that we have to know and understand in order to do better going forward and to understand why taking Native American imagery and using it like this to sell products is not okay, you know what I mean? and So, yeah, it was it was a really a really cool exhibit. right What other exhibits did you like? Well, I was kind of, we went into the exhibit with that focused on the, how was she, Navajo, the Navajo artist that did the loom? ah D.Y. Begay, I just put it up, yeah. Yeah, she did all the the loom. The lo weaving. with The weaving, yeah right, where she, I think, so A,
00:16:21
Speaker
I thought her weaving artistry was amazing. I thought it was really cool. I was um obsessed. It was hand sound my favorite too. On the other hand, an entire wing devoted to this. But I think they have rotating artists that go through there. I understand. yeah um and And I get all that. um But like I thought it was like a really huge dedicated space to that. Now if they do,
00:16:43
Speaker
focus on a different artist and that's what that space is for, then that totally makes sense. Like if we go back in a year and it's a different artist. It should be different. It looks like it's running until July of 2035 and then they'll change it up. Well then that makes a lot of sense. i just One of the things I was a little bit disappointed with the museum, and maybe this isn't the focus of it because they have a lot of cultures that are vying for space here, is that I would have wanted to see a lot more prehistoric history, like I would expect from a museum. A lot more education from that standpoint. The museum seemed to be focused around the plight of the American Indian at this point, and a little less focused on history and education about prehistoric and that kind of stuff that we're interested in. Yeah. I was expecting to see a section on the mound builders and a section on the big cultures in the Southwest and that kind of stuff. Or origins. Or, you know. Yeah. And they didn't really do any of that. And I think you're right. But maybe that's been overdone.
00:17:41
Speaker
Well, maybe, and you can go to those places and experience sure those, but i did at this museum is very small. you know the The big atrium area is just huge wide open all the way to the ceiling, and none of that is exhibits. All the exhibits are along the the but the backside, you know and it's each floor is either a whole exhibit or it might be split into two.
00:18:01
Speaker
But yeah, I guess I was expecting there to be more prehistoric history, and it really did focus on the intersection between European and Native American culture, basically from the time of contact until now. yeah And they don't really do too much earlier than that. There's a couple big display cases with a mix of artifacts from all over the continent.
00:18:23
Speaker
that are, they were grouped. There was a bunch of like masks in one. oh mask Yeah. And then there was another one that was like all like weapons or something like that. yeah So, so they did do these big artifact displays, but it wasn't, they, they weren't focused on teaching you about a single culture. It was just like, look at all of the mix.
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, things from all across the continent. I guess if you're going to have a museum on the National Mall, it kind of has to be that way. Yeah, I mean, I didn't have a problem with that. I thought it was really neat to see the different types of oh games. The gaming one was really cool with like the lacrosse sticks. Did you know lacrosse? Hey, news flash to everybody. We didn't know this. Lacrosse was a Native American game yeah that has been co-opted by you know white fraternity boys in the Northeast. So you're welcome, guys. Go thank an Indian for that. Right.
00:19:11
Speaker
so Anyway, yeah, so we, we had, I think I overall really enjoyed the museum. I liked the stuff that folks, I enjoyed focusing on ah Native Americans today lit with their their art. And then also that contact period up until now. and Yeah. how that has impacted how Native Americans are today, which I think is a big goal of the museum is to see why Native Americans are the way they are today, where they are, why they, you know, all of those things are because of what happened 400, 300, 400, even 500 years ago. yeah And I thought that was really interesting. I was missing that prehistoric component. I wanted more of that. Well, I'll wrap up by saying go hungry.
00:19:51
Speaker
Because the restaurant downstairs, the cafe if you will, there's I think four or five different like areas when you can eat. yeah And we didn't go hungry enough no because we made made a mistake and had a little light breakfast at the restaurant at the at the hotel. yeah And I forced us into eating something because it looked amazing. And we had and we shared like a Navajo flatbread.
00:20:14
Speaker
but they had taco Navajo Taco. That's right. And then they had like Pacific Northwest food and Southwest food and and just like all kinds of different cultures and really good looking authentic stuff. yeah And I mean, you could just like eat anything you wanted and it looked really good and it was just, it looked amazing. So definitely have food there. And one of the almost highlights of the whole building is in the cafeteria where you get to, so you can, if there's a seat available, table there's there's a table right next to the water feature outside yeah or there's tables and and there's a window there, but you can like watch the water, you know, water feature. It's just a beautiful little setting again in the middle of the DC. Depends on which one of you gets to sit facing the water feature. The other one gets your back to it. So it depends on where you sit. Not if you get one of the good tables that are like right along. but
00:21:00
Speaker
Yeah, but and you know just doesn't how you sit and how your relationship is really so All right, I always get the good seat. Yeah Okay. All right. Well on the other side of the break We'll talked about how we saw Captain Jonathan Archer play a zombie hunter at Ford's Theatre back in a minute um Welcome back to episode 284, the archaeology show. And we mentioned early on that we were headed out to Washington DC on Friday. And basically the reason we were spending the night down there, aside from the fact that we
Natural History Museum Highlights
00:21:33
Speaker
had a free hotel room because of our highest point points. Yeah, that made it a little easier to make that decision. I know, right? Because otherwise it's stupid expensive to stay down there. It really is. Yeah. But that's one of the reasons we have the card that we have because yeah it allows us to stay free there. so Get points yeah on like gas and stuff like that. I know. So yeah anyway, we saw Rachel was actually just searching around for things to do and she happened to see just like a couple of weeks before and I was a little bit shocked. This is like opening week. Like why are more people seeing this? But we were able to get tickets relatively easily like a week before, before this play.
00:22:07
Speaker
The one man play and actually this first debuted I believe in 1980 is when it first debuted and then it was revived just now and Scott Bakula and this is why I said Captain Jonathan Archer because even though that's not the first time I saw him obviously Quantum Leap was the first time I saw Scott Bakula but Scott Bakula played Captain Jonathan Archer in Star Trek Enterprise. He did. But anyway. They forgotten Star Trek that basically nobody likes except for you I think. Quiet. It's perfect. It's fine. It's okay. It wasn't great but it was still It's it's part of the universe. So it's fine. It's good. Anyway, so He plays President Lincoln. Yeah, and we've watched him do we see what it's called? Mr. Lincoln. It's called mr. Lincoln. It's called mr. Lincoln and he plays President Lincoln in Ford's theater. Yeah that Ford's theater is in the place where the man died. We had basically center stage balcony seats right on the railing. So we're sitting right down looking down on the stage and off to our right is the box where Lincoln was shot. And they've got it draped with the flags and stuff like that. It's kind of dimly lit. And at the first part of the play, Scott Bakula comes out. He didn't do any sort of high-end Scott Bakula, no Q&A, no anything. It's just basically a play where he walks out and starts doing his thing. We'll talk about that in a minute. But at the first part of the play, it's kind of like,
00:23:33
Speaker
He's being Lincoln and he's thinking kind of thinking retrospectively is like, oh, I was in this play and they do this thing where a gunshot like goes off in a flash in that box. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was crazy. Really cool. Yeah. But I think the whole play is meant to be if your life flashes before your eyes, like that kind of scenario before you die. Right. Right. Right. Because people say that that you see your life flashing. Yeah. You know, it's it's that in in a play. And so it was him doing, you know, Abraham Lincoln's life story basically in a play. And it's one it's one act, it's about it was about an hour and 40 minutes or so, yeah with no intermission. It could be two acts, but they chose to do it just as one, because it wasn't like that long. yeah No, it didn't seem, I may not have looked at my watch a few times. I know, like near the end I was like, I'm hungry. But that was a me problem, not a play problem.
00:24:22
Speaker
it was It was entertaining. He did it well. yeah It was definitely, I mean, it was interesting seeing just like one person, just like, I mean, my God, the memorizing of lines, first off. I know. Yeah, it was yeah it was it was well done. There were some, you know, some sound effects, some lighting things, but otherwise it was just, there weren't really costume changes. He had like a jacket that he would use to change the scene a little bit and ah and a desk that he would move to indicate sort of a scene change a little bit. Yep. He had the famous hat came out at one point, of course, the the Lincoln hat. And yeah, it was really good. And I think for me, like I wouldn't normally go to a play like I don't think we're really play people, you know, yeah but this just being in the place where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated or he was shot, you know, yeah and then to watch a play about him in the place where he was shot is just,
00:25:10
Speaker
Crazy. Yeah, it's just such a eerie feeling almost that like you're you're walking through his life knowing that his life is gonna end right here in this building. It's just crazy. It's interesting, the theater too, it didn't feel very fancy. No. That theater felt 150 years old, to be honest. Well, this is all not-for-profit kind of stuff. like i don't yeah It's a very small theater. and they they yeah In fact, I was just looking it up and this play is over.
00:25:36
Speaker
You've
Reflections and Future Episodes
00:25:37
Speaker
missed it. It's already done. Yeah, it was September 20th through October 13th. Oh. And that was it. Done. Wow. We saw at the second weekend that it came out, I think, right? Was it the second weekend? Or? I thought it opened that Wednesday before we went. Oh, maybe that's what it was. Yeah. But anyway, it's it's closed now. Wow. So it's done. Jeez. Yeah. I'm glad we got to see it. I know. It was it was really neat. Yeah.
00:25:57
Speaker
And, you know, we're big history people. So just being in that place was just really neat. I feel like I learned so much about Lincoln because I mean, I've never really studied Lincoln. I know what everybody else probably knows about Lincoln. yeah But i I never knew some of the stuff, some of the some of his little some of his history over why he was so adamant about really kind of getting into government and and abolishing slavery. Yeah, he was such an abolition abolitionist yeah from like an early age. I didn't know I was saying that right. Yeah, but the some of the reasons behind that and some of his influences and and just his
00:26:36
Speaker
Yeah, just his his reasons around that. I really liked how his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, really just kind of was like, yeah, you're not really for me for like a year. yeah I didn't know she was so sort of highfalutin yeah and he was like low born. Like not, yeah. and yeah Yeah, totally. um That movie that came out a little while back was really a really good representation of his life too. So you can't see this play now obviously, but that Lincoln, the movie was was's pretty good too. We never saw that, did we? we thought it doby I thought I don't think I saw it. I think you did m Anyway, I didn't see the zombie hunter one either. I made the reference but I never saw that I get turned into a movie. I know I read the book. I'm pretty sure that was Yeah Anyway,
00:27:21
Speaker
anyway it's worth seeing pro tip to if you do Participate in the National Park Service passport program. Don't forget your passport book because There is a gift shop at Ford's Theatre and you can get a passport stamp there you can but you know what as it turns out the last time we were in DC I got a Ford's Theatre stamp we didn't go then but now we've gone so I feel like my stamp is legit Cause it turns out you can actually get a stamp for a lot of the things in DC, add a lot of the other things in DC. Yes, you can. Cause they're all like, it's kind of a sprawling, well, it's a city, right? It's sprawling and some of the the monuments are pretty far from each other. So yeah. yeah so All right. So real quick at the end of this segment, there was one other the thing that we did. And since we're talking about movies,
00:28:11
Speaker
Are we talking about movies? Do we need to go into a new segment for this? Because I feel like you might have a lot to say right now. I don't have a lot to say. But I am a little disappointed in the way movies are shot constantly. And they they constantly disappoint me. And one of those movies is National Treasure. so but you and And it's also, like to be clear, your favorite movie ever.
00:28:29
Speaker
I just love a little rump through history, right? We know. And a little chase, right? We know. One of the places at National Treasure that didn't disappoint me was actually some of the stuff that was supposedly shot in Philadelphia. Oh, the Independence Hall. At the Independence Hall. Yeah. Even though I'm pretty sure it wasn't shot at the Independence Hall. I mean, I know you tried to climb on the roof. Listen. And you couldn't, but you could see the roof. If I'm not mistaken, and I could be, that wasn't actually shot at Independence Hall. It was shot at Knott's Berry Farm in California. Oh, right. At like a recreation of it? Recreation, yeah. But either way, it's close enough. Now, what they did get absolutely wrong was when the kid was, the kid was going in to the archives to look at the declaration and the silence do good letters. Yeah. First off, that's not for the cipher, right? First off, the silence do good letters are not in the national archives near the declaration. No, but the little atrium area that the kid was walking into looked just like where the declaration is. It kind of looked like that, but you can't just walk in there off the street. No, well, okay. All right. You need to calm down. Okay. You can't, the kid was running in and out and you can't just do that. You have to have a ticket. You have to go through security. You can't just walk in and out really nearly like this kid was doing. All right. Wait a second. Okay, back up. I was really upset about that. So here is how you go into the national archives. If you want to go see the declaration and the constitution, they are there together.
00:29:48
Speaker
You have to get a ticket or wait. Well, you can wait in line if you want But if you wait in line, you're gonna be in line for like an hour probably or you get a ticket Which is what we did It's a timed entry ticket and you get to skip the whole line and just like walk straight in but you still I mean this is like our Really important documents as a country, right? So you still have to go through a metal detector on your way in so you go in through the metal detector, it just takes a little while to get through that. And then you go in and you head right up to the the atrium that has yeah the the declaration, the constitution and various other important papers. And then also like some, a lot of displays about what you're seeing. And
00:30:27
Speaker
i that kind of sucked, right? Like there was just a crowd of people wanting to see everything and you had to just like force your way up there. And then once you're close enough to actually see the declaration and the constitution, you get like shuffled along, yeah like like you're in a cattle shoot and people behind you are just pushing you along. So you're like trying to take a picture. Well, we could put some of our pictures on social media. We'll get them over to Tilly, but you know, like you're just getting pushed along and you do your best to get pictures, but like it is what it is. so Yeah. And pro tip, when you first get into the room there, people just kind of naturally go to the left and, and want to get in a line. And literally everybody that works at the archive is like, there's no line, but Americans get in a line, but there is no line. And so we just like, Well, polite people get in line. And the polite people were in line, and then people would... There is no line. We jumped out of the line, and we went straight over to the Declaration. No, it was the Bill of Rights, I think. The Bill of Rights, that's right. The Bill of Rights is also there. Yeah, so I mean, just go right up to it, and just kind of take a picture and move on, right? It's just that you can't, because there will be two or three people deep in front of it. So you either push your way into those people, or you kind of get behind it and sort of work your way in. I don't know, it was crowded. Well, I feel like... Yeah.
00:31:43
Speaker
I feel like just kind of pushing your way in sort of the American way. I would say for your best constitution and declaration viewing, go in the morning. If you have to go on the weekend, go in the morning. And if you can go during the week, I bet it would be way better and less crowded and you wouldn't have to fight people to get in there. so yeah yeah Anyway, it was very cool to see our founding documents of our country. I'm pretty sure that the security is pretty tight on those documents. I do think that they have lasers and thermal sensors. They have two guards standing right next to them. I'm pretty sure if you were to do something, they would.
00:32:18
Speaker
descend down into a chamber, just like in the movie. Yeah, it would. Yeah, i I'm not really sure if everything else in the movie was accurate, but there it is. So, anyway. Oh, God, you're ridiculous. Why do you want movies to be real life? They're movies. They're not real life. I want them to be close. Maybe we need to go watch it again and like see how off it is. That's the best thing you've ever said.
00:32:41
Speaker
so Okay, we'll we'll report back in the next episode. There's another fan here of the movie in the house that we're gonna watch those tonight. Okay, let's do it. Yeah, we'll get some good bourbon. Oh, also we went to the archives gift shop and in the movie, the declaration was $35 and he was like struggling to find the cash. And that's what gave him away was he had to use a credit card to buy it. Cause he had the other declaration. He was like, you know, they're like, are you trying to steal that? And he's like, no. So I grabbed one of the fake ones from the thing and like pretended like I was stealing it, but they were what, $4.99. They were pretty cheap. Yeah. They weren't $35. No, they were not. But anyway. Yeah. All right. So let's wrap this up. And on the other side, we'll talk about one of the last things that we saw, which was the natural history museum because I had never been there. yeah ah We didn't see all the exhibits because it's a massive place, but we'll talk about one of the places that we went. That was pretty cool. So talk about that on the other side back in a minute.
00:33:33
Speaker
Welcome back to episode 284 of the archeology show or the history show. It's the American history show. The American history show. We've been doing that a lot this summer, but we were in the Northeast where there's like so much American history stuff. I guarantee you the next. We'll leave this behind soon. The next episode will be articles about archaeology. Yes, it will because I actually have I think there's so much there's at least two episodes like because where we keep our notes that I've started with articles that I've been like oh we should talk about that yeah and like I think we need like two or three episodes of articles just to get caught up on like news and things that have come out so yeah.
00:34:07
Speaker
Well, we went to the Natural History Museum, and we we went through a bunch of stuff. But to be honest, it was one of the last things we did, and there was we were just kind of over it at that point. But we saw some of the some of the big things. We went through the kind of the marine mammals exhibit.
00:34:24
Speaker
Which was kind of neat, but this museum was packed. I gotta say. It was packed. There were so many people and it was over people. It was a Saturday and we went in the afternoon. Yeah, I was just kind of down with it. Honestly, okay, like let me just be totally honest. We had some time to kill before we were going to the National Archives and I wanted to see the Hope Diamond, because it's really big and sparkly. So that's why we went. That's right. That's right. By the way, we won't really talk about that. It's not archaeology or history or anything. Really, it's just a really big sparkly diamond that's super pretty. Pro tip on the Hope Diamond though, it spins and sits there for a few seconds. It's good, like spins on an axis. So you don't have to be in a certain spot. You don't have to follow it around. Yeah, just wait and it'll come to you. Yeah. But anyway, we saw a really kind of cool gem exhibit with a lot of cool stuff. Yeah, I like that. I love all the sparkly stuff. They have kind of a rotating exhibit on cell phones, which is kind of cool. Oh, yeah. That's a new exhibit. Yeah. So we did kind of cruise through there. And this is not really related to archaeology, sorry. But I loved the exhibit with all the old phones, the old cell phones, because we were walking around it and being like, oh, I had that one in 2005. That's archaeology. And I think my parents had that one in 1992. That was really fun.
00:35:35
Speaker
But the exhibit the exhibit was talking about like where some of the components in your phone come from yeah and how they source some of the materials and things like that. So that was kind of neat. yeah But one of the things that we did spend a little bit of time in was the human origins exhibit. yeah And I feel like that was a oddly well attended, like sometimes that history stuff people just don't like go to. Well, yeah, and it was pretty packed and it's like a basically an evolution exhibit almost yeah because they' rock it's human origin. It's called the hall of human origins. And it's, it very clearly, even in that little movie in the very beginning, when you walk in is showing how humans evolve. yes So first off, let me talk about that millions of years.
00:36:12
Speaker
people were just like cruising through that. And that was probably the best part of the whole thing. I stopped. You have to stop like right in the middle of it and people are like shoving past me and probably thinking I'm rude by standing in the middle of it. But I'll tell you what, you're literally in a tunnel with a super cool movie playing in a tunnel. And I'm like, okay, we'll go around me then jerk, because this is neat. But like our level of nerd is like, I don't care. If you're going to play a movie in a tunnel, I'm going to stop and watch it. No, I mean that's why other people weren't necessarily stopping. But that's like the best part and that kind of explains everything that you're about to see. Yeah, it does. So just sit there and watch the three-minute movie and be better for it. It's a super good intro for sure. Yeah, so I thought just highlighting what I thought was the best things in the entire thing. First off, I hate museums where you read everything. Yeah. I hate museums that show things in cases with no explanation.
00:37:03
Speaker
So I hate lots of words and I hate no words. I hate those two things. yeah I love museums that are interactive and I like museums that have like things you can see and touch and feel and just like really three dimensional objects. And this exhibit had all of that. it did have all that right So for the kids, for the adults, it had yeah interactive things for kids. It had interactive things for adults. Like the bigs, like I don't know if they were bronze or they were cast sculptures of difference what the early different early humans in in yeah early hominids early nominids yeah in different positions. which really like You could really see it. You could see an Australopithecus bend down trying to you know do something and that was just visually appealing. Yeah, and they are obviously following all the recent research yeah that shows that women and men probably had somewhat the same roles in these early cultures. And so the hunter, they had a like bronzy looking sculpture of a hunter and it was a woman, not a man. Yeah, holding like a whatever animal she had over her shoulder. I don't want to put a gender on her. yeah I don't know what her pronouns were.
00:38:10
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So I thought that was super cool too. And if you're like me and you really like a lot of words and you want to stop and read every sign and learn everything, there were words and they that were explaining the different things. But yeah one of my favorite parts was the exhibit of the early early hominids that died Oh, violence? Yeah, violence or like disease or whatever. like One of them, the person died because they ate too much liver of a carnivore. And a carnivore's liver has too much of some bad chemical in it or whatever. And it built up in in her system and then you know it just eventually killed her. And they could tell that by looking at her bones, which was all so cool. That wasn't my favorite violent death. My favorite violent deaths were the ones where you could see like the alligator bites on the ankle bone. Oh, yeah. or like the one where like a ah big eagle or something, just like, you can see the talons in the eye socket. In the eye socket, that's right. So like, it that is such a visceral, like obvious description of how life was so hard, yeah so, so hard and so dangerous for these people. And the fact that we are sitting here today to talk about this on a microphone and that we've developed that far, that we are now safe from eagles and crocodiles and carnivore livers, like, It's crazy that we even evolved to this point as we are. One simple fact of evolution, whether you believe in it or not, doesn't really matter because one simple fact of just like human genetics and breeding, and if you have a parent and a grandparent, then this is ah this is a fact that you must agree to. and Whether or not you think you go back 6,000 years or 6 billion years is that you are the result of an unbroken chain of success.
00:39:57
Speaker
I'm a broken chain of survivors. I'm a broken chain of survivors. And you go back to single celled organisms or however far back your philosophy thinks you go. Your brain allows you to think, but yeah. Your parents, none of them died before they were old enough to have kids. Obviously, because you're here. And the same for their parents and their parents and their parents. I mean, they might have died right after. They might have, but that doesn't matter. Evolutionarily speaking, it doesn't matter. They produce children, so they contributed to evolution overall.
00:40:25
Speaker
So yeah, I just love thinking about that thought. Again, no matter how far back you think it goes, it goes back all the way. yeah So it's um it's pretty neat. But the other one thing real quick that I really liked about this, and and we've got a picture of you doing this, but they had a really cool rock art exhibit where they literally put up a rock wall in a cave with some simulated like fire light. Like the Lascaux cave, basically, right? With the hand prints on it. It's a random cave that's like Lascaux. but they've got like some pictographs, so it's not like rock art, like petroglyphs, right but pictographs, so yeah painted rock art. And yeah, you put your hand up against one, because you can touch it. And that's what I like about some museum exhibits that have done well, is it's not like behind some thing that you can't get on it. And you don't want to touch real artifacts, but they've got replicas. Like for example, in the front of the exhibit where we started, there's actual skulls.
00:41:16
Speaker
mom replica skulls where you can touch and feel and and get on these you know these hominid skulls and really feel them and really put your hands on them. And I just, I mean, it's kind of gross from a COVID standpoint. but But that touch, that feel, like it really it really helps your yeah your brain understand what it is that you're seeing. this And one of the other things that I thought was really, really cool to see is that they have an actual Neanderthal skeleton.
00:41:47
Speaker
like laid out in anatomical position that you can see. And that um that's just always such a a really amazing thing to see because there's not that many of them, not really, you know? And to have that on display, and I guess it's like the only one on display in the United States, which makes it special. and It's one of the earliest ones found. So it's like almost like the the neanderthal Neanderthal type specimen. So yeah yeah, really, really cool that they have out there and you can see it. That's pretty cool. Yeah.
00:42:13
Speaker
Yeah, so very well done. Worth seeing if you go there. So all right. Well, about time to wrap this one up. Like I said, we'll be back next time with some news articles. And I guess with that, we will see you guys next week. Bye.
00:42:34
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.
00:42:57
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Culturo 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.archapodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.