Transcript
Speaker: You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
Speaker: Welcome to episode 144 of A Life from Ruins podcast, where we investigate the research and careers of those living a life from ruins. I am your host Carlton Gover, and today we're going to do another episode format. Really appreciate the feedback we got regarding the last episode, where it was just basically me giving a lecture that turned into a rant at the end. Sorry for some of the upset feelings I've caused. Those have been fun messages, but deeply appreciate it. And so this week, what we've decided to do, each segment is going to be by a different host.
Speaker: I'm clearly doing the intro. David is supposed to do the middle, but I'm going to record a second segment just in case. We'll close out the episode regardless with content by Connor because he says he has a bone to pick with something. Don't know if it's over last episode or something else might be ArcGIS related. We all know how he feels about that.
Speaker: So today, for this intro segment, I wanted to talk to you guys a bit about science communication today. For those that listen to the podcast, you know that a big goal of ours is to make archaeological content more available to the public, right? We've done that through these interview -style formats. We bring people on, talk about their career, how they got an archaeology, and some of the research they do in hopes to inspire other folks and to
Speaker: Getting to archaeology as well as provide advice, tips, and tricks for grad students, undergrads, and early career professionals. This concept of making archaeological content more accessible to the public is like a huge mission of the APN. That's the whole point, right? We have the CRM arc to talk about cultural resources management and issues in the field, heritage voices to bring to light indigenous researchers.
Speaker: pseudo -archaeology podcast to tear down some of those crazy beliefs and theories that are out there. And so, I want to talk about it because it's important, and I'm teaching a class this semester called Science Communication and Public Anthropology. Split -level class, and I've sat down with the students, and every week we go over a new kind of format of science communication.
Speaker: We just did podcasts last week and we actually, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle came and spoke to my class. I'm deeply grateful to them. Why is science communication important and why are we persevering in this as a podcast? For a couple of things. One of my favorite graphics that I show classes when we do, usually in my Intro to Archaeology class,
Speaker: We do have a dance pseudo -archaeology. It's important to talk about. And there's really these great graphics from Chapman University in Orange County, California. And they do these survey of American fears. And there's a really great graph from 2018. They surveyed, I think it was like a couple hundred people, maybe a thousand.
Speaker: Folks in Orange County, like, you know, asked them a couple questions that, believe it or not, 50 % said they believe that a place is going to be haunted by spirits. 57 % said ancient and advanced civilizations such as Atlantis once existed. 41 % said aliens have visited Earth in our ancient past, and 35 % have
Speaker: said aliens have come to earth in modern times and 21 % believe Bigfoot is real creature, right? These are, these are pretty, pretty big percentages. And the ones that want to isolate today is particularly like even in 2018 and God knows what the survey is now. I've tried to look for it before. They haven't had the survey, especially with COVID that 57 % of people believe in ancient, advanced civilizations, such as Atlantis once existed. That's a lot of people. That's a lot.
Speaker: But whose fault is that? That 50 % of Americans of this sample of this sample size believe in ancient advances civilizations? Is that a societal issue? Is it because of public education, possibly the internet, or is it archaeologists themselves, right?
Speaker: And I personally believe the reason why we have Graham Hancock and ancient aliens and why they're so successful and why people believe them and why people take, listen to their content, like vehemently, it's professional archeology. It's our fault guys and gals.
Speaker: It is the profession's fault that ancient aliens and Graham Hancock are so successful that people believe in the garbage that's being spewed about human past. First, first quality of this, it's the publisher parish attitude, especially in academic archaeology.
Speaker: The fact that so much stock and importance is placed on publishing peer -reviewed articles in paywall journals, that early career professionals, the ones doing cutting edge and active research, everything they're researching and doing is primarily going behind a paywall.
Speaker: American Antiquity, plans anthropologists, you know, journals like that. And so the public doesn't have access to that content. So they don't have access to the breadth of knowledge about humans past across the globe, simply because they're not subscribed or a member of some archaeological organization that gate keeps this content.
Speaker: Second, academics in particular, because professional archaeology, right, it's not just academic archaeology. Most archaeologists are employed in the private sector in cultural resources management or with the government. But academics in particular, who are also teachers, are not necessarily good science communicators, so they don't have a lecture. We can do slides, we can talk to
Speaker: You know, we can talk to young adults all day long, but we're not really trained or taught how to speak to or write for and interact with journalists, blogging, you know, just like they were just not trained to do that. And we don't know how to do it. And it's, it's an art form, right? Like that's
Speaker: why people get trained or getting degrees in science communication now because it's a whole now like field of theory and method of how to actually interact with the public in meaningful ways and to communicate your science. And even if they do, right, they're not rewarded. I'm lucky.
Speaker: Half of my job here at IU is I'm the curator of public archeology, and part of my tenure review is doing Sapiens articles. It is creating a podcast for IUMAA, which is coming out in a couple months. It is actually making programs. So actually, part of my tenure packet, and I don't know anyone else that's like this, and I can't find any other curators of public archeology where part of my job is to actually sit down and work with the public, engage with the public, and turn all the amazing research being done at IUMAA, the Indiana University Museum of Archeology and
Speaker: into stuff that the public cares about. So I lucked out.
Speaker: Right? Part of that, you know, is this podcast. If you guys can believe that or not, like, crazy. And then lastly, like, these four qualities, right? Publish or perish. Academics aren't good science communicators. But archaeologists are not necessarily both CRM government or all three CRM government and academics are necessarily rewarded for conducting public outreach. The last one, like the big names in pseudo -archaeology in particular, they don't have any formal education in archaeology generally.
Speaker: They're usually just like really good writers, like Graham Hancock, journalist, Giorgio Sugalocus, the aliens hair guy. He was a bodybuilder from Long Beach. Eric Von Denneken, writer. They know how to talk with the public, right? They know what to say and how to say it. And that's how they're able to convince a bunch of people that they're right because they know how to target that audience.
Speaker: Well, Carlton, if academic archaeologists are really bad at science communicating and they're not rewarded for this, what can we do? How can people learn more about archaeology? Because according to a survey from 2018, from the Society of American Archaeology, you can find this.
Speaker: 87 % of people that were surveyed believed that students should learn about archeology. So this wasn't like essay, like talking about archeologists, like they surveyed a bunch of non -archeologists. 87 % of people, like people need to learn more about archeology and it should be in classrooms and textbooks. Most people say, well, how do you learn about archeology? The survey says,
Speaker: 58 % said they learned about archaeology in classrooms and textbooks, 57 in museums, 56 in television, and that's going to dial back to the pseudoarchaeologist, right? 36 in movies and 29 % in print media. So most people are learning about archaeology in the classroom or in museums. Those are the big ones. And then fucking televisions there.
Speaker: So we really got a hit on that, right? We need to teach more archaeology in the classroom, I think. And what does science communication look like today? How are these efforts being made? Well, you guys already listen to podcasts. That's one. That's how we contribute. Most of you guys know David, and David is a phenomenal science communicator. He knows how to make those goofy videos. I know his big things, of course, you know, YouTube.
Speaker: TikTok, Instagram, like he's using social media heavily. And that's where we see a lot of science communication occurring today. It's primarily on social media, but I really got to say Sapiens. If you guys have never heard of Sapiens academic blogs, you should sapiens .org.
Speaker: They have amazing articles. They're written for the public. They're written in an accessible way, and they're absolutely free, and they're written by archaeologists and anthropologists across the globe. Amazing work. I try in my classes to assign Sapiens articles all the time rather than peer -reviewed books, or peer -reviewed articles, sorry, because the students, my students, get way more out of a Sapiens article. And it's not just some random blog where you can just submit it to Sapiens and they post it. They have editors.
Speaker: that help the author write a piece for the public. Absolutely phenomenal. Additionally, like free seminars and lectures always go a great way. Um, you know, David gets asked to give talks. I get asked to give talks. I try to give talks when I'm, when I'm asked. Like if someone asks me, like I've curated a pretty good relationship with some folks out in California, they asked me to give a talk and I try to pop in every now and then I do my best.
Speaker: regardless of where it's at or what the topic is to give a lecture, because especially to like archaeological societies, not the professional ones. Like, you know, Colorado has the Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists, that is an organization of professional archaeologists, and you have the Colorado Archaeological Society.
Speaker: And that, the Colorado Archeological Sunny, just anyone can join. And a lot of time they're like amateur archeologists or advocacy archeologists. They don't have formal background, but they really love the topic. I love those societies and I try to talk to them and give lectures all the time because those are people genuinely interested in the content and they want to know more and do better.
Speaker: I think more archeologists need to do that. And it sucks, right? Cause like I'm at a point now in my career, like early career, this is second semester being a professor, like, holy shit guys, how did we get here? First off, we started this when I was still like a second semester PhD student. You guys remember that? You remember those times?
Speaker: And I am so busy all the time that sometimes what they considered, like, this is classified as service, which doesn't count towards my tenure. You know, I'm always being told, well, if you're too busy, you got to drop this other stuff. I will never drop this podcast because it's work. I'll tell you guys that right now. There are days I think about it, but I love doing this show more than I like doing academic archaeology.
Speaker: I live for doing this stuff. And I know the quality of the show has kind of gone up and down and sometimes I'm not always in it, but like this is my priority and I deeply enjoy doing this.
Speaker: Right. And I get like some professors get so overwhelmed or even early career folks like doing service work to like go talk to these people does take out of it. But you know, like I've, I enjoy it and I think more people should consider doing it because I get more enjoyment out of the free stuff I do and the stuff that doesn't count towards my career, my PhD, um, and the stuff I sometimes do. So that's, I think that's really step one of good science communication in archaeology is more doing more of the free stuff.
Speaker: But you know, also like science communication, right? It's not just about combating the pseudoscience. Like I, we would try to do this. We so bad. We wanted to get Amelia doll on the podcast for a long time and it's just so hard. And the reason why it's hard is Amelia is a deaf archeologist promoting archeology and science content in American sign language. She has amazing, amazing YouTube videos and social media. Amelia, the archeologist,
Speaker: We've had trouble getting on the podcast because one, a podcast is audio and like just trying to get a translator to do this has been so hard to get nailed down. And we, as you guys have probably noticed, if you followed us for a long time in our social media, the life and ruins guys used to have a really good relationship, or we still do, but like more known relationship with Tosh and Raven and Amelia and Stefan Milow.
Speaker: And since like the five years we've all kind of started doing this stuff, like all of us have gone separate ways and gotten older and it's just been so hard. And we all try to keep in touch and we want to do like a throwback episode to bring everyone back together. It just sucks. It's hard. We're adults now. But Amelia is one of those and she is so
Speaker: active in the Colorado deaf and deaf plus seen him communities and working with Denver art museum, Denver museum of nature and science and like just making archeology accessible to a group of people that are way too often overlooked. I never thought about the deaf and deaf plus communities when I gave talks until Amelia, when I got back from Ukraine, I was giving a talk at CU Boulder. She asked if she can come if I can get her a translator. And that's how our relationship started. Cause she was just so goddamn phenomenal.
Speaker: and inspiring to do better and to do like, and even with that, to be a good science communicator for the deaf and deaf plus communities can just be as simple as just like having fucking subtitles on your videos and on your stories, right? That's always hard and always good. I mean, it's not hard to do, it's super easy to do, but I always forget and it sucks at times because I always think about Amelia, unfortunately, like,
Speaker: when I'm doing those things. I'm always like, what did I forget? What did I forget? What did I forget? I'm like, oh, damn, I gotta head up Emilia, or I gotta remember to add subtitles for Emilia. Anyways, sad thoughts. So science communication just isn't about combating pseudo -archaeology, but also making content accessible to the public that we don't think about. So...
Speaker: Yeah. We're going to continue trying to doing this. Like, as you guys have noticed, we're trying to like do more things with the show, these different formats. Once again, super appreciate the amount of
Speaker: feedback we got from the last lecture series. A lot of you were like, liked it. It was different. We really appreciated it. Just don't do it all the time. Totally on board. Well, you'll get a Carlton lecture every now and then, but it won't be a regular thing, but I really enjoyed doing it. I hope you guys enjoyed it. And we'll be right back. Hopefully David will be on in this next segment to talk about whatever David wants to talk about. And then you'll hear Connor wrap it up with whatever needs to go off his chest. Till then it's episode 144 of Life from Roots podcast. We will be right back after these messages.
Speaker: Welcome back to episode, what is this, 144 of a life endurance podcast. I'm your host, David Ian Howe, and I am doing my segment of this three segmented episode after the travesty that I had to endure in Carlton's last episode where he's slandered the good name of science in a very eloquent and well -researched and probably pretty charismatic way.
Speaker: I'm just kidding. Him and I disagree on an overkill and things like that, but I don't necessarily disagree with everything he said. Like it's all, uh, how would I say this? He's right. And also my, my opinion, and I know it's just kind of, what's the word? I wouldn't say misinterpreted. I would say,
Speaker: I wasn't very clear about it. I'm not saying that every animal was hunted to death by humans. I think I might have said that in the episode. I think humans did not help. And with climate and also with if the impact happened, humans didn't help. But again, humans arrive in Australia, humans arrive in Madagascar, humans arrive in Siberia and humans arrive in New Zealand. I think I just said that in Australia.
Speaker: and all of the megafauna die. So I don't think it's something we should rule out. But Carlton's points about all of that and the propaganda and the, how would you say this dogma behind some of that stuff is definitely true. So yeah, listen to Carlton and like take what I say with the grain of salt because I am biased. Anyway, I'm going to start this segment off as something I'm really fine to interesting and I'm probably just going to ramble. So click off if you don't want that.
Speaker: So, a long time ago in a land known as Europe, an entrepreneur was looking to get a project funded and he went around to the monarchs of Europe and was like, hey, I need help with this thing. And everyone kind of laughed at him because he thought the world was shaped like a pear for whatever reason. But what he was trying to do was get to China and get to Japan and India at the quickest way possible.
Speaker: And due to the Pax Islamica, which is like the great golden age of Islam, Islam was doing very well. And Arab traders were profiting off of the Silk Road from Asia. And of course, they're literally the middlemen in the Middle East. So they taxed everything. They upped the prices. And when Europeans wanted to buy it, just things like salt, things like silk, things like other spices, cumin, I think was a big one, pepper.
Speaker: all coming from Asia.
Speaker: they jacked the prices up. So Europeans were like, oh God, like I got to figure out a new way to do this. So Barthelemayo Diaz went down through the Atlantic and all the way around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa and made it to India. Before that, Romans, Phoenicians that we know of couldn't sail past the storms that and the rocks had just the weather and the topography of the oceanography of that area in Africa. They couldn't get past that without ocean going vessels.
Speaker: And there's also a gigantic current that was right there in Africa outside of it. And if you get stuck in that current, you'll get thrown all the way to Brazil and stuck in the middle of the ocean. If you don't, you know, I forget what that, that jet stream is called where that, that ocean swell. Anyway, Bartholomew Diaz made his way out of that. And then they figured out the way to get and avoid that and the weather patterns. Anyway, roundscape, good hope.
Speaker: However, this guy wanted to get to China faster. And I said he went around to all these monarchs and was like, hey, I need money for this. And as I mentioned, it was the Pax Islamica. So it was a very profitable and golden age time for Islam and the Arab world. And most people don't think about this, but the Arabs known as the Moors that lived in Spain and North Africa had taken over Spain since the year 711 and lived in most of Spain.
Speaker: in Portugal, which is why Spanish and Portuguese have a lot of Arabic words in them. Like, pantalón is Arabic for pants, and then pantalones is Spanish in the way of pantalones. So it all kind of comes from that zanoría is carrot. That comes from Arabic. Ojalake is like, I gotta hope so, in Mexican Spanish. And it means like, oala, like that. So things like that in the Ojambra and a lot of the mosques that are in Spain are because of the Moors that lived there.
Speaker: And about 1491 is when they expelled the Moors. There was a war to expel the Islamic people from Spain and get them out so it could become a European kingdom again. And that lasted for a while and I know it ended in 1491 -1492.
Speaker: And because of that, and I should also mention before that, Jews, Muslims, Christians were all able to live in harmony for the most part in Spain. It was actually a really cool experiment in human history, like with what was going on in Spain and a lot of really good art, a lot of really good science was coming out of there. It was great.
Speaker: to my knowledge. When this war happened, they expelled the Moors and it became a Spanish kingdom again. And I believe Portugal was its own thing at this time. I'm not too good at my Portuguese history. I'm not too good at Portuguese either at all. I know three words. Durobe, that's about it. So they expelled the Moors and Ferdinand and Isabella, the king and queen of Spain are loaded, like absolutely loaded. And Columbus, who I would say is this guy,
Speaker: was going around all these European monarchs and he's like, hey, I need money to go to this voyage. And they were like, all right, well, we have all this money. This guy won't shut the fuck up. So, okay. And they just, when you have that much money, like just taking over a kingdom and all the silver and the gold that comes from that, you can just be like, all right. So someone's asking you to invest in Doge or invest in Tesla. You're like, all right, whatever. I'll give them a thousand dollars.
Speaker: And if it grows to $7 ,000 in a few years, great. If it doesn't, I'm knocking out. I threw money on Tesla a while back, pulled my money out before it went down.
Speaker: That was good. It's a gamble as well, all that investing is really. To them, Ferdinand and Isabella, it was like not even a gamble. They were just like, whatever, take the money. And the gamble that they took, and when they sent Columbus off, or he took off in his own ships, the Nino de Pinto de Santa Maria, he discovered the new world. So it was a pretty damn good gamble.
Speaker: Like they wanted to get the China share and they're like, oh, he's just going to drown out there. Like on his own, get eaten by a fucking seagull or a sea monster or maybe a giant sea monster seagull. Who knows? But yes, so that gamble they took was, was the new world and they were loaded. Like, I don't know if you guys know this, but like, I mean, we all should. Spain right now is not a world power whatsoever. And most of European modern history, it's kind of like a laughing stock.
Speaker: World War II, they were having their own Spanish Civil War and stuff. They didn't contribute much to the World War II at all. They were doing their own thing. They don't have much money anymore. But at the time, well, they don't have enough money and that's why Shakira, God bless her, maybe she did something bad. The Spanish government is very corrupt and they change their tax laws all the time to get soccer players and all those rich people.
Speaker: entrap them to having to pay fines and things like that. And that's what they do, because they're kind of a corrupt nation, to my knowledge, in their economic system, and they do that a lot. But whether Shakira was doing something wrong, I don't know, but she's bae, so who knows.
Speaker: Anyway, yes, all of North America was pretty much Spain and South America and Mexico. So, I mean, North America includes Mexico. But if you think about it, Florida here in the States, all the way to Texas, all the way to California and up was Spain. Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, all part of Spain. Pretty crazy. Like French New Guinea, I think is over there.
Speaker: French Guinea in South America, and then obviously Brazil is Portugal. And Portuguese is now the most spoken language in South America. You would think it was Spanish, but Brazil is a massive population. But I wanted to talk about this because Spain, like I lived in Georgia, in Augusta, Georgia, which is
Speaker: middle Georgia up the Savannah River, just borders with South Carolina and Augusta. And I found in my backyard a Spanish like piece of eight. My dog was digging a hole and I pulled it up. This sounds like made up, but there's a lot of junk in my backyard when I moved in.
Speaker: like ceramic mugs and stuff like that from like the 50s. So I don't know if this piece of eight was like someone's possession and it just ended up in the backyard or it was just part of, you know, archeological stuff in the backyard. Regardless, it's real. It's a rusted ass piece of like silver. You can barely make out the stuff. But what I made of it is a Spanish piece of eight and it says Kingdom of New Spain on it or like El Reina de Nueva España. And it is like dope. I thought that was cool. That was Georgia. So Florida was Spain.
Speaker: And where I lived in Georgia is the same kind of climate in whatever is Georgia, Florida. So maybe it got traded up there and maybe it was just someone's possession that was in the backyard. But regardless, Spain, like where I was standing was British colony territory, but just a few an hour drive south of it was New Spain.
Speaker: Wyoming, where I lived, was part of New Spain for a while, at least southern Wyoming, because it was the same thing as northern Colorado. Colorado means colored. Nevada, I don't know what that exactly means. California, Texas, or Tejas, Arizona, all of those are Hispanic words, or just Spanish words, and Florida too.
Speaker: Just don't think about that. It was part of Spain, right? And they lost all of that in many wars and just a lot of mistakes that the Spanish government made. But the British obviously maintained most of North America, Canada, the French owned most of, or parts of Canada, and a huge part of land in North America, which was then when Napoleon was doing his thing in Europe, Napoleon -ing, got Napoleon -ing,
Speaker: to Egypt, to Russia, all the way through Germany, parts of it, whatever Napoleon was doing. He had a lot to deal with. The last thing on his mind was, like, Nebraska. So he was like, hey, TJ, Thomas Jefferson, do you want to buy this land? And I think, I might be misquoting this, but the land in today's money was only 53 million dollars. Like, Jeff Bezos shits that out when he goes to the bathroom every morning. Like, that's pretty crazy. Biggest real estate deal probably in history.
Speaker: And he was just, I mean, who wants Nebraska in Kansas? Like for real, like it was not worth the money, but we had access. The Beaver trade was huge. Like the lumber trade was really big in New England, but like Beaver for, for whatever reason was like all the rage in Europe.
Speaker: So they would send all these beaver hats back or beaver pallets and stuff. And that's like why all those French trappers and stuff were out there. It was like really beaver was like the main thing. And I guess the castor oil that comes with it too. Fun fact, castor canadensis is the Latin word for the American beaver. I canadensis, I guess Canadian beaver, but it doesn't matter.
Speaker: Anyway, Spain lost all that land and the French had all that land too. They sold it to the Americans and then the Americans pushed westward and eventually took all of there. They annexed the stuff from Spain and Spain couldn't maintain that money and Mexico was part of it. Also, Texas was five countries at one point. It was Spain, then it was Texas. When it was a zone country, it was part of the United States. It was also part of the Confederacy and it was also, did I say it was a zone country? Yeah, it was
Speaker: And there's one more country it was. I don't recall. Was it its own? Was it part of France? Don't remember. I remember seeing that. It was five different countries. Either way, it was fourth that I can list off the top of my head. Spain lost all that, all that area and.
Speaker: I started this with the New World. So Argentina is called that because of silver. The Latin word for silver, the periodic table for silver is argentum. And that's why it's called Argentina. And I don't think this was really taught in history classes. I mean, you can't cover everything. But there's a giant silver mine in Argentina. It was called Cerro de Potsi.
Speaker: and it was like this massively profitable silver mine and the Spanish government sent all of that back to Spain and they were like loaded and they of course used indigenous slaves at this time to dig it out or just other slaves. I can't remember what the time it was but
Speaker: They did that. They had workers pulled it out and they were getting all the silver out that was not, how would you say it? It wasn't like mineable. It was like stuck in all this corroded stuff or like all this like rock layer and they couldn't get it out. But there was some accident there where like someone spilled a chemical. It was like a hair tonic or something like that. Just an everyday item that they had there that like spilled into it and it like dissolved whatever the matter was and the silver could be extracted. So it boomed.
Speaker: and they sold all that back. Another fun thing too, they sold all that stuff or shipped it all back to Spain, but like English privateers and French privateers and pirates were just like, oh, look at all that silver coming off these ships and they just took them. Sir Francis Drake was known for that stealing. He was literally a legal pirate by the crown of England to go hunt these ships down and take their money.
Speaker: Pretty cool and it England Spain and France obviously Portugal the Netherlands some Germany and Russia was like up in Northwest America But all of those main powers who were tucked right in next to each other over in Europe are like have these gigantic mass pieces of land over here Pretty cool, and I know I'm rambling but one thing I wanted to point out was it's interesting that we speak English, right? Like it's in England English and then like span Spanish. It's like
Speaker: Most of like North America and South America and essentially if you combine that all together, I know in South America I said Portuguese is the most spoken language, but like Spanish is still a huge presence here. Spain is not a world power. So like I wouldn't say that their colonization was successful because that's not a great word to use, but like they established a presence here that lasts to this day.
Speaker: and like when people say like oh they speak Spanish or it's in Spanish or something like that like it still kind of takes like I take a pause sometimes and think about that because like you just think it's the name of a language but it literally has all that lasting legacy of like Spain the new Spain was a huge kingdom here I don't think about it in Wyoming
Speaker: was France, now it's the United States, but at one point it was part of Spain. And like, I'm just, I wake up in what used to be New Spain, which blows my mind. It's definitely France and the United States. But one thing that's interesting too is in South America, they got there first. They got there in like the early 1500s or late 1400s or the 1500s, established the presence
Speaker: And they quickly outlawed slavery of the indigenous peoples, which is why they started bringing in Africans. There was the edict, or the Cerveluminus Deus was made by the Pope to say that indigenous Americans were human and they could rationalize thought and therefore could be converted to Christianity so they couldn't be enslaved. There was also like a lot of push for the Spanish to marry into the indigenous populations to establish more of a presence. At that time, was it probably consensual marriage? I don't know. It was just guys, because I know Columbus mentioned that he had
Speaker: He wanted to take some of them for sex slaves and things like that. It's a wild ride if you read Columbus' stuff. But regardless, South America and Mexico are all a mestizo population. They're mixed together. Brazil is a huge melting pot of African, indigenous, European culture. Mexico obviously is indigenous, Mexican, Aztec, Maya, those populations, Huichol, all mixed together. But we don't have that in North America.
Speaker: North America, most of the indigenous population was wiped out by smallpox, like after the Spanish got here. So like 90 % of it was gone. We established colonies later in North America. There wasn't a lot of populations, specifically like advanced, wouldn't say advanced, but like complex civilizations like in Mexico to mix with, right? They were, there wasn't much. And most Europeans or English people came over as families and they came over as
Speaker: You know, like the pilgrims in Jamestown was all families already. They didn't have to, they already had families. You'd have to marry into the indigenous population. Whereas the Spanish sent over young soldiers and entrepreneurs looking to make a lot of money in here. The way the conquistadors treated indigenous people is like wild to me. And I also know a lot of them that came over were not.
Speaker: military men. They were entrepreneurs. They were people that wanted to make money. And a huge thing is that CEOs are often sociopaths because they're able to do that, like, cutthroat stuff to get ahead. They don't have empathy. If that's true, then maybe that's why the conquistadors were wild down there doing their stuff. I don't know. Either way, it was just the time. But I don't know. I just think all this is fascinating. I was allowed to ramble about something, so I'm going to ramble. But, like, we just live in what used to be a huge kingdom.
Speaker: like just giant superpowers at the time that didn't have the technology, but they had like ships, pikes, and like blunderbusses, you know, and they like managed to take over this entire world and obviously repugnant ways, but like just still that lack, like we speak English, a huge part of the world over here speaks Spanish and then Portuguese as well. Like it,
Speaker: And those kingdoms were established here in like 1500. And it's just a lasting legacy. I don't know. I've talked too long, but I had a lot more to talk about with the Treaty of Tordesillas and stuff. But I rambled. If you guys want more of this, we can go more into it because I do love this period of time a lot.
Speaker: Welcome back to episode 144 of a life in ruins podcast. You probably just listened to David say something hateful about Jane Goodall or talk crap about cats or just something else ridiculous like that. And Carlton probably started you off with a really good lecture. Like they both probably will mention as we're trying something new.
Speaker: going to do a new format. We're experimenting with this podcast and seeing what we can come up with. So I'm here today to really, I don't want to say bus balls. I don't want to say rattle saber. I'm really here to
Speaker: hopefully inspire all you archaeologists or archaeologists to be to really think about how you record data, store data, and ultimately preserve the archaeological record through records and GIS, et cetera.
Speaker: Record keeping, journaling, note taking are all really important parts of the archaeologist toolkit. I think anyone who's done any sort of excavation, any sort of survey will tell you that those notes that they've taken, their records that they kept have saved them when you cannot remember exactly what you did at a site. It's super important. And we can kind of look back into history and kind of see
Speaker: that journals, at least for like the discovery or the colonization of the Americas, we can go back and read some of those journals of explorers to anywhere and possibly relocate archeology sites based on that.
Speaker: When we have archaeologists going out and finding stuff, probably like 17th, 18th, 19th century, really during that time period, all of these explorers and archaeologists take really, really good notes. And we still use those today to help us find new sites, to understand what was excavated in certain areas.
Speaker: Yeah, I think you can look back in the past and say that this these journals it's note keeping this record keeping is super important and is something useful.
Speaker: for us and for everyone else who studies archaeology. I think in the present day and I think as time went on, you know, people take and are suggested to take a boatload
Speaker: of notes on everything you do. You know, for example, on this date, I went to this site. It is located roughly here with this kind of vegetation. We found four flakes. There wasn't a lot of cortex on them, et cetera, et cetera. So if if your GPS craps out or if something happens with and you and you need to get that data, you have it.
Speaker: That's something simple. Those are four or five sentences you could write at the end of recording a site or at the beginning of recording a site. I think it's really, really important for field archaeologists, specifically in CRM and in academia, to really, really
Speaker: focus and take the time to take good notes on what you are doing, what you are finding. That's something you'll never get back in. And adding five, 10, 15, 20 minutes to the recording process can really help save and preserve the data that we find. So we kind of talked about like we're, you know, in general, there's a trend towards more and more notes. And today we really rely on
Speaker: computers, forms, attachments, et cetera, to kind of find, to preserve that information and to help us take down all the information in a consistent and ultimately helpful format. So the company that I've worked for, Alpine, we used tablets, every project director, every person who is leading a crew,
Speaker: had a tablet with them that they would record everything on.
Speaker: and they had a series of forms to help streamline and allow things to be consistent. So yeah, forms in Microsoft Access that really helped guide and make sure that we are getting all the information we need when we are going to sites. And it was, it's extremely helpful. You know, it really preserves what we do. And I think companies, I bet you,
Speaker: Most companies out there have some sort of form like that that they use in the field or they have paper forms, attachments, et cetera. These things are important. I think every company should have some sort of standardized form attachment to make things efficient and to make things accurate.
Speaker: And it's, it's really important to have this accurate information because at the end of the day, what I do currently is I work for the state historic preservation office in Wyoming. And my job is to append, to add all the data information about sites, about surveys, isolated resources, et cetera. My job is to compile that into a database to ultimately
Speaker: GPS technologies kind of hasn't really taken off so the accuracy of Their spatial data isn't great or it's you know, it's a extra on a map at one to twenty four thousand scale so it's that stuff from there is not always super inaccurate to what we to what is actually on the ground, but if those things are inaccurate and
Speaker: preserve the records of what people have done.
Speaker: We can always go back and relocate sites with really good notes. If you give us access notes, okay, so you're going to this road, go one mile in, park your car, walk here, et cetera, et cetera. We can really find and relocate sites. Pictures, pictures are one of the ways that archeologists find sites. We use previous contractors' pictures and try to re,
Speaker: relocate the location where these pictures are taken. It's invaluable. So even if you do have inaccurate data on your GPS or on your map or et cetera, we have a bunch of clues that can lead us to where these sites are located. If we didn't have those notes, if we didn't have those records, if we didn't have paper forms, we wouldn't know where these resources are until someone comes back out there and records them.
Speaker: And it gets really messy if you find a site, but it's actually another site that has site numbers. And then it just, it just, in the end, it becomes a nightmare for me, for anyone who's managing the data, for anyone who's using that data. So we are able to find sites through good and consistent notes and forms, et cetera. So we, we are living in the 21st century. You know, I was,
Speaker: I was exposed to computers in elementary school. We had those sweet, sweet max with the colors and like the, I think it was like an outer shell that had like purple and all that kind of stuff. I've been working on computers since elementary school.
Speaker: And we have had the technology around long enough that we really, really should be storing everything digitally using tablets, using computers. With the availability and cheapness of tablets, it's hard to argue for using paper forms.
Speaker: I'm not trying to shame anyone who does do that because sometimes that's the most efficient way for that person to record stuff. Or you don't have the money to invest into something like this. But I think it's important that we have
Speaker: we use the technology that we are given today. You can buy fairly inexpensive GPS units that operate by themselves. And you can pair those up with tablets that are probably under 200 bucks. That will really get you accurate GPS data. It will allow you to fill in forms, to have digital records of everything you find. And I think it's imperative for us today
Speaker: to use this technology as it gets cheaper, as it gets more available to everyone. Because I specifically work at the State Historic Preservation Office dealing with GIS data, I see data that isn't good or isn't accurate, and I have a hard time
Speaker: understanding and you know allowing something like that to happen when we have technology today that allows us to really get like sub meter accuracy or sub foot accuracy. I mean they're fairly expensive but you could buy tablets that have
Speaker: internet connectivity and you can kind of get closer in like the 10 meter range or something like that. I really think it's so important for us as archaeologists to use the technology that we have and to also understand what geospatial data is, how to take and store geospatial data,
Speaker: and how to share that information with everyone else. I obviously have a bias in this because I do almost exclusively GIS all day every day. Where my GISers at? Hello, hello. Wow, that was awkward. So I am biased, but I think every archeologist needs a base knowledge, a base understanding of what GIS is, what GPS technology is, and how to use it.
Speaker: I've found that having a GIS skill set has specifically been really good for me and really helped me in my career right now. And there are free and cheap ways to learn GIS. YouTube is always great. There's other websites out there that can teach you how to use GIS. And you can use everyone if you don't want to pay for Esri products. I understand Esri kind of is.
Speaker: kind of cornered that market and is expensive. QGIS is an excellent alternative and a good way to learn GIS. Play around with that. You can download it for free online. There's tons of information on how to do things. Definitely go play around with that.
Speaker: But I think all archaeologists need to really have an understanding of that and use it. And please, for the love of God, please take notes, take good data and really think about that when you're out in the field or before you're out in the field. Think about how you're going to record data and try to do it consistently. That's my push to you as all archaeologists. Let's get better. Let's be better data managers and preserve the past. Thank you so much for listening to me talk.
Speaker: and Carlton and David. Let us know in the emails, in the DMs, on Morse code, whatever you got. Send it to us. Tell us if you like these formats. Tell us about topics.
Speaker: I'm being David here, but you got to rate and view the podcast. Please, please, please, please. There's merch. We have merch. We have stickers. Same old thing. Thank you all for listening to us. We love you. We're chaos right now. We try to not be chaos every week, but we're kind of there right now.
Speaker: so thank you for putting up with us and we love interacting with you so please email us Instagram whatever you want turn it our way and with that we are out
Speaker: Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail .com. And remember, make sure to bring your archaeologists in from the cold and feed them beer. Hey, Connor, I think it's the time of the show where you tell a joke. OK. OK. OK. OK. I can tell a joke. I mean, it is tradition. So I'll do it. So I accidentally took a Viagra before work.
Speaker: I've never worked harder in my life. Everyone laughed. Thank you.
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 Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www .archpodnet .com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork .com.
