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Eat, Dig, Love: A Summer in the Ukraine - Ep 6
388 Plays6 years ago
In this episode of A Life in Ruins Podcast, our three co-hosts reconvene after a summer of shenanigans while Carlton is fighting the effects of jet lag. Connor and David mention what they have been up to and Carlton talks about his trip gallivanting across Eastern Europe. Carlton has some tips for those wishing to travel with Juul pods (spoiler alert, do not travel with them unless you want them taken away from you) and questions the legitimacy of duck effigies mentioned by Connor. This episode is full of hate, laughter and ridiculousness.
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Go again.
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to episode six of A Life in Ruins podcast. I'm your host Carlton, followed by my co-host David Howe and Connor Jonanananananananan. Today's episode is different from previous formats. Today we don't actually have a guest interview.
Summer Experiences and Personal Highlights
00:00:28
Speaker
Today the three hosts, us three, will be talking about our summers of A Life in Ruins.
00:00:39
Speaker
So a little different format today, but you know, we have a lot to talk about, uh, for our listeners before the past three episodes that we have, uh, recorded were actually all recorded in may because the three of us had some pretty busy summers. Um, so we, yeah, guys, how was, how did everything go? David, like, how was your summer? I mean, you know, it's full of, uh, full of curational excitement. Uh, had a surgery. I, uh,
00:01:07
Speaker
pet my dog once or twice. I went all over the country a few times. Yeah, it was good. How about you, Connor?
00:01:15
Speaker
Oh, it was, you know, the normal. I bought a house, gave my life over to a bank and did some fieldwork down in Durango. So a lot of sitting in the office, though, a lot of looking at maps, playing with Esri and hating Esri. You know, what is Esri? Esri is Satan.
00:01:38
Speaker
They are the company that runs ArcGIS, which is like the most popular form of GIS, which is geographic information systems. So it's a product that helps people map and do cool stuff, but they're Satan.
00:01:55
Speaker
Don't don't don't send us a cease and desist. I'm sorry. Yeah. Oh, boy. So hold on, David, you had surgery. Yeah, I had surgery. I had a I couldn't breathe correctly out of my nose my whole life. And my doctor was like, well, you've got to deviate septum. And I was like, well, I got to get back to that fix then. And I got to fix it. Now I can breathe way better when I sleep. And just all throughout the day, it's that's great.
00:02:25
Speaker
Um, yeah. Um, as my alter ego, Gabriel Slovak, um, anyone has gotten the prank call from Gabriel Slovak back in the day. That was probably, dude, you're giving away your secrets here. Can't give away your pseudo name.
The Role of Networking in Archaeology
00:02:44
Speaker
Let's see, Chris Rowe started at my job as our assistant manager. He's a fellow Wyoming student. It's been great. It's nice because we both had Jodi as our curation, I guess, mentors.
00:02:59
Speaker
If I leave, which I've left a lot this summer to go do different various things around the country, I know Chris can just, you know, take it over when I'm gone and I come back. And if there was a fire, Chris put out the fire the exact way I would put out the fire. So it's nice. That's awesome, man. Yeah. I have not heard Jody's name in a long time. I completely forgot that she was at Wyoming for a brief second.
00:03:22
Speaker
Uh, Jerry is the absolute coolest. So yeah. Yeah. And now she works with me too, which is, which is interesting. Yeah. She works for Alpine.
00:03:33
Speaker
Yeah. So it's like these, it's funny how these like CRM, you know, interwebs are, you know, it's like someone knows someone that's, I feel like that's the main reason I got my job is because I knew the guy who was hiring me. So yeah.
Museum Curation and European Adventures
00:03:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. He was, we, we were acquaintances. So that makes it, that makes getting a job easier in CRM. Hot tip for you folks out there networking.
00:03:50
Speaker
Oh.
00:04:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely, um, it's not like, I mean, your resume really helps in archeology, but knowing, you know, eight to 10 of the people that are going to be at the place where you work really helps too, which is kind of easy in archeology, I guess. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of a small community. I mean, like, you know, where are you studies, where are you studying? You kind of know people real quick, get a name for yourself, especially the other conferences. So absolutely. Any, do you have any like good stories this summer, David, from your museum curation stuff?
00:04:31
Speaker
You said you traveled across the country as well. Dude, I am so out of whatever happened this summer. As an FYI to everyone, Carlton has been galvanting across Europe, conquering and digging holes. We've been out of touch with him.
00:04:50
Speaker
Yeah. Cause they could have figured out how to do a group chat and Instagram. So we had to like message each other individually and I was nine hours ahead and it was just a, it was just a nightmare. Did you get like 600 texts? FaceTime me from the field and be like, Hey, what's up? And Carlton's just talking to me from the Ukraine with like people speaking Ukrainian behind him. And I'm in like my back office and he's like, Oh, and I was like, Oh, Hey man, you know, just working. What are you doing? And some guys are yelling behind him with a show.
00:05:20
Speaker
I was so desperate for the English language that I was just, I was like FaceTiming my mom in the middle of the field. She's like, oh hey sweetie, how are you doing? And I'm like, mom, I want to come home. Not really, but she. Help me! Just to hear conversational American English is like, it's like a euphoric feeling when you're in another country. You're like, oh man. And we'll get to that whole, my eat, pray, love summer of archeology.
00:05:52
Speaker
That's what the episode title should be, like, Eat, Pray, Love, Summer. Yeah, I'm officially giving it that. That's beautiful. Eat, Drink, Dig. Oh, God. Did you say dick or dig? Dig. I did not say dick. Why?
00:06:11
Speaker
It has also come, I got back two days ago and we were recording this four o'clock Mountain Standard time and my brain thinks it's two a.m. in Ukraine right now. And I am just, I am so exhausted that the walls are moving. Like it is hard to think. And there's just- Smelling colors. It's the smell and colors. Just, yeah, oh my God. And yeah, it was the first day of classes. So hold on. Reeling this whole
Fieldwork Challenges and Cultural Encounters
00:06:36
Speaker
thing back in, David,
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah, I've traveled all over, went to Tennessee a bunch, went to New York two or three times, I think, two times. What else did I do? Went to California at some point, went to Mexico at one point. It was a good time. Oh shit, that's right. Okay, yeah, that's that. Future, honorable future. Yeah, I was just trying to refresh my head. I was like, what the fuck was he talking about when he was traveling to the country? And I was like, oh right, okay, yeah, that makes sense, yeah. Was New York even archeology related or was just visiting family back home?
00:07:13
Speaker
Uh, one could say. Okay. What, what would you say it was? How would you describe? Who's visiting, uh, some friends. Oh, okay. Why was it? Why was, why'd you make that awkward? I don't know. Keep it. All right. Next. It's like, what's the archeology related? One could say, it's like, you could just said no.
00:07:39
Speaker
Dude, he works for the government now, you know? That's how he has to answer. Yeah, I just, you know, Instagram popularity has just taken me to like, you know, the world. So I just get to go do things all over the place and I don't get to say what. Did I see that you... Oh, shit. Okay. No. Okay. I, dude, I am fucking clueless as to what you were talking about. And I'm like connecting the dots as you're talking and being awkward about it. I'm like, Oh, okay. Yeah. Now I get it. Now I get it. So yeah. Jesus Christ.
00:08:09
Speaker
Okay, on a segue. Did I see that you created your own clothing, David? Should you do some sewing?
00:08:18
Speaker
So, yeah. That was also the most awkward goddamn question. That was the worst segue ever. I did sew some prehistoric clothing with a bone needle and some bison hide. And you scraped yourself, right? Sure. Yeah, I got it from a, you know, a trapper, you could say.
00:08:43
Speaker
a trapper at the dot com. What would you say? Where are we going? Are there even trappers in the 21st century? They're all French. Yeah, I got it from a Trading Post website, and I got it, and I got some artificial sinew. So I'm trying to do all that educational stuff.
00:09:02
Speaker
Getting into characters like Bob Ross and things like that. That was great that those were the highlights Instagram was like seeing you to like go that hard on ethnosynology your Instagram post if any of our listeners who aren't already following should follow But I'm pretty sure they all do I take public education seriously I Mean yeah
00:09:25
Speaker
Connor, how was your summer? My summer has been good so far, a little hectic, a lot of sitting in the basement. My company works in multiple states. So we have projects in Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, all this year. So it's been a little chaotic.
00:09:55
Speaker
you know, some transmission lines, some pipelines, random other things like that. I don't go out in the field very
Initiation Ceremony and Ukrainian Travels
00:10:04
Speaker
often. Sometimes I do and gallivant out there by myself and make a fool of myself and
00:10:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's probably my summer's been. I've got to do some drone work for some pretty cool sites down in Durango. And using kind of the new age drones, you can do some really cool photogrammetry to kind of take pictures of these pit houses that they've been excavating and finding just outrageous stuff, outrageous stuff like duck,
00:10:39
Speaker
Um, duck effigies with like heads cut off, um, multiples of those, um, huge, huge, um, kind of. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How did they know their ducks, if the heads are cut off? It's shaped generally. I think it's, I think it's an assumption based on. So it's shaped like a bird. So without the head, cause the duck has the bill. So the rest of the bird looks like a bird, right?
00:11:06
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, what what else are they gonna do? Like, uh, I don't I don't know. I'm just saying, like, without the heads, without the heads. Like, how do you know what kind of goddamn bird it is?
00:11:16
Speaker
This is this is coming for secondhand news here. So I'm assuming it has to do with like previous recordations of these things. It's not just like previous findings. I never thought we'd be able to beat my consultative quilt recordations. All right. That's a word, dude. That's a word is not. No, it is not recordations.
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah. Previous recordings. I don't know. That's a word. Get out of here. David, David, look it up. Look it up, David. I got this. Solve this. Fix this. Recordations. It's just awkward. So yeah, no, it is not bold. Yeah. Hold it. Yeah. Get out. I think that's a five minute silence on you. Check it out right now.
00:12:10
Speaker
We have a fixer like Joe Rogan has. His name's Chris. He runs the API. Chris, where's that at? Wait, wait, wait. Is he here? Oh, no. I'm touching on Chris Rowe. I was like, why the fuck is Chris Rowe involved in our podcast again?
00:12:24
Speaker
It's a word, and I call for a minute. He had his chance to be part of this goddamn podcast, and he declined. It's typically recordation, not recordations, but either way. My last name's Webster, so you have to listen to me. Straight out of the Webster's mouth. Okay, sweet. That's a minute-long mute for Carlton, so. God damn it. I'm just gonna hit my vape. Fine.
00:12:52
Speaker
Continuing on tobacco not not the
Returning Home and Re-adjustment
00:12:56
Speaker
devil's lettuce. Let me clarify like it is my jewel box
00:13:03
Speaker
Okay, back. We found a lot of cool stuff and it's super interesting and I got to fly a drone around a site to create some really cool 3D photogramic, photogrametic, oh my god. I'm out. I'm out. Carlton, you're unmuted. Words are hard. Was it a mallard? Was it a mallard instead of a duck? Do you know the difference?
00:13:27
Speaker
How do you know it's a duck without the head? That's what I want to understand. Every goddamn bird with feathers looks the same like Jesus. We are the size. What is special about ducks? This is in the southwest. How do you know it's not turkeys?
00:13:45
Speaker
Exactly. I don't know that I'm not yelling at you. I'm just like I just Alright let's segue from the avian talk we are nearing the end of the first session here, so I just wanted to say that I recently I
00:14:09
Speaker
I should have planned this out before I started talking like I normally do. I had subscribed to the APN and donated, right? And I got the choice of a couple stickers. And I got a sweet little letter from Chris, the runner of the, you know, arc pod net. He says, you didn't have to become a member. But yeah, that was him. But I appreciate it. Don't quite have the stickers for your show yet, but we do have a pile of, I can't read cursive. Hang on, let's back up.
00:14:36
Speaker
Basically, he says always keep up the great work. A Life in Ruins is one of the best shows on the APN. Thank you. If you guys were to subscribe and donate to the APN, you can get choice of these cool stickers, t-shirts, coasters, all kinds of things like that. It's pretty cool. I didn't get one of mine. I was irate at first, but then I read that nice little note and I was like, oh, good time.
00:14:56
Speaker
So yeah, subscribe, donate like five dollars will do and like leave us reviews on iTunes. Hit us up on Instagram, Facebook. Let us know what you guys want to hear as well. And yeah, that was an amazing note. And I'm going to donate. I need to donate. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that right now over this over this break. Y'all are about to hear as we discuss more avian topics to try to sort this country out.
00:15:23
Speaker
All right, guys, so with that, we'll be back with segment two of episode six. Welcome back to episode six of a Life in Ruins podcast. On this section, we're going to talk about Carlton's gallivanting around the world this summer, or mostly just Europe, Eastern Europe, the Adriatic. There you go. So in the Black Sea, Ukraine is. Yeah. Yeah. I had a summer.
00:15:47
Speaker
Also, I'd like to say that Connor just sent me pictures of the duck effigies. I thought he was talking about mounds. He's talking about pottery, and yeah, they're definitely ducks. Okay, there you go. Ukraine's on the Black Sea. The Croatia is on the Adriatic. Is that correct? Yeah, so a lot of things happen. Can you give us the background? Where does this come from?
00:16:09
Speaker
I just wanted to get out of the United States. I want to go to Europe. I want to do field work. So a lot of stuff happened. A, I defended my master's thesis and passed. So you guys can't give me shit anymore for not having my master's. RP that joke. Yeah, yeah. RIP. Yeah. So passed that, did that. I defended it in buckskins as a whole thing. Check out the Instagram. Passed it. Immediately after defending my thesis, I drove to Lynch site, Nebraska.
00:16:40
Speaker
Sorry, that took me way too long. Continue, continue, continue. Carlton got his master's, guys. I'm trying to, all right. I don't see myself out. Continue. It's a big step in your life. God damn it. So immediately after defending my master's thesis, I got in the car and I drove to Lynch site, Nebraska. So a TA'd for the CU Boulder and Augustana University field school. My advisor, Dr. Doug Bamforth,
00:17:09
Speaker
was the professor from CU Boulder, and Dr. Casey Carlson from Augustana was the professor from Augustana, of course. Doug is the advisor in my dissertation, and Dr. Carlson is one of the committee members. So I had to work with both my professors. There was another TA, Devin Pettigrew, who was my office mate, loved Devin. It was us four, ran a site, there was like 20 something students. The site was what's called an initial coalescent variant site, circa AD,
00:17:38
Speaker
1300. It is an ancestral Pawnee and Erychira site. It was a awesome, awesome field experience. What was really enlightening, the archeology, we'll get into the archeology, but Nebraska, basically the entire Missouri River, February, tributes tributary. Tributary? Tributary. Tributary. Basically the Missouri River, everything feeding the Missouri River over this past winter and spring, these people got hammered with
00:18:07
Speaker
precipitation. They had a really, really intense winter, froze the ground. There was ice and snow everywhere. Then in spring before the thaw hit, they got hammered with rain. The water had nowhere to go.
00:18:19
Speaker
and there was bridges down, roads down, towns are washed away. And no one in America heard about this because we had the goddamn shit going on with the border, the made up stuff in my mind, going on in the border. And so there was millions of Americans that are still suffering. So at the site that we were at, the town that we stayed at was in the floodplain, the site because ancient Indians, or they're not ancient, but prehistoric peoples didn't put settlements on floodplains. They put them on bluffs overlooking it. That's one, you know, just
00:18:45
Speaker
calling that out there. They're a little bit more intelligent. We couldn't camp. We had to stay at a old Catholic hospital that was turned into basically an Airbnb. So it was a summer camp. We called it camp field school because me and Devin had our own rooms. We were like camp counselors. We had all the kids. They had roommates. We had wifi. It was ridiculous. So the field school was great. We were there for four weeks. It wasn't a disaster. The Lynch site has some of the most surveyed
00:19:15
Speaker
geofizz in the United States. And so we were chasing a pit, we were chasing a house and it turned out to be after three weeks of excavating and not finding a damn thing.
00:19:26
Speaker
We realized that the pits that we were looking for were super-feneral and they actually got bladed off. So the last week and a half, we basically put the students on excavations that we did the year before to finish out doing pits and stuff like that. It was actually pretty cool, really amazing. The kids did excellent. Doug and Casey- It's like 18 to 20.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah. Well, we also have a couple of those, you know, to children. Both Doug and KC, they did the best job excavating that anyone else has seen for many other field schools. They did such a great job. I would like to take personal credit for it. I came up with some, like, so Doug and KC would sit back and they would just be in control and they let me and Devin be in charge of the students. And I was just like,
00:20:11
Speaker
drill sergeant. I was just like walking in circles like a shark. I was like waiting for them to mess up so I can be like on them. I came up with some great catchphrases. I was like, hey, your walls are so sloped that Sean White could win an Olympic gold medal off of them. Or hey, that floor is so bumpy. It looks like a level from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4. And a lot of kids are like, what's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4? Or another, my favorite though was like, Sophie,
00:20:34
Speaker
if you don't clean up these walls and if you go deeper, we're going to have to hire a team of sherpas to lead us to the top so we can bring these down. So like that was that was the kids were just terrified after a point because they didn't want me to come over and just like harass them. Or, you know, just stuff like that. Be like, Hey, after lunch, we're gonna have a come to Jesus talk about your unit.
00:20:56
Speaker
Just, you know, just me being ridiculous, but like they got really good because they didn't want to be, they didn't want to be harassed that way. So they made a clean walls. The kids did great. Super proud of them.
00:21:07
Speaker
Yeah, they did a good job. That was fun. And so we've mentioned it a couple times already, but I went to Europe for six and a half weeks. And the reason being is I had a conversation with Nathaniel Kitchl before I left Wyoming. And he said, if you ever want to
00:21:27
Speaker
go do field work in Europe. You should talk to Dr. Marcel Kornfeld from the University of Wyoming. So I did. In January, I sent him an email. I was like, I want to work at a Plains Neolithic site in Europe. I wanted to go to find a European analogy to what I do. I study the earliest Plains farmers in Nebraska and Kansas. And there's agriculture in
00:21:49
Speaker
Europe, so I was like, I want to go work on a neolithic site, an early neolithic site somewhere in Europe, and try to learn something new, either theoretically or methodologically of how to do this work. So I got a couple hits, and the Ukrainians said, hey, we'll take you. So looking back, this was the dumbest decision I've ever made in my life. I just booked a ticket to Ukraine. I booked a ticket out of Ukraine, and that was it.
00:22:20
Speaker
And I was just like, we'll figure it out. So I left, field school ended July 5th, July 6th. And I got on a plane to Ukraine, July 8th. Never been outside of the Western Hemisphere. And thankfully, like a month or two before going, the field director was like, hey, we'll have someone meet you in Odessa. So I flew to Odessa.
00:22:45
Speaker
But it wasn't even that. You had emailed them and said like a nice long paragraph about like, hey, I'm Carlton, what do I do? And like, you meet here now.
00:22:52
Speaker
Yeah. Dude, yes. So there was like months of conversation and I had no idea what was going on realistically and their English wasn't that great. I mean, it was good. It was good, but it wasn't like, it was weird. We weren't talking on email. We were talking on like Facebook messenger and they're like, where will you be? And I'm just like, I will fly into Odessa. I'll be there. I left July 8th and then they're nine hours ahead. I get there like July 10th. It went forward in time. And
00:23:21
Speaker
Are you a time traveler? Is that what you're saying? I think so. So I landed, and this amazing woman by the name of Kudra, who is an archaeologist, picked me up from the airport, brought me to my hotel, and she entertained me for the first three days. And then we got on a bus. Ukrainian buses are the scariest goddamn things on this planet, because it's not a bus. It is a van, where they basically weld seats in there as well as they have fold-out camping chairs to fit more people in.
00:23:49
Speaker
There's no like bus station. It's just where the buses gather. And they basically there's signs on the bus that say where they're going. And you just talk to the bus drivers and they're like, it's it's like they tell you how much it costs to get places. I didn't know what to expect. I've never been to Europe before. I've never I've been to Mexico and Canada. Canada is like America light. And then in everywhere I went in Mexico was like, you know, basically American holiday. You know, like I've never really had a foreign experience.
00:24:17
Speaker
Oh, and then you just went right into the fucking eastern block? Yeah, so I just went. I just left. I thought you'd been somewhere else before that. No. No. You might have had some issues with your passport.
00:24:34
Speaker
Is that what I ... A couple things happened. As everyone knows who listens to this podcast, I have a jewel and I didn't want to smoke cigarettes. As everyone knows. As everyone knows, after all the ridiculousness. I had 60 pods that I was taking with me to Ukraine.
00:24:52
Speaker
One of my layovers was in France and they checked my backpack. They're like, you can't have these. And they took, first off, a pack of four pods is $20 goddamn dollars. So I spent a couple hundred dollars to feed my nicotine addiction in Eastern Europe. And those goddamn Parisians took my fucking jewel pods. I had four left and they weren't even like full pods. They were like the ones that I was like, oh, I'll smoke the rest of this later or whatever, vape the rest of this later. Oh God.
00:25:21
Speaker
And yeah, there's issues with my passport because like this is fucking ridiculous. So my passport expires in November and some countries have a law that's like if your passport expires within 90 days of your travel, we're not letting you in. It's like, what's the fucking point of having an expiration date? Like it's still clearly valid.
00:25:36
Speaker
So why do you fucking care? And especially if it's a layover, like, because they were like, oh, well, Denmark and Croatia, it's like, I'm not staying in your fucking country. I am literally getting on another fucking plane. Like, just let me through like Jesus H Christ. It was just it was so aggravating to have to talk to these people. And like, what is your purpose here? Like, what do you know your passport expires? And it's like. And secondly, I got that passport photo taken when I was 17 years old when I was a varsity athlete. I don't look like a varsity athlete anymore.
00:26:04
Speaker
Just FYI, I have a beard, I have one hair. Your level of agitation is why they do this to you. I hope you know that. You're the reason we look bad.
00:26:14
Speaker
your backwards hat and pop a new jewel being like, oh, bro, I got to get to the Ukraine. It was a nightmare. So I get to Ukraine. It was fine. I get to the site. The first site. So the whole plan was I was going to meet this team of archaeologists from the university in Odessa and a place called Zavalia, which is in Western Ukraine. It is a Neolithic site.
00:26:41
Speaker
Beautiful place. First off, oh, Ukrainian roads have not been worked on since 1990. That's like 99% positive that that's legit. So the fall of the union led to worse roads?
00:26:53
Speaker
Yeah, because there's no money to like update the roads. Beautiful country. It basically what I noticed when I was driving, I was like this, I was like, this is Nebraska. I looked around. I was like, if I if there weren't if it looked like Nebraska, the whole fucking country did. It was great. I loved it. That's I love the planes. It was the planes. It was perfect. I show up. So the way the Ukrainian archaeology pretty much works is that archaeology is an anthropology. It's its history.
00:27:18
Speaker
first year history students at university have to do a field practicum. They have to. So it's basically 18 and 19 year old, 17 and 18 year old Ukrainian history students have to go on expedition.
00:27:30
Speaker
Well, like in the U.S., that's like that's like a later, like junior, senior college thing. It's usually later. So these are kids. I bought a tent while I was out there. First off, the exchange rate was amazing. It was like twenty five grievance for one American dollar. And it wasn't like the prices were inflated. Like it's not like you would still spend the equivalent of five American dollars on something. It was like food was like 30 to 80 grievance. So I was eating for like two or three bucks. I lived like a king. I loved it.
00:27:59
Speaker
It's just so cheap. So I show up. Oh, so much vodka. So we get to the site. I meet everybody and everyone was like, why are you here? I'm the pretty. Everyone told me I was the first American they've either known and I was sure the first American to come to work in archaeology in Ukraine.
00:28:21
Speaker
Like that was like a fact. I thought other people would come. They're like, no, you're the first American. And a lot of the, and Zaporizha or Zavalia, they're like, yeah, you're, you're the first foreigner to actually come here and work.
00:28:32
Speaker
period. I don't know Ukrainian. That was also part of it. I don't know Ukrainian or Russian. I went to another country and I didn't know the language. There was so much I'd redo about this trip. Like thinking back, I was like, I'm just going to have fun in Europe. How do you say hello? I, um, Privyat in Russian. How do you say you do you in Ukrainian? Yes. Is talk in Ukrainian. Yeah. And da in Russian.
00:28:56
Speaker
So you know the three. So yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know I got passable, but a lot of them knew kind of new English. It was, it was an amazing experience there. It was an early Neolithic site. Like they are not even supposed to have, it's called LBK, light banded pottery culture. They didn't even know that it were in Eastern Europe. So we were working on like the earliest and the most far Eastern
00:29:21
Speaker
LBK site in the world. It was an amazing experience. We had like at the times like 40 to archeologists, kids. It was amazing. And I found some really cool stuff. I'd highly check out my Instagram or the life in ruins. Cause I posted a bunch of stuff there. The field director there, Maciej, he's from Poland. Basically Ukraine and archeology, they only have 400 archeologists in the entire country. It is the largest country in Europe, which surprised me.
00:29:50
Speaker
Wow. I didn't even know that. Yeah. Only 400 professional archaeologists. And they really don't have funding for archaeology. So what happens is basically Germans and Poles show up with funding and they want to do their own projects and they basically pay Ukrainians to do it. And so they use Ukrainian professors as assistants and they use Ukrainian crews and they pay the Ukrainian kids, the Ukrainian crews, four euros a day.
00:30:13
Speaker
That's interesting. And the kids were like, oh my God, this is so much money because it was like 120 grieving, 150 grieving. And the students loved it. They were like, oh, wow. And then Maciej, she was awesome. It was just like, yeah, if I was to bring Polish archaeologists out here, they would want like 10 euros an hour. And the kids did a good job. What was crazy to me is that
00:30:36
Speaker
It was basically like going back to early 20th century archeology. They're using all metal equipment, canvas tents, metal cooking ware, and they were using shovels. We were digging out this entire site with shovels, and I'll post pictures on Instagram of how big this site was, and we were just digging it out. It was great. I loved it.
00:30:57
Speaker
Was it all local, local, so local kids going to local university kind of thing? No, half the crew was from Odessa and half the crew was from Zapparegia. OK. And that was that was so weird, is that I want to make sure I got the towns right, because I'm so freaking horrible at remembering what everything was so.
00:31:18
Speaker
Okay, so the site that I'm at now, the first one is Zavalia, and I think I said that, and the next one is Zaporizha. So Zavalia, half the crew is from Zaporizha, which is in Eastern Ukraine, half the crew is from Odessa. The ones from Zaporizha spoke Russian, and the ones from Odessa pretty much spoke Ukrainian.
00:31:34
Speaker
And they're not dialects, they're part of the same language family and they're still different languages. But because they grew up in that country, they understand each. So it was so hard for me to try to learn the language because they were talking two different languages. So they would talk with each other in two different languages and respond to their own language and they can understand. And it was a fucking nightmare to try to follow along.
00:31:53
Speaker
It sounds like a Russian and Ukrainian and Polish. I couldn't pick out what was going on. I love that site. It was really fun, I guess. Real quick, one of the coolest things they have is they have an initiation ceremony that dates back to 1903 from the first Ukrainian archaeologist. After your first two weeks of field work, you get inducted. It's basically like a fraternity hazing ritual.
00:32:17
Speaker
I'd like just to deduct it into that and they put me through it and I got a cool archaeology name and they really liked my presence and my archaeology name is Chumok and it means trader.
00:32:28
Speaker
And it's for like, I liked it. I thought it had meaning. It's like, because you did, because they have a huge thing in Ukraine about the Chumak that they would, they were salt traders that would travel the globe trading salt. Oh, yeah. I thought you said trader. I was like, Oh, no, no, no. Traders. T R A D E R. So it's basically like, is the Russian word for trader. And I was like, that's not it. No, no, it's Chumak. It's Chumak. And basically they're like, you've come such a far distance and you've taught us a lot because we, you know, it was great. And it really meant a lot. I really,
00:32:55
Speaker
It was really cool to do all that and to go through that experience. The funniest thing before we take this next break is at the beginning of the ceremony, we were at this place called White Rock next to the site, it overlooks the river. And the legend is that they used to sacrifice virgins there in like 10,000 BC.
00:33:12
Speaker
Probably not true. But anyways, so before all this starts, basically the field director brings everyone out and basically people that are coming back for a second time, he does a speech about them, gives them something. And the entire time they're speaking to Rakhine and Russian, I'm just sitting there nodding my head, just like trying to fall along. And at the end of this, this guy named Simon, who's a grad student, like brings out Leonidas and is like talking to Leonidas. And then Simon pulls out a knife and I'm like, huh, why is Simon pulling out a knife? And he stabs Leonidas.
00:33:41
Speaker
in the stomach. And I was like visibly like, holy shit, I just witnessed a fucking murder because like red started coming out and Leonidas just fell and everyone's just laughing. I'm fucking terrified because this whole conversation has happened in a language that I don't understand or speak. And then he starts getting up and I'm like freaking out. I'm like, fuck, am I next? And it's like, no, he had like a bag of tomato juice under his shirt.
00:34:02
Speaker
But even still, it was like an eight inch knife. Oh, that was on your Instagram. Yes, like flabbergasted. I was like, what? And that knife was big like he could have gone straight through that bag and like killed him. I was I was I was so I was a holy shit. And then once I realized that it was like a prop thing and I was just like, dude, I had a heart attack. Well, on that note. Yeah. Go ahead. Do you want to finish your story?
00:34:27
Speaker
No, no, no, I got I got a second part of it. So that's OK. Yeah, we'll continue the murder he wrote on the other side. So peace.
00:34:38
Speaker
Welcome back to episode six of a life in ruins podcast. Uh, we're continuing our discussion with Carlton about his travels around Europe. So Carlton, you, you dug at multiple sites over, uh, over the summer, right? Yes, I did, Connor. So while I was in, uh, Zavalia, um, the crew from Zappa region was like, Hey, we have another expedition going on. We're going to leave July 28th.
00:35:03
Speaker
would you like to come with us?" And I was like, huh, that sounds like a good idea. So I talked to the field director and he's like, I don't know when this project's going to end. It might be August 5th. And that would have left me 10 days on my own to try to figure out because I was flying out of Odessa the 15th to go to Croatia.
00:35:20
Speaker
So, they offered me to go to Zaporizha, and I was like, yeah, I'll go. Like, I'll go on another expedition. That sounds great. So, we left the 28th with the crew from Zaporizha. We went to Kiev for three days, the capital. I got to see a bunch of museums there. I did see some museums in Odessa as well. And I got basically a tour of Kiev. Simon, the guy that stabbed Leonidas, his parents live in Kiev, so we stayed at his parents' flat in Kiev, and he showed me around the city. They were very excited to have me try McDonald's in Ukraine.
00:35:51
Speaker
It was great. I had a fun time. Then we took a train to Zaporizha. In Zaporizha, it is actually the home of the Cossacks. It is the cultural center of Cossacks, Cossacks, whatever, in Ukraine. It has a very significant national city to them.
00:36:10
Speaker
There is an island in Zaporiz because it's right next to, it runs along a major river called Kordica Island. It is a nature preserve, and that's where the site's at. And it was an early Bronze Age site. I don't do bronze archeology, but it was like, I get to do cool shit. There's burials there. So we show up and immediately, we're with a new field director. His name is Olag. If you think archaeological circles in the US are small, archaeological circles in Ukraine are extremely small. He didn't know English. He knew German.
00:36:40
Speaker
I took two years in German in high school and I got a C average. That was fun. Didn't you take like a year of Russian in college? I took a semester Russian and the only reason I didn't fail was because I showed up every day and my professor was like, you tried your hardest, so I'm not going to fail you. Although you have a 25 in the class.
00:37:03
Speaker
And so I met a lot of good friends. I made some really good friends in Sevalia that I still talk to. And basically the culture there in the archaeological community is so small. The word spread across the country that there is an American archaeologist here to work.
00:37:26
Speaker
So I showed up to Zapporegia and like... He joined Gulag willingly. Yeah. And like they knew who I was. And because they had all their friends were posting media. Everyone was talking about me. So I show up.
00:37:40
Speaker
to the paparazzi. But at this site, it was different. It wasn't college students. It was high school students in the history program who were doing fieldwork. So now where I'm like with 14, 13 to 16 year olds now, and then the guys that came with me from Zavalia, but like the community in Ukraine is amazing because a lot of people, they clearly don't go into the field, but they stay with their field directors throughout their life and every summer they come back.
00:38:07
Speaker
So these camps are huge, and especially in Zapparizio with Oleg, he is so loved. Not to say that Dmitry from Zavalia wasn't loved, he's fucking awesome. Oleg's older, has been around longer. We had like camp moms, we had like camp babushkas. It was like a camp from the 19th century, I shit you not, because the camp is tense everywhere.
00:38:29
Speaker
And I got the fucking red carpet treatment. I got to sit at the chief's tent. I had meals brought to me. People were asking my opinion. I felt like an American liaison. And the entire time I'm in this country, I'm reading these books about the Zulu War from the Victorian era. And like my head, my ego just exploded, which everyone who knows me knows that that's the worst thing possible that my ego grew even bigger.
00:38:51
Speaker
because I'm sitting there, they're asking me questions about how to do the archaeology in American context, on being fed. And then it was great, even though Oleg really, I know Passable German, we could talk. What does a war in Africa have to do with that scenario? I was just thinking about, so, okay, bring that into context. I was just thinking about Victorian era. Please do.
00:39:08
Speaker
Being in a different country, thinking of colonial context, not like I was out there to colonize, but American liaisons, and just thinking back to the age of exploration, that I'm this solo American on my own in a different country, don't speak the language. It was just amazing. I just felt almost like Darwin.
00:39:29
Speaker
like learning things. It was just this awesome experience. And everyone wanted to know my opinion. I got to work on my own. They gave me my own site. I got to show them how to do it. First off, when I was leaving Zavalia, you sat around the campfire, and everyone says something nice about you. And they, of course, had to translate it for me. But I got names like God of Trowel,
00:39:49
Speaker
and the machine. And I know a lot of you are like, the machine, that sounds like the Park Kushner thing, but they said, I worked like a machines that are calling me the machine. It was just, I was fucking dying at the dualities between that because they don't do trowel excavation. They sometimes do, but their trowels aren't like our trials. Like I have a four by six. Their trials are like 10 by 10s. Like they're, they're basically shovels handheld. It's nuts.
00:40:11
Speaker
So yeah, my ego believing there was already massive. And I show up to this site and I'm getting like my meals brought to me. I'm taking, being on tours all over the place because Olag is a archeologist out of the museum there. And he's so excited to have me and to like show me all this stuff for going to museums and getting personal tours. I go to this Cossack Museum and they had all this underwater archeology, these boats there.
00:40:36
Speaker
And I'm in there getting this tour, and then the director shows up, and then he doesn't know English, but he talks to Simon. Simon was my fucking boy this entire time. So Simon's listening to this. You're my fucking man. He was my translator, everything. And he made sure I was taken care of. He's great. I miss him. He runs the New Archaeology Instagram, which has been on our Instagram talking. He's like, hey, they want to give you a private tour of this museum. And I'm like, sweet. And so I'm getting this private tour of this museum and how they're doing the underwater archaeology.
00:41:06
Speaker
and how they are keeping the wood intact. And I'm kind of like, why, why are they doing this? And then like, they point out, ask them, like, how come you guys give me such this tour? They point up and there's a banner with the American flag on it. And I'm like, what is going on? And they're like, the American consulate in Kiev funds all of this restoration.
00:41:29
Speaker
I was like, oh, sweet. Basically, the thing was, your tax money is paying for this, so I figured I could give you a private tour. I was like, all right, sweet. I guess, man. But it was really cool. I had a really fun experience. It was on this beautiful island. I was there for 10 days.
00:41:49
Speaker
I met so many wonderful people out there, and just to talk about, because they do historical archaeology in this context of finding the things, and we as American anthropologists do it in the context of human behavior, it was a different way of looking at archaeology. Different schools of thought. Yeah. Different schools of thought. So they let me excavate in an American way, and so I was exposing the whole floor with the artifacts, taking photos where they do 20 centimeter vertical levels, and if they find something, they leave it intact, and they dig around it. So it looks like a bunch of columns.
00:42:16
Speaker
rather than floors. And so we were, we were having these discussions of the difference between the two and like the different information you can get these things. So it was really amazing. And like, I, I didn't show up to be a Dick. Like I literally did their way for the first two weeks first. And, and I just did it. I was like, I'm just having a fun time being here and learning. And then when they started asking me, like, how would you do this? That's when I would, I came up, so I didn't show up like you guys are so fucking backwards. Let's do it this way. Let's do it my way. I literally did it their way. And when they got comfortable and saw that I was like not an idiot,
00:42:47
Speaker
that they were asking me like, what are the differences? And then once they saw my work with the trials, they asked me to do more of it, and then to show them. And they asked me to come back, both sites. The first archeologist, Dimitri, and then the Polish director, Macie, threatened to break my legs, so I wouldn't go to Zaperizia. And then I was in Zaperizia, Oleg threatened, he kept asking for my passport.
00:43:14
Speaker
And I was like, why did you want my passport? And he's like, oh, I'm going to throw it in the river so you can't leave. And I was just like, I want to go home. That's never a good thing to be asked. Yeah. Yeah. So they actually want me to come back.
00:43:27
Speaker
They really want me to come back. And they said, we would like you to bring more Americans, like a team of five. Bring more Americans. We'll give you your own units. Come work with us. We really want you to come back. And while I was in Zaporizha, I was asked to join the oldest non-government organization in Ukraine. And it's an archaeological organization called NASH.
00:43:46
Speaker
It is the new archaeological school, and I am now a research associate with Ukrainian archaeology. One thing I learned there, which broke my heart, is that other archaeologists from other countries, they come and they basically just use the Ukrainians for their own benefit. But I came to collaborate. I wanted to make new relationships. I wanted to help. I wanted to help bring money.
00:44:07
Speaker
to work with these guys, because they're good archaeologists. It's just the state of their country, and it just sucks. And then after Zaporizha, I went to Odessa for three days, met up with my friends who weren't able to go. It's got another private tour of a museum, and I had an amazing time in Ukraine, and I'm going to go back next summer.
00:44:27
Speaker
That's the plan. I probably won't be there for four and a half weeks again. That was a long time to be in a country where you don't understand what anyone is saying. You went to Croatia too, right at the end. I did. And that was, and then I won't go into Croatia, but at Hell Gap last year where I was a field director, I had a Croatian student, Eddie Grabar, fucking love Eddie. He listens to our podcast, Eddie, what up?
00:44:53
Speaker
He wanted me to come to Croatia and I told him I would. So when I was doing my stuff in Ukraine, I was like, Hey man, I'll come to Croatia. And he's like, I am by field work in Cyprus and then field work in Jerusalem. But August 15th, I will be back home. Come to me. And so August 15th, I flew to him and he took me on a nine day tour of Ukraine or Croatia. We went to all these museums. It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. I had such a fun time. It was like my own little vacation before I came home. Came home two days ago. We're recording this August 26th. I got home August 24th.
00:45:24
Speaker
You're like 10 monsters in. Yeah, we're down in coffee. And today was my first day of class. So I was I fell asleep in class today, hit my head on the desk and I was that apologize profusely because I was like, my body thinks it's 10 o'clock. So, yeah, do you guys like just have questions? I know there was a lot for all of our listeners, but I mean, what questions do you have? Cool. Moving on. I'm just kidding.
00:45:54
Speaker
Well, there's like a huge, there's a, there's a legacy of at the university of Wyoming with, with like Ukraine, Croatia. So there's kind of like a relationship that's been building for quite a bit of time. I know Dr. Jim Herne has worked in Croatia, you know, on, on, you know, biological anthropology, more so. He does Neanderthal excavations in Croatia.
00:46:20
Speaker
Yeah, so it's cool. I mean, I know a lot of people at the University of Wyoming end up collaborating with these Eastern Europe folks. It's awesome to keep it going, man. Yeah, I got calls back from Croatia, Poland, and Ukraine. And the woman who is my point of contact, or the scientist, sorry, my point of contact in Ukraine, I didn't even meet her. I'm not even sure the relationship that Marcel had with her.
00:46:43
Speaker
Yeah. So she's the one that hooked me up with this. I never met her and people there didn't really know her. The Polish wanted me to spend like $30 a day just to join them. And I said, go fuck themselves. And I was originally going to Croatia at first, but the project fell through.
00:46:58
Speaker
So I went to Ukraine, and I'm so glad I did. I've sent pictures. They bought me a Ukrainian flag, and they all wrote their signatures and well wishes on it. And that thing is full of signatures. And I miss them, and everyone has been talking to me. I made some really good friends over there. I mean, shit, I don't even speak the language, and they asked me to join a research team. And they want me to come back with more Americans. And David, you're coming. Connor, I want you to come. Tell my boss to give me two months off, and I should read the girl.
00:47:28
Speaker
I mean, I'm probably just going to go back for two weeks. Hey, man, I'll go to Poland. I'll go to Russia. I'll go to Ukraine. I'll go anywhere. We might be going to Moldova. We're still looking. I will keep this up. And I've had people on our Instagram hit us up who follow us and follow the ridiculous Instagram that I post on our podcast and hit me up privately. Like, how do I join? Like, how did you do this? So I'm taking applications. You want to come? You want to be part of Carlton's Fab Five in Ukraine?
00:47:56
Speaker
Uh, you, you let me know and you send me, uh, you send me a resume cause I gotta, I gotta look good. I'm the, I'm the trial God. Like I have, I have expectations. I need my trial demigods with me. He'll send you a pink bro tank and everything. Yeah, my face will be on it. It's pink with cyan blue lettering and trim it. We're going to look hot. We're going to look fresh. Have you seen my, my dual wheeled trial technique? Shut up. Oh.
00:48:26
Speaker
I've seen it. You're going to be like, no, I have it. And I was going to be like, well, it's not efficient, but it's cool. And then you just shit on it anyway. All right. So you said that I'm going to ask you just a chronology thing. So the first site you went to is neolithic. New stone age. That's what it means. New stone age. And that basically means pottery is a thing. That is the introduction of pottery and agriculture. So you have the paleolithic.
00:48:55
Speaker
And then you have the Neolithic. So basically you go from stone tools, hunter-gatherers, Neolithic is representative of agriculture and pottery. People are being sedentary.
00:49:06
Speaker
Do you notice any similarities from what you study to what you saw out there? Oh, dude, fuck yes. It was crazy. We were looking at these pit houses and I'm like, these are fucking familiar. The pottery is more intricate. It's the same shape pretty much. The designs are different, but generally the shapes are pretty similar. The house, the settlement patterns and the housing structures are extremely similar to what I look at the central plain tradition.
00:49:31
Speaker
The only major difference is storage, where the LBK cultures have these giant square storage pits that have cooked clay walls and floors where Central Plains tradition houses their pits are bell-shaped and they're circular around the house.
00:49:49
Speaker
Subsistence strategies, settlement patterns, and material culture is rather similar. By the way, European lithic technology is bullshit. Those were the ugliest fucking points I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, they had a lot of weird blade tech. They just took the cheap route.
00:50:06
Speaker
Whereas American people did their own- That was one of the things that the Ukrainians always talk to me about is like, because I got all these private tours and museums and showing these collections and I'm like looking at blade cores and I'm like, holy shit, this is awesome. Yeah, it's a blade core. I'm like, we don't have this technology in the Americas. I've only seen this in pictures and heard about it.
00:50:21
Speaker
So like, just to go there and see a lot of this stuff, especially when I was in Croatia looking at Roman sites, even the same thing with Odessa was a Greek colony to see like Greek artifacts when I was at the museums. It was amazing. I mean, David, you've been to Rome. I imagine you had the same impression being there. Yeah, it's nuts. There's just so much cool stuff everywhere. And it's just like, it's not what we see here, like in a basic shovel test, you know? So it made them happy that I was very happy to see all this stuff.
00:50:51
Speaker
Yeah. Because I did not, I didn't take it for granted. I mean, like some of those photos I took, like the first pottery I found out there, which ended up turning out to be pottery that was non-local and actually from Romania. And it was earlier than it should have been for where we were, for the time that we were looking at. First thing I found, and I'm just glowing with excitement.
00:51:11
Speaker
Did you see other kinds of tumors out there? And do you have any radio? No, we didn't, we didn't screen the dirt. We basically just dug it out. So anything small really wasn't found. So we didn't find a lot of Flint. Um, this was mostly just pottery and, um, uh, cow bones.
00:51:28
Speaker
is what we found because they were pastoralists, these LBK sites. That was another major difference between CPT and LBK was, you know, they had domesticated cows. LBK, is that linear banquering? Yes, it is. You're going to have to explain that to people because you're just tossing out lingo because you're so damn cool. I did earlier, but I will do it again. It is a archeological culture in Europe that migrated out of Anatolia, I believe, so the Middle East into Europe.
00:51:55
Speaker
And what was cool was that this site in Ukraine looked exactly the same as LBK sites in Germany. Interesting. It was nuts. And so there's part of this, Maciej, the Polish guy, he was the director, but there is a overarching director who's in charge of this entire project through Southern and Eastern Europe looking at LBK, who's funding all this out of Germany. I have his card here.
00:52:21
Speaker
He's asking the bigger questions about it. Dr. Thomas Saleh. Coolest guy. He loved me because I called him boss and like, yes sir, no sir. He loved me and he also wanted me to come back. He's the dude who's funding all this. He's in charge of all these LBK projects throughout the area, throughout basically Europe.
00:52:42
Speaker
I met a lot of archaeologists. I had an amazing summer. Part of the summer was a lot of soul searching just to be on my own, to take care of myself, to go do something different. I forest scummed my way through Eastern and Southern Europe. I don't know how else to explain it. There should have been more planning involved. There wasn't because I'm an idiot.
00:53:01
Speaker
And I kind of like, the first week I was in Ukraine, there was a day I had like a mental breakdown, like a panic attack. I was like, holy shit, what did I get myself into? I was like, I'm literally in fucking Ukraine and I have no game plan for how I get back to Odessa. And I basically just like force-gumped my trip and just, I just got opportunities presented to me and I just took them and it ended up working.
00:53:20
Speaker
I don't know if that was just a luck of the dice. And if I did that again, you'd find my you'd hear my body and my story on CNN about American tourists found dead in a river. I'm not going to do that again. But I had the experience I want. I met some great friends, did some great archaeology, and I'm going back. If you guys want to come, you let me know. I'll go with. Yeah, you got to go, dude. You're your family's from Odessa. You got to got to go back to the homeland. All right.
00:53:49
Speaker
Because this is this podcast is called a life in ruins. Would you would you do it again? Would you live your summer in ruins like that again? Are you planning on it, Carlton? Absolutely. Oh, yeah, dude. Yeah, we're doing it. So doing Field Lynch Field School part two next summer and then going back to Europe. I only spent four hundred dollars total in Ukraine for four and a half weeks. So it's cheap. Come with me. We'll make it a trip.
00:54:17
Speaker
Sounds good. Well, I guess that wraps up our episode, and in eight to nine months, we'll find out if Carlton has any radioactive children. We'll see you guys next week. Next month. Jesus. All right. Thank you for that, everybody. We are out for episode six.
00:54:47
Speaker
Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life and ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com.
00:54:57
Speaker
And remember, make sure to bring your archaeologists in from the cold and feed them beer. All right, boys, what do you call a phallic-shaped boulder left over from a glacier? Oh, Jesus. I wasn't expecting anything of the sword. Let me ask you about this one, a phallic-shaped what? I'm a phallic-shaped boulder coming out of an iceberg. Leftover from a glacier. Leftover from a glacier. I'm actually excited to hear the answer for this one. Yeah, literally. For like once. I'm actually like, this is, I'm ready. I'm actually stumped. Can you give me a hint?
00:55:28
Speaker
No, fuck you. Doesn't involve a duck. No, no, not. It's called an erotic. Oh, that was good. No, I like that. Yeah, I like it. I like it. No, that was good. No, no, no. Yeah, you can stay. I'm out. I'm out.
00:55:47
Speaker
Glacier erratics are, uh, glacial erratics are objects and like rocks that are usually left by moving glaciers that are like kind of an anachronistic in their spot, like where they're, where they're left. That's what that joke was. That was good. That was a good joke. That was a good one. Thanks, David.
00:56:16
Speaker
This show is produced by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle, in Reno, Nevada, at the Reno Collective. 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.