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Public Archaeology in Utah feat. Erin Haycock - Ep 27
49 Plays3 years ago
In this episode, we chat with public archaeologists, Erin Haycock! We virtually sit down and chat about her research interests, venture into her Masters program in Utah, and what we can do to utilize and bring awareness to public and community archaeology.
Recorded: 03/15/2021
Links
- http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS4I6_qDgnsDFbehcnkCYiQ/videos
- Utah Cultural Site Stewardship website
- SHPO public archaeology website
- Digging It Spotify Playlist:
- CD-ROM game Alyssa mentions: https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-cluefinders-4th-grade-adventures-the-puzzle-of-the-pyramid
Contact
- Show
- Twitter: @idigitpodcast
- Email: [email protected]
- Alyssa
- Instagram: aal.archaeology
- Twitter: Lyssakemi
- Michaela
- Instagram: mm_digitalized
- Twitter: m_mauriello
Affiliates
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to the iDicket Podcast, a podcast where we talk about the student perspective of navigating the world of archaeology and anthropology. I'm your host, Michaela. And I'm your host, Alyssa.
00:00:23
Speaker
And welcome to today's episode. We have a special guest here with us, Erin. She is in grad school for her master's and working for the Utah State Historic Preservation Office. Hello, Erin. Welcome to the podcast. How are we doing today? Just fantastic. So I have a question right off the bat.
Discovering the Podcast and Career Focus
00:00:46
Speaker
How did you find our survey so we can figure out where's working?
00:00:53
Speaker
I have several social medias. I do a lot of social media at work. And so I actually follow a couple of different podcasts on the archaeology podcast network and your survey came up and I was like, sure, why not? Oh, yay. That's awesome. Well, we are super happy to have you. Alright, Erin, so tell us a little bit about what you're doing right now in your master's degree.
00:01:14
Speaker
Um, so I actually haven't started it yet. I'll be starting it in the fall university. Congrats. Thank you. I'm super excited. So what do you plan on setting? What are you interested in? Um, so the degree is for cultural resource management and archeology. Um, so it'll be mostly focused on, you know, CRM practices, but with that, I'm actually going to be kind of focusing more on the public aspect of archeology.
00:01:42
Speaker
So I'll be trying to do outreach for the school's museum and I'll continue to be doing outreach for my job at SHPO. So I'm kind of really trying to get a good handle on, you know, what cultural resource management entails and kind of what you need in government jobs, federal or state wise. So I can hopefully eventually get permanent jobs at one of those places so I can do public archeology.
00:02:11
Speaker
Well, best of luck to you. We know the job market's hard out there. Yeah, yeah. You'll be thrown into the masters for a bit, so you don't have to worry about it for a little. With your experience with the SHPO, you're good to go. You're going to be a shoo-in. Well, hopefully, luckily. I'll be able to stay on with the SHPO office while I'm doing grad school. I'll continue to be able to have experience
00:02:39
Speaker
as I'm in my master's, which I find myself very lucky that I still even have a job in these trying times. I feel that.
Role and Contributions at SHPO
00:02:50
Speaker
Definitely. Yeah, that's what's nice about that kind of work because it's kind of part time on call, right? Is that how yours is also? So it's I'm technically a time limited employee, which means I'm not permanent. They can kind of get rid of me whenever they want.
00:03:07
Speaker
Just living life on the edge, you know? Life on the edge. I do a lot of what typical interns do. I kind of just pick up whatever any of my co-workers need. So right now, we're actually getting ready to launch the Utah Cultural Site Stewardship Program. So I've been, for months now, we've been making manuals and promotional material to get this program out there so that the general public in Utah knows that
00:03:34
Speaker
There's opportunities to steward archaeological sites in Utah. That sounds super exciting. It does. It's very cool. There was some state programs before that weren't run by the state. There was one by a Friends of Cedar Mesa, which is down in San Juan County, which is in the southeastern corner of Utah. What SHPO is trying to do is kind of get everyone on the same page as far as stewardship goes so that
00:04:03
Speaker
It's one good collective organized system of stewarding. So we've pulled from everyone that has a stewardship program just so we can get it running smoothly. And our first training is actually later this month, actually Saturday. So we're getting there. Oh my God, yeah. I'm very excited. It's been really fun to see the program literally be built from the ground up. I started writing the manual.
00:04:33
Speaker
like last September, and it's finally getting used. So I'm super excited. A little baby manual now, an actual. A little baby manual. Is that all going to be online this weekend? Yeah, so it's all going to be virtual this weekend. We have a couple of different trainings set up. So we have people who've never done site stewardship before getting trained. So they kind of know what stewardship is, what it entails,
00:05:02
Speaker
what's gonna be affected by it. And then later we'll have one for stewards that are coming from other programs where they kind of already know what they're doing. We're just introducing them to the nuances of our program. How long have you been working with this company for? So I started working for SHPO in December of 2019. Okay, so you've been there for a little bit. Yeah, yeah, I actually,
00:05:30
Speaker
sort of, I started getting paid to work at SHPO in 2019, December. But I actually started in August of 2019 as an unpaid internship through my school to get some extra credits for my undergrad degree that I finished in 2019. So they hired me on like two weeks before I graduated.
00:05:53
Speaker
I've been with them ever since and I love it. That's awesome. Be even better if you had full-time though. Be even better if I had full-time though. Come on, Chippo. We're trying. I'm trying. What did you do for your undergrad degree then? I got just a bachelor's of anthropology from Utah State University. I did it in three years.
00:06:22
Speaker
Wow. That's so fast.
Early Interests and Influences in Archaeology
00:06:24
Speaker
Busting for it. It was actually really interesting, though, because when I first started, I didn't realize that you could just say you were doing a bachelor's, I thought you had to sign up for your showsuits first, and ended up getting sent to a regional campus instead of the main campus. And it was down in that San Juan County I mentioned before in the southeastern corner of Utah, which is where there's huge, just
00:06:50
Speaker
massive amounts of archaeological sites. Like, I think there's over 40,000 documented sites just in that region right now. So it was actually my first introduction to Utah archaeology specifically, before that I'd kind of been doing Mesoamerican, South American archaeology. So I ended up down there for six months. None of my classes were down there.
00:07:19
Speaker
none of the professors would come there. It was six months of why am I here, but I got to see so many different archaeological sites. I guess it was a happy little mistake since you had to experience all the archaeology there. I hadn't really ever thought of doing archaeology in Utah until then, because for some reason,
00:07:42
Speaker
Despite the fact that I'd wanted to be an archaeologist my whole life, I had no idea the kind of archaeology we had in Utah. Yeah. Not a clue. Writing your backyard. Yeah, quite literally. Literally. So to see these, it's all mostly ancestral Puebloan sites, like cave towers, hove and wheat, just these gorgeous structures, the cliff dwellings that you always see very similar to Mesa Verde.
00:08:12
Speaker
I just fell in love with it. I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't know this was here. I didn't know that we had this here. And so when I transferred to the main campus, which is in Northern Utah, I just went all in and now I'm an archaeologist in Utah. It's wild. What was like your main interest in archaeology before everything? Like did it start in childhood or?
00:08:35
Speaker
I was like, yeah. So one of the earliest things I can even remember is reading one of those like, super fancy Egyptology books. Yeah, it's like a shiny cover. And you open it up and add the like parts of the sarcophagus attached to the pages as you flipped it would like open. I'm having flashbacks.
00:09:02
Speaker
So like, that's one of the earliest things I can remember. And so, like, as long as I can even process, I've wanted to do archaeology. And you know, when you're a kid, you say, Yeah, I want to be an archaeologist, everyone goes, Oh, that's nice. That's, that's great. That's a great dream. So I just, I just kind of with it, you know, most people kind of
00:09:30
Speaker
flip flop and go back and forth between they want to do when they're growing up and I just never did I was always archaeology. So when I got into high school, being in band, and I did that, like heavily I was in every band you could possibly be in. So a lot of people were surprised when I went into archaeology instead of music, but it's it's just the only thing I've ever wanted to do and I can't picture doing anything else. So I can't even
00:09:55
Speaker
like pinpoint how it started. It's just something I've always wanted to do. I've gotten like a sense with archaeologists. It's like either a little bit later, like in your life, like after high school, or it's childhood. It's just like, yeah, I just I just knew always wanted to always dig in dirt. Dirt's my first sandbox.
00:10:19
Speaker
reading this book or watching this documentary on TV. It's just like, oh my God. I wanted to be a lawyer when I was a kid. My mom was like, you're really good at arguing. You should be a lawyer when I was a child. Sometimes you have to be really good at arguing and archeology. Yeah. Very true. Especially in academia. Yeah.
00:10:44
Speaker
I think I'm in the right place. Cracks and echoes. Let's go. Let's get to critical analysis. Yes. Well, that's cute. That's super cool. I totally remember having similar books growing up too. Just like Nat Geo stuff and
00:11:04
Speaker
I love the ones, it was like that Egyptology book and you can take out like little pages and it had like little envelopes and pull out stuff. And it was just like this giant book and just so many extra little tidbits in it that made it very immersive. And I want more of those. I should grab some, put them in my book collection.
00:11:25
Speaker
Every time I go to a bookstore, I see those and I was like, I should get one. You should. Yes. See if you recognize anything from the past. Literally. From the past. I was going to say, I'm having a strong flashback to this old archaeology computer game.
00:11:47
Speaker
Um, that was based in like ancient Egypt and you had to like do different puzzles, like on the sarcophagus to like open trap doors and like lead you to the next puzzle. And did you ever play something like that? Or is that just like the, that might be in my dreams. Did I dream this game? I have a vague recollection of one of those like computer games that you would play in grade school helped you learn like math. So you had to like,
00:12:17
Speaker
look at the quote-unquote hieroglyphics that was actually this math and do those. I played that to the point that I could finish it in like 30 minutes. Was it one of those like jumpstart games? Yeah, I think so. Wow, jumpstart. That just unlocked. I'll link it in the description. That unlocked so many weird emotions. I know.
00:12:42
Speaker
The first game is to teach kids how to do things. And now it's the entire internet teaching kids how to do things. It's crazy. It is us, the kids. Yes. Wow. Wow. Crazy. So in undergrad, you said you, wait, did you focus on, um, uh, like Utah? No, wait, Mesoamerican. Okay. So you were, you were studying Mesoamerican in undergrad then?
Studies and Shifts in Archaeological Interests
00:13:10
Speaker
Yeah, so at Utah State, they mostly do Utah archaeology or Great Basin American Southwest archaeology, because that's where we're obviously located. So in my own kind of personal study, I was looking to Mesoamerican and South American, because it's always fascinated me. I love it. But because all of my coursework was around the Great Basin American Southwest, that's what I was getting inundated with.
00:13:40
Speaker
And at the time I was like, you know, this isn't what I want, but I got to do something. So I, I always wish I could go back and maybe pay a little bit more attention because now I'm, you know, doing Utah archeology and I love Utah archeology and great base in archeology. And I wonder how much I've missed in those first, you know, couple courses when I was like, Oh, this isn't what I want.
00:14:07
Speaker
You're too focused on what you didn't have. Yeah. Yeah. And then later into my undergrad, I branched into some of the more anthropology focused courses. Um, cause I obviously got my undergrad through the, um, archeology track. I took a peoples of Latin America course and it was one of the best courses I'd had. It was so great to see the like evolution, I guess, in study from the distant past to
00:14:36
Speaker
modern people and how archaeological principles could be applied to modern aspects of our world and studying modern people. So that was really cool to see. And it kind of got me that like, I remember when I was doing, you know, South American Mesoamerican studying before my whole mind changed.
00:15:00
Speaker
back when I was an ignorant freshman. A wee little bab, just a wee bab. I mean, you could still try to compare and contrast Utah public, not public archeology, Utah archeology with South America, just with the indigenous people. There's a lot of overlap. There really is, we see trade networks.
00:15:28
Speaker
that go down into Mexico from the American Southwest. So we have, I mean, we find macaw feathers, which are obviously not native to Utah. There's chocolate drinking cups. So there's all these signs and indications and evidence that there were at least trade routes, if not direct contact with what we would now call Mexico, South America. At the time, obviously, there's not those kind of borders.
00:15:58
Speaker
So there's there's a lot of overlap, especially in, again, southeastern Utah, if you're noticing a trend. So it's it's not out of the realm of study at the same time, but it's definitely not the focus anymore, for me, at least, obviously. So it's been it's been interesting to kind of have my own personal study background of Mesoamerica, South America, and see
00:16:24
Speaker
just how closely related it really is to Utah archaeology. I need to get me a chocolate drinking cup. I was gonna say how it must be cool to be able to use that past experience and research that you were doing and to what you're currently doing. So it's not like
00:16:43
Speaker
Any time was wasted, but I totally see it's like, oh, I kind of wish I paid more attention in those courses. So then all the connections would be even greater. Yeah, I remember one specific class I was taking and we were talking about kind of how corn made its way to the more the northern reaches in the United States and how it obviously comes from South America and Mexico.
00:17:12
Speaker
And my professor asked the question, why do corn kernels matter? Like, why did the amount of corn rows matter on corn? And at the time, like I said, I wasn't really paying as much attention as I probably should have been. And I thought he meant like the actual rows that corn was planted in.
00:17:35
Speaker
I was like, I honestly don't know. No. And it was in that moment that I was like, I should pay more attention because this is actually really interesting. My own state actually has really cool archaeology and I should pay more attention. I can remember that vividly as like the moment I was like, hey, I actually find Utah archaeology really, really cool. Maybe I should focus on corn.
00:18:04
Speaker
It all started with corn. It all started with corn. I was eating this corn on the cob, and I was just like, yes, archaeology. Why? When? Where? That would have been cool if you're learning about it in class while you're eating it. It would be this whole immersive experience all in one. It's this whole grounded educational experience. Exactly.
00:18:33
Speaker
Or it's like some museums have like little tasting sections. It's like, oh, this is how this would taste like. There's in England, in York, which is where Alyssa and I both got our masters, there was this York chocolate story. And it kind of like put you back into the past and through
00:18:54
Speaker
native people making cocoa and all this stuff. And you were able to like sip on this chocolate drink that they made at the chocolate factory. And so it was just like this whole like, this is the chocolate that came from the ancestors like thousands of years ago. I mean, it wasn't, it was just made at the factory and all this natural, not natural, this current stuff. And so it's just like, oh, nice, the past. It's like, I'm there. It's like, I'm there. And there's like, um,
00:19:22
Speaker
180 screen that was like putting you into I think it was in Mexico. And it was just like, oh, this is how like it was jungle. Here it is. And it was it was funny. It was great. Highly recommend chocolate, corn, anything chocolate related, right? Maybe not chocolate or I mean, chocolate corn, chocolate popcorn. Yeah.
00:19:47
Speaker
I was going to say not chocolate and corn, but no, there's a way. There's a variation on corn. Yeah. Anyway. We can talk about chocolate and corn for hours. I actually just met someone who wants to get a corn tattoo.
00:20:06
Speaker
Oh, that could be a good way to commemorate your archaeological experience. Heck yeah. Corn tattoos. I mean, it would toss up the traditional trowel tattoos that everyone's doing. Exactly. This one actually has meaning. Corn. Corn. And you could say it's corny too. Oh my god. I'll let you leave this call. Please.
00:20:34
Speaker
The exit button's right there. It's so corny. It's good. Puns, I don't know, puns make the world go round. They do. It's true. I have a whole playlist for excavation that is just
00:20:52
Speaker
I have one literally just called The Dirt. Oh my gosh. You have to share this with us. It's on Spotify. You can find it easily. Just called digging it. I found it. I found it. The dirt, the cave, dirt on my boots, the shovel, window, dirty imbecile, grave closed, finger to the bone, broken bones, grave, bury me face down, grit, sweat, and love.
00:21:20
Speaker
Dig your roots, shovels and dirt, dig a little deeper. It just keeps going. We will post all of Erin's photos with like a sound clip from her playlist. It's a highly curated point. This is beautiful. This is so detailed. Four man's gold. What a mood. I want to expand and close this. I'm following this.
00:21:48
Speaker
I had to it all the time. So I never knew that I needed this in my life. And now that I have it, I can never live without it. It's honestly, it's what got me through field school. I got my ticket. You have the Lion King song on it.
00:22:09
Speaker
Which one? I don't. I'm adding it right now. Love it. Here's my contribution. It keeps on giving. And some of them you got to listen to get why I put them on there. Because like the one of the later ones on the railroad and the first the first line is, give me a shovel and I'll give you a hole.
00:22:40
Speaker
So I guarantee all of them have something, something to do with excavation somehow. I believe it. I was never doubting this. I'm totally going to listen to this, like the next, like on my commute to work or when I'm in the field and I can listen to something. So it'll be in my ear holes soon. Now we got to put some like corn songs on there too. Well, I have the I have like rattlesnake shake.
00:23:09
Speaker
because we deal with rattlesnakes out here all the time. I have to find a good spot on the court now. Kicks and nettle. We talked a little bit about some of your goals for the future. Would you like to expand more on that a little bit? Sure.
Educational Goals and Site Preservation
00:23:33
Speaker
Obviously, I'm really invested in public archaeology right now.
00:23:38
Speaker
definitely not the hill I thought I'd die on, but here we are. I would just, in doing my work for SHPO, I realized that not only is there just a lack of education on archaeology in general, but there's really so much we can do with it. There's so many aspects and concepts in archaeology that we could be teaching to K through 12 students to get them
00:24:06
Speaker
you know, involved and invested in archaeology from a young age. So I would really like, and I'm kind of doing this with my work right now, but to create curriculum that teachers can use to not only teach the curriculum that the state requires, and the, what do they call it, the standardized, you know, testing or whatever, but then use it archaeology because I mean, everyone thinks archaeology is cool. So
00:24:34
Speaker
I've started making lesson plans. And what I'm working on right now is there's a cave in Utah called Spotten Cave. And it looks like it's going to be or is the longest occupied cave in Utah or rock shelter in Utah. So it's been utilized for thousands of years. And so I'm using the stratigraphy from the cave to
00:25:02
Speaker
teach the law of superstition, the law of horizontality, stratigraphy to seventh and eighth graders. They get to learn a little bit of archaeology, but then they still get that necessary science core aspect. Wow. I love that. I really love the idea of it. I think we could do so much with it and really get archaeology into a general educational environment because
00:25:33
Speaker
Like we kind of talked about earlier, I've lived in Utah my whole life and I had no idea about the archaeology we had here, not even in Inkling. And I'd really like to change that because as an archaeologist, so much of our data comes from the material culture and these sites, but they're, you know, they're getting destroyed and they're going away because we're loving them to death. I mean, truly the, there's, there's a lot of public sites that people can go to in Utah.
00:26:02
Speaker
And they get a lot of visitation because they're super cool. They're, I mean, cliff dwellings, rock art, rock imagery, they're incredible. And so they get a lot of visitation, but a lot of people don't realize that some of their actions and behaviors can affect the integrity of these sites. So, you know, and you see it a lot with rock imagery, people will carve their names by it or try to repack the images,
00:26:31
Speaker
And for a lot of people, it's not out of a malicious intent, per se. They just want to have their mark there, too. They want to be involved. They want to be a part of this record, which I think is a very human reaction. But because they didn't get an education or any sort of information on how to treat and be around archaeological sites, they unintentionally damaged them.
00:27:00
Speaker
And so many studies have shown that the earlier you can get people invested in something like archaeology, then you're going to have a greater rate of change. So if we can get school kids to care and continually get school aged kids to care, they'll continue to care as they grow into adults and start visiting these sites. So in theory, we would see a decrease in vandalism and
00:27:27
Speaker
unintentionally destructive behaviors at archaeological sites. And so that's really what I guess the end goal for me is, is to make it so everyone has an opportunity to learn about archaeology and the sites and how to visit them and what behaviors are going to cause damage and what we can gain from sites and why we need things to be left where they are. You know, out here, we get a lot of projectile points. And they're cool. I mean, everyone
00:27:57
Speaker
Everyone thinks projectile points are cool, you know, the little the arrowheads made out of obsidian. They're neat. They're really, really cool. And so people will pick them up, because they're interesting. But once you do that, obviously, we lose all context for that particular artifact. And there's not a whole lot an archaeologist can gain from that artifact anymore. You know, especially in in Utah, in the United States, it's a little different everywhere else, obviously.
00:28:26
Speaker
But the majority of the people on the landscape are not the descendants of the people that created those artifacts. So there's this extra layer going on with archaeology here that it's really kind of a fine line to navigate because it's a whole thing around respect and for descendant communities and the tribes out here.
00:28:55
Speaker
It could be difficult as, you know, a white woman being an archaeologist to explain to people that, one, you know, it's a thing about respect. It's not yours. It's not mine either. One thing we're kind of struggling with, and I think it's just, you know, it's getting better, but it's kind of just a product of the times, I suppose, is we're really trying to get more of these descendant voices into archaeology.
00:29:24
Speaker
For so long, it's been very white. And in the earlier days of archaeology, it was predominantly men. So we're starting to see this narrative evolve to include the voices of the people that actually come from these cultures and heritages. And we're getting more of women's narrative in archaeology.
00:29:50
Speaker
And I think that's because we're starting to see more of the education find its way into schools. More people are learning about it and realizing that, you know, we can only do so much. At one point, the public has to be involved to protect these sites because unfortunately, there's not enough archaeologists to patrol these sites, if you will.
00:30:15
Speaker
there's over 100,000 documented sites in Utah. There's not that many archaeologists in Utah. That's more than five. So that's kind of why I got so involved with the stewardship program that we're making, because I want the general public to know what we have and to be able to appreciate it. And
00:30:41
Speaker
to make sure that these sites are still around to be appreciated, the public has to get involved. That's the only way we can keep eyes on these sites, for lack of a better term. So the stewardship program, I think, will be really amazing, because a general member of the public can sign up, and they'll get assigned a site. And it'll be their site. They'll have some sort of ownership over it, I guess you could say.
00:31:08
Speaker
where it's, you know, it's theirs to go and monitor and help protect. And it helps archaeologists because, you know, we get enough people that the sites can be monitored more frequently than what we could do just by ourselves. And then the public gets involved and they get to help. And it kind of comes back into the idea that, you know, you're not going to do something that the majority of the people around you are frowning on.
00:31:38
Speaker
So the more people we get involved, the less vandalism will have, the less destruction, the less looting. And it also offers, you know, an opportunity for people who don't know the archaeology in Utah to get a taste of it and to see, you know, this is how you visit a site. This is why you leave artifacts where they are. And, you know, just kind of the protocols of visiting sites, there's a
00:32:03
Speaker
There's an organization called Tread Lightly, and I'm sure they're in other states, but obviously I kind of only know what they do in Utah right now. But they have a respect and protect campaign, which is basically getting imagery and verbiage out to show people, you know, maybe don't walk on the structural walls or don't take pottery, you know, respect and protect our cultural resources. And I just really think that involving and including archaeology
00:32:33
Speaker
in a K through 12 education setting is really going to help the general public understand not only what archeology is and what archeologists do, but why there's certain behaviors at archeological sites that we shouldn't do and shouldn't be done. So that's, I mean, that's really like my end all be all is I just want more people to know. They don't need to be archeologists if they want to. That's great. That's fantastic.
00:33:03
Speaker
But I think everyone benefits when we understand the landscape we're on. And to do that, we need archaeology.
00:33:17
Speaker
It's like when you're in elementary school, junior high, high school, just learning throughout your adolescence, you're told about these historic sites that existed thousands and thousands of years ago, so they just don't exist anymore, type of thinking, and then they just immediately go to Europe.
00:33:38
Speaker
When you're talking about that, it's just you're able to even visualize being taught this in school. Just like, oh, these sites existed so long ago. They don't really matter anymore. They don't exist. But they do. They're in your backyard. They're on your doorstep. They're everywhere. Still in use today, right? They're still in use. Indigenous communities. Exactly. And it's just that narrative that's being said that
00:34:03
Speaker
is one of maybe privilege and just ignoring facts and what's around you and a race in history as well.
00:34:14
Speaker
And yeah, like that stewardship, amazing. And in the education part and having people learn and respect the land and everything that's on the land is something amazing. I have a sibling who would go to Joshua Tree and found an arrowhead and he's like, I'm gonna take this with me. He didn't, like this is like later on when he's telling me this and then he's like leaving with it and then he gets this like dread feeling and he's like, I'm gonna put it back. So he puts it back.
00:34:42
Speaker
And after he told me that, I'm like, dude, you don't, you don't just take things like that. And then he tried to like argue with me. I was like, well, why not just there? And I'm like, dude. And then he's like offended that I'm mad or upset. And I'm just like, dude, check yourself. And so it's kind of just that whole mentality where it's just, it's on the ground. Nobody's using it. It's mine. I like this. It's like, like you were saying, like just protect and don't take things. And it's about respect.
00:35:12
Speaker
Exactly. And one of the really cool resources we've made at the State Historic Preservation Office, and we're working on getting them kind of out into the public, is we're calling them artifact guides right now. I don't know if that'll be the final verbiage on them. The one I can think of right now is we have one for ceramics. And it goes through what we as archaeologists can gain from pot sherds or pot drops. So that
00:35:41
Speaker
the general public that's reading them sees, I should leave this here because if I move it, then archaeologists can't figure out if this site is from a certain time period or if certain agricultural practices were in action at this time period. There's a lot of information we lose when an artifact gets moved from its context. And so these artifact guides are a really great way of showing just what sort of information we gain and lose
00:36:09
Speaker
based on if an artifact stays where it was left, basically. I'm having internal monologues. I'm in a course like heritage in a global perspective and yada yada yada. But it's basically like some of the topics we've talked about is like the lifespan of an archaeological site.
00:36:29
Speaker
and how the Eurocentric idea of archaeology can be problematic in that we put all of history's value in an item instead of the people. And it's interesting to think about how
00:36:48
Speaker
like these sites and places they've been in use for thousands of years and then now in modern times we're stopping their use in order to preserve them etc. And it's interesting, I think that's why like community archaeology is really necessary because a lot of the times archaeologists
00:37:10
Speaker
tend to interject themselves into a space and be like, no, we can't use this place anymore. We need to protect it for future generations or whatever. And then sometimes that can result in displacing indigenous communities or stuff like that. We've been talking about national parks a lot recently and just how national parks in general are a very
00:37:34
Speaker
like Eurocentric and this idea of like nature versus culture and how humans aren't part of nature and we need to get all of the people out of this place so that we can preserve nature because it needs to be pristine and not touched by humans and therefore you indigenous communities get out of here because you're messing up the place. Like even though that's not true at all and they've been living there for thousands of years and it's never been an issue
00:38:03
Speaker
So yeah, that's like stuff going in my head, just thinking about like, like the timeline of a site, you know?
Ethical Dilemmas in Archaeology
00:38:10
Speaker
One thing that was really interesting was when I started my undergraduate degree, I ended up in that regional campus I was telling you about, which, and I'm sure you've heard of it. Um, it's in the region of the Bears Ears, which is the big national monument that has grown and shrunk and grown and drunk and grown and drunk. And so I was there right when that was first being made.
00:38:33
Speaker
And so I got to see all of these different viewpoints on this, you know, there's there's national monument being made between the white settlers in Blanding and the tribes and the natives in Blanding. And I definitely don't have an answer for the question that I'm about to pose. But it got me thinking as an archaeologist, like where where do we draw the line between protecting the past
00:39:03
Speaker
but still respecting the present. How do we juggle keeping the past preserved without it being a detriment to the people and the communities that are still living? And I don't have an answer for that, but I think it's one that kind of plagues archeology as a whole. Like you said, how do we protect these sites and keep them so that we have them for future generations
00:39:32
Speaker
without cutting off the access to the people that are still using them. Like I said, I don't have an answer, but it's a question I've thought about a lot. Definitely. And I think just the fact that that is becoming the forefront of archaeology now is a big step in the right direction, too. Because we want to jump away from this collector's mindset that archaeology has always been built upon.
00:40:03
Speaker
And it's not our space as white people to determine what site is important and what should be kept just because it looks pretty versus another site that isn't as aesthetic but has more cultural value according to indigenous populations. So yeah, I think as long as there's community involvement of the people who are actually there and the people who are actually there are on these projects making the calls,
00:40:32
Speaker
I think that's like the ideal situation for for all of these. I'm definitely seeing it go into that sort of direction too, which is which is really cool. And yeah, it's not always about that collector mindset, but about the people and especially how a lot of people have been displaced over ever forever. So it's just like giving people the voices that
00:41:02
Speaker
they deserve and people are people and listen to, like everyone learns about European history and all this sort of history but some people don't actually learn about their own history until unless they seek it out and they dig through a bunch of different rabbit holes just to find what they need to find. So I definitely see like a lot of ethical implications of
00:41:26
Speaker
trying to have this sort of community aspect arise, especially because a lot of other people kind of see it in a different way and then everyone just doesn't, I mean, nobody's going to have the same thoughts.
00:41:39
Speaker
I mean, we're people, we all have like different ideas, but heading to that sort of collective mindset rather than very individualistic or very like what's gonna benefit me in my institution or me in this museum, but very like what's gonna benefit everyone here? Yeah, and I think that's one reason, at least in my own personal experiences as an archeologist, that I'm seeing this trend
00:42:07
Speaker
change in regards to the attitude towards public archaeology. There's still a lot of older archaeologists that when you say, yeah, I do public archaeology, they go, well, that's pointless. Why are you doing that? Because it's shifted from archaeology that was funded by the public to now archaeology that is done for the benefit of the public. So with public archaeology, we get to have these conversations with people who aren't archaeologists.
00:42:36
Speaker
And we get to kind of get these ideas into the public's heads that they can think about and then have discussions among themselves. And I think it really benefits archeology and archeologists to include the public more than we are. We still have to be careful, but this idea that the public should be completely shut out is slowly going away. And I think it's so important.
00:43:03
Speaker
because we get to have these kind of conversations. And we'll be right back after this break. Well, so I was younger, I was hit by a car.
Personal Challenges and Career Adaptation
00:43:13
Speaker
Sorry, it's not funny. No, it's kind of funny. It's kind of funny. And I ended up getting more injured than I thought I was initially. But I didn't really figure that out until quite a few years later.
00:43:27
Speaker
So I was at field school and we were doing survey and we were doing 10 days on, four days off. And we got through our first 10 day session and like my legs really, really hurt like quite, quite badly to the point that I couldn't lift my left leg. And so, you know, I went to a physical therapist because I figured it had something to do with the other chronic injuries I have. And he was like, yeah, so,
00:43:56
Speaker
you're gonna have to deal with chronic tendonitis in your hips. And I was like, great. So, you know, I go back to our next 10 day field session and my professor was really, really great. He found a way to keep me involved without making me do any more survey. Cause I just, you know, I needed to sit and basically heal. And I remember sitting and I remember it very vividly. I was sitting
00:44:26
Speaker
on the tailgate of our crew truck while the rest of the students and my professor were out doing more survey. And I'm just sitting there. And I'm thinking, well, crap. Who is going to hire an archaeologist that can't do survey? What on earth am I going to do? Because so much of the experience that a lot of young archaeologists get right out of their bachelors is CRM, is fieldwork. Like, crap.
00:44:56
Speaker
this is over before I've even started. So then I started my internship with SHPO. And, you know, we still did survey, but it was like, a one day thing. It was a one day survey. And I can do that. That's, you know, totally fine. I just can't do multiple days in a row. And then I got to do excavation and I get to do public outreach. And I get to see the inner workings of state archaeology and be involved with BLM. So it was
00:45:24
Speaker
it was really great to go from field school where I'm like, Oh crap, I have no future in this now. Cause I won't be able to get experience cause I can't do multiple days serving to being in a job that I absolutely love. And I love my coworkers and they're so supportive in, you know, what I want to do and what I want to accomplish probably doesn't hurt that it also aligns with what they want to do. But so it was, it was very interesting.
00:45:53
Speaker
just kind of the shift because I remember sitting on that crew truck and just thinking, Oh, no, I'm done for that's it. And my professor, like I said, he was great. He, he, you know, sat me down when we got back to camp. I was like, there's still things you can do. There's still, you know, a future for you in archaeology, even though that this is going to be an issue you're gonna have to deal with for the rest of your life. So I just, I've had some really great
00:46:22
Speaker
you know, examples of some fantastic archaeologists and I can only feel the benefits from it. Yeah. I mean, that's the great thing about archaeology is there's so many like sub sectors of it where you don't even need to go outside ever. Yeah. I love going outside. That's one reason I'm going absolutely stir crazy. So I've been stuck in a basement for a year. Oh my God. But yeah, I just didn't realize
00:46:51
Speaker
how much there was to do outside of survey and the traditional field work aspects doesn't mean I don't miss it. Because I absolutely do. I would love to be able to do multiple day surveys and do the sleeping in the tent thing for eight days. And I really enjoy that. But I made the mistake of pushing too far at field school.
00:47:19
Speaker
And I ended up having six months of downtime of healing because of it.
Advice for Aspiring Archaeologists
00:47:25
Speaker
So I've learned to take what I have and, you know, kind of, I mean, do I miss it? Yeah. But I, I want to be able to continue to do it. And to do that, I can't overdo it anymore. So I'm glad you're still able to get a taste of the fieldwork still not completely. Yeah. Yeah. I, I'm so, so lucky.
00:47:49
Speaker
to be with the State Historic Preservation Office. I mean, really, I honestly don't know what I would be doing because I do get the, you know, I get survey experience, I get field recording experience, I get excavation experience, I've had collections experience, databases, data management, archives,
00:48:11
Speaker
I mean, I've had tastes of just about everything. And you're able to take care of yourself in the meantime. And I'm able to take care of myself in the meantime and not horrifically injure myself again. Yeah, we don't want that for you. Yeah, no, I don't want that for me. No, that's a big no over here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a no for me. So cool that you're able to do everything that you're passionate about. A little bit on a lesser intensity, but
00:48:41
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool. There's so much with accessibility and archaeology and even like wordage too. Alyssa, do you remember that time on Twitter, on the archaeology Twitter for the University of York, where one of the professors taught was doing this field work experience. And he tweeted something being like, oh, the rite of passage as an archaeologist doing field walking, field walking.
00:49:08
Speaker
And people were just like, oh, dude, houses are in passage. Like some people who are archaeologists can't do this. It was this whole debate online. And it's just like, interesting. It became a big thing. It's like, he's like, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize like me by saying this was doing this. Well, I think it's so hard because, you know, the traditional aspect or, you know, idea of what archaeology is,
00:49:37
Speaker
is that, you know, walking for days on end or camping and digging for days on end. And that's, I mean, it is an aspect of archaeology, but it's definitely not the only one. And I wouldn't even say it's one of the biggest ones. And I, I feel like a lot of not only, you know, younger K through 12 kids, but also college age kids get, get really left out of what they could do because
00:50:07
Speaker
It seems like we are so focused on that field aspect that they don't get to know that there's a whole, you know, there's museum collections, there's lab work, there's research, there's so much you can do that isn't the field work. And I just feel like that doesn't get highlighted as much. So there's so many people that don't know that they could be doing something they love.
00:50:31
Speaker
that is accessible because it's just not talked about. So go find your subsect of archaeology. Go find your subsect of archaeology.
00:50:41
Speaker
Maybe that's something else that can also be talked about when talking about archaeology to middle schoolers, high schoolers, elementary school. It's like, it's not all about dirt. It's not all about dirt. Let me tell you space archaeology. Amazing. 20 out of 10. Very biased about that. Not really. I would love to be a space archaeologist. That'd be so neat. And I mean, the moon landing does fall under that now.
00:51:08
Speaker
It's like, let's go to space. Maybe not. When technology is like a little bit better, in like a hundred years someday, put me into like one of those cryo tanks or something and preserve me and wake me up later. Yeah. That's what I'm here for. And I hope that becomes a thing while we're still here. Remember to put all your loved ones in there too. Yeah. Anything you would like to leave with us.
00:51:36
Speaker
or the viewers, the listeners, or any advice you'd like to give to people thinking about entering archaeology? I mean, on that aspect, I think it's just there's, there's so much more to do than you realize. And don't ever get discouraged by what other people say, because there is a place for you in archaeology. No matter who you are, no matter what your abilities are, there is a place for you.
00:52:06
Speaker
You just have to hide it.
Social Media and Further Resources
00:52:08
Speaker
Yes. Second that. Third that. Can I force my own? Do it.
00:52:18
Speaker
It was so nice having you here today with us, Erin. It was lovely to chat. Thank you for joining. Do you have any social medias that you'd like to promote or have people look at slash follow slash anything? Or websites? Yes, I do. I have so many. Oh, say them all. So they're all going to be my work stuff because I'm a workaholic and I love it. Pretty much you can look up Utah Shippo.
00:52:50
Speaker
on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube. We have a presence there and we post quite often. We have a lot of educational videos on YouTube that kind of go through some fun topics, Utah's archaeology and preservation aspects.
00:53:07
Speaker
And then I also have the Utah cultural site stewardship website, which is where you can learn more about kind of what we're doing with stewardship. And from there, it links you to the whole SHPO blog. And we have articles upon articles and pictures and videos and just a lot of resources if you're interested in learning more about what stewardship is.
00:53:26
Speaker
Amazing. Be sure to check all those out and get involved and learn some more things. And that's a wrap. See you all next time. Or hear you all next time. Bye!
00:53:53
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 chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.