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ENCORE - The Archaeology of Childhood with Mackenzie Cory Episode 31 - Ep 167
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On this Encore episode of A Life in Ruins podcast, we chat with Mackenzie Cory, a fellow University of Wyoming Graduate! Mac delves into his formative years, working in Wyoming and his inspiration to take the next step into graduate school. We also discuss his current PhD research and how we can identify and look at childhood in the archaeological record. We then end the episode with a discussion about problems found in field schools and the ramifications of those problems to Mac’s academic career.
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Transcript
Encore Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Hey everyone, Carlton here. For episode 167 of Life in Ruins podcast, we are going to be running an encore episode, but just this week, we'll be right back. Next week, Connor's in the field. I just got back from the DR. David is
00:00:16
Speaker
in the depths of doing ethnocynology things. So we'll be back with content next week.
Introduction of Mackenzie Corey
00:00:21
Speaker
But for now, we'd like to rerun Episode 31, The Archaeology of Childhood with Mackenzie Corey. Mack is now officially Dr. Corey, him and his partner, Emily Van Altsch, who's also been the podcast number of times. They both defended last month. They got their edits in. So we will have both of them on soon to talk about the results of their dissertations.
00:00:44
Speaker
Mack on the archaeology of childhood and Emily on Lakota rock art from a Lakota perspective. But for now, please go ahead and enjoy this rerun of
Journey into Archaeology
00:00:52
Speaker
episode 31. And we'll be back with next week with our regular scheduled content.
00:01:04
Speaker
Welcome to episode 31 of A Life in Ruins podcast, where we investigate the careers of those living a life in ruins. I'm your host, Carl Tugover, and tonight I am joined just by my co-host, Connor John and David Ian Howe is, I think, shooting a commercial for Maybelline right now, and he was unable to join us.
00:01:22
Speaker
Tonight, we had a very special guest, a close friend of mine. We were interviewing a PhD candidate, Mackenzie Corey, who's in the anthropology department at the University of Indiana Bloomington, the third one we've had from that department, third time's a charm. Mr. Corey, how are you doing tonight? I'm doing pretty well. How about yourself? I think we're doing great. Connor, how about yourself?
00:01:46
Speaker
No, I'm doing, I'm doing fine on this, uh, what is it? The second, second day of September. It's doing fantastic. So Mac, I know you through proximity through like Damien and Cassidy and all these like university of Wyoming folks in general, how did you kind of get into science and archeology when you're growing up?
00:02:05
Speaker
You've probably heard this a dozen times before, but I was really into paleontology as a kid. When I was seven, I could name off half of the dinosaurs out there.
University Choice and Hell Gap Experience
00:02:15
Speaker
Don't remember any of it now. As a kid, I liked playing in the dirt. I had taco trucks and would just dig into the side of the hill out behind the house. But then in high school, I kind of went through several different phases. Like, maybe I want to be an aerospace engineer. Oh, well, maybe I want to be a doctor. And then I realized that
00:02:34
Speaker
I really want a chance to work outside. So I thought about kind of what can I do where it's scientific, I get to work outside, I get to kind of capitalize on what I'm good at. And at the time, I was getting really into history. So I just thought let's combine it all, look at archaeology, and I turned out to love it.
00:02:55
Speaker
And you're a Wyoming boy, aren't you? No. I went to University of Wyoming, but I've lived all across the U.S. My dad's in the steel industry. I've spent most of my childhood in Pennsylvania, went to high school in Kansas, and then moved out to Wyoming for undergrad. But at the end of the day, Wyoming's where I feel most at home.
00:03:17
Speaker
Understood, man. Yeah, I've always associated with you with Wyoming, and I can't remember why, because I know we've had this conversation about your upbringing several times over the dinner table or the bar. And as you mentioned, we have heard it several times. Hashtag dinosaurs are a gateway drug sign. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Talia, for DM&S for that amazing soon-to-be t-shirt and stamp that we got coming on. Also, this podcast is sponsored by Tonka Trucks.
00:03:48
Speaker
Very early on Tonka trucks made us the way we are, so going on from that, Carlson. Absolutely. Why did you choose Wyoming for your undergraduate degree? I toured three schools in high school. I toured KU coming from Kansas. It was a natural choice. I met with Jack Hoffman when I was there.
00:04:09
Speaker
And it was close to home. It was cool. Started filling out my application for that. And then my dad and I took a road trip and went and saw Wyoming and CU Boulder. So at Wyoming, I just kind of fell in love with the campus. We got there, and the campus just felt like the perfect size for me. I met with some of the Honors Program people there. And I liked the whole feel of it. I liked the buildings.
00:04:38
Speaker
met with the not registrar admissions people and they offered me a decent scholarship that definitely contributed. And then I met with a few professors in the department. I think I met with maybe Bob Kelly and Todd Surabell and chatted with them a little bit and it just, it felt right. Then next day went down to CU Boulder, actually met with Doug Banforth, your advisor. I'm sure he doesn't remember it.
00:05:06
Speaker
But it just felt too big for me. Like I was coming from a town of about 10,000 in Kansas and Boulder just felt huge. Boulder sucks.
00:05:18
Speaker
God, you and what was that other girl's name? Carson. Both of you guys could just shove it. I love Boulder. And Bob Kelly wanted to come here when he was an undergrad or his master's. Fort Collins is way better. Get out of here, even though you're way better funded. You know what I like? I like paying 350 bucks a month in rent.
00:05:39
Speaker
Oh, dude. I know. I know. If I could if I can move the Wyoming housing market down to here, I'd be set. But, you know, we really, you know, to Connor, we need to reach out to Bob and Todd because we need royalties for fifth beginning and like people going to Wyoming at this point. I think any time they have a new student, they said, oh, I listen to Life in Ruins. We need a we need a chunk of that tuition money. Free advertisement. So.
00:06:07
Speaker
Were you familiar with like Todd and Bob when you first like came to Wyoming? Did you? I mean. So I had seen Nicole Wagas back on like PBS documentaries and Melissa Murphy. When I met with Bob, he seemed pretty cool, but it's embarrassing to say I had no idea who he was. Same, bro. I went there to be his student and I had no idea who that man was. But yeah, it just it was.
00:06:33
Speaker
It was a really good fit for me and I actually stopped. Well, I never bothered starting an application to Boulder and I stopped filling out my application to KU. I only applied to Wyoming for undergrad.
00:06:47
Speaker
That's awesome, man. So when you got there, how did you get involved with Hell Gap? Because that's a huge part of Wyoming archaeology at this point. Mary Lou and Arcel have been there for so long and have really put this site on the map. So how did you kind of
00:07:04
Speaker
Get into that. It was dumb luck. I was a bit of a moron two weeks into classwork. I was like, yeah, this is pretty easy. I have lots of free time. I should try and volunteer for something. So I went to Todd and I asked Todd about it and he didn't have anything for a new undergrad at the moment, but he's like, go talk to Marcel. Marcel's always looking for people.
00:07:27
Speaker
So I talked to Marcel, and he's like, okay, come in next week, we can start having you pick Matrix. And I picked Matrix for a year. Oh, no. How much calcium carbonite did you have to sort through? So much. Just meters of calcium carbonate in gallon-sized baggies.
00:07:49
Speaker
But yeah, after that, he liked my volunteer work. So he offered me an hourly job working in his lab and it just kind of snowballed from there. Following summer, I was working out in the field with him at Last Canyon in Hell Gap and haven't really stopped. I think this is the first summer since I started that I actually didn't get out to Hell Gap.
00:08:08
Speaker
Yeah, dude. I think that's in terms of field stories, not being able to go.
Research on Stone Circles
00:08:13
Speaker
That's pretty universal for a lot of us through COVID, which unfortunately is still going on. You got to be as an undergraduate, right? A crew chief at Hell Gap, which is now a national historic landmark. Right after undergraduate. So it was the year I graduated that summer.
00:08:29
Speaker
Okay. That's very impressive. I also did that, and I know the rigors of working for Marcel and Mary on the field and running a site. I think one of the most valuable things I learned about Hell Gap was not just how to manage students, but how to support, feed, and upkeep a site.
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah. Especially that one because it has a ton of upkeep you have to do. It's not like some site you go dig one summer and you're done or whatever. Is it a building around that block? Several. Several. Yeah.
00:09:09
Speaker
So I learned pretty much some nights. So I started working there when I was under 21. So when people would go into town to go to the bar, I would hang out in the park, check my email and call people. And then I had to start learning how to do things like small engine repair, roofing.
00:09:30
Speaker
using some of my free time to keep the site functioning. electrical like carpentry extra stuff it's like oh the generators broken again you know it's just like oh go fix the generator I'm like dude I don't know anything about engines electrical or fuel maintenance like I don't know these things
00:09:54
Speaker
Yeah, Hellgap is a fun site and I definitely, I miss it a bit. It has a special place in my heart. And then also you have to do tours at Hellgap. There's presentations. Yes, there are. And there is a terrible YouTube video of me on the internet giving a tour. One of my favorite lines, and I totally stole this from a guy named Justin who's a graduate student at KU. He was also there. He'd always finished the tour. He's like, you know,
00:10:23
Speaker
We'll never know what Paleo-Indians used to call this site or where they used to call home, but we do know when they came across the horizon and saw this area, they said, wow, that's one hell of a gap.
00:10:35
Speaker
And it was the dorkiest dad joke, but it was just, everybody thought it was, it was, it was funny. And I've just kind of never, never forgotten that, that little piece of, um, of working there. Um, you know, that's what, uh, Hell Gap always does 10 by fours, 10 days in the field, four days off. And you know, by, by day seven, tensions are rising.
00:10:55
Speaker
Oh yeah. No way. There is no tension in field work ever. Kind of segueing off of that, what do you think you learned at Hell Gap that has contributed to your future academic career? Honestly, I learned so much there that's contributed to my career right now. Part of it is just working long days. There are times where
00:11:16
Speaker
just because of deadlines coming up or something, I have to put in a 16, 17 hour work day. And I started doing that working for Marcel at Hell Gap. I would also say just the basic field skills to work in the US because I took my field school in Scotland.
00:11:34
Speaker
where things are completely different. I was taught to, well, to dig based on stratigraphy, which when I first started working for Marcel was a disaster because I ended up doing a 15 centimeter level. I just kept looking for the next strata. Oh no, Mac.
00:11:56
Speaker
That's three levels at Hell Gap that you've condensed into one that you put into one giant gallon bag. We've lost all context. What have you done, Matt? What have you done? I just kept filling up buckets. So I really being able to be an archaeologist in the U.S. And then also I did my senior honors thesis at Hell Gap on some of the stone circles there. So that really got me on the path of researching stone circles.
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. Oh yeah, there are stone tomb circles there. They're at White Locality 4. They're all over, Carlton. I've just seen the few, man. You've probably driven over several of them on the way to locality 1. You know what? You're not wrong. That's that interesting thing that I've actually never been to Hell Gap, and also you dug through at least three haggis levels.
00:12:46
Speaker
Yeah, while you were doing that. But yeah, so there's this huge paleo-Indian focus, but there's so much more to be dealt with there. But that's what makes the money. That's what keeps that place famous, is that paleo-Indian kind of formation there. But yeah, there's everything from paleo-Indian to historic components.
00:13:11
Speaker
I applied for a grant through Wyoming, ended up getting it, and it was able to piggyback off of Marcel's field season, but doing some of my own research out back behind locality three. When you're no longer working at locality one, and you're out on your own on the open prairie looking for stone circles, was the first thing that came to your mind this?
00:13:43
Speaker
It was nice to not be in cheek to cheek with people. There was a talking about talking about Scotland. I was like, I need to download this right now.
00:13:58
Speaker
But there was much less like people didn't get like drawn and quartered very often at Hell Gap, did they? No. After my first year, we had to take down the frame we used for it. We needed some screening materials. Oh, that's awesome. How many rattlesnakes did you see at Hell Gap? Dozens.
00:14:24
Speaker
I spent one summer in Guernsey and oh my goodness, I had never seen a rattlesnake. Yeah, I've never seen a rattlesnake in the field before and I saw a rattlesnake and then found out that I could levitate. Yeah, exactly. What, you weren't a fan of the danger noodles with the tickle sticks? The funny thing is it was so primal that I didn't even register it. I literally like floated away. Oh, got your lizard brain. Yeah, my lizard brain was there.
00:14:53
Speaker
It's such a creepy sound. I have an amazing
PhD Journey and Dissertation Focus
00:14:56
Speaker
Snapchat, I think from like my first experience there. I'm wearing, you know, I'm wearing my like a pink fraternity shirt and I'm just like, there's a rattlesnake behind me hissing. And I'm just like, Hey, everybody meet Steve. Let's get close and see if we can mess with him. And I take like one step and he like lunged at me and I was like, all right, nevermind fam. I'm good. Yeah.
00:15:15
Speaker
and my mother was nice like said that video to my mother she's like who are you i raised you better
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, dude, you know, as Connor and both of you can attest, like, you know, my master's degree was a transformative period away from some of those, my undergraduate behaviors towards a more professional version of what you can say is me now. Was it really? Yeah, I think I look back at some of my professional now. I think so. I'm getting there. Doug says I've matured.
00:15:53
Speaker
And then, uh, did you, I'm trying to recall, I don't know why I'm trying to recall cause I have your CV right in front of me. I already know the answer. So then from hell gap, you started at Indiana, right? And pursued your master's master's PhD. Correct. And, uh, why did you choose Indiana, Indiana Bloomington?
00:16:12
Speaker
I presented some of my research at the Plains Conference and ended up meeting my former advisor there who had also done some research on stone circles back in the day. She seemed pretty impressed by the research, so I decided to apply to IU to work with them. Understood, and I just remember the first time I met you was at Helgott.
00:16:34
Speaker
I think for when the site became a National Historic Landmark, we had a huge party, and we were playing battle battle. And that's why I also met Devin for the first time. And battle battle for those that don't know, part of Devin's research in his master's was to basically put foam
00:16:50
Speaker
Nerf balls at the end of a lot of darts, put on a hockey helmet and baseball umpire pads and throw out laddles with these foam tip darts at each other. And that became like a game we played at Hell Gap to pass the time we ended up with bruises. I think like one damn near fractured my ankle because the the dart punched through the foam ball. And I just got like the entire force of that dart went straight into my ankle. And Marcel was furious because it was black and blue and I couldn't walk.
00:17:19
Speaker
I remember challenging you because you had had a fun day and didn't seem too coordinated yet. So I challenged you and your second or third throw, you just caught me in the throat. Oh, yeah. I underestimated you. Yeah. Oh, crap. I think someone just threw an atlatl at the hemp fields behind my house. We have to end this segment right now. We'll catch you on the other side.
00:17:51
Speaker
Welcome back to episode 31 of a life in ruins podcast. David has fallen and cannot get up at this point. We might see him in the third segment or we might not. Um, he hit his life alert button. We're hoping that he can get up and it'll be fine. We're joined by our guests, Matt McKenzie Corey, who is a PhD candidate at the university of Indiana Bloomington. So we kind of ended the last segment hinting at what you're doing for your thesis work.
00:18:18
Speaker
and possibly dissertation work. So what did you write your thesis on? So here at IU, we don't have master's thesis. We only have dissertations. Boo. Boo. Yeah. Just kidding.
00:18:35
Speaker
It's nice. Our qualifying exams are pretty brutal. But for my dissertation, I'm looking at the archaeology of childhood on the Northwest Plains. So I'm kind of approaching this from several different angles, the first of which is something that I've almost gotten done with, just need to crunch a few more numbers. And that is, how do we identify children's play areas in the archaeological record?
00:19:02
Speaker
So really kind of taking the approach of looking at archaeological analysis to develop hypotheses and develop tests to then see what indicators we can look for at archaeological sites. So I'm really interested in stone circles and small stone circles where children would have their play teepees.
00:19:22
Speaker
These can be anything from six inches tall, obviously you probably aren't going to see any imprint of those in the archaeological record, to up to about five, six foot tall where you could fit a few kids inside. And those largest ones, there's a bunch of historic photographs of them being weighed down by rocks. There's some actually showing where they are in the camp.
00:19:45
Speaker
So I'm looking at really how to identify them spatially. Then I'm taking that, I'm taking some of that knowledge that I've gained and looking at how does this potentially represent childhood agency? I'm specifically looking at indigenous children here and I'm going to be looking at the boarding school system. So pretty much how are children continuing to engage in traditional play in the boarding schools?
00:20:10
Speaker
So a couple things, and I know I can see some of our friends at Wyoming like Todd Chase, Matty Mackey, thinking how do we find childhood in the archaeological record? Because childhood is an abstract concept in terms of you can't find childhood as an artifact. And so you're talking about finding things that we would associate with
00:20:32
Speaker
toys or objects for children and reconstructing their placement at some of these sites. This is just me asking a question. How do we know maybe a play TP 6 inches tall isn't maybe there was a Plains architect who liked to make little model TPs to show people what he was selling.
00:20:52
Speaker
That's completely possible. I work very heavily from ethnographies and some recorded oral histories, and children are talking about playing with these miniature teepees, but at the end of the day, there are other reasons that they could exist.
00:21:08
Speaker
And I have to take those into account with my research. But you're using the ethnographic record of anthropologists in the 20th and 19th century going out talking with indigenous people on the plains and noticing children have these items. And they're very similar to what we could find in the archaeological record. So it's not totally unfounded. It's very much based on real data and real human behavior.
00:21:34
Speaker
Yes, and historic photographs. And then I'm currently applying for grants to look at like the South Dakota State Historic Society archives and a few other archives in the region to try and find kind of your non-mainstream histories, your ones that are separate from say Black Elk Speaks, your lives of ordinary people and what they're saying.
00:21:59
Speaker
Honestly, I wish I had a play teepee growing up that I can manipulate and see how they're supposed to be formed. Cause you know, my cousin just bought one, uh, before the summer and made, you know, he asked me and Lana to come over and help out and to help out was like him standing back and watching me and my petite five, four, 70 pound girlfriend manipulate these like 20 to 30 foot poles and all of these canvas tarps to, to move his teepee from one place to another.
00:22:24
Speaker
I had no experience on what I was doing, and I was winded by the end of that. That's how I met a lot of my partner, Emily's cousins. She dropped me off with one of her uncles one day, and I had to put up a half dozen teepees with them. That's metal.
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's very much thrown to the wolves or, you know. Thrown to the bison, thrown to the buffalo. Yeah, whatever, you know, whatever they are mostly associated with. So I'm interested to see how people have received your research kind of in general, because this is a question I think we all have in the back of our heads about archaeology. Like so, you know, mainly we focus on
00:23:12
Speaker
men as hunters or men as gatherers in the record. So it's nice to see folks who are asking about like, where are women in the archaeological record or where are kids in the archaeological record? How has your research been like generally received? At first, poorly, because I had no idea what I was doing. And people rightfully asked, how are you going to do that? I don't know why that's so funny.
00:23:44
Speaker
No, it is. That was my reaction. He told me what your research is about. I was like, what are you talking about? I remember like at planes in South Dakota when you're in Bismarck and you're just like, yeah, this is what I do. That was like the first time we met outside of the Helga. That was the first time we met sober. Yes.
00:24:03
Speaker
tell me more about your research. Cause I was trying to go to Indiana. I was looking at Indiana for my PhD. Um, and that's also where I met Emily. And we discussed that in her episode back in episode three. Wow. And episode three. So yeah. So you, you, I mean, it's an interesting problem, right? Because children
00:24:18
Speaker
Children do exist. That's a fundamental truth. You don't have adults without children. Cultures all across the world have concepts of childhood. Now, maybe the experiences differ when people come to adulthood are different, but there is a lived experience of childhood when you don't have the responsibilities of the adult.
00:24:33
Speaker
And there are those concepts and materials that are associated with children. How do you keep children busy? How do you teach them how to be functioning members of society? And that's, you know, do you use that through toys and through play? So you are approaching something that is instrumental to a human's
00:24:51
Speaker
life. And you are you are coming from a new question of like, how do we see this in the archaeological record? So you have the ethnographic record to back you up and to provide you a starting point for what how can we see these things in the material past?
00:25:05
Speaker
Yeah. And now that I kind of have my research design together, I've gotten a lot more positive feedback about it. People are like, oh yeah, that's, this is something we should be looking at. And something that I think you brought up that is really important to understanding childhood is that you kind of talked about this idea of enculturation, teaching children how to be functional members of society.
Community Support in Academia
00:25:28
Speaker
I think that's really neat, but that's not necessarily the focus of my research. Instead of looking at child rearing, which is that process of enculturation, taking care of them, making sure they're fed, I'm curious about childhood itself. How do children view it? That's super interesting, especially because we don't see how kids grow up in prehistory. It's not something that we have grasped
00:25:54
Speaker
recently. So I love this idea about trying to get in touch with that because we're fundamentally different. I was raised with an Xbox or a PS2 or whatnot. And I think this is really cool research to talk about this, to at least have this conversation and from a good research standpoint.
00:26:15
Speaker
And I mean, it's challenging, right? It's not like I can go to a deeply stratified site and just work on it for a few summers, write a dissertation about it. I'm having to go to six or seven different places in the nation to look at archives. And I mean, right now, just for kind of that spatial testing that I was talking about, my database is over 2,400 sites that I've had to hand measure a lot of maps on.
00:26:44
Speaker
Honestly, you have talking about how your research was initially reacted to and how it's kind of perspective from people that have heard about your research that has changed. I resonate with that because that's kind of been a similar experience to how I've looked at your research. I mean, I've always respected you as an academic, but hearing like, you know, early on,
00:27:02
Speaker
how you've looked at it, and then moving forward towards how your research plan has progressed, it makes a lot more sense, which is fundamental to any dissertation, right? You have a question, you don't know what you're doing, everyone's like, oh, well, you know, how are you gonna do that? And by the end, towards the end of the whole thing, you have everything mapped together, right? Has anyone else in the literature kind of attempted to analyze these same experiences that you're looking at? Yes.
00:27:30
Speaker
So there's another researcher named Michelle Langley, who right before I took my qualifying exams, put out an article about kind of interpreting
Confronting Institutional Challenges
00:27:41
Speaker
things as ritual versus interpreting things as childhood, and brought in case studies from around the world, including play TVs.
00:27:49
Speaker
Well, last year I ended up kind of sending her an email thanking her for writing the paper and got invited to present at a conference in Australia with about 18, 19 other scholars who are all looking at childhood in similar ways.
00:28:04
Speaker
That's cool. I mean, I'm glad there's at least a recognition of that that in the record, because it's like I said, I mean, it's it's at least a third or like a quarter or even a fifth of some people's lives where they live in, you know, in these these underage stuff. So I'm glad that there's there's this this consensus of folks who are at least asking
00:28:31
Speaker
the same question. Were you really interested in this question because of some of your work in Wyoming and the Western Plains? Yeah, actually. It's funny that Carlton brought up Matty Mackey back at the beginning. I got a really, really rough NSF review when I first applied for funding because my old project was just looking at stone circles in general. It was poorly designed. It was terrible.
00:29:01
Speaker
But it was a fair review, but man, it was rough. So I ended up, I was back in Laramie and getting some coffee at Turtle Rock and ran into Maddie Mackie. So I started talking to her about what she was doing and she had wrapped up her thesis research on hand sprays. And part of that was looking at children.
00:29:23
Speaker
So we started talking about this and I started telling her about these strange like stone circles and miniature teepees that I had seen. And she kind of told me like, look into that. That's dope. Huge shout out to Maddie Mackie. I was just emailing her the other day. I think both Connor and David, whenever David gets back, if he ever gets back up from his life alert of time, shut up. You're not supposed to be introduced yet.
00:29:50
Speaker
So Matty Mackey, huge support. I imagine both Connor and David could both attest to it. Like Matty was kind of like, when I entered the program, Matty was like a mom for grad students, elder grad student, one of the elder grad students who helped a lot of us younger grad students figure out what they were doing and knew a lot of connects. And it was honestly, because of Matty Mackey, when I worked at Omrock shelter and I was looking for more employment, she was the one that told me to work at Hell Gap.
00:30:14
Speaker
So, uh, you know, huge shout out to Maddie and, uh, and also congratulations on the recent SAA publication on LaPrel that came out as a report. So I was really excited to see that. Shut up. You're not supposed to be here yet.
00:30:31
Speaker
We haven't introduced you. Matty Mackey, great. I'm so happy that she's going to help you. It's like, you know, we have a small field and the people that you know, they all help each other out and everyone you can have support. You know, this podcast is a testament to it in terms of who you can rely on to create great content. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to, I want to jump off of that and say that David has hit his life alert button and he is currently standing upwards. I fallen and I can't get up. He has a question for Mac.
00:31:03
Speaker
I literally have no idea. Okay. I do have a question. If that was serious in archeology or in the past, if we were to dig up a site, what are the markers that like would show that a child was there like structures or tools or something like that?
00:31:20
Speaker
There's several. The ones that I look at are play areas, but there have also been some arguments made for amateurly made and very small projectile points that could possibly be affiliated with one, children making them, and two, with children's bows.
00:31:38
Speaker
You also have some of the more obvious ones, like if you are lucky enough to go into a dry cave and find something organic like a doll, that's a pretty good indicator. I tend to stay away from research that involves human remains at all, not my jam, but there is a considerable body of research looking at kind of what children are buried with.
00:32:04
Speaker
solid. Interesting. I mean, especially in North America, it's hard to breach those questions with respect for the indigenous nations that are behind them. That's cool. I assume there's probably a lot of different ways we could we could see children in the past. It's just like maybe we haven't like
00:32:25
Speaker
Kind of like when Aaron was talking about his tattoo implements, like we might've overlooked a couple cactus needles or all as like tattoo needles. We thought they were, you know, for making hides or something, but like there's probably things like that that are clear indicators of children that we just haven't thought of yet, maybe.
00:32:41
Speaker
Yeah, and childhood is also highly cultural specific, right? If I go 300 miles west from my research area, we're getting into kind of great base in childhood. And some of some of your great race and groups kind of interpret childhood differently. And we'll have different archaeological indicators of childhood. Yeah, like
00:33:01
Speaker
pin the tail on the bison i would walk 500 miles and i would walk 500 more just to see the kind of person i was gonna go with the childhood burst with it but he'll go and just anyway we have reached the step in our time
00:33:25
Speaker
We have reached the step, the mile marker in this segment, and we will be back with segment three with our conversation.
Cultural Understanding and Indigenous Influences
00:33:39
Speaker
Welcome back to Episode 31 of Life in Ruins Podcast. I am here with my co-hosts, not coasts, co-hosts, David and Alan Connor-Johnin. David has managed to finish up his new product line with Maybelline and answered his life alert. So he will be joining us for this third segment, as you've probably guessed. So Mack, before we begin on our heavy topic of the evening,
00:34:00
Speaker
You know, we've had Emily Van Alts from episode three. She's been on before and she is your partner. And I wanted to kind of ask you, because, you know, you have a very unique perspective in the field of anthropology that you are dating an indigenous anthropologist, partnered with an indigenous anthropologist.
00:34:17
Speaker
And I just want to know, like, how has that experience of being with an Indigenous person while also studying an Indigenous archaeological record, how has that contributed to your methodological and theoretical perspectives? Like, did you notice there was a change in how you approach things and like, what has that been experienced for you fundamentally? So the biggest change was, for me, theoretically, where Indigenous archaeology was, to me, was no longer a lofty goal. It became the normal expectation.
00:34:47
Speaker
Archaeology here in the United States should be for Indigenous people. If you are working with Native history, you need to make sure what you're doing is for Indigenous people.
00:34:58
Speaker
And how would you recommend people doing that? How would you recommend people's research before Indigenous people? It's really tricky, right? Like, it's one thing to consult with Native nations and talk to them about your research, see what they want to be done. But it's also really hard to do that as a graduate student because you have to have a level of trust.
00:35:20
Speaker
Right. And that's, that is actually a challenge that I'm running into with my research. Like, I can talk to Emily, I can talk to her family. And the Hayaka Oyate has been amazing to me. They've been super helpful and they have shared so much with me.
00:35:34
Speaker
But at the same time, they are one family within a much broader region that I work in. So you're trying to deal with this kind of larger mistrust of anthropologists and archeologists and trying to overcome that, which is super difficult. I mean, we don't have a great history with them. So how have you like kind of overcome it so far?
00:35:59
Speaker
With my work, that's one of the reasons why I am, well, one, pretty much anything that comes out of this project is going to go back to the nations. Like my dissertation, every single native nation that I can identify as having used archival data from an individual from there, or anyone's life history that I've used to create my research,
00:36:26
Speaker
I am going to coordinate with the nations to make sure that they have access to my research. First of all, that is beginning to develop that trust. But as I go into my career, it becomes more and more important to really engage with these nations and try and do a good job. I mean, it's really hard because I am the whitest of white dudes.
00:36:49
Speaker
Emily, make sure that I stay in line and make sure that I'm doing the right thing.
00:36:57
Speaker
Dude, Emily keeps me in line too, so you're not alone with that. I would definitely love to have you come down to the Pawnee Nation Museum in Pawnee, Oklahoma to present. I think that regardless if you use Pawnee ethnography at all, but I think that would just be fun to have you come down and spark some interest in some of our elders. I'm pretty close friends with Emily and Mac at this point, and I've stayed at their house, and you had to learn Lakota.
00:37:19
Speaker
as like a language requirement, didn't you? And their whole house is they're like, you know, those little, what are they called label makers? Their entire house is covered in like Lakota vocabulary words on objects.
00:37:35
Speaker
Yup, we spent an afternoon going through and putting vocabulary up because it's important to her and it's important to me. And if we ever have children, they're going to be Lakota children. And I want to make sure that they have access to their family's language.
Collaboration and Perseverance
00:37:54
Speaker
Dude, that was really impressive. When I walked in and I saw all that stuff, not only did my eyes start bleeding as a pony, but I thought it was amazing and a great effort to do that.
00:38:05
Speaker
Well, it's especially important because, you know, there's obviously a lot of indigenous languages that are dying. So just it's awesome to see it like as simple as like, you know, a little label here and there that like sparks and keeps alive this kind of language. And that's absolutely fantastic. I'm glad you guys are still doing that.
00:38:29
Speaker
The only thing Emily and I don't disagree on is the orthography. She likes to put hooks underneath her bowels for nasalization. I like to put an end hook after my bowels for nasalization. It's the one thing we disagree on. Nerds. For the educated audience, the uneducated me, can you define orthology? Orthography. It's the way you write language. He said it wrong.
00:38:56
Speaker
I'm just trying to help out the average journalist on our podcast. Letter and number dyslexia. I don't know what I'm doing.
00:39:11
Speaker
Once again, the reason why I brought it up was to commend you and really establish that. Emily, of course, being a Lakota person, highly recommend you guys listen to episode three again back in our catalog. And moving forward, Mac, I've known you. I think we really haven't really had a strong relationship until we've always talked since Hell Gap that we talked about in segment two. But until you hooked me, you and Emily hooked me up with my current partner. Yeah.
00:39:39
Speaker
They're the reason why I'm with Lana. In terms of that, we started talking more and really collaborating more. And something that has kind of come out of that new relationship with you and Emily on a more, not just professional ground, but personal ground, that you experienced an event in your graduate career
00:39:56
Speaker
fundamentally change the direction that you were going. And it's definitely not an experience that you've had to take on by yourself, that other people in the field have experienced. And before this episode, we talked about if it was okay that we mentioned this. So for our listeners, we're not just bringing this up to Mac and just sneak attacking Mac. So would you like to describe this pivotal moment in your career? Yeah, we're really getting into the rough stuff here.
00:40:24
Speaker
It wasn't just one event. It was really kind of two events that were really terrible. The first was when I first told my former advisor that Emily and I were dating. They were very intoxicated and they were not pleased about the news and they went off on me.
00:40:46
Speaker
and called me a worthless dime a dozen white man researcher. And it was just, it was terrible, right? Holy shit. And I stuck around after that. I just viewed it as, okay, they were drunk and I talked to them about it. They apologized and I'm like, okay, this is gonna be fine.
00:41:14
Speaker
like one time thing. And then the following summer, and I made well that put me in just like terrible headspace and really, it screwed me up for the next four months. Then the following summer, I was working in the field with them. And they decided to drunk drive my students back from back over three hours.
00:41:41
Speaker
Now, was there someone in the vehicle? I mean, you should never drive intoxicated, but was there someone able to in the vehicle that could have driven who was sober? Yes. And they assured me that that person would be driving back. And that was just, it was a massive betrayal of trust. And then on top of that, we were doing back country work and it just was not safe.
00:42:03
Speaker
I mean, before I was an archaeologist, I worked at a Boy Scout camp for several years teaching outdoor skills, I've been camping my entire life. And I like, I know how to run a safe camp, I know how to camp safely, even in the backcountry, and none of what this person was doing was safe.
00:42:22
Speaker
It was, that was kind of a breaking point for me where I realized I cannot continue to work with this person. I cannot continue to work with a person who will endanger my students lives. I'm just, I'm not about that. So I reported all of this to the university and the university took away this person's field school for a few years and gave them a slap on the wrist.
00:42:52
Speaker
but I took this person off of my committee. I have a completely new advisor now who's amazing and a new committee member who's amazing, but this was a month before Qualls. So it was kind of a scramble to get through Qualls. And then there was a good few months where it's like all of the adrenaline that was keeping me going and all of the spite that was keeping me going, just trying to get to that next step kind of died down.
00:43:20
Speaker
And it took me a few months to kind of get my groove back to figure out what I was about. And just to clarify for folks, is this the advisor that you had came to IU to study with? So it's supporting someone you actually respect and wanted to work underneath. Yes. And the only...
00:43:46
Speaker
kind of like one of the only people in the region who did work in the region at IU. So like my current advisor, she works down in Mexico. So there's a limited number of connections with kind of the Northwest Plains archaeological community, which is why I'm so thankful to a lot of the Wyoming people like y'all for keeping me in the mix, even though I moved away.
00:44:16
Speaker
I remember for professional reasons, you told me what was going on just due to our professional societies that were involved in. And I remember you telling me this information. And, you know, I talked to my advisor. I didn't I didn't address names. And I was like, I couldn't imagine in like a thousand years like being in a position that you were and actually I couldn't
00:44:45
Speaker
I doubted myself if I had the ability to do what you did and report it. And that's because for our listeners, when you go to grad school, you're looking for an Obi-Wan Kenobi. You were looking for a sensei. That is the person who is supposed to guide you through your graduate career and make you a professional. And what you did took an extreme amount of courage and determination
00:45:09
Speaker
And because of what you did, I have an insurmountable respect for you because I personally don't know if I could do that. To do so, put my career at risk.
00:45:19
Speaker
It was one of those things where it became like, I said this, the other person said that, and a bunch of the faculty stuck with this other person. I could have had no committee here and kind of been dead in the water, right? I'm glad it didn't turn out that way, but it was, I mean, I think Emily and I had a four or five hour conversation where it was just like, how do we address this?
00:45:48
Speaker
and we decided we decided to have me to have me make the official report because I was closer to my qualifying exams and it's like I could master out if I had to and Emily would kind of not get the worst of the blowback then. Did you have to like meet with like a Dean or anything and sign a bunch of stuff? I met with a provost. I
00:46:16
Speaker
I didn't sign anything and I refused to because it's something that needs to be talked about.
00:46:25
Speaker
It's like, I'm going up and I was going up against an institution, right? I was going up against something that was a lot more powerful than me. Like the imbalance of power was so great with between both the, my former advisor and the institution where it's just like, I didn't sign anything. I made my report. I got out of there and, uh, I've had to answer some follow-up questions since then, but.
00:46:51
Speaker
And this is like a larger problem in the field and in academia in general with reporting advisors, right? And this is why where sexual assault and some of these other things get pushed under the rug, even historically in anthropology, right? Out of the three of you, and this is a general question, how many of you know who Dr. Walter Taylor is from the 1940s theory?
00:47:14
Speaker
I didn't do the readings this week. Exactly. You know, this and there's a long line of history of when you attack people in power, you don't go anywhere. And for those that don't know, I didn't even learn about Walter Taylor in my theory class at Wyoming. He's like this forgotten dude because he came back from World War Two, didn't have a tenure position and attacked like the sixth greatest archaeologists of the time for their theory who were doing culture here theory. And they buried his ass. Yeah.
00:47:39
Speaker
and you don't hear about him, like he's forgotten. And so for listeners who aren't in academia, your advisor is pivotal to your career. And it is a tough choice to see some of the, and like, you know, academics are still people. They still do horrible things. And to be someone from a position of less power, like a graduate student, like Mack in his case, to step up and to do the right thing has consequences.
00:48:09
Speaker
that impact you for the rest of your life, potentially. As you mentioned, Mack, you said it could have gone one or two ways. Either the rest of the anthropology department could have sided with your former advisor, they could have sided with you, and fortunately they sided with you. But in the case that they didn't, like you said, you would have mastered out and then where would you be? Right?
00:48:31
Speaker
Yeah. And one of the biggest impacts that had on me was if I were to run a field school now, if I were to run a field program now, it would be dry. I've become very, very aware of how people can use alcohol to further that imbalance of power. And I think everyone should feel safe in archaeology. Everyone should have a fair shot to feel safe in archaeology. And I've had drinks with all of you, right?
00:49:01
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm having a glass of wine, having a drink. Yeah. I'm having a glass of wine right now talking to you, but to me, field work is a professional space. And especially with students, we need to make sure that that starts out as a professional space and not having this idea that it's a party, that's a free for all, but that it's an inclusive, safe place.
00:49:27
Speaker
Yeah, to piggyback off that, I don't want to segue too hard, but like I've been to multiple field schools, multiple, I mean like dozens if not like whatever in the 30s number is of different excavations and sites, but like I have seen
00:49:44
Speaker
alcoholism just like rampant in archaeology and especially in crm like it was pretty bad especially at field schools though like i can just i mean i'm i'm trained to be an observer you know and like i've seen kids like feel pretty like pressured to drink because everyone else is like even like you know and it's it's like
00:50:05
Speaker
you want to fit in at the same time. And it's like, yeah, I don't know. It just does a lot of it. I think in moderation, like, obviously it's like, it's fun if you're like over 21, whatever. But like, just as a culture, like, I think there's too much of it, maybe. I don't know. It's a hard topic. There is. It is. And I mean, I can tell you for sure, especially when I was when I was dealing with some of the stuff with the former advisor, I definitely drank too much.
00:50:29
Speaker
It was a coping mechanism and it's one that I recognize as being a problem and it's one that I take care to avoid now. Yeah. I never blacked out in my life, um, except for the night. I shouldn't ever put this on a podcast, but the one I defended my thesis, like I felt like that was one night I could just like, you know, do whatever, but that was a fun night. I wish I knew about it, but like, um, that's the thing. Like that's, that's not good.
00:50:58
Speaker
No, I had a great day during the day, but like that I just woke up in my bed and like, apparently my shoes, someone, I mean, nicely took my shoes off and stuff. I was like, I was at the bar a minute ago and I've never done that before. And it was like in an archeological setting. And I was like, damn, that's not good. No.
00:51:17
Speaker
Yeah, I want to state first, thank you, Mac, for coming on and telling your story, especially in this last segment. We super appreciate you taking your time and putting your neck out to make these situations right. So I want to applaud you for doing that. And because this is a Life in Ruins podcast, we have to ask the question.
00:51:43
Speaker
Mack, if given the chance again, would you still choose to live a life in ruins?
00:51:48
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. There's been ups, there's been downs, but I love what I do and I want to keep doing it the rest of my life. Great answer. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much, Mac, for coming on. We just interviewed Mackenzie Corey, who's a PhD candidate at the University of Indiana, studying how can we see childhood in the archaeological record. Mac, do you have any social media that you would like to plug?
00:52:14
Speaker
Yep, I'm just at McKenzie Corey on Twitter. So pretty easy there. Sweet. And for our listeners, his Instagram and Twitter and other social media is in the podcast description. I have one last question to end it on. If you get if you get answer in like a sentence, what is the most important thing people should know about like children in prehistory and children in archaeology?
00:52:35
Speaker
Children have agency. Children can make their own decisions. And that is one of the coolest things that we are just not talking about. Awesome. I was hoping you would say that, because I remember you telling me that at the bar, actually. And I was like, that's a very good point. All right. And everyone, that was episode 31 of A Life in Ruins. And with that, we are out.
00:53:22
Speaker
Thanks for listening
00:53:27
Speaker
But I want to take this time to devote to, you know, I want people to be able to express themselves in colleges and anything like that. And please report any sort of abuse that you've been going through. You know, we are here for you and we want to support you and we want to make this field better. So thank you for your time. Awesome.
00:54:04
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, Dig Tech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archapodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.