Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry So
Speaker 1: it's Stuff you Should Know and we're doing one of
Speaker 1: my favorite things, Chuck archaeology. Yeah. We've done a few
Speaker 1: of these over the years, guests, specifically one called Archaeology
Speaker 1: and a Nutshell, which was mostly about archaeology. Yeah. And boy,
Speaker 1: it's hard to find an archaeology article on the Internet
Speaker 1: that doesn't mention Indiana Jones say that, including this one
Speaker 1: from Stuff you Should Know or from How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: It was the one to third and fourth word in
Speaker 1: this article. Forget the Indiana Jones fedora. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: know what, like no pun intended, hats off to that character,
Speaker 1: for I mean, he he's that's that that character has
Speaker 1: done so much for the field of archaeology just by existing,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, for sure, he definitely opened my eyes.
Speaker 1: Archaeology was one of the first complicated words I could
Speaker 1: spell as a youngster. Yeah, thanks thanks to Indiana Jones.
Speaker 1: I bet of archaeologists between the ages of UH thirty
Speaker 1: and fifty five are there because of Indiana Jones, and
Speaker 1: you can usually pick him out because they tend to
Speaker 1: dress like him as well, Like you really don't need
Speaker 1: a whip enough, I don't need it, I want it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, he he represents though this kind of um, well,
Speaker 1: he represents a type of archaeologists that never actually existed,
Speaker 1: you know, pulp pulp fiction kind of archaeologists from the
Speaker 1: like the nineteen thirties adventures, right, so that that didn't
Speaker 1: actually Indiana Jones and his ilk didn't never really exist.
Speaker 1: But he also kind of represents this type of archaeology that,
Speaker 1: um that has become old school for sure, and it's
Speaker 1: starting to be replaced. I was gonna say slowly being replaced,
Speaker 1: but I get the impression that is fairly quickly being
Speaker 1: replaced by this kind of new method These new techniques
Speaker 1: that put together all fall under the name of bioarchaeology, right,
Speaker 1: which is a sub genre, not genre, but sub field,
Speaker 1: sub field. There's a word I'm looking for. I can't
Speaker 1: find it. I think subspecialty works or a specialty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a specialty, but I can't. I can't A
Speaker 1: sub umbrella of the umbrellas term, a subbrella. Man, it's
Speaker 1: gonna bug me. I'll think of it later. Uh So anyway, UM,
Speaker 1: we're we're talking about the combining of a lot of
Speaker 1: different disciplines in archaeology, and they all have great long
Speaker 1: names like paleo DeMar graphy, just studying ancient populations, the
Speaker 1: demographics of those, paleogenetics, which is a big deal, as
Speaker 1: you will see with DNA scraping some old teeth, you know,
Speaker 1: finding out what's going on there. Yeah, mortuary studies, which
Speaker 1: that's the best way to get a date in college,
Speaker 1: right if you say her, you're minoring and mortuary studies.
Speaker 1: But else well, UM, basically anything where you can apply
Speaker 1: new scientific techniques to um, the study of of bones
Speaker 1: in particular, um bones coop that that kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: that kind of um lends itself to being called bioarchaeology.
Speaker 1: But the the field, this little thing that started out,
Speaker 1: I think is kind of a kind of a fairly
Speaker 1: specialized subdiscipline of archaeology. It's the word subdiscipline. I think
Speaker 1: I suggested that, didn't I. Um it it's starting to
Speaker 1: replace archaeology as a whole. From what I can see
Speaker 1: and just from the outside looking in, it's becoming archaeology exactly.
Speaker 1: It's replacing some of these old techniques with these new techniques.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a technocratic approach to archaeology, and the practices,
Speaker 1: the best practices they're coming up with are so good
Speaker 1: that they're kind of undoing old archaeology. And so this
Speaker 1: specialized field is kind of taking over the field as
Speaker 1: a whole, and it seems to be the way that
Speaker 1: archaeology is going. And one of the reasons. Just initially
Speaker 1: it was just like dig up the bones and try
Speaker 1: to read them in even better ways than the old
Speaker 1: style of archaeology did. But as it's growing as a
Speaker 1: field or as a subdiscipline, it's it's starting to try
Speaker 1: to answer bigger and bigger questions about the people that
Speaker 1: are being dug up and the populations that they belong to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of putting it in a historic context and not
Speaker 1: just um, let me look at this one set of
Speaker 1: bone owns and what this says about this person. But
Speaker 1: like you said, they're trying to almost reconstruct societies as
Speaker 1: a whole, uh, and social strata and what they ate
Speaker 1: and what kind of things killed them and whether or
Speaker 1: not they accepted outsiders. Like it's really kind of neat.
Speaker 1: It really is. I like it. And plus I mean,
Speaker 1: this is stuff that archaeology, UM, I guess you could
Speaker 1: call it old school archaeology concerned itself with as well.
Speaker 1: But I get the impression that, um, the old school
Speaker 1: archaeology was not rooted enough in science, so they were
Speaker 1: at risk of making grand pronouncements that were not necessarily
Speaker 1: UM correct. So you just have limited evidence like this
Speaker 1: one skeleton or maybe one burial area, and just from
Speaker 1: a few things that we're basically based on observation. UM.
Speaker 1: Just like visual observation, you would make these extrapolating you
Speaker 1: would extrapolate onto the population as a whole, and you
Speaker 1: could get that wrong really easily. So what bioarchaeology does
Speaker 1: is the same thing still bury up dead bodies. You
Speaker 1: you surmise things from the way that they were situated,
Speaker 1: the stuff they were buried with, and all that. But
Speaker 1: then you also apply scientific investigation like genetics and like UM,
Speaker 1: like using mass spectrometers to to isolate isotopes and in bones,
Speaker 1: and then you take that evidence and you apply it
Speaker 1: to the visual observations you've made, and you get a
Speaker 1: clearer picture and you're at less risk of getting it wrong.
Speaker 1: I think that's why it's becoming archaeology. Yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: we'll probably talk about this a little more later on,
Speaker 1: but one of the things I thought was really neat
Speaker 1: about this is they make the point in our article
Speaker 1: here that you know, history is written by historians, so
Speaker 1: you often just get stories or the history of the
Speaker 1: more important people, right and uh, they even quoted a
Speaker 1: bioarchaeologist in here that says that their goal is to
Speaker 1: kind of work from the bottom up and to find
Speaker 1: out what was going on with some of these marginalized
Speaker 1: people in society or the very least society as a whole,
Speaker 1: and not just you know, let's dig up King Tut's tomb,
Speaker 1: which is great, but who who worked on King Tut's tomb?
Speaker 1: Like that's interesting exactly. Yeah, And so the that's basically
Speaker 1: what's called diplomatic or great Man historiography, which is the
Speaker 1: study of well, that's the that's just digging up King
Speaker 1: Tutt and focusing on him and leaders and rulers, and
Speaker 1: that's based on the idea that they're the ones who
Speaker 1: really push society forward or in whatever direction. It won't
Speaker 1: love it. It was on the rulers and that's the
Speaker 1: way that it's been. Like, that's like kind of the western,
Speaker 1: white patriarchical approach to studying history. What what you love
Speaker 1: and what bioarchaeology has test itself with is called history
Speaker 1: from below, which is, like you said, it's it's sussing
Speaker 1: out that the common people's lives and and figuring out
Speaker 1: society from there. And one of the neat things about that, Chuck,
Speaker 1: is it like imagine if you're just part of a
Speaker 1: marginalized group today and you find out from some archaeologists
Speaker 1: down the road or some historians down the road that
Speaker 1: actually the group that you're a part of did some
Speaker 1: really amazing things in this one civilization, at this one
Speaker 1: period in time, that that's inspiring. That can inspire people
Speaker 1: alive today to do great things with their own lives
Speaker 1: based on, you know, finding out some neat stuff about
Speaker 1: their ancestry that would have otherwise been overlooked if their
Speaker 1: ancestry had never been part of the leadership of a society.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of value to it. Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: term itself, you're more likely at least at this point,
Speaker 1: and I think you're right, it is changing um to
Speaker 1: hear it in America, even though it was first used
Speaker 1: by a British archaeologist name Sir John Graham Douglas Clark,
Speaker 1: great British name, and then ninteen seventies, but an American
Speaker 1: anthropologist named Jane Ellen. Uh, Bookstra, that's as good as
Speaker 1: I could have done. Bookstra b U I K S
Speaker 1: t r a UM. She's the one who kind of
Speaker 1: popularized it and Americans kind of picked up on the
Speaker 1: term a little more, at least at this point. You're
Speaker 1: not as likely to hear it uh in Europe right now? Right, Well,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna call her Jane Ellen. Okay, So Jane Ellen.
Speaker 1: She was an anthropologist and she basically took that term
Speaker 1: bioarchaeology and basically said it was the integration of archaeology
Speaker 1: and human osteology, which is the study of human bones
Speaker 1: and what they can tell us, um put together to
Speaker 1: investigate biocultural change. That was her definition of bioarchaeology, and
Speaker 1: she came up with it in in nineteen seventy seven, and
Speaker 1: that really kind of is the uh, the definition for
Speaker 1: the field today. Yeah, she was awesome. Actually I looked
Speaker 1: into her a little bit. So does she wear a
Speaker 1: pith helmet too. She's probably she's probably been a pith
Speaker 1: or at some point. I had a dude right in.
Speaker 1: Actually that was a fellow pither. Nice. I saw a
Speaker 1: couple of people on Twitter saying like, I had to
Speaker 1: go look this up, but this is what you're wearing
Speaker 1: in the pool? Well, I mean there, to be fair,
Speaker 1: there are the like the British soldier uh type, tall
Speaker 1: pith helmets with the red feather. Yeah, that's not what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. I'm talking about the low safari type
Speaker 1: that provides the coverage. That's precisely what I assumed you
Speaker 1: were talking about. Yeah, that it would be just weird
Speaker 1: to wear the tall one in a swimming pool. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy was a mail carrier, so oh yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems like that might be standard issue for um, for
Speaker 1: the post office, now that you mentioned it. I've seen
Speaker 1: him before. I have to for the walkers, at least
Speaker 1: the undead ones. All right, well, I think I think
Speaker 1: we should already take a break since we provided such
Speaker 1: a nice broad overview. Gosh, that's all right, and we'll
Speaker 1: come back, can talk more and more about bones and poop. Hi,
Speaker 1: all right, so we promised talk of bones and poop. Uh,
Speaker 1: we'll deal with bones first and um bones most times,
Speaker 1: and less like recently when they found did you hear,
Speaker 1: like just a couple of days ago they found this
Speaker 1: couple from World War Two frozen in the Swiss Alps. Yes,
Speaker 1: and okay, so this couple, it's so tragic, right, This
Speaker 1: is they had tons of kids that were at home.
Speaker 1: The mom finally the dad used to go hiking in
Speaker 1: the mountains all the time. The mom finally went with
Speaker 1: them for the first time and they get lost and
Speaker 1: felt they fall into a crevass and or lost for
Speaker 1: seven a year again. Yeah. And the reason why she
Speaker 1: never went with them before with her husband before because
Speaker 1: she's pregnant all the time. Yeah. So she reared a
Speaker 1: bunch of kids, fell into crovoss, died, was lost for
Speaker 1: seventy years, and then was found again by a ski
Speaker 1: lift company. Could you imagine coming across something like that
Speaker 1: and be grizzly in World War two outfits? I mean
Speaker 1: uniform obviously, but period era clothing. Yeah. So anyway, barring
Speaker 1: something like that, generally, what you're gonna be left with
Speaker 1: when people die, that flesh goes away very quickly, and
Speaker 1: you know, as far as in a relative sense, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna be left with bones. These skeletons, Uh, they're
Speaker 1: very durable, they're very hard, uh, and they last a
Speaker 1: very long time. So, um, the best evidence that that
Speaker 1: bioarchaeologists work with, for the most part, like bones and teeth, right,
Speaker 1: because those, like you said, they lasted very very long time.
Speaker 1: And there's actually quite a bit you can tell from
Speaker 1: those things. In fact, I saw um an explanation of
Speaker 1: bioarchaeology because it's such an evolving field. Still check that
Speaker 1: the definition. Even though Jane Ellen's definition holds pretty well,
Speaker 1: there's it's it's just not set in stone, know and
Speaker 1: says this is the definition. Right. So one explanation for
Speaker 1: bioarchaeology I saw so that it as a discipline, it
Speaker 1: views the skeleton as a form of material culture crafted
Speaker 1: through lived experience. Right. So the skeleton itself has the
Speaker 1: markers of all these different things that this person did
Speaker 1: in their lifetime, had done to them in their lifetime,
Speaker 1: like say an infliction of violence, um, suffered from in
Speaker 1: their lifetime, like a disease eight in their lifetime. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: all of this stuff is left behind in your bones,
Speaker 1: and we've just recently really figured out how to read
Speaker 1: this beyond looking at it and visually inspecting it. We've
Speaker 1: learned how to apply scientific tools like DNA analysis to
Speaker 1: to to glean more information from them. Yeah, it's really neat,
Speaker 1: like did these people like it really puts a human
Speaker 1: a more broad human aspect to it all. I think, uh, like,
Speaker 1: did these people suffer as a society? Did they thrive?
Speaker 1: Were they healthy? Were they sick? What did they overcome?
Speaker 1: What was there? What was their environment? Like? Like did
Speaker 1: they was it social upheaval that brought them down? Or
Speaker 1: was it, uh, you know, a large wave or was
Speaker 1: it a disease from eating the wrong thing? Uh? It's
Speaker 1: really interesting. I know a couple of I think it
Speaker 1: was in two thousand fourteen. I believe we talked about
Speaker 1: this on some show, but it might have even been
Speaker 1: an Internet round up. But they discovered the oldest human poop, uh,
Speaker 1: fifty thousand year old Neanderthal poop, and they found out
Speaker 1: that it was a bit of surprise that they ate
Speaker 1: a lot of vegetable. Yeah. I saw this um documentary
Speaker 1: recently called What the Health I think is what it
Speaker 1: was called or whatever? Right, um, But there's an ongoing
Speaker 1: discussion in it about whether humans are actually herbivores or omnivores. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which was it was a bit of surprise because they
Speaker 1: thought that Neander talls. I think it's talls, right us,
Speaker 1: But I think I think it is supposed to be talls.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well that they ate largely only meat. Uh,
Speaker 1: And then they found that no, that in the it's
Speaker 1: called copper light, this these fossil feces. Um they did
Speaker 1: eat a lot of meat obviously, but they were eating
Speaker 1: and they couldn't tell from the chemistry analysis of the
Speaker 1: poop itself, but they did pollen analysis of the area
Speaker 1: and found that they were eating like berries and nuts
Speaker 1: and tubers, and uh. It just you know, overall, just
Speaker 1: gives kind of a more complete picture of something like
Speaker 1: you were talking about earlier. They previously were like, no,
Speaker 1: all they did was eating meat. Well yeah, plus also,
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. So there's this whole idea
Speaker 1: that all of the megafauna in North America collapsed like
Speaker 1: around twelve thousand years ago, and humans get blamed for it,
Speaker 1: like we overhunted the megafauna. Well, if we find evidence
Speaker 1: down the road through bioarchaeology, that. No. Actually, most of
Speaker 1: the ancestors who made it to North America UM and
Speaker 1: we're living here twelve thousand years ago were vegetarians for
Speaker 1: the most part. They probably didn't overhunt and drive to
Speaker 1: extinction these the mega fauna. It was probably something else
Speaker 1: that did it. And so, you know, laying it at
Speaker 1: the feet of these early humans has been kind of
Speaker 1: a cautionary tale, like, look, what happened. You can lead
Speaker 1: to environmental collapse if you don't manage the wildlife correctly.
Speaker 1: But if that's not actually true, and we find out
Speaker 1: what did lead to the collapse of the mega fauna,
Speaker 1: then maybe we can protect against that instead, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, and just forget the rest of wildlife. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can overhunt all you want. Well, it's definitely calling
Speaker 1: into question a lot of things that we took for
Speaker 1: granted because of oh, just sort of limited science, I guess,
Speaker 1: is the best way to say it. Yeah, And there's
Speaker 1: this Atlas Obscure article we both read about um human feces,
Speaker 1: about copper light the study of it. I think it
Speaker 1: was something like to know ancient civilization, you have to
Speaker 1: study its feces or something something along tho it's a
Speaker 1: truly known ancient society, one must analyze its species, right.
Speaker 1: And it gives an example of this one archaeologist who
Speaker 1: was working back in the sixties and is working today,
Speaker 1: and back in the sixties, when they would find copper light,
Speaker 1: they would be like, oh, this is interesting, and then
Speaker 1: they'd use it for like flying disc contests at lunch.
Speaker 1: This is like, this is not that long ago that
Speaker 1: the archaeologists were doing this, and today it's like, you
Speaker 1: find copper light, you bag it separately from the other
Speaker 1: copper light found. You're it's going back for genetic analysis.
Speaker 1: You take half of the sample and preserve it so
Speaker 1: that you can use it for later analysis when our
Speaker 1: tools become even more advanced. Like it's it's just been.
Speaker 1: It's just such a great example of old school archaeology
Speaker 1: and the new um archaeology that's coming up today. Like
Speaker 1: they're looking at it as which is as it is,
Speaker 1: which is a legitimate, important fine that can tell you
Speaker 1: a lot about a society, instead of playing frisbee baseball
Speaker 1: with it. I guess it's frisbee football, right, frisbee frollf
Speaker 1: playing frollf with the poop. Did you ever play that
Speaker 1: frisbee golf. No, they have courses for that stuff. I know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, they definitely do. I'm sure they did in Athens.
Speaker 1: If they don't still well, in true Chuck form, I
Speaker 1: went so far as to buy a couple of different
Speaker 1: frisbee golf frisbees and never went Oh you never did hunt. Nope, nope.
Speaker 1: That's kind of my thing. Nothing beats sitting around when
Speaker 1: you're in college. Yeah, pretty much. Uh so. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: copper Light, I mean it took. I mean it took
Speaker 1: from the nineteen sixties until just recently, like even through
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties. It said that it was a
Speaker 1: pretty small field of people that took it seriously, and
Speaker 1: other people were still even in the nineties, like what
Speaker 1: are you studying poop for um? And to be fair
Speaker 1: at the time, especially like back in the sixties as
Speaker 1: recently as like the eighties or nineties, I guess like
Speaker 1: you're saying, we didn't have anything that we could do
Speaker 1: with the human poop. Besides all, yeah, there wasn't anything
Speaker 1: you could do. I mean, you could break it open
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, look a corn corn seed. They
Speaker 1: were eating corn. That's about the best you could hope
Speaker 1: for right, So there there wasn't much you could do.
Speaker 1: But even still, if you look at what we're doing
Speaker 1: with it today, which is preserving half of the sample
Speaker 1: for future analysis with better tools that haven't been adventagure,
Speaker 1: that definitely um underscores a mentality that wasn't present before either,
Speaker 1: which is this is not the apex yet, where we
Speaker 1: haven't reached the apex of science. Yeah, I mean now
Speaker 1: nowadays they can rehydrate it. Uh, they can say, hey,
Speaker 1: they were recites in this poop and in fact, in
Speaker 1: all the poop of all these people that lived here,
Speaker 1: so perhaps that's what killed them. Yeah, And they don't
Speaker 1: even have to have the stool sample. They can find
Speaker 1: in like an set an ancient latrine and learn a
Speaker 1: lot from that. And you know it sounds kind of funny,
Speaker 1: but it's you can learn a lot from this stuff. Well.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was writing the cannibalism article years back,
Speaker 1: finding like right around that time, they had found evidence
Speaker 1: of cannibalism from copper light and they had done it
Speaker 1: really round about. Um, they found some protein that is
Speaker 1: only found in human muscle, and they found it in
Speaker 1: the poop of some South Southwestern Uh, indigenous groups poop
Speaker 1: and they think that it was the result of climate
Speaker 1: change because the climate had changed and people were starving
Speaker 1: and they engaged in cannibalism as a result. But um,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty sterling example of bioarchaeology and action. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This one guy, Pierce Mitchell from University of Cambridge, go,
Speaker 1: I don't know, go fighting chaplains, fighting chaplains. Uh. He
Speaker 1: learned through studying fecal matter that King Richard the Third
Speaker 1: had round worm. Yeah, so you know that's great man.
Speaker 1: His storiography though, who cares? All right, so what man?
Speaker 1: I didn't expect to go right into poop, but there
Speaker 1: we did it. Well, let's talk teeth. Let's go from
Speaker 1: poop to teeth, you know the standard. Yeah, teeth are
Speaker 1: a big marker. Um, Like, if they dug me up
Speaker 1: one day, they would say, well, this gentleman had at
Speaker 1: least two bad teeth, because the only thing left. And
Speaker 1: and I had a brief conversation with the very famous
Speaker 1: Microw for just kind of weirdly had a conversation with
Speaker 1: him one day about my implants and he said, oh,
Speaker 1: you have those implants and he went, well, just know,
Speaker 1: in a thousand years that will be the only thing
Speaker 1: left of you. Right, So that's kind of good to know. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll be like obviously this person was of higher
Speaker 1: social status, he had implants, Yeah, or at least into
Speaker 1: intern he was probably venerated. Uh and bury me with
Speaker 1: my flippers is all I'm gonna say to So what
Speaker 1: they could find out from teeth or can find out maybe, um,
Speaker 1: if the children suffered from malnutrition, Well there's a whole
Speaker 1: there's a whole thing where when you are malnourished as
Speaker 1: a child, your teeth formed these little lines in them
Speaker 1: as the development is kind of stunted, and they stay
Speaker 1: there for life, even if you managed to become nourished
Speaker 1: and survive. Right, So they can tell what your diet
Speaker 1: was like as a child from just looking at your teeth. Well,
Speaker 1: and can also tell I guess when I was talking
Speaker 1: about how society may have overcome something. Uh maybe they
Speaker 1: you know, we're close to death and overcame disease to
Speaker 1: end up thriving, but they still had those lines and
Speaker 1: the right exactly. Um, they can also tell from teeth
Speaker 1: if you crush teeth up and powder them and run
Speaker 1: them through a mass spect spectrometer. There's some pretty neat
Speaker 1: stuff you can do with that. Actually, Um, when you're
Speaker 1: a little kid and you start eating and drinking the
Speaker 1: local water, there's something um called strontium and it's a
Speaker 1: it's a stable isotope that's found in the bedrock of
Speaker 1: your area, and it's specific to your area, your region.
Speaker 1: It's pretty localized, right, the type of strontium isotope that's
Speaker 1: going to be where you live and when you when
Speaker 1: the when rain water filters through the bedrock into groundwater
Speaker 1: and then comes back out, and it's taken up by
Speaker 1: plants and enters the water supply, and then your mom
Speaker 1: eats that plant and then breastfeeds you. Those strontium isotopes
Speaker 1: get transferred to you and they get locked into your
Speaker 1: teeth for life. Right, So where you're born can be
Speaker 1: isolated by using a mass spectrometer to find what strownium
Speaker 1: isotopes are in your teeth. That can be done whether
Speaker 1: you were whether you live fifty thousand years ago or
Speaker 1: we're born yesterday, either way, and that amazing. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like we talked about that before. There's no way
Speaker 1: we haven't, right, Yeah, Like something about the water that
Speaker 1: you drank as a child. Yeah, that would be it
Speaker 1: totally right. So you're taking in stronium isotopes and you've
Speaker 1: got those embedded in your teeth that you also get
Speaker 1: different kinds of isotopes as well, stroni um, lead, oxygen.
Speaker 1: They all have stabil isotopes that get embedded into your
Speaker 1: into your skeleton, whether it's your teeth or your your bones.
Speaker 1: But the stuff and your teeth from when you're young
Speaker 1: stays in there, it's permanently locked in. But the stuff
Speaker 1: in your bones. Remember we did like does the body
Speaker 1: replace itself every seven or years? Um? Since your skeleton
Speaker 1: replaces itself pretty pretty on a pretty regular basis, the
Speaker 1: strown e um and the isotopes that are found in
Speaker 1: your bones later in life are going to be a
Speaker 1: marker of where you lived close to your death. Right.
Speaker 1: So if the strawny of isotopes in your teeth are
Speaker 1: different from the strawney of isotopes in your bone, well
Speaker 1: a bioarchaeologist is going to say, this person, mindgraded where
Speaker 1: did they come from? Why did they migrate? Why were
Speaker 1: they buried with all these great grave goods? Did they
Speaker 1: come from a different culture? And basically end up, you know,
Speaker 1: becoming venerated in this new culture where they like a
Speaker 1: high priest or what what's the deal? Where did this
Speaker 1: person come from? Yeah, and that's just kind of um
Speaker 1: laying the groundwork now. And we might not have the
Speaker 1: to the technology to say, oh, well, this is where
Speaker 1: he came from. We don't have the interpretation yet to
Speaker 1: say this is where, this is where they came from,
Speaker 1: and this is what happened when they arrived. But we can,
Speaker 1: we can create raw data from that for successive generations
Speaker 1: of archaeologists to look at and use to to UM
Speaker 1: to include it into a better understanding of the population
Speaker 1: they're examining. Yeah. And with the the mass spectrometer, which
Speaker 1: we've talked about another shows too, they do something called
Speaker 1: stable isotope analysis in terms of also finding out what
Speaker 1: what people ate. That if there's a difference in molecular weight,
Speaker 1: like the ratio of heavy to light particles, they can
Speaker 1: determine whether someone consumed more carbon or more nitrogen in
Speaker 1: their lifetime. If they have a lot of nitrogen, maybe
Speaker 1: they ate a lot of meat or most likely had
Speaker 1: a lot of meat, or they just ate handfuls of
Speaker 1: nitrogen maybe so uh, nice nitrogen fields could come across
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, if they have a high ratio of
Speaker 1: the carbon, maybe they ate a lot of like corn
Speaker 1: or I guess, maze, Um, it's sorghum. That's such a
Speaker 1: great word, low carbon. It's an old timey word. Like
Speaker 1: any time I hear sorghum, I immediately think overalls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: me too. Low ratio of carbon isotopes might mean they
Speaker 1: ate more potatoes and wheat and stuff like that. So, like,
Speaker 1: it's just amazing that science has gotten to this point.
Speaker 1: You can dig up a bone, find out where someone
Speaker 1: was from where they died, and what they ate yep,
Speaker 1: like largely in their life. And again you're putting it
Speaker 1: in context with where you're finding this, like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: already like the story that's already there exactly. You know,
Speaker 1: because people if you if you put if you bury
Speaker 1: somebody with something, um, that says a lot like it
Speaker 1: just as much as as what your bones say about
Speaker 1: how you lived. I saw somebody say like the way
Speaker 1: that you're treated in death by the people who you're
Speaker 1: survived by, that says quite a bit as well. So
Speaker 1: the type of burial, the way that your your grave
Speaker 1: was marked, um, says a lot about not just you
Speaker 1: and how you were treated, but also what the society was,
Speaker 1: you know, found important. That's true because you can ask
Speaker 1: for whatever you want in your burial, right, but someone's
Speaker 1: got to feel good enough about you to carry that
Speaker 1: out out. They might be like, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to keep this this wooden fallus. I don't want you
Speaker 1: to be buried with it. Did you see that thing them,
Speaker 1: those mummies that were discovered in China? I don't think so. No.
Speaker 1: I think that was like um Middle Eastern artifacts the
Speaker 1: hobby lobby had, But I don't know anything about that,
Speaker 1: do you. I read briefly after I saw the words
Speaker 1: hobby lobby. What were they doing with that stuff? I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's it's very bizarre. Maybe they were collectors,
Speaker 1: maybe where they were going to turn it into a
Speaker 1: line of like um tasteful home decor. Probably so well
Speaker 1: that there was a group of mummies found that belonged
Speaker 1: to an unnamed population that lived about four thousand years
Speaker 1: ago in um, a part of an autonomous part of
Speaker 1: China that's now a desert. It's called the Tacklemmcin Desert.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I got that right. But the the area
Speaker 1: of the district that they were um found near is
Speaker 1: called the show Hood You district, and um, the there's
Speaker 1: the mummies are just incredibly well preserved, so much so
Speaker 1: that their hair is totally intact. They were buried with
Speaker 1: these um felt hats and fur lined boots that are
Speaker 1: totally intact. I think one of them had like a
Speaker 1: feather in their cap that was intact. Like the preservation
Speaker 1: is just unheard of. And one of them is so
Speaker 1: well preserved that she's called the Beauty of show Hood
Speaker 1: you right where. Um she's just kind of good looking
Speaker 1: as far as mummies go, Like, go look her up.
Speaker 1: Don't think I'm a weirdo. You'll feel odd about this
Speaker 1: after you see her yourself. What was the name again,
Speaker 1: the Beauty of show jew So Um, it's not at
Speaker 1: all pronounced like that, but just type in beauty Mummy
Speaker 1: China or something like that and they will definitely bring
Speaker 1: it up. But this this unknown group, Um, they were
Speaker 1: like they would bury they're dead with Phallus's or Volva's.
Speaker 1: They were buried with like thirteen foot fallacies sticking out
Speaker 1: of like their graves. They were really into sex for
Speaker 1: one reason or another, right, and the hats that they
Speaker 1: were buried in UM were found in burials in the
Speaker 1: area two thousand years later. And so this unknown group
Speaker 1: that no one has any idea what they what they
Speaker 1: were like, or what they were into, aside from they
Speaker 1: were super sexy, right. Um. They they think that they
Speaker 1: know what language they spoke, Um, because the the group
Speaker 1: that had similar hats two thousand years later was known
Speaker 1: to speak this one lost language and it was more
Speaker 1: related to Latin than say, like Central Asian, which doesn't
Speaker 1: really make sense until you find out that some of
Speaker 1: these mummies actually had red hair and European features. And
Speaker 1: they think that they were a pastoral group that basically
Speaker 1: herded their cows all the way from western Europe over
Speaker 1: to the the deserts of central China, and that is
Speaker 1: funding yeah, holy cow. Yeah, but again bioarchaeology. All right, well,
Speaker 1: let's take another break here. We'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about d n A and UM, a little bit about
Speaker 1: how hobby lobby kind of figures into this in a way.
Speaker 1: All right, So we talked about mass spectrometers, talked about
Speaker 1: good old fashioned tooth scraping, good looking mummies, talked about
Speaker 1: the sexiest mummies in history, right. I'm sure that's a
Speaker 1: there's a top ten list on the internet somewhere. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you you'll be like, oh, there's number one. I
Speaker 1: gotta see this. Um So, I guess DNA is sort
Speaker 1: of is sort of the next place to get Oh
Speaker 1: it's uh. They've been using DNA in archaeology for a while.
Speaker 1: Obviously since the advent of DNA, they've been trying to
Speaker 1: apply it. But they use it as as much as
Speaker 1: they can now ancient DNA because obviously with DNA you
Speaker 1: can find out all kinds of things from relatedness, uh,
Speaker 1: to other individuals within a population, marriage patterns maybe, and
Speaker 1: obviously just something is I mean, they can tell largely
Speaker 1: from the bones what kind of sex of an individual.
Speaker 1: But DNA is the shoe in. Yeah, supposedly, even even
Speaker 1: if you are sexing an individual by the bone structure,
Speaker 1: you're it's still an educated guest. It's not definitive. It's
Speaker 1: d N A that that's the only definitive way to
Speaker 1: say this is a man, or this is a woman
Speaker 1: that could could have been a man. With very dainty frame. Um,
Speaker 1: there's this. Uh. So the mummy is called the Beauty
Speaker 1: of x I A O h e. Which, believe it
Speaker 1: or not, is show hood you? Yeah? Show who would you?
Speaker 1: How's my Chinese? That was pretty good? Actually, thanks man.
Speaker 1: I actually I'm going the extra step these days and
Speaker 1: looking up pronunciations and then practicing, which is the second step.
Speaker 1: What what word was it that shamed you into doing that? Oh?
Speaker 1: There's been so many. Uh. I can't bring any of mine.
Speaker 1: I think I blocked them out to keep any level
Speaker 1: of self respect. But there have been plenty, as you're
Speaker 1: well aware. Can you think of one? No, okay, nothing recently.
Speaker 1: I'm sure everyone will let us know on the internet.
Speaker 1: Oh I just found the money? Yeah? Am I right?
Speaker 1: Or what that's a good looking mummy? Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's a little weird to say it is, but I
Speaker 1: think when you when you approach it from like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: that's a mummy. I can't believe how well preserved it
Speaker 1: is this place instead of like a mummy. Yeah, although, hey, man,
Speaker 1: to each his own, does that extend to that? Yeah? Sure?
Speaker 1: All right? Uh all right? What else about DNA lineages?
Speaker 1: Obviously it's a very big deal. Um well, yeah, you
Speaker 1: can you can find a group of a group burial
Speaker 1: or basically a cemetery. And now bioarchaeologists like to show
Speaker 1: off by showing who's related to whom. Yeah, just by saying, well,
Speaker 1: let's look at their their their genes, their d NA,
Speaker 1: which is pretty neat. Yeah, and as a whole, if
Speaker 1: you look at a cemetery, I mean that's I mean,
Speaker 1: finding an individual is great. But when archaeologists can uncover
Speaker 1: a burial ground, that's when they really kind of lick
Speaker 1: their chops because they can learn a lot about like
Speaker 1: the hierarchy of the society, what different ones of them
Speaker 1: eight Like you said, if they migrated, Uh, maybe they're
Speaker 1: from somewhere else where were they born, which says a
Speaker 1: lot about a population, if they took in people from
Speaker 1: other societies. Yeah, that's a great point actually, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: And that that actually gives a pretty good example of um,
Speaker 1: like the social hierarchy thing. That gives a good example
Speaker 1: of bioarchaeology. And that whereas before you would find a
Speaker 1: grave and this one had like a marker and the
Speaker 1: person was buried with a lot of cool stuff, and
Speaker 1: then it's next to a grave or there's a grave
Speaker 1: nearby that isn't really buried with as much stuff, so
Speaker 1: you would say, well, this, this person was obviously venerated,
Speaker 1: and this was a socially unequal society. And it's a
Speaker 1: pretty good guess. You know, you're you, you're you're probably right.
Speaker 1: But what bioarchaeology does now is they take that that
Speaker 1: that's surmising and then they say, okay, well this person
Speaker 1: had a diet that was rich and meat, and this
Speaker 1: person ain't nothing but vegetables. So the rich and meat
Speaker 1: person who had the nicer grave was probably richer. And
Speaker 1: let's look at their bones. Well, their bones are less,
Speaker 1: which would indicate they had not engaged in hard labor
Speaker 1: during their lifetime, whereas this other person's bones are very dense,
Speaker 1: which meant that they probably did engage in hard labor.
Speaker 1: And so you start putting all this stuff together, and
Speaker 1: you're backing up that that um, the surmise that you
Speaker 1: made about the um social strata her stratiography. Yes, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. I'm glad at least one person does. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and you're you're basically backing it up rather than
Speaker 1: just jumping to conclusions and leaving it at that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a much more firm science for sure. Yeah, So uh,
Speaker 1: I kind of teased before the break that hobby lobby
Speaker 1: kind of plays apart, but I was referencing in general
Speaker 1: when it's kind of the UM. Anytime we talk about archaeology,
Speaker 1: there's a certain amount of controversy involved because what you're
Speaker 1: inherently doing is disturbing UM, ancient graves. UH. In almost
Speaker 1: all cases is unless you know there are no humans there.
Speaker 1: But UM, that's there's gonna be some controversy within that.
Speaker 1: Some people think you shouldn't do it at all, uh,
Speaker 1: and then other people have come along the way to
Speaker 1: at least kind of give a framework of how best
Speaker 1: to do this best practices. UNESCO, the United Nations Educational,
Speaker 1: Scientific and Cultural Organization UM, in nineteen seventy adopted a
Speaker 1: convention called the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export,
Speaker 1: and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. That's a mouthful,
Speaker 1: It is a mouthful, but basically what it says is, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, try not to let happen, which is what
Speaker 1: hobby lobby did, which is obviously pay for a cultural
Speaker 1: object that didn't belong to your people, right, individually and
Speaker 1: right that's the key. If if somebody, even if it's
Speaker 1: somebody who is a member of, say like the tribe
Speaker 1: that that artifact comes from, that that skeleton come from.
Speaker 1: There's something called cultural patrimony, which is that that is
Speaker 1: an object that belongs to the tribe as a whole,
Speaker 1: and no individual, including an individual from that tribe, can
Speaker 1: claim ownership over it or over the tribe. Right. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so if the tribe says no, that's ours, the tribe
Speaker 1: wands that individual doesn't. Yeah, And there's been a really
Speaker 1: big and I know we talked about this on other episodes,
Speaker 1: but there's been a really big push um in the
Speaker 1: past ten years, but really in the past like years
Speaker 1: for repatriation of these cultural items here in the US.
Speaker 1: And I think they um, yeah, George H. W. Bush. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they passed the legislation called the Native American Graves Protection
Speaker 1: and Repage Repatriation Act nag PRO. Sure, why not not
Speaker 1: as catchy as UNESCO. That's a good one. But you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, the idea is that you just can't
Speaker 1: come in here and and uh, steal is such a
Speaker 1: harsh word, but it's yeah, it's really tough. I think
Speaker 1: Gray Robbing we did one on that right as a whole. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that one that one audience member in London
Speaker 1: called me out, was like, are you saying my parents
Speaker 1: are gray Robberts because they're both archaeologists, And I was like,
Speaker 1: of course that was our life topic. I said, some
Speaker 1: people would say that, for sure. I do remember that. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of like pushback though in some cases,
Speaker 1: because sometimes they end up having to rely on oral history,
Speaker 1: and I think that the cynics, uh would are saying, um, well,
Speaker 1: you know, how do we know they're just saying this stuff,
Speaker 1: yeah that was passed down orally like show it to
Speaker 1: me in writing there, like we didn't have writ didn't
Speaker 1: have an alphabet, dude. Or you might have to be uh,
Speaker 1: you might have to negotiate with a religious leader and
Speaker 1: then another um jerk might come along and say, oh
Speaker 1: wait a minute, Uh, these are their religious beliefs and
Speaker 1: this is federal law, like we have to keep those
Speaker 1: things separate. So, I mean, those are all very cynical viewpoints.
Speaker 1: I think generally, bioarchaeologists try as much as possible to
Speaker 1: work with the the local people or the indigenous people
Speaker 1: and say, hey, you know, this is your stuff, let
Speaker 1: us uncover some of your secrets. Here unless they're like, no, don't,
Speaker 1: we don't want the secrets out right, right, but you know,
Speaker 1: they try to have a good working relationship with the
Speaker 1: indigenous people. Uh well that's the best way to go forward,
Speaker 1: of course. Yeah, um yeah, Like I would think, I mean,
Speaker 1: you never know, I'm not gonna obviously, what's important to
Speaker 1: like one Native American tribe might be different for another.
Speaker 1: But I would think a lot of times they might
Speaker 1: want some of the stuff highlighted and even you know,
Speaker 1: put on display as long as it's a temporary thing
Speaker 1: and they can get it back, you know. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it also depends on the context. Like you know,
Speaker 1: the turn of the last century was really rife with
Speaker 1: I mean, you really can't call it anything much more
Speaker 1: than than academically sanctioned grave robbing, where you know, universities
Speaker 1: of prestigiousness would send off basically guys who amounted to
Speaker 1: adventurers to go, you know, locate graves and loot them
Speaker 1: and bring them back for the universities to to widen
Speaker 1: their prestige with these collections. Right sure, and then if if,
Speaker 1: for if, for decades you said, hey, give that back
Speaker 1: that was taken by anyone's um definition illegally in the
Speaker 1: university is like, oh, sorry, no, you're gonna be upset
Speaker 1: about that. Whereas if the person says, well, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: of course, let's get this back to you. Can we
Speaker 1: do this analysis on it first and then get it
Speaker 1: back to you. Um, Or if you've discover something and
Speaker 1: you say, hey, we need to hold a meeting with
Speaker 1: this local indigenous population, saying we found a grave site.
Speaker 1: We'd really like to excavate it, but it's up to
Speaker 1: them whether we do or not. You're probably gonna get
Speaker 1: a lot better reception than than you would if you
Speaker 1: just rolled right over their wishes and didn't take them
Speaker 1: into consideration at all. Well, there's a saying here in
Speaker 1: the South, Josh, that you've probably heard catch more flies
Speaker 1: with honey than you do with vinegar. Right, So true,
Speaker 1: It's always been my approach. That's why there's always plenty
Speaker 1: of honey at all of these local meetings of indigenous people.
Speaker 1: When the bioarchaeologists show up, you know they're digging that.
Speaker 1: This is uh, I just learned this today. They're they're
Speaker 1: exhuming Salvador Dali. Yeah you see a paternity test. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're there. Terry springers behind officially. No he's not, is he. No,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't surprise me. No, that wouldn't mean officials in
Speaker 1: Spain are gonna break into his tomb, get a e
Speaker 1: and a sample and see if this lady, Uh, this woman,
Speaker 1: Pillar Abelle is in fact his daughter. It's a good name, Pillar.
Speaker 1: She's a fortune teller. Oh yeah, she's a little wacky,
Speaker 1: but uh, well apparently her claims legit enough that they're
Speaker 1: taking the guy up. Yeah, Holly, um from stuff you
Speaker 1: missed in history class and we're talking about this and
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard about it yet, and she was telling
Speaker 1: me about She was like, oh this ladies, she's a
Speaker 1: piece of workman, she's wacky. I was like, well, she
Speaker 1: probably just waltzed into court and knowing anything about Salvador Dali.
Speaker 1: The judge was like, yeah, maybe we should look into
Speaker 1: this right, like to the Great Odd Figures or at
Speaker 1: least one. I'd like, how you just exposed Holly to
Speaker 1: a lawsuit from this lady by saying she was a
Speaker 1: wacky ways I quote Holly Fry said wacky. Uh. And
Speaker 1: of course his families, the Salvador Deli Foundation is fighting it,
Speaker 1: but it's going be buried. Yeah. I mean I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting when it seems a little sentimental for Salvador Daldy.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem to fit his character, you know, like
Speaker 1: I'm sure he'd be like, whoa, all right, let's get
Speaker 1: it going. Yeah, dig me up, like, dig me up
Speaker 1: and bury me with the world's good, best looking mummy.
Speaker 1: She said, it's uh uh, she said, it's not about
Speaker 1: the dough. Um, so it's about the money. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: see about that. It's like tens of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: at stake here easy. Oh, so she has a claim
Speaker 1: on his estate, is what it is? Huh. Well that
Speaker 1: also explains why the foundation doesn't want me. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that's a good thing. If he if he fathered
Speaker 1: a child, that she is his rightful error because he
Speaker 1: didn't have any kids. I got you. I always could
Speaker 1: feel I have always have mixed feelings about that stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, on one hand, it seems like Jesus person
Speaker 1: coming along and like trying to get some of this money.
Speaker 1: But then on the other hands, like, well, yeah, but
Speaker 1: that's if that's his daughter that he never cared for. Uh.
Speaker 1: I mean, I definitely end up siding with the fact
Speaker 1: that it is family in the end. But I don't know,
Speaker 1: it feels little icky sometimes too. Well. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're digging up a body. You're you're digging up a
Speaker 1: body so you can make a claim on money, whether
Speaker 1: it is about that or not involved. But I also
Speaker 1: feel like there's a certain amount of like reverence for
Speaker 1: the dead body. Yeah, where it's kind of like, no,
Speaker 1: if you've fathered an illegitimate child in life, just because
Speaker 1: he died doesn't really get him off the hook from
Speaker 1: you know, from from that from whatever consequence that might be,
Speaker 1: even in death. I don't I don't know. I hadn't
Speaker 1: really considered it until now, but um, I guess it
Speaker 1: is this kind of an icky thing overall. But it's
Speaker 1: also it's just a dead body, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's a dead body and care. I'm not too precious
Speaker 1: about my remains. That's good to know, because I'm gon
Speaker 1: dig you up based on that could make me into
Speaker 1: a bunch of soccer balls a just kick me around
Speaker 1: the world. That man, what a great idea. So Chuck,
Speaker 1: let's let's wrap it up talking about you know, why
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff is important. I think we've hit
Speaker 1: on it. Like here, they're like explaining the history of
Speaker 1: a society from you know, the common people rather than
Speaker 1: just the leadership. Gives a better idea of the society.
Speaker 1: That's definitely one thing, um. But also I think that
Speaker 1: bioarchaeology is kind of tasked itself with using the past,
Speaker 1: getting a clear picture of the past to explain the
Speaker 1: present or predict the near future. You know, Like one
Speaker 1: thing that a lot of people are um trying to
Speaker 1: figure out is our humans inherently violent. And one way
Speaker 1: you you could kind of provide evidence for that case
Speaker 1: is were we violent in the past. It's a huge
Speaker 1: I think we even did in an entire episode on
Speaker 1: that one that was pretty great about whether humans have
Speaker 1: always been violent? Um. And I think that's one thing
Speaker 1: that bioarchaeologists are trying to solve is finding evidence of
Speaker 1: violence or an evidence of a lack of violence in
Speaker 1: a society that happened before. Another, what big one is
Speaker 1: climate change and how humans have responded to that in
Speaker 1: the past, right, and what we might can do about
Speaker 1: it in the future based on that that learning. And
Speaker 1: then there's just something to be said about you know,
Speaker 1: getting bones out of a grave. There's nothing more satisfying
Speaker 1: than that. Put him in a bag, throwing the bag
Speaker 1: over your shoulder and walking back to the lab whistling
Speaker 1: as you do. That's right, the job well done. You
Speaker 1: got anything else? I got nothing else, sir? Okay. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure bioarchaeology will have plenty more for us to
Speaker 1: talk about in the future, so maybe we'll revisit it.
Speaker 1: In the meantime. You can type that word by oh
Speaker 1: archeology into the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: And since I said that, it's time for listener mail,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this what was in the subject line,
Speaker 1: which is am I in a hole? Except she really
Speaker 1: said the word was from michaela uh. And I always
Speaker 1: like these that kind of pose a question to us,
Speaker 1: so this one does that. Here's what went down, guys. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's a recent conversation with my boyfriend. I stopped at
Speaker 1: a stop sign at the same time as a car
Speaker 1: coming from the opposite direction who had a turn signal on.
Speaker 1: I was going straight. The guy and I both waved
Speaker 1: for the other to go ahead first. Got a little awkward,
Speaker 1: but that's not the important part. My boyfriend said, he
Speaker 1: notices that it's usually men who do the wave to
Speaker 1: usher people that stop signs, and he thinks it's just
Speaker 1: them trying to be controlling and that they are probably jerks.
Speaker 1: I waved people through all the time, just trying to
Speaker 1: be nice and help them get where they're going a
Speaker 1: little bit faster, without worrying about who should technically go first.
Speaker 1: So I've always assumed that when people do the wave
Speaker 1: at me, because they're trying to be nice. So my
Speaker 1: questions to you all are, how do you perceive the wave?
Speaker 1: Am I controlling a whole? Is this how my boyfriend
Speaker 1: perceives the wave? Is he a controlling a whole if
Speaker 1: he sees it that way? And should I stop doing
Speaker 1: the wave? And that's from Mikaela. She said thanks, I'll
Speaker 1: be seeing you in Lawrence, Kansas in a couple of months.
Speaker 1: Have been spreading the good word often. Thank you. So, Josh,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on the wave? When I am
Speaker 1: I'm very infrequently wave, you just go no, I guess
Speaker 1: that's not true. I don't actually wave. I do the
Speaker 1: you know where you like present with your hand, your
Speaker 1: palm up and then you kind of move it to
Speaker 1: one side like oh please after you that's what I do,
Speaker 1: which I just realized, is a form of the wave,
Speaker 1: and I do that sometime times, but I guess the
Speaker 1: only time I would do it is when it's not
Speaker 1: obviously clear who's supposed to go, So I tend to
Speaker 1: just let's ask the other person to go ahead and
Speaker 1: please after you, right. I don't think of that as
Speaker 1: being controlling, but that's exactly what I'm doing, is taking
Speaker 1: control of the situation but not doing it, not trying, yeah,
Speaker 1: to me, just not even giving a second thought and
Speaker 1: just and basically pushing through ahead of somebody who may
Speaker 1: or may not justifiably should have gone first. That's the
Speaker 1: jerky move to me. I think it goes both ways.
Speaker 1: It just it just depends on your perception of the world.
Speaker 1: Do you hate people? If so, then you probably find
Speaker 1: the way to be controlling and jerky. What about you?
Speaker 1: All right? So my four way stop sign a deal
Speaker 1: is very deep. It's a very big thing in my
Speaker 1: life really and on me. Well, I've got a lot
Speaker 1: of thoughts on this um. First of all, the worst
Speaker 1: people in society are people who mistreat children, animals, and elderly,
Speaker 1: and then right behind them are people that just like
Speaker 1: run right through a stop sign because they just know,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to be bothered. Yeah, well they
Speaker 1: could mistreat children, animals and the elderly with the front
Speaker 1: end of their car. That so those are awful people. Um,
Speaker 1: as far as the wave, I tend to just I
Speaker 1: tend to try and let someone else go first. But
Speaker 1: I'm also kind of impatient. So you've just got a
Speaker 1: moment like if you just sit there and dawdle after
Speaker 1: I wave, how either get aggressive with my wave and
Speaker 1: then kind of look like a jerk or I'll just
Speaker 1: go and be like, you know, you had your chance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I do the I just go where I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, see you in hell. Uh. And then the
Speaker 1: other thing that really bugs me about stop signs lately
Speaker 1: I've noticed is there there's a growing segment of society
Speaker 1: that seems to think like it doesn't matter who arrive first.
Speaker 1: Is us Like I feel like I've been waiting long enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't do that, like heavily heavily trafficked four way stop.
Speaker 1: You maybe the fourth, And I'm sorry that you feel
Speaker 1: like you've been sitting there too long. But if you
Speaker 1: were the fourth one to come to a complete stop,
Speaker 1: then you gotta let the other three go, not just
Speaker 1: like I think they treat it like, hey, I stopped
Speaker 1: and now I'm going Now. Now there's a there's a
Speaker 1: sub there's a subdiscipline to that chuck right where if
Speaker 1: somebody is going straight and you're going straight in the
Speaker 1: other way, you can go straight right then and just
Speaker 1: use up a turn simultaneously. It actually keeps things going faster.
Speaker 1: It's not at all rude. Somebody might be like, hey,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, but if they stop and think for
Speaker 1: even half of a second, they'll see that you actually
Speaker 1: did them a favor. So that is okay as long
Speaker 1: as you're not trying it while somebody's turning left in
Speaker 1: front of you. Yeah, And there's also the thing that
Speaker 1: bugs me is when two people stop facing each other
Speaker 1: and uh, you both go to go at the same
Speaker 1: time because you think we're both going straight, and they
Speaker 1: go to turn into you and like honk at you,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, dude, let me know which way you're
Speaker 1: going yet I probably would let you go anyway, but
Speaker 1: I thought you were going straight. Gott to use that blinker.
Speaker 1: You'll get a finger if you don't use the blinker.
Speaker 1: Whoa not by me. I'm just saying some people so
Speaker 1: anyway that I think out of all the traffic things,
Speaker 1: even including like highway merging, the four way trapped stoplight,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, the four way stop sign intersection is my
Speaker 1: most troublesome and frustrating part of driving for me, that's
Speaker 1: number one. Well, now everybody knows, so look out for Chuck.
Speaker 1: All right. Yeah, this is MICHAELA that brought all this up. Yeah, MICHAELA,
Speaker 1: I hope, I hope we explained that. I don't think
Speaker 1: that means you're controlling jerk, and I don't think that
Speaker 1: means your boyfriend is because he thinks that is what
Speaker 1: it means either. Yeah, maybe you guys should just find
Speaker 1: some other topics to discuss. Yes, but MICHAELA, I do
Speaker 1: think you're with the wrong guy overall though, poor guy. Okay, uh,
Speaker 1: I can't believe we're ending it like that. But if
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us, like MICHAELA
Speaker 1: did um, then you can tweet to us at s
Speaker 1: Y s K podcast. You can hang out with me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at josh um Clark. You can hang out
Speaker 1: with Chuck on Facebook at facebook dot com slash Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant or slash Stuff you Should Know You can
Speaker 1: send us an email. The Stuff podcast at how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com and has always joined us at at
Speaker 1: home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
Speaker 1: it how stuff Works dot com.