WEBVTT - X Marks the Spot 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.560 Get in touch with technology, with tech stuff from stuff. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:15.080 Say that everyone, and welcome to tech stuff. I'm Jonathan 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.759 Strickland and I and today we're going to talk about 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:24.840 arc archie, archie LOGI. Oh, come on, you've seen you've 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:27.400 seen Indiana Jones. You know what archaeology is. Oh yeah, 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:31.760 that's Xbox the Spot. Yeah, okay, that's Pirates. That well, 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:35.120 I will XP okay, never mind, last crusade, Last crusade, 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.280 I remember it now. Um so yeah, archaeology, of course. 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:43.040 And we're gonna be talking about not just the technology 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.880 using archaeology. We're going to talk a little bit about 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:48.680 an overview of what it is and how it evolved 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:52.239 over time, because that's kind of hand in hand with 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:55.959 what is going on now in the field of archaeology. Right. 0:00:56.000 --> 0:01:00.840 The technology being used today is some really vance stuff, 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:03.560 but for a long time that was not the case, 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:06.560 because archaeology is actually a fairly young field. So I 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:10.280 guess first we should explain what it is. I suppose sure, Yes, 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:14.600 it's it's the study of human activity, um, in the past. 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:17.560 In the past, yeah, not now right, So essentially it's 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:21.600 it's related to history, it's related to anthropology. Uh, it's 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:24.880 got some similarities with other disciplines, but this is mainly 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.200 all about studying what human life was like in the past, 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:32.800 based mostly on the stuff that our ancestors left behind. Well, 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.520 you know, kind of necessarily because what they didn't leave 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.960 behind we have very little record of. Yeah, exactly, we 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:44.039 can't study what wasn't left behind. That's actually very true, 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:46.920 not profound, but true. Um. But yeah, So so it's 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.160 a crossover with a lot of other disciplines, and lots 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:52.760 of other scientists will kind of work hand in hand 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:56.040 with archaeologists to to promote research for for both of 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:59.160 their fields. Oh sure, Yeah, it's interdisciplinary, so you can 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.840 have people from multiple disciplines and expertise is coming in 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.520 on a on a single project for multiple reasons, including 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:10.400 people who might not technically be considered scientists by everyone, 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:14.560 like a historians or um or artists. Right, yeah, you've 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.880 got you've got a lot of art historians and other 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.480 types of historians as well. In fact, archaeology as a 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:26.520 discipline kind of straddles the line between science and uh 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:31.799 a humanity. Uh. And it's sort of because the techniques 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.359 have been evolving over time as well. We're getting to 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.440 a point now where there are some archaeologists are using 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:41.959 some very high tech, sophisticated techniques, whereas in the past 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.960 it was a lot more well Indiana Jones ish in 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:48.040 the sense that you were getting down and dirty with it, 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:50.919 although you were rarely chased by a giant rolling ball 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:54.359 or uh, you know, things of that nature that that 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.160 we've heard of personally. I mean, I'm sure that someone 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:02.080 out there, actually I'm not sure at all. Maybe if 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.040 they were lost in a giant game of mouse trap, right, 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:07.600 that's that's about as close as we can get. Um. 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:09.440 But okay, So, so the thing is is that Indiana 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.160 Jones was a terrible archaeologist, but it's not his fault. 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.600 He did not have access to all of the tools 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.640 that we have today, as dashing as he was and 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:19.799 as good as he was with a whip, which sounds 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:22.640 weird when I say it out loud, that he you know, 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.120 it's it's not his fault. Although a lot of the 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.359 things that you know that we kind of see him 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:31.960 doing in those films are things that archaeologists, archaeologists have 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:37.800 done and still do today, especially the predecessors of today's archaeologists. Well, 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:39.320 I mean, you know, there's still a certain amount of 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:44.960 digging and brushing a little gently of things a little less. Uh. 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:50.160 There are fewer examples of um unauthorized tomb rating in 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.760 in established archaeology, which is really, when you get down 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.640 to it, what Indiana Jones was doing. Like if you 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.280 watch that first movie where he's trying to get the 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:01.960 idol and they being chased off by the indigenous people 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.160 of that jungle that he's in, it's pretty clear he 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:08.000 did not have full permission to go in there. Well, 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.200 and the entire kind of terrible notion of like it 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:15.160 this belongs in a museum as opposed to with the 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:19.080 people who created it is a little bit weird. But um, 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.240 but but that's actually stealing stuff from ancient cultures is 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:26.279 how archaeology began. Wow, well, I mean shouldn't be a surprise. 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:28.919 You could argue that chemistry kind of started off with 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.080 people trying to figure out how to make worthless stuff 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:35.080 into very valuable stuff. Okay, So, so archaeology really originated 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:39.440 in Europe our circle than fourteen hundreds is when wealthy 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:44.120 Renaissance collectors started acquiring antiquities from from Greece and Rome 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.520 as art rather than artifacts. They weren't really interested in 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:49.599 the history of these items. They were like, this is 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.600 pretty I wanted in my house. Yeah, this is very 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:54.760 typical of the Renaissance, I mean Renaissance. Of course, the 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.279 whole Rebirth it was mostly about how Europe kind of 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:04.960 rediscovered this amazing civilization that existed a thousand years earlier. 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.320 But for between the time of the Fall of Rome 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.200 and uh and the Renaissance, there was a whole lot 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.720 of We're gonna just concentrate on not getting killed by 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.320 all those other people out there. And this is to 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:19.920 the point where they're finally saying, hey, look, we're smart, 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:21.600 but there were smart people a long time ago to 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:26.080 their stuff, and let's stop burning books, read them instead. 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:30.000 Crazy um and and so some of these wealthy collectors 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.640 even even wrote really expansive travelogs and guides to ruins 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.560 to you know, tell their fellow rich people how to 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.280 go rob right. So again it still was not a 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.640 way of documenting something for a historical record. It was 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.280 more of guys, I found the best antique small. Uh, 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:49.559 you just have to break in there and take whatever 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.520 you want, and it's all old and awesome. Yeah, and 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:58.479 eventually even bigger patrons of the arts as as much 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:00.680 as they were got into us, have been this and 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.680 drove really large excavations, um like the initial digs at 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:10.240 Pompeii Um, which was both victimized and preserved by Vesuvius's 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:14.680 explosion and what like circle like seventy nine CE. I've 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:18.560 been there, by the way. Yeah, fascinating place, absolutely, and 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.000 you can see where things have been perfectly preserved after 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.760 there were excavations where things have been buried with ash 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.240 and things of that nature. And it is amazing. All 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:30.880 those early excavations were due to basically the Queen of 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.240 Naples saying I want some statues, go get some from 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:38.400 that place. And I hear that the famous not actually 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.719 short Napoleon Bonaparte was interested in this kind of thing too. 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.279 He was of average height for his time, in fact, 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:46.240 not just for his time. I think it was like 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.480 five ft seven or five ft eight, so it was 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:50.960 actually six or five seven. Yeah, so a little bit 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:54.520 short for now, but totally average for the time. It's 0:06:54.560 --> 0:07:00.359 a whole inconsistency in uh in English, Yeah, exact leads. 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.599 It's uh. That's another podcast and stuff you missed in 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:07.400 history class I'm sure has covered it, but at any rate, right, No, 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.720 So when he invaded Egypt in seventeen, he brought a 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.200 group of a hundred and seventy five scholars that we're 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:17.560 calling themselves the Institute of Egypt UM. And they came 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:21.160 with like a traveling library, scientific tools, measuring instruments, and 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.840 they published this huge illustrated tome called Description of Egypt. 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:30.320 I'm assuming the title was originally in French UM, but uh. 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:33.280 And and that helped launch kind of the first wave 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:35.920 of egypt Mania in the in the West. And we're 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:40.000 starting to see here actual scholarly work being applied to this, 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.440 as opposed to just I like this, I like the 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.520 stuff that these people made, get it for me. So 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.360 now we're starting to see this develop, at least informally, 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.480 into more of a scholarly discipline as opposed to to 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:56.280 tomb robbing. Right. Meanwhile, lots of other scholarly disciplines were advancing. 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.320 Geology and biology were both coming into their own. UM. 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:03.560 Charles L. Really helps spread UM this this modern geologic 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:09.720 system of uniformitarian stratigraphy UM. And this gave archaeologists a 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.880 kind of time scale on which date items based on sediment, 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.600 and that along with Charles Darwin's Origin of Species um 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:23.960 popularized evolution and and allowed prehistoric archaeology to actually become 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.960 a thing where people could actually look for uh, for 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:32.120 examples of prehistoric civilizations by the stuff they left behind. 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.280 And because of this other these other disciplines, they could 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.200 start to at least give a range of dates for 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.040 when those civilizations may have been active. Now, in these 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:44.839 early days, that range was not very precise, right, you 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:49.680 could coute not like when you're talking about geologic ages. Obviously, 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:54.439 mankind has only been around for a very tiny fraction 0:08:55.040 --> 0:09:00.000 of a geologic age, so your your precision is pretty 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.720 touch and go. But it could still at least give 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:07.440 some indication as to how old any particular finding would be. 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:12.400 And that was sort of the footholds of modern archaeology. Yeah, 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:14.520 and and we'll get a little bit into some of 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:16.880 those some of those geologic methods in just a minute. 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:21.160 But um uh Meanwhile, I think the real founding of 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:25.720 archaeology as a science was when Flinders Petrie published Methods 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:28.400 and Aims in Archaeology in nineteen o four, and that 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:32.880 described a systematic method for excavation that was that was 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.360 the basis I mean, it's kind of sort of a 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:37.680 little bit still the basis of how people go about 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.080 go about a dig and making sure that everything is 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.560 well documented and laid out in a way that you 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.800 can take enough notes and gather enough data. Because okay, 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:51.800 archaeology is a destructive science. Necessarily, as you're taking apart 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.760 a site, you are you are taking it apart. It's 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:56.720 not going to be the way that it was ever again. 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.040 It's it's the same thing for for crime scene forensics. 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.880 You know, it's and in the investigation of where everything 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:04.960 was and how it is laid out, you have to 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:06.920 move it around right, So you have to you have 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:12.080 to take a lot of really exhaustive initial measurements without 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.720 without disturbing as much as you possibly can, and then 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.880 you progressively get more and more involved. That's why those 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.640 notes are so important, because three or four steps down 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.200 the line is not going to resemble what it did 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.120 when you first got there. And uh in the United 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.240 States again early in the nineteen hundreds realized this and 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:35.320 passed the Antiquities Act, which prohibits the excavation or destruction 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.960 of archaeological materials on any kind of government land. And 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:41.520 I think that that's the point at which we have 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:45.200 like legal documentation that archaeology was a science. Yeah, so 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.480 this is that they're saying, there are people who will 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:51.040 be uh certified and ratified and allowed to do this 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.960 sort of stuff. Everyone else, keep your grubby myths off it, right, 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:57.839 That's essentially the message. And then just a little bit 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:02.199 further on, in the nineteen hundreds, archaeology became really popularized 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.280 through some huge discoveries like King Tut's tomb um, the 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.760 Sumerian royal tombs that are you know, these are huge 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:13.920 newspaper headline inducing kind of digs and and that's kind 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.280 of where we get the sort of pulp novels that 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:19.120 led to Indiana Jones right exactly. This this kind of 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:23.719 led to this sort of exotic you know, the heroic 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:29.040 explorer who is uncovering uh, you know, history itself and 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.559 discovering stuff that was long thought to have been gone forever. 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:37.240 And that that's a very romanticized version of what an 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.160 archaeologist really does. I think any archaeologist who has done 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:42.520 a lot of field work would be like, look, I 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.680 obviously love what I do and I am passionate about it. However, 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:51.640 most of the time, I'm not running around fighting bad 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:57.680 guys for access to precious historical artifacts. There's very few 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.360 saving hot babes involved. I mean, I would imagine probably 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:05.199 not as much whipping at least. I'm gonna leave the 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.880 rest of that alone. So at any rate, um, at 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:11.040 any rate, do we have time for something about Nazis? 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:13.760 We have to talk about this, okay, okay, So speaking 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.160 of Indiana Jones, the Nazis totally had a thing for archaeology. 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:19.640 I mean, this is a super legit story. I mean, 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.760 Indiana Jones is not a super legit story, but except 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.760 behind it, Yeah, the idea that Indiana Jones was competing 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:30.600 against Nazis to get access to certain things has a 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:33.720 basis and historical fact. Yes, um, Chuck wrote a really 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:36.200 good chuck of course of stuff you should know. Yeah, 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:37.920 it's a little show. You might, Yeah you might. You 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.160 might have listened to it once or twice. Has a 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.199 great article on how stuff works called what did the 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:44.959 Nazis have to do with Archaeology? And uh and and 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:49.760 plumbed directly from that. So part of Hitler's entire plan um, 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.560 you know, as of his swearing in in ninety three, 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.920 was aligning the curriculum of German universities with the interests 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.160 of the Nazi Party, which we kind of touched on 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:02.199 in our Heisenberg episode where off about physics. Yeah yeah, um. 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.000 And this was including the idea that their Germanic people 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:09.000 were descendants of this original Aryan master race. So he 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:12.440 sent teams of archaeologists excavate sites around the world that 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.240 he believed would help back up this theory. So in 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.520 other words, he's searching for evidence to prove the philosophy 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.520 that he was he was writing at the time. Yes, 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:25.439 uh it failed, yeah a lot, basically, um, I mean. 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.160 And and they put they put a huge budget into this, 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:33.160 uh Himmler himself led a group called the Ancestral Heritage 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:37.160 Research and Teaching Society that went everywhere looking for this history. 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.800 Um that They also you know, dug up part of Poland, 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:43.480 hoping to prove that the Germans had lived there first 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:46.160 and had legit claim to the land after, you know, 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:50.040 after they invaded again, trying to search for evidence to 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:54.439 justify their actions. So not a not a bright chapter 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:58.559 in human history, obviously, but another example of how archaeology 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.920 was becoming a really important field of study. So let's 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:07.800 talk about some of the tools that are important for archaeologists, 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.000 things that that they rely on, and we should go 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:12.600 ahead and say maybe I should have said this earlier. 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.040 This is gonna be a two part episode. This first 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:17.080 part we're looking at some of the basic tools and 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:21.560 just the basic philosophies that guide archaeology and in um. 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.320 In our next episode, we're going to dive into more 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.680 detail about some of the more high tech tools that 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.800 have become more available recently. We'll get a little bit 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.200 into some of the high tech sort of science that 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:37.400 has that that from mid century has started to to 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:41.800 really develop how we can evaluate archaeological digs. Right, So 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:44.880 starting with the hand tools, the basic hand tools. Now, 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:49.000 keep in mind, archaeology is something where often we're looking 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:53.160 for evidence that has been at least partially, if not entirely, 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:58.080 covered up by soil and rocks and often sand, Like 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:01.080 when we're talking about the the Egyptian digs, they are 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:04.760 usually it's things that after hundreds of years, have been 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.160 covered up by by sand. So a lot of the 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.520 tools are basic hand tools meant to remove that kind 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:13.960 of stuff. Like, you don't want to get too many big, 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:19.680 heavy right, because you could just inadvertently damage very stuff 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:23.040 that you're looking for. So, but you do get some 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.680 stuff that is pretty heavy duty for hand tools. I mean, 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.440 it's not all like a very light brush where you 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:30.840 can gently brush the dirt away. Right. Well, that's by 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:32.520 the time you get down to something that you that 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.760 you suspect might be an artifact, you're going to use 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:38.640 a very gentle brush. But until then, it's time to 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.480 put your back into it. So you've got some pick axes, 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.880 some shovels, hose, yeah, maddox. Maddox are tools that are 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.840 used to break up hard ground. So any of my 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:52.720 fellow farmer folks out there, I say fellow farmer folk 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:54.320 because as a kid, I used to have to do 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:56.360 this kind of stuff. I had no idea what that 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.000 thing is. Yeah, it's no, it's a hand tool. Use 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:01.720 it to break up hard ground. It's you know, if 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:03.640 if the shovel is not going to do it because 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:05.400 the ground is too hard, you bring in a mannequin, 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:07.160 you break it up, and then you use the shovel. 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:09.960 It just means making more work for yourself down the line. 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:11.920 Of course, you know, you have to have something to 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.680 move that stuff all the all the spoil away, right, 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:20.240 buckets and wheelbarrows, getting I mean, we're talking about lots 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.680 of physical labor here. Eventually you might get down to 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:26.840 a point where you're using something along the lines of 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.520 a trowel instead of a shovel, because you want to 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.920 be a little more precise. Perhaps you're starting to see 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:35.280 what could be the outline of perhaps like a wall 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:39.360 of a settlement, Sure, or even maybe encounter fragments of 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:41.240 pottery or something like that that you want to kind 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:44.240 of scoop up in preserve. Sure, and uh, of course 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:46.440 we'll talk about it more in the second half of 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.200 this episode. You want to be really careful about what 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.720 kind of contact you make with this stuff, right, because 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:55.200 some of the processes that you can use to identify 0:16:55.440 --> 0:17:00.000 or to date these objects can be thrown off by 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.680 by human touch. Yeah, you could actually corrupt your own 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:05.720 data just by picking something up, So it's really important 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.720 to try and maintain that distance. On top of that, 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.159 of course, you do have the brushes to brush away 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:13.960 extra dirt. Other things that you might use to get 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.400 some dirt and and and sentiment off of an artifact 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:21.800 include dental tools, So you can use these little like 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:24.320 like dental picks to get to get dirt out of 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.199 grooves and things like that. Uh So, so you know, 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:29.760 a lot of the reason why these early tools were 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.399 very general purpose or were repurposed from other disciplines was 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:37.240 because again archaeology was a young science and so not 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:39.919 a lot of work had been had gone into developing 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.880 tools specifically for archaeology. Early on, they were essentially using 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:47.679 whatever else would do the job they needed done and 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.200 repurposing it. And and and I mean that still happens. 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:52.439 I've heard about people using you know, like pen knives 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:54.720 and chopsticks in the field, whatever happens to be lying 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:57.320 around it tends to be one of those things where 0:17:57.400 --> 0:17:59.879 you know, there are tools out there that do the 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.280 ub really well. So there's not a whole demand to 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:06.119 start developing things specifically for archaeology. Doesn't mean that there 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:08.960 aren't companies that do it. There are, But you know, 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.040 if you're like, well, this is a relatively inexpensive tool 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:14.840 I can get that will do what I needed to do, 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.520 let's go with that. On top of that, you have things, 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.200 you know, like basic tools like line levels and plumbobs, 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:23.440 which you use to try and make sure that if 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.040 you're using other types of equipment that require level ground 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:29.240 that you're you've got that straight and we'll talk about 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:31.359 in the second episode. I'm so excited. Also for for 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:35.600 surveying purposes, are important tape measures obviously if you need 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:40.080 to start determining things like the size of a particular 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.840 artifact area or maybe it's even a house or a wall. Again, 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:47.680 these are things where you know you're gonna take these measurements, 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:49.720 that you can write all this stuff down as early 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:51.600 as you possibly can, so you can you can start 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:57.040 to form that image of what this site looked like originally, 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:01.280 you know, hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years ago. So, uh, 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.679 interesting little tidbit I did not know until we started 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:08.320 to research this podcast. It turns out there are two 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:12.359 different styles of measuring depending upon the nature of the 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.080 site you're looking at. If you're looking at a prehistoric site, 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:19.280 you measure using the metric system, because that's what science does. Yeah, 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.120 metric system is easy, right, I mean, it makes sense, 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:26.600 everything's in tens or hundreds, easy to deal with. Here 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:29.879 in America, that's not necessarily good enough. You know, we 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:32.399 don't like our you don't like our measurements to be easy. No, 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:36.240 that's ridiculous, would be silly. So here's the thing. Anything 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:41.000 that's of a historical time period, so prehistory versus history, 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:45.280 historical time period stuff tends to be measured using English 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:49.080 standard measure units like inches and feet because that's what 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:51.320 the people of the time we're using when they were 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.400 building their stuff. Yeah, yeah, I mean especially here here 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:57.679 in the West, I I would imagine, and for most 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:01.440 ranges of history. Yeah, certain ranges of history, right, and 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:04.200 in other parts of the world where the English measuring 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:08.359 system would not have been introduced, then it's a little different. 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:10.920 But yeah, if you're if you're researching let's say you're 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:15.480 researching a an ancient Roman establishment in in in Britain 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:20.359 because the Romans had had Britain and you wanted to 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:23.120 measure that, then uh, you know, that might be one 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:25.440 set of standards. And then let's say that you're looking 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.919 at maybe it's something from the Middle Ages in Britain, 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:31.639 that would be a different set. So you know, it 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.480 all depends. But it's it's interesting to me that in general, 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.440 the prehistoric is in metric and the historic sites are 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.520 in English standard. So yeah, I didn't know that either. 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:44.880 That's some complicated and fascinating. Yeah, I wonder if there are. 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:46.840 I'm sure there are. I mean, there have to be 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:51.080 archaeologists who specialize in in certain types, but it makes 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:55.120 me wonder what their dinner parties are like. Um. There 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.160 are other tools that are often used, things like calipers, 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:00.719 obviously to be able to pick things up without actually 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:04.240 touching them yourself. But also there's a tool called a 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:09.840 soil core, which is fairly unique to archaeology. I mean, 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:12.600 you can use it in geology too, but a soil 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:16.560 core is essentially a imagine a metal tube And what 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:18.679 you do with the smell tube is you shove it 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:21.480 into the ground and then you yank it back out 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:25.200 again and it pulls out a soil sample. Yeah, exactly. 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.280 And then you look at the stuff what you pulled out, 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.720 and you look to see if there's any evidence for artifacts, 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.240 organic matter, that kind of thing that could indicate the 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:38.240 presence of human settlement or whatever. And if you find it, 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:40.000 then that gives you an idea of all right, well, 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.560 this is definitely an area we need to look at 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:44.879 when we're doing our excavation. If you're you know, you 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.040 might be doing a few you would do lots of 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:51.600 soil samples obviously, but it might help you determine all right, 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:53.560 I think we're beyond the border now because none of 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:57.800 these core samples are coming back with anything, or maybe 0:21:57.800 --> 0:21:59.680 that you're in a different area and you're thinking, oh, 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.840 settlement is actually larger than we first anticipated, because we're 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:04.680 actually finding quite a bit of stuff over here. It's 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:06.960 just that everything has overgrown to the point where we 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:10.280 never would have suspected it otherwise. So it's really cool stuff. 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:13.959 So those are your basic hand tools, right, the stuff 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:18.280 that that archaeologists have been using in one form or 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.000 another for decades. You know, some some of these, some 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.560 of these are as old as as people going into 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:30.000 tombs to rob them. But so that kind of covers 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:32.280 the basic hand tools, you know, the stuff that in 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:35.000 some form or another has been around for like decades 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:37.879