WEBVTT - Archaeology in a Nutshell 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:12.600 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast Don't 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:15.720 Josh Clark, Charles W. Chuck Bryant Old's with us again. 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:20.120 Uh and uh, it's Morning Edition How Stuff Work. It's right. 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:25.640 Are the Indiana Jones chronicles he's in this article. Man, 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:28.960 you can't do archaeology without talking about Indiana Jones because 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:33.800 you can't spell it without Indiana Jones. Uh. And do 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:37.640 you know why? Because, as his article points out, archaeologists 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:42.680 are one part explorer, one part scholar, one part P. T. Barnum, 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.360 one part ps, one part scientist, and one part historian, 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.400 which is true, and that is exactly who Indiana Jones was. 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:52.280 Oh yeah, Plus he knew his way around a whipping 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.280 and gun. Well, you know, if you're gonna get the 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:56.680 ark of the Covenant, you're gonna have to whip a 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:01.600 couple of dudes. That's what Steven Spielberg says. At least 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.440 I know he got that across quite plainly. Yeah, the 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:07.479 whipp thing was a good idea. That was neat throwback, 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.000 although he never whipped a cigarette out of somebody's mouth, 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:13.400 which I was waiting for. Like the whole movie. Oh 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.840 that's a parlor trick. Yeah, well it's pretty cool. That's 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:19.600 very cool. Uh did you have an intro? Did I 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:22.399 spoil it? No? It was as good an intro as 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.039 any you know me in archaeology. That was the first 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:29.039 word I could spell. Um, was it? Really? Let me 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:30.600 take that back. That was the first big word I 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:33.399 could spell. I'm sure I had like dog and cat 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.120 and all that down first, but I remember being in 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.479 second or third grade and spelling it and the teacher 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.520 being like wow, And I was like, yeah, I'll bet 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:45.000 you're impressed because I'm young and I can spell archaeology correctly, 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:47.240 and she said, guess it in the corner. The reason 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:49.480 why I could spell it is because I had already 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:54.640 been studying it for years. I've always been fascinated by archaeology. Yeah. 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:57.000 I could have seen you doing this for a living. 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:00.240 My buddy Jerry Um out in Portland's Jerry's both of 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:07.000 our buddy different Um Jerry in Portland mail Jerry is Uh, 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:10.040 Jerry purpose is a here you go. That's why we 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:11.960 had last night. He was a history and I think 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:14.600 anthropology major two and wanted to get into archaeology. So 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:18.240 all those disciplines. Like it's a science that is heavily 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.519 uh butted up against the humanities. It's pretty neat well, 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.400 it's kind of absorbed them, kind of like some early 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:32.400 bacteria absorbed um mitochondria, you know, and used it for 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.920 itself the power. Yeah, but it's it's very much in 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:40.320 that vein. Like archaeology started out as a very straightforward, 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:46.760 simplistic discipline and at one point finally the archaeologists got 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.280 bored and they said this, this could be so much 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:51.360 more and they expanded, which we'll talk about when we 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.880 get into the history of archaeology, but just the word itself, 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:59.960 it does definitely conjure Indiana Jones um and he was 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:03.040 one part this, one part that, And yes, archaeologists are that. 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:07.880 But the entire pursuit of archaeology is so unwieldy. There's 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.680 so much to it, documenting all human industry from the 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:16.200 very recent past to the furthest reaches into human history 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:18.880 that the the field is broken into a lot of 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.600 different disciplines, and even those are broken further into subdisciplines, 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.720 so much so that like if you take a forensic 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:29.600 archaeologist and put it up against a glacial archaeologists. It'll 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:31.520 be like, are these two really the same in the 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.920 same field? Are they? They are? But they definitely you 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:37.920 might not have a lot to talk about, you know, 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:41.200 like how about that ice for success is going to 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:43.280 how about that grave site? Like I have no idea 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:47.960 what you're talking about. They're also broken into geographical areas 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:52.560 sometimes or uh like time periods. Yeah, like you are 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:56.600 a Mesopotamian archaeologists, like that's your specialty, and that makes sense. 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.440 There's underwater archaeologists, which I think I I wrote a 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:02.320 few of these articles back then. I think I did 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.200 want to underwater archaeology too. It's so interesting that we 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:08.520 didn't touch on. But that's super interesting because the trick 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.840 with all archaeology is preservation. You don't just dig in 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.240 there with a shovel and like pick up the vase 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.520 like in the movie and shake it see what's inside. 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.760 It's a lot more technical than that. And with underwater archaeology, 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:22.719 you know that stuff is so fragile. You have to 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.200 transport it in the exact state that it was in. 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:27.760 So like if you find a book down there, you 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.160 have to put that book in a tank of salt 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:35.280 water at the right temperature a book. Well yeah, sure, okay, 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:37.360 Well you know I'm not saying it's been down there 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:41.720 a thousands years. I have this a stopwatch from the 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:46.120 Titanic pocket watch. You have to transport it in a 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:48.839 tank of saltwater at that temperature with the right amount 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:51.320 of sand to wherever you're going to take it to 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:56.279 your laboratory essentially, and then put on an expensive exhibit. Yes, exactly. Um. 0:04:56.320 --> 0:05:01.080 And underwater archaeology isn't necessarily just stuff that that sunk, 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.520 although that part is so fascinating, Like things that are 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:08.080 supposed to be above water that are now submerged just 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:14.640 take on a whole different attitude to me. Yeah yeah, um. 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.920 But there's other other underwater archaeology too that that goes 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.720 beyond shipwrecks, Like they recently found a nine thousand year 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:25.159 old um hunting blind in lake here on what Yeah, 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.080 it used to be above water, and then after the 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:30.880 ice Age, the water levels rose and covered it up, 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:34.400 and they recently discovered it under a hundred ft of water. 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.960 And it basically consists of some lanes of stone with 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.719 a cul de sac yeah um, that they would kind 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.880 of use to shoot caribou through, and then at the 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.760 end they're like the Cariboers like cul de Sac and 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:55.080 then death. Yeah, but they recognized this and then documented 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:57.120 it under a hundred and twenty ft of water and 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.400 Lake Huron. That sounds like it perhaps could have been 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.640 an accidental find. Do you know. I don't know how 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:07.320 they're looking for that. I don't I don't know. But 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.080 the idea that you could look at some rocks and 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.560 be like, oh, well, this is a hunting blind from 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:18.280 nine thousand years ago used to hunt caribou underwater. That 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:21.760 just seems really special to me. That is very cool. 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:24.240 But I mentioned accidental finds because that's one of the 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:28.480 neat things about archaeology. Um. If you're an archaeologist, clearly 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.480 you are going to be have be in your bonnet 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:33.280 to go find whatever it is ark of the Covenant. 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:36.680 But there's things found all the time just by people 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:41.800 who stumble upon them, accidental finds. Um. Because there's there's 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:46.200 junk everywhere, like the cave paintings at lasco. Yeah. I 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.560 want to say junk. I mean that in the like 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.719 stuff way, in the academic sense, not worthless. It's all 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:56.400 great stuff. But the less Go Cave in France was 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:59.840 discovered accidentally by some local teens. Apparently there was a 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.400 storm and a tree fell over and it exposed this 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.640 cave entrance that had been covered for thousands and thousands 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.520 of years at the Dead Sea scrolls. That was an accident. 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:13.840 A nineteen seven a Bedouin shepherd found them and said, hey, 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:19.600 these these are comportant. Yeah, what else for a little 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.960 French schoolboys? Let's go? Oh is that? Let's go? Yeah? Okay, 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:28.120 I don't know why she didn't put it in the article. Yeah, 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.400 that is weird. She left out that one word. Um. 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:34.240 All right, so let's go back a little bit and 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.280 talk about how the stuff all started because in the 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:41.040 you know, fourteen centuries, people really weren't too concerned about 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:43.520 the past. Well that's not true. They weren't looking for 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.680 artifacts the necessarily, or if they were looking for artifacts, 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:48.960 they were just looting it and selling it and maybe 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.600 melting it down for its gold. Like the the artifact 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:56.120 that self didn't necessarily have any value simply because it 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:58.240 was old. Yeah, that's a good way to say. That 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:03.119 came about as a result of, um, the rise of humanism, 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:05.920 which gave rise to the humanities, which basically prized art 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.560 for art's sake, and um gave birth to the concept 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.760 that antiquities have value because of their age. Uh. And 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:19.160 then the the Renaissance. Basically it was birth from the Renaissance. 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.480 There's a dude named Flavio beyond though that was my 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:25.720 clumsy at times. You want to speak, say it again, 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:33.520 Flavio energy into it and then your Italian. Yeah, I 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:37.640 think that's my problem because I'm fairly low key, you know. Anyway, 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.800 Flavio Beyondo was the first person to create a guide 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:44.160 to the ruins of ancient Rome in the early fifteenth century, 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.320 and a lot of people say that is the first 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:52.280 person you can point to who gave rise to archaeology 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:57.120 potentially and said basically, these things that we find, uh, 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:59.880 maybe we shouldn't just melt down, maybe we should preserve them. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:01.920 This is sort of an important thing for the future, 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.760 exactly right. Um, So he was one of the first 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:10.600 and then from that point on the idea of um 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:15.040 collecting things kind of took hold and it was a 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:17.400 little nuts so for a while, like people would just 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:19.640 go into it. There was no there was no aim 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.640 to preserve the site itself. You just wanted all the 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.319 artifacts from the site, so you could fill your palace 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.280 with them. Yeah, and I get the sense that there 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.400 was definitely a boom in the Renaissance and among royalty 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.640 of wanting things from ancient Greece and Rome, and I 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.319 know the Queen of Naples wanted, you know, ancient statues 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:41.200 and things to fill her palace and uh, you know, 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:46.000 trying to find out what happened with Pompeii and Herculaneum. Yeah, 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:51.040 that's that's why they were excavated. In was after their stuff. 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:54.760 And Pompeii is really neat, by the way, but all 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:58.720 of the artifacts, it's totally deserted. Everything that's there is 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.960 a permanent structure. All the artifacts have been removed and 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:07.080 they're still in Naples where they were taken in seventy. Yeah, 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:08.720 and we'll get a little bit later on into like 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:12.040 who owns this stuff. That's pretty interesting. But Napoleon was 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:15.559 a big proponent of archaeology. And I know we talked 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:20.640 during the King Tut's Tomb episode about Egyptology, and he 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:25.479 formed the Institute of Egypt basically a think tank in 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.880 the late seventeen hundreds of a hundred and seventy five scholars, 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.120 and it was just that fascination with Egypt and Napoleon 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:35.320 was all over. It formed this think tank and said 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.400 go find stuff right and like collected for me. And 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:41.960 they published a book too that really kind of loosed 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:46.440 archaeology and the idea of archaeology um on the world 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.280 is called Description of Egypt that they published in eighteen 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:51.920 o nine. Such a bland title it was, but it 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:56.520 like created Egypt fever um and so that came out 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:00.280 in eighteen o nine. In eighteen twelve, a British guy 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.839 named Richard Colt or h. O. A. R. E. He 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:09.120 wrote a book called Ancient History of Wiltshire in eighteen 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:14.200 twelve and basically he described methods for excavating methodically. He 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:18.000 also um was the first to identify what are called tells, 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.880 which are mounds, ancient mounds of basically a city being 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:23.600 built on a city on the city in the city, 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:27.120 in the city that they've been continuously occupied for thousands 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.760 and thousands of years. And then you know who else 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:35.719 was a early archaeologist Harrison Ford earlier than him, uh, 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:41.880 I don't know. Thomas Jefferson in the eighteenth century, late 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:46.720 eighteenth early nineteenth century. He was methodically excavating burial mounds 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:51.679 UM on Monticello, on his land at Monticello, in between 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.959 rewriting the Bible. Yeah, he did a lot of stuff, um, 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:57.040 but yeah, he was one of the early ones to 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:00.000 methodically do it. So there's like all of this enthusiasm 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.040 as in for antiquities and basically what amounts to looting 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:08.400 and grave robbing. But simultaneously there's these independent gentleman scholars 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:12.480 who are amateurs because there is no academic field yet, um, 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:20.400 who are creating the UM basically the body of experimental archaeology. 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:23.960 How to do it, the methodology, the best practices. Yeah. 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.080 In the nineteenth century, a guy named Charles Lyell basically 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:32.679 started um. They called it, you know, uniformitarian stratigraphy, and 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.760 which is actually a pretty big hornets test, is it? Well, 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.320 I looked in into the uniformitarianism period and the whole 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.040 thing is but what does that have to do with dating? 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.679 It was a dating system, Yeah, it basically Before then 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:48.320 there is this thing called catastrophism where basically it was 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.920 like the Earth is static and it changes only in 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:55.040 the face of major catastrophes like a comet strike or something. 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:59.440 He's the only thing that changes the Earth itself. Uniformitarian 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:03.840 stread geography basically says, no, that's not the case, and 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:07.559 it gave us what we now understand as geological processes 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:11.679 geological time scales. It basically said, the Earth changes constantly, 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.959 but our lifespan is so short we can't possibly witness it. 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:18.240 But if you look at this, the processes that take 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.080 place now are the processes that the Earth has always 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:26.600 been subjected to. So one of those processes is sediment, 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:31.199 sediment deposits, and you can date things thanks to sediment 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.440 deposits because they're actually a predictable thing. So when you're 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.360 digging in to sediment, you're digging into the past and 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:39.960 you can date something you find in that sediment. That's 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.439 basically what it gave our geology, digging into history. Yeah, 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:45.400 that sounds like the idea that you can date from 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:49.000 layers of ground. Yeah it sounds easy now or not easy, 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:50.800 but it makes sense now, but back then it was 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.600 pretty ravel. That's our world view now. But this is 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:57.400 one of the guys who introduced it, Charles Lyle. Yeah, 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:00.680 our hats are all to you, sir, And he didn't 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:02.640 come up with it, but he was a huge proponent 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.640 of it who gained a lot of traction with it. Uh, 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:11.600 you're talking about methods in um Flinder Flinders Petrie Boy, 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.000 what a great name. In nineto four wrote a book 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:16.480 called Methods and Aims in Archaeology, and that was one 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:18.200 of the first ones to sort of break down how 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:22.280 it responsibly excavate the site yeah um, and not just 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:24.720 to go in there and loot it um. And that 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:27.280 was a big turning point that the twentieth century, the 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:31.040 turn of the century. The find I think it's what 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.960 it's called, yeah um. That was a huge turning point 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:40.320 in archaeology. It really represented the when methodology took hold. 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:44.160 Like there was a guy named Heinrich Schliemann who discovered 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:50.240 Troy basically um and he uh just basically went in 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:53.960 and started tearing through the sediment and he identified a 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:58.080 bunch of different layers of occupation, but he didn't really 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.040 document him like he should four definitely he had an 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:06.560 assistant named Wilhelm Dorpe felt yeah, and he kind of 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.840 took a different approach to it, a much more methodical approach. 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:12.280 And all of this took place at around the same time. 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.680 So like even on the site of troy Um. This 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:21.320 change from pillaging to methodology took place. Yeah, they probably 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:25.960 got tired of hearing their uh workers say broke, right, 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:27.880 you know. Yeah, they're like, all right, well maybe we 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.920 should slow down and uh it broke be a little 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:37.440 more judicious with the shovel. Uh. Dating Um, old things 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:39.680 is a big part of archaeology. It's no good just 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.040 to find something. You want to know exactly where it 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:46.440 came from because well, one reason, because it has more 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.520 value if it's older. That was probably what led the 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.200 dating charge. But um, there's a bunch of different ways 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:54.640 they can date, and they have dated over the years. Uh. 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:58.400 Something can be self dated. If you find treasurer that's 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.560 stamped with a date, then it's done the work for you. 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:04.840 Relative dating. If you find something that's with a bunch 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:06.920 of other stuff that you can date, then you can 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:09.400 probably say, you know, this stuff from King Tut's tomb 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:14.120 is probably all around the same time period. Clay barbs counting, 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:18.840 and that is counting varves, which are little laminated sediments 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.720 that accumulate, and that can help you out for about 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:24.640 five thousand years back. No, it can go even further 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:27.280 than really, yeah, how far I mean as far as 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:29.680 you want to go in the sediment. That's part of 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:33.760 the uniformitarian stratiography. Oh, I was misreading and I'm sorry. 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.480 Our written chronology only goes back five thousands, right, so 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.000 you can yeah. Yeah. And then the idea we didn't 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:44.240 give we didn't pay proper homage to um Darwin because 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:46.360 his we did a whole show on him, right, But 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:51.280 in this one um on the Origin of species um, 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.320 the that presented the idea that mankind had a history, 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.720 you that went back way further than a few thousand years, 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.600 and that kind of inspired archaeology to look around for 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.520 it more, you know. Uh. And then some of the 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.840 more recent ones, which we could probably do shows on 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:14.200 a couple of these, carbon dating radioactive carbon dating, potassium 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:19.320 argon dating, and thermo luminescence UM that measures light energy 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.200 and the intensity of light energy. Amazing, you can calculate 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:25.160 the last time an object was exposed to sunlight through 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.720 through thermo luminescence dating, and with potassium argon dating you 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.359 can date things back two million years if you believe 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:37.000 the Earth's been around the long so um. But just 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:40.520 a little more about the history of archaeology, if you'll 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:44.280 indulge me please. So methodology took place in the early 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:48.159 twentieth century. It became about that time in academic discipline. 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:52.040 Funny enough, they didn't start applying the scientific method to 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:56.520 archaeology necessarily until like the fifties or sixties. But yeah, um, 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.080 but it had its own method, and the method it 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:04.280 among archaeologists was you find an artifact, you date it, 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.120 and you catalog it. The archaeologist job was to date 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:12.320 and catalog and ultimately contribute to this growing body of 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:18.680 knowledge that was the timeline of human history and preserve obviously, 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:23.480 but it was like, these tools are older than this tool, 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.360 which means that the people who made these tools where 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.600 the predecessors of the people who made these tools. That 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:33.800 was it. Archaeologists got bored in the fifties, and they said, 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:39.760 we're explaining how these um these tools have progressed, or 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:43.800 human industry has progressed, but not why. Right when they 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:47.480 decided to start answering why, archaeology became a far more 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:51.240 interesting field. It became a multidisciplinary field, and all of 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:55.720 a sudden, they're bringing in experts in ceramics, experts in metallurgy, 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.560 and and grabbing all these people from different fields and 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.920 saying how can we answer why this changed? What led 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:06.400 to what change? And archaeology at that point in about 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:11.200 the fifties or sixties became the very far flong, widespread, 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:16.120 all encompassing, uh discipline that it is today. That's awesome. Yeah, 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.240 so with help, Yeah, with a little help from their friends, 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:21.680 from their expert friends. All Right, I guess we can 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:25.280 talk right after this message, break a little bit about um, 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:27.000 how things start off. If you want to go to 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:34.640 gick something up. Okay, buddy, we're back. Uh. Field Work 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:37.040 is a word that you're going to hear an archaeology 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:39.240 a lot, and depending on who you talked to, it 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:43.479 might entail the whole process or just out in the field, 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:47.639 like at the actual excavation. But I think most folks 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:54.120 nowadays consider field work the excavation and all the pre work. Uh. 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:55.720 I mean there's a lot of research that goes into 0:19:55.760 --> 0:20:00.199 it beforehand, in offices and school rooms and libraries and 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.160 what have you. And I think it's either all it's 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:05.640 everything including excavation, or it's all the stuff that leads 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:08.880 up to excavation is considered field work, right, I would 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:12.240 call it predig activity. That's what I would go with 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.320 that's where you go with. So excavation and field work 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:19.560 are two different things for you. Sure, Okay, if I 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:22.119 was opening up my own archaeological firm, that would be 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.320 my model. Yeah, it seems to be really there's not 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:29.280 a big problem with it either way. UM. So when 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.600 you when you do find something, like you said, um, 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.240 there's a couple of different ways things can be found. 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:39.720 They can be determinedly, doggedly solid after which can be 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:41.679 part of the field work, going through the stacks in 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:46.400 the library, looking for references in ancient literature, UM, and 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:50.440 just kind of trying to figure out where something might be. 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:54.080 That's what Schlieman did with Troy. UM. He read the 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:59.360 Iliad I Believe, which um describes the Trojan War UM 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:04.000 and said look for clues. Yes, yeah, and and that's 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:05.800 when he was like, I'm pretty sure this is where 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:07.960 Troy is. Yeah, you're like a sort of a history 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.920 detective at that point exactly which is Indiana Jones. After that, 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:17.240 you may you have to go get some permits, vocal permits. Uh. 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:19.280 And you're also gonna want to go get a grant 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:21.960 because you're probably not going to fund this out of 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:25.040 your own pocket unless you're somebody like James Cameron or whatever, 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:27.800 you know what I mean. No, but grants can come 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:30.840 from rich people who may want some of the stuff. 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:33.120 Or maybe a museum wants to pony up some money 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:37.320 if they really want a certain exhibit in their museum, right, 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:42.200 or your university that you work for, UM should underwrite 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:44.680 some of it. Yeah, but you get your you get 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:47.520 your funding, you've got your grad student assistants. Maybe if 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:50.920 it's gonna be a really big dig you UM put 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:54.160 a flyer up at the local senior center. See if 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:56.800 anybody wants to come help during the days because of 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:00.240 the elderly would be good diggers, No, they would be 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:04.479 awesome diggers. And here's why it takes a lot of 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:08.840 patients to excavate a site. When you excavate a site, 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:13.400 you're basically coordining it off. UM. And by the way, 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:16.600 we've left at a really important point here. There's something 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:22.639 called geophysical prospecting, which basically uses uh, some pretty incredible 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:28.600 devices that measure differences in electromagnetism or electric connectivity in 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:31.879 the ground and then basically gives you a pretty picture 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:34.600 back saying here's something that's not rock. It's like an 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:38.280 advanced super advanced metal detector basically UM, but it can 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:41.840 also detect other really nuanced stuff like paint. It's in 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:44.600 everything detected. Yeah, it's just good stuff. So you you're 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:47.240 not just you may have read a book that says 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:51.159 I think that this ancient site is here, but then 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:53.560 you don't just start cordining off and digging. You do 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.199 a survey of the site to look for stuff and 0:22:56.240 --> 0:22:58.400 see if it's likely that it might still be right. Yeah, 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:00.320 that's a huge step that, if you may see, youre 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:03.440 a terrible archaeologist. So I'm sorry we left that part out. 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:07.760 Now that you've got a basically a subterranean map of 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:11.520 the site, UM, you coordinate off and you start digging, 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:15.239 usually by meter, and when you're digging by meter, you 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:20.920 literally remove just one thin layer of that square meter 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:25.720 at a time. Yeah, because we we've said earlier preservation 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:29.600 is key and they were breaking things early on, and uh, 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:31.520 one way to not break things is to go super 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:34.480 super slow, super slow, just a little bit at a time. 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:39.120 And I know everyone has seen the footage of archaeologists 0:23:39.119 --> 0:23:42.400 on their hands and knees blowing things with little little brushes, 0:23:42.920 --> 0:23:47.600 and it is that UM, meticulous. Yes, might drive some 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:52.800 people crazy. It certainly would. Like construction worker guy probably 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:55.439 doesn't want to be on an archaeological day, no, But 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:58.439 it's funny you bring that up because construction worker guys 0:23:58.800 --> 0:24:01.680 often find themselves in the midst of an archaeological dig. 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:07.320 Construction uh yields a lot of archaeological evidence. Like, for instance, 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:12.280