WEBVTT - Dinner with King Tut, with Sam Kean 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:07.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.239 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:18.840 is Robert Lamb, and on today's episode, I'm going to 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:23.360 be talking with author Sam King, whose new book, Dinner 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.200 with King Tut How Rogue Archaeologists are recreating the site, sounds, 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.600 smells and Tastes of Lost Civilizations, is going to be 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:34.920 out July eighth. This is a terrific book, and I 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:38.520 really enjoyed chatting with Sam here about it. So let's 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:44.400 go ahead and jump right into the interview. Hi, Sam, 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:45.120 Welcome to the show. 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:46.800 Hi, thanks for having me. 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.400 So the new book is Dinner with King tut How 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:53.680 rogue archaeologists are recreating the site, sounds, smells and Tastes 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.160 of Lost Civilizations. This deals with the topic that I've 0:00:57.200 --> 0:00:59.640 found quite exciting for a while now, but I didn't 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:04.160 realize we had a specific name for it, experimental archaeology. 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.360 Tell us a little bit about experimental archaeology, how and 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:12.680 to what extent it is different compared to traditional archaeology, 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:13.880 and how the two get along. 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.039 So I always had kind of a I guess a 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:21.640 gripe with regular archaeology in that on some level. It 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.120 was the most fascinating subject I could imagine, deals with 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.880 the deep history of humankind, where we came from, how 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:31.920 we spread across the globe, the rise of great civilizations, 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.360 all these big meaty questions about history. But whenever I 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:38.760 would go to an actual archaeological site, I always found 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:42.640 it extremely dull. It was just people sitting around in 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:46.480 the dirt brushing off pot shards or whatever with toothbrushes 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:50.160 dental picks. And it looked the same everywhere around the 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.040 world too, no matter what different cultures you were talking about. 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.080 So it was always a big disappointment to go to 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:59.160 these sites. And I contrast it in my mind with 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:03.120 experiment mental archaeology, which when I heard about it, I thought, ooh, 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:06.440 now this is the type of archaeology I like. Essentially, 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:11.040 experimental archaeologists make and do things so instead of just 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.240 digging something up and theorizing it, they actually try to 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.440 recreate the past in different ways, and that manifests itself 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:22.080 in all sorts of different ways. Sometimes they're creating ancient 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:27.160 foods and lost recipes. Sometimes they're making ancient tools or weapons, 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:31.799 or recreating medicines, things like that. At different points in 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:34.960 the book. I got to attend an authentic Roman banquet. 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:37.600 I got to spend a day out in Utah with 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.560 a guy who had built a giant medieval catapult, and 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.560 we spent an afternoon throwing these huge garden stones around. 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:46.440 I got to talk to people who made a human 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:50.680 mummy and Egyptian style mummy of a human in modern times. 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:54.000 They're just all of these different projects that people are doing. 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:56.920 And what really excites me about it is that it's 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:01.560 a very sensory rich version of archaeology in that you 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:04.680 can actually hear what it sounds like when a big 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:08.600 catapul ball slams home into a wall. You can taste 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:10.920 the food, the sour dough bread, or the beer that 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.480 King Tutt would have been. So it really brings the 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:17.000 past alive in a way that to me, traditional archaeology 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:17.840 just could not do. 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:20.960 It kind of gets this halfway, at least to Indiana 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:22.480 Jones territory, I guess. 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:24.919 Just halfway there. Yes, much more than sitting around in 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:25.680 the dirt, for sure. 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:29.679 Now. I found it interesting you pointed out that some 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.880 traditional archaeologists have been opposed to this sort of thing, 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:35.720 and I guess I was a little surprised by this 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:37.880 as well, because I know that and we'll get to 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.280 some of these examples have encountered some of this work before, 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:44.280 and in some cases it's by very respected archaeologist of 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.160 you know, reconstructing tools from ancient times or you know, 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:52.360 creating you know, recreating Greek trirems, that sort of thing. 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:56.880 But yeah, you outline some of the pushback that experimental 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:58.160 archaeologists have encountered. 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:00.680 Yeah, there is a bit of an inflict in the 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:05.360 field with sort of you know, traditional scholarly academic archaeologists 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:08.720 and the people trying to do this new method of archaeology, 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.440 experimental archaeology. Some of that I think is just sort 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.960 of traditional inertia where people are used to doing things 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:17.440 a certain way. Might be a bit of a generational 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:21.480 gap as well in there too, But some of it 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.240 I think is a little bit of resentment of Sometimes 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.279 the people I talked to do in the book weren't 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:31.280 traditional archaeologists. They were maybe a brewer or a chef, 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.960 or even a hairdresser in one case who had an 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:39.000 interest in history and came in and sort of proved 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.360 traditional archaeologists wrong. And I think there was a bit 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.920 of resentment about that. They didn't like being told they 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.960 were wrong by essentially what they considered an amateur. So 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:50.880 there is a little bit of tension within the field still, 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.520 and to be fair, there is there are examples out 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.760 there of bad experimental archaeology where people just didn't take 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:01.599 the time to do do it properly the first time. 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:05.640 One good example of that was the person I talked 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:09.880 to who recreated Egyptian bread. His name was Seamus Blackley. 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:13.840 He's best known. Actually he worked at Microsoft and he 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.839 created the Xbox. That's sort of his claim to fame. 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:21.000 But after that he went and founded his own company, 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.160 and as a hobby, he decided he wanted to make 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:28.080 heirloom bread. So he started with medieval bread and eventually 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:32.400 transitioned into making Egyptian style bread. And his first attempt, 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.640 you know, he just got some yeast, got some basic grain, 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:37.440 put something up there on Twitter, and a lot of 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.479 people wrote to him and said, you're full of crap. 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.440 This is a terrible, terrible job you did recreating this bread. 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:45.560 And he thought about it, probably got a little mad 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:47.440 at first, but he said, you know what, They're right, 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:49.719 I did a poor job of this. I am going 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.599 to now do a proper job of it. So he 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:56.360 flew over to Egypt with a microbiology kit. He started 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.320 swabbing the inside of pots to get the actual yeast 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.800 from the pots and the molds that they used to 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:06.200 make the bread. He sourced some heirloom grain, he sourced 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.440 the kind of wood that they would have used. He 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:10.440 had some one make him an authentic bread mold. He 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:12.760 built a fire pit in his backyard. He kind of 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.479 went all out on this, and he got let me 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.920 try some of the bread eventually after he had sort 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.480 of perfected it, and it was probably the best thing 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:23.760 I ate in the entire book, one of the best 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:25.800 loads of bread I've ever had in my life. So 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.680 you do have people kind of doing poor jobs of 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:30.880 this work at the beginning, but in some cases they 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.040 learned from that and did much better jobs by the end. 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:37.080 One quick question about the bread, what did you expect 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:39.320 it to taste like? Were you sort of expecting it 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:41.599 to taste like archaeology to some degree. 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:46.000 Or dusty, like really hard and great? Yeah? I didn't know. 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:48.920 I guess I expected it to be very bland and 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:53.919 very flat. Yeah. I pictured something just very flat, you know, 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.440 pretty bland, not much taste to it. I was surprised 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:58.120 first of all how big it was. It was about 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:00.960 a foot wide, maybe a little bigger even, and it 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.479 was conical shaped. It reminded me of if you've seen 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:08.000 those old pictures of the Mercury astronauts from NASA. They 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:10.680 would re enter the Earth in this sort of conical 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.760 shaped space capsule, and it looked a lot like that. 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.720 That was the shape. It had a nice springy crust 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:20.080 on it, and it had a really nice sour dough 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.600 taste to it. There were only a few ingredients in it. 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:28.880 Emer grain, coriander, salt, yeast, and water was basically it. 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.360 And the sour dough combined with sort of the whole 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:35.200 wheat from the emmer and the coriander coming in it 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:37.920 was delicious. It was far far better than I expected 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:38.480 it was going to be. 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:44.320 Now you mentioned bad experimental archaeology. I was wondering, this 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:46.360 isn't really something that is the focus of the book 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.520 or anything, But at least in your preliminary research, did 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:54.320 you find examples of experimental archaeology either veering into the 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:58.520 realm of or originating within the realms of alternative archaeology 0:07:58.560 --> 0:07:59.680 or pseudo archaeology. 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.760 I definitely came across those kind of things, but most 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.679 of that stuff sort of falls in the realm of 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.680 maybe not traditional archaeology, but at least sort of the 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:14.120 methods they used, where it's a little bit more armchair 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:18.520 and removed. You're looking at documents, artifacts, things like that. 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:23.000 So certainly not good archaeology and poorly reasoned in a 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.360 lot of cases, but it is a little bit more 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.640 on the I guess, traditional side, so to speak, as 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.000 opposed to the people who are actually making and doing 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.640 things that you can hear and taste and touch. 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:37.840 Now getting back into the positives here, something you write 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:42.160 about numerous examples of this in the book. How important 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:47.280 is experimental archaeology for the exploration and even revitalization of 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.760 traditions that have been lost or eroded via s a 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:51.000 Western colonialism. 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:53.560 Yeah, that's actually a really important theme in the book 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:55.959 is that there are a lot of different people doing it. 0:08:56.160 --> 0:09:00.320 Some are traditional scholarly archaeologists who just you know, wanted 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.200 to do something a little different. But the other thread 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.400 on the other groups of people doing this are you know, 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:12.200 indigenous people, people from native cultures who to them this 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:16.120 isn't archaeology as much as it's their ancestry, it's their history. 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.960 And in a lot of cases, they are either reviving 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:25.000 the traditions themselves, you know, going back to look at songs, poems, 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:28.040 traditions that they had and reviving them, or in some 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:32.160 cases they have actually kept their traditions alive despite the 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:36.600 struggles of you know, colonialism and things like that kind 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.480 of decimating their culture. So in a lot of cases 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:43.880 they are the ones going to the archaeologists teaching them, 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:49.000 correcting them, showing them how their ancestors lived. That's another 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:51.640 really important element of the book is talking to those 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.920 people about the wonderful job they've done preserving and reviving 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:56.880 their cultures. 0:09:57.240 --> 0:09:59.920 Yeah. One example of this, I was excited to read 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.480 about traditional Native American acorn processing practices in the book. 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.400 This is something I myself had just learned about fairly 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:09.840 recently on a trip to Yosemite National Park, where they 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.480 have you know, various places where you can learn about this. 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:15.400 Can you tell us a little bit about the labor 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.719 that went into cultivating and processing these nuts and what 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:20.600 the final culinary results tasted like. 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.000 Yeah, So this was one of the cases in the book. 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:26.560 You know, kind of going through the different projects that 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:28.760 I did. In a lot of cases, I was essentially 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.400 just floundering around and that I was trying something out. 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:33.480 I was very poor at it, and it sort of 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:37.480 reinforced how difficult it was in some cases to do 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:41.280 something even basically get a meal for yourself. So essentially 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.040 what I did is I gathered a bunch of acorns 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.640 from different trees around my neighborhood, maybe a few hundred 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.120 of them, five hundred something like that. Then I had 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:54.080 to look around for a hammerstone and an anvil and 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.160 essentially just brought them home and started cracking them open, 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:01.120 digging the meat out, and processing them. I learned pretty 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:04.240 quickly that maybe a third or so of them were 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:08.040 rotten on the inside. Some actually had weavils inside them, 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.840 so I had bugs crawling around in my homes I'd 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.000 brought them in and the other and so I had 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.040 to discard a lot of them, and then I had 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:19.680 to just essentially grind them up into flour as finally 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:22.040 as I could. And that was a step especially that 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.040 got discouraging because I had, you know, a big bucket 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:29.840 full of acorns, and that eventually ground down to much 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.400 less than a cup of accnable flour, and it was very, 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.520 very frustrating thinking about all the work I had done 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:41.400 to gather them, to grind them up, oh, and actually 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:43.440 skip a step because I had to leach them then 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:46.760 to try to get the tannins the bitter flavor out 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:50.000 of them. And I ended up with basically just a 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:52.400 cup of flour and could make a few muffins out 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.280 of them. And then apparently I did a bad job 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.280 with the leeching as well, because they tasted like the 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:00.640 most bitter thing I've ever eaten my life. It was 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:05.600 like a colaxon of bitterness raging inside my mouth. They 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:07.640 were not very good the way I made them, But 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:11.040 I later actually got to travel to a school that 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.520 does some experimental archaeology work in Maine. They do teach 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:17.400 survivalist skills things like that, and they showed me a 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:19.520 little bit more about how to process them, and they 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:23.480 ended up being absolutely delicious. We made acorn pancakes fresh 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:25.720 on a hot stone griddle. We had a little bit 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.200 of butter on them. They were absolutely scrumgious, wonderful stuff. 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:33.080 So it was a good learning experience and humbling in 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.600 sort of a nice way to Yeah, to just show 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:38.960 how difficult it was to do something basic like get 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:39.280 a meal. 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:41.720 Now, you chat with a number of researchers in this 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.960 book whose work I was familiar with to some degree 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.520 or another, like they'd come up on previous episodes of 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:52.600 this show. One in particular is Lynn Wadley on the 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.680 topic of ancient bedding. I was familiar with her work, 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.400 but not the hurdles she faced over her own use 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.040 of experimental archaeology. Tell us a little bit about this. 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.920 Yeah, So she's an archaeologist in South Africa and she 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:08.000 does a lot of traditional archaeology sort of you know, 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.400 digging things out of the dirt, stuff like that. But 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.000 she had an idea she wanted to try and experiment 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.600 with the bedding that she found in one cave. There 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.320 she found what we think is probably the oldest bed 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:25.839 on Earth, from about seventy five thousand or so years ago, 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.920 and essentially it's a two part bed that's pretty ingenious 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.400 in a way. There's a layer of ash on the ground, 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:34.599 so you just burn a bunch of debris, get a 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:37.080 nice layer of ash there, and then you put what 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.880 she called a top sheet on there of aromatic leaves 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:45.080 that you can pick from trees around the cave. And 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.520 basically what that does is it provides a nice soft 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:51.280 place to lie down, which is kind of the main 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.480 function of a bed. But in combination, the ash and 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:58.400 the leaves keep insects away, They keep mosquitoes away, the 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:02.120 aromatic leaves keep the mistque away, and the ash is 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:06.120 important for keeping ticks away. And she showed this by 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.080 gathering a bunch of ticks on the farm that she 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:12.240 lives in in South Africa, and she essentially put them 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:16.200 down on I think they were in a bucket, and 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.520 she put a ring of ash around these ticks that 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.600 she had gathered, and she just saw what would happen. 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:24.880 She let them try to escape, so they had to 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:27.200 burrow through this ring of ash to try to get 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.400 out of there. And she found that most of the 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.320 ticks did not even make it through the ring of ash. 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:35.640 They died halfway through. The ones that did make it out, 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.200 their mouth parts were so gummed up with ash that 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.720 they couldn't effectively bite anyone. So this ash layer provided 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:47.560 a really nice barrier against ticks biting you, spreading diseases, 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.280 things like that. So I thought it was a really 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:54.200 ingenious experiment. And then she actually had some people spend 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.280 a night on one of the on a recreation of 0:14:57.320 --> 0:14:59.360 one of these beds in the cave, which I thought 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.640 would have been really cool. I wish I'd gotten a 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:04.800 chance to do that. They said it was a little 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:07.400 nerve wracking, you know, they were kind of out there. 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:10.720 They had no animals prowling around or whatever, but apparently 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:14.720 the beds themselves were fairly comfortable. So she was telling 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:16.400 me about all this. I thought it was a really 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:20.240 cool little experiment, and I was surprised to hear that 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:23.040 she had a lot of trouble publishing anything about it, 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.520 And in fact, the editor of the paper said, you know, 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:30.200 I love all the traditional archaeology, I am not mentioning 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.400 this little informal experiment you did, either with the ticks 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:36.080 or having people spend a night on them. And the 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.200 editor would not budge on this and cut that section 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:43.000 from the paper. And it kind of highlights the tensions 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.800 that you see between traditional archaeology and even someone running 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.720 sort of an informal experiment. And I told her, and 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:51.680 I'd write about this in the book, that it's even 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.240 more disappointing because I was thinking about Charles Darwin especially, 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.640 he ran tons of informal experiments like this, and they 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:02.120 helped him generate new ideas to test. They helped inform 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.120 the biology of the time. So she was really working 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:07.800 in the spirit of Charles Darman. It was just disappointing 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.720 to see an editor just put his foot down like that. 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:13.040 Yeah, and then that's the kind of stuff too, that 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:16.640 helps make it real for people like most of most 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.200 of the listeners here, certainly like myself outside of the 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:22.520 academic world. Do you hear about these informal experiments and yeah, 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:23.520 it fleshes it out. 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:26.560 Yeah, and captures your imagination. You can imagine yourself lying 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.480 on this bed, what it would feel like. It's much 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:33.560 more close to your heart. Then you're just reading about 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:34.960 digging something up out of the dirt. 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:37.680 Now, speaking of digging things out of the dirt, can 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:39.800 you tell us a little bit about your experiences eating 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:41.240 toxic potatoes in Peru. 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:42.960 Yeah, that was another case where I was a bit 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:48.000 surprised at the outcomes of what happened. So potatoes are 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.760 native to the Andean Highlands in Peru, and I didn't 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:56.359 realize when I started doing this project. The sheer variety 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:00.800 you see of potatoes up there, just the colors, the shapes. 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:05.160 They're really really beautiful, all the different tubers you get 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:10.119 in the Andean Highlands where they're native to. One thing 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.959 I didn't realize also though, was that they're toxic. So 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.480 native potatoes you who cannot eat because they have certain 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.800 chemicals in them that will poison you. So you have 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.879 to process them in different ways. You can make a 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.879 couple of different dishes out of them depending on how 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:29.680 you process them. One way is essentially that you freeze 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:33.679 dry them, so you leave them out overnight soaking in water, 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:39.720 and the chemical reactions take place, and it essentially disables 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:43.439 breaks down these chemicals and they leech out and then 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:46.280 they're safe to eat after that. And another way is 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.120 you can process them a little bit but also mix 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:53.040 in a clay sauce. So you take dirt clay from riverbank, 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.200 mix it up with water, and you eat the potatoes 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.480 with that sauce, and the clay actually binds to the 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:03.600 poison chemicals and it goes through your digestive system so 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.440 it doesn't end up poisoning you. And when I got 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.760 started with this, the first dish, the freeze dried one 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:11.640 was the one I was excited about, so I thought 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:13.600 it was like sort of a you know, an ancient 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:16.120 astronaut food almost. I was like, this is so cool, 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:17.800 you know, the freeze drying his food in this way. 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.360 And I tried it and it just didn't taste good 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:23.879 to me. And I recognize I didn't grow up eating it, 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:26.800 so people there probably have a different opinion, but it 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.480 just tasted sort of like the desiccated husk of a potato. 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.080 There's a bit of flavor there, not much. It was 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:37.240 very mealy and dry and just did not really impressed me. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.440 I just didn't enjoy the taste. So then I moved 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:41.760 on to the other one, which I was not excited about, 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.439 which was the one you mixed with clay, and to 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:46.879 my delight, that actually tasted really good. It had a 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:50.400 very nice, earthy flavor to it. The sauce was sort 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.119 of brown. It had kind of a nice almost a 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.000 texture like like a ti peanut sauce to it, So 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:59.480 a nice earthy flavor, a good texture, and I really 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:04.120 really enjoyed that dish. So it surprised me a bit that, 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.160 you know, eating clay essentially would really improve this dish 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:07.760 and make it good. 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:10.520 Oh wow, Yeah, I think that runs counter to what 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:12.520 I think my expectations would have been as well. I mean, 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:16.920 I guess we have a predisposition to judge the use 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.399 of clay and other related substances in our food. But 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:21.639 that's fascinating. 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.240 Yeah, it's normally something we would brush off the food. 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:26.000 I think, like this is integral to be able to 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:27.600 eat the food. But it wasn't this case. 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:38.480 Now another I have to ask you about another topic 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.240 that had come up previously on Stuff to blow your mind. 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:45.280 You talk about the at lotto spear thrower. Tell us 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:47.280 what it was like getting to try out a reconstruction 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:47.919 of this weapon. 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:53.840 Yeah. So the lattle is probably the most widespread hunting 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.919 tool in history. I was surprised at how widespread it is, 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.159 much more so than bows and arrows, much more or 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:03.280 so than spears. And if anyone has not heard of 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:07.560 an at laddle, it's essentially a long, flexible spear, but 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.399 instead of throwing it with your hand, you use a 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:13.560 throwing stick. So it's just a long straight stick with 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:15.960 a bit of a notch on the end, and you 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:18.160 put that in your hand, You hold that in your hand, 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.280 and you use that to throw the spear, and essentially 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:23.680 what it does is it extends the length of your arm, 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:28.080 gives you more leverage and power in throwing it. And 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:31.600 I spent a great afternoon at an experimental archaeology lab 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.760 at Kent State University. They have a wonderful little program there, 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:39.320 and the guy there and who was in charge of 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:43.040 this program, he had a bunch of at laddles and spears, 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.360 I mean, just so he spent an afternoon throwing them 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.440 at these little foam dummies that he had. They had 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:52.920 one that was sort of a beloved mascot that they 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:57.440 called Bambo. It was much loved, much abused. After years 0:20:57.440 --> 0:20:59.320 of throwing at laddles at it, it actually didn't have 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:02.280 any legs anymore because I've been hit so many times. 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:04.239 So they propped that up in the field. Then they 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:08.160 had another one that was like a third size replica 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:10.280 of a cariboo I think it was they got it 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:12.560 from target or whatever. So we set those up in 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.560 the field and we just spent an afternoon throwing these 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.600 at laddle darts at them. And I was surprised at 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:22.199 how easy it was to get distance with an at 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:24.600 laddle dart. I don't remember off the top of my head, 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.080 but the world record for throwing one is something like 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:30.320 two hundred and fifty yards, whereas the world record for 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:32.920