WEBVTT - From the Vault: Dinner with King Tut, with Sam Kean 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:09.520 Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:11.440 is Robert Lamb. It is Saturday, so we got a 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:13.640 vault episode for you here. This is going to be 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:18.640 my interview from seven three, twenty twenty five with author 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:23.439 Sam Keen about the book Dinner with King Tut full 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.720 title Dinner with King Tut How rogue archaeologist are recreating 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:31.320 the site sound, smells and Tastes of Lost Civilizations. Really 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.440 cool book. I keep seeing this one at bookstores and 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:37.400 I always have to point out to my family. I'm like, hey, hey, 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:39.519 I chatted with that person. I do this with any 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.440 book that I see in bookstores where I've interviewed the author. 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:46.080 It probably gets a little annoying, but I still I 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.520 love these conversations that I get to have with folks, 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:50.920 and this one was a lot of fun. So let's 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:51.519 jump right in. 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:59.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio. 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.240 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:10.840 is Robert Lamb, and on today's episode, I'm going to 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:15.360 be talking with author Sam King whose new book Dinner 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:19.679 with King Tut, How rogue archaeologist are recreating the site sounds, smells, 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:22.800 and tastes of Lost Civilizations is going to be out 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:27.319 July eighth. This is a terrific book and I really 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.560 enjoyed chatting with Sam here about it. So let's go 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:36.720 ahead and jump right into the interview. Hi, Sam, Welcome 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:37.119 to the show. 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:38.760 Hi thanks for having me. 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:41.399 So the new book is Dinner with King Tut How 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:45.680 rogue archaeologist are recreating the site, sounds, smells, and tastes 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.160 of Lost Civilizations. This deals with the topic that I've 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:51.680 found quite exciting for a while now, but I didn't 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:56.120 realize we had a specific name for it, experimental archaeology. 0:01:56.680 --> 0:02:00.360 Tell us a little bit about experimental archaeology, how and 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.680 to what extent it is different compared to traditional archaeology, 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:05.840 and how the to get along. 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.040 So I always had kind of a I guess a 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:13.600 gripe with regular archaeology in that, on some level it 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:17.120 was the most fascinating subject I could imagine, deals with 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.880 the deep history of humankind, where we came from, how 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.919 we spread across the globe, the rise of great civilizations, 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:27.359 all these big meaty questions about history. But whenever I 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.760 would go to an actual archaeological site, I always found 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.640 it extremely dull. It was just people sitting around in 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:38.480 the dirt, brushing off pot shards or whatever with toothbrushes 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:42.160 dental picks. And it looked the same everywhere around the 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.040 world too, no matter what different cultures you were talking about. 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:47.080 So it was always a big disappointment to go to 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:51.160 these sites. And I contrast it in my mind with 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:55.160 experimental archaeology, which when I heard about it, I thought, ooh, 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.440 now this is the type of archaeology I like. Essentially, 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:03.080 experimental archaeologist make and do things, so instead of just 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.240 digging something up and theorizing it, they actually try to 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:10.440 recreate the past in different ways, and that manifests itself 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:14.080 in all sorts of different ways. Sometimes they're creating ancient 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:19.160 foods and lost recipes. Sometimes they're making ancient tools or weapons, 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:23.799 or recreating medicines, things like that. At different points in 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.960 the book, I got to attend an authentic Roman banquet. 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:29.600 I got to spend a day out in Utah with 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.560 a guy who had built a giant medieval catapult, and 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:35.560 we spent an afternoon throwing these huge garden stones around. 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:38.440 I got to talk to people who made a human 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:42.640 mummy and Egyptian style mummy of a human in modern times. 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:46.000 They're just all of these different projects that people are doing. 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:48.920 And what really excites me about it is that it's 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:53.560 a very sensory rich version of archaeology in that you 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.680 can actually hear what it sounds like when a big 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:00.320 catapult ball slams home into a wall, so you can 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.760 taste the food, the sour dough bread, or the beer 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.360 that King Tutt would have been. So it really brings 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.440 the past alive in a way that to me, traditional 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:09.840 archaeology just could not do. 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:12.960 It kind of gets this halfway at least to Indiana 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:14.480 Jones territory, I guess. 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:16.920 Just halfway there. Yes, much more than setting around in 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:17.640 the dirt, for sure. 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.680 Now, I found it interesting you pointed out that some 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.880 traditional archaeologists have been opposed to this sort of thing, 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:27.719 and I guess I was a little surprised by this 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:29.880 as well, because I know that and we'll get to 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.280 some of these examples have encountered some of this work before, 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.280 and in some cases it's by very respected archaeologists of 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.160 you know, reconstructing tools from ancient times or you know, 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.360 creating you know, recreating Greek trirems, that sort of thing. 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.880 But yeah, you outline some of the pushback that experimental 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:50.160 archaeologists have encountered. 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:52.640 Yeah, there is a bit of a conflict in the 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:57.359 field with sort of you know, traditional scholarly academic archaeologists 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:00.080 and the people trying to do this new method bit 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.120 of archaeology, experimental archaeology. Some of that, I think is 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.480 just sort of traditional inertia where people are used to 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:08.600 doing things a certain way. Might be a bit of 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:13.200 a generational gap as well in there too, But some 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:15.600 of it I think is a little bit of resentment 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:18.320 of Sometimes the people I talked to do in the 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:22.640 book weren't traditional archaeologists. They were maybe a brewer or 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.640 a chef, or even a hairdresser in one case who 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:30.440 had an interest in history and came in and sort 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.080 of proved traditional archaeologists wrong, And I think there was 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:35.320 a bit of resentment about that. They didn't like being 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:39.520 told they were wrong by essentially what they considered an amateur. 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.080 So there is a little bit of tension within the 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:46.520 field still, And to be fair, there are examples out 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:50.760 there of bad experimental archaeology where people just didn't take 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:54.320 the time to do it properly the first time. One 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.719 good example of that was the person I talked to 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:03.000 who recreated Egyptian bread. His name was Seamus Blackley. He's 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.240 best known. Actually he worked at Microsoft and he created 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.599 the Xbox. That's sort of his claim to fame. But 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:13.480 after that he went and founded his own company, and 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:17.200 as a hobby, he decided he wanted to make heirloom bread. 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:21.039 So he started with medieval bread and eventually transitioned into 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.520 making Egyptian style bread. And his first attempt, you know, 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:27.320 he just got some yeast, got some basic grain, put 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:29.719 something up there on Twitter, and a lot of people 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:31.680 wrote to him and said, you're full of crap. This 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:35.440 is a terrible, terrible job you did recreating this bread. 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:37.560 And he thought about it, probably got a little mad 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:39.440 at first, but he said, you know what, they're right. 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:41.719 I did a poor job of this. I am going 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.599 to now do a proper job of it. So he 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.360 flew over to Egypt with a microbiology kit. He started 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.279 swabbing the inside of pots to get the actual yeast 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.800 from the pots and the molds that they used to 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.200 make the bread. He sourced some heirloom grain, he sourced 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:00.479 the kind of wood that they would have used. He 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:02.440 had some one make him an authentic bread mold. He 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:04.760 built a fire pit in his backyard. He kind of 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.479 went all out on this, and he got let me 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:10.920 try some of the bread eventually after he had sort 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:13.480 of perfected it, and it was probably the best thing 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:15.760 I ate in the entire book, one of the best 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:17.800 loads of bread I've ever had in my life. So 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:20.680 you do have people kind of doing poor jobs of 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:22.880 this work at the beginning, but in some cases they 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:25.040 learned from that and did much better jobs by the end. 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:29.080 One quick question about the bread, what did you expect 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.320 it to taste liked? Were you sort of expecting it 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:33.600 to taste like archaeology to some degree. 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:38.000 Or dusty, like really hard and great? Yeah? I didn't know. 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:40.920 I guess I expected it to be very bland and 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:45.920 very flat. Yeah. I pictured something just very flat, you know, 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:48.440 pretty bland, not much taste to it. I was surprised, 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:50.120 first of all how big it was. It was about 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:52.960 a foot wide, maybe a little bigger even, and it 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:56.480 was conical shaped. It reminded me of if you've seen 0:07:56.480 --> 0:08:00.360 those old pictures of the Mercury astronauts from NASA would 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.280 re enter the Earth in this sort of conical shaped 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:05.840 space capsule, and it looked a lot like that. That 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.160 was the shape. It had a nice springy crust on it, 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:12.720 and it had a really nice sour dough taste to it. 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:19.000 There were only a few ingredients in it, emergrain, coriander, salt, yeast, 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:23.640 and water was basically it. And the sour dough combined 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:25.440 with sort of the whole wheat from the emmer and 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:28.640 the coriander coming in it was delicious. It was far 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:30.480 far better than I expected it was going to be. 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:36.320 Now you mentioned bad experimental archaeology. I was wondering, this 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:38.360 isn't really something that is the focus of the book 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.520 or anything, But at least in your preliminary research, did 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:46.320 you find examples of experimental archaeology either veering into the 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:50.520 realm of or originating within the realms of alternative archaeology 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:51.640 or pseudo archaeology. 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.760 I definitely came across those kind of things, but most 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.640 of that stuff sort of falls in the realm of 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:02.720 maybe not traditional archaeology, but at least sort of the 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.119 methods they used, where it's a little bit more armchair 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:10.520 and removed. You're looking at documents, artifacts, things like that. 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:15.000 So certainly not good archaeology and poorly reasoned in a 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:17.360 lot of cases, but it is a little bit more 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.640 on the I guess, traditional side, so to speak, as 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.000 opposed to the people who are actually making and doing 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.640 things that you can hear and taste and touch. 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:29.840 Now getting back into the positives here, something you write 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:34.160 about numerous examples of this in the book. How important 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:39.280 is experimental archaeology for the exploration and even revitalization of 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:41.760 traditions that have been lost or eroded via s a 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:43.000 Western colonialism. 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:45.480 Yeah, that's actually a really important theme in the book 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:47.959 is that there are a lot of different people doing it. 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:52.480 Some are traditional scholarly archaeologists who just wanted to do 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.840 something a little different. But the other thread on the 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.319 other groups of people doing this are you know, indigenous 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:05.400 peopleeople from native cultures who to them this isn't archaeology 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.200 as much as it's their ancestry, it's their history. And 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.080 in a lot of cases they are either reviving the 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:17.000 traditions themselves, you know, going back to look at songs, poems, 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:20.040 traditions that they had and reviving them, or in some 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:24.160 cases they have actually kept their traditions alive despite the 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:28.600 struggles of you know, colonialism and things like that. Kind 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.480 of decimating their culture. So in a lot of cases, 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:35.880 they are the ones going to the archaeologists teaching them, 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:41.000 correcting them, showing them how their ancestors lived. That's another 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.640 really important element of the book is talking to those 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:47.920 people about the wonderful job they've done preserving and reviving 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:48.560 their cultures. 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.960 Yeah. One example of this, I was excited to read 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:56.480 about traditional Native American acorn processing practices in the book. 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.360 This is something I myself had just learned about fairly 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:01.880 recently on a trip to Yosemite National Park, where they have, 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.480 you know, various places where you can learn about this. 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:07.400 Can you tell us a little bit about the labor 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.720 that went into cultivating and processing these nuts and what 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:12.600 the final culinary results tasted like. 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.000 Yeah, So this was one of the cases in the book, 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:18.560 you know, kind of going through the different projects that 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:20.760 I did. In a lot of cases, I was essentially 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:23.400 just floundering around and that I was trying something out. 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:25.480 I was very poor at it, and it sort of 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.480 reinforced how difficult it was in some cases to do 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:33.280 something even basically get a meal for yourself. So essentially 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.040 what I did is I gathered a bunch of acorns 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.640 from different trees around my neighborhood, maybe a few hundred 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.120 of them, five hundred something like that. Then I had 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:46.080 to look around for a hammerstone and an anvil and 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.160 essentially just brought them home and started cracking them open, 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:53.120 digging the meat out, and processing them. I learned pretty 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.240 quickly that maybe a third or so of them were 0:11:56.320 --> 0:12:00.000 rotten on the inside. Some actually had weavils inside them, 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.679 so no, I had bugs crawling around in my homes. 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:04.840 I'd brought them in and the other and so I 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.720 had to discard a lot of them. And then I 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:11.280 had to just essentially grind them up into flour as 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.000 finally as I could. And that was a step especially 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:16.440 that got discouraging because I had, you know, a big 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:21.360 bucket full of acorns and that eventually ground down to 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.920 much less than a cup of accnable flour. And it 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.800 was very very frustrating thinking about all the work I 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:33.000 had done to gather them to grind them up. Oh, 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:34.840 and actually skip a step because I had to leach 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:37.840 them then to try to get the tannins the bitter 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:41.679 flavor out of them. And I ended up with basically 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:43.600 just a cup of flour and could make a few 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:46.800 muffins out of them, and then apparently I did a 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.280 bad job with the leeching as well, because they tasted 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.400 like the most bitter thing I've ever eaten in my life. 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:57.400 It was like a colaxon of bitterness raging inside my mouth. 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:59.280 They were not very good the way I made them. 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.480 Actually got to travel to a school that does some 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.560 experimental archaeology work in Maine. They do teach survivalist skills 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:09.800 things like that, and they showed me a little bit 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:11.880 more about how to process them, and they ended up 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:15.840 being absolutely delicious. We made acorn pancakes fresh on a 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.080 hot stone griddle. We had a little bit of butter 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:22.000 on them. They were absolutely scrumgious, wonderful stuff. So it 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.400 was a good learning experience and humbling in sort of 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.160 a nice way to, yeah, to just show how difficult 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:31.280 it was to do something basic like get a meal. 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:33.720 Now, you chat with a number of researchers in this 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:36.960 book whose work I was familiar with to some degree 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:39.520 or another, like they'd come up on previous episodes of 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:44.600 this show. One in particular is Lynn Wadley on the 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.680 topic of ancient bedding. I was familiar with her work, 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.400 but not the hurdles she faced over her own use 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:52.640 of experimental archaeology. Can you tell us a little bit 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:53.040 about this. 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:57.960 Yeah, So she's an archaeologist in South Africa and she 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:00.880 does a lot of traditional archaeology, digging things out of 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:03.760 the dirt, stuff like that. But she had an idea 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.480 she wanted to try an experiment with the bedding that 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.560 she found in one cave. There she found what we 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:14.560 think is probably the oldest bed on Earth, from about 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:19.120 seventy five thousand or so years ago. And essentially it's 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:22.320 a two part bed that's pretty ingenious in a way. 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.760 There's a layer of ash on the ground, so you 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:27.200 just burn a bunch of debris, get a nice layer 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.440 of ash there, and then you put what she called 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:33.120 a top sheet on there of aromatic leaves that you 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:38.080 can pick from trees around the cave. And basically what 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.240 that does is it provides a nice soft place to 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.760 lie down, which is kind of the main function of 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.240 a bed. But in combination, the ash and the leaves 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.240 keep insects away, they keep mosquitoes away. The aromatic leaves 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:54.760 keep the mosquitoes away, and the ash is important for 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:59.160 keeping ticks away. And she showed this by gathering a 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:01.680 bunch of ticks on the farm that she lives in 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:06.040 in South Africa, and she essentially put them down on 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:08.600 I think they were in a bucket, and she put 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.520 a ring of ash around these ticks that she had gathered, 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.120 and she just saw what would happen. She let them 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.840 try to escape, so they had to burrow through this 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:19.680 ring of ash to try to get out of there, 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.200 and she found that most of the ticks did not 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:24.920 even make it through the ring of ash. They died 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:28.280 halfway through. The ones that did make it out, their 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.320 mouth parts were so gummed up with ash that they 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.880 couldn't effectively bite anyone. So this ash layer provided a 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:40.640 really nice barrier against ticks biting you, spreading diseases, things 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.320 like that. So I thought it was a really ingenious experiment. 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.640 And then she actually had some people spend a night 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.760 on one of the a recreation of one of these 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:51.880 beds in the cave, which I thought would have been 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.120 really cool. I wish I had gotten a chance to 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:58.280 do that. They said it was a little nerve wracking, 0:15:58.320 --> 0:15:59.800 you know, they were kind of out there. They'd know, 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.600 animals prowling around or whatever. But apparently the beds themselves 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:07.520 were fairly comfortable. So she was telling me about all this. 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.880 I thought it was a really cool little experiment, and 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:12.760 I was surprised to hear that she had a lot 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.600 of trouble publishing anything about it. And in fact, the 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:18.960 editor of the paper said, you know, I love all 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:23.640 the traditional archaeology. I am not mentioning this little informal 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.200 experiment you did, either with the ticks or having people 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:28.840 spend a night on them. And the editor would not 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.520 budge on this and cut that section from the paper. 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:35.480 And it kind of highlights the tensions that you see 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:39.240 between traditional archaeology and even someone running sort of an 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:42.360 informal experiment. And I told her, and I'd write about 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.000 this in the book, that it's even more disappointing because 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.560 I was thinking about Charles Darwin especially, He ran tons 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:52.040 of informal experiments like this, and they helped him generate 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.960 new ideas to test, They helped inform the biology of 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.720 the time. So she was really working in the spirit 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:01.760 of Charles Darwin and was just disappointing an editor put 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:02.720 his foot down like that. 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:05.040 Yeah, And then that's the kind of stuff too that 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.680 helps make it real for people like most of most 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:11.199 of the listeners here, certainly like myself outside of the 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:14.560 academic world. Do you hear about these informal experiments and yeah, 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:15.520 it fleshes it out. 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.560 Yeah, and captures your imagination. You can imagine yourself lying 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:21.480 on this bed, what it would feel like. It's much 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:25.560 more close to your heart then you're just reading about 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:26.960 digging something up out of the dirt. 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:29.680 Now, speaking of digging things out of the dirt, can 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:31.800 you tell us a little bit about your experiences eating 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:33.240 toxic potatoes in Peru? 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:34.960 Yeah, that was another case where I was a bit 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:40.000 surprised at the outcomes of what happened. So potatoes are 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.760 native to the Andian Highlands in Peru, and I didn't 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:48.360 realize when I started doing this project the sheer variety 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:52.800 you see of potatoes up there, just the colors, the shapes, 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:57.160 they're really really beautiful, all the different tubers you get 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:02.000 in the Indian Highlands where they're they're native to. One 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:04.480 thing I didn't realize also though, was that they're toxic. 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.760 So native potatoes you who cannot eat because they have 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.639 certain chemicals in them that will poison you. So you 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.760 have to process them in different ways. You can make 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.680 a couple of different dishes out of them, depending on 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.000 how you process them. One way is essentially that you 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:25.080 freeze dry them, so you leave them out overnight soaking 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:29.399 in water, and the chemical reactions take place and it 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:35.000 essentially disables breaks down these chemicals and they leech out 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:37.639 and then they're safe to eat after that. And another 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.399 way is you can process them a little bit but 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.800 also mix in a clay sauce. So you take dirt 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.159 clay from riverbank, mix it up with water, and you 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.680 eat the potatoes with that sauce, and the clay actually 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.600 binds to the poison chemicals and it goes through your 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:58.120 digestive system. It doesn't end up poisoning you. And when 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:01.200 I got started with this, the first dish, the freeze 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:03.240 dried one, was the one I was excited about. So 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:05.040 I thought it was like sort of a you know, 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.679 an ancient astronaut food almost. I was like, this is 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:09.399 so cool, you know, the freeze drying this food in 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:12.840 this way. And I tried it and it just didn't 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:15.119 taste good to me. And I recognized I didn't grow 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:17.919 up eating it, so people there probably have a different opinion. 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:21.760 But it just tasted sort of like the desiccated husk 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.840 of a potato. There's a bit of flavor there, not much. 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.560 It was very mealy and dry and just did not 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:30.919 really impressed me. I just didn't enjoy the taste. So 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:32.560 then I moved on to the other one, which I 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.120 was not excited about, which was the one you mixed 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:38.480 with clay, and to my delight, that actually tasted really good. 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.439 It had a very nice earthy flavor to it. The 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:43.639 sauce was sort of brown. It had kind of a 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:47.879 nice almost a texture like a ti peanut sauce to it. 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.080 So a nice earthy flavor, a good texture, and I 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:55.760 really really enjoyed that dish. So it surprised me a 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:58.679 bit that, you know, eating clay essentially would really improve 0:19:58.760 --> 0:19:59.760 this dish and make it good. 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:02.639 Oh wow, Yeah, that that runs counter to what I 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:04.520 think my expectations would have been as well. I mean, 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:08.920 I guess we have a predisposition to judge the use 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:12.399 of clay and other related substances in our food. But 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:13.639 that's fascinating. 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:16.240 Yeah, it's normally something we would brush off the food. 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:18.000 I think, like this is integral to be able to 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:19.160 eat the food. But it wasn't. 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:29.800 This case. Now another I have to ask you about 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:32.600 another topic that had come up previously on stuff to 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.639 blow your mind. You talk about the at Lotto spear thrower. 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:38.560 Tell us what it was like getting to try out 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:39.919 or reconstruction of this weapon. 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:45.840 Yeah, so the laddle is probably the most widespread hunting 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:49.919 tool in history. I was surprised at how widespread it is, 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.240 much more so than bows and arrows, much more so 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.359 than spears. And if anyone has not heard of a 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.879 net laddle, it's essentially a long, flexible spear, but instead 0:20:59.920 --> 0:21:03.359 of throwing it with your hand, you use a throwing stick. 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:05.840 So it's just a long straight stick with a bit 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.800 of a notch on the end, and you put that 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:10.359 in your hand. You hold that in your hand and 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.439 you use that to throw the spear. And essentially what 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:15.680 it does is it extends the length of your arm, 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:20.040 gives you more leverage and power in throwing it. And 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.600 I spent a great afternoon at an experimental archaeology lab 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.760 at Kent State University. They have a wonderful little program there, 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:31.240 and the guy there and the who was in charge 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:34.160 of this program, he had a bunch of at laddles 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:36.879 and spears. I mean, just so he spent an afternoon 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:40.840 throwing them at these little foam dummies that he had. 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:43.840