00:00.80 archpodnet Welcome back to the arche architect podcast final segment of this data problem episode which I I feel like we've talked about these kinds of things a lot on this podcast and especially with Paul on and you know him being a huge database nerd. We've talked to a lot of different people and a lot of different. Ah, interviews and talked about different articles and ah and a lot of things around. How do we collect data in a way that makes it you know, useful for the future. Not just for right now in the report that you have to turn in at the media moment in time and make this one decision but also in the future so we can bring these big decisions together and. Something 1 of you guys mentioned in a previous segment reminded me as we're recording this one of the last episodes of the cm archeology podcast. Yeah, one of our hosts there is a professor at Berkeley and he was brought us to topic about chat gp and how chat Gpt could be used to write you know is being used to write by some people. 00:53.60 Shelby A Manney Um, yeah, yeah. 00:56.29 archpodnet Ah, papers reports different mentions and whether or not that's a good thing or a bad thing and you know using Ai to do that I think one of you guys mentioned you know if we had this kind of standardized collection of data. We actually could use Ai to look at these connections that we just are incapable of seeing across. 00:56.34 Shelby A Manney Yeah. 01:14.22 Shelby A Manney Um. 01:15.17 archpodnet Different areas and it's it's absurd that we even have different states of the standard of different states when it comes to prehistoric data because they didn't have the concept of states back then right? they they were all over the place sometimes isolated in little regions and and sometimes across massive expanses of areas and. 01:23.23 Shelby A Manney Okay, yeah. 01:33.57 archpodnet We should just be looking at the data in that way not in these little these little smaller pockets. You know what? I mean So what do you guys. 01:39.30 Shelby A Manney We have a duty and a responsibility and we are failing unfortunately and it makes you sad because I I we have this part So like I was saying we as humans are a part of this like a living and dynamic ecosystem like biologycology geology. These atoms and particles swirling arounds again. Big, beautiful. You know Oxygen richch Earth but they all have interconnections to each other with um data. Ah and and the changes happen through time but there's this hasm in the ability to understand these interconnections to the changes. 02:11.98 archpodnet Um. 02:15.97 Shelby A Manney In the chasm we're creating. It's the human data namely archaeological data so climate change and everything else we we have to be able to to integrate and we have these arbitrary boundaries not just at the state level or the country level. We create them ourselves. They're called the management unit. We don't call management units but they're sites and they're enforceable by law that's crazy. We need to utilize Ai and and look at impacts densities. 02:42.72 archpodnet Right. 02:45.56 Shelby A Manney They're quite criminal just drawing if you have cancer say you know in a part of your body just drawing a circle and be like I think that's going to capture it all What no um, don't take all of that out. Ah you need to actually see the density and and analyze that density and if we did that. 02:52.44 archpodnet Brett. 03:04.55 Shelby A Manney Imagine if regulations change. We're not saying change to the basic regulations of what a site is and per state has different definitions definitions tribes have different definitions. What I'm saying is that if we did this it can inform these decisions and also we can make those decisions weighted based on. These types of regulations and if a regulation changes say in Arizona certain types of things were were important for historic trash. We're just going to use that right and all of a sudden they're like we got too much historic trash stuff. Those aren't really sites. Okay, how hard is it for me with. 03:34.35 archpodnet Um. 03:43.33 Shelby A Manney Tens of thousands of sites unless I go reanaly what part or component of something was consider the historic trash and the significance I got to redo the survey again or if I had the data I can just devalue dewait the observation and boom I adhere to law. Thank you. 03:51.97 archpodnet Um, right. 04:02.51 Shelby A Manney Print new maps. It's very I'll let you so crazy like I feel like I'm going crazy not doing this just crazy. 04:04.46 archpodnet Um. 04:10.62 Michael Heilen Yeah, well I mean I think another point to your point is that the um, many of the agencies now are are moving towards or want to move towards a landscape. 04:10.70 archpodnet Ah, yeah. 04:26.16 Michael Heilen Perspective and to manage things at a landscape level Blm has a landscape approach to the management of public lands other agencies are are voicing the same interests. There's consortiums that have been assembled to do those kinds of things for ecology. But we don't have the data organized or integrated in a way that we could actually do that nor are we implementing the methods that would allow us to do that more readily. So. 04:46.84 archpodnet Ah, hunt. 04:48.59 Shelby A Manney Um. 04:54.31 Shelby A Manney Um, yeah. 04:58.91 Michael Heilen We're at a loss in those kind of ways that that Shelby saying right now to be able to to look at data across a larger landscape and integrate those data with environmental and other data. Ah to which they're directly related. 05:11.70 Shelby A Manney Are you. 05:16.72 Michael Heilen Ah, by the same Token. We're unable to really address the concerns of a lot of tribes and and other stakeholder communities who are very interested in in in the landscape. The the resources in the landscape of the plants. The animals, the minerals. Ah, Land forms and how all those things relate together to form. You know their heritage or yeah component of their ah their way of life and we're essentially ignoring those those connections those connections and those relationships. 05:41.67 archpodnet Me. 05:54.10 Michael Heilen Much of the time by siloing the data. Ah you know not only in terms of storage and archiving but siloing how we actually collect and represent the culture resource data as being pertaining to you know, individual sites. 06:11.69 archpodnet Right. 06:13.60 Michael Heilen And projects and you know beyond that as well. Ah, these data you know as we've been trying to emphasize are important, not just to archeologists or to the management of the archeological record. They're important to to understanding our. Place within the world and processes that have have occurred with societies and the environment for thousands of years archeology is the only discipline that can provide a deep time perspective on you know. What has happened with ah you know in terms of human environment interactions and changes in societies as a result of things like climate change warfare migration. 07:05.65 Michael Heilen Archaeology is uniquely positioned to be able to do that. But and Crm has is been developing and can contribute these massive volumes of data about many different times and places and. Environmental and social context that right now. Frankly, we're unable to access in in a way that would make those data as powerful as they could be. 07:34.61 archpodnet M. 07:35.18 Shelby A Manney Yeah I mean I can I interject Shira really quickly I the reason why I can be so aggressive to like Michael saying we can't integrate. Can't do this. We can't do that and and you've said it as well. Chris is it. Internally we're thinking. Well we we want to do all this stuff. But if we don't in I agree we can't do any of it. But the issue too is that we need to do it if we don't do it and without the transparency. Um, and. And the ability for others outside of our field to understand the purpose of archeology and the usefulness of archeology I mean we we probably all heard like what do you guys? Actually do you know from your clients to whatever why do we have to do this constantly and constantly and we say well it's required by law now watch this if you have policymakers which we do. And in various different levels of the government and that that are questioning why is crm that relies on these regulations. That's why it exists in the us and it is. It's a moneymaker. It's might be a multimillion or even maybe billion dollar company 08:43.80 archpodnet Man. 08:43.83 Shelby A Manney You know companies right now industry and what if they just decide to deregulate because they don't understand it and we're not useful because they have to fund other things like biology or whatever that seem to be more useful to us now as humans. So. In fact, right now there are bills. And regulations currently under review to deregulate the requirements of archaeology namely like the stamp the Si you know the secretary interior requirements and standards for archaeologists. They want to minimize they want to reduce what those requirements are now because it's too expensive and we don't have enough of them and we can't find them and it's. 09:15.78 archpodnet Oh. 09:22.40 Shelby A Manney Cumbersome as well as section one of 6 and section one 10 and other requirements if they do that now we won't have the manpower the incentive or the money to change behavior change has to happen now. 09:36.88 archpodnet Wow and that's absolute right talking about going back to to the last segment real quick on the blm um effort I got to mention this because I want to get this in I see Sarah Kanza on one of these articles and we've talked to her before. 09:53.27 Shelby A Manney Um. 09:53.33 archpodnet Eric her husband was actually on like I think the third or fourth episode of this show. You know over eight years ago and you know I've talked to both of them a lot and they of course run open context and started that and the dina project the digital index of north american archeology was born out of the open context project and I'm just. When we first started hearing about that you know a long time ago and we talked to a few people about dina on this probably six seven eight years ago you know talking about that I just expected it to spread across the country a lot faster than it has and it it almost seems to have stalled out I don't know if I'm getting a misread on that. But it's just it's just like. 10:16.89 Shelby A Manney You yeah. 10:31.43 archpodnet It seems like that is almost one of the solutions that we're looking for at least the start of a solution that we're looking for what do you guys? think about the the Dena project in their efforts with open context. Yeah. 10:38.28 Shelby A Manney Well I appreciate I know them quite well they were on they were on that tag Grant and we wrote some of that book I was talking about offline with you. The guides a good practice in digital archeology. Um, when tdar which I up which I. 10:49.50 archpodnet Um. 10:57.78 Shelby A Manney Ah, worked on with with Keith Kinig kind of in its infancy started. It's it's very good I think it's a great start but we need to get people like that and t r people that have different perspectives 1 ne's looking at the artifact level the other one's looking at the report and we're looking at this and Blm is trying to do this. The problem is not that we don't have people that want to do this. It's that we can't get together and decide nice together and find one solution and lobby to make people realize that we can be transparent in archeology. You can see the process at which we. 11:21.78 archpodnet Fred. 11:34.62 Shelby A Manney Which directly correlates with the regulation and directly correlates with the requirements right now they have no idea and if you don't have an archaeologist that's in ah, an agency firm and they're just sending a report they check the box like it's done and they put the report on the shelf and then the project is forward and that's it. So. 11:48.28 archpodnet 1 11:54.20 Shelby A Manney I Just I think that you know we need to to definitely ah, look at things like like I think that they've done an amazing job and I think it's stalled out because people don't see the point use it. It could be pricing models that I think have issues you know with tdar so we need to get together and talk. 12:12.39 archpodnet Um, yeah. 12:14.10 Shelby A Manney A lot over and over and have working groups and when we get federal grants like all of these havepan. We have an accountability even further to make sure that what we're doing is actually transferable right to other applications and and usable and widely spread and. 12:26.99 archpodnet No. 12:33.92 Shelby A Manney I can't speak much more to it I I respect them wholeheartedly and Dave taught me a lot also about data and data ethics. So Michael I don't know if gouding. Yeah. 12:39.53 archpodnet Yeah, yeah. 12:44.17 Michael Heilen Well I think a very important thing that open context and Dina have have been able to accomplish or that they've been working on is developing ontological matching. 13:01.29 Shelby A Manney Yes. 13:02.55 Michael Heilen Ah schemes and they've demonstrated the ability to to pull together all these diverse data sets and diverse ah taxonomies and ways of of you know identifying the same thing or or something that's similar. They. They've been able to to bring those together into you know a common scheme so that you can you can find things that are of a similar nature that fall within the same time period or have the same function or the same types of features and so that ah allows you know. 13:37.26 archpodnet No, not. 13:40.78 Michael Heilen In the case of in like of Dina that that allows you know people to identify sites that are recorded in many different state databases that have you know a similar attribute like they're all paleoindian or a particular period within that. but but I think the very. 13:54.77 archpodnet Right. 13:57.44 Shelby A Manney Make. 13:59.96 Michael Heilen Nature of them. You know, being able to show that there's these that these data can be integrated and to develop some of the means to do that is ah is a great foundation for us coming together and finding a. Ah, common sort of core meta-ontology that data can you know start to coalesce in towards and enable us to to start collecting and managing data that are already or. 14:25.25 archpodnet Me. 14:37.39 Michael Heilen Ah, readily interoperable if if if not you know from the point of inception interoperable and reusable I think ah something That's really yeah, maybe handicapped to some to some people's views that the use of those data is that they're you know. 14:57.35 Michael Heilen Restricted in terms of being able to share locational information. So the very precise locational information. That's maybe stored in a state database is not available to the average user of of Dina so you only get it at a certain. 15:14.36 archpodnet Right. 15:15.61 Michael Heilen Course of resolution so being able to um you know immediately harness those data to say do some kind of broad scale regional or or even broader analysis that makes use of other. Data like environmental variables on you know, Hydrology or Habitats or that sort of thing Topography is not really achievable in the state that things are they they could actually be with the data that they've been able to integrate. 15:43.36 archpodnet Ah. 15:51.29 Michael Heilen On some level. Although those data of course are collected in many different ways and individual sites kind of mean different things in different places because of how those data or those sites are defined but ah. 16:03.22 archpodnet Yeah. 16:07.71 Michael Heilen I think it's ah, an excellent foundation and as Shelby points out I think we're at the point now where we all really need to get together and there needs to be a sort of a collaborative community. That's that that is working on this towards a common. 16:20.36 Shelby A Manney Call the action. 16:21.94 archpodnet Yeah. 16:27.40 Michael Heilen Ah, goal of yeah. 16:30.39 Shelby A Manney Tribal tribal members I think that missing a deal of a tribal voice and we're just making up assumptions and our voice is the only one's being heard so I want to see that very firmly. 16:30.73 archpodnet For sure. 16:38.77 archpodnet Right? Yeah, absolutely so we got to wrap up this show I I got 1 more question for you guys and you know you mentioned this issue was born out of a a similar symposium. You guys ran at the essays. 16:39.90 Michael Heilen Yeah, no, that's a good point. 16:57.70 archpodnet And I know when you come off of one of those symposiums especially at the ah or one of those symposia at the essays you just got this real high like oh my god we're going to do so much with this and then you know if nobody takes the reins on that it just kind of dies. Well at least you guys took that and put it into this issue and now that that's and I know probably these articles are probably written and edited you know. Nine months ago or something. It's always ah, a big delay on that kind of stuff but now that the issue is out. We're a month and a half or or more past that. Ah, and and people are probably recognizing your efforts here in the efforts of the authors of these papers you know building on that high. Where do you want to go now like what's next Shelby we'll start with you. 17:35.65 Shelby A Manney All right? So we were approached that same question at the essays even by that you know one of the one of the ah ah editing you know publishers there with advances and we have lots of plans for what's next. So we we never stopped. You know we've got lots of. Newsletters and other publications out there that we're going to continue to build. Um, um, as we did with the articles before this article before this special issue had ah a previous special issue so you know about every you know. 2 years or or so we want to continue that the archeological community but I really want to go and try to get this information out in other venues outside of archeology as well as push forward with with our desire to get together. You know we're creating a ah website et cetera to to sign up at the. Like minded types of things. It's not It's not quite out yet. But so we can start getting together and finding where we start and where we're going so Michael you might have some additional comments about that. 18:36.90 archpodnet Um. 18:47.51 Michael Heilen Um, um, yeah, the um, it's going of course yeah the the. 18:50.15 Shelby A Manney Well. 18:59.62 Michael Heilen The issue developing the issue and the whole thing is ah is quite a ah long road and um so I believe yeah, along the lines of what Shelby saying that we we really need to start developing the. Collaboratively the the tools and the community to to push the needle forward and start implementing new types of processes and systems that we can actually achieve the things that we're talking about because that. Right now. The the issue is really about a vision for the future and we need to start taking the steps to to realize aspects of those vision that vision and and we are certainly just one little piece of that ourselves. 19:48.85 Shelby A Manney Yeah, So we're really asking people to you know, join us and you know let's let's change the world together. Um, and so you know reaching out and let's get together and have the conversations with productive outcomes start to better understand how. You know what? what are the next steps in order to to push these types of things forward because certainly there are tons of very good work. That's going on all over the place in archeology I Just think if we both for funding purposes and time. Ah, you know how much time we have to do. Let's get together and come up with a unified purpose and it sounds probably a lot easier and and shorter than than colossal effort that that would take I mean we are archeologists after all and we're kind of all you know Alpha Personality So I could go really well or really badly. 20:41.23 archpodnet Right. 20:42.74 Michael Heilen Well, there's it's maybe worth but mentioning that there's ah airlyhouse seminars that were done in the 70 s to to figure out how to do crm. 20:52.93 Shelby A Manney Um, yeah, and yeah, and said. 20:58.30 Michael Heilen And they kind of they basically try to write the book about you know what needs to be done to to develop the the industry and to comply with the laws that had been recently passed the national Historic preservation Act Principally. And there's they had some great ideas and a number of those the thoughts that they had at the time issues that they brought up. You know we still haven't been able to ah address and achieve there is another.. There's a sort of an airly house revisited. 21:27.93 archpodnet All right. 21:34.74 Michael Heilen Um, effort that is that is being organized right now and the the essay has been involved in it. There was a forum at the most recent essay meetings in Portland and as far as I understand there is a they're gonna have the I think it's the national park services gonna host and. In their facilities in West Virginia a large group of archaeologists and people working in the preservation field I think maybe 30 to 50 individuals maybe to. 22:08.20 Shelby A Manney Um. 22:10.91 archpodnet Um. 22:11.30 Michael Heilen To try to hash out what the big issues are and how they're and sort of maybe write essentially write a plan for for the next fifty years of crm the issue of data collection and management I haven't seen as being a um. 22:28.11 Shelby A Manney Um, we don't and that's it's crazy. 22:30.34 Michael Heilen Ah, major component of that and that to me is is is a little bit mystifying and and I think at least for Shelby and I there are certainly issues that are are highly critical. You know that haven't been addressed like decolonizing archeology. Ah. 22:50.10 Michael Heilen Incorporating tribal perspectives and and interests in much better way and a whole variety of other issues that have come to the fore you know in the last you know Decade or more but but the but. 23:03.72 archpodnet Yes. 23:06.81 Michael Heilen Data collection management of the type of things that we're talking about thus far doesn't seem to be the ah major focus and I really think it should be. 23:16.11 Shelby A Manney Yeah, yeah. 23:19.15 archpodnet Okay, all right guys. Well, that's all the time we have for this episode. You know it sounds like I mean we still have a long way to go and we still have a lot of people to convince and ah and a lot of conversations to have but it really sounds like. People that need to do this that are that are the driving force of this namely you guys and some other people in this space are are really driving it forward and I hope we can keep that going and and end up in a good place. So thank you for coming on the show. We've just interviewed sorry. Thank you for coming on the show. We've just interviewed Michael Hyland and Shelby Mane and again. Thank you guys for coming on and we really appreciate and look what look forward to whatever's coming out from you guys next in this space. 23:58.60 Michael Heilen Yes, thank you for having It's great to be here. 23:59.60 Shelby A Manney Um, all right? Thank you so much for having us.