00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome to the show. Everyone joining me today is Heather in Southern California Bill in Northern California and Mayanist Andrew in California. 00:05.88 Heather Hi everyone. 00:10.32 Bill White Hello hello. 00:17.96 Andrew Um, hey guys how's it going. 00:19.88 archpodnet But ah, all right and I'm still here in Mexico sunny Mexico although it's crazy wendy today I went for a walk on the beach this morning and it was just a little chilly had my jacket on in my coffee but still pretty nice. Wouldn't trade it for you know the freezing crazy cold temperatures that a lot of the country is going through right now. But either way. Today we have somewhat of a rare event because we don't do interviews too often on this show but not only do we have an interview we have an interview with 3 different people from the Utah Cultural site stewardship program I actually was talking to the to the utah shipo a few months ago because I got their newsletter and I was like hey we should have you on the show and. Ended up getting in touch with somebody else and they put me in touch with with Ian who I'm going to introduce here in a second or have him introduce himself and then this show was born so we're going to talk about that on today's episode but before we get started I want to hear a little bit about each one of our guests what you know what your background is what brought you to the. Ah, to the program. So we'll start with you ian. 01:15.40 Ian Wright Yeah, hey and you know thank you so much for the opportunity to be on your show. We appreciate it. Yeah, my name is Ian Wright and I'm the Utah Cultural site stewardship coordinator for the state historic preservation office. It's a lot a lot of words. 01:19.38 archpodnet Um, yeah. 01:30.59 Ian Wright But my background my I went to school and went to field school in Kanab Utah and then cut my teeth in in archaeology out in the field a lot in Nevada and Utah and then I kind of switched gears for a while and went to work in community engagement programming. Um, around the country engaging with different communities getting them involved in education type programs and then went back into cultural heritage and I I have a background and a degree from Southern Utah university in history where I did my archaeology field school and then also. Ah, masters in cultural heritage management from Johns Hopkins University so that's a little about me. 02:09.15 archpodnet Awesome sounds good I did a project down in Kanab long time ago was ah, an interesting place so it is indeed all right lexia you're next on my list when we hear a little bit about yourself. 02:13.38 Ian Wright Yeah, it's a great town. 02:16.63 Matthew Podolinsky Me. 02:22.17 Lexi Carson Yeah, um, so my name is Lexie Carson and I am the data and event specialist for the Ucss program. Um I got my undergrad degree in parks recreation and tourism at the university of utah with an emphasis in cultural and natural resource management. Um so a little bit different from archaeology but I started in the state about two years ago working with the division of outdoor recreation I was an education specialist for them. Um, working with volunteers on trails service projects different kinds of events. Um and putting together. Um a history o hv ride is actually how I got in touch with Ian am familiar with this program and then that's how I ended up here. So. Little bit of a different background but super fun. 03:20.19 archpodnet Awesome! Well I heard data and I was like um, you might be a good guest for the archeo tech podcast because my co-host over there. Paul loves data and spreadsheets and things like that so it would be ah it would be a great interview. So ah. 03:32.46 Lexi Carson That's that's my whole life got to love the spreadsheets. 03:34.53 archpodnet Ah, awesome. Well we'll we'll put that one on the back burner and might be in contact later. Ah, Matthew your turn. 03:34.71 Matthew Podolinsky Um, you forgive me. 03:40.10 Lexi Carson Ah, sweet. 03:45.21 Matthew Podolinsky Yeah, hi. Thanks for having me I'm Matthew Poelinsky I'm the engagement specialist for the Ucss program which is primarily working with the stewards and the volunteers in the program. Um, just a little bit of my background I grew up in Montana. Got my undergraduate at the university of Montana Missoula in history and that really spreadd me on to work in a variety of federal government jobs. So I worked for the bureau of land management. The forest service the bureau of reclamation and also the national park service in several national parks. Um. 04:20.40 Matthew Podolinsky And then I came to Utah and Salt Lake City I attended the university of Utah and got my masters in also parks recuration tourism so lexxi and I have met each other met each other in school. Um and my. Thesis my research was studying moral and threat appeals on reducing depreciative behavior at rock imagery sites and so that got me in connection with the shippo here and then I got hired on I've been with the Ucss program for about a year and a half and um kind of educating and meeting stewards and talking. And teaching about archeology. 04:55.10 archpodnet Well, that's fantastic and I got to say before I turn it over to Ian to tell us exactly what this program is we talk about on this show a lot and and then over on the arche architect show a lot because we talk about a lot of different technologies that are being brought in to be used in archeology that have been well established in other fields and it really is great. Having people. That are part of the management and running of this program that don't necessarily have a strict archeological background because we need people that are trained in other things and other fields and other you know, outreach type events and things like that in order to to best do the things and that we need to do and. You know I always do always tell people like stay in your lane. Do what? you're good at right? And if you're not good at it. Don't try to cram it into your resume hire somebody who is good at it. So you know you'll you'll be way more effective that way. So I definitely appreciate that ian why don't you tell us. All about what the Utah cultural site stewardship program actually is and what you guys do. 05:50.45 Ian Wright Yeah, no sound good. Um the Utah Cultural site stewardship programs. Ah what it is is. It's a network of volunteers around the state of Utah who donate their time. You know both mileage and hours to go out and to monitor archeological and cultural sites. For damage theft vandalism looting. It could be environmental. It could be human caused and what they do is they report any changes that they see on sites back to land managers and then the land managers determine the appropriate next step for it. And what's pretty cool is Utah has a centralized program. So it's all run out of the state historic preservation office and we work with every state and federal land managing agency within the state of Utah now each filled office each forest has to give us permission to operate on their land and then the the land managers. 06:41.44 archpodnet Ah. 06:43.19 Ian Wright Actually identify which sites are a priority for them to have more eyes on and the stewards are amazing. They're incredible volunteers. Some of them are professionals working in the field. Some of them are students some of them are just people who are interested in it. Some of them are local. Some of them are. Retired folks and they give so much and their impact is really being felt because you know the program's only about two years old here in Utah and already. We've seen a tremendous amount from them 3 329 right now. 07:07.92 archpodnet Okay, so how many volunteers do you guys have roughly 329 wow I mean Utah I heard turkey once described as the world's largest open air museum and because of all the prehistoric. Monuments and and historic monuments and things like that there but I would have to imagine Utah is up there for you know one of the world's you know, biggest and and most densely populated open air like prehistoric cultural environments in the world. I mean it's just so much there we worked in Utah my wife and I did for. Ah, for a few seasons and it was just I mean there's just stuff all over the place. So 329 volunteers sounds like a lot but you could probably use twice that right. 07:53.56 Ian Wright Yeah, yeah, and you know you you go through school and you get any archeology book and you read about Egypt and Utah you know because they're just so so much here. 08:00.63 Lexi Carson Depression. 08:01.89 archpodnet Ah, ah yeah, indeed, What's a typical ah job assignment I Guess for a volunteer. What's what's a typical thing that they would be asked to do and you know are they they're not like camping out on sites and you know with ah with a pitchfork saying stay off my lawn right? They're ah what? what are they doing? ah. 08:18.20 Matthew Podolinsky Um, so. 08:19.14 Ian Wright You know Matt Matt actually spends that that's that's kind of his whole job Matt you want to take that one. 08:22.29 archpodnet Yeah. 08:26.71 Matthew Podolinsky Yeah, and I'll jump in on that. so ah yeah so um stewards are asked to go out to sites. Um 3 to 4 times a year um if it's a sensitive site. Um, or you know a site that's several miles in the back country. We may ask them to go once or twice a year. Um, you know anything to just get them out on the ground. Um but stewards are asked to go to these sites. We introduce them. We can't we show them the site we show them what we're worried about and. 08:47.21 archpodnet Um. 08:55.55 Matthew Podolinsky And we have this ah app called survey one 2 3 and then our monitoring form and they just go through it. They record their name. The site number and just kind of give us a quick description and then they take up to 5 photos of the site and they take this every single time. Um. 08:57.30 archpodnet Them. 09:13.48 Matthew Podolinsky And it kind of gives us a cool time lapse photography of the site itself. Um, our hope is that we never see any vandalism or theft or any impacts. Um, but if they ever do see any impacts to the site. Ah they alert us. They alert the land manager and were able and. Delay Managers able to kind of take those next steps to see you know how to protect it better see whoever maybe take law enforcement. You know I do things toward those other folks. But um, that's the general idea is getting just folks out and taking a look at the site and getting people on the ground because as you. 09:35.96 archpodnet Okay. 09:49.43 Matthew Podolinsky Probably all know land managers are incredibly busy. Ah, there might be only 1 or you know like twenty five Thousand acres or more and you know it's nice to have you know stewards get out and actually take a look at these sites where land managers might not be able to. 09:53.17 archpodnet Ah. 10:03.39 archpodnet Yeah, indeed now they take these photos you mentioned they were you know it's kind of like a time lapse photo of the site are they taking the same photos in the same location in the same direction in order to get that or are they just taking photos of things that are important around the site and you're just kind of happening to get that in in the course of doing business. 10:22.66 Matthew Podolinsky Yeah, same photos same so location every single time. Um, and what's what's kind of interesting is like you know it like like specifically let's just like take an example for a rock Imagery site rochester panel or something. Um. 10:24.47 archpodnet Okay. 10:36.66 Matthew Podolinsky We ask that the stewards are taking these photos from a little bit further back to get like more of an overview context and this is showing ah the panel itself or you know the the blog cabin or whatever it might be or also seeing the surrounding area. 10:40.77 archpodnet M. 10:52.68 Matthew Podolinsky Um, and so we're able to see how vegetation changes or um, visitation trails you know, um, and so we're getting the site itself but also the surrounding area and how it changes ah ah in the surroundings. So. 11:03.96 archpodnet Okay, yeah, some people listening to this may be familiar with that exercise I've called it photo monitoring in the past because I I did a project for a mine outside Elco Nevada for probably about 9 years straight where I would just go out to 5 different sites started at 3 and we added a couple later on but same sites. Same series of photographs from the same spot in the same orientation and then basically we're just assessing to be honest, it was to the forest service to assess whether or not the mine had either damaged the sites or allowed other people because people were allowed to come hunting and do other stuff on on that leased property and it was just a. Ah, monitoring exercise and it sounds like you're doing very much the same thing and we we again record things like anything we would see any disturbances or or you know there were arborlyphs out there if one of the trees had fallen down or something we'd have to note that because those those trees don't last forever. Although it seems like they do sometimes. But yeah, so we would. We would do a very very similar thing now recording all these data and putting it into survey one 2 3 which I think we're all probably familiar with lexii that sounds like it comes down into your neck of the woods. What do you guys? do with those data once it comes in because you've got 329 volunteers out there all visiting. sounds like a number of sites a year that sounds like a lot of data to deal with. 12:21.89 Lexi Carson Yeah, it definitely is a lot of data. Um, but the data is probably 1 of the most important parts of the program. Um without the data. We're just a really cool club of a lot of people that like archeology. Um, but the data actually. Not only facilitates the changes that need to be made to these specific areas to better protect the sites but it helps the volunteers see the impact that they're actually making um so when those survey when those monitoring reports come in. We can see them on the back end. Um, we like to share them with the stewards so they can kind of have a reference point, especially if it's their first visit. Um, and then these reports go through the sibping process and they end up at the Marriott Library system 13:12.70 archpodnet Um. 13:14.24 Lexi Carson Um, at the University Of Utah and so people are able to access these site reports or not site reports I'm sorry monitoring reports. Um, and we're able to communicate this what's going on with the land managers. Um, and and other people. 13:23.18 archpodnet Um. 13:32.69 Lexi Carson But Also a cool thing about these monitoring reports now is we've visited Archaeologists onsite and they bring a monitoring report from a steward to like our site visit depending on what we're discussing that day. They're like this is the most updated information we have of the site and it was something done by our stewards and they're able to access that which is really cool. 13:52.49 archpodnet Not nice. 14:00.98 archpodnet That's awesome. That's really cool before we end this segment Ian I'm just wondering this may be a question for you. You have again 3 again, 329 volunteers lots and lots and lots of sites across the state of Utah. 14:09.89 Ian Wright That's good. 14:16.99 archpodnet What percentage of the cultural resources that could be monitored by Volunteers Would you say are being volunteered like what's being what's being left out because you just simply don't have the people in the time for it cheese. 14:26.30 Ian Wright Not even 10 percent I mean we have over 100000 archaeological sites in our you know recorded in our system alone and and like Matt mentioned where the state's digital archaeological databases is at the Marriott library but I mean the bears ears has eat the. 14:35.21 archpodnet Um, yeah. 14:37.96 archpodnet Yeah. 14:43.28 Ian Wright 600000 who knows just tons and tons. So we could definitely use a lot more stewards and some of those sites need multiple stewards on them because they need you know they're being visited so heavily that the more eyes on the better. 14:51.80 archpodnet Sure? Well what what makes the threshold for this program because I mean up in the you know near vernal. We worked up there with montgomery archeological consultants for like I said about four months one time doing that big oil field project. They're doing south of there and I mean we must have recorded. Hundreds of you know, just like small Lithic scatters and stuff like that. So what? what kind of site makes the threshold for this. 15:17.26 Ian Wright You know I'm glad you asked that because it's such a wide variety I mean we have and and the reason we say archaeological and cultural sites is because we even have sites in the program that don't have a Smithsonian trinnomial old number with them or they they may be sites that are. 15:27.49 archpodnet Ah. 15:34.10 Ian Wright Community They're important to the community. They're important culturally locally. But maybe they don't meet that Really nice. Neat, perfect archeological description. So We even include those into the program. So really I Guess the threshold is is it value to the community and is the local land manager. Concerned about it and or if we're concerned about it. Oftentimes say we hear about something going On. We'll reach out to the land manager or the city or the private landholder and. 15:56.65 archpodnet Um. 16:00.70 Ian Wright Ask if we can get some more eyes on the ground and as of to date almost everybody's just excited to have more people who are willing to help with ah with you know, safeguard these resources. 16:07.99 archpodnet Awesome sounds good all right? Well with that I think we're going to take our first break and we'll come back and keep talking to these fine people about the Utah Cultural site stewardship program back in a minute.