00:00.00 archpodnet All right welcome to the cm archeology podcast joining me today is Andrew in California heather also in California yeah, and bill. 00:07.74 Andrew That's right here I am hello. 00:10.77 Heather I Don't know how to follow that hello. Well. 00:16.42 Bill White The third person in California still here. Good morning card your the traffic. So bad you can't leave. 00:17.32 archpodnet And California I know you guys need to move somewhere else anyway and I that well let's group and doug over in Scotland. 00:24.33 Heather I Could wait. 00:29.30 Doug Hey everyone guys are like intros becoming a thing are you that guys like since I've taken the Outros like you're sort of unique intro is this going to be Andrew's new thing. 00:33.40 archpodnet It have become. 00:39.75 Andrew It It totally has stad. Yeah. 00:40.54 archpodnet Think it should be yeah yeah I am currently in Mindden Nevada just south areno we're here for the week until we pick up our Rv we sent our Rv and just for some some warranty minor stuff while we were gone in Greece and so yeah I'm back from Greece. 00:40.75 Bill White I think so we like it where are you at Chris. 00:51.70 Bill White Um, ah. 00:59.85 archpodnet We got back on I guess technically Thursday last couple days ago and ah took about two days to get over here and then we're staying down in a down in a basically kind of a hotel thing for about a week until we pick up rv and then we head out head to Las Vegas for a week and then we head to the East Coast so 01:17.50 Bill White What part of the East Coast 01:19.11 archpodnet Yeah, ah we always go to Charlotte for the holidays. So Charlotte North Carolina that's where my wife's from. 01:23.45 Bill White But so you're like you're like a complete snowbird you just because Carolina could get cold. You know you can start there around this time here but then around Christmas you really should think about Florida right. 01:29.51 archpodnet Ah, yeah, well, no, we really snow birded up. You know that's East Coast snowbirds we're west coast snowbirds because after Christmas we come back to Arizona yeah, because there's another. There's another rving event. We go to in Arizona every year about the middle of the month 01:36.28 Doug Come. 01:39.40 Bill White Um, ah Arizona you nerds. Ah. 01:40.51 Heather Yeah, oh. 01:48.37 archpodnet And then last year in February we went down to Mexico with that same group and we're doing it again this year so we'll be down in Mexico for the whole month of February. So yeah, we're totally snow burned it up and I love snow I hate this I hate it with a passion like I really want to wake up. 01:53.99 Bill White Boy oh boy so we know Chris hates snow. He will never see snow. Oh. 01:54.10 Heather Nice look tough life. A. 02:06.31 archpodnet Like a foot of snow but it also terrifies me to have snow even around the ah Rv because yeah, so yeah, but. 02:09.94 Heather That's hard in there are veni. Yeah, that's what I would think so I would love to hear about your grease trip. However I think that you want plug some of your programs. You have some shows that you're talking about your grease trip right. 02:23.17 archpodnet Yes, so if you guys want to know all about Greece and the things that we saw and the places that we went and we went to Croatia montenegro Corfu the island of naxos crete and spent about a week in Athens as well and all of that we've spent talking about on the. Last few episodes of the archaeology show. So take a look at the archeology show apodnet.com/archeology and I swear to god like the last like 3 or 4 episodes were all greece and we're going to have ah kind of a special episode next week and we'll talk about that in a second here and then. 02:43.56 Heather So listen. 02:56.97 Heather Um, the. 02:57.23 archpodnet After that our final grease episode which will be Athens the parthenon all the all the stuff that we saw there so it was um yeah, it was really cool. The special episode next week we're not doing a special episode this week although some people may be haunted by past excavations that was a bad joke. But. 03:01.66 Heather So cool. 03:15.12 archpodnet This releases on Halloween so we don't there's nothing special about Halloween and crm but you know maybe ah I don't know if we can come up with anything or not but we really can't so all right? So let's talk about this we so I was thinking about this topic. 03:18.38 Andrew Ah. 03:33.60 archpodnet For some reason I don't know it just popped right back into my head I had an experience like back in 2008 2009 time frame give or take it was with ah a company that we were relatively new with but my wife and I had had quite a bit of experience excavating on the East Coast our first like two or three years in corm were all. Block excavations like phase 3 block excavations and it was just that's what our experience was and so we get out on this project in out in the west here. In fact I think it was in Utah and. We're digging. We're starting with one by once in these in this little area here and then we were going to move into possibly some block excavation in another phase or another time we never did that it was just the 1 by 1 and so the project manager you know she's setting us up and she's ah put us together and we had you know partners and. She's like hey you know you guys and pointing to me and the the person I was working with and said you know dig dig a 1 by 1 right here and they actually had a ah nail in the spot where we wanted the I think the the northwest corner or whatever it was and um because they'd already. They'd already lined that out with a total station and we proceeded to set it up. And just just from putting our nails in and setting our datum for that particular 1 by 1 and then we'd correspond to the datum for that 1 by 1 to the site datum right? So you can get a ah full vertical elevation for the whole thing and she just started losing her mind on me because we. 04:54.60 archpodnet And and the person I was working with also came from the East Coast and I don't know if that had a factor in it or not but we were just realizing that there were very different ways to do the same exact thing right? neither of them. None of them were wrong and they were all right right? except the point of this story is the rigidity in you will do it this way. Because that way's wrong is what I really wanted to talk about here right? So from setting up excavation units to to different things like that if you've ever worked in more than one state and I mean more than one state. Not just in the western United States but if you've worked across the country and in a few states. You really start to realize that there's more than one way to do something right. Right? And that's what I want to talk about bill. 05:35.23 Bill White And just sounds to me like this person was a bad leader. Ah, ah because if if you were in charge and you were doing something that's pretty regular. You know making a square with string and some nails and you're losing your mind over something I mean. 05:39.66 archpodnet Well, you know there was yeah there was a there was yeah right? yeah. 05:53.71 Bill White Either You've got a lot on your plate that no one else knows about or you're just a really bad supervisor right. 05:59.69 archpodnet Yeah, and I think I think she was just a really new supervisor. That's what it was right because I was I was a few years in just to a career in Crm didn't have my master's degree yet and I was ah and again mikes my experience was all East Coast and she had just gotten her m a and the whole. The whole excavation and sampling strategy was based on a single article that she read in um in a wrote journal somewhere and so she was doing doing this whole sampling strategy based on that and I think she just I think she just really had a lot of pressure on her shoulders and really couldn't handle doing anything differently than she expected it to be done. You know what? I mean. 06:24.60 Bill White Oh man. 06:34.49 Bill White Wow. 06:37.46 archpodnet So yeah, heather. 06:39.70 Heather Yeah I you know, um I don't like to excuse bad behavior. However I'm trying to look at it from her perspective. Um, so when you have a work plan. Um, you have it set up for a certain for a certain reason now of course. 06:46.20 archpodnet Right? right. 06:57.53 Heather You need to be flexible because there's discoveries in the field that you need to react to? um, there's conditions in the field that you need to react to So you start off with the best of intentions to at least work in that direction with the work plan that you set up. But. 07:14.91 Heather It is difficult if somebody comes in and says let's say you have a datum you want you're having the data on 1 corner and every unit has to have the data on that one corner. Um, if somebody comes in and says no I always put it on the southwest corner and that's what I do I never waver from that. It's a it's a. 07:20.23 archpodnet So right. 07:30.29 archpodnet Right? right. 07:34.68 Heather Luck thing or whatever people say or or it's wrong to do it anywhere but the southwest corner. So I think um, you know there there needs to be some give and take but when it comes to the person who writes the work plan that is should be the default. Um, but then of course in an effort to. 07:34.95 archpodnet For him. 07:54.23 Heather Excavate and actually get the data that you want or that you need right? Um, to do it in a thorough way. You do need to be flexible from you know the the crew supervisor or the the person who's who who's supervising the effort does need to be flexible. So I think. 07:56.71 archpodnet And. 08:06.78 archpodnet Um, yeah. 08:10.81 Heather It sounds like delivery was wrong and for her to say it's wrong to do it that way is very shortsighted and shows a lack of experience but I do want to make that point. Yeah. 08:19.75 archpodnet Right? Yeah in as far as something like the Datum corner goes just to bring that up because that that was that wasn't necessarily an issue with us. Um, only because the person and I that were working we understood that hey. This all has to be consistent. Otherwise they won't know how to plot this thing correctly, right? So you I don't care what corner you use right? It doesn't actually matter it's long as they're all the same. So yeah, exactly Well you're right? Oh you're totally right? People do argue about it. Yeah, and the the big thing before we get to doug there that. 08:38.70 Heather Um, right right? Yeah, yeah, that was just an example I use because people like to argue about that. Um, yeah, yeah. 08:54.62 archpodnet Her and I kind of threw down about was we had nails in the corner and they were like the the typical like twelve inch galvanized nails that that people use. Yeah well yeah, so the nails in the corner. The ground was the ground was relatively soft and it wasn't she she wouldn't let us offset the nails because when we're just doing a 1 by 1 08:59.75 Heather Wow I Know where this is going. Okay. 09:14.48 archpodnet I like to use like 8 nails right? and I'll I'll put them like ten centimeters past the wall and then that way your nails not pulling out and it's more stable and also just because the the ground surface right? There was a little bit. It was a little bit. Um. 09:17.25 Heather Um, that thing. Yeah. 09:30.80 archpodnet How should I say it? ah it wasn't very even and it was difficult to keep it like you know to clean it up from where the datum nail was going to be so a technique that we've used in the past is basically you set the nails so that your datum is actually at the nail head ten centimeters above the ground surface right? and then all your measurements. 09:45.16 Heather Um, yes. 09:48.98 archpodnet You're basically just subtracting 10 from all your measurements and then you've got a ground surface but you know your nails always there and you test it every once in a while and make sure it hasn't been kicked or moved or something like that. But it just it's just better than having the string coming across the the ground surface right there and being affected by it. You've got it up in the air. It's free. 09:56.24 Heather Right. 10:04.44 Heather Yes. 10:06.26 archpodnet And it's and it's doing its thing and she just could not handle that had to be at the ground surface had to be at the ground surface and she just was like all your measures whens are going to be wrong and I was like well no, we know how to subtract 10 So no, it's not that big a deal but it's. 10:10.79 Heather And. 10:19.68 Andrew Okay, yeah I was curious about the specifics like what you did like quote unquote wrong. So so your crime Chris was that you yeah Chris Webster put a datum at ten centimeters instead of ground surface. Yeah. 10:20.46 Heather Ah. 10:24.10 Heather Right. 10:26.10 archpodnet Um, yeah, um. 10:36.44 archpodnet Absolutely yeah and I tried to backsate. Yeah, she wouldn't let me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, because it works. 10:36.94 Heather And you backsateed and you backstaed She didn't yeah ok, that's how I do I do both those I That's yeah, do I What I wonder why I do both of those. 10:39.61 Andrew Ah, yeah, oh right? and back state. Oh my God Well I don't I don't know maybe we can talk offline Yeah me too. Yeah yeah, why is that? yeah. 10:56.70 archpodnet Right? Yeah, but yeah, well, if well there you go and you know before we go to break here the the other thing to learn too. Of course that that people who have ever done this longer than 6 minutes knows this. But. 10:56.36 Heather Well yeah, also because that's how and taught me. Ah. 10:57.89 Andrew And I force all my minions to do that. The. 11:12.10 archpodnet Not all ground surf. Not all the soils the same not all ground is the same not all environments are the same right? like I know so you got to use whatever Technique works for that situation. You know and if you're I mean if you've got ah if you've got a sledgehammer in the nail. 11:15.92 Heather Yeah, yeah. 11:16.30 Andrew What? No no. Ah yeah, ah God yes. 11:21.77 Heather Yeah, right. 11:28.93 archpodnet Yeah, you can probably put it right in the corner. It's not going anywhere right? But if you you know if you can just push it in with your hand then you probably need to backstaak that thing because it's just going to pull out 17 times while you're digging. So it's ah yeah, anyway, all right? Let's take a short break and then we'll come back and Doug had his hand raised but then he put it down I'm we can put it back up back in a minute. 11:34.84 Andrew Yeah. 11:39.91 Heather Yep.