00:00.00 Heather But it got it. 00:00.31 archpodnet Welcome to the show. Everyone joining me today is Bill in a wait room in Northern California or somewhere I don't know Vacelia got you nice. Nice. 00:08.60 Bill White I no ah I'm in. Ah yeah, I'm in Vaalia California I'm I'm in a wait room this this is what happens at the holiday and express wait room you record podcasts. We're not lifting. We're recording podcasts. 00:10.49 Andrew Kinkella And then. 00:18.15 Andrew Kinkella Um. 00:20.40 archpodnet There you go and Andrew in California I assume not in the wait room because I've seen his pictures. Yeah, ah right and Doug over in S Scotland yeah 00:24.54 Andrew Kinkella Yeah I'm not in the wait room. Dude I have others lift weights for me. Okay. 00:31.29 Doug I Remember we're we're just starting out this podcast throwing people under the bus left and right man. 00:31.93 Heather Um. 00:39.50 archpodnet Ah, ah and we got Doug in Scotland I got nothing to say about you doug. 00:46.35 Doug I'm afraid to say anything right now man or I guess I'm supposed to pick on Andrew or something like that you know. 00:49.47 archpodnet And ah ah I know right? And our topic today is from Heather who is currently in Southern California heather how's it going. 00:53.83 Andrew Kinkella Um, yeah, do it. 01:01.82 Heather I'm good I'm sitting on my couch with pillows and lots of blankets. Definitely not in a wait room I'm very comfortable. Yes. 01:07.69 archpodnet Nice. Well I ah Doug's the only one not in California because we're actually we overnighted last night at a winery in Southern California on our way to the California coast so we are headed there today. Yeah, all right? So with that as I mentioned Heather, you've got the topic for today that we. Ah, came up with and what are we done. 01:32.56 Heather So we're going to talk about the different options of field schools. Um, so I know you know this is like the bane of some some archeologist's existence. It's a surprise I think for a lot of new new students archeological students when they realize they're paying you know 5 $6000 of course they're solds that is going to be in a beautiful location somewhere exotic and you know excavates sites that they read a book. About in books you know and um, that sort of thing but you're going to pay a pretty penny to do that and there's been various different um ah mechanisms that are encouraging the archeological community to look at um. 02:08.84 archpodnet Ah. 02:24.50 Heather Field schools in a different manner and cost is not the only thing so I thought we could talk about what are the different approaches. Um one you know of course was covid that definitely impacted field schools. There's other there's different ways different different um perspectives on. 02:37.74 archpodnet Um. 02:43.16 Heather The efficacy and ethical so ways of you know of um, a field schools and so looking at different options for how does an archeologist learn in a practical manner. Their craft. So I thought that would be a a nice. Ah. Interesting conversation, especially considering on this podcast. Specifically we have people that have worked all over the world and so I think you know we all have some some ah interesting perspectives. 03:10.77 archpodnet Um. 03:13.32 archpodnet I think Doug wants to jump right in there. 03:17.90 Doug Yeah, um I gonna be a little controversial and say we should? Yeah yeah, no, no we we we should ban all field schools. Um, yeah, yeah, okay, it's a little more nuanced that than that. But honestly like it's. 03:18.68 archpodnet What. 03:25.00 archpodnet There you go. It's a good start. 03:33.97 Doug So especially when you go into like Crm or development lead archeology or wherever you're calling it in your country around the world. Basically there's always that like you have a degree and you want you to have had like a field school and ideally a field school in like the country that you're working in. Um, but you know they'll pretty much accept anything if you're desperate enough for staff and I I like oh man, it's so so variable in quality and what you're doing and really what it comes down to is a couple of weeks of 04:00.10 archpodnet Um. 04:12.82 Doug Digging experience. Um, like some university uk universities used to have all you need like eight weeks to graduate or twelve weeks or something like that and now most all of them are down to like two weeks or like there's no digging requirement whatsoever and that's just not enough time to do archeology and. I think it's horrible because you're you're also putting in like people who've never dug on sometimes like really important sites and we all know like archaeology depends. You know on the archeology the time period and stuff like that. But you know they'll give them like heliolithic um have sites. You need to be excavating at like a centimeter at a time with like some really fine umtigraphy and stuff like that that basically if you're learning you have no idea what you're looking at like if if we all go back to like that first time when we were digging stuff and they're like oh yeah, yeah, look for the changes to tygraphy. And really all you're doing is you're you're still traveling. You're like oh yeah, the change I'm totally finding that as you just keep digging until you over dig and you hope you hit something different or you don't or you ask a million questions you like has it changed has it changed um or they point out something that. Obviously once you're a professional archeologist. You can see be like yeah yeah, you can feel the difference um with your trial but man I remember going through like field school and being told that they're like yeah can't you feel the difference. You're like no no I cannot I have no idea what you're talking about like the difference in soil. Um, and what I'm supposed to be feeling with a trial and stuff like that. 05:48.56 Doug And you're basically dropping people in on like somewhat important archeology. Um I kind of just feel like before you even get to do that. maybe maybe we okay maybe we shouldn't totally get rid of field schools but like they should actually put you in a sandbox first and like. 06:04.49 Heather Yeah. 06:05.74 archpodnet Now. 06:07.74 Doug With fake host holes and fire pits and then like let you do it like seriously they should just behind all anthropology archeology departments. There should be a giant sandbox and you should be that should be your first experience. 06:21.70 archpodnet Um, I mean I mean listen I'm not going to deny that I think that the training leading up to a field school should be a little bit more modern. You know what? I mean maybe not a sandbox but maybe even something in virtual reality or something like that right? I mean something. Something that is nondestructive and non-sensitive and things like that. That being said, the tradition of having students people who are learning working on real things potentially sensitive sensitive things I mean I had my I told. You guys this last time I had my first colonoscopy on Friday just like a week and a half ago and was it a week and a half ago yeah it was um I know right? So First off, go do that second there were at least 2 people involved in that procedure that were being trained and they didn't specifically tell me that but when the. 06:59.83 Andrew Kinkella Yay. 07:10.89 archpodnet Woman's sticking at the Iv into my arm and the guy's going. Oh ah, yeah, that looks good Sure yeah and she's like are you sure does this look okay and unlike does it look. Okay, it's my arm and and there was somebody else in the procedure room that was also being changed I don't know what I don't know what they did because I was out and so who knows they could ah. 07:21.86 Bill White I Ah, ah. 07:28.56 archpodnet You know, jammed the camera up my ass for all I know I mean I Really don't know but this is if if medical profession can get away with it I think probably archeologists can get away with it if it's done in a well supervised way and I think that's where the problem lies and I've always said this leadership and supervision and archeology is garbage and it starts at the universities. 07:40.18 Heather Um, yes, yes, yes yeah. 07:47.87 archpodnet And then finishes at Crm companies and it's garbage throughout. Go yeah. 07:52.68 Bill White Ah, boy oh boy I don't really know how to follow that up because it went from like 1 kind of excavation to another kind of excavation and also I turned 45 this year and so that's not too comforting here to find out that that's what's going on that I'm just like you know the test the the crash test dummy there for a lot of other people to okay. 08:01.63 archpodnet Yeah. 08:10.44 Bill White So so yeah I hear about that we can go on about that too. But there's there's other things too that I personally I ran you know I started as a professor in ah 17 and I think I've ran 4 or 5 archeological field schools and so there's there's other concerns for me. Ah, one huge one is ah curation so we go ahead and excavate so that people can learn how to excavate and then where are we're going to put the stuff right? and that seems to be like it's like a secondary consideration and I I don't know how many field school you know deposits or or ah collections are filling up. 08:31.23 archpodnet Ah. 08:33.75 Heather Made more. 08:45.86 Bill White Different repositories because people just needed to learn how to dig or thought they needed how to learn how to dig or professors had no reason to even want to do it. They just did it so that they could get out and have some stuff and have a field school and now as a result of that. There's you know collections that are in repositories that didn't from sites that didn't really need to be dug. There's stuff that are in aging professors labs as they retire that are just sitting there that take multiple years and have no home like nowhere to go the university won't take them anymore. So there's I mean you can't really rely anymore like you could in the old days on the university taking all the stuff you dug up over fifty years because now they don't want it. 09:13.70 Heather Um. 09:24.51 Bill White Also a lot of times it was inappropriately acquired right? So the whole just dig because I want to dig the laws have changed now and so some of that stuff. You should never have dug in the university it's like kryptonite. They don't want to touch it and then finally if you were just going to dig at some you know museum in Virginia that's you know? Ah. Thomas Jefferson well I guess that's a bad one because actually monticello has an excellent you know repository but a lot of these other you know if you just want to dig some plantation. They don't have a quality museum and so if you were just going to dig it all up catalog it then hand it off to you know whatever plantation. They don't have curation facilities so you just. Kind of dug a site for no reason for fun and then now it's going to be stuck there for many years and then the other thing that that has been you know, really difficult to navigate as someone who works at a university is the liability and it's not just the health and safety. It's like it's now. Now it is moved into making sure that every student feels good all the time and if they don't feel happy then essentially like that's a health violation and that they have you know space to you know. Basically complain right? like that. We're supposed to be trained every single person feels absolutely 100% comfortable at every minute while they're asleep while they're working while they're doing this and if that doesn't happen then it's time to you know say that that is a ah problem on the site I mean that's that's different than what I started twenty years ago Twenty years ago folks just wanted to learn how to dig. 10:33.47 archpodnet Oh. 10:53.34 Bill White Folks want to learn how to dig while also getting good selfies while also no one ever saying anything controversial while also everyone being kind every single second in a way that they feel is kind without saying any kind of discriminatory remark whatsoever. Otherwise now we have to waste. You know 40 minutes a day on a meeting about how someone made a bad joke about um, you know mummy that you know I I felt that was you know that was really inconsiderate and that really hurt me because what about that? Mummy's descendant's feelings and you're like tu I don't even really know how to respond to that. 11:13.14 archpodnet Um, yeah. 11:26.43 Bill White Like I don't know what to say but we're seriously spending forty fifty minutes talking about the appropriateness of mentioning things so that's another reason why it's not really worth it and then the final reason is um, the cost and it's not just the cost of running the field school because I'm also trying to pay stipends. And I'm also trying to pay graduate students to work on it and they cost even more and the grants have not increased one bit. So so there's no increase in like funding from the main sources except every student wants to get paid on the whole thing and in fact, some you know they should be getting paid. But. 11:52.67 archpodnet Um. 12:01.92 Bill White The amount they're getting paid is way higher than anyone can actually afford so they've essentially worked themselves out of a job if I get $500000 from the national science foundation to do something a huge chunk to curation. But then an even huger chunk paying the the students and the ah the graduate students right. And as more and more field schools go this way like it's just really hard to get that money and you know that that cash evaporates real quick. So all those things working against professors you know and I haven't even gotten to like the other more mechanical things with just the university apparatus. 12:39.63 Heather Wow. Okay, well, you've said quite a lot I have some responses to several of the things that you were talking about. Um and so I think we should take that in segment 2 12:53.82 archpodnet All right sounds good. We'll see after the break.