00:01.93 archpodnet And welcome back to episode world 42 of life for its podcast. So we're going to delve into more strictly. Archeological theory at this point. Um because we're archeologists and that's what our listeners want to hear so next up we wanted to talk about v gordon child the v stands for. 00:18.12 David Howe Vital. 00:18.91 archpodnet Vaer V Ver V E R E australian archeologist comes from an english family um studied really european prehistory and the reason why he's he's biggest. He's an early proponent of the culture. Historical approach which was really the first scientific analysis of the archaeological record trying to find the culture histories of ah geographic regions. So starting from the top and figuring out all the cultures below and creating a synthesis of. What came from before we now know today because like early in this and correct me excuse me correct me if I'm wrong. Um, they they didn't give much leeway for migration or like other forms of change. They're basic like the cultures that. Ended up and the place you investigate are the absolute descendants of the earliest cultures that were there. Yeah. 01:21.91 David Howe That's my assessment of it. Yeah. 01:22.21 connor Yeah, that's I mean that's comes from the culture area concept The bounding of it that they've been there for forever I mean but like as to be fair to them. How do you understand movement in the past if you can barely understand what's. 01:38.60 archpodnet Yeah. 01:38.62 David Howe Well I mean they do at Rome came from Italy and kind of spread out other places so they had a general idea. But yeah holy ball game of people that grow corn. 01:39.76 connor Meet the ground. 01:45.75 connor Yeah, but North America is like this whole new thing. Yeah, but this culture history thing does come out of kroeber does come out of that kind of area like it's yeah, it's important to study things and in a more scientific manner as well. That comes along with. 02:06.78 archpodnet Yeah. 02:11.13 connor Siration Chronologies Certificatey all those things are scientific pursuits to understand what has happened in an area in the past. 02:16.31 archpodnet And it's like we needed that because like all of these students of culture of the culture historical approach went out and basically dock like did vertical excavations in the Earth figured out all mostly not all clearly but they like went in to figure out what cultures and how deep they are in a landscape. And granted they try to tie them all into each other but kind of like set the record for archaeologists later that we'll get into that rate we'll be like no no, no, This is radically different than what's before this came from somewhere else so they kind of set the stage for the compare and contrast which comes later that a lot more like archeological theory and method interpretations built off of because they went in to basically look for everything in the earth and where it's at. Um, so it's kind of needed and that's kind of we've we've talked about this in several episodes like a lot of the basic categorizations that are being done both in like culture revolution archeology and these other things where there's these broad sweeping categories to try to place people as we get further in time and as the theory and method further Developed. We start seeing the breakdown of those in the reshuffling but it's all based on these early categorizations that give us the ability to compare and trust one another as we become like way more systemic in our approaches in Archeology. Um. 03:28.93 David Howe Is culture history. What led to the issues in Europe is that the same thing or am I thinking of something different because we have like. 03:35.50 archpodnet What are you? what issues are you talking about in particular. 03:42.20 David Howe Chris you can get this out or Rachel but you have soviet archeology and national archaeology nationalism on the the outline. 03:49.82 connor I Think that was going to be just examples of like where archeology was in that time but we can We can circle back to that. 03:50.68 archpodnet Um, did yeah, that's yeah, yeah, um. 03:54.39 David Howe Okay, because I guess what I'm say it's like the British and the Germans doing culture history is like pulling up the like thinking they're looking for stuff in their their C like country being the oldest or something right? I Just want to make sure I'm saying that right? Yeah, okay anyway. 04:09.50 archpodnet Yeah, kind of yeah like italy ends up waiting to that. That's for sure. He also um is like 1 of definitely one of the earliest known ah practitioners of experimental archeology. 04:13.79 David Howe 3 2 1 continue. 04:25.10 archpodnet So He got his experiments to basically test a bunch of stuff and recreate it So one of the big ones in like 1937 him and his students used experiment on archaeology to investigate the vitrification process that's evident at several iron age Forts. So He was like I actually went to go with the students who go ground test things. So Big Big. Here is the culture historical approach. Although he wasn't very dogmatic like as as theories and methods evolved around him. He kind of would incorporate him so he didn't get like stuck in cultural History. He ends up getting some like marxist stuff thrown in with his work later in life same with the functionalism. Functionalist approaches. So He's able to like as archeologists changing around him incorporating more of it and and changing his his views um into into his work. 05:14.63 connor Yeah, and and like it and Carlton said that the important thing is that he is actually wanting to categorize things and catalog things vertically which is the way I would go if I was going into somewhere I didn't know anything about you know you got to establish a chronology you have to understand how things change through time. So this is. 05:28.93 David Howe Ah. 05:33.46 connor He's building the foundation of the future archeology. Um by at least using methods that are something we can use in the past or use it in the future. 05:40.57 David Howe Yeah, like we know that Southeast looks a certain way culturally versus you know the great basin. Yeah. 05:40.63 archpodnet But and and. 05:47.68 archpodnet Yeah, so that's kind of building off of of um, Kroeber's cultural areas and and putting it in time as well as as well as space. Um, but he was also big on he Divided. He's the one that helped divide the stone age into Paleolithic Neolithic Mesolithic so he took the stone age iron age Copridge Whatever and then broke stone age up even further um to. 06:07.56 David Howe Ah. 06:12.45 David Howe Which was solins. No, it's sorry solins did Bans Kingdoms Tribes chiefdoms. Yeah, which was before after this. Okay, right. 06:20.37 archpodnet Band Tribes Chiefdom states with silence. Yeah, um, after it's like in the sixty s he does that Please don't definitely. 06:31.42 David Howe Okay. 06:32.21 connor Insert What has achieved him please. 06:37.81 connor Ah, um. 06:37.95 archpodnet And then he was also big on the urban revolution and the neolithic so he really kind of looked at changes in time like those critical transformations in time. So um, that's another one of his his big ones. This idea of the urban revolution as this is all kind of going around especially um, especially in the early twentieth century. 06:50.47 connor Um. 06:56.93 archpodnet Start getting into how culture the cultural historical process and um, cultural areas some archaeologists and certain countries are starting to develop like nationalist archaeology around this time. So like. 07:11.17 connor Absolutely. 07:14.30 archpodnet We start seeing marxist archeology pretty early on it's kind of in a lot of archeological theory today might not be explicit, but that's where we get national archeology and one of the biggest proponents of national archeology during this time was soviet archeology. So these are like radical marxist which is fine. But they start like in Indiana Jones how the nazis are trying to use archaeology to promote german superiority the so the archaeologists were doing the same thing. Um, it's really big today in Southeast Asia and in particularly China China is a really good modern day example of nationalist archeology. 07:40.41 connor Yeah. 07:52.40 archpodnet Where they're always finding the earliest hominid or the earliest evidence of agriculture or the earliest forms of communism like it. It really kind of sucks to try to be an archaeologist outside the China and try to work there because you have to abide by Maoist doctrine. Ah, you can't promote or publish things that go against the communist agenda or else you get blackballed from the country or if you promote those things inside the country you disappear. 08:19.32 connor No, you also see this in the Middle East um when isis was happening was occurring and destroying artifacts of the past because it didn't agree with their ideology I mean archeology and anthropology is weaponized at least in the modern day and and in the past I'm obviously in. And Nazi Nazi Germany that was a big thing as Hitler is collecting a bunch of archeology and art and stuff like that and trying to kind of tie the archaeology of the area to his kind of nationalist. 08:39.54 archpodnet Enough of. 08:55.80 archpodnet Absolutely. 08:55.80 connor Propaganda and dominate his his domination of the world or his justification for domination of the world. 08:59.90 archpodnet Yeah, looking for arians was basically what he was doing who was it was Himmler Himmler was a huge archeology freak and like they funded a shitload of archeological expeditions and the issue also with that is like in order to be an archaeologist in nazi Germany you had to be part of the nazi party like no if and. 09:18.73 David Howe Um, really huh. 09:19.40 archpodnet But yeah, you had to like there was no like ah it was kind of like very much similar to the Soviet The Soviet Union in order to do anything. You had to be member of the party. Um, yes, they tried and they got a lot of funding to go out, especially like nepal Tibet they went to go look for the aryans look it was. 09:27.72 David Howe Um, well, that's why a lot of science is bailed. 09:30.49 connor Yeah. 09:39.34 David Howe There's video footage of that stuff too like the using calipers on people and they're just like next. It's like what are you doing ya? Their nose is a little bit curved and this sides. Yeah, but they are not the audience. 09:39.36 archpodnet Crazy. 09:46.26 archpodnet Yeah, doing a lot of for knowledge out there. Ah. 09:52.37 archpodnet Yeah, because I think everyone knew the well I think at that time people knew that there was arians at some point in time or from Central Asia like I think that. 09:54.87 David Howe Like what are they trying to like do to. 09:57.30 connor To dominate the world. 10:01.60 David Howe Oh. 10:08.12 connor Are they Ca The Koscus mountains is that the yeah caucuses. 10:10.00 David Howe Like car. Yeah. 10:12.18 archpodnet Caucuses no a little bit further east because I think I'm pretty sure at this point everyone knew about the hindo arian or that whole idea indo area and so they were looking to tie Germany directly to those aryans that conquered India then like moved west and. 10:21.67 David Howe Indo area and expansion. 10:30.41 archpodnet Like the sea people of the mountains that destroyed the bronze age for the mediterranean the indo-aryans were this group that came out of the north and just fucked things up in Central Asia 10:40.56 David Howe Gotcha Yeah because like Germans themselves are like very varied people like not all of them are blond haired and blue eyed So like I guess he was just trying to see like what I can't remember I It was a long time ago. We learned about this but um, what features he was looking for or whatever because I remember the footage. 10:52.31 connor Yeah. 10:58.11 David Howe It's definitely in Asia where he's like doing all that caliper stuff. Um. 10:59.65 archpodnet Yeah, wasn't great, but there's still a lot of vestiges today like even we still have like white nationalist archeology here in the states I don't know if it would considered archeology because they're actually doing it but you still see like vestiges of this idea. 11:04.48 David Howe No. 11:19.32 archpodnet Ah, like white nationalism particularly in the us like adopts a lot of the shit to try to promote like salutr and gets co-opted into this where they try to like point to Dennis Stanford to be like look there were white people in the americans before no one else and native americans killed them and so us killing native americans is justified because it used to be white peoples and they just like ignored the fact that everyone's like well. 11:22.40 connor Um, yeah, very much. So. 11:39.20 archpodnet Even if Saluttrrians did do that they weren't white like they weren't just they're not the ancestors of modern day Europeans that was prior to the Indo Aryan expansion. You know, like very much cherry picking of of topics. It's not great. 11:48.85 David Howe Yeah. 11:55.95 connor No, um to to when you and when you were in Ukraine did you see any vestiges of Marx or that kind of area archeology being done. 12:02.96 archpodnet Oh oh yes, I did yes I did caughtter that's ah so one one of the vestiges of this nationalist approach in order to get a ph d in the soviet system in archeology. You had to discover a new culture like in order to get a ph d you had to do something. That was like worthy of a piece. It wasn't just a dis so you had to discover a new culture and it had to be tied so way shape or form. So ah, you think there's an abundances of cultures and in the old Soviet Republic if that was the only way to get your ph d. 12:30.10 connor Let me guess. 12:31.38 David Howe Yet. 12:36.54 connor Shit. 12:36.62 archpodnet The answer is yes, there's a shitload so like ah my colleagues that work there now like Demittro um and others like they basically have spent their work and now analyzing other people's Ph D Dissertations to basically no, this is one culture because they'd like hyper fixate on the differences of like. A Pottery st style like well this one has a triangle in it. So It's a completely different culture. So but it wouldn't be a subgroup or subphase it's like completely different. They have an overabundance of what the fuck's going on in their record so they've kind of had like go back and realize. 13:07.14 connor Or synthesizes now. 13:09.36 archpodnet And the size a lot of it to actually figure out the culture areas that are going on and it's It's the the work is progressing. Um, but I did see a lot of shovels I mean it was a very I mean I we've talked about this podcast. There's a lot of kids moving dirt very rapidly. 13:18.75 connor Ah. 13:28.87 connor That's interesting. Yeah, it's I because that you have to use that data that was or you want to use the data that was taken during that time because if they dug up a site that is important to what you're studying during that time you would like to use that but you have to put it into context of what was happening and hopefully. Give it a different um spin or research or something differently I don't know it's. 13:48.63 archpodnet Yeah, and also like want to say like National archeology isn't just to like you know soviets like the British were pretty big into nationalist archeology too in a way like they had a really hard time it pilt down. Yeah. 14:02.69 David Howe Yeah, pilt down man. 14:07.20 archpodnet Piltown's an example of like someone created a hoax to show like the earliest people were in like bipedal people were big. Brain people were in Britain like massive hoax but there's also who is that explorer that traveled the Amazon. 14:21.65 connor Was that the it's not not World Wars you? What's the other one. 14:27.94 archpodnet Oh um, the city of z the lost city of z said per is it Percy Faucet I think so yes, it is yeah Percy faucet. Yeah, so he went. 14:31.37 connor Good spot. Yeah, is that that the guy. 14:39.70 connor He's a geographer Percy Faucet yeah 14:43.26 archpodnet Under the royal geographic society to go discover things in the Amazon they made an Amazon film about it that features Jack's teller from son's anarchy I forget his name ah and he was able to find like 100% David um, and. 14:53.60 David Howe Do you think he was sweating like a faucet in the Amazon. I got a clap in county. 15:02.38 archpodnet Ah, um god that totally derailed me he found pottering the Amazon and evidence of and so cultures that were what we would consider quote unquote complex more complex and what like contemporary amazonian tribes. Brought back to england it was like there's evidence of culture here in Rhodes and all this other stuff and we're just ignoring it. It could even predate english civilization and they threw a fucking fit about it. Um, the british archaeologists were not very happy. They weren't very accepting of data coming outside of the Uk that showed. Complex culture especially in Africa like great Zimbabwe is a really good example of of that dismissal. 15:41.67 connor Yeah, um, and you still see I would say in modern archeology. You still see factions of people in groups like we're not yeah. 15:47.34 archpodnet Oh yeah, the mormons in Utah if like you want to do archeology in Utah if it Ai n't mormon they do not care that is for damn sure and I'll go on record like the the mormon stuff always protected. But if it's if it's engine. It's gone. They want to erase it. 16:02.89 connor Yeah, yeah, yeah, so there're there's still a little bit of there I think there're always going to be a tie to like nationalism in the past and you know in archeology we're trying to get rid of it. But there's always going to be pieces of it unfortunately. 16:04.40 David Howe Oh. 16:15.61 archpodnet And we've shown like people do that have've done that in the past right? like they'll bury their dead in their house to like show. They've been there so like archaeology does get co-opted a lot to like prove ancestry to a region a place or to ideologies. It's just the modern form of like. Bearing grandma underneath the floorboards but no, no, no, that's my grandmother. We've always lived here. It's now just like oh well, this culture shows why the croc sandals people should dominate Florida I don't fucking know there's just out of my head but there's there's ways. 16:46.84 connor They should dominate for to and they should stay a fuck away for me, you could stay the fuck away with me. Yeah, ah now that we. 16:48.40 archpodnet Know if there's one state they could have procs it's it's Florida they can have the Crocs um, and then I mean it it cultures do it but countries do it all the time. Um, you know Israel palestine and others are always fighting over Jerusalem. For nationalist archeology purposes. It happens. It's not great, but it is what it is. 17:07.13 David Howe Yeah, yeah. No. 17:14.92 connor Now that we pissed off all the world. We're gonna end this segment and then we'll come back and talk about Daddy Benford I don't know what what we call him popaloo uncle lu. 17:25.29 archpodnet Probably Uncle Lou I don't want to I don't want him to be my dad but I'm okay to be like related to him like that's like Uncle Lou just the angry uncle. Yes, he's the angry drunk uncle of the stories Bob Kelly has about him are just phenomenal. 17:35.10 connor He's our angry uncle. Yeah, all right? We'll be right back. 17:44.70 archpodnet But you are back to it.