00:00.00 archpodnet Okay, it is now recording hang on Chris I'm gonna talk to Chris who's our producer but he'll listen to this after okay and 3 2 1 welcome to what is this episode one zero seven of a life neurons podcast where we investigate the careers of those living a life in ruins. I'm here with our guest Todd serrel he's the actually I should say connor is not here. He's currently in colorado carlton is actually graduating right now and connor and I are flying out tomorrow to surprise him so this will come out next week and he doesn't know that yet. So I'm here with todd serrel I always it a professor. And ah, are you department head still I couldn't tell that on your c that you're not, you are to okay I'll back that up I'm here with todd surabelll professor and department head at the university of wyoming anthropology department he got his ph d from the university of arizona in 2003. 00:42.13 Todd Own. Yeah. 00:57.69 archpodnet Ah, Todd was my advisor and a co-chair on my committee as well as connors if you guys think I'm smart. We to hear Todd he also is cursed with big brain syndrome now I know that the kid really likes data like a lot. It does a lot of research on the peopleing of the Americas Ethno Archeological research in Mongolia. And his pasttime is factually disproving pre clovis with r in excel and a lot of Graphs. He's on multitudes of papers which we can get into. He also has a dog named Callie who is strider's ant or something like that. They're the same kind of dogs. But I think that's her right? there. So oh as a different dog. 01:33.30 Todd It's not different about. 01:36.57 archpodnet Um, anyway, moving on. Let's do this? Okay sorry Chris Bear with me. Okay. 01:42.60 Todd You get at it out come on. 01:49.30 Todd All right I should be dog free now. 01:51.35 archpodnet Got it Cool? Um, all right? So I'm gonna start this off differently I'll do like the regular interview here in a sec but I want to ask you? Um I Guess it's kind of deep but what does archeology mean to you. And you can like nerd out and rant. 02:10.84 Todd But I didn't see that one coming Dave. 02:15.12 archpodnet I can give you a few and warm me up with other questions. 02:19.13 Todd What does archeology mean to me. Um, it's a good puzzle I mean look it's fascinating to to to pull something out of the ground that hasn't been touched for 10000 years the last person who touched it. Lived five hundred generations ago that's cool it's fascinating to put yourself in a world that people lived in that's unimaginable. You know it's so different from the world. You lived in where you had mammoths and ground slots and. People moving their home every week to imagine what that life is like that that part of I think putting yourself into the past is is a pretty special and I would say romantic part of it. But what I love about it is. It's a. It's a giant puzzle The archeological record is not kind. It. It only preserves certain things and it preserves them poorly. It's disturbed. It's blurry. It's ugly and yet. We. We try to learn what we can from it and and squeeze interesting information out of it and it's a hell of a challenge and I really like working on those puzzles. 03:39.79 archpodnet Yeah,, that's a good way to put them in especially when you look at like let's see like the data points of lithicx scattered at a site and an excavation like when they blow em up and you can turn them in 3 D and Whatnot. It's ah it's pretty cool stuff to look at and then like refittting. Like technically a puzzle in itself. But yeah, just looking at the past with questions I think is an interesting way to to look at it. You know. 04:06.73 Todd So like I mean lithics are a puzzle and of themselves you're right? It's like a 3 d puzzle and digging aside is a big puzzle and we can collect data now better than than we ever could, but but. 04:17.75 archpodnet M. 04:22.89 Todd Think more the kind of puzzle I'm talking about if what we're talking about lithics. For example, this is maybe the least interesting and least important part of people's lives and prehistory and yet from our perspective. It's like the 1 thing that always gets through the present so we have to like. 04:25.54 archpodnet Yeah. 04:36.76 archpodnet Share. 04:41.13 Todd Answer interesting questions about the human past from a rather mundane part of the human past and and those are really really interesting problems to me. 04:50.10 archpodnet Yeah, um, so like what kind of keeps you up at night when you're thinking about the past like what what drives you to answer or ask questions. 05:04.45 Todd I think those are 2 different answers. What keeps me up at night are the the um so I would say maybe with the political nature of the field that is not kind sometimes um. 05:20.88 archpodnet Yeah I get that. 05:24.50 Todd Doesn't sit well with a person who's not is maybe prone to depressive thoughts. Um, but but in terms of the the big questions that drive me I mean fundamentally I'm interested in why people do what they do. 05:29.97 archpodnet I Know that game. 05:41.26 Todd No matter where and when they lived um, but you know I'm I'm a little bit obsessive about the first people in the new world and and everything surrounding. 05:49.85 archpodnet Um, yeah. 05:55.41 Todd Their their culture history and their ways of life because that's what I've devoted a lot of my a lot of my intellectual efforts. 06:02.87 archpodnet Yeah, okay, well let's get to that ah later on in the show and I'm gonna do like the regular here I think you're an East Coast kid right? Yeah virginian like DC area 06:14.40 Todd Um I am I'm a Virginia that's right. 06:22.52 archpodnet Okay I know Alex talks about that all the time that reminded me. Um so I know I was like a weird ass kid like I liked bugs and like picking up frogs and like looking at dead squirrels and stuff but like what kind of kid were you. 06:37.37 Todd Yeah, Also a weird ass kid. Um move I mean I I developed an obsess with bird watching. Um I became a hell of a good amateur ornithologist. 06:47.96 archpodnet Um, okay. 06:55.95 Todd Ah, used to sit at the window in my mom's house watching the birds come through the feeder and recording which birds showed up like I kept a life list I thought I was gonna be a zoologist and ornithologist I also was kind of ahead. 07:02.69 archpodnet Um, yeah. 07:14.62 Todd And math. Um, my father bought us a Texas instruments home computer sometime in the early 80 s and my brother and I taught each ah taught ourselves how to had a program. Um, but I wasn't entirely weird I mean I did sports too I like being. 07:30.53 archpodnet Yeah. 07:32.81 Todd Ah, to like running around to like playing basketball on baseball. 07:37.25 archpodnet That's right forgot your baseball guy. Um, yeah, you do ah your own stats on baseball right? I think that's a thing where you did. 07:44.78 Todd Not on baseball I mean I'm very familiar with baseball stats and Saber metrics. In fact I often see baseball as ah as a metaphor for archeology at least the world I live in. Do you see the movie money ball. 07:50.10 archpodnet Okay I guess ah. 07:57.26 archpodnet How so has it one with Jonah Hill I haven't seen that yet. 08:03.68 Todd Ah, read the book. Yeah, doing that I mean I've watched the movie several times and and read the book. But basically the gist of that of that movie in that movement in baseball was that baseball Fundle. Mentally misunderstood the game and a couple of teams hired some nerds to analyze how you really win games and how you really evaluate players and once they started looking at it systematically in a scientific way. The game changed completely. And I kind of feel like in archaeology particularly in certain segments of Archeology. We have the way of doing things in the old way of doing things that's rather not scientific nor quantitative and that. Um, eventually the nerds will take the day at least that's that's what I want to believe which which ultimately is what happens in that movie and it and in that book. 09:00.21 archpodnet Share. 09:06.69 archpodnet Okay, it's on my list I'll have to check it out. Sweet okay, um, so all that being said, you went to undergrad was it for zoology at first did you just do anthropology. Yeah. 09:21.94 Todd For zoology. Yeah. 09:26.33 archpodnet Okay, and where'd you do that. 09:27.38 Todd Um, at the University Of Wisconsin in Madison. 09:30.56 archpodnet Okay, um, what took you there from Virginia. 09:36.58 Todd Um, um, my father my father recommended it. He said you should you should go at least a day's drive away from home at the time I was looking for a place of a good zoology department and a place that had a crew team because I I rode in high school. 09:46.23 archpodnet Okay. 09:57.31 Todd Madison Met all those 3 criteria I applied to several places including strange colorado state anyway, I landed in Madison and I had a great time there and I studied zoology. Um I ended up doing research in zoology with a. Classic ethologist animal behavior guy named Jack Heilman and I did a study of black cap chickadees where I'd go out in the woods in Wisconsin and and all these birds have been banded. They've been trapped and banded to it like it identify individuals and he asked me to try to answer the question of whether. Winter time. They'd already formed mating pears because in the spring they mate so I was recording who showed up with who at these feeder chaps and turns out they had form mating pairs. Anyway, it was pretty interesting because I got to know individual birds and their tendencies and I'd get up at 5 in the morning and stand in the snow and watch. 10:53.22 archpodnet Yeah. 10:54.19 Todd Birds Anthropology was an afterthought I took intro to anthropology honestly because back in those days when we actually printed course catalogs I'd flip through it right? which I always found to be like a very eye-opening experience. Because they were classes and literally everything in a school with 45000 students and like every department imaginable right? is like all this stuff you know nothing about and I see anthropology and like what the hell is that I have no idea I think I'll take that I know that's a common story that you guys hear pretty much. 11:15.12 archpodnet A. 11:24.60 archpodnet Um, yeah, yeah, everyone kind of stumbles into it and then it has all the interest that they've had like into 1 place. Um, so it's interesting. You went for zoology because like at Wyoming we kind of look at people zoologically and I think that's kind of where like your research goes and like for me at least like I think of humans on the landscape landscape like occupying it and using it like it. You know a zoological being. Is that kind of what led you to anthropology. 12:03.31 Todd Well one I completely agree with you David um, you know I went to school to study animal behavior and I think I still do just the animals are are long dead and and and are bipedal primates. Ah, some people find that idea very offensive I don't I see humans as part of the animal kingdom fundamentally animals fundamentally behave by the same rules as other animals do certainly humans are unique in some ways. Um, but we can say that literally about any species right? so. 12:37.64 archpodnet Right. 12:40.25 Todd I don't really put us on a pedestal. So yeah I totally totally agree with you honestly I don't I don't know what drew me to anthropology when I took when I took 1 on 1 which is a 4 field course my t a advertised a field school and I went to a a field school in western Wisconsin it was like. And Mississippian Era pithouse village I was only there for ten days I didn't have a great time. Um, but not common. No, but but then I kind of forced myself onto a project with doug price. 13:11.14 archpodnet That's not common. 13:19.62 Todd Was working was studying the transition from the neolithic to the mesolithic in Southern Denmark and I found myself in Denmark digging up the coolest stuff but the neolithic latest neolithic and early mesolithic context in Denmark right? living on the north sea. 13:27.89 archpodnet Yeah. 13:37.89 Todd I did that for 2 summers and I think I think it was that experience that that hooked me that like being outside digging up old stuff being with young people laughing and kind of the combination of the physical labor. And intellectual exercise was very attractive to me and and the other piece of the puzzle was that I took ah a senior seminar at the University Of Wisconsin which used to be a requirement probably still is which is a topical seminar. You know you don't get to choose what it is. It's just whatever it is that year and. 14:12.74 archpodnet Um, yeah. 14:15.42 Todd Peopling of the Americas and it was like in that was like the first time I had seriously taken a deep dive into a subject and I felt like I had developed some subject expertise and I could start to see maybe and know when I look back on it maybe in a very naive way. Opportunity to make real contributions at the edges of knowledge. It was those things combined that that made me choose anthropology but I have to admit like at the end of my college career I wasn't entirely sure which way I wanted to go. 14:47.96 archpodnet But you ended up going to Arizona at some point for your master's and under or and ph d or is it just PhHD okay um was the stuff in Denmark kind of what led you there? no. 14:55.50 Todd Um, yeah, both from both. 15:03.51 Todd Um, no know no I didn't have much advice on how to choose a graduate school. Um, what made me apply to Arizona was that dance haines was there. 15:07.34 archpodnet Okay. 15:17.70 archpodnet Okay. 15:19.44 Todd Through this class I had been obviously introduced to Van Haynes who was like a rock star at the time obviously still is a rock star and always has been but I I applied there because of ants was there. Also you know Doug price at the time was like look in the aaa guidebook you'll find that everybody. As a job today went to Arizona Michigan Berkeley or Chicago so I think those are the places I applied to and I was only accepted to Arizona and. 15:42.78 archpodnet Um, okay. Nice, okay. 15:51.40 Todd And the funny thing is when I got to Arizona I walked into vance's office I had gone there like over spring break to visit. You know like a lot of grad students do prospective grad students. Do I walked into vance's office and I was like hey Vance you remember me's like no and I said oh' Todd I'm I'm here I'm your new graduate student I'm here to work with you and Vance said. I'm retiring. You're going to work with Mary Steiner and and as disappointed I was in that moment. It was like the best thing that ever happened to me I mean I wasn't trained by paleovian archaeologist I mean I was lucky enough to take a class or 2 from vance and I still work with. 16:19.51 archpodnet Gotcha That's funny. 16:37.44 Todd Guy but I was trained by Mary Steiner and Steve Kuhn primarily who are paleolithic archeologists and amazing people and amazing scientists and that was not my intention but god damn was it a good thing. 16:52.80 archpodnet Yeah, that's cool man. Um I think you went like what to France and you went to Israel and stuff doing that kind of archeology. 17:03.12 Todd I've never worked in France certainly I've I've visited paleothic sites in France. Yeah I worked in worked in Israel with Mary and Steve for 1 season. 17:10.70 archpodnet Okay, was that like neanderthal stuff. 17:13.65 Todd I mostly worked at hyne cave which was which is middle paleolithic at least what we were digging in I mean that site goes from the early middle paleolithic through the byzantine with everything in between including beautiful and net tuian houses and byzantine glass furnace and oration earlier. Ithic I mean it's a cool site we were down in in the deep middle palelithic. But then Steve was working at a rock shelter nearby that was epi payal with about I mean we're looking at a caba in occupation I can't remember but it's about 20000 years old about probably lgm ish all these. Microblades and um little retouch blade lit projectile points and things. Yeah, it was good. 17:59.96 archpodnet Cool. Um, yeah, that sounds like it's like just casually saying that it was Epi paleolithic through Byzantine is like not something we do here. That's pretty damn cool. Um. 18:12.11 Todd Was mean it's not something you do there. 18:16.81 archpodnet Like we don't like we have what Woodland Mississippian and then historic and then like yeah yeah, you got like Alexander the great and the mongols like taking over everything over there. Um all right? Well we got to end segment one here I'm going to hit the actually I don't say that on there. 18:20.37 Todd Um, right I got to. 18:35.61 archpodnet Ah, we're going to wrap up segment one. We'll be right back with Dr Todd Serville all right