00:00.00 Paul_E Walnuts Welcome to episode a 114 of a life insurance podcast I am David I am alive I am not off the podcast I am here I am just very busy. Um I am here today with my co-host Connor Johnon Carlton cannot be here today. He was doing field school or running it. And then you got hit by a tornado and we haven't heard from zen so hope the kid's okay, also we are here with ah Vincent Batista um who is a neanderthal extraordinaire expert person um a funny story about this which we can get into vi or Vincent. Um. I posted a thing about neanderthals and I got a Dm from somebody who was like hey actually the information is x y or z and I was like oh shit really and I ah it turned out to be the man. We're speaking to you today and I was like oh and then from that day on we actually were really good Instagram friends we sent it to other memes. Got a lot in common love dogs. So we decided to get him on the show. Um, and you are a student of wopof because you got ph d at the university of Michigan um, and Wopof was a good friend of me and connner's biological anthropology teacher. So. Ah, welcome to the show Vincent. How are you doing. 01:17.45 Vince Battista I'm doing good. Thanks for having me guys. Yeah I've been you know been a pretty big lurker on that newciology page and one of my good friends Jim actually sent me your Instagram like long before I lurked and then like eventually lurked and nowward. 02:38.28 Paul_E Walnuts Um, yeah, um. 01:52.69 Vince Battista Now Now we send each other Sopranos memes. So. 03:17.16 Paul_E Walnuts That's I think the majority of our relationship. Um, and Cu Gene could conor is power is a cuji fan. Um. 02:01.83 Vince Battista Yeah, and putting lot lot of cu you? yeah yeah. 01:44.83 archpodnet Yeah, he's a good. He's a good dude. Yeah um I want to clarify that Carlton is alive and he did Texas and he did not directly get hit by the but by the tornado that his town did he did not fly. He did not strap him. 03:53.96 Paul_E Walnuts Um, okay. 02:23.59 archpodnet Himself to a pipe using his belt as seen in the movie twister. It's not not something he did so he's he's all right? He just doesn't have any cell service. Um, but so Vincent. What really got you into and. 02:55.65 Vince Battista So. 02:59.81 archpodnet Kind of got you interested in Anthropology growing up if you don't mind it ask it and answer in that. 03:29.49 Vince Battista Yeah, So I think a big thing is like my dad is an immigrant from Italy and so I think people who are from immigrant families are kind of. Positioned in this weird spot where they're almost primed to do cultural anthropology from the minute they're Born. It's wild because like you live and you know you have ah ah a foot in each room so to speak and you're on the threshold between being like American and being something else and so like that was interesting but also we were very privileged to be able to go. Back to Italy a bunch when I was a kid and the archeology there is everywhere like you can't swing a dead cat without finding like for example, my father when he was a kid was like digging in the backyard and he found a ah a sword. 06:06.68 Paul_E Walnuts Yeah. 05:16.87 Vince Battista But had just found a sword in the backyard and like he and None of his buddies who like his buddy owned like a goat. My dad told me that like he was like riding on this goat like pretending to joust with this sword as kid like it's he's a kid. He had no archeological trading or anything you should dig it in the yard and found a sort and stuff like that happens all time I like going there. Seeing like Greek ruins because he's from southern italy a huge greek presence there from my ne shop and all the roman stuff a lot of samite sites things like that. So I've always kind of just been interested in like human past and also human variation in terms of what that means biologically and culturally. But um, when I was an undergrad I wanted to do psychology and took I had to take an anther one or None course and I was just completely fascinated by it. Um I wasn't doing too well academically and 2 of these anther professors kind of just took me under their wing one was Dan Adler who's an archeologist works in Armenia does a lot of placeistte stuff the other the guy's guy Don Hartman who is a stable isotope specialist and Gian I don't I don't know if he did it on purpose but I was like really struggling and he like took a shine to me and let me work in his lab and cut up bones and drill teeth and. 1 of the things we were working on was with gazell teeth from a mood cave in Israel in a mood is Israel in Israel. It was really interesting because it has neanderthal occupational horizons same which between what people might call modern human occupational horizons and they're basically moving in and out of this cave system. Um. And the neanderthals from down. There are interesting because they don't look like neanderthals from western europe they're like probably a little bit taller. Their faces are a little bit different chances are like what we know now from like paleogenomics like these were probably atomis neanderthals with way more african ancestry than we would have been. 10:14.00 Paul_E Walnuts Ah. 09:05.11 Vince Battista Expected. But anyways so we are working on doing like paleoecology looking at essentially where neanderthals were hunting these Gazelle and looking at oxygenizedopes in their teeth. They got me super into science and I was really into archeology I was going to be an archeologist do archaeology and I did a. You know I was concerned about not being able to get my Ph D cause my grades were not off to snuff I would had like a think I graduated with like a below a 3.0 Gpa like this is like very clearly a case of like undiagnosed Adhd kid which is me subsequently diagnosed but like I was not good at school. 11:28.60 Paul_E Walnuts Yeah. 10:20.95 Vince Battista But like I knew all my stuff but like you know wasn't really performing and then um Gian was like yeah you should just apply to a master's program in the Uk like you're gonna have to probably take out Pseudon loans whatever but like you'll get a master's in like 1 and 2 years you'll learn a lot It'll be a good experience. So I did that and I went to Durham. And the way that the arc side program looked there at the time I don't know if it stilllls around but you essentially do like low rotations and do different projects and I really really like the ancient Dna stuff and it stuck then I became a geneticist and now I do computational biology for a little so it's been like a very meandering. 12:40.16 Paul_E Walnuts Um, yeah. 11:38.79 Vince Battista Path but like after that um I took a year off I worked at Yale and molecular biologyology department and to go look better in the lab. So I was doing some crispr stuff and then I got accepted to Michigan um, and I was coadvised by Milford who was like bones dude teeth dude statistics dude and Abby Bigham who you know at the time was a young pi she's ah obviously a woman pi in genetics and like you know that was like really cool to me see like person not too too much older than me doing really really cool science with like very clear. Like archaeologically and cultural anthropologically grounded research questions like saying we know people have been in the andes for this long we know people have survived in this hypoxic environment for this long like what is the signal that that leaves on human genome and like that. Absolutely fascinated me so Abby Milford were my advisors and my ph d project was ultimately half of it was statistical genetics and the other half was was s scalletal biology. So now I'm done now I'm doing ah I guess a nontraditional postdoc at Massachusetts general hospital in Boston and. I play those computers all day. It's pretty sweet. Thanks yeah, and which are. 15:28.84 Paul_E Walnuts The kid's wicked smart. Ah um, lots of unpack there dude damn um, you've done quite a lot. Um I want to and Conor you can dive in here too. But ah. The beginning you mentioned Ah well one that you grew up italian and grew up around a lot of italians and like our our very niche humor that we send in memes is like that kind of culture but I find it really interesting like I grew up around so many italians um in New York and like. My friends were like my babysitter only spoke italian so it's just like I got really interested in of course like Greek and roman history and then you know I'd never been to italy then I went later on in my life. But ah. 15:35.45 Vince Battista Yeah, yeah. 17:06.80 Paul_E Walnuts Yeah, just super interested in the different cultures in New York like because there's like that and like my neighbors are literally from another country and it was super cool. The cooking was wild. Um, and I think that made me want to be an anthropologist too like I'm just so interested. Yeah, and I think that's a common thing we see here. Um. 16:12.29 Vince Battista Ah, hundred percent 17:46.38 Paul_E Walnuts And what I was going to lead that into too is like you're you're a gpa in and college like I think Connor and I had a very similar thing like we just got taken under a wing by a professor because we were you know what's the word connor. 16:50.33 Vince Battista Um, yeah, and you know like I don't know I mean my problem was like I discovered beer and like and like partying but also like so I'm from Connecticut right? I was I was born a new haven raised in New Haven um my dad was a lab tech at Yale and a union organizer when I was born and we lived in a 3 family hall right? So like I grew up with my grandparents and my grandfather was a partisan like very very hardcore left wing like the probably the polar opposite of the stereotypical italian. Guy Northeast right like the conservative catholic sort of thing basically like anti-fascist they were socialist because you know but that he was tended more towards anarcho syndicalism which was more car. 19:28.92 Paul_E Walnuts For the audience. What's a partisan. 18:43.63 Vince Battista Sort of part and parcel for Southern italyite like Southern Italy Warros very Ruralr very agricultural socialism Never really took hold down there Anarchism didn more. Not. There's a big misconception that anarchy and Anarchism being the same thing which they don't We could talk about it. But so I grew up in a house where like. 20:30.70 Paul_E Walnuts Sure. 19:21.61 Vince Battista There was a big um there was there was ah ah, an inborn sense of solidarity with people who were underrepresented like my grandfather taught my gri I did speak english taught me about the black panthers like and they were in New Haven they were active when they moved to the states like um. You know and he was ah a marksman he was a very good shot and like we used to harvest rabbits in the backyard and like um, eat them and like grow our own food and like seeing that like that was an important formative experience for me and like that was I think really critical in getting me invested in the outdoors. So then like when I went to college at yukon all my time was spent outside like you know obviously partying and stuff whatever but northeast Connecticut is a really really good place to like learn about yourself and learn about the environment and I think kind of like hindsights 2020 will like. Was important as an archeology undergrad like part of our curriculum was like the archeology of new england southern new england so like a lot of stuff from Rhode Island and Connecticut and like walking around and like seeing the landscape and understanding. How. Historical forces of colonialism and things like that shaped the history of Southern New england for the time period your working on like that was really really important to me and I think like I I wouldn't have gotten that anywhere else. So like it seems very different like anti-fascist you know 1940 s italy. But colonialism in you know the None hundreds of new england they're really similar in a lot of ways you have people coming in without permission and changing everything changing like these power dynamics and I think also kind of having this almost marxist ideology at a young age I think that was also ah a reason for me to go to Michigan. Think that was ah you know it's pretty strong in the archeological curriculum there and I think um, having all these questions at ah, a relatively early stage in my career. It was a lot going on and so like it was weird because like I wouldn't hand in my homework assignments for my history classes. But I would like. Read all the stuff I was assigned and then more like go to the library and get lost in the library and like wasn't doing well opmically but like I knew so much but I was like super excited which I couldn't do the work I think part of that is because like and also I think that might be why archeology was so appealing to me is because like it was physical. 25:35.26 Paul_E Walnuts And. 24:20.89 Vince Battista And like that physicality is like really important for a lot of people and like only in our society. Do we like demonize kids for not being able to sit in a chair for 8 hours a day. You know what? I mean like no other learning no other like context of learning does that and I don't know and that's something that like. Just really stuck with me and think I had an important role in shaking the way I look at like education academia but like ah it's all None thing for me. 24:43.53 archpodnet Yeah, and I feel the same way as like the physical the the lab work the not sitting in the classroom part is was the most important part and to me or being outside or doing the field work. You know. 25:16.59 Vince Battista And. 25:40.57 Vince Battista Other. 25:18.15 archpodnet That stuff is what really got me excited about archeology. It wasn't sitting in ah a lab listening to someone lecture about neanderthals which are fascinating. But if you sit in a hot room with like None other people like it's impossible to actually get inspired. 26:03.89 Vince Battista E. 25:51.95 archpodnet And feel that inspiration for certain folks I mean certain people Love love that crap. You know that's and that's all to them but I didn't really get the inspiration until I like physically touched the archeology The the bones. All of it is like that was that was super important to me. 26:24.27 Vince Battista Yeah, yeah. 26:36.81 Vince Battista Hundred percent on 26:49.87 Vince Battista Yeah, yeah, interesting. 26:31.51 archpodnet I don't know of it. David is the same way. 28:16.96 Paul_E Walnuts I Oh yeah, like I was a terrible student until I did my None not field school but like field season at topper and like just being around other like like minded college students that wanted to do that. Um, and like you're sitting outside around a fire drinking. It's just like it's what humans are supposed to do and archeology like really lens or like you can do that with archeology while also getting a degree and people are like damn that's a cool job and I'm like it's you just Hang. So. 27:12.63 archpodnet A. 28:02.67 Vince Battista Yeah, yeah I agree. 27:39.30 archpodnet Did you feel like um, did you feel like grad school was more like a place that you thrived more because it was so yeah, yeah. 29:29.40 Paul_E Walnuts Ah, yeah. 28:21.90 Vince Battista I mean like that weight creates but like yeah I don't know I didn't ah really have really mixed feelings about Michigan the state is fine I don't have a problem with the state. But that program. Is like really a bubble like um I learned a whole. So maybe I'll first start off like what I loved about that program. It's a forefield program. So for those who don't know what that means it's you learn cultural anthropology you learn linguistics you learn. Human evolution biological anthropology and you learn archeology and so like most of us on the bio and arc side like our dissertations or research are like so intertwined like for example, a lot of my tas like for my. Early courses in grad school. They were archeologists teaching given evolution classes and that's really important they're you know they're a year older than you but they're they're teaching you they're like they're really good at telling you like? Okay yeah, the human evolution stuff is fine. Environment is really important. Culture is really important. They create feedback loops and those feedback loops drive evolution evolution drives these feedback loops and it's like that's super important and this isn't to say that's unique to a 4 field program but then going over to a linguistics class and you know seeing how much they actually know about cognitive biology. And and going over to a culture of anthropology and seeing how much they know about medical anthropology and like those are all intertwined and which is one of the reasons why I really like teaching 1 on None for example because like these are 19 year old students 20 year old students some of our 40 year old students first year graduates new First year undergrads forty years old but like the way like the way that you see people excited about anthropology and like realizing that like something from their anatomy physiology class ties in really well with their their archaeology class that's incredible like that is the coolest thing in the world and like seeing the light bulb go off. Is like None of most like gratifying experiences and so like I was really yeah dude I was really laisez fair about like my grading I don't think to ever failed anybody I think I gave out like None d like I don't like I don't. 34:12.60 Paul_E Walnuts That's awesome. 34:29.20 Paul_E Walnuts Probably deserved it. 33:18.37 Vince Battista No, and the thing is like a lot of these students like would come back and they'd be like all right? What can I do to fix this I'd be like write an essay and they do it and then they get it. They get a B like yeah like I don't know like it and also because I was that student who like didn't do well and so I'm like very sympathetic but like majority of the time like. 34:42.26 Paul_E Walnuts Um, ah, sweet. 35:01.92 Paul_E Walnuts Yeah. 33:56.35 Vince Battista Like my average for my sections Each year was like over in None over ninety like it was insane because of how sstokke these students were to be in a program like that and like the undergrad program really really empowers these students there and it was like so cool to be like a ta. Or the instructor of record for undergrads at a program like Michigan and like that was super that was worth it that was worth everything the things I didn't like about the program. Yeah yeah. 34:20.13 archpodnet Um I think do you want to catch that in the next segment cool. We will be right back. This is episode one 14 Um, you're about to listen to Chris Webster sell you something buy it please. 36:34.30 Paul_E Walnuts Yeah.