00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome back to episode 29 of a life and ruins podcast We're here we're talking Bio Arc and this is gonna be a really simple Question. So What can you find out by studying bones. What can you find about find out about people and. And the past. 00:21.68 Alex The very first thing you know about a skeleton is that that person died. Um and you'd be surprised how complicated that makes things when you're looking at skeletal samples versus trying to think about what a past living population was. 00:39.80 Alex Um, so that and that that gets into some really complicated kind of more conceptual issues that we will not get into today. Um, but the kind of the bread and butter of bio archeology. Um. And and forensic anthropology for that matter is the the um, the biological profile of ah of an individual um that is their age. Ah, that's the age that they died their biological sex we are talking here about the skeletal indicators that show the differences between. Um, males and females. We're not talking about gender here. That's a much trickier thing to um to get at archeologically um and also and historically the biological profile was also concerned with a person's ancestry. Um, and that is kind of. Fraught with ethical and methodological issues. Um, but it still certainly does get done. Um, the goal in forensics is to identify an individual and goal in Bio Archeology is to learn um about a past population. 01:48.60 Christine Yeah, aside from those sort of basics and biological profile. Um, we can also separate things that are pathological in nature something that somebody developed in their lifetime if it left a marker on bone. Um, versus something that happens tephonomy so anything anything that happens after they died to us looking at them in person so we do a lot of um, we spent a lot of time trying to distinguish is this cortical bone erosion. Due to interment issues. So like because they were near some water or there was a lot of shifting soil around them which causes this outer layer to kind of come off gently um or is it something that's erosive or pathological in nature. And so but things like ah it was this damage caused while it was interred from a plant roots or a tree root or something versus something that happened in the lab and it broke by accident in the lab you know something it was fragile and it broke. Um, we can distinguish those 2 types of taonomic issues. Um, so a lot of it's trying to what are we? What are we really looking for and what can we eliminate being concerned about necessarily or are we worried about the taonomy. Do we want to wrote no I can write a lot on taonomy. 03:21.24 Christine That's not the most interesting things. 03:24.86 Alex Yeah, Christine and I are both very interested in and pathology right? Ancient disease um, and what we can see of those diseases on the human skeleton um health is such a complicated thing. Um, right? Your your health is so much more than. Ah, the diseases you accrue throughout your lifetime. Um, right? things like emotional health and and mental health we can't assess that from the human skeleton so we're looking at this tiny little piece of human health in the past. Um and of the you know of that you know the kind of medical health side of things. Not all that many diseases ah impact the human skeleton um, in particular ways and even the ones that impact your your human skeleton in broadway those still kind of tricky to kind of parse out. So it's um. 04:18.59 Alex 1 of the things that we both do is work in the historic period which gives us the opportunity to compare back to historical records which really helps us kind of solve some of those those mysteries. 04:34.55 Christine Yeah, certainly some of the ah the things you see on a regular basis is it is it. Systemic is it something that was happening across the body. Is it something that was happening just very localized. What could it pass. Sometimes there's a lot of research and guessing and looking at clinical. Research to see is there anything that approximates this and so going back just for a second. So some of my educational background. Um, the reason I was really thankful for my master's degree in human biology is that we spent a lot of time doing anatomy um, and learning. What muscles what features what you know and so it it connects the living mechanisms to the actual bones that we're studying and so it lets you also kind of get into that mindset of okay, you know if we're looking at this particular joint. What are the pressures that are being put on that. On that bone or in that region. What could this possibly be to hypothesize a little bit more um and and I think that that's that's why it keeps a lot of us still interested in pathology is is that there's always going to be something a little bit different and is that as that. Telling us something different about their lived experience is that is that lived experience something that that that indicates that they were in more pain or or not it was it something benign I mean that's I think I guess I spend I won't speak for Alex in this case but um. 06:05.25 Christine I Spend a lot of time kind of of thinking about what those those lived experiences might have been for a person that had some type of pathology. 06:13.54 Alex Yeah I that's that that actually something I was going to bring out. You made me segue perfectly into it. A small research project I did working on a set of remains from Mexico had this very this is kind of. Contemporary with the aztec empire. So um, kind of fourteen hundred fifteen hundreds um and this individual had this serious pathological condition ah impacting most of the skeletal remains that we had recovered. Um, and one of the questions that I had that I asked myself is like what would this person's life would have been like what would they would they have required care and thinking about care and the archeological record. Um, you have an older individual with with pathologies or you have ah um. 06:56.80 Christine Have to down. 07:06.12 Alex Even even just a very old individual you you have to think about this person was required was requiring care was requiring someone else. Ah to you know, help them to feed them to you know, maybe help them get around. Um and that's a really fascinating thing to think about in the archeological record. Um. It's such a human activity right? caring for your loved ones and you know you can you can kind of see that in the in the bio Archeological record. 07:33.70 Christine Yeah I think that's why when you and I have both kind of moved into this historic realm. It. It has been. We spent a lot of time talking about the different records and whether you know records are not going to be 100 % accurate we know that but it does give that. Insight? Um, as to you know, somebody experiencing some some sort of illness or disease and now we know they're dead but there's nothing on their bones. So what did they die from I don't we don't we can't answer that. Um, but. 08:03.52 Alex Fit. 08:11.89 Christine Ah, we we like thinking about ways that we might be able to answer that or address that in a different way. Sometimes it's theoretical sometimes it's is this an appropriate population to work on doing some sort of testing to see if we can find microbes or some something that will tell us. If They had a certain you know pathogen in their system at the time of death and again it's that's something I think everybody's different different bio archeologists who do work on Disease pathogens. Ah. Exist and they do really incredible work. Really interesting work on a lot of diseases and um so I think it's it's something that's worth considering in the historic record as well in different situations. 08:59.41 Alex Given given that Christine and I both worked in Louisiana um, one of the diseases that we have become intimately familiar with is yellow fever which impacted um thousands of people. Um from the city's founding up until. Ah, the early nineteen hundreds when it was pretty well eradicated. Although it still is a problem. Um, and um, you cannot see yellow fever on skeletal remains and so one of the big populations we worked on um actually all told didn't have that many. Kind of signs of poor health on their skeletal remains. So we were able to say hey maybe given that we know yellow fever was impacting this population at this time maybe yellow fever would be something that could explain kind of what we're looking at in the historical record and the bio archeological record. 09:49.66 Christine And we do have a lot of contextual information that goes along with that too like we can. We know that all these extra cemeteries were being opened because of the response to Yellow Fever There's too many people dying at too fast of a rate where are they going to go. Okay, they're going to go there now. 09:54.52 Alex Versions. 10:07.33 Christine And so we know a lot of these cemeteries were open specifically to handle that overflow. Um, and and so you could kind of it was a good place to start. But I think what Alex found when he did all that research and did all that work. Oh is that actually yeah, there is not. 10:19.00 Alex Um, and. 10:24.80 Christine There's not a lot on these bones to explain some other major systemic stress on a lot of these people which is kind of surprising and bioarch. You get a lot of pathology. 10:35.56 Alex Um, yeah, 1 this was a this was ah a poor hospital and it was so a cemetery associated with a poor hospital. You would think given the circumstances of these people's lives that they would um potentially. Show some signs of of poor health and of systemic issues. Um kind of an interesting aside though that that same research. Um, right? We were talking kind of comparing the historical record to the bio. Archeological record. Um, and in this case, the historical record helped us. Um. And another major component of this research she says this research that I did. It's this research that we did I want to be very clear on that. Um it was my dissertation and it would never have happened without her and Ryan so um, in the the publications are the 3 of us. So um, but um. 1 of the things that the historical records didn't shed any light on was the pervasive. Um post-mortem examination that these individuals went through so they were dissected and experimented upon after their death and nowhere in the hospital records themselves is that recorded. Um, it's talked about elsewhere and it's talked about that this was a teaching hospital and that those activities happened but in the actual hospital records those um those numbers aren't there. You know, ah in the same hospital records that we get all this yellow fever data from um. 12:03.39 Alex Doesn't have any light on this other major thing going on in this hospital So historical records are not perfect. Um and they should be viewed as such. 12:15.50 Christine Very much so and I will say we also have 1 big issue which is sampling-ish size issues and ah I will just throw it out there. There is this is not a comprehensive where probably we have a very. 12:20.86 Alex And fit best leave. 12:31.29 Christine Oh it would be the right word. This gave me me right now. But um, thank you biased is the word. Ah. 12:36.50 Alex Um, well, it's a very biased sample. 12:44.28 Alex Um, but it's also a it was a salvage most of it was salvage and and kind of ad hoc recovery. Um. 12:51.42 Christine And yeah, it's it's very you know? Ah, we know that there's at least ah 1 other cemetery that would have remains from the same context the same hospital the same population. Um, and we don't. Even know the boundaries of the cemetery really that we're working with materials from so it's a very biased sample. 13:17.83 Alex Again, Ah you know this was a ah poor hospital and unfortunately folks that were that died at poor hospitals were buried in cemeteries and those cemeteries don't get treated quite as well as. As other cemeteries. So You know these are under roads now under parking Lots under you. You know you don't necessarily know when you're walking around the city that this is a ah large burial ground for for patients from this hospital. So. 13:45.94 archpodnet And that's really interesting. That's good now I think that's super interesting because it's that there's a modern day connection to all of it and there's that it seems like your discipline is kind of always bridging or working between. 13:46.10 Christine Yeah, and we're let go ahead. 14:05.33 archpodnet Our modern day understanding of Health human skeletons and then in the past and kind of trying to find it's ah it sounds like a really cool mystery or an exciting mystery. Um, but you know that's just my my take so far. 14:23.17 Alex It's also frustrating because a lot of the things we're seeing in historic New Orleans um haven't necessarily improved. Um in today's age which is ah a sad reality of the world we live in. Um. 14:40.31 Christine There's certainly a lot of parallels that and and really wonderful. Um, by Archaeologists that are thinking in really inventive and fascinating ways. 14:42.49 Alex Um, now. 14:54.93 Christine To Try to talk about and connect some of these things too. So I think um, although it's it's you know in our field is maybe about 10 years old at this point but some of the concepts of structural violence seeing Inequality seeing and how how can we maybe start thinking about. Bio Archaeological material in a different way. Um, it's there's There's always these people who are you know going to be thinking about new ways to use some of the information that people have gathered and and that way bio Archeology I think is a really fascinating field for. People who are interested in making those kinds of connections. 15:40.28 archpodnet Ah, So what would you as we're kind of ending here. What would you recommend? Um, first for someone to do who's interested in Bioarch Either books to read or something that you would um, would want to. Tell them if they were are interested in bioareology and becoming a bioarchaeologist. 16:05.23 Christine Oh that's a it's an interesting question I think both Alex and I have had our um, our run ins with different experiences at different parts of the field I would always give the advice to students that you know. If. It's something you're interested in and it's something that you feel strongly about um, go for any any opportunities I presented. You know if you can work with a professor. You can spend some time in a lab um get an internship and you know, um. 16:40.32 Christine Even if it's not something you think you're necessarily going to always do as like my total station experience and I went back and worked in Greece a place that I love but I wasn't doing Biowork I was just doing you know tow station archeology experience and um, you know. 16:57.55 Christine Just think it's a good idea to try to gain other skills that you don't know when they're going to become applicable even in biowork. 17:08.54 Alex Absolutely and for me um, going back to kind of my experience a little bit so my undergrad didn't have a skeletal collection. It didn't have even a teaching skeleton um, and we didn't offer an osteology class right? and the basic the basic class so I actually when I studied abroad which I was fortunate enough to do I took osteology class and that hooked me right? there? Um, but you know and many universities are um, thankfully working to um, repatriate a bunch of their skeletal collections. Um, and so I think it's also going to be important moving forward to work with New Technologies Digital Technologies working with things that are kind of more um, ethically sourced. Um right? We we have a big. Um. Ah, big issue in the field that we are working with somebody and it's always somebody and and that person and that's tricky. Um and so working with plastic skeletons is not ideal because you you do miss some? Ah but with the new kind of 3 d printing technologies that are out there. Um, and 3 d scanning. We really can um it can make really amazing teaching collections available to people that might not have access to them in person. 18:34.15 archpodnet I awesome. Well thank you guys so much for coming on and and chatting chatting with me. It's been really interesting. Just just hearing all all about this. Um, and for folks who are interested in bioareology I hope this gets you excited and. And enjoy. But yeah, thank you guys for coming on. We just interviewed Dr Alex Garcia Putnam and Christine Halling who are both awesome bio archeologists this is the part of the show where I tell you to rate and review the podcast because please god please do it um. 19:11.87 archpodnet And with that we are out all right? So that's end of the show and then I'm going to tell you guys a shitty joke because that's that's how this podcast works. It's real bad. Yeah. 19:21.58 Alex Okay, okay, is it still recording. Are you recording the Shitty joke. Perfect now. Perfect. 19:24.10 Christine Okay. 19:31.12 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, it's a little easter egg at the end so ladies and jets you pass through the end of the episode and you are here for the for my joke kind of you're probably not happy about being here. But you're here nonetheless. So. Alex Christine I was incredibly surprised when the stationary store moved. 19:57.21 Christine Um, why. 19:59.18 Alex Hate you? Connor. 19:59.70 archpodnet Station. 20:08.56 archpodnet Ah, bad bad. We are out. 20:08.62 Alex Um, yeah. 20:13.20 Christine I Really thought there must be a punchline. Um.