00:00.00 archpodnet Hey Chris or Rachel whoever's editing this episode so I left myself on mute at the end of the segment 2 closer. So that's what this is going to be. And on that note, we're gonna go ahead and end segment 2 we'll be right back after these messages to follow up with Ashley on the work that she's currently doing out in Arizona and welcome back to life runs podcast episode one thirty two where you're here with Ashley Thompson um so Ashley. Can you tell our audience a little bit of well not a little bit a lot about the save history campaign. What is that. 00:37.69 _Ashleigh Thompson Yeah, so um, at Archeology Southwest before I joined on we entered into a cooperative agreement with the brew of Indian Affairs specifically with their western office. Um, and there was a bi archeologist. 00:55.19 _Ashleigh Thompson That was seeing this issue of looting of archeological sites as well as vandalism of archeological sites on tribal lands and as we know as indigenous people like. Tribes don't often have the resources that we require to protect our sites or our lands and so he wanted to um, do this this project to help tackle this issue of looting and vandalism and so um. We do a lot of stuff through our our cooperative agreement with the bi. Um, but 1 of our big projects is um, a campaign known as save history and the goal of the campaign is to end archeological resource crime and um. What we do is twofold I would say we have a website known assavehistory.org um and you can submit a tip on the website if you see looting or vandalism occurring um because one thing we try to emphasize on the site is like if you see that happening don't. Interfere with it because it could be potentially dangerous. So um, we encourage people to call the whatever um land managing agency law enforcement um of the lands that they're on to report it or to report through our our website where we have an online form. 02:26.20 _Ashleigh Thompson And a phone number you can call so part of um, save history is this detection aspect. But what I find um the most fun part is actually the educational part of save History. So um. 1 thing we work a lot with is the archaeological resources protection act also known as Arpa and it essentially um protects archaeological resources on federal and tribal lands From. From looting and also from Vandalism and so on our website and on the respective social medias we have we try to educate the public on what Arpa is and essentially that like looting and vandalism is not only unethical, but it's also illegal. And you can face like time and um fines if you if you are convicted of violating Arpa. Um, but I think that might work for some people and. If they know if they know that they could get in trouble but another part is we try to share stories from tribal members about the harms of looting and vandilism. So We have a blog where we um have people write about specifically indigenous people share about how. 03:51.31 _Ashleigh Thompson Um, harming archeological sites impacts their communities and then we also have like a Youtube channel where we've had videos of tribal members talking about the impacts of looting and vandalism. And yeah, we're just. 04:10.62 _Ashleigh Thompson Trying to garner support and like educate the public on on these crimes I think like out of no fault of the public's own like they don't grow up knowing much about indigenous people so they often think like. Oh stealing an artifact that's not harming anyone like it's a victimless crime um or like spray painting this petroglyph panel like who cares like it's it's ancient. History. Whatever But we're really trying to to counter that um by Sharing. Ah stories from Native communities and so um, yeah I encourage your listeners to check it Out. Um, and if they they need anything from us like we um, do. 05:01.67 _Ashleigh Thompson Fact sheets about archaeological resource Crime. We have little Postcards um that we could send Out. We have a children's activity guide. Um, that's supposed to you know teach children about respecting archaeological sites. And um, we're always looking also for collaborators who want to contribute to our blog. So if your listeners are indigenous themselves and they they have experience with looted or vandalized sites. Um, it definitely encouraged them to reach out to me. Um, and we could work together to to feature your story So that's. Save history. Um, and I'm glad that it exists because I don't think there's um, a lot of resources out there that talk specifically about why looting and Vandalism is wrong and um, how to respect indigenous cultural sites. So. 05:54.60 archpodnet And I used to be a like member of like a multiple Facebook you know like arrowhead groups and I didn't realize how basically it was just a bunch of folks who were looting. 06:01.18 _Ashleigh Thompson Are. 06:09.35 archpodnet And it just made my soul cry and anytime you'd ask them like so where are you they're like I'm not on federal or state property. This is completely privately owned I'm allowed to do this. It's like but you're not wrong, but it sucks that you're doing that and like people finding caches and it's just like. 06:15.31 _Ashleigh Thompson Um, yeah, oh. 06:26.81 archpodnet You know it's it's not what you find. It's what you find out and when people remove things from their cultural landscape like everything that's important not only to archaeologists but to indigenous people gets removed like it's just sucks that there's this mindset in in the Americas where. They think just because it's ancient. They can do it. They want with it and that that idea that it's a victimless crime is just not not true, but that's really interesting. You got into this to this work. So how did you get connected with um the safe history campaign. 07:00.41 _Ashleigh Thompson Yeah, um I Really like what you said about? It's not what you just said on. It's not what you find. It's what you find out is that way. Yeah, that's a really cool quote I want to use that for safe history. Um. 07:07.94 archpodnet You from. 07:13.98 archpodnet I I didn't I didn't coin that I know some other much famous archeologists said that and I will have to find you who did that. But yeah, do not credit that would be great. 07:22.57 _Ashleigh Thompson Yeah, okay, no, that was good. Um, yeah, but you're you're absolutely right? Like 1 thing we're seeing online is um, it's really discouraging to see but like people giving tips about like how to loot sites. Um, legally or just like telling people you know, tell anyone that you got this from private land because then it then arpa doesn't apply. Um, and unfortunately we're seeing um I think with the rise of social media like communities. Um, that are online that are. 08:00.12 _Ashleigh Thompson Are sharing tips or um, you know sharing encouraging I think like through the sharing of you know, finding arrowheads for example, um, if there's not this discussion about what's ethical and what's right Um. You're kind of perpetuating these harmful actions and in the wider. Um north american society. But yeah, um, I so essentially last last winter around this time I was considering taking a leave of absence from my ph d and I started. Looking at what I could do during that time I really wanted to work full time I wanted to work in our field. Obviously so luckily when I looked for jobs in Tucson there was this position open at archeology southwest and. It sounded like really perfect for my career interests. Um, it was director of the tribal collaboration initiative and so and the organization has like something like 25 full time employees and. Some of them are like support staff. Some of them are like ph d researchers some of people work on outreach and education some people work on national campaigns to protect um, cultural cultural landscapes and so um, the org was. 09:28.16 _Ashleigh Thompson Looking for um, a person to to help guide staff. Um in collaboration with tribes and so um I was like wow that sounds really perfect for me because I feel like I am I'm It's so cheesy and overdone but like the walking in 2 worlds thing like I feel like I really embody? Um, as part of like my own background being like native and white but also like having a high degree of education. Um, and knowing about archeology but also being an advocate for descendant communities and their rights over their cultural material and ancestral places and so um I was like wow this position sounds really unique and like I it sounds like it's right in my realm of interests. So I applied. And I got the job which was awesome and yeah, this was just like something that I stepped into the campaign safe history has been going on for a few years now um but but yeah I'm helping contribute to the blog I'm running our Instagram Account um and always looking for more stories and information to share. So I'm happy that this is part of my work because it helps me um with my overall goal of helping tribes protect cultural resources and so um and it's also like the opposite of Indiana Jones right like I'm not like. 10:54.78 _Ashleigh Thompson Looting or pillaging a site to to steal to put in a museum on the other hand we're trying to like protect these places and leave them intact and as an organization actually um, they've really embodied. Ah this type of archeology. They call preservation Archeology. Which is very in line I think with indigenous archeology and that um they try to do research that protects sites rather than um, destroys them as a traditional excavation usually always does um and so for example. Um,, there's so many collections out there that are existing. There's so much like data that people can use for their research that um isn't being utilized and so one of our research projects is Cyber Southwest which is an online database of archeological data. And um, since I've come onto my Job. We formed This group called a tribal working group to help guide the research team that works on Cyber Southwest um and inform them on sort of how can this be useful to tribes. But Also how can it be done in a good. Way in a respectful way that tribes can support and so yeah I I've been having a lot of fun at my job I do a lot. Um, but I love working with indigenous people and I like bridging the gap between. 12:27.39 _Ashleigh Thompson Um, archeology and descendant communities. 12:32.20 archpodnet That awesome. That's fantastic and the quote was by David Hurst Thomas so not someone I should forget to credit with anything. Um, well all right? That's that's fascinating and is there plans to eventually because I know. 12:49.90 archpodnet Like the southwest is especially predisposed to looting because there's a lot of really old and ancient sites that are readily available at the surface because there's not much um, soil movement out that Way. Um. Is. There is there a hope that safe history will be able to expand like Beyond the southwest and kind of be like more of a continental ah program to protect cultural heritage or inform populations you know in the great plains, Northeast etc right. 13:21.86 _Ashleigh Thompson yeah well yeah I would say that it started as um, a project for the southwest but we've expanded already our scope in terms of regions and so we were actually just this past week in California um training. Ah. Federal archaeologists as well as like um, tribal monitor um technician people on arpa and um, how to do a damage assessment which is required under that law. Um, but we've also worked in like we. Where earlier this year in Oklahoma with the catuo band of Cherokee um, helping train them and one of the the um we I I mentioned we have this cooperative agreement through the bia. Well they have special agents that like work on these crimes. And so in working with them. We've helped spread save history to the southeast and to the plains because I know some of their officers or agents go over there and they're often asking us for our safe history material so they can distribute them to the typos they're working with. And yeah I would say like a lot of our stories currently are based in the southwest when we share um stories from indigenous communities but we're also really open to yeah making this a national or even like continental program and educating the public. 14:49.48 archpodnet This awesome. That's fantastic I'm looking forward to see all the good work. You guys? do so before we end the show Ashley what are a couple sources. These could be books articles videos that you would recommend for anyone interested. Um, and land back initiatives and tribal co-management of federal and state lands. 15:08.75 _Ashleigh Thompson Yeah, so I so I was thinking about this question and I just decided to share some things that I've either listened to or read recently that tie in to my work. Um, or just tie into current events going on in indian country and right now. Um iqua is really big news in Indian Country um the indian child welfare act for people that don't know what iwa is but essentially um. That is being challenged right now in the supreme court and there's this really great podcast. Um, that discusses the importance of iqua and why why native children or I guess why indigenous communities and nations should have. 16:01.47 _Ashleigh Thompson Um, authority over where our children end up and so that podcast is called this land specifically season 2 talks about iqua and that that could be a great resource for people that want to learn more about current events in indian country. Um, another. Resource that I've been engaging with this last year is a book called fresh banana leaves healing indigenous landscapes through indigenous science by um, Dr. Jessica Hernandez and this one is really cool. Um, again, it's not like archaeology. Archeology focused but it's it's about indigenous science and I know that a lot of indigenous archeologists. Love to incorporate the traditional knowledge alongside the more standard archaeological knowledge and I liked this book because it talks about like. Different types of traditional ecological knowledge. But then it also comes from a perspective um that I'm learning more about and essentially um Jessica Hernandez her family is indigenous to Mexico and she really breaks down. Like sort of border issues and um educates her readers on um, the issues that she's faced as a displaced indigenous woman now living in the United States and also you know the issues that the wider indigenous. 17:36.90 _Ashleigh Thompson Um, relatives from down south face and so that book has really opened my eyes onto um, a broader perspective of what it does it mean to be indigenous and like how are our struggles in the United States for example the same or different from. Relatives to the south of the the us Mexico border so that's a a really great book. Um, and then finally I was listening to this podcast this fall called parks I think it's just known as parks. Um, the hosts are Mary Mathis and and Cody Nelson and um I mentioned earlier that I'm working on these national campaigns to protect protect cultural landscapes um, and so I'm working a lot with ah conservation organizations that work on. Managed public lands and I'm really happy that over the last five years there's been a lot of conversations about how national parks forest service Lands Brew Land Management lands how all of these are the homelands to 1 or more indigenous people. And um, I really liked this park podcast because it gives a indigenous perspective of some of our national parks and other federal lands and kind of talks about that history that I think um, the United States 19:07.81 _Ashleigh Thompson Doesn't like to acknowledge that like indigenous people were either killed to to make these national parks or and or removed from them and put onto reservations and so that's a really great podcast for people wanting to learn more about land back and. And Travel co-management. 19:29.91 archpodnet This is awesome and for our listeners Um, links to those media will be down below in the episode description and then now lastly where can our listeners find you on social media. 19:40.93 _Ashleigh Thompson Yeah I'm on Instagram at Ash an initialinae. It's a it's a mouthful. But yeah, you can find me on Instagram I do have a Tiktok though I don't really use it as much. Um, and I deleted my Twitter recently because of the whole. Twitter shenanigans going on. So so find me on Instagram and Tiktok. 20:02.78 archpodnet So yes, native Twitter has been a buzz recently that is for sure. Well excellent. Yeah so um, ash and a shinae we will have that also down in the episode description. A lot of vowels in there. Um, so you'll be able to find that down below. Everyone. 20:15.21 _Ashleigh Thompson There you go. 20:19.91 archpodnet And then you know we we can't let you go without asking are you know the 1 thing we've kept with this podcast going. Ah if given the chance Ashley would you still choose to life to live a life in ruins. Excellent love when we just interviewed Ashley Thompson you can find. 20:31.00 _Ashleigh Thompson Absolutely yes. 20:38.87 archpodnet Ah, her on Instagram and Tiktok at Ash Anisinae um and then for everyone you know, please be sure to rate and review the podcast and provide us with any feedback on whichever podcasting platform you're using to listen to our show and if you are listening to this episode on the all shows feed please please please consider actually don't consider just do it find our own show and download our episode straight from that because that allows us to get metrics so we can give our how how well we're doing to potential sponsors and backers. So we can continue to provide more content. Um, thank you everyone and we will see you guys next time.