00:00.00 archpodnet Live. 00:01.29 connor Welcome back to episode one thirty three of a life in ruins podcast we're here with Josh Wolfford and I yeah we just got we just gotta dive straight into it. You have an interesting story about something you found in a privy. Ah could you. 00:14.25 Josh Wolford Oh. 00:17.64 connor Ah, could you could you tell us about like what your field school was and what this interesting artifact was. 00:18.80 Josh Wolford Um, yeah, so in my field school for western michigan university we did 2 different sites. The first site was on this island in and in the lake in Southeast Michigan called Apple Island where we weren't really looking for like native american stuff we were doing more of like ah we're actually working under like a ah grant. Um for to try to get the island put under the ah Nasa historic registry and we ended up being succeeding and we got it registered from the work we did there but we are studying like. Victorian Era vacationing which like vacation was like a new thing at this time period? Um, but then so that we were there for like four weeks and then for the next four weeks we went up to the upper peninsulo michigan ah camped on lake superior and in unison for all that time. And every day we drove out to the Hiawahan National Forest to this place called colwood and colwood was a um, a courtwood ah lumber town that was ah like highly predominantly or rather predominantly. Ah. 01:29.35 Josh Wolford Populated by finns finnish people and there was like one non fin and he was like the headmaster and he lived in the nice house and all the other fin the finns lived in kind of like the not nice houses because there were the workers. Um, the town's no longer there if you go there now. It's literally just pine plantation and you can see. Like holes in the ground from privies and from looters so that knowing that that site was heavily looted. Um, we ended up just kind of studying looting behavior as well. Um part partially also with like finnish you know culture in the upper peninsula of lumper camp. Um. So we'd always joke around that we would think that you know these looters or like tweakers or something like that going on to the woods to go dig up bottles because they dig up the bottles and then they sell them. Um, so I was five feet down a privy that had you know modeled soil. There was no strata at all. Indicated looting behavior and you know kept finding finding things like a boop that was one hundred years old and like an old sweater and it was amazing. It was wool who was you know, kind of tells me how good wool is it didn't even degrade after 100 years in you know a pile of you know what? a privy is ah. But then but beneath all that stuff at the very bottom I found it just looked like ah you know a pipe stem sticking out of a soil but it was glass. It wasn't white ball you know Clay which we found tons of in. Um. 03:04.15 Josh Wolford On Apple Island because that was late eighteen hundreds which is you know, very common to find those sorts of pipes. This was clear glass and it looked manufactured not blown and so I was like I value. That's a crack pipe and then I you know dig out around it got it all all perfect and ended up on one of the graduate students. Ah, posters for looting behavior and was the crack point. 03:31.11 Josh Wolford And I remember actually talking about that when someone was asking me what was what was one of your favorite things you found at Colewood I mean there was axe blades and old saw blades all over the place. That's really cool found old finish old like medicine bottles with finish and I've written on it. 03:31.29 archpodnet And that. 03:48.55 Josh Wolford Old medicine bottles that were literally only on the work for 1 year like for children's like cough syrup that had both morphine and alcohol and I can't remember what else and so obviously that didn't stay on the market for very long. Um, but I said you know the crack play. Just because of the indicative of all like the behavior of the people that you know looted that place. 04:10.56 archpodnet And that's that's wild. 04:12.82 connor That's it that's fascinating. Ah the anthropology of looting is an interesting one fueled by much crack. Maybe some meth in there as well. 04:16.69 Josh Wolford Anthropology. 04:21.67 Josh Wolford Oh yeah, oh probably it could keep him going. 04:29.32 archpodnet Well not the archeologists but the luds one not understand caffeine and and and usually alcohol is what fuels an archeologist unfortunate. 04:31.50 Josh Wolford And yeah, yeah, yeah, caffeine keeps us going. Oh and it's not just archeologists I'll tell you that you know pretty much every field school does that I know. 04:34.85 connor Um, I mean. 04:46.12 Josh Wolford I've heard the geology field school and they party a lot. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, they're cool. They don't party as much. 04:47.83 archpodnet Oh I I. 04:48.60 connor Yeah effort I've heard the same thing I think geologists might be on par with the archeologists which but not the biologists I've heard the biologists are like yeah. 05:00.84 Josh Wolford No I was thinking about that the other day they're and they don't They're a little bit more studious. Yeah I mean I do too but I ah. 05:05.88 connor They care about birds and plants and stupid shit like that just joke. Ah, we love you. 05:07.93 archpodnet Stupid. It's just like insult a whole discipline. Yeah, all. 05:15.53 Josh Wolford Yeah, we I minor a minor in biology. So I obviously love it. But yeah, they don't like the party like the geologists or the archeologists do. 05:22.76 archpodnet Fair, well we wanted to start off this segment with that because Josh was telling us this story like in the in the green room in between segments and like you needed to tell our audience the about the crack pipe be found. We. That's our going to kick this off but hunt does something more serious. Really wanted to talk about. Um Josh's thesis and how it's not only interdisciplinary but also um is in my experience rarity to see someone incorporate who's not from ah an indigenous background indigenous perspectives into the work to give a more holistic understanding of ah. The the research questions and research outcomes and I really really like your introduction like it. It reads very much like James Deetz and how he would like any article or book he would do he'd like set a narrative and if it's okay, can I read your first paragraph because it's it's fantastic. 06:15.12 Josh Wolford Um, that's absolutely thank you. 06:17.99 archpodnet Okay, out tucked away in the far reaches of the northern edge of the earth lies a vast wilderness of forests and plains tundra and rock lakes and rivers much of which has remained seemingly unchanged since the last vestiges of the retreat of ice age glaciers. This land has not always appeared this way. Was locked under the forceful grip of an ancient ice sheet that spread across North America an ice sheet that scoured plucked and pruned the land and left it never looking the same but this cold wilderness was not devoid of life language and culture just as its modern counterport isn't devoid of these things today. The ancestors of the indigenous peoples who live in the boreal forests of this northern land today were witness to the changing of this land they lived through the cataclysmic changes to which it wrought and they lived to tell the story. And tell their story they did for thousands of years the succeeding generations of northern peoples have hunted gathered fished dance and loved in the land. Their ancestors did the same on they witnessed events that geologists and archeologists long to know and who spend their livelihoods trying to know about. Since the meeting of their two worlds the scientists and the natives have had a clash of their worldviews yet. There are numerous facets of reality that they could learn from each other and corroborrate each other's narrative out really well done. Yeah. 07:37.24 Josh Wolford Thank you, Thank you I Ah I try to I try to not make it like boring like science can be really boring but also like it's so fascinating like. 07:37.87 connor And also. 07:50.55 Josh Wolford I just wanted to guess try to make it a little bit more one of my my professor shows that it was evocative and that's what I try to go for I guess is that I read like Farley Moit is pi one of my favorite authors. He's kind of a famous canadian author and he ah his most famous book is like never Kraer Wolf um but my book that I really like for me was called people of the deer and that's a lot of inspiration came from from that book for sure. Highly recommend. 08:19.29 archpodnet So yeah, no, that was great I'd I'd say it was evocative conor. 08:24.44 connor Yeah, no I was and I was gonna say it's It's great and also thank you for letting us read it because ah if you read my opening paragraph I might have ptsd and you know, ah. 08:26.28 Josh Wolford Oh absolutely well I was worried about sending mine I was like oh well there's pieces I need to fix you know I want to add stuff to it. Take things away because I reread it now for the hundredth time and I'm like oh geez. I can do so much better than this in this part of the paper but you know I'm always going to be picking myself apart I'm really like selfcritical it is it is. 08:50.49 connor Yeah I can't I can't look I can't I can't look at my thesis anymore. But um, it just it's just yeah, yeah, so ah because you're taking this approach. 08:53.91 archpodnet The best thesis is a dumb thesis. You. 09:06.98 connor So what? what did you? What was the goal of this thesis like you're you're obviously studying the intersection of a bunch of different things like what what was the kind of goal going into your writing of this right. 09:16.12 Josh Wolford Um. 09:22.39 Josh Wolford I guess it was ah me just you know, kind of developing this idea over five years you know driving my carriage tours that's kind of where all this started and how I just thought it was amazing. How? um both the geology and the. You know the native american old tradition. The ancientnavi oral tradition. Um basically corroborated each other and how white because I would maybe sometimes not as much as I would you know you would think but I would do with like somebody on my carriage tour on a public carriage to would be like. And they're like 6000 years old or something and that happened not as often, but ah, this kind of just like helps corroborate like no there was people here that witnessed the water and the ice of the of the pleistocene and you know. Formation of the subsequent. Great lakes that came afterwards. But then you know also the narrative that is behind modern geologic theory corroborates with the initial abe people's tell tell us that they saw that their ancestors saw which is just so fascinating to me and you know the book. There is one book that actually. You know a sent to you guys as one of my recommended was it's called talking rocks and it's about, um, it's authored by a minnesota state geologist and an ojibwe elder from I think he taught at university minnesota Duluth for some time. 10:54.10 Josh Wolford Um, but they basically like you know it's a conversation is what the book is kind of about It's not very academic. It'd be great for um, like undergraduate you know intro students for anthro or maybe like learning about like native americans but it it shows like the interdisciplinary work of where. Ah, how geology and or like hard science rather and indigenous philosophy. Are you know compatible because I mean like studying ecology the whole science of ecology the field of ecology started from indigenous people. All over the world because like at first ecology wasn't considered a science because there' you know people would say there is no way all this stuff is interconnected. You know all these the a little like bug or a little like shrimp freshwater shrimp that lives in the river that can't affect. You know the eagles. Or something like that. But then you realize that you know it all interconnected. You know that's kind of why I wanted to take you know geology and biology to help me understand better. Um, you know the people of that time. Period. 12:11.53 Josh Wolford Sorry. 12:12.52 archpodnet No, you're good I didn't know if the Conor you there like you look frozen. Okay, Connor's there his eyes but okay, sweet yeah Chris get rid of all that awkward silence like no, you're great I'm just no no, no no you're you're fine this this happens where we're just kind of like. 12:15.44 connor No I'm I'm here. Yeah. 12:18.18 Josh Wolford He's just kind of yeah sorry I was like am I supposed to keep talking. Okay, um, yeah, yeah. 12:22.78 connor No, at. 12:29.18 archpodnet Who's on first who gets to ask the next question so I'll just I'll just answer this question. So 1 thing that I did notice and like this is not a um citation list that I'm necessarily familiar with but how difficult was it. 12:44.32 Josh Wolford Lizard. 12:46.63 archpodnet To come across indigenous authors on the subject rather than like anthropology or Ethnographers who are just kind of repeating stories that they heard because like you you have a lot of indigenous narratives and indigenous oral history present throughout your thesis and how they. 12:57.46 Josh Wolford This is. 13:05.40 archpodnet Really corroborated with the geology and the archeology really nicely as you would expect people who are descendants of those who lived to do through these things. Um, but like how like what was that like trying to find indigenous voices or or promote the indigenous. Um. 13:11.87 Josh Wolford Ah. 13:22.57 archpodnet Speakers themselves. 13:24.46 Josh Wolford Well, some some of my sources I got um because what kind of got me and ah 1 thing that got me into anthropology is Michael John who passed away. You know when I was kind of young and he was like he kind of he was just really interested in like geology and in. And studying archeology for his own you know fancy and he just really liked it and he really he started finding stone mounds in Southeastern Michigan that he you know some of them were from farmers but he associated some others with ah like caribou hunting structures and so he kind of dove in and. Bought all sorts of books you know about an initialnavi culture and and geology and all sorts of things like that he passed away and my cousin ended up giving me a lot of his books and many of them were like from Basil Johnston the you know ojibwe heritage the manitus which is the spiritual world of the ojibwe. Um, so I kind of had this nice. I guess launching pad for me was sources was from like this 2 boxes of books that I got from my uncle and that kind of like I read through all of those and then I just started. You know that. Kind of showed me the right questions to ask or maybe is the certain things just to look up on Amazon I would just always Google like different books on Amazon to read and then I would just find myself digging through old books in the in the library so it kind of was like this is this research is like I guess like 10 years in the making 14:53.56 Josh Wolford Kind of started doing this stuff like when I was a senior in high school and so it's taken a long time to kind of find all the different sources. Um, kind of comes from like also my dad he likes to study theology. Um, but he always talks about ah using a hermeneutic approach. And so I always really liked that. So I always try to read from the perspective of you know annihiinae first and then not from what some anthropologists said, but what did they and Shinabi Say you know. 15:23.18 connor So Did you ever find any discrepancies or like differences in how the anthropologists um, interpreted or wrote down these kind of origins stories was there was there ever any like big differences. Between kind of the primary literature literature. The primary source versus kind of this the later anthropologist kind of. 15:49.90 Josh Wolford Ah, sort of I know that like in the book sacred scrolls of the southern ojibwe by sellwin dudeney I think I was 1976 that he wrote that that's where he's investigating. Um, so they would ah I don't think they still do so I said they would. 16:08.51 Josh Wolford Um, inscribe different stories on birch parkk um, and they would hide them away in caves or or what have you the midewood wind scrolls is what they were and Madeievo wins the grand medicine society in nihinavi culture and so one of the primary objectives of midday would win is to. Um, keep creation stories in the history of the culture. But so when dubni was trying to accomplish with that research was you know, follow their migration because there's migration scrolls they the initialnae say they? um they originated on the coast. On the atlantic ocean and then they migrated to the where they live now to the land of wild rice at ah Southern Lake Superior basically and all the way up into like you all the salto peoples are up in like Lake winnipeg which are kind of like what could be considered oji cree which is like a mixture of ojibwe and cree. Um, cultures. But he kind of didn't believe that midday will win was pre-contact. There was some anthropologists for some time there might be still some today that believe that mid a would win was not pre-contact. It was a result of you know. Um, maybe social social movements within an nihavi culture themselves to resist you know european europeanization or anglic um like christianization of their culture and it was them trying to like kind of resist that but there's lots of there's evidence that ah you know of birchtra scrolls found. 17:44.32 Josh Wolford In caves that are you know predate um contact period and there's rock art that um could be associated with meewewin traditions that are you know there's one in Michigan. It's ah in the upper peninsula it's they call the Spiderman. It's not really a Spiderman but that's just what it's called. Um. That's like 1500 years old so that right there kind of getss pre-contact so that's like really the only discrepancy I guess I'm finding that some anthropologists don't necessarily agree. Oh well there's mid a would win pre-contact or post contacttact or. 18:17.29 archpodnet Oh. 18:20.18 Josh Wolford I Mean um, there's definitely influence that you can see um because no culture is isolated from itself. Everyone influences everything you know like we um, ojibwe influenced pawnee I'm sure in some way and and vice versa. 18:27.85 archpodnet Right. 18:35.55 archpodnet How is like what's the reception been of your thesis to ash you know to descendant communities If if it's been shared with them yet I guess. 18:49.48 Josh Wolford I haven't shared the thesis with them per se but I've definitely I've given tours to plenty. Um, actually I was like a blessing um I picked up it was a private tour I had where I picked up in the early morning on one of our bigger private carriages. And it was a class from Bay Mill's um, reservation which is on like an hour from the island and um it was their folklore class and I had like 3 elders on there. Their first language was ojibwe I had students. They're all they're all ojibwe. And they told me a lot of stories and I shared with them. What my thesis was and they go that's fascinating. They loved it another time that I had I remember I gave a tour and I told I used to tell the the flood story I have to tell that on my tour and. When we stopped at the arch arch rock is where people would get off and you know go take a picture of of a big rock. Um, 2 people came up to me and they said did you know you have a descendant of chief xing walkons in your carriage and chief she walkkon swizla was a famous ojibwe ah chief who fought in the war of 1812 and he was like one of the ones that stole the fort from the americans and I've read lots about him and I'm just oh my gosh no way and they were like super thankful they go thank you for telling our stories as though they told me and like that is that means so much to me. 20:16.42 archpodnet Yeah man now that's that's really cool and I think you know something that I've in terms of larger conversations that we've had with like in the society for american archaeology and how to do collaborative community based archeology and indigenous archeology like doing a very. A truly collaborative thesis is like really hard to do because of the short window but in terms of you know, reading your thesis and how you've done it I think it's John respectfully that's what it how it comes across to me in terms of like. 20:39.27 Josh Wolford Um, yeah, yeah. 20:48.67 Josh Wolford Um, I try to. 20:52.00 archpodnet Highlighting like this is what the indigenous folks say and and I'm never really, you know one of the things that archaeologists struggle with in terms of you know the old guard of not believing that oral traditions are are legit and how the archeological record in and of itself is based on interpretation. Bias. But like kind of your approach with like these are geologic events that like are not disputed and this is hard science and these are these stories that that talk about these known geologic events and pre-contact is like oh that's. 21:10.63 Josh Wolford Um, this is hard science. Yeah. 21:20.32 Josh Wolford Um. 21:25.27 archpodnet Geology is where we should be going as a to site like yeah oral traditions are legit because we can you know that's what I picked out it is like oh wait a moment this is this is a way. Yeah. 21:31.94 Josh Wolford Yeah, yeah, I mean there's examples all over the world too other than just mine I think nature published something um which is like the journal to get into. Um I think is Australia. Where these these aboriginal stories talk about this star that fell and exploded on the earth and like yeah yeah, sure and then like um astronomers are like actually we believe ah like a comet or something hit here like forty eight thousand years ago 21:58.30 archpodnet Right. 22:00.60 Josh Wolford Like yeah people were there too so they probably are We should might listen to a little bit more. 22:03.36 archpodnet Yeah I think although the journal nature now has in terms of whoever's doing their archeology vetting Nature's not as prestigious and archeology anymore I'm sure other disciplines. It's fine, but some. 22:12.96 Josh Wolford Um, yeah, yeah, if you're in biology and you get published in nature. You're doing good stuff. 22:21.53 archpodnet Absolutely. 22:21.57 connor Yeah, there were their review process is questionable at at best and archeology wise. Yeah. 22:26.16 Josh Wolford Better. 22:30.22 archpodnet It's click. It's it's coming across as Click baby like oh we'll accept this this would get clicks. 22:31.70 Josh Wolford Yeah, well you guys did a an episode all about what those mounds down in Louisiana was that a nature article. 22:41.99 connor Ah, that came out somewhere weird. But I think it was yeah well and and and there was a society for the essay's archeological record. They just came out with like a rebuttal like the state archeologists came out and was like. 22:45.79 Josh Wolford Um, because like physicists did it didn't I It was like. 22:59.54 connor Yeah, not fam like this is it's. 23:00.68 archpodnet I Yeah, the state archaeologist was not happy with these random people showing up at dating bounds on campus like yeah so we'll wait to see. But yeah, no, this was this was good I'd be like intrigued to see what? um like the cultural offices of some of these descendant communities. 23:01.38 Josh Wolford Um, wow. 23:18.70 Josh Wolford Yeah, um I applied. Um, so I'm not working in like anthropology at all right now. But um I what when I got out of grad school I applied to be like a um, tribal historic preservation officer for a couple different tribes got interviewed but didn't unfortunately didn't get hired but. 23:18.20 archpodnet Um. 23:35.81 Josh Wolford They liked the research he thought it was cool. 23:36.54 archpodnet So sweet Conor do anything to and. 23:41.97 connor So now I mean do you want to just cut of here. Do you want to keep going for another. 23:48.35 archpodnet Then we cut it like um I think we can cut it here because we can go. Yeah Chris don't add any of this. But yeah, we can tie this up and it turns out. Yeah. 23:51.58 Josh Wolford Yeah, because the next section is just kind of like a continuation of this isn't it. Yeah. 23:59.49 archpodnet So all right? We're goingnna go ahead and end this a little bit longer than usual segment right here. We'll be right back with episode one thirty three here with Josh Wolfford here after these sweet sweet messages from our amazing producers.