00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome to depp episode 98 of a life and ruins podcast reinvestigate the careers of those living life in ruins I'm your host Carlton Goburn I am joined by my co-host Conor Johnn and David Howe in this special episode. We have Dr Shane Miller returning returning to the show number four and we. We did invite. Ah Jesse but we don't know where he is this evening. 00:20.14 David I guess one could say that we're out of tune there you go also I didn't know Shane that this is your fourth time I didn't really think about that we got to have a 5 timers club like Tom Hanks on Snl and we'll initiate you to the little mati. 00:24.56 archpodnet Thank you David. 00:33.56 Shane Um, so I'm feeling special right now feeling real special. Yeah. 00:34.91 archpodnet You'll be number 1 the the fans want tune and Miller like that's that's what we get all the time more of you too and so for tonight but right now just you which we're totally fine with um, we're going to be talking about. Um this recent paper that's been making the rounds in archeology land. Um, by tankersly at all the Hopewell Air Burstrs event Sixteen Ninety Nine to fifteen sixty seven years ago which would put it around 2 52 to three eighty three C E a D whichever time stamp you want to use and up. So we've been chatting about this for like two weeks about about this paper and kind of the ripples. It has had not necessarily within the arc professional archeological community but it gained a lot of traction in Popsi um, and so that's what. We're here to talk about now. Definitely I don't study hope well Connor doesn't study hope well David doesn't study hope well and and Dr Miller you don't study hope. Well yeah, so we're not really coming at this episode from like we are experts in the hopewell culture. But. 4 of us combined can talk about the methods and interpretations tankers li it all are making towards this air burst event which they surmise is the cause of the end of the hopewell culture and that. We all have things to say about that. 02:13.46 archpodnet Just yep I don't yes so I think it's prudent that we should at least give like a brief background to what the hope well is and according to Britannica. 02:13.77 connor Yep. 02:14.19 Shane Yeah, just we know there's a lot to unpack in this bad boy. 02:33.36 archpodnet Hopo culture which is a notable ancient indian culture of east central of North America flourished from two hundred Bce to 500 ce in what is now Southern Ohio with related groups in Michigan Wisconsin Indiana Illinois Iowa Kansas Pennsylvania New York 02:38.10 David And. 02:50.72 archpodnet The name is derived from the Hopewell Farm in Ross County Ohio where the first site centering on a group of burial mounds with extensive enclosure of Bank Earth was explored the term mound builders was once used to apply applied to this culture but now is considered a misnomer because later investigations have revealed that the practice of constructing earth and mounds was widespread. And serve greatly differing purposes depending on the group and region that you find these mountains in. Um so. 03:15.90 connor And as we as Dr Miller told us is that this is this falls within the woodland period in the southeast which is after the archaic informative is out. That's what it is okay so that's like ah a period where you see. 03:28.10 Shane After the archaic. Yeah. 03:34.20 connor The earlier precursor is supposed to be the ah Adina Adema Adina 03:37.28 David Indian. 03:38.70 Shane Adena edema is a bad band from the early 2000 yeah Yeah probably when you listen to their music. Um, and then yeah, it's like. 03:42.50 connor Is that something that happens in your brain too. That's really bad as well. 03:52.89 Shane From that like class of early two thousand s rock where everybody was like get away, go away stay away. You know that? Yeah bickoback contemporary. Um, so Adna is like early Woodland hope Wells Middle Woodland Um, so that's kind of the. 03:57.87 David Look at this photo girl. Yeah. 04:12.86 Shane Lay of the land. So if you work in Eastern North America it goes paleoinian archaic woodland Mississippiian um, and so this is this takes place smack dab in the middle of the woodland period so about the same time rome was blowing up this hopewell culture was blowing up. 04:28.36 archpodnet So well according to tankersli that might be literally not necessarily figuratively. 04:31.24 Shane Yeah, literally I Guess Yeah yeah. 04:33.50 David A lot less olive oil on this side. 04:38.20 archpodnet Ah, so fair. Yeah, because like when we were talking in the green room in plains world. We don't even have like we go from archaic to woodland to plains village like we don't have a mississippian our Woodland is like contemporaneous with mississippian for the most part. So that kind of threw me off so I don't even know where to begin boys with this because or. 04:59.83 connor Well can we read I read the just like the out or the yeah the abstract Jesus H Christ it's big so yeah that's like yeah like guess it's just that blat and I run. 05:03.97 David With abstract. 05:06.12 archpodnet Yeah, go for it. Yeah, read the abstract of Tankkers Lee at all. 05:12.93 David It's It's so it's a long abstract. 05:17.68 Shane You you. 05:18.24 archpodnet You Yeah, it's the bold part. You were looking at the intro man like the abstract that that. 05:19.58 connor So hey. Okay, okay as I to say they should be fired immediately for that. Um, so Mediateorites iron and Silicon richch microspher Fearals positive iron and potassium. No one's like. 05:38.72 archpodnet That's that's iridium. 05:39.33 connor What is platinum iridium okay redium and platinum right? Okay there's a but meteorites that have a bunch of other um, ah elements in them and burn charcoal rich hope oil habitation surfaces. Demonstrate that a cosmic air burst event occurred over the Haiio River Valley during the late hole scene a comet shaped earthwork was construct near the earth air burst epicenter Twenty 9 radiocarbon ages established at the event occurred between 2 5 ive two hundred and fifty two and 383 ce a time when. 69 near earth comments were documented while hopewell people survived the catastrophic event and it likely contributed to their cultural decline the hopewell airburst event expands our understanding of the frequency and impact of cataclysmic cosmic events. On complex human societies. Holy crap that was awful I'm sorry listeners good lord. 06:37.84 David Either better than me which is mostly why I was laughing because I can't I can't reach. Um, yeah, so this is definitely a like a handcuff thing. Um and you know it's got the buzzword of cataclysm. 06:44.44 Shane A. 06:56.61 David And Cosmic in it. So therefore like a lot of people in the media or the general public kind of like perks their ears up to this kind of stuff and it's very complicated goes way over my head. A lot of this stuff and like you got to do all kinds of like different you know like Micro. Metal analysis and all that kind of stuff and I don't know it's complex which I guess is why we're talking about it. 07:21.59 Shane So when this and immediately came out. Um Jesse tune started I wish I could go back and find the group text where he was just like highlighting things that he thought were problematic and so it's like come on man why we needed the tunester. But um, there's a lot and I'm not sure how much we want to get into the other comment papers that have popped up here the last four or five years I mean it's basically the same group like or at least the same group or within one. Like degree of separation for all these folks like I think tankers lee has been on several of these others like the younger dryas ah comet paper I'm not sure if he was on the sodom imgomorra paper but at 1 point I actually actually have a lot of the these papers. And the authors who are on the paper I almost have it formatted and ready to go to do like a social network analysis to actually show like all these comment papers have all connecting authors and so the first thing I think of whenever I look at this and the first note I made is like why is it always a comet It's like the simplest. Like why is that the explanation for it. So what do you guys? Want to do you want get in the details first you guys want to do the overarching stuff. 08:47.16 connor Should should we talk about at least like the the evidence for the comets and then we'll work work into like what that means and. 08:47.40 David Um. 08:58.79 David Sure? Um I guess I can start it with like um to answer Shane's question like we all are taught as children that an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs and that makes sense. We weren't there earth gets covered and you know ash sun goes away. Things die mammals survive makes sense and it's just such like a catastrophic event that like when something collapses in human society. It's like oh well of course something crashed in and like destroyed it and I think it's just like it's a catchall. Um I guess what would it be in Dave Anderson's 09:27.61 Shane Are. 09:36.51 David Bullshit detection post talk ergo propter hawk there you go like it happened after therefore which or something with that perhaps before therefore I don't know I'll speak Alain. 09:39.22 Shane And you go. 09:44.75 archpodnet Where has that been hiding 98 episodes and this is the first we'rehering of that. 09:53.16 David Me what. 09:53.29 Shane And if you take a if you take in an archeology class an upper division archeology class with Dave Anderson he starts out every um, every semester with doing his like. 09:56.73 archpodnet I'm giving you props I'm giving you props like that was that was dope. 10:12.82 Shane Art of bology detection or whatever that's derived from Carl Sagan and it's like he goes through that whole entire like here's here's the litany of ways in which people make bad faith arguments. Um, and so it's it's a pretty great lecture to kind of sit through it's one of my favorite Dave Anderson lectures looking back on it now. Um. 10:13.16 David Yeah, yeah. 10:29.54 David Yeah, every every class that was like the first first day syllabus then that. 10:32.25 Shane That I rely On. But. So Do you I could walk through what I see whenever I I read through this and just kind of do a narrative would that be helpful right? So Um, as I'm like like stream of thought rolling through this. 10:43.89 archpodnet So yeah, man. 10:44.50 David Well yeah, let's set like the scene for the audience who might not know like what we're talking about. 10:54.95 Shane Um, the first thing that they are they set up is they they say look at here's all these places around the world where there's ah comments have been documented or impact events or air bursts have been documented. Um, so part of the backstory is is. Some of these are within that like group of researchers that tankersleys either publish with or has one degree of separation from um, there's also a paragraph in here that starts with comets are dirty fractured snowballs and which makes me want to call David a dirty fractured snowball. 11:29.31 David I have been called that before I haven't I. 11:30.58 Shane Um, yeah, and so then they go into the background of the hope world which you guys covered so it's kind of like this culture that pops up in Ohio. They're a mound building um culture. They've been heart of the mound builder myth. Um. A lot of these been documented since the eighteen hundreds. Um, they're well known for having stuff that comes from all over Eastern North america including obsidian that comes all the way from yellowstone shows up at some of these mounds in Ohio. So really far flung trade networks um, and then they get into all these. Proxies for um, airburst and 1 of the things they settle in on and talk about are these things called palisites and I think they're like fragments of comments or something and historically the source has been thought. To be this place in Kansas um, and that it was this stuff was acquired through trade and instead they argue that because the chemical composition of the stuff they're finding Ohio in Ohio is different from the stuff in Kansas they argue that it can't be. Ah, byproduct of this stuff. They're bringing in from Kansas it has to be from another source and because they're finding it at all these sites they argue that a more likely source would be a be an airburst and so they have a whole bunch of maps. They have a whole bunch of figures of. Places where they've sampled um and then they have a graph where they try to show these spikes by depth and I'm not sure what that x-axis is on these spikes but it's kind of like the other the other comet papers where. Argue where it's nothing nothing nothing nothing and all of a sudden a big spike that's consistent with um, a cosmic air burstrs raining stuff from the skies. Um, and then we. 13:34.82 connor I Just say that they those graphs look like comet. There's like a little little point at the end and then there's like this raise Rays coming off of it. It's like oh my God It's a comment. 13:39.28 Shane Yeah, right right? yeah. 13:40.98 David Then and then then and then then. 13:46.80 archpodnet And like and real quick like Airbus we're not talking about like some extraterrestrial objects like hitting the earth service. They blow up prior to impact with the ground and that's where we get this term airburst. Um. 13:46.42 Shane 1 13:57.30 Shane Um, right? and then at the end of it. They say this kind of there. They use some some dating methods here I'll let um I'll let Carlton dissect that I'm gonna pause. Can I pause for just one second my dogs are going ape shit can you hear him all right. 14:18.28 David Dogs are welcome. But yeah, you do what it? Yeah, do. 14:18.76 archpodnet The yeah, the dogs are fine I mean so 1 thing like if you look at like figure 21 where they're doing bazing adjustments to the radiocarbon ages that time period that they're looking at generally um, you know 1700 to sixteen hundred years ago there's like a radiocarbon plateau in which it's hard to date things. It's not nearly as bad as the shit I have to work with at twelve hundred or twelve hundred a d but like it's hard. You get a bimodal distribution of the radiocarbon date. So it can't tell if your date is coming from like six hundred years ago or five hundred years ago and you just kind of sometimes baziiness or like people dating just kind of have to pick one that feels best um because we don't know how to overcome that challenge to the radiocarbon curve at the moment. Um, but at figure 21 um, you know the way they use. It is like Haley's comet shows up at three seventy four. c and there's a couple of those bimodal distributions that fall within that 3 74 so they're saying well based if this is happening because of an air burstrst we can pick which one of those distributions that's associated with because of Haley's comet did that make any sense. 15:27.91 Shane Um, yeah, it did and so you sounded intelligent I was I was right? Um, so like the other thing is is like. 15:31.63 archpodnet Did I do I sound intelligent. Oh man, Dude I'm learning. 15:32.87 David You always do man. 15:40.55 Shane They have these 69 near Earth commentst that they talk about like they argued that in this span there were 69 near Earth comments that came around and if I'm not mistaken that I read that somewhere that that's from like some Chinese observations or some like. Historic Chinese data set or something that they got that number from Am I making that up. 16:00.59 archpodnet So Hashtag free winning of the pooh. No, it shouldn't hear somewhere. 16:05.20 Shane Which I thought that was I have to admit I thought that was clever. Um. 16:10.38 connor It It was like one of those like old. It's like Chinese scientists that wrote something down and they're recording it. Okay, okay. 16:15.32 Shane Um, yeah I think that's right. 16:17.83 David Oh back in the day like because current Chinese I'm not gonna say I don't want to die. 16:24.22 connor Yeah, so you got Plato you know, writing down comments over here chinese playto right now come okay. 16:30.74 Shane Yeah, and then they get into some oral history stuff at the end where they argue that a bunch of these different. Um I guess greater great lakes. Um groups all have. References the things that can be interpreted as air bursts or comments in their oral history and I was gonna I was going to ask Carlton about how. 16:54.28 archpodnet I see that pissed me off and I'll tell you why that pissed me off is that that why is that at the end. It's like a footnote. It's like here's all of our data and then also it's like 2 or 3 sentences. They don't even name the tribes. They're just like yeah do these descendant tribes in the great lakes talk about near burst period. It's like why even add it at that point if you're not going to tease that out. Or cite. Anybody who cares. 17:16.81 Shane I was thinking about like the the description of what you told me your your master's research was on and trying to use radiocarbon dating um like bayesium modeling and oral histories to try to like. You know, connect the dots of this stuff. Better. So It's just not kind of like a floating story out there that you're connecting it to other things that happen with the archeological record to make it ah like a more robust story. Um, it kind of felt like tacked on at the end. It's like arm wavy like hey this could kind of be but you're kind of like could be a lot of things. Ah. 17:48.52 archpodnet Yeah, it's not contextualized like there's no when I did that thesis research I had to make like a relative chronology in order to make the Bayesian make sense. But when you just throw like oh well, they talk about an airburst. It's like okay it it could completely out of its context of. When that story's supposed to take place and all these other things. So like yeah, it kind of felt I mean this isn't new like archaeologists kind of throwing in some sort of indigenous interpretation that they don't really discuss. Um, So for me, kind of reading it in this paper by Tankers Lee like I don't. That doesn't carry any weight for me. It's not done properly like if they if it was at a historic document like they did with the Chinese they fleshed that out. So Why aren't you giving the oral traditions that same amount of um of scientific rigor. But instead it's you're just. 18:25.26 Shane Um, okay. 18:42.21 archpodnet Blindly pinning the tail on the donkey and saying oh look it fits. 18:44.67 connor Yet It very much seems like a for or ah like ah, an afterthought and is placed as such I mean you if you do the research beforehand and and and go from there I think it it holds more weight or you like can at least talk about it and contextualize it. 18:44.79 Shane Yeah, yeah. 19:02.30 connor In a way that makes sense. Um I think on that note, we're going to end this this segment of episode 98 with Dr Shane men milleral and we're talking about the hopeful airburst event. So enjoy these ads.