00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome to episode 99 of a life and ruins podcast reinvestige the careers of those living a life in ruins I am re hosts Carlton go and I am joined by my co-host Connor Johnn for this week's episode. We are joined by Dr A Manda Butler who is an assistant professor in the department of anthropology and earth science at minist state minute. Mean redo that for this week's episode. We are joined by Dr Amanda Butler who is an assistant professor in the department of anthropology and Earth Science at Minnesota State University morehead Dr. Butler thank you so much for being on the podcast. How are you doing this morning. 00:35.81 Amanda Butler I'm doing Okay, that's a midwestern lie I'm just hanging on by a thread but I say I'm okay. 00:42.67 archpodnet And excellent and so I first met you at this past plans conference in Boulder and I really loved your presentations and your research and what you did for your dissertation and have been very excited to have you on the podcast day to talk more about it. Um, so thank you so much for being willing to share that. And just kind of kicking us off like what what were your first experiences in anthropology growing up like were you dinosaur kid history buff nature nerd where did that primary catalyst of inspiration come from. 01:13.83 Amanda Butler Yeah, it's kind of a I mean I'm I'm always dork I am a dork but ah like historically I I always knew that I was going to be an archeologist. Um I was one of those rare people that when they asked you what you were going to be I was going to do archeology. Or be the president of the United States so I always tell my students there's still time for that one but archeology is what I wanted to do. Um, in fact I think my third grade teacher reached out via Facebook to my mom like a couple years ago or this summer when I when I graduated and said you did it. You always said you were gonna do it and you did it so that was really nice to to see again. Know that it wasn't a lie but my mom facilitated all of my history nerdy. We went to every museum we traveled a lot around the country every summer so we I camped a lot so I was a big outdoor person. You remember those like ah science natured guidebooks. But birds and plants and all those I had all yeah I had all of those she took me my great aunt was ah um, a school teacher and very very strong woman. She always took me to any archeology site that I ever wanted to go to whenever we visited her in Arizona. She drove me around to. 02:08.47 archpodnet Oh yeah. 02:27.71 Amanda Butler Literally all the places and I did love dinosaurs too. Just not is I mean that was a ah phase but I was always people in history and relationships I Always loved it. 02:37.43 connor So very cool. What what part of the country did you grow up in. 02:40.65 Amanda Butler Um, I started out in Wyoming until I was about in fourth grade and then we moved back to where my mom grew up is North Dakota so I actually grew up for the rest of the time here and in North Dakota um always staying in the frozen north I guess I can't escape it. 03:00.13 connor What the nice thing about those is both those places have excellent museums and archeology and kind of wide open spaces to explore and things like that. 03:10.46 Amanda Butler Yeah, there was a canyon behind my um, my house in Wyoming. So I lived in the south west corner of Wyoming so the closest place we used to go get groceries was Salt Lake and we always drove to Salt Lake we went camping all the time and whenever we drove north to North Dakota four summers ah we would go camping in Yellowstone etc. But um, yeah, there was this big canyon that I used to go walking. It was a a two mile walk there and back. Um and that we'd always find artifacts and leave them where they were but it was always fascinating to. To see what was in the canyon that was kind of my first experience with actual artifacts and weird that I never took the I never collected things I was never a collector I don't know if you guys ever picked up rocks some people pick up rocks other people pick up I mean I know other archaeologists that collect things throughout their lives too or like the artifacts but I'm never not. Um, but never been that person. But. 04:09.50 archpodnet I No I can't say I think I maybe like I pick up Courtts every now and then but like nothing crazy like nothing nothing that intense. But. 04:11.85 connor Did. 04:20.35 connor No yeah I got no I don't have a klepto bone in my body. You know it's like I Just don't have any the ability to think about where I want this in the future and that I need this or need to remove this from this certain place. You know it just doesn't doesn't click for me like that which makes me. 04:24.63 Amanda Butler Right. 04:33.98 Amanda Butler Yeah, yeah. 04:38.95 connor Makes us great archeologists because we don't have the temptation when we find these stuff in the field that we can just leave it and and or preserve it. 04:44.49 Amanda Butler Thousand percent and so it's such a nice thing. It's so weird to find archeologists that have had that past where they were collectors in the past or this is such a weird thing. But yeah, so Wyoming part of the time hiking. 05:00.76 archpodnet So gotcha so you lived in Wyoming up until like fourth grade. Then you're out in South Dakota so why did you decide to pursue an in north corta my bad. 05:08.00 Amanda Butler Oh no no no North Dakota don't don. No, it's like any words up here and she'd see that yeah North Dakota 05:10.33 connor O Whoo is that like a cause I like a curse word does that makes them up. 05:17.25 archpodnet Um, yeah I guess I want to be wanted to be associated with christineome either. So that that makes sense. But why ah Msu Morehead how did you get connected there. Yeah. 05:35.80 Amanda Butler That's a really great question. Um, so I never wavered from my desire to be an archaeologist but there was only 1 moment in my mother's support of me where she you know right? when we had to start making decisions where she was like. Are you gonna make any money is this gonna be a career ah and she's um, she runs her own. Well she's runs part of the North Dakota Itv with long distance education networks and so she's really she trained herself in Cisco networking and. So she taught that in high school so I took networking classes as well and there was the option to also go to school for networking instead and that was like my one option where I was like okay is she right should I not do this and then we went to Msu M because they were the closest. Ah, regional archeology program and it was actually a really amazing deep program here. Um, and so I went and visited and I met 1 of my mentors and he was so funny and hilarious and I never looked back I thought he was he was the best. The absolute best. And then once I was here. Um it was I was only archeology I was I was a terrible student awful student except in archeology I only got a's in archaeology and then I bombed other classes that I just wasn't interested in I didn't want to take anything other than archeology. And so I always like to tell my students like they you can go and do whatever you want. They will let you do it if you're interested enough. There's always a way to come back. Grades aren't everything you can always make it happen kind of thing and and recognize my privilege in saying that. But um. Yeah I was such a terrible student until my junior year and then my junior year I was like okay I'm going to do this for real and I decided to double major in geology and I met my husband also at the same time. And then we we kind of never looked back from that I was just I loved being here. The program is amazing. The combo combination of archeology and geology is such a unique opportunity that just makes sense. So. 07:57.52 archpodnet And yeah I think geoareologists are just straight up dirt wizards like the way that they can just read the dirt and I'm just like man that's impressive to have that ability just to kind of see a sidewall and just kind of know its history just by the soil composition. Just. 08:06.42 connor Yet. 08:14.66 Amanda Butler Um, it does sound like wizardry designate. 08:15.39 archpodnet Bonkers to me. 08:16.53 connor Yeah, it's like when Guardian leviosa. Okay I know what this is going on you know stuff like that and it's also for anyone out there listening You should definitely take a Geo art class as part of anything you do and and an archeology anthropology. It's probably the most important class you'll you'll ever take. 08:19.81 archpodnet Yeah. 08:36.15 connor I wanted to ask though is so obviously like anthropology and geology are related in some sense but they're also vastly different and 1 is very hard science and one is what they call a software science. So how did how did studying both of those go. 08:55.12 Amanda Butler Ah, so here we have this amazing program and I ah 2 other mentors so there were 3 archeologists on staff here. 1 was my mentor who was a ah paleo indian guy um up for especially upper north midwest the other two were. 08:55.88 connor And school. 09:14.63 Amanda Butler Mississippian is and so that was actually I was you know my archeology experience I was like everybody else who never really got any type of indigenous histories really in school I did in Wyoming actually I had a lot of planes history classes in Wyoming. But when as I moved to North Dakota big cries ah like nothing and ah so when I went to school I was still all set on what I call now like so the the sexy siren archeology because it's the one that everyone seems to be drawn to early on like the classics and. Egyptology and things like that and I was really big into egyptology and I thought that was what I was going to do and then here at msum I met Dr George Holwley and Renita Dalin Dr. renita dalin who had done this. They had done this huge survey geophysics survey of cohokeia they were cahokeness and I took a mississippiian class from Dr Ah Holly and Dr Dalyn kind of took me under her wing and she really was my advisor and mentor through this whole process. She's such a badass ah geo archaeologist like you're talking about wizardry in science like that is her with ah Geophys. She's a wizard a true wizard. She'd always tell us stories of her geophysics um graduate program where she was like using dynamite to to do seismic ah stuff. It was she's crazy I love her. Um, but that was when I I was going to do mississipness right? and so she was this geo archeologist that glued the department together because we had the geology and then the anthropology and then the archaeologists were the glue but her particularly was ah. Very specific glue that that made it make sense right? So she was teaching geo archeology she was teaching remote sensing she was teaching all these classes now after my grad career I would say that's you know I think the science hard the hard Science Soft Science debate is. Kind of a moot point to me these days. Um, ah because there's different ways of understanding geology. There's different ways of knowing the earth too and so having 1 department that combines earth and people and the history of all of those things like just makes sense. So ah. That's where I am now too. So and I'm trying I'm trying to be the glue that keeps us together which is difficult but without my mentors. But yeah I guess to and I don't know if I I rambled but um, it fit really well for me, they just work I don't know. 11:56.76 archpodnet No, that was great. You didn't ramble. 12:03.70 archpodnet So excellent now did you have to like double up on course courses like where were there overlap in that double major. So. 12:11.82 Amanda Butler Ah I was one of the first to that year there was 2 of us that graduated with a geowork so that was the first time they'd created geoareology emphasis within geosciences and so there was. Quite a bit of overlap on the archaeology side and I'd already taken a ton of geology classes because I was just they were here and I was interested in them so I didn't have to take a lot of extra classes so that worked out. There are a few extra classes in the geoscience that I had to take. That I did not have to take in art in archeology. For example I had to take sta a stats class and a physics class. Um, so there is some other yeah like natural sciences stuff that I had to had to take yeah. 12:55.79 archpodnet So at my undergraduate institution intro to geology was one of like the known hardest sciences to take because you had this lecture. You had lecture twice a week but then you had a lab with a different professor. And you had to at least go to C in the lab to pass the entire course and that lab was hard and I just talked with the dude one day and he had his minor in archeology and he had done archaeological projects and when I told him what I was doing he like helped me out a lot and I just went to office hours and chatted with him and got that a helped me out a lot and. Very excited to pass that class. 13:30.18 connor I I can tell you that it was the exact opposite for me, it was the rocks for jocks course is what what it was called. It was like 200 people was a 200 people lecture that everyone passed because they wanted and there was a lot of football players that were sitting in the back not with headphones, not paying attention. But. 13:30.46 Amanda Butler Um, but. 13:36.45 Amanda Butler Looks so funny. 13:49.75 connor They would show up and and do it. So yeah. 13:50.70 Amanda Butler It is a similar stereotype my husband so I said I met my husband here and he also graduated so he's older than me by 3 years and he graduated first with an archeology degree from here and then didn't like it. He was actually working for the white earth nation. Appear so the ojibwe and they were doing archeology in that summer and he just didn't want to do archeology. He was like this is not me I want to come back and do geology so he swapped and he came back and the year I started is the year he started his second degree so he can. Went and did the geology degree and I did both but I went the archeology route and when he went to grad school he he taught first ta he taught what he called rocks for jocks and it was. He would always joke about it as always the football players always football. You know. 14:43.67 connor You yeah there there was like a line of them in the back of the class you could just see you. It's like just yeah, its very very interesting. Sorry Carlton. 14:43.76 archpodnet And so. 14:52.48 archpodnet No, you're good. Um, so after you get your degree you worked for you did crm for a while working at it's the Illinois Survey What is the whole that one? yep. 14:58.77 Amanda Butler I did. 15:04.39 Amanda Butler See Yeah the Illinois State Archeology survey. Yeah, it is yeah he runs the show now over there along with a lot of my good friends. 15:11.10 archpodnet That's where Dr Potat works right. 15:17.91 archpodnet And gotcha so you did you did that for almost what like 8 seven years before you started a master's program and then you went to um urbana champagne did I so yeah. 15:24.27 Amanda Butler I. Yeah, Shampoo Banana. Oh. 15:33.54 archpodnet So what led you to want and go for a for a graduate degree starting it with with the M a so. 15:36.93 Amanda Butler I well so I when I finished here I boat and both my husband and I had intended to go to grad school but you know you guys know what this is like when when you love archeology and you love history for me I didn't know what I wanted. Ah, but since I was also a geoareologist I didn't know where I what my region of interest and particular I like my focus was gonna be I wanted to do all of it and with Geo Archeology you could right? like you can you don't necessarily have to pick a spot so I was really torn and I kind of really just didn't know I hadn't done enough. Yeah, to really focus so I had to sent out a few applications but my heart really wasn't in it and my husband and I actually both got into akron and we were they wanted to just they were just starting a geowork program and we had met these 2 geologists ah in field school a geology field school. That previous summer and so they were recruiting us and they'd gotten us this package and we're like okay well maybe we'll maybe we'll just do this that sounds great. We'll both be in the program. He'll be in the geology one I'll be geoarrk and before right before we were going to accept. We found out that our future advisors um had a restraining order against. Each other and we thought that probably wasn't going to be the most effective ah learning experience but you know having us be married and having advisors that were toxic already to begin with so we ended up saying no he got into University Of Illinois and I followed him there because I knew I could work at you at the survey which was foundational to me figuring out what I wanted to do. It was amazing. So I started out as a lab grunt. It's like lab and field. Um I was such a jerk. Ah, in the field because I questioned everything I was such a jerk I always wanted I was like why are we doing things this way. Why why do we do it this way. Um, yeah I just I think I just really wanted to be a boss and I didn't really know it then? Um. At one point I stopped to being in the field and I got to I was lucky enough so you if you don't know anything about the illinois state archaeology survey one. It's amazing. It's the one of the biggest if not the biggest um crm firm in the nation and being pulled under this. The state umbrella survey is really cool I mean it comes with its own headaches I'm sure. Ah Dr Packak could tell you all about it and Dr Emerson before him could tell you all about the hardships of trying to keep that place going, but it's amazing because you have all of these field stations. 18:27.27 Amanda Butler So you have the heart which is on and champagne urbana the heart of it and that's kind of the research arm. So then we have all these field stations throughout Illinois and I was lucky enough to be able to work full time in the lithics office so people we would they would send their. You know sites and the materials that everyone else would process them elsewhere and then I would get to look at them and write them up so that was when I really got to utilize my geology background quite a bit and kind of find my niche It was fun. 19:00.10 archpodnet Excellent and with that we'll return with ah segment 2 of episode 99 of life ruins podcast stay tuned.