It's a Cult!...ure History Episode

0:00At least in the regular season I can understand what the NHL does this right they don't do it in the playoffs Which is why I'm it's they do in the Olympics that they that they do it in the Olympics and like Do it throughout the round Robin and even if you want to do it through the qualifying round great But for the gold medal and for the bronze medal game don't make it three on three hockey like it's just I don't know yeah Yeah, I don't know what this has to do with culture history, but This is how every Canadian and welcome back to the 1980 Olympic gold medal game between the Soviet Union The New Brunswick Archaeology Podcast featuring the hosts gave Rhinoc and Ken Holyoke Can Holyoke

1:08To do To do The New Brunswick Archaeology Podcast Well Come back to New Brunswick Archaeology Podcast. I'm Gabe Rhinoc and Frederik and your brother and I'm joined as I am just about every fortnight But I can Holyoke and left bridge Alberta. How are you Ken? I'm doing well Gabe and the listener wouldn't know this because of the time gap between this episode and the episode that we recorded last week But we have been talking and we have actually recorded an episode within a single fortnight and not only did we record a single episode within the last fortnight We were sitting at the same table when we recorded that episode It's true that the table I am sitting at right now Indeed. Yeah, Andy and yep, and so you made it back only 24 hours late I understand getting getting back home this time not even 24 hours late actually It was only about 16 hours later than my original scheduled departure

2:10But the airport parking charges you for 24 hours of that 16 hours Will you able to bill that to your university or share it for somebody? Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's like it's the the parking at the airport So actually funny enough. So it like I always drove I always drive up to Calgary right to catch the flights We always do now you didn't for the first year you're doing left bridge and that's well And so and so now there is no option The last remaining flight is leaving left bridge as of June So by the time I go in the field this year I will no longer have the option of flying out of left bridge for anything So wait, is there going to not going to be an airport anymore? There is I mean, there's going to be a building that's an airport But that airport will not be serviced by commercial flights No kidding Yeah, a city of a hundred thousand will have no air traffic in or out Oh wow, I hate to brace you Ken, but you can get from Presky, all main to Newark I believe me I like this is what I was talking about call gate to my nose like so when we bring people in for job interviews

3:14Like They're going to have to have a two-hour drive from the airport That the weather yeah, it's two hours incredible. Yeah, yeah, so you could bring them to Montana, right? Well, I mean we could but then they might never make it so Then as well as loving this time of year and right now I think a lot of the jobs that we're advertising are trying to bring people who are in Montana to Canada Oh, right, right Well, I'm glad you made it back, but that's That doesn't sound great for quality of life and life in Lethbridge I imagine there is probably going to be some people I mean like the city should be concerned because I this is just a huge issue It was a big issue when they changed the time of the flight to like Once daily leaving at 5 p.m. Which means that you can get to Calgary and nowhere else You could be in Calgary for dinner, but you certainly can't be in Toronto by the next morning Exactly And so Ken I also saw a statistic Somewhere that Lethbridge is doing quite bad in crime stats

4:16Yeah, so like But that is just no you don't seem to be in a difficult Neighborhood No, and I mean like I'm sure that there's a lot of petty crime downtown I mean, there's like it's a huge drug problem here. There's a like fairly large unhomed population And I you know, I think those things coalesce Into a lot of like you know porch pirates and and bike thefts and that sort of thing Like porch parts is the name of your team in the queue too, right? Yeah, yeah exactly I don't know I like I have a hard time believing that there's a lot of violent crime here I do wonder if it's that there's not a whole lot going on and the city police are pretty present downtown And so there's a lot of crime stats Because They're busy kind of cleaning up a lot of like repeated crimes and administering a lot of neglect the lock zone. So yeah Yeah, that that makes sense Um Well, so Ken we've covered quite a range of topics already and we have yeah the the listener may or may not have been treated to a discussion about a three on three

5:22Gold medal final And but Ken so so the listener whether or not they've been treated to the discussion of the Olympic hockey Which was very worried about you as I just indicated Yeah, that you were you were not in a um a funk, you know, or or clinical depression who knows you are a loose fan You might just enjoy it. No, it's uh you can't you can't be any more than any more depressed than being a leaves fans But um, but we're still called the New Brunswick archaeology podcast We are still called the New Brunswick archaeology podcast and and given that the scope that seems strange doesn't it? Oh, I mean increasingly, I think our scope extends well beyond the borders of New Brunswick, but uh In a way that I think invites the listener to contextualize New Brunswick archaeology in a greater world Oh, I like that and actually it's gonna fit with this prized read when we're when we're thinking about You know contacts and also um Expans I think yeah, yeah, um and and so and so Ken would you also say that we've entered into sort of a contract with the listener?

6:27Uh, yeah, I think I mean, I think that any podcast uh sort of Maintains a bit of a social contract with their listener Uh, I think often we are in violation of that contract where we promise a fortnightly episode and sometimes That just doesn't occur, but uh, I think that for the most part we respect the listener um, and certainly uh as we entertain Ideas for what a new name could be for this podcast. We always ensure that that that contract is Is written in blood Well fun. It's funny. You mentioned written in blood can because um, this prized read actually is gonna have something to do with Faustian bargains and so Ken Oh, are you familiar with Brian de paula's 1974 cinematic masterpiece phantom of the paradise I'm not okay. Well, the movie stars Paul Williams who also wrote the score and now you may know Paul Williams is a musical genius behind Much of the mugger show as you author of such pop hits is just an old fashion love song coming down in two pot homony

7:30And we've only just begun as well as a dozen or so of his own albums His persistent fame is attested to by him being the subject of the 2011 documentary Paul Williams still alive And now fan of the paradise is loosely based on girders Faust and fan of the opera I don't want to spoil this for you, but Louis plays a villainous record producer named swan who swipes a cantata based on Faust Um, it's a little on the nose here in the references um, which to open his new performing arts venue Which you guessed is called the paradise Winslow the man from whom the cantata was taken Proceeds to have a series of mishaps the result of swan's misdeeds And so he ends up terrorizing the paradise while looking a bit like well the fan of the opera But let me tell you how the film's narrator describes it can quote swan He has no other name His past is a mystery, but his work is already a legend He wrote and produced his first gold record at 14 In the years since then he has won so many others that he once tried to posit them in Fort Knox

8:31He brought the blues to Britain. He brought Liverpool to America He brought folk and rock together His band the juicy fruit single handedly gave birth in the nostalgia wave of the 1970s Now he's looking for the new sound of the spheres to narrate his own zanadu His own Disneyland the paradise the ultimate rock palace The film is the story of that search of that sound of that man who made it the girl who sang it and the monster who stole it Now Ken do you think this is a commercially successful musical comedy horror film I I I don't know gave you you've lost me a bit here I No, I'm curious to see where this is going Or should I say it was not exactly commercially successful and in fact there were two places it did well Paris and Winnipeg Manitoba That's right Ken in Winnipeg it ran from boxing day 1974 until early May at the garrick theater and continue to be shown at drive-ins around the city At the same time the soundtrack sold 20,000 copies in Winnipeg which led it to be certified gold in Canada

9:37It continues to be played for his dedicated local audience from time to time and occasionally fans have hosted Phantom Polusa in Winnipeg Which is a conference dedicated to the film And Ken okay, the listener who reads this podcast won't have to quote sell their soul for a rock and roll and quote absolutely not We'll be sending them to Winnipeg for a special screening of Phantom of the paradise at the legendary Burton coming theater Now let me walk you through Ken how we're going to treat the lucky listener and their esteemed guests To quote Paul Williams you'll be thinking I never had it so good Ready for this Ken? All right first they're going to depart Fredrick's international airport with convenient access to Winnipeg Richardson International Airport With just a few convenient layovers in Montreal Toronto and Thunder Bay We'll be taking you up at the airport at 1974 baby blue Cadillac Coop Deville I'll be dressed like a tall Paul Williams and Ken I we just intercept your Paul Williams is five foot two Which means I can be a Paul tall Paul Williams and Ken is gonna be dressed like Phantom of the Paradise

10:38But Ken will probably be late because I won't be able to fly into it I'll need to drive and then and then fly to Winnipeg If they were going to get you over to the Fairmont Hotel Winnipeg to freshen up and enjoy a basket of specially selected Winnipeg treats Winnipeg ride bread Parogues chicken fingers with honeydill sauce and now Ken it's no secret that the weather in Winnipeg is cold Really cold in a fur jacket is not only a stylish accessory for Phantom of the Paradise It might be necessary to survive to survive the 650 Uh Meter that's 0.84 nautical miles walk from the Fairmont to the Burton Cumming Stater Fortunately, we're going to be in the center of the Canadian fur trade. That's right. Ken Don't warp furs ink is gonna get the listener and their guests just the right mink Wolverine or silver fox coat for this special showing And then Ken we're gonna go to the paradise at the legendary Burton Cumming Stater After drinks and snacks in the lounge where the pre show entertainment We've ride by a live cover band of the juicy fruits the boy band from Phantom of the Paradise And then prepared to be transfixed by the music of Paul Williams the brilliant cinematography of Brian Dupalma and an approximate pot of foused

11:46That's right Ken work covering is we're offering this exclusive experience the lucky listener comes up for the new name for this That's right this podcast and Ken where would the lucky listener send the winning entry They would send that to New Brunswick archaeology at gmail.com. That's New Brunswick archaeology all one word archaeology spelled A-R-C-H-A-E-O-L-O-G-Y New Brunswick archaeology at gmail.com and you can also find us on Instagram at New underscore Brunswick underscore archaeology on YouTube Although I think YouTube you just have to comment on it But you can also send us a direct message on linkedin And that's just I don't know how to find us in linkedin you just type in new Brunswick archaeology podcast on linkedin That's right. I don't know what our direct link is but Yeah, what a what a fantastic prize read that that is I do have a question though. Yeah, so Our chicken fingers like a Winnipeg thing. No, I think it's the uh the was it honey dill sauce the honey dill Okay, and and and what is there? What is there found fairmont? Do they have a lounge like a like a fairmont cocktail in there?

12:52You know can I knew you'd ask that and they do I check that because we've been trying to go to have a drink I think this is like a good idea is to go to Fairmont In fact We're gonna be in Canmore There's not a problem in Canmore, is there? There is there's not one in Canmore There's not one in Canmore, but there's an amazing one in Banff and a really nice one in Lake Louise as well Which are only okay like 20 minutes up the road So up the road is a bit of a challenge with the fairmont cocktail lodges in our experience I'm feeling like an uber right But there's a there's a parks can at a bus we could also potentially take oh fantastic. I've never driven a bus But I'm sure how hard can it be Oh, no, you just have to it's a free bus. I think that you just hop on. Oh terrific. It's it's to keep traffic down at Banff Oh, good. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so you can be drunk and then also car sit game. I Can't wait again. Can not wait. It's gonna be just like you after after a rough samosa Yeah, exactly It's okay though. If you if you reach into that mailbag. What's in that mailbag? What is in the mailbag? Okay, um

13:55You know what? There's nothing in the mailbag except for a lot of LinkedIn marketing emails Um our page has been mentioned though. Okay. Yeah um Seven times Yeah, so we were we're getting tagged on there um We do have Hold on it actually looks like we may have a message on LinkedIn. Okay Let's listen. I can't see this but Ken is navigating over to LinkedIn Yeah, I guess a listener can see this now Uh, I well they I don't think they can see my screen. Okay They can see me trying to navigate over to LinkedIn. Yeah, wouldn't you be surprised? Oh No, it is a message from American Express asking us to unlock more freedom by uh Okay Getting a business American Express. Well, I don't think I could unlock more freedom. I uh yeah

14:56I'm trying to sell a condo in New Hampshire. There's no way to unlock more freedom than that experience Yeah, uh, hold on actually no that was not my that uh, nope. Okay. No, we do not have Any more messages in there. So I think that we're okay. We're fresh out here. Um, I am gonna check one thing though Mm-hmm. And what is that we we sometimes showed out when we have new um New YouTube subscribers. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We get a lot of emails from LinkedIn now We might need to work on that. Yeah Do you like LinkedIn Ken? Uh No, but I mean, I think that we uh, I think I mean, I don't like social media in general. Yeah But uh, I think that it is a necessity for Marketing our podcast for what we're doing here There is this one thing on Google Cloud telling us that there's some automatic Enablement of new open telemetry ingestion api the um, I don't want to ingest anything from

16:01Whatever that cloud is Ken Long story short the mailbag is is a little bit light today um, but uh uh Listener we're always looking for your suggestions and actually we want to thank the black rose nation for reaching out to us uh, actually I'm guessing they listened to the episode And then followed up on our instruction to send us an email and so Gabe has written you guys back. I owe you an email back But I think that we can probably figure something out and uh, perhaps we will be coming down to the Kingston Peninsula sometime In 2026 maybe it can make something work in June or July or or uh, Gabe you might be able to get down there earlier but Had a great time when we went I did a talk down in belay's cove a couple years ago That was great and so we would just be a fairy ride Across the belayl bay into the Kingston peninsula um, and uh, maybe we can crash the night at the pleasant few in Oh, that'd be our agreement. Yeah. Yeah, it might be it might have to make a make a day of it So if we if we wait until July our expensive council be refreshed and leak in

17:05We can do yes. There you go. Yeah, although Sharon's got probably the best Room right going so fantastic. Yeah, uh, but that's it and so so Gabe we are flashing back into the past Um, we're not doing that verb Ken. We we had the explicit one on valentine's day and we're avoiding that now So we're going back in the past not just in actual time because we recorded this interview actually like in November I think with Matt. I think it was quite a while ago. Yes. It was quite a some time ago But we're also going back in the past and trying to bring back the past We are And bring back a way of thinking about the past and that is culture history and so Gabe uh, Gabe Matt is here to talk to us about culture history Mm-hmm Like like the old American folk song goes. Sometimes I feel like a motherless V Gordon child I think that's where we leave it listener. We'll talk to you after the interview

18:05Today we're joined by dr. Matt Betts. Uh, Matt was educated at the University of Toronto and is currently the curator of eastern archaeology at the Canadian Museum of history He's authored numerous articles and a handful of books including subsistence and culture history in the western Uh, Canadian Arctic place making in the British Harbor and the archaeology Atlantic Northeast In addition to his archaeology writing he's also an expert on the Sir John Franklin expedition And he created the model and plans of HMS terror that were exhibited in a number of major museums He also authored HMS terror the design fitting avoids of the polar discovery ship And you may have seen some of his recent work as an historical consultant about ships in the most recent Frankenstein film directed by Guillermo del Toro Today, however, he's joining us not to talk about monsters, but about something equally exciting That's right folks culture history and archaeological theory And uh, we're following up here on a talk macgave at the CIA meeting a couple of years ago And an almost completed paper that he and Arthur Anderson and I are working on welcome to the show, Matt Thanks for having me back. This is number three, I think I think so and so old jacket now that yeah, yeah exactly So now that we have video content Cody's gonna have to like do some kind of like

19:07Animation thing to change your your shirt into a golden jacket with a nice little nb arc pod lapel on it It's like SNL everybody's buying for the the top number of appearances on your show. It's true I mean it eventually will let you host in the summer Yeah, exactly, but so at some that obviously we should have brought you on here to talk about Frankenstein But instead we brought you on the day to explain why you've embraced a long dead archaeological paradigm one that was complicit in Nazism Is antithetical to evolution is wholly dependent on outmoded diffusionary explanations of culture change So why don't we start there? Well That frames are particularly well I think those arguments we maybe Would have accepted 60 years ago, but maybe not anymore Yeah, it's We'll talk about the monster of Archaeological theory maybe okay, and maybe how it applies to the

20:07Maritime provinces or maritime peninsula in the land of birth use in general I guess I would like to start by asking a question of you guys already taking over the host rolls, isn't it? You'll notice you'll notice math that co-host is under our name Since your book you know, I'm an adjunct prof. I don't teach many courses maybe occasional zoo archaeology course here and there but Do you both have theory classes in your institutions? Yes, yeah, we do yep. Yeah, ours is a you it's a mandatory part of our graduate program But it's it's not mandatory for our undergrad, but almost every undergrad takes archaeological theory Kevin McGue teaches it at our at our institution And and let me guess like I was as a graduate student every graduate student and undergrad Says one of the with that's really into archaeology says one of their

21:10biggest interests is theory right totally. Yeah Yeah, yeah, it's hot after and they all they all enjoy it. It's uh, you know, it's it's their favorite course Well, I don't know if it's a favorite course, but but almost every graduate know List their interests archaeological method and theory Yeah, and everybody considers considers itself to be a paradigmist or or uh or a epistemologist Um, and I think maybe uh, you might be looking at things with the u of t color glasses there Those glasses are different than other glasses Um, and I guess I'm not different Matt better. That's what I'll start with something really provocative I think I think Theory glasses have been detrimental overall to the discipline on a grand scale And um, uh, I guess I wanted to ask you guys if if that's something you think might be provocative Yeah, well, so I had a strange experience right because the first uh when I took archaeological theory at at you main the

22:16I convinced Brian Robinson to let me take his grad course in theory and he was like The most before Matt Betts. He was the most vocal culture historian around right he was still Intuesy asking about culture history called himself a regional culture historian um, and so you know when we read the Trigger chapter outlining um all the the stuff I jokingly introduced you with Um, Brian was very fired up about that and so it's kind of interesting it was an interesting perspective to start with Yeah, yeah, it is and he he's one of the greats and and really understood What it was and what shortcomings were about what its strengths the strengths were and I think he also understood that Um in a place like the maritime peninsula Culture history is important because the basic framework of the basic space-time Uh, who what when where Uh, um hasn't been figured out yet um, and we have significant gaps and so I guess for our listeners like

23:18I would like to know how you guys define culture history I know what how how I define it, but for me it's Uh, it's not a pair a theoretical paradigm so much as a as a methodological and um epistemological framework for placing and understanding um Artifacts in space and time and how that relates to human behavior um and and in particular it's it's defining in broad in a broad sense What people did in the past um and and how they might have been connected chronologically and spatially Do you guys think that's a good definition? Well, not only have radio carbon dating that's totally unneeded Matt Yeah, I mean, and this is why like I you know I teach in arthAmerican archaeology course and if you're not doing Culture history if you're not teaching them sort of like the basic Here is how time is ordered in each of these locations You're kind of lost for any other course that you're trying to drill down on this stuff in more detail, right?

24:23Like you know, we do have a way however imperfect and problematic we break up time or whatever labels that we give it Taxonomic labels that like if we don't Have some way to think about how time is ordered and how Things change through time It's not really You know, we're gonna have a hard time kind of explaining to anybody what's going on Yes, you know, like I you know, I'm not I'm not pulling out the I find you know The Ford's balding thing is kind of entertaining to break down But it's not like I'm starting with that with my students I'm talking with culture history is like here's how we break up time in the past And here's how we understand major changes in the past And here's how they relate to other things that are going on in the world Yes, and so I would define culture history as as An advanced another way to define as an advanced form of systematics for ordering the archaeological record Conceptually And often that leads to defining and archaeological culture quote unquote

25:28And and that can be a very Problematic term. It's been one of the things that Uh culture history detractors like to say is outmoded and outdated And homogenizing as they say Although I I don't necessarily see that homogenizing if it's understood as a heuristic sort of concept But my definition of culture would probably similarly to more like what Culture historians of the 1950s and 60s and 70s would call a tradition That is a regional entity Group of people that are creating the same material culture They're linked by that material culture because that's the our only way to sort of get into the archaeological record And by material cultural I guess I would expand that include settlement patterns architecture Are those sorts of things And that linkage leads to some assumptions that these people have a similar belief system

26:29Have mutually understandable language And can be understood as as a kin to a modern culture In all the scalable and and nested ways that can be that we use today And I don't like to sort of pin it down to one particular thing But it these cultures grow and expand or contract and Descend into minutia depending on how you're using the term and sort of A vernacular for a people As as big as you want that to be could be continent scale or could be regional scale But I tend to think of most archaeological cultures as a as a regional scale thing Does that seem like a good definition to you guys? Definition I think one of the things that um critiques of culture history Have sometimes forgotten is that it wasn't like ethnographers actually had In easy time defining these things either and so that the critique that we were sort of If we're doing culture history we're trying to You serve these easily defined categories from ethnography, you know, like that's not really true either

27:32You know, there's a whole massive literature on this in any region right like we don't even understand In any great detail Ethnicity and hunting territories on the maritime peninsula in the ethnographic rack No, yeah, it's a critique that that's a category error is kind of I think this is the mark a little bit Absolutely, and so and so I guess we should say that this culture has just sort of developed in the Started in the 19th century developed over a hundred years of sort of ad hoc trial and error for methods and techniques But the systematics remained that is the the method of ordering the archaeological record in the central sort of central tendencies and groups Classifications and sometimes typologies Remained a very important part of archaeology and still does and I would argue that almost anybody who says we don't do culture history anymore Doesn't sort of really understand the way systematics works and how important it is for understanding natural observations

28:38And I think you know, there's lots of archaeologists who would agree with me there especially a lot Arlee Lyman and Brian And so actually I can just interrupt briefly there one I think that's actually one of the most fascinating things I've been going back through this thinking through it with you about culture history and about Lyman and O'Brien who I've tended to think of as big critiques of culture history because of their Book the rise and fall of culture history But I think one of the things that they really tapped into that many other authors happen of obviously exceptions is this kind of idea that Much like There's no dark you can't get Darwin with that Linnaeus right because Darwin is describing A systematic a series of relationships a systematics that were already understood and that But then applying the mechanism to that understanding and so one of the things I think that Lyman and O'Brien parse out really well is that archaeological systematics is independent of the kind of theoretical You know tools spotlight whatever you use to explain mechanisms of culture change. Yeah, well, they're they're detractors and they aren't I mean

29:42They're a pair to miss in the sense that they think they're winning our evolutionary theory is the way to go with archaeology but they're remarkably adept historians of archaeology and They understand the importance of systematics as a foundational methodology of archaeology And are highly respectful of that and and push for that to be Especially Lyman and his recent articles A push for that to be taught at a greater level across the board As as a foundational technique and and this isn't something that archaeologists invented systematic systematics is using every natural science biology ecology just for the listener who is Waiting their way through a fairly intense theoretical discussion here What is systematics?

30:44Systematics is simply a means for ordering natural observations to to group them what people so sometimes would call a classification Based on your observations some people would also call it a typology um It's it's simply a way a means of ordering the natural world through the observations you're making and so For example, taxonomy used by biologists That is the genus species taxonomy is a form of systematics a form of ordering the natural world The way that the geologists Identify Rock types. That's a form of systematics And these these types of systematics exist all over the world in all sorts of disciplines historians use it the Roman period that That is a form of systematics defining and breaking a time up into digestible and understandable chunks and that's

31:46What archaeologists do with artifacts. They order them. They organize them They compare them to other assemblages of artifacts and make valid groupings based on their observations And maybe not so valid groupings based on observations of other people So that's all systematics is and Lyman and Brian are suggesting that this is an important part of archaeology that has Fallen by the wayside a little bit um, and that's largely because people have stopped doing culture history But I think it's on by the wayside too because if you read the first four pages of tunnels archaeological systematics You you don't learn any it's impossible That's what actually happened. So so again before we get too deep in that stuff Lyman and O'Brien and Dunnell are evolutionary archaeologists, right? So what would their critique of systematics be and and why is their perspective so different than a culture historians approach the systematics and why would they see The challenges and the benefits of systematics in an evolutionary approach so like kind of break down each of those pieces

32:46So that we don't again lose a listener uh If we haven't already i think i think yeah, if we haven't already i think let's go back a little bit and talk about culture history as a paradigm and how it was um sort of To use work to use a term systematically dismantled by the new archaeologist man Is it a paradigm? Is it a paradigm that's never had paradigms? Yeah, we certainly do uh I don't think culture history should have been defined as a paradigm, but we'll get into that in a second So in the 60s and 70s there was a seminal figure in archaeology Lewis Binford who um Emmanuel can start the ominous music here. Yeah We'll also for the for the e-rated podcast. We'll have Matt share his story about Lewis Binford Yes I don't think that's necessarily e-rated and so he was a member of a group of archaeologists who were sort of straining against culture history

33:48um And it's to my from my perspective they weren't necessarily straining against culture history as much as they were straining against the theories of cultural change that the cultural historians were using and so at the time diffusion migration were extremely popular theories of cultural change and Which led and there wasn't just Binford William Phillips, the great cultural historians, Leslie White, others were they were all looking for ways to try to understand um the archaeological record in more nuanced ways and especially how the archaeological record changed and and so um uh, which led which led to William Phillips in their great pronouncement that archaeology is anthropology or is nothing and they were making that statement That statement has sort of been misused by uh later paradigms uh to to um uh decry the

34:50the horrible culture history uh paradigm um but they were making that statement because they thought anthropology had better ideas and theories about how culture develops changes and and is reproduced and so they were saying that we need to adopt better theories of culture change which they were which was absolutely correct but i don't think they were ever calling for the abandonment of culture history um and so they they believe that culture history was essentially a descriptive endeavor um and you know uh kidder kidder is the the famous uh kidder in his pico's classification thought the same thing it was he was he was say things like we have to do a great deal of painstaking work and that's what that's what culture history is the the the the the tedious stuff to order and understand the archaeological record and see he would never say that we need to abandon uh culture history he was he but he wanted to understand how things changed as well so so binford was like okay i'm gonna i'm gonna latch on to this archaeology is

35:54anthropology or does nothing statement and and he starts suggesting that culture history was using theories of uh cultural change and culture that that were inappropriate and one of the big things he thought that the culture stories did was have a normative view of culture that it was it was that culture was based on norms shared by individuals which is something i just talked about that our artifacts suggest that people share share share based share a belief system and yeah and for like a practical example of that like so people like kidder for example would say if you found this kind of pottery in this particular site and then you found the same style of pottery in a different site those two people are part of the same culture and therefore these two sites are linked and this is part of a broader and then you've expanded that culture out and that this particular site this particular site they produce this pottery and so the reason it's at this site that's a hundred kilometers away is those ideas have diffused out from this central site

36:57and so they they are the these are the people that make these pots they go to this site or the people from the site that make the pots have traveled to this other site and brought those ideas with them and that's that's sort of the culture is that's how culture was spread and that's how ideas were spread and that's sort of how culture history saw change through time right is through these like movements of people and ideas but that that that there was an intimate linkage between material culture and as a representation of actual like broader pieces of culture yeah now people would say that the culture stories at the time didn't really consider theories of internal change that there were social and ideological reasons for the change in material culture internally that didn't come from migration and diffusion they didn't actually think that way they they believe that that was something that was true the crowbar kidder they're all explicit that they thought that these sort of things may happen but they just didn't have a good theory to to track it and so they

37:58they relied on diffusion and migration and but what's interesting about them is from my perspective their methods and techniques the culture history their systematics was separate from the theories they were using to understand their ecological record and what's even more important is that this normative theory that Benford suggested they were using which was homogenizing and viewed all cultures everybody in the same culture is the same and without variability was something they didn't necessarily believe either they were pretty they're very certain that what their their systematics was was heuristic that is sort of a pistol logical that they were using as a device to understand but and they knew that it was mass you know as a as an organizing device and as a vernacular it was masking the variability but they recognized the variability was there they they saw things changing internally but they didn't quite know how to explain it and so

39:01what they had at the time was diffusion and migration and a few other theories they applied those where they could and then they sort of speculated oh we need better models to understand how these other processes that were trying to understand but they never they never these early culture stories they never linked the diffusion and migration and they didn't think that that that people that culture was normative that it was a homogenized thing that could only be spread by and so what been and that critique though comes from like the hyper diffusionists like the people that would say that like you know all cultures could be linked back to a particular location that you know like in land yeah yeah yeah and yeah and there was sort of evolutionary models built in that too evolutionary progression from simple to complex which which which some of that critique is valid some archaeologists didn't think that way but it was you know 6200 years ago and so things change yeah and for the listener like unilinear 19th century evolution cultural evolution is very different than an evolutionary archaeologist in the 1970s and that's right that for your theory

40:07classes is what like those kinds of things really confuse like students get like totally hung up on stuff like that I mean I did when I when I was kind of first engaging with this stuff right I didn't understand I thought we were critiquing evolution you know in the early 20th century and then we're back into evolution here so it doesn't just confuse you I mean that modern critics of culture history use the same arguments that there's a that that it tends to be unilineal and socially evolutionary and it's and it's a modus but you know so so what been for tended to do was link culture histories methods and practices even though we saw them as useful with this northern theory which was not really an appropriate linkage and and Lyman and a Brian were the first people to recognize this in archaeology that this was a they called it a straw man argument they've been for developed a straw man argument to to really critique culture history at the

41:13expense of his own new paradigm which he called processual archaeology which was focused on things like adaptation and sort of more anthropological view of culture and especially middle-range theory which was which was used to sort of make more nuanced linkages between archaeological patterning and behavior and so he started this critique of archaeology which sort of was used and then accepted by many other paradigms moving forward but Lyman and Brian both 20 years ago exposed this as an extraordinary sort of falsehood that that early culture historians didn't think of culture as as normative and they have a really good paper on normative theory that exposes that been for just invented this association and that everybody and then it seems like in the research I might have been Sally Benford apparently she did most of his most interesting thinking

42:16I've actually heard that and some and the papers that are more comprehensible apparently were heavily influenced by her and the ones that weren't the impenetrable language more Benford I don't well so so here's the thing with culture history culture history comes with a series of methods and techniques descriptive archaeology that is describing and cataloging everything you find and publishing that to make it available for other researchers there's a cataloging aspect to early culture history and when Benford started to critique culture history and focus on method in theory well middle I want to call method is middle range method so what is middle range method well it's it's a it's a it's a means of understanding specific artifact patterning and linking that to human behavior that's what middle range theory and middle range methods so you have

43:18this explosion after professional archaeology happens of sort of scientific archaeology where people are are trying to understand many of different things they're they're not only using new scientific techniques they're using anthropological analogy like his new ethyl archaeology this is when zoo archaeology sort of explodes and everybody's sort of using all of these sort of nuance scientific techniques to just to drag every scrap of information behaviorally out of the archaeological record and that's great but also that came with that is it an increased interest in archaeological theory which is also great but it's also been I think that detrimental to this one so so Benford sort of started this critique of of culture history and then we have the rise of archaeological paradigms following the the new archaeology which is processual archaeology there's post-possessual archaeology in in hotter there's behavioral archaeology with Brian Schiffer there's postmodern

44:19archaeology develops relational archaeology which I've been accused of using from time to time evolutionary archaeology I think what the listener really wants right now is for us to dive into the ontological turn and what that and how we turn back again that's how we turn back again I've been involved with all but the thing to get out of this is that there's there's many different ways to understand the archaeological record theoretically based on what you're interested in but every single paradigm that's developed since the new archaeology used the same arguments as Benford used to critique culture history it seems like rather than intriguing other paradigms and there's certainly a lot of that going on everybody likes to say well this is better than culture history because culture history is normative they use diffusion and migration and and that's bad but the thing is 20 years ago we know that that was a false argument and so and so you'll see recent papers almost almost every theorist out there a paradigmist out there

45:25goes back to this trope that culture history is the great evil we shouldn't be doing it and what that has led to not only has it led to an increase of interest in theory among students which is fine per se it's also it's also led to a decrease in the type of archaeology that's associated with culture history that is descriptive cataloging painstaking archaeology which is of vital importance to the discipline and so what has happened and you can track this by looking at publications people have stopped publishing sort of the the money making things of culture history like the site report the site monograph they've stopped publishing typology right now could you hold it for a second i just got a massive royalty check dropped off here from the from the national museums mercury series i'm going to need to run grab that so so yeah so they people have stopped publishing it but i mean the other side of that is that

46:27publishers have stopped publishing it right like you can't get papers like that accepted and and a lot of journals now you you have an 8,000 word limit and you're not going to be able to write a big descriptive analysis of a whole region in 8,000 words yeah which which which is a little bit understandable because at the time when when and see the critique of culture history at a hit at a time when people were trying to publish lots of things and publishing big descriptive monographs and long papers was really expensive at the time and so the on the the paradigmatic turn theoretical turn was great for publishers because they could say well we don't want to publish these sorts of things anymore and besides you you're also in its passe anyway and so we we we can shorten paper lengths which we've all been complaining about as we publish we can we can focus books that are less that have less plates i.e. less photographs of your excavations less maps because those are expensive to publish too and so we've gotten into a system over the past 30 40 years where

47:31virtually nobody publishes these things anymore except for maybe the British archaeological reports series and the mercury series at the King Museum history and so it's very difficult to find people publishing as a total as a total all of the excavations they've done in a certain spot you don't see people publishing typologies of that they make and use of artifacts either because they're not making them or because it takes a lot of plates and it's very difficult to do you don't see like typologies of artifacts being published in book form anymore which used to be you know richies type typology who would ever publish something like that now and so what we're in a situation where now where our primary data which is our field observations aren't being published by the people first observed and that's really bad for the discipline and not only is it these site reports and monographs people go into the field and I won't name it name names but y'all know these people they go into the name from the show notes. Well I was going for three or four

48:36years and then they'll publish on a tiny subset of the site they've excavated to to apply the apapet anthropological theory about whatever you know some ontological interesting thing which a big part of their masters or PhD thesis but they've excavated for three or four years where's the where's the stratigraphy notes where's the maps where's the plates and and in some respects the archaeological permitting system has taken the load of that sort of publication but the problem there is that that material isn't published it occurs as gray literature and as often behind access barriers that are maintained by the legislators who run the permitting system so now we're in a situation which is not only methodologically and theoretically that that we're in a situation where the most important data that you're ever going to produce

49:38the most important information ever going to produce which isn't your theoretical your new theory that you're developing which isn't your insights about some sort of crazy insight about the past it's not going to be that the most important thing that we ever produce is the data we observe in the archaeological record as we destroy the archaeological record and so I've got a question about taxonomy but I'm going to shelf that for a second because I want to follow up on this and so you're you're making an argument that there's a ton of gray literature and that like this kind of the core pieces of the site reports that we don't see anymore really are still essentially being produced but they aren't being produced for a broader audience and so we know that we're in a situation we've talked about this a lot on this show about how cultural resource management does 95 plus percent of the work if not more right yes that goes on anywhere in North America right research archaeology just fraction is just a small fraction of that and so if we are not getting

50:38that kind of information this new data about archaeology and about culture history and about kind of these typologies and these changes what is the knock on effect who who is missing out on that data and this is a very leading question of course yeah of course it is and and so what was sort of with without further ado it creates a catastrophe for the CRM industry and so what happens is that the CRM industry is producing 90% of the of the archaeological data and they rely you know you worked in the CRM industry you know that budgets are tight you know that you don't have like researchers have rules of money to run dozens of radio carbon dates if you have money at all to run radio carbon dates and so one of the main ways or due basic analysis like basically beyond just beyond just radio carbon dates like yeah but one of the main ways CRM archaeologists classify and date the sites that they're finding and the material that they're finding is through

51:38typological analysis and that is looking at artifacts style and form which are associated with radio carbon dates or other stratigraphic or chronological markers built built regionally and saying this fits this assemblage shares these sorts of types a typologically fits into this time period and can be associated with this culture now we know that all of the permitting agencies require rely on culture history to classify the sites and every single permitting agency I've ever seen if you're doing survey or if you're cataloging a site all of the mark for example all the Mari forms the maritime archaeological resource inventory forms in the maritime provinces require that you say this is this is a ceramic period site or this is an archaeic period site without a radio carbon date the only way to identify that is through culture history and and the taxonomies produced by the systematics and culture history and and you led right into

52:39my taxonomy question too so so finish your thought and then I can then I can ask this that's right and so if you're not if you're not doing systematics you're not contributing to taxonomies and all of that data all of that data you produce is not available to the CRM archaeologist for comparison how are they supposed to do their job in a modern way they're relying on and you know this well yourself you all don't work with the CRM industry well done it we're relying on models that were developed in the 60s 70s and 80s in a large part to classify and identify sites so we're using models that some some respects could be 60 years out of date because people have stopped doing culture history and that's really bad yeah so you kind of answered the question I was getting at and that is this whole idea of like systematics and taxonomy and this is like a critique of culture history is that they can be put out there as like here is how here is how time is ordered right yeah if you're not as a monolithic changing if you're not revising these things

53:41and if you're not coming back to them and really it comes down to whoever created these are they a lumper or a splitter when it comes to how you you you break up time can totally you go new on store you do you go big picture yet exactly and so so you get what 70s ceramic shirts and 10 dates or something like well so so I see it here in Alberta and you know like we talk about archaeology in the maritime and we should get to talking about the challenge with culture history in the maritime but an example here in Alberta is the way the complexes are used all throughout Alberta to order time and complexes are a very small unit and so these are spatially and chronologically discrete units to break out the traditions in the woolly philips yeah in the yeah so if you're thinking about like like taxonomic ordering in in the willian philips world but it creates these archaeological patterns here that actually aren't based in a whole lot and might only be based in be based in one site and there are dozens of sites that have been excavated since then that create and and like I've graduate students right now they're trying to grapple with these things

54:45and try to understand okay well this doesn't make sense because this is this and that says it's this but I don't I'm not finding these points in the site that they said is associated with this complex what's going on and that's exactly the argument that yeah but that's exactly the argument that people that the modern critics of culture history would make and these people are largely radio carbonists researchers that have vast amounts of radio carbon dates and they're saying by using these outdated taxonomies or classifications you're applying a sort of homogenous unchanging idea of culture to the archaeological record but what they they misunderstand is that that these classifications were heuristic devices that are we're always meant to be changing and developing and becoming more nuanced and in certain areas they still are in in in Europe they largely don't have a problem with culture history and so these these ideas of these traditions and complexes are changing all the time they're constantly being really developed

55:48but that's just stopped in many places in in North America except for we I'm proud to say the maritime provinces and I think largely that is because there's so much excavation still have to do that we still have to rely on systematics to do that and so one of the things I'm proud to say I'm involved in is sort of working on the culture history of the maritime provinces with Gabe but that's a tradition that was sort of passed on to me by by people like David Black who was very concerned with the culture history of the maritime provinces sort of understanding and refining that culture history and and not just David Buck there were many others that were so interested in this of Peterson and Sanger typology and there have been so many refinements of that typology over the years Adrian Burke actually in 2022 kind of looking back at project alt points and trying to understand whether there's patterns in archaeology of the Far North East which is from the Canadian Museum of History's Mercury series you scoop me and so there are people

56:52like Adrian Burke still working on this and the only reason these sorts of things are able to be worked on and you know we worked on a refinement of the typology the artifact ceramic typology from our sequence in the maritimes apart from Portrait Lee sorry and and and can you and I sort of like at least tried to at least comment on it from the the lithics we were seeing in Portrait Lee and so as new data is developing the people in the maritimes like Adrian Burke you me Gabe and others are trying to refine this cultural sequence based on new radial carbon dates and what we're finding is that Dave Black was right about everything but yeah but what's really interesting though is like we base this all on like Pat Allen's Oxbow sequence right like like everything goes back to one culture historical analysis of a really deeply stratified site at at Oxbow in in Metapenagia in the community of Metapenagia and and and like almost all references to culture history and and project alt point typologies and everything

57:56reference Oxbow and Peterson and Sanger we like heavily on the Oxbow stuff despite the fact that what we're seeing and what Adrian points out in his 2022 paper is that there's the more that we find there's so much nuance even within the maritimes that we just full on don't understand right yeah and that's what we're that's what we found in in Portrait Lee this ceramic sequence on in broad strokes it matches but there's so much nuance and not just regionally like locally that we're finding that and so the the we know what Benford would think of your unique sherd map yeah but yeah exactly the the the Bayesian modelers and radio carbonists would say well that you're proving our point exactly but the problem is they don't they don't seem to understand that as a heuristic device how do we communicate the archaeological record to the only that people we collaborate with but to the public and to other archaeologists if you just say everything's a radio carbon point cloud

58:56associated with artifacts how do you how then do you make a narrative out of the past which is what we are supposed to do we're supposed to interpret the past and if you if you think in a modern way if you think that history and archaeology are are linked in a way that archaeologists should be doing history how do we develop a narrative about the past without at least parsing it down into understandable chunks and units and in order to understand it sometimes you have to label these things and so and and so from my perspective it's bad archaeology and it's somewhat elitist to say that oh we don't have to name things we don't have to build narratives all just variability and when we talk about something we can just say well this is linked to potentially 95.6% of this and but that's no way to tell a story and that's no way to communicate what we're finding to our indigenous collaborators it's no way to communicate it to the public it's and it's no way to communicate it to like our partners outside of archaeology when we're trying to compare

1:00:00like pollen records and these sorts of things and nobody would say to a historian you can't talk about the Roman period right they would just laugh in your face or you can't talk about the bronze age and some archaeologists so this is this is not something that other disciplines necessarily work about other you know you can't talk about the Sanizzoic era these are things that people and other disciplines don't seem to worry about but archaeology's got mired in this paradigmatic thinking and and for some reason systematic and descriptive archaeologies has sort of become like a pariah or old fashioned when it should be the whole fundamental what we do yeah I think one of the interesting examples is in many ways at least in the northeast the folks who who really never got away from culture history were people who were interested in paleo Indian archaeology yeah some of that it is in fact I think like Brian Robinson for sure yeah they have such a bad radio carbon chronology that I think that that there's there's always been that realization that you have to do nuts and bolts culture history and I think also mixed with the idea that you have to defend what you're saying about it so you need to report you know your stratigraphy and my new detail

1:01:04and all these kinds of things yeah absolutely I don't know any in the maritime provinces I don't know anybody who doesn't have to be a culture historian because essentially everything we're finding adds more variability you have to fit it into the archaeological record we don't have time to be elitist about it we're we're just trying to do the nuts and bolts and not only that how do you communicate to elders what you're finding and what we're finding also is that our nudist collaborators are embracing the chronologies or the culture histories of all the culture history is a method and technique but it's also how we turn our periodizations which is a you know our archaic our our our woodland these sorts of things these are efficient ways to communicate great deals of information of variability to elders and to community members and what we find in a very interesting way is they're adopting these periodizations that that and making them their own the calling the the MIGMA the Confederacy man and MIGMA have used that those broad presentations but have called them their own MIGMA names and developed their own MIGMA definition

1:02:08so what we find is that rather than not embracing archaeology and maybe this comes from two I'd seen that they're they're amalgamating it into their oral histories and into their knowledge of the history and so but we even we haven't even talked about like the impact of not doing the script of archaeology and systematic archaeology went in the face of climate change archaeology um how could we ever possibly think that we shouldn't be publishing and documenting fully everything that we're finding and erased against climate change archaeology culture history is the best technique for doing that um before um just to follow two here Matt just because one thing I think we haven't touched on but that we probably should because probably like many students have recently read it or because as we approach the end of the semester here and that is I think there there was one other uh smaller train of criticism of culture history and that's that it's explicitly nationalist and so that's the that's triggers critique um and I think it's a weird critique but could you unpack that for a minute or two?

1:03:09yeah that largely comes from um uh fellow named Cassina who was a essentially a Nazi archaeologist who who used culture history to attempt to push an area narrative along the legacy of Aryanism uh that he saw in the archaeological record and to that I would say yes culture history has been used to push nationalistic narratives but no other paradigm is is immune from that sort of abuse the fact that it was used at a time when people were were really interested in nationalistic narratives is is bad very bad um but people called them out on it realized that it was nationalistic have largely not adopted Cassinas views um and he was he was but he was one of the sort of famous German uh culture historians um and today I would say if if if there was nationalistic interest in archaeology uh at a political level although there's virtually no political interest in archaeology

1:04:10anywhere in North America um it's quite possible that that people could be caught up in uh these sort of nationalistic things and focus their research on it but I don't see any other paradigm as being immune from that if you're interpreting the archaeological record um and there's some sort of dog that it seeps into your interpretation I can't see how you uh to me it's not an argument that's applicable only to culture history it just so happens that the most grotesque example was by a culture historian but I I mean I can't see other paradigms as being immune to that necessarily intrinsically immune to it yeah I agree and I'm cognizant of the time um and uh and so this question might be something that we have to save for like conversation to theory part two uh with math bets uh we've got a green jacket if I come forward but we're we've been talking a lot about these different paradigms um and we've been talking about how we apply them in archaeology

1:05:10but one of the things that I think is really important to think about is how we view these paradigms as affecting the way that we think about people in the past right and so agency is I think something that we all engage with in certain ways and that is that like people make decisions in the past and make decisions about where to live and how how they change where they live and the kinds of tools that they use over time and I think culture history kind of weaves in with that but you guys have gone like very explicitly engaged with a uh a kind of more contemporary form of theory um that is uh or field of theory that's historic um uh uh historic processualism right and so you guys are thinking about which I kind of view as this sort of elegant fusion of culture history and processualism where you're using archaeological data but you're still talking about the way people make conscious choices in the past and you've used that to tell stories about for example making place um and so how are how has the work like let's use portgali is the example how his culture history and your engagement with it fed into the ways that you have both talked about portgali and

1:06:15the emergence of portgali is a really important place and how you were able to tell that story by engaging with culture history oh that's a big question I don't know if we have enough time to answer that but I will answer by uh if you go if you want to go ahead first go ahead go ahead I just want to have a small comment which was just that um I think one of the things that the way that I've sort of come to think about that is that many of what much of what we think is happening um it's just it's more explicitly dependent on culture history than than we might have uh so that the interpretations we're making require trying to put together these kinds of timelines in them in as nuanced a way as possible because we at least I tend to think I don't speak from that um that people are making a lot of decisions in historical context and to just figuring out those historical contexts in specific places with fairly high resolution became pretty important to the kind of work we were doing yeah and I believe I I really like uh historical processionism but I just see it as sort of nouveau culture history in a sense um and um uh with with the idea that

1:07:21that says he's not an elitist and then he calls it nouveau culture history but no but it's the same it's very similar it's it's it's all about a sort of understanding uh history as contingent and active and and sort of weighing weighing on the on the on the contemporary time period that you're studying um um but it's deeply embedded in sort of the description of the archaeological record if you look at Sassman's brilliant uh eastern archaic book that to me is like the best culture history that's been written in the past 30 years um and and don holly's book is similar um um but with the with the only caveats that is that they're not comfortable with the old fashion um um archaeological periodizations the term archaic or the term woodland or the term board uh uh what we call boreal woodland but you you know they call it the recent period in new

1:08:22from land and so but but I think essentially what they're doing is very nuanced culture history but trying to divorce it from uh from what people think is sort of homogenized uh the homogenized version of culture history and and and and that's tied up with these names but I don't necessarily see that as as a detriment to what they're doing if they were able to embrace those concepts there's a history of archaeological thought embedded with embedded with the periodizations that people use and so when we talk about the archaic it's not just it's not just what we think about the archaic it's what everybody thought about the archaic moving up and so there's an eloquence to that that terminology and concept that embeds a history of archaeological thought and and deep the deep understanding of the variability of archaeological record that I don't necessarily want to lose is it problematic maybe yes does it need to be fine we don't know anything much about the archaic period in the meritimes at all so yes lots of works needed but I don't think it's I don't think it's necessarily antithetical to to meshing with historical processualism and I sort of tend to

1:09:27think mostly along the lines of historical processualism but Gabe knows when it comes to theory I'm a grazer I'm not trying to buffet approaches this yeah the buffet approach I take what I want when I'm when I'm interested in it and I don't I don't think about the other stuff I'll eat the prawns when I want the prawns and I'll leave the beef for next time and so I've engaged with relational archaeology I've done Darwinian archaeology have evolutionary archaeology I've done hardcore processual archaeology I've even done behavioral stuff and relational archaeology historical I do whatever whatever theory is necessary to help me understand the archaeological record better and I think that's the best approach but the basis of culture history allows has always allowed me to do that and so I view culture history not as a paradigm but as an FB paradigm for itself the physical table your your cosmopolitan culture historian it's a scaffolding and basis for how we understand the archaeological record I think we need to get back

1:10:28to that because it's best for archaeology especially at this time I'm not saying we go back to just doing dusty old theories important I engage with theory and some of my favorite papers were highly theoretical but I also I'm also very proud of my paper in this which is which is your book I'm very proud of the place making and the pretty harbor because like you guys don't want to believe it but this is a called this is a culture history book and people are engaging with this book yeah people are engaging with culture history in this book and and it's so important like there's typological papers published there we need those and it's it's better for archaeology and I promised Gabe I wasn't going to bow guard the not bow guard so they start this over I promised Gabe I wasn't going to to spoil the title of our upcoming paper that we're hoping to get published but from our perspective our archaeology is culture history or it's nothing yeah it's not

1:11:32anthropology it's culture history or the title of the paper is actually I take the prongs when I want but well Matt we've we've taken up enough to your time here I think today and and I think that we've there's like a bunch of pieces of this that I think we should figure out like another conversation about and in particular I think talking about this in the context climate change and and and kinds of archaeology that we are sort of compelled to do right now or maybe you can dig into the actual culture so the maritimes we push we sort of tend into we mentioned yeah but we would steer that we would steer the listener to season one of the new browser archaeology podcast oh there you go there's a long-form version of that but you know team teach a theory course online sometime yeah absolutely yeah the new runs of archaeology podcast presents well plus that way we could we could all teach theory with only a third of the effort exactly all right thank you so much Matt and and and we're looking forward to the next conversation and

1:12:35maybe actually getting to sit down and eat some prongs and talk about this sometime we should go to a buffet and talk theory yeah exactly all right thank you so much Matt it was great talk so much have a great afternoon fellows well Ken I think it's time for for the pieces sorry listener I just I just found out who Paul Williams is we in the intermission there we we were talking about him but we're we're not here to talk about Paul Williams listener we're here to talk about ceramics of the fisheries an analysis of Breton course earthenware fisheries actually sounds a little bit like phantom of the paradise it could be yes it's like yeah I generated version of phantom of the paradise service of fisheries and it's it's

1:13:38obviously about fast yes exactly ceramics of the fisheries an analysis of Breton course earthen wares in the north Atlantic from the 16th the 19th centuries this is a master's thesis by Kayla Lowe that was defended just this month actually February 2026 is the date no kidding okay to get them online very quickly at Monday don't they they do yeah yeah and so can you tell us a little bit about this game yeah so it's it's about these post medieval course earthen wares that I guess were made in France from like 1500 to 1800 and Breton fishers who were I think fishing cod mostly in Newfoundland and Labrador and and let's not forget St. Pierre and Nickelodeon we're bringing these things over and so it's it's about it's about that and it sort of situates this as like a way to better understand the transatlantic cod fisheries and so it looks like it's a pretty great thesis I confess given the recent date I've only skimmed it but it looks

1:14:39like it's gonna be a pretty important bit of research for better understanding the early contact in a historic period in this region yeah yeah and I think the Bretons you don't usually hear much about their presence kind of in the early days of these fisheries like you hear a lot about the bask for sure but I guess Americans went off the gold standard and they gave up the Breton woods accord I just haven't haven't worried about that exactly yeah yeah but but yeah so I think this is a great contribution here and looking forward to hearing maybe seeing a little bit more of this I'm guessing that Kayla might probably have a presence at the CAAs this year so I'll have to keep an eye out I need those historical section sessions if she's gonna be participating in that so that's a good idea the I'm sure it's very easy to get from Newfoundland to Alberta I mean you go to first thing it's McMurray right probably is yeah like there's actually probably there's probably actually direct like St. John's to Calgary or St. John's to Edmonton flight

1:15:44yeah probably yeah there's probably a direct deer lake to Calgary flight for that matter like put it this way and for the American listener deer lake is the is it's like deer abbey but more Canadian yeah deer deer like probably has a more active airport than Lethbridge does now that's if you get a pilot to scan I should I don't think I'd want to fly here I don't think there'd be anything yeah yeah I think there'd be nothing pleasurable about having a pleasure craft here that's a that's just not I think if you like you know wanted to learn how to navigate in a wind tunnel that would be yeah so but that's why if computers now we don't need wind tunnels exactly I don't think I need to know what wind shear is while I'm flying so but Ken to mention for the listener that we have been doing a little bit of work on our live show like Kenmore oh we should actually yes so

1:16:48this is I think we can actually probably safely launch our promotion for this I think we can yes yeah so may let me get the date right here get the date right all right so listener the Canadian Archaeological Association's annual meeting is being held in Canmore Albert of this year from May 6th to 10th 2026 it's going to be at the coast in in Canmore which is lovely by the way it is a very nice hotel I have stayed there before okay yeah it's really nice hotel I mean if you get it you can get the view of the three sisters mountains in the background and everything like that but as part of the CAA programming this year the New Brunswick Archaeology podcast is going to be live at the grizzly paw pub on May 7th in downtown Canmore and so this is the there's actually for those of you who are attending the conference there are two grizzly paws there's an issue right there's two grizzly paws and you don't end up at the wrong grizzly paw so so now what might

1:17:52become confused there's a left grizzly paw and a right grizzly paw and which one are we acting so we're in the left grizzly paw and in fact the right grizzly paw is directly across the hotel the street from the hotel and so for those of you who don't want to stray too far you can go to the grizzly paw on Thursday night across from the hotel we won't be there we will be downtown on 8th street and so that's the game there and then and then you can float over yes and so space is going to be limited we will be opening up I think it's around 60 it's going to be open to the public and to anybody who wants who is at the conference that wants to go I think we're going to set up an RSVP and probably leave maybe a few seats open just for anybody who might want to come in for via exactly yes it's going to start at seven going to go till about nine o'clock the we have we have our guests lined up for this I don't do we want to do a reveal of our guests or do you just want to say we've got three fantastic interviews lined up we have three fantastic interviews with

1:18:57more than three people yes yes that's true so there will be more than three people I believe and and this might actually have to I now that we're going to put it in out in the world I believe Emmanuel is going to do us a favor by recording some intermission music Emmanuel just cut this out if that's not true hey guys what Ken meant is I'll be creating a playlist for for like the show and I'll be just helping out with like the PA or just voiceover like no I didn't I did not commit to that sorry boys yeah I mean but I think the essential thing was that we were going to walk out on stage to do the bearcat I you know what Gabe I heard that song so much during the Olympics I really don't need to hear it again wait they played the Olympics I didn't watch the Olympics there was there was an ad that was running that was like playing do the bearcat and it

1:19:59was like every ad break oh let's not do that then yeah no I think every Canadian is tired of do the bearcat okay all right well we can we have the soundtrack from Phantom of the Paradise but so listener so there are going to be interviews there's going to be prizes lots of we're going to be working on lots of prizes at the show so some door prizes as well as some draws for swag and so we just say if you are a CRM company and you would like us to promote your CRM company a little bit yes send us some swag and we'll auction it off and announce your company on the on the bot exactly yes so if you have hats or bags or pens and lanyards and that kind of thing that you'd be interested in seeing worn or distributed to you know students and and conference attendees please let us know waterproof back should be delivered directly to us and we'll we'll wrap all the contents off but we'll get a get Trevor there so we can get a ceremonial awarding of an eco for a waterproof bag yeah so now the big thing that we are doing is there

1:21:06is going to be a special an exclusive NB arc pod swag item swag drop I think is what they're called these days but we're going to ask listener to do something for us and that is that if you make a donation of $25 or more to the and let me get this right Gabe yeah good so let's get this right and and the part of the reason we're doing this listener is and so we want to just make clear that that the the money is all going directly to the scholarship fund that Ken is going to say the exact name of momentarily it's actually just called the CAA scholarship fund and so there's a general pool that they use to a lot to the indigenous scholarship so you can actually donate to on the indigenous scholarship or the equity and diversity scholarship or I think there's just a general scholarship pool but what we're asking you listener is if you donate $25 or more send us a screenshot of your your donation and you can send it to us on Instagram you can

1:22:10send it via email new Brunswick archaeology at gmail.com or at new underscore Brunswick underscore archaeology and you are the first first 20 first 20 of you who are generous to make those kinds of donations will receive a once-in-lifetime opportunity to be wearing the NBR pod when you grill this summer and so Gabe can you want to tell us a little bit about what the prize is it's it's going to be an apron Ken it's going to be a special grilling apron because you can't spell grill with that new Brunswick archaeology podcast I'm glad that made it through and but we want to emphasize that it's important to donate and it's a good cause too I mean that this is an important I think Ken we're we're both pretty one of the things I think about conferences is that it is important to make sure that people who do not have university expense accounts can go to conferences exactly yeah and so and that's directly what this money will

1:23:11support yep students and equity deserving groups who should be at these conferences and that we really need to encourage participation at conferences if we want to change the face of archaeology in Canada and and and you know in archaeology in general I think we do need to actually recognize that not everybody has the the means to go to a conference and for those of you who are wondering conferences can sometimes cost between 1500 and 2500 dollars just to go for four days of basically watching papers and you know I don't know if that's always the best use of money but there's the carbon footprint too Ken let's not forget that about yes but but but it is really important that students get out to this indigenous community members and interested people who who want to take these things in and I think it's really great that there is this opportunity to that there are there is a growing scholarship pool they actually got passed their their donation threshold that they originally had wanted to and and so I think that that's it's

1:24:14a good cause plus you'll be able to show off to your friends that you have a really cool apron compliments of the NB ArcPod and so to recap listener may 7th at the grizzly pop hub in downtown Canmore on 8th Street so this is the grizzly pop pub not the grizzly pop tap room from 7 to 9 p.m. the New Brunswick Archaeology Podcast will be live in Canmore at the Canadian Archaeological Association meeting there will be an event going up on the CAA website fairly soon on the conference website please RSVP through that portal you can enter in a draw or you can enter if you make a donation to the the scholarship fund the CAA scholarship funds that is a minimum of $25 you can send that to us and if you're the first 20 people that do that you get an apron and if you come out to the show that night where you can get food you can get beer you just hang out there will be lots of prizes and it should be lots of fun that's right and we should add we said a lot of

1:25:18prizes no one has donated prizes yet but serum companies we trust that you will make it happen all right and so remember um listener I mean like probably a lot of our listeners are joining this anyways just send us a screenshot yeah yeah maybe you've already made a donation like or you're making a donation right now before the 28th try to get the tax receipt basically sure and anything out for $20 I think you're you get a tax receipt it's my understanding so yeah but $20 won't get you the apron you get it's got to be 25 bucks that's true yes all right so listener do the right thing support uh support this good cause and we'll get you an apron yes and we'll take for things don't even can wear yeah yeah it's gonna be fun uh yeah the last time we did this was in Frederton uh it was a ton of fun um great crowd and so I think this will be a much archeologically heavier crowd which could make it even more fun so well so the runner was emphic Ken they're not as as heavy as they used to be oh I see all right let's listen all right let's hear um but we're

1:26:30looking forward to seeing you there at the grizzly paw and at the conference we're also giving papers to conference aren't we Ken yes papers and probably other things yeah we're we're a little overextended on this conference and we don't really know how we set out to go to a CA and only do one thing and I end up doing too many so yeah I'd say again the most recent eSaf I went to I didn't give a paper I was second author in a paper that's the way to do a conference yeah yeah so yep all right listener well um we will uh we'll talk to you soon we'll we'll talk to you before well before the CA and that we've got we've got a couple great programs lined up for you and we appreciate you sticking with us yes thank you listener and uh have a lot of evening all right cheers listener

1:27:39free to put her in by codey by tpc is composed by just an anky bpc remix by Emmanuel a cow and a kuna rata and by shane now find us on Instagram at this underscore new bus week underscore archaeology on LinkedIn and on the web that new bus week archaeology.com