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| Dirt Digger, amateur Bone Buff |
For IRTE’s upcoming archaeological adventure show, ‘Dig’, IRTE’s own amateur bone buff, Dirt Digger, sat down with real-life archaeologist and all around good guy, Dr. Geoffrey Undergrass, to pick his brain about the science and faith of archaeology and to sift through the lies and real facts about those who dig human remains.
Here’s part of that conversation…
DD: So, first and foremost, I think I have to ask the obvious question, “what’s the difference between archaeology and anthropology?”
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| Dr. Geoffrey Undergrass |
Dr. GU: (laughs) Ok, well, uh, anthropology is the broad discipline of the study of human beings, and archaeology is a sub-discipline underneath anthropology where you look at the material remains of human culture. Some of us get tired of being asked at parties what we do and when we say “I’m an archaeologist” see the person go off on some wild tangent about dinosaurs. That’s paleontology! Archaeologist’s don’t do dinosaurs.
DD: Are all archaeologists atheists? Or do you believe that God scattered all those dinosaur bones to test our faith?
Dr. GU: (clears his throat to answer)
DD: Or, OR -- that aliens buried all those artifacts to mess with us?
Dr. GU: I think that God is an alien and that in His Infinite Wisdom did try to hide artifacts to test our faith - it all will be revealed during judgment day. So, yeah, I think we’ll find out for sure.
DD: ARE all archaeologists atheists?
Dr. GU: (chuckles) I think most tend to be, uh, and I think it’s typical of what goes along with most sciences. I think people that generally have chosen a worldview that relies more on empirical evidence and employing the scientific method tend to not be more, sort of, faith-based in their belief system. So that tends to lend itself to a more atheist worldview. Most people that tend to have a strong Christian worldview, you know, look at archaeology and tend to see their faith reflected in that, either seeing Noah’s flood or uh, you know, the whole idea of a six-thousand year old world and trying to find justification for that...instead of relying on the scientific method and trusting in things like radiocarbon dating as a legitimate dating technique.
DD: Ooh, yeah! Tell us about carbon dating! And is there an app for that?
Dr. GU: Ha - no. There’s no app for that. There should be! But, no. Carbon dating is a good way that archaeologists tend to use to find out an absolute age of anything that’s organic that you would find, so whether it be a piece of wood or bone or a piece of clothing, perhaps, or something of that nature. Everything alive today is made mostly of carbon, and there’s a small amount of that carbon that is radioactive. And, as you live you take in carbon, and when you die the carbon is sort of frozen in time, uh, the moment that you die because you’re not taking in any new carbon. So that little bit of radioactive carbon that’s in your body decays at a very steady rate and however much of that carbon is left at the time that you date it you can tell how long ago that organic thing died. So it’s a very reliable technique if you do things properly to find out how old something is. But because of the rate of the decay, the time period that you can get a reliable date is somewhere between, you know, several hundred and up to about 50,000 years ago...
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| Indiana Jones,
Not a REAL archaeologist |
DD: Sounds like about how long it’s been since I was last dating...
DD: ...Uh. Ok. Um. So, is Indiana Jones the most famous archaeologist or what?
Dr. GU: Haha! Certainly the most famous fictional archaeologist. When you talk about REAL archaeologists, somebody like Louis and Mary Leakey come to mind as maybe some people that most folks may have heard of. And their son, Richard Leakey.
DD: Oh yeah, I know Richard!
Dr. GU: Yeah, uh...So the Leakeys were, you know, sort of the First Family of archaeologists in Africa, that discovered a lot of really significant early human ancestors.
DD: Including “Lucy”?
Dr. GU: Um, no. It was actually a guy named Tim White and a couple other researchers from California, Berkley, that found Lucy. But they were certainly inspired by the Leakeys to go over and do the work over there.
DD: Have you ever been on a dig where you had to avoid booby traps.
Dr. GU: (big laugh) Not so much booby traps, but sometimes we have to avoid a lot of cowpies.
DD: So not booby traps, but doody traps.
Dr. GU: Haha -- yeah, doody traps. Yeah. And you also want to avoid any anti-government types. You know you want to make sure you avoid those folks.
DD: Has anyone ever died on a dig you were on? And was it from booby traps?
Dr. GU: No. No one has ever died from a booby trap on a dig.
DD: Ok.
Dr. GU: But a friend of mine was on a dig where a guy died from heat stroke or maybe a heart attack, so it’s definitely possible.
DD: Ok. Good. Um…
Dr. GU: (clears his throat)
DD: Oh! What’s the most important thing you’ve ever dug up?
Dr. GU: The thing that comes to mind is I was working on a dig in Austin, Texas. And it was a very early archaeological site - probably about 12,000 years old, and while we were there we found an inscribed tablet that appeared to be very early artwork from these folks that they’d left behind. And it was pretty significant because up until this find there’d only been one other artifact like this from this general area from that time period, so this was only the second of such examples of this very early artwork. So, that was pretty cool.
DD: Yeah. Cool.
QUESTIONS, ANSWERS and OBSERVATIONS from REAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS
Several Stupid Questions
"Why did the Indians bury their stuff under so much dirt?"
“Why did they build so far from the road?”
"How did you know to dig here to find those square holes?"
"But why did the Indians bury the bones in these square holes?"
"Did these bison die in Noah's flood?"
"Now these bison, were they dinosaurs?"
6 Misconceptions Corrected
1. Most people think archaeologists "dig" dinosaurs. They don't. Those are paleontologists. Archaeologists don't do dinosaurs.
2. Archaeologists are often thought of in two disparate groups: professor/adventurers (Indiana Jones), and avocational hobbyists who go out on weekends to collect cool shit. Neither is particularly accurate.
3. When people volunteer to go out and actually do archaeology, they are horrified by how boring and tedious it is. The actual digging is very slow, and the paperwork and documentation is enormous.
4. Religious people always ask questions that try to validate their preconceptions. "So that dirt there looks like it came from Noah's Flood, eh?"
5. People are terribly disappointed to find out that archaeology does not usually involve monumental ruins, secret passages, and burial curses. Instead it most commonly involves tiny pieces of broken stone tools and pottery.
6. Archaeologists' biggest secret: if we don't know the purpose of some artifact or structure, it is "ceremonial."
For more exciting and hilarious archaeological artifacts unearthed, join us at IRTE’s production of Dig
Friday and Saturday nights at 8 p.m.
April 15 & 16, 22 & 23
The Producer’s Club
358 W 44th St, New York, NY
Special thanks to Jeff Overturf, REAL Archaeologist, Brewer, and all around good guy! And thanks, as well, to all of Jeff’s archaeologist friends and colleagues who contributed to the writing of this article.
