00:02.50 archpodnet Welcome to the show. Everyone joining me today is Andrew in California and also bill in California all right? Well guys. We've have a guest today. Um, hopefully. 00:05.27 Andrew Hey guys, how's it going. 00:11.85 Bill White Yep, good morning. 00:18.80 archpodnet You know internet and flooding and all that stuff doesn't stay doesn't stop us today because you know California is pretty much a ah garbage pit of weather right now. Ah. 00:27.49 Bill White Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the the we the weeds in my yard are evil doers that have grown up to my thigh basically and you know I was out there with my son chopping him down and in about 30 minutes we filled our entire compost bin. 00:28.62 Andrew It's It's very soggy. It's it's soggy. 00:30.98 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, that's what I've heard. Yeah. 00:38.40 archpodnet So cheese. 00:46.69 Bill White With weeds and it made it like five Square feet you know 00:47.21 archpodnet Writes Oh my god. 00:51.27 Andrew Dude our in our backyard I think it it I think it's a spring like I'm not kidding. There's There's a place in our backyard where it's so wet that it's like. 00:58.00 archpodnet Um. 01:00.54 Andrew 80% water and like 20% dirt I'm like dude was there an ancient spring here like it seemed I think the rains fed the ancient spring. 01:06.94 Bill White Well, there's some stuff really if you have been watching this recent season of the Mandalorian Maybe you should go swim in it. You never know but put your put your helmet on and don't take it off and swim in the water. Yeah. 01:09.84 archpodnet Ah. 01:14.67 archpodnet Oh shit haven't seen that yet. 01:14.73 Griffin Fox And. 01:17.54 Andrew Um, it did That's right, It's right. 01:21.65 archpodnet Nice, nice, all right? Well we have a guest today and it's Andrew's guest and Andrew's topic today. So I'm going to throw it over to him to introduce him. 01:29.77 Andrew Okay, so on our humble show this afternoon. We have my student Griffin Fox and the reason why I wanted to invite Griffin on here is because well he's had actually a lot of experiences in archeology in his young life. But ah, one of the ones that I thought was really interesting is he went to Scotland over the summer and was part of an archeology project there but that project was run by basically a person who works in Crm and I thought it would be really interesting first just to get Griffin to. Tell us his background and what he's doing in archeology and intro himself and then get into how field schools and crm work together in some countries and we can compare it to ours where so often they don't so. With that. Ah Griffin just ah, tell us who you are and how's it going. 02:29.19 Griffin Fox So I'm Griffin Fox I'm currently an associate archaeologist in the wonderful world of crm before that as previously mentioned I started my anthropology slash archaeology career at Moore Park learning from Andrew in his field classes and such. After which I transferred to you csb did some more field and lab work and other things of that sort there. Um, how much detail do you want me to go into all that I could fail 6 keep going all right. 02:58.21 Andrew Keep going. Yeah, just it's just you can You can do a deep dive is it's interesting stuff and it all relates. 03:05.79 Griffin Fox Sure. Yeah, so my archeology career quote unquote even though I wasn't being paid started with Andrew's field classes I learned how to excavate very early on which is unfortunately a very rare thing in archeology I later came to learn. 03:23.57 archpodnet Oh. 03:25.25 Griffin Fox It transferred to you csb all of my um, all the other students I was with were all like oh you've actually dug before and I was like you haven't it was so that was very jarring and unfortunate to see but um. So yeah, then after that I worked with ah now Dr Caitlin Brown who was at the time a grad student at us Csb and I did more field and lab work with her on her dissertation I moved on to compose an undergraduate thesis with Dr Doug Kennett while I was there. Experienced the wonderful world of covered which was ah which was cool I guess. 04:06.78 Andrew Yeah, that's right, you you had the sort of Bummer experience at a place like you csb where once you get there and then you're like oh you have to stay home and not go to the beach. 04:19.82 Griffin Fox Yeah, it was um, it was strange very strange I think I made it work well enough at least with like undergrad experience going outside was a bit of a No-no obviously. But. 04:22.90 Andrew Yeah. 04:33.95 Andrew No, it felt like it went really well for you Ultimately I felt like you and a lot of your cohort. You know, played it pretty well basically as well as could be. You know so good for you man. 04:35.80 archpodnet Um. 04:36.23 Griffin Fox Yeah. 04:44.10 Griffin Fox Yeah I I played my cards right? and I just figured like since the whole world shut down I might as well just see what I can do and anything I can do I will and that ended up being more than I anticipated which was good. 04:56.98 Andrew Um, yeah, so how did you? you know at that at that point as you're sort of finishing off a at you Csb how did you get in touch with the Scotland project. 05:02.88 Griffin Fox Um. 05:10.99 Griffin Fox So that was a while after I or about a year after I graduated I had been working first at the repository at ucsb and then I switched over to crm. But I had just come to realize like as much as I love california archeology. It's It's not really my end goal I've lived in California my whole life and I'd like to get experience and live in other parts of the world and then my ah my friend Stephanie who was also in your classes as you know, um, she was actually the one who found it. 05:39.89 Andrew Um, right are. 05:45.60 Griffin Fox And she posted about it on Instagram and it just piqued my interest because it was one very affordable and 2 like I'd always been interested in scottish archeology. But obviously U Csv mixed with covid was a terrible mix for trying to study that sort of thing. So. 06:00.25 Andrew Yeah, pretty bad, almost perfectly terrible. 06:04.11 Griffin Fox Yeah, almost exactly the opposite of what you want if you're trying to understand picts. 06:11.12 archpodnet Um, yeah, you know, let me let me jump in real quick because you you mentioned you had been interested in ah in Scottish archeology but is that what. 06:13.27 Griffin Fox Um, yeah, please. 06:18.92 archpodnet Is was that the ah ah, additional drive to get you into wanted to study archeology or was it just general archeology. You know as a field that you were interested in. 06:28.32 Griffin Fox So yeah I guess I should talk about how I got into archaeology to begin with because um when I got to Moore Park I didn't really know what I wanted to do whatsoever and that's kind of that's why I went to Moore park as opposed to a 4 year because I wasn't going to spend. 06:37.57 archpodnet Um. 06:43.90 Griffin Fox Thousands of dollars to be an undeclared major. And yeah, so my first class actually was um, native american history taught by Susan Kinginkela because I'd always had some vague interest in like in learning about the pre-contact Americas that. 06:43.61 archpodnet Sure makes sense. 06:56.60 archpodnet Um. 07:00.97 Griffin Fox Obviously they don't really teach in your k through 12 But I figured it must be a thing we know something about and I was happy to learn I was correct and then from there she plugged Andrew's classes about the clash she plugged was um, there was the archeology of like. 07:09.15 archpodnet Yeah. 07:19.98 Andrew Oh right. 07:20.42 Griffin Fox Tribes of California and I thought yeah and I thought that sounded interesting. So then I took that class and from there declared anthropology as my major and that's where we're at now snowballed from there. Kela basically gave me Stockholm syndrome now I can't leave. 07:37.26 archpodnet Um, that's. 07:42.43 Andrew Ah, there you go see there's there's so much there that that shows what I'm really like I can't actually get students I need my wife to do it for me, you know, just so I can actually get a few people in the seats. Oh. 07:48.15 Griffin Fox Yeah, yeah. 07:52.26 archpodnet That's that that all the pieces are coming together now I was kind of wondering what that missing piece was and and that's that all makes sense now. Yeah. 07:56.55 Andrew Yeah, there it is yeah everything everything must together so late. Yeah. 07:59.31 Griffin Fox Yeah, ah by the time by the time I realized my mistake it was too late and he had he'd convinced you like you can't leave now. Nobody else will take you I was like that's a good point I'm stuck. 08:13.82 Andrew Ah, yeah, yeah, so. 08:16.38 archpodnet Ah, nice, nice all right. So back to Scotland. 08:20.36 Griffin Fox Yes, so yeah I learned about that field school. It was cheap, very fairly quick. It was only five days but I mean for me like between Crm um, and Andrew's classes and my other various experiences I'd had enough field experience to where I didn't feel like I needed. Longer than that necessarily especially for the price. Yeah I would have done it longer had it been offered longer. But you know five days was what it was and for the price. That's what I was going to do so I signed up for that myself and a couple of my friends and then. 08:38.40 Andrew Yeah I think that's very fair. Yeah I totally get that. 08:44.98 archpodnet Um. 08:50.68 archpodnet Nice. 08:56.63 Griffin Fox In August Twenty Twenty Two is when we actually went and um so it was basically yeah, it was run by Dr. Murray Cook who I forget his official title because it's all different over there but he's something like the sterling city council's archeologist. Something akin to that and it's basic. What his job is basically what like a project manager mixed with like crew chief almost would do in an american crm firm. But it's paid for and run by the city instead of by a private firm. 09:15.82 archpodnet Oh. 09:32.10 archpodnet Nice, nice. 09:33.97 Andrew Yeah, see just that setup I find so interesting you know because we don't have it's like where we live out city of Moore Park is going to put money towards an archeology project what you know it's it's. 09:35.20 Griffin Fox Yeah. 09:36.96 archpodnet Yeah. 09:46.21 archpodnet Right. 09:46.21 Griffin Fox Yeah, it was yeah very jarring. But also I almost wish ours was a little more like that sometimes I get why it can't be but it was it seems to. 09:48.69 Andrew It's so foreign and kind of in the best sense of the word. You know. 10:04.70 Griffin Fox I Don't want to say work better but work in a much more streamlined way a lot less parties involved. 10:11.26 archpodnet Well and I think I think some of that has to do with why why the city over there would be. You know the ones driving that and more concerned with it is if I'm not mistaken I wish Doug could have made the show today. But if I'm not mistaken at least in England and I thought the entire UK pretty much everything under the ground is owned by the crown. 10:11.39 Andrew Um, yeah, which. 10:31.10 archpodnet Like you have to report it. It's it's you know it's something that you just you just know that right? and so every time you dig every time you you know, make something or do something you know there's archeology everywhere right? You can't drop a spoon in the Uk without finding archaeology into the ground and it's ah. 10:42.45 Griffin Fox And there. 10:49.70 archpodnet And they and they appreciate those resources. So yeah, it totally makes sense but it's just not the same.. It's just not the same here you know in the states I mean obviously we have laws and stuff but it's. There's no the the ownership is different and the and do depending on where you're at and then the the obviously the regulation is different depending on where you're at So yeah, very different system. 11:09.47 Griffin Fox Yeah, for sure 1 thing about the ownership actually which was very jarring but I guess it was fine there when um, the site we were digging at was um, pick dish and then a hint of medieval some other stuff as well. But those were the two like largest of the largest inhabited. 11:22.29 archpodnet Um. 11:26.52 Griffin Fox Settings. But um, we'd find a lot of victorian stuff which is you know, basically our equivalent of like historic cans bottles like early nineteen hundreds type thing and anytime we found something like that Murray was like yeah no, we we find that stuff all the time you can you can just keep that. 11:27.20 archpodnet Ah. 11:34.73 Andrew Yeah, yeah. 11:35.11 archpodnet Thread. 11:44.81 Griffin Fox And I was like whoa. Really yeah, what that's luing. But so that that alone was a very jarring difference and I mean I think it ties into yeah what you were saying about like how it's all basically run by the. 11:47.87 archpodnet Ah, nice. 11:49.94 Andrew Um. 11:52.45 archpodnet Yeah. 12:01.39 Griffin Fox It's run by the government and owned by the crown from what I understand and I think also because archaeology over there is more of a subsect of history than anthropology and because most of the archaeology in the United States is about a different group of people versus. 12:06.33 archpodnet Um. 12:14.86 archpodnet Ah. 12:19.88 Griffin Fox The UK. it's always been the UK more or less. There isn't that like contact element. So just the whole nature of it on a very fundamental level is the perception of it is so vastly different there was another another big thing was um, the site we were working at. 12:21.87 archpodnet Yeah. 12:32.12 archpodnet Yeah. 12:39.11 Griffin Fox It was not at all kept secret. It was in the middle of a park that people were just walking around at all hours of the day we were just right off a path so people would be walking their dogs or just walking right by us and sometimes they would stop and just ask like oh what's going on over here and instead of having to come up with some cover story as I'm sure we're all. 12:44.56 archpodnet M. 12:53.90 archpodnet M. Right? I drop my keys. 12:58.72 Griffin Fox Used to me Murray would just tell them. Yeah exactly oh I'm we're that it that is a good one. Yeah and ill be that next time but not instead of that he would just tell them. 13:03.90 Andrew Yeah, adds good I haven't used that one. That's great. Ah. 13:12.84 Griffin Fox Exactly what was going on what we found so far what the site was what the boundary everything and again for me that was so jarring for someone who's always having to be like oh I'm a geologist I'm a biologist I'm just here to check so cal. Edison's power line like you know everything. 13:16.62 archpodnet Yeah. 13:27.80 archpodnet Ah. 13:32.00 Griffin Fox Say anything but archaeology over here. Basically. 13:33.27 archpodnet Yeah, that's crazy. 13:34.40 Andrew Right? I Think that's such an interesting you you know take and and it seems healthy in so many ways you know how local people they're interested. You can do you can just you can you know you can tell the truth Oh my God you know and just I don't know I I would love at if some point. 13:40.39 Griffin Fox Yeah. Yeah. 13:53.80 Andrew In our own country. We could get to a place like that you know where we can just be relaxed and because and fill the general public's interest because they're curious about their own history. You know so. 13:55.63 archpodnet Oh. 13:57.32 Griffin Fox Yeah, for sure. 14:05.80 Griffin Fox Yeah, and that whole are sorry going. 14:09.40 archpodnet Yeah, indeed. Well hey, why don't we why don't we go ahead and take a break real quick and then we'll find out because I want to get into you know, really what the field school was like you know the day to day what you guys were um, you know, just. Just just an experience for somebody who hasn't done a field school over in Scotland because that's exactly what we're talking about right? So just kind of like everything about it getting over there and all that stuff and that's going to be a little bit long and I don't want to break it up so we'll take a break now and then we'll come back on the other side and and have that whole segment to talk about it so back in a minute.