00:00.00 alifeinruins Welcome to episode 1 62 of a life and ruins podcast where you investigate the careers of those living a life in ruins I am your lone host this week Conor John and Carlton is fighting means in the postapocalytic wasteland that is Las Vegas and David is trying out a new career as a bus driver. Luckily I am joined by a. Ah, guest of ours Dr. Charles Koenig who is a recently crowned doctor from the university of wyoming charles how are you doing or I should say Dr. charles how are you doing this day. 00:30.60 Charles I'm doing I'm doing great I really appreciate you having me on Connor. 00:34.54 alifeinruins Yeah, it's I've I've wanted to for a while I know you've kind of had a busy couple of months some things have happened ah you know defending a dissert defending your dissertation etc. 00:49.83 Charles Yeah, it's it's definitely my last I feel like my last four years here in Wyoming have been just like cram full of different types of things. Um, but ah. Fortunately, you know as I as I kind of in this transition period from grad school moving into academic career. It's nice to have a little bit of time to do stuff like this. 01:11.40 alifeinruins Yeah, get to enjoy a summer for a little bit before you your summer is field work. All all all the time. Um, so yeah, just ah, ah for the audience charles and I currently work together in shippo. Um. 01:15.10 Charles Yeah, totally. 01:28.84 alifeinruins We we see each other most days we went rafting yesterday. So and we're both Colorado boys which is kind of an interesting connection I don't think you see you see some of that coming from um the Colorado wyoming connection a little bit but not very often and we both kind of took. Different routes to get to Wyoming which is which is interesting and we chat about later. Um, but you you grew up in summit county right. 01:53.48 Charles Yeah, yes, I'm from Silverthorn Silverthorn colorado originally 01:58.99 alifeinruins How was how was growing up in the mountains I've always like visited them and you know got to leave at the end of the day. How how is it living in the mountains. 02:11.63 Charles Yeah, it was I mean looking back now I kind of have a different so a little bit different perspective but it was it was a great place to grow up with with access to all kinds of different outdoor activities and obviously ah. You know we spent so much time on spring breaks and Thanksgiving breaks and and various long weekends going out to Utah to to escape the cold weather but grew up skiing grew you know, grew up learning how to fish and and hunt and camp and do all that kind of stuff. Um, I realize especially after leaving high school and getting into college and and just being exposed to a lot more of the world and a lot more people truly how privilege of a life I I had growing up. Um, and so I'm very thankful for that. But. But it is certainly something that I look back on and say wow you had a very different life than a lot of other people. 03:02.46 alifeinruins Well dude, you had to deal with the constant traffic through I 70 So like you had people like basically invading your city every single weekend week etc. 03:11.94 Charles Certainly that and and I can so I can definitely appreciate. Having moved to Wyoming where there's a stigma against folks from Colorado coming up to recreate and in Wyoming and Wyoming folks cursing every time they see a Colorado license plate. And I understand you know how that how it how it is to be now on the receiving end and recognizing that receiving end of that a little bit more too. 03:38.27 alifeinruins For sure. Yeah, we are both greenies as they call us because of the green license plate but we have we have Wyoming plates now. So that's we've solved that problem. 03:43.76 Charles Yep, yeah, ah you're you're leaving out a 4 letter word in front of that greeny statement that begins with an f. 03:54.74 alifeinruins Ah, ah, we will not say that on the podcast but um, so growing up in summit county. Were you kind of exposed to archeology Science History kind of as part of your childhood or was that something that came later. 04:09.18 Charles Yeah, for sure you know I mentioned going out to Utah that was a huge thing. My dad is from frua so he grew up going out to the blm lands out there and walking around looking for fossils looking for airheads. So we as a family we did that same thing so we went out. We. We dry camp north of moabmum just go out and hike around and walk around and look for stuff and a lot of our vacations were kind of focused on like going to national parks and going to to places like that to get to get exposure to history cultural and natural history. So yeah, definitely exposed to it at early age. And it's kind of ah, interesting thing though like I was always been interested in archeology and I shouldn't say anthropology as much and I didn't know what anthropology was in high school. Um, but I've always been interested in archeology. But then in high school I wanted to. Like make lots of money so I went to coloradoro school mines for the first year of my undergra degree and I absolutely hated it I didn't do well I made some fantastic friends but my my favorite class was I think the like the liberal arts writing class which is pretty much everyone else's. Least favorite class. Um, so I think that kind of like showed to me at least like science like as far as like science and academia goes how I really gravitate more towards the social side of things. Um, and and I'm not so good at at. 05:42.98 Charles Just straight up numbers and and things like that. So yeah. 05:47.97 alifeinruins That's it. That's an interesting um and for those who are not familiar Colorado school minds is basically like the math science geology engineering kind of capital of I wouldn't say Colorado maybe Colorado. I don't know if Csu might compete a little bit with that. But like there're definitely some of the top tier. So if you go there, you're very much gonna be in that kind of realm um I don't think you. There's many liberal arts degrees you come out of Colorado school of mines. Yeah, um, did you. 06:06.78 Charles Yet. 06:14.76 Charles No classic classic engineering school. 06:23.80 alifeinruins So I know there's a lot of kind of cool mining history up in summit county and those areas was that something that you were exposed to because you obviously got like a taste of kind of the not the southwest kind of the the basin or the great basin kind of archeology and kind of Colorado archeology as well but was it like the. Mining history part of it as well. 06:44.59 Charles You know I really was never as as interested in in more recent um aspects of of archaeology or I mean I like the history and stuff but I just wasn't I was always more interested in indigenous, the indigenous record. Um, and going out to Utah places like that. But at the same time I always equated going someplace else not in some county to look at archeology and then it's kind of like full circle coming to Wyoming and Todd Servell and Marcel Corfeld had done so much work just north of. Silver Thor and around Kremlin at the Barger Gul site and to come here and then suddenly be exposed to this incredible archaeological record that was literally right out my right up my doorstep it was really eye-opening to me um about that. And then to hear about all the things that Jason Labelbelle and and like Kelton Meyer and stuff are doing at Csu looking at those high alpine game drives and things. It's like I surely there's things like that that I probably walked by growing up that I never knew were there. 07:45.99 alifeinruins Yeah I feel I feel like I had the same experience because I I spent some time in Bailey but I didn't really know about the archeology of the mountains and stuff until ah Jason label bell and kind of all the grad students at Csu Really gave me the opportunity and opened my eyes to that and that I've kind of. Been addicted to that since because it's like you said it's a really fascinating record but it's not something I don't think that is talked about in Colorado as a whole. Um, it's mostly about I think feel like archeology talk is Mesa Verde or um. Think that's about it honestly. 08:25.39 Charles Yeah I would agree with that. It'd be. It would be interesting to go back now and see what students at like some at high school and in a middle schools. How much they've been exposed to that if it if it's changed if it's the same. Um. 08:42.35 Charles Yeah. 08:42.48 alifeinruins Yeah, be interesting I mean I think I remember my history class going back to like Pike um zebul and pike and doing some of that but you mean never really got the indigenous kind of stuff. You know it was when they interacted with white people that essentially you got. 08:56.84 Charles Right? right? right? It's like Colorado out of history after 18 65 when white folks murdered a bunch of a rap. 08:59.81 alifeinruins Information about them. 09:09.28 alifeinruins Yeah, yeah, like we don't want to talk about that part because that is really bad and it's awful. But we'll just we'll do we'll talk about the rest same. It's a weird weird experience. Um, so you you kind of had this fascination with the past archeology. Um, what. 09:13.52 Charles Right. 09:27.00 alifeinruins You eventually went to college for it right? was that something you kind of knew. Did you go like straight out of high school into college or did you do something in between. 09:34.51 Charles Yeah, so so I definitely I went straight out from high school went to school minds figured out I didn't want to be an engineer and then was like you know I really enjoyed archeology and so I transferred up to see you boulder and. Finally took my first anthropology and archeology classes and just loved it. Um I wasn't necessarily that certainly was not the best student I spent a lot more time. Maybe not a lot more time but a fair amount of my time in boulder fishing ah rather than going to class. Um, but I I don't think I ever I'm not sure if I ever missed. Ah, class of Doug bamforce. Maybe I did hard hard to sell. There's actually a time I remember distinctly he was teaching a I think it was a plains archeology class and it was right after lunch one day in the room was super warm and I I was struggling to just keep my eyes open and stay awake I loved all of his classes. But that day. And just everything about it was the perfect storm of I fell asleep. But um, and even then the the crazy thing I enjoyed all my classes but I wasn't ah I would say as invested in anthropology archeology. At that point and it wasn't until I took my field school down in Texas that I really realized like okay this is this is fun like this is super awesome and and learning all about that kind of stuff. Um, and then that's kind of what set me on the career track that I'm here today. Otherwise I'd I'd be you know. 11:08.40 Charles Being a fly fishing guide and probably a Ski patrol or Ski bum or something like that. You know, very different career paths. 11:14.98 alifeinruins And you you were telling me and your partner Amanda mentioned it as well that you had like invested right? after your undergrad you're like I'm gonna get into this guiding thing. This is kind of the path I see myself on is that what. 11:32.31 Charles Yeah I mean it was basically like during my undergrad I was working at there's a fly shop in silverthorn called cutthroat anglers and I was working there and it was it was awesome right? You're like early 20 s and and fishing all day hang out with people that love the fish talking about fishing. 11:33.27 alifeinruins Where it kind of wins. 11:52.35 Charles And so yeah, as I got more into guiding I bought ah I bought a raft and then I actually bought the raft right after I got back from my field schools that have in 2008? Um, and so it was a kind of ah it was a. Bad timing for a guide career right? to like go to field school and be like I really like archeology and buy a raft. But obviously we still have the raft and it's and it's still a lot of fun. Um, but ah yeah. 12:22.73 alifeinruins That's interesting. Um I was gonna ask you? what did I so where did where in Texas did you go for your field school and what kind of work were you doing. 12:31.31 Charles Yeah, so the field school it was a ah since I had to work that summer and I wanted to fish and guide I was looking at field schools that were maymester field schools which I don't. I don't really know if that's really commonly offered anymore or not so that's really the only reason why I didn't take Doug's field school in Nebraska um, and I was choosing between a Texas Rock art field school through schumel archaeological research and Education Center or a maymester field school in Hawaii and the price difference was like fifteen hundred bucks or $2000 I was like I guess I'll go to Texas and and I was like I've always liked Rockar um it still satisfies that again I was looking at it really as not an archaeologist anthropologist just as a student trying to finish my undergraduate degree. Like what is the fastest and cheapest way I can get my final 6 credits to finish would be um so I went to Texas with shumla and it was a rock art specific field school learning how to record rock art figures record rock art sites do illustrations take photos. Um. And do a lot of the same types of documentation that you would do at any other archaeological site whether you have a large feature you're mapping or doing artifact illustrations and but what really struck me was how you have this confluence of of archaeological. 13:53.63 Charles Research and archaeological methods and and things coming together to address different aspect different questions in that region specifically because you have this incredible polychromatic rock art. That's all about these cosmology and and um. Ah, religious views of indigenous folks who lived there several thousand years ago and so you have this incredible record that's showing you 1 thing and then you have the let's call it the dirt archeological record that is as anywhere else is is chipstone burned rock fiber perishut artifacts and things and and. Trying to seeing archaeologists trying to bring those records together to learn have a more holistic picture of what's going on in the past and I think that was one of the major things that really just drew me in and and I think for me, especially that was probably 1 of the first times where. And and really it's ah it's a big thing right now in archaeology but humanizing the past in my career up to that point it was just vague like indigenous people right? And at that point it's prestoric prestor folks prestor humans all these types of stuff and then suddenly it's like oh no, these really really fired home for me like. 14:57.00 alifeinruins 5 15:05.78 Charles These are these are indigenous people they they behave the exact same as we do now they had the same hopes dreams and aspirations. They love they cried they laughed all these things that that many folks in our in our anthropology and archeology kind of take for granted but coming from the public facing stuff. Um, you kind of lose that. Um you can lose that appreciation. Um, for for looking at looking at the past and looking at the archaeological record. 15:33.27 alifeinruins So This this place kind of gave you gave you that little bit of both and then obviously I think that shaped how your career went from there and how you kind of studied things in the future because you kind I seems like you still use. Um, and we'll talk about this more later you still use kind of those methods and try to humanize the past a little bit as part of your your research. 15:52.96 Charles Yeah, absolutely and in the and you know I'm my I'm very in my career right now I'm I'm striving to do more indigenous centered archeology and and incorporate more indigenous views in what I do. Um. And but I also am always remembering that. Not everything we see in the archaeological record is so simple as this plant food or this animal gets you five hundred calories or fifteen hundred calories or so many different cultural factors that go into people making those decisions. And we still do that today. Ah, and yeah, we can and and status and symbols right? So of the cars people drive the accoutrement that people put on their cars. Ah those types of things. 16:45.81 alifeinruins Yeah, well, it's It's interesting because we both studied underneath someone who's very much math or two 2 people I should say that are very math oriented and that's how it kind of view the past. But I think the more recent generations are are. Changing a little bit and kind of doing this this new kind of approaches and stuff which is exciting and and cool to kind of see that happening all right? Well I Think on that note, we are going to end this segment and we will be right back. 17:09.96 Charles Yeah, for sure.