00:00.00 alifeinruins And we're back so real quick is that paper included an experiment that none of us were a part of so so since you arrived at Boulder I think I took part in your experiments and David and Connor and others were able to to join in in one of them. Um, and so that when you're able to crowdsource that other bison like did you do anything different prior to the other experiments. 00:30.87 Devin For the second bison the idea on the second bison was to test. But first we wanted ah a more robust younger animal because you helped out with the the first bison which was cal and we wanted to test a young bull. We also wanted it to focus on heavier dart shafts. So I did a lot of prep work up to that experiment crafting these dart shafts and then for the third bison the the one that we just did we pretty much continued that protocol but with some. Some improvements. So so what was different about the second one we actually had a really small crew. Um, so we had to kind of try and optimize our our output with a small cruise so we used to the the kind of older cassio cameras. 1 was observing from behind observing the impacts the exact location and the impacts. The other one was observing from the side and then in a third bison. We. Ah we used a really powerful camera called a kronos one point four to observe from the side and that's capturing the dark coming in. And impacting the bisman and the results there are just astounding because you can use use this auto trackcker function and tracker follow a specific mark on the dart shaft and it just goes automatically and then you you get this force read back as the the dart penetrates. 02:03.37 David Ah. 02:04.51 Devin Get some really sweet data. So so it was definitely really useful to see how those heavier darts were performing but also to test more robust younger bison and and just to try out those different cameras. 02:22.22 David Yeah, no, your equipment's always been pretty pretty sweet for all this. Um. 02:27.61 alifeinruins Absolutely um, now I'm like curious like what's the next step with the data right? because we see you know, generally we're talking about the heavier darts are we believer used first right? because that's what people are hunting pleos and megafauna with. And as time progresses then we get lighter darts then there's a transition There's a time where darts like basket maker darts and arrows are being used together and then especially in like the United States ah indigenous nations within the United States begin just using bow and arrow technology. So what is that transition tracking or is there something going on in the environment or the type of game that's being hunted that's kind of shifting this practice to. 03:11.20 Devin Yeah I mean so you're bringing up all the questions that we have because we don't know what people were using I mean we can see what Ls and darns looked like in the later cake that are coming out of the southwest. We don't know what paleload indian athlettles and Darrk looked like always hear the points and we have a problem like we mentioned earlier where archeologists not always, but they tend to be essentializing these weapons so they're just saying oh this is an alettle dark point and aletle dart is. XYZ and that's what it looks like and that's that but we suspect if people are hunting really big animals in the pleistocene. They're probably using a heavier kit and then later in time these lightweight basque maker darts that we're seeing in the southwest these are adapted to hunting up. Fleeter prey smaller prey probably and they're they're hunting you know desert big horns and that sort of thing. So so those are the kinds of questions that we have and how do we see all that just from stone points alone when you pick up a stone point you don't know how it was used. You don't know what the dart. It was on looked like but if you can make replica stone points and use them and see how they perform and see how they become damaged and see how bone becomes damaged with these different ballistic profiles that gives you something to work with that. You can then. 04:41.20 Devin Bring that to the archeological record and and try it and draw your data set out a little bit more and make some you know approximations of what a hunting kit looked like in the past. So that's a big part of what we're trying to do here look. 04:52.49 David Um, yeah. 04:55.60 David Would you ever given the chance do a alive bison hunt or what would you be opposed to that. You don't have the answer if you don't want. 05:04.92 Devin I mean I would hunt a buy some within that little but but I think ethically it's just it's something you have to tiptoe around you know I might do it for for my own hunt now having seen how these points perform I Definitely you know. 05:14.48 David Right. 05:24.59 Devin 1 of the good reasons to do this kind of experiment is it gives you a sense of how efficacious so a hunting weapon is and then you can bring that data to try and determine. You know is this still something. We want to do or not, you know you want to do that first on a. 05:36.71 David Yeah. 05:41.74 Devin An animal that that has just recently died a very rapid death and and you know I would also point out in these experiments. We're going ahead and we're consuming these animals. So so nothing is really lost that that wouldn't have been. Yeah, um. 05:52.23 David No. 05:58.52 Devin Skeptical all right I would be really careful really toshes. 05:59.32 David Yeah I. 06:02.29 alifeinruins Definitely tasted the age in that first place and holy shit was that she rugged. 06:08.51 David I Met a guy this spring that had done a bison hunt I believe but the hunt primitive guy. Um and he had said like he wouldn't do it again because you just felt so like. Ah. 06:08.85 Devin So um. 06:13.70 alifeinruins Oh that's right on primitive that mother. 06:22.78 David I Don't think gross was the word but that was kind of like what he was getting at that you know it's in a confined area. It's not like a real hunt. Um, and they they got a great shot and it died like pretty quickly but he was like it's just not not worth it. Yeah. 06:28.89 Devin Yeah. 06:37.11 Devin Yeah, farm manual is it's not really hunting and unfortunately we haven't recovered bison yet to the extent that you can go find easily find ah a big wild population that you can legitimately hunt. So. 06:40.96 David Ah. 06:50.78 David Right. 06:54.80 Devin Yeah, we need We have a lot of work out of us to to recover those animals on the landscape. 06:59.40 David Yeah. 07:01.26 alifeinruins Absolutely app. So um, man dude you just do such cool shit I'm so fucking happy that you got this new job. Um, like this is just it's just really awesome to see all this turn out in this published form. 07:18.30 alifeinruins And I don't know like I think like you're you're part of a trend of this generation of archeologists in their fields and they're and their folk eye really going after a lot of this assumed knowledge and like showing like you know this is the work that's been done for the past forty Fifty years is is not necessarily. Accurate because we just assumed the nature of the record and what these tools were used for like my colleague here at iu. He's a zoarcheeologist and he's like quickly realizing a lot of times specimens that are in a box aren't actually what's labeled on the box. 07:54.48 Devin Yes. 07:55.57 alifeinruins And like he was trying to get comparative samples from like Harvard and they wanted 15 rabbits and like even Harvard sample like 5 of the 15 were squirrels. They weren't even rabbits and it's just like and those are comparative samples that the world uses to identify. 08:09.97 Devin Yeah. 08:11.53 David Um, yeah. 08:14.87 alifeinruins Um, remains in the archeological record like oh we know you know so it's just like and you're part of this like well how do we actually know what we know and we're in this really interesting transition where we had the post-proceural critique in the late in the early 90 s that so we need to look at things differently. But you're part of this generation that's still very much rooted in quantitative methodologies to really go back reapply a lot of reanalyze a lot of our understanding of the archeological record and be like no no, no if we're going to be Scientific. We actually have to use the scientific method and you can't assume when doing that. 08:50.31 David Um, yeah. 08:52.54 Devin Yeah. 08:52.61 alifeinruins And like it's just in the fact that I don't know man like some of my favorite moments of being a grad student are are with you in random places on a farm like to doing this. 09:00.71 Devin I. 09:03.10 David And same while while you guys were in grad school like just being there for part of this was like damn dude this is to piggyback on what Carlton was saying like when you explain archeology is a science like your papers are at like the gold standard for like. You know, not just experimental but like legitimate science like it's a mythbusters type thing looking at at everything. Yeah, yeah, it's just it's cool. Yeah, and rightfully. 09:23.59 Devin How bad kids are making me bullish. 09:28.10 alifeinruins I mean Dev and bust mythbusters and all their je you know Ballistics Jell that they use all the time. It's like well damn it. 09:33.45 Devin Yeah, yeah, you can use that I mean you can use it for firearms. Okay, but but and I should I should just clarify really quickly why that is because if you think about leather if you think if you imagine that you have 3 strips of. 09:34.93 David Yeah. 09:52.58 Devin Ah, material. You have a strip of leather that's kind of thick and then you have a strip the same size of Ballistics Gelaton and you have a strip of clay if you pick up those strips in your fingertips and pull them apart. You can imagine that the gel just like jello would come apart really easily in your hands. The clay would too. But the leather you would probably you would probably have a hernia right before you pulled it apart. So so thelicious bistic s gelatin and it's been tested for quite a long time for firearms. It's mimicking the density and viscosity of muscle tissue. It's not mimicking the fracture toughness but for a bullet because it's traveling at such high velocity and it doesn't defeat a target using a sharp tip and edge the fractured toughness isn't the main part you can you can model bullet penetration use a flute using a fluid model. As if it's traveling through a fluid medium like atmosphere or or water and so one of the 2 main variables in a fluid penetration model are density and viscosity. But but we are studying low velocity projectiles. Defeat targets using sharp tips and edges and so they're defeating tough targets like skin is a very tough target leather body armor is a very tough target they're defeating that using those sharp tips and edges. So so that's why ballistics gelatin just it's not. 11:22.28 Devin Working and the same is true of clay. 11:23.29 David Yeah. 11:23.53 alifeinruins Because there was one moment that you were speaking about how in the high speed you can see that the some the ballistics shell was like bending before it broke like it was absorbing like rowheads in particular before it even penetrated and then it kind of there's. 11:32.72 Devin Yeah. 11:40.45 alifeinruins An elasticity to it where kind of get stuck back like it wasn't even act like and just like you said right? It's It's not doing what it's supposed to do with the tension. So it's like fucking with the penetration depths because it's acting like flubber. 11:41.32 Devin Yeah. 11:48.56 Devin Right? Yeah yeah I mean it's just like it doesn't have any of the structure. You know to make it you if you want to make collagen-based Jell, you're you're rendering Colla and out of these. Tissues Tendon bone skin you're you're rendering that out in a hot was water acid bath and you're mixing that subsequent that Collagen gel with water none of the structure like the Collagen fibers in Skin. None of that is preserved So So the toughness just isn't there. It's capturing Friction. So if you use a smaller point. It can even be a dull field point if it's smaller than a sharp larger Sharp broadhead. It's going to tend to penetrate deeper whereas you're going to get entirely the opposite result. And ah, an animal carcass. 12:49.70 alifeinruins What do you? How how deep do you think a heavy atle out dart would penetrate a Russian consscript wearing Nerf Body Armor I think you go tell me we could take a play trip and go test this quasi legally. 12:49.88 David Ah. 13:00.12 Devin But ah, ah, wait hold on but no, Ah, um, gosh. Well if you put I mean so body armor that protects on a battlefield against Soistic. Attack isn't necessarily designed for for something like a knife. That's why now the the body armor that's being manufactured for like police forces. They're trying to have to try and balance body armor that's going to capture both and a knife thrusting attack. And a bullet. So. So if you didn't have that kind of body armor and you had a sharp broad Ed on the end of a dart.. It might go right through and and you know right through the body armor into the into the body. So Yeah I don't know how I can't tell you how deep but but I suspect. Would defeat the outer layer of body armor and go through the tors show and probably stop at the back The the back layer of body armor for the skin that tends to be what's happening with I'm not sure about a stone point. Ah a sharp broadhead. 14:00.60 David An at little with the stone point. 14:07.39 David Okay. 14:09.00 Devin But what the result we tend to get on the bison is that when they get through the skin and resistance is far less through the torso they're going all the way through and they're actually stopping get skin at the back of the Torso or in some cases they're prenaurating through the skin on the back of the Torque torso. But. Ah, usually they they have shed ah the the large amount of energy they need to to punch through that tough hide on a bison is shed by the time they get to the back of the torso. Yeah, So it's yeah. 14:35.50 David Yeah, so I must have missed it then but like how is it that a body armor could stop a bullet but couldn't stop like a broadhead from going through. It is it just surface area or like. 14:51.52 alifeinruins Just just that desire. 14:53.12 David Pressure. 14:53.37 Devin Differences in the it's the the fibers of the body armor because kethlar body armor. You know it's a fabric. It's it's stopping kind of a blunt but hair very high velocity projectile if you take sharp edges. Um. 15:10.24 David Ah, okay. 15:10.63 Devin They're able to cut through the fibers. So so to make body armor that that protects against both they're using this this armor that becomes hard hardened at higher velocities or at a certain high velocity you you know you want the body to the the armor to move with your body., Especially if you're having it to wear it all day as a police police officer you're getting hot sweaty need to move around. You don't want it to be to to be a stiff hard material. But that's what you need to shield against a a sharp object. You see you want a hard. It's gonna dole the edge. 15:42.70 alifeinruins So it's like white. So it's like why a trampoline can bounce a bowling ball but gets cut by a knife. 15:43.78 David So. 15:53.17 David That makes plenty of sense then yeah, okay so just hire a bunch of Sitthian Mercenaries to go to car he or cave. Um, yeah are the dumb bats. 15:53.43 Devin Yeah. 16:01.59 Devin I need it if you had access to oh on taking your Star Wars Sir Good right. 16:12.34 David I Mean yeah, a light saber would work too. But um, yeah, ah okay, ah I was gonna ask Ah what? what's your favorite result or what's your favorite thing. You've learned. 16:18.71 alifeinruins We'll do this? yeah. 16:25.90 alifeinruins Boom That's it. 16:27.70 David Just favorite thing from these papers. 16:31.84 Devin Yeah, um, the force data that's coming out of the the high velocity or the the high speed video impacts. That's really fascinating. We're seeing Peaks in force. 16:47.18 Devin At different moments in time. So so the the main peak generally occurs when the point is penetrating the skin because ah again, it's the most resistive soft tissue and if you have ah like ah a lot of wool of thick wool coat it becomes even more resistant. 17:03.96 Devin So we're seeing these high peaks in force but oftentimes those peaks are occurring when the halfting area of the projectile is penetrated especially on the third bison then we tested it's it still had its winter coat had this very thick wool coat that was full of sediment. 17:12.20 David Yeah. 17:23.76 Devin And a lot of the points were actually getting hung up the hafting area and there were like wool was getting lodged in there or if you just have ah a halfting area that's kind of bulky going through. That's generally where the peak force occurs and what that means is that unsurprisingly. Ah, bulkier halfft or a half that isn't very smooth where that the point is halfft to the foreshaft that tends to be a big inhibitor of penetration depth. So So we don't see the halfs in the archeological record but we do see the basis of the points that Correspond to. How they were halfted and so we should be thinking about how um how to most efficiently Hald points when really efficient, afting would be called on Namely if you're hunting really big Prey. And how that's going to be that information is going to be passed down to us generally through stone points a lot. 18:25.47 David Yeah, ah, that's cool man. Um I mean I've known you what 5 years now is 2020 so yeah you've been at this a minute. 18:35.11 alifeinruins No because he came when when do we record Donny that was 2019 no that was twenty twenty that was right before covid. 18:42.17 David It was right before but I remember like people were in mass at the airport on the way back and I thought I had it but Albuquerque yeah you were at Albuquerque that's where I met you? um. 18:46.73 Devin 12 18:48.35 alifeinruins Potentially you meet Devin at he was there for the hell gap that yeah that too. But then um, the hell gap dedication. Oh. 18:56.17 Devin Oh yeah. 19:01.40 David I wasn't there for that. But anyway yeah, you've been working on this stuff for a while and it clearly you're passionate about it and it just look at I'm still stuck on this figure with the points that are figure 6 Yeah, you're clearly passionate about it so looks great. Um. 19:11.17 Devin Hello. 19:18.57 David You're getting your you're starting your new job soon. But where can people find you. 19:21.14 Devin I still post occasionally on Instagram Ar Athlettle and we have the website I I'm gonna I want to start putting some time into that website. Ekemakerraththletle.com is the the website that ah. Justin and I run. So I think we should start updating that a bit more but on social media look for me on Instagram. 19:45.83 David Okay, it's a R dot at little or a R undersquare level here dot at little. Okay. 19:51.49 alifeinruins They are dot out I don't yeah all that will be in the episode description. Dude Devin as always thank you so much. Thank you for continuously agreeing to be on the podcast I'm really excited to see you at a university you absolutely um, deserve a tenure track. 19:53.47 Devin Yep. 20:06.51 David Yeah. 20:08.45 alifeinruins Position and I think you're only like 12 hours away by car ride. 20:15.31 David Still. 20:15.70 Devin Yes, yeah I know'm and the same distance from biome in Arkansas to to SuRoss as I was from to Colorado so there's that yeah yep. 20:26.90 alifeinruins Good wife and West Texas would be fine I'd visit you there. 20:27.43 David Life of an archeologist. 20:33.62 David Yeah. 20:35.50 Devin It's a cool environment. Yeah, you got the the big Band National Park is right there. Yeah, it's cool. 20:39.80 alifeinruins Absolutely all everyone we just interviewed Dr Devin Pedigre you can find him on Instagram at ar.add a lotl as well as his website. Best maker something. 20:39.62 David Cool. 20:51.92 Devin Back. Best can maker at little.com 20:56.90 alifeinruins I don't know why so I thought that was at Basket Maker Adela Dot Com my brain my brain did I blue screened and in the brain. Um. 20:57.13 David Yeah I thought you froze like I thought your video literally froze. Yeah, all right? Well yeah, this has been great. Appreciate you coming on and Connor's not here. So no joke ah guys rate and review the podcast there you want um the. 21:02.48 Devin Um, ah. 21:15.63 David All shows feed thing subscribe on our art thing and whatever Anyway, all right, See you guys later. 21:19.43 alifeinruins But.