Webinar: Natural History at Home – How Archaeologists Learn from Objects Left Behind
Aired October 3, 2020
Katie Derloshon:
Good morning everyone. Welcome to today's Natural History at Home family program. My name is Katie.
Gale Robertson:
And I'm Gale.
Katie Derloshon:
And we are educators from the National Museum of Natural History. While the museum is closed, Gale and I will be bringing family programs to you every month. Before we begin, we like to give a special thanks to our generous donors, volunteers, and other important partners who enable us to discover, create, and share new knowledge with the world today and every day free of charge.
Gale Robertson:
And that brings us to today's program. Today we have special guest expert archaeologist, Ella Beaudoin, who works with us at the museum. Together we are going to practice asking questions and making observations of a real archaeological site in Kenya. She's going to show us how archaeologists use objects from the past to tell us about life a really long time ago. And you are going to get to practice some of that archaeology skills too. Ah, that's such a tongue twister. At the end of our program, we will share an activity with you to do with your family at home. You can then share what your family creates and discuss with us through email.
We really love hearing from our participants and seeing what they created together. And speaking of what our viewers create, we wanted to show some of the creations from our last family program, which was all about platypuses. So let me share my screen. Thank you to those who submitted these to our family programs resource site. We had so much fun talking about platypuses and learning about their habitats. And so we see some of those habitats represented in these little exhibits. We have rivers and the little baby platypus in the den. Love it. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.
Katie Derloshon:
And thanks Gale for sharing those with all of us here too. While we wait for more people to join our program, and before we meet Ella, let me quickly go over a few logistical things to help you to navigate through today's program. Today's program is designed to last around 45 minutes. There will be a recording of our program posted on the website next week that you can refer to if you have to leave early or you want to watch it again. If you have any questions or comments for us or Ella during the program, please use the Q&A feature, which you can find at the top or maybe the bottom of your screen.
We will do our best to answer as many questions as we can throughout today's program.We might not be able to answer it immediately, but we will try and pause throughout to get those questions in. We also have a time reserved towards the end where Ella can answer those questions that are specifically for her. We usually have an option for closed captioning, but today, unfortunately we don't have that option. We are hoping to have it for our next family program next month. And we have some special people behind the scenes that I want to introduce you to. We have Christian and Juan Pablo and Odalys, hello, working behind the scenes to help us answer our questions.
Gale Robertson:
Hi, thanks for helping us.
Katie Derloshon:
And while our museum is closed, we're broadcasting from home. I'm joining you from my home in Alexandria.
Gale Robertson:
And I'm joining you from my apartment in Washington, D.C., So people at home, now it's your turn to tell us where you are joining from. Please use your Q&A, let's warm up that Q&A feature. Tell us where you're joining us from and how old you are. Oh, David, Fiona, say hello to Christian.
Katie Derloshon:
And we had a hello from a Barbara. Hello, Barbara.
Gale Robertson:
All right. We have Alfred. Hi, Alfred from Michigan, 28.
Katie Derloshon:
All right. From Florida. Wow, hello. We've got some friends in Florida and Maryland. All right.
Gale Robertson:
Oh, hey Leanne from Indonesia. We have Maryland, from Boyds, Maryland.
Katie Derloshon:
And Sophie from England. And Susie and an Angie from Myrtle Beach. Hello.
Gale Robertson:
All right. Thank you all for joining us. Oh, and we have Ellie from Pennsylvania, four years old.
Katie Derloshon:
All right.
Gale Robertson:
Thank you for those of you who have joined us today. My name is Gale, and this is my colleague, Katie. And we are really excited to welcome you to today's program.
Katie Derloshon:
All right. Today we are going to talk about how we learn about the past through close looking and storytelling. As Gale mentioned earlier, we are going to practice making observations and asking questions to learn more about objects we see and learn about what those objects might teach us. We're also going to explore how objects can tell stories that haven't been written down. To help us out today, we have a guest expert from our museum. Let's say hello to archaeologist Ella Beaudoin.
Ella Beaudoin:
Hey everyone.
Katie Derloshon:
Ella, we're so glad you could join us today. Can you tell us a little-
Ella Beaudoin:
I'm so happy to be here.
Katie Derloshon:
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at the museum?
Ella Beaudoin:
Yeah, of course. So I'm Ella, I'm an archaeologist, and I basically dig in the dirt, and try and understand how people lived in the past. So I think probably an important thing is to talk about what does the word archaeologist mean. So an archaeologist is the study of human history and pre-history through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts and other physical remains. So basically what that means is trying to understand the past through actual objects and uncovering them generally from the dirt.
Yeah, I just fell in love with archaeology since I was a really little kid. I think we actually have some pictures of me when I was little, which I think is really cute. So here you can see my dad is holding me up and I'm trying to touch, I think it was a Tyrannosaurus rex, which I probably wouldn't touch now, I'm a little scared of them. But I've always been interested ever since I was really small with history and the past and what kind of stories there were and how people lived in the past. I also used to wrap up my Barbies like ancient Egyptian mummies.
Gale Robertson:
That is so awesome. And I love this image of the Barbie wrapped up in the Ace bandage.
Ella Beaudoin:
My mom found it and she sent me a message. She was like, "This was yours when you were a kid." And it made me feel very good about my life choices to become an archaeologist in the future.
Gale Robertson:
And we have a slide of you out in the field doing your work.
Ella Beaudoin:
So this is me now, maybe a couple of years ago, but this is what we look like when we're actually out in the field doing archaeology. So what I'm holding in that photo is actually a fossilized elephant leg. And then here I'm working with one of my colleagues because archaeology is not a one-person game. archaeology is all about collaboration and making sure that you work together with all different people from all over the world with all different kinds of expertise and specialties.
Gale Robertson:
That's awesome. And you had mentioned that you study human history, but it's from a long time ago. So what are we talking about here? Is that a thousand years ago? And you also said big word pre-history, how long ago was that?
Ella Beaudoin:
Great questions. So archaeologists can work in pretty much any time period. We can work with stuff that's a hundred years old, we can work with stuff that's a thousand years old. But what I work with is stuff that's way, way, way older than that. I work with things that are a million years old. So if we're thinking about stuff that's maybe a hundred or a thousand, there might be writing that we can see, there might be books about what happened and how people lived.
But a million years ago, we don't even think that we had language, that our ancestors didn't actually ... Potentially, they didn't write anything down and they didn't have language. So what we have to do to try and figure out how they lived that far back in time, so we have to look at stuff that would've survived through time. So has anyone ever ... You've ripped a book before or you've ripped a piece of paper by accident? I know I have all the time.
Gale Robertson:
Ya, all the time.
Ella Beaudoin:
Exactly. It's really delicate, it's really fragile. That probably will not last over a million years in the ground. So the stuff that I look at is actually stone tools, which are rocks that have been changed by our ancestors. Animal bones that have been fossilized and preserved. And sometimes our ancestors' bodies themselves, that when they die, they're in the ground and they get preserved.
Gale Robertson:
Oh wow.
Ella Beaudoin:
But I keep saying the word ancestors. Do you guys know what that is? Probably not. It's a hard thing to think about. But our ancient ancestors are basically what led to us, Homo sapiens, which is what we are — you, everyone viewing this, we're all Homo sapiens — is what we led to today. And here I have ... Yeah, there we go. A picture of reconstruction or model of what they would've looked like. So archaeologists can use the bones that they've found, that have been left in the ground, to try and understand what our ancient ancestors might have looked like.
So here you can see they all look a little bit different from one another. Some are hairier, some have less hair, some are taller, some are shorter. And that's because they're all different species. All of these guys are different species from one another and different from what we are. So here we can also see on the timeline is a big timeline. So we have time on the bottom and those little pictures are when certain things that started happening, started happening.
So here we see the little legs is when we started walking on two legs. And there the little triangle is when we started using tools to understand and do things in the world. And then we have fire, we have our brains getting bigger, and then we have us with the pitch fork is when we started changing the world around us. That's where we are. I have another slide that I want to talk about because I want to put this all one more time in hopefully a more understandable way.
Gale Robertson:
Okay, let's get to it. All right.
Ella Beaudoin:
So this is a family tree of us and all of our ancient and extinct ancestors. So I'm assuming people have potentially drawn a family tree with their own family before maybe in school, maybe for fun. These guys are like your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents or cousins. They're really, really far apart. They're very distantly related to us, but they're still related.
Or they might have led to us. So here you can see that. So again, back in time there were all these different groups, different species. Some of them lived at the same time. So some of times they all lived in the same environment, and some of them lived in different places and some of them went extinct. And some of them evolved into us today. And we are at the top of the tree. I think you can see the, "You are here," is where we are.
Gale Robertson:
Right at the very top.
Katie Derloshon:
Ella-
Ella Beaudoin:
We are the only living hominin alive today. [indistinct]
Katie Derloshon:
That's amazing. And Ella, you mentioned these early hominins and studying the things that they left behind in different places, but where do you find them? Do you dig around in the dirt to find these?
Ella Beaudoin:
Great question. I do dig around in the dirt, but what we have to know is where in the world do we dig around in the dirt? You can't just go back outside in your backyard and find this stuff. You have to look at where they lived very far back in time. And that's actually in Africa. So I think we have a picture. So here is the continent of Africa. So Africa is where all of our ancestors evolved, where we as Homo sapiens started, we started in Africa. And so what I do is we have to go to Africa and I work specifically in the country of Kenya. And you can see that with the circle around it and the green. That is the country of Kenya that I do a lot of my research in.
Gale Robertson:
Awesome. And so when you're in Kenya though, how do you know where to look for things?
Ella Beaudoin:
Oh, y'all have great questions. So I think as you can already tell, I like a lot of modern examples because I think, at least it makes it more understandable for me. So imagine that you are out with your family and you're in the woods and you look around and there's no one for miles. You don't see another human anywhere besides you and your family, but you're walking on the ground and you look down and you see a candy wrapper.
Gale Robertson:
Yeah, that's happened a lot.
Ella Beaudoin:
I know, exactly. You might see a candy rapper. So you know that us humans are the only things to make candy wrappers. No other animal has a factory that they make candy in. So we have to understand that when we find that, that's evidence that another human was there before us. See? So basically I'm doing the same thing with stuff left behind by our ancient ancestors. I'm looking at the trash they left behind, because it tells me that they were there and living and doing things at some point in time.
Gale Robertson:
Wow, that is such an interesting way to think about archaeology, the trash is evidence that someone was there before and someone was living and doing something in that time. So can you tell us some of these skills that archaeologists use to study trash or the objects that are left behind?
Ella Beaudoin:
Yeah, of course. So what we have to do first is we have to, like when you're in the forest, you're looking, we have to observe. So when we're excavating, which is digging things out of the ground, is we want to look at the things that we're finding and we want to make really close observations, or close looking. I think Katie used the term close looking, which I love. So we are going to be looking really closely and trying to understand, what do we see? That's step number one. The second thing that we do is we try to understand, so we found something, what is it? What is it used for?
How does it look? We want to understand what it is, because when we understand what something is and what it potentially is used for, we can start to understand how our ancestor may have used it. And the third thing that we want to do is we want to try and identify the pattern between all of the different objects or artifacts that we're finding. So if you find all these different things together, how do they all relate to one another? We want to join the clues to understand this snapshot in time, what happened at this one time in this one place. And we can try and figure that out through the stuff that we're finding.
Gale Robertson:
Yeah ... Go ahead. You were going to say something.
Ella Beaudoin:
It's okay, I get too excited. So obviously, I love this. I love archaeology so much, so please always interrupt me or ask questions if you need to, because I just get so excited about it.
Gale Robertson:
Actually there was a question before we moved on, and it was about what we were talking about with the early hominins. Don wants to know, so basically all humans are related to each other, is that correct?
Ella Beaudoin:
Very, very distantly, yes. So really, really distantly. So don't worry, it's not like you're getting married to anyone that's too closely related to you or that you like anyone. It's just how dogs are distantly, distantly, distantly related to wolves. It's a very similar thing.
Gale Robertson:
Great, thank you for answering that. And so it was so great for you to go through these archaeological skills of observing and really thinking about what that object is used for. Do you want to practice that?
Ella Beaudoin:
Yes. I do want to say one thing though first, to make sure that we talk about, because I know trash is a weird place to start. Trash, if you throw something in the trash, you feel like it might not be worth something. That's what we think about. But in reality, most of the archaeologists look at trash. So people in the past who were really rich or had a lot of power, had the ability to save things for themselves through time.
So if you imagine, you know how I wrap my barbie up like a mummy. So imagine the pyramids, you know what the pyramids are in Egypt, they're big and pointy. Those were built by pharaohs who had a lot of money and a lot of power. And so they were able to build these big structures that could last through time. Now, before there were really good archaeologists, all we knew about the past was what rich people did. And that's not really the most accurate understanding of how everyone lived. So archaeologists look at trash to try and figure out how the ordinary people lived.
Gale Robertson:
And all of those stories are important to tell, just like the bigger story of the world.
Ella Beaudoin:
We can't have a good understanding of the past without understanding how everyone lived.
Gale Robertson:
That's a really great point. I'm so glad you brought that up, Ella.
Ella Beaudoin:
Well, it's okay because I think I'm a pretty ordinary person, so I like to make sure that I'm included.
Katie Derloshon:
That sounds okay, I agree with that. I like that.
Ella Beaudoin:
Awesome. So I think we have an activity that we want to practice being an archaeologist.
Gale Robertson:
So let me share my screen and Ella you could take us through it.
Ella Beaudoin:
Yes. Oh, I'm so excited. This is because I said I'm a pretty ordinary person, so I would love for you guys to be future archaeologists for me. If I left right now and you in the future found this trash of mine that I left behind, could you tell me what happened in this little snapshot of time where all of this trash was given up? So first, let's go through, again, the skills that we need. So first things first, I'd love to hear what you guys observe.
Katie Derloshon:
All right. So families make those observations and then share with us in the Q&A what you see in Ella's picture. All right. Do some close looking.
Gale Robertson:
Look closely.
Katie Derloshon:
Looking at all of the objects you see, what can you tell us is in there?
Ella Beaudoin:
It was very fun of me to collect all this trash, by the way. I just want you to know that.
Gale Robertson:
Also, as people are out there thinking about what they see, I just want to remind you guys, if you have any questions for Ella, please put them in the Q&A. We will spend some time at the end for her to answer some questions.
Katie Derloshon:
We've got some observations coming in, someone sees a Cheeto wrapper.
Ella Beaudoin:
Yes. We do see a Cheeto wrapper.
Katie Derloshon:
And I'm making an observation, I see there's a yellow box of something. It looks like it says cake.
Ella Beaudoin:
Mm-hmm. So we see a Cheeto wrapper, we see a box of cake mix.
Katie Derloshon:
All right. We've got someone saying that they see candles and maybe you were celebrating something.
Ella Beaudoin:
So already we're doing so great. So we've identified some of these objects in here. The second skill is what are these things used for?
Gale Robertson:
Yeah, I know someone else mentioned, it looks like you have a webinar preparation list.
Ella Beaudoin:
I do. Look at that.
Gale Robertson:
I know. Really close looking. That's great.
Ella Beaudoin:
Incredible. So that's exactly what archaeologists have to do, is they really have to understand and look at stuff that's left behind.
Gale Robertson:
An envelope.
Ella Beaudoin:
Envelope and a card. I think we've hit everything. So we've observed everything in our excavation square. We can imagine that the trash bag is what we're excavating because we excavate in squares and excavating is uncovering from the dirt. So that's our square, so we've observed everything in the square. Now it's time to figure out what each of these things are used for individually. So we had, I think someone circled here. We can start with candles if want. If you click, I think I put a blue circle around candles.
Gale Robertson:
There you go.
Ella Beaudoin:
Perfect. Okay, so let's start with candles. What are candles used for?
Gale Robertson:
Providing light, maybe?
Ella Beaudoin:
Exactly.
Gale Robertson:
Partying, Dawn says. Dawn says parties.
Ella Beaudoin:
Great.
Katie Derloshon:
Could be to celebrate something maybe?
Ella Beaudoin:
To celebrate, wonderful. Okay, so now we've figured out, so candles, they give light. They're potentially culturally used to celebrate something, so that's more specific. And these candles are pretty small, so they're probably not going to give a lot of light. So that leans us more towards another theory. So let's talk about now this cake mix. I think that's the ... If we click. So what is cake mix used for?
Katie Derloshon:
Well, I like to use it to make something, to eat something yummy. Someone put in here to eat chocolate cake.
Ella Beaudoin:
To eat chocolate cake, it's a very important part of your life, I think.
Katie Derloshon:
Someone is starting to put these clues together.
Ella Beaudoin:
And then wait, we're going to observe one last thing to try and identify what it's used for. So the next thing thing, the card. So what are cards used for?
Katie Derloshon:
Viewers at home, what do you use cards for? Let's see. Oh, okay. Maybe for a party.
Ella Beaudoin:
For a party.
Katie Derloshon:
Might be for a party.
Gale Robertson:
I know I just wrote a bunch of thank you cards.
Ella Beaudoin:
Exactly right. Thank you cards. Writing-
Katie Derloshon:
Someone said to send greetings or wishes to someone.
Ella Beaudoin:
Okay, great. All of these are amazing.
Katie Derloshon:
Invitations.
Ella Beaudoin:
Invitations, great. So now I think we're ready to use the next skill, which is we're going to put together all the evidence and try to identify the pattern that we see here together.
Katie Derloshon:
So viewers at home tell us in the Q&A, what is going on in Ella's trash?
Ella Beaudoin:
What happened, what life event might have happened?
Katie Derloshon:
This is, what you would you call it? This is a snapshot in time.
Ella Beaudoin:
A snapshot in time of my life.
Katie Derloshon:
All right. Oh, we've got, Marilyn says maybe it was a birthday party. Dawn says birthday party. David and Fiona say preparations for a party. Did you have a birthday? Oh, Sophie says, "Happy birthday, Ella." I think she's also thinking that there's a birthday going on here.
Gale Robertson:
You're so awesome.
Ella Beaudoin:
Honestly, this is amazing. You guys are truly doing all of the skills that archaeologists do. Look, yes, it was my birthday when I put together this photo.
Katie Derloshon:
Happy belated birthday, Ella.
Gale Robertson:
Happy belated birthday.
Ella Beaudoin:
Thank you so much. So something that I really want to talk about though, what's so important is that all of these things were found together. So if you're an archaeologist, this is why we do the observing, the identifying the use, and then the pattern. That's why we have to go through all three steps to try and understand what was happening. Because imagine that you only found the cake mix.
Katie Derloshon:
Well, sometimes I just bake a cake just because it's Tuesday and that sounds like a good dessert for the evening, but not necessarily for a birthday.
Ella Beaudoin:
Exactly. I might just really love chocolate cake. Or imagine that you only found the candles.
Katie Derloshon:
Maybe you just needed to light a fire.
Ella Beaudoin:
Yeah, maybe you thought they were pretty, they could have been decoration. So that's why it's so important for archaeologists to always look at how everything fits together. Because if you take one of these things out, it may mean something completely different. It's also super important to understand the context as well. So this is what context is, is understanding how things fit together. But say my family has a different birthday tradition.
Say instead of cake, I have birthday milkshakes potentially. So instead what we'd find was milkshake stuff. We'd find a milkshake cup, a card, and candles. We could still probably figure out that it was a birthday because those things are together. But again, if we took out any one of those other elements that we saw in our excavation square, we might not have been able to figure out it was a birthday. So again, everything has to be understood together when we understand how things are used.
Gale Robertson:
Awesome.
Katie Derloshon:
That was fun, Ella. Thank you for letting us take a peek in your-
Gale Robertson:
You got a lot of birthday wishes.
Ella Beaudoin:
I love that.
Katie Derloshon:
Now, before we were talking about going to a real archaeological site, Gale was mentioning this. But before we go back in time to go to the archaeological site, we are going to review those skills one more time. Is that okay?
Ella Beaudoin:
Yes, please.
Katie Derloshon:
So we've got, we look closely and make observations. So archaeologists, and we just did that. We think about maybe how the object is used. We think about how the objects can work together and look for patterns to tell that entire story. Is there anything else we need or are we ready to go? And figure out the story, I forgot to ...
Gale Robertson:
Oh yeah, that's the most important part.
Katie Derloshon:
I know.
Gale Robertson:
Look at all the evidence together.
Katie Derloshon:
Think about how that object's used, think about a pattern, and then figure out what all of those things together tell us. I'm ready to go. Are you guys ready?
Ella Beaudoin:
Let's go back in time. Or who's ready to travel to Kenya? Because I know I am. Let's go to Kenya, because I wasn't able to go to Kenya this year, so this is really exciting for me to be able to talk about it and be there with you guys.
Gale Robertson:
Let's go.
Ella Beaudoin:
So this is a close up picture of Kenya and we're going to a site called Olorgesailie. So where that dot is right on this map of Kenya is where we're going to be going. So here's a picture of the site that we are going to be looking at and trying to figure out what happened. So here you can see all of these archaeologists are working to uncover, to excavate all the things that they're finding. And all the pictures on the other side, there's a trowel, a toothbrush, toothpicks, a dental pick, a shovel. Those are all different things that archaeologists use.
Gale Robertson:
So they are using those tools at the site to very carefully uncover what is there. Awesome.
Ella Beaudoin:
So we're looking now right into the site, just as we looked at our other pretend site that we had before. Now we're looking at the real site. So what we're going to do, I think, is I'm going to talk about what we uncover and we're going to talk about their uses. And we're going to do the same thing and figure out what happened here a million years ago. Is everyone ready?
Katie Derloshon:
I'm ready.
Gale Robertson:
Yeah.
Ella Beaudoin:
So it's the beginning of the day. You've woken up, it's hot, it's dusty. You've had your morning coffee and you're ready to get to site. You ready?
Katie Derloshon:
I'm ready.
Gale Robertson:
Yes.
Ella Beaudoin:
So we start excavating, and we're digging and we're excavating and all of a sudden we find these. So let's observe. What do they look like? What do they think they are potentially? That's the first thing we're going to observe.
Katie Derloshon:
Families make your observations and share with us in the Q&A what you see.
Ella Beaudoin:
And this is quite hard because this is a lot of stuff that most people have never seen. So don't worry, there's no wrong answers. All observations are good observations.
Katie Derloshon:
We've got rocks, yes.
Gale Robertson:
So while we let our families at home make some close observations. Ella, we had a question. How do you select a place to excavate?
Ella Beaudoin:
That is a great question. So very similarly to our example of walking in the forest and finding some trash and knowing that someone was there before. That's what we're doing in Kenya. So because I'm an archaeologist, I've been trained to identify really specific things that we're going to be seeing actually in this site that we're looking at. So I now know what things to look for, what kinds of trash that hominins left behind. So basically we walk generally long distances, looking at the ground, trying to find ancient trash. When we find ancient trash, we probably try and guess where it came from, where it came out of the ground from, because then there is where we try to excavate to see if we can find more.
Gale Robertson:
That is so cool. And I love your connection to what you were talking about earlier where you just walk around and you see something and you're like, "Hmm, this is evidence." Okay, cool.
Ella Beaudoin:
Archaeology is a lot of walking and observing.
Katie Derloshon:
All right, some excellent observations are popping in. We've got arrowheads maybe, or cutting tools. Shaped rocks that maybe someone shaped, they weren't naturally that shape. Stone tools, maybe from our ancestors. Tools that were used earlier back in time. Someone's wondering how big they are.
Ella Beaudoin:
Guys, you're all so good at this. You're so good at this. All of those questions, all of those were right. These are stone tools. So these are rocks that were shaped by our ancient ancestors. And these particular tools can range in size. So I'm going to use the example right now. Generally the average tool that looks like this, this is my cellphone, is roughly about the size of my cellphone.
Katie Derloshon:
Oh, okay.
Ella Beaudoin:
That's the average size of the ones that we are finding here at this site.
Katie Derloshon:
Wow. That's awesome.
Ella Beaudoin:
Yeah, these are stone tools. And all those things that you said, I think we heard they're made of stone. They might be used for cutting, which yeah. So if you guys have seen maybe a parent use a knife in the kitchen, potentially cutting up fruit and veg, or some meat. So those are actually ... What were those made out of? What were the knives that you've seen made out of today?
Gale Robertson:
Yeah, we have metal ones.
Katie Derloshon:
Metal, or they have ceramic ones now.
Ella Beaudoin:
So all of those things didn't exist a million years ago. So what hominins used instead were rocks that they could hit in a really specific way to make them this shape and many other shapes as well. But the thing that they all had in common is they're very sharp. So this is basically an ancient knife and they also use it for digging and stuff.
Katie Derloshon:
They would shape it by taking a rock and then hitting it with another one?
Ella Beaudoin:
Mm-hmm. It's pretty cool. And it's very difficult. I do it for work sometimes, it's very hard.
Gale Robertson:
That's cool.
Katie Derloshon:
Ella, are there other things-
Ella Beaudoin:
... To be able to make such a good shape. Awesome.
Katie Derloshon:
Are there other things on our site, Ella?
Ella Beaudoin:
Pardon? Yes.
Katie Derloshon:
Are there other things at our site?
Ella Beaudoin:
There are, I think. So the day is getting longer. We're getting sweatier and we find this. Okay, so what do we observe with this?
Katie Derloshon:
Families, share with us in the Q&A. What do you see? Or what do you notice?
Ella Beaudoin:
Now this is a close up of part of it, so that's also a little tricky.
Katie Derloshon:
Someone said a stick, maybe a bone.
Ella Beaudoin:
Oh, okay, stick, a bone.
Katie Derloshon:
A bone with a fracture, a bone, lots of bones.
Ella Beaudoin:
Again, honestly, you guys are amazing. I want you on site with me.
Gale Robertson:
Good observation skills. Yeah, good observations.
Ella Beaudoin:
So yeah, this is a bone, but there's something really special about this particular fossilized bone. So there we go. Do you see ... I have a blue circle surrounding two marks that are going up and down. Do you see those? So those are marks left behind by something cutting on the bone.
Katie Derloshon:
Wow.
Gale Robertson:
And how would you know that it would be different than the other little marks on this bone?
Ella Beaudoin:
Yeah, so you can see these marks are, one, a lot shorter and they're parallel or right next to each other.
Gale Robertson:
Oh, I see.
Ella Beaudoin:
So very similar to how archaeologists use patterns to identify whole archaeological sites. Sometimes we also have to recognize patterns on stone tools, on bones, because that can tell us stuff that happened. So cut marks have often very distinctive or very unique patterns.
Gale Robertson:
Oh wow, that's so cool. I'm sensing a pattern that patterns are very important.
Ella Beaudoin:
Yeah, patterns are very important.
Gale Robertson:
Very important.
Ella Beaudoin:
So we've understood this is a bone with some cut marks on it. So let's go to our next find in the excavation.
Katie Derloshon:
All right.
Ella Beaudoin:
What do we observe?
Katie Derloshon:
All right, families. Let's hear it in the Q&A. Share with us, what do you see?
Gale Robertson:
Yeah, look really closely.
Katie Derloshon:
Someone said, they're coming in, maybe a jaw. What tells you that it might be a jaw?
Gale Robertson:
Someone else had part of a skeleton.
Katie Derloshon:
That looks like there might be teeth, that they're big and flat like a mammoth. Excellent close looking.
Ella Beaudoin:
You guys are amazing.
Katie Derloshon:
Can you tell us a little bit more about it Ella, what are we looking at here?
Ella Beaudoin:
Oh yeah, so you guys are right on. It's actually a jaw, or a mandible, that's another word for jaw. So here you can feel your own, right here. So this is the bottom. So you have your skull up here, and then you have your jaw or your mandible right here. So someone said that has teeth. Yes, just like we have teeth. But they're really special teeth, and they said that they were a mammoth.
And you know what? They are very much like a mammoth because this is actually an elephant, which is related to mammoths. So they have these very flat teeth with those ripples in them, where you can see the green being drawn all around them. So that is where they grind stuff up. So we found an elephant jaw, so that might give us an indication of what kind of bone our cut-marked bone is. From an elephant.
Gale Robertson:
Putting pieces together.
Ella Beaudoin:
Exactly. So actually that is a rib bone. So you can also feel those on your own body. If you touch your, if you can see right here, you can feel them. Those are ribs. So elephants have ribs as well, just like they have lower jaws. And that's actually a rib. So I think the next thing that we want to do ... So we understand what all of these things are. We've made observations and we understand what each of these things are. Now, what is the story or the snapshot in time that we've uncovered what might have happened at this time, at this spot, a million years ago?
Katie Derloshon:
We've had a few participants and viewers that have shared what they think might have happened. And there might have been some hunting or that they might have killed an elephant, or that something had happened with them with these elephants. So I don't know if we're on the right track here, but we've got some stories brewing here.
Ella Beaudoin:
You guys are on exactly the right track. So I'm going to show you guys in the next picture a reconstruction of what might have happened at that point. So a reconstruction is a drawing based off of the evidence that we have. So basically putting together everything that we've all discussed right now to see what really happened in the past. And a little bit of a warning, it does show a dead elephant, but it is a drawing, so don't worry. Also, I do want to say all of these pictures that you're seeing here are all from one, a real archaeological site, and two, this archaeological site.
Gale Robertson:
So you all were studying the actual objects found from this site in Olorgesailie. Awesome. And doing a great job, Ella. I'm going to move to the next slide.
Ella Beaudoin:
So here is a reconstruction of what we think hominins doing at this site a million years ago. So you guys were all super right, so give you guys a pat on the back for that. Yeah, you were right, they potentially killed the elephant or maybe the elephant died from other things and they went there and they took the meat off. Because this far back in time, hominins had to do whatever they could to survive. So a lot of that was getting meat from other animals or making sure that they would live. But there's a couple of things that are really important to understand, and this is why context is so important with archaeology. What's something that you know about elephants?
Katie Derloshon:
Well, I know that they're really, really big.
Gale Robertson:
Ginormous, yes, they're big.
Ella Beaudoin:
Exactly. And so do you think that one person could potentially kill an elephant just by themselves with nothing but stone tools? So no guns or no spears, no nothing.
Gale Robertson:
Yeah, it would be really hard.
Ella Beaudoin:
And do you think, if one person somehow managed to take down an entire elephant, that they could eat the whole thing? Just themselves. Before it got gross, before it got all icky.
Gale Robertson:
Probably not.
Ella Beaudoin:
Exactly. So one thing we know from the size of the elephant is that hominins, our ancient ancestors, must have been coming together and working together to survive. Another thing that we know is there are thousands of stone tools that were found at this site. So we know that there must have been quite a few hominins making stone tools and using them there as well. So there's two indications that there's more than one hominin working together at this site. So that's something that's really important to know about the past is we are only the species that survived today because we work together and support each other within a community
Katie Derloshon:
Sorry. But I was going to say that's so cool that we were able to tell all of these things and learn all of these things just from those objects that you showed us. That's so neat.
Ella Beaudoin:
Just from those objects. And that's exactly what archaeology is. We're getting a way better understanding of how people lived in the past. Not only what they ate, but also how they lived together in communities.
Katie Derloshon:
Awesome.
Gale Robertson:
And I really love this reconstruction too, because it really gives you a nice visual of that community and what they were doing together to survive together. So I know it might seem a little scary, but it's such a cool thing to see. All right. Well, Ella, this is such an amazing journey that you've taken us on. We've used our archaeology skills to look at trash from millions of years ago to just a few months ago.
And so thank you for that. And I'm hoping that our friends and families at home will remember these skills because we do have an activity for you at the end of the program. But we did want to take some time because we have some really great questions. We wanted Ella to be able to answer these questions before we get to that one activity. So does that sound good, Ella? Can you answer some questions for us?
Ella Beaudoin:
That's great. I hope I can answer them. I'm just one person, so I'll try my very best to answer all your questions.
Gale Robertson:
All right. Katie, you want to read the first one?
Katie Derloshon:
All right. Yes. So Ella, why are they called hominins? Did the word human come from that?
Ella Beaudoin:
That is a great question. I actually don't know. You know what, I'm going to look that up for myself. So hominin means something specifically. I don't know where the word came from or where human came from specifically, but hominin basically means everything that we are related to. And there are two different words. There's hominid and there's hominin. I will look this up after.
So one thing I do want to say, archaeologists don't know everything off the top of their head. I do a lot of stuff that I look back in books. So if you are not very good at numbers, which I know I'm not, or sometimes remembering things, you don't need that to be a scientist. What science is, is working together and making sure to know how to do research and look things up. So that's something that I have to look up actually.
Gale Robertson:
And we have a really great Human Origins website too, on our naturalhistory.si.edu website. So that's also a good resource for looking things up.
Ella Beaudoin:
Yeah, for sure. And so I'm just going to say this with a little bit of ... I'm pretty sure this is right. So hominin means us and all of our ancestors that were related to us or that are more humanlike. Hominid also includes us, all of our ancestors, and other primates that we're distantly related to.
Gale Robertson:
Thank you, El, for sharing.
Ella Beaudoin:
I hope that's right. If it's not, email.
Gale Robertson:
I was going to say, email us.
Ella Beaudoin:
Email us. Again, looking stuff up, checking facts, always are super important.
Gale Robertson:
Great. We have a question from a high school student that's interested in both evolutionary biology and archaeology. Yay. Can you suggest some universities or courses to take after high school?
Ella Beaudoin:
Great, to go to university?
Gale Robertson:
Mm-hmm.
Ella Beaudoin:
Definitely. I'm so glad that you mentioned our website, so the Human Origins website does actually have a place specifically for college students. So it's all different kinds of resources that you can look at that has field schools and other kinds of things that you can look at to learn. I would recommend if you have interviews by certain archaeologists that you really like, you can always look up where they went to school or look up their email and email them. That's always a great idea.
Another thing that you can do is read articles that you enjoy, popular science articles about archaeology and figure out what universities are doing what. Because different universities specialize in different regions of the world quite often because certain researchers are specialized for that. So I might study early stone tools, so I might be able to teach you about early stone tools, but I couldn't teach you about ancient Egypt. As much as I love it, I don't know really anything about ancient Egypt. So you'd want to find a researcher who specializes in the topic you're most interested in. I hope that helped.
Gale Robertson:
Yeah, it's true because archaeology is such a huge topic and then people are so specialized. Yeah, I think that's really helpful. And Ella, we will include the Human Origins website link in the post-program email that we send to everyone, and it is definitely a wealth of information and it's such a great site.
Ella Beaudoin:
You can always email us too there. So I do answer some of those emails. Me and my boss, Briana Pobiner, who's also an archaeologist and researcher at the Smithsonian. So we have a place that you can email us directly, if you have more questions.
Gale Robertson:
That's awesome. Also, another question. What are some challenges that you face in your field?
Ella Beaudoin:
That is a great question. There are some challenges where it comes ... So I have learning disabilities, so that's something that's really important for me. So I have dyslexia and dyscalculia, which means that reading is really hard for me and also different kinds of math. So for me, those things are challenges in the field. So I use different alternative learning. So I use a screen reader which reads to me what's on the screen so that I can hear them. Because I find reading really, really difficult. Another thing that I use is always use a calculator, but also I know I'm never going to be very good at math.
So again, that's why it's so important to have collaborators, people that you work with every day so that I can say, "Hey, I'm really bad at math. I struggle with this a lot. This is part of my learning disability. Can I partner with you on a paper or on a project? You're amazing at math and I'm better at talking or writing and we can work together to create a really cool project." So I'd say for me that is one of the harder things right now. Another thing is sometimes when you're out in the field, it's hot, it's dry.
You have to be pretty good at dealing with being a little bit uncomfortable physically when it comes to weather and sweatiness and being dirty. Often you have to be a little bit okay with that, or sometimes you have to be pretty okay with bugs depending on where you're doing excavations, which I'm not great with bugs, but I had to just hold my breath and keep walking and keep doing my work even though there's a spider or a tick near me. So those are two different things.
Gale Robertson:
That is awesome and I'm so glad that you brought up those challenges because it really is ... If you are passionate about something, you will find a way to do it. And ask for help. So I thank you for sharing that because it's so important. If there's something that you want to do, work as hard as you can to do it. Find the people that'll help you. There are people out there that will help you.
Ella Beaudoin:
Especially if you have other potentially learning disabilities, there are great resources out there and really great free assistive technology that you can access, for sure. And especially for students who are interested in going to college for this specifically or are potentially in high school, you can reach out to a disability center at your university or where you're planning to go and they can often help you get the resources that you need to thrive.
Because I know I didn't learn to read until I was 11, so that was something that took a very long time. And people didn't think, she probably won't end up going and doing something in the sciences. But I fell in love with it and I got the help that I needed. I'm really lucky that my parents were really helpful and they helped me and got me technology that could help so that I can listen to things instead of having to read them.
Gale Robertson:
Yeah, that's amazing. Awesome. I'm so glad you brought that up. All right. And one more question and then we're going to go into the activity. Dawn wants to know, how many years ago was that picture from? So the reconstruction that we looked at.
Ella Beaudoin:
A million years.
Gale Robertson:
What is that?
Ella Beaudoin:
Roughly 1 million years ago.
Gale Robertson:
Wow.
Ella Beaudoin:
So that was that elephant site, so that's roughly a million years ago. And you can go on our website again to find out more about that elephant butchering site.
Gale Robertson:
Oh, that's good to know.
Ella Beaudoin:
And they might have a slightly more refined date, but a million is probably the best I can give right off the top of my head.
Katie Derloshon:
Awesome. Ella, thank you so much for sharing your story.
Ella Beaudoin:
Of course, I loved it.
Katie Derloshon:
This has been amazing. And thank you for answering our questions as well.
Ella Beaudoin:
Thank you for asking me questions. I love archaeology and I've loved archaeology since I was a baby. So I want everyone to love archaeology the same as me. So it's so exciting to get to talk to people that do.
Katie Derloshon:
All right. Now, that brings us to our activity time. So if we're ready, Gale and I and Ella have an activity that we've planned out that we'd love to share with you. So families, we just practiced using our archaeological skills that Ella taught us to learn the stories of two different events, Ella's birthday celebration, and how early hominins got their food. So we looked closely at objects, made our observations, noticed some patterns, thought about where the objects are, how they were found, and then we put all of these clues together and we told the story. So let's get into our activity. All right. Thank you for sharing that, Gale.
Gale Robertson:
So this activity is going to reflect a lot of the things that we did today, a lot of the skills that we just used. But now it's time to think about your family. So think about how objects can be used to tell something that happened in your everyday life. Remember how Ella was talking about, we're talking about the everyday life of ... Well, birthdays are kind of every day, but it was a special celebration. But we just also studied the snapshot of a day in the life of these early hominins doing something that they needed to do in their life, you need to eat.
Well, think about your family and the objects around you in your living space that tell the story of what you do every day and how you use those objects to complete your everyday tasks. So this is the list of things to do, and these will look familiar because it's exactly what we've gone through before. Look closely at your living space for things that you use every day. Think about how those objects are used and then think about them together. Remember those patterns, about how these things are used together like puzzle pieces.
And then we would love for you guys to share images of your objects with us. And Ella, Katie, and I, we're going to try to figure out what your objects represent in your everyday snapshot of life, and we'll respond to you in an email. And then you'll have to let us know if you're correct. And we have some examples to show you. All right, so the one on the left is Katie's snapshot, and then one on the right is my snapshot. And I know we're over time, but if anyone wants to take a guess, after looking at our five objects and thinking about what these objects represent individually.
Katie Derloshon:
For my picture, Gale, this is a snapshot in time of many times of the day for me.
Gale Robertson:
Me too, actually, for mine.
Katie Derloshon:
Sophie, you're totally right. How did you know I had a baby?
Gale Robertson:
Yeah, and D, I'm going to mess up the name so I'm not going to say it. D, who had all the great questions about university, also said for a baby.
Katie Derloshon:
I have a little four-and-a-half-month-year-old, and this is a snapshot of our daily life many times over. Thanks for guessing it out.
Gale Robertson:
Yeah, mine might be a little bit trickier.
Ella Beaudoin:
Can I have a guess?
Gale Robertson:
Oh yes, please, Ella.
Ella Beaudoin:
Okay, so these are hard. Okay, so now you're going to test my archaeological skills. So I observe a, there's a laptop which is used for writing, paper, which can be used for more writing, pens, which are used for writing, a kid's barrette, and headphones are used for listening on a laptop. Those are the things I observe. I see that there's potentially ... Is there any guesses?
Gale Robertson:
Any guesses? We also had an observation of using a laptop and noting things down. If you look really closely at the markers, they are a certain type of marker. I should have turned them around so you can see, they're dry erase markers.
Katie Derloshon:
That's how we found them.
Gale Robertson:
I love it. Sophie says you're using YouTube to learn new hairstyles to draw. That is such a great ...
Ella Beaudoin:
Great answer.
Gale Robertson:
I know. That is a great answer.
Ella Beaudoin:
That's 100 percent putting together the clues.
Gale Robertson:
It really is.
Katie Derloshon:
Gale, is that what you're using them for?
Gale Robertson:
I'll tell you. So just like Katie said, my everyday life is distance learning and virtual learning with my four-year-old and nine-year-old. And yeah, the clip is representing, my four-year-old has to have clips in her hair every day. That's actually the one that she chose to show everyone. But yeah, it's all about learning. Sophie, you were saying watching videos. Yes, we watch a lot of videos. We use paper, different things.
Since we are in an apartment, we all use our headphones so that we're making sure that we're not bothering other people. So I hope you guys have fun with this activity. As much fun as we had doing it, putting it together. And we can't wait to see what you guys send us. And yes, please send your photos to nmnhfamilyprograms@si.edu and we will share them with Ella and Ella will help us out with looking at these and using our close observation, our close looking to do this activity.
Katie Derloshon:
All right. That was so much fun. And friends, our time is up for today's program, but thank you so much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed learning all about archaeologists and how they tell stories through objects found, and are ready to think about how objects in your home, tell about your everyday life stories and then you can share them with us. Special thanks to Ella for sharing her knowledge about archaeology and how archaeologists learn the stories of the past. Thanks, Ella.
Gale Robertson:
Thank you.
Ella Beaudoin:
Thank you for having me. And thank you guys for watching. You were amazing. I would love to have all of you in the field with me.
Gale Robertson:
I know, maybe you will. We did have some good questions about how to get in that field. So thanks Ella. All right, caregivers, we do have a short survey at the end to fill out and we're always excited to hear your feedback, especially as we continue to have these online programs. We want to do programming that is most beneficial to you and your families at home, especially during this crazy and difficult time. So please let us know. Please give us any feedback in this survey. Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. We look forward to seeing you at future programs.
