WEBVTT

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- This is it. This is the
knife made out of poop.

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- That is a knife made out of my own poop!

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There's actually an
ethnographic account that says

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some people would make knives
out of their own frozen feces.

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We tested it and it does not work.

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- It doesn't work.
- Like a brown crayon,

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it just streaks on the meat.

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- [George] In a quiet corner

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of Kent State University's main campus,

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scientists are exploring innovative,

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sometimes strange new
ways to study the past.

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It's called the Experimental
Archaeology Lab.

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And what they do there is just
as intriguing as it sounds.

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- While we do field work, and
we look at ancient artifacts,

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the thing that distinguishes
us is that we re-create

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the artifacts that we
find and study and dig up.

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And then we put them to the test

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and we figure out how they work.

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And so we learn a lot
about ancient technologies,

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not only from making
them, but then using them.

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And seeing how they would
have been used in the past.

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A lot of archaeologists will
just look at an artifact

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they dug up and then sort of wax lyrical

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and think about what an artifact
could have been used for,

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how it worked, whatever.

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That's not good enough for us.

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So in this lab we make
stone tools, we make pots,

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we make copper, bronze
weapons, we do tattooing.

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And then we break everything that we can

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at every possible moment.

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Whoops, sorry.

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- That was glass.

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- [Metin] My bad, we can-

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- I didn't know you were still here.

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- [Metin] Yeah, sorry, we can do it again.

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But it works.

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- Our ancestors relied upon stone tools

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for hundreds of thousands of years.

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The process of shaping
rocks into useful tools,

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such as spearheads, knives, and hammers,

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is called flint knapping.

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And Professor Eren is one
of only a few dozen experts

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in the world still practicing
this ancient craft.

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By manufacturing accurate replicas,

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the Kent State Lab is able to
test the strength, durability,

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and sometimes fragility of these tools

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so they can better
understand how they were used

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without having to damage actual relics.

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Although the process looks simple enough,

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flint knapping can take decades to master.

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So, what's the general,
just looking at it,

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where would I even
start with such a thing?

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- Well, we'll start with the grip,

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because you've got a power grip

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and you've got to be a lot looser

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and also hold it on the sides.

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- [George] Show me again the second grip.

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- [Metin] You want a
precision grip like this.

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- [George] Ah, gotcha.

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- [Metin] And just sort of
let the weight of the stone

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just come and hit that spot.

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And hold it with the
other hand pretty tightly.

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(rock clanks)

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- Let me just adjust that
slightly, there we go.

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(rock clanks)

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Hit a little closer to the edge.

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- Okay.

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- Oh.

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- That's why the goggles, right?

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(rock clanks)
- There we go.

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Got a nice big flake here.

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So that's your first stone tool.

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Welcome to the species.

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- Right on, I would've
survived the Paleolithic era.

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- [Metin] You would've.

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- [Geroge] Some experimental archaeology

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is better performed outside the lab.

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Armed with spears, an
atlatl spear thrower,

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and a well-bludgeoned plastic deer,

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we made our way to an open field

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where we re-created some
prehistoric hunting techniques.

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(bright music)

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- All right, do you want to
try throwing the stone-tip one?

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It's slightly heavier.

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I don't know if that'll help or...

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- Wow!
(all laughing)

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- So, you could be, on our team,

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you can be the squirrel hunter.

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So, I bet what happened is the
first time it hit the tree,

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it probably put maybe a
little microfracture in there.

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And then when you just hit it,
it just snapped it right off.

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And this is very interesting
because this is exactly

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the kind of thing we
try to study in the lab.

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And then we can go from a lab breakage

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to something like this in
the archaeological record

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and know this is from wood impact.

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- [George] Sure, lots of fun,

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but there is also some very
serious science going on.

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- [Michelle] The copper
research that I am doing here

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is really something that
has never been looked

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at before in the past.

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We know that at some point in
time people transitioned away

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from stone tools, which they
had used for millions of years.

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So, understanding how copper
functions as a raw material

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is really something new that
we don't know much about.

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- [George] A prized possession of the lab

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is the Instron materials testing machine,

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a device normally seen
in industrial settings.

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Here, archaeologists
use the device to crush,

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twist, and stretch a
variety of replicated items,

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including stone tools,
pottery, and various metals.

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These tests place limits on how materials

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and designs were used, or
avoided by our ancestors,

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such as arrowheads incapable
of penetrating certain prey.

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- I think people have more of this

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Indiana Jones-type
persona that they think of

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when they think of archaeology,
or maybe the pyramids.

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But we're really trying
to get at the lives

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of the daily person living
10,000, 50,000 years ago

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depending on who we're talking about.

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- It was thought for many
decades that Neanderthals

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produced technologies
that were less efficient

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than later homo sapiens.

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And so what we did was we
made a lot of Neanderthal,

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or what we call
middle-Paleolithic technologies,

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and we compared them to the technologies

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of later homo sapiens.

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And we actually showed that Neanderthal

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and other middle-Paleolithic hominins,

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their technologies were
just as sufficient,

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if not more so, than the
technologies of later humans.

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Because of that, our models of
human technological evolution

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are much stronger.

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What we dig up,

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the archaeological record,
is indeed a finite resource.

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So to really understand the
past, we need to re-create it

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and figure out how all that stuff

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that we dug up actually works.

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- I got a phone call one day,

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and Dr. Eren wanted to
do research on tattooing.

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And I literally had to sit
down, it literally floored me.

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I just didn't think that was a thing.

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I can draw perfect circles
on people and no one cared.

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You were just another tattooer.

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(inquisitive music)

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- I knew I wanted to study archaeology,

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so I came here to Kent State.

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Just the first question is,

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what sound are these rocks making?

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Could they have influenced the beginnings

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of music-making?

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- When we recruit students,

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we actually look for students
that have craft skills.

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We look for musicians,
we look for artists.

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We look for people that like
working with their hands.

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Because it's very difficult
and it takes years

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to become a musician, or a flint knapper,

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or a ceramicist.

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So, if we can recruit people
that already have those skills,

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we then teach them the science.

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That stuff is actual much
easier to teach a student

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than trying to put in a decade's
worth of craft experience.

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- [George] So instead of
guessing how something

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was manufactured or how it might work,

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these archaeologists
endeavor to figure it out.

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Importantly, they're are also producing

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meaningful scientific data,
which can be used to forge

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new theories about the ancient past

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or even overturn longstanding ideas

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that don't hold up to deeper scrutiny.

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But experimental
archaeology also makes sense

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simply on account of their
being fewer and fewer artifacts

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for us to find in the field.

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The future of archaeology is
most certainly in the lab.