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The Science Pawdcast breaks down the latest science happening in the human world AND the pet world.
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The Science Pawdcast
Episode 3 Season 7: Wiggling Ears, Generous Parrots, and Ethical Museums
This episode merges the light-hearted exploration of ear wiggling with insightful discussions on human-animal interactions and ethical considerations within archaeology. We discover how our ear muscles connect to hearing and how animal encounters, like at zoos, drive donations. The conversation also addresses the importance of repatriation in archaeology, encouraging listeners to reflect on the stories we tell and the voices we include.
• Overview of ear wiggling and its evolutionary significance
• Link between ear muscles and hearing capabilities
• Study highlighting the influence of animals in zoo donation strategies
• Guest interview with Rachel Paul on NAGPRA and the ethics of repatriation
• Emphasis on the need for inclusive dialogues in scientific research
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Hello science enthusiasts. I'm Jason Zukoski. And I'm Chris Zukoski, we're the pet parents of Bunsen, beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.
Speaker 2:The science animals on social media.
Speaker 1:If you love science.
Speaker 2:And you love pets.
Speaker 1:You've come to the right spot, so put on your safety glasses and hold on to your tail.
Speaker 1:This is the Science Podcast. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there. This is episode three of season seven. So it's been freezing cold this last week, with temperatures around minus 30 to minus 40 Celsius, if you can believe it, so there hasn't been much exploring outside. It's been even too cold for me.
Speaker 1:Bernoulli does fine, beaker does okay in her snow pants, but I think at those temperatures even it's not safe for Bernoulli. And, of course, bunsen is still in rest. We think he's improving like. His mobility is getting better day by day. It's going to be a long haul for him With that bulging disc. He's got what is it? Three and a half weeks of rest left, but we do notice he's improving. He's more sure-footed, he's moving quicker, even though he shouldn't. We just got to keep the rest on, so hopefully he gets back to as close to 100% as possible.
Speaker 1:All right, well, what's on the science podcast this week? In science news we break down a fun study about ear wiggling and in pet science animal science we have a study about how human-animal interactions can increase the amount donated to worthy causes. It's a great little study where Chris and I maybe get a little off track. Our guest in Ask an Expert is Rachel Paul, who's going to be talking to us a little bit about the ethics of putting artifacts in museums from cultures you didn't really ask if you could have them from. It's a really cool discussion. All right, on with the show, because there's no time like Science Time. This week in Science News we have a somewhat whimsical study in Science News item. There might be a little wiggle room here to talk about it.
Speaker 2:Like that wiggle room. That's super funny.
Speaker 1:So, chris, can you wiggle your ears?
Speaker 2:I cannot, and I am so jealous that you can wiggle your ears on a whim I can wiggle my ears, and I have for as long as I can remember.
Speaker 1:I never had to try, I just could do it right and and it's something that I just thought was so cool about you.
Speaker 2:And I would say wiggle your ears and you would. And that's something that I just thought was so cool about you. And I would say wiggle your ears and you would. And that was something that you did just for me. You don't just wiggle your ears for anybody no, it's also weird.
Speaker 1:You just don't go around doing it and guess who else in my family can, could wiggle their ears I think cam can he can a little bit. Yep, my grandpa.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, your grandpa for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my grandpa could wiggle his ears and he would do that to delight the grandkids. The little kids just loved it when he would wiggle his ears. That's what our study's about, because apparently, if you can wiggle your ears, it's perhaps a throwback to our ancient ancestors.
Speaker 2:So what does that mean about me? I cannot wiggle my ears.
Speaker 1:Only about 10 to 20% of people can wiggle their ears voluntarily. So that's like me, and the ability to wiggle your ears is controlled by the auricular muscles. These are considered vestigial in humans. You can train them with practice, but for most the muscles aren't strong or well-connected enough to move. You either have it or you don't, but we all have auricular muscles.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's really interesting, jason. What do we use auricular muscles for, then?
Speaker 1:Jason. What do we use auricular muscles for then? Okay, the auricular muscles, again, are a throwback to the ability to wiggle the ears, but when you strain to hear, like if there's a faint sound or you're not really sure you're really trying to make out a word, those auricular muscles activate, the ancient ear-wiggling muscles activate. This comes from a study in Frontiers in Neuroscience published at the end of January. These little muscles likely don't contribute to hearing, but they're more active than we previously thought.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I can't will myself to hear better by trying to wiggle my auricular muscles.
Speaker 1:But if somebody's talking really faint like this hey Chris, what was I saying? Partner?
Speaker 2:You said hey, chris, and then you went just to try and trick me.
Speaker 1:But the harder it is to hear, the more those auricular muscles will activate.
Speaker 2:Okay Now, recently you reposted some content about Ginger listening to music and in the video you could see that she was turning her ears basically around in order to hear that sound. Her little ears are like satellite dishes.
Speaker 1:They're so cute when she's listening, yeah.
Speaker 2:I know, I know she's listening, but she's also ignoring. But what about humans? Do our ears do that?
Speaker 1:No, we can't. We have relatively rigid ears and we can't move them like that. Even when I wiggle them, they just go up and down, they don't move around like a fuzzy satellite dish.
Speaker 2:Okay, so no fuzzy satellite dishes for us. Can you tell me a little bit about the scientific experiment? How did they set it up?
Speaker 1:As mentioned, this comes from Frontiers in Neuroscience, and some scientists conducted a study on 20 people with normal hearing. The participants listened to a recorded voice while distracting podcasts played in the background.
Speaker 2:So just like our house, I guess, so Maybe they used our podcast in the background.
Speaker 1:So just like our house, I guess. So Maybe they used our podcast in the study. That'd be funny.
Speaker 2:That would be funny, but this is what our house is. Jason is listening to noise all the time.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's because I'm making content right. It's probably annoying to everybody else, but I have to. I don't want to get into tech talk, but there's a knack to putting your reels with music in order to have more people listen. But anyways, the folks in the study had electrodes placed around their ears to record their muscle activity and the auricular muscle which is responsible for lifting the ear up and down. If you can wiggle your ears and if you can't, you still have them it activated when listening conditions were difficult. Now that's the study, and maybe, Chris, you could fill us in on the evolutionary perspective of what the deal is here.
Speaker 2:Okay, so millions and millions of years ago these muscles may have helped our human ancestors collect sounds and unfortunately today the small amount of muscle activity likely doesn't improve your hearing. Otherwise I would be, you know, exercising my ears just like I exercise my other muscles. Now, scientists haven't tested whether the activity, the muscle activity, aids in hearing, but the activity of these muscles could serve as a measurement of a person's hearing effort. So for me, when I'm trying to hear my students talk, sometimes I have to actually crane my neck in because some of them talk so quietly or they don't want to be heard in the classroom. So it's I'm trying to get them to talk and I have to go in closer and they're like oh, why are you getting so close? Probably because you're talking so quietly and I cannot exercise my ear wiggle to hear you better. But the cool thing about this study is the data that they attained could improve hearing aid technology by detecting when a person is struggling to hear and then adjusting accordingly. So that would be cool technology for hearing aids for sure.
Speaker 2:So, as your auricular muscles activate, the hearing aid jacks itself up right, yes, Mine would go on to full power, but I don't have hearing aids, I just crane my neck and move closer to hear better. Like, what big eyes you have, oh, better to see you with. What big teeth you have, better to eat you with, I guess. And then what big ears you have Better to hear you with.
Speaker 1:There's some funny comments near the end of the study, which one of them actually, shockingly, is like what I did with my ear wiggling. So everybody's ear muscles vary in size, so that makes studying those auricular muscles tough. Some people, as they're listening, can actually feel their ears move towards the sound. I do that. So when I'm straining I involuntarily flex my ear muscles and my ears perk up. You know that term they perk up, my ears literally do that, which is wild. And then it says here further some people use their ear muscles for practical purposes, like adjusting their glasses. I did that all the time, like you. You knew me when I wore eyeglasses. I got laser eye surgery but I would wiggle my ears to get my glasses where I wanted them, hands free I know there's nothing you can't do.
Speaker 1:No, there's lots of things I can't do, but I can wiggle my ears, so some people have a pretty good knack for wiggling their ears and just use that ability throughout your life. And if you don't, you're not missing much, right? You're not missing much of the ability to bring your glasses up as they're sliding down your nose. That's basically what I did with my glasses.
Speaker 2:Jason, I find it fascinating. I find it a fascinating biological trait and I think it's super cool, Just like tongue rolling or other things, but I just think it's cool.
Speaker 1:There you go. That's science news for this week. This week in pet science, more animal science. We're going to go to the zoo, zoo, zoo.
Speaker 2:I remember that's Putt Goes to the Zoo, and it's from a video game that we used to play with our kids.
Speaker 1:Duncan loved Putt. And what was the other one?
Speaker 2:Pajama Sam.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God, pajama Sam.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Pajamasam oh my God, Pajamasam. I don't know Pajamasam. This is pretty niche. I don't know if people listening will know about Putt and Pajamasam and Freddy Fish. We can't forget Freddy Fish.
Speaker 2:No, we can't. And I even say things like thunder and lightning aren't so frightening all the time. Or Havarti Provolone it's really pronounced Provolone, but it doesn't rhyme properly.
Speaker 1:I say all these quotes from these video games we actually use that with duncan when he was little, so if we ever lost him, it was like the call and answer, like havarti, and then he would say provolone, like in the supermarket because, like, lots of kids will be like mom and then 72 moms look.
Speaker 2:But if you say havarti, then provolone, then you know you're gonna match up with your kid. Yeah, and I, I do understandarti, then provolone, then you know you're going to match up with your kid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I do understand we're saying provolone wrong, but it just worked better the other way.
Speaker 2:It did. It worked better. The other way they played a game.
Speaker 1:It was tic-tac-toe with different cheese and the flim-flam. What was it?
Speaker 2:It was the flim-flam chimney jam flapper gapper that's in my bag.
Speaker 1:All right, we may have lost some of our audience as we've gone off the rails, but we are going to the zoo, which precipitated this whole conversation, looking at human animal interactions in wildlife tourism. Right, so I love the zoo. The zoo is one of my favorite places to go and last year my colleague Jackie Shukin, who teaches the biology component of the interbaccalaureate program at our school, I went with her as a chaperone to the zoo with the high school kids the biology high school kids, and it's a small class. I think there was like 25 kids, so two chaperones to 25 kids. We get to the zoo and guess how many tours were at the zoo, chris?
Speaker 2:Did you go on the edutrex? Because I've looked into going on these.
Speaker 1:No, it was self. We just went on a self-guided zoo tour.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, because I always want to go and access the edutrex, which I did when I took our grade nines. But with the high school, we they're like no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, these are grade 12 students. Many of them are 18, right, so they're adults. Right, they're the last year of their school, but there were hundreds of elementary school tours there. And so we get off the bus in a big line to get into the zoo and these kids are just like towering over all these small children and because they're all like kindergarten and grade one, teachers and the teachers are like stressed out of their mind because they don't want to lose any of these kids and they're like do you have your walking buddy? Who's where's your walking buddy?
Speaker 1:So then I started to give all of our students a hard time. I'm like you guys better have your walking buddy or I'm going to lose my mind. Where's your walking buddy? So they all took me serious and they got into pairs to have a walking buddy to get into the zoo. But in the zoo, as we're getting to this story, a walking buddy to get into the zoo, but in the zoo, as we're getting to this story, they always have shows where they have an animal there to show off and explain as an educational kind of presentation.
Speaker 2:We've been to some of those like the tiger and the lion yeah, or birds of prey, vultures and stuff like it's feeding time and then come watch the feeding lunch, yeah.
Speaker 1:Or they're like this is Benny and it's a penguin, and so they bring the penguin out and you're like, oh my God, it's the cutest thing I've ever seen. It's really engaging, right Super engaging, to have a live animal there to talk about. Now. This study gets into how having those human-animal interactions affect donations, because zoos have an operating budget and wildlife tourism requires people to pay to go see them and that's rolled back into animal conservation. The study talks about the Taronga Zoo in Australia and what's going on with these human-animal interactions. Chris.
Speaker 2:This one was specifically during a bird presentation and the donation system allowed the visitors to pay by giving money to a bird. They were looking at three different ways or three different treatments that tested visitor donation behavior. So the first one was that the bird itself was physically accepting money from visitors.
Speaker 1:It was a parrot.
Speaker 2:And it was so cool, thank you.
Speaker 1:It was taking money from people it was a parrot and it was so cool.
Speaker 2:Thank you, money from people taking so much money to a parrot you would. You would stand there and it would be like a slot machine, like a vlt I love parrots you do.
Speaker 2:One of the other ways that they tested visitor donation behavior was having a bird present but not not taking those donations. So the bird was visible but not taking or really involved in the donation collection at all, just hanging out. And then the third donation behavior that was tested was not having a bird present at all, so just having the standard donation box. And then on top of that they had a separate factor assessed the impact of a donor reward. So a badge system, yeah, so some audience.
Speaker 1:You donate and you get a little badge, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so some audience members received a message about receiving a badge for donating more than five Australian dollars, and others received no message about the badge.
Speaker 1:That's weird that we call it the Australian dollar, because I'm pretty sure the Australians just call it dollars. We don't call our money Canadian money, we just call it dollars, right.
Speaker 2:Yep. I don't know I call it Australian dollars because in math we do money conversions. So convert from Canadian to US, from Canadian to Australian dollars, or Australian dollars or the pound. We do conversions.
Speaker 1:I'm always confused by the British, like a shilling. What's a shilling that's so confusing to me?
Speaker 2:We had a conversation about this in the car and it was so bizarre. I was like looking it up and I said this is like fictitious.
Speaker 1:Sorry, sorry English people, I love that you have shillings. It's probably like the Canadian loonie and toonie. It's just so normal for us. But it is whimsical when people come to Canada and they get their loonies, which is a $1 coin, and their toonies, which is a $2 coin, because our American friends don't have that. And it was like, why do you have little duckies on your money coins? And I'm like they're loons. There's Canadian loon. It's important, but anyways. So let's get to the some of the findings from the study, hey, but anyways, all right. So let's get to the some of the findings from the study, hey yeah, for sure so maybe it's a little shocking in places and not in others.
Speaker 1:so more visitors donated with when the bird took donations than the other two conditions. Literally, that makes sense, because if just the act of giving a parrot some money is a gift, enough to yourself, right? The parrots get me money and you're like, oh my God, here's $10. So it's a game. Now the counterintuitive or the shocking part was larger donation amounts were given when the bird was not taking donations. So while more people donated to the bird in the situation where the bird was just chilling on the side, bigger donation amounts were given. Also, the badge messaging played a crucial role in increasing donation amounts, especially when there was no bird present at all, when there was no bird present at all. So if people knew that if they gave more than five bucks they'd get a badge, they're like, oh, I'm going to give more than five bucks then, so I can get a badge. And that makes sense because people love collecting stuff. Pokemon just won't go away. Pokemon is wild. Right now, annalise is collecting Pokemon cards. That's Adam's girlfriend.
Speaker 2:I love it and I get FOMO when I don't get the badge. So, it's definitely a motivator for me to donate.
Speaker 1:Zero, motivation for me, zero.
Speaker 2:And even if it's a digital badge, I'm for it. I'm like, yes, that's perfect.
Speaker 1:It's the gamification right. Some implications for zoos in the future is that physical interaction with animals isn't necessary to inspire donations. Just having the animal there or having a badge system is enough to get people to donate. However, obviously, the presence of animals alone can influence visitor engagement and generosity. You see the bird and you're more connected to giving to the zoo. See the bird and you're more connected to giving to the zoo.
Speaker 2:So did you hear that the Calgary zoo got two new cougar cubs?
Speaker 1:Oh my God, really.
Speaker 2:Yes, now Alberta, fish and wildlife rescued them.
Speaker 1:Oh, this store. I've heard this is a controversial story, Chris.
Speaker 2:I know, yeah, this is all I.
Speaker 1:this is a controversial story, chris, I know. Yeah, this is all okay in our little area of the world. This is quite controversial. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so maybe people will be one of them.
Speaker 1:Right, the whole story here, chris. Just for people who are curious, this is a cougar that has been known to the Canmore area and it lived in Grotto Canyon and that's where we hike. We've hiked Grotto Canyon how many times in our life, like five, six times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, quite a few. We like it there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this cougar has been coexisting with everybody in that area and the cougar was shot? No, yeah, it was shot by a hunter. Yeah, so it's quite the scandal because it had two little babies the scandal because it had two little babies.
Speaker 2:So like zoos are very important for animal conservation and education programs, but on the flip side, it's where are they getting their animals from? And this is definitely a tragedy here in our province.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a tough thing and it's controversial right now, of course, because it was a mom that was killed who had babies. But Alberta does allow a certain amount of cougars to be hunted, because they need to keep the numbers of cougars at a certain level or they have inappropriate interactions with humans and then they start to eat too much of the prey. And then they start to eat too much of the prey. That's a tough situation right now because the forestry and parks is defending the hunter because the hunter went through all of the proper channels. You're allowed to hunt female cougars, but you're not supposed to hunt female cougars who have cubs, and perhaps the hunter didn't see that. So I think a cool implication, maybe for shelters or people who are donating money, is having animals present, and they do this at teacher's convention, because what do they have? We are going to teacher's convention together soon. They have these booths and the most popular booth at teacher's convention is what? The puppy booth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, foster, fostering home and they are partnered with the bone and biscuit, and so sometimes I go in and they have all these cute little tiny puppies. Yeah, and everybody gets their puppy fix at the teacher's convention but they also take donations.
Speaker 1:So having the puppies there, they're tapping into this study itself absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. But what I love also is at the table. You can buy snacks for your dogs, like treats and things like that, or sometimes they have bandanas, and I like to do that. I like to give for those things because we can use those with our dogs.
Speaker 1:And ginger, and it's a good cause.
Speaker 2:And it's a good cause.
Speaker 1:All right, that's pet science for this week. Hello everybody, here's some ways you can keep the Science Podcast free. Number one in our show notes sign up to be a member of our Paw Pack Plus community. It's an amazing community of folks who love pets and folks who love science. We have tons of bonus Bunsen and Beaker content there and we have live streams every Sunday with our community. It's tons of fun. Also, think about checking out our merch store. We've got the Bunsen stuffy, the Beaker stuffy and now the ginger stuffy. That's right, ginger, the science cat, has a little replica. It's adorable. It's so soft, with the giant fluffy tail, safety glasses and a lab coat. And number three if you're listening to the podcast on any place that rates podcasts, give us a great rating and tell your family and friends to listen too. Okay, on with the show. Back to the interviews. It's time for ask an expert on the science podcast, and I have Rachel Paul, who's a NAGPRA program specialist, and we'll get into what that is in a second. Rachel, how are you doing?
Speaker 3:Good. Thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1:Yay, where are you in the world? Where are you calling into the show from?
Speaker 3:I'm calling in from the state of Oregon right now in the US Little town it's not so little of Eugene. I do want to take a moment and acknowledge that the town of Eugene and where my job is in the university because I work at the University of Oregon is on Kalapuya land, whose descendants are primarily citizens of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde and the Confederated Tribes of the Salense Indians. And if you are curious about where you are and whose ancestral homelands you might be on, a really fantastic resource to check out is a website called native-landca. It was started in Canada and it's a great starting point if you are curious about the indigenous groups in your area.
Speaker 1:Thank you for the wonderful land acknowledgement. That was a great way to key in everybody who's listening to what we're going to be talking about Just quickly. Oregon's a beautiful place to live. I've been down through that area south of Canada. That whole Pacific Southwest is pretty down there south of Canada.
Speaker 3:that whole Pacific Southwest is pretty down there. Yeah, I'm originally from California, so I was not used to the rain.
Speaker 1:Yes, a little rainy compared to California.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, much more, but I do have to say I enjoyed not getting sunburned every single day of the summer.
Speaker 1:So there you go. I was wondering if we could talk just quickly about your training with NAGPRA and what we're going to be talking about in a second. What's going on with there?
Speaker 3:Of course. So NAGPRA is an acronym. It stands for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. It was a federal law that was passed in the 90s in the United States, so it covers the entirety of the United States, although some areas have some stricter laws than others. This is even though the act was passed 30 years ago. A lot has changed in the field recently and there has been a lot more pressure to fully comply with the spirit and the letter of the law, so there is a lot more emphasis and detail on those aspects. But my general background is in archaeology. I'm currently in the process of getting my master's in applied anthropology, with a focus on archaeology, of course.
Speaker 3:And my master's thesis is actually on Mayan ceramics, nothing to do with Nagpra at all.
Speaker 3:I fell into the Nagpra world by accident, but also by being curious. Nagpra was always this thing. That was just an aside in archaeology. So when we talk about archaeology, we talk about like the sites and the history and the various methodologies, and then there was always just like a little kind of footnote, sometimes, sometimes a little bit more than that, but it was like oh yeah, nagpra is a thing we have to do. We have to be careful when coming across like human remains or certain things, but that's the thing for other people to worry about.
Speaker 3:Like we sometimes worry about it, but you know, um, so it was a thing that was just to the side for me until, oh gosh, it must have been 2022. Yeah, propublica, a nonprofit news organization, released a series of really damning articles about NAGPRA and the failure of many museums and institutions to comply with repatriation. And when I saw this article, I was like, oh wow, does the NAGPRA coordinator at the university I was currently going to, oregon State, know that this is out Like completely out of the blue? I sent her this email.
Speaker 3:In my opinion, it felt very unhinged because I was just like, hey, you don't know me, but I know your job's difficult. And I saw this article came out and I hope you know about it. If you didn't know about it, now you do, and you might be getting some questions from the public about your job and how Oregon State is doing net prep. And she was actually really impressed that I reached out and so I got a lot more involved and ended up becoming an intern for her at Oregon State and, yeah, from there I did another internship and then I got this position at U of O. So that's my background. I know that went in a few different directions, but my overall background is archaeology.
Speaker 3:I just got sidelined into this more museum and Nagpra aspect of it.
Speaker 1:When you were young were you interested in ancient civilizations, ancient artifacts, on the whole archaeology angle.
Speaker 3:I was to an extent, Actually. When I was young, I was convinced I was going to be a biologist of some sort. Yeah, I was really into biology and animals and all sorts of things. I took a few classes, though, and turns out I didn't particularly love it as much as I needed to for a career, and so I headed into a more anthropology focus and from there fell into archaeology. Thanks to a great mentor, I was at UC Davis at the time. Yeah, I've always been like that.
Speaker 1:So no whips and hats in your past.
Speaker 3:No, I did enjoy the Indiana Jones movies when I was younger, and they do actually serve a really great example of what archaeology used to be like, which is a little scary, honestly.
Speaker 1:A little problematic, eh, oh, yes.
Speaker 3:But yeah, not super into it, but I did enjoy history. I'd always been interested in the human experience, but I never really put a label on it. When I was a camp counselor, I actually really enjoyed finding stories from cultures from all over the world and I would tell those to the kids as like bedtime stories and it was really cool just having them get a glimpse into a different story that they'd never heard of before but have so many of the same themes that they've seen over and over again. That was something I really enjoyed doing and that does tie into with anthropology, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I think we got a really good picture of your background. I appreciate that, rachel. Yeah, if you could just go a little bit more into I know we got the acronym what NAGPRA stands for. If you could just go a little bit into more of what it's all about and maybe some of the effects that it will have on, or the effects that it should have on, archaeology or science even.
Speaker 3:Yeah, more and more people are becoming familiar with repatriation in general, and we've heard of some more of the more famous cases that come across the news, such as, I have to say, I think the most famous example right now would be the Elgin marbles or the Parthenon marbles from Greece and how Greece wants the British Museum to repatriate them back to Greece. Greece wants the British Museum to repatriate them back to Greece.
Speaker 1:NACPRA is repatriation. Repatriation is returning to the original land that it's from.
Speaker 3:Yes, more of returning to the original descendants.
Speaker 1:Oh, descendants, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, descendants or culture or community.
Speaker 3:Sometimes we can return items to like very specific individual people If we know who exactly certain items or remains came from, but sometimes it is to a larger group or community and it gets very complicated very fast.
Speaker 3:I can tell you that much. So repatriation in general, in my opinion, has been more and more on the forefront of people's thoughts, while NAGPRA itself has been a law, again for not a whole lot, not as much progress has been made as as should have been made, honestly, and there's reasons why that happened in general, but sorry, I totally lost my train of words there. So in general, repatriation, in my opinion, has been more and more on people's minds and it is returning certain items that could be culturally significant, that are important or valuable in some way, to direct descendants or to communities or to groups that are somehow affiliated with the original people that had those items, with the original people that had those items. So specifically in NAGPRA the law dictates that there are a few categories of items that can be returned through this process. While other items can be returned, those items are not subject under the NAGPRA law, so it would be basically off the goodwill of people to return them.
Speaker 1:We're moving further away from, like the finders, keepers kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Yes, we really are. So, yeah, the specific items that fall under NAGPRA would be human remains, associated funerary objects or funerary objects that we know to be funerary objects but are not associated with specific remains, and then this very broad general category called items of cultural patrimony, and these are items that would be used in, like religious ceremonies or significant rituals or have some sort of value and importance to a community, where the item itself, like, belongs to the community and not to a specific person. Gotcha, yeah, I don't know how you'd even figure that out, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it can be hard to figure out. Yeah, I don't know how you'd even figure that out, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it can be hard to figure out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, gotcha.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there are some lines of evidence we can use. There are things like past studies, past records we can use like all kinds of scientific methodology. Use like all kinds of scientific methodology. But some really important lines of evidence would be like tribal histories and tribal knowledge to support the classification of these items but also to support the return of these items For further clarification, for the items of cultural patrimony.
Speaker 3:If you think about like a place of worship and the things that would be in that place of worship they don't necessarily belong to the person who would be like leading the worship or to the people that like attend that building. They belong to the whole community. So those are some of the items we're talking about when we say items of cultural patrimony.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got it right.
Speaker 3:Okay, cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he remains. So that's like bones and such and things that they were buried with, and then fairly large religious symbols and artifacts that belong to communities.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. And artifacts that belong to communities? Yeah exactly. And so, with the passage of NAGPRA, a huge ethical question popped up into the field of archaeology, and this idea is that we, as researchers, do not have an inherent right to study any and all material we want to study. Some of these items, like the descendant communities wouldn't necessarily want us to study, or they would want to direct the study themselves and not have these items be separated from themselves, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:They want to be part of the process or at least have a say.
Speaker 3:Exactly, yeah, and previously lots of horrible history. But many institutions and museums have human remains for people to study and for, like undergraduate students, to take classes on the human remains that are in those rooms. Were those people, did they ever consent to have the remains studied in that way, and did their descendants ever consent to have those studied, those remain studied in that way?
Speaker 1:yeah, I can see. If you just decide to go dig up somebody's grave today, people would have a problem with that, with you hauling those bones into some place to look at.
Speaker 3:Exactly yeah, and if you know a little bit about the history of medical schools, they did used to do actual gray robbing it was lucrative for some people to go get the parts for the doc say, back in the day exactly, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:But there was this I don't know how to describe it it the graves of especially indigenous people were just really easy to exploit and easier to take those remains without any knowledge of the descendants or the people who are tied to those human remains. So that's where it's becoming this huge. It became this huge issue where you know most of the remains that were in universities and repositories were Native American remains the ProPublica article I mentioned earlier. If you go on that you can actually look up in the United States and see how many sets of human remains certain institutions have, and while that database may not be 100% accurate and there are some other smaller issues with it, overall other smaller issues with it, overall I feel like that article does show, like, how widespread and how massive, like scale wise, this issue was and just how many places just had human remains that people just didn't know about about.
Speaker 1:So we're at the difficult point of realizing that this was not great what happened, yet it's a great teaching tool. So is that the big dilemma right now, like how do you compromise on that? Or is there no room for compromise because those remains were ill gotten? Quote unquote.
Speaker 3:Because those remains were ill-gotten. Quote unquote yeah, in my opinion, there is a lot of room for compromise and there is a lot of room for collaboration, but, as you can understand, it can be very hard to collaborate when there is a lot of mistrust on both sides a lot of mistrust on both sides and so a lot of the collaboration that has been done or needs to be done in the future relies on building relationships and building a little bit of trust between, like, researchers and the people who have been taken advantage of. So, in my opinion, like undergraduate students who are not going into osteology, who are not going into a medical field, they don't need to be studying human remains. Like, why do you need actual remains when there's really great bone replicas and we have replicas for all of the ancient hominin ancestors that, like, people study too?
Speaker 1:there's really no reason for that, in my opinion yeah, I see the irony there too, because you wouldn't let undergrad students handle those precious real specimens of the early hominid some of them. Yet it's historically it was totally okay to handle the human remains, right.
Speaker 3:I can see the irony there, right yeah, exactly, um, and for the people were upsetting like actual human remains would be beneficial for their study. Osteologists and people needing specific expertise in human remains. There are ways in which you can obtain human remains with consent. I'm sure you've heard of some of the body farms in the States.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I've talked to researchers that worked on it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. There are ways people can donate their bodies with consent, but also with NAGPRA itself. Not all items necessarily need to be repatriated. This is a small sticking point not everybody totally understands. But under NAGPRA you have to just offer the things to be repatriated. In some cases tribes will say it's okay, you can keep them, or you can keep them and study them. It's just having their input and making sure you have their consent is what's key.
Speaker 1:The big point is that it seems like the researchers are asking, and I'd imagine that comes across as a lot more empathetic than historically.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, yes, and in most cases, yes. Tribes do want the human remains returned and in most cases, if the human remains can't be returned for whatever reason, they're usually not okay with them being studied. But there are some exceptions to that and the fact of the matter is just right now there are so many human remains in these museums and repositories that even if all of the Native American remains went back, there would still be plenty for researchers to study if they wanted.
Speaker 1:That's a good point, because I imagine some there's always the devil's advocate, people who argue the other way. They're like, okay, this is great and all, but if we repatriate all of these human remains, then we won't have anything left to study. So it sounds like that argument falls a little flat.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that was. Some of the biggest opponents of NAGPRA itself were always fear mongering and oh, there's going to be nothing left in museums, there's going to be nothing left for researchers to study and everyone's careers are going to be ruined. But none of that has happened.
Speaker 3:The only peoples whose careers got ruined fully deserved it for a variety of reasons, but in general, that really hasn't happened and while progress on returning and offering these items and human remains up for repatriation has been incredibly slow, overall, I think it leads to better research and more meaningful studies, because if you're involving the people who are directly impacted by your research or who are directly connected to the subjects you're studying, there's going to be better, more meaningful research. You're going to look into the questions that matter to these descendant communities.
Speaker 1:They would also probably, in some circumstances, provide invaluable background information that a researcher would never have access to had they not asked or had that discourse.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely, absolutely there. Yeah, it so much. Historically in academia, like Native American groups were never really consulted on their histories or, honestly, really anything about them, other than just to make like, oh wow, look at this. Them, other than just to make like, oh wow, look at this. Sorry, totally lost my train of words there.
Speaker 3:Most depictions and inquiries about Native Americans and other marginalized groups have been to make or show this perception of wow, what an interesting little community. And then it's passed over, there's no real depth to it and it's very much like talking about the community without hearing from the community itself, and that's been very much the norm in museums and in academics historically. Here I am like talking about this and I'm not Native at all. It sometimes puts me in an interesting position because while I'm not Native, I am in this weird I don't know weird, but I am in this job where I'm very much like constantly thinking about like native issues and having to make sure, like I know, certain things are going on. So there's a lot of different factors at play here and a lot of interesting dynamics. I guess is the overall sum of that, if that made any sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it did. You can hold a bone of somebody in your hand and analyze it clinically and what part of the body it was from, and was it male or female, potentially, and how old it is, but that bone was somebody at one point, just like you and I talking, and that somebody had people that loved them and they have descendants, and that I think sometimes science loses that heart, the heart of it, when we're a little too clinical. You might find this a little humorous, rachel. There was a skit in, I forget, on the cbc on this.
Speaker 1:There's a tv show on in canada. It was called. This hour is 22 minutes and it was this white professor had got this native american artifact and they were like pondering over what it could be used for and they came up with this elaborate thing that it was used for and then it was in a museum and then these two First Nations, older gentlemen and a young boy were looking at it and the young boy was like reading the description and he asked the grandpies really, and he's like, no, it was a spoon, that's what it was.
Speaker 1:You could have asked me. It's a spoon, and it was just this really funny skit that had the anthropologists. Archaeologists had just asked they wouldn't need to be sitting there pondering elaborate reasoning. That probably was incorrect, so I know I thought it was a.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just jogged in my memory as we were talking right now yeah, of course, and that's exactly like what's at the heart of some of this. I could speculate all day about certain things, but because I am not Native American myself, there are some things I just don't know, and there are going to be many things I will never know, and that's part of why this collaboration between academia and Native Americans or other marginalized groups is so important, because you're just totally misrepresenting and showing a very different picture of what's actually going on picture of what's actually going on.
Speaker 1:So I guess this is important for folks in academia to wrestle with and ponder and I'm glad we're having this discussion Before we wrap up this section how can people who are listening think about this, applying this to their life today? Do you have any messages for folks like me who aren't an archaeologist I teach chemistry or other people who are listening?
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course, I did think about this really hard. So the one thing I want people to take away is to question what's missing from a story. If you go into a museum and you see a display about Native Americans or other marginalized groups, ask yourself what is missing from this story? What am I not seeing? What's not being presented? Very commonly in museums? They'll skip over hundreds of years of history, because that's when the forced relocations happened or awkward thing to talk about in the.
Speaker 1:It's not as glamorous as whatever or something else.
Speaker 3:Right, it's something pretty horrifying that north american government exactly, or another thing is the voices of modern day people connected to those groups. Are they presenting this marginalized group in a very specific historical context? This kind of myth that some people think that Native Americans just kind of extinct, when that's very much not true. Native Americans just kind of extinct when that's very much not true. But part of the reason that is perpetuated is because a lot of people learn about Native Americans from museums and they're only shown in like natural history museums and only shown what life was like before colonization, what life was like before colonization. So when you're missing everything afterwards, you're not getting the full story and you're not really understanding what's going on with the group. Yeah, basically, just, I really want people to think critically and think what's missing here and this applies to so many things, like when we see somebody like the scientists, like being very clinical and talking about something in very academic terms. What's missing? Is there a human connection, is there a human story behind this that we're not getting?
Speaker 1:So that's a great message. There's this there. Think about what's missing. What's the puzzle piece? That's a great message. The there's a there. Think about what's missing. What's the puzzle piece that's missing?
Speaker 3:I like that sorry I know I've talked a lot about so many different things. Did you have any other questions for me about that?
Speaker 1:no, I think we've covered. I myself went into this rather ignorant. I did look up the acronym and it's in Canada. We have been working towards this goal of it's called truth and reconciliation as a nation. I'll cut this just because it's not necessarily related to the discussion. So this NAGPRA seems like a version of truth and reconciliation, but specific for archaeology, anthropology, which is pretty interesting. I've said this story before on the podcast. I was probably in my early 30s when I was at a teacher's convention, because I teach high school chemistry and at a teacher's convention you can take all these different pd sessions professional development one of them was on is called residential schools and I was like, oh, that's interesting. I wondered what that is. I thought it was like boarding schools, like harry potter, that's what I thought it was.
Speaker 1:I went and I was like horrified because I was not taught any of that in school. I had worked with First Nations people and they didn't talk about it and it was just like this shocking, awful thing the residential school systems of Canada. So, personally, that was something that happened in my life that I guess relates to this NAGPRA stuff and the truth and reconciliation part.
Speaker 3:It does. It does very much. I was never taught about the residential schools either, and we had them in the U S as well. There was a lot of history I wasn't taught. I think it was after I graduated college I learned about, like some of the horrific things that Columbus did, which is pretty, pretty nasty.
Speaker 1:What are? If you're a, if you're a white guy or white woman and your ancestors came over there? There's some pretty nasty stuff.
Speaker 3:That happened yeah yeah and yeah, it definitely is all very related. And in understanding how our past has been taught and what sort of responsibility we have over the research we do and how the past is taught, I think really also what is at the heart of this as well. And while NACRA itself does mainly cover anthropologists and archaeologists who did tons and tons of excavations, nagpra technically covers any institution that has received federal funding. Owner and you find artifacts on your land. As long as it's not human remains, they could be artifacts that would be items of cultural patrimony. They wouldn't necessarily have to be returned under NAGPRA. In addition, any federally funded institution, you'd be surprised how many end up having human remains. There's high schools and a bunch of random places that you wouldn't think had human remains, that had Native American human remains. So this issue does extend way beyond universities and museums, but they tend to get the biggest focus because they are the ones with the largest collections.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Yep, okay cool. It's a very deep conversation and I appreciate you having. It is an important one. I'm just maybe I'll I'll keep this section, then we'll move to what I'm going to say here and then we'll move to the last two questions, if that's okay, rachel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's totally okay. I get that this is a really deep topic and I know it's again. It's not fun, it's not glamorous, but I do think having a bigger conversation about the ethics of how we study and how we do research is really important in general in science.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I guess, as we wrap up this section, rachel, we I in tongue-in-cheek and teasingly, I always reference Indiana Jones whenever I'm talking to an archaeologist archaeologists, yes, um. And there is a line that indiana jones says that it is pretty like it's pretty problematic now to think about what it would mean, and that's he's yelling. That belongs in a museum. He said that a couple times and I don't know if it does. You can't just take something now Was somebody's, that was a culture's item at some point. It doesn't necessarily give you the right to put it in the museum.
Speaker 3:That is correct. That is 100% correct. I do have to say one cool thing about NAGPRA and this focus on more Indigenous voices is that there have been a lot more smaller local museums started by Indigenous groups. So that they can present their own stories in their own ways.
Speaker 1:Oh, I like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, and exhibit the objects they want to exhibit and show. And there has been a lot more collaboration between museums themselves and these marginalized groups in order to do the same thing in larger spaces, because while NACRA itself only covers Native American things and human remains, there are many other groups who were also exploited in a similar way.
Speaker 1:Just yeah, just on very different, just in very different circumstances. I was chuckling as you were talking, not the exploitation, so hopefully people get that. I was chuckling because something just came to mind that my wife is ukrainian, right, very proud ukrainian, comes all of her on her mom's side, very ukrainian, and I'm just thinking how offensive it would be for me to just start a ukrainian museum and without, without consulting Ukrainians and just try my best to figure out what Ukrainian culture is like. Just how crazy that would sound exactly things that would get wrong.
Speaker 1:I it just is. It would be insane, it would be absolutely insane to just decide to start, especially in Alberta, where I, where I live in canada, there's a lot of ukrainian settlers. I'm not just to decide, I'm gonna. I'm gonna get a bunch of ukrainian artifacts and make my own museum but not consult ukrainians.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is wild yeah, it would be absolutely wild, or sorry. I live downtown, I can pause while the siren passes. It'd also be wild for think about, like, how do you think russia teaches people about ukraine's and ukrainian culture? It's pretty state driven, so my guess there's some things they leave out yeah, exactly how we do our research, but also how we tell the stories behind the research matters a lot.
Speaker 1:That's a great place to leave our chat.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Rachel, thank you so much for talking about your job. It's a very deep discussion. We have a couple standard questions we ask all our guests about. One is a pet story. I was wondering if you could share a pet story from your life with us.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, of course. So my parents have a dog. Her name is Millie, and Millie has trained our neighbor to give her treats every time she barks.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Speaker 3:Yes, she has, she truly has. So my parents' previous dog was super friendly and loved everybody and their house and the neighbor's house are really close to each other. You can lean over the fence deal and he would always go and say hi to the dog and she would wag her tail and be so happy to see him and all this stuff. Millie in general is very indifferent towards people. She loves my parents. They're her favorite people, like I'm very clearly number three, like there's no, and the neighbor was like a little miffed that like Millie wasn't excited to see him so he just started bringing her treats and so now anytime she hears them move outside, she barks at him until he brings her over a treat.
Speaker 1:Oh man, unintended consequences.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But he got some love from that dog in its own way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, Millie's great she. She now wags her tail when she sees him.
Speaker 1:And what kind of dog is Millie? I apologize if I missed that.
Speaker 3:Oh no, you didn't miss that. We're not really sure. We think she's like a black mouth cur, which was like a pioneer type dog, but we're not really sure. We actually got her from a rescue that takes pets out of Texas.
Speaker 1:So you just, you don't know with rescues sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, exactly. But yeah, she actually drove in a car from a few hundred miles away, because Texas has pretty much only kill shelters, I think. So there are like a lot of nonprofits that like try and get pets out of, like certain states that have a lot of kill shelters, I think.
Speaker 3:So there are like a lot of nonprofits that like try and get pets out of like certain states that have a lot of kill shelters and try and get them adopted or into no kill shelters and other states, and that's where we got Millie.
Speaker 1:That's a good story. Thanks for sharing it. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3:I myself have a pet turtle, but I don't know how many people find turtles interesting, so my wife would.
Speaker 1:We have two turtles as well. They're two red ear sliders that she rescued from a school. They're illegal you can't get red ear sliders but they've somehow. A teacher got them and they live for 50 years. They've outlived, like the teachers who've had them. They've retired and moved on. So now we have the two red-eared sliders in our house.
Speaker 3:I forgot you guys had the red-eared sliders. Yeah, my turtle's African side, neck turtle, looks very much like a red-eared slider, but like more grays and browns and doesn't have any of the red or yellow.
Speaker 1:But like similar size. Okay, more camouflage-y down and like rocks and mud kind of thing yes, yes exactly cool. What's the turtle's name?
Speaker 3:her name's Gertie, gertie the turtle like that yes, also. Oh, man, this is gonna make me look like a crazy turtle person, but I actually rescued Gertie and when I first got her she had pneumonia and I ended up having to give her shots injections every five days for six months. She's finally pneumonia free. She's good, nice and healthy. But yeah, I gave my turtle weekly injections weekly injections.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like the turtles are a lot of work. They those amphibians, you amphibians, and snakes and reptiles, and what you have is it? They don't require the same kind of like work that a dog or dog might, but like their upkeep is not something for the faint of heart oh no that's something they remind everybody about, with turtles for sure.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, I had a turtle previously. I knew what I was getting into, gertie, and I specifically wanted a rescue turtle because I knew that turtles are not often well taken care of. So she might have a diminished lifespan, but she could still live 25, 50 years.
Speaker 1:It's wild how long those turtles live. It's just insane. Yeah, we don't know how. We really don't know how old Carl and or Sagan are. That's our two turtles, but they've out. They've outlived the careers of a couple of teachers. So they are ancient. They've outlived the careers of a couple of teachers.
Speaker 1:So they are ancient Wild. Thanks for sharing your pet story, rachel. As we close, we challenge all of our guests to leave us with a super fact. It's something you know that you tell people at gatherings, cocktail parties, randomly shout at trivia night. It blows people's minds. Do you have a super fact for us?
Speaker 3:I hope it's considered a super fact. So, people's minds, do you have a super fact for us? I hope it's considered a super fact. So in oregon, do you know crater lake yeah, I know crater lake absolutely so crater lake was actually a volcano oh yeah, crater. Yeah, crater lake was originally a volcano that erupted 7,700 years ago and the volcano itself was called Mount Mazama. Is called Mount Mazama, but actually there are tribal oral histories that record the eruption of Mount Mazama. That happened over 7,000 years ago.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's wild. You know what the irony is Like. About two weeks ago I was talking to another scientist who lives in Oregon and they're like yeah, you got to wait. If you're ever here, go check out crater Lake, and so I've Googled it. So now I know exactly what you're talking about. I did not know it was a volcano, though that is very cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I, yeah, I'm pretty sure it's like a dead volcano now, or whatever it's called. I don't know anything about volcanoes.
Speaker 1:That's a cool fact. Thanks, rachel. We're at the end of our discussion. Thanks so much for talking with us about NAGPRA. Hopefully it's something that's very interesting, not on people's radar and something to think about. It's a rather profound discussion, rachel. Are you on social media anywhere Can people connect or follow, or do you have a website?
Speaker 3:I don't have any social media. If people are interested, I do have an email social media.
Speaker 1:If people are interested, I do have an email. It's just rpaul at uoregonedu. Are you comfortable with me putting that in the show notes.
Speaker 3:if people want to ask questions, that is my official work email, so if it is questions about NAGPRA related issues, that would be okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, perfect.
Speaker 3:I was just going to say thank you so much for having me on. I know this is not a super fun discussion, but I appreciate the chance to talk about some of these issues and maybe get people to start thinking about these things.
Speaker 1:That's it for this week's show. Thanks for coming back week after week to listen to us, and a special shout out to all of our supporters on the Paw Pack. It's like our Patreon group. We'd love for you to sign up, so check out the show notes. One of the perks of the top tier members is you get a shout out every episode. Take it away, chris.
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Speaker 1:For science, empathy and cuteness.