Earth on the Rocks

Shelby: 00:07

Hi, folks. Welcome to Earth on the Rocks, a podcast where we get to know the person behind the science over drinks. I'm your host, Shelby Rader, and joining me today is doctor Ed Herrmann. Ed, welcome to the show.

Ed: 00:19

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Shelby: 00:21

So, Ed, since, we're getting to know you over drinks, what is your drink of choice for today?

Ed: 00:26

Well, my drink of choice for today would be the drink of choice normally for me, and that is beer. I have a long history with beer. In my undergraduate days, I studied microbiology and spent about a decade in the brewing industry. Also, a large part of that here in Bloomington.

Shelby: 00:46

Do you have a a specific beer that is your go to?

Ed: 00:50

Well, no. I don't really. However, seasonally, I like a lot of different types of beers. And now that the summer's kinda hanging on pretty hot still around here, I really enjoy drinking German style Weitzens. These are beers that are brewed to be slightly sour in this sort of thirst quenching way that have, like, subtle green apple flavors, sometimes more like a a banana sort of flavor along with a low pH, making them, very refreshing on a on a hot day.

Shelby: 01:26

Spoken like a true beer expert, which we'll get into here in a little bit. So so you're part of an earth and atmospheric sciences department. And so if someone were to ask you, you know, what sort of scientist are you or how would you classify yourself, what would your response be?

Ed: 01:41

Yeah. I'm a geoarcheologist. So like other archaeologists, I study humans, human societies, and the things that humans have done through time. As a geoarcheologist, I tend to focus on reading the earth and understanding the earth and what that can tell us about people in the past. So, for me, the benefits of that and the things I really enjoy is that I don't have to work in any one time period.

Ed: 02:10

I don't have to work in any one place because earth science theories and methods are transferable through time. We can use these methods in the unconsolidated sediment record, think of dirt, and then also in the rock record, 1000000 of years old, the same sorts of theories apply. So, basically, what that means to me is that I'm able to work in archaeological settings that might be a couple 100 years old or millions of years old.

Shelby: 02:41

Yeah. And I think the work that you do to me is so interesting because it it truly is this interdisciplinary approach to things where, you know, oftentimes people are coming at at questions from one perspective, but your work really uses several different fields to better understand some of these processes, and and I just found that really, really fascinating.

Ed: 03:03

Yeah. You know, it's kind of interesting because it does overlap with a lot of different, specialties, subspecialties, and even fields. Right now, we're working on projects where we're trying to define paleoenvironments, in which case we need to do work with with isotopes and biomarkers, things that are found in the sediments that can tell us about the contexts, the the different environments that were, present when these sediments were deposited or when the rock units were the the first deposition of those sediments occurred.

Shelby: 03:34

And when when you say paleoenvironments, what sorts of environments are you alluding to? What are you trying to see may have been there or may not have?

Ed: 03:44

Sure. A a good example of a of a project that we're working on right now is related to the context of a discovery of a canoe. And in this case, the canoe was discovered in a package of clay. So if you can picture that these sediments are just like modeling clay, and that clay had adhered to the canoe, making it impossible for air or certain microbes to attack that wooden canoe. And we think this canoe might be 1,000 of years old.

Ed: 04:16

We're pretty sure it's 1,000 of years old. But what we don't know is why is it where it was? Today, it was found in in a field, a small stream that was cutting through, suddenly exposed this canoe. The canoe is really large. It's at least 27 and a half feet long, but we don't know the context within where it was deposited.

Ed: 04:41

For instance, it could have been in a wetland. It could have been in a lake or a pond or possibly some other type of stream, but those clays are telling us that it was some sort of quiet water. And what we're trying to do is figure out what exactly was it. Were people there to exploit, resources like wetlands, or were they perhaps in a lake and that canoe somehow sank? So what's really interesting about this is we have a puzzle to put together.

Ed: 05:11

There's some clues that we have, and we'll be focused on some of the clues that we can get, from those from the clay itself, and it can tell us about that environment.

Shelby: 05:23

So a lot of your work has a field component and then also sort of an excavation component potentially and then some sort of preservation component. Can you sort of walk us through what those look like? What what they are? How they work? Because I think this is probably something that it would be a little unfamiliar to a lot of folks.

Ed: 05:41

Sure. And and the example that I'll give is similar to how artifacts, might be and and various objects, let's say, might be taken care of at museums. So part of my background also, I was the inaugural, executive director of the IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. And, it would be remiss of me not to talk also about the curation side, the the research side that happens after objects might be obtained, in the field. And, there's a lot of legalities as you might imagine, For in most cases, archaeology, in North America is discovered on private property.

Ed: 06:24

Typically, landowners will alert, professionals to some sort of discovery. As archaeologists, we'll go visit and try to briefly document prior to, getting permissions from the state, from landowners, sometimes from counties to begin removing earth in order to to excavate these particular objects. Along with a number of laws and permits, that are required, and sometimes that's also a lot of work, when that happens. We are we we kind of focus on working with the landowners and then to different teams. So some of these projects, if it were something were found near a river system and we might have to divert waters, we would be working perhaps with the Army Corps of Engineers or the Department of Natural Resources, in the state, perhaps with the department of historic preservation and archaeology, the state historic preservation officers, state archaeologists, many other people.

Ed: 07:35

So it becomes these projects become large, multidisciplinary teams of individuals who each might be focused on a slightly different aspect. Oftentimes, like for a project we did in Southern Indiana looking at agriculture, 1,000 year old agriculture, we had some specialists in who would focus on the, the plants of the past. These individuals and specialists are called paleoethnobotanists, and their focus is largely on deciphering, when we find pieces of plants and sometimes even microscopic pieces or different species of wood, they can help us, define precisely what those species were to better understand the context, of an archaeological site, which is really the focus largely of most geoarcheologists.

Shelby: 08:33

And what's what's sort of the typical time frame for one of these projects from initial discovery to where it ends up being moved off-site? I can imagine it's probably pretty variable, but

Ed: 08:47

Yeah. It sure is. It's very variable, and it totally depends on on the context and how, how an, an archaeological site might be regarding its preservation potential. So if the site's poorly preserved, we have to be really careful because archaeology is by nature destructive. And once we start an excavation, there's no putting it back together.

Ed: 09:13

So we have to be really careful about documentation. And in this day and age, the process has sped up a lot because it used to be we were sketching, we were drawing. Today, we have photogrammetry, and we're able to get even better three-dimensional renderings of archaeological sites, with the modern technology. So it tends to be a little bit a little bit faster. But I'll give you an example, from an archaeological site at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania in East Africa.

Ed: 09:43

This is a site where we're working on, human evolution and understanding things like cognition and how we can, decipher cognitive changes through time. And it might be not just with Homo sapiens, but other early human species like Homo habilis and Homo erectus and like Lucy austropithecine perhaps. And a few I guess it was 2 summers ago, we located in some stratigraphy that's related to a lake in Africa. We found some hippo bones that had evidence of being butchered. We, later this past year, found stone tools that indicate that, this butchery took place in a shallow pool, like a hippo pool, on the edge of a lake, and that the stone tools we found were the type that we would see typically with with Homo erectus, very early Homo erectus, but still around 1,600,000 years.

Ed: 10:52

So in this case, the time that it would take, and it's still an ongoing process, we discovered the site a couple of years ago. We need to get permits, and the permitting is done through the Tanzanian antiquities authorities, with other people in our department, Claudia Johnson, Jackson Njau, who also work with us. And Jackson and Claudia run a field school out there, so students can actually go and and learn about these processes, as a geologist or as if they're interested in anthropology, archaeology, that's a part of what we do there as well. But we began excavations this past year because we didn't have enough time to finish excavations, something that we knew would happen. We then buried that site again to hopefully preserve it against, things like sometimes animals will trample these sites, and there's a lot of water during the monsoon season.

Ed: 11:49

So we bury it in a way that sort of protects it also from water. But because we kinda have to start and stop each year and we're not really sure exactly what we're gonna find, like, once we found the first hippo, we understood by the end of the summer last year that there's actually at least 3. There may be 4 that are there. So the excavation kinda gets bigger each year. And that's the nature of this.

Ed: 12:16

Sometimes we'll be able we'll be in and out in a day, and in other times, we might be working on a site for years. And at Olduvai Gorge, the next step would be to curate the artifacts and they would end up going probably to the city of Arusha briefly and then Dar es Salaam, the capital, and be curated and that's where researchers can then study them, in the future. Then there's big reports to write up and that sort of thing. So, this type of project is probably gonna be 4, 3 to 5 years, something like that.

Shelby: 12:50

Yeah. So pretty long long time scales.

Ed: 12:52

Oh, yeah. And we have to be patient as archaeologists. Like, you you can't rush this in large part due to the, as I mentioned, the the nature that how destructive it is. You never get that information back again.

Shelby: 13:08

Once these materials are are excavated, are there sort of certain precautions that have to be taken with transporting them? Are there ways that you will have to stabilize them? Does that depend? What does that look like? And is that something that sort of people in your field are actively involved in, or does that get handed off to somebody else?

Ed: 13:27

So, again, it depends. I don't mean to give you any wishy washy answers here, but in some cases, like, if we were pulling out of the earth a 1000 year old canoe, it would have to be taken care of for years. And what we mean here is because it's wet and somewhat waterlogged, if it were simply to dry out, it would crack. And the same goes for any sort of wooden, artifact that might be waterlogged. And it needs to soak in distilled water for a long period of time until, it is relatively clean, and then it gets, impregnated with polyethylene glycol to help strengthen the cell walls of the wood and preserve it.

Ed: 14:14

Here, we're already a few years into the process, and then it would be slowly over years again dried out in order not to crack or deform. And that is kind of an extreme case. In other cases, for instance, like underwater teams, they might be placing things in a water bath in a museum, and that water bath might have certain it might be slightly acidic, for instance, if they're trying to get barnacles off of an object. But they need to be really patient because it takes a long time to sort of dissolve the calcium carbonate or the barnacles Mhmm. And render some object, like it was new again.

Ed: 14:58

But you need to be very, very patient. In some cases, we also do this through museums and and, people who have dedicated their lives to the conservation of objects, and these are the specialists that really help out with the difficult, complicated types of conservation efforts that are necessary. In some cases, we then will continue to work with the museums as we research these, different objects and try to understand more about their makers, how they were made, how far people might have traveled for those raw materials, all of that.

Shelby: 15:35

Yeah. So that there's it sounds like there really is a lot of skill and art that goes into this just beyond sort of the science behind it too, which I think is another really fun aspect of some of the stuff that you do. You had mentioned before that that, like, historically, before things like photogrammetry, there was lots of sketching involved. Would you consider yourself, sort of an artist or or inclined to to artistic skill?

Ed: 16:03

Somewhat. I have learned, to be a thinker in 3 dimensions, and I think that helps as we sketch things, particularly with archaeology, because we need to understand how objects within the matrix of the earth are distributed, and it helps to be able to to do certain sketches. It's also very helpful in some cases to be able to sketch stone tools because in sketching them, you can actually show details that you cannot see in photos or even photogrammetry sometimes. And in particular, that tells us a little bit about how the stone tools were made, sort of the mental template that the maker might have had in reducing that rock. My art kinda comes in even more, in that I'm a flintknapper.

Ed: 16:52

I recreate stone tools, and I recreate stone tools from homocephalus, through to, folks who might know how to use flint for their flintlock guns. Like, I do a lot with Native American objects, whether it be, stone ground types of tools or flaked, flintknapped objects. And it's really kind of fun. It's close to Halloween right now.

Shelby: 17:19

Mhmm.

Ed: 17:19

And one of the things we did recently was carve pumpkins. So we use some classic stone tools like end scrapers, which are the very best at getting sort of the stringy guts out of a pumpkin, because it has a sharp bit that's curved under a little bit, and it just cuts away those those little bits. So it's also terrific for skinning deer. I make these tools for hunter friends and and that sort of thing too.

Shelby: 17:46

Yeah. It sounds like we need a department pumpkin carving event so that we can all experience this. So you you're using this term objects, which feels sort of all encompassing. Is that Is that sort of an accurate read on that?

Ed: 18:00

It is. I think that's museum speak. In museology, when we talk about the objects that we have in a museum, they might be artifacts. In other words, hearken back to, previous time period cultures that are from the past. They might extend into the present, but objects is sort of the generic term for, things that we might have in the museum.

Ed: 18:25

I guess I've been talking mostly about artifacts.

Shelby: 18:29

And and some of these things that you say that that you're making, are you sort of doing this just for fun? You mentioned that that some of these you're making for for friends of yours, or is this something that you do sort of as an outreach activity?

Ed: 18:42

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it started when I was in charge of the lithic stone tool collections at the Glenn Black Laboratory of Archaeology.

Ed: 18:51

And I realized that I didn't understand the differences between some of the stone tools. They had the same morphology, so how do we know whether they're from a different time period? And what it turned out that I started to learn prior to flintknapping is that there were different patterns for the way the rocks were reduced. Even though the final product might look very similar to another final product and their separated time sometimes by 1000 of years, they have a different way that the rock was reduced. I started flintknapping simply to experiment with that, and it became a hobby.

Ed: 19:29

I kinda got hooked on it. I enjoyed it. It's a great way to maybe have a drink and hang out and do something that was career oriented that was also, very, very fun to do and turned out to be a pretty wonderful learning experience, also translatable to different time periods in different places on earth.

Shelby: 19:52

Was this something that was self taught?

Ed: 19:55

Yes. I did have a few friends where we would get together and and knap together, but I kinda geeked out, on it. Spent a lot of time studying and reading and practicing and breaking large rocks into little rocks and not getting anything out of it Yeah. That I wanted, but I guess that's experience. Right?

Shelby: 20:16

Yeah. And and when you say how these rocks were reduced, that's sort of what you're referring to. Right? It's how you're going from one large what people would imagine a rock looks like to something that's a useful tool is actually changing the shape and the the way that it's formed Yeah. Through knapping.

Ed: 20:35

Exactly. If you can sort of picture, a, 1 and a half foot by 1 and a half foot by 1 and a half foot block of obsidian, part of what anyone would have had to do in the past, ancestors of of people, Native Americans here in North America or my ancestors in Europe. What they would have done was smash that rock and make it slightly smaller. Then they would begin to reduce that rock by breaking smaller pieces off of it in order to begin to shape it into whatever tool they are imagining in their head that they wanna actually create. So that, requires multiple different stone tools.

Ed: 21:17

You need a big rock when you first smash the big block that I just described, but then you need smaller rocks because you have more control over smaller rocks in your hand to begin to shape it. And then some groups would use some bone tools, others would use antler, and in the past few 100 years, people have been using copper to help, sort of shape these types of tools.

Shelby: 21:43

And and when you're doing this now, are you using the same sorts of tools, or are you bringing in some modern tools as well?

Ed: 21:50

I don't I don't use modern tools. I have a couple in my bag in case I

Shelby: 21:56

In case of emergency - break out.

Ed: 21:57

See because it is a little bit easier to use a copper tool than it is, say, a deer ulna to create a notch in an arrowhead. Like but I try to use all, of the, types of tools that would have been used 1000 of years ago, which means I have a lot of antler antler tips. I have some bone that we use, which has been really interesting lately because we're doing some experiments with bone, in Africa and bone being used to help sharpen tools and remove fat and viscera from the sharp edges of these large stone tools. And we see evidence of that in fossilized bone and how they were using the bones of animals that they might have recently harvested to actually sharpen their stone tools once they get dull while they're butchering.

Shelby: 22:55

I think that I mean, so a lot of the the folks that are sort of in these science fields, you know, we we can do certain things. We can go in the field. I I could go into the lab. But the way that you're also sort of able to recreate some of these processes on your own, I think, is is a really fun aspect of some of the things that you get to do and and gives you a totally different perspective, I would imagine, for some of the things that you're seeing in the field or some of the things that you're you're working on or studying because you're actively involved in that process in a way that that, like, other fields wouldn't be able to.

Ed: 23:28

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting point because part of, part of what we're what we do is I was thinking of my flintknapping, for instance, as a hobby. And I learned a lot about North American archaeology, but simply now having those skills has allowed us to recreate accurately stone tools of the past.

Ed: 23:51

And like this project in Africa, we actually use these recreated stone tools, modern bones, to recreate these actions and behaviors that our early hominin ancestors, actually engaged in. And if we weren't able to recreate these stone tools, you're not able to do these experiments that each time we do these experiments, we learn a little bit more about these millions of year old human behaviors.

Shelby: 24:24

Yeah. I think that's that's just like a side effect Yeah.

Ed: 24:26

Of the work.

Shelby: 24:27

Yeah. That's that's really amazing. And it's it's also sort of interesting to me that this isn't really where you you started out either. Right? So you mentioned before you your degree initially was in microbiology.

Ed: 24:41

Yeah. So, I'm someone who has a very short attention span, and I'm also proof that you can change your career over time, and you can do so successfully. I I think part of the reason I've been able to do it successfully is I'm passionate about it. I I tend to drill down into things I'm really interested in, and I get lost there for a while. And, so, yes, I when I came out of college with my microbiology degree, I worked for Abbott Laboratories, and Abbott had just, released or they were about to release the first test for AIDS.

Ed: 25:20

Alright. I just dated myself here. But the first blood test on earth for AIDS, and I was part of the team that was hired to teach pathologists how to operate the machinery to do these tests and to basically protect our blood supply, and not just in America, but around the world. So I had the opportunity to work with them as they released this product, to sort of safely monitor our blood supply, in in America and then around the world. It was a wonderful position to have, and it allowed me to do some travel and also work with other people who were geeky about microbiology and how these particular types of tests worked.

Shelby: 26:09

And then from there and and sort of prior to coming into the geoarcheological world, you had a pretty long stint related to beer.

Ed: 26:17

I sure did. And, actually, one of my favorite time periods came just before that. I spent 5 years as a stay at home dad, raising my my 2 daughters. My wife is also, of course, here at Indiana University, but I was, I was a stay at home dad. I love that job.

Ed: 26:37

It was a wonderful experience, to be able to bond, you know, with your kids and somewhat unique. I was one of 2 men in all of Bloomington doing that at that time. But, that led, into some brewing work. So I had already lived in Germany and brewed in Germany at a place called the 12 apostles and, a binding brewery, in in Germany. And there, I apprenticed with a German brewmaster.

Ed: 27:14

And after 3 years about 3 years, came back to the States and was a stay at home dad in that time period. But while I was here, the Upland Brewing Company opened, and

Shelby: 27:27

For folks, listening, Upland is a local brewery that is very popular amongst Bloomington residents and especially within the department because of of Ed's connection.

Ed: 27:36

Sure. And so at the Upland Brewing Company, I I was the brewmaster there from about 99 to 2006 or 7. And, I focused on, some North American style beers, but a lot of the German style beers as well. Many of the beers that are there today sort of hearken back to those beers. I did a lot with yeast.

Ed: 28:03

We had one of the first labs in in Indiana at that particular brewery at Upland. And that was in order to help us monitor the health of of yeast and the health of the beer. You know?

Shelby: 28:17

So so like an in house lab Mhmm. To monitor your yeast quality to then manufacture different types of beer that then customers are consuming?

Ed: 28:27

Utilizing different types of yeast, understanding the health of those yeast, how many cells you might need to pitch at a given time, and also to sort of monitor other aspects of flavor and flavor through time. Like, we might stress test some of the beers, in which case you you maybe put them in an oven for a period of time to age them and then taste them. And the way you would taste them is with some of the beers being of the same batch, others being different. Can you decipher which is which, like, 2 paired tests, that sort of thing, in order to understand how flavor might change over time. In order to make sure that negative flavors don't come into the beer, into what might be on a shelf somewhere, or how those beers are packaged.

Shelby: 29:13

Yeah. What an awful job. Having to taste test beers all day. I mean, I don't know how you did it, Ed.

Ed: 29:18

My my, my brewmaster had a a term that my wife continues to joke with me about, and he said, Edvard, the qualitaste controller

Shelby: 29:30

So so with sort of being the brew master and and, like, generating these different styles of beer, can you, at sort of a high level, talk us through some of the science behind that? How does that work? So how do we end up with a Pilsner versus an IPA, those sorts of things? What what goes into that?

Ed: 29:50

Cool question. So so, where to begin? So you might think simply by having a different recipe, you can create a different beer. And it the very most basic sense that is true, but flavors are developed in a number of different ways in the brewing process. The flavors might be developed through the different grains that we use, and different beers have different amounts of multiple types of grains.

Ed: 30:20

Usually, it's malted barley. Some beers, like Waijsen, might have some wheat in it as well. Other beers might be made with barley or ancient beers, for instance. Some of those were made with grains like triticale and and spelt and and others, little barley, for instance. But a large part of the flavor is dependent upon the yeast because the whole job of the yeast is to eat the sugars that are created during the brew process.

Ed: 30:50

Like, the mash will turn this large molecule protein starches into different types of sugar. And what's kinda cool about that is that there's enzymes inherent in the grain that depending upon the temperature of the mash can create different sugars. Some of the sugars might be, for instance, like glucose, but another one might be perhaps fructose. Some of the sugars are fermentable, others are not fermentable, meaning we're gonna taste them in the beer. So the brewer can manipulate some of the sugars that the yeast are gonna eat by manipulating temperatures in the mash to magically create different sugars that then are gonna be left in the beer when you actually drink it, and you can taste those sugars.

Shelby: 31:42

Right.

Ed: 31:43

The yeast are also eating that sugar and creating carbon dioxide. They sort of, excuse this visual, but they belch c 02 through their cell walls, and that gets dissolved into the beer. That's part of the c o two that we have in there. And then they excrete ethanol. They they excrete the alcohol.

Ed: 32:04

So that's the part of the basic process. And if you have more sugars that that are fermentable, you get more alcohol in that particular batch. So once the brewer has sort of has the right grains mixed in, has mixed it with water that is of the right temperature to turn on the enzymes that they want, that liquid is taken over into another kettle and boiled where they might add spices in the case of the upland wheat, which is a recreation of a mid medieval style beer. It might be coriander or orange peel as some of the spices. But most of the other beers we think of as spices hops.

Ed: 32:43

Yep. Like, that, is not only a flavoring that's somewhat bitter if it's boiled for a long time or somewhat flowery if it's boiled for only a short period of time, but it's also a natural preservative. So when the, Hildegard, a a very famous nun, started experimenting, changing some recipes from nettles that they would add to, hops. She realized that the beer stayed fresher longer. And hops pretty soon thereafter became a bit more standard in in brewing recipes.

Ed: 33:20

So after it boils in that tank for a period of time, it's quickly cooled and the yeast is added. So you cool down what was boiling in the tank to the same temperature that the yeast have been acclimated to, and then the yeast will start to do their thing in a fermentation tank. After fermentation takes place, that tank is cooled, the yeast begin to go dormant. They flocculate, drop to the bottom of the tank. That yeast can then be reused.

Ed: 33:49

That's why the bottom of the tank is a cone. Yeah. Because the first yeast to fall out is unhealthy. And so from the cone, the the brewer will release that. Then you get to the healthy yeast and that they'll harvest to repitch into another beer later if that beer is of the same style.

Shelby: 34:04

And how how many times could yeast be reused? Is this something that that eventually they're sort of used up?

Ed: 34:12

Yeah. And that's part of the reason that breweries that are large enough will will have a laboratory because that's part of what we can see in the lab, how many cells are unhealthy. And what happens is the mother cell, every time she divides, she gets a scar in the place that the daughter cell was attached to her. And once they've divided, somewhere between 12 16 times, that cell loses that mother cell loses its ability to respire properly and begins to lyse. Like, that cell will eventually fall apart.

Ed: 34:47

And not only does that not taste good in your beer, it's it means that the fermentation will go a little bit slower and won't be what the brewer expects. Right. So we will often have to clean out the yeast by replating it, capturing a perfect cell, and growing it. So then you've got a fresh slurry of yeast cells to to go ahead and pitch, and you can be confident that they're healthy and that it's not been contaminated with wild yeast or bacteria or other things that will affect flavor.

Shelby: 35:22

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm I love beer and had no idea all of these things that are going on behind the scenes for, like, a single, you know, 12 ounce can. It's pretty it's pretty wild to think about.

Ed: 35:33

Yeah. And a lot of times, beer is this living thing. It's it's in a bottle, but it's alive. Like, sometimes there's yeast in it. A lot of these beers, like, invites them.

Ed: 35:42

We keep kinda going back to has live yeast in it. That's part of the reason it's cloudy. That's part of the reason that beer always stays fresh. That yeast is continually eating a little bit of oxygen that might have been in the can or bottle in order to survive. But by removing the oxygen, that beer stays fresher longer.

Shelby: 36:00

So at some point with a weizen, would that would the flavor profile change if you let it sit long enough because those yeast are still active?

Ed: 36:07

Absolutely. That's the case with any beer. Even even the beers that have very little malt, like a like a American mass produced yellow fizzy stuff, even they will go bad over time. A fresh beer is almost always better, and the only caveat being some of the ancient beers, the recreations that are currently being done by, like, Trappist Monasteries in Belgium and in some places here in America too.

Ed: 36:32

And at at the Upland Brewing Company, sours are sort of hearken back to the most ancient of of beers that are being fermented with some wild yeast strains and some bacterial strains that create a wildly, intensely sour sort of character.

Shelby: 36:50

And what's sort of the time frame from from we're gonna start brewing to now we have a finished product?

Ed: 36:58

So that really depends on the type of beer. And, you know, I was gonna address the different styles, and the different styles are basically based on different yeast strains. Some yeast strains, like ales, they need oxygen in order to reproduce. They tend to work at the top of the liquid and do their fermenting from there, generally speaking. And it that's done at warmer temperatures, and those beers start to finish might be a few weeks.

Ed: 37:29

On the other side, lagers, which is a term aufdeutsch that means to store, or pilsners. Pilsner is a type of lager from the city of Pilsen, hence, it's a pilsner in the Czech Republic. And that particular style is a yeast strain that works anaerobically, so it tends to work from the bottom of the batch well, you know, in in the water, in the liquid, in the wort at that time. And, those take at least 6 to 8 weeks of storage time, plus the fermentation might be another cup week or 2, or even 3 in some cases. So those beers take a little bit longer.

Ed: 38:08

They also have different flavors. They tend to be, more well rounded flavors. They tends to be less fruity and more crisp, drier Mhmm. Usually also than the the typical ales that we think of. And almost always not hopped to the bitter extent of something like IPAs that we know of in America.

Ed: 38:30

The English IPAs, the original ones, are far less bitter and usually less hoppy as well than this American craze.

Shelby: 38:40

That's taken over.

Ed: 38:41

Yeah. That's kinda taken over.

Shelby: 38:43

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this this is also feels like another aspect of time and some of your interest in sort of this archaeological perspective with this, you know, modern brewing technique, but being able to to cross that bridge and Yeah. And tie those together, which is just another very cool aspect about some of the things you get to do.

Ed: 39:02

Yeah. I really thought in archaeology what I was doing when I first started. And, again, I went to Germany, went to the University of Cologne to start my archaeology as well. And there so my wife is German, so that's why we were living there on occasion. My my kids have German citizenship.

Ed: 39:16

They've been in public school system there. So we went and I kind of was focusing on the role of fermented beverages in prehistory. That's what I was gonna do in archaeology, when that short attention span came into play again. And I got really interested in the the peopling of the Americas, the peopling of Australia, the peopling of of unpopulated landscapes.

Shelby: 39:43

Do you do home brewing now? Do you is that sort of a hobby?

Ed: 39:47

I haven't in a while. In part, it has a lot to do with the amount of travel I'm doing. I still do a lot of travel. I don't teach every semester as a as a senior scientist here at IU.

Ed: 39:59

I am teaching this semester, but, I I don't teach every semester. Instead, I'm often in the field, through the semester, certainly in the field every single summer. So it's been harder and harder to home brew. And I have all the equipment. It's sitting there in my basement.

Ed: 40:15

I walk past it every week. But, no, I haven't been in quite a while.

Shelby: 40:20

Yeah. Maybe eventually. Yeah. Do you have a a beer in mind that that if you get the chance, you're sort of itching to to brew at home?

Ed: 40:28

Not really. What I have in mind is a few different styles. I really like having a few different flavors around, depending upon my mood. I it really does change for me. In the wintertime, I tend to drink more darker more of the dark beers.

Ed: 40:45

With food, I like certain types of pilsners often. So I need to have a a number of different, sort of types.

Shelby: 40:54

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, whenever you start to homebrew, let me know. I would love to to see how that goes.

Shelby: 41:00

So so, Ed, your career trajectory has been more diverse than some people, and so would you have any advice for young folks who are thinking of maybe potentially coming into sort of the geological sciences, what would you tell them or if you could go back and tell yourself something, what would that look like?

Ed: 41:21

Yeah. The that's a good question. From my perspective, what I really appreciate about earth sciences generally is the idea that we overlap with so many others. So the interdisciplinary and the multidisciplinary nature of just thinking about the various projects that we initiate. It's hard to know all aspects of what you need to know to do this kind of work, so you have to rely on others.

Ed: 41:53

And it's not only this reliance, but we're also able to learn from others. So I love working with people who have different specialties because I'm able to learn a little bit, and the project that I'm on is more successful because we have people who are focused on certain smaller aspects of of this work. Maybe not even smaller aspects, but just different aspects of the work, meaning that these projects tend to be richer and, we get more information out of them. I that's part of science.

Shelby: 42:31

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's I was really excited to have you on, and and I've loved having you here for that reason because I think the work you do, but also you as a person, just have so many facets to what you do, which which really highlights how this is sort of an ever evolving process in the field that we're in where you you do get this opportunity to learn forever, which is what's exciting, I think, to most of the folks that are in it, and how you can sort of touch on all of these individual aspects that otherwise may feel really different from one another. I mean, we've just today, we've talked about

Ed: 43:01

Mhmm.

Shelby: 43:02

Beer and ancient artifacts and and excavation and lab techniques, and all of these things can come together to form this really, really beautiful, rich story that you otherwise would never have the perspective on. And so I really appreciate the work that you do for that reason.

Ed: 43:19

Thank you.

Shelby: 43:19

So that will bring us to our last segment, which is our yes, please segment where each of us has a minute to sort of get on a soapbox and talk passionately about something that interests us in the moment. Ed, you're welcome to go first. I don't care to go first if you need a little time.

Ed: 43:35

Okay.

Shelby: 43:35

I'll give you a verbal cue when you have 30 seconds and 15, and then I'll give you a signal with 5. Here is Ed Herrmann's. Yes, please.

Ed: 43:45

So as an anthropologist, which my degree is in anthropology also, I love working with the indigenous people that we work with. I'm able to work with Masai and Chaga people when we work in Africa, and here in North America, I work with a lot of different tribes. For instance, I was able to work with the crow on bison jumps, And these were, areas where bison herds were pushed off of cliffs or into really thin arroyos in order to harvest them. And in working with the tribes, we had to go back and study oral histories and oral traditions to understand some nuance in how these bison were hunted and how they were actually driven. And just the idea of working with the tribes, understanding some of their histories that really enrichens the kind of work, that I'm able to do.

Ed: 44:41

So that's been a huge new sort of aspect of my work in the past 5 or 6 years that I really enjoy.

Shelby: 44:48

Very cool. And so so this just started the last few years or so?

Ed: 44:54

Yeah. About about 5 2015 and 16 is when I yeah. Okay. 2015 and 16 is when I did the work on the Crow reservation in Little Bighorn College.

Shelby: 45:03

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like like having those experiences of of working with different groups of people in the way that you're able to probably has to bring a totally different perspective to some of the things that you get to do.

Ed: 45:15

Absolutely. Absolutely, it does. And it also in in some cases, we have these these tribal members join us for things like excavations, and that actually can then benefit, the tribes not only for the history side, but also some of the emotional side. These are histories that were ripped away from these people. So being able to share in sort of the rediscovery of some of this information, is important for me to be able to share.

Shelby: 45:44

Yeah.

Ed: 45:44

That's something that's, a highlight in

Shelby: 45:48

Yeah. That would I'm sure that makes that aspect of what you get to do much more rewarding in a very different way.

Ed: 45:54

Yeah. It does.

Shelby: 45:55

Alright. I will be up next, if you don't mind, to time me, and this will be my yes, please. Yep. K. Yes, please.

Shelby: 46:04

Let's continue bringing back retro candy. So some of my favorite candy from my childhood, this will age me a little bit, has started to recently be redistributed. So some of my favorite things that were taken off the market, I don't know why, are starting to come back under a company that I've now found out is called Iconic Candy, which is a very apt name, I feel like, for what they're bringing back. They originally brought back Creme Savers. If folks have not had those, you need to go out and find them and try them.

Shelby: 46:30

The orange Creme Savers are my favorite. And they also are starting to bring back Altoid Sours. So Altoid Sours were a candy that came in a tin. I think there were 3 flavors. They all were very brightly colored.

Shelby: 46:41

You looked at them and knew that you probably shouldn't eat them, but they were delicious. They're now rebranded as Retro Sours. I think they've officially hit the shelves. You should go out and try to find them. So I want us to continue to bring back things from my childhood.

Shelby: 46:54

And if I had any requests for iconic candy, it would be to first bring back 3 d Doritos and then to bring back Butterfinger BBs. So please continue to bring back the old retro candies. There there are some things that I've I've been excited to see back on the shelves. I don't know if there are things that pop into your mind that that

Ed: 47:14

maybe love them.

Shelby: 47:15

That maybe you you wish you you could see, and we can put a plug in to try to get those back.

Ed: 47:20

I love them. I saw some of the the it's not is it Sour Patch? They're really intensely

Shelby: 47:26

Yeah.

Ed: 47:26

Sour ones not too long ago.

Shelby: 47:28

Yeah. Yeah.

Ed: 47:28

And Pop Rocks.

Shelby: 47:29

Yeah.

Ed: 47:30

Pop Rocks, I take to our Masai friends Yeah. Because they you know, most of them have never tried something like that. And I usually get they think, you know, I'm trying to kill them

Shelby: 47:40

or something. Yeah.

Ed: 47:41

But

Shelby: 47:42

it's I feel like that's a that's a natural reaction the first time you have those sorts of things. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Ed, thank you very much for being on today. This has been a lot of fun for me.

Shelby: 47:50

I really appreciate it.

Ed: 47:51

Thanks for having me, Shelby.

Shelby: 47:53

And for those that are listening, join us next week when we have somebody new on that we'll get to know over drinks. We'll see you then. Earth on the Rocks is produced by Kari Metz with artwork provided by Connor Laumgruber, with technical recording managed by Kate Krum and Betsy Leija. Funding for this podcast was provided by the National Science Foundation Grant, EAR dash 2422824.