Podcast Summary: Slow Burn – Decoder Ring | How to Hunt a Mammoth, and Other Experiments in Archaeology

Date: August 13, 2025
Host: Willa Paskin (Narrator)
Featured Guests: Sam Kean, Susan Kaplan, Karen Harry, Naalehu Anthony
Theme: The episode explores the world of experimental archaeology—archaeologists and communities not just theorizing about the past, but actively recreating ancient tools, practices, and journeys to illuminate long-standing mysteries about human ingenuity and survival.

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode investigates the power of experimental archaeology: archaeologists and practitioners today don't just dig and analyze—they actively recreate ancient practices to answer old questions. The episode traces legendary experiments, from butchering an elephant to recreate mammoth hunting, to solving the riddle of enigmatic Alaskan cooking pots, and finally to bold oceanic voyages that revitalize lost knowledge and cultural pride across Polynesia.

"Experimental archaeology is simply archaeology that involves experiments."
— Sam Kean (06:34)

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The "Excitement Gap" of Real-Life Archaeology

• Sam Kean reflects on his childhood fascination with action-archaeologists in pop culture (Indiana Jones, Lara Croft), and the contrast with the painstaking, often tedious reality of actual digs.
• Real-life archaeological fieldwork involves detailed, repetitive tasks—yet the discipline is critical for understanding humanity’s past.
• Sam struggled with making archaeology seem exciting as a writer until discovering experimental archaeology.

Quote:

"Most of the time, you show up at an archaeological site and it's scores of sunburned people lying around in the dirt, usually with a brush or a dental pick or something."
— Sam Kean (03:12)

Timestamp: 00:38–04:30

2. What is Experimental Archaeology?

• Unlike traditional archaeologists who analyze artifacts, experimental archaeologists conduct hands-on reconstructions to learn by doing—making stone tools, building canoes, or recreating ancient recipes.
• Experimentation can reveal unknowns and solve puzzles that simple analysis cannot.
  • Example: British researchers testing an ancient Viking remedy, which turned out to be a potent antibiotic.

Memorable Moment:

"I look at it as sort of a form of time travel ... there's no other part of archeology that's as good as immersing you in the past as experimental archaeology."
— Sam Kean (08:39)

Timestamp: 06:34–09:48

3. The Ginsburg Mammoth Experiment: How to Hunt a Mammoth

• Susan Kaplan recounts how, in 1977, a celebrity elephant named Ginsburg at the Boston Zoo died. She and a team of archaeologists acquired the carcass to address ancient hunting mysteries.
• Key questions: Could humans have hunted mammoths, with what tools, and how would bone tools have been made?
• The team used stone-tipped spears, butchering the elephant under cold conditions, with scientists tracking the force required.
• The experiment led to a new respect for experimental archaeology and changed assumptions about the difficulty and rarity of hunting megafauna.

Notable Quote:

"It's a little macabre. But ... they had these questions that they simply could have not answered without doing these experiments."
— Sam Kean (16:37)

Impact:

• Brought experimental archaeology into mainstream academic respectability.
• Demonstrated the challenge of hunting mammoths and that it likely wasn’t commonplace.

Timestamp: 09:48–18:46

4. The Mystery of Alaskan Cooking Pots

• Archaeologist Karen Harry describes her skepticism at calling clunky, porous, thick-walled Alaskan pots “cooking vessels.”
• Standard cooking pots worldwide are thin, rounded, nonporous, but these defied all expectations.
• Collaboration with Alaskan communities, experimental pottery attempts, and consultation of ethnographic records revealed:
  • Alaskan cooking involved dipping meat quickly ("fondue style"), conserving nutrients such as Vitamin C.
  • Harsh environmental constraints (limited good clay, short dry seasons, scarce wood) shaped the pots’ design.
  • Innovatively, unfired pots were made watertight by a process of coating first with seal oil and then with seal blood—an aha moment for the team.

Quote:

"You can actually have an unfired pot and make it work."
— Karen Harry (30:54)

Timestamp: 18:46–32:16

5. Indigenous Knowledge and Revitalization through Experimental Archaeology

• Experimental archaeology is not just academic—it’s a vehicle for indigenous peoples to revive and sustain ancestral knowledge, sometimes lost through colonization or cultural shifts.
• Indigenous practitioners often correct academics or preserve traditions independent of artifact analysis.

Quote:

"In a lot of cases, they have been keeping these traditions alive sometimes for thousands of years."
— Sam Kean (33:06)

Timestamp: 32:16–33:43

6. The Polynesian Voyaging Revival: Proving Navigation By Stars

• Western skepticism once doubted that Polynesians could purposefully navigate thousands of miles across open ocean.
• Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki expedition (1947)—drifting a raft from South America to Polynesia—popularized experimental archaeology but was based on a wrong theory (accidental settlement).
• The Polynesian Voyaging Society, led by Herb Kane and Dr. Ben Finney, used rigorous reconstruction; they built the double-hulled canoe “Hokule’a” and recruited Satawal master navigator Mau Piailug.
• In 1976, Hokule’a successfully sailed 2,500 miles from Hawaii to Tahiti using only traditional navigation (stars, waves, nature), touching off a renaissance of Polynesian culture and navigation skills.
• The project refuted colonial skepticism and fostered cultural pride and identity.

Notable Quotes:

"All it proved was, like, you could get on a raft and, you know, drift for 90 days, and then these Polynesians have to come out and rescue you, you know, when you crash on their reef."
— Naalehu Anthony (41:21)

"When the canoe sails, it reinvigorates the values, the pride, the expectation that we can do these kinds of things."
— Naalehu Anthony (48:10)

Memorable Moment:

"At 2 in the morning when you come up and all you hear are the sounds of nature ... that's the one moment ... that I believe you can fully be in a place in space, surrounded in all your senses of what the ancestors had. It's just such a gift. It's such an amazing thing."
— Naalehu Anthony (50:08)

Timestamp: 33:43–51:09

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• "I just imagine, you know, you're driving down the highway that day, and you see this flatbed truck go by ... there's an elephant, a headless elephant on the back of it, its tail flapping in the wind." — Sam Kean (14:05)
• "I loved that movie." (on Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail) — Sam Kean (01:14)
• "They always know more than us ... I am having to catch up to what people knew a thousand years ago." — Karen Harry (31:22)
• "You have to do this. Of course you have to do this. How can Polynesians live without sailing?" — Mau Piailug (reported by Herb Kane) (44:58)
• "20,000 people come down to the beach to greet this canoe ... Something deep in our DNA understood what that meant." — Naalehu Anthony (47:01)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:38–04:30: Pop culture vs. real archaeology; the “excitement gap”
• 06:34–09:48: What is experimental archaeology? Stone tool and medieval remedy examples
• 09:48–18:46: The Ginsburg elephant experiment—mammoth hunting reimagined
• 18:46–32:16: Alaskan mystery pottery—experimentation, discovery, and indigenous knowledge
• 33:06–33:43: Role of indigenous practitioners and knowledge in archaeology
• 33:43–51:09: Experimental archaeology at sea—Thor Heyerdahl, Kon-Tiki, Hokule’a revival, and Polynesian pride

Conclusion

Experimental archaeology bridges gaps between the theory and lived experience of the past, sparking new discoveries, challenging assumptions, and empowering communities. Whether uncovering the realities of mammoth hunting, decoding the mysteries of ancient pottery, or proving the navigational brilliance of Polynesian ancestors, these hands-on experiments change our understanding—and sometimes, our identities.

"If you're talking about the purpose of reinvigorating this set of skills that are core to the reflection of who we are as Polynesians ... then absolutely, it's a success."
— Naalehu Anthony (49:32)