Retired National Park Service Archaeologist Charles M Haecker author of On the Prairie of Palo Alto: Historical Archaeology of the U.S.–Mexican War Battlefield and Apache archaeology expert talks about his Apache archaeology and the movies.
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Edited Transcript from Archaeologist Charles M Haecker
John: 00:00 I’m very excited today to have Charles Hacker with me. He is a famous battlefield archaeologist and a and uh. I messed up and he’s an amazing researcher. He’s worked all over the southwest and we first worked together in Texas on the Battle of Palo Alto. Charles, welcome. I’ll say, Charlie. Now. Charlie, welcome to the show is headed to, could you, tell us a little bit about your archaeological background and how you got to where you are?
Charlie: 00:34 Okay. I graduated from the University of Georgia in 1973 with a bachelor’s. It was a specialty in anthropology, archaeology, and then kind of job in Virginia shortly thereafter, Virginia historical commission. And it was also the city archaeologists for Hampton, Virginia. And then I left there in 1974 to go to eastern Mexico University for my master’s degree and they’re graduated in 1976 and then return briefly back to Georgia and worked for CRM work along the eastern seaboard and decided I really liked New Mexico better. It’s, there’s a lot drier climate and you can see the ground and I like Green Chili. So anyway, I went, I returned and continued work in New Mexico and then in Colorado on a reservoir project and then came back to New Mexico in 1981 and didn’t work around the state, worked for the highway department. So I became familiar, you know, all over the state of New Mexico, doing work there.
Charlie: 01:39 And then ultimately, work. I applied for a job, the, the came up for, a position or a temporary position to do the Battle of Palo Alto, that archaeological work on that. And so I did that and I really enjoyed it. I was fascinating work, out there and you know, continued off and on over the years there as well. And then of course, working with you and that great project. So, I’ve been involved with battlefields work after that and inserted myself where I could, working with Doug Scott at, excuse me, a little big horn and, work at the battle, a battle, the massacre Washita are not Washita, excuse me, I Sand Creek massacre site and that we were worked on that and I’ve gone up there several times after that. And then I mentioned the battle of the Washita’s that’s also another, Custer, great.
Charlie: 02:36 Whatever debacle, if you will. so I’ve been involved in that and got more interested in my area, a patchy research, because that’s almost literally in my backyard. We have a patchy in Canton, it’s not too far from Santa Fe. And worked on those and worked with Chris Adams, who’s an archaeologist for the healing national forest. And he and I had been working together since 1997 on a number of projects locating a Apache encampment sites and fight locations as well and involved in the Coronado work on, on identifying a battle sites related to Coronado expedition. So I was a in 2000 and become the archaeologist for the national historic landmarks program for the Inner mountain regions from Montana to Texas. So, I had my, I was allowed to get my program involved in doing research on 16th century Spanish Entrada sites, specifically more on Coronado and also worked in Mexico too as well.
John: 03:40 Well that’s fantastic. I just had a great question but it just floated right out of my head. I wanted to, I’m really, really excited to talk to you about Geronimo. You threw so many good topics in there. I was like six or seven questions ahead. I was at Fort Pickens this morning when I woke up, so, that he was, Geronimo was held there for a little less than a year.
Charlie: 04:06 I’ve been there too. I saw that. Yeah.
John: 04:08 So you actually use the metal detector technology and you were actually able to find Apache camps that no one else had found.
Charlie: 04:18 Yes. This, this goes back, well, initially it’s doing a research that we knew a fight took place in this area. But when I say this area, I could cover who knows how many square miles and reading the soldiers themselves, you’d have only written accounts of course, but they didn’t really know, it was Terra incognita for them. So you’re going by, we traveled x number of days. We, you know, they would have so many miles to a spring and the spring may or may not have a name at that time was the spring name has changed. But in any event, what Chris and I had been doing since the 19, excuse me, 1998, 1997 is that a, becoming familiar with the land forms, how the Apache’s would use the land forms for defensive purposes. And it all depends of course. Where in the desert southwest you’re talking about in our area, say it’s and southwestern New Mexico, southeastern Arizona, you have a ridges and a rough, very rough terrain.
Charlie: 05:11 And the Apaches would have their encampments on top of these ridges, but they’d always have an escape route. And they were very careful about not giving your position away, with smoke. So if there would be like in a saddle of a ridge, you would have generally some trees and there’s some juniper if any, that would, might be where they would have, there are any campfire. So would it be dispersed by the tree? So we’d also be looking for any, culturally modified trees were limbs had been cut off with hatchets and like it has grown over it. So we know it had been cut a long time ago. So we knew we were approaching and Apache and Canton and often it’s not, there would be no physical evidence, so surface, superficial evidence, no artifacts. But we would simply, we’d do a metal detecting sweep and it’s a really amazing how many often, it’d be a nondescript ridge.
Charlie: 06:00 And you do find this, you do find a remnants and they were really are using a lot of metal. there’s this attitude, belief that, oh, the Indians by enlarge it and use metal. I don’t know how that has gotten to that. They love middle boy. I tell you. And, you would find a, sometimes the Arrow points themselves, metal points made out of, of say a barrel hoop and be chiseled into shape and filed. And then you’d find something, not the points you’d find the scrap for making the Arrow points plus other detritus that is an indication of an Apache encampment. Something called, it’s a piece of a Mexican bridle called a cocostco. It’s a jingle. And you’d have a series of these on the bit and often or not, you’d find those and you actually find those in plains Indian camps as well.
Charlie: 06:45 But we’d find those in some other odd units. And one campsite that we found in the Frito Mountains in New Mexico and the extreme, it’s near the boot hill. We found a wikiup, which is a structure that they, it was grass, a structure with bent, limbs, but it was actually using a living tree. And they used the bow of this ancient, juniper there as part of it. And then, would have the branch. The branches are still there, plus a stone pestle up in still resting in the crook of the branches there to use. And we found all along in their material from their deep raids into Mexico, just from this date to the 18th century. So, was it, was, it was, was really, really great was we’re not, we’re not looking for that site. In fact, we were looking for an 1877 fight somewhere in the Floridas’, which we never found, but we found a lot of evidence of this being a strong Apache stronghold from at least of the 17th century and up and well, you know, we had Victoria in that area.
Charlie: 07:47 He used that as one of the strongholds. So, we found evidence where miners in that area, had stacked up rocks to defend themselves from Apache attacks. And we’ve, you know, found their cartridge cases and arrow points and we can only guess whatever happened to those miners but may not have been very nice. So, but no, that’s what we’ve been doing is looking at the land form and reading, reading landforms and doing it from that approach. Not always has at work, but a nice thing is that Athabaskans in general Apaches, although that come back to the same area, they would never put the Wikiups in the same location. They’d go to another ridge or another place. So that kind of helps us out a bit too because although they’re not, they’re really not that many Apache’s relatively speaking, it was estimated that in the early 1830s, at the height of their power, there may have been maybe 8,000 Apache men, women and children.
Charlie: 08:40 And they were essentially controlling an area the size of modern-day Germany. And I’m not exaggerating, there was, there, during that period also Comanche’s we’re coming into northern Mexico as well and you’d have a hold, you know, Haciendas were shutting down, villages, people were leaving. It was our thing boarded up. They control that area and you’d have raids deep into Mexico, up into Chihuahuas City. And, and we got, you know, and bring back their loot. So, and, and this is a Comanche is actually, you should note, this is a very important fact. The Comanche’s drove the Apaches out of a western Texas in the early 1700s the Apaches were fearing for their lives and the Comanche’s were hunting them down. And so you keep that in mind. The Comanche’s were basically the badass dudes in that area. Yeah.
John: 09:34 That’s in that book [sic] Empire of the Summer Moon.
Charlie: 09:37 Yes. And I have some other books over here on the Comanche, cause some excellent reading on that. Yeah. So yeah,
John: 09:44 he knew the try to get into the movies. We talked, briefly before about Geronimo movies and, you told me to look up one and it was the worst Geronimo ever.
Charlie: 09:56 Well, this is my, is actually the Buffalo Soldiers (1997). I don’t like that. That was a Ted Turner one. And there’s, there’s, yeah, I, okay. I, it’s, if you’re, you’re familiar with that movie. It was a, of course, Ted Turner production and the premise being that the buffalo soldiers who are chasing Apaches, actually the Victorio, which kind of time period that was already an anachronistic Victorio was already killed. But the point being is that they ultimately found that we have something in common with the Apaches and that we are, you know, we should be, you know, we empathize with your situation. And point of fact, the buffalo soldiers were soldiers. We perhaps over-romanticize it. Not by no means denigrate what they’re doing. I’m fascinated with that. I’m working on that, but they were professionals and they had a job to do and they did it under incredibly harsh situations. There was no situation of, of, you know, prisoners that they were, you know, there’s nothing like that happened. I just,
John: 11:00 could you say what the buffalo soldiers or just in case our audience doesn’t know,
Charlie: 11:04 Yeah, that’s a term that was, we don’t really know the origins of it. but, in 1867, black men, that were African Americans were enlisted in the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th infantry. So they were in the west, and they were termed as a one theory is that the Indians being that their hair reminded them of the buffalo of being that kind of, that kind of the hair being of that now. That’s what he referred to it. And the other ideas that they were, it was a remark of respect which for them, which I imagine they did, but they, you know, once again, the Apaches, Comanches they a understood the, the troops, the US troops they were chasing and whatever they, although they could run circles around them, they respect them up to a sense, but by God, they’re protecting their own homeland and they’re going to kill them pretty ruthlessly if they had to. I mean, and there’s enough instruments of that, but that, was a point that I found objectionable about that. I think it was a little bit too much political correctness there and I think it did a disservice actually to both.
John: 12:12 I think so too. Most of these men were former slaves and many of them fought in the Civil War.
Charlie: 12:18 Yeah, yeah. And but they, about their background they were put in the areas that were, they were not really a then it was brought up in that movie. I will give him credit for that could not go into a towns. They would get get killed or in one instance of the, one person, but trooper was beaten up and the other troops came in and shot the place up. There was a basis of that, but they were putting in areas that were really put to, to fight Apache’s. Now there are also the 3rd and 6th Cavalry white troops did the same thing too, but I should also mention in this buffalo, so on this camp site is very large camp site that we record is about 75 acres in size. All there you can see their their their rings for campfires where they laid out their tent pads, those troops and white to also use that area as well.
Charlie: 13:08 And it wasn’t segregated. I think, oh, we can’t really there. And that’s, you can’t really tell a distinction between what the black troops had and white because everyone had the same stuff. No, I mean, just, it makes sense. You have white officers of course, in charge of the black troops, but they don’t want their men killed. They want their men equipped, like everything like that. So that, that’s a has been brought up by a few historians who I won’t say, but, that’s wrong. They were given the same equipment. Now the equipment in the late 1860s, early 1870s, was not very good. It was civil war material. It was really not meant to be used in that rough environment. It wasn’t until the mid 1870s that the army finally got around the idea to equipping the soldiers with improved firearms, a uniforms, et cetera.
Charlie: 13:57 The US, the congress in its infinite wisdom thought we had our warehouses bulging with all the Civil War material. It’ll last us into the 1920s. That was their intent. Okay. Can you imagine? And, but anyway, they, the troops were as equipped as best they could. Some were equipped better because say the 7th Cavalry because they’re generally, and I don’t think they were given any special consideration, but they are often is not located at the head of where the trains had come in to the area, brought in supplies. They’re more a better supplied in some respects, but, but you have those out in Texas, whatever you have, you know, all those equipment had to become in on wagon trains and, the soldiers simply could not bring in a lot when they were bivouacking really just basics.
John: 14:45 Okay. Well, let me ask you about a couple of other movies. Now. I know we talked about the Geronimo with the, with the Rifleman. Chuck ’em, Chuck Connors. with a blue-eyed Geronimo.
Charlie: 14:59 I had a black and white TV.
John: 15:04 Well, they did it in a couple of movies. The Indian, I think his name was Scar in [sic] The Searchers (1956) has been, was John Wayne movie. He had blue eyes also. And so they, they have a habit of casting Indians with blue eyes and some of these movies.
Charlie: Well, you’re not going to be casting, it was relatively few Indians are actually got significant roles in Hollywood. Right? I mean Jay Silverheels is possibly the first one that comes to mind. You, you know, others, I’ll tell you one that I think is actually pretty good. It’s Ulzana’s Raid [1972]. Okay. Burt Lancaster, 1972, and it’s very good. and I think the portrayal of well, Burt Lancaster who his character was basically the wise and knowledgeable frontiersman and then you have the young lieutenant out chasing down the Ulzana’s who is probably, I think it’s based loosely on Nonne who I can talk about that was there, sorry, 1880s. But I think it was very well portrayed the idea of how Apache’s fought. They were not interested in and glorious charges, et Cetera, et cetera. That’s bull. Their intent was to defeat their enemy, annihilate possible with, absolutely as few or no casualties of their own.
Charlie: 16:26 Because in fact, you may win your victory, but if you lost one of your brave, you’re not going to become brought back in. Great honor. It was important because they had so few anyway. You know, it was especially in 1870-1880 they’re being pursued pretty hot, hot pursuit. They are there. There was a, so yeah, that that, but that is pretty much, I think how it was shown in Ulzana’s Raid [1972] how an ambush would be done. other ones you heard me mentioned about, he did, a little pet peeve was just a Stagecoach [1939], which is a great movie in one respect. I just thought it did it an injustice to Apaches up on that, a narrow gorge or press or whatever firing down as the Stagecoach [1939] goes through and all they do is perforate the luggage on top. That ain’t how it does. And I know that John Ford said if he’d, yeah, I know the Apaches to kill the horses, but then again, I wouldn’t have a movie. And I understand you have to keep that in mind. And I liked the movie for other reasons.
John: 17:23 Oh, we’ll talk about it again. But when we sum up and everything, but you’re a, this is a perfect model for asymmetric warfare and we could have learned so much, you know, without learning it the hard way, I guess we’d already learned at once. Why do we have to learn it again?
Charlie: 17:39 Interesting about asymmetric warfare was not taught at West Point. The cadets were taught in the 19th century based on the French, ideal. That was our idea. Not British because where we hated the British, but it was the French who was considered and then Napoleon was considered the best, our tactics, whatever is based on that. Even our uniforms with a Kepi we wore in the Civil War, you know, all this French influence. But, the officers that were stationed in the west, once again, you know, learning it the hard way, they didn’t necessarily pass it on if they survived, you didn’t have, although undoubtedly it happened. but you had to learn it the hard way and, and, and there was great, needless loss of life as a result of, just to give you an example of a, a favorite trick of an Apache band in south eastern New Mexico would be to, ride up fairly close to a cavalry unit, maybe 20 guys and get them to chase them.
Charlie: 18:44 Well, the Apaches horses are very wiry, you know, their ponies. They could eat just about any damn thing, and survive on very little and very, very tough. The, and the, soldiers horses were, you know, grain fed heavier and, but they didn’t have, frankly, the stamina. So the Apaches, you know, they couldn’t catch the Apaches so the guys would go back to get water for the horses. And guess where it was at the watering hole. There was another band of Apaches and they attack, this happened three times in the space of about six months. I mean, I mean come on, it’s sort of, that’s what I’m talking. But they could play, they were saying your classic thing, you know the weaknesses, your own weaknesses, your strengths and you play, you tried to neutralize the weakness of the over your opponent in. And that’s a basic of asymmetric warfare.
Charlie: 19:30 That’s the classic aspect of it. And the Apaches had been masters of this, since the first encountering the Spanish and the, you know, the 1600s if not earlier. that’s what they were doing. And they were keeping the Spanish very well at bay for several hundred years. And the, the Americans only won because they ironically they, they got Apache scouts to locate the hostile Apache bands. And the other terrible irony as you know, is that when Geronimo finally surrendered, guess who went on the rail car to Fort Pickens is those Apache scouts. I always thought it was a great one act play of the conversation in that damn cattle car as they were heading east.
John: You should write that up.
Charlie: 20:14 30, went in only 10 came out.
John: 20:17 Yeah. So everybody was just grouped in and once they didn’t need them anymore.
Charlie: 20:20 You didn’t need them anymore. You’re exactly what we did in Afghanistan. But that’s another story. But you know, that’s what we do.
John: 20:28 It’s the same pattern over and over.
Charlie: 20:30 Yeah, we do. We do it over again.
John: 20:33 Did you get a chance to think, familiarize yourself with Geronimo: An American Legend [1993], the one with Wes Studi in it?
Charlie: 20:42 Yes. I read, I watch that 1993 that was, that has one anachronism after another. you have characters in there that had, we did have no play or, you know, there, I mean it bothered me. I happened to watch it, a matinee with the two [sic] National Parks Service historians. and there are worse than, I mean they knew more than I did, but the one guy was Neil Mangum who had been the historian at Little Bighorn and, he was just going down the line how this was just wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. And people behind us were telling us to basically shut, ruining for us. But that was, I mean, Wes Studi, he’s a great actor. And I, I mean, I, you know, Last of the Mohicans, I thought that was pretty darn good, but I’m afraid I’m, I’m not, that was not good
John: Wes Studi played a good Magua in that movie, but I was actually watched the one where Bruce Cabot. The old John Wayne drinking buddy. Oh, okay. Yeah, played that character and he was really good. It’s like, I dunno, it’s like 1925 or something. And he actually did a really good job,
Charlie: 21:49 But, but, Wes Studi, he’s got one scary face, Iroquois whatever. That was just fierce as all get out now as know that, that’s a good, I think that’s it. That’s it. That’s a good one.
John: 22:02 So the, I talked with the Julie [inaudible] and she made that point about, you know, how much it enhances the movies by actually casting, you know, the right ethnic mixes for that background.
Charlie: 22:16 Makes Sense. Yeah. I’m sure it does. Yeah.
John: 22:19 And so were up around about 25 minutes who were doing good and what I want, but I want to do is, Charlie, can you tell me what you’ve already done a little bit of it. What else are you working on? I know you have a new book coming out and I’d like you to tell us about that.
Charlie: 22:35 Well, I am actually, it’s a, it’s a chapter in the book. It’s on the Archaeology of Asymmetric Warfare. you know, it’ll be coming out this June, university of Alabama press. And my focus is on a well at Apaches, but I start really in Mexico because you can’t just start up, I mean their, their origins of any, anything. And what was the origin of asymmetric warfare is how it was fought in the West really starts in the northern half of Mexico. And, the, you know, the, you, you familiar with, well, I’ll start with the Aztecs, but a, you start with the asymmetric warfare that was going on in the early 15 hundreds in Mexico. It was quite remarkable in some respects of what we were doing. I was being fought in Vietnam as far as searching strict steroid missions, is Spanish very stripped down to the very basics to find, a village go in and kill the chiefs and burn everything, bring back captains because that was the only way they can get money for this as happened to slaves.
Charlie: 23:36 But a lot of these didn’t work out for them. They were as many of those guys were killed two and they’re not all Spanish. it was interesting too, there’s aspects of it where you have on the frontier it was a melding of different cultures on the frontier and barring from each other. And you actually would have, the, the, the Spanish were picking up on a guerrilla warfare as practice by the Indians. The Indians are picking out how the Spanish conducted their tactics and they borrowed from each other and it was pretty horrendous. It was, it was, it was a very vicious horse. And that went on for centuries and it pushed drying up into northern Mexico. Maybe the, the, the, the Cheechoo Mech more of a from, you know, 15, 4,700, 1590, that was, an a far greater scale to actually have of the blood shows going on with the Apaches later on.
Charlie: 24:24 But a, the same idea of how to, setting ambush sites, the, the teaching mech learn how to use the horse instead of eating it to learn how to write it right. They learned how to use the archibus. You don’t know how to use the swords. They would actually, dress in and captured Spanish, clothing, whatever, and right up and just cause I as if they were Spanish and they were allowed in to a, a little fortress. And then of course they are inside. And Iroquois did the same thing too, by the way. 17 hundreds. So I mean, this is the aspect of it is the, frankly it’s, it’s, it’s a denigration of, of native Americans as far as they were, were not clever enough to learn. It was inevitable that the, you know, Spanish, then you, you know, Euro Americans, we’re going to win.
Charlie: 25:14 But, and what I want to bring out or what I, I hope I have done to my chapter is that the, and in many places that the native Americans could check for a while and, or even defeat, the encroachments and it was just a matter of the, the sheer push of numbers and that’s ultimately what, what caused it. But for 350, 400 years, it’s quite remarkable feat. And basically our, our US military, it’s interesting as a of our idea of tactics of strategy of fighting in asymmetric warfare finds its roots in fighting, Apaches that a, you have staff rides that go out, to Apache pass bod in 1862 and just how coachees, managed to bottle up a, you know, a company for two days who even had howitzers but how this was done, but you know, they’re teaching these young second lieutenants who are going to go off to Afghanistan and this country, this area is just like rugged, like Afghanistan. And saying, where do you think someone is right now? It could be, you know, you gotta beat on you right now and you can’t tell. It’s just jumbled and he’s, the vegetation is such, you can blend into that. And that’s what they teach these young men, basically on the Apache war.
John: 26:33 Okay, well then I’m going to put a link to your book to the book and here and when we do this and definitely a say, I can’t wait till I get that, but it kind of, it’s some stuff I’ve heard at oh, horseshoe bend, same kind of thing. The native Americans had been pretty successful for a couple of hundred years holding on to their core area. They know, and they would lose the battle here or there, but it would work out that they could still maintain it until Jackson kind of double crossed him holding it together. Yes. Interesting parallels.
Charlie: 27:08 That’s an interesting, the whole aspect of that warfare in the late 1700 [inaudible] early 1800 [inaudible] what was going on there. But there they were the Indians or trekking west, you know, there there are getting the hell out of you know, he had Comanche are not to mention the Cheyenne also they, you know, they are from Minnesota and there are still at a garage group in Minnesota at that time, but they are, the Cheyenne were actually Great Lakes and they started moving out in the late 17 hundreds being pushed out because they encroachments and that’s, that was, that was their only way to survive. They adapted really well. Of course they learned from the other tribes there. but you know, that’s an, that’s a remarkable story in itself. Capitation really quickly over a very, I’ll whole horse culture, the great plains.
John: 27:57 Well let me ask you this. the final question really is, what have I forgotten to ask you? What do I need to ask you that I haven’t asked you?
Charlie: 28:06 Oh, I don’t. Okay, let me, I’m going to change the subject. There is another topic I’m getting away from movies and from what I’ve been doing, Apaches mentioned Chris Adams, archaeologist for the healer, national forest. Chris has been using military for over 30 years. He, I mean, as a kid, but, in his work in the, the, the Hilo wilderness or in the will not heal it, but the membrane wilderness area, he was, you would check out a, a patchy Wikieup brings w when one of these places who’s getting a copper nuggets, raw copper nuggets. Well, that’s curious what’s going on here. And he noted that there was a little memories site right next to a little Pueblo, three, four room, but he found this for someone’s later, same situation of Patchy and, Pueblo. The light bulb when it says, well, maybe this is associated with the membranes.
Charlie: 29:01 People who are, are their culture collapse, right? Mid 12th Century. are they collecting these up? Well, he and I started helping with this and you were going out to a very small Pueblo memories sights and finding a great deal of copper nuggets. They are picking them up. There’s a, right now, there’s an open pit copper mine near a silver city and in New Mexico. So unfortunately all that, the surface material, it’s gone. But they were picking it up and they were actually doing metallurgy with it. They’re making belts, copper bells with it. It’s not coming from Mexico. The membrane and the Indians, they’re making themselves. In fact, they may have been in fact trading them to the a pooch, deca traders that would come up front, your prehistoric and then 10. So I’m also scraping out the, the, the mineral they colored like Malakai whatever and using it for paint.
Charlie: 29:55 And you’ll find that for, for, for finding that too. So, I just put in a plug here for what Chris is doing. A, he’s found a, no, I think up to 27 members sites that have copper a hundred, I think, copper bells we found to be or beads copper to Peter Beads now on and white sands in that area. so, we’re doing, X-ray for on where we’re trying to identify the sourcing or the copper actually, led isotope analysis. Really because you can’t get that off of a x ray for relations. But that’s what we’re trying to do is sourcing now the, the copper for this. And it could be that, we, we think it could very well be that this is a trade item with the Choco people that no one’s ever used a metal detector who uses a metal detector in a prehistoric Pueblo, right?
Charlie: 30:44 Because no one thinks of metallurgy. Now you have the Mebraes, people are using it for at least a hundred, 200 years and no one, our archaeologists never, if you don’t think of it to look for it, you’re not going to find it. They probably in their screening, flipping off all the little pieces of rocks and that some of that stuff was actually copper or whatever. So, I just want to put a plugin for that, for that kind of work that, that this is what we’re finding now using a metal detector and thinking outside the box.
John: 31:13 Y’all are really putting some new information down with what you’ve been doing out there. It’s pretty exciting. We’re using the pXRF on the Cowpens and trying to source the different combatants. And it’s an exciting time in archaeology, right now.
Charlie: 31:28 It sure is. God, yeah. I wish I would love to have gone back to the sites I recorded 40 years ago and what I, what I could have found, but we didn’t have the technology
John: 31:37 If we had just known. Well, Charlie, it’s great talking to you and I think we could do three or four hours of tape here. Well, no problem. You have some fascinating stories and I really appreciate you taking the time and hope that everybody will like it.
Charlie: 31:52 I enjoyed this
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