[00:00:00] Dori Durbin: I love Indiana Jones movies and the Josh Gates adventures, But much of my intrigue and fascination were the stories behind the relics so that really leads us to beg the question. What would an actual archeologists put into an adventure book that he was writing for Teens ? Here's a short sample to give you an idea:
[00:00:21] Brian Hayden: Before Seb could examine the drawing, a high pitched shriek sounded from somewhere deep in the cave ahead of him. Another shriek came, and another. The echoes creating a clamor unlike anything that he'd ever heard.
You can hear more of this and just a bit.
This is the power of kids' books, where we believe books are a catalyst to inspire, and empower change. My name is Dori Durbin. And my mission is to provide busy parents with tips and tools to use, to inspire and empower their kids.
Today, we are talking with a real life archeologist who has [00:01:00] also recently become a teen author. We will discuss real versus movie archeology, discuss amazing findings, how primitive society has been structured and here a section of the book, the eyes of the leopard.
We all know it's good to know the truth about real life. So let's dispel the fluff of archeology movies. Learn more about ancient societies and discover how the eyes of the leopard was written with historical accuracy.
[00:01:26] Dori Durbin: Today's guest has been living the life of ancient digs and icebound civilizations. He has a huge passion for hunting and gathering cultures, and even spent time learning about ancient skills. He is the author and professor emeritus of archeology at Simon Fraser university and honorary research associate of the anthropology department at the university of British Columbia.
[00:01:48] Dori Durbin: and he is here with his kid's book, the eyes of the leopard as well. Welcome to the show. Brian Hayden.
[00:01:55] Brian Hayes: Thank you very much, Dori. It's a pleasure to be here.
[00:01:58] Dori Durbin: I told you in the [00:02:00] beginning, I just loved Indiana Jones, and I just know that people out there are really curious. Is archaeology that adventurous?
[00:02:10] Dori Durbin: If not, what are the false beliefs people have about it?
[00:02:15] Brian Hayden: No, it's a Hollywood version, but every once in a while you do get into some exciting kinds of situations, especially if you're working in remote areas. And sometimes when I was working in Guatemala, for instance, there used to be a guerrilla battles over our excavations at night and we came back in the morning.
[00:02:36] Brian Hayden: Yeah, there could be and I've worked in Lebanon too. And of course, things were always a little bit on edge there. Yeah, that happens. There are some exciting times, but not quite the way portrayed in Indiana Jones.
[00:02:51] Dori Durbin: So no snakes and whips, just the battles were potentially real, although.
[00:02:58] Brian Hayden: I haven't seen any, I haven't [00:03:00] seen anybody use any whips and confront any snakes so far, but at any rate, yeah.
[00:03:07] Dori Durbin: Now, I think that's fascinating, just in the fact that, you don't think about there being battles over the areas and what is actually found either. I'm saying battles loosely, but definitely arguments for the land area.
[00:03:19] Dori Durbin: Yeah. Yeah. That almost sounds dangerous, Brian.
[00:03:23] Brian Hayden: Every once in a while, there are some archaeologists that are killed, by people that don't. That want to keep the materials they've been excavating illegally for themselves, and so down in Guatemala, for instance, there's some people that wanted to keep the archaeologists out of the area so that they could pursue their illegal activities.
[00:03:44] Brian Hayden: Oh, wow. So
[00:03:46] Dori Durbin: that part's
[00:03:47] Brian Hayden: true. It can happen.
[00:03:48] Dori Durbin: Yes. And you've been studying not just, Even though you're saying the artifacts, but you're really fascinated with the hunting and gathering of ancient [00:04:00] civilization. So what are some really surprising things that people wouldn't expect about what you've been finding or seeing there?
[00:04:08] Brian Hayden: Oh I've done a lot of work with for front with living hunting and gathering groups like I went to Australia to learn how they made a new stone tools. And so we were out in the middle of the desert for a while, visiting some of their old campsites, and they were always afraid of. Of at night, they would get on top of the Jeep and look around and couldn't understand what they were concerned about.
[00:04:37] Brian Hayden: But it was camels, wild camels. Yeah, they brought camels into Australia back in the gold mining days. And and then they just went wild and they've been living in the desert ever since. And they get really nasty. They travel in herds. And so they can come through a camp at night and just destroy everything.
[00:04:58] Brian Hayden: And so [00:05:00] that was a surprise for me.
[00:05:05] Dori Durbin: Yeah. It's not lions. I would have expected you to say lions or something,
[00:05:09] Brian Hayden: but no, no lions. So basically, there are no predators in Australia at all. They're just these dangerous camels.
[00:05:17] Dori Durbin: Oh my goodness.
[00:05:18] Brian Hayden: Saw an aborigine in one of the camps. We were staying in riding on a camp.
[00:05:25] Dori Durbin: This stone tools piece of things. Tell me a little bit about that too, because I think. What you did with your class was fascinating, but give me a little bit of background on what you've learned about the stone tools.
[00:05:38] Brian Hayden: I learned a lot about how they're used to make spears and spear throwers and things like that, which were also present in the Stone Age or the Ice Age of Europe, which is where my book takes place.
[00:05:51] Brian Hayden: But also one of the more interesting things I found out, and this is more from the literature, is the importance of what people call [00:06:00] secret societies in some of these more complex kinds of hunting and gathering groups, like the ones on the northwest coast and the northwest interior they had Organizations called what we call secret societies, which I have featured prominently in my book as well.
[00:06:19] Brian Hayden: The eyes of the leopard as part of the story. Because they really were movers and shakers of the societies back in the day. And as I said, on the northwest coast in the interior and in California. So they were pretty widespread for complex hunting and gathering groups. And then stone tools. One of the other things that I learned from California is that these large we call them bifaces, but they're very thin blade like stone tools that are not very functional.
[00:06:53] Brian Hayden: They're more a prestige item. They're more made for show as wealth items, and [00:07:00] they're shown in rituals. And in the Ice Age, they had these also, but in California, they were using them ethnographically as wealth items, and we've got pictures of them displaying these stone tools these stone tool blades they're just made out of obsidian there.
[00:07:17] Brian Hayden: Out of Flint in in the Upper Paleolithic. And they're just incredible pieces, from a stone tool perspective. They are the Rolls-Royces of stone tools, they're just they're fabulous. They're not portrayed in any art that we know of from the period, but we do find the actual stone blades themselves and they're pretty rare, but and especially complete ones or whole ones, but we do have some good examples and they're just remarkable. The The illustrator for my book, he portrays them pretty nicely,
Please pardon the interruption but i have something important to tell you So you may not be an [00:08:00] archeologist, but that doesn't mean that you can't be an author. I'm sure your brain is reeling with tales of crazy camels and other great stories. So if you have a fantastic kids idea, or if you just kind of want to shoot it past me, I would love to chat. Let's book a call and talk about what your kid's book could be about okay back to the show
[00:08:22] Dori Durbin: And the societies are really fascinating, too. Are they you have to do things to get into the societies? Like, how did that
[00:08:30] Brian Hayden: work? Oh, yes. It's like an exclusive Golf club, the initiation fees or the membership fees are very high. So you have to be very wealthy to get into these secret societies.
[00:08:44] Brian Hayden: And and they basically tend to run things in the society. And so there's a lot of. Intrigue sometimes and a lot of politics and a lot of in addition to all the ritual aspects. And I think from the work that I've done, I'm [00:09:00] pretty convinced that the painted caves were made and used by these secret societies.
[00:09:06] Dori Durbin: So that's really neat. That's right. Okay. So
[00:09:09] Brian Hayden: now secret meetings. Yes. And initiations.
[00:09:13] Dori Durbin: Yeah. So it was like marking their territory, showing their like their minutes kind of thing was up on the walls that kind
[00:09:20] Brian Hayden: of well, showing their portraying their their ideology, if you like, their views of the world and what they want people to believe and things like that.
[00:09:30] Brian Hayden: And the important things that they want to convey to people.
[00:09:32] Dori Durbin: That's fascinating. I noticed in your book you had two societies. So was it The Lion Lodge and then the Bear Clan?
[00:09:42] Brian Hayden: The Bear Clan is more of a kinship organization. So in my book, there's only the Lion Lodge as a secret society.
[00:09:49] Brian Hayden: But typically, in most hunting and gathering groups today, or historically, there was more than one.
[00:09:56] Dori Durbin: So let me stick with your profession [00:10:00] just for a little bit longer. Sure. Had you always wanted to go into archeology? Like how did you get started and how did you keep going ?
[00:10:08] Brian Hayden: I always liked looking for fossils in the neighborhood where I grew up. There was a lot of.
[00:10:15] Brian Hayden: Developments and so a lot of the ground was disturbed and it was great just to go around and look. This was in New Jersey And these were fossils have been brought in by the glaciers from upper New York State and there were millions of year hundreds of millions of years old and I was just really enjoyed that and it was my father wasn't sure what I wanted to do when I went to university.
[00:10:40] Brian Hayden: My father was actually put the bug in my ear. He said, did you ever think about doing archeology? And I said, no, I hadn't, but I'll keep it in mind. And I got into after my first year, my freshman year, I didn't really have anything planned for the summer. And There was a fellow in the Department of [00:11:00] Anthropology, because I was always interested in other cultures as well, and he came up to me and said you're interested in participating in an archaeology dig this summer, and they were paying, 50 a week or something.
[00:11:13] Brian Hayden: And I said yeah, sure, why not? And, It was in Colorado, and I had the greatest time of my life that summer, it was camping, and it was in canyon country, and in Utah, actually, and it was just wonderful, I loved it, and so I thought, if I can do this for the rest of my life, that's what I want to do.
[00:11:34] Dori Durbin: And so It sounds like you've been many locations on different projects.
[00:11:39] Brian Hayden: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know archaeology is very good for that. At least the potential is there. Yeah, I've been on a lot of different continents. Yeah, I think most of the continents doing archaeology.
[00:11:52] Dori Durbin: Wow.
[00:11:52] Dori Durbin: Have you had any significant or favorite finds in your digs?
[00:11:57] Brian Hayden: Let me see when I was in Guatemala, we were [00:12:00] excavating some some deposits, some trash deposits from some Mayan residents very early on. I found a foot in a pot. The bones of a foot, but it was all articulated.
[00:12:14] Brian Hayden: Yes. Oh, wow. But and then when I was excavating in here in British Columbia, I found some really nice biface that it was a small mini version of one of these large blades, stone blades. And what we think were ritual structures in in the interior of British Columbia as well.
[00:12:35] Brian Hayden: Yeah, but most of the time, it's just very routine things as people have used and thrown out because they got worn or broken. So a lot of bone fragments and a lot of stone waste material. That's, the bread and butter of archaeology. So
[00:12:53] Dori Durbin: finding a foot in a pot is actually a pretty exciting thing.
[00:12:57] Brian Hayden: It was for me.
[00:12:58] Brian Hayden: I've never [00:13:00] found anything that would be considered, very valuable, but that got me started thinking, because some of the early accounts from the Spanish conquerors in Guatemala, they, they said that the the, they got the Aztecs in to help them conquer the Mayan area.
[00:13:18] Brian Hayden: And they said the Aztecs always liked their favorite part of the bodies that they were recovering were the hands and the feet.
[00:13:25] Dori Durbin: Wow. Wow. So you found, actually found something very valuable
[00:13:29] Brian Hayden: then. For me. Yeah. For the information. Yeah.
[00:13:34] Dori Durbin: Oh, that's great. Okay. So for a long time, it sounds like you have been writing.
[00:13:41] Dori Durbin: Reports they've been more scientific, more of your fines, maybe the historical pieces, but then you switched over. And started writing for teens. Yeah. So where was that transition and what happened because of that?
[00:13:58] Brian Hayden: I've always really enjoyed [00:14:00] kids books, and kids literature, especially picture books, but fairy tales and things like that.
[00:14:05] Brian Hayden: And and so I thought, and I've, written things for my own kids and my grandchildren too. And but short things. And I thought when I retire, it'd be nice to. Hone that skill a little bit more. So I took a couple of courses on on children's literature and writing, writing for children.
[00:14:23] Brian Hayden: And my partner at the time was always pushing me and saying, you should write something, for from about the stone age, you should write a book about the stone age. And I thought that's really ambitious. And I'm. Still trying to develop some skills along those lines, but maybe eventually, and I got into this course, and the fellow that was teaching it found out I was in archaeology, and he said, you have to write something about in the Stone Age, a book for boys, especially, because there's not a lot of literature for boys and so I thought that's very ambitious, I'd like to get some more skills, but he kept on pushing and pushing, I said, [00:15:00] Okay I might as well try it.
[00:15:01] Brian Hayden: It's stuff I know about. And so I started in on it. Yeah. And I actually, I, the first attempt, the first draft I did of the first chapter was written actually in Les Elysées in France, which is the homeland of archaeology in France.
[00:15:21] Dori Durbin: Some good inspiration then. Yeah, it was.
[00:15:25] Dori Durbin: Was it quite a bit different for you to write at a teen
[00:15:30] Brian Hayden: level? Yes. It was a steep learning curve for sure. And those courses I took and all the advice I got certainly helped a lot, but it still took a lot of drafts, but I think they always do. And yeah, it took. From the time I started to the time it got into print, it was about, what seven years or
[00:15:49] Dori Durbin: so.
[00:15:51] Dori Durbin: Yeah, the structure of writing a teen book Is so much more complex because you're trying to integrate plot. You're trying to keep the [00:16:00] interest level
[00:16:02] Brian Hayden: of yeah the personalities involved. You've got to really develop and work on and the dialogue.
[00:16:07] Brian Hayden: And yeah, there's a lot. Yeah, it's very kind. And then there are all the conventions that you have to follow for the publishers want to, they want action all the time. And, I like. Cool. Oh, I like action, but I like not all the time.
[00:16:23] Dori Durbin: We were chatting a little before the podcast and I said you definitely got the character, like the traits and behaviors of that age group down having a little bit of rebellion, having some curiosity about who he is as a person independently trying to become more those kinds of themes that are there.
[00:16:42] Dori Durbin: Was that intentional?
[00:16:45] Brian Hayden: Yeah, I think so. Maybe not originally, but as things developed, I kept on thinking it's got to be resourceful. It's got to be independent, because people had to be in those days and at least have [00:17:00] independent thoughts. You can't always act independently, but sometimes you can get into trouble.
[00:17:07] Brian Hayden: And and yeah, that's something I really wanted to encourage in in readers, young readers especially, because I think today, people, as we were saying before, tend to be shy away from the environment, at least a lot of them. They tend to get stuck into their computers and and, not get involved, not explore enough, I think.
[00:17:31] Brian Hayden: And so I really wanted to encourage that.
[00:17:34] Dori Durbin: I love that. And I love the fact that you've integrated so much historical fact as well. You're literally giving them an education without them really realizing it's happening.
[00:17:45] Brian Hayden: A number of people have said that, said, I learned so much and I didn't realize I was learning.
[00:17:51] Dori Durbin: Snuck it in there. That's good teaching is what that is.
[00:17:54] Brian Hayden: Yeah. And yeah, I wanted to make it as accurate as possible, at least from [00:18:00] my perspective, what I think was accurate for the time. Yeah.
[00:18:04] Dori Durbin: Okay. So would you be willing to read some of your book, The Eyes of the Leopard?
[00:18:09] Brian Hayden: Sure. Yeah. We would love that. Okay. I just set the stage a little bit. This is towards the beginning of the book, but Sev he gets into a dare and And so he, and the dare is to go into this cave that is basically forbidden for most people to go into by the secret society at the time.
[00:18:34] Brian Hayden: And so it's strictly off limits. He's doing something fairly fairly daring and fairly risky, but he wants to show that he's really got what it takes to his friends. So he's in the cave, he finally gets into the cave, and that's where this is. So he's just starting to explore right at the close, not too far from the entrance.
[00:18:58] Brian Hayden: And he sees [00:19:00] this image on the wall. And higher up, the flame revealed the red painted head of an aurochs, a wild bull. Before Seb could examine the drawing, a high pitched shriek sounded from somewhere deep in the cave ahead of him. Another shriek came, and another. The echoes creating a clamor unlike anything that he'd ever heard.
[00:19:24] Brian Hayden: His knees turned to limp snakes. His mouth suddenly dry as dust. Is it spirits? Are they coming for me? He stood, keeping as still as the rock formations around him, holding his breath out of the darkness. A muffled whoosh descended towards him, the space lit by his pitch sticks filled with movement, hundreds of fluttering objects rushing through the air.
[00:19:50] Brian Hayden: They threatened to envelop him like a thick, black cloak. Nearly deafened by the ear piercing din, Sev crouched down against the wall and [00:20:00] tried to disappear into the stone.
[00:20:05] Dori Durbin: Oh, no, don't stop.
[00:20:08] Brian Hayden: You got to get the book.
[00:20:10] Dori Durbin: That was so good. I can't believe you haven't written before. Are you kidding?
[00:20:17] Brian Hayden: As I said, I've always written a little bit of poetry and tried my hand at some kids stories before but
[00:20:26] Dori Durbin: yeah, that is this very impressive Brian. I'm actually shocked because of the intensity And action. Good job. Thank you.
[00:20:35] Brian Hayden: It's one of the more notable parts of the story.
[00:20:40] Dori Durbin: Thank you for sharing that. And yes, I'm going to have to get it now so I can find out what happened. Oh considering all of these things, as. Your job as an archaeologist, now your new side venture as an author.
[00:20:56] Dori Durbin: What are two things that you wish that the kids [00:21:00] knew earlier in life? What are something that you feel like parents could equip them with early?
[00:21:07] Brian Hayden: As I mentioned before, a just general outlook about exploration and not being afraid to explore things and especially in the environment and to become resourceful, just to, try to figure out.
[00:21:24] Brian Hayden: How to do things, how to get past problems and how to deal with problems, how to deal with bullies, especially and how to deal with society. And also to start thinking about some of the. broader issues in life, like to me, the question of whether there's really an afterlife or spirits, that's a fairly important question because, if there are, and if there is an afterlife then maybe you should conduct yourself differently in a lot of situations than if there aren't, [00:22:00] and I think that generally frames your entire outlook on life, is to.
[00:22:05] Brian Hayden: Whether just a lot of decisions in a lot of areas of life. And also, never to give up hope, at least, things may seem really difficult, but hope, if you don't have hope yeah, it just it's a fairly dismal kind of life. I think in a lot of situations, whenever you're confronted with a problem or anything like that, but just do what you can just keep on trying to do as best you can.
[00:22:33] Brian Hayden: And sometimes things work out. But if you keep trying. A lot of times they work out. So
[00:22:41] Dori Durbin: I love that. I think that's so true that the more we can encourage kids to stay hopeful to stay connected to truly find that adventurous side in their lives whether that's exploration, like you were talking about, or.
[00:22:55] Dori Durbin: Taking challenges that are before them that maybe they don't think they [00:23:00] can do those are all just really integral. And interestingly, too, I think your perspective of, thinking beyond this life what are you doing now? That's going to reflect later
[00:23:12] Brian Hayden: One of the major themes in ritual and religion and archeology, we are always dealing with the importance of ancestors and, getting ancestral spirits to relating to them.
[00:23:25] Brian Hayden: That's, one of the major themes in lots and lots of different cultures. Today, traditional cultures today, but also in archaeology, we see evidence of ancestral cults and things like that. And and yeah, it's a very different perspective from what we're usually brought up with in industrial society.
[00:23:47] Brian Hayden: And yeah, so it's been a theme in a lot of the research that I've done in the past and things like that.
[00:23:54] Dori Durbin: Lots to learn and you probably learn more by reading your book. So we'll push [00:24:00] that again. The eyes of the leopard. Okay. Thank you. And they find you and how can they get ahold of your book?
[00:24:06] Brian Hayden: The book should be available From many good bookstore, they can order it or if they don't have it already, but it's also available on Amazon and any of the other online sources for books. And I've got a website Brian Hayden author. But there's also my university website at Simon Fraser University.
[00:24:28] Brian Hayden: So you can click on that and find me there. Yeah, and I've got an email as well if anybody ever wants to get in touch.
[00:24:37] Dori Durbin: Yeah. Yeah. And when can we expect your next
[00:24:40] Brian Hayden: book? Ah the last one took seven years to produce, so I've learned a lot in the process, so hopefully the next one won't take that long, but it'll be a few years at any rate.
[00:24:53] Dori Durbin: Once this gets out and people start to read it the, it's, they start to learn your name and [00:25:00] recognize you, then they're going to want more from you. So I'm just going to warn you, you're going to have to fix it in six years instead of seven
[00:25:08] Brian Hayden: hopefully not that many, but a lot of people do ask me when, When the next one is going to come out.
[00:25:15] Dori Durbin: Yep. So that's just more evidence that it should a lot
[00:25:18] Brian Hayden: of readers. Yeah,
[00:25:21] Dori Durbin: very good. Brian. I appreciate your time, your candor fact that you let me ask all these crazy questions. And I just hope that people reach out to you either by email or check out your book or your website.
[00:25:34] Brian Hayden: I really appreciate your interest and your your encouragement as well.
[00:25:38] Brian Hayden: So thanks.
[00:25:40] Dori Durbin: Yes. Thank you for your time today. Thank
[00:25:43] Brian Hayden: you very much.
Thanks for listening to our podcast? today. I hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget. You'll want to check out Brian Hayden's book. The eyes of the leopard, You can find it at his website. Brian hayden.com. Or you [00:26:00] can also find it at any local bookstore. Don't forget to also leave us a like on this podcast and help us spread the word that the power of kids' books is for everyone. Bye-bye.
