Women Around the World: Ruth Shady

Let's talk about Ruth Shady, a woman who is putting Indiana Jones to shame.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Danny and Samantha and welcome to Steph.
I never told you production of I Heart Radio. Well
hello Annie, happy Monday. Yes we are recording on a Monday,
so happy Monday to you as well. But that means

(00:26):
we're a little to Yes, yes, we have discovered as
we have been attempting to record this for the last
three minutes, we may be a little tired and or
really have the mondays I said it, But today we
want to go ahead and put a time step on
this because not necessarily anything's going to change, but there's

(00:47):
actually a lot happening with this specific woman that we're
about to talk to for our edition of Women around
the World. That sounded weird, That was not the theme.
I wanted to ignore that. But anyway, it is March
twenty two, two in one, and though she has already
made pretty big impression in the world and in just
science in general and history, we want to put this

(01:10):
caveat in here because I had a lot of articles
coming out about her project. If you're paying attention to
what she's doing, so that's fun time stamping it. And
yes we will tell you it is in just a minute.
But first Annie, I have a question for you. I
already know this answer, but it's a two parter, so
the second part I feel like I already know the
things because I think we've talked about it before. But
when go ahead and jump in here? Ay, were you

(01:32):
a huge fan of movies like Indiana Jones? Actually the
answer to that is interesting because I've always seen those
movies of once each okay, and I can't recall really
why I didn't go into them more because I loved,
as you all know, the mommy, right, I don't Yeah,

(01:54):
I don't know, I don't know why. I was just like,
you know what, I'm more into the Star Wars lane
than if I got to choose the hair some forward
is that was Oh Holly Fry, who is also the
big Star Wars fan. One of the times that I
had gone out with her during our adventures in any
of the Disney Wordland Disney World locations, we went to

(02:14):
one of the Indiana Jones theme ones, and when I
could not name anything and she could pointed out things,
she looked really sad. Oh yeah, I've seen that look. Yeah,
And she was just like like the little sick and
just like Samantha Samantha and that's all she said. So okay,
I feel better knowing that you were maybe in the
same spot as me. But here's the second part of

(02:36):
that question. Anything with like the Mummy and obviously again
with Indiana Jones. Did you ever have any experiences and
or any fantasies of being someone who is in the
archaeology world or in that history, Discovery world, adventure world.
Oh yeah, I think I was born to like this

(02:58):
is different, but to me were um in my kid brain,
I was more into like healontology and like Sassil's like
dinosaurs and finding stuff like that, and I had like
a little kid for uh, like we spoke about one
of our recent classics. I would go out in the
woods and I'd find like one time I found this
mailbox and I was like unearthing it as if it
was some kind of ancient That's awesome. I love it. Yeah. Yeah,

(03:24):
So we had an experience in our I guess middle
school elementary school a time frame. They had this whole
like initiative going on trying to bring in these kids
that was remained together for the next three years and
learning different things. And one of our big projects was
actually doing an archaeological dig site behind the school playground,
and we actually discovered a village, a small Native American village,

(03:47):
to the point that we got to see synthesist because
we found like poll marks, and we found all of
this pottery shards, and we found all these like arrowheads
and weapons, and it was a true small town bill
It's like we found where all the posts were, where
the homes were. And then we had to keep it
for several years because several archaeologists came out and helped

(04:08):
dig up the site. And so because of this, it
was really sad because we worked on this so hard.
It was such an amazing project. I will never forget it.
They transferred our small class to a different location to
start up another location to see if we could find
more stuff, and of course it wasn't as cool. We
found things, but not a town, not a small like

(04:30):
area living area. So I was very sad and we
got taking off that project. But it was one of
the most like what moments when we started finding all
of these amazing items and things and finding out that
we actually were sitting on something really historical and sad
because of course, our relationships with the Native America's were

(04:51):
really sad because they were killed and or pushed out.
So a lot of really sad things, but cool things
at the same time because you're discovering all these things. Yeah,
And one of the reasons we are talking about this
specific woman and we're talking about Dr Ruth Sheddy or
Ruth Sheddy Solis, who is a Peruvian archaeologist and anthropologists

(05:15):
and overall bad ass. So if you have a minute
to go look at her work, it is a phenomenal
that Sheddy was born in kal Yah, Peru and has
always had this love of the world of archaeology, so
again kind of like fostered into her. And in one
interview she actually talks about visiting different archaeological sites as

(05:36):
a child with our father, and she talked about really
honing in and deciding this is going to be my
career at the age of like eight or nine, because
her dad not only took her to the sizes, but
would gift her and her siblings books of all this
historical context and him having this love for archaeology and history,
her father influenced them with again his own love for
history and discovering older cultures. And I believe he moved

(05:59):
to Peru with the family and in talking about how
Peru was the center of civilization for them, so it
wasn't really interesting to see all this history as she
was talking about her own childhood and why she loves
what she loves, right and yeah. Shaddy studied both archaeology
and anthropology, as well as pedagogy and Lima at San

(06:19):
Marcos University, where she became a teacher and is currently
Vice Dean of Research at the Faculty of Social Sciences.
She has been the head of many projects, including projects
in Marenga, Lima and Baghua, Amazonists and some others. And
though these projects are interesting, what she's currently being celebrated
for is her work with the korl sup As Special
Archaeological Project. She is currently the director of the many

(06:44):
research teams at the Choral Archaeological Site or the Choral
Archaeological Zone. And just in case you didn't know, because
I definitely didn't, that Korral is known as the first
civilization of the entire American continent and is located several
miles outside of Peru and the civilization and has dated
back five thousand years, which is two thousand years older
than the Mayan civilization, but her road to discovering and

(07:07):
preserving the civilization was along and is actually a long battle,
which started in nineteen seventy eight when she visited that area,
but wasn't until nineteen that she and a team of
four others started working at that site. And not surprisingly,
she went through her share of disappointments and hope throughout
the project, and she talked about all the difficult conditions,

(07:27):
support from the government some of the times, and being
ignored by the government and oftentimes her own colleagues. As
some suggested her theories of the large civilization was just
quote an exaggeration, right. The coral civilization is fascinating because,
unlike so many other discovered civilizations, this was not a
warlike society um as there were no traces of weapons

(07:49):
or defensive walls within the city. The civilization was covered
by gravel and pebbles before it was abandoned, which helped
preserve the area. They were also seemingly ahead of our
times they maintained gender equality. During the dig, they discovered
remains of a woman dated four thousand, six hundred years ago,
and she was apparently all jacked out. They discovered a

(08:10):
shell necklace bone, broaches and blankets made of cotton and
other materials. Shaddy stated, we can interpret that some four thousand,
six hundred years before President, women had already reached significant
positions in society. The brooches, in particular, carved into bird
and monkey designs, point to quote a woman of prestige, right.
And along with those discoveries they also found flutes and

(08:33):
all these instruments. So it must have been a very
artistic world in civilization, which I want to be a
part of. But when talking about her works in regards
to Korral, she talked about the significance of how the
discovery could impact the local community um and she stayed, quote,
we wanted these people to identify with the heritage and
accepted as there's as a source of identity and cohesion.

(08:53):
She worked with the community by organizing a participative workshop
to promote integral sustainable development, and she spoke of the
significance of the project overall, stating quote, the worldwide response
to the values of Chorrel civilization has encouraged us. So
has our ability to convey to current and feature societies
the importance of peaceful social interactions between people with different cultures.

(09:15):
And languages who exchange resources, products, experiences, and knowledge produced
in the Indian territory, which is itself immensely varied. This
intercultural relationship favored back cut al social system enabled it
to develop very early in the northern central area of Peru.
This is a valuable message for modern society as nowadays
military action and behavior are still ubiquitous, which is entirely counterproductive.

(09:37):
Of the millions of years of human evolution and the
six thousand years of establishing complex civilizations, we have failed
to strengthen our human identity and preserving living conditions on Earth.
We need to reflect on this to avoid exterminating ourselves.
And of course I'm also thrilled to be able to
improve the quality of life of the populations around Choral
and train archaeologists with a different vision who can appreciate

(09:59):
the day of our social reality of Peru and not
unlike Indiana Jones, she has gone through some trauma and
danger between having threats made against her by what is
being reported as squatters, but seems to be a more
a deeper conflict with people who are trying to claim
the area to develop the land, and so they may
be destroying the site out of hate. Some of the

(10:20):
sites have been destroyed and some of the mummies and
items have been destroyed, legal battles from former colleagues who
have tried to claim her work or leave her out
in documentation, and even being shot in early two thousand's
on the site, and the land was declared a UNESCO
World Heritage Site in two thousan nine, by the way,

(10:40):
and she's currently experiencing a lot of pressure and threats
from those squatters, which are believed to be made up
of those who are claiming that they were given the
land in the nineteen seventies. And not only has she
and her team in receiving thoughts, but people who are
involved as the legal visors, and even the possibility of
her dog being poisoned as a threat. When we say poison,
they killed their dog. So it's it's pretty intense, and

(11:02):
there has been a lot of support by many academics
and those in the historical world, in science world, with
petitions and letters being sent out to the government for
her and her team's protection. Today, I know right now
there are so many articles coming out about what's happening
there because there has been an all out threat against
her as well. As the actual exclavation site, they're having

(11:25):
to have police protection around it and all of these things.
And there's also a question about why haven't they been found,
why haven't they been arrested at this point, because you
kind of know what's going on, and there seems to be,
of course, a lot of money involved in this conversation.
Who has the rights to what um? And of course
she is working to preserve it, so for those who

(11:45):
want to develop the land to sell it kind of
puts a kink in their plan. So does feel like
a straight out mystery or a straight out suspense thriller? Right? No? Me? Okay,
maybe it's just me. Her work is being celebrated as
she continues to make history. She's been named BBC's Top
Women two thousand eighteens Loreal UNESCO's National Prize for Women

(12:08):
in Science. She was given the Medal of Honor of
the Congress of the Republic of Peru as well. And
obviously we are talking about what she's done and continues
to do, and her love and passion and preserving history
and bringing things to light. She hasn't talked about how
as a woman in this field has been a struggle,
but how persevering and being able to fight for what

(12:29):
you know has been there. So she's known that something
has been there since nineteen seventy four and has fought
for it, and then it was actually celebrating in the
two thousands. So that's badass, yes, but as very badass indeed,
and continues to be. So we'll see what happens in
the meantime. If you have any suggestions listeners for women

(12:50):
we should cover in this segment, you can email us
or email stuff Media mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast
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thinks it's always to our super producer Christina, thank you
not asked me and thanks to you for listening. Stephan
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(13:11):
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