Archeologist and professor Chris Begley draws on his wilderness experience, research on other civilizations and observations made during the pandemic for his new book, “The Next Apocalypse, the Art and Science of Survival”
It’s tempting to think we are going through the worst of times. With the prevalence of natural disasters, violence and political unrest all over the globe, and the deep rifts that plague society – all layered on top of a global pandemic – it can feel a little unrelenting. But Transylvania University archeologist and anthropology professor Chris Begley points out that none of these things are unusual or unexpected. In his new book, “The Next Apocalypse, the Art and Science of Survival,” released in November, Begley explains that crises have occurred in civilizations throughout time, and he highlights the importance of exploring the way humans have both survived and failed to survive crises and declines over time.
“Using archeological data, we look at how societies responded to dramatic changes in the past and compare that with how we envision the next apocalypse,” said Begley, who has studied world cultures extensively, with 30 years’ experience working in North America and South America. In his book, he gives an informative overview of past declines of civilizations with examples like the Roman Empire and the Maya, using research and collected data to illustrate the past and shed light on what our future may hold.
While Hollywood might have us believe a pervasive narrative that celebrates the rugged lone hero who powers through obstacles against all odds to lead people through a crisis, Begley points out the opposite is most often true.
“As an analysis of our apocalyptic fantasies demonstrates, we like to imagine that self-reliance and old-fashioned skills will be the key to survival when all goes wrong,” he said. “Looking at historical and modern examples, we see that communal efforts will be the key to long-term survival. Saving the day will be more than retreating to the wilderness and gathering around a fire. The most important survival skill for the future is not the ability to defend yourself against an unruly mob but rather the ability to cooperate and work as a group.”
The skills that make the most difference when it comes to large-scale disasters, Begley said, involve feeding and educating people, as well as other basic civil needs such as protecting the vulnerable or equitably distributing resources.
“How well we work together – as neighbors, communities and as nations – will have the most impact on our survival now and in the inevitable times in the future when we are tested,” he explained.
Survival is something Begley knows about. His field work often puts him in rough and dangerous conditions, from incredible heat, dense terrain and dangerous river crossings to encountering questionable snakes and insects. When he’s not teaching, writing or working in the rainforest, his interests have turned to developing archeological imaging technology and 3D imaging systems; he’s also been gravitating from terrestrial archeology to marine archeology, which is a relatively new frontier in the field. Begley has conducted diving expeditions to study shipwrecks off the coast of El Salvador, as well as wrecks in the Kentucky River.
Growing up in Kentucky, Begley spent time in Lexington and in Letcher County, roaming his family’s land. There, he witnessed his father and grandfather fight against environmental and social injustices in their Appalachian community at a time when speaking up was considerably more dangerous. At home in Lexington, watching Jacques Cousteau was a favorite pastime, and Begley soon found himself dreaming of his own adventures in remote places. He went on to study archeology, becoming a Fulbright Scholar and earning his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1999. He conducted research focusing on Honduras and the Mosquito Coast region, where he logged months at a time trekking in the rainforest, surviving a coup as well as a run-in with bandits whom he and his team accidentally encountered, barely escaping with their lives. On a lighter note, his field work in the region is also where he met his wife, Soreyda, a designer, artist and activist who celebrates her culture in much of her work. They now live in Lexington, where they have raised three children, two of whom recently moved away for college.
Begley’s research has appeared in New Yorker magazine as well as National Geographic, and has afforded him interesting opportunities to work with the BBC and Discovery Channel on documentaries; he also hosts an interview segment on WEKU called Future Tense, which focuses on our future in a post-pandemic world. Selected as one of the World’s 50 Most Adventurous Men by Men’s Journal Magazine in 2015, Begley has been compared with characters ranging from Indiana Jones to “the most interesting man in the world” from the Dos Equis Beer commercials, played by actor Jonathan Goldsmith. Begley is amused by such comparisons and laughingly takes them in stride, even though he noted every archeologist gets the Indiana Jones comparison, even if they work in the city.
Begley was featured in an advertisement for Doxa watches. The high-performance timepieces were originally designed for professional scuba divers when they were first released in 1967. Photos by Andrew Kung
“Archaeologists often go out of their way to point out how it’s not like the movies, making archaeology sound boring or tedious,” he said. “In my case, I would say that my field work is exciting, sometimes even dramatic or dangerous. My archaeology is not boring. It’s exciting, difficult, frustrating, scary and ultimately rewarding.”
“If you are looking for something exciting and meaningful, archaeology could be it,” he added.
Smiley Pete writer, Celeste Lewis sat down with professor, anthropologist, archeologist and new author Chris Begley to talk about his work.
Tell me a little about growing up. What are some of the things in your upbringing that influence who you are and what you do now? I grew up in Lexington and Knoxville, and I spent a lot of time with my family in Letcher County, in eastern Kentucky. I am certain that all the time I spent in the woods there influenced the aesthetic I chose later. My archaeological research focused on remote rainforests, and that certainly reflects where my imagination went as we explored the hollers and hillsides above my family’s store in Blackey, Kentucky.
The other great influence was Jacques Cousteau. He brought field science to the public through his documentaries and certainly convinced me that humanity needed people to go out there and report back, and all of it tied to big environmental and humanitarian issues.
This tied in to the biggest influence of all, which was my father and grandfather and their work to protect the people and places of Appalachia from the ravages of strip mining. This was dangerous and sometimes unpopular work, and the threats were real. My grandfather positioned a big metal plate strategically over their bedroom windows after people shot into the building. We had unlisted phone numbers. Those elements all directed my choices to a degree and certainly provided the rubric by which I measured success.
How did you land on the idea for your book? How long did you work on the book? What was your writing process? I wrote an op-ed for the Lexington Herald Leader that argued against our individualistic focus and pointed out that when societies have fallen in the past, people always resolved the crisis as a community. Our fantasies of bugging out to the hills and surviving on our wits with our immediate family – a staple trope of apocalyptic movies – bears no resemblance to our actual history.
The op-ed went viral. I started getting emails from all over the world. One email was from a literary agent who suggested I turn it into a book. I signed with her, and she negotiated a book contract. Just before the pandemic, we signed with Basic Books/Hachette, and I went to work expanding the ideas from that op-ed into a book. I wrote it in about eight months, followed by another year of revisions, copy editing and other things on the publishing end that took time.
For this book, I used a quasi-journalistic style. I worked as a reporter for a year for the Mountain Eagle, out of Whitesburg, under legendary editors Pat and Tom Gish, and have always thought that journalists are critically important to our society. In an effort to present more voices and to make it more interesting to read, I interviewed the scholars I cited, in addition to using their published work.
What is a story from your travels that stands out as one of your most memorable? I would need to subdivide ‘memorable.’ I remember seeing certain shipwrecks for the first time or realizing the significance of an archaeological site far out in the rainforest. Some moments are memorable in negative ways, such as the fear and adrenaline of the 20 hours spent evading a well-known murderer and his henchman in the rainforest. There is the culture shock of coming back from a year living in a rural village and landing in airport culture, which is almost unbearable in normal circumstances.
The moment I remember best, or perhaps misremember as I improve the story with each telling, was meeting Soreyda, the person I would later marry. We met in a town on the edge of the rainforest, where she worked for the Honduran forest service. By chance, we spent hours sitting next to each other in a dugout canoe accompanying some people up and down the coast. After that 12-hour day, much of it spent together in a dugout canoe, I knew who I would pick. Here we are 22 years and three kids later. Not only is that a wonderful story, I think, but [it] had the greatest impact, obviously. Also, I’ve never done anything as significant for a community as I did for Lexington by bringing her here!
Putting on your anthropologist hat, how do you think the pandemic will be examined and remembered, and what can we learn from it? I think the pandemic changed everything in ways we will not realize for a while. Most immediately, it exposed the fragility of some of the systems we rely on, from housing to labor to our current concern, the supply chain. This parallels what we see in past declines of civilizations, where the complex systems are stressed and ultimately cease to function as they did.
I am most interested in the way in which it was all politicized. The choice people made to ignore good advice [by vilifying or denying its value] and to behave in ways that put themselves and others at risk should not have been surprising – it’s nothing new. From our mythical past focusing on rugged individualism to rhetoric that weaponizes the concept of ‘freedom’ to divide people, the ways in which the powerful manipulated such a large part of the population, even as they lay dying, was remarkable and horrific to witness. I’m not sure what we’ll learn. Perhaps we’ll learn that inequities like we saw in housing, employment and wealth are untenable. Maybe we’ll only learn that everything is political. Hopefully, we’ll learn that we must not go back to normal – it was not working, and the pandemic revealed that.
In your book, you discuss past disasters and the collapse of civilizations and how we might best survive what’s next. What have you learned in your research that can give us hope of survival? I’m not sure it gives us hope, but the fact that people survive in communities is very clear, and that a community that leaves out a segment of the population – through racism, sexism, xenophobia or wealth inequities – will ultimately collapse. I teach wilderness survival skills and would be happy to survive out in the woods with my immediate family, but that’s not how it works. The hard work of creating and maintaining a community is what we do now, and it will be even more important and difficult as our complex systems begin to unravel.
What do you think we are doing right these days as a civilization? Those among us who are working for a better community, however that is defined, are probably doing the right things. Work that focuses on equality and justice as well as sustainability are important. We are not doing any of that very well right now, and we have massive historic structures working to maintain the status quo. I’m not sure how a shift will occur – as a series of small tremors or a massive shock – but it’s coming.
Who are some of your influences and inspirations? My father and grandfather would be the most immediate inspirations, and public figures like Jacques Cousteau. I am influenced and inspired by all kinds of people, though. Sometimes they are academic, with anthropologists like Marshall Sahlins or David Graeber, both of whom were at The University of Chicago with me. I’m inspired by my wife, Soreyda, and the way she creates meaningful change in the community. I am constantly inspired by people who face challenges I never have because of their race, gender or sexuality, who create the community we have. Inspiration comes from the journalists and whistleblowers, whom we do not seem to appreciate.
How did you get interested in shipwrecks? After working for a long time in the rainforest, I wanted a change, and I saw underwater archaeology as the next frontier that needed researchers. Shipwrecks are not all we study underwater [sometimes we find sunken cities], but shipwrecks are like time capsules. Unlike most archaeological sites, formed over decades or centuries of occupation, a shipwreck happens in an instance. We see the choices people made at a moment in time. That opens up a whole new window into the past.
What are four things you wish everyone knew to improve their chances of wilderness survival? I teach a basic decision-making paradigm, where we assess our needs and solve the problems in order of urgency. First, you should probably stay put and wait for help. Wandering around makes its worse. Of course, if nobody knows where you are, you may have to move. Second, you don’t need to eat for a long time. You are probably better off in short-term survival situations [a week or less] eating only things you know are edible and that you are not allergic to than worrying about finding something to eat in the wilderness. Many plants are toxic for at least part of their life cycle. That can turn an embarrassing inconvenience into a deadly situation. Third, you should know how to make a fire, for heat, signaling and boiling water to purify it. You should keep a way to make fire in your car or pack. Fourth, when out hiking or even traveling in your car, take clothes for an unexpected night outside. Many people die of hypothermia when the temperatures are relatively warm during the daytime but then drop at night, as they get caught without sufficient clothing. Exposure to the elements kills far faster than hunger or thirst.
How do you feel about being compared to the Indiana Jones character in the popular Steven Spielberg movies? How do the movies measure up compared to the reality of your field? Archaeologists have a love/hate relationship with Indiana Jones. Certainly, there are problems with his archaeological techniques, and we don’t get to punch Nazis as often as we’d like, but most archaeologists love the movies for the same reasons everybody else does. Who doesn’t want to be compared with the protagonist of an action movie?
What’s a favorite tradition you liked learning about during your travels? Most of my experience has been with rural people of the countries I work in. I would say I particularly admire their slow pace of everything. And that everything requires conversation and relationship. If you want to be persuasive, you will need coffee and conversation first.
After a long career in traditional archeology, Chris Begley has largely gravitated toward marine archeology – a relatively new frontier in the field – in recent years. Photo by Mick Jeffries