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Pseudoarchaeology with Stephanie - Episode 47
424 Plays6 years ago
Today's panel discusses the wild world of pseudo-archaeology. The regular panel is joined by Stephanie Halmhofer at Bones, Stones, and Books, and Sara Head from Archaeological Fantasies to discuss The nature of pseudo-archaeology, how to identify it, what to do when you see it, and how we as archaeologists can combat it.
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Transcript
Introduction to Women in Archaeology Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Welcome to the Women in Archaeology Podcast, a podcast about, by, and for women in the field. On this episode, we are going to be discussing pseudo-archaeology.
Meet the Hosts and Guest: Steph Holmhofer
00:00:17
Speaker
I'm Emily Long, and I'm here with Kirsten Lopez, Sarah Head, and our newest guest, Steph Holmhofer. Ladies, thank you so much for joining me. Yeah, good to be here. Thanks for having us.
00:00:27
Speaker
So before we get started, Steph, since you're new, could you tell us a little bit about yourself, about your work? Sure. I am a bioarchaeologist. I live in Ottawa right now, and I'm working right now within an engineering firm, the archaeology department within an engineering firm. And I'm also part of a big research project in BC. So it's kind of a lot of back and forth across the country. And I also have a website called Bones, Stones and Books.
00:00:56
Speaker
It's a fun website. Everybody should check it out. Hey, I've actually read your stuff. It's pretty good. Thank you. Thank you. And for our listeners, the link to her website will be under links, under the podcast links and stuff. So check it out.
What is Pseudo-Archaeology?
00:01:15
Speaker
Well, like I said, we're going to be doing pseudo-archeology today. We're talking all about the ins and outs of it. So who would like to tackle what exactly is pseudo-archeology? Yeah, sure.
00:01:28
Speaker
Pseudoarchaeology is... I'm sure there's somewhere there's a really awesome professional definition of pseudoarchaeology, but effectively pseudoarchaeology is the use of archaeological sounding ideas and concepts to promote nonsensical or poorly researched ideas.
00:01:54
Speaker
And the reason I say that is because I like to use the term cult archaeology because it's very much the groups that tend to use or get accused of being pseudo-archaeological. The reason that happens is because they're just kind of pantomiming the archaeological process. They don't completely understand the research process, the writing process, peer review, presentation, vetting, or even the concept of
00:02:22
Speaker
what is evidence and what isn't evidence. Sometimes they don't know the difference between a fact and an opinion, but they've seen archaeology on TV. And so they know if they copy that archaeology that they saw on TV, that they are somehow doing archaeology. And that kind of in a nutshell is what pseudoarcheology is. It's the pantomiming of the field without understanding what your pantomime is.
00:02:52
Speaker
Sarah, that's an excellent definition.
Critique of Pseudo-Archaeology in Media
00:02:55
Speaker
In description, I know for me, whenever I think about pseudo-archaeology, the first thing that really pops into my head is the history aliens guy on the History Channel, and his hair is all poofed out, and he's like, aliens! Oh, Suclos. Yeah, and his hair gets poofier and poofier each season.
00:03:16
Speaker
Exactly, it just gets bigger and bigger the crazier it is. There's something to me that sued archaeology where it's like, it was aliens. And then there's like this wonderful spoof that South Park did, where they were mimicking that and it was about Thanksgiving. And the boys kept being like, there were ghosts, and then there were aliens, and then the historians would be like, well, according to these boys, famous historian Stan Marsh said,
00:03:42
Speaker
it's fucking seems just builds and builds up to each other and so it's just it's it's interesting but yeah go ahead well but that's exactly how it is though i mean that i mean of course i love south park because i have no taste but um that's exactly how that kind of stuff goes if you look if you look at the leading voices in in the pseudo archaeology different groups because i mean i mean we're using one term to describe a
00:04:09
Speaker
huge network of people who, some of them talk to each other, some of them don't. None of them are really qualified to be talking about the things they're talking about, but that's how it happens. There's this massive appeal to authority in pseudo-archaeological circles where they
00:04:35
Speaker
they'll get one person who has a degree in something, like a degree in engineering. And I'm not smashing engineers. I'm really not. I'm trying to come up with these things. But they'll have a dude that's got a degree in that. And then they'll ask him questions about archaeology. And instead of saying something to the effect of, well, I'm an engineer,
00:05:00
Speaker
This person then goes on to pontificate about all the things that he thinks he knows about archaeology because he watched a program once on YouTube and that taught him everything he needed to know. And I know I'm
00:05:12
Speaker
I know I'm being mocking of that, but sometimes this really is really that ridiculous. Over the years I've talked to lots of people who try to impress upon me how unqualified I am to be talking about debunking and archaeology and the things that I talk about on my blog, but yet somehow these people who are
00:05:37
Speaker
either not even like they've graduated from high school, they might have some college, or they're they've got a degree in something completely out there. And I'm just like, mm hmm. I didn't if you're gonna sit here and tell me how I am not qualified to speak about these things, you're gonna have to do a lot more to convince me why you're qualified to speak about these things. And it usually comes down to something like you're just close minded.
00:06:03
Speaker
But you do get people sometimes who will just slap the letters doctor in front of their name and start talking as if they are some kind of degree-laden person and they're not.
00:06:16
Speaker
And to go back to the South Park episode, the whole Dr. Stan Marsh, I mean, he's like a, what, nine-year-old kid and he's suddenly a professor in history. The ridiculousness of that is very much what occurs in some of the pseudoarchaeological communities.
00:06:34
Speaker
It's true. Stephanie, can you tell us I'm sorry, Steph, can you tell us about the the Contiki expedition that you were researching on there?
Analyzing the Contiki Expedition
00:06:44
Speaker
Yes. So Contiki was an expedition in the late 40s by Thor hair doll. I think I pronounced that wrong.
00:06:51
Speaker
He was a Norwegian explorer and writer who basically had this idea that a group of people from South America had colonized the Polynesian Islands and they had made their way to the Polynesian Islands building a raft with the available materials they had and essentially just drifting their way across the Pacific to the Polynesian Islands. And so he built a replica
00:07:18
Speaker
raft and had a crew of, I think, six other men. And they just drifted their way to Polynesia. And they made it, which I think was mostly just due to lack. And that just led him down this crazy road of saying, see, the South Americans colonized Polynesia. And he said a lot of really other insane things, but that's essentially the gist of it.
00:07:44
Speaker
He's received a lot of criticism for, he does have pseudo, he does have some very controversial views. He's received a lot of criticism for them. And I know that the Contiki expedition, I know is one of them because there was a lot of tweaking that had to be done to vote alone to get it across. So it wouldn't sink?
00:08:08
Speaker
Right, but that's the thing. If you don't look close enough at the expedition, you will think that he was taking a traditionally built boat and successfully drifted across the ocean to get to the islands, but that's not true. The boat had to be modified due to
00:08:33
Speaker
I think the first problem they ran into was they didn't have the right materials, which is allowable, but then there were other things that had to be tweaked to make the boat seaworthy so it wouldn't sink, and even then they had a myriad of problems getting it across.
00:08:49
Speaker
He also had a spotter boat with them the whole time, and I believe that there's one point in the expedition where people had to be removed from the boat, from the traditional boat, onto the spotter boat for safety reasons, which means it's not successful. If you have to rescue people with your expedition, that's...
00:09:08
Speaker
when you're trying to prove you don't need that to get across the ocean. I'm sorry, that's, that's unsuccessful. Yeah, absolutely. My other huge problem with that, and it's, it's the problem I have with a lot of these weird, like we just got done talking about the Salutrian Hypothesis. Oh, yeah. And then I have the same problem. Another great podcast, everybody should check out. Yes. Yes. Yes. Stop listening. No, listen to much later.
00:09:40
Speaker
But my other major problem is the number of people that could have gone over on that boat. Like you said, he had six people on that boat with him. I think so, yeah. Let's say, for the sake of argument, those six people made it to the island safely. How are six people going to populate a chain of islands?
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Slowly? Funny sex. OK. How are six people going to populate an island and not have a colony of mad people? Because they're all so incredibly inbred. Yeah. Yeah. So would it then be more likely like the boats we see in the movie Moana? You know, as opposed to if you see the book Contiki, it literally it looks like a flat raft.
00:10:32
Speaker
with a sale kind of thing you would make with Lincoln Logs as a little kid.
Racial Implications in Pseudo-Archaeology
00:10:49
Speaker
I'm willing to go out on a limb and say 90% of pseudo-archaeological theories have a thread of racism in them. Because like you're mentioning the movie, I'm sorry, what is it, Malisha? The Disney movie? I never watched it, I'm sorry.
00:11:07
Speaker
But that's, I believe, looking at Polynesian mythology? Yes, it's based in a lot of Samoan, but they do collect from sort of a wider array of the Polynesian.
00:11:25
Speaker
We're looking at a group of people who are actually fairly renowned for their sailing abilities. Navigating by the stars, they had some of the most complicated star charts still to this day. I won't say it's infallible, but it's remarkably accurate, considering they used no technology other than, I think, a telescope at night.
00:11:49
Speaker
But it's a phenomenal way to navigate. And we take all of that away by insinuating that somehow these people are not responsible for their own heritage. And when you say, you know, six dudes on a raft floated across the ocean, and then, I don't know, somehow like seated the islands
00:12:14
Speaker
You're basically using, you're basically breaking that down to the culture bearer myth or the culture bearer theory where you have one advanced set of culture bearers who are drifting or coming or intentionally interacting and there either are no people or more likely, more usually there are a group of people but they are quote unquote primitive and the culture bearer has come and then
00:12:41
Speaker
bestows upon these primitive people knowledge and culture and skills and things and they're what you're doing at that point is you're removing all of that from the people who are real living people who live on these areas who have a history and are native to this islands or the land or whatever you're taking all that away from them and you're being like no no no no you didn't do any of that
00:13:08
Speaker
Somebody who we don't know but we assume is not you came here and did that for you.
00:13:15
Speaker
that's racist. Yeah, absolutely. And so is the major problem then with some aspects of pseudo archaeology is that they have just enough grains of truth, like enough scientific sounding information that it makes it easier to hide some of the more racist tendencies that underlie the idea? I think
00:13:45
Speaker
I think truth is too strong of a word, but definitely science sounding. That's why I call it cult archaeology. It's like a cargo cult. That's what I base it off of. I'm not the first person to use the term. I just really like it. But the whole concept of a cargo cult is...
00:14:08
Speaker
During the last World War, we had stations all over the place, a lot of them were on islands, interacting with people who at the time had never been interacted with. The John Furrow cult is really well known.
00:14:23
Speaker
But basically, after the bases all closed, all the bases closed, and everybody went home, we just left everything there. But we had been paying the local people, and I mean, we, the Americans, had been paying the local people with cargo. So we gave them, like, candy and canned food and soda. And I mean, we were paying them with the same things that we were providing the troops with. And they loved it, and they wanted it back.
00:14:46
Speaker
And we had trained them to run the airbases, trained them how to fly in the ship, not fly the planes, but guide the planes in, and different aspects of it. But we never fully educated them on how an airport works and what an airplane is. And so after the troops left, they would go through the ritual of
00:15:06
Speaker
flagging in an airplane and even today you can go and they still kind of pantomime these things out to help people who dress up like airplanes and they do a little dance and they land on the airstrip and they have people who are the flaggers and they dance and they do these things. And I think for the most part they're aware today that what they're doing is basically ritual and pantomime but at the time they thought if they did this the cargo would come back.
00:15:34
Speaker
So that's what a cargo cult is, and that's why I'm saying that it's a cult archaeology, because they're going through the process of creating a hypothesis, or at least they think they are, but they don't understand bias, so their hypotheses are flawed. They're going through the process of research, but
00:15:56
Speaker
since they don't have a guiding hypothesis, their research is flawed. And then they go through the process of revealing this research or their conclusions, but since they started with a flawed premises and they don't go through a peer review process, they don't know how to write a paper up, they don't even understand that these things occur.
00:16:18
Speaker
So again, it's pantomiming, but it's not complete. And so it comes to things like, you start getting these things like, well, I don't know how it did, how that happened, therefore aliens.
00:16:31
Speaker
And that's where a lot of that comes from. Wayne May is amazing at this. He can spin a story and use all the sciency words, and he can stretch a kernel of truth out to make it sound like he's really got something. And then when you sit down and you look at what he's actually physically said, it's gibberish.
00:16:57
Speaker
A lot of the ancient aliens TV shows up. But it's dangerous enough that it... Yeah, it's very dangerous. I think Steph wanted to hit on the dangers of it. And actually, this is a perfect stopping point. We'll get into the dangers with Stephanie when we come back from this break.
00:17:19
Speaker
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00:17:34
Speaker
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00:17:53
Speaker
Welcome back. In the first segment, we were talking about what pseudo-archaeology is all about, how there's some underlying racism within pseudo-archaeology, some of the dangers of pseudo-archaeology, and we'll be getting into that even more in this segment. Stephanie or Steph, you're going to talk about some of the warning signs and dangers of pseudo-archaeology.
Identifying Pseudo-Archaeology
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah, there's kind of pseudo-archaeology, I want to say luckily it's easy to notice, but I think the problem is that it's only easy to notice when you know what you're looking for. And so there's kind of three
00:18:35
Speaker
Three main things i think i like it i guess a set of three core characteristics that suit archaeology kind of revolves around and the first is that they kind of don't use the scientific method or they don't use all of it and the next is they serve just give answers that are too simple to be complex questions.
00:18:57
Speaker
And then third is that they present pseudo-archaeologists or those proposing pseudo-archaeological theories present themselves as being the victims in a big archaeological debate. Like, oh, you know, archaeologists are always attacking me, always attacking me. Like, they're not listening to what I have to say.
00:19:15
Speaker
And so when you sort of think about those three as you're watching things like ancient aliens or sort of mainstream television documentaries about archaeology, you can start to pick things apart.
00:19:31
Speaker
And I think one of the dangers is that sometimes documentaries are really well produced, like the Saluturian hypothesis documentary that was just on CBC. They actually did a really good job with that, which is scary because when people don't
00:19:49
Speaker
They have such a budget. Yeah, it was a really well-produced documentary. By the end of it, I was like, holy cow, that was really well done. But it was awful. You felt almost convinced. Yeah, exactly. And that's what I was saying to my husband afterwards, too. I was like, if I didn't know anything about the salutary and hypothesis, if I didn't know about the story behind it, absolutely, I'd be convinced by that documentary, which is kind of the scary thing.
00:20:16
Speaker
It's the cherry picking of evidence, which really tends to stand out. But of course, that's something that is really only noticeable if you have background knowledge. Exactly.
00:20:28
Speaker
And it's hard to tell because one of the other things like you're saying with incomplete scientific method is the way that they go about their research is going out with an idea and trying to prove that and looking for proof of, whereas the scientific method goes out and is looking for information to answer a question. It doesn't have a pre-dis or shouldn't, I should say.
00:20:55
Speaker
have a predisposed idea of what is true and what is not true and doesn't make excuses for data that shows otherwise. Exactly. So that's where depending on how a documentary, it's hard to tell because depending on how it's produced, it may not show or reveal that aspect of it.
00:21:16
Speaker
I haven't seen that CBC documentary, obviously, not being in Canada. I have heard about it and I read Sarah's article on it. It's really unfortunate.
00:21:32
Speaker
It's the best way I can to put it mildly. Exactly. I'm like, it's an extreme understatement. But yeah, it's true. For the sake of our listeners, and maybe, Sarah, you can touch on this too, just as a quick blurb about what exactly did the documentary say and what was wrong about it? Well, I'm actually going to pass this off to Steph because she is our resident vegan.
00:22:01
Speaker
But I do have a couple comments I want to make about the broadcast when she's done explaining it. Excellent. I think a few folks might be scratching their heads like, what is the Salutrian hypothesis? So the Salutrian hypothesis, it's actually been around since the 1930s, but it became popular with archaeologists Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley.
00:22:24
Speaker
who argued that salutrians, who were people that lived in France and Spain just over 20,000 years ago, I think something like 24,000 years ago, anyway, they've argued that people from France and Spain traveled across the Atlantic Ocean via boat and iceberg hopping to the east coast of North America about 20,000 years ago.
00:22:50
Speaker
But this entire argument is based on the similarities between stone tools that were found on the east coast of North America and salutrian stone tools. And there's just no other evidence that supports it. Salutrians, there's no evidence for watercraft at all from salutrian sites.
00:23:11
Speaker
Their arguments about the cave art that they see in salutrian sites can easily be explained away. Plus there's no salutrian cave art in North America and salutrians were kind of known for their incredible cave art. And so a few weeks ago,
00:23:28
Speaker
CBC aired a documentary, a nature of things documentary called Ice Bridge, which kind of lent a bit of credence to this theory. Without full out supporting it, they sort of were along the lines of, hey, there might be something to this, we should hear these guys out. But the thing is that this theory has been widely adopted by white nationalists and white supremacists.
00:23:53
Speaker
And that aspect of it just wasn't touched at all in the documentary. And it was also just very, very one-sided. So one-sided.
00:24:06
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And one of the things that I wrote about like in my article about it was the there was an interview before it aired with the documentaries director and just her language use in this interview was just it was just so disappointing. It was really awful.
00:24:30
Speaker
It really is a very stunning interview because you can listen to that. That is available in the States. She is incredibly dismissive of all the complaints that are brought forward. Like you said, the language she's using, she's very supportive of the idea of the salutary hypothesis being correct, which there is no evidence that it is.
00:24:59
Speaker
The thing that bothered me the most was when she was asked about, there are Native American groups who are not happy with this Salutrian hypothesis or this show being aired, and she was very dismissive to the fact where she was like, well, we have this one group that was working with us, therefore the rest of them don't have anything to complain about. And I'm just like, oh my God, one Indian is not all Indians.
00:25:25
Speaker
And this is kind of what she was like and I was very impressed with her in the interview. Yeah, so I just wanted to point out not only is there a lack of evidence for it as far as really good supporting evidence, there's actually a fair amount of evidence.
Debating Archaeological Theories
00:25:45
Speaker
counters the Salutrian hypothesis so far. I mean, some of it is there's a huge time gap between the two points that supposedly look alike or are similar to each other. And if you actually look at the
00:26:03
Speaker
the European, like the Iberian Peninsula salutrians versus the proposed American salutrian points, there's like less than a handful that from Iberia that look anything like the American version that are supposed to be quote unquote descended. But they're actually, if you look at the assemblages being like the collection of tools that go with it and the larger variety of the points,
00:26:33
Speaker
they don't resemble each other. And it's something to keep in mind that there are many cases to where you have people creating the same basic shape over, obviously, something like 100,000 years or trying to go towards the same use as a point on the end of a spear. And so you will have what some might call like a convergent
00:27:03
Speaker
I don't want to use evolution, but like a convergent form from different parts of the world that looks similar and will have a similar shape. And I think that's probably the most likely case is that there happens to be a similarity in two different parts of the world that, again, are thousands of years apart in time. And just the environmental and
00:27:30
Speaker
like the climate data does not support the existence of an ice bridge at all. But would a non-archaeologist know this? Yeah, exactly. And that's the challenge, especially how it's presented by
00:27:52
Speaker
institutions like the CBC that are considered by many to be legitimate. It's like if the PBS did a piece on that, that would be an outrage because it is one of the few outlets of fairly decent educational material output in the US that I'm aware of right now. Yeah, absolutely.
00:28:16
Speaker
And so how do you think this then damages our field in how we do our work? Do you see it as a threat to how our work is conducted?
00:28:31
Speaker
or how our work is perceived? One of the most damning things about the CBC Ice Bridge episode is that Sanford and Bradley are well known and relatively well respected archaeologists and authorities in their field. I mean, they are.
00:28:50
Speaker
And they just happen to subscribe to the salute train hypothesis, which is unproven and unpopular. And it's unpopular because there's no freaking evidence for it, regardless of what these guys want to say. But, you know, this goes back to that appeal to authority. These guys are authorities. But the way the show portrayed all of that,
00:29:17
Speaker
It is a problem. I mean, this is what makes the CBC show so unique, in my opinion, compared to Ancient Aliens, America on Earth, Expedition Unknown, and some of the other wackadoo shows that are on air.
00:29:37
Speaker
CBC has a, as far as I understand, is respected. Oh, absolutely, yep. It's like she says if PBS were to do it. And these two gentlemen, I mean, they're doctors, they're professors. One of them works for the Smithsonian. The other one taught for like 30 years. Yeah, absolutely. At an Excel or a university, I think. I know I butchered that. But I mean, they're known for their knowledge.
00:30:05
Speaker
So are there a few examples of this though? With having professionals like that come out and
00:30:16
Speaker
coming out and supporting an unaccepted theory so publicly. Yeah, this is unique, which I think is why this has kind of ticked off archeological Twitter more than anything else really ever does. Because like Zugulos, he's a funny guy. He's got poofy hair. I don't even think he takes himself seriously. He's fun to talk to. I've been told he's very personable.
00:30:42
Speaker
I don't know if he believes in the alien theory, and it doesn't matter if he does or doesn't. The guy started off his career as a wrestling promoter. I mean, he's a showman. He's got no credentials, you know? So it's easier for a non-archaeologist to easily see that, like, yeah, something's off here.
00:31:06
Speaker
But for something like this documentary, it seems like it'd be very difficult to be like, well, I don't know about this theory. Plus issue two is that a lot of pseudo archeology does come from
00:31:18
Speaker
non-archaeologists or maybe well-known researchers or well-studied researchers but in different fields. A lot of pseudo-arch comes from them just misunderstanding or misinterpreting or sometimes intentionally misinterpreting the evidence. And what set this one apart also is that Stanford and Bradley sort of have
00:31:40
Speaker
They know that it's not being taken seriously. They know that it's out there. It's pseudo-archaeological theory. And they're like, we don't care. We still think this, which also makes it a little bit unique. Well, in that kind of, so I'm going to step on a toe, I'm sure, here. So this kind of brings me around to something I read in your article, Sarah. And I apologize, but I have to pick a bone with it.
00:32:10
Speaker
So this is something that was pseudo taken like it was a serious thing to when it was proposed and when these guys were first looking at it it has since been like
00:32:32
Speaker
subsumed by these other political and social movements in a different direction, and they seem to be okay with that, which that is unique. However, the idea of a professional that is trying to take a scientific idea and hangs his career hat on the outcome of the answer to that question that he first got and is not flexible to
00:33:00
Speaker
changing that idea with changing evidence, then they lose the status, at least in my mind, as a scientist. When you get into, so archaeology, like all sciences, it's like a moving target. Stuff's changing
00:33:16
Speaker
I mean, not super rapidly, but stuff does change over time. The Clovis idea is something that has changed as well, and that was the piece that I wanted to pick with you, Sarah, was the mention that the Clovis people coming through the land bridge is the current standing, which, to my knowledge, I've worked with a lot of people that have considered that to be
00:33:47
Speaker
no longer the case. And I know that that has been more widely accepted for more of the, because there's a huge number of sites now that are pre-Clovis. So you have a group of people, and I'm not saying you're part of this necessarily, but there's a short group of people who continue to hang their hat on a Clovis first hypothesis, notwithstanding
00:34:13
Speaker
At this point, truck ton of evidence that is counter to that, including the environmental evidence that they've been able to gather just in the last five years or so.
00:34:29
Speaker
So that's some of my... I understand your objections. I do. Yeah. No, seriously, I understand your objections to it. However, this falls back on the whole, this is a professional argument. Yeah, exactly. That we as a field are having my blog... Evidence versus no evidence.
00:34:52
Speaker
And that's fine. My blog reaches out to a less professional audience. I am not versed enough in the nuances of the pre-clovis and I do make mention that there are pre-clovis theories out there. But the the Bering Straits
00:35:14
Speaker
The Bering Strait hypothesis is still the most solid one that we have. I mean, yeah, we have evidence of other people, but to my knowledge, we're not clear on how they got here exactly yet. So they're obviously here, we just don't know how they got here yet.
00:35:32
Speaker
And where with the Bering land bridge, we can actually track that. And we don't need to worry about those as much in terms of... Yeah, I mean, there's no debate that they're here, but it's quite as much in terms of a pseudo-archaeological topic. Right, but the Salutrian hypothesis suggests that there were people here even before the pre-Clovis, like the Salutrian would predate pre-Clovis.
00:35:57
Speaker
Um, so that's, that's the major issue with the salutrian hypothesis. It's, it's yeah. I mean, it's just by a, by way too much by about 10,000 years. Like Steph has pointed out, there's massive holes in it that you can drive like sleep. And the reason why another issue is
00:36:20
Speaker
Exactly. The reason I stuck with the brain straight literature, the brain straight theory is because it's the one that's easiest to understand. It's still the most solid. Once we in the more about pre-clovis, I'm more than happy to change it. Hey. You don't have to have a conversation doing that. That's fine. I mean, bring it, man. Like I said, I'm not versed enough.
00:36:42
Speaker
Oh, I know. And that's fine. I just thought I'd bring it up and point it out. And not to shoot anything down, but I was like, oh, oh. That's fine. I have to bring that up. Sorry. All right. And so to stay on topic,
Impact of Pseudo-Archaeology
00:37:01
Speaker
So obviously, there are a lot of negative issues when it comes to pseudoarcheology. And just in the last couple minutes of this segment, I thought it'd be interesting to see, are there any positive sides to pseudoarcheology in terms of it gets people interested in archaeology in general, or is it for the most part a relatively dangerous field? You know, it definitely gets people interested in archaeology.
00:37:30
Speaker
But I think in the wrong way.
00:37:33
Speaker
by giving them this false information or not providing the critiques. That was another issue with this CBC documentary is that, sure, they interviewed some people for their critiques who said, yeah, yeah, we think this is silly. But then they cut out all the critiques, leaving it very one-sided. So you're drawing people into archaeology, but giving them a very one-sided, widely discredited idea isn't
00:38:02
Speaker
I don't think it's the best way to do it. No, and I think in some respects it also draws in, I hate to say the wrong kind of people, but the drawing in people for the wrong reasons. It's people, not people who are interested in the history and the legitimate history of humanity, but people who want to
00:38:24
Speaker
have an excuse for other beliefs that they have, they want to be able to point to something more mystical and higher than them for different reasons, something outside of the human, be it God, aliens, you know, you can go on.
00:38:44
Speaker
But it's one of those things, it's not trying to give people a reason to believe in humanity and in the ability of different peoples in different parts of the world and their accomplishments. It gives them reason to look outside of that and to not look at the accomplishments that we have been able to all do.
00:39:08
Speaker
if archaeology shows us anything, is that people had the ability to do some truly amazing things. Yeah, I don't think there's any point, honestly, that it's a good thing, unless you're lying in your pockets with a television show. I mean, it's probably good for profit margins, and it's good for viewership, but it's not good for us as a field, and it's not good for our understanding of humanity. And I think we're... I mean, having things like this out there,
00:39:37
Speaker
doesn't do a service to anyone, honestly. It takes away from the cultures that did achieve these things and it confuses people and it fills their heads with information that's contradictory to what we understand is reality.
00:39:56
Speaker
That's a really good point and that's an excellent point to end this segment on. We'll be taking a quick break and when we come back we will discuss more of the issues surrounding pseudo-archaeology and our final thoughts.
00:40:12
Speaker
The Archaeology Podcast Network has partnered with T Public to bring you some awesome gear that looks good for most archaeology and puts a few pennies in our pockets so you can get free podcasts. Check out our designs at arcpodnet.com slash shop. That's arcpodnet.com slash shop.
00:40:26
Speaker
Welcome back. In our last segment, we were talking about some of the dangers of pseudoarchaeology, the issues surrounding the Salutrian hypothesis. On this segment, we're going to continue talking a little bit about how to identify pseudoarchaeology, some of the other dangers, and also some more examples of the type of pseudoarchaeology that's out there.
00:40:50
Speaker
During the break, Sarah and Steph were having an interesting conversation about the different kinds of things that Steph has seen in her research on looking at pseudoarchaeology and didn't know if either of you would like to jump in on that. Yeah, actually, I just kind of wanted to know what kind of things Steph has encountered while she's
00:41:09
Speaker
researching like how do you other than the premises this is completely flawed how do you know when you're looking at pseudo archaeology like what are what are the things when you're reading an article that you're like yeah that's a red flag that's a red flag uh you know to be honest i call it the haters will say it's not real language
00:41:31
Speaker
I come across all these theories and whatnot and the first thing I always notice is when people get really defensive of them. The absolute best website example so far that I've come across is actually for the Star Child project.
00:41:46
Speaker
Their entire website is just classic. Haters will say it's not real. And it's got some amazing, if you go through the checklist of what you're looking for in pseudoscience or pseudo-archaeology and you compare it to this website, it just hits every single one.
00:42:08
Speaker
And it's just like what? So like on their front page, down near the bottom, they've got a link that takes you to their debunking page. And like the title, it says deformity and hoax, blah, blah, blah. And one of the things they say is, while some sites and skeptics claim to have debunked the star child skull, they significantly fail to address the facts about the skull. We've compiled a list of the most common debunking claims and explained why they're not accurate. Read it here.
00:42:38
Speaker
And I'm just like, yeah, it's amazing. And then you go onto that page, their debunking page, and I'm just going to it now. Every single one, they're like, oh, well, this isn't true because our report says it's not true. This isn't true because our report says it's not true. Every single one. Because we said so. It's a great, great argument. Exactly. And their whole website is just like, it's just a perfect example of things to look for.
00:43:06
Speaker
I'm looking at it right now and it's like one of their things are deformity and hoax. Like the easiest explanation obviously has to be wrong. Well and even just with a rudimentary understanding of and training in bioarchaeology like looking at the picture on the front page, it seems like it's obviously deformity. Like there's no
00:43:34
Speaker
So is this a school that has been, the forehead has been extended with boards and whatnot when the individual was a child, but then because it's elongated saying it must be an alien? Sort of. The Star Child's a fetal school, isn't it? I think they, well, the report, the guy who looked at it says that the child was about five years old.
00:44:00
Speaker
based on dentition. There isn't much to be said for dentition on this. But just the frame and magnum is like fused with like the it's just huge. It's like it's with another
00:44:20
Speaker
Large like it's gaping as twice the size as it should be like it's yeah This is not like looking at it. I am it's just like this is not Well, it's not developed properly. It's yeah it well stuff hits on a really important trait though of pseudo archaeology science, it's the
00:44:43
Speaker
where she's saying she's on their debunking page and they're saying, well, these skeptics are wrong because our report says so and it just kind of forgets itself. Having only one source or having very limited sources like two, three,
00:44:59
Speaker
Yeah. That's very common in pseudoarchaeology. Along with that particular, I like to call them red flags, you will also find sources that repeat sources that repeat other sources. So like you've created a echo chamber, basically, of somewhere you can tell there's a parent document.
00:45:24
Speaker
And every single one of these other sources is sometimes verbatim repeating that parent document, but yet it creates multiple sources. So you've got five sources now, but they're all literally saying the same thing because they're all repeating one.
00:45:43
Speaker
parent source. Mm-hmm. So it's not actually scholarly by any stretch, but just because there are sources doesn't necessarily mean. Yeah. Yeah.
Echo Chambers in Pseudo-Archaeology
00:45:52
Speaker
And I believe if I'm
00:45:56
Speaker
I'm not necessarily equating these two together, I don't want to get into all that, but Holocaust deniers have done similar things in terms of their research where they'll just build off of one other person and then create all these sources that they'd say, well, obviously this didn't happen because of this source and this source and this source. And when you go back to the root, it's like, that doesn't make any sense. That's dumb. And there's no real history to it.
00:46:22
Speaker
by looking, if you're just glancing at a work cited page or a bibliography, you're like, oh my. Look at all these sources. They must be true. And you get into those dangers of, well, if it looks scientific, it must be. It's like, nope, nope, nope. Exactly. It goes right back to that cult science, because it's like, well, they understand that they've got to have a reference page. And they understand that they need to have more than one reference. So now they've got five. And it's like, well, none of those fives are scholarly or reliable. Therefore, they are all crap.
00:46:51
Speaker
I mean, I hate to be blunt, but that's what it is. And I know it irritates people when I say that. Oh, that's true. I know. I mean, it irritates people a lot. And I feel bad because they're irritated, because it's still not going to change anything. They're still crap sources. Yeah. And that kind of stuff. And that's the other thing to look for is the crap sources.
00:47:14
Speaker
If you're serious about getting to the bottom of some of these mysterious alt-archeology, alt-history things, you've got to dig into their sources and find out where they're coming from. Are they just quoting random blog out on the internet who says the thing that they needed them to say so they could say it in their blog? That's not a credible source, so it doesn't qualify.
00:47:42
Speaker
You know, that kind of stuff. When you look at, and granted we're trying to do this, and that's my other soapbox to get on here in a minute, but when you look at something that a professional has produced, you will see lots of resources and they will have a pedigree, basically. You can trace them back to a journal, you can trace the researchers back to
00:48:06
Speaker
a known facility, a college, a research group, a CRM firm, not my high horse at myblog.com. So that kind of stuff.
00:48:25
Speaker
reiterate what you're saying and usually you'll have a CV. If you're trying to see if a researcher is legitimate, you need to find a CV because they will have on that everything that they've done and that's some of their pedigree. And then with looking at the sources, and this is something that
00:48:45
Speaker
I've been, because most people don't even know how to look at sources or how to evaluate things that might look fishy. And it's like if you have any suspicion, and we mentioned some of those things like
00:49:00
Speaker
you know, having an immediate rebuttal and like, as you said, what is it, haters? Haters gonna hate? Haters gonna say it's fake. Haters gonna say it's wrong or it's fake? Yeah. Like anything like that, but you're still not sure, take a look and follow the links to those references.
00:49:21
Speaker
And I've seen some situations to where places will cite a legitimate article that does not in any way claim what they're trying to say. That's another one. And that I think is the most dangerous because people will go and look at it and be like, okay, that looks legit. It's through JSTOR. And then you're like, wait. Yeah, it's true.
00:49:44
Speaker
the abstract, you know, once you read that, you're like, that doesn't have anything to do with what they were just saying. Like, that's a problem. And I think if people are really interested and really want to know and separate those out, getting kind of
00:50:04
Speaker
And part of the challenge, I think, in some of this is if you don't have access to read the actual paper, you're only getting the abstract, unless it happens to be something that is through open source, which in archaeology is not common. And that's part of a bigger problem of some of this feeds into
00:50:33
Speaker
There isn't, like, legitimate archaeology is not as accessible as pseudo-archaeology. Yeah, it's true. Yes, exactly. And that can be a complaint about our field as well, that perhaps one of the ways of confronting it is making available more information of a scientific nature, but that are layman's terms. Yeah, absolutely. I think, like, the time team documentaries are great, and they can be a great way to confront other
00:51:04
Speaker
other documentaries like the Salutrian Hypothesis that you guys are talking about. Maybe we need to make our own. Didn't just put it on YouTube and be like, rebuttal to the Salutrian Hypothesis of the CBC. It's true. What do you think are some other ways? There are obviously some ways of identifying. I was gonna say the late and sainted Carl Sagan
00:51:26
Speaker
in his books, Demon Haunted World said, if we continue to be the sages, I'm paraphrasing, basically he was saying, if we continue as scientists and professionals to make our fields inaccessible, people are going to turn to the charlatans because they're accessible and they're fun.
00:51:49
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. It's true. And so a way to confront some of these issues is give back with more information and exhibits and podcasts and websites.
Combating Pseudo-Archaeology
00:52:03
Speaker
Are there any other suggestions you guys can think of that would be a good way to confront the issues surrounding pseudoarchaeology? And do you think we can change people's minds?
00:52:18
Speaker
You know, so there's two groups of people I like to talk about when it comes to the whole concept of changing people's minds. You have people who are curious and so they're looking stuff up.
00:52:31
Speaker
And those are the people that we need to reach. Those are the people we need to make our stuff available to. And that's why we need to get ourselves, all of us, all archaeologists, professionals, academics, CRM people, we need to become involved with popular social media, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, podcasting, blogs, that kind of stuff. We need to be heard.
00:52:58
Speaker
Because those people will find our stuff, they will read it, and most of them are, I mean, I give people the benefit of that. Most people are intelligent enough that if they are presented with facts over opinions, they will go with the facts. The other group of people that you have are what I call true believers.
00:53:15
Speaker
And they are the people that, hands down, you can say nothing, do nothing, present them with nothing that will change their minds. And they will argue with you until the day they die that they are correct and you are wrong. You can't reach those people. And unfortunately, those are the majority of the people you're going to get into arguments with on the internet. So you've got to learn to pick those people out. They're usually pretty easy to tell who they are, though. Yeah.
00:53:46
Speaker
engaging with those people in the comments section or wherever, there's an argument there that there's merit. I personally don't like to do it because it's a waste of my time. But the argument for it, if you're somebody that likes to argue on the internet, is
00:54:03
Speaker
those same people who are curious and who are trying to look up facts and figures, they're gonna see the exchange and hopefully they will be able to suss out which one of you is the authority and which one of you is the crackpot, hopefully. Or they're gonna go, you're both assholes and they will just completely leave the conversation altogether. I think that's counterproductive if that's what's happening. But you can't reach the true believers but you can reach the curious people and that's why
00:54:32
Speaker
the field of archaeology needs to open itself up more. We are a study of people for people, not a study of people for ourselves. And hoarding our knowledge is useless. That's an excellent point. And these are my final thoughts. So here's the field. Don't make ourselves more accessible. I saw Emily's note. Then we're not
00:54:57
Speaker
We're not doing anybody any favors, and what we are doing is we're creating mysticism around our field, which makes it easier for things like ancient aliens and unearthed America and diggers and all these other crap shows that are on public television, popular public television.
00:55:16
Speaker
to become so popular. And that's why you get shows like the CBC doing stuff like IceBridge because they want eyeballs too. And if the crackpot theories are getting you eyeballs, well, what do you think they're going to air? Yeah.
00:55:35
Speaker
It's true. And the thing to keep in mind is that there has been a long history of this type of negative use of history and archeology.
Historical Misuse of Archaeology
00:55:45
Speaker
I mean, there are so many examples of the mound builders along the East where it was assumed that, you know, the Egyptians or someone else must have come to build the the mounds where other historians were like, no, we think it's the Native American people because they have the same artifacts and they live here.
00:56:03
Speaker
And now we look back and go, well, that's ridiculous. How could anybody thought that, you know, Egyptians came to the United States? Well, similar thing may happen years from now with a lot of these things. So it's like hindsight people.
00:56:19
Speaker
So other final thoughts? Emily, I like the reference to the historic with the Cahokia pieces. You could also really, if you wanted to anger some people, bring up Mormonism as an example. And how all that came about.
00:56:41
Speaker
With regard to Cahokia, you have, like today, there's still towns that are named after Egyptian cities along the Mississippi, which I think is both entertaining and unfortunate because it's a legacy of that type of racism along that region.
00:57:07
Speaker
And that was my comment on that. I don't have my final thoughts compiled in my head yet. I apologize. Sorry. Final thoughts on pseudo-archaeology? Yeah, I was going to say I agree with what Sarah was talking about, that archaeologists need to be more willing to engage with the public. And we need to also understand that
00:57:31
Speaker
our level of knowledge about archaeology is much, much different from others who aren't in archaeology. And we need to find ways that we can accurately describe what we've been studying, what we've been researching in ways that other people can understand, which is why I think blogs actually are a great example of that because so many blogs are written with sort of non-archaeologists in mind. They're sort of more, I don't want to say laymen, but they're kind of more easily understandable
00:58:01
Speaker
Which also brings me on to the idea of social media. And I think social media is a fantastic tool for archaeologists, whether it's Twitter in particular, because it's always updating. It's like, you know, somebody writes something and five seconds later it's just there. And I think it's really awesome to see archaeologists engaging with Twitter where a lot of
00:58:25
Speaker
theories are sort of breaking, I should, maybe that's not quite the word. I don't know if you guys have seen anything, it just came out the other day about an article talking about how the ancient Greeks might have actually reached North America and reached Canada.
00:58:41
Speaker
So these guys, I'm not sure where, I can't remember where these researchers are. They've published an article talking about some of Plutarch's writing. Is that his name? Yeah, Plutarch's writing. And how the way he describes astronomy, it seems possible that ancient Greeks might have sailed to Canada.
00:59:03
Speaker
And they never, in this article, they never said that, yes, they made it to Canada. They landed in Canada. They just said, hey, based on what we studied in this astronomy, it's possible.
00:59:14
Speaker
But so I read this article and maybe an hour later on Twitter, I saw people saying, hey, the ancient Greeks made it to Canada. They landed in Canada. And so it's like, that's that's not exactly what the article said, but it's kind of easy to see how it could be misread. And I think if archaeologists are involving themselves engaging with social media, it gives us a chance to see these theories
00:59:41
Speaker
rising before they really take hold and it gives us a chance to speak out about them or against them before they do too much damage. That's an excellent point and an excellent way to end this episode. Thank you so much ladies for joining in this recording this evening. It was absolutely delightful to have you.
01:00:07
Speaker
Oh, thank you for having us. It was good to be here. Thank you. Steph, I hope you can, oh, happy to have had you. And Steph, thank you so much for joining us. I hope we didn't scare you away. I hope you'll be on other episodes with us. Yes, thank you so much. I had a lot of fun. Oh, I'm so glad. Well, listeners, check out our blog on WordPress and check out our Twitter feed. It's at Women Arkeys is the Twitter.
01:00:34
Speaker
And the blog is womeninarchaeology at WordPress.com. Thank you very much, Sarah. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email us at womeninarchaeology at gmail.com. We would love to hear from you. Again, thanks for listening. Bye. Anybody else want to say bye? Bye.
01:01:02
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Women in Archaeology podcast. Links to the items mentioned on the show are in the show notes. You can contact us at womeninarchaeology at gmail.com or at womenarchies on Twitter. Please like, share, and subscribe to the show. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. Support the show in the APN at www.arcapodnet.com slash members. Thanks for listening and see you next time.
01:01:32
Speaker
This show is produced by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archapodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.