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The Oldest? Really? - TAS 295
0 Playsin 4 hours
This week we found several news stories claiming that they had new evidence for an artifact or site being “the oldest…” Join us for a discussion on whether we think these claims are accurate!
Links
- 11,000-year-old indigenous site — one of oldest on continent — found in Canada
- Great Plains Archaeology Podcast
- The oldest shoes in the world are on display in Oregon
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts head over to https://archpodnet.com/archaeology/295
Contact
- Chris Webster
chris@archaeologypodcastnetwork.com - Rachel Roden
rachel@unraveleddesigns.com
RachelUnraveled (Instagram)
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Transcript
Introduction to The Archaeology Show
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to The Archaeology Show. TAS goes behind the headlines to bring you the real stories about archaeology and the history around us. Welcome to the podcast.
Unveiling Recent Archaeological Discoveries
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to The Archaeology Show, episode 295. On today's show, we talk about recent, quote unquote, world's oldest headlines in the news. Let's dig a little deeper. Don't forget to check those sources.
00:00:34
Speaker
Welcome to the podcast. Hello.
Engaging with the Discord Community
00:00:37
Speaker
Just as a reminder, if you're listening to this in real time yeah and it's not 38 years from now and the world has ended and you found this down in the fallout shelter. Real time up to the date of February 22nd, right?
00:00:51
Speaker
Well, yeah. Yeah. but Well, hopefully right before that. Yeah, right before that. Yes. So we are doing a live show. If it's on our Discord, and I don't know, are we linking to that in the show notes finally? Yes, it's in the show notes. I did last week for sure. Yeah. And it will be again this week for sure. So hopefully, I think it's- It needs to be in there permanently. It's every week. Yeah. Yeah, part of our links. Yeah, I just need to get into our templates. Behind the scenes, need to get in the template. We'll do that.
00:01:17
Speaker
10 a.m. Mountain time, noon Eastern time here in the United States. And figure out what that is for you. The GMT time is listed on the little poster for Instagram that our fantastic social media person Tilly put up. yep and But yeah, we're doing it live on Discord, so you'll be able to ask questions and things like that through the chat on there. Now, if you don't know what Discord is, it's a free app, social media, social space type of thing that you can download and there'll be a room on there. And and trust me, don't try to do this two minutes before we go live. Jump in there. It's free. Just join us. Navigate around, ask some people, Hey, how is this live thing going to work? yeah And they will be glad to help you. Yeah. It's a super welcoming community. People who just like to talk about archaeology, not just our show, all the shows on the APN. So, um, it's a good place to just like have nerdy conversations for fun. And you don't need to be a member of the APN to join this community either. It's ah totally free. Yeah. And that's where we're running the show. But simultaneously, we're going to have a bunch of our RVing friends on the beach yeah who will physically be there with us. Yes, they will. So it's going to be like this world collide of like physical friends on the beach in Mexico and yeah virtual friends on Discord. It's going to be really fun. It might be chaotic. I don't know. It doesn't matter. It's going to be fun. Honestly, it might be difficult for us to manage the online community.
The Archaeology of Mexico
00:02:38
Speaker
Yeah, so much in person happening so like it work it's gonna me great yeah Yeah, it should be good should be fun and oh the topic is since we are in Mexico want to you know respect the culture that we are currently participating in and that we super love because we come here every year and we talk about Mexico a fair bit because we've yeah been to a lot of different places in Mexico at this point so we don't have it fully nailed down yet, but just expect
00:03:04
Speaker
as some prehistory of Mexico type of topic. Spoiler alert, it's not all tacos. It is not all tacos. I'm sure we will talk about tacos, because, you know. but Mexico, the history of the taco. Yeah, so this is an archeology podcast, and I don't know what the archeology of tacos is. Oh, is there archeology of tacos? Well, they started somewhere. Somebody took a flat thing and folded it at one time and said, this is easier to eat. Well, maybe we will have to do a little research on that.
00:03:33
Speaker
It's going to be fun. Some Mexican in the past, if tacos really did start here, some old abuela was like, here, I've made this thing and put a bunch of food on it, and and gave it to their son or daughter, and was like was like, here, eat this. And it was like, oh, it fell all over the place. And it was like, why don't I just fold this? And the taco was born. And the taco was born. Yeah.
00:03:54
Speaker
so Cool. Well, I'm sure it happened exactly like that, but we'll go see what the archaeology of it says if there is any. he So what was written? Oh man. It's going to be fun.
Debunking Misleading Headlines
00:04:04
Speaker
Well, for this episode, I tried to theme out, and I'm going to go ahead and call this a win. Yeah, you did it. Because we actually technically only have two articles for this one that we're really fully going to talk about.
00:04:14
Speaker
Yeah. we got it The third segment is is more of a PSA. Yeah, more of a fail article. Yes, exactly. But that's kind of the point, right? so That is something to be aware of. So we'll talk about that. We'll talk about that when we get there. So the actual two articles we're going to talk about have the word oldest in them. And I hate it when they use...
00:04:31
Speaker
these sort of terms and articles because it really just gets you to click on it, which is exactly what it got me to do. It is clickbait. It is. Yeah. Yeah. But this first one I've actually been thinking about all week since I took the notes on this thing. And it is it is kind of big news if it's if it's real, if it's well, it is real, but it's kind of big news if it has the implications they say it has. I'm not sure it's quite the implications they say it has. But well, I didn't see that it had been like peer reviewed published yet. So this is more of a breaking news kind of an announcement, which I think are just as cool as official published research too.
Discovering Canada's Ancient Indigenous Site
00:05:10
Speaker
And of course, who would break the news about Canada and the prehistory of North America but the Miami Herald? Why do we have so many Miami Herald articles? I think Idaho Statesman must have been purchased by them. They got replaced. We haven't had an Idaho Statesman one in so long. Come on, Idaho Statesman, pick it up. I don't know. It's like these outlets. They get onto a role where they're doing certain article types and they're doing a lot of archaeology lately. Well, anyway, this is called 11,000 year old indigenous site, one of oldest on continent found in Canada. See it. What? I know that says see it. See it, I think. Newspaper article titles are just so weird sometimes. Well, the funny thing is if you click into the article, you can't actually see it. They only have one picture in the article and it's of some bones. Like a bunch of bones. Yeah. That is super weird. Yeah. Well, I guess, I know, I guess the top, the riverbank site is on there. Yeah. Yeah. Which it's just a picture of like land. Yeah. That picture doesn't really tell me much personally, but it doesn't really. Yeah. So anyway, this site was found by an amateur archaeologist, David Arundhu. And I just left myself a little note here when I was taking the notes and I was like, you know, this one good plug for amateur archaeologists, because this was found in
00:06:25
Speaker
North Central Canada, yeah if you look up Prince Albert, there's the name of a town. yeah There's actually a Prince Albert National Park as well. And this is north of the Saskatchewan River. this is It's like way up there. This is up in the middle of nowhere. I mean, some people live there, but yes it's up in the middle of nowhere. And it's like if it wasn't for people like these amateur archaeologists that was up just looking for stuff, poking around, poking around yeah who else would have seen this, really?
00:06:48
Speaker
Well, and he describes himself as researcher and amateur archaeologist, or the article describes him that way. So I don't really know what he's a researcher of. The article may not have known what they were talking about. Well, that's true. But yeah, because to them, an amateur archaeologist might be a researcher. Yeah. But either way, he saw erosion on the riverbank and decided to take a closer look because, you know, erosion is a good place to find things, be them people things or fossil things or whatever. Right. So, he took a closer look and saw artifacts sticking out of the soil. Yeah. So, he did some digging, so to speak. He got to verify what you found. I get that. He notified local university, all that stuff. And then he was quoted in this article as saying, now that the evidence has proven my first instincts, this site is shaking up
00:07:39
Speaker
everything we thought we knew and could change the narrative of early indigenous civilizations of North America. That's what he's saying. And there could be some truth to that. There could be, for sure. We'll talk about it. so Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. Okay. so So let's talk about what this is. The artifacts were identified by members of the Sturgeon Lake First Nation as belonging to a larger indigenous settlement dating back 11,000 years. And that is a thousand years earlier than previously thought for settlement in this area. Yeah. Now, when they say settlement, that's what really the clincher is here because hunting camps and people passing through and things like that, that would be more common for this time period. Settlement is actually pretty impressive for 10,000 years ago, let alone 11,000. But 10,000 years ago is when
00:08:28
Speaker
Yes, settlement, you know settlements have been found, right is what they're saying. um But pushing that back a thousand years is a long time. That is a lot in the archaeological record, for sure. yeah And the stuff they found are stone tools, fire pits, and tool making materials, everything you would expect to see.
00:08:47
Speaker
in a place that is just like more of a long-term settlement yeah and not just like this temporary camp, a place that they were hunting, something that was just a stopover point rather than a settlement. A settlement, that's why this is important and different.
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah, they found in the fire pits some charcoal and large bison remains, which did confirm some oral histories of bison use from indigenous
Great Plains and Canadian Site Significance
00:09:12
Speaker
peoples in the area. Only makes sense for that. that This is typically still like Great Plains area, right? I mean, it's definitely Plains. yeah the great I guess it's an extension of the Great Plains i think if you were to bring it up. Yeah, I think it is just I'm from listening to so Carlton shield chief gover on has a show called the Great Plains podcast Great Plains archaeology podcast Great Plains anthropology podcast. Do you know what our shows are?
00:09:39
Speaker
You know, it's so funny you say that, but like, I know what the icons look like for all of them. And I'm so used to looking at them visually that like, I don't always pay super close attention to the name. That's really terrible. And I think in our backend stuff, we just call it great planes. We just call it planes halftime. But yeah, anyway, he does his podcast called great planes podcast. We're just leaving it at that. We'll link to it in the show notes. I'm so sorry. listen it But his show is super great. And it's all about this giant section of the middle North American continent, basically, and how it was settled. He does some pre-stuff and some some you know later stuff and all kinds of things. So it's a great show to go listen to. And I think I've heard him talk about Saskatchewan in his show before. So I think this counts as Great Plains. I don't even know why I was going there with that, but well now now we've done it. the um Speaking of universities,
00:10:30
Speaker
Yes, Carlton. The University of Saskatchewan was contacted for this. They helped do some of the studies and they confirmed that it is one of the oldest known indigenous sites on the continent. And it does confirm also that highly organized societies existed here earlier than previously thought. Again, over a thousand years earlier. yeah And here's where I was like, um, because they were, they also, this guy, Glenn Stewart from the university. Um, and I guess I think the, the David from that was also kind of saying this, but who actually was quoted as saying this? Let me go back and look here.
00:11:07
Speaker
The quotes are done very strangely in the article here, but I think this was actually Glenn Stewart from the university saying this. He said that this places, this site, this this this antiquity of it right and the uniqueness of it it, places this site among the most recognized ancient sites.
00:11:26
Speaker
in the world, like the great pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge in England, Gobekli Tepe in Turkey. Now I'm not saying just because it doesn't have monumental architecture like these sites do, that it can't be placed amongst the important sites of the world, right? but I mean, you, they really did pick some monumental architecture sites, iconic sites that were occupied for thousands of years in most cases by many groups of people and they built on them. And so that, that is that those are big words for a site that has been fairly recently discovered and they yeah don't really know the full extent of it yet. And that there isn't any monumental architecture at now, granted, these people didn't really do that, which is fine. So,
00:12:12
Speaker
But they'd have to build like a huge structure with this thing, preserve it, which the natives are talking about. First Peoples, actually. That's what they're called in Canada. First Nation. First Nation people. But they are, yeah, I mean, yes, important, yes, don't get me wrong. um But I don't know, it's a little early days to be placing it in that in that group, I think.
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, well, not even for that reason too, because we are filling in the picture of the peopling of the Americas, like yearly, right? New sites are discovered, new stuff is coming to light. And so I feel like the picture is very incomplete right now. So without that complete picture, it's really hard to say which sites were the most important into the development of people in this part of the world.
00:13:00
Speaker
Now, granted, I don't know when when you get to the point where you have enough sites that you can say, okay, well, this is the important one. So like at a certain point, you kind of just have to be like, well, these are the important ones because this is what we have right now and what we know. So it's this, this, and this or whatever. But yeah, that that is an interesting statement to make. It is very, very important though.
00:13:20
Speaker
ah For me, I'm just like, yep, yep, yep. Makes sense. Put it right in there. We already know that people were here further back in time than previously thought. And let's keep looking. let's yeah Keep looking, keep finding things. These sites that are eroding into rivers are really cool because you get that like profile you know into the deeper layers. So yeah, yeah anyway.
00:13:44
Speaker
Well, before this site was discovered, this time period was thought to contain nomadic people, as we had mentioned, people with more sedentary lifestyle. according to these researchers would also mean an idea of land stewardship and what they call deep rooted presence, um which does mean that because if you're going to be staying in a place for a longer period of time, you have to know some things about that land, where to find food. yeah You know, if you're not moving around and following either the growth of, you know, the harvesting of certain yeah plants and animals, migration of animals, migration patterns, things like that, then you've got to know things about where you're living. You have to have that knowledge, yeah which means you have to live there for a while to gain that knowledge. Yeah, they also raised questions about the Bering Strait theory um as well, stating that people must have lived here for countless generations in order to develop this knowledge of the land, this deep rooted knowledge of the land, right? And of course, the Bering Strait theory is large wave of people crossed from Siberia to Alaska being a land bridge about 13,000 years ago.
00:14:42
Speaker
to populate North America, quote, for the first time, right? That's kind of the big theory there. It's getting more and more likely that yes, that happened, but it wasn't the only time and it might not even have been the first time. Like a lot of people did come over via that, but when they got here, there were probably people here. Yeah, yeah. Like, how did they get here? How did those other people get here? But oral histories in the US and Canada refute the Bering Strait theory. But that's. As being the only. As being the only. The only path. Or even the historical accuracy of it at all. When you have dates that are older, it's really hard to like, refute that. So somehow we get older dates of people being present. So like, something else is going on that we don't know.
00:15:29
Speaker
um The other interesting thing, too, is if oral histories are starting to get more and more proven true, there's oral histories in what's now known as Saskatchewan that are well known. That puts Saskatchewan as a center for cultural exchange and trade, but that was never backed up with evidence until, well, they're saying now, this backs that up.
00:15:48
Speaker
So I'm not sure how that one side backs this up, but at least that says people were here and here for a long time versus just wandering across the tundra. So yeah, it's still is so interesting to me because when you talk about a large group of people living together in a place for a long time,
00:16:10
Speaker
Okay, they didn't have, they weren't building the stone structures that you see at Stonehenge and other other places like that. But they had to have been building structures of some sort. Well, at least temporary ones they could live in. Yeah. Which is not stuff that lives through the years. That doesn't last. So there could have been really elaborate wooden structures there and or made out of other materials that decompose away.
00:16:30
Speaker
So I would love to start figuring out how to find evidence of that kind of thing. Or maybe they already have it in this article. It's just not really covering it very well. Maybe there's post holes here or whatever and they just aren't talking about it. But that's what I would want to, I want to know more about how these people lived more than just fire pits and stone tools. you know Well, we may not know how they lived, but we know how they walked. These sandals are made for walking. We'll talk about those on the other side of the break.
00:17:00
Speaker
Welcome back to The Archaeology Show, Episode 295. And now we're moving over to Oregon. And yeah, two stories in North America normally work all over the place. Yeah, usually. But it just worked out this way. and I know. yeah So I didn't even try to do that. I was just looking for something with the word oldest in it.
00:17:19
Speaker
but so But anyway, this one here is kind of interesting in their use of the word oldest. But anyway, it's talking about sandals, shoes basically, found in Southern Oregon that are the oldest identifiable piece of clothing, right? They're at least older than the volcanic eruption of 7,700 years ago that created Crater Lake. And I like that at least older than comment because working in the Great Basin, we actually in some cases would find the Mazama ash layer Oh yeah. And that is that eruption that created Crater Lake. That was Mount Mozzama. Yeah. So when you find that ash layer and it's identifiable, you know that stuff underneath that has to be older because that ash was laid down on top of it. So like that was their their base thing that they're like, okay, we know they're older than this, but then they did do more dating, right? They actually dated the sandals. I don't really even know why that comment was thrown in here. yeah It was just like something to mention Crater Lake. Yeah. Yeah, probably. so They weren't found near there because, you know, southern Oregon. Well, they were found in Paisley Caves, actually, near Paisley Caves, which is southeastern Oregon. I guess Crater Lake is close to there, but it's a little more fet venturing into the northern Great Basin. so yeah But they're on display currently at the University of Oregon Museum of nature Natural and Cultural History, which is in Eugene, Oregon, which I'm thinking... Oh, we need to go there. That's what I'm saying. We're going to kind of either pass right by there or be near there when we're at my parents' house. Yeah, yeah for sure. so
00:18:43
Speaker
Yeah, your parents live like an hour from there basically, right? Pretty close, yeah. It's a little more. The Fort Rock sandals that are called were radiocarbon dated to 10,400 years ago. That's quite a bit more than 7,000 years old. Well, that wouldn't be more than 77,000 years old. seventy seven hundred 77,000 year old sandals would be something. 1,000, whatever. The thing is, I bet they were wearing something 77,000 years ago. Probably. Especially in like Northern Europe. You've got to keep your feet warm. They wrapped them at least. Baby. Yeah. So anyway, yeah um this is this suggests, like the last article, substantial occupation and adaptation and these were because these were basically wintertime sandals that they found.
Oregon Sandals and Ancient Adaptation
00:19:29
Speaker
said They're sandals though, really? This would be the wintertime foot coverage? You're thinking of sandals in the way you're thinking of sandals, but all shoes were sandals back then. Okay.
00:19:40
Speaker
like that They just called, they didn't have like, oh, I'm going to grab my winter boots and now I'm going to grab my summer shoes. Now all shoes were sandals, but they said these were basically wintertime sandals because of the way that they're completely wrapping around your foot. okay And I guess they may have found evidence that they were insulated in some way, but all footwear, when you hear from those, that kind of time period, they basically call them sandals. That's just the style.
00:20:05
Speaker
okay But they're not open. okay yeah so But these sandals weren't durable. They were easily torn up and worn through according to archaeologists. They were basically just for going into cold water marshes and lakes for duck hunting, harvesting, things like that. So just trying to keep your feet as warm as possible.
00:20:22
Speaker
But imagine they didn't do a super great job. Yeah, I'm just like, these don't sound amazing. I'm like, how are we sure these are for the winter? But OK, that's fine. Because I think they found summertime sandals. Yeah, I guess they must have. They found sandals that were more, you know, less less covering, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So the areas of Southeast Oregon, Northwest Nevada, and Northeast California are known as the Northern Great Basin. And they have found similar sandals throughout this area. That's areas that we've forked in quite a bit. so yeah yeah Never found a sandal though, unfortunately. Well, the reason for that is because these are mostly found in dry cave environments, right and we've never ex never excavated a cave. there's most of Most of the caves that have been located out there have been excavated, I would say. I would say there's probably very few caves that have been not only not found, but not excavated.
00:21:11
Speaker
Well, that's not necessarily true. Like i mean the project that we were working on in the Elko area had ah a couple of rock shelters on it that had not been excavated, but they were not planning to excavate them. There was more of a preservation situation where it was like, nobody's here. Nobody's going here. Just keep them preserved and excavated. That's fine. So yeah. That dry environment, though, is what allows organic fibers to survive. yeah and You might be thinking, well, I've heard of you guys talk about like wet environments allowing things to survive, like in the in in Northern Europe and so like that, like peat bogs. But peat bogs allow things to survive for a different reason, and that's because of a lack of oxygen. right yeah so Because really, you need something that basically kills the bacteria that allows decay. One of those things is dryness, and the other one is not being able to breathe. It's no oxygen. yeah so
00:22:00
Speaker
But these are the traditional homelands of the Klamath, Modoc, and some bands of the Northern Paiute peoples. so And some of the oldest pieces of corded fibers come from paisley caves, which is near where these sandals were found. And they date to 12,700 years ago, which is very, very long ago. Older textiles than the sandal have been found, but it's you what is unique about this is that it's identifiable. And this is where that like oldest distinction comes in.
00:22:31
Speaker
There's tons of textiles that have been found around the world that are older than this. We've probably talked about some of them because i always my ears always perk up when I see anything with textiles. But the thing is is that we almost never know what that piece of textile was for. we you Even in great preservation circumstances, you don't usually have the entire garment or the entire thing. yeah So this is unique in that they know for sure that it's a shoe. And when you look at the picture, regardless of how you feel about when they were wearing it and why they're wearing it, it's definitely, definitely a shoe. So yeah that's cool.
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah, so they also found in the same area little bone needles that they think were used for making clothing. Yeah, a bunch of other stuff as well, but just in the textile area. Yeah, I love that. That's yeah that's cool. but Yeah, couple that with a picture they're painting with other finds regarding what people ate and a more developed picture is just forming through time yeah of of what people are doing at these um at these time periods, which is pretty cool. so Yeah, it's really neat. Yeah.
00:23:35
Speaker
All right. Well, we're going to come back on the other side and we were going to talk about an article until we started looking into it, but instead we are going to have a cautionary tale for all of you. So back with that on the other side. and Welcome back to episode 295 of the archeology show and tell us about the article you found to talk about.
00:23:57
Speaker
So i why I told Rachel, we need another article, yeah and I want something the oldest in it. Yeah. So I was searching under those parameters. And when you restrict yourself like that, and you're also looking at archaeology stories, like sometimes like weird stuff pops up. And I wouldn't say this one was weird. the The article title grabbed me. It's world's oldest pyramid built 25,000 years ago was not made by humans, archaeologists claim. All of that is true and fair.
00:24:25
Speaker
Yeah. So this article was published on February 13th, 2025. But when you started to look through this thing and what was your first clue that something was off on this?
00:24:39
Speaker
Well, the first clue was they're talking about the Ganung Padang pyramid in Indonesia. And that piqued my interest immediately. Cause I'm like, Oh, Ganung Padang, we've talked about it before. This is a Graham Hancock data point, something that he always goes to when he's talking about his ancient humans theory. You can go listen to our other podcasts about it. There's like a ton of them at this point to hear what his ridiculous theories are. And What this article is saying, basically, is that archeologists disagree that the ganang penang was constructed by humans. And that that that's true. ah sure We talked about it in our episode, and and there's been a lot of published stuff about it. right So I was like, oh, there must be new research or something. Cool. like Let's look into it and see how how much more new research we have about how this is not true.
00:25:35
Speaker
And so I started reading through it and I'm like, okay, so the lead researcher is a guy, Danny Hillman Natto with Jaja of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences. Again, we've talked about him. He was in the ancient apocalypse show and we talked about him on our episode. He is, you know, trying to do real archeology and he's publishing things that are using archaeological methods, but basically coming to conclusions that are not supported by his research. And that would be that this ganang penang is a man-made pyramid when it's it's not. It's just a ah hill with some cool like lava flow stuff going on.
00:26:16
Speaker
And it it's talking about his research and what he says it is. And then it's got some more quotes about from other archaeologists, including Flint Dibble, who we had an interview with on this show, about how there's actually no evidence for that. All great. All this has happened. And I'm reading through this and I'm like, none of this is new.
00:26:35
Speaker
None of this is new information. We have talked about this. You and I rehashed this many times. Tristan interviewed Flint Dibble and I think they talked about it on that show. They might not have specifically talked about this, but you know, it's it's been around. We've talked about this. So I'm like, why is this coming up again? What's the new research?
00:26:54
Speaker
And I told you that there was a link to the the original article that was published by Danny in archaeological perspective. And and I was like, oh, the article has been retracted. OK, that must be why. yeah The article is retracted because it's not good science. It's not good archaeology. So that must be why this article is talking about it. And and you were like, you're like, we'll go find out when it's retracted.
00:27:17
Speaker
So I did. It was retracted almost a year ago. yeah Last March it was retracted. So the only conclusion I could come to is that some journalists for indie 100, like let's be honest, that's not your greatest news source for archaeology to begin with.
00:27:34
Speaker
I only got here because of my restricted parameters that I was searching for. And then I'm like, these journalists are just rehashing old drama from a year ago and repackaging it to make it seem like this is new, new information, a new study, a new something. And it is absolutely not. It's clickbait. This article is the epitome of clickbait. And then I got annoyed and then I complained to you about it and then we decided to talk about it. So that's where we're at.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, so when you click through to archaeological prescription, the retraction was published, like you said, on March 18th, 2024. Yeah. And you can read the retraction. Yep. And I just want to read part of it here because they say the article was originally published on 20 October, 2023.
Addressing Clickbait in Archaeology News
00:28:19
Speaker
and has been retracted by agreement between the journal, editors-in-chief, and they list their names here. Following publication of the article, concerns were raised by third parties with expertise in geophysics, archaeology, and radiocarbon dating about the conclusions drawn by the authors based on the evidence reported. The publisher and the co-editors-in-chief had investigated these concerns and and concluded,
00:28:40
Speaker
that the article contains a major error. The error, which is not identified during peer review, is that the radiocarbon dating was applied to soil samples that were not associated with any artifacts or features that could be reliably interpreted as anthropogenic or, quote, man-made. Therefore, the interpretation that the site is an ancient pyramid built 9,000 or more years ago is incorrect, and the article must be retracted. Yeah. How that got through peer review?
00:29:06
Speaker
Yeah. Is shocking. And Mr. Danny responded on behalf of all the authors, so all of whom disagree with the retraction. Of course they do. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah it's shocking. And the crazy thing about all of this is not that this was retracted a year ago, not that this was originally published two years ago, but that we found a news article published this week. This week. Now, sure, the news article was actually something, sure, you would read and find some favorable information on because they are saying that, yeah, this is all kind of BS because, great, but this easily could have gone the other way. It easily could have. yeah they They could have not found this retraction and just regurgitated some news source from a year ago before the retraction and said that this is the oldest pyramid from 25,000 years ago. I'm like, why why was this even published? Why was it even done? it just
00:30:00
Speaker
I don't know. And this is like the kind of stuff that you have to be careful of when you're looking at probably any science, our experiences, of course, with archaeology. But any scientific article that's making a big claim, you really have to go to the original news source to see when it was published, who published it. Why are they talking about it now? Is it just clickbait and they're trying to drum up some old scientific drama from a year ago, which is clearly what this article is doing. They probably published something maybe last year and got a whole bunch of hits on it. And they're like, Hey, you think we can do that again? Let's try it and see, you know, and I get.
00:30:38
Speaker
I'm not that mad because the conclusions that they draw do fall on the side of the archaeologists, but it's just like the more we talk about this stuff, the more it stays in like the the pop culture like world and we have to keep talking about it. We have to keep refuting it. And I kind of wish stuff like this would just die, you know? And the thing is who started this chain reaction to because when you start clicking on some of the other links like there's one link in there that says that Flint Dibble from Cardiff University and then link told the journal nature on link that there is no clear evidence to suggest the buried layers were built by humans when when you click that actual link.
00:31:13
Speaker
It takes you to an actual article in Scientific American that was published, and we're looking at this on Apple News, and it doesn't have a date on this Scientific American article, but at the bottom of the Scientific American article, it says, this article was reproduced with permission and was first published on November 28, 2023.
00:31:33
Speaker
So Scientific American republished this from nature. Who knows when? Maybe they're the ones that started it. Maybe this came out just a few weeks ago. Somebody else picked it up and they're reporting it as new news. you know So who started this cycle of regurgitation that other people are just picking up on and now just quoting back all these sources? And you can just click through because you get all the way back to the the Nature article that from November 28th, 2023, where they're talking about this controversial claim before the article retraction, by the way. Yeah. yeah So the the Scientific American article was November 28th, 2023 as well.
00:32:13
Speaker
so In this case, it does not seem like any of the major news sources were contributing to the like digging up of this nonsense again. But the article that we found was front and center on Apple news. So if you're just scrolling through to take in your, your news for the day, yeah it's like front and center in my, I haven't a search for archeology set up.
00:32:40
Speaker
And it's from indie 100, which, you know, you so do see that immediately. So you can scroll right on by a new source like that if you're just not interested in trying to vet whether or not it's true. But yeah, I just I don't know. I just these click baits, you know, just trying to like drum up drama journalistic websites are just very frustrating to me. yeah And so we're not, for that reason, gonna link to this article at all in in the show notes today. yeah There's no need to revisit this. I don't know why they had to.
00:33:14
Speaker
Well, the thing is, if i mean read read articles, read what you want. That's true, yeah. But take a look at A, when the article is published, and then B, take a look maybe down at the bottom, see if this was a republishing of something from the past, and just take things with a little bit of a grain of salt, right? like yeah You don't know if somebody, like these these outlets, especially if you're reading something that's not from, say,
00:33:37
Speaker
a scientific news outlet. Not that they're not going to maybe do the same thing, but some of these other outlets like the Miami Herald, like this Indy 100, like those other places that just need clicks every single day and they might not have something that day. They have people who are, you know, paid by the word and trying to put out articles. Well, they're going to go find something and their publishers probably could give a crap what it is when it comes to archeology and stuff like that. yeah So they're gonna put something out and they're gonna put this tiny little phrase that says, this article was first published, blah, blah, blah. And that clears them of all wrongdoing. yeah So but just be careful when you're reading stuff. It's so tricky though, because like technically there is no wrongdoing here. Technically there's not. Technically everything that is in this article is fine. yeah It's just a matter of like,
00:34:25
Speaker
Why bring it up now? why Why keep going back to this old conversation that was dead and buried a year ago? It's for clicks and it's for the drama that comes with this kind of topic. We're feeding into it right now by talking about it, aren't we? That's why we're not going to link to the article. But anyway, just check your news sources. That's all we have to say from our experience in looking for archeology articles is when you see a news source that you wouldn't normally associate with with archeology or with science. It doesn't mean that they're not doing good work, but just double check. yeah you know When they provide you with links, which these guys did, which is really great, just check those links and make sure that you're you're cool with whatever they're saying. And by the way, we actually cut something out of this the first part of this, because we usually click on a link. we We click on our links when we look at stuff when we're talking about these things. And I hadn't yet clicked on this article today. Rachel already had it up. yeah And a different date showed up for me. And I just actually went to the indie100.com website and just tried to find this article without clicking on the link. And now it says 16 seconds ago it was published. um So there's there's no date. It's literally coming up is when you click on it, that's the time that it's showing this article as coming up. That's crazy. It's the weirdest thing. It feels really janky. Yeah, it's like, ah when did they actually publish this article? There's actually no way to know. yeah It just says, this article was first published on the 11th of December, 2023. They're just regurgitating old news. Yeah, but you don't know how old. You don't even know when they published this article. It's it's just now showing up in our feed. yeah But I don't know when it first came out and when did they first put it out. yeah yeah right It's crazy.
00:36:10
Speaker
so It is a very interesting system. They're always trying to get you to click on stuff, so bear that in mind. There's a little email symbol here for Mr. Liam Odell, the author of this article. Somebody email him and say, why did you publish this? Why'd you publish it now? Do you know what he did? Don't take it now. He probably sold the article, and it's gone from his hands at that point. But this is his email, and he sold it. I'm just wondering, why did this come out now? What was the impetus for this coming out from something that's two years old You know, why why now? why did Why did this come out today or this week or this last couple of weeks? I'm just curious. I might actually do that. So and they still have a little Twitter icon too. They need to fix that. Yeah, for sure. Anyway. So that's that's our our journey in finding articles and yeah our cautionary tale, I suppose you could say, of what to look for and what not to look for, what to avoid yeah a little bit.
00:37:04
Speaker
We tried to do this for our show so that we're not sharing stories to everybody that we don't support. But yeah this one was particularly annoying. So we wanted to tell the story of what happened. Well, there you go. yep So we mentioned an episode or two ago that I was going to have an interview and I ended up having to get that rescheduled because I was sick. So it's gotten rescheduled and I'm going to be doing that this week. So that's more than likely going to be the next episode coming out. um If you want to hear the live show that we're doing, either show up live or if I can ever find the time to do this, because we have some other bonus content that has to come out, but the bonus content is only available for members and our live shows go up on the bonus site on the apnarcbotnet.com where you can become a member at forward slash members, but there is a page on there for member access only where you can get all access to our previous bonus content. So that's where it'll be. You want to join live? It's always free.
00:38:00
Speaker
But if you want to get access to it because you didn't get to see it, you have to become a member. And you can do that for $7.99 a month US, or I think it's $76 a year if you want to save 26, 25%. Or if you want to be like our latest member, Catherine, who I'll call out.
00:38:17
Speaker
superar She is the first one because I kind of put this together because somebody said why don't you have a big membership and nobody's ever actually done it because we never promoted it or anything but there's an APN superstar level at $200 US a year and she actually joined at that level. I hope it wasn't a mistake.
00:38:33
Speaker
ah Sorry, Katherine, if it was. We appreciate it. It's basically a donation to help us keep things running. All these run and and so these things are a donation. So it helps everything helps keep the lights on. So I just paid the renewal fees for our hosting fees and all that stuff. And our social media costs money. Not for you. All of it costs money. So this helps tremendously. so All right, everybody. Thanks a lot. And hopefully, we'll see you on the live episode. If not, we'll see you next week. Bye.
00:39:08
Speaker
Thanks for listening to The Archaeology Show. Feel free to comment and view the show notes on the website at www.arcpodnet.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at arcpodnet. Music for this show is called, I Wish You Would Look, from the band C Hero. Again, thanks for listening and have an awesome day.
00:39:33
Speaker
The Archaeology Podcast Network is 10 years old this year. Our executive producer is Ashley Airy, our social media coordinator is Matilda Seabreck, and our chief editor is Rachel Rodin. The Archaeology Podcast Network was co-founded by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in 2014 and is part of CulturoMedia and DigTech LLC. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.