Archaeology from the dark side
Salon article on alternative archaeology and Creationism, among other practitioners of pseudoscience. You can view the whole thing without being a subscriber by watching an ad.
Mainstream science, he argues, has become a "knowledge filter" designed to keep the most challenging ideas out of the discourse. His explorations of this question -- how scientific consensus can become a kind of groupthink, and how contradictory evidence then becomes unacceptable -- have gained him the grudging respect of at least some scholars.
True, but rather trivial when viewed against the long history of philosophical angst archaeologists have gone through over the years (see, Salmon and Salmon, ) and the recent vogue of post-processualism. Heck, who isn't at least passingly familiar with Kuhn. Science itself is inherently a conservative enterprise and new paradigms go through a filtering process before they become accepted.
Over the course of 20 years, Feder has periodically surveyed college students in different parts of the country to determine their belief in various staples of alternative archaeology. In 2000, he found that 45 percent of students surveyed believed in the Lost Continent of Atlantis (an all-time high), while 36 percent believed that a curse on the pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb had actually killed people, and 23 percent believed that aliens had visited earth in prehistoric times.
We're not sure how meaningful this is. We figure a lot of college students would probably say they believed in Atlantis just because it sounds all cool and open-minded. You'd probably find a good number who believe there was a place called "The Shire" as well. . . . .
Hancock says he has tried to point scientists in the directions that might prove or disprove his case, but they're not interested. "I've done my best to deliver material evidence where I think it's most likely to be found, which is underwater," he says.
Sorry, dude, that's your responsibility, much as it might disturb you to actually be dirty and -- gasp! -- uncomfortable doing some fieldwork.
Creationists have gone to war over the fossil skulls of early hominids, arguing that they are either clearly apes or clearly humans, but never an intermediate evolutionary stage (although they have yet to formulate a consistent case about which bones fall into which category).
There's that darn empirical evidence thing again.
Most archaeologists would say there is decent evidence for a human population arriving here 30,000 to 50,000 years ago.
Well. That might be stretching it a bit. We bet most would say they strongly suspect people were here up to 20k years ago, but there's really no evidence for it. Unless you count Monte Verde as evidence that since people were down there at 12,500, they must have been here earlier than that, but that's somewhat more indirect.
The last page is especially worth reading:
I want to insist on the centrality of myth to the human experience. But myth posing as science is quite another matter. If myth, whether in the form of art or religion, can be said to illuminate certain truths about the human condition, they are categorically distinct from the quantifiable and falsifiable truths of science.
. . .
The conflict over archaeology forms part of the long-running argument between science and religion, which scientists thought they had won generations ago. The public, at least in this country, has not acknowledged their victory. Various terms for peace have been proposed. Since the time of Augustine, if not Socrates, philosophers, priests and scientists have argued that science and religion ask different kinds of questions and seek different kinds of answers, that they are, in the famous phrase of biologist Stephen Jay Gould, "non-overlapping magisteria."
Read the whole thing. We tend to think archaeology suffers the slings and arrows of pseudoscience more than other disciplines because it lacks the immediacy to basic survival that other disciplines touch upon. After all, if some dope says there are flying cars preseved under the Antarctic ice cap left there by Atlanteans, it won't make much difference if you believe or not. On the other hand, if the guy about to remove your swollen and bloated appendix says he doesn't really believe in that whole "germ theory of disease" crap while holding a bloody scalpel from a previous operation, you'd probably pipe up and say something.
This article should, we think, cause us to stop and contemplate again what sort of archaeology we want. If we really want to be thought of as scientists, then we have to continue and redouble our efforts to create a truly scientific archaeology. If, however, we wish to follow the postprocessualist mode and simply treat archaeology as a form of political expression, we'd better be prepared to accept that we might not end up being the ones to write the (pre)history books.
Disaster archaeology update History rises from the ashes
THOUSANDS of everyday items from the 15th century homes of bishops, lords and ladies have been uncovered in a four-metre deep seam of archaeological remains discovered beneath the Cowgate.
Fragments of medieval pottery and leather and wood, thought to be the remains of shoes and kitchen barrels, are among the artifacts uncovered during a five-year excavation which has proved to be one of the most significant in the UK in decades. Experts say the discoveries on three sites in the Cowgate have put Edinburgh on a par with York and London in archaeological terms.
TV Corner Archaeologist is 'naked' and in your face
You've heard about The Naked Chef, of course: Britain's Jamie Oliver, who lays out the bare essentials of his culinary art in a popular TV series. And you may remember Naked City, a gritty black-and-white police drama from the sixties.
But are you ready for The Naked Archaeologist?
Did someone mention Lara Croft?
Note to producers: As a major super-important blog, we think you should send us a review copy.
Volunteer archaeology update Archaeology dig continues in area, Muncy Historical Society seeks volunteers Sun-Gazette Staff Reports
Muncy Historical Society’s public archaeology dig has concluded for the summer, but opportunities abound for people interested in working on the project during the fall and winter.
According to principal investigator Robin Van Auken, the project will become more complicated, and that means volunteers need to be trained in a variety of jobs.
Because of this, the project is open to members of the historical society only.
Chinese archaeologists discover world earliest millets
Chinese archaeologists have recently found the world earliest millets, dated back to about 8,000 years ago, on the grassland in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
A large number of carbonized millets have been discovered by Chinese archaeologists at the Xinglonggou relics site in Chifeng City.
The discovery has changed the traditional opinion that millet, the staple food in ancient north China, originated in the Yellow River valley, Zhao Zhijun, a researcher with the Archaeology Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinhua on Friday.
We'd link to them more, but we like vowels Kyrgyz archaeologist, Kubatbek Tabaldiev helped excavate a secret pyramid
Kyrgyz archaeologist, Kubatbek Tabaldiev helped excavate a secret pyramid built by Mayan Indians to study more about their empire and why it fell.
Thousands of years ago these people ruled Central and Latin America and the Maya built a powerful civilisation. They created their own written language and calendar and invented their own counting system. Their towns occupied hundreds of hectares and almost 500,000 people settled there. Mayan tribes were the first people to create such large human settlements.
Suddenly, the Indians decided to leave their wonderful settlements and move towards the mountains on the Yucatan Peninsula. No scientists have been able to explain the reason for this migration. There is a story that the Maya killed the land and they did not know how to put fertilisers in soil so they had to move to look for new land.